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Horikawa’s got himself wrapped around Kanesada’s arm, pressed up like an overly clingy girlfriend might. “I may have to kill them.” He says, just quiet enough that no one but Kanesada can hear.

Kanesada would laugh at the strange disconnect between how delicate he looks and how merciless his first plan for protecting him is, but it’s more terrifying that anything – a totally blank face, hell, the ghost of a smile. Whoever’s after him must be really eager and dangerous if his father’s brought in someone he might consider a bit of a monster, really. “Is this any different to your normal plan of action?” He replies, throat dry.

“Not really,” says Horikawa. He flashes a smile a business man who’s been staring at him for the past few minutes, who immediately looks away. Kanesada scrunches his nose up: Horikawa’s disguise as a gorgeous woman seemed to be working a little too well. He might be getting more attention walking around with him than had Kanesada just attended the party on his own. “You just seem like the soft type.”

“’Soft’?” He takes genuine offence to that. “Excuse me.”

“Sorry, you’re right,” Horikawa corrects himself, but it doesn’t seem very sincere, considering he’s smiling brightly as he does. Or, maybe, his dedication to his disguise was just that much. “Soft’s not really the word. Innocent, I guess. Have you ever bled a day in your life?”

“I cut myself while cooking once,” Kanesada says. “Does that count?”

“Have you ever seen a slit throat?”

Wincing briefly he says, “No.”

Horikawa smiles at him, bright and warm but Kanesada feels incredibly cold instead. He feels like this is the kind of person who, if someone else was to offer better pay to kill Kanesada he’d turn around and stab Kanesada in the gut in a heartbeat, no strings attached. “You might want to shut your eyes, then, if it comes to it.”

“Are you really a bodyguard?”

“Bodyguard, assassin,” Horikawa says airily. “It’s the same, isn’t it? All I have to do is protect you. The only difference is I’d be happy to stab a few backs in the process.”

Kanesada scrunches his nose. “Charming.” And Horikawa starts laughing, a dainty little sound from the back of his throat.

Horikawa’s dress flows gently as they walk through the crowd. He’s dressed as a woman, and honestly had Kanesada not been introduced to him beforehand and known already he was a man he’d be very shocked to discover so. His face is just soft enough to look like a young woman’s, bright eyes, plush lips, and apparently a master of disguise because at a glance he cannot tell Horikawa’s boobs are fake; and then he presses a little closer to fit through between the path Kanesada’s taken and an idle party goer and his leg brushes up against him and he feels the handle of the knife that rests on his thigh.

He’s got a knife there and Kanesada had seen him put a gun in his fake, padded bra before the two of them had walked out and he thinks no matter how pretty, no matter how disguised, Horikawa absolutely does not shit around. He’s kind of terrified of him, actually.

“Do you see anything suspicious?” Kanesada asks him.

Horikawa casts his gaze around, appraising the party. “I’ll tell you if I do,” he says. He doesn’t actually say, ‘don’t ask on your own’ but Kanesada hears it all the same. He supposes he should leave it to the hired professional to say things about whether or not something’s got his life in danger on his own.

“So I just stand here looking pretty?” Kanesada grumbles. He picks up an olive from the table of food next to them and pops it into his mouth, passing one to Horikawa too when he spots him eyeing them.

Horikawa flashes his smile at him. “Bored?” he asks, the olive going in his mouth after. He even chews daintily. He sure hopes he’s worth his almost criminal fee, because he doesn’t exactly paint a frightening picture.

He shrugs. “Not bored. Just... disappointed. Kasen made it sound like these people were seriously desperate to kill me, yet here I am, out in the open, and no one’s tried anything yet.”

He misses the flash of annoyance across Horikawa’s face, because he quickly covers it up with his smile again. Master of disguise, indeed. “Do you want someone to kill you?”

“I’m just saying! If you’re going to hype something up so much, at least deli-“

His sentence is cut off with a loud crash, and the lights go off. All around, people start screaming.

“Well,” he hears Horikawa from next to him. There’s the unmistakable sound of his sleek dress rustling, and the sound of something unsheathing cuts through the surrounding pandemonium. Something is happening. Kanesada clings onto him. “Looks like they’re delivering.”

Kanesada’s eyes haven’t adjusted to the sudden darkness yet and when he feels something start pulling him he follows it, for lack of anything better to do. Their grip is harsh and crude and Kanesada only just begins wondering if it’s actually Horikawa when what is unmistakably a gunshot rings and someone to his side falls with a groan.

“Kane-san,” He hears Horikawa say, like a knife cutting through the chaos. His voice is frigid cold and sends shivers down his spine. He tells him to duck and he does on instinct as the person who’s got a hold of him slacks on his grip and then the person who’s holding him goes down when another gunshot rings and screams erupt again in response.

Retrospectively Kanesada will realise this took mere moments, from when the person to his side first fell from when the person in front of him fell.

His eyes adjust and realises the person who now lies on the ground, a precise bullet hole in his head and bleeding almost artfully on the ground is definitely not Horikawa. He looks much too old to be Horikawa, a scraggly barely shaven beard and now-dull eyes that aren’t nearly pretty enough. He’s never seen this person in his life. His heart is racing and shit, he’s terrified.

A kidnapping attempt but Horikawa had executed them with reflexes that would make the even hungriest dog in the face of meat look slow. Horikawa approaches slowly and the second person – disabled with a shot to the leg – tries to crawl away.

Horikawa’s face is clinically, calculatingly blank when he lifts his knife up. The lights still aren’t on and everything’s still in chaos but his eyes seem electric blue anyway and the knife glints in the starlight streaming in around the canopy.

Kanesada shuts his eyes. He knows the threat has passed when there’s a hallow thump. When Horikawa offers a hand to help him up it’s slick with blood and Kanesada keeps his eyes shut the entire time he briskly, silently leads him away from the scene and alerts Kasen about what’s happened.

--

The assassin calls himself Horikawa. He doesn’t say his last name because, of course, and Kanesada gets the idea that Horikawa might not even be his real name - assassins have to keep as many personal details hidden as they can for their own safety. He says that last part with a mysterious tilt of his lips like he’s joking but also something about it makes Kanesada certain that he’s not, and that he’s probably speaking from experience.

Kanesada finds himself wondering what an assassin could be scared of. Another assassin? The law, maybe. For someone who works so hard to keep as in line with it all as Nagasone is he sure was quick to hire someone who traipsed the line of lawful behaviour with as much finesse as a particularly illegal and deadly dancer.

Nagasone tells him he’s not going to be permanent: just until they can find someone a little more suited for the job. Kanesada wonders why until Horikawa brightly introduces himself as an assassin (“Oh,” says Kanesada), the best of the best, trained since young. Nagasone corrects him and tells him he’s a body guard, which gets him a fun little smile and Horikawa obliging him: he reintroduces himself as a bodyguard, the best of the best, trained since young and Kanesada has his doubts but he thinks, alright, he’s not an asshole at least. It’s always good if the person who’d die for you has a good personality, since they’re pretty much going to be stuck together, right?

He’s a whole head shorter than Kanesada. He most certainly does not look particularly deadly, with round cheeks and bright bubbly eyes and the smallest perpetual rose-tinted blush to his face. He looks more like he should still be in high school, really; is he even any older than Kanesada?

Of course, he can’t actually answer any of these things: Kanesada muses all this out loud and Horikawa’s smile goes from fun to cryptic, and he says something about answering these questions not being in his contract. At Kanesada’s pout, he laughs. Everything about him is completely at odds of what he’d expect a bodyguard to be like, ignoring the fact that he’s not entirely one.

When he next sees Horikawa, he’s in sleek suit that makes him look a little more professional but still not particularly intimidating. He says as much: “You don’t look very good.”

Apparently doubting his skills is a quick way to earn Horikawa’s disapproval, because something a little dark flickers in his eyes before he goes back to beaming at him. “Nagasone had this suit made specially.”

“I meant your skills,” says Kanesada, pressing the topic. “You look awfully cute.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Horikawa tells him, darkly. There’s no effort made to conceal it, this time. “So as not to start our relationship off on a bad foot.”

It sounds like a bit of a warning. Maybe that’s when he starts being afraid of him.

--

When he gets off the phone to Nagasone Horikawa turns to him. “Nagasone wants you back right now.”

“You sound like you’re not planning to come with me,” Kanesada says. He’s got himself sat on the ground, ignoring the dirt of the alleyway. His legs are shaking. If Horikawa thinks – notices, Kanesada frowns - how he was all bark and no bite, he doesn’t show it. “Is that a good idea?”

“They were pretty... not good about what they were doing,” Horikawa tells him. He says it like he’s not really speaking to him but more just thinking out loud. “Only two people? Granted, had I not been quick enough they might have gotten away with it.”

They weren’t counting on you being so quick to jump to your guns and kill them, thinks Kanesada but he absolutely does not say his thoughts out loud. Instead he releases a breath, and says, “Maybe there are more around.”

“If they were, they’d be positioned outside the exits,” says Horikawa. “But there wasn’t much resistance to us escaping.”

“So?”

Horikawa shrugs. “I don’t know.”

Kanesada puts his head in his hands. “So you can kill but you can’t think. What are you, a dog?”

He’s not entirely sure how he was expecting Horikawa to react, but laughing is most definitely not it. “Who said I can’t think? There’s just not enough information, is all.”

