Hi! So this is the sequel to the previous story I had written called Hook (which used to be Agent 147 like, 5 minutes ago). Since I'm more frequent on AO3 now I forget to update here sorz. But the last chapter of Hook has been uploaded (as a reviewer kindly reminded me to do so lol) and here is the sequel? Once again, I'm very grateful for all of you to have read my stories but also... please come on its so much easier to navigate!

It was really fucking cold in early January.

Still, Keigo decided to walk home all the way from Central Tokyo, which was an hour and a half - minimum - by foot. He could deal with his balls freezing as long as he got time to figure out what the fuck was going on. He shook his head to clear the latent dizziness from the drugs and chronologically recollected all events in the past 24 hours. So, facts:

Kisuke and him had made a deal earlier that day that Keigo had begrudgingly accepted. Initially, he wanted to remain on SHIELD's radar to continue to train and keep an eye out for any and all malicious things they planned to do with his information and their frighteningly competent technology against non-corporeal monsters. But Urahara had, under no certain terms, reminded him of the consequences his previous recklessness had caused, resulting in a guilty-as-hell, angry teenager agreeing to stay out of it all together.

Disappointing as it may have been, this decision felt slightly relieving too. Not having to carry the weight of his giant fuckups on his shoulders anymore and letting Urahara take care of it was something he realised was the obvious solution to this... predicament. The idea of leaving SHIELD felt more and more reaffirming, right up until the shinigami told him that he was gonna drug Keigo for a solid 8 hours and fake-kidnap him.

Another screaming match later, Keigo ended up lying down on his couch, with a defeated "Ugh, fine. Do it."

"Remember, you never came to me," Kisuke had said in his trademark sing-song voice. Keigo huffed.

"I knoooow, just get on with it already."

Keigo was out cold the next second, and had woken up in SHIELD medical apparently, someplace close to their boring front of an office building. After the initial panic at his new surroundings combined with the cotton-like feeling in his brain (and goddamn Kisuke, what the fuck), Keigo learned to school his face into something more believable for a scared-to-shit fifteen year old kid (which. Not hard, he was a jumpy motherfucker at the best of times) and played along with anything Penta-man had to say.

Of course it lasted a total of 20 seconds before Fujikawa decided that Keigo was eligible for Spy-School Bachelorette out of no-fucking-where with his "viable candidacy" and "you will be an asset to our organization, Keigo," and dammit Keigo really wished to have not caught that trap for what it obviously was. For a second he had to remind himself that he wasn't supposed to be with SHIELD anymore and refrained from immediately accepting like a hungry dog with a bone. Sometimes, Keigo admits, he's pathetic for wanting so desperately to be a part of something bigger than him.

Okay, most of the time.

But he's never been in cahoots with anyone before okay? It would be nice to feel like he was in cahoots once in a while.

Still, after his outright refusal followed by calling SHIELD out on their bluff, Keigo was told that he was allowed to go home and that SHIELD would no longer interfere in his life anymore. Ha. Right. Keigo didn't believe that for a second, suspecting that SHIELD might be tailing him right now - what with not having given him a ride home this time; it seemed like their hospitality lasted about as long as his usefulness, fucking assholes. He knew that going to Urahara's place immediately and risk showing his hand.

He still had a solid half hour to get home, so Keigo didn't worry.

And it was fucking late, Urahara would probably just leave him stranded in the cold anyway.

On his way to Karakura, he stopped by a 7-Eleven to get something to eat - recalling that he skipped all meals today - and purchased a pack of soda for his sister to keep her from asking too many questions. Now that the holidays were almost over, his parents decided to pack up and leave for god-knows-how-long for work, so he didn't have to worry about them at the moment.

It also meant that he would have to go back to school and try to be normal again. The thought left a sour taste in his mouth, already missing being occupied with secrets that were his to keep. Sure, it was stressful and he constantly felt guilty for giving his friends away to a bunch of spies, but Keigo had felt like he was actually doing something good with his life, like he was looking at the bigger picture. He felt... important, and it hurt like a bitch to think that he won't be doing that anymore. Fortunately, it mostly cleared his conscience from lies and betrayal and even if he wanted to, Keigo literally could not come clean to any of his friends because the the pile of NDAs he had signed months ago.

It was going to be alright, he would work it out.

He reached Karakura in a daze, just in time for his fingers to turn into icicles. No amount of blowing on them made them any less frigid. He didn't have gloves, but he had a thick jacket that he apparently wore before he was "attacked". He briefly thought he should take it off and burn the damn thing, fully knowing that it's bugged somewhere, but the wind picked up suddenly and he figured he might as well head home before setting the offended article of clothing on fire to warm his hands.

