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You don’t know if he will take it. You wouldn’t have taken your father’s hand if he had ever deigned to offer it, but you are not your father.
You are Amane’s father. “Father” is hard to swing, the syllables clunkier in your mouth than the chain-link joints of your three-section staff ever felt. But your armed hand had to learn how to slice through human joints, so it should wait, empty, at the epidermis of your son’s palms.
Professional assassins don’t wait. You should take Amane’s hands, but you won’t. You’re asking him to take yours, to wrap his pudgy fingers around your rough calluses that will cut through his unburdened skin. You’ll hurt him, but—
But you just hate to see him cry. His tears blur those sky blue eyes that take in more than he can grasp. You gave him those eyes, but you hope he didn’t inherit the look behind them. Amane can already be as sharp as you are, but it’s exposed rebar. He doesn't know he has to hide it, that the ugly metal is part of the building process and not the product. His parents have been in the occupation of death longer than he’s been alive. Amane’s just a child. He doesn’t know.
You’ll spend more time with him soon, you think, ignoring that the thought feels equally familiar and unfilled. You don’t remember how many times you’ve lied to him. He does.
But you’re here, now, and Amane’s looking at your hand. “Amane,” you say. His tears don’t dry up when his fists stop catching them, but that’s ok. He’s ok. He has time. You’re here. You’re his dad. Your hand is touching his, gently, like it’s the first time either of you have felt something warm and breathing. Have been something warm and breathing.
Amane doesn’t have any calluses yet, and something that looks like regret clouds the day he will.
“I hope you still remember my usual,” he says, not bothering to turn his gaze off the empty highway ahead or voice the derogatory “old man.” You make Shishiba drive on missions by citing junior partner obligation, which he always grumbles about but never angles his steps towards the passenger side door. You watch him slide his right hand to 12, letting his thumb broadcast each individual stitch running up the inside seam. He could hide the twitches with a professional assassin’s touch, but you suppose he actually likes to drive.
You leave your seat belt unbuckled. Senior partner habit.
You saw something in Shishiba that day, in the garish shirt and the neatly tied ponytail and those sharp dry eyes, bored but not tired. He had to have seen something in you, but you doubt it was your baggy suit or your shaggy hair or your sharp dry eyes, tired but not bored. You have learned, by now, that he’ll give you an answer if you ask.
You never asked why he was there that day, drenched to the bone in the same filth he claims to clean up. You’d say it’s because he has to walk behind the mop, broom, vacuum cleaner, et cetera, but Shishiba can play connect the dots with his own metaphor.
The condensation on the cheap coffee can mingles with your sweat until the water droplets dissolve into rivulets into rivers into a spot on the car seat. Shishiba grabs it and hooks his left thumb under the tab to pop it free. The sound is the same as a man’s last gasp. You drag out your next exhale like you’re savoring it, and Shishiba looks at you with a question blossoming on his face. He’s never been shy about asking you. You never taught him that junior partner duty, but professional assassins are supposed to make the unsaid real.
“You’d call it an old-man joke,” you say, and he turns back to the road ahead.
She is beautiful.
You’re the only one who will ever see Shino like this, and she’s the only one who will ever have you like this. Nothing can compare to the sight of her sleeping, teetering the knife-edge of life and death. The sharp smile of her knives. The sharp edge of her smile. The sharp taste of blood in your mouth as you bite your cheek to stop yourself from devouring her. Professional assassins don’t leave a trace, you think and, then, swallow.
She makes you greedy. You asked her to take your hand in marriage too many times to count on all your family’s fingers. You had to. There was nothing else you could have done when she turned from a professional assassin to Shino to yours. She wasn’t the woman of your dreams; you didn't dream until you met her. Now she makes you want to stay awake, to stretch every moment you have with her into a lifetime. You’d still be hungry.
The blanket is softer than any dream under your rough fingers, above her tender skin. “I love you,” you say, because she doesn't have to hear it. Because you love her. Because you remember loving her when you tuck in the blanket above your own neck. Because you will love her tomorrow when you wake before her. Because you will always remember her under your hand, resting in peace.
Your hand stretches out, away from you, towards all the people you failed. A professional assassin never questions his calling. He knows that death is his success, but you failed to take your life out of theirs. Now yours can finally be their success.
You know it won’t—a man’s death has never been a good answer, but you can hope. You’ll allow yourself to hope that the bubbles of your last exhale will pop before they reach the living world beyond the river where they were loved and you didn’t belong—but you wanted to, you want your hand to reach them.
You know that a pro doesn’t get that mercy.