a/n: i'm under no illusions that this is a popular pairing. it's a niche one at best. in any case, hear me out.
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Light pulses through the shadows, illuminating sections of the walls in faint washes of color. Blue. Green. Blue. Yellow. A ghost of red, and then it's gone. All of them are bright with white, all artificial, none lingering long enough to lull Lisa into sleep. She stares at where they reflect off the cheap leather of the sofa rather than their source.
She is chilly in this huge room, but she doesn't know these boys—men?—strangers—enough to ask anything of them. It has nothing to do with manners. They could definitely kill her if they wished to, and she thinks that Nine most likely does, even as he calmly ticks away at his keyboard. He hasn't stopped since he sat down hours ago. She wonders if those flashing lights, cutting through the dark in neon bursts, ever give him a headache. He seems like the type to get them a lot anyway.
As quietly as she can, she tugs the skirt of her dress down, pulls her socks further up her calves, then turns toward the inside of the couch, praying that she can fall asleep if just to wake up to a day where her chest will feel a bit less pressure.
Lisa is comforted by a single thought: that she has had some horrible nights in her life—truly fearful, damaging nights that she would do anything to forget—but this is not one of them. She doesn't question why she feels safer here than in her own home or the back alleys of late-night Tokyo, because she already knows the answer.
.
.
In the daylight, it's easy to forget that Twelve is someone capable of blowing up skyscrapers, let alone conceptualizing plots for doing so. The picture of him driving a motorcycle was enough of a shock alone. There's something quirky and inherently sweet about him in spite of everything else.
Nine, however, is an entirely different story. He is icy cold, his eyes cutting and calculating. They were the first thing she noticed about him that day after school. His hands, pale as a ghost and angular with prominent bones, are made for orchestrating things, for assembling delicate machines, for hacking, coding, whatever it is he does all hours of the night and early morning.
Lisa is fully aware that she has no idea what they've been through. It has to be thousands of times worse than what she has experienced; something she can't even imagine. But she envies the two of them, the way they've stuck together despite it all, despite the circumstances they are working under. She wishes she could call this place home, this ramshackle apartment with its clotheslines full of wrinkled sheets and old clothes, its secondhand tables and mismatched chairs.
She has no real idea what they're doing, either, but she wants to help with it if it will mean something to them. If Twelve has his way, she believes that maybe she could find a way to be in on this madness, to be closer to them, to be trusted with something important. To live in the present the way they do. To feel alive, and not so wary and naive and utterly empty of purpose.
One look from Nine when she opens her mouth, those sharp eyes stopping her short, and her hope dials back to the barest simmer.
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Her fever takes longer to dissipate than it normally would, and it leaves her awake at strange hours. It also makes her feel loopy, skittish but lagging behind in a way, like her mind and her body are working at two different speeds.
She wakes sometime between midnight and dawn, the room still bathed in black and shades of moonlight, and those constant blinks of light from Nine's computers. He doesn't seem to notice the straining brightness or the fact that she's awake, but he probably doesn't care—and if he does, she suddenly thinks, he refuses to acknowledge her.
It's not a loathsome kind of hatred, all burning and poisonous, and it's not a petty, condescending kind either. If Lisa's assumption is correct, whatever hatred he has for her is more out of annoyance or her being a hindrance than anything else.
They only know the surface aspects of each other—she's slow on the uptake, lost in the world, and he's brilliant, distant until it matters. The fever tricks her into thinking that they should get to know each other, that this will be a good idea. She comes up behind him, treading carefully, and sets the tea mug she hasn't touched beside him as an offering. Steam still rises gingerly from the top.
"No liquids around here," Nine says without so much as a glance, scrolling through text on his laptop. Lisa can't speak for a long second. His voice shocks her a bit, low and calm and unexpected. Her eyes are trained on motion of his finger against his mouse, back and forth and back in an unsteady rhythm, his hand practically glowing in the green-lit darkness.
