Households, Cooking, and Secret Feelings
Summary: Beneath all of the everyday silliness that the Kill Me Trio concocts, there is a terrible secret as to why Sonya can never leave the assassin's organization and truly become a normal girl. [SonyaAgiriFriendship]
AN: Something that Kazuho (KMB's author) had Yasuna mention several times was her reason for showing Sonya all of the mundane normal-life stuff she brings to school. They aren't solely for the sake of creating a topic for a manzai routine. Yasuna is trying to spark an interest for normal life in Sonya with them. It fails to work... Or does it?
Also, has anyone here watched Sunred?
(Skit1)
"IT'S COOKING TIME!" Yasuna boisterously called out while clanging a pair of pot-lids. All eyes of the classroom were drawn to her noisy display, most noticeable of were those of her despairing partner.
"Quiet down, idiot!" Sonya scolded. Everyone's attention on them had her flustered. "You're making me look like a fool just by being near you! And besides, we're just cooking. Do you get this excited when your mom prepares your meals?"
"C'mon, Sonya-chan, that's not what I'm excited about. Don't you think that Home Economics Class is a good chance to learn about how fun it is to live normally? This could be a big chance for you!" Yasuna said, still giddy.
"This would be useless in my line of work." Sonya answered coolly. "My job never calls for a permanent residence, so learning to maintain a household will do me no good."
Disappointment was all too visible on Yasuna's face, seeing how her compassionate suggestion wasn't even deflected. It completely missed its mark. "N-no, that's not what I meant. It's not supposed to be something to compliment your job. It's supposed to be something you can use after you quit it..."
(Skit2)
"Oh, so you're going on about that again. It's been a while since you used that as an excuse to bother me. Why would I quit?"
Yasuna was aghast at Sonya's cold composure. "Don't you get what's obvious? It isn't right to just kill people you don't even know. Sonya-chan, don't tell me that you think it's fun to do that sort of work."
Sonya scoffed. "I never said that it had to be fun. Besides, it's better for the world if I didn't quit."
"Eh? You're bringing the world into this now?" Her friend was puzzled.
"Listen. The world would be a poorer place if people with the proper talent for a job or position were not in them. Only people who are most qualified to be astronauts go into space. Only certified doctors practice medicine. Likewise, it would be a waste of my talent if I were in any position other than that of an assassin. It's what I'm best at so it should be what I do, understand?" Sonya elaborated.
"Oooh. I get it. So you're saying that you should only do what you're best at?" Yasuna sounded a bit sly.
"Pretty much."
"Then if you weren't the best at being an assassin, you would quit!" Yasuna exclaimed. "Fine! I'll just prove to you that my assassin skills are better than yours and force you to step down from your job!"
A sinister grin spread on Sonya's face. "Oh? How interesting? You want to have a go at me right here right now?"
"Eh? W-wait a second, Sonya-chan!"
(Skit3)
Sonya and Yasuna stared at the quiz papers that the Home Economics teacher handed to them.
"Uh... To think that they would test us on the first day of class. The teacher report would look bad if we all fail." Yasuna cringed.
"The teacher isn't counting this test. She just wants to see who here would need special attention during class." Sonya reasoned "My guess is you."
"Hmph! I'll show you! I'm Oribe Yasuna: An average high-school girl. Being normal is my specialty!"
Sonya and Yasuna stared at their corrected quiz papers that the Home Economics teacher handed back.
"Alright, not a bad score. Not too flashy, but not too low." Sonya said, while scanning her paper. "How are things on your end, Yasuna?"
All too unsurprised, Sonya turned to see a very face-fallen Yasuna sucking her tears. "I-I'm Oribe Yasuna: An average high-school girl who is too pampered by her parents to know anything about taking care of a house..."
"Good grief." Sonya sighed.
(Skit4)
"These questions are too advanced for a beginner." Yasuna mulled over. "Are you sure the teacher didn't mix us for a higher level class?"
