Yess~ hello everyone. Thank you for reading this fic and for your heart-warming reviews~ For a newbie like me, that much love is just too great.
Please enjoy this chapter. And hmm, I have a small question here, would you rather read an average chapter (about 2000~2400 words) but more frequently update, or a longer chapter (my standard is 3000~3500 words) but lengthly wait? I've been doing the second option, and my friends said it took so freaking long [included the proofread process], so I'm considering the first one. * scratching head *
Oh, right, and I'll try to contribute some time for my other long fic too. * am ashamed for being a fic-jumper *
[Chapter 1]
Three weeks has passed since then, and Hibari was still fumed whenever he caught a suspicious Mukuro dawdled in town, did something or did nothing regardless. Of course the Cloud wasn't such tenacious person to hold deep grudge over petty things. It's just, from that day onward, one certain blue-haired doctor just happened to be there on every single case the police commander received. Sometime he only catched a glimpse of said doctor's white blouse disappeared around the corner, sometime his presence was strong enough to pull the Cloud's attention even among a sea of people, eyes met, then Mukuro simply shrugged and chuckled sheepishly, as if he was just one of the curious bypassers.
But Hibari knew better than believed in such obvious lie. This man, this Rokudou Mukuro man, must be capable of something.
He must find out what thing.
"Say, Dr. Mist," Spade absently traced several quaint-shaped curves on the tabletop, and maybe a name started with an A with his finger; most attention peered toward the mildly annoyed blue-haired doctor whose eyes gleaming an odd shade of crimson fire and navy ocean, probably discontented with the unwanted nick. "—is that police commander such an interesting prick?"
Mukuro—ever so rare—frowned, strongly hinted that It's none of your business. As response, Spade only laughed, looked absolutely into the subject. He persisted on knowing the prick's name, for curiosity's sake and no other mean, but got rejected nonetheless. Rubbed his temples, Mukuro let out a small sigh, nonchalantly resigned from communicating with the 'uninvited guest'; or Daemon Spade—a fellow doctor, to be courteous.
Thoroughly compare, one could not believe the striking resemblances between these two were, actually, just a bunch of coincidental coincidences. What with that same facial feature, that deep husky voice, that distinguishable hairstyle, that complacent smirk, and even that same career, same organization. Freaking similarities, no? But behold, these were yet to be the only likenesses between them. Not just physically, but mentally also. Twisted enough, they both seemed to share a certain interest toward the bite-able species. It drew a big question mark about their relation, and if Mukuro didn't know better, he may think that he has a long lost twin brother, which is, not exactly the case here. In the beginning this situation might look quite humorous, but later on it just proved to be troublesome, when you have an imposter whose corrupted mind had long given up on working logically walks around freely, not to forget that his dangerous level is about adequate. He started to feel awful instead. Maybe headacheful even.
"You have your own target, haven't you? Why caring about my prey?" Mukuro took a sip of his coffee, randomly noted that black powder type tastes better.
Flapped hands in dismissal, Spade disconcernedly shook head and reached out for his own cup. "Oh, you mean Alaude, hm?" There heard a soft chuckle. "That little spy's pretty tempestuous, quite an untamed bird. I'm afraid myself was being targeted too. Well, can't complain, that's where the fun lies don't you agree?"
"I'd expect no less from a secret agent." The blue-haired doctor nodded in agreement. "Play your way, just don't sink too fond."
"Come on, you think I'm such easy-to-leak of an underground doctor?" Spade laughed back, "Of course, it's necessary to provide bits of information to keep the game enjoyable, but I got everything in control." Slowed a split, he caressed his tilted chin with a surprisingly thoughtful manner (since thoughtfulness wasn't exactly Daemon-ish). "Though I'm rather amazed that he could go so far as offered his body for a mere mission."
"Tainted?" Mukuro arched a brow. "Not his first man, I assume?"
"Pure virgin." Spade's eyes glittered a vivacious shade of blue. "Until I had sex with him, that is." He was but a doctor about that particular matter after all, if I didn't mention.
Silence consumed the room for several minutes, each pursued their own thoughts. Mukuro distracted himself by sketching something on an examination record, and Spade just continued to drain his cup. Then suddenly, a phone rang.
"Yes, it's Rokudou's clinic. What can I—" The doctor halted briefly, "Hm, mm hm, ah. Ooh, I see." A malicious grin formed on his lips, "Go ahead, I'm not surprised at how irrational your suspections are," then he bursted out laughing, "but smuggling cocaine? What a bold accusation, impressive indeed. Well alright then, anytime you want. I will prepare some tea."
Mukuro hang up the phone, somehow felt himself unable to stop chuckling. Across the room, Spade wore on a questioning look.
