Chapter Text
"Creditors are a superstitious sect, great observers of set days and times."
- Benjamin Franklin
The caller on the other end hangs up. Kaiser, that blonde haired fucker, sighs in pity. “Can’t get anyone to return your calls, lashes?”
Sae blinks in confusion. “I just saw you get hung up on by six consecutive people.”
“Yes, but at least they heard me.” Kaiser holds his nails up to the light, turning them this way and that. Sae resists the urge to scratch his eyes out. “Knowing you, they probably have your number blocked.”
“Again, we call from the same number.” Kaiser pretends not to hear him, but Sae continues anyways. “The Agency is fair - “
“Fair in all of its judgements, even though the ideas of good and evil are so very subjective.” Kaiser mimics bringing a phone up to his ear, extending both pinky and thumb. “Hello sir, ma’am, or whichever gender you are - we are the Agency, and your karmic debt is in the thousands.” His voice is nauseatingly sweet.
“…I don’t sound like that.”
“Uh huh.”
It shouldn’t matter this much that Kaiser is baiting him; not when they’ve been in adjacent cubicles for the past twenty years and the blonde has almost never admitted to being wrong. But Sae bristles at the idea of being predictable.
(“You’re easy, Sae.” That laugh, that horrible, grating sound that tunnels into his ears and stays. “You’re so, so easy to read.”)
Outwardly calm, Sae pulls up the file on his computer. Clicks past the hundreds of warnings reminding him to change his password, even though no one’s bothered to touch his desk for the past fifty years. Time passes differently up here, or maybe it’s just that out of the two hundred years that Sae’s existed (not lived, not really), his cases have never been stolen.
Kaiser hmms, leaning over Sae's shoulder. It is because it's Kaiser who is doing so that the gesture is not even remotely sexual, just irritating - but Sae scrolls down the names anyway, to the S's and then -
"Shidou Ryusei?" The blonde's mouth contorts into a grin. "Oh, Sae."
"Is he especially compliant? Is that why you're smiling like Pennywise, or is that just your face?"
"It's just my - " Kaiser coughs. "What I mean is that he's a pain in the ass to deal with, and I hope that he is for you as well."
Sae's expression remains neutral, but he's already calculating how to adjust his work around this new nuisance. He might have to ask Luna (to ask Bunny) to cover a few of his cases, because Iglesias will hold it over his head forever if he knew that it was Sae asking.
"You want me to have a pain in my ass, then?" Sae keeps scrolling down the profile - Shidou Ryusei, approximately fifty thousand karmic points in debt. What the -
"Do you want me to want you to have a pain in your ass?" Kaiser asks, and then winces.
"We both know you can do better than that, Kaiser." Fifty fucking thousand points. How the fuck is one supposed to repay that kind of debt? "I'd prefer not you proposition me in the office. At least wait until five p.m."
"You dick," Kaiser hisses, before promptly shutting up when Noa walks by.
"Doing your work, then?" Sae nods, and Kaiser...Kaiser is stone-faced.
"Kaiser?" The older man (relatively older, no one in the office is younger than a hundred-fifty by now) arches an eyebrow.
"Yes, sir." Kaiser can't quite keep the bite out of his voice, but Noa ignores his rudeness.
"Sae." Sae doesn't even need to turn around to see that Noa's approached his desk - there's a looming shadow about seven feet tall that can only be attributed to Noa. "This is a difficult case."
"And you assigned it to me?" Noa just stares at him. "Sir," Sae adds. "You assigned this case to me, sir?" After that colossal failure of a debt collection?
"You're a capable worker." Noa's eyes rove over the file, and then Sae. Assessing. "This is your opportunity to make up for that."
"Thank you, sir." The gratitude in Sae's voice is hollow, and even Kaiser can't stop himself from rolling his eyes behind Noa's back. "I'll make sure that this pays off."
And then Lorenzo fucking giggles.
"Pay off your debt, Sae-chan." His laugh is curiously choppy, as if someone had partly severed his throat and the sound has been dragged out. "Pay off all your debts."
Kaiser groans. "Lorenzo, stop eavesdropping."
The purple-haired man just keeps laughing. And laughing. And laughing, and only goes silent after Kaiser throws a chair at him.
But throughout the chaos, Sae's eyes are drawn to the picture of a peculiarly tan man with pink and blonde hair, leaning back and exposing his throat to the camera.
Disturbingly, it's not an unattractive picture.
