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An assassin, even one forced into the role, always walks hand in hand with death — and despite her best wishes, Maki has never been an exception to that rule. It has never even occurred to her that a girl her age shouldn’t be so intimately acquainted with the scent of blood; she has never known anything else.
Others run from death, while she doles it out. Never by choice, of course, but that doesn’t seem to matter much — either to her or those she kills. But there’s a difference, Maki thinks, between embracing her role and merely playing the hand she’s been dealt.
Avoiding death in the midst of a killing game is less difficult than she thought it would be, though she has a feeling that has more to do with the choice of company than the environment. Kaito, despite her numerous threats, refuses to leave her side.
And if she’s being honest with herself, she doesn’t much want him to.
Maki’s not an idiot. Even if she didn’t grow up with other girls her age, robbed of typical experiences that go hand in hand with adolescence, she’s no stranger to the kinds of activities that men and women engage in behind closed doors.
That’s why, when Kaito asks if she wants to come to his lab that night — with a firm addition that Shuichi would not be joining them — she only hesitates for a second before giving him her answer.
“So, what do you think?” he asks upon her arrival. She’s been to his lab before, but only for a few minutes — and never like this. “Pretty nice, huh?”
A quick look around is enough to have her nodding in agreement. The lab is nice, with no doubts as to whom it belongs. Kaito’s passion bleeds from every inch of the room: inscribed on the walls, leaning against the furniture, carved into the floor. Nothing like her own, which is almost unrecognizable as hers, clinical and impersonal in both decor and contents.
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. Weapons are cool too,” Kaito continues, a touch magnanimous. “But I understand if you’re jealous, Harumaki. Not everyone can have a lab this awesome—“
“Do you want to die?” she asks, glaring to hide the laugh that threatens to rise up in her throat. She knows him well enough to know that he always defaults to jokes when he’s nervous.
At the sound of her voice, he turns to face her, and the grin slips off of his face, only to be replaced by a look that’s unfamiliar to her. There’s a gleam in his eye, and if she isn’t mistaken, he looks almost hungry.
Maki, who has never as much as flinched before an opponent, resists the urge to shiver.
Looking back, she isn’t quite sure which one of them was the first to make a move, but it only takes a matter of seconds before she’s fisting the collar of his shirt, his hands are tangled in her pigtails, and his lips are on hers.
Kaito kisses her gently at first, completely at odds with her death grip on his shirt. He eases her backward, step by step, until the back of her thighs meet the table. Without breaking contact with her lips, he moves his hands to her legs and she doesn’t even have a second to brace herself before he’s lifting her up onto the table.
He chuckles, pulling away just enough that his nose brushes up against hers. “Looks like all those push-ups have been paying off.”
Now that she’s sitting on the table, Maki finds herself almost at eye level with him. His cheeks are flushed, pupils dilated, and she has no doubt she must look the same. His eyelashes are longer than she’d expected, and she quickly pulls him in for another kiss before she can do something stupid like telling him that out loud.
This kiss, she quickly realizes, is far rougher than the last, harder, tinged with heat. He seems to have gotten over his initial worry, and now he surges forward, settling himself in between her spread legs.
Kaito opens his mouth just a sliver, just enough of an invitation for Maki to do the same. His lips move to her cheek, her jaw, her throat, flitting over her skin in a way that makes her heart pound.
“Harumaki,” he murmurs, dragging his teeth across her pulse point. Any other time, she would tell him to knock it off with that stupid nickname, but now, as she tilts her head back to give him better access, she wonders why she ever hated it.
Maki threads her hand through his hair, fully intent on pulling him back up to meet her lips again, when he suddenly jerks back, out of reach.
“What’s—“ she starts to say, but the words die in her throat, drowned out by the sound of his coughs. His body is racked with spasms, each cough sounding like it’s rubbing the inside of his throat raw as it escapes. His hand leaves her, almost regretfully, and ventures into his pocket instead to withdraw a handkerchief, which he coughs into violently.
Maki’s hands extend almost automatically at the red flash of blood she sees. Concern rests on the tip of her tongue, only waiting for her to speak it into existence, but she doesn’t; experience has taught her that she’ll only receive a chorus of “I’m fine” in response, each one more annoyed than the last. Instead, she waits, schooling her features into something more neutral.
Kaito’s coughing slows, each one growing quieter until only the echo of discomfort is left in the room. She wonders what he’ll do, if he’ll hide from her as he’s done so many times before: leave her behind and barricade himself in his room.
Instead, he looks at her, taking a step forward until he’s back in his original position between her legs. A trickle of blood runs out of the corner of his mouth, and Maki breaks eye contact as her gaze darts to it.
He reaches up to wipe the blood away, but before he can, she reaches out to grab his wrist. There’s a gleam in his eyes, the same one he gets during their training sessions: a challenge.
Maki’s not afraid of blood, and it’s laughable that he thinks she would be. She leans in, slowly — giving him the chance to pull away — and holds her breath as their lips touch once again.
She slides her tongue across his bottom lip experimentally, pulling a low sound from his throat. He tastes like rust, like copper, like salt.
He tastes like death — and for the first time, she embraces it willingly.