chapter three
A/N: I'm writing this faster than I thought I'd be able to. Probably because I have more fun doing this than fuckin studying. Ah well. Enjoy.
The city of Sapporo has a wideness to it that sometimes overwhelms him. When he looks up, he sees outlines of mountains hulking beyond towering structures and skyscrapers. The way the sky wraps around all of it. When he looks ahead, buildings, trees and rivers of people sprawl along streets full of lights. Voices, footsteps, rustling leaves and car horns and everywhere, movement. The furious heartbeat of a city full of the restless.
Their destination isn't far from where they ate, but they take a taxi anyway. Sougo doesn't want to be made even smaller by his own head by walking. He has to be in his best condition. He has to look fine, no matter what, and to be able to do that, he has to be as fine as he is capable of. Besides, it's sunny outside. Pleasantly warm for humans who want to walk, but torture for the Yato.
China girl is unamused when they stop at an old, shady-looking hotel. The entire time he leads her inside and to the top floor, she demands over and over what they are doing there. Once inside the appropriate room, he locks the door behind them.
"I knew you were planning to do lecherous things to me, sadist!"
He approaches the bed and crouches next to it.
She follows him. "Is this what you do all the time? You bring innocent maidens like myself to this room and tie them up and do perverted things to them?"
Sougo pushes the bed aside. "I go to S&M clubs for that, China girl." Which is where he met the owner of the hotel and acquired enough blackmail material to ruin the man's family. Hence his free access to all windowed rooms at the top floor, as long as they are unoccupied.
"Huh." She peers down at him. "So you do do those twisted things I saw in your porn, yes?"
He supposes that living with the boss has given her a keen sense of where to look for those things. He turns to her, eyebrows raised. Her back is turned on the windows, the light, and he can't see her expression properly. Today she has chosen to wear her hair in one long braid and it suits her and it pisses him off. "Jealous, China girl?"
She smacks him on the head with her umbrella. "I do not care where you stick that dirty piece of wood into, chihuahua."
Sougo rubs his head and turns his attention back to the floor. The wooden planks are delicate and have to be removed in a certain order. He starts, and China shuffles closer to him.
She remains quiet the entire time, her curiosity clearly trumping her need to be annoying. When he is done, a white canvas greets them.
"Is that a dead body?" China asks.
"It would have smelled like you if it were, stupid."
She ignores this. "What do you even do with it? Oi, sadist, could it be y-you—?"
"What the hell do you think I am? You're the fucked up one here, aren't you?" Sougo shakes his head and removes the canvas, revealing a sniper rifle along with arrays of cartridges, a caliber conversion kit, and a tripod.
She nearly moans in delight and he clenches his jaw, trying to forget the sound as soon as possible.
"Sadist, I want to shoot with it!"
He can hear his own heavy breathing. "This isn't like your lame-ass umbrella, China girl." He stares down at it, then at his hands. Then back at it. "This one is special."
She grabs his shoulder. "Teach me! I want to shoot with it, yes?"
Sougo exhales loudly. "I'm not sure I can. This one requires precision and discipline, and you are about as precise and disciplined as a baby orangutan."
She crouches beside him and shakes him, nearly knocking him over. "I have always wanted to shoot one, yes? Gin-chan and Shinpachi and I are always getting shot at by those things!"
That...was probably him. They were fun targets; their kind do not die easily. Besides, he always made sure to miss by just the slimmest inch. They made the funniest expressions. But it was all just for practice. Yes. Practice. "Because you freelancers threaten the safety of everyone who isn't a gorilla like you." He takes the tripod, several cartridges, and the rifle and walks to the window, where he begins to set up.
She trots after him (or probably the gun) like a puppy. "But that does not look like the ones the tax robbers I beat u—I mean I met—had, yes?"
Mostly because the model is for military use, not law enforcement, and has a longer range. And is also something Sougo should not have, but he has his connections (slaves). "Stop asking stupid questions. Do you want to learn or not?"
She hops a little. "I do, I do!"
He should probably rethink teaching a 16-year-old how to snipe, but then again, China girl does a lot of shit girls her age should not be doing (and maybe he loves it, just a little).
He rubs his face with his hands and looks around. He spots the chair he usually uses and brings it near the window behind the rifle. "Get your ass in here."
He spends the next half-hour adjusting the tripod, scope, cheek piece and sling to her comfort, then teaching her how to position herself, turn the safety off, and load the rifle, all of which would have only taken a few minutes if she would keep quiet and listen and just—fucking—stay—still. Strangely enough, the familiarity of the routine—despite him not having done it in a while—actually calms him. It's only China girl who is ruining this for him.