"Oh—I—" She picks the mug back up without thinking, sloshing liquid stinging her hands. Her brief gasps of pain make Nine's back stiffen, and she immediately is embarrassed, especially when he doesn't say anything else. Against her better judgment, she continues.
"Kokonoe-kun…"
This time he does turn, just slightly, but she can't see his eyes, not behind the light reflecting off his glasses.
"When's your birthday?" she blurts, the first thing that pops into her head. He pauses for a moment, lips pursed, until he finally responds.
"I don't know."
Her heart skips a beat, and her embarrassment only grows, especially when she realizes how void of anything his voice sounds.
"Oh." A drop of tea, holding onto the bottom edge of her mug, lets go to drip onto her bare foot. "Sorry."
"Yours is the seventh of March." It's a statement more than a question. He swivels back to his work. In her sluggishness, she misses her opportunity to ask how he knows that, but then feels stupid for wondering at all. Of course he knows.
She fidgets, thumbing the rim of her mug. "What's your favorite color?"
The moment it leaves her mouth, she regrets it. Frivolous things like this only interrupt him and whatever he's working on. But all she wants is a simple answer, a glimpse behind the wall.
"I don't have one."
Her legs are sore, so she sits on the ground, legs crossed.
"Everyone has a favorite color," she tries with a breath of a laugh, hesitant, unsure. He still doesn't face her. The floor is cold beneath her thighs, but the space beneath the desk table is invitingly dark, so she decides to lay down. Maybe if he can't see her face he'll be more inclined to respond.
"If I answer, will you stop asking me questions?"
His voice sounds quieter from here, Lisa notes, spotting a little dust bunny a few feet away. Her head swims in a way so soothing she can't help but close her eyes.
"Yeah, okay," she concedes in a half-whisper. His bare feet slide against the floor to her left, a soft rustle in her ears.
"Most of my clothes are blue." Nine keeps typing, and the click of each stroke is dulled by the barrier above her. "So I suppose blue is my favorite color."
"Blue," she hums, realizing that it suits him, and then consciousness slips away before she can wait and see if he'll reciprocate her curiosity. It's a tiny but fruitless hope, one she forgets about the second she succumbs to sleep.
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When she wakes, she is on the sofa. Twelve still isn't back from his overnight recon he'd left for before she woke the first time, but Nine is still there, sleeping on the bed upstairs with one arm dangling over the edge.
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She decides that chores will make him realize how helpful she can be. She can't cook to save her life—she's never had to, not with school lunch and convenience store coupons at her disposal—but she can clean.
Lisa doesn't dare touch any of the technology or equipment dispersed in random groupings throughout the apartment. Instead, she sweeps and mops and dusts; she washes their clothes and hangs them up to dry, all while enjoying the sunlight on her skin and the breeze in her hair.
Nine doesn't seem to be aware of her work, but Twelve is, and he shows her his thanks by helping her pin shirts and towels to the line on a particularly windy day. He talks to her, which alone is something she appreciates, but he divulges a lot to her—things that would probably make Nine mad if he knew his partner was talking about them, if he knew that Lisa knew them.
The two of them only grow more unreal to her as she listens to Twelve. Things like seeing colors in voices, illusions in the sky, bombs and fires and escaping. All equally elusive, abstract to her; all equally beautiful and terrifying. Twelve is a friend to her, even if she only feels connected to him in ways she cannot name.
To Lisa, Nine is someone who intimidates her with his unwavering coldness, yet intrigues her for the same reason. He and Twelve have both known such deep pain but turned out so completely different, and she can't even hazard a guess as to why. He is someone she wants to know, wants to assist with all her might. She wants him to believe in her.
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She wipes down the neglected floor of the loft one day when she thinks they aren't there, but halfway through her work she hears the distinct rhythm of inhaling and exhaling, something she was far too lost in thought to notice before. When she looks up, there is a shock of black hair against the white sheets, and her hands still over the bucket of lukewarm water. Before she can think, she crawls over to the bed to find Nine deeply asleep.
