Cancerous
A/N: I think I have some explaining to do. There's been so much going on in my head, but I'm trying to focus. So I hope this chapter clears up confusion (if at all *sighs*). It's past 2AM and I felt like writing... About two hours of thought punched into this one and... Here it is.
( 's been crashing, so I deleted this one and re-uploaded it.)
"I knew you'd do something like this, but handcuffs? Seriously."
She kisses him fully on the mouth this time. She's realized how keeping your hands to yourself is bad, especially when you keep them behind your back.
She licks her lips and gives him a wolfish grin. "Is this part of your kink?"
He says against her neck, "You're under arrest."
She laughs, throwing her head back. "Oh, oh, so this is your kink! Playing good cop-bad cop?"
She hears the "click" of another cuff. "No. I'm arresting you." He's chained them together.
She frowns. "You don't stop, do you?"
He removes himself from her. "The warrant's been signed."
Her hair's disheveled, her dress is wrinkled, and there's a faint line of sweat trickling from her temple to her chin. "How long has it been since you've done this to me?"
He stops looking, and turns his eyes down. "Five years."
"That long?"
"Though not long enough."
She grins. "I agree. We should've done this three years ago."
"You were fifteen when SCEPTER4 first arrested you."
She leans against him. "Hm. You can't get enough of me, can you?"
"Neither can the Silver Trade."
She hums. "You forgot the Yakuza."
"They've forgotten about you."
"Really? Well that's sad."
"Not as sad as you."
She silently agrees, stepping back. She feels the pull on her wrist. "What do you mean?"
He looks at her this time. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Don't act dumb."
She smiles in spite of herself. "I'm not."
He almost chokes. "Why—why a wedding?"
She sounds disappointed, yet he feels no sincerity. "What? You don't like it? I thought you said 'yes'."
"Of course. You were drunk. I had to entertain you."
"And?"
"You started talking about moving to the countryside, or anywhere far from this city—though it seems that you were describing Belgium, with fields of tulips, and medieval castles, and your ideal kind of beer."
Her tone lightens, and her eyes seem to brighten. "Belgium?"
He tells her what she said to him a few nights before. "You want to get married, clear your name, move to somewhere far from here, start anew, fall in love, and happily ever after." Though her "fairytale" seems dramatic and unrealistic.
"So—you'd marry me?"
He steps close. "I didn't say that I wouldn't."
"So, you will?"
"You were drunk when you asked me over the phone."
She says, "But you said 'yes', and even by that—" And pauses, feeling frustrated at him stubbornness, "Oh, just cut the bull, would you? Just tell me what your agenda was."
He's honest. "I had none."
"Fuck you."
He smirks. "You're not drunk enough to do that."
She exclaims, almost shouting in his face, jabbing a finger to his chest. "You know what? Fine. Let's get married since you aren't telling me what's really going on. I'm going to fuck your brains out so hard that you'd end up a sorry little—"
He tugs on their chained wrists and throws her to him. He kisses her on the mouth, deep and sounding. He has one of his hands curling into the dip of her back, while she has one of hers balling the fabric of his coat. Their chained hands intertwined with each other's fingers in mocking passion. She curls into him with a loud, though muffled, sound of lusty need. He smirks mentally as his tongue rolls against her teeth.
He breaks away first and presses into her cheek. He hisses, "Yes. Let's get married."
She sounds hopeful. "You'd really do that for me?"
He swallows a hard gulp. "Yes."
She bites his cheek and whispers maliciously. "No. You're lying. Everyone's lying."
He agrees and mocks her. "You should've known that by now."
"I should have, but I didn't want to—" She uses her free hand to cup his neck. "Not so fast, not like this."
His thumb strokes at her back. "Then just try to run."
Her grip tightens around his neck, either aiming for pleasure or pain. "I did, I tried to, so many times."
"Try again."
She chuckles. "Really? Being that optimistic doesn't suit you."
He gives a sound kiss on her skin. "Neither does being this desperate suit you."
"You just love me so hard, don't you? That's sweet."
"No. You're just too stubborn."
She scoffs and rolls her eyes. "I play by your rules and I'm stubborn?"
He pulls away, though not too far as they're chained together. "I've heard about MASANORI. 's in on it as well."
She doesn't know this, at least that's what she's showing him. "What, what's happening?"
He glares. "Don't lie."
"I'm not lying, what makes you think I'm lying?"
"You know what's going to happen."
"I don—" She's stopped by the feeling on cold steel below her jaw. He's fast, lightning-fast. "Oh, now you're mad."
He nods lightly. "Furious."
"I'll only say the things I'm sure of."
The blade presses deeper. "The things you know."
"Alright, I'll tell you the things I know."
"Go on." He lowers the tip of the blade to her neck.
"MASANORI's planning to take back their city." She almost laughs at the situation, "Just like it was before, huh?"
He completely removes the blade from her. "Thirteen years ago."
She remembers the old, dying man dressed in green and brown. "And with their new king, they've gone from bad to worse and from worse to startlingly better." And then she remembers the man's son dressed in green and gray.
"Who's their supplier?"
