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Akira wakes up to the sound of shouting, of tires skidding, of shots being fired.
He opens his eyes, trying to get a hold of his surroundings. Are they watching a movie? He doesn’t remember them all sitting down for a movie, but then again, everything is sort of a blur at the moment.
“Akira!” Someone slaps his face, and the pain is sharp but centering.
The person in front of him comes into focus. Why does Haru look so terrified?
She lowers her hand, her fingers slowly curling into a fist. “Can you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”
He nods, wincing at the pain in his neck and shoulders. Why does he hurt so much?
The anxiety in her shoulders decreases by just a tick. “Good. That’s good.” Her hands cup his cheeks. “Just stay with us. We’ve almost lost them. Then we can get you back to the hideout.”
Akira furrows his brow, trying to put the words together. From the way she’s talking, it almost sounds like they’re coming back from a heist. But they weren’t, were they? He’d remember that, wouldn’t he?
His body suddenly lurches right, sparking fresh pain up the right side of his body. Haru holds him tight so he doesn’t go flying, but that doesn’t mean he’s not in an immense amount of pain.
“Can you please control the car?” Haru cries. There’s a note of hysteria in her voice, the kind that only comes out when they’re in the middle of a disaster. Is that what’s happening right now?
Sleep is calling to him, but Akira forces his eyes to stay open to get his bearings. Not everyone is here. They have to keep their robberies as untraceable as possible, so they usually go for disposable, indistinct smaller cars.
“I’m trying!” Makoto barks from the front seat. “I think I can lose them at this overpass.”
Haru takes a brief breath, trying to even out her obviously frayed nerves. “Please and thank you; the bleeding’s only getting worse.”
Bleeding? Akira touches his fingertips to the epicenter of pain in his shoulder, only for them to come back wet with blood. When did he start bleeding?
“I know,” Makoto says. Akira finally picks up the tone of worry in her voice. “We’re going to have to change the drop-off point. You and Akira hide in Untouchable and I’ll find a place to hand over the money and ditch the car.”
“Got it.”
Akira lets his eyes slip shut again, and while Haru shakes him and jostles him and slaps him, it’s too hard for him to hold on and he ends up falling back asleep.
It feels like only a moment later that ice water is being splashed on his face. He jolts, the wave of pain hitting him full force. The entire left side of his shirt feels wet, presumably with blood.
Haru is staring down at him, face pinched in worry. “It’s okay,” she says. “We’re taking the back way in. Just try to walk for me and then we can get you some rest, okay?”
“We need to go,” Makoto says from the front seat. Just from the sound of her voice, Akira can tell she’s glancing around, either watching the sky for copters or the roads for roaming cop cars.
They’re careful not to drop by this particular haunt too much, so there’s no reason the police would be staking it out, but the last thing Makoto wants to do is take that kind of risk anyway.
Akira stands on shaky legs, his weight mostly supported by Haru. Thank God he’s wearing a black jacket, otherwise it would be immediately obvious what’s wrong with him.
When most people think of criminal hubs, their minds go to red-light districts and shady corners, places the cops would bust in a second. Very few people would think of a dance studio for underprivileged kids.
Untouchable is a hub for the lost, and it does a great job at not asking any questions. Akira’s group just happens to be one of Untouchable’s biggest “supporters”—meaning that every so often they pass the owner a cut of stolen money and he lets them hide out in one of the most inconspicuous stops in Shibuya.
Iwai greets them at the door. Akira isn’t sure if he heard them come in or if he just happens to have a sixth sense for trouble.
“What happened?” When he asks a question like that, he only needs the bare minimum of a response.
“The cops opened fire and he got hit,” Haru answers quietly.
Brief flashes of the incident come back to him as she says that. The cops that had staked out the bank. The sudden rerouting work Futaba had to do just to keep them from getting caught. The bullet hitting his shoulder, and the near unbearable pain that came as a result.
It’s not like Akira is new to pain—after all, he dabbles in an extremely dangerous line of work—but something about that bullet just blotted out all senses. The fact that he was able to make it to the getaway vehicle was a miracle in itself.
Haru continues, “We won’t be trouble. I just need to stop the bleeding.”
Iwai grunts. “Take the usual spot. I’ll put up the sign.”
Akira keeps his eyes on his feet, fighting on staying conscious as Haru leads him down to the basement. It doesn’t see much traffic to begin with, so Iwai putting up the sign that says another pipe has burst will deter anyone who might’ve come down to begin with. It’s nothing but old records down here anyway.
“There we go.” Haru leads him to the back, behind the metal shelves of papers and three-ring binders, just in case anyone manages to come down. They have an old mattress down here for this exact purpose, and Akira crashes into it gratefully. “How are you feeling?”
Akira whines. “Painkillers?”
Haru hums, looking at him like she already knows he’s regressing. She’d probably been expecting this since he first blacked out, because everything since coming to has felt weird and fuzzy. He doesn’t regress from pain often, but being shot would make anyone feel small.
“Let me see what I can find,” she says, peeling off his jacket to reveal an equally bloodied t-shirt. “Is that okay?”
Yes and no. Akira has a hard time with letting people out of his sight while he’s little, but he also wants the hurt in his shoulder to go away as possible. So as much as he wants snuggles from Ruru, sacrifices have to be made.
“Okay.” She pauses to brush the bangs hanging heavy in his face and clambers to her feet. Even off the clock, she moves like a dancer, her steps completely silent as she makes her way back upstairs.
Akira fades in and out, trying to count the minutes to the best of his ability when consciousness is still slipping through his fingers. The only thing that truly jolts him awake is the sound of children, from directly upstairs.