He is on his stomach, so only half of his face is visible, but the sight is breathtaking.
She is utterly and hopelessly fascinated. Nine doesn't even look like the same person. Instead, on the bed is a boy who is normal, untouched by cruelty or corruption. He would be ordinary if he weren't so beautiful, she thinks, and another part of her thinks it's a shame that he hides from the world.
She doesn't know exactly why she reaches forward then. The movement is as fragile as the moment—one wrong move could wake him up and cause a distance between them even greater than the one they face now. But she takes the risk anyway.
Her fingers, the tips a bit pruned from the washrag she'd been using to clean, sink into his hair right by his temple. It is softer than it looks, so much softer than the cheap shampoo they buy should allow. Something thumps in her chest, and she realizes that this is the first time she's ever touched someone's hair besides her own—her mother never let her, and she had no friends at school whose locks she could braid or brush.
She tries so hard not to be greedy with the moment, but it's so hard not to be. Once the black strands are off his face, she can see his forehead—smooth, unmarred with stress or anger. Without his glasses on, she can see his eyelashes, probably longer than hers. Tiny purple veins are just barely visible on his eyelid. Her thumb involuntarily moves to swipe across it, her touch as light as a feather, and he moves, and she nearly has a heart attack.
But he doesn't wake up. He just moves his cheek into the palm of her hand as if seeking its warmth, and she complies, enthralled. Utterly and hopelessly fascinated. She'd wanted a peek behind the wall, but this feels more like she blasted through it, or like she'd turned off the alarms and snuck in the way he and Twelve do during their missions.
Faintly, she registers the sound of the doorknob turning—still jammed despite Twelve's attempt to fix it—and withdraws, sliding back to her cleaning space without another word. Nine hardly stirs, but she can feel her heart leap into her throat at light speed, pulsing in her jaw.
Twelve greets her brightly when he comes in, and she is relieved that he can't see the way her hands are shaking as she continues to scrub the floor like nothing happened.
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She only knows Nine's been burnt because of the charred t-shirt she hangs up to dry. Immediately, she puts it down and walks inside, not sure what she'll find as she shuts the sliding door behind her.
The shower is dripping in the bathroom, the way it does after one of them has used it. Lisa preoccupies herself with the refrigerator, though there isn't much to see; just a few packages of cooked rice and a can of tuna, and a mostly-empty bottle of water. She ponders cleaning the shelves. The thought is snatched away the second the bathroom door clicks open.
Nine walks out, steam swirling behind him like storm clouds. He has on black shorts but no shirt, and his towel has been draped around his neck. All she can see is the marks on his back—small explosions of dark red and pink stretch over the otherwise white skin, some bleeding, and she restrains a gasp. When he takes the stairs up to the loft without noticing her presence in the kitchen, she quickly pads after him.
"Wait," she calls, a strange sort of panic putting a waver in her voice. He turns to her with his usual movements, though his face is unusually devoid of its sternness, which concerns her—though his lack of response does not.
"What happened? Are you okay?" Breath surrounds her words, so much so that she worries they won't carry to him. "Let me get some bandages or something—"
"No. I'm fine." He turns to keep walking up the stairs.
"Please," she says, growing desperate. "Please just—I can—I can do this. You can't reach your own back." The inhale she takes is loud and shaky. "I promise I can help you."
He stops mid-step, completely silent, and all she can see are the burns across his tense shoulders, angry and fresh.
"I know you can, at least with this." His hands curls into a fist at his side. "But I don't need you to. This is something I need to deal with alone."
Lisa wants to follow him when he walks up to the bed, but truthfully she is scared, and a coward always knows where to draw the line. She stands there, two steps up the staircase, until he sinks onto the bed a few moments later, and she doesn't give in to the part of her that wants to tend to his wounds, the one that wants him to find her in sleep and feel someone there.
She will let Twelve take care of it instead, the way he always does.
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