Mizuho was making dinner when he rang the door bell.

"The hell have you been?" she snapped as she opened the door. Keigo gave her a meek shrug, rubbing the back of his head with his hand. Ouch. Cold.

"Lost track of the time, sorry. I brought soda?" he held up the six-pack with crossed fingers behind his back.

Mizuho snatched the pack and let him in reluctantly. "You're lucky mom and dad aren't home," then, "Ew, is this grapefruit? You know I hate grapefruit!" she thwacked him on the head lightly before walking back to the kitchen and finishing up.

"It's half-grapefruit, half-raspberry!"

His sister simply scoffed, but Keigo could see amusement coloring her expression, "Set the damn table."

They ate dinner in relative silence, Mizuho too busy on her phone and Keigo too hungry and tired to speak up. Which was odd, considering he spend most of the day snoozing away his problems. When it got to dessert (ice-cream with fruit. It was almost like his sister was taking revenge. Oh, she definitely was) Mizuho finally cleared her throat.

"So... you never expressed any interest in Kunieda Ryo before," Keigo choked on his ice-cream. Mizuho smiled like the sick-o she was. "And suddenly, I hear - not from my own brother's mouth, mind you - that she's shacking up a guy with startlingly close similarities to you."

Keigo looked at her in horror, "Ew! Mizuho that's not- I can't believe you just- gross. You don't have to say something like that!"

Mizuho leaned back in her chair, thoroughly enjoying this. Keigo hated her with a passion, "Oh? Now you're being a gentleman about it?"

"It's not... it's not like that-" we aren't like that, Keigo was almost about to say, but even to him that seemed like an idiot move at losing a perfect alibi. If only he'd stop blushing because him and Ryo- no. God, no. For the first time in forever, Keigo celebrated being celibate- "We're just- just..."

"Mmhm... just what?"

He was going to kill Mizuho.

"It's... it's new. We're just. Testing the waters or whatever," Keigo mentally apologized to the one person he truly regretted dragging into this. He had so much grovelling to do. At this rate, Ryo might just out him. "So drop it, okay?" he tried to sound pissed, to get her off his back. To his surprise, it worked.

"You're serious about this, huh," Mizuho seemed to contemplate something and Keigo left her to it. He simply sighed in defeat and started counting the seconds before Kunieda Ryo physically throttles him.

"I... yeah, sure. Whatever."

Keigo ended up disposing the jacket off by the recyclables outside the building and frisked himself three times before entering the apartment again. The paranoia didn't quite go away - hasn't really left him since fucking Christmas - and he turned to look around for any evidence of SHIELD in the living room where Kisuke had arranged their "meeting". Keigo still could not for the life of him identify a bug from a piece of lint, so he gave up frustrated, tired and still cold from the walk and made it to bed.

Bear in mind that Keigo is a talker by nature. It is his default setting and fine - yeah - he mumbles to himself sometimes, sue him. Night times were the best for reflecting and discussing pop culture with thin air, but Keigo had to beat himself into a habit of shutting the fuck up in his own home after signing the contract with those two-faced boots in case he said something truly incriminating (his mistake, he knows. Relax about it, conscience!), which frankly, sucked ass.

Keigo had made his bed, not knowing it was infested with goddamn rats, and now he has to lie in it.

Whatever, he'll deal with this tomorrow, after yelling at Kisuke some more. It was surprisingly therapeutic, in retrospect.

Keigo fell into a fitful sleep with roars echoing in his head, and a flash of orange hair and cracked skies behind his eyes.

The next morning had exhaustion mostly leaving his bones and a text message from Mizuiro for an impromptu meeting at the arcade. The Squad seemed more inclined to invite him to their super-secret group hangouts nowadays. Kojima especially wanting to include Keigo in everything, as if trying to get back in his good books or something. It didn't matter anymore, Keigo stopped keeping track. It wasn't worth it.

He wondered how his friend would behave when he realised that Keigo wasn't going to be too busy for him anymore; whether he would resort back to acting like the aloof jerk who hung out with Keigo out of sheer necessity than anything else. Keigo knew that if he hadn't lost his temper at the whole group post-Aizen, they would still be treating him like a second-class citizen and pretending there was nothing wrong with that. Which - to be fair - in their eyes they probably thought they were perfectly fine friends to Keigo, so he didn't begrudge them that. And Keigo was far from fessing up his feelings about the whole matter just for them to dismiss it anyway. So if anger was how he had to get through them then, well, that was going to be a problem for Future Keigo. Still, it took Keigo time to understand that Ichigo and Co., exclusive as they were, weren't the most mentally stable bunch out there, for good reason too, so he could deal.

