Bad Company

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Summary: Constantly on high alert, Genjo Sanzo, the egotistic president of Kinzan Publishing Co., had always derided the threats made on his life. Like hell he cared about that. Putting Son Goku, his ever-optimistic, ever-dogging assistant, in said harm's way, however, caused the pompous man to seek and spill blood for the first time in his solitary life.

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A/N: Some parts of this chapter may be a trigger to some (violence ahead). Proceed with caution. (Well, at least I think it's a kind of trigger. Um.) –returns in hiding–

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Goku had been too happy to aid Dougan with the workload lately, a fact that the people on his floor noticed. At one point, Jien had commented about Goku's recent closeness with the Buddhist fiction editor, telling him that they were close to being joined at the hip. It was something that Goku brushed off with a laugh one morning, and had entered Sanzo's office to bring him his third cup of coffee for the day. Sanzo, too, had noticed the slight change, but made no comment of it.

As long as his assistant did his job, all was good.

Besides, the feisty little imp had been making up to Sanzo for their lost time together—often in the form of giving the blond stolen kisses and light, lingering touches in the office when they knew that no one was looking in the viewpoint of the president's office. Goku had been doing a great job of making his employer cut back on smoking, as he had promised. At some point, he had nights when he could convince the haughty blond to submit and be tied up and blindfolded, and have Goku's way with Sanzo. The brunet needed more time to charge on those days, sure, but he once told Sanzo it was worth it if it meant that Sanzo's usual fits of anger lessened as days passed by.

He was doing the whole world a huge favor by willingly offering himself to Genjo Sanzo.

Plus, seeing his egoistic and foulmouthed employer sweating and panting and drooling while being bound and naked was a big bonus to Goku that no amount of money in the world could ever suffice.

Today, Goku stole a kiss from Sanzo's neck, a gesture reciprocated with a seemingly dismissive huff and a peck to a slightly cold ear. "How's the plan going?" Sanzo asked through sips of coffee. "Tell me you weren't spewing unnecessary things to that guy. I'm having enough doubts with him as it is."

Goku poured himself a glass of water, and took big gulps of it, "He's been doing good. Though I think he's really just shy."

"Hn. Don't let it fool you, though. I have my suspicions."

"Care to tell me those suspicions?"

Sanzo took a sip of his coffee, eyes narrowing at the recollection of seeing Dougan looking furious at the day he met Goku, then on the following days when the brunet was with Dougan. The bespectacled man would always look at Goku like a nuisance whenever his assistant would look away while chatting animatedly—why? Sanzo had yet to know. It couldn't be because Goku was too loud and too jovial with anything. People liked Goku. That was a given. He always brought a smile to anyone he met. So why the need for Dougan to be angry at the little thing? Sanzo just couldn't get it.

Besides, even if he told his doubts to Goku, it would only end in an ugly fight. Sanzo knew of Goku's nature in seeing the good in everyone. Sanzo was the opposite.

He couldn't risk fighting with his monkey over something so trivial. And so Sanzo kept his doubts to himself.

"I will in due time. Probably."

Goku pouted, one that Sanzo ignored with a pinky in his ear. "I don't get it. Dougan seems like a nice guy. Why dislike him?" He inched closer to the blond's face, and violet eyes averted amber ones.

"I have my reasons."

"You could tell me, you know."

He glanced at his assistant, and inwardly cursed at the sight of that too curious and too pure of an expression. Making a face like that should be illegal.

"Stop making that face," Sanzo muttered with a reprimanding tut.

Goku tilted his head in confusion, the end of his thick brows meeting together in upward curls. "What face?" Really, the teen didn't know what face he made sometimes—

Sanzo clicked his tongue and set down his coffee. He slid his thumb and index under Goku's chin, and directed their eyes to meet.

"That. That face you're making right now." He waited for the brunet to reply, and heard none, and he simply stared at his attendant's mounting puzzled expression. "Stop that," Sanzo finally said in a hushed whisper after a few moments of silence, "stop looking like you're going to cry any minute."

