"I'll pay," Miku insisted, feeling extremely uncomfortable under Rin's scrutiny. Rin and Gumo were looking back and forth between her and Len, as though they were watching a tennis match.
"No, no. You went through all that trouble today, and all you want is a chocolate éclair? It's too little, and that's utter disrespect towards this establishment!" Len retorted aggressively, staring her down.
"But you paid for lunch!" she argued back, fumbling around in her purse for her wallet. She might not be earning a lot from her part-time retail job, but she earned enough to get by and she could pay for the occasional small indulgence. Of course she couldn't keep splurging and dining out, and of course she wished she could eat more than a chocolate éclair…but no, she couldn't just let Len pay for everything. She was young and independent, and she didn't need to rely on someone else.
"He does earn a lot more than you, you know," Rin interjected, folding her arms across her chest. Though Rin was slightly shorter than Miku, she couldn't help but feel that the blonde was somehow able to look down her nose at her. It was very strange. "Just let him spend on you for once. My twin happens to be terribly stingy, so you ought to appreciate the fact that he's willing to pay for you," Rin shrugged, giving her two cents worth. Miku made a face, glancing around at the male twin.
Len just shrugged too, his sister probably having already said what he wanted to say. It must be the whole twin connection thing, where one twin could somehow guess what was on the mind of the other. Or something like that. She had read an article about this strange twin phenomenon in some magazine once. "Well…fine, if you absolutely insist," she sighed, looking up at the menu over the counter. "Then I'd like a cappuccino and some royal milk pudding as well!" she finally decided.
"Sure, coming right up!" Len declared. "You and Rin just go and sit first, Gumo and I will take care of everything," he darted towards the short queue, Gumo following him in a less enthusiastic fashion. Miku gulped. Being alone with Kagamine Rin was genuinely scary, but the blonde didn't make any fuss about being with her and just set off to look for a table. Miku trailed along behind her, suddenly feeling like she was a child again, out shopping with her mother, and she had to follow her around everywhere without annoying her. She bet Rin would make an absolutely terrifying mother.
Rin found a seat in practically no time at all, which was amazing because this café – Duke Royale – was usually packed to the brim at this hour. Duke Royale was a small, cosy café not very far from the small apartment she shared with Luka, and it was popular among young working adults and hippies. The atmosphere here was warm and welcoming, with tea lights and scented candles everywhere, and there were all kinds of knickknacks on the shelves, with little black and white photographs of the owner and her family framed up on the wooden walls. Miku liked this place, but cafés were pretty expensive so she didn't have a chance to come here and eat very often. One éclair could easily cost her six dollars, and the cappuccino was another eight! Along with that royal milk pudding, which was five dollars, the total bill was almost twenty dollars. She could eat three meals or more with that.
She hastily sat opposite Rin, who had her gloved hands placed primly on the table before her. The blonde gave her a long, measured look. "So how are you feeling about this entire situation?" she asked, tilting her head. "Being unexpectedly thrust into an underground organisation and running into your old boyfriend, who also happens to be in charge of the covert assignment that we pushed you into taking up. It must all be very overwhelming for you," Rin actually sounded sympathetic, which was just so out of character that Miku couldn't help but stare wordlessly at the blonde.
"Uh…I'm coping okay, I guess," she finally answered, realising that she sounded extremely lame. But what else was she supposed to say? "It really is a surprise, but from the very moment I found out what Len worked as, I think my perception of what's possible and what's not just kinda changed?" which was true, now that she thought about it. Everything was still extremely shocking, but she felt almost cushioned from it. It was like she was watching a movie now, a movie about someone else's life, but she knew it wasn't a movie nor was it a nightmare. She felt pain when she pinched herself.
"I did a background check on you before deciding to get you into the whole assignment," Rin tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, smoothing it down carefully. Not a single strand of hair was out of place, her sleek bob neat and perfect. Miku became aware of how messy her teal hair was in contrast to the hacker's. She did brush her hair nicely before she came out, but it was long and the air seemed to be a little more humid than usual today, so it was beginning to frizz and tangle. She self-consciously ran her own fingers through her hair, and winced when they caught on a knot.
