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“You’ll figure it out. I’m not worried about you.”
Gin rolls their eyes at the cheesy words, but they’ll admit that they do help to ease the nerves. Tachihara steadies their hand for them, positioning the gun at their eye level, before letting go.
It’s boring being underground and waiting for news about the Agency, and there’s only so many times they can play hide-and-seek in these tunnels, so Tachihara has deigned to teach Gin how to use a gun.
She understands the basics well enough—how to aim, shoot, reload. But as an assassin, she prefers silent weapons like daggers and knives, so she never bothered polishing her gun skills.
Tachihara steps back, gesturing to the targets in front of them. Kajii was kind enough to lend them his soundproof temporary lab, so they have no worries about attracting attention.
Gin takes a deep breath, looking through the hole. There’s three still targets. She aims for the largest one in the middle and pulls the trigger.
Bang!
“Nice! You grazed it!” Tachihara cheers.
Gin grimaces. They were aiming for the centre.
Tachihara notices their displeasure and leans over to give them a kiss on the cheek. “Hey, it’s fine. That’s a hella good attempt. Try again.”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The target on the left flies off, hitting the wall. Gin sets the gun down, shaking their hand.
“It’s hard to work with the rebound,” she mutters. She massages her wrist while Tachihara grins.
“That’s alright, babygirl. Want me to kiss it better?”
She hopes her glare speaks a thousand words. Tachihara laughs harder before taking out his own gun, spinning it between his fingers. “You get used to it. You can ask Higuchi for tips! She’s way better at aiming than I am.”
Gin narrows her eyes. “I recall you shot three men straight in the heart on our last mission.”
“Okay, and you slit their boss’s throat before any of us could blink.”
They grin back at him, pretending to brandish their knife. “Want me to teach you?”
“…That feels like a threat.”
There’s a knock on the door. They pull apart, but not without an exaggerated wink from Tachihara. He goes to open the door, revealing Chuuya and Higuchi.
“You two. Are you wasting our limited resources?” Higuchi asks, pointing to the numerous holes in the wall.
“Chuuya-san has an entire wall of bullets. It’ll be fine,” Tachihara defends.
It seems they’re all bored out of their minds if they’re gathered here. Gin notices a round shape in Chuuya’s pocket and points to it.
“Oh. Kajii asked me to bring it down. I don’t know what it is.” Chuuya takes it out, revealing a white sphere container. He opens it and inside lies a single, yellow lemon bomb.
“Watch out!” Tachihara shouts, shoving Gin behind him. They shut their eyes and brace themself as the bomb explodes, revealing—
Colourful confetti burst out, fluttering over their heads. One piece of hot pink confetti lands on Tachihara’s nose, right where his bandage lies. She snickers, brushing it off.
There’s a loud cackle from the corner of the hallway. Kajii appears, strutting up with a toothy grin and waving at them. “Surprise!”
“Kajii,” Chuuya greets. He got the worst of it, confetti all over his hair and clothes. Higuchi stifles a giggle. “What the fuck was that?”
His voice is scarily even. Gin backs away because she cares for her life somewhat.
Kajii, however, has no regard for personal safety, so he goes up to Chuuya and slaps him on the back with enough force to make him stumble.
“I heard we were all bored and that just won’t do! Life is meant to be full of surprises!”
“And explosions,” Higuchi tacks on. She’s so supportive.
“Yup! So I gathered everyone here today to…” He pauses for a drum roll that no one gives. Tachihara pats his thighs a few times, though. “Play a game!”
Gin glances at Chuuya, who’s busy pulling confetti out of his hair. She discreetly picks one up from the floor and puts it on his back.
Tachihara gives them a grin. He copies what they did, picking up a blue confetti, but right before he lets go of the piece, Chuuya turns around and catches him.
“Bitch!”
“Gin did it first!” Tachihara whines. Like a snitch. Gin pins him with a glare that makes him cower away.
“Gin-kun is lovely. They would never,” Chuuya snaps.
Tachihara’s jaw drops. Gin steps aside innocently.
The only one still listening to Kajii is Higuchi, so Gin decides to tune in too.
Apparently, Kajii has created his own version of russian roulette with lemon bombs. He leads them into the lab and shuts the door with a booming slam.
“Don’t you have better things to do, Chuuya-san?” Higuchi asks the executive.
Chuuya sighs. “Believe it or not, I’m in timeout until the boss locates the Agency. He’ll send me when they’re found, but those bastard detectives are pretty good at hiding.”
“Oh, they do have that illusionist,” Tachihara nods.
“I heard Dazai-kun was sent to jail, by the way!” Kajii adds.
Chuuya’s eye twitches. Gin thinks it’s because he’s going to end up dealing with it too.
Kajii unceremoniously shoves the guns aside before whipping out a wooden box. When he opens it, there are ten lemon bombs arranged inconspicuously inside, each the exact same shade of yellow.