Shidou is lean, yet lithely muscled. He's lounging on a carseat in the picture, and yet his shoulders and legs are tensed. Ready to run.
Bunny's voice, resounding in Sae's head for the second time that day.
Gave up on integrity just for a pretty boy, huh?
Sae exits out of the file, and then picks up a pen from his desk. Bunny had given it to him, and it's really such a nice pen that Sae couldn't bear to throw it away. Instead, he throws it over the divider between his and Kaiser's cubicle.
"What the - "
Sae stretches, then sits back down. A second later, the pen bounces off of his head and hits the ground. Sae stares at the remains, of which are scattered across the floor like debris after a bomb.
He scoops up the debris and tosses it into an empty desk drawer.
I hope you keep this pen, Sae. It's quite precious to me. Bunny's stupid, irrational smile as vague as smoke and twice as intangible. Always, the unspoken: You're quite precious to me as well, Sae -
Kaiser's voice interrupts his thoughts, and for once, Sae is grateful. "You're actually going to do this?"
Sae shrugs. "Why not?" It can't be all that bad, not a mortal, anyways. Shidou Ryusei will come willingly.
As it turns out, Shidou does not 'come willingly.'
And instead of Shidou being dragged out kicking and screaming, it's a bald boy who's yelling his head off about something or other.
"Shidou!" the boy yelps. "I swear, I have an excuse for why I didn't receive the delivery this morning - "
"Oh." Shidou, or so it seems to be - looks the exact same as he had in the photo, but so much more vivid. The picture hadn't captured the way that light glances off of his skin in a thousand different directions. If Sae didn't know better, he would think that the man is an immortal.
Shidou either doesn't notice or doesn't care that Sae is staring, because he continues to lecture the boy.
"You see, Igaguri," he starts, yanking the boy's collar tight around his fist. Sae scratches his own neck. It's really too warm for December. "I really couldn't give a fuck about whether the both of your parents decided to jump off of a plane."
Igaguri audibly gulps, and Sae shifts his weight to his back foot. It's startling when he realizes that he is similar to Shidou in this way - that he is always on guard. Poised to escape at any given moment.
"But I think it's sad that you used the bullshit excuse of saying that baby blue fucked up his part of the delivery." Baby blue? Sure, why not. "He never fucks up."
"You don't know that," Igaguri mutters. Sae starts calculating the further karmic debt that Shidou will accrue if he ends up massacring the kid. Five, ten thousand? It's hard to say, since Igaguri is being really fucking annoying.
"Hmmm, really?" Shidou lets go of his collar, and Igaguri barely saves himself from cracking his head open. Igaguri stares up at Shidou, as if only now realizing that he might actually be in danger.
"Cause I could swear that I saw baby blue driving by this morning and making his deliveries to the house opposite me." Shidou drops down on his knees, now eye-level with Igaguri. "Unless my memory is wrong?"
"...No, boss."
"Good!" Shidou pats the boy on the head, who is still trembling. "Now leave before I really do split your skull open. You're lucky that I didn't see that teal fucker today, or I might've been annoyed enough to kill you."
Shidou laughs, and Igaguri follows his lead. After a few uncomfortable seconds, Igaguri walks away to what seems to be his truck, but which Sae knows is one Mr. Buratsata's package delivery vehicle. It was detailed as one of the more minor crimes in Shidou's file - breaking and entering Buratsata's garage, and leaving with four trucks full of 'merchandise.' Whatever the merchandise was wasn't specified.
Shidou keeps laughing for some reason, and Sae starts considering sending a drone to monitor him. They're notoriously unreliable, but Sae could send out fifteen, maybe. Borrow some from Teddy, who has a whole storage room full of them.
The only problem is, then, that they're unreliable. That this whole situation has been noted down by a particularly plucky caseworker as a 'powder keg waiting to explode.' That Sae can't fuck it up again, or else he might as well quit and go into early retirement.
Sae can't think of any other options, though, not with Shidou's cackle reverberating in his head. Sae moves to clap his hands around his ears; a pair of makeshift headphones, but Shidou whips around.
He's a dog, Sae marvels. He's a wild dog, with the super-sensitivity to match.
He has to get out. Now, before Shidou notices he's here. This is a strictly surveillance mission that Sae had decided to take on a month before he was supposed to confront the man, and Noa will have his head on a silver platter if he's caught. Probably serve it up to Bunny too, and that, that is something that Sae will not allow to happen.
"Hello," Shidou says pleasantly, one hand planted an inch away from Sae's face and against the grimy alley wall. "What are you doing here?"
