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They get back to Room 4S sometime after the mission; around early evening.

As Akira sheaves his coat and hangs it, the rack by the door creaks to greet them, listing to one side. It rights again, after Seraph balances it with the heft of his own. Dying sunbeams slanting through blinds, illuminating dust motes on voyage from the bookshelf. The plain, tidy office of Room 4S says hello; the scent of freshly inked paper and coffee tilts its hat and pats a space on the sofa. Take a load off, rest up.

Snap, snap. Akira offs his gloves—unveiling smooth, unmarred skin; radial veins neat on thin wrists. Under his breath, he huffs something Seraph does not hear, then glances up and stammers to a stop. Seraph nearly bumps into his back—funny. The whole of Akira's body would tuck neatly beneath his chin.

"I don't have time to sort all this," Akira mutters, aloud.

Where Seraph is caught on the roundness of Akira's head, he follows the angle of his jaw—a sliver of neck, vulnerable under Akira's collar—to the desk near the back. The usual: covered in papers. Some in stacks, others loose, more in folders shoved aside. Bills—lease, electricity, water—and information for cross-referencing. Plus mission requests in carefully sealed envelopes, collected this morning.

"You have places to be?" he asks, hovering ghostly at heel.

Akira grouses, "Something of the sort," and slumps onto the sofa.

Considering the sofa too, Seraph thinks better of it, remembering. It's better not to crowd Nagi-chan's space, or he might get a weird face that twists his stomach. Aborting his follow, he brushes past Akira's nape and lingers near the desk.

They are worn—tired, but not spent. The way people tend to be in the lull; after adrenaline and vigilance have taken them high. No follow-up comes. No 'it can't be helped' or 'let's plough through it' or 'let's get it over with, I want to go home and read manga'. Nudging a clipboard with a finger, Seraph decides Akira's complaints are categorically unusual.

"You want me to cover it?"

The couch shifts behind Seraph—he's earned a look from Akira. Maybe surprise, a bit of fluster. Satisfaction tugs a tiny smile; he's in a good mood today. If Seraph is free and Akira is not, then it's basic calculation. Nagi-chan knows his limits, but what use are Seraph's muscles if not to lift weight? Including spiritually.

Akira's smooth bass responds, hesitant: "If I arrive early tomorrow, I should be able to finish it…"

Straightening, Seraph turns just as Akira rights his glasses—nervous tic—and averts his gaze. Cute, but more frequent than it used to be, lately. Seraph leans back, scratches at a cup stain near the desk edge.

"I'm free, I can cover it."

Another look: this one squinty. Seraph has this one filed under 'Akira's face'. This is the look that isn't sure what to make of him, underpinned by a pride particular to those who lie about not being workaholics. Snorting, Seraph figures he ought to drive the stake in before Akira wriggles free.

"I know how to do it. If you've got plans, I'll handle it."

Akira drums manicured nails on his thigh, ill-positioned to argue. No doubt weighing the guilt:efficiency ratio on his imaginary silver scales. Between blinks, he peeks at Seraph and away again from under long lashes, glossy from mission sweat and humidity. Signs of reluctance that gradually melt from his countenance, once the scales tilt in Seraph's favour.

"If you don't mind…"

Quick response—"It's fine." Rote, he says it often. Same as after thank you for coming with me and I appreciate it, Serao. Same as always.

Akira offers gracefully precise instructions, then gives three thank yous—'It's fine,'—and takes his coat from the rack—it creaks in goodbye as he goes. Seraph watches the door click shut, expression smooth as ever. Then solemnly slides his oversized body into the undersized squeeze of Akira's desk chair. Here lies the corpse of Shikinagi Akira's fun. Of course, Seraph likes him anyway.

Blowing through the work—efficient, economical, being paid more in the gratification of kindness than actual money—he cashes bills and verifies ledgers. The mission envelopes are unsealed, resealed, then sorted in two piles: 'accept solo' and 'check with Kanato'. The phantoms in the wall chitter: have you the right? How quaint! and Seraph, surrounded by ink and paper and coffee, finds their voices muffled through plaster.

Inevitably, he comes to the last of them. Before unfolding the notepaper slip, a polaroid snicks and settles on the desk. Of a small, black thing—Bombay, if Seraph knows his stuff. Very much like the domestic that's been sunbathing on Akira's windowsill since high school. The note says, in messy, all-hiragana handwriting:
I saved my allowance. Can you please find my cat?

*****

So, he'd been told to do the paperwork. And this is the paperwork—they get this all the time. If he knocks it out before Akira even knows about it, he might be pleasantly surprised. Keyword: pleasantly. The contextual definition: a welcome relief, for Akira's narrower shoulders.

With none of Akira's smarts and gadgets and clever shortcuts, Seraph arms himself with what he can. Original address, location last seen. The reminder he's searching for gold eyes, not blurple, as Hibari says; not the same cat as almost-Akira's. Tama is penned into the polaroid's corner with sparkly gold marker to match its ribbon. Kanato would argue it's leagues above an owl dubbed 'Owl-kun', but it doesn't change the huge percentage of cats named Tama, does it?

On the knowledge most cats won't run further than a max-average of five-hundred meters in a day—a mere half-kilometre—he starts his search in a radius. Before realising, if their commissioner—no older than ten, at most—had time to save allowance, it's been a week at minimum. Which trivialises max-averages and distance estimates. Akira would've clocked this instantly.

Still, Seraph thinks it's worth the shot. He has time, and Akira has less of it, and it doesn't hurt to seem reliable. Expecting nothing, he resolves thusly:

Approaching around twenty-three hundred hours that Saturday night, Seraph is out hunting the cat.