"A background check? What did you find out?" she asked, tugging her fingers away from the tangled knot of teal hair and eyeing the counter, wondering when Len and Gumo would come back to the table. They were getting closer to the counter now, with three people still ahead of them. The two of them were chatting about something – then, as Miku continued to stare idly at them, Len looked up from his conversation with Gumo and gave her a big grin. She jumped, feeling her cheeks flush.
"Well, not that much because I didn't really bother to search too deep," Rin's words caught her attention and she looked back at the blonde. Rin was glancing around the café as well, her blue eyes narrowed – eyes the exact same shade of bright blue as Len's, yet so different for her gaze was icy cold instead of warm and welcoming – and Miku wondered what Rin was looking out for. "I know that you graduated from Santio University, and you majored in English Literature. Your best friend and roommate Megurine Luka was a Literature student as well. Right now, both of you are working – you as a part-time sales assistant in Mancy's, but I didn't bother to find out your roommate's job. You have a younger brother called Hatsune Mikuo, and you're working desperately hard now so that you can afford to send him to college. Your father died during your second year in university and your mother has never really gotten over his death, so recently she's taken to drinking. Your aunt and uncle helped to fund the rest of your university years, but they won't do the same for your little brother so you're worried about that. And that's the main reason why you accepted our job, isn't it?"
Miku gaped at the blonde. Rin looked coolly back at her, awaiting a response, and finally she let out a small squeak of acknowledgement. How had Rin managed to find all that out? Most of what she said wasn't even stuff she posted on social media – okay sure, it would be easy enough to figure out which school she came from and her major if Rin had her Facebook account, and probably Luka being her roommate and course mate was information that could be filtered out from her social media as well. But her father's death, her mother's drinking problem, her aunt and uncle and her younger brother…these were all private family matters. She had never posted about it online…
"I have my methods," Rin added. Her confusion must have been very obvious. "Yes, your family situation wasn't on your Facebook or any other social media accounts, but let's just say that other people who are aware of the situation might have said something in passing, and if you're able to piece together all the random strings of information, you can paint a fairly complete picture of the entire situation," she paused. "I offer my condolences for your father's passing. I saw that it was a freak accident – someone who was trying to commit suicide landed on him. The original jumper survived, but your father…" her words trailed off. Miku swallowed. There was a lump in her throat.
"It's all right. It's been four years so um, I'm kind of…used to it I guess," she struggled to say. "But let's change the subject," she added quickly so that Rin wouldn't continue talking about her family history. She didn't like to think about what happened four years ago. Her little brother was really smart and thankfully he had managed to secure a small scholarship that would fund his university education, so long as he agreed to major in software engineering and was bonded to the company for three years after graduation. But the living allowance he was given simply wouldn't be enough to cover his cost of living – the scholarship paid for his tuition and textbooks, but only gave two hundred dollars a month for other costs. He had to pay for campus accommodation and food, and Miku knew from personal experience that two hundred dollars simply wouldn't be enough.
She didn't want Mikuo to get a job and distract himself from his studies, since if his GPA slipped below the threshold required to retain his scholarship, the scholarship would be revoked and he would have to pay back everything he was ever given up till that point. So she told him to study, and she would fund his four years in university. She had to save up as much money as she possibly could. But it was a struggle to even feed herself since her part-time job didn't pay very much, and she and Luka had to pay the rent for their room as well. After all her necessary bills were paid and she set aside some money for her brother, Miku rarely ever had enough to really splurge on herself. This month was slightly better though since she had exceeded her sales quota and got a bonus for her efforts, but she was being careful not to splurge on anything. Though she really did want new shoes.
Four years had taught her how to be frugal with her money, but before that she had been quite the spendthrift. That was how she caught the attention of Utatane Piko, the billionaire playboy. Actually, Miku sometimes wished that they hadn't broken up in their first year because it was during her second year in university that her whole life was turned upside-down. At least Piko would have been able to pay for some of her expenses back then – he spent money like it was nothing. But she was also somewhat glad that she had been forced to undergo such a gruelling trial, because now she knew how to budget properly and could actually pay her bills in time, and she never exceeded her credit card limit either. The same could not exactly be said for Luka, but Luka did pay rent at least.
