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“Kiriko? Hello, earth to Kiriko?”
Ryota waves an arm in front of her face, but she instantly pins the offending appendage to the table.
Her eyes calmly slide over to Ryota, unblinking. “What?” she says, without inflection.
Ryota grins, apologetic. “Sorry, I know you hate that. You just look like you’re spacing out.”
“I’m not,” Kiriko retorts.
Ryota and Sakura exchange furtive looks. Nobuto awkwardly averts his gaze and begins re-polishing his weapon, despite its flawlessly shiny surface. Chikasa, seemingly oblivious, continues examining the Kanezaka waterfront maps laid out on the table. They are supposed to be planning their next job, after all.
“Hey.” Kiriko frowns. “What was that?”
Sakura blinks, her face the picture of exaggerated innocence. “What was what?”
Kiriko’s frown deepens. “You know what.”
Ryota sighs, shrugging his shoulders. “Truthfully, you've been a bit distracted.”
“I’m not distracted.” Kiriko sighs. “I’m thinking and there’s a difference.”
Ryota narrowly refrains from rolling his eyes. “Right.”
“To be honest, I’ve been thinking about it too,” pipes Chikasa, surprising the group. She sets down the map she’d been studying. “The masked stranger the other night. He’s been disrupting Hashimoto patrols and sabotaging their shipments, making everything way easier for us, but we don’t know a single thing about him.”
His help, if one could call it that, has allowed them to greatly expand the scope of their operations these past few days.
What’s his deal? Kiriko wonders. It’s been eating away at her since the moment she laid eyes on him. Is he friend or foe? Not a single person in this city could tell her that.
The Yōkai direct their gazes at her, and she feels the grave weight of expectation. He could turn out to be a crucial ally in their fight against the Hashimoto, in which case it would be imperative to recruit him to their cause.
Or, Kiriko thinks darkly, he could be a honeypot. She doesn’t voice her fears aloud, but it’d be absolutely foolish of her not to consider this angle. The Hashimoto have laid traps for them before, but those traps had been so glaringly obvious they had never been a threat. She may no longer be a part of the Shimada clan, but she’s learned a thing or two from them.
“Let’s put a tail on him,” she says finally.
Sakura slaps a report on the nearby table, jolting Kiriko out of her daily meditation.
“Good news, your boyfriend’s clean,” Sakura chirps cheerfully.
“My what? I don’t have a–” Kiriko abruptly trails off when she spies a photo sticking out of the report on the table. It’s a surveillance photo of the masked vigilante, but unmasked and in broad daylight.
Kiriko flips open the report to a stack of photos, marked up maps, and photocopies. She plucks a photo off the top and studies his face. She recognizes those eyes immediately. She never would have guessed he’d look like this beneath the hat and mask.
“Uhh, why are there so many pictures?” Kiriko flips to another of him photographed from a vantage point of what she can only guess is behind a city dumpster. Sakura’s protocol naturally involves taking photographs of her mark, but to have this many is…bizarre.
“Thought you’d like ‘em,” Sakura replies breezily.
Kiriko arches a brow at her comrade, but before she can say anything, Sakura unceremoniously begins her debrief.
“His name is Mizuki Kawano. Twenty-two. Born in Fukuoka. He moved here over a month ago, and before that, well, there’s not much but it seems like he might have moved here for work. He works part-time at the Tetsuzan Shrine. Lives in one of those apartment complexes on the southside. No friends or social life to speak of, but he religiously–and I mean religiously–buys stuff from the talisman shop downtown and pretty much gets all his food from the konbini. Overall, I’d say your guy is a total normie. Well, except for the part where he kicks Hashimoto ass every night after work. No contact with Hashimoto agents otherwise.”
Kiriko pages through the rest of the report and nods as all the information checks out. She’s surprisingly endeared by the fact that Mizuki cares for one of the local shrines, even if it’s for a paycheck. There are a lot more lucrative jobs out there, and the shrines aren’t as popular as they used to be. Kiriko hasn’t been there recently to make offerings, but perhaps if she had visited, she would have bumped into him already.
“So, what are you thinking? Should we recruit him?”
Kiriko tears her gaze away from a photo of Mizuki petting a clowder of stray cats. “I think you already know the answer to that, Sakura.”
Sakura grins. “Thought you’d say that. Oh, he’s single, by the way. If that wasn’t already obvious.”
Kiriko begins to nod before jerking her head up in a dead stare. “Why do I need to know that information?”
Sakura lifts both eyebrows with a smile. “C’mon, he’s totally your type, Kiriko.”
“I–what? I don’t have a type!” she exclaims, flabbergasted.
Sakura produces a slip of paper with an address written on it and slides it across the table. “You’ll see what I mean.”
She’s treating this thing like a damn meet-cute instead of a recruitment…and I don’t have a type, thinks Kiriko irritably as she sits perched upon a rooftop across the street from the target’s address. If it had been anyone else, she would have knocked that smirk off their face immediately, but Sakura is one of her oldest and most trusted friends. If anyone gets to poke fun at her from time to time, it would be Sakura.
Kiriko quietly scans the streets below for her quarry. Not a single passerby below notices her. Kiriko’s stomach grumbles and she places a hand on it to try stifling it. This is the time of day she would usually be visiting her favorite donut shop and fueling up for an evening of ass-kicking.
When a flash of familiar silver hair appears in her peripheral vision, her thoughts of hunger recede to the back of her mind. Kiriko leans over the lip of the building to get a closer look.