“Brainstorm something, then,” Kanesada says. He’s only dimly aware that he’s panicking and looking for answers where he can’t get them, because there’s still blood on Horikawa’s hands and a stain where he’d wiped the worst of it off on his dress, telling and drying an awful brown against the gorgeous crimson and shit, two people had died right in front of him.

Horikawa dissects him with a glance. Kanesada feels a shiver travel down his spine when he realises he knows everything he’s thinking. He’d insulted him over being trigger happy but then he thinks, how sharp a mind must you have to pull a trigger in a heartbeat?

Then Horikawa says, “Maybe there are multiple groups after your life. I don’t imagine they’ll strike at the same time: they want you individually, after all. This could just be a more amateur group: you are pretty high profile, and much easier to get to than Kasen.”

He’s playing along. He’s an unpredictable monster who doesn’t take having his skills insulted lightly and he’s trying to make him feel better by coming up with whatever wild scenarios he can think of.

He doesn’t really have any reason for asking, “did you have to kill them?” but he does, all the same.

Horikawa looks at him, almost appraisingly. With his head cocked to the side almost cutely, the dissonance between his soft features bathed in moonlight and the sentence that comes out of his mouth sharp enough to cut like his knife he says, “Of course I had to kill them.”

“Maybe we could have tied them up,” Kanesada tries. “Tried to find out who they were.”

Horikawa deflects it like a precise gunshot hitting the bulls-eye. “They’d be ready for that possibility. Most of them have suicide pills on them.” When Kanesada looks at him horrified he shrugs and says, “Did you think this was a game? This is a dirty business. Either you kill and get rich, or you die in poverty.”

Kanesada tries, again. “And you? Where do you lie on this paradigm?”

Horikawa smiles at him. “The former, of course. I have no intention of dying.”

“Even though you’re my bodyguard?”

From the street, he hears the familiar jingle of Nagasone’s phone; the signal of safety, calling them out. Horikawa smiles a Cheshire-cat smile as he gives him his hand to help him up. “I’m an assassin,” he tells him. “Need I remind you.”

Kanesada has his breath taken away, in terrified anticipation. His legs are still shaking and Horikawa doesn’t let his hand go, like an invasive plant he’s tripping over.

--

He’s supposed to be masquerading as his new wife – when Nagasone suggests he might make a better girl than a boy for a disguise Horikawa just laughs and says he gets that a lot – because, Horikawa says, the less regular an appearance he has the better for his later jobs, and he doesn’t want to start getting plastic surgery just yet. Kanesada asks him why he’s so alright with showing his face, even though he’s concealing his gender, and Horikawa tells him that this is the first time he’s ever conducted a job out in the daylight.

No, he’s more used to sniping from a distance. That would be why his point-blank and other near-range gun hand is so shaky, he laughs, and Kanesada immediately thinks of the stunning shot directly to the brain that had killed his attempted kidnapper in a second, that Horikawa had managed to aim and shoot within seconds of having lost track of Kanesada. He doesn’t tell him that. He wants to comment as little as possible on his skill.

Anyway concealing his gender means he gets to play the surprise card if he ever accepts a job like this again and seconds of hesitance can mean the difference between getting a bullet to the head and shooting a bullet to the head; Horikawa comments that normally he wouldn’t be dealing with people who would give pause to that sort of thing, but vigilantes and hackers can be a diverse bunch and it’s best to take any advantage you can.

Of course, the disguise only really works once, and Horikawa hadn’t managed to find any signs of buggers back in the canopy, nor any details of organisation from the corpses when he’d returned before the police had arrived on the scene and forced him out, meaning if anyone from the organisation was there they’ll probably be ready for him, next time. He says this in a bit of an annoyed voice, and the sentiment ‘this is why I hate working out in the open’ goes unsaid but Kanesada hears it all the same.

Kanesada asks him why he took this job then, if it was so wildly different to what he was used to. Horikawa laughs again and rests his head on his arm and says, “Once they showed me the picture of you I simply had to.”

With a grunt Kanesada says, “Be serious.”

“Well, alright,” Horikawa says. He thinks he hears a bit of a pout in his voice, actually. “I’d actually been given an offer to assassinate you, a few hours before.”

His heart stops. “Oh. Why’d you decide to take this, then?” He thinks about his comment about how he doesn’t intend to die for him. He can’t understand why he’d take a job about protecting a life when you’re so used to snuffing them out.

With a thoughtful note in his voice Horikawa says, “This one paid much better. I figured it would be fine if I kept myself as concealed as I’m doing now. Horikawa might not even be my real name, you realise,” Horikawa tells him idly.

It makes perfect sense for an assassin to keep even their most fundamental details hidden. “’Might’?”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” Horikawa says. “Anyway, why would I give my full real name out? That makes it much easier for people who want me dead to find me.”

“Can you tell me your full real name?” Kanesada asks curiously.

“I can’t. It’d jeopardise my life if I did.” In a quiet, softer voice: “Secrecy is all I have.”

The thought that he must be incredibly lonely only strikes him when Horikawa leaves his side for a moment to discuss something with Nagasone and where he’s absent he feels cold and all alone.

--

He’s at another party when they strike again. They’re outside and down the strangely empty road and Horikawa has his eyes on his phone for a split second to call Nagasone when someone shoots him.

Horikawa yelps but aside from that seems to barely react – a telling bloodstain starts spreading across his hip but he slaps a hand there and pulls his gun out; shoots; misses. Immediately after hitting nothing he’s frantically casting his gaze around, fumbling and passing the phone off to Kanesada.

“Call Nagasone,” he says, through gritted teeth. “Go back inside and call him.”

From the alleyway nearby they hear, “Aha. They are fake.” When the person steps out of the shadows there’s an almost gleeful look on his face, as though he’s meeting a celebrity of some sort, and he’s got his gun poised on Horikawa. “That’s one hell of a disguise.”

Horikawa immediately has his gun pointed at the second assassin. Neither of them shoot, and neither of them even shake. They could kill each other in a second; all that’s holding them back is themselves. “You’re awfully bold,” says Horikawa. There’s an air of suspicion in his voice: if you could shoot either of us, why me?

The assassin shrugs. “I just wanted to see if your reactions were really as good as the reports said they were.” Out of the darkness now Kanesada can see him; he’s got navy hair that blends with the evening sky and sharp, blue eyes. “And they are. I was really shooting to kill you.”

Horikawa narrows his eyes. “You’re with the same people from the last attempt?”

“No,” the assassin says. Only when he rests his free hand on his hip does Kanesada realise he’s got a sword – really and truly, what a ridiculous thing to be carrying around but he doesn’t want to see it drawn - resting on his hip as well. Frantically he gets Nagasone’s number and calls it; the only one in Horikawa’s contact list, precisely for moments like this. “But they were easy to find and get their report from. I figured they wouldn’t mind if I-“

Without warning Horikawa takes a shot. The assassins’ reflexes are nothing to sneeze at either; he doesn’t exactly dodge but his face curls up in pain and his gun drops to the floor with a clack as the hand that holds goes limp and the other flies to clasp it on instinct.

There’s blood. Dripping from Horikawa’s side and the assassin’s hand. They stare at each other, calmly breathing in unison, not at all flustered, both wounded in an exchange that took minutes. Nagasone picks up, speaking cheerfully: “Hey, you ready?”

“Help,” Kanesada says. He’s whispering on instinct, as if it isn’t deathly silent around and he isn’t the only thing any of them can hear. “You have to get over here right now.”

“What?” Nagasone’s voice is scratchy across the receiver but the panic is audible all the same. “No; no questions, we’re on our way.”

Meanwhile: “What’s your name, anyway?” says the assassin.

“I don’t give my name out,” Horikawa says back.

“I’m Yasusada.” says the assassin. “Yamatonokami Yasusada.”

Horikawa keeps his gaze locked on him suspiciously. He can shoot at any time but this one seems fine with giving out information; he might as well ride it while he can. “That’s your real name?”

He shrugs. “Yeah. I don’t really mind people finding that stuff out.”

“I have contacts who could find you with that, you realise.”

Yasusada grins a shark-sharp, wide smile. “Let them come. I don’t mind. Your name, now?”

He sounds like a bit of a child, really, fingering the hilt of his sword that rests at his hip and Horikawa narrows his eyes. And they call him the monster.

Horikawa cocks his gun. “Affiliation.”

“I can’t tell you that,” Yasusada says. “That’s too much.”

Even if fake, a name is the best thing to get out of anyone in the business, Horikawa thinks. He’s not exactly satisfied with how the exchange has gone but he’s about to pull the trigger anyway – Yasusada’s face is curiously flat, almost like he’s forcing himself to keep it blank, Horikawa thinks – when suddenly Yasusada falls forward with a garbled, “shit” and Horikawa hears the bang only after the searing pain shoots up his arm.

He gasps and ends up dropping his gun. He tries to flex his hand but his fingers won’t listen.

Another one stalked out of the shadows, this time confident to Yasusada’s blasé entrance and are those heels? This one keeps his gun on Horikawa and a heeled foot planted in Yasusada’s back. If Yasusada feels any discomfort he’s doing an incredible show of not showing it. “Just to say, I’m not with this guy,” he says, a twisted sort of introduction. “I’m here for the kill behind you all the same, though.”