"If it helps, Len and I…didn't have the happiest childhood either," Rin's tone softened, and Miku was dragged away from her self-pitying thoughts. "We were separated when we were little. He might have told you that he started his special training when he was eight, but he probably didn't mention that he was taken by force. Our mother was…" Rin paused, "she was part of a research organisation that was determined to breed the perfect weapon, and coincidentally her genes were compatible with this new serum that they wanted to test out. And even better when she gave birth to twins, so they could have a control when observing the effects of the serum…I think I'll stop here," she added, her gaze darting up past Miku. Miku glanced behind her and saw Len and Gumo coming back with a tray each, Len looking like his characteristic happy-go-lucky self. He didn't seem to have heard them.
"What are you guys talking about?" Len asked, reaching their table and setting down his tray of food. She saw her cappuccino, her royal milk pudding and her chocolate éclair. Before she could reach out and take them off the tray, Len intercepted and did the job for her, even setting down a paper napkin and a dessert spoon carefully next to her plate. He sat next to her, setting down his own desserts – banana pie and a dark chocolate cheesecake – before he put the empty tray on a nearby, recently vacated table. Miku glanced at Rin and saw the blonde shake her head at her, an almost imperceptible movement, so she decided to hold her tongue and allowed Rin to answer.
"Nothing much, just about Miku's past. And how she feels about being forced to take on this assignment," Rin's words were calm and neutral. "I certainly couldn't imagine how I'd be feeling if I were in her position. A normal civilian one day, and an assassin's assistant the next. Who would have imagined such a thing?" she glanced at Miku, but she couldn't read the expression on her face.
"Aw, yeah," Len sounded sympathetic. "I couldn't imagine myself in your place either, Miku. And you ended up running into your ex! Isn't life just a series of strange coincidences?" he shook his head, picking up his dessert spoon. Gumo, who was now sitting stiffly next to Rin, was sipping primly from a cup of vanilla milk. He had given Rin her order – an orange chiffon cake with a cup of espresso – and the two of them seemed to be entirely ignoring each other. They really had an odd relationship.
"I didn't expect to run into Piko, definitely," she shook her head. "I mean, when you all talked about a boss, I was thinking like…I don't know, one of those mafia bosses in movies and all. The brooding old man with like, two bodyguards and a moustache, you know? And it ends up being a spoilt brat I knew from my university days. And now I have to work under him!" she groaned, stabbing viciously into her chocolate éclair. The smooth chocolate cream within oozed out in a very satisfying way.
"Don't worry, I'll protect you from his amorous advances!" Len told her, and he sounded so sincere when he said this that she couldn't help but giggle. Gumo just sighed and rolled his eyes, while Rin nibbled peacefully at her chiffon cake, her gaze flitting constantly between her and Len. "On another note, Miku," Len added, "when will you be free to come to our office again? Since if you're going to accompany me to Paris, you'll need some basic self-defence knowledge…unless you already practice a martial art or a sport or something?" he tilted his head, his smile so bright that it was dazzling.
"Um…I used to learn jujitsu, but that was really long ago, I'm not sure if I can still remember how to use what I learnt. But I still have the strength from my old training, I guess. Does that help?" she shrugged, feeling self-conscious when all three pairs of eyes focused upon her. Len's smile widened.
"Oh, that's wonderful! Then I think you're all set, actually. I mean, I'm not expecting you to be in any danger at all, it should be a pretty easy job. We'll be in and out in a flash," he moved his spoon over, stealing some of her éclair. She let him – he was the one paying for her, after all. "But if you want you can still come by sometime, maybe see what we're up to when we're preparing for a job. I'm going to kind of disappear for a while too, until Paris," he stuck the bit of éclair and chocolate cream in his mouth, closing his eyes in bliss. "It'd be nice if you could come and take a look," he added.
