Title: Instinct
Author: setlib
Rating: Mature
Pairings: Misaki x Hei
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any characters from Darker than BLACK.
Timeline: Starts after episode 21, City Under Crackdown Moist with Tears, Part 1.
Summary: Hei is ordered to get information out of Misaki using any means necessary. Misaki begins to suspect that Lee might be the Black Reaper. Both decide to uncover the truth, using seduction as their method of interrogation. Can love grow among so many lies?
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Instinct, Chapter One: Secrets
"I'm not leaving him." Hei looked directly at Huang, disregarding his protests. "I'm not going to let Evening Primrose keep Mao a prisoner."
"That's what a contractor would do," Huang warned. He tossed his cigar to the gravel and ground it under his foot, shaking his head in disgust. "Take the logical path. Look out for yourself. No sense taking the risk just to rescue someone else. Mao's gone."
"No." The playground where they were meeting was empty this late at night, but Hei kept his voice quiet, controlled, with an edge as hard as the steel blades he carried. "If you don't want to help me, fine. I'll do it myself."
"I'll help you," Yin stated softly from her usual position at the top of the slide.
"Have you found him, Yin?" Hei turned around to look at her but, as always, the doll's blind eyes stared unfocused into the distance. She might not be able to see, but her ability to send her specter out through water to locate people had been crucial to many of their operations.
"I've already tried. He's not near water."
Hei's hands clenched involuntarily and he took a slow breath, relaxing his grip. He couldn't let the others know how frustrated he felt. He couldn't show them any emotion at all. He was supposed to be a contractor – ruthless, selfish, cold. The fact that he was actually human was a secret he had guarded carefully these past five years. He had kept his feelings concealed, his face like a mask, for so long that he was beginning to wonder if he could even remember anymore what it had been like to live. To laugh. To love.
Huang cleared his throat gruffly. "There might be a way. The Syndicate has a new mission for you. They want you to track down the headquarters of Evening Primrose."
Hei kept the hope off his face, out of his voice. "How?"
"Apparently November 11 met with someone right before he defected from British Intelligence and joined up with Evening Primrose. They want you to find out what was said during this meeting, in case it will give us a clue to EPR's location."
Hei nodded. "So I trail the person he met with, search them. Interrogate them if necessary."
"I'm not sure interrogation will work this time," Huang said, laughing dryly.
"Why not? Who is it? Another contractor?"
"Worse. Police Chief Misaki Kirihara." The old man's laughing turned into a hacking cough.
Old fool, Hei thought. One day those cigars will kill him.
"Kirihara won't be a problem," Hei said, but he wasn't so sure. She had met him several times while he was pretending to be his cover, affable Chinese exchange student Lee Shenshun. She had also nearly cornered him as his alter ego, the masked Black Reaper. She was clever, he knew, and one slip from him was all it would take for her to make the connection between his two identities.
"Don't get cocky," Huang warned. "Her apartment will have state-of-the-art security."
"A few hours ago I infiltrated and bombed the American Embassy," Hei reminded him wryly. "Kirihara's security doesn't worry me. What does worry me is how I'm going to get her to tell me location of Evening Primrose. She thinks Lee doesn't even know that contractors exist."
Huang smiled coldly. "There's one sure way to loosen her lips. Seduce her."
Shock rippled through Hei at the suggestion, but he clenched his teeth to keep it from showing. When he spoke, his voice was level. "She thinks Lee's a young college student. She wouldn't fall for someone like him."
"And I never thought I'd fall for a beautiful young woman," Huang spit out bitterly. "Who'd ever look at me with this ugly mug? But I sure fell hard for Shihoko, hook, line, and sinker."
"She really did love you," Hei said quietly.
"Eventually. But at first I was just a job to her. Right now, Kirihara's just a job to you. Get the information you need from her. Use any means necessary. That's by order of the Syndicate." Huang grabbed his newspaper and stood, walking stiffly to his car.
Hei sat silently, thinking about Huang's advice. If he thought of Kirihara as just a job, then sure, it was easy to know what to do. Attach a tracking device to her car, set up cameras and microphones in her apartment, observe her every move. If that didn't work, then approach her. Stage some sort of casual meeting and lie to her. Tell her anything she wanted to hear to get answers from her, like he did with Chiaki. Or tie her up and use harsher interrogation tactics, like he did with Havoc. The Black Reaper would do whatever was necessary to get the information from her, just like he would with any other target.
But Captain Kirihara wasn't like anyone else. Not Kirihara, Misaki, he thought, rolling her given name around in his mind. He'd never addressed her so informally in real life. Whenever she met Lee, he always treated her with the utmost respect and deference. But there were nights when he imagined walking up to her, calling her by name, watching her eyes widen in surprise at his boldness. How would she feel, he wondered, if she discovered that the young man she had befriended by day was also the assassin she hunted by night? Would she be horrified? Disgusted? Intrigued?
What would he be willing to risk to find out?