Kanesada’s frozen behind him. Good; he supposes even if that makes it harder for him to keep him safe without sustaining damage to himself Kanesada running away or making any sort of movement is probably the quickest way for him to wind up bleeding and dead on the floor. In his personal experience the ones with the loudest entrances are also the most trigger happy. “And you are?”

“I’m not an idiot like this one,” he says, digging his feet into Yasusada’s back. To his credit, Yasusada doesn’t give him the pleasure of responding. “I’m not telling you. I’ll keep Yamatonokami Yasusada in mind, though.”

“Great,” says Yasusada. “Thanks for eavesdropping.”

The brown-haired one rolls his eyes. “It’s not eavesdropping if you’re having a conversation in a public place.”

“It’s eavesdropping if you’re not welcome,” says Yasusada.

“You’re not welcome,” the brown-haired one grumbles. He turns back to Horikawa. “And neither are you. Look, I’m not cruel; I’ll let you go if you let me put a bullet through the big guy behind yous’ head.”

From somewhere around them, engines sound. Nagasone is so close. Horikawa does not want to die.

The two of them are so focused on each other that neither of them see Yasusada reach behind him; by the time the brown-haired one’s realised he’s moved Yasusada’s grabbed his leg and pulled. He shrieks indelicately as he goes down and in the next moment Yasusada’s back on his feet with his sword whipped out (he holds it shakily, Horikawa notes; he’d shot the hand he was best with); as the brown-haired one scrambles back up and Yasusada dives for his gun Horikawa takes Kanesada’s hand and runs.

He hears, “Shit!” and multiple gunshots going off as the two of them scramble to follow them.

When he tells Kanesada to follow him he’s deathly silent and does so, without a word.

--

His hand is busted, but he’s ambidextrous, so really, it’s fine. Kanesada has no idea if he’s telling the truth, but Horikawa doesn’t seem interested in saying otherwise, so he lets it go.

“I feel like I jinxed it,” Horikawa says, sighing. “There really are multiple people after you.” He’s already up and about, already coming up with plans and back up plans – the only way Kanesada can tell he’d been shot the night before is because he’s got the bandages to show it. They’re clinically white and Horikawa can’t move his right hand and if anything so much as grazes his hip he winces horribly, like someone’s shone a light directly in his eyes. Still, he’s refused to take anything even resembling a recovery period; Kanesada has the feeling he won’t listen to him if he tells him to chill out, so he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t say a lot of things to Horikawa.

Kanesada stares out of the window – staring at the cup of coffee in front of him is really only making him feel worse. He didn’t sleep very well, the night past. “Did you find anything on that Yasusada guy?”

“There’s stuff on him on the internet,” Horikawa says. He, on the other hand, takes a huge swig of his coffee. “Headshots and everything; even style of assassination. He’s really not trying to hide himself. But there’s nothing on any sort of affiliation, if he even has one. He was with that last attempts’ group but with no name I couldn’t tell you if they were a proper group or just a trio, or...” He trials off, staring at the ceiling.

“What about the other one?” The brown-haired one who looked like he should have been at the club down the street than there, pointing a gun at them.

Horikawa shakes his head. “I’ve no idea about him. Just that they’re not working together, which complicates things.”

“What are the chances they’ll end up getting rid of each other?” Kanesada asks.

“If they’re idiots, that’s what’ll happen,” says Horikawa, sipping from his mug. “If they’re clever, though, they’ll team up.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” muses Kanesada, more than a little tiredly.

Horikawa shrugs. “It should be fine. We might need more people, though. I underestimated how difficult it is to fight back when you’re protecting someone.”

Kanesada looks down. He flexes his fingers a few times; thinks about how Horikawa had reached for his coffee earlier with his busted hand and almost knocked it over; thinks about how Horikawa had winced sitting down because it shifted the wound on his hip. All because he couldn’t do a damn thing. He doesn’t think much about it when he asks him to, “teach me how to shoot.”

He thinks he should be insulted, the way Horikawa stares at him, particularly fish-eyed. “... You?” There’s so much disbelief in his voice that Kanesada has to stop himself from growling at him.

But he reins it in, keeps himself calm. The last thing he needs is to get pissed off at the person who basically gate keeps whether he’s alive or dead at any given event; to get pissed off at the person who was the only reason he survived last night. “Yes, me. If I can fight back I can help you, right? I hate just... standing behind you, looking pretty.”

Horikawa stays quiet. Then he says, “Have you ever hurt someone intentionally before?”

Kanesada shakes his head. He thinks there’s some sort of significance in how Horikawa looks at him almost like he envies him.

Horikawa turns back to the notepad he’s scribbling down on. “Then now’s not the time to start.”

“Please.”

Horikawa doesn’t look up.

“I’ll pay you extra.”

His gaze turns to him. “Desperation isn’t a nice look on you.”

“And those bandages don’t look nice on you either,” Kanesada shoots back.

Horikawa keeps his eyes on him. They’re ice-cold, the eyes of someone who’s lost something, and for a moment Kanesada thinks it goes beyond this conversation.

“You’re incredibly difficult to work with,” Horikawa says, quietly, but he puts his notepad to the side all the same.

--

The gun is heavier than he expected. Kanesada holds it, waves it around a little. “You kept this in your fake boobs?”

Horikawa, at least, looks amused. “My breasts are a force to be reckoned with, clearly.”

He inspects it a bit, poking around the weapon – that’s the part you pull back to shoot, that’s the muzzle, that’s the handle...

It feels odd in his hands, when he holds it like he’s seen Horikawa holding it. He supposes it’s just something he has to get used to. He wonders if Horikawa still has this strangely reluctant feeling when holding it.

“Do I shoot the can?” Kanesada asks, his throat feeling dry. He’s got no intention of backing out now, at least; his pride won’t let him, even though his heart races with something that isn’t entirely anticipation, but isn’t fear either. It’s a strange chimera of the two that just leaves him feeling a little sick.

“Yes,” says Horikawa. “That’s how I learned, at least. But the impact is always stronger than you think it’ll be. I’ll help you this first time.”

Something hitches in his throat when he feels Horikawa’s hands wrapping around his own and his body presses up against his back. He’s warm, but horribly small against him; his back feels a wonderful pressure as he leans against him but the back of his neck is freezing and he hates it, hates... something. He can feel Horikawa’s breath, calm and controlled, against his arm where his head bobs, his eyes looking directly between them and following the muzzle of the gun. Kanesada hates that he can’t feel him against his neck; he’s so small, so horribly small. The gun feels heavy in his hands and he wonders if Horikawa had struggled, picking it up his first time.

Horikawa’s fingers graze across his knuckles, like the flutter of a butterfly; not at all the touch of a killer. In a soft voice Horikawa says, “Whenever you’re ready. I’m here.”

He takes a deep breath. His heart is thudding against his chest. God, he feels sick. Bang. He missed the can entirely and drops the gun when the recoil hits him and he yelps. His eyes are squeezed so shut it almost hurts to open them again when the light floods back into his sight.

Horikawa doesn’t say anything for a moment. He doesn’t move, either, from where he’s leaning. It’s warm, very warm, pleasantly so; his blood thrums. “Well, you didn’t fall over. Better than my first try.”

Kanesada hums. Alright; it was a shock to the system but he’s fine, otherwise. His hands are lighter without the gun in his hands; when he picks them back up they immediately feel heavy again and Kanesada begins to regret this, thinking about not being able to shoot in the heat of things because it’s too heavy, or maybe there’s something else. Maybe he’s just too scared; Horikawa doesn’t say anything like that but he thinks it in his voice anyway, cold and mercilessly taunting.

Even when Horikawa’s put his hands back on his and he sees the bandage, sees the slight limp claw to his hand, Kanesada’s still scared of him. He thinks he’s scared of a lot of things, suddenly; not least the way he feels so cosy when Horikawa leans on his back and, in a soft voice, tells him to shoot again.

He wonders if it’s possible to be nurturing while in the same breath telling someone to kill. He wonders if Horikawa knows what an enigma he is. He wonders if Horikawa’s lonely.

Bang. The can is still upright, but he doesn’t drop the gun this time. He’s shut his eyes again, though.

Horikawa tells him to keep his eyes open. Soft; gentle. In a voice he might reassure a crying child he tells Kanesada to imagine the can is someone who’s going to kill him. Shoot to kill. Don’t hesitate; don’t lose your nerve; don’t close your eyes. Never close your eyes, because you might not open them again if you do. Look at what’s going to kill you and kill them first.

Kanesada wonders if Horikawa’s talking to him or himself. He wonders if it matters. He shuts his eyes again when he shoots and misses again but that’s okay, Horikawa tells him, because you get used to it eventually.

His heart feels as heavy as his hands. He wonders if this is how Horikawa feels, all the time.

--

Yasusada decides he hates working with Kashuu pretty much immediately, but he doesn’t want to say anything because he was the one to force him into this arrangement.

His life for his help. They’d lost the target, and Yasusada had immediately turned on Kashuu. I won’t kill you if you won’t kill me; we kill Izuminokami together and split the profit. He doesn’t tell him that he’d have run him through with his sword without a second thought if his dominant hand wasn’t completely unusable, and Kashuu doesn’t ask; he’d stared at him for a minute, appraising him, (Yasusada wonders if he’d seen his non-dominant hand shaking from trying to hold his sword up at his neck. If he has, he hasn’t said anything yet) and then said, “Deal.”