Before she could answer, Gumo spoke up – the first time the man had said anything in her vicinity since they entered the café. She distinctly remembered him being a lot chattier while they were at the restaurant. "Yeah, it'd be nice if you could come and take a look. Better that you have an idea of what goes on behind the scenes while Len runs around doing the high-profile things," the green haired man rolled his eyes, sighing loudly. "I sometimes wonder why our boss would send Len, of all people, to black-tie events, but I guess that if he's done well all these times then he should be fine…"
Len looked affronted, but playfully so. At least she didn't think he would get legitimately upset over something like that. "Don't underestimate the amount of training I went through. I might goof off outside of work but I take my job really seriously!" he protested, now stealing some of Miku's drink.
"That's right, Gumo. Len can actually be a lot more professional than you, you know," Rin took her brother's side, and Gumo raised his hands in a show of surrender as the Kagamine twins ganged up against him. Miku guessed that Rin did care a lot for her brother, even if she didn't seem like the friendliest or warmest of people. She was sure that Rin cared for her boyfriend as well, just maybe not in a very…obvious kind of way. "I agree with both of them, Miku. You should drop by on your off days so that you aren't completely clueless when you fly to Paris. Gumo might go along if backup is necessary, but I will only be watching via satellite and CCTV so if you're separated from Len, you will need to know what to do. It won't do well for you to stand out, especially not in the public eye."
"Oh, but…I don't really know how to get to the office by myself," she grimaced, "and you have so many layers of security anyway. How am I supposed to drop by? Wouldn't I have to contact Len or something every time I wanted to come? It would be such a hassle," she hedged. It really wasn't that she didn't want to come – okay, maybe she was slightly reluctant to go since that meant sacrificing her precious free time – but going over to that heavily protected underground headquarters just seemed so…inconvenient. And it would be inconvenient for all the parties involved, not just her.
"That's not a problem," Rin responded coolly. "The next time you come, we'll get all the information necessary to grant you access – your fingerprints, retina scans, DNA and gait. The technicians will settle your entry pass so you can come in whenever you want. As for the location…well, actually very few of the preparations will be made in our headquarters. We have branch offices throughout the city and most of the work is spread evenly between these offices. You can drop by any one of them – there's one that's practically right outside your apartment – and from there, you can actually access the headquarters if you really want to. But I'm just letting you know that going there isn't absolutely necessary. I'm sure that Len will opt to train and prepare wherever is most convenient for you," Rin concluded, shooting her brother a glance. Len just returned the look, and he seemed to agree.
"It still sounds troublesome…" Miku tried to worm her way out of it, but the intensity of Rin's stare was just too much for her to handle and she fell silent, choosing to nod wordlessly. Rin gave her a satisfied smile and then the four of them continued to eat their desserts, chatting about interesting stories from their past. Rin shared the least, Gumo had many entertaining tales involving cross-dressing so he could infiltrate places, and Len just laughed at everything but revealed hardly anything about himself. The three of them asked her the most questions, and she shared the most about her past – she got the feeling that they were trying to figure out what kind of person she was, and she wondered what they would ultimately discover about her. It still seemed so surreal, that she was caught up in all this business. It hadn't even been an entire day, but so much had changed.
"You know you can't tell anyone about this, right?" Gumo mentioned after she finished sharing a fairly embarrassing story about Piko and the first time they went out together. "The job, the trip to Paris, what you're involved in…you can't tell anyone, not even your best friend or your family. We all share a verbal contract, you see. I mean, there's really no point in having a written one when we have all your details and history, and we have you under constant surveillance. It might feel very intrusive but please understand that we're taking these measures for our own sake as well. You're a stranger. Len might trust you, but Len is pretty eccentric and the majority of us don't trust you. Yet."
"Hey, stop that. You're scaring her," Len leapt to her defence immediately, noticing the look of panic on her face. "It's not as bad as Gumo says, really. But what he said about the surveillance…" he looked slightly uncomfortable about this, "that's true, actually. I trust you and I believe you're a good person – after all this has settled I really want to get to know you better and spend time with you like a normal guy, because you seem nice and funny and I think you deserve to have a normal date," he smiled. "But everyone else is really paranoid and suspicious – I mean, our industry does call for paranoia – and I guess most people aren't going to trust you completely until you prove yourself. Until then, Rin will be monitoring you constantly. But she's super discreet! You won't even know that she's there, promise," Len told her sincerely. Rin just nodded, her gaze carefully neutral.