"...I'm not going to cry," Goku said in a voice too soft for Sanzo to hear, and try as he might to stop Goku slowly inching closer to his lips, it seemed that the fingers on Goku's chin subconsciously pulled him along, with their eyes slipping close as their lips met in a chaste kiss, the beginnings of a steady string of soft kisses growing more fervent and more audible to their ears as hands roamed on locks becoming ruffled under languid touches—

The door to Sanzo's office opened, and Dougan gaped at a growling and glowering Sanzo and a wide-eyed Goku, who pulled away from the disheveled blond.

Dougan felt his heart race and boil, and felt the rising heat to his cheeks. Goku tried and failed to tame his tousled strands, and placed his hands behind his back in an instant, not-so-discreetly licking and biting his slightly swollen lower lip as he looked away from Dougan. Sanzo merely clicked his tongue in annoyance at being disturbed, and he heaved a sigh.

"What?" he snapped—unashamed of his unkempt state—and he scoffed when Dougan's back straightened and tensed.

Fighting back a stammer, the man with the braids stepped inside the office with heavy steps, his sights avoiding Goku at all costs. "Here's today's manuscripts... sir." His voice was weak, as though his throat went parched.

"Thanks," Sanzo grunted as he briskly took the manuscripts from Dougan's stiff hands. "You're dismissed. Goku, have the manuscripts of the copyeditors from the other departments after your meeting with the managers. Just on this floor, okay?"

"Ah. Okay!" Goku cheered with a snappy salute and a wide grin, and paid no heed to Sanzo's offhanded wave. Amber eyes met ashen ones, and Goku beamed as though nothing had happened mere seconds ago. Dougan, however, seemed to have lost his train of thought as he stiffly stood in front of Sanzo. Goku had to drag Dougan by the arm as he waved to Sanzo with his usual peppiness.

Once Goku had ushered him outside the office floor and made sure there were few people around, he apologized to a still shellshocked Dougan profusely, hardly comprehensible words of his unprofessionalism zooming past his blabbing mouth, and when Dougan realized that Goku was talking to him, he smiled politely at the still flustered teen.

"It's quite all right, Mr. Son. Everyone makes mistakes."

And Goku suddenly stopped his plethora of words, and gaped at him with wide, amber eyes.

Dougan laughed, "Besides, I understand why you would be attracted to President Genjo. He is very charismatic, after all, even if he could be quite cold."

Goku did not sense the underlying message that Dougan said, and so in his innocence, the brunet chortled, and patted Dougan on his arm. "I guess so. But don't let him hear that. He wouldn't like being called pretty."

Dougan's eyebrow rose, and the edges of his lip curled into a forced smile, and let out an equally forced laugh. "Is that so? You two seem very close—are you two together?"

The question was something of the beginnings of a light chat, a way to distract Dougan's currently tumultuous thoughts. He did not expect the brunet to lower his gaze and settle his smile into a mellow one, however.

"We are. Even if he'll never say it. I can feel it by the way he treats me," Goku laughed and scratched his head, bashful, "even if he sometimes shouts at me when I do the papers wrong. He's just really shy."

Dougan blinked, unsure of what to say, and he said his words carefully as he spoke. "I see. You know President Genjo very well, huh? I heard that Vice President Kanzeon took you in when you were just an infant."

"She did," and Goku looked exuberant once more, as though he was waiting to spill his story to the smallest detail the moment someone would ask him. "Auntie is the reason why I met Sanzo. I met him when we were kids. I cherished him since then."

Dougan hummed, and nodded stiffly, and gave him a tightlipped smile. "Is that so?" Goku nodded, and Dougan opened his mouth to speak once more when someone called the brunet out.

"Son Goku, we are supposed to be in a meeting five minutes ago. I've been looking for you—oh, hello," Homura said in a too brisk and formal tone. Dougan noted Homura's hand suddenly draping on Goku's shoulder, urging him away a bit too quickly. "Will probably continue this... idle chat soon, okay? Son Goku, we need to get to the meeting. Goujun will not be pleased if anyone goes missing in his meetings. You know how he is—we don't call him the Dragon King for nothing. Excuse us, Go Dougan. Well, come now, Son Goku."

Dougan was left in the middle of a nearly empty hallway, and he did not fail to notice the way that Homura's hands dug a bit too firmly onto Goku's shoulders—who was confused at the sudden abruptness, but cooperated along—and he ushered the smaller male away. He also did not fail to notice the way that Homura kept looking back, frowning and directing a stern glare at Dougan.

