Work Text:
The message came in at 1:09 AM.
Avoma didn’t like messages that came in that late.
Not because they were rare — but because the people who sent them usually weren’t thinking clearly.
The glow of his laptop cut through the darkness of his room, reflecting off the cluttered desk and the half-empty mug gone cold hours ago. Rain tapped against the window, soft and steady, like the world knocking just to see if he was still there.
> NEO:
I need someone dealt with.
No profile picture.
No icon.
Just a name.
A name he knew all too well.
Avoma didn’t reply right away. He pulled up a blank file instead, fingers hovering over the keys like they were waiting for permission to move.
> AVOMA:
I don’t take guesses.
Description. Location. Timeframe.
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Reappeared.
> NEO:
Lives on the east side.
Top-floor apartment.
Keeps to himself.
Works late.
Tonight or tomorrow.
Avoma frowned, the muscles in his jaw tightening.
> AVOMA:
Reason.
A pause. Longer this time. Long enough for Avoma to notice the rain getting heavier, the way the wind rattled the loose frame of his window.
> NEO:
He’s a problem.
Avoma leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, watching a crack in the plaster run like a thin scar above him.
> AVOMA:
That’s not a reason.
> NEO:
It’s enough of one.
The payment came through seconds later. Full. Clean. No haggling.
Avoma exhaled slowly.
“Alright,” he muttered to himself. “Let’s play.”
---
He built the profile in silence.
A digital ghost first — no name, no face, just patterns. Wi-Fi pings, late-night transit logs, work schedules scraped from places people forgot to lock down. The target moved like a shadow stitched into the city’s rhythm. Always home late. Always alone. Always near the same stretch of flickering streetlights that buzzed like they were tired of staying awake.
Avoma’s screen filled with fragments of a life.
Coffee orders from the same place, three nights a week.
A delivery service used too often for someone who claimed they “kept to himself.”
Music streaming at odd hours — sad songs, upbeat playlists, things that didn’t quite match.
The contradictions stuck out more than the facts.
Meanwhile, Neo kept messaging.
Not about the job.
About nothing.
> NEO:
Do you ever get bored doing this?
Avoma paused mid-scroll.
> AVOMA:
I don’t get paid to be entertained.
> NEO:
That’s a shame.
You seem like you’d be terrible at having fun.
Avoma huffed a quiet laugh before he could stop himself.
> AVOMA:
You hired a professional, not your friend.
> NEO:
Still.
Long nights must get lonely.
Avoma didn’t respond to that one.
---
The days stretched.
Neo sent short messages at strange hours — comments about the weather, complaints about sleeplessness, half-jokes that didn’t quite land. Avoma answered only when necessary, but he noticed things anyway.
The way Neo avoided talking about himself.
The way he asked questions and never followed up.
The way his messages sometimes cut off mid-thought, like he’d lost the energy to finish them.
The file on the target grew thicker.
And eerily, the habits matched.
Same hours.
Same side of the city.
Same restless patterns.
Avoma frowned at the overlap but brushed it off. Cities made people similar. Night made everyone a little the same.
---
The wind had picked up outside, rattling the loose panel on Avoma’s window. It clicked in uneven intervals, like something trying and failing to get in. He ignored it, eyes fixed on the screen, the soft glow of the chat reflecting in the dark glass beside him.
The room smelled faintly of cold coffee and dust. A stack of old papers leaned against the wall, threatening to fall if the air shifted just a little more. The city outside hummed low and distant, a restless sound that never quite went away.
A new message appeared.
> NEO:
What happens after?
Avoma blinked.
Not because he didn’t understand the words — but because he hadn’t expected the question.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, then pulled back. He read it again, slower this time, like the meaning might change if he looked at it from a different angle.
> AVOMA:
After what?
The typing indicator popped up almost immediately.
Three dots.
They stayed longer than usual.
> NEO:
After you’re done.
Avoma’s jaw tightened slightly. He leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting on the desk, eyes narrowing at the screen like he could stare the intent out of the message.
