Chapter Text
“Y-you promise you won’t abandon me?” Iroha asks. Syobai rolls his eyes.
“For the last fucking time, Bubblehead, I’m pretty sure the Divine Luck won’t let me. Why are you so worried about this? I’m a man of my word.”
“Y-you betrayed Mikado…”
“Yeah, cuz he’s a bitch.”
The two of them keep to the shadows. Syobai said he’s taking them to a “safehouse”, whatever that means, so Iroha’s following him.
“I-It’s just…” Iroha shivers. It’s so cold. “M-my parents… never really w-wanted me. Even the other Children of Utsuro… And Void… I know th-they would get rid of me if they h-had the chance. Wh-what makes you any different? N-nobody wants me.”
Syobai’s fists clench. “Nijue, listen. I may do a lot of bad shit, but I’m not going to abandon somebody as helpless as you, transaction or no. I know how it feels to be unwanted.”
“You mean it?”
“I said what I said and I’m not repeating it. Miss me with that emotional shit.”
Eventually, they arrive at the safehouse, although it’s more like a dilapidated shack. Iroha shivers.
“Is that really where we’re staying?”
“One, we’re not staying, just getting supplies. Two, it’s more than it looks like.”
Syobai guides Iroha inside, making sure she doesn’t fall through the gaps in the floorboards. He takes her down a creaky old stairwell, opens the door, and…
Oh.
It’s a burst of color, noise, and light, almost like a festival. There’s lanterns strung up on the stone ceiling (dripping with water), lots of colorful stalls, and so many people.
“This is the underground market,” Syobai says. “Follow me.”
He guides her to a stall shoved in a claustrophobic corner. Iroha shivers, almost without realizing it.
Small spaces are the worst.
The woman behind the stall has red, shoulder-length hair the same color as her eyes, and wears a magician’s hat. She gasps once she sees Syobai.
“Dung Beetle?” she asks. Syobai nods. Her expression turns angry. It’d be scary if it weren’t cute… “Where the fuck have you been?! Leaving me to clean up your mess with Sannoji, what the fuck was that about?!”
“Sannoji? Like… Sannoji Mikado?” Iroha asks. The woman nods.
“What do you know about him?” she asks. Iroha opens her mouth, but Syobai clamps a hand over it.
“Shut the fuck up, bubblehead. Let Dreamy and I do the talking.”
Syobai and the woman—Dreamy—begin having a fast-paced argument that Iroha mostly tunes out. It ends with Dreamy sighing and handing Syobai a pack, him giving her some money in exchange.
“C’mon, bubblehead,” he says, leading her out of the underground market. Iroha breathes a sigh of relief as soon as they’re gone.
He leads her to the woods, and then pulls a knife from the pack. Iroha’s heart jumps out of her chest, and she begins scrambling away, but she trips on a stick, and—
“Nijue!” Syobai barks. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m cutting your hair so they don’t recognize you.”
Iroha breathes a sigh of relief.
“Oh,” she says. “S— Sorry.”
Syobai sighs. “‘S fine. I should’ve warned you first.”
Was that… An apology? Or at least Syobai’s version of one?
She lets him cut her hair until it goes above her ears. He’s pretty good with a knife.
(Don’t think about how he got that good with a knife.)
“Thanks,” Iroha says, once Syobai’s done. She runs a hand through her hair. It feels fluffy, which is something that her hair has never felt, not with how smooth it is and how easily it tangles. She can’t stop touching it.
“It wasn’t a favor,” Syobai says. “It’s just to help keep you disgusied.”
“Yeah, of course,” Iroha says.
Still, there’s a warm feeling in her heart that won’t go away.