He frowned as well, and when the two turned to a corner, Dougan sneered, and returned to his floor, quietly seething as he recalled Goku's words about his closeness to the president—

—and that kiss.

It was a mere few seconds when he saw it, but the image was clear in his head—the president and the president's assistant, with their hands all over each other and their mouths and tongues entwined together, both seemingly uncaring of the consequences if they were seen by anyone—

Dougan gritted his teeth.

Brazen. The kid was too brazen.

That Son Goku probably seduced President Genjo into forcing him to kiss him.

Yes, that was most likely it.

There was no way that the enigmatic CEO of Kinzan would settle for a lowly assistant—there had to be a bribe in there somewhere. Was the president being blackmailed? And by a newbie, no less?

Dougan bit his thumb, anxiety crawling at him from inside out as he returned to his cubicle, ignoring his coworkers on the way.

"I'll show him. I'll show him that I can exceed President Genjo's expectations of me," he muttered to himself as he went on editing more manuscripts, his fingertips clammy against the cool keyboard keys. "If I succeed at this work that the president wants me to do, he might even make me his assistant again."

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Sanzo had ordered Gojyo to put a close eye on Zakuro, and the bodyguard was doing exactly that. They have already visited several bookstores for the past few hours, and all of the stores had pulled out a certain book from the shelves. They returned with Zakuro looking crestfallen, and Gojyo idly chewing bubblegum as he texted Hakkai, when they arrived back in Kinzan. Apparently, this book that Zakuro was hellbent on finding seemed to be really important to him, and he had been sulking while playing cards with the redhead for a full hour. Idle conversation from Zakuro's way of speaking to how he had escaped death from Kami flowed. Apparently, the man had pretended to be dead when Kami left, and Zakuro had escaped through the fire exit and disguised himself a homeless man since then, just to escape being noticed.

The conversation stopped for a while, save for a few words of complaints when a hand was lost in the game, and Zakuro started once more. "Um, Sha Gojyo, was it? I noticed earlier, in all of the bookstores we went to, how... different Kinzan is from Houtou."

"Huh, different how?"

"Well, you see, Houtou boasts on works about death, and the opposite goes for Kinzan. A wide range of the books talk about making the most of your life after a tragedy and not wallowing in misery—something I have yet to see in Houtou."

Gojyo barked a laugh as he placed a six of spades on the table, "You got that right. That Buddhist bum boss of mine may be shitty in his practices, but his quality on the things he wants to publish are top-notch. Some say that the veep was the reason that made that stiff bum's life turned around, but I'm not buying it. Part of a bigger reason, maybe, but not entirely her." Gojyo downed a shot of whiskey and pointed at Zakuro, "I told you before, but don't mess with my boss's assistant. The shrimp may be tiny, but oh boy, you'll be asking for a death wish if you made him really, and I mean really mad. Know how Sanzo always gets enemies left and right because of his straightforwardness and the books he had published about the skeptics and religion? Yeah. One time, the little chimp and I were with him through the darker parts of the city that no one really goes to unless you're in a dire need for a shortcut home, and we were about to go home when a middle-aged guy tried stabbing Sanzo on the neck. I disarmed the guy immediately and the chimp went over to the boss. And when we thought it was all over, another guy came up behind the boss and made a large gash on his back."

"...and then what happened?"

"When Goku saw the boss tip over and saw the large amount of blood on Sanzo's back, the little chimp went batshit crazy and pulled out his gun and just started shooting at the guy that stabbed the boss—nonstop. Damn imp didn't stop even when I yelled at him and told him that the guy's eyes and brains were already spilling out from the amount of bullets it received. It wasn't until Sanzo, uh, crawled, I guess (oh god don't tell him I told you this) to Goku and grabbed at his feet. That was when he stopped shooting and started crying all over Sanzo like the guy died. The dead guy's accomplice was arrested, naturally. I had to stop Goku from rampaging afterwards—the kid wanted him dead, too. And this bleeding Sanzo had to fucking punch the monkey in the gut to stop him from tearing everyone's limbs in the police station. Turns out those guys that attacked us that night were from your circle, wanting to 'rise in the ranks' as the guy said. Kind of like what you said before. They were offended by Sanzo letting a book be published—something about an unknown author calling God himself as a skeptic for being too 'choosy about who to save and who to destroy'."