They were assholes, but they were his assholes.

Either way, since it was the last day of holidays, Keigo agreed to their little 'bro-session' to be able to lead as much of a normal life as he could, now that he didn't have to visit SHIELD every so often. He still had to visit Kisuke and tell him about their last-minute recruitment, and what it all meant for Keigo. Keigo didn't really have a plan, brain feeling too rung out from yesterday's roofie to strategize, so he might as well improv his way out of this problem.

Worked out decently enough for him so far.

Mizuho had a pot of coffee ready in the kitchen, and whilst Keigo isn't a heavy coffee drinker - Red Bull For Life - he poured himself a generous mug and practically inhaled the beverage, stumbling his way to the dining table. His sister looked up from her textbook next to the plate and raised an eyebrow.

"I have questions." she said.

Keigo yawned and held up a finger before draining the mug and putting it on the table with a thump. "Shoot."

"What, exactly, have you been doing these past months?"

Keigo dug into his toast very slowly, thankful that she waited for his coffee to finish or else he would have choked. He wouldn't have been able to come back from that.

"Care to elaborate?" Answering with more questions, he'd seen the scientists do this every time he tried asking more about SHIELD. Bando did it too.

Keigo kind of missed Bando.

Wait no. Bad thoughts, Keigo. Stop.

Mizuho leaned forward confidently.

"Ever since you got caught up in that earthquake, you've been spending less time at home - like you should have-" she looked at him scathingly for a moment, "-and more time... elsewhere. And you're suddenly dating someone, but you're not always with her. Not with friends either, I checked with that Kojima kid. Idiot tried to hit on me again," she huffed and this time Keigo coughed into his toast, trying to erase the sudden image of his sister and- ew- Mizuiro from his hea- ew ew ew.

He brought the mug to his mouth again and made a face when he realised it was empty. Mizuho handed him a glass of water that he would have been grateful for if he didn't suspect her for pouring some sort of truth serum in it. She was being awfully patient, and Keigo wasn't used to that. He was used to her yelling at top volume followed by a smack to his head with the excuse of "tought love" on her lips.

Tough love was bullshit, Keigo needed a goddamn hug like 90% of the time.

"I didn't know you cared," Keigo said as plainly as he could. He was very obviously deflecting, but it seemed to work its charm. Mizuho's frown deepened like when she was about to lose her shit. Keigo had hit a nerve, apparently.

Huh.

"You'd know if I didn't," she snapped back, "Fine, don't tell me. If you get into shit I'm not helping you out." With that, Mizuho went back to reading her textbook.

Keigo didn't say anything, even though he wanted to. He had no idea what the hell got her so mad about this, since she had never been in his business before. Didn't care, really, unless he got really sick or brought home a hot bald guy for her to fawn over.

He cleaned his stuff and moved on with his day.

Keigo met Mizuiro a bit before noon outside the arcade closest to school, and in turn, closest to Urahara's shop. The latter looked up from his phone and smiled which. Also incredibly weird and disarming at the same time. Maybe Keigo was still in his drug induced sleep and dreaming up all this?

"Mr. Asano," he greeted.

"Please stop hitting on my sister," Keigo replied. Mizuiro stopped short, the beginnings of a blush forming on his face, either from Keigo's statement or the cold, he couldn't tell. "Unless you love her enough to shave off your head, I don't even want to think about you two in the same room," he added with a gagging motion.

"I wasn't trying to- I wasn't-" Mizuiro stammered - Keigo had to take a moment to realign his entire perception of his friend because Kojima Mizuiro just fucking stammered.

"Dude," Keigo interrupted as he pushed the door of the arcade open, "Do you actually have a crush on her?"

"What? No!" Kojima sounded appalled, and rightfully disgusted by the idea but that didn't make sense because just three seconds ago he had stammered- "I just told her to give me a call if she finds out where you are. That's the only time we talked!"

"Did you say it in The Voice?"

"What voice? I don't have a Voice."

"You do, you use it every time your introduce yourself to any woman above 18. I call it your 'fuck me' voice."

Mizuiro made a strangled sound and Keigo snorted, delighted to see him trip over himself. God, Keigo had never once managed to one-up this guy, and here he was. Basking in the glory of seeing Kojima wrong-footed and blushing.

"I do not."

"Sure whatever. Now what do you wanna play? I'm feeling some Sonic." Keigo patted him on the shoulder and made his way to the counter.