Sae's breath catches in his throat, but he doesn't force a laugh the way Igaguri had. He does the opposite, actually - cocks his head by a by a fraction towards Shidou’s hand instead of away from it.
“I’m gardening. Obviously.”
“In an alley?” Shidou’s smile is wide and mirthful. “That’s odd.”
“And you aren’t? Odd, that is,” Sae clarifies. Sae’s intonation is scarily smooth for a liar, but it goes to show how practice makes perfect and all that.
You have to practice, darling -
Shidou’s bicep stiffens, and for a moment, Sae thinks he’s about to die. Die right here in this shithole of an alley, this haven for gutter rats, with Bunny smirking down at him from above. He’d rather have Kaiser stab him in the neck with a fork.
In the split second before Shidou moves, Sae considers all of his options. He can’t pull out the taser he’s brought - not enough time. Shidou can easily block attacks from Sae’s arms, given their height difference -
Their height difference.
As Sae knees Shidou in the crotch, he thinks back to not Bunny, but him.
“It’s not so bad being short, Sae-san.” Navy blue eyes turned upwards. It is the first time that Sae has felt large in his own body.
Shidou recoils, but only briefly. He stamps on Sae’s foot with the vengeance that only those whom have been kicked in the balls can muster, and Sae gasps like he’s a fish out of water.
Now, with Sae essentially crippled, Shidou is frowning.
“The fuck?” He mimics pointing a gun at Sae’s head, then firing it off. “You could’ve hurt yourself.”
Sae can’t help but gape. “You broke my foot.”
“Nah.” Shidou squats down, and his hair is surprisingly soft-looking for a psychopath. Almost feathery.
He taps the side of Sae’s foot lightly, but Sae can’t repress his wince.
“My bad,” Shidou says, and he sounds sorry.
“For what? I, ah.” Sae looks down to assess the damages, but meets Shidou’s eyes instead. “I injured an…important bodily area of yours, I suppose you could say.”
“Or, you could just say you kicked me in the balls,” Shidou supplies. “Like a normal person.”
Without warning, Shidou lifts up Sae’s injured leg and holds it about a foot off of the ground.
“Don’t you dare - “ It’s one thing to kick an enemy while they’re down, but entirely another to caress their foot like they care.
“Relax.” Shidou grazes the top of Sae’s foot, and - oh. It’s not that bad of an injury after all.
“It’s not broken,” Shidou proclaims, and sets Sae’s foot down gently. “Just a bone bruise.”
“You’re being nice to me. Why?”
Shidou beams. “Because you’re interesting.”
“Huh.” Sae ponders this. “I suppose you’re interesting as well.” A slightly insane man who doesn’t mind his groin being flattened into a pancake. A man who treats him like malleable glass; whom Sae has wavered between wanting to kill or kiss.
Interesting, to say the least.
"How's the client doing?" Kaiser tosses Sae's computer mouse in the air from hand-to-hand. "This is cheap, by the way."
"Thank you for that - " Sae snatches the mouse mid-toss and Kaiser tsks, "Helpful information. I'll get a new one just for you, Your Majesty."
"Now, don't go to all that trouble for me."
"Don't worry." Sae re-plugs the mouse to his computer. Please load. Shidou pops up on-screen, and he sighs in relief. "I wasn't planning on it."
"Fuck you too, then."
"Not you," Sae replies, and instantly regrets doing so. Kaiser's eyes are wider than golf balls.
"Are you - "
"Shut up," Sae whispers, clamping a hand over Kaiser's mouth. The blonde's eyes widen impossibly further. "Shut up, shut up, shut up."
And then Kaiser bites him.
"Oh, my God. I'm going to get rabies," Kaiser declares.
"Are you fucking - " Kidding me, Sae means to say, That's not how one even gets rabies, but Kaiser interrupts him.
"I think you are, Sae. That's why you're so angry." Kaiser's face is perfectly calm for someone who's about to get mauled. "Because you're all pent up from not being able to fuck in the office, that's why."
Sae is going to pull Kaiser apart, piece by piece until gore covers the desk entirely, and Noa will walk up and simply sigh, saying what a shame it is that Kaiser couldn't last out longer against Sae Itoshi, the fuckup -
Sae breathes out slowly. "No, Kaiser." He is completely fine with speaking about Shidou informally.
"You're blushing," Kaiser observes, and Sae rubs at his cheeks like it'll wipe away the color.
Perfectly fine with it.