The issue is: there are more cats than people who can name them with love. But Akira would say something like, 'well, you'll just have to adopt and name the next one you see, won't you?'
What an idealist.

At this hour, the roads are snakes spotted with streetlights, framed by buildings that melt into the dark as blots—glittering windows shorting as the minutes tick by. No stars; city haze forever. The Saturday night-goers have petered out over time, with an hour to train curfew. Even on weekends, Tokyo's transport rules keep people leashed to routine. Seraph will be out of a ride soon.

As he keeps softly calling 'Tama, Tama~?' into the black mouths of thin alleys, he wonders—should he have brought his car? No, it's hard to look that way. Turning away when the mouths shape words only he can hear, he knows his eyes are good even this late. He will be fine. It's part excuse to stretch his legs, after extricating himself from Akira's desk shackles.

"Tama?" he coos.

Initially, he'd thought Tama is far too common a name. At least—as he frowns at the gold-eyed photograph in hand—he thought one might respond to the call. It could be that the ones who do are only ever on social media reels. Or that the current generation of cat-owners has worked hard at dwindling names as common as Tama.

Ever slow to impatience, Seraph wanders. Without Akira combing public CCTV—without Akira chirping through an earpiece—he is truly aimless in this concrete jungle.

"Tama~" he coos again, smaller than the last. The empty streets suffocate with the hour's imposition.

There is a wink, and Seraph pivots sharply. A glint of refraction in a puddle of amber just by the curb: three glints. A ribbon and two eyes, caught mid-trot. The ears swivel toward him—dastardly, elegant little gait motionless, and the road between stretches into a desert from the old westerns Kanato made him watch. A paper bag skips past like tumbleweed.

Tucking the photo slowly into his coat, Seraph tests: "Tama."

Just outside the half-kilometre radius, the cat twitches once.
Just within the half-kilometre radius, Seraph takes one cautiously measured step.

They're both off like a shot.

The thing about being a cat in the dark, is that one comes to know the self as the prime of urban ambush predators. For rats, for mice, for the sleeping pigeons of Tokyo city, for the birds in trees too stupid to sleep with one eye open. The cat does not concern itself with the instincts of its food. Especially not the house cat—domesticated, doted on, decidedly dainty. Above all manner of being lesser, let alone prey. Ha.

This cat is running for its life.

Humans are not meant to be so fucking—fast. It's unreal. Intent so heavy it starts in the tail and runs up the haunches and screams headless across the spine and manifests in eyes so dilated, this cat may have the peripheral vision of a goat. This animal has become a somatic panic map, a skittering Tom as it wheels into an alley as if in pursuit of a cackling Jerry.

Behind races the predator of all predators; King Predator, God of Lions and heir apparent to the throne of Bastet. What the fuck is this thing—not human. A deadly silent and rapidly gaining blur of grey; cats don't see red, just the descending doom of death's scythe. It jumps a dumpster and scrambles over a boarded fence—surely, surely!—but no, the thing behind it leaps the gap and lands with its pelt flaring. Is it angry now?

Hindquarters hinging, the cat spindles back onto the street with the thing in hot pursuit. A car zooms by, faster in streaking vision, thunderous vibrations under-paw. Yes, the road. Humans wait before crossing roads, and this thing should be human! Right? A swap of direction and the Bastet demigod squawks—"Don't go on the road!"—but the cat does not understand. It barrels straight across tarmac, thinking itself safe for the split second it takes to realise the thing is still hunting.

Tiny heart pumping, the cat, desperate now, takes one more turn into an alley—blundering blindly down—whyever did it leave home?!—when a door chimes open and it is forced to a skidding halt, wailing a piteous mewl before—!

At long last, Seraph finally scoops the cat into the nest of his sleeves.

It thrashes and writhes and hisses, claws out, but Seraph, with his grip of iron and gentleness to match, simply says fondly: "Caught you, Tama."

And he looks up at the door that waylaid Tama's escape—frosted glass, handle attached to a hand attached to an arm attached to a body attached to—and meets the stunned stare of one Shikinagi Akira.

"Nagi-chan," he says, dumb. If the end-syllable weren't close-mouthed, his jaw would hang open.

Likewise, Akira mumbles, "Serao?" around the butt of a cigarette nestled between glossed lips.

Tama does not stop its struggle, a spitting ball of hair-raised fuzz squirming uselessly in Seraph's arms. It goes unacknowledged—because Shikinagi Akira has donned bunny ears. Plush, lop-sided cotton-white, in stark contrast to the black of a vest cinched just right at the waist. The blue door is hitched on the heel of his dress shoes, tarnished only by the ash that the breeze nips off his cigarette. Only after seconds pass does Tama get the memo, reduced to a heaving, wide-eyed soot-ball swimming in furisode.

"You're smoking," Seraph points out, when his stare drifts down—over neck and collar and bow tie—to the lighter cupped in Akira's gloved-again hands.

Light ripples on leather knuckles, as Akira plucks the cigarette free, tucking it in the V between his index and middle.

"First Hibari, then Kanato, and now you…" he sighs. The harsh exasperation of it magnifies; honesty on reserve brought to surface for Seraph alone. "It's been quite the night."

"I didn't know you smoked."

"Very, very rarely," corrects Akira, with the mind to incline his head in Seraph's consideration. "Would you prefer that I stop?"

Caught, Tama's claws are not long or sharp enough to pierce through the thick fabric of Seraph's coat. Hooking, they sink anyway, as far as allowed with no threads to pull.