Zakuro was silent, the cards in his hand now forgotten as he imagined Gojyo's story. He didn't know what to say, and when he opened his mouth, he muttered a breathless reply. "The boy becomes that angry when Genjo Sanzo is harmed?"

"Uh huh. If the chimp goes that angry if his master gets injured, imagine how angry the master would be if his pet would get the same injury. A thousand times more homicidal—and probably genocidal—I bet."

Zakuro fell quiet once more, and noted his own hands, shaking against the cards he held, and he swallowed a lump in his throat. "I should say, Sha Gojyo, that I'm really happy that I did not dare lay a finger on either of them."

"Damn right you should be happy. Or else your brain would be scraped off the streets. Not a pretty sight. Makes me barf if I think about it," Gojyo drank another shot of whiskey, hissed, and idly pointed at him. "Say, this 'Meurtre de Humain' thing that you've been asking around the whole day, the fuck is it? It sounds like from another language and shit," Gojyo commented, blatantly ignoring Zakuro's muttered whining at his losing hand for the fourth time. "Seems important to you, too. A favorite book of yours or something?" He was met with a shake of a head and a too stiff of a smile.

"It's complicated. And I guess Houtou had it pulled out from the shelves because I am supposed to be dead—it's one of the policies. I, the great Zakuro, wrote it, you see."

"Huh," Gojyo hummed as he made a bubble with his gum and popped it, "cool. No offense, man, that's just my honest reaction—working in a publishing house and all. Hearing of people singlehandedly writing books is no news to me. So, what's it about?"

And Zakuro told him about the book he wrote—of how it was about a man driven to insanity when he lost his job as a receptionist for making fun of a manager's way of dress. The unemployed man, in his anger, had resorted to killing anyone who dressed like his manager—all with loud patterns and mismatched colors and wearing too strong of a perfume. Zakuro told Gojyo of the protagonist's method of killing—of mutilating them and chopping them and discarding them on rivers, and when the killer ran out of bags, he'd slice his victims into bite-sized pieces, and put them in a blender and—

"Whoa. Wait. No, no. Stop. Just. Fucking. Stop. That, is just straight up fucked up. Continue no more. Spare me the details, I ain't reading that shit. You—you're telling me you write that kind of shit in Houtou?" Gojyo gaped, and had moved a few inches from where he sat near Zakuro minutes ago. What he just heard was a completely messed up story and he—

"Uh, yeah."

—and fucking Great Zakuro over here reacted like it was the most normal type of book that he had ever written.

"My name's not on the cover, though. Not a Houtou policy. All writers remain anonymous save for their works."

And Zakuro looked too fucking proud of his work of the queasy macabre imagery.

It took Gojyo a long while before he could nod and simply go with what the man said. "Uh, yeah. Excuse me for a bit. I uh, gotta take a number two," and Gojyo didn't wait for a reply as he stood up, legs wobbling the slightest as he made his way to the bathroom. Once inside and had the door locked, Gojyo dialed a number—all the while, he kept muttering and cursing to himself.

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Sanzo leaned against the headboard of his bed. With Tama splayed sleeping on the foot of the bed and a pajama-clad Goku curled up and slumbering on top of him, he took a deep breath, rearranged his glasses, and turned another page of The Analects.

It had been a mundane day, save for being discovered by his subordinate earlier. He had his suspicions since he saw Dougan giving Goku a stink eye, and had expected that his former assistant might say or do something to Goku when he was out of his sight, but—

—purple eyes looked down at the sleeping teen, and he kissed him on the forehead as he held him closer, and felt a rush of relief upon knowing that the little monkey was safe from any potential harm today. He had a feeling that Dougan hid something. One who acted all quiet and meek while glaring bloody murder at someone when no one was looking was usually a sign that one kept a well-hidden secret.

He turned another page, with one arm still around the boy, and his phone rang.