He thought of all the answers he could give.
The simple one.
The professional one.
The one that didn’t invite more questions.
He chose that one.
> AVOMA:
You move on.
The wind rattled the panel harder, the sound sharp in the quiet room.
Three dots appeared again.
They disappeared.
They came back.
> NEO:
You make it sound easy.
Avoma leaned back in his chair, letting it creak under his weight. He stared up at the ceiling, at the faint shadow of the fan blades above him, slowly turning in the low light.
> AVOMA:
It usually is.
The response came slower this time, like it had to push through something first.
> NEO:
“Usually” isn’t “always.”
Avoma’s fingers hovered over the keys.
He typed a word.
Deleted it.
Typed another.
Deleted that too.
The wind outside softened, the panel settling into a quiet, uneven tapping again.
Avoma didn’t respond.
He pulled up the target’s address again.
The cursor blinked once at the top of the file, like it was waiting for him to say something. He didn’t. He just scrolled, slow and deliberate, eyes tracing over the same details he’d already memorized.
Top floor.
Corner unit.
One window that faced the city.
The building layout appeared beside it — a grainy overhead shot, rooftops and streets reduced to pale lines and dark blocks. The window was marked with a small red square. A quiet little target on a loud, living map.
Avoma swallowed.
The file photo his client had sent earlier loaded slowly this time, the progress bar crawling across the bottom of the screen like it was dragging its feet on purpose.
First came the blur of color.
Then the shape of a face.
When it finally sharpened, Avoma’s breath hitched.
Because the face staring back at him wasn’t a stranger.
It was Neo.
The same Neo who had messaged him at 1:09 AM.
The same Neo who had paid without haggling.
The same Neo who laughed too loud in the wrong moments and went quiet when no one was supposed to notice.
The same Neo who had been his friend — and, for longer than he liked to admit, something a little more in the back of his mind.
Avoma didn’t move.
The room felt smaller, like the walls had leaned in just a bit. The hum of his laptop fan suddenly sounded too loud. Even the wind outside seemed to hold its breath.
He stared at the screen for a long, silent moment, searching for anything — a mismatched timestamp, a corrupted file, a detail that could prove this was some kind of mistake.
There wasn’t one.
“...You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
The words came out quiet, almost hollow.
He checked the metadata.
The timestamps.
The sender ID.
Everything lined up.
The payment record sat in the corner of his screen, cold and undeniable.
But the timestamps didn’t lie.
Neither did the picture.
Neo had hired him.
And Neo was the target.
---
Avoma didn’t call it off.
Not yet.
The cursor hovered over the chat box, blinking like a quiet dare. His fingers rested on the keyboard, unmoving, while his eyes flicked back to the open file on his second screen — Neo’s face, frozen in a moment he didn’t remember taking.
His chest felt tight. Not panic. Not fear.
Something heavier.
He closed the file, then reopened it. Like that would change anything.
It didn’t.
The rain outside had turned into a steady downpour, water streaking down the glass in uneven lines. The city lights beyond his window blurred into soft halos of color, distant and unreal. It felt like he was watching the world from underwater.
Avoma exhaled slowly through his nose.
If he stopped now, everything would end in silence. Questions unanswered. A conversation cut clean in half.
So instead, he kept talking to Neo.
He clicked back into the chat. The last message still sat there, simple and unassuming, like it hadn’t just unraveled his entire night.
> NEO:
He’s a problem.
Avoma didn’t type right away. He let the moment stretch. Let the weight of what he knew — and what Neo didn’t — settle into his bones.
Then, finally, he moved.
> AVOMA:
I’ll be there tonight.
The words looked wrong on the screen. Too casual. Too clean for what they carried.
He hit send before he could think better of it.
The reply came almost instantly, the typing indicator barely flashing before disappearing.
> NEO:
Okay.
Just one word.
No hesitation. No question.
Avoma leaned back in his chair, staring at it, wondering what Neo meant by it — relief, resolve, or something far more dangerous.