"Look out the scope and see if you can spot my dummies." After all, he can't just use the freelancers all the time for target practice.
She swings the rifle wildly and ruins everything he has just prepared. "Where? Where? I cannot see, stupid sadist!"
"The scope's too close to your ugly face, dumbass, which it wouldn't have been if you had maintained your position!"
"How can I aim if I do not move, you punk?!"
"Move carefully, you shit-brain!"
It takes them another half-hour before she is back in the right position, and several more minutes before she finds the target dummies. The way she giggles when she finally shoots is worth everything.
"Now, you move the bolt for the next cartridge."
"What's a bolt, sadist? And why do I have to move it to shoot again?"
He fights the urge to kick her, but only because he would have to fix everything again. "Drill a hole into your ears and tear them wide open, China. Listen to me this time."
To her credit, she restrains herself and only glares at him, then listens. Once she has understood how the gun works, she attempts to hit more of the dummies, confident that it will be easy because of the scope.
It's good that he had them set up in deserted parts of the city, because otherwise he is sure she would have killed someone by now.
When she finally manages a clean shot, she jumps to her feet and tackles him. They both tumble to the floor. "I hit something! It is far away, but I hit it, yes? I am amazing!"
She sits up and grins widely at him and it is almost contagious, her happiness, it even makes him smile a little before he remembers this is fucking China and he immediately scowls at her. "Don't get cocky, you brat. Talk to me when you've got a bull's eye or at least a headshot."
She narrows her eyes at him. "How often do you hit your target?"
Every time he aims for it. Every single time. "All the time, without even trying, China girl. That's just how g—"
His voice falls short and they look at each other in silence. Far, far below, cars honk and screech at one another like animals talking.
"…that's just how good I am," he finishes quietly.
She shifts in place; her fingers brush against his hand and instead of jerking away her pinky hooks around his. Everything in the universe is alive again.
"…show me."
His throat closes up briefly. "What?"
"I want to see how useless you are, yes? Show me."
Sougo sits up and smirks at her, arranging his expression into one of smugness. "You sure your fragile self-esteem can handle watching me?"
She folds her arms. There is steel in her gaze and no playfulness at all. "Hurry up, sadist. It is not polite to make a lady wait, yes?"
It only takes him seconds to adjust everything to his convenience, as routine as breathing. It's like having all of his limbs fully functional again. His body is moving on its own, acting out memorized motions. He puts his hands on the rifle, gentle as a lover, and peers through the scope.
The first thing he sees is people. People moving across the crosshairs.
Targets.
His vision blurs, focuses, then blurs again. A city melting along with its people nothing makes sense. His fingers twitch. His heartbeat drums against his ears, his ears are ringing from an explosion that has already happened but is also about to happen, he breathes and he breathes but he's too loud, he aims somewhere else, anywhere else, but he doesn't know where that is he can hear himself slowing his entire body down focus, focus on the target where who move move—
He is knocked to the floor and the world rushes back in with astounding clarity.
"Fuck," someone says. It takes him a moment to realize it's his own voice. Recognizing himself is suddenly overwhelming, and he says it again with more feeling. "Fuck."
"Sadist." Small hands wrapping around his. "Sadist." He blinks and feels the wall against his back. He is sitting and he sees her kneeling in front of him, their hands between them. He is trembling so hard even her iron grip can't stop it. She reaches for his face instead and he tries to touch her but he can't make himself move. Her fingers in his hair. Her mouth close to his ear, her breaths soft unlike his, he can't make himself slow down. His forehead lands on her shoulder, he murmurs the same word, over and over, he feels the rise and fall of her chest. She cups her hand over his mouth, he hears her say, "Breathe, sadist" and he tries to obey.
He doesn't know how long it takes for the gasping and wheezing to pass. It feels like hours, but when he has finally calmed down enough to raise his head, the sun and its shadows are still where they were a while ago.
"China," he says. His hands are still clasped together and he doesn't trust himself to let go yet.
She is still stroking his head, still touching his face. "What?"
"You should keep your hair like that all the time."
Color rises to her cheeks, and she blinks at him. "You are still not fine, yes?"
"Stop talking," he rasps. "Your breath smells like rotten eggs."
She pinches his cheeks, and there's a softness in her gaze he has never seen before. "Next time we go out, let us just buy a new vacuum cleaner, yes?"
"Huh." He closes his eyes and rests his head against the wall. "That sounds fine."
#
A/N: I hope you now have an idea of what's up with Sougo ~ Well I'm not trying to hide it. Not exactly waving a banner about it in your faces, either. You guys just figure it out at your own paces lol. Sougo will eventually find it in himself to talk about it.