Chapter 25
Face to face
Kougami Shinya would spend all his life observing Tsunemori Akane if he could. She slept with her knees flexed towards her chest, one of her hands under the pillow and the other over his arm. He touched her short hair with only one finger, afraid of disturbing her sleep. If he could… if he was a free man with a free will he would marry her, he would live with her for the rest of their lives, but he was a criminal and a criminal couldn't have those benefits…
He got up from the bed slowly, walked soundless through the room and opened the door without Akane moving from her position. He sighed while closing the door and walked the rest of the way towards the basement.
He hated himself for lying to her… again… But he wouldn't put her in danger like that ever again! She was kidnapped once because of him, damned be him if he let her walk willingly inside the wolf's lure!
Kougami left the house under the cover of the night, the moon the only thing guiding him towards the car's hide-out. He couldn't risk using a flashlight and accidentally illuminating their bedroom window, waking her up. The car's trunk was already loaded with his guns and the map of his destination: he was not ready to confide in any traceable device until this all ordeal was over.
He looked one more time over his shoulder before pressing the pedal down and letting the house behind, with the woman he loved and the last reminiscence of the man he once was.
Akane was dreaming, her mind conjuring a pale and deathly face of Shinya, with the light vacant from his eyes and a smear of blood in a corner of his lips. She bolted from the bed, looking around with wide eyes.
"Oh no, I fell asleep!" she moaned, noticing his vacant side of the bed. She tried to stay awake during the entire night, ready to follow him as soon as he left, but a strange tiredness fell over her body like an octopus, trapping her with countless tentacles and in the end she succumbed, without conscience of that defeat. For some moments, she wondered if he drugged her to leave safely without her knowledge, but immediately put that option aside: he would never do that to her.
Springing like a coil, she turned into a hurricane version of herself, changing clothes and grabbing her own bag of guns and a map. She ran from the house towards a hidden car they asked Masaoka to arrange in case their old one stopped working and that, secretly, she prepared for her own use. And then she looked around and realized she had never driven anything as old as this car. It was not automatic as her own vehicle and for some moments she was afraid she wouldn't be able of driving it, but then, everything she learned from Masaoka-san once, when he was talking about his first car, came to her mind and she sighed, following his instructions.
At first, she drove slower than she would have liked, but the environment of that vehicle was still foreigner to her reflexes and she took some time getting used to it, however, as soon as her hands started acting quicker, her foot also stepped deeper into the pedal, making the car flew over the road, the city lights only ghosts beside her window.
Through the whole travel, she kept berating herself of her own mistake at falling asleep, while fighting with the ancient map to find the road she was searching for.
The sun was almost rising when Tsunemori reached the last hour of her travel, the pink invading the sky in soft waves and the clouds fluffy and white, illuminated by rays of orange and yellow.
She could see, far away, cut against the sky, the frame of a big mansion; the light angle stopping her from examining it from a distance. However, she recognized immediately the car parked far away so it could not be detected, between the groups of trees forming a small forest a mile away from the house. Akane parked the car beside the one used by Kougami and got out. She opened the trunk, and took out a duffel bag full with guns, electrifying sticks and some knifes. She breathed deeply, feeling the weight of those deadly weapons over her shoulder. She never thought about hurting another human being, let alone kill, but flashes of Yuki's body, of the dead girls, of the smiling face of her old school friend… of Shinya's face saying goodbye… of Shynia's face when he said he loved her... all of those tugged at her heart, making her resolve stronger.
She started her walk, eyeing the house with a brave face, like she could take away all her fears if she faced that lure with strong enough bravery.
Kougami parked the car in a considerable distance. He didn't want to be too close or too far away, in case something happened. He took his weapons out and stepped outside of the car, feeling the cold morning air waking him up more than anything. He could still see her face inside his mind and hoped he could see it once again before facing the Bureau's justice or Death's, the one that came first.
He circled the house under the hideout of the trees, looking for any kind of surveillance, not that he thought he could find anything; it was an ancient mansion, probably build during the beginning of the nineteenth century or even before that, showing the uncountable decades through the peeling paint and the ancient style. Even if it wounded him to admit, he enjoyed the nostalgic feeling it brought him, nostalgia from an age he never witnessed, only reading about it, but nevertheless that spoke to him with a stronger voice than the one he was living at. He breathed deeply, inhaling the spring air and walked resolutely towards the house, a gun inside his right hand and a second one inside his pants waistband, the others inside his backpack.
He kicked the door open, showing himself, too tired from hiding and running around like a child playing hide-and-seek. It was liberating walking inside like that, like he was finally showing who he really was, rather than what the Bureau made of him.
"Makishima!" he yelled, his voice echoing through the empty space. He looked around, noticing a big living room on his right and a dining room on his left. The big stairs opening in front of him and dividing on the middle: one to the right side of the upper level, the other one to the left.
He could hear the faint sound of footsteps coming from the top of the stairs and he smiled; he was right after all and in that moment he felt relieved Akane was not here.
"Welcome to my humble house…" the silky voice said, before his owner appeared from the shadows, first his shiny shoes, then two long legs, a slender trunk and then the white hair surrounding his amused eyes.