Obviously Miku wasn't too happy about the idea of being watched all the time, but their logic made sense. She guessed that if she belonged to a top-secret organisation, she would be really wary of any new strangers who came in as well. "Okay, I understand. And of course I won't tell anyone. I don't want to be bumped off or anything," she shuddered, eyeing Len as she spoke those words. Len just chuckled and shook his head, looking amused. Well, she didn't know what he found so funny.
"Okay, I'm glad we all got that clear then," Gumo answered quietly, looking away from her. "I don't know what impression you have of us or our boss, since you knew him in a different context. But the man I work for is cold and ruthless, and he's not above asking us to check up on and eliminate any potential competition in the underworld. Of course, he can't just go around bumping off people in polite society, but the world we live in…doesn't play by the same rules as what you are accustomed to," he said this with an air of indifference. Miku glanced at Len, and saw that Len wasn't smiling.
"But Paris – isn't that, um, not part of the underworld?" Miku squeaked, the nasty implications of her errand really sinking into her head now. Talk of 'polite society' and the 'underworld' made her realise that there was probably a whole underbelly of society that, until this point, she had not been aware of – and the boy she knew from her university days evidently had business in both worlds. "And if he can't just target people who don't belong there, then…how is Len going to do his job?"
"The man he wants to bump off is the adopted second son of one of the Italian Mafia dons. I won't mention which specific Mafia it is because the less you know, the better – so let's just say that our boss will not be acting in the capacity of polite society. It might cause a bit of an uproar in the news, but the police won't be able to find any leads on who the assassin is. Any problems this might cause will be settled in the underworld, out of public eye. You shouldn't ask any more questions about this man, since you're going on the assignment," Gumo cautioned. Miku nodded, starting to wonder about the man she knew as Utatane Piko. Come to think of it, she didn't actually know that much about him.
He never shared much about his personal life with her while they were dating. She knew he had four sports cars, he lived in a really big mansion not too far away from their campus in the past – she had gone once, since Piko refused to make use of on-campus accommodation – and he was the son of an extremely wealthy businessman. But she never found out what company his family owned and he never shared much about his life before coming to university, always vaguely saying that it was all in the past and he didn't have a very happy childhood. Then in their second year, he just…disappeared.
"How about Piko? Who is he, really?" she asked slowly, looking at all three of them in turn. Gumo and Rin exchanged a look, the first time they actually properly interacted with each other ever since they entered the café. Len was still not smiling, and she thought that he didn't seem very pleased with where their conversation was going. But she wanted to find out as much as she was allowed to know, since she was involved in all this shady business now. She didn't want to just go in blind!
"Our boss is more dangerous than he might trick you into believing, so let's just leave it at that," Rin answered crisply, breaking the tense silence. "All this time you must have seen him only in the public eye. He is very different…when he's serious about his work. He still does very stupid things and he doesn't listen to my advice, but any man who would hire Len is a man to be wary of."
Miku didn't need Rin to tell her that, she had figured that much out by herself. She was prepared to risk her ego and probe even more, since Utatane Piko seemed like he was anything but serious – but Len interjected, placing a hand on her shoulder. She jumped in her seat, whipping around to look at him. "Hey, we came out here to eat and have a good time, right?" Len asked, giving her a sheepish smile. "So let's just enjoy our dessert. You can ask all the questions you want some other time, when we're back in our office or something. It's not really easy to talk about all this in public," he stressed, and he just seemed so uncharacteristically solemn about the matter that she decided to keep quiet about Piko's background. She could wait until they were underground again before she asked more.
"All right. But his motives for assigning you to this job seem pretty shallow, actually. Just because he got dissed by someone at a conference?" Miku scratched her neck, stirring her cappuccino. Len had drunk quite a bit of her coffee. "It just seems like a really stupid reason to, well…make Len work."
Gumo snorted. "Oh, he only said that because you were there at the office and he wasn't sure how much he could trust you yet. We all know there's a bigger reason why he wants this job done, and honestly Piko couldn't care less about it. His father is the one who's more interested in seeing this through. Piko is just an underboss," Gumo explained, "his father is the one who really controls everything that goes on, in both their company and in ours. You'll find out the real reason in due time, but Piko really isn't very interested in this particular task. He wanted Len for another job actually, but his father's words definitely take precedence over his own desires," he shrugged.
