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The hands of a surgeon were accustomed to physical touch. Every day, they were used as tools for healing, curing intimate areas no one else was trusted to reach. Dr. Tenma's famous hands were expertly educated in the body's most fragile organ: the brain.
The hands of a detective, however, were not so acquainted with humanity. In their training at a police academy, they were taught how to carry and use a gun. In addition to this, Inspector Lunge’s hands also possessed a unique ability: they functioned as adapters to an extensive interface.
The unremitting computer that was his brain required codes to query the information neatly stored there. This special skill ranked him high above the average lot of detectives. While he tapped his fingers day and night in search of the truth and in search of criminals, he never touched anybody and nobody ever touched him.
One bereaved day many years ago, the introduction of the surgeon to the detective began with a handshake. At the time, Lunge wondered if he was shaking the hand of a monster.
After the funeral, as the detective walked the quieter streets of Düsseldorf, typing by his side to organize his thoughts, he passed a palm reader’s parlour. The scam of palmistry, that one's personality and fortune could be gleaned from the lines of their palm, was a ridiculous fad.
This fabrication brought to mind a topic once touched upon at the police academy: physiognomy and phrenology were the 19th century schools of thought that character could be read directly from the face, from the shape of the skull. Such false beliefs were no longer employed by the police.
Lunge smirked. Of all detectives, he in particular would never lean on an ungrounded idea. With sufficient evidence and his fingers that cataloged it, he was immutable to falsehoods like physiognomy, phrenology, and palmistry. His conclusions would always be right.
He considered Tenma's face. His was uniquely unfamiliar; he was Japanese and thus did not resemble anyone Lunge had met before. Distinguished by a pair of wide black eyes, his face was smooth and his forehead was small, crinkling when he spoke shyly, humbly. His nose was long and downturned.
Lunge wasn't sure what to think. Was the surgeon a killer? He had all the right incentives to be one, considering his prospective profits from Heinemann’s death. The detective needed to perform some deduction, but first, he needed more evidence.
Years later, Tenma’s eyes were no longer so wide and his brow was permanently creased. In the year after the massacre in Ruhenheim, his cheeks were gaunt and hollow and his skin was pale.
His face was different, but how had his mind changed, and how much of the blame should have been allocated to Lunge? The surgeon was perfectly innocent and the detective’s life had been irrevocably turned upside down. The computer that was Lunge's mind was not as irrefutable as he had always believed, his hands not as useful. They were capable of error.
Over the years, Lunge too changed outwardly: he was older and more ghoulish.
Once, over a near-silent beer with Tenma at the park, the subject of education arose. Little Dieter was struggling to select an educational stream. The choice had never been a struggle for the detective. Until recently, everything he had ever said and done had seemed the correct and obvious choice. While he had always lived and studied in Germany, Tenma had spent the first twenty years of his life in Japan before attending a German medical school.
“Do you know how European neuroscience began?” Tenma asked, watching the birds hop over grass in search of insects. He answered without waiting: “I learned this in my first ever psychology course. Interest in studying the brain's localization was largely inspired by phrenology.”
Lunge said nothing. Squinting in the sunlight, Tenma's tired eyes were golden.
“It is a shame that the origin of this science, something I love, is embedded with prejudice,” he continued. “Some things—lots of things—begin in unpleasant ways. I know we can't change the past, but I like to think tomorrow can be made a brighter day.”
He smiled.
The beer and conversation left a thick heat in Lunge's chest.
Later on, lying against a grand maple, the lazy walk of the clouds was calming to watch. When Tenma drifted asleep, Lunge cautiously reached for his hand on the grass.
In that rare moment of human touch, when he gently traced the creases in the surgeon's perfect palm, he only learned the creases themselves. There was nothing else to be gleaned. He tried his best to commit those creases to memory.