"You can if you want," is how Seraph answers—anything else would be hypocrisy. And Akira is not foolish enough to forget carbon monoxide and carcinogens strangle the lungs. "As long as you don't overdo it, I like your voice clear." is tacked on; the microscopic implication to please cherish yourself.
This, Seraph knows, is hypocrisy too.

A stretch of inhale; the paper breathes, burns, erodes from the burning top in patches of mote-sized, warm glow. Stops, cremates, and withers to dust, stolen by the wind again. The night hides Akira's jolt in composure.

"Were these your plans?"

Akira quirks a half-smile, glasses flashing from the twitch. "I'm covering for a friend."

"Huh? Who?"

"A lady I know."

A lady you know? Seraph frowns. There is a twist somewhere underneath his heart, that thuds a displeased, anxious hop of the pulse in his carotid arteries.

"Why would you keep it a secret?"

Cocking a brow, Akira huffs something dry. Eyes him up then down then up again with the slightest wrinkle of his nose. Imagine being appraised by your office partner in a bunny fit.

"It's not as if it's a secret," he remarks, "I didn't think it was relevant."

The air deflates, and Seraph glances at a distant satellite, since stars don't shine in Tokyo. "Oh."

Is that the same as a secret? What makes a secret, anyway?

"Serao, why do you have a cat? I thought you were doing paperwork."

The bundle in his arms, quivering, meets his stare when he looks down. It's caught in a tangle; burrito'd itself in its attempts to escape through contortion. The recollection slots back into the space where the image of Bunny Boy Akira had so boldly asserted itself.

"I did the paperwork," objects Seraph, then jostles to right his grip. Tama hisses. "This is the paperwork."

The cigarette lowers, now Akira is blinking instead. With no affrontation: "You went cat-hunting this late? Without me?"

"I figured since it's a job I can do I could finish it early, so you'd feel a bit better."

This is Seraph's best articulation—the complicated implications are a tad too much for a man whose emotional legibility still rides on logic, deduction and categorical observation. It is the most he can do, to confess in blatant innocence, the utterly plain sentiments without at all realising exactly what they mean.

Unlike Seraph, Akira is literate in subtext, and so takes his turn to be surprised. "Ah…" He drops his cigarette and crushes it out under the sole of his shoe. "I see." Unsure of what to say, he hovers.

The street past the alley mouth is mostly empty now, and the dusky lights from the bar wash them both in tired colours. For Seraph, the silence is a gentle temptation: to let it stretch, sticky and humid like fresh mochi; patience before the meal. For Akira, the quiet drifts at the edge of his thoughts, a warren of dust rabbits too light to last. Then the iron trap of the day’s events snaps shut—catching every tender feeling by the neck, crushing them into resignation.

"That's very thoughtful of you, Serao," Akira starts eventually, loose around the edges for the first time since his starting customer. "I'd be dead in that paperwork after this shift, if it weren't for you."

At that, Seraph shifts his stance—a centimetre's slouch of the shoulders.

“Just paperwork. Wasn’t much.”

The smile that breaches is soft; ambient in that low-lit way. The way that cuts across his jaw like moonlight through their office blinds; that hugs his nape violet and kisses the shell of his ear blue. The way that highlights his bangs silver and tickles the hollow of his throat with painted shadows.

"Even so, I'm glad you were thinking of me," says Akira, and the dark pulls his words a second behind the sheen of his lips.

That startles—a fractional zing through Seraph's spinal nerves; if only his face knew how to colour. He means to say something—'get some rest,' 'don't over do it'—but it jams somewhere behind the larynx. Instead he gives a small, awkward nod, mouth tight; nipping the inside of his cheek.
There it is: that gentle rush under the skin. That balmy, mellow thrill that rides the lilt of Akira's homely tones. The buzz of a cosy-type dopamine, like tiny fish schooling flips in the marrow of bones.

Tama nyaows in his arms—Seraph had nearly forgotten. He thinks he should say something, he'd meant to, hadn't he? But he's a bit hot, drowned in the folds of his coat, and the cat is crying. Because he has no formula for the chemical reaction sloshing around under his ribs, Seraph's eyes stray. As he steps sidewards, he is awkward and strange next to the dream-time vision he somehow still dares to call merely a friend.
'Friend'. Is there another name for the feeling?

He swallows. "It's fine,"—and he's lucky it's a reflexive answer. "Goodnight, Nagi-chan."

Akira's smile gets just a bit realer—weighing mildly drowsy, eyes crinkling at the corners.

"goodnight, Serao."

Adjusting his grip on the cat, Seraph takes two steps backwards. His eyes don't leave Akira even as he pivots, glued until he reaches the limit of a head's turn. Just to be sure, Akira lingers by the door until he's out of sight—until Seraph casts himself out of the alley; out of that surreal, liminal little pocket in space.

Back out on the road, a car hisses past. A vending machine flickers somewhere down the block; a taxi slows then speeds away. Tama is bug-eyed, as Seraph fetches the address he'd written down on a folded note in his pocket. He scans it over—once then twice, and his feet begin another mechanical walk. Tama keeps squirming, but Seraph pays no mind. His mind is paying elsewhere, tracking debts from the conversation no more than two minutes prior, but feels like it happened a lifetime ago.

'I'm covering for a friend. A lady I know.'
'Why would you keep it a secret?'

'I figured since it's a job I can do I could finish it early—'
'You went cat-hunting without me?'

'I didn't think it was relevant.'
'—so you'd feel a bit better.'

Seraph thinks: they're not categorically dissimilar, he and Nagi-chan. Is there much of a difference between 'something you're not told,' and 'something intended as a surprise'? One presses a finger to its lips and whispers, keep it a secret! The other shrugs and waves a flippant hand, what's the point of telling it?
They are different, but not categorically dissimilar.