Of course, Yasusada had been crossing his fingers. He’s going to kill him the second he kills Kanesada; he’s absolutely certain Kashuu’s planning this too, which is why he doesn’t let him out of his sight. He hasn’t touched his gun, yet, but it’s only a matter of time before he lets something slip, and Yasusada is determined to be ready, because he’s not about to die in some shitty street from some random asshole while in the middle of a commission that should be frightfully easy, were it not for the complications that keep cropping up.

Which leaves them here: in a dirty, run down apartment they’d lock picked and decided to crash in, sitting around the table covered in coffee marks and stale crumbs and a dollop of sauce (that, when he tries out of curiosity, discovers is very off ketchup and not blood and he fucking tastes it in his mouth for three afters afterwards), about three second away from ripping each others’ hair out of their scalps at any one time.

“I’m telling you,” Yasusada’s saying. He’s gotten to his wild hand gestures point, fully aware of how ridiculous he looks but Kashuu is just that annoying. “I got the hand he was holding his gun in. He’s disabled, there’s no point in camping when we can just dash in, kill them, and run back out.”

“Maybe he’s ambidextrous, or trained with both hands,” Kashuu retorts. Yasusada rolls his eyes; of course this one would be pedantic over every detail. “Don’t get snippy with me! It’s a legitimate point.”

Yasusada narrows his eyes. “If you’re a sniper why did you burst in last night?”

“Did you take a look at the surroundings?” Kashuu asks him. Yasusada doesn’t do him the pleasure of responding because, well, no, he hadn’t; he’d been expecting just test the reflexes he’d heard about and then kill both of them. He hadn’t been expecting Kashuu to come in all gung-ho halfway through and he refuses to accept that was his fault. “There wasn’t anywhere to camp. I was going to just shoot them from the alley way as they passed, but then I heard engines and decided to just go for it.”

“You aren’t very professional,” notes Yasusada.

This time it’s Kashuu’s time to roll his eyes. “Right; the one who thought it was alright to abandon the target for the bodyguard when he had a clear shot is telling me I’m not professional.”

Yasusada doesn’t try to smirk but he feels his lips curl upwards all the same. Kashuu’s eyes darken; obviously they view this very, very differently. “You have to get what fun out of your job you can, right?”

Kashuu doesn’t look particularly pleased with that answer. “You’re insane.”

“And you’re going to die young.”

“By your hand?” asks Kashuu.

That makes him smirks, now, showing his teeth. “Do you really want to know the answer to that?”

Kashuu doesn’t reply. They glare at each other for a second, assessing each other. Yasusada is ready, should he reach for his gun.

He doesn’t. Kashuu just sighs and, painstakingly dragging his hand through his hair, says, “back to this, before I go back on my word.”

He taps the scrawling sitting on the table. “Alright,” Yasusada says slowly. “We can do it your way.”

Kashuu raises his eyebrows. “With information and not being a total blood knight over this?”

“Sure.” Yasusada leans back, fixing Kashuu with a dry sort of look. He doesn’t want to look flustered in front of him. He doesn’t want to look much of anything in front of him, really, and Kashuu doesn’t seem to want to either. That’s fine; this is a professional, mutually beneficial relationship, after all. The less feeling the better. “And if you don’t want to, I’ll go get the information of where they’ll be a week from now for us.”

He expects Kashuu to protest; to voice suspicions; to flat out reject what he says and demand they go together. He doesn’t expect what he actually does: he looks at him and then, starting to rummage through his bag idly, says, “That sounds good.”

Yasusada blinks. “It does?”

“You didn’t suggest that without the intention of actually following through, did you?”

“No, of course not,” Yasusada says, getting up. “I’ll do it. Sun’s going down, anyway.”

As he’s walking out he hears, “Don’t go too crazy,” and smiles to himself.

--

Kanesada manages to get the can a couple of times in a row, and he doesn’t have his eyes shut anymore, so Horikawa decides he can probably take a step back now and just watch him. He looks a little nervous when Horikawa takes his hands off his so Horikawa shoots him his best smile and tells him he’ll be right over there, so keep going, you’ll get it eventually.

He gives him a bit of a cryptic look that Horikawa can’t quite decipher at first before turning back. When he tries to shoot the can on his own for the first time and drops the gun with something just bordering on a yell Horikawa thinks he’d been pitying him, with that look. Kanesada isn’t nearly as good at hiding his thoughts as he thinks he is.

Anyway he’s shooting – Horikawa catches him swear every time he does something wrong, adorable - and from behind he hears footsteps. Turning around he sees Nagasone, walking up to them.

“How’s it going?” Nagasone asks. He gives Horikawa a small quirk of his lips he supposes he’s supposed to take is a smile.

Horikawa smiles back. “He’s pretty awful. You all have really coddled him.”

Nagasone shrugs. “Most of the population here don’t know how to shoot a gun. I think you’re the exception to the rule, really.”

He thinks about that. “I suppose you’re right,” he mumbles. Then, speaking up again he says, “When’s the permanent bodyguard coming, by the way?”

As he says that he casts his gaze back to Kanesada. Bang. He got the can again, and managed to hold his pose. There’s something sad about seeing him get better, like that.

Nagasone says, “He’ll be making it to the big plaza show; none of us want Izuminokami to be out and about without a dedicated guard in such a high profile event. Oh,” he adds, sounding a little sheepish. “No offence.”

“None taken,” Horikawa tells him honestly. “That’s in a few days, then.”

“Would you mind sticking around for that event, too?” asks Nagasone. “Might as well, right?”

“Of course, though it’ll cost extra,” says Horikawa brightly. “It’s always nice to make a friend; maybe this bodyguard would be receptive.”

“I didn’t think you could make friends in a business like yours, though,” he muses quietly.

Horikawa doesn’t get the feeling it’s a proper topic of conversation but he answers anyway. “If everyone’s your enemy, it just makes everything harder.”

“At least this is a good experience! Izuminokami’s a good kid; you can call him another friend.” Nagasone winks. “He seems pretty fond of you, actually. Would you be happy, being stuck with a brat like him?”

Nagasone’s beamingly brightly, as if he expects him to say yes. He almost answers yes but doesn’t, because secrecy is everything. Feelings are not professional. Horikawa is... “Answering your questions isn’t in my contract,” he says, maybe a little cruelly. He doesn’t look at Nagasone as he says it. “Need I remind you.”

Bang. Nagasone doesn’t change how he looks but when glances over he sees his features shift in pity anyway. Horikawa has to resist the urge to scratch them off because he hates being pitied and instead just digs his fingernails into his palm, smiling because he is nothing if not dedicated to his disguise. He’s tired, he thinks.

--

Yasusada’s not much of a hacker, so he does it the old fashioned way: he breaks in and looks for a schedule somewhere. If no schedule, he’ll get it out of someone. Information is the best currency in the business, but guns are the best weapons in the business and Yasusada just happens to be a little behind in both cases. He doesn’t think that holds him back much, though.

He doesn’t find a schedule but he runs into the bodyguard who should be with Kanesada and when he turns the corner and almost walks directly into him they both just sort of stare at each other and are both too surprised to pull out any sort of weapon.

“You really are ballsy,” says the bodyguard. “I can’t believe you’d just waltz in here.”

He hasn’t pulled a weapon out yet, but Yasusada remembers how he’d shot without warning their last meeting and ruined his hand so he doesn’t let his guard down. “I needed information.”

“Like?” He asks, sounding like he already knows what he’s looking for.

“Well,” Yasusada says, putting his finger on his chin. “For one, where’s the target?”

“Classified.”

“Where are you going this day next week?”

“Classified.”

“What’s your name?”

He pauses at that. Then, “Classified.”

Yasusada feels his shoulders sag. “You’re really cute but a real stick in the mud.”

His incredible ability to shove his foot in his mouth and say complete crap like complimenting the person he’s trying to kill gets him an owl-like blink. Really, of all the reactions he supposes he got off lightly. “Do you call everyone you attempt to kill cute?”

He might as well roll with it, now. “No. Just the cute ones. Also I’m told I don’t think before I speak, so,” he shrugs. “Why are you so secretive anyway?” He thumbs the hilt of his sword; the bodyguards’ eyes immediately jump to the weapon. “If you don’t speak, I can make you.”

“The better question is why aren’t you?” says the bodyguard. A knife is in the hand that isn’t bandaged up when he blinks, and his grip is not at all shaky nor hesitant. Yasusada clicks his teeth – he can’t believe Kashuu was actually right, being so anal. He’s absolutely not going to tell him he was right, of course. “Aren’t you worried about being hunted down? Your family? Nothing?”

“Not really,” says Yasusada. He likes the thrill of the skirmish. “I don’t have any family. If it’s just me, I can kill them just fine.”

The bodyguard’s face falls. “... Sorry to hear that.”

The less feelings the better. Yasusada is, perhaps, naive, but he’s past cynical and he wonders, how’s someone like this survived in this industry for so long? “It’s no big deal. What about you?” He asks. “Do you have any family?”

There’s a pause, there. Yasusada can tell he’s deliberating whether or not he should tell him. Nothing hums in the air just yet, so he lets his fingers fiddling with the hilt in aching anticipation. He’s not going to draw it; not just yet.

Then he says, “I do. Two brothers.” Unbidden he elaborates, “One older and one younger.”

Yasusada already expects the answer he gets: he asks if he can learn their names and the bodyguard shakes his head. He thinks he doesn’t want him to figure out where they are. Yasusada can’t help but think someone so attached to personalities is doomed to fail, when their entire job is snuffing them out.

