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Rin is all twisted up inside. Warped. She knows it, and she knows why she is that way. She needs no cold blooded therapist to point out the obvious. How dare they think they can touch such private feelings, such private hurts, with their sterile hands. She tells Maruki a fraction of what is really going on with her, letting him develop the wrong impression. She watches him decide that she's a psychopath, then watches him fail to take his own diagnosis seriously. He suggests she develop a hobby, a sweet smile on his face. Rin doesn't much care what he thinks, so long as he never approaches her inner being, because the truth is worse than anything he can dredge out of his diagnostic manuals.
There's a masquerade ball on for the shiny people of Tokyo. Having made friends with a politician and various other influential people, Rin scores a ticket, telling no one about it, not even Morgana. No, she goes out, wearing a mask, one with slightly better coverage than her Phantom Thief edition. Goes out in a mask and a dress her friends will never see her wear. There's something she's compelled to do, some track she's compelled to run down, hoping for a different winner to this race.
The party, high up in a luxurious skyscraper, is full of predators affecting the harmlessness of prey. Even the beautiful people are not beautiful, their mouths, when visible, are set into tense lines as they watch for the dagger in the back which is sure to come. Middle aged men and women alike chase the fillies and colts who flutter around the floors, disappearing with them into shadowy corners. The disguise Rin wears hides her identity, but not her fatal attraction. She wouldn't need to hide her identity in this case anyway, but doing so helps her keep the terror just far enough beneath the surface to keep it out of dullard's sight. The disguise helps, as well as the vodka she drank on the way over, and the copious number of cigarettes she smoked.
Soon she sights her quarry amongst a group of stone-faced men, brushing past him ‘accidentally’. If she is not recognised immediately, she will be safe for the rest of the interaction. He’s not the sort to pretend. His eyes, she feels them slide down the back of her neck and over the curves of her body. It's a wild ride, and a man clears his throat, fingers brushing the back of her arm. They make her jump, but she wraps up the reaction into a coy present for a tyrant.
“And who might this exquisite creature be?” asks Shido, looking her up and down the way Kamoshida once did, but with less overt hostility.
Rin makes him a curtsy, affecting the voice of someone attempting to hide the remnants of a French accent under flawless Japanese. “Neige Baudelaire, my lord.”
The skin visible under the arc of mask covering Shido's creepy eyes, flushes with pleasure. "What a beautiful name, and what beautiful manners. Are you with the French attaché?”
“No, just a wandering lover of luxury.”
Ten minutes of verbal swordplay later, Rin smashes past the guard of her target, finding herself pushed up against a secluded wall near a gigantic window with a view of the city, Shido's lips pressed to hers. When he breaks away to breathe, he returns with renewed energy, his hands hiking up her dress.
Rin takes his thick wrists, biting his bottom lip so that he pulls back and grins at her. “Oh, no, no, my lord. That is not how we do things where I come from.”
“How do they do things where you come from, mademoiselle?” he kisses her neck, one hand under her dress, where it caresses the curve of her hip.
“We'd at least share champagne over dinner before we share coffee over breakfast.”
“Is that so? But maybe I'll take what I want right now anyway…” he squeezes her, the threat horrifyingly close.
“Of course, do what you will, but I’d be very disappointed if you took your pleasure now, my lord. I am always looking for men powerful enough to resist themselves, but it seems they do not exist.”
Shido stares at her lips for a long moment, then looks into her eyes, their shape changed by makeup. “...You little vixen. Fine. You win. I'll put food in your belly. Give me your number.”
After giving him the number of a burner phone, Rin very carefully navigates the rest of the evening, dancing with the beast before heading home, letting herself into Leblanc with her key, wishing with all her heart that the owner picked up on things as intensely as she does. If Sojiro or anyone else became angry and violent with her over this madness, she'd love them for it. But there is no one but her cat waiting for her, and all he does is tell her to go to sleep.