"Because he's a selfish, selfish little man," Len muttered beside her, making her crack a smile. "Okay, really – enough with the gloomy talk, let's just finish our desserts and then we can adjourn and meet another day, all right?" there was a surprising ring of finality in Len's words, so no one tried to say anything more about the job and the chat soon drifted to more stories about Gumo cross-dressing. Despite the fact that she was with three of the most dangerous people she had ever encountered, Miku found that she was really enjoying herself. For once, she didn't find herself thinking about money or finding a boyfriend or worrying about her family. For once, she could just be herself.
"Where are you staying now?" Rin asked, wondering about her brother. Gumo had dropped Miku off at her apartment after they were done with their dessert, and Len walked the girl up to her unit when they reached the building. Gumo and Rin waited for him in the car, and when he came back he looked uncharacteristically despondent. Len, who was now sitting in the backseat, let out a sigh.
"Pyre Leaf Inn," he answered. Rin recognised the name of the place – it was a slightly run-down, shady place generally meant as a stopover point for passengers in transit. It was cheap and located downtown, and the business owner generally turned a blind eye to the comings and goings of the underworld here. Pyre Leaf Inn was a haven for brave businessmen who needed a place to rest while in transit, and for gang members and criminals who needed a place to sleep and recover out of public sight. "I have an arrangement with the owner. Two weeks there, and then I'll be up and away again."
"I don't understand why you don't want to just come and live with me," Rin sighed as well, getting frustrated with her brother's stubbornness on this issue. Her house had top-notch security and the police never suspected there was anything wrong with a small, harmless-looking girl like her. As long as Len kept the blinds down, there should never be any risk at all of him being caught. But he just shook his head, resolute as ever. Why would he choose to drift from place to place, never having the chance to fully settle and rest when her house was always open to him? It just didn't make sense.
"Rin, I don't want you to get into trouble. You don't have a track record since no one has caught you yet, but if police ever busted your house you'd probably get jail time for hacking into organisational websites, and you know that," he explained. It was the same old argument, and frankly Rin was tired of listening to the same thing over and over again. She really just wanted to properly care for Len – in the past, she wouldn't have bothered, but then he disappeared off even her radar for two years when they were twenty years old and for a while, she thought he had died on a mission. When he finally came back, she had cried because of how angry and relieved she was. Len was now careful never to go anywhere without informing her first and allowing her to track him. It was her own way of ensuring that her kid brother would be safe. She hated his job sometimes, but it was all he knew.
"I already said before, the police don't come to bother me. And most of the lower-ranking officers don't even know you're a wanted man. As long as you keep out of sight and don't do anything too stupid, you're definitely safe! And you can escape into the headquarters from my house if you needed to as well," she argued. Gumo, who was driving, just listened quietly to the twins' quarrel. He had heard this conversation before a few times, but Rin never knew who Gumo really sided with.
"Rin…you know I can't get you into trouble. I don't even want to risk it," Len told her softly. "And it's worse now that Miku's involved. At least you have experience in this field and with evading the cops. She doesn't know anything. I don't know, I'm starting to worry that maybe I did something stupid by involving her in my work, but…" his voice quietened even further. "I just need to continue showing her that I'm happy and that everything is normal, but Sicario has been after me for a while already and Boss is already at his wits' end. Sicario is what I'm afraid of, Rin. Not the cops. And Sicario is the one who will have no qualms whatsoever about shooting you from outside your house, you know."
"Sicario doesn't know you're here," Rin answered flatly. "I know because I hacked into their network a few days ago and their trail on you has gone cold. You're safe here, and as long as you keep your head down they shouldn't be able to find you again. You don't need to be so worried about them –"
"Yeah, I'm safe for now. Then what about Paris?" Len interrupted. "After I get sent to Paris…I have to attend events and conferences, and I have to be there for what, two weeks? It's a high-profile task, Rin. Boss didn't want to send me there but his old man insisted so I don't have a choice. Sicario is bound to find me there. And Miku is going to get involved. I can't believe we had to hide that from her. She only said okay to this job because she doesn't know how dangerous it'll really be," he muttered, sinking deeper into the seat and looking out of the window. It was evening, and the setting sun bathed everything in a rosy pink glow. Len looked sullen, and for once, Rin didn't know what to say.