"What," Sanzo lazily drawled in a low voice, his eyes intently glued to the words on the book as he switched it to his left hand, cradling Goku still. "...really. Is that so. Why am I not surprised...? ...I feel quite fine, if that's what you're asking. ...No, I am just not in the mood to be angry. ...Mind your own business, undine. Is he there with you? ...Okay, I'll be there in a few minutes—"

Goku stirred in his sleep, nuzzling his head under Sanzo's chin, and Goku's stomach grumbled as soon as he opened his eyes and instinctively wrapped his arms around Sanzo's neck.

Sanzo sighed as Goku looked up at him with a lazy smile and his just-awoke eyes. He clicked his tongue when the too eager teen reached out to him with kisses on his cheek and jaw, "—make that an hour." He put down his book and ruffled Goku's hair, "I have to feed my pet." He rolled his eyes and finally growled in his normal, gruff voice, "...You decide which pet I'm talking about. ...Fuck off and don't bother me." Sanzo hung up the phone and lightly scratched at Goku's scalp. "Get up, Monkey. Zakuro finally spilled his shit."

"...He got a bad case of diarrhea and pooped all over Gojyo's carpet?"

Sanzo snorted, "You wish that were the case. Gojyo said that Zakuro idly talked about himself as Meurtre de Humain's author like it was just him talking about the weather. Gojyo locked himself in the bathroom when he called. That coward frog. Goku, record everything the prick will say, and do it in secret."

"Sure thing, Sanzo!"

So they ate and they went to where Gojyo's flat was, just a floor above Sanzo's—and when they have interrogated Zakuro once more and urged the author to elaborate about how and why he wrote it, Zakuro's answer was—

"Because they ordered me to. If I, the great Zakuro, would not dare make at least one book with a plot of serial murders, they'll have my neck next. I have only killed one man in my life and I regretted it. I simply shot him on the head, but chopping a victim and putting him in a blender and drinking his blood and flesh was based on another employee's experience I overheard in my office, not mine! I, the great Zakuro, merely, may have, prooobably copied a few parts of the experience and wrote it as my own so I wouldn't have to kill anymore. Did a few tweaks to make it look like it was I who did it and I might have probably forged names and a few newsprints to make headlines look believable (don't tell my company about that, please). And, um, I was under oath not to divulge on who the perpetrator is. It's one of the rules. I may not be with Houtou anymore, but I still won't spill that much info. You'll have to find the culprit yourself."

It was a long time before anyone of the interrogators in the living room could speak up, and when Zakuro's words had finally sunk in—the aforementioned suddenly withdrawing to himself after his major confession—Gojyo made a gagging noise and went straight to the bathroom to vomit, and it was Goku who finally broke the ice, exclaiming curses and howls of disbelief at what he just heard.

"If Homura hears this, your ass is going to be so burnt!" he said, his mouth still hanging open as he looked at Zakuro as though he had sprouted another head.

"Goku. If he reported what he heard to the police—if this guy is to be trusted at all—he'll die. Remember that," muttered Sanzo as he discreetly eyed the phone tucked in Goku's hands behind his back. Sanzo rubbed his temples and leaned back on the sofa. "So. Any more skeletons to expose?"

"Uh, none. I swear I have only killed one. Take my word for it. I will even give myself to the police if you want me to."

Sanzo and Goku glanced at each other, and the assistant shrugged beside the CEO. Goku had been standing behind the sofa, on Sanzo's right, just in case.

Zakuro continued, unaware of having his words recorded on Goku's phone. "As for more secrets, there is none that I remembe—oh. There is one. Well, I don't think it's an actual secret but I might as well say it." Zakuro leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked straight at Sanzo's eyes. "If you're ever planning on getting inside Houtou, be prepared to steer clear away from the Raven. He will sweet talk you into his palm until you couldn't say no to him anymore."

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Dougan did his best into researching everything about Houtou Publishing House, as the president had told him a few days ago. He had memorized the staff's faces, their positions, their departments. He had even begrudgingly accepted that Son Goku's pieces of advice on the days that he forced himself to be with the joyful young man. Dougan realized what his beloved president found in the boy—it was Son Goku's constant cheer and optimistic nature. He huffed as he looked over the papers in his hand, then out of the window of his decent apartment. From a few meters away, he could see Kinzan and its greatness. Dougan couldn't live inside the company, as he lacked certain abilities to warrant a residence there.