"You shouldn't blame the teacher for your own stupidity. Besides, our school only offers this single level of Home Ec."
"Then what was the answer to this question?" Yasuna asked defensively. "Should you dust or vacuum first?"
"You dust first, then you vacuum because dusting pushes refuse onto the floor. It doesn't get rid of it. If you vacuum before dusting, you end up vacuuming twice." Sonya answered nonchalantly.
"Dammit. What about this one?" Yasuna continued. "When washing dishes, how should they be separated?"
"By which dishes are greasy and not greasy." Her friend answered with the same enthusiasm as before.
"What should be the first chore to complete during the day other than 'prepare breakfast?'" Yasuna pressed.
"Hanging wet laundry, because how quickly they dry is dependent on how long they are out in the sun."
"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" Yasuna was fuming. "Are you some kind of genius!? That proves that these questions are too advanced."
"It's commonsense, you moron!"
(Skit5)
"Well, chores are only one part of this class. My real talent is in cooking. I'll show you what I can do!" Yasuna bounced back.
"Hoh? Alright, Emeril, what's on the menu today?" Sonya challenged. A condescending smile was visible on her face.
"Fried eggs!"
Sonya could have sworn her brows were about to touch, but Yasuna continued undeterred.
"Fufufu. Now, newbies think that tossing the eggs up is the best way to flip them, but the pros know that the spatula is best." She spoke with an exaggerated sense of knowing.
"Oi, quit talking yourself up." Sonya met Yasuna's snide grin with her usual deadpan.
"Well, actions mean more than words. Now observe the splendor of my perfect flipping technique!" Yasuna boasted. She twirled her utensil before bringing it down on her eggs. "Huh? The eggs are stuck to the pan!"
"Ah!" Sonya chimed in. "Could it be that you were cooking them at a high temperature? You're supposed to fry eggs in a low heat."
After several failed attempts, Yasuna managed to flip over her eggs at the expense of tearing them apart.
"I wanted to make them scrambled anyways."
"Good God. You can't even fry an egg right..."
(Skit6)
"C'mon, Sonya-chan. Don't you think that being a chef could be an interesting career choice?"
"It would be a pain to learn a new craft when I already pretty much mastered one that's in reasonably high demand." Sonya pierced Yasuna's question, but suddenly looked apprehensive for a moment. "Wait, this could actually be useful. That AND the home-caring stuff too!"
Yasuna beamed. "Ah, Sonya-chan, so you finally woke up to what I've been trying to tell you."
"If I'm ever assigned to assassinate a wealthy person, I could pose as one of his servants and poison his food without drawing any suspicion. This class might help teach me to play the part." Sonya mused and Yasuna fell on her face. Their wavelengths couldn't be further apart.
"And that is the world famous ninja art of assassination!"
"Ah! I know that voice!" Yasuna piped up.
"Hellooo, girls."
"Wah! Agiri-san!" Yasuna and Sonya jumped apart as Agiri mysteriously emerged in-between them.
"Sonya, it's nice to see that some people are interested in keeping the classics alive."
"Actually," Sonya put her hand to her chin. "I think that that really IS a ninja technique..."
(Skit7)
"Agiri-san, this is great timing!" Yasuna was suddenly charged. "Could you show us some special secret ninja food recipes? I bet you could make one of those cool food pellets that keep you full for an entire week, or something like that!"
"Well..." Agiri held onto her last syllable for an exaggerated length of time, teasing and basking in Yasuna's earnest expression. "Alright, it shouldn't be a problem. In fact, all of the ingredients for it are on your table. It won't take even a minute."
"Alright!"
"Oh, so she's so absorbed in this that she's forgotten about me now?" Sonya muttered.
"Here we are!" Agiri sang. She reached out with her open palm to present her creation to them.
"You just molded our brown rice into a rice-ball!" Yasuna shouted, incredulous.
"Brown rice is highly nutritious and easily accessible. Isn't it as efficient as a ninja?"
"Efficient and disappointing."