“The rules are simple. Out of these ten bombs, nine of them will explode with harmless, boring stuff, and one will create a real explosion!” Kajii lifts up one of the bombs, stroking it lovingly. “We each get two bombs. Who wants to go first?”
“Not me,” Tachihara mutters.
Kajii howls with laughter. “Awesome, Tachihara-kun! Take your first pick.”
“Eh?!”
Gin shrugs when he gives her a flabbergasted look. She’s not the one who made a sound.
With a grumble, Tachihara reaches into the box and takes out a bomb from the centre. As he pulls the trigger, Kajii snaps his fingers and with a bang, Tachihara gets a face full of cold water.
“Fuck!” he shouts, backing away. “That’s so fucking cold! What’s wrong with you?!”
Higuchi takes out a handkerchief and passes it over. Chuuya picks up the remnants of the bomb. Gin decides not to help.
“I hate it. Higuchi, you can go next.”
She obliges with minimal complaint, other than a light kick to Tachihara’s shins. Her bomb explodes into a handful of shimmering glitter, the exact shade of her blue nails.
“Ooh,” she says. Kajii tilts his head.
“That’s quite a tame reaction. Should I have added more glitter?”
“No, it’s good!”
“Hm. Well, no matter! An experiment is bound to have its hiccups. Here you go, Chuuya-san!”
Chuuya looks extremely reluctant, but for some reason, he still follows along with Kajii’s whims. He chooses a bomb at the right-hand corner, bringing it up above his face. That would help him avoid getting anything in his eyes.
When the bomb explodes, it reveals…
A fuck ton of confetti.
“For fuck’s sake!” Chuuya screeches, waving away the fluttering pieces. Tachihara chokes on his saliva as he fails to swallow down his giggles. Higuchi is outrightly laughing. Gin’s lips twitch, but nobody sees it under their mask, so they’re safe from Chuuya’s wrath.
With gravity, Chuuya shoots a bunch of confetti in Tachihara’s direction. Poor guy always gets the brunt of it.
“No, no! Gin! Protect me!” he screams, grabbing their shoulders and positioning them in front of him. Chuuya stomps up to them menacingly, but it all disappears when he puts on a sweet, unassuming smile.
“Gin-kun, could you step aside please?”
Gin grins. They lean back, whispering a mocking, “Sorry, babygirl.” And then they take a step to the left.
Tachihara screams louder. “Betrayal!” Chuuya chases him around the lab, an army of confetti flakes behind him.
Gin shrugs, turning to Kajii. He presents the box to her and she takes one out at random. When she tugs on the trigger, it explodes into… nothing.
“Ooh. Empty,” Kajii says with a nod. “It suits your astounding personality, Gin-kun.”
She chooses not to ask what that means.
Their game continues once Chuuya rejoins them, having covered Tachihara with confetti. Tachihara gets a pile of leaves. Higuchi’s reveals orange cat fur, to which Chuuya immediately starts sneezing and has to temporarily leave the lab. Kajii gets lemon juice, which spills all over the floor, but he’s so elated that none of them say anything about it. Chuuya gets a handful of rice grains. Gin gets some bird feathers.
There’s one more bomb left. A maniacal grin slowly spreads on Kajii’s face as he picks it up, finger stroking the trigger. “Last one! I wonder what this one could be…”
Chuuya pushes them backwards as his body begins to glow red. “Don’t worry. I’ll protect you all.”
Tachihara's eyes widen and he looks awestruck. Gin gives him a disgruntled look and he pouts, nudging them. “You’re still my favourite, darling.”
She finds that quite hard to believe, honestly.
Higuchi sends Kajii a thumbs up and that’s when he explodes the bomb.
Bam!
They’re all protected with a shield-like structure, debris and flames simply bouncing off. Kajii cackles, dancing around the lab with glee as it fills with smoke and fire.
“That looks fun,” Higuchi says. “Wish I could do that.”
“Really?” Chuuya asks. “Seems a bit excessive.”
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Chuuya-san!”
Gin snorts. Ryuunosuke told her that he overheard Chuuya getting scolded by Kouyou the other day for allegedly breaking his office windows over a puppy. Kajii isn’t the only one with an excessive ability.
The flames eventually died down because Kajii had taken some measures beforehand to make sure it didn’t spread to the rest of the base. Surprisingly thoughtful of him.
As they leave the lab, Chuuya takes out his phone, sighing deeply. “Ah, they found the detectives. I’m going to go kick some ass now.”
“Bye! Good luck!” Higuchi wishes.
“Yup. Tachihara-kun, Gin-kun, you’ll be sent to guide them around the base soon. Hirotsu should inform you of what to do.”
“Yes sir,” Tachihara says with a salute. Gin nods.
“Okay. Stay safe, everyone.”
Tachihara’s hand brushes against Gin’s. “We will.”