“You must really love them, if you’re willing to condemn yourself to isolation,” Yasusada says, more like he’s thinking out loud.

He doesn’t say anything. His knife is still out. Yasusada draws his sword and, as steady as he can possibly manage it, points it at his neck.

“People like you die easily,” Yasusada tells him. His expression hasn’t shifted from the sad look – he hates that, hates that he’s looking at him like he should be pitied. “Would you die for that guy, the target?”

He shakes his head. “Only the people I care about,” he says.

Yasusada cocks his head to the side. “You don’t care about him?”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t break eye contact but Yasusada gets the feeling he’s not really looking at him. “So? What do you care about?” says the bodyguard, eventually.

To say he’s stunned when he can’t come up with an answer isn’t entirely correct, but it still hits him a little heavy. With a laugh that sounds a little self-deprecating, even to him, he says, “I guess that’s why I don’t care about secrets.”

The bodyguard tells him his name, then: Horikawa. No last name. It’s an invitation, Yasusada thinks: This will be a game. He will be the cat and Yasusada will be the mouse.

“I’m going to ask you again,” says Yasusada. “Where are you going to be a week from now?”

Horikawa smirks at that, a deathly pretty look. His knife glints in the dirty overhead light of the hall-way, coloured like rat’s fur. Bloodlust thrums and Yasusada doesn’t know who it’s coming from, only that it’s intoxicating. A little slip through the cracks, he thinks.

Horikawa says, “Yeah, right,” and kicks his sword out of his hand; walks away with it. Come and get it.

--

Well that was a failure. Kashuu gives him one of those truly incredible, almost picturesque with disappointment, looks when Yasusada tells him what happened. “Remind me not to trust you with information mining again.”

Yasusada shrugs half-heartedly. “So, I’m using my knife.”

Kashuu keeps his gaze fixed on him. His eyes are a very pretty shade of red, and in the evening sun he bleeds copper. If he shot him now, Yasusada wonders, would his blood be the colour of his eyes or the sun? There’s an itch to find out but he doesn’t honour it; not yet, he thinks.

Kashuu says, “You’re not bothered you lost your sword?” and there’s something sad in his voice.

“I am,” Yasusada replies. There’s something he cares about, after all; he makes a mental note to tell Horikawa that, next time he sees him. “I’m very bothered. But all this means is extra motivation to kill him.”

Kashuu doesn’t say anything at first. Then he sighs and, getting up, says, “Whatever you say. Show me your hand.”

Instantly Yasusada’s hand dashes to his chest, away from Kashuu’s oncoming hand. “Uh, why?”

“Don’t be a kid,” Yasusada instantly pouts at him. “I just want to look at your wound.”

“I already disinfected it.”

Kashuu looks at him like he’s stupid. “So? Wouldn’t hurt to do it again. And to actually bandage it.”

Kashuu’s gun is on the other side of the table. Unless he’s got another weapon concealed on him – which Yasusada most certainly does not rule out – it’s too far for him to reach and get him with. But by the time he’s come up with the idea that Kashuu could be reaching for his hand to hold him down and pull out a second weapon, Kashuu’s already gotten his hand and pulled out disinfectant.

Kashuu’s hand is warm and soft and compared to his calloused ones, looking like they haven’t worked a day in his life. Yasusada almost outright marvels at them; his own hands in Kashuu’s seem brute and ugly while Kashuu’s are delicate and pretty and the red that coats his nails are crimson, like they’re stained with blood. Yasusada has a bullet hole in his hand and Kashuu’s look far more like there are wounds on the tips of every individual finger.

Maybe Kashuu sees him, weirdly enthralled. “Your hands are fucked up,” he says, in a tone like he’s laughing.

“Your hands aren’t,” says Yasusada.

“It’s called skincare. And letting wounds heal properly, for goodness sake; do you take care of any of your wounds like you should?”

“If it works, it’s fine. Wait,” he tells Kashuu. He’s got the tissue covered in disinfectant just above his wound; he lifts his eyebrow when Yasusada takes it out of his hands and taps it with the table. “This isn’t poison, right?”

The table does not dissolve. Kashuu, ever the unpredictable, rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right. I can’t kill you any other way so I’m going to dab poison directly in your hand. Be logical.”

He kind of takes offence to that, so he grabs another spare tissue, dunks the disinfectant on it, and squeezes it as hard as he can against his wound, staring Kashuu directly in the eyes as he does. Then he yelps and flings it across the room when the stinging kicks in and he thinks it hurts more, probably, than actually having been shot and getting the wound in the first place.

With a silly little smile on his face, sort of like he’s amused, Kashuu starts again. He takes his hand (Yasusada lets him); he gets the tissue and dumps the disinfectant on it (Yasusada lets him); he holds the tissue down on his wound and his eyes catch his and Yasusada lets him tighten his grip on his hand so he won’t run off, lets him put more pressure on the tissue against the wound and lets him see him wince.

Yasusada does not like wincing. He especially doesn’t like letting people see him wince. But Kashuu refuses to break eye contact with him and Yasusada won’t either, out of a silent, constant competition and then Kashuu says, “hang in there.”

So he does. Kashuu keeps his hand in his the whole time, and it’s warm. He can’t really remember the last time he’d felt something warm like this, and there’s something a little sobering about that.

--

Horikawa shuts the door quietly behind him as he walks in. Kanesada’s still playing with the gun as he approaches, and as he does Kanesada looks up and tries not to look like he’s feeling too sorry for... everything, really.

“Security breech,” says Horikawa. Kanesada’s eyes widen. “No, settle down. I took care of him. He’ll be at the plaza next week, though.”

His face falls. He says, “... How do you know that? Did you tell him?” and Horikawa just shrugs. He doesn’t seem interested in pursuing the conversation, but Kanesada thinks that’s crap and if there’s been a breech of all people Horikawa should tell him, so he pushes it. “Give me a proper answer.”

For a second he looks a little taken aback. Like he’s just seen Kanesada grow teeth where he sits. “I didn’t,” he says. “Why would I jeopardise your life? You’re paying me to protect it.”

“And that’s all you care about,” mutters Kanesada. It feels hallow. “The money.” He doesn’t like how empty that sounds.

He doesn’t really have any reason for complaining about it. Horikawa’s doing a good job – is it the fact that he doesn’t want to die for him that’s bothering him? He doesn’t know. His eyes catch on the bandages around his hand, and his heart aches. Kanesada just doesn’t think he wants anyone else to die, but most of all he doesn’t want to die the most, and maybe something about him is willing to give Horikawa up to guarantee another day.

Horikawa, the person laced in secrecy; who seems so small against him; who won’t die for him but the person who won’t die at all.

If he has anything to say Horikawa doesn’t say it. Kanesada thinks, he really doesn’t know him any better than when they first started.

“So is there anyone who knows your real name?” Kanesada asks, hoping to start something.

“There are,” and Horikawa doesn’t elaborate so it fizzles out in an awkward tension that hangs between them, shaped like his smile.

--

Kashuu’s pretty confident in the city plaza being their location next week – “all thanks to social media,” he laughs. “our biggest enemy and ally” – so Yasusada decides to let it go. They’ve got a week to prepare and Kanesada’s high profile but not nearly high profile as his older brother; the only people who’d really be going after the smaller one are small fry who can only afford to commission them, the poorer, more desperate ones. They’re not in any rush.

Well, Yasusada’s poor and desperate. He’s pretty sure Kashuu could be more than a little rich if he stopped spending all his money on makeup. This is the third container of whatever he’s pulled out of his bag, and Yasusada’s starting to suspect he has more of that in there than he does weapons.

He puts this stuff on his face – the last time was his lips, the time before that his eyelids. A fluffy looking brush, covered in flesh coloured powder. He’s never really bothered with make up so he’s not really sure what to call it, but Kashuu taps it lightly on his face a few times and it comes away looking brighter, cleaner and more colourful. He looks prettier, he thinks.

“It’s the middle of the night,” says Yasusada. He’s casually sharpening his knife – best to be prepared, in case they find out an earlier appearance. “Who are you trying to impress?”

“You,” says Kashuu, in a bored sounding voice, which is how Yasusada knows he’s kidding.

“Get real,” Yasusada says flatly. “If you have time to do that, you have time to prepare.”

“It’s in a week,” Kashuu grumbles. He puts the pocket mirror down, at least, shutting it with a harsh snap. “What do I have to prepare?”

“For example, that bodyguard. We should think of how to handle him.”

Kashuu rolls his eyes and goes back to his make up. “You’re just bloodthirsty. Relax – all we need to do next time is not fight against each other. He’s already at a disadvantage, trying to protect someone.”

He doesn’t really say anything, mostly because he knows he doesn’t really have anything to say back. He leans back and goes back to checking his phone.

Eventually, without looking up from his mirror and whatever he’s pencilling in his eyebrows with, Kashuu quietly says, “I’ve never met anyone who’s quite so into a job like this like you are.”

Yasusada replies, “I guess that’s why I’m in a job like this,” and he catches Kashuu glance at him. He doesn’t know if he’s looking at him with fear or sadness and frankly, he doesn’t want to know, so he doesn’t acknowledge it. Maybe he’s scared of him, too.