Frazzled under the starless Tokyo sky, Seraph opens his mouth and inhales to sigh. On the exhale of petrol fumes and concrete tang, he concludes: there could be a taxonomy to secrets.

The ghosts that bleed phantoms in the cracks of the pavements are just illusions of a bygone past. They are not a secret, he knows, as he passes an alley like every other alley—alleys where he's killed people, sometime in the Before. But they are a secret, in the sense he's never thought to speak of them.

Tama rumbles against his chest—cats purr when they're nervous. In the scruff of its neck and tucked under its spine, Seraph's knuckles curl in thought. Does this cat count as a secret? It holds a hidden intention; a surprise. 'You were thinking of me,'—a sentiment. Are sentiments secrets?

A sentiment is… an intention? An expression with meaning, fuelled by a belief or a feeling. I did your paperwork because I didn't want you to worry about it. So does that make a feeling a sentiment? Concern? And in which case, is an unspoken sentiment a feeling? Care? And as Seraph plants one shoe after the other, footfalls heavier than they ought to be, he wonders:
Are feelings secrets?

What secrets am I keeping?

*****

Seraph returns the cat—he hands it off with barely a word, a half-smile at the kid’s thanks, rejects the allowance: 'we charge ¥0 for under-sixteens'. The walk home is long and empty. He doesn’t rush, and leaves a message for Akira:

[[ get home safe ]]

More often than not, Seraph sleeps like a rock these days. Not the case, this time. Laying straight on his back, hands resting over his stomach, he creases his brow and waits for rest to sink him. The blessed slumber doesn't seize him, replaced tonight by the ghosts' chittering in the edges and junctures of his own head. Noisier than they usually are, since the humdrum of this daily life began. Hooded hitmen holding a round table discussion on the permission to own a secret.

Seraph ignores them.

Dressed down to a tee and pants for pyjamas, his skin feels bare and light even under the blankets. It doesn't tingle—no fish-flips, no scurrying meridian responses. It's the absence of a feeling, or a sentiment, or something Seraph doesn't know or understand—the absence in itself, a secret.

I should ask Akira, says the voice of Seraph, much louder than the skeletons in the closet of his brain. And then the fish wake up and shiver panic through his body, and disappear when he realises, no, I can't. And isn't that puzzling? Akira, the one he goes to for nearly everything—there, again. The fish.

He might ask the others instead.

*****

Out of Kanato and Hibari, Seraph visits Kanato's place first thing in the morning. Having sent a text and received no reply—he tried knocking. Nobody home. So he ends up at Hibari's door instead.

The one who opens the door is Fura Kanato, bedraggled and eye-bagged. The tee he wears is black and longer than ordinary, but a tad tight where the breadth of his shoulders fills the sleeves. Seraph doesn't need to gauge all that to know it's probably not his shirt.

"Sera?" Kanato burbles, thick with sleep. "S'early."

"You're awake, though."

"Barely," moans Kanato, dragging a hand down his face. It pulls at the bottom lid of his left eye. "I didn't get any sleep last night."

Both Seraph's brows raise. Kanato catches himself with sudden lucidity.

"It's not like that," he snips, "Hibari made me sleep on the couch."

Like an upset housewife? Seraph snorts. "He didn't roll out the guest futon?"

"I pissed him off enough for him to be petty."

Damn, mouths Seraph. "Why didn't you just go home?"

"Aaaaagh," goes Kanato, and the weight of his lean on the doorframe flumps—there's the clack of a hanged man's skull on timber—before he peels away entirely. He waves off the dialogue with an irritated flap of the hand. "It's complicated, don't worry about it. Anyway, you coming in?"

The door clicks, definitive, and the mess of Hibari's apartment greets him. The pillows gathered for Kanato strewn over the floor, blankets ravelled. Bypassing the living area—low table dominated by plastic bottles—Seraph slides into the seat at the kitchen counter, where Hibari is faring a lot better than Kanato. Bangs pinned back with old hair clips, he generously butters a slice of toast. There's three mugs of coffee and none of them Seraph's—Kanato is on his second.

"Hey, it's Serao," is what Hibari chirps. "Morning."

"Good morning."

"Toast?"

"I'm okay."

"You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Alrighty."

A silence falls—one of those domestic, too-early ones where the only thing moving is the clock and the steady, tense chew of the upset housewife who still hasn't quite decided whether he wants a divorce. Kanato fiddles with the salt shaker like it’s a stress toy.

With his hand neatly folded, Seraph sits with the glass of tap water Kanato delivered from the kitchen sink. The sun is running high, but the time is still premature for workers of their ilk. There's a certain chill in the air that only comes right after someone's rolled out of bed.

Seraph, remembering why he came, asks: “Did either of you sleep?”

Kanato grunts, "Not really." He stirs what's left in his mug; typhoon in a teacup. "Brain's loud."

"I slept," Hibari pronounces—not haughtily, but filling in where Kanato's sarcasm doesn't carry well. "Eventually, anyway. Kanato got the couch." Setting down his knife, he drops the butter dish back in the centre.

Muttering something inaudible at first, Kanato presses a hand to his face. “I should’ve just gone home.”

Hibari takes a huge bite, chews, swallows. Responds, "Could've, but you didn’t."

Kanato's gaze slinks off left-wise, lifting his mug and hiding behind its rim. It doesn't take a genius to know the steady ground underfoot has shifted—not even a small amount; not small enough to wonder if it's imagination. The tension might as well be the whinging of grinding tectonic plates. The ghosts looped around Seraph's neck cover their pursed lips; and what Seraph knows to be sense doesn't dare dip its toes in the water.