SHIELD or no, he was gonna abuse his right of gaming until his fingers hurt.

They went for lunch about three hours later, when Mizuiro lost 4 consecutive times at air-hockey and later decided that Keigo wasn't good enough for DDR.

Rude.

Keigo cited craving old, hard candy for dessert in revenge and Mizuiro relented by dragging him to Urahara's with another startling, if not slightly unwarranted smile. He's not used to Mizuiro smiling okay? God knows what's gotten into him.

The store looked just as unassuming and mildly creepy as it did the previous times (read: two days ago) Keigo had visited it. Still, trepidation rose in his chest at the thought of confronting Kisuke about the very real, very volatile issue of spies trying to legitimately, actually hire Keigo. The lightness from the arcade had disappeared and Keigo tried his best to not show it on his face. Kojima was browsing the selection of weird shit (a wooden cherub and a bright pink crowbar from the 60's) Kisuke kept for muggles like them outside the store, seemingly unaware of the emotions roiling in Keigo's gut.

The door was slid ajar, with sounds of activity inside - followed by a high pitched shriek that had the duo hurrying into the store, Mizuiro standing behind Keigo who had grabbed the decorated crowbar and was ready to attack just about anything. If it was SHIELD, then his gig was probably up and he was screwed anyway.

Turns out it wasn't SHIELD, but a plush toy of a yellow bird in a blue cape hiding behind another green toy looking at the spirit of a dead person.

Jesus. Fucking. Christ.

"Why the fuck." said Keigo.

"Oh, you see me," the dead person said, "Good to know," with that, it just... glided through Keigo and disappeared into the frigid air. Keigo turned back to see the plush toys, now accompanied by Tessai and the man of the hour, Kisuke himself, rearranging the topped chair on the side.

"Keigo! What brings you to my shop?" Kisuke chirped, eyes hard and searching. Keigo tilted his chin slightly towards his best friend, hoping he'd get the message.

"He wanted some of that hard candy you kept for the flu? Keigo's weird like that." Kojima shrugged.

"Hey!" Keigo complained, simply for the sake of it. "That's some quality flu candy," he lied. The candy tasted like crap.

Kisuke chuckled, "He's right, it's Karakura's number one!"

"Why isn't is branded then?"

"No name is good enough for it," Kisuke shot back easily. "It's up in storage, I can take you there-" he motioned Keigo towards the inside of the shop. "Tessai, why don't you show out guest the new range of phone covers we got last week?"

Keigo soundlessly followed Kisuke, not waiting to hear an answer as they entered the guest room again. Keigo diligently held out his arms and Kisuke checked him thoroughly before sitting on the futon.

"You shouldn't be here," he stated, voice dropping to a low lilt.

Keigo decided screaming at Kisuke could wait. They had limited time before Kojima got suspicious. This whole thing was too risky in the first place, if SHIELD was, in fact, following him still.

"They tried to recruit me." he said.

Kisuke looked confused, "They already had you. I don't understand?"

"They had me as an unofficial informant, now they want me at SHIELD academy, as an official student. Agent. Thing." Keigo tried to explain, "Did you know they would do this?"

"I should have expected it, honestly. But no, I did not. It would make sense though," Kisuke answered after a moment.

"Why?"

"Leverage. They think you don't have anyone on your side, they don't now about your affiliation with me, so if they tricked you into working for them-"

"They can use me as leverage against you." Keigo concluded, "I still don't see that working out though. Even if I said yes, you still can choose to turn away from this."

"Not if they threaten your life."

"That's never stopped you before," Keigo knew it was the wrong thing to say the second it came out of his mouth. He had already explicitly voiced his issues about baiting teenagers to Kisuke, thinking the man didn't care. The uneasy silence that followed after made Keigo wonder if he actually gave a fuck about what happened to him, or if he was planning something else for Keigo.

It was probably the latter.

"I told you Keigo, I'm on your side."

Or, you know. Not.

Keigo changed the subject. "What should I do then? Do you think they'd give up?"

Urahara huffed, "I doubt it. If anything, they may try making their deal more lucrative, or try using more... unsavory methods early to persuade you into working for them."

"But... why? Why do they want to recruit me? I've already signed NDAs, I couldn't tell anyone anything even if I wanted to."

"Only you can answer that; you've been with SHIELD for about two months, you tell me... did they show any desire to keep you there longer?"

Keigo thought hard and came up blank. "Nope, if anything I think they were trying to get rid of me the second I was no longer of use. They ghosted me for the whole of Christmas remember? It must have been something you said. What did you tell them anyway?"