He frowned at the papers in his hand. He had memorized everything that the president had told him to—

—save for one.

He had yet to know the face and name of the one who ran Houtou, so he did the next best thing.

He went to Houtou House, and ventured inside the infamous company.

Two doormen were stationed near the revolving doors, both of them stone-faced and unmoving from their respective spots. Around their necks were an ID of sorts, although, instead of showing faces and their positions, it showed only a barcode, with seemingly random numbers under the IDs that Dougan failed to comprehend.

Inside were marbled floors and walls of peacock and stone blue, and low lighting emanated from the ceilings. Blinding white lights flooded from the reception area, where a woman sat, her face stern and void of any welcoming air. Around her neck was the same barcode ID as the doormen.

Dougan gulped and instinctively tucked his stray hair behind his ear as the receptionist stiffly craned her neck to him. He had placed his long braid behind his too big of a winter jacket on instinct—an odd choice of clothing in the middle of spring—and went over to the desk, mustering what he had hoped as a friendly smile.

"Uh, hi. Um, yes. I was wondering if I could talk to anyone here about the workings of Houtou's success? I am doing research on successful publishing houses and I chose Houtou for its fame." The receptionist looked at him blankly, and Dougan forced himself to smile wider as a spontaneous idea came to mind. "Well, of course I could always go to the next best publishing house and ask them for their formula to success. I had a talk with my professor, you see. I told him that if I were to get an interview from the publishing house I chose, I'll make sure that my classmates and I will buy that publishing house's books for a month and—"

"Wait for a bit, I will contact whoever is available," came the receptionist's curt reply. And Dougan waited with a stiff smile, his sights idly taking in the dour décor of the building. The Ying Yefu paintings placed on the open spaces of the walls made Dougan sick. Paintings of a child peeling his forehead to reveal the insides of a watermelon; a child's cut off limbs with an eye spewing from the hand; a naked, little girl squeezing the flesh of her stomach to make herself thinner—

Dougan almost gagged.

There were no such things like these that existed in the premises of Kinzan!

"The chief will be with you shortly," the receptionist said in her matter-of-fact tone, and did not look at him anymore as she typed away on the computer.

Dougan muttered his thanks, but went ignored, and he glanced at her odd ID, and noted that there was no name written on the card, save for that mysterious barcode and random numbers. And when a man decked in a white suit and tie—smoking a cigarette with his back hunched over—came up to him with a lopsided smile, Dougan immediately stood up.

"Ah, you're here to interview me?" asked the man in white, idly shuffling coins and keys inside his pockets as he swayed on the balls of his feet.

"Are you perhaps, a manager here, sir?" Dougan asked. This man was a new face to remember. He was not in any of the files he received from the president.

The man with the off-setting smile on his face looked up, his rimmed glasses temporarily concealing the blackness of his eyes. He swayed on the balls of his feet once more, hands jingling the coins in his pockets, "Well, you could say that." He scratched at his goatee and looked at Dougan, "Shall we start the interview now, or shall I be the one to ask you questions?"

.

"So, what does he usually do aside from talking people's ears off?" Goku asked, genuinely curious at Zakuro's revelation.

"Well, he usually starts off with idle chat, and then he'd subtly pry into your private life and all that. If you're not careful, he'll have you eating out from his palm," Zakuro shrugged, frowning. "His main targets are the gullible ones, and shall we say, I was—...also one of those, sadly."

Zakuro's serious demeanor and the lack of his usual arrogance suggested that what he had said was true. Goku leaned over to Sanzo's ear.

"Sanzo, what about... him?"

Sanzo clicked his tongue in annoyance and crossed his arms as he leaned back on the sofa, "'Gullible' is an understatement for that man. 'Downright imbecilic with no sense of intuition' seems to fit him more."

.

Once Dougan had finished his interview with the chief in the chief's office itself, Dougan thanked him to no end, and bowed and smiled all the same. And when he shook the chief's hand, the chief patted Dougan on the shoulder twice.

With the same, glib smile that he wore throughout, the chief let out a stream of smoke from his cigarette, and grinned a tad wider at Dougan's masked wince.

