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What was he thinking?
Taiga should’ve known better than to let Quinn go out right before curfew一 to the spa no less. Why would he go there now of all times? He was stupid to think that his roommate would only be there for a few minutes, almost an hour had passed and there’s still no sign of Quinn. Not even a text on the fishbook.
Waiting with no answer made him restless, so Taiga grumpily walked to the spa area with a scolding ready on his tongue.
He didn’t make it halfway before a blood curdling scream reached his ears.
The door to the spa slams open before he could even think, and the sickening scene that awaited him makes his stomach twist in every direction.
A body, a pool of blood, blonde, red, pink. The colors blend together like runny paint, too muddled and blended for Taiga to pick apart. But the stench of death keeps himself grounded, and the sound of crying pulls his vision back into focus. After a moment, he starts to process the scene piece by piece.
The girl一 Izanami was it? 一 lays still, horribly still, in a pool of her own blood. Her bound limbs reveal the cause of death as plain as day. A large gash on her throat with blood endlessly pouring out, the murder must have happened just moments before his arrival. Hovering over the corpse of the Illustrator is his roommate, trembling violently with blood on his face and fear in his eyes, spouting nonsensical words and apologies Taiga believes isn’t directed at him. He would’ve felt relieved to see Quinn alive in this situation, but his heart catches in his throat instead. Taiga didn’t want to see this , not in a million years. His heart almost shatters at the sight, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on Quinn for too long; his gaze quickly shifts to the most threatening thing in the room.
Ayano, the Butcher, stands a foot away from the crime scene with a blood splattered apron, holding scissors covered in crimson. It doesn’t take long for Taiga to put two and two together, and the flash of fear in Ayano’s expression suggests she knows what he just pieced together.
“This isn’t... I didn’t-” Ayano stutters a guilty defense, but Taiga steps forward, unafraid and wary of the weapon in her hands. He’s learned to disarm someone with a knife at ten, with a gun at thirteen, so taking on a girl with a pair of scissors should be a walk in the park.
Or at least that’s what he thought.
Ayano darts at him with the pair of scissors and Taiga readies himself for the attack, but it never comes. Instead, she side steps at the last second to move out of his reach and towards the exit. Taiga doesn’t let her get any further than that, quickly turning on his heel he grabs at her pigtail and yanks back hard. She lets out a scream as she jerks to a halt, but the blood on the floor causes Ayano to slip and fall back on the hard spa tile with a thud.
Several items on the shelf she landed next to clatter on the floor. Taiga takes the moment of her slip up to lunge and grab the scissors from her, but Ayano is fast to react and throws a kick to his stomach. The foot connects and the force knocks the wind out of him. He sucks in air through gritted teeth and stumbles back to knock another shelf over, littering the floor with more beauty products. Ayano is back on her feet in an instant, but instead of running for the exit like her original plan, she shifts gears to run towards Taiga; bloody scissors pointing straight at him.
If she can’t escape Taiga, she’ll just kill him instead .
Taiga feels the murderous intent before he sees the scissors, which he’s quick to grab before it stabs somewhere vital. Unlucky for him however, the force of Ayano’s body and the blood stained floor causes him to lose his footing, and he’s down in an instant. Ayano’s hands tremble in his, from the rush of adrenaline to kill. He’s seen the bloodthirsty look on her face far too many times to count, and knows all too well she won’t relent on her attacks until he’s dead.
“Fuck- Bitch-!” He struggles to keep the blades away from his chest, straining all the muscles in his arms to do that much. Taiga wasn’t going to die, not like this. He swings his legs to grapple Ayano’s torso, breaking her concentration for a moment.
A second was all he needed. His legs swing to throw her off of him and with that he’s able to get the goddamn scissors away from her; the murder weapon clattering some feet away from them.
But before Taiga can get a chance to breathe, something wraps around his neck before he even blinks, and pulls .
His heart pounds violently in his ears as he feels the cords around his neck tighten, threatening to crush his windpipe. Spots of black dot his vision as he thrashes around, clawing violently at the cords suffocating him to no avail. The burning in his throat and the pounding in his head worsens every passing second, he’s quickly running out of time. At this rate he’s going to die.
He struggles helplessly, fighting a battle he’s inevitably going to lose.
A part of him wants to give up the struggle and allow the sweet song of Death to take him. A part of him has always waited for this moment since his mom left all those years ago. Death, he learned, wasn’t something sacred or treasured; it was the end of a beginning. An expiration date of a product. There’s no value in life as there is death, so it shouldn’t matter if he lived or died.
It shouldn’t matter if he lived or died, so why?
Why is it when he catches Quinn’s horrified and tearful expression on him he wants to live so bad?