So all he does is carefully, carefully query, "You guys gonna be okay?"

Kanato's laugh is throaty. Exhaustion sticks his hair in five directions. "It's not that bad. We're fine."

"Nothing serious," Hibari smiles cheekily, but brightly. He shoves the rest of the toast in his gob and Kanato slaps his hand when he tries to steal some egg off his plate. He whines piteously. "You don't even eat breakfast."

Pointedly, Kanato stabs his fork into the egg yolk and sniffs, "If you knew that, then why'd you cook?"

Hibari pouts. "Brat."

"Oi."

Unguarded, unstyled, unconcerned with appearances—Kanato looks younger. Leaning back in his chair, he leaves the egg on the plate and stretches his arms overhead. "You can have it if you want," he mumbles, half-yawning. "You're right, I'm not that hungry."

A hush, almost companionable. Hibari slides the plate of toast a little closer to Kanato, who takes a slice without meeting anyone’s eyes. After a few moments, Kanato finds something else to fidget with—a sugar packet, the edge of his sleeve, anything to keep busy.

"Are you working today?" he asks, stuffing the gap.

Seraph shakes his head. "No missions. Akira’s off too."

Kanato makes a noise of acknowledgement, ditching his sugar packet and going for the toast. As he tears it up into long strips to mop his egg with, it's Hibari who gulps a mouthful of coffee and picks up the lull.

"He has work at the bunny bar tonight, maybe?"

"Oh yeah," says Seraph, "He said something about you guys last night."

Hibari blinks. "What, you ran into him?"

"I was chasing a cat."

Kanato snickers through his toast—"Of course you were."—then waves another strip of bread around as he talks, "the bar has jazz night on Sundays."

"Really?" Hibari's eyes narrow. "You've been before?"

"Nope," and Kanato pops the 'p'. "Googled it when I couldn't sleep." Another long side-eye. "But, I mean, if you want to go later… Akira's not the owner though, so I don't know if it's on."

Seraph sits in the seat closest to the window, listening to their exchange. He glances down at his water and takes a sip, just to seem like he's contributing. The table is a theatre, and he's only today's guest to Kanato and Hibari's latest coded conversation. There's words between lines that Seraph is no good at reading, so he concentrates on whether the mark on the glass is a smudge or a chip. Then on whether the saucer of dried fruit is full of raisins or dates. Is that a date?

Hibari chuckles—this one earnest, sunny—and says gently, "Not today, I think Akira would bite your head off."

Kanato scrubs a hand through his hair. "That's true. He might beat me up."

"—speaking of Akira," Hibari goes on, and finally swivels to Seraph, "What about him and you?"

Caught, Seraph stares. Then withdraws from where he'd been creeping for the fruit saucer. "Me?"

"Yeah. You. You said you saw him?"

Seraph nods once. "In the alley of the bar." He doesn't add the bunny ears—doesn't know what that would do to the air. Doesn't want to get side-tracked, really, so he tacks on breezily, "We talked."

Kanato has run out of toast to tear. "Talked how."

"Nothing complicated," explains Seraph, "I did some of his paperwork because he was busy, then I ran into him when I took the cat request."

Hibari studies him—open, patient. Kanato doesn’t push either; he just chews, slower. Seraph, by size, is the elephant in the room. There is no reason for him to be here, taking up air in the cramped tension left behind by whatever went down in the doorway last night. So they know he's here for something, awaiting the moment it drops.

Seraph clears his throat. A-hem. "I came to get some advice."

Hibari hums, perpetual smile thinning. Eyes owlish, giving him an ominous sort of knowing gape. Leaning in on his elbows, Kanato grubs down a square of crust and says,

"But you normally ask Akira for advice."

Hibari hums again, and politely tries to look preoccupied with his coffee.

"That's the thing. I can't ask Akira."

"Is it like a job?" hazards Hibari.

"No." Seraph searches for a simpler noun and fails. "Like…an intention. But you can’t say it, and you don’t want to lie by not saying it."

That strikes something—a chord on the verge of snapping. Hibari sits back, cupping his drink. A heated look is exchanged with Kanato, who chooses then to find his egg extremely interesting. Yolky and yellow and salted, just like Kanato, kind of.

"If you can’t say it yet, you don’t have to," offers Hibari, the slightest hint snappy on the ends of his phonemes. "You can show it and wait."

Kanato wipes his thumb on a napkin. "Or you do nothing and it rots." He flinches under the weight of the massive Something that Seraph is detecting but dares not pry open. "I mean—someone ends up guessing wrong and gets the wrong idea."

A misunderstanding is what Kanato is implying, fundamentally. Knowing Akira, a misunderstanding could risk spiralling every which way or nowhere at all. He could get tangled up in the details—rabbit in tripwire—or see the trees for the forest and know not of what to do with it. Either way, Akira would bite his tongue until he choked.

Seraph considers that, eyes lowered. "I don’t want him to guess wrong."

"Then give him something he can't mistake," Hibari says quietly. "Something that sounds like you."

Seraph frowns, body listing as he tilts away. "Last time I gave him chocolates."

Kanato wags bread at him. "And he mistook those." Yeah, okay, but for what?

And the frown deepens—a crawling inch of frustration, or something alike—"I don't even know what I'm supposed to be communicating."—is the point, here.

He can't say it yet, and he doesn't want to lie by saying it. But he doesn't know what 'it' is supposed to be to begin with. This claps the room dumb.

"…You don't know?" Kanato says slowly.

To which Seraph deadpans, "I don't know."

Here is the world's flattest intermission: leftover toast and half-baked wisdom. The table settles into a pause, letting the coffee do the heavy lifting. Sunlight slips across the rim of Seraph’s glass.