--

Kanesada’s a pretty crummy shot, but after his second day he manages to shoot the can three times in a row. Horikawa says that’s impressive! Good job! But there’s something a little insincere about it and he thinks he might just be doing this to get him to stop complaining about feeling useless, rather than because he thinks he’ll be of any genuine help.

Kanesada doesn’t actually think he’ll be of any genuine help but he still feels beyond patronised and without really thinking it through he ends up scowling at him and letting his arm fall to his side as he does what is essentially picking a fight and says, “Do you have a problem with me or something?”

Horikawa blinks a little stupidly. “Sorry?”

“You heard me,” Kanesada says firmly. Horikawa’s frozen where he is, just about to put the can back where Kanesada’s meant to be shooting. “You’re so fake. Are you just screwing with me? Is this even how you learn how to shoot a gun, or are you just trying to get me to shut up?”

He opens his mouth and then shuts it again; casts his gaze to the floor, dumbstruck. When he regains his ability to speak he just says, “That’s none of your buisn-“ and Kanesada’s sick of hearing that garbage so he, more than a little inconsiderately, more than a little like a brat, points the gun at him and Horikawa’s voice fizzles out as he stares down the barrel of his gun.

“Would it really kill you if you said something about yourself?” says Kanesada. He hasn’t quite caught onto how genuinely aghast Horikawa looks. It’s more than the surprise of having a gun pointed at you, but he doesn’t realise that and cocks it a little at Horikawa. “It bothers me. How can you live like that? I’ve been stuck living under the pubic eye for about a week now since these attempts started and I hate it!”

He hears, “Put that down,” in a curiously blank voice and doesn’t. He hears, “Please,” and still doesn’t. But he’s never been good at playing the bad guy and when he hears something like actual, real fear in his voice when Horikawa says, “I do have a family,” that he puts it down and not even because he means to, but because he’s so shocked his arm goes limp.

Horikawa is tiny and he looks beyond shaken, wide eyes. “They’re depending on me,” says Horikawa. He’s not scared, he can tell. Kanesada thinks he doesn’t fear death but that he can’t die, that’s all. “So you can’t kill me.”

The gun slips out of his hands and hits the ground with a hallow thud.

--

Kashuu actually doesn’t like killing all that much. If he can get away without it he’ll do it. He’s probably in the wrong line of business to hold such sentiments but sometimes necessity warrants some moral bending, he thinks. Every time he kills someone, Kashuu buys a new stick of lipstick and he’ll wear it for a day, until it’s been twenty-four hours since they’d died by his hand.

He’s also the sort of person to think the best of someone. He’s not actually planning to kill Yasusada; he really is just planning to split half and half.

Yasusada doesn’t know any of this but finds himself growing less and less partial to the idea of killing Kashuu all the same. He’s already fallen asleep, dozing softly against the desk and using Yasusada’s scarf as a cushion (while wearing his own red one, he’ll note a little sourly), and all Yasusada can think is he hopes he’ll see his blood-coloured eyes again, because they’re pretty and he likes them a lot.

He’d never tell him this, of course, but there’s a longing that pangs and Yasusada’s knife feels heavy in his pocket.

--

Kanesada wakes up the next morning and Horikawa isn’t there.

It’s not the job of a body guard to be at his every beck and call and he knows that, sort of, but he still gets up and looks around a little lost because his familiar blob of raven hair and pretty, disarming eyes aren’t hovering around him. Something feels cold and instinctually he hopes he’ll see him again.

Maybe he doesn’t want him to die for him, after all. He hates that he’s not around.

--

They’re scouting out the plaza together when Kashuu wonders off to one of the shops. Yasusada rolls his eyes and follows – whatever, he thinks he knows what he’s doing, anyway, all he’ll really need is a crowd to succeed – and is completely unsurprised to find he’s staring delightedly at rows upon rows of colourful bottles of nail varnish, lipstick, and so on and so forth. Kashuu’s fixated on a particular bottle; it’s a light blue.

Yasusada frowns at it as he approaches. “Blue wouldn’t look nice on you.”

“I didn’t ask,” Kashuu grumbles. He straightens out and picks it up daintily, holding it up to Yasusada’s hands. “No, you’re too pale for this. You’d need something darker.”

“What’s this about me?” Yasusada instantly frowns. “I don’t wear make up.”

“Only because you don’t have any,” Kashuu tells him. Yasusada wonders why he sounds like he’s teaching him a lesson of some sort. “If you buy one, you’ll wear it.”

“I’m not wasting my money on that.”

“Then I’ll buy it,” says Kashuu, and he sounds really genuine over it. “And you can wear it.”

Yasusada just frowns at him some more. He makes sure to look extra confused.

“You don’t have to thank me!” Kashuu’s smiling brightly. Yasusada wonders how someone can get this much enjoyment out of something so superficial, or if he’s spent so much money on it now it’s a twisted form of Stockholm Syndrome that’s got him this excited. Whatever it is, it’s not exactly hitting Yasusada hard. “I’m always willing to help someone unfashionable out.”

“I didn’t ask you to help.”

“Yes, you did, actually.” Kashuu tells him and he thinks oh, right, he supposes he did, which is why they’ve been tolerating each other for the past few days.

He holds a bottle of much darker blue – more black than blue, almost - nail varnish out against his skin. Without really thinking about it, Yasusada says, “No way, something closer to my hair colour,” and Kashuu flashes him a smile so outright pretty that he almost doesn’t mind the fact that they spend the next hour there, looking for the right colour, and that Yasusada ends up paying for the nail varnish in the end.

--

Horikawa’s drinking coffee in the room a few paces from Kanesada’s room, and he’s drinking it with a fluffy-looking person he’s never seen before.

His and Horikawa’s eyes catch for a moment and if he’s at all angry about how Kanesada’d effectively humiliated him by forcing him to speak about himself by playing on his anxieties, he doesn’t betray it at all. Instead he smiles and Kanesada instantly thinks yes, so we’re back to this. “Good morning,” says Horikawa.

“’Mornin’,” says the other person. His hair is wild and untamed and sticks up at the sides, almost like dog ears. “Izuminokami, yeah? I’m Mutsunokami Yoshiyuki. Nice to meetcha.”

He sits down at the free seat, directly across from Horikawa. The tension, he thinks, still hangs in the air, or maybe it’s just him. He thinks he might still be scared of him, really, his heart racing. “Who’s this?” he asks Horikawa.

“Your proper, actual body guard that I’ve been filling in for.” Horikawa tells him. “And a friend of mine! It’s a small world,” and Yoshiyuki’s nodding and smiling so he doesn’t think it’s a joke.

His heart skips a beat. He won’t be around anymore, then. For lack of anything better to say he goes, “Ah,” and nothing else.

It goes silent between the three of them. Kanesada feels awful.

Maybe it’s an effort to break it, because Yoshiyuki sounds a little harried when he speaks. “So, Horikawa. About the plaza next week...”

He just nods. “I’ll be around, but not directly there. Those two know a lot about me, but I don’t think they know I’m an assassin by trade. I can keep to the corners.”

Yoshiyuki puts his mug of coffee to his lips as he thinks this over. “Alright. I’ll handle Izuminokami’s personal safety.” Then he chugs the rest of it. “Nagasone wanted to see me, so I’d better go now.”

Horikawa thanks him as he goes and Kanesada gives him a mumbled goodbye as he does. As the door shuts behind him the tension just descends even more, like a think blanket in the middle of summer. It’s stifling and Kanesada feels warm but in all the wrong ways, his heart too big for his chest and something fluttering uncomfortably in his stomach.

He says, “I’m sorry,” and Horikawa continues whatever he’s writing. Like it’s nothing at all he gets a, “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” and another smile and Kanesada wants to tell him to stop smiling but the words get stuck and he can’t say that, because he does but he doesn’t want him to be smiling like this.

So he decides to try another route. “How do you know Yoshiyuki?”

“I had a job to kill him once,” says Horikawa. “I liked him after a while, so I decided against it. We’ve been friends ever since.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Seriously? You turned around on a job and got off scot-free?”

“I did,” Horikawa tells him, nebulously. “My house didn’t.”

The room immediately chills ten degrees. Kanesada feels it in the pit of his stomach. “Oh.”

“Please don’t give me that look,” says Horikawa. Kanesada hadn’t even realised he was giving him any sort of look. “Things happen. My brothers are safe, and they will be as long as I live, now.”

“You have brothers?”

They both pause, realising something at the same time: he’d let something slip.

Kanesada expects him to clam up again, to wheel back and feel like he’s talking to a glacial statue again, but instead Horikawa, defying all expectations, says, “Yes. Two of them.”

“You must really love them,” Kanesada muses. “I don’t know if I’d ever be able to do what you’re doing.”

“I do,” Horikawa says quietly. “My big brother’s really loud and he’s always optimistic, about everything. When we lost the house the first thing he did was laugh and clap me over the back and say, ‘we’ve been looking for an excuse to leave anyway, hadn’t we’.”

Kanesada stays very, very quiet.

“My younger one is the polar opposite,” he continues, tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear as he speaks. He says it all in a fond voice, with a small little smile completely unlike the wide beams he normally gives; this is a real smile, he thinks, and Kanesada is enraptured by it. “He’s so quiet! He wanders around in this white hoodie all the time and he’s so attached to it that once when I tried to wash it without him knowing he spent the whole time in front of the washing machine crying.”