"It was nice meeting you, Go Dougan."

"Ah, no. The pleasure is all mine, President Ni! Such an honor to be in your presence, sir!" Dougan beamed, and when their formalities ended and both parted ways for the meantime, he saw a man who looked at him with a questioning expression. Dougan smiled at the man on instinct, and left the office without a backward glance.

The man stared at Dougan's retreating back, then at the oddly humming chief leaning against a neat desk. He went over to the chief, smiling with glee.

"Master! I've returned!" he declared, and spared the retreating Dougan a doubtful glance. "You had a visitor?"

"Hm? Ah, yes, yes. A visitor," Jien Yi shrugged, a lopsided smirk in place—the very picture of nonchalance. "Interesting man, he is. Seems like he's a researcher of sorts—at least, that's what he said." A flash of slightly yellowed teeth brimmed from behind his thin lips, and he blew a stream of smoke in his former charge's way. "Why, you know him?"

The question was a test—his judging, very dark eyes glinting with a knowing look.

"Know him? No. Knew, maybe." He twirled a stray strand of his blond hair, and patted it flat on his mark on his right eye. "I have my doubts against him, Master," he huffed, tapping an impatient, booted foot on the floor.

"Really... Heh," Jien Yi pushed his glasses upwards, a manic grin now painting his lips as he laughed. "How coincidental—so have I. And that's why I placed a bug on him before he left, little child."

Kami hummed, and looked at the now empty hallway through the glass doors. He had once worked in Kinzan, and he had seen a glimpse of Dougan's true nature—

—of his unceasing obsession with Kinzan's CEO.

The blond chortled, shoulders shaking as he covered his mouth with his hand.

Go Dougan would bring his own company to ruin, Kami thought.

"Interesting," Kami guffawed, mirth flowing from his tears as he looked at Ni Jien Yi's smug face. "Really interesting."

.

Zakuro rearranged Gojyo's books—including the ones with questionable content—thrice. He had been cooped up in Gojyo's flat since yesterday, and had let out his frustration through reading all the books in the redhead's apartment. All of them were, unsurprisingly, from Kinzan. He had never read any book from Kinzan, and when he had read one—

—he found that he couldn't stop.

A tear fell from his eye when he read one book—about life and rebirth, and of fated meetings and fated deaths.

He had never read anything like it.

Its author was someone he had never heard of, but its words struck through his heart. Zakuro now sat crosslegged on the carpeted floor and kept reading until Gojyo arrived and called for him. Too immersed in his reading, Zakuro merely grunted lowly as a reply as he read, his eyes stuck on the words on the paper.

The bodyguard came up behind him and peered over the book that Zakuro was reading.

"Ah. It's that book about Death loving Love. Hakkai gave that to me as a present last year—don't ask why and don't look at me like that. It's one of his favorites from Kinzan," Gojyo shrugged, and eyed the small stack of books beside Zakuro. "You've been reading my stuff? I don't mind, just sayin'. Just put them back in order. Hakkai comes in here from time to time and arranges all of them. He knows when anything's moved. So uh, yeah. Put it back to how you originally saw them. I don't look at them much, so I don't remember."

A quiet, 'oh' left Zakuro's lips, and looked at the small mess he made, then back at the book he was reading, and he gestured an absentminded nod and a silent hum of compliance as he dug his nose deeper into the book. "Okay, just let me finish this one book."

Gojyo laughed, and waved his hand in dismissal, "I didn't know you could be like Hakkai. Haha! Go read to your heart's content. I'll just report to the boss for the day."

Zakuro made a noncommittal grunt, and only craned his neck to the door when he heard the front door close. "Sha Gojyo? ...I guess he left. Meh. Time to go back to reading." He made himself at home and took the book with him around the apartment, idly chewing at a bowl of mozzarella sticks in the living room as he turned page after page of the book. At one point, he answered Gojyo's phone and idly wrote a memo from the caller. 'Remind Gojyo to call some guy named Banri.'

When Gojyo returned an hour later, Zakuro reminded Gojyo about Banri, and the former Houtou employee returned to Gojyo's room, poring over book after book from Kinzan.

A good three hours later, after Gojyo had long