Sonya stretched out in her homeroom seat. Today had been long and exhausting, but thankfully school would be dismissed in a couple of minutes. She glanced to her left and spotted Yasuna, preoccupided with staring out the window. She huffed. That damn Yasuna. Just being around her demands so much energy. Well, after their usual walk away from school, she would just shake her loose, go home, and get some much needed rest.
"Hm?" Sonya's knee bumped into one of her desk's legs. The resulting tremor jarred out a suspicious looking envelop from inside it.
"Since when did this get here..." Sonya plucked the note and looked back to Yasuna, making sure that she wasn't looking. Seeing as it was safe, Sonya unfolded the note and read.
'To validate that this message was not sent to you by anyone other than a fellow member of the organization, the organization contact password will be given: Naamin.' A very business-like note. It could only mean something serious, Sonya thought to herself as she read on.
'We need to have a talk. Come to the usual place.'
So it WAS her. Sonya reflexively stood up. Her weariness was shed and she was suddenly alert in an anxious sense. The abrupt ruckus she produced from shooting up too quickly caught everyone's eyes. On the spotlight, she felt even more nervous.
"Ah, Sonya-chan, is something the matter?" Yasuna piped up, also noticing.
Sonya regained her composure and looked her straight in the eye. The note crumpled in her fist in a sloppy attempt to hide it. "Nothing. I just need the restroom." Of course, it was a lie, and at the end of her trek in the school she was not facing the restroom doors, but the doors of the unused ninja clubroom.
Sonya grabbed the indent of the sliding door and pushed it aside. She poked her head into the room and hit the lights. "Oi, Agiri. Are you in there?" No response. Sonya scanned the room but saw nothing.
"Looking for me?" A voice came from behind.
"OWAHH!" Sonya instinctively turned around and slashed with her knife only to hit air. Agiri was standing just out of her reach.
"Y-You know better than to startle me from behind! And why the hell weren't you in there!? You sent for me, didn't you!?" Sonya sputtered.
Agiri cocked her head. "Well, just because I sent the note doesn't mean that I was at the meeting place already. It's no surprise that you'd make it here before me, Sonya. you're always so high-strung. You need to learn how to relax."
"Yeah, well. We were going to discuss something important, correct?"
"Ah ah." Agiri placed her index finger near Sonya lips, silencing her. "We need to be in the room first."
Sonya's eyes perked up as if realizing something critical. Wordlessly, she nodded and obeyed. Agiri led her in and closed the door behind them.
Despite looking like an ordinary unused clubroom, Agiri's room was actually an assassin's secret haven. The rundown of its specs are impressive to say the least. All six sides of room are lined with thin sheets of lead, preventing spies from using x-ray imaging on them. To prevent listening devices from working, the walls are sound-proofed. If an explosion were to be set off in the room, even the ones nearby it would be deaf to it. The area had also been constantly swept for wire taps and recording devices. In this room, you were as invisible and as inaudible as a ghost.
"It's good that we have this room. And since it's in such an under-used wing of the school it won't stick out as something forcibly hidden to someone looking from outside." Sonya praised. "It was the best place to hold our holiday parties and even that stupid bootlegged birthday celebration without feeling watched. We really have you to thank for this, Agiri. Even if Yasuna doesn't know that about this room."
"It's nothing. A labor of love really."
"So, what were we going to discuss?"
"Funny you should ask." Agiri's voice suddenly changed. Not in a big way. She still sounded spacey and airy, but the subtle tone behind it seemed darkened. "It's about Yasuna."
Sonya paled. A genuine look of concern flashed on her face. One that she tried to hide, though there would be no sense to it. They were in Agiri's special room after all. "Nothing good, I assume." She swallowed and produced a response.
"Now now, Sonya, even though you're one of the youngest in the organization, you should still understand our code of conduct." Agiri said, as a matter-of-factually. "Or do I need to refresh your memory?"
"How long have I been with you guys? I know enough already! Don't treat me like a kid!" Sonya flared up.