Seraph, for his part, leans back so far in the chair it creaks a warning. He stares at the ceiling. The dust motes are doing their ballet routine up in the sunbeams, having the time of their short, non-sentient lives. It'd be easier, he thinks, if there were instructions, or a sign. Or Akira, barking: 'hey, Serao, this is the mission, go here and do that'. Instead of all these riddles and unfinished stares and moments that hang around like rainclouds with nowhere to go.

Kanato, twirling the sugar packet between two fingers, tries, "Well, sometimes it’s not about saying it, right? Sometimes you just… show up. Do something." His eyes flick to Hibari, who doesn't return the notion but gives a thoughtful little nod.

"Most of the time people don't know what they're supposed to say," adds Hibari, with the ease of a boy whose sung a thousand love songs. "Doesn't mean you're wrong for not having the words."

Seraph turns that over in his mind. Things that can't be named, or perceived—but exist anyway. Schrodinger's emotion. "Then what do you do?"

"4S is closed outside of regular office hours," Kanato begins, amicable. "But you were chasing a cat around at night because it was work, even though Akira was at the bar." He looks up from his sugar. "Right?"

Seraph can't see where he's going with it, so his lip curls, unamused. "Uh-huh."

Kanato continues anyway. "So why'd you do the job early, Seraph?"

The fish are fluttering again—miniature tetras under dermis, even though he echoes what he's repeated to himself an unknowable number of times:

"I wanted Nagi-chan to worry less. I thought he'd feel better."

"See?" cruises Kanato, edging a smile. "That sounds like you."

"Acts of service," Hibari pipes in, low-toned and perceptive. "When I can't get the words out, I use music. You know that."

"You want me to sing?" scoffs Seraph.

Kanato is preening his teeth with a toothpick. Hibari just flashes his all-knowing grin.

"Nobody said you had to sing, Serao."

*****

It is twenty-one-hundred on a Sunday night. Shikinagi Akira is alone in the girl's bar.

Again, he has donned his cotton ears and trim rust-coloured waistcoat. Again, with the classy gloves and the tail that doesn't look nearly as absurd as it should. Tonight is the last night he'll be running the place—he will get to keep the clothes when bunny bar's true tenants return, but he won't be working here anymore. Not that there was much work to begin with.

It was a secret, in practice, that he was working here at all. Yet all three other members of Voltaction managed to run into him anyway. Hunched over a notepad, he is reviewing his check on the low-stocked items. The note, he intends to leave for the actual owner under the register's cash tray—but reading, right now, escapes him. Instead, his fingers tap a rigid, metronomic beat.

So it is, that Akira has remained in the bunny bar since opening. Lulled by the civility of piano jazz and gold-dusk mood lights. Just warm enough to feel cosy, but not quite so warm so that the buzz of drink becomes uncomfortable. The artful security of establishments designed to fish secrets from the mouths of willing victims. It's a talk bar, after all.

Not that he'd intended for his friends to show. Not that he'd meant for Hibari to appear, feet dragging, about ready to cave in under the weight of his own disappointment. That Akira had even encouraged a normal ride—that is, not Kanato—and had been graciously brushed off regardless. And certainly not that he knew Seraph was going to be out chasing cats in his area of the neighbourhood at the witching hour.

Embarrassed isn't exactly it, per se. Maybe flustered at being found out—though he hasn't heard from the three of them since. Whatever happened between Hibari and Kanato stopped being his business the moment they left earshot. And it's Sunday, so Room 4S is closed. If Seraph was out so late, then Akira—managerially-minded—conclusively decides it's best not to bother his rest after the text last night.

[[ get home safe ]]
[[ I did. Thank you for worrying. ]]
[[ 🐈‍⬛ ]]

The cat emoji. Unintelligible in the broader scope of understanding, but cute nonetheless.

I figured since it's a job I can do I could finish it early, so you'd feel a bit better.

And here Akira is again. Listless and wondering. Is he actually, genuinely going out of his way to favour me, or am I the idiot? Should he say something? Explain further—? Explain what, exactly, that he hasn't already? In everything Akira has done in his life, why does he feel the need to justify himself now?

He scowls at the paper. It curls a corner at him in response. Yesterday was… a day. Seraph's coincidental appearance nearly slips to the wayside, in lieu of the awful ordeal of Hibari and Kanato's relationship problems. Frustration simmers a low burn in Akira even now—and he hopes, for Hibari's sake more than Kanato's, that things turned out favourably.

It was progression for them, if nothing else.
There is a small, small part of Akira that wishes more had come out of his run-in with Seraph, afterwards. It's not envy, he assures himself, no of course not. More as if—in his weariness and aggravation—he let a serendipitous opportunity slip between his fingers.

I like your voice clear.

Akira's teeth clench, then unclench in a sigh. There's no use dwelling. He doesn't expect a pivotal turn in…things, with Seraph—it's unrealistic, at best. But he ought to apologise to Tarai for blowing a casket on him, and crinkling his tie.

Giving up on the ballpoint pen, Akira is about to commit to peeling his gloves off and tapping something out. Sorry for venting to you unprovoked yesterday. That sounds good. He rights his bunny-eared headband and is about to set to it, when the near-silent hinges of the bar's double doors creak—

"Wel…" and the rest dies quicker than he can think to form the word.

In the flesh—prime example number five is here for the second time in two days. Ducking under the head of the doorway, violin case bumping against thigh. He raises a hand in greeting, lips pressed a tad tight—Seraph Dazzlegarden, a few degrees off-kilter.