Horikawa laughs, more to himself than anything, but it sounds incredible against Kanesada’s ear. His heart is thumping again. “He sounds like Kasen,” he says; his voice is sweet, too, and he smiles when Horikawa looks at him with more energy than he’s seen him in the past week and a half of knowing him. “Kasen’s so into his stupid seaweed hair.”

“You don’t think it looks good either, huh?” Horikawa says, grimacing lightly. “I wish I could say something about it but it’s sort of unwarranted coming from me.”

“He’d probably listen to you,” Kanesada tells him. “Every time I tell him to get rid of it he thinks it’s just,” he air quotes this bit, “’brotherly teasing.’”

“I suppose he thinks you have no right to say that,” Horikawa says, and he thinks there’s little lilt to his smile as he says it.

Kanesada narrows his eyes but he’s smiling so it’s not particularly malicious, he thinks. “Are you insulting my hair? I think it looks fine.”

Horikawa laughs again. He really hope he’ll keep laughing. He hopes he’ll keep living and keep laughing, actually. “I’m joking! It looks beautiful on you.”

He pouts. “Men aren’t supposed to be beautiful,” he says and he thinks, too, that they aren’t supposed to be pretty yet here Horikawa is.

With a soft sort of smile Horikawa says, “Then why are you?” and Kanesada is so stunned he can’t say anything back and can only think he’s so pretty and he’s so small and I want to hear that again.

--

“Come on.”

“No.”

“You can use it for free!” Kashuu twirls the container of moisturiser in his hands. “You know you want to.”

“I said no!” Yasusada tells him firmly. Kashuu just sticks his tongue out and screws opens the container anyway. “You’re really annoying, you know?”

“And you’re really dry,” Kashuu says. He approaches with white blobs of the cream on either one of his hands, much like they’re weapons, giving Yasusada a grin to his frown. “Your skin is crying! I can see it flaking from here!”

That’s a lie actually, Kashuu can’t – but he’s felt Yasusada’s hands and if they’re even half as dry as his hands, which really might as well be bark instead of soft skin, then he’s in need of some serious moisture. Yasusada doesn’t entirely trust him yet, he knows this; he’s been acting as non-aggressive as he can and yet the guy’s still as skittish as a rabbit with post traumatic stress disorder.

Still, he’d let him clean up his wound. Twice, in fact. And he’d gotten to paint his nails for him. Kashuu’s not interested in a partner, really, but he’s also not interested in a knife to his back and in his experience flattery is the best form of protection. A little loss of moisturiser is nothing to that end.

“My skin is satisfied with the life it leads,” says Yasusada. He ducks and falls off his chair when Kashuu tries to slap the moisturiser onto his cheeks and misses. He yelps as he hits the floor and Kashuu immediately takes the opportunity to sit on him.

Yasusada wriggles around a bit helplessly. “Your skin will thank me,” Kashuu tells him. Yasusada pauses to listen to him and he takes that opportunity to slaps his moisturiser-covered hands onto his cheeks and Yasusada, with his eyes shut, whines in defeat. “Trust me.”

He rubs it in and Yasusada still keeps his eyes shut, his lips pursed. He doesn’t struggle anymore – at least he knows when he’s lost a fight, Kashuu thinks to himself – and instead concedes his cheeks to him. Satisfied with the amount he’s managed to get on Kashuu moves his fingers and begins rubbing it into his face properly.

His cheeks are soft, he thinks. Surprisingly, considering how calloused his hands are, but his face isn’t actually in such a bad state. His skin isn’t exactly soft but it’s not actually flaking like he’d said and he’s got really long eyelashes too. Maybe in response to how he’s slowed down his fervent rubbing Yasusada cracks his eyes open and Kashuu notes how bright they are.

For a split second, Kashuu’s eyes jump to his lips. Yasusada blinks; he’s close enough that he can feel his breath. It smells like blackberries and when Kashuu idly leans down to kiss him he tastes like blackberries too.

--

It’s late into the night when Horikawa gets up. “You should sleep. We might have a long day tomorrow. You’ll need all the energy you can get.”

Immediately, Kanesada feels colder. “I’m not a kid. You don’t have to tell me when to sleep.”

“Right,” says Horikawa, smiling. It’s another more genuine one and Kanesada’s heart flutters at it. “I don’t have to. Remind me again what time it is, and when you need to get up?”

Alright, he’s sort of got him there. Kanesada doesn’t have much of a response so he just pulls his knees closer and, resting his head on his knees, pouts very heavily at him. At least it makes him laugh. He really, really hopes, even if something happens tomorrow, that he’ll get to hear it again.

Just for reassurance that he will Kanesada quietly asks, “Would you die for me?”

Horikawa doesn’t leave immediately, but he does without answering.

--

The next day:

Kanesada is at the plaza; a bodyguard protects him; a second lies in wait; two assassins get into position.

--

Kashuu’s looking over the plaza as he speaks. “There are a lot of people about. There’ll probably be collateral damage, especially if you go in there.”

“As long as we get Izuminokami and the bodyguard,” Yasusada makes special note not to call him by his name. “It doesn’t matter.”

Kashuu hums. “We’re splitting half, right?”

Yasusada looks at Kashuu’s back, hunched over as he stares below them through the binoculars. His knife is sharp and unusually in his hands. “Yeah.”

“Then go out there and do your stuff.” Then Kashuu adds, in a voice that’s as soft as blackberries, “And come back alive, okay? I’ll treat you. Purple looks nice with blue too; and yellow, if you want to look wild.”

He can see his reflection in the blade of his knife in the daylight. It hurts his eyes and he doesn’t look very happy. “Yeah.” He doesn’t wish him the same.

--

Yoshiyuki finds him before he moves into position. Horikawa’s not directly by Kanesada’s side and it makes him a little antsy, but he trusts Yoshiyuki. He says, “How’re you feeling?” and Horikawa shrugs; feelings are not professional but here he is, feeling all the same. He tries not to let it get to him.

He’s checked his gun about three times now. He knows he’s hopping a little frantically but Yoshiyuki doesn’t point it out when Horikawa answers and says, “fine.”

“You know,” says Yoshiyuki. “You look pretty happy when you’re with him.”

Horikawa hums in lieu of a response. He doesn’t really want to reply to that.

“Hey,” Yoshiyuki continues. “You should quit this.”

“What?” he balks at him. “I can’t just quit. I need the money.”

“What’s stopping you from staying at this job for money?” and Horikawa doesn’t know what to say to that besides they won’t let me, and maybe that’s the scariest part: how much he wants to.

--

Kanesada doesn’t recognise any of the people around him. This isn’t the first time he’s noticed this.

He misses Horikawa. He feels like he didn’t look at him enough before they parted ways. Wishing he’ll see him again, he waits.

--

Horikawa expects it to happen at any moment, with Kasen on the stage, because Kanesada is right in the open next to him. Rather than that though Yasusada first strikes when he’s off and everyone’s spread out enjoying the fare and Horikawa is more than a few people away from him.

When one of the people goes down quietly, a pool of blood gradually spreading out beneath him, Horikawa knows it’s started. He scans the crowd – shifting now, shuffling in response to the sudden thud of a body hitting the floor – searching for navy or dark brown hair.

He hears the initial screams of horror, parents reeling their children back, asking in high pitched voices what’s happening, they’re trying to look at the stands; another body goes down and Horikawa is almost impressed they have the gall to be doing this so openly. It’s a thick crowd, difficult to see what exactly is happening and it’s not made any easier with how he’s to the side of it all, searching frantically, trying to play catch-up to them before they get too far ahead.

Everyone is moving away from the bodies and it’s only when someone collapses in front of him that Horikawa spots Yasusada ducking between everyone, taking advantage of the chaos. He lifts his arm just little and when he pulls it away the person in front of him falls to the ground; Yasusada casts his gaze behind him and makes eye contact with Horikawa and then all hell breaks loose.

“Navy hair!” Horikawa yells at the top of his voice, over pandemonium – Yoshiyuki, more than a couple of meters away, turns around so fast he looks like a blur and Yasusada gives up attempting to conceal his blade, immediately turning to make a mad dash at Kanesada (who looks scared, Horikawa idly thinks, while he’s running. He doesn’t want him to look like that, he thinks a little more) and there’s blood all over his knife and his shirt too.

They can’t shoot him, there are too many people around, Horikawa knows this immediately and unsheathes his dagger; Yoshiyuki pulls his gun out and outright pauses with a wince as Yasusada ducks between two civilians (dirty move, a real monster after all) and that lets him rush through and deliver a kick to Yoshiyuki’s leg.

He bowls over with a garbled curse and hits the floor; makes a mad swipe at Yasusada as he passes; misses; the convening crowd has all but disappeared from around them and Yasusada has a clear path to Kanesada who-

Whips a gun out. Takes a stance. He’s scared, he looks scared. Horikawa runs faster, approaching from behind and Yoshiyuki picks himself up.

(Yasusada’s eyes widen as he realises he’s staring the barrel of a gun down.)

Bang.

Yasusada goes down, but there’s a bullet in Horikawa’s shoulder. He’d ducked and Horikawa had been right behind him and gotten hit instead. He freezes – not sure if the cry comes from him or from someone else or from Kanesada – and for a second he thinks he’s lost all feeling in his arm until the pain follows and it shoots up his shoulder like someone’s injected magma directly into his veins and it hurts like it burns.