"I said what we had discussed: that they will use the information I give them and nothing more, or else I'd wipe out their entire database." And minds, he didn't say, but Keigo understood nonetheless.

Keigo shuddered at the thought of someone having so much power. He also wondered if Kisuke could do that with the spirit magic mojo; that sounded incredibly handy.

"Perhaps they want you because you seemed... eligible for candidacy? It's not out of the possibility that you may have actually impressed them." Keigo scoffed and shook his head in disagreement. There was no way he was meant for any of this. His past failures made that glaringly obvious. "No, but listen- you entered this place with a hand keeping your friend from danger the second you heard Ririn scream, and a crowbar- that you're still holding, by the way-" Keigo yelped and dropped the crowbar with a loud thud. The noise echoed throughout the shop. Shit. "You've learned something. Maybe you're both leverage and an asset. If they can't use you to get to me, they still have a worthy candidate."

"Worthy candi- Are you insane? I'm fifteen, no intelligence agency is allowed to do that. Right?"

"You did say it was an academy, a school of some sorts."

"Well... yeah. They have this brochure-"

"They have brochures?"

"I know right?" Keigo sighed. "Can't you take care of it? Tell them you figured it out on your own?"

"You will have to give me a week minimum before I can go storming into their headquarters to make it believable."

"I'll take it man... just. Get them off my back, please."

Urahara nodded, standing up and leading them back to the main shop slowly, "I will do my best. Please be careful in the mean time and send me this brochure as soon as possible. I can have Kon get it from you."

Keigo made a noise of affirmation before facing Mizuiro, Tessai and the two animate toys again.

"Where the hell have you been?" Kojima was being swamped by all kinds of accessories for phones to old fashioned neck scarves.

"Sorry, they were too many varieties. Keigo here couldn't pick! So we settled for licorice." Kisuke handed him a bag full of licorice hard candy out of no-fucking-where before ushering them outside.

Gross.

Kisuke was a dick.

Kojima's face mirrored his sentiment. They bade the shop good bye, internally glad that Tessai hadn't made them stay for rice cakes. Keigo felt like if he spent any more time there he'd go insane.

"By the way," Mizuiro began, "Arisawa texted me that her, Inoue and Sado are at some new ice-cream place at the town square. I know you said this shitty candy was your dessert, but it's not mine. You up for it?"

"It's winter."

"When has that stopped you before? Besides, they have waffles too."

Keigo thought about it. He could really do with some real dessert right about now. Instead of the garbage he just put in his mouth.

"God, yes."

Mizuiro chuckled and slung his arm around Keigo. "Let's go then."

What the fuck?

"Um." Keigo decided it best to shut up.

They made it outside the ice-cream place in record time to see Orihime, Tatsuki and Chad taking a seat at a large table inside the parlour. Just then, Keigo heard someone shout his name.

He looked up sharply, eyes narrowing and searching the crowd. His hands were clenched into a fist on his side and his legs just about ready to bolt.

"Keigo!" the voice was feminine and coming from his right. Keigo turned to see a gorgeous woman with the biggest fucking boobs waving a hand and running towards him in a way no person with boobs ever has. Mizuiro looked just as surprised, if not more, at turned to him questioningly.

"Self-defence," came the automatic answer. He didn't know her, but she knew him. It wasn't hard to figure out who this might be, since Keigo was just about the most unpopular guy ever. "Why don't you go inside, I'll join you in a few minutes."

Mizuiro raised his hands in surrender and relented, walking backwards and mouthing "good luck" before turning away. The woman reached him just as Kojima was out of sight and beamed.

"It's so nice to finally meet you!" she said, obviously keeping up a facade. Keigo didn't know what her game was but something didn't feel right. He was unarmed, untrained while she obviously was, what with a skirt that should not be worn in this weather (or in the summer, it was sinfully short), and a large handbag and innocent features, petite body and- did he mention ridiculous breasts? She was tailor made for Keigo and he didn't trust that one bit. Her smile dimmed a bit when they were close enough and she drew out her hand for him to shake on, more professionally.

"My name is Tagua Kimi, and I was sent by SHIELD to check up on you," she introduced herself. "We wanted to know how you were doing after... you know," she shrugged with another smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. Her hair was light brown, almost like his but infinitely softer and her lips were painted a light-peach, matching her coat. She was absolutely stunning.

And she was lying.

This wasn't SHIELD's style, not to him, not after yesterday. Not ever.

But she knew about him.

She wasn't SHIELD and she fucking knew about him.