"You can't defy the old man. Our boss's words, in comparison to his, weigh little," Gumo spoke up in the driver's seat, throwing in his two cents. "But think about it. If you succeed in Paris and you don't get caught – in fact, if Sicario comes for you and you managed to kill them off too – you won't ever need to worry about Miku or your job ever again. You were promised that this is your last mission, right? After that, you're free to do whatever you want. Isn't that why this is so important to you?"
"Important to me, but the boss doesn't want me to succeed because he doesn't want me off his payroll," Len grumbled. "The old man interfered with my contract. By right I'm supposed to serve Boss for another year, but…well. Obviously I want to get out of this shitty job. I want to try and live a normal life – or, failing that, at least I want to be paid adequately for my efforts. Sure, it sounds like I make a lot of money, but if you take into account the costs of being on the run and throw in the fact that I don't get a lot of jobs in a year, it's actually very little," Len tugged on his ponytail. "I just want to get out of here," he repeated, "and hopefully Miku won't get involved with the underworld too because of this. It'd be my fault if that happened," he groaned. Rin couldn't even being to imagine what her twin had to be feeling. Len was the one who had saved her from years of persecution…
"If you complete Paris I'll help you make a new ID, and one for Miku too if she wants. Then you can get out of this country and away from Sicario. I'll stall them," Rin offered. "The money that you'll be given as a result of Paris should be enough to help you settle elsewhere for a while. I'll see what I can do about your criminal record – but honestly at this point, Sicario is the biggest issue. If you can evade them, you can evade just about anybody," she turned back to look at her brother again. Len was still gazing out of the window, the scenery reflected in his blue eyes. He looked contemplative.
"You can do anything you want for me," he said dully, "I'm just concerned for Miku. She looks so happy and oblivious about what's going to happen in a month's time. She really thinks it's just going to be like a holiday, and I want to keep that impression up because she's an innocent. I don't know how the hell I'm supposed to save her after Sicario sees her with me. They're going to try and use her as bait," he ran his fingers through his fringe, pushing it away from his eyes. "I guess I'm just concerned about that. Nothing more I can do besides perfect my craft and finish this task as soon as possible, I suppose," he concluded. "This really isn't going to be an easy job. I'm not excited."
"Yeah, you're not," Rin agreed. The car fell silent for a while. Then she made her decision. "Len, I'm coming with you for this one. I'll let Boss know later, but I can't just leave you to face Sicario alone. I can be a decoy too, since we resemble enough – I can wear insoles or something to hide the height difference. You know it'll be useful if I come," she added, already knowing that he would protest.
"It's dangerous, Rin. It's bad enough that I'll have to look out for Miku – don't make me worry about you too," he tore his gaze away from the window and met her eyes straight on. But she stared him down relentlessly, and eventually he caved in to the sheer force of her will. "If you insist…I know if I disagree you're just going to tag along anyway," Len kneaded his forehead, groaning. Then he met her gaze once more, blue eyes softening. "Thank you though. That offer…really meant a lot to me."
"I'll feed you information about Sicario's presence when I can," Gumo added, making the final turn down the road. The Pyre Leaf Inn was coming into view. "My sister is still part of that organisation, so if she tells me anything about their presence in Paris I'll let you know," the car slowly came to a stop. "Good luck with evading them, Len. And be careful of the cops too. We'll see you tomorrow."
"Thanks, Gumo," Len said quietly. He got out of the car, heading into the inn, and Gumo brought the car into reverse, heading out of the shady neighbourhood. Rin watched her brother walking until she could see him no more. A sense of foreboding filled her – would this month be the last time she saw her brother safe? Sicario was the group responsible for Len's disappearance four years ago. She was going to Paris with Len to make sure that, no matter what, he wouldn't fall into their clutches again.