The two worn looking men stares at each other underneath a light bulb. They are seemingly focused on striping the other bare. Tension between them increases as neither man gives way. They keep up the thickening silence until one man breaks a sweat.

"For 's sake, Ito. Respond before we die of suffocation in this cramped up little office."

"Ryuu... you can't keep coming to me for favors."

"But this is important."

"Everything is important to you."

"No, this is... like... ing important."

"Why didn't you file a missing person report again?"

"For 's sake... if I could, I would. Then, I'd not be stuck sitting here in your ty office."

"How long has she gone missing?"

"It's been over a month now."

"Why didn't you come earlier?"

"I didn't think it was anything."

"Maybe it still isn't."

"No... she wouldn't go this long without contacting me. I'm her ing brother."

"Family issue. Estranged relationship. There are plenty of fair justifications for her behavior."

"You just don't understand. It more complicated than that."

"If you want my help, you'd better make me understand then."

"Xinling... she doesn't legally exist. That's why I can't file a missing person report. . Her ex is a detective... he might even be the reason she disappeared so I need all this kept between us and off the record."

"Back up a bit. What do you mean she doesn't legally exist?"

"I guess I'll have to start from the beginning for it to make sense."

"Long story?"

"I'll try to make it short but no promises."

"Go on."

"Xinling used to be my brother. Everyone called him Ling. He was born with the anatomy characteristics of both male and female. Inter, that's what they called it. I was a toddler then so I didn't know what those doctors did to him exactly but probably lots of probing and prodding of the s. My folks just told me I had a new little brother so I accepted it. Who was I to question? I was just a ing three year old."

"The doctors told them to raise him male?"

"I don't know the details. But yeah, he was fine growing up. Ling did have his girlish moments but it was kept under control, I guess. With pills that they gave him. We thought it was vitamins. Anyway, things got really weird when he started his menstruation. I was the first person he told and I freaked like any other teenager would have. We went to our folks and mom went hysterical. They told us about the inter and it just blew my mind. I can't even imagine what Ling felt, not knowing if he was a boy or a girl. It's like all this time, he didn't even know his own body."

"What happened after that?"

"I don't know... I guess it was just too complicated to suddenly switch genders or proclaim androgynous. We just agreed to keep it a secret and let him continue living as a boy. But things happen. I kind of saw it coming after the menstruation. Hormones, you know? Even after upping the dosage of testosterone, he eventually started crushing on boys in high school and developed this thing for girl clothes. The only people who knew about it was me and our close friend Jaejoong. Ling and I hung out with him since our secondary school days."

"Does he know?"

"About Ling being part girl? No... not at the time. He probably just thought Ling was gay or a tranny which would have been way easier to deal with."

"Sounds the same to me."

"It isn't. One morning during my senior year, Ling said he felt sick and wanted to stay home so I went to school without him. In the middle of the day, he came dressed in mom's old clothes. Everyone thought it was some joke but Jaejoong and I knew better than that. We tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn't listen. Mom cried like the world was ending and dad... he just ing cracked. He treated Ling like a punching bag and made him repeat over and over 'I'm a boy.' It was a complete mess. Mom couldn't take it anymore and begged him to move out with her. I don't really know if she was scared of him or Ling but it didn't matter. They went and I was left in charge."

"You've got some irresponsible parents."

"Nah. would have really hit the fan if they stayed. I was having a hard time coping as it was. I couldn't understand what was going through Ling's head. I wasn't stuck in his situation. After a while, he went back to school. He'd stopped taking the pills and started wearing mom's clothes again. I think the girls in his class thought it was one big game or something. He'd go to their house after school and they'd lend him their clothes for the next day. Ling started hanging out with them at lunch and soon, you couldn't even tell he was a boy anymore. Of course the whole school talked. The teachers confronted him about it but he wasn't breaking any school rules. He just avoided changing for PE and doing his business at school. And then, he kind of became one of the girls. Jaejoong and I felt betrayed. Maybe we should have been happy for him. But were those girls genuinely accepting him as one of them or was Ling just an experimental doll? I pulled Ling aside and gave him a piece of my mind. He told me his new friends understood him more than I did. After that, I just let him be... called him Xinling like the other kids... referred to him as she rather than he..."

"Did your parents ever come back?"

"Mom was somewhere recovering. Dad stayed with her. He'd call me to check up on things but never came to visit."

"What happened when you went to college?"

"I asked Jaejoong to watch over her for me. I don't really know what exactly happened between them during my absence but I heard they were crowned prom king and queen during senior year. Xinling, the king and Jaejoong, the queen. I suppose the student body was getting at how she lived most of her life as a guy. And about Jaejoong being queen? Well, he was always considered prettier than most girls at our school so that didn't really surprise me either."

"So that was when she started her life as a girl?"

"Yeah. Sometimes I think it would've been better if the doctors had just told my folks to raise her as a girl from the very beginning. Maybe she had always been more of a girl than a boy."

"So boy version is on the records but the girl version is not? Technically, they still count as the same person."

"Right... about that. A few years ago, we decided to erase her boy version."

"I don't think you're allowed to do that."

"Yeah, well... we did, okay? So you're gonna look for my sis, a girl or a guy who is presumably dead but not really."

"You're not giving me much to work with."

Ryuu grabs the briefcase next to his chair and slams it on the paper-filled desk. "Most of the stuff you'll need is in here. Please help yourself, buddy."

"You never told me who her ex is?"

"He's Kim Jaejoong. They were to be married... unofficially."

"And something happened..."

"Yeah. She stood him up."