Why is it that he wants to fight with every ounce of his very being to stay here and live and protect Quinn?
Taiga doesn’t know the answer, but his body moves on its own.
A hand reaches for the nearest bottle, and in the next moment, glass shatters.
The ropes around Taiga’s neck go slack and he sucks in as much air as his body allows. His body shudders and heaves once he’s free, wheezing sickly as his lungs ignite and burst into flames. It takes a long moment before he can think of anything other than the pain in his body. He runs a hand across his neck, feeling bumps from the cord markings and grimacing at the external, as well as internal, damage his throat suffered. Shit , any longer and he really would’ve suffered permanent damage.
But the fight wasn’t over. Taiga whirls around to see Ayano on the floor, unmoving and bleeding out from the head. She’s not dead. Her chest rises and falls, although faint, there’s still breath in her. He could just leave her to suffer the consequences, tie her up and take Quinn away now that the threat is neutralized. But Taiga got his paranoia from his mother, and his perfectionism from his father. He can’t convince himself that she won’t wake up and come after him again later in the night, or even worse, go after Quinn.
And Taiga wouldn’t forgive himself if anything happened to Quinn.
He fumbles through his dizzying headache for a familiar object on the floor. The bloody scissors he grabs feels like a perfect fit, sending a sickening shiver down his spine. Memories that he wishes weren’t his start to flood his system, and his hand trembles just like back then. The harsh look of disappointment from his father is a sight he’ll never forget; even now he can imagine his old man standing right behind him barking orders to get it over with.
Taiga doesn’t even realize his hands are trembling until he grits his teeth to steady himself. His father would yell at him to stop stalling, and he knows better than to keep the man waiting.
Still, nothing can really prepare him for the sickening squelch of flesh being pierced. He digs the scissors in her heart and holds his breath until it stops beating.
A long sigh escapes him when the job is finished, it almost brings relief to Taiga knowing he finally signed the contract for a long awaited punishment. The irony of his situation is hilarious, but no one’s laughing. Taiga remains calm in the face of it all, knowing that this would be his fate the moment he let someone in. The moment he started caring about一
“Quinn.” He turns to the only other beating heartbeat in the room, who looks even more shattered than the bottle broken over Ayano’s head. Quinn isn’t harmed in the way Taiga is, thankfully, but this was so much worse than Taiga was ever prepared for. “Quinn..” He tried again, voice hoarse and rasping; it hurts to utter even a single word but no amount of pain that he’s suffering right now matters. Quinn has blood on him, and he’s trembling and crying with such a vacant stare at him it makes Taiga’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know what to do, but he just knows he wants to get his roommate away from the scene as far as possible.
When neither call works on getting Quinn to focus on him he takes a step forward, only to freeze in his tracks when Quinn flinches so harshly. “A-ah… I-I’m sorry.. My fault…” And more words that Taiga can’t hear or understand flow out of Quinn’s mouth, shakily and broken like how he looks. It takes every ounce of Taiga’s strength to keep watching his roommate fall apart at the seams, but it doesn’t stop his heart from splitting apart at the tragic sight. He wants to do something to help, say anything to calm him down, but the adrenaline is fading and the burning sensation in his throat is creeping back; fatigue settling in as well. On top of that Taiga never had a heart, never believed he ever had one until Quinn showed it to him time and time again.
He was never the one to help with feelings, that was always Quinn’s job. So what can he do if Quinn lay broken and empty, a husk of what he used to be? Taiga can’t go near him, but Taiga can’t leave him either.
Luckily for him, Quinn makes the decision for him.
“L-leave… leave me..” The broken words sound like discordant notes in his ears, and Taiga’s frown deepens at the message. Part of him wants to protest, to pick him up carefully in his arms and carry him straight out the door away from the gore and to their room. But he knows the signs of a broken person like the back of his hand, so his knuckled hands stay put on his sides. He turns towards the spa doors to make his exit but stops just short of the threshold when a thought occurs.
They’re going to think Quinn did this, wouldn’t they? As unlikely as it sounds, Taiga can’t quite be sure of what the other’s thoughts are. If he’s going to die tomorrow anyways, he might as well make it easier for the guilty verdict to land on him.
It takes significantly more effort to lift Ayano into his arms, carrying her to who knows where. As far from here as possible to make Quinn less likely the culprit. Taiga walks to the exit but stops short again to take a long look at Quinn.
Maybe he’ll think Taiga’s a monster after all of this, maybe he’ll hate him for the rest of his life or even longer than that. But that’s fine, Taiga never wanted forgiveness. All he wanted was someone to care about him. Even for just a little while. It’s more than enough.
Taiga swallows any regrets he may have down his throat, and leaves without looking back.