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At first Taro never thought that he hated killing, he knew it was wrong but he never hated it. At the JCC the act was so normalized that when he got more and more into ‘society’ he began noticing certain patterns throughout. That being that people didn’t want to offend one other, typically side-stepping, all fake smiles. Then when someone would lash out they would be regarded as lower than those around him.
It’s kinda like being an assassin now that he really thinks about it. No one wants a crazy assassin, they won’t get the job done. Then the job could also be traced back to the person who hired them and that was never good.
He never really cared for what happened outside of the assassin world though (nor what happened in it– well, for the most part). He went through with it without much of a thought, it’s not like the people around him ever encouraged him to do otherwise (well, besides Rion) so he saw no importance in it. The Order never cared for it, or in some cases they cared a little too much. He never knew many people in The Order. Hyo, Shishiba, Takamura, Nagumo, Kamihate, there are probably more… no there are more he just can’t remember.
Hyo was an interesting case among all of them, that being out of all of them he seemed to like killing the least. Honestly from Taro’s perspective he always saw Hyo dying first out of all of them, he was too kind in certain areas. He had a bleeding heart, and while that wasn’t a bad quality it was lethal for an assassin. It was something that they couldn’t spare to have, unless you were the best of the best, and Hyo was probably the weakest out of all of them. He didn’t hate Hyo, he was indifferent, but he still respected him; however, why Hyo decided to be an assassin was beyond him.
Nagumo’s case was probably the most simple, which made it the easiest to overcomplicate. Nagumo knew what they were doing, and he didn’t take joy in it. He just did it. He was terribly good at it as well, in a sickening way but it never made Taro bat an eye towards him. He never overcomplicated his life or the act of killing, the same thing went for redemption.
Takamura was simple. He was a killer, through and through.
“What are you thinking of old man? Your thoughts are quiet,”
Taro glances over to the bundle of yellow hair in the corner of the room, sitting on the floor with a manga book. Taro figured out how to hide his thoughts from Shin pretty early on. Turns out Shin could only read spoken thoughts. Why did he take Shin in again?
Ah, he must be getting soft.
“Nothing, do you remember how to shoot a gun?” Taro asks.
Shin instantly puts down what he was reading and looks up at him, there are practically stars in his eyes. He hasn’t taught Shin how to kill yet, but seeing as how he killed his dad (albeit with tears in his eyes) maybe it won’t be so hard? Honestly he has second thoughts about teaching Shin to kill but he learned when he was around 13, probably even younger so it shouldn’t be too bad, right?
“Yeah! Are we going shooting again?” Shin asks. It’s kinda crazy how easy Shin came with him, the kid really didn’t have anywhere else to go after all.
“Yes, moving targets this time,”
“Like people?” Shin’s voice wavers slightly, his eyes shift a little back to a place where Taro knows but doesn’t push. It’s Shin’s thing, not his, he shouldn’t push.
“No, like moving targets, there’s a place not far from here,” he explains. Instantly Shin jumps up and runs around the house looking for his gun.
Taro doesn’t understand the excitement, but the way Shin looks at him like he’s found something is enough to make him a little happier.
It’s weird, he’s never experienced something like this while killing.
“I don’t need new clothes! These ones are fine!” Shin hisses, and Taro has to suppress the urge to drag him out of the room and drag him by his neck– “Hey! Stop it!” Shin shouts again, this time stumbling out of the room with a frown.
“You need new clothes, they have bullet holes in them, and cuts,” Taro adds, it’s odd he’s never had to spend so much on clothes until Shin came around.
“I heard that!” Shin hisses again. “And you don’t need to do anything! I’m fine!”
“Clothes,” is the only word he says and Shin stops arguing, looking at the ground instead and pouting. Taro goes in and finds some spares for Shin to wear when they go shopping. The whole time he can hear Shin muttering and trudging behind him.
Honestly the kid’s kind of a brat now that he thinks about it, not nearly worth the effort to keep around but he can’t think about getting rid of him. He’s not a sympathetic person, he thinks he’s not. He can’t be considered one, not when he’s killed someone begging for their life one time. The blood that coats his hands won’t wash off this lifetime or the next.
It’s fine, he accepts it wholly.
He glances over to Shin and for a second he feels his mind turn a blank. It’s fine to teach Shin this right? It’s fine because Shin has killed before, it’s fine because he knows what it’s like. Besides, it’s not like he wasn’t getting into trouble before Sakamoto found him. It’s not like Shin was totally abiding by the law before Sakamoto found him.
He buys probably too many clothes and carries the bags despite Shin’s protests.
When they get back he watches as Shin carries the bags to his room and begins to sort them out. Shin might be the most methodical kid he’s ever met now that he thinks about it. He always has things in the ‘correct’ (by Shin’s standards or his even) order. If he tells Shin that the remote goes in the drawer then it goes in the drawer, without fail. Even while at the JCC he’s never met someone half as organized as him. He seems to take pride in it as well.
“Done! Look!” Shin grins, pointing over to his organized and folded dressers.
“Do you… like doing chores?” Taro asks.
Shin shrugs. “I like having stuff to do, it’s that simple,”
“Do you have fun doing it?”
Shin looks at him curiously, sitting on the floor and staring up at him, Taro feels awkward so it also sits. “I mean, I guess it depends on the thing,”
It depends? Well, that makes sense, he guesses that it does at least.
“I think I hate this job,” Taro replies after putting a bullet in another guy’s brain. Shin stops what he’s doing and looks at Taro as if he’s grown another head, does he have blood on his face?
“Oh– why?” Shin stutters, he puts his gun in his pocket and looks around the bodies, before recoiling a little.
“It’s draining,”
“Draining?”
Now that Taro thinks about it, the year he took off training Shin was probably the best year of his life so far. It’s weird, he never thought that caring for someone could be so fun, or maybe it’s not that it’s fun, maybe it’s because it felt like he had meaning for that year. Now that he's doing this again it feels meaningless; it feels less than meaningless. It feels like he’s taking away whatever meaning he or anyone else could have.
Draining, does he have the right to feel that? It’s not like he has that much of a choice now that he thinks about it, it just happens. He can’t help that he needs to pay bills. He has to kill because it’s his job. There’s no meaning in that though, maybe that’s why it feels draining, now that he thinks about it maybe that’s why pretty much everyone in The Order seems so drained.
“Forget about it,” Taro replies after a silence. Shin doesn’t look like he wants to, but he shuts his mouth and nods nervously. There’s a skittish look in his eyes that makes Taro wonder what Shin’s thinking about. For a second he’s jealous of Shin’s ability to read minds.
Warm lights overhead and a basket in his hands of items he needs to purchase, that’s his current state. The store isn’t anything special, just one of the convenience stores that runs a little too late into the night to be of any use for anyone but those like him. He’s been here a few times in the day but night? Never, he’s not good with eye contact so he keeps his head down as he places the basket on the counter.
“Hello! How are you?” The voice catches him off guard for some reason, it’s so bright unlike anything he’s ever heard before. He looks up and for the first time in his life feels out of breath.
The woman in front of him is smiling, a mole on the left side of her face. Her eyes are closed but it’s more than clear that the smile is genuine.
It’s late into the night and Taro feels more awake than ever. His face turns red immediately and he feels his mouth make a sound of surprise and he instantly goes to cover his face.
“Are you okay? You’re bleeding!” She exclaims in surprise, concern is evident in her face and in that moment he feels himself being grounded back to reality.
He’s an assassin, what is he doing? Right before he’s about to leave the woman hands him a bandaid.
He’s in love, it’s probably a little stupid but he doesn’t care.
He wants this, and nothing more.