“Miss Haru, Miss Haru!” children call, meaning she’s been caught. At least this time it’s just a bunch of excitable kids instead of the cops. Akira and the others don’t mean to get involved with Untouchable so obviously, but they’re here so often that it can’t be helped. It makes sense for Haru especially, who spends her free time volunteering as a dance instructor.
Haru says something in response. He can’t make out the exact words, only the soft, kind cadences of her voice as she sends them on their way. He wonders what excuse she gave them. Honestly, with how many fields she’s proficient in, they’d probably believe it if she said she was the one fixing the burst pipe.
“Stay awake for me, please,” Haru says, patting his cheek. His face still stings from the earlier slaps, so she’s making an effort to be gentle, even if it’s the least of their worries. He hadn’t even realized he was drifting off again.
She has a small bag by her side, from which she pulls out a syringe and a small bottle of morphine.
Untouchable also has a nurse’s office, which specializes in giving regular check-ups to children that can’t afford them and giving morphine to certain “donors” that happen to come by with gunshot wounds.
Honestly, Takemi and Iwai are both lynchpins in Akira’s crime syndicate, even if they’re both utterly unconcerned with it. Neither of them have completely agreed with Akira’s idea of changing society from all angles, so they turn a blind eye to the more illegal aspects of his plan and focus on the community aspect.
Akira whines at the sight of the needle. He hates shots!
“Shh, I know,” Haru croons. “It’ll just be one little pinch, okay? We still need to get the bullet out.”
Just because he knows that doesn’t mean he likes it. But regressed or not, he knows what’s best for him, so he reluctantly holds out his arm for her to take.
“Thank you, honey,” she says softly. “What do you think we should watch, huh? Should we watch the news?”
Akira nods. Maybe it’s conceited, but he always likes to see the breaking news reports after a big heist. He and the others usually have to split up anyway, so it’s a confirmation that no one accidentally got caught in the process.
“Good, good.”
One pinch and it’s over, just like Ruru promised. She’s really good with medicine, too. Akira thinks she might have been training to be a nurse before she joined, but he can’t remember. All he knows is that she’s a necessary part of every heist for this exact reason.
Haru retrieves the laptop while she waits for the morphine to set in. It’s hidden in a tiny storage shelf, complete with a charger, and is only used when they’re hiding out here. She sets it on the floor beside the mattress, patting the space she wants him to crawl over to.
Akira rolls onto his stomach, baring his shoulder so Haru can have easy access to the bullet wound.
It takes a while with the internet connection, but the news report finally loads enough for the video to start playing.
“In a breaking report, it seems the mysterious phantom thieves have struck again.”
Akira focuses as long as he can, which is just long enough to hear that no suspects have been identified, before his head starts to droop. The pain has turned into periodic dull thuds, and he feels so disconnected from his body that he can’t even tell if the bullet is out or not.
Haru leans forward, opening a tab to play ambient noise from. Today, she chooses rain.
“Are you little?” she asks. Her hands go to his shoulder, so he can only guess that she’s bandaging him up.
Akira nods.
“Itty-bitty?”
Again he nods. Why is Haru asking him the same question over and over?
She tilts her head, leaning in closer. “Teeny tiny?”
Only then does he realize the teasing smile on her face. He knows it must be a funny sight for his teammates to look at their leader, criminal mastermind and modern-day Robin Hood, and see that sometimes he’s just a little kid, but that doesn’t mean he appreciates the teasing in headspace. “Not funny,” he mumbles, his mouth barely able to form the words.
Haru giggles anyway. “My mistake.” She presses against his shoulder, eliciting a spark of pain out of the numbness. “There. We should change those in a few hours, okay?”
“’Kay,” Akira mumbles. He opens his mouth, to either ask for a plushie or one of his blankets, but he quickly remembers that they’re not at the Thieves’ Den.
It’s just him and Haru.
“You’re making a face,” Haru points out. She plucks the glasses from his face, carefully folding them and setting them on a shelf out of reach. “Is something wrong?”
Akira shakes his head. He could say easily enough that he misses everyone, but he never will. The last thing he wants to do is hurt someone’s feelings by picking favorites. That’s the rule. If there’s only one person to spend time with him while he’s regressed, then they’re his favorite. No asking for anyone else.
“I know,” Haru croons, mistaking his silence for pain. “It’ll take a bit, but that bullet wound should heal up just fine, okay? You and I just have to take it easy and then we can go back and see everyone else.”
That sounded good, even if in his rational mind, he knew they probably shouldn’t meet up for at least a week or two. Those that have any sort of presence—like Haru—should go about their normal routines, and those that don’t—like Akira—should stay under every possible radar.
“Where do you think Mako-chan went?” Haru asks. She climbs onto the mattress in front of him, allowing him to pillow his head against her lap. He won’t be able to sleep on his back for a while.
Akira hums in thought. “Taba?” he guesses. Futaba’s place is the closest, so she would be the best option for hiding all that money while Makoto goes to get the car scrapped.
“Good choice.” Haru’s fingers comb through his hair, goading him back toward sleep. “I think she might have stopped at Ann’s. They always work best together, don’t you think?”
That was true too. Plus, Makoto didn’t like settling herself into any kind of pattern. She was the most careful out of all of them, the least likely to get caught, and the best getaway driver Akira could hope for.
Haru chuckles softly. “Go to sleep, Kira,” she whispers. Her hand goes from his hair to his neck, where it sits warmly against his chilled skin. “I’ll watch the door and make sure no one sees you. You trust me, don’t you?”
Of course he did. More than anything. He never put anyone in his inner circle that he didn’t trust with his life, and Haru was no exception.
“Maybe we can watch some shows when you aren’t so teeny,” she suggests. “Would you like that?”
Akira gives one final nod before sleep pulls him under.