Yasusada screams, “Now!” with everything he has and it’s only then Horikawa sees the glint of the rifle, resting atop one of the buildings that looms over the plaza. Yoshiyuki runs at Yasusada and Yasusada abandons Kanesada with almost a smile on his face.

Their eyes meet again, as Horikawa’s legs start moving of their own accord and Yasusada begins making his escape. The hint of a smile blooms into an outright grin. Got you.

Horikawa feels his hand push Kanesada aside and the rifle’s shot connect with his chest only after he acknowledges Kanesada’s safe. His knees feel week and his head is spinning. The last thing he sees before he falls unconscious is Kanesada staring at him, horrified, and Yoshiyuki tackling Yasusada.

Then, darkness. He thinks he hears Kanesada’s voice, and tries to reach for it.

--

Kashuu abandons the target. He doesn’t miss. Yoshiyuki is no exception to this.

He’s yelling, “get out of there! Come back!” but maybe Yasusada doesn’t hear him – maybe he ignores him – because instead he rolls out from under him as the arm holding him down goes limp and instead of coming back dashes directly for Kanesada. Just as the backup rolls in.

There are footsteps, rushing up the stairwell behind him. Kashuu watches in horror as they catch Yasusada; take him away.

He picks his rifle and pistol up and makes sure they’re loaded, leaving his bag in the meanwhile; resolves himself.

--

It takes a day for Horikawa to wake up.

Meanwhile:

“Well,” says Nagasone drily. “All things considered, this could have gone worse.”

Kanesada stays quiet. He probably should have been a little bit more specific in his wish. He didn’t want to see him again but with his eyes shut, lying motionless, wondering if he’ll wake up. His chest hurts and he wants nothing more than to see him smile again but his lips just remain in that straight line, just barely parted in his sleep. It’s agonising. He can’t believe he would’ve wanted him to die, at one point.

“You said non-fatal,” says Kanesada. He can’t bring himself to speak with his usual gusto when everything hurts and nothing feels good. “So he’ll wake up, right?”

“He should do,” says Nagasone, and it doesn’t help much, not at all, and neither does what follows. “But he might not.”

Quietly he buries his face in his hands. “I can’t believe I shot him. I can’t believe I hurt him. I’m the reason he did that.”

“You did it by mistake,” Nagasone tells him. He feels his hand fall on his back, reassuring but cold. “I didn’t think he’d take a bullet for you.”

“Neither did I,” Kanesada replies. He doesn’t have to be looking at Nagasone to know he’s looking at him more than a little sadly. He’s so scared; of Horikawa, for him, for everything.

He wonders if he can feel it, when he takes his hand into his.

--

Kashuu half expects him to search the entire compound only to find Yasusada’s already been executed or turned over or something. And he has, when he finds him: he’s sitting miserably in the centre of the cell he’s being kept in but he doesn’t look any worse for wear.

In annoyance, or maybe simply relief, Kashuu bangs the bars as hard as he can, stealth be damned. Yasusada all but jumps and spins around; when he sees it’s Kashuu he sees his eyebrows quirk in disbelief, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing. “Kashuu?”

“No shit,” Kashuu grouses. Yasusada, if anything, seems to look more surprised. “What did you think?”

“I thought...” he trails off, looking at the ground. Without any weapons he looks exceedingly small, Kashuu thinks. “I thought you were long gone.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Kashuu pulls the ring of keys he’d swiped earlier out from his pocket and starts fiddling with them. The first key he tries doesn’t work. “I mean, really, I’m being stupid, for not doing that, but I don’t want to.”

Yasusada blinks. “Why not?”

“We promised,” says Kashuu, jabbing another key into the keyhole. “Remember? Half and half.”

He doesn’t reply, so Kashuu takes the opportunity to kick at the bars in frustration, before going back to the keyholes. There’s so many, he’s lost track of which he’s tried and which he hasn’t but he keeps going, anyway, because Yasusada is right there and he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to forgive himself if he just left him, not now.

Eventually Yasusada asks, “Why’d you kiss me last night, anyway?”

Kashuu stops jabbing keys into the keyhole. He doesn’t look at him when he says, “I don’t know. I wanted to, I guess.”

“I wanted to too,” says Yasusada. “Kiss you, I mean. But I also wanted to kill you.”

Somehow that doesn’t surprise him as much as he thinks it should. He’d seen it coming, after all, the knife, falling forward in calloused hands, tipped with sky blue he’d helped pick out. His forehead dips against the bars; it’s cold and dirty, against his skin. He wishes they weren’t between them “Are you still going to?”

It’s an inane question and he thinks he doesn’t need to ask it but he’s not looking at Yasusada and doesn’t know what he looks like when he says, “Not if I quit this job.”

“Will you?” Kashuu asks.

“Yeah,” says Yasusada, pulling his knees closer to him. “That way I won’t have to.”

“Do you want to or have to?” asks Kashuu. “Those are two different things, you know.”

Yasusada hums. “I don’t know, really. Can you let me kiss you so I can find out?”

He feels the corner of his lips tilt up in a smile. “Alright.” And the first thing they do when Kashuu manages to open the cell door is crash into each other.

--

Horikawa wakes up and it’s like he’s blinked. Kanesada still wears that horrified look on his face but it dashes when he manages to fix his eyes on him and say, “Kane-san?”

His head is still fuzzy and he’s not exactly working all that well so he doesn’t entirely comprehend that Kanesada’s grabbed him and dragged him up into his arms. When he wriggles around a bit hopelessly he hears Kanesada release so deep a breath like he hasn’t exhaled in days and, just against his ears, says, “Don’t ever leave me again.”

He blinks a little. Things come together slowly, like unravelling a parchment that leads somewhere safe and warm (a little like what Kanesada’s arms feel like, he thinks). He’d gotten shot, he remembers to that point, and then...

He sighs, all tension melting from his shoulders and he sags like a sad little balloon. “I passed out... that’s embarrassing.”

“No it’s not,” Kanesada says firmly. He doesn’t pull away from him so Horikawa doesn’t see his cheeks a soft and light red when he says, “It’s stupid. I don’t want you dying for me.”

“I thought you did,” Horikawa mumbles, but he wraps his arms around his waist all the same, like he can’t help it. He wants to do this; he thinks he would want to die for him now, or at least wouldn’t mind. That must be why he did that, right? “Or do you not want me anymore?”

“I do.” says Kanesada; pushing past any shyness, he takes a deep breath. There’s a turning point here he thinks, one where if he says the right thing might be able to wake up to Horikawa there tomorrow, too, instead of him retreating back into secrecy. It doesn’t have to be like this for him - he thinks that while thinking how horribly small he looks when holding his gun; how not genuine everything about him is when he’s doing his job; how much happier he looks when he doesn’t have to be doing it, for even a second.

So he says, “Which is why I want you to be with me,” and Horikawa seems to recover something at that, because he hears him inhale sharply. “Stay by my side,” Kanesada continues, and he feels Horikawa’s grip tighten a little.

He doesn’t say anything for a long, long time. Eventually he says, “Can I?” at the same time as Kanesada freaks and says, “Or don’t, you know, whatever,” and Horikawa puts his reflexes to good use by reacting to Kanesada’s doubts immediately and leaning up, taking Kanesada by the chin to pull him down, and kissing him, right on his lips.

It’s soft and sweet and warm and more than a little scared and everything Kanesada thinks Horikawa is; it’s tender and hopelessly bumbling and warm and more than a little scared and everything Horikawa thinks Kanesada is; Horikawa starts laughing against his lips and Kanesada hears it in his ears, his head, in the very pit of his heart.

Kanesada is terrified of him, incapable of breathing. They’re like hopeless children, trying to figure something new out and their noses bump and their teeth clack and Horikawa snorts again, and Kanesada starts laughing along with him. His smile is so wide. His eyes are so bright. His cheeks are so red and Kanesada is warm as the bundle of blankets and Horikawa in his arms, wrapped around him, leaning into him, breathing into him. He’s scared and Horikawa doesn’t help it but that’s alright; they’ll be scared of what happens next together.

Horikawa beats him to the punch by dragging Kanesada down and leaning into him by resting on top of him, and Kanesada holds him by his small back and his laugh sounds like bells, Kanesada thinks, ringing in something new.

--

“Oh right,” says Kashuu, pulling his scarf back on. Yasusada holds it down playfully only for Kashuu to slap his hand. “Here’s what I found, while I was looking for you in that other place.”

His sword clatters to the ground ungracefully as Kashuu tosses it to him and Yasusada’s head almost collides with the cold concrete of the ground as he dives for it. “Thank you! I can’t believe I forgot about it.”

Kashuu rolls his eyes. “I can’t either. At least it’s back, though. You can ditch that miserable excuse for a weapon, now.”

Yasusada’s about to respond (with an insult, probably, if it can kill just fine it’s a weapon, Kashuu, sheesh), when he notices a piece of paper sticking out of the sheath. Pulling it out, in bold writing, it says, Good luck.

He smiles to himself; scrunches it up; throws it behind him. Kashuu’s waiting for him ahead, escape route secured. He looks nice.

“Alright; you said you’d treat me,” he stays instead and Kashuu beams at him, before whacking him over the shoulder.

--

It’s when Kanesada signs Horikawa on as his personal bodyguard for real that he learns his real, full name. Horikawa Kunihiro has the widest, brightest smile on his face as he writes his signature on the contract.