"Mind that temper now, Sonya. Is this any way to talk to someone who has helped keep your friend alive until now?" Agiri spoke, unaffected.
As that realization dawned on Sonya, her rage abated. "Ah... I'm sorry. I asked you to really stick out your neck for me all this time. I can't even imagine how much sleep you lose over my selfishness. I'm sorry, Agiri."
"Well, masking the presence of someone who should be dead is no small feat." Agiri shrugged. "But Sonya, Yasuna's time is trickling away as of now. Sorry to speak in such a direct way, but its urgency cannot be further stressed."
Sonya paused for a long time, as if searching for a proper reply for Agiri. "Nothing lasts forever, it seems." She said after her long silence. "You've had Yasuna living on borrowed time longer than I imagined. As expected of a professional. Asking you for even more would be childish and getting angry at you would be ungrateful. But I can't help it. Yasuna is a treasured... friend."
"Ah?" Agiri resounded. "Sonya, don't I count as one of your friends?"
"O-Of course you do!" Sonya caught herself. "You've known me the longest in the organization. But Yasuna is different. She's... she's..."
"Normal?" Agiri knowingly finished for her. "Fufu. Sonya, I always knew that you would have this problem since the day your parents first introduced you to the organization."
"My family were elites..." Sonya recounted in nostalgia. "I remember the quiet private schools they sent me to, the dresses that they painstakingly picked out for me for parties, and the times I would spend aimlessly idling away with the servants. You still remember my shock when it was time for me to take up my family's secret trade, don't you?"
"Unforgettable." Agiri chimed. "Your attachment to your normal life was as clear as day. To even have a taste of regular life again appeals to you. Simply having that knowledge makes that act you put on to thwart Yasuna's attempts at converting you just adorable!"
Sonya couldn't say a word in her defense. She could only look to the side in shame.
"But Sonya, we can't have you playing around in dreamland forever. You are aware that allowing a civilian to know about our line of work is dangerous. Not only to the organization, but to the civilian as well. They are to be swiftly disposed." Agiri scolded yet her overall voice didn't carry any anger. "You're lucky that she happens to be an unreliable and gullible type to the people here. But to enemy organizations, her word might have weight to them."
Sonya gulped.
"Sonya, how do you believe an enemy assassin would view Yasuna?" Agiri posed. "A loose-end. An opening to get to our organization. They would kidnap her and torture her for information that she doesn't have, simply because she is viewed as someone close to you. Failing that, she would be used as a hostage get to you. Now what is all of this painful complication compared to a painless, merciful bullet to the head?"
"The kill orders that I have been receiving, didn't come from HQ." Came Sonya's reply. "You tracked down the enemy assassins that were targeting Yasuna and myself and pointed me in their directions to prevent that from happening. I see... keeping a witness alive is very demanding."
"The organization got wind of your relation with her quite some time ago and the order for her execution was given." Agiri continued. "Now how lucky were you when the person they sent to confirm it was none other than yours truly? I knew how you couldn't go through with it, so I sent a false notice confirming the kill back to HQ. Not to mention, I falsified the government records to list her as 'deceased' to keep things consistent. Right now, the organization has taken their eyes off of Japan because of bigger operations in Russia, but when that is over they will move onto here. When they do, how hard would it be to spot someone who should already be dead clinging onto you?"
"How much time does Yasuna have left?" Sonya did not cut corners.
"Indeterminate. But by how quickly things are clearing up overseas, I predict that she has a month at most."
"I'll cherish that time then... If that is what we came here to talk about, then I guess we're finished." Sonya tried to stay cool and turned around and made for the exit. Though, her stride was noticeably wobbling.
"Ah? Wait, Sonya." Agiri called out.
"Y-Yes?"
"There is one final favor that I can offer to you." Agiri stated. "If it's too painful for you, then you can leave killing Yasuna up to me. When the time comes, you can just tell me, and I'll do it for you. It will be painless, I promise."