"It's my prick. This time he suspected that I'm participating in a drug dealing underline." Paused in seconds to hold back a tummy-tickling laugh, the blue-haired doctor went on reporting, fingers absently ticked on the record. "He will send a troop to ransack my clinic for some maybe-there hidden opium."
Opium, Hibari said. Such hilarious conviction that only the Cloud could come up with. If Mukuro recalled some more, there was even a time when said police commander assumed the doctor got involved in an underground auction (or even worse, controlled it); just because Hibari happened to see him passed by the scene. Not even step out of there. Now who'd know if someday he wanted to eat Chinese food and the nearby restaurant appeared to secretly hold some illegal market under its baseground?
"You said 'This time'," Spade perceptively noted. "There should have several cases before, am I wrong?"
"As far as I remember, there had." Mukuro agreed, a smug smirk appeared on his face. "It seems he believed that I'm the deed of all bad things in Namimori. Now I won't blame him. It's appropriately suspicious when you see a same person wandered around every crime scenes more than thrice. Even I don't know why I have such luck."
"What rotten luck." The double-zigzaged doctor concluded. "Oi, but don't you look quite amusing with the situation?"
"Certainly." Mukuro laughed weirdly. "And why not? Something fun is going on here. The number of public disturbance cases had increased remarkably since two weeks ago, just a couple days after my first meeting with that police commander. Coincidence? No, someone must pull the strings somewhere, for whatever reason out of my concern. I'm being, well, very entertained."
"So you're saying." A snicker cut off Mukuro's sentences rather rudely. "Hm, well too bad, it seems I have to leave."
"Go ahead", the ponytailed doctor rolled his eyes, "you better not come again."
Waggled his pointing finger in denial, Spade slowly progressed to the door, "Ah-ah. Can't get rid of me that soon, young fellow. We stil have some unsettled business. Do expect my regular visit from now on."
"What bus—"
"Oh right, the Round Table will hold a meeting next week, you have an invitation." Contemplatedly shut off Mukuro again, Spade shoved back a plate card in plain white, centered by the symbol of a black cross. There's no word on it, except for what looked like an abbreviation. Stylized double 'K' [*]. "Same place as usual.", Spade provided.
Mukuro flipped the card to the back side, squinted at the little numbers printed in black on its very left corner. 6-9-1-8. "Never been there", he replied, meanwhile trying to guess the meaning of this code. Maybe a password or an entry access.
"Oh right, how could I forget. You've never gone to a single meeting. Good decision must I say, they're all bland. Insipid. I've come several times, always fell asleep halfway through." Spade clicked his tongue playfully, "But I sense something very interesting this time. Did I mention that Vindice is also involved?"
The younger doctor suddenly grew quiet. That name has triggered something inside his head, something from the past. As if blood has rushed faster through his veins, "So you say," Mukuro's eyes excitedly gleamed, "that Vindice finally decided to join in?"
"Without doubt." Noticed the all-spirited up expression on Mukuro's face, said double-zigzaged doctor smirked, "And the information from earlier—about their commander being right here in Namimori—has been confirmed. Well that's it. Should you give a shot occasionally, Dr. Mist?"
"Thought I told you to cease on calling me that, Dr. Demon?" Mukuro—mildly annoyed, retorted. Spade only shrugged off. "It suits."
A sudden tension fell off from nowhere, overlapped the air with its stuffiness. The younger doctor glanced pass the door, slightly narrowed his eyes. "Location?"
"Ikebukuro district." The elder one said with ease, "Black Cross [*] manor."
Mukuro 'hmm'-ed as to acknowledge the info. "Good then, I won't see you out." A very delicate method to shoo somebody away. Across the room, Spade elegantly adjusted the oval-shaped glasses on his nose, waved goodbye as he turned to the front door.
"One last thing." Mukuro suddenly raised his voice, caused Spade to halt midway. "Flee through window."
By time the doorbell rang, the other doctor had already left. That was close, Mukuro thought, letting Hibari see that melon-haired guy is certainly not the wisest thing to do. Who knows if the Cloud thinks he had conducted some kind of cloning experiment (for evillish purpose) and produces more reason to throw him in prison? Now it's not really fun, if he's to be arrested for real. Not at all.
Confidently, preparedly, the doctor came opened the door. A subconscious smile stretched on his face to welcome the police commander and his troop. "Why hello there, Kyouya-kun. A little soon aren't you? The tea is not ready yet."
-x-x-
As the troop progressed to seek through every centimeter squared of his clinic, Mukuro casted a close, incredulous look at the document in hands. More often than not, the doctor found himself stunned periodically in wonder any time the next Reason to jail this trash came into his eyerange. No way, no way, such hilarious person cannot exist, his stomach will burst. It will burst.
"Sexual harassment, seriously, sexual harassment?" At the sixth one, Mukuro dramatically fell off the stuffy chair and fetched an exaggerated, like-never-before laugh.
