Fire damage to Kusanagi's bar is avoided—narrowly.

Avoidance looks like Kamamoto sitting on Yata's back while Bando quarantines Anna and Reina together in a corner.

Yata wheezes, "Get off of me before I puncture a lung, you fat fuck—you should be sitting on her!"

"I'm pretty sure that'd kill her."

"You're going to kill me!"

"I'll believe you're dying when you stop yelling."

"Fuck you!"

"See, I don't think you're getting the point here—"

"Yata-chan," Kusanagi hums, "if Kamamoto-kun gets off you, do you promise not to try and destroy my bar?"

"As if you'd let me anyway."

"That's true~ HOMRA might have to lose a member before that happens."

"…D-don't say it so cheerily, Kusanagi-san…"

The bartender laughs anyway (creepy), and at a gesture from him, Yata feels an enormous weight lifting from his back. He gets up and winces, kneading his back. He wouldn't be surprised if Kamamoto had somehow managed to misalign his spine.

"Seriously, lose some weight before sitting on other people."

"Do you hear me telling you grow taller before threatening other people?"

"… you wanna fight, fatty?"

"Sit down, both of you. Nicely now, Yata-chan—who's the little miss?"

"She's Saru's niece," he grumbles. "Her name's Reina."

"Name…"

"Eh?"

"Anna—did you just say something?"

Over on the couch, Anna scoots away from Reina. In a completely neutral voice, she comments, "That's a stupid-sounding name."

Yata gapes. He doesn't remember the last time a full sentence came out of Anna's mouth. This might legitimately be a first.

"Anna…"

Anna gives Reina the coldest up-and-down Yata's ever witnessed. Reina looks ready to spit fire. "Well," she spits back, "You're wearing stupid looking clothes. You're way too old and not cute enough to dress like that."

HOMRA's resident doll scoots over another good half foot and peers at Reina through one of her marbles.

"Wh-what, you weirdo…"

After a few seconds, she puts the marble back, and smirks.

"Nothing."

"Tell me!"

"Nothing."

"See," Yata crows, "even Anna doesn't like her, and Anna always knows about people."

Kusanagi sighs. "Yata-chan, she's a little girl."

"S-so?"

"You just don't like her because she reminds you of Fushimi, is that it?"

"No, I don't like people who're like Saru because I don't like that type of person!"

In the corner couch, Bando, stuck between Reina and Anna, is looking increasingly nervous. Yata doesn't envy him. Kusanagi sighs and lights himself a cigarette. "Did something happen between the two of you?"

Yata laughs, bitter. "Something like him fucking leaving HOMRA? Because if you mean that kind of thing—"

"Not that again. Are you still angry about that?"

What? Sometimes—okay, a lot of the time—Yata doesn't understand what the fuck is running through Kusanagi's head. "Aren't you?"

He shrugs. "Not really. If Fushimi's doing better in Sceptre 4, then maybe he was supposed to end up there."

He can't believe this shit—in fact, the first half of that sentence actually makes it out of his mouth, before his survival instinct kicks in. He settles for spitting, with as respectful a vehemence as he can summon, "That guy called HOMRA a bunch of punks! He said Mikoto-san was just some thug!"

Kusanagi airily ignores him, as only Kusanagi or Mikoto-san can do. "Did it ever occur to you that he might have been lonely?"

"If he didn't want to be lonely, he shouldn't have left!"

"Weren't you the one who left him first?"

"He's the one who's so possessive. I mean, it's not like we were fucking married or something—I'm allowed to have other friends. It's not my fault he didn't like HOMRA."

"Maybe it's not his either."

"…Whose side are you on anyway, Kusanagi-san?"

"Look, Yata-chan, don't take this the wrong way, but you're kind of a short-sighted idiot—"

Yata splutters. "What other way can I take something like that—"

"—so I'm just trying to, ah, 'open your eyes' a bit. I don't think you're the only one who's been hurt here."

Sighing, Yata gives up. Give him a fistfight and he'll go all day, but arguing with Kusanagi is about as futile as getting Kamamoto to go on a diet. When it comes to words, there's no way to win, and even when you do win you get the feeling it's just because Kusanagi doesn't feel like dealing with you. "Whatever you say."