Akira, also off-kilter, tears the page from the notepad and sets it aside. Busying himself so his mind has time to catch up—catch on—by plucking the pen and the pad off the counter and tucking them away. Back straightening, he's lacking rock glasses to polish, so he only lingers in place. For certain, Akira knows this time is by no means a mistake.

"Serao," it's a fight to keep the languish out of his voice. "Are you here for a drink?"

"I heard it was jazz night," Serao says amicably. "Do you have anyone playing?"

Where did he hear that? "I'm not the owner, and there's no advertising up at present, so the event isn't happening." Akira frowns, his hands tighten where sit on the glossy countertop. "Do you mean to make an offer?"

It's more transactional than usual—but Akira excuses it with the fact he's working. Working means professionalism, and he and Seraph both know not to question good conduct.

Ambling forward, Seraph turns and waits to ensure the door does not close loudly. Seraph, today wearing the black-red shirt with the wings and lilies—stripped down to tall muscle-and-sinew, without the bulk of his hooded coat. Clothes still loose enough to deceive his build for slender. Seraph, one among few sources of yesterday's incidents.

"Only if you're alone," is what Seraph announces.

"Pardon?"

Seraph smiles; a quirk of the lips—just at the corner. A devious, diminutive little upturn. The kind Akira, frowning harder now, recognises as plotting. Serao hoists his shoulders, gaze drifting to the karaoke stage and its velvet drapery.

His eyes flick to meet Akira's again just once—"I said, Nagi-chan,"—as he makes his way deftly across, strides unfairly long—"Only if you're alone."

"Wait," Akira protests, moving hastily along the bar's length. "Seraph, I can't pay you to perform. I don't own the bar."

It's a meager reach for control, or at space for Akira to comprehend what, exactly, Seraph supposedly means by this. To be frank, he doesn't understand.

"I don't want to be paid," Seraph says simply, crouching now. Undoing the clasps on the violin case. "I want to do this for you."

Halfway across the floor, Akira shorts. There's a fuse somewhere in his brain that blows, sputters, and clogs the office of his mind with smoke.

I like your voice clear.
I figured since it's a job I can do I could finish it early, so you'd feel a bit better.

Should he ask? Dare he ask? The universe chooses now to make Akira feel infinitely fucking stupid—Seraph is offering a violin serenade to him—him alone—and he's wearing cotton ears and a cotton tail in an empty establishment with nothing to keep him but himself.

"Nagi-chan? Can you turn off the piano jazz?"

Obedient, Akira pauses. Backtracks to the radio tucked on the shelves between liquors, and spins the dial until the numbers read zero. Obedient, because he'd rather not think about intent, or meaning, or examples or forecasts or cases in support of—maybe he likes me? Known—known! Right? He knew this. But so soon?

"Akira," Seraph repeats.

"I hear you," mutters Akira, defeated. Then thinks to correct himself; show some gratitude for this—favour, that sits more awkward than it does sweet. As he walks the length of the bar and picks the stool nearest the stage, he says, "Thank you, I'm listening, Serao."

"Make sure you are," Seraph replies, mild. "I'm not good enough to verbalise everything, yet, but I can play them."

Everything, he says. Them, he says. What's 'them'? What is everything? But Akira sits pinned under sunrise eyes, and breathes—in, out. Knocking a plug on his thoughts. Seraph is playing something for him—something for him—it wouldn't do not to listen.

Akira swallows. "Alright." Thanks his spy training silently, for keeping the stutter out when he echoes, "I'm listening."

Seraph gives nothing more, as he tucks the violin under his chin. The bow raises with the first flourish, as Seraph's lashes flutter. Recounting, perhaps, the exact strings to pull and pluck—as if his very being here doesn't play the ones of Akira's heart.

The first notes are a slow hush: silk on old wood. Sweet, meandering melody, taking its time. A sleepy stepping-out to greet the evening, for a wander through a midnight garden. Against his will, Akira's breath catches. Of course, of course it does—it always does, the moment large hands begin singing in delicacy that could never belong to anyone unkind.

Shyness hides in the first phrases—somewhat clumsy. A tune he might've only learned today, or started this morning. He plays a careful restraint; too loud or too bold, neither would fit. The song unfurls, lilts up and down like a second has joined the midnight walk; walls of the bar falling away. A melody that guides, nearly a waltz but far too tentative to be one.

Dainty trills, trembling slides, a sudden swell and hush again. A one-instrument conversation, that Seraph plays as if talking to a second. A note frays at the edge—flaw; beautiful, discreet flaw—ghosts quivering in the strings the bow leaves behind. Music is such a difficult, fragile thing to describe, despite that music is, in itself, a shape. The conveyance of a thought, an emotion, a feeling or a sentiment, or something not even the hands that shape it can fully know themselves.

Anxiety peaks—a higher note than the last. A plea; flowers in the garden stretching their heads, blooming if only someone will look. Subtle elegance, that, for a moment, succumbs to diminuendo, before climbing again. Flowers that glance at the moon, then reach to brave ascending the lattice.

For a beat, Akira thinks—if he could listen hard enough—he might catch Seraph's voice in the rise-and-fall, whispering. That the recapitulation might bare the core; but it's gone as soon as it's thought.

The melody drops low, looks to soar—descendings into another fragrant not-crescendo, trills again. Takes by the hand and leads high; Akira, eyes wide, swallows around a knot in his throat. The phantom taste of flowers; fleece and down-feather soft, like the lilies on Seraph's shirt. Every phrase a question, every second an answer that isn't. The bow flourishes, sings in arcs. Seraph's lips twitch—face lit pink; half-black against the red velvet curtains.

The song's climax never comes; and that is the point, Akira realises, as Seraph's violin keens. There are no confessions—there's a twinge in Akira's chest—just the botanics of a bud mid-blossom.