She looks down. "Osamu Daichi's the new king, young, smart, and rich enough to get arms custom-built. And they've got this new thing going on, they call it the 'Neo-samurai Era'. From what I know those are the traditions of honor and killing mixed with guns—" She looks at him. "Big ones."
His voice lowers as her eyes do. "What about PHOENIX? What are they in all of this?"
She remembers the pretty-faced "Yamato Nadeshiko" from a few years back. He was her friend. She was in love with him in high school. He was in love with her during their elementary days. She smiles at the thought. "Naoki Yasumaru's what you would call on introvert." She stares at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Gossip around the underground says that he's just a prop they call a king. Gotta say though, he's a good-looking prop."
He clears his throat. "Anything more relevant?"
"They say that he's planning a mass-assault on the city's most notorious gangs."
"They're acting like vigilantes."
She's somewhat indifferent to this. "Sniper-assassins more like it. They've killed three of the Silver Trade's class-five clients, the international groups' leaders with only a bullet and a knife."
"Can't see why they're a threat."
She smirks. "Oh, this is where it all come together; Osamu's been making negotiations with Naoki to quote-en-quote, 'take back their city'—let's me emphasize on 'their'. You see, they've been in hiding for the most, and—"
"They?"
She nods. "PHOENIX. So I was saying, they've been hiding, and you know how they are—Neo-shinobi, or the new age of the ninja. They don't kill with just extreme precision and delicate movement, they do it with razor wires, silenced rifles that aren't supposed to exist, and knifes with blades as thin as a strand of hair. And you know what?"
He follows her thought. He thinks he's figured it out. "MASANORI's supplying them."
She sound interested in this subject, like it's a discussion over coffee. "Osamu's rich, filthy rich, and he's got a reputation to make for it. Hey, if you add samurai and shinobi together with a revolution and a gunfire, you'd get a war."
"Where's HOMURA in all of this?"
She laughs a little. "Now HOMURA—HOMURA's a wild card. I can't say for sure where they are. But I'm thinking that they're right in the middle of it all."
"How about us? SCEPTER4?"
"Well you guys are what I'd call the clean-up. Your work's going to commence at the end of it all. Unless you'd want to rile them all up and take them all at once."
He pauses and contemplates. He might be scared for her. "Where are you?"
"I don't know. I don't ally myself. Gang wars are the worst. Remember what happened to the Eighth Sector a few decades back?"
He remembers that incident from when he was a boy. "That place has been destroyed."
"Apparently they turned it into a power plant. Word has it that it still emits power enough to remake the Kagutsu Incident three times."
He feels insulted. "They've been feeding off of us."
She shrugs, taking his indifference and ignorance. "What else do you expect normal people like me to do with what's been left over? It's not as if you kings actually care about the rest of us."
"We do."
"How much do you? Enough to kill all those lives jeopardized because you have abilities that we don't? Sometimes I just want to go straight for the Silver king and kill him and end all of this."
"You know you can't."
"I can try."
"It's futile."
She bites harshly. "Then you do it."
"I won't."
She glares. "Coward."
"It's completely logical."
She's annoyed by his arrogance. "Only a king can kill a king, so why don't you do it?"
"I won't because I simply don't want to."
"Why? You afraid of losing?"
"I'm more afraid of winning."
"Why's that?"
"I don't know what's going to happen next." He's always been afraid of that.
"Isn't that the gist of life itself, Munakata? Isn't it that the purpose of our existence is to find out what happens in the end of it all?"
He sighs. "This isn't about life—"
"Then what's it about? The struggle for power?"
He inhales and exhales sharply. "It just might be."
"Then fight. Win or lose, the end's going to be the same anyway."
"How will it?"
She says the lesson she puts into every failure and every success. "All of us will die. That's the thing about life, you're given a choice to find your purpose, find it or not, you're going to die in the end."
"You're contradicting yourself."
She is, and she knows that he is too. "Much like how you telling me that you'll marry me, even if you're secretly pinning for someone else."
"Who might that someone be?"
"Someone who actually makes an effort to be challenging. I don't."
He repeats. "Then you aren't. I lied about marrying you."
"I know. You told me already." She's still a little bit hopeful about that escape to the countryside. "But you don't happen to have a plane ticket to Belgium, do you?"
"Matter of fact, I do. Two actually, in case you plan to bring anyone along."
She laughs. "I'd love you for this,"
He finishes for her. "But you don't."
She steps close to him and grips at his arm. "Yes. I don't love you, not yet, but I might."
"You're due on trial two weeks from now."
"You'll love me eventually, won't you?"
"Who said that I didn't?"
"Give me a kiss goodbye to prove it."
He follows through, leading her away from the mess she's dragged herself into, even if just for a moment.
About two hours later, he doesn't look back at her when she's imprisoned.
She smirks at the irony.
"You know you can't keep me here, Munakata."
He replies. "You know that I can't keep you anywhere, Mayonaka." His next line surprises her, "But I try to." It feels like adding insult to injury.
She then concludes. "Hypocrite."
"Sometimes I think about her, too."
A/N: This might be one on the shortest chapters in terms of events, but anyway it was made to clear up some things, and I hope that it did. And yeah, I sort of forgotten about that lime… Anyway, read and review?