"NO!" Sonya flat-out refused. She stood in silence, collecting herself while being slightly ashamed of her outburst. "I... I can't ask you to do that. I'm in no position to make that request. I dragged you into this mess and made you my accomplice. If anything, you shouldn't be offering me any more favors. You should be angry with me. You should be mad at how stupid I've been. So I must be the one who kills Yasuna! This is my screw-up! This is my mess, and I have to clean it up myself! This is my punishment for being wish-washy over something that I can't ever have again."
"Well, well. That's my Sonya. Always taking responsibility." Agiri praised. "Then, if my assistance cannot be accepted, how about some advice?"
"Advice?"
"Sonya, be like the Buddha."
"But Buddha doesn't kill." Sonya raised her brow.
"No, no, silly. I mean to take from one of his philosophies." Agiri explained. "Understand that everything is impermanent. Happiness and misery come and go. Likewise, when you kill Yasuna, you will be struck with great pain, but it is not permanent. It won't be forever. Slowly but surely the sadness will run its course, and after that you can find happiness again."
"You just made it sound like Buddha justifies murder." Sonya deadpanned.
"Oh, but he doesn't. But the point I'm trying to make, Sonya, is to keep your head together after this blows over."
"I see... I got it. Thanks, Agiri."
"Well then, good luck on all of your future endeavors." Agiri bid farewell to Sonya.
Walking home, Sonya's head felt heavier than usual. A month at most, huh? All this time, Yasuna didn't know of her plight. She was able to live blissfully unaware, but the time of revelation was fast approaching. Sonya played the simulation of Yasuna's murder a dozen times in her head and reasoned that it was probably best to make it a quick gunshot to the back of the head. To let Yasuna die, not knowing all of the complications and misery surrounding her.
"Sooonya-chaan!"
Speak of the devil. Yasuna was running up straight behind Sonya. "You're so mean Sonya-chan. I searched the entire school for you and now I find you walking home without me?"
"You're just too slow. If you waited at the gate rather than running around like a headless chicken, you would have run into me." Sonya chided before her eyes drifted towards Yasuna's hand. "Ah? What's that?"
"Oh this?" Yasuna boasted proudly. "This is your favorite yakisoba bread! I wanted you eat this and then lament on how you don't have the cooking skills to make your own favorite food!"
"If you're just going to give me free-food, then give it here. I don't need a fancy explanation." Sonya snatched it, annoyed.
"Isn't it yummy?"
"Hmph. It's..." Sonya took a bite before suddenly freezing up in terror. Across from her was Yasuna's bright beaming face. Something struck her like a thunderbolt. The mental images of Yasuna's death that she was using to desensitize herself stood as nothing to the real thing. At that moment, she realized that the Yasuna in front of her would never be able to make that face ever again after she was killed. And she would never see it in anywhere but a memory. Sonya grimaced as she pictured such a happy expression with a bullet hole in the forehead. A single tear dislodged from her eye.
"It's disgusting!" Sonya cried out.
"Ah!? Really!?" Yasuna suddenly became concerned. "Maybe it's stale. It was the last one at the food store."
Dammit! Dammit! If only you hadn't come into my life. If you just minded your own business and left me alone, it wouldn't have to come to this. If you hadn't reminded me about a normal life, you wouldn't be hanging out with me. And if you weren't hanging out with me, you wouldn't have to die! Any ordinary person who gets too close to me will die! That's what it means to live like an assassin. I can never have any connections with normal people. I can never have any normal friends.
"It's so disgusting, I want to throw up!" Sonya stuffed herself. The tears streamed down her face.
"Eh? Sonya-chan?"
AN:
Ah Mrs. Lonely
Playing around the street corner.
Ah Mrs. Lonely
Forgetting the cracks in her heart.
Ah Mrs. Lonely
The light has been swallowed by the night.
Ah Mrs. Lonely
I want cry, I want cry, I want cry.
Mrs. Lonely by celeste-blu on Muzie.
The song that I listened to as I wrote this. I can understand some of the Japanese. Also, I hope you liked my nerd references to the show.