"Seriously." Hibari offered a nonchalant, succint answer. His voice sounded somewhat, agonizingly calm, but his eyebrows knitted tightly in disdain. He knew it, he knew it, he should've just squeezed the juice out of this pineapple head. The Namimori's super-respectable police commander is too great to deal with an insane fruity bastard. He knew it.
"These accusations are unreasonable, how could I examine without touching the client? And I mean decent touching, in sooth. " Mukuro pressed on his left chest as proof of honesty, a sudden wave of unbelievableness washed through his mind as Hibari tossed back a lengthly, That-sounds-reasonable-enough-to-me stare.
The doctor flipped through next page, and decided to just stay on the floor. Not like he loved it so much or he didn't want to get up, it's more like he can't get up due to intense laughter and many failed attempts to not fall off his chair again. It felt more comfortable that way nonetheless, so Mukuro didn't really mind.
"Oi Kyouya, just because I also work as pediatrician doesn't make me a pedophile." Oh the twinge. This prick is killing him with wordy humour. "And what else, rebellious tendency? Rebellious tendency?"
It was simply a miracle how Hibari survived through the whole read-What-laugh-read-What-laugh process of Mukuro without pulled out his polished tonfa and launched a murder. "Having problems with language understanding? Do you actually need to ask?"
"Honestly, Kyouya-kun, you should learn the fact that not everything I do is bad." Closed the document as if he just finished reading a funny stories collection, the doctor slowly got up, a plethora of haha-hiccups still coughed out his throat. Glaring down at Mukuro like he was a sticky gum pulp under his shoe soles, Hibari's eyes narrowed even more, and strongly accusing was his tone. "That means some of them are?"
Occasionally, Mukuro felt like biting his tongue. This was just too great.
-x-x-
"I apologize for disturbing you, sir... we had completed the search."
Kusakabe sweat-dropped from behind, and even further behind him were other members from their troop. It seemed they've stood there for quite some time, probaby not really enjoyed the comedy show being provided. Dare they laugh? Uh-no. Dare they utter a sound? Ah-no. Because the violent police commander looked so—freakingly violent right now, that his underlings couldn't see the need to go there and receive an off-tracked blow.
"Anything?"
Hibari glared warningly. Oh noes, was the last piece on Kusakabe's mind before his face's full of steel and blacked out. Poor dude, he didn't even get a chance to finish the stuttering "Un-un-un-for-for-tunately sir, we-we can't find a-any—" and just limped.
When Hibari turned back to Mukuro, the police commander promptly felt the great urge to bitchslap that smug face right then and there.
These two were on their way to the front door, with Mukuro stepped forward to lead the way (as he was the host), and Hibari slightly fell behind, making sure that the doctor was inside his predatory watchrange. The troop had gone ahead to carry an unconscious second-in-command to their cars. As stated, they couldn't find anything druggy enough to cuff the doctor in jail. And Hibari was pissed off as hell. Recognized the obvious hatred in said shorter man's onyx eyes, Mukuro merely laughed, meanwhile credited himself for doing a decent job at teasing the tempestuous police commander.
By time he almost reached the doorknob, Mukuro casted a short glance around. Seeing it was quite empty by now, his trademark smirk grew suspiciously wider.
"One last thing." Mukuro suddenly halted mid-step, turned toward Hibari and did some quick gropes on his chest, waist and back. Very quick, that caught even Hibari off guard for several seconds. When he finished the groping process, Mukuro made an adequate quick note and made sure to voice it out.
"My my, you're too slim, Kyouya-kun. I'd recommend a more nutritious regime." Subsequently paused for one split second, he then continued. "But your ass is palm-fitting, good, no need to work more on it."
And there, the supposedly fearful Hibari Kyouya found himself deep-strucked. That was probably the first time someone dared to lay a finger on his, his, HIS—oh sweet sweet dear Hibird this sorry excuse of a doctor will die for goddamn sure.
.
After some long time waited outside and their police commander still didn't come back, the troop exchanged worried glances among each other, pondered whether should they go in then being tonfa-ed out like the poor Kusakabe or just stay there quietly, peacefully under the starry sky.
Eventually, none of them regretted the judicious second decision, after seeing a blood-splattered (but still smiling as if his head was severely hit) doctor bounced off the door like a ball.
[.tbc.]
[*] Here I'm using the term 黒クロス - Kuro Kurosu (Black Cross) instead of 黒十字架 - Kuro Juujika (also means Black Cross). 'Kurosu' is the way 'cross' pronounces in Japanese, while 'juujika' is the actual kanji word for 'cross'. I just preferred 'kurosu' because it also has 'kuro' (black) contained, lame reason hm? Got these things from Google Translator, if it's wrong, please correct me.