The rain kept falling.
The clock on his screen ticked forward.
And somewhere, on the top floor of a quiet building on the east side, Neo waited.
---
11:56 PM
The city was loud beneath Avoma.
Not the kind of loud that came from voices or laughter — but the restless kind. The hum of traffic far below, the distant blare of a horn, the whisper of wind slipping through narrow alleys and between towering buildings like it was searching for something it couldn’t quite find.
The wind howled as he climbed the fire escape of Neo’s apartment complex, tugging at the hem of his jacket and pushing cold air down the back of his neck. The metal ladder rattled softly under his boots, each step echoing in the quiet like a warning he chose to ignore.
Higher.
Higher.
The top floor window was open.
Light spilled out into the dark like a quiet invitation — warm against the cold blue of the night, a thin golden line cutting across the concrete and steel.
Avoma paused on the ledge.
Just for a second.
Inside, Neo’s room was dim. Not dark — but muted, like the brightness had been turned down on everything. Messy, but not in a careless way. More like the kind of mess that came from someone who kept starting things and never quite had the energy to finish them.
Posters half peeling off the walls, corners curling. A desk cluttered with unfinished things — a notebook left open, a pen rolled onto its side, a phone face-down like it didn’t want to be looked at. A chair turned toward the open window.
And there — at the center of it all —
Neo sat at the ledge of the window.
Legs dangling over the empty space far beneath him, sneakers swinging slightly with the pull of the wind. His hands rested on the frame, fingers curled into the wood like he needed something solid to hold onto. His hoodie hung loose on his shoulders, fabric fluttering gently with every gust.
The city lights painted the edges of him in gold and shadow.
Avoma’s chest tightened.
Not with fear.
With something closer to recognition.
He stepped inside.
The floor creaked softly under his weight.
“Neo.”
Neo flinched — just a little. Not a full jump, but enough to show he’d been somewhere else before the sound pulled him back.
He didn’t turn right away.
The wind filled the space between them, threading through the silence.
“Av… oma?” Neo said quietly, like he was testing the name to see if it was real.
Avoma swallowed. His throat felt dry.
“You shouldn’t be doing that.”
Neo finally looked at him.
There was no surprise in his eyes anymore.
Just something tired. Something soft and worn down at the edges, like a smile that had been used too many times and forgotten how to mean it.
“Wow,” Neo said, voice light but thin, “wasn’t expecting any guests. At least not you.”
Avoma shook his head. The movement felt slow, heavy.
“You hired me.”
Neo blinked.
Once.
Twice.
“What?”
“I know it’s you,” Avoma said quietly. “You’re my client… and my target.”
The words settled between them.
Neo stared at him, the wind threading through the silence like it was trying to carry the moment away.
“I didn’t know it was you,” Neo whispered.
“No shit, Sherlock. I was anonymous,” Avoma shot back.
The sharpness in his own voice surprised him. He stopped, took a breath. Then another. The edge softened as he moved closer, slow, careful, like one wrong step might send everything crashing down.
“I figured it out days ago.”
“Then why are you here?” Neo asked.
Avoma stopped just in front of him.
Close enough to feel the cold coming off the open window. Close enough to see the faint shadows under Neo’s eyes.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said. “I won’t let you.”
Neo laughed softly.
It didn’t sound happy.
“That’s a bold statement.”
Avoma reached out — not to grab, not to pull — just enough to rest his hand over Neo’s wrist on the window frame. His fingers were warm against Neo’s cold skin.
“Please,” he said. “Step back in. It’s cold out here.”
Neo hesitated.
The wind tugged at his hoodie again, like it was trying to make the choice for him.
Then a hint of a smile cracked his lips.
“You’re horrible at your job, by the way.”
Slowly, carefully, he shifted his weight back inside.
“Oh, shut up,” Avoma replied — but he didn’t let go.
If anything, his grip tightened just a little, like he was afraid Neo might disappear if he did.
The window stayed open.
But the space between them closed.