He’s tall enough to stand out amongst the crowd. He’s dressed in casual clothes that appear two sizes too big for him, perhaps deliberately loose and baggy to disguise the corded muscles and lean fighter’s frame beneath. During their first encounter, it had been too dark to discern but in the light of day, she can see clearly that his left arm is a cybernetic prosthetic. As he turns the corner, the warm afternoon sunlight glints off a small silver chain that connects a cartilage cuff and earring on his right ear.
Kiriko races across the rooftop to continue tracking him and finds him approaching the street where his apartment sits. From this angle, she can get a better look at his face. Surprise wouldn’t be the right word for what she’s feeling; after all, Sakura provided dozens of photos of him already, so she knows what he looks like. But the photos don’t do him justice.
That feeling of hunger she had moments ago turns into an entirely different kind of hunger, one that Kiriko would rather die from than admit to.
Mizuki absently rubs the talisman in his pocket as he approaches his apartment door. It said that he’d have good fortune today. After making it home from his day job without a single incident, he’s never been more certain of anything in his life: these Lucky Lucky Good Luck Amulets really work.
He unlocks the door and steps inside his tin can of an apartment. Out of habit, he flips on the light switch and the single naked bulb that hangs from the ceiling flickers on. It’s not yet dark out, but he can’t stand when the apartment is dark. It reminds him too much of his childhood, when the power was always out and food was nothing more than a dream. Mizuki leaves his keyring on the table that doubles as a kitchenette, next to a hot plate that’s plugged into the wall and a small stack of uneaten instant ramen cups.
Not for the first time, Mizuki weighs the idea of skipping dinner and just going straight to sleep. He never sleeps well and it shows in his pronounced under-eye bags. The cheap futon on the floor is anything but comfortable, but it’s hard to deny the fatigue.
He stares at the wall, blinking slowly and deliberating when a gentle breeze interrupts his thoughts.
I never opened that window, Mizuki realizes with a start.
“Sooo,” chimes a voice laden with equal parts humor and mischief, “you live like this?” A figure he recognizes from that night leans against the window pane, her head cocked and arms crossed. She’s not in the same clothes she wore that night on the docks. Instead, she’s dressed casually in a teal varsity jacket, black leggings, and white sneakers. (Teal is, coincidentally, his favorite color and he can’t help but think she makes the color look really good.)
The Yōkai girl.
Mizuki stares at her, momentarily unable to form words. His gaze slides from the open window on the fifth floor of a six-story building to her and back again. “How did you…” He immediately schools his expression and shakes the nerves from his voice. When he speaks, he makes sure to sound unfazed, just like he was trained to. “Oh, you again.”
She smiles but doesn't move from where she stands. “I honestly thought you’d be more surprised to see me. Mizuki.”
The way she says his name sends a jolt of electricity through him and turns his thoughts pleasantly fuzzy. He could probably listen to her call his name over and over again and never tire of it. It sounds so sweet, so playful and affectionate coming from her.
He swallows thickly, trying to clear his throat without making it obvious. She’s testing you. Remember your training. Remember the mission.
Mizuki finally has the Yōkai within reach. He knows they’ve been tailing him for weeks. In fact, since that night on the docks, he hoped they would. He made it so easy for them to track him down. He’d been hoping the one tailing him would eventually approach him, but never in a million years did he expect her to show up, especially here of all places.
Don’t blow it. This is your one and only chance. She’s been testing you and this is the final test. Play your cards right and you’re in.
Mizuki forces his shoulders to relax, slouching into the wall behind him. “Aww, that’s not fair. I never got your name,” he manages, trying to match her playful tone. It sounds so hollow and fake to his own ears that he has to resist the urge to cringe.
The corner of her lips lift into a little smirk. “I’m not here for an introduction.”
Getting her name would be crucial intel, but it’s not worth the push. Chances are she’d give me an alias anyway, he realizes.
“So,” he drawls, breathing deeply through his nose to keep his composure, “what can I do for you?”
“Have you heard of the Yōkai?”
Jackpot.
Mizuki tries desperately not to let his excitement show. He forces himself to shrug.
“Of course I have. In Kanezaka, who hasn’t?” His voice is dripping with nonchalance.
Her head tilts ever so slightly to the side, and her brown eyes narrow, crinkling the red marks on her cheeks. Like a fox eyeing her prey.
Mizuki grits his teeth, praying to whatever spirits will listen that she won’t see right through his little act.
Finally, after what feels like an eternity in total silence, she says, “Tomorrow night at ten, behind the arcade. Met us there?”
Us. She said ‘us.’ I passed her test.
“Is that your base?” As soon as the words leave his mouth, Mizuki realizes his mistake.
Her smile fades and her expression goes carefully neutral. “It could be. You’ll just have to wait and find out, won’t you? So, are you in or out?”
“I’m in.”
The smile returns to her face. Surprisingly, her voice is no less playful than it was when she called his name. “Then I’ll see you there.”
Before he can respond, she disappears out the open window.
Mizuki stares wordlessly out the window for a solid minute before shakily sinking down onto his paper-thin futon, taking deep breaths to calm himself.
I can’t believe it. I’m in. They really fell for it hook, line, and sinker, just like Lady Shion said they would.
A mild discomfort against his pant leg draws his attention to his pocket. He shoves a hand into his pocket and pulls out the amulet, slightly creased from being handled all day. He’d completely forgotten it was in there. He rubs it again for good measure.
It really is his lucky day.