The final note draws out; yearns, a pirouette under night sky. Hangs, a trace of perfume.

The bar's silence crowds in.

Seraph hovers, faltering, now without sound to speak for him. A cant of his head, and he looks to Akira—a glance at the moon—waiting for something. A signal.

Lips parted, open-mouthed, Akira—heady with mellisonance—is forced to ask himself, what now? Automation twitches his fingers, lifts his hands in a speechless, stilted clap. One, two, three: the spaces between echo.

Dizzied, weightless, he's sure he's missed something: the secret answer. But he's not as good at reading between music notes, as is between the lines of conversation. What remains is the unsteady thud of his heart in his ears, and the soft tap of Seraph's heel as he lowers his instrument.

"…You played that for me?"

"You're the only one here," replies Seraph, voice low.

Loathe—Akira loathes his steadiness. The lack of tell, even now. Wonders if he's insane; is he crazy, is he overstepping if he assumes anything. So he settles for a tight smile, the last clap clasps his fingers and drops them in his lap along with his eyes.

"It was beautiful," he says, hoarse.

He can still hear it, soft and nervous in the air. Charged now, with something dulcet. What does he say? How is he supposed to read this? He knows, he wants to say he knows, but—

"Nagi-chan."

At that, Akira's head snaps up. The bunny ears bounce and do not recover, toppling partway back. Violin set aside in its open case, Seraph has descended the stage—too quietly, much too quietly—and stands in front of him, still as ever. Tentatively poses,

"You didn't like it?"

"No, I—" his voice cracks, he clears his throat. "No, it was beautiful, Seraph. I…" loved it, is a bit strong. "I don't know what to say."

It's absurd. He's being clumsy, even now. Seraph has come to him again, uncloaked. Offered him something he's once again too frazzled to hold properly. Another thought full of care, in a long line of thoughts full of care. This one bigger, and grander, that stokes something that feels awfully warm in the carefully monitored ward of Akira's chest.

It's a secret, Akira realises. A secret made audible, one that, if he unravels now, might undo him forever. It's a blind spot, Akira realises; all his own. A blind spot that Seraph keeps poking—a weak spot, a reluctance. A hesitation.

And because Seraph is learning from poor role models, he only knows how to stiffen. Only knows how to timidly presume,

"You don't have to say anything."

"That's not it," grouses Akira, but he can't look him in the eye. Why is he so clumsy.

"No?" echoes Seraph.

"No."

Seraph says nothing more, but his sneakers disappear from the scope of Akira's vision. There is movement behind the bar, the clickclickclick of the turning radio dial. For an instant, the piano joins them again—clickclickclick. Akira peers over his shoulder, where Seraph punches in the numbers to a different radio station.
A violin takes the piano's place halfway.

A gentle, three-four slow. Not far from what Seraph played: a dash more daring. This one's a waltz.

"What are you doing?" utters Akira, but he hasn't the energy to correct it.

Seraph returns to him, leans down—so damn tall—hand outstretched, before pausing.

"May I?"

"Do what?"

"Your hand."

"My hand…?" starts Akira, but Seraph does not wait. "Serao—!"

Seraph closes around his wrist, and hoists. Akira crushes into his chest, nose first, and Seraph laughs, apologises—"sorry,"—and bats the bunny ears off Akira's head altogether. They fall to the wayside, and something inside Akira screams.

He jerks back, glasses tilted, blinking at the buttons of Seraph's shirt. So tall—why so tall? Akira could tuck his entire self under Seraph's chin.

The pads of Seraph's fingers—Akira's pulse thrumming under them—slide over the ball of his wrist, defying expectation—Akira's, at least. They come to settle palm on palm; hand-in-hand. If he speaks, Akira might choke on his tongue and die.

"I'm not any good at saying it," explains Seraph. So plain; so regular, in the midst of what Akira labels as every irregularity. "But I have fun when I'm with you."

Akira breathes. In, out—no, it hitches. He tries to think of taxes, of paperwork—that Seraph sorted yesterday, allegedly. Of missions and lost cats—that Seraph handled, Akira knows.

"Is that so?" he manages, shaky where his voice folds under the chill of Seraph's touch.

Seraph hums. "Mm," fluttering, like the song he played. Tarrying, even now. "So I'm trying new ways to say so."

At that, Akira laughs slight and nervous. Repeats, "Is that so?"

"T'is so," says Seraph, stately. Akira laughs richer.

"Really," he mutters, half to himself, as he lets Seraph guide him gracelessly in what isn't quite a waltz but wants to be. "I don't understand you, even though I spend almost all my days with you."

"I don't understand me either," Seraph agrees, face rounded soft under low-light. "But I think I'd like it if you were in the rest of mine."

The ward in Akira's chest rattles, pops open. A warmth seeps through the cracks and is bold enough to bleed. Featherbrained, lily-scented, flower-sweet. There are few things that can be misconstrued from here, thinks Akira.

The bunny ears are gone. The world is gone. There’s only this: Seraph’s hand, the ghost of perfume in the air, and Akira’s heartbeat galloping like a stray cat on the rooftops. The violin—a job proudly done—rests easy in its open case. And Akira is allowed to admit,

"I don't think I'd mind either."

Seraph, not the type to grin, leans low. Killing space to make up for the smile his face isn't trained for.

"I wasn't going to let you go, anyway."

Sure and solid as the promise of another day, Seraph's palm is warm in his. Akira stares up at him, words melting through gaps and manifesting—his fingers tighten, lace, and he follows the next step like a love-drunk man at a bar.

If this is a confession, he’s ready to listen for the rest of the night.