"And there he goes again, not listening to me. Well, think whatever you want. Why are you and that girl here, anyway? Weren't you supposed to be doing something with Fushimi?"

Doing something.

Come over here and burn my tongue off for me, then.

He shudders. If Yata's going to be honest with himself, there's definitely been something sketchy going on with Saru these last few days. Not just that time he, ugh God the creep, apparently took it upon himself to take all of Yata's clothes off and then write all over him—that's typical stalker-level behavior for him. But there was that time in Sakura Square. When Saru and him had almost ki, kissss—

After a few seconds of silence, Kusanagi turns around to look at Yata.

"…well, I don't remember buying tomatoes. And I repeat: did something happen?"

"Nothing happened."

"You don't have to say it so forcefully. I believe you."

"Okay."

"All right."

"Fine."

()

"Damn it."

Kusanagi glances at him. "Still not picking up?"

"Answer your fucking phone, dumb monkey."

"…glaring at it isn't going to make him, you know."

Yata sighs loudly. "Typical. That guy's always on his fucking PDA and the second I call him he ignores me. I bet he's just looking at his caller ID and hanging up on me." He checks his watch—it's nearly eight, and the sky outside is fully dark. He can't possibly still be with that girl at the hotel.

Can he?

Well, it's not like you would know, his mind unhelpfully supplies. Great. Now he's got an internal-Saru stuck in his head, like the world's most annoying GPS. Except instead of doing anything remotely helpful, it seems to exist for the sole purpose of generating and hurling Saru-like insults.

He knows it's stupid to try again so soon after the last dial, but his hands creep towards the buttons on his watch when Reina lunges violently at Anna and shouts "boo!"

"You should give it up, you know," he calls at her. "Anna doesn't, uh, really get scared. Or mad. Or anything."

"If she's not mad, why does she have that bitchy face on?"

Yata almost responds with what he would have said to Saru, namely, well maybe you should stop acting like such a huge bitch, then. He bites it back just in time. "Just—come away from there, will you?" Not that Anna's ever displayed any signs of offensive capabilities, but if it turns out she can throw fire or something, this is decidedly not the way that Yata wants to find out.

Reina obeys, for once, clambering awkwardly onto a bar stool. Kusanagi quietly makes her some kind of hot-pink drink. She takes a sip and beams at him.

"This is really good! Thanks, mister!"

Kusanagi laughs. "Aw. You're welcome."

"…what the hell is that cute face," mutters Yata. "It's never come out before."

"Well you don't make nice-tasting things for me."

"Whatever. No one wants your girly drinks anyway." He reaches over to flick the glass, then pauses. "Wait." He stares accusingly at Kusanagi, who's smiling mildly as ever. "Is there alcohol in this?"

After a moment, Kusanagi turns away, humming cheerily.

"Oh—come on. Kusanagi-san! She's—Reina, don't drink that."

"Can't be tamed!" she chirps, and downs the whole thing before Yata can snatch it out of her hand.

Yata shoots out of his seat and stalks over to Anna. Mini-Sarus, he's willing to put up with for possibly the night. Drunk mini-Sarus, he's willing to put with for the precisely the time it takes to locate Saru, kick him in the ass for being such a pain, and hand off Reina. He doesn't care how family-allergic that jerk is, Reina's not his responsibility.

"Anna, could you find Saru for me?"

She just stares coldly ahead.

Sighing, Yata half-whispers, "It's to get rid of her."

Anna hops out of her seat and fetches HOMRA's big grid map of Shizume in record speed. Yata watches her four marbles set to spinning around with relief.

And watches them spin. And spin.

Some five minutes later, Yata frowns. "Maybe he's not in Shizume?" That asshole better not have skipped the city and saddled Yata with his cousin. What if her mom comes to find him? She sounded pretty fucking scary—

"…not anywhere."

"What do you mean, he's not anywhere?"

Anna just shakes her head, looking confused. "I can't feel him." Her marbles still. One falls to the floor with a clack, glass dulling from fiery red to muddy maroon.

"He isn't here anymore," she says finally.

()

AN: So, so, so sorry to any of you that may have been kept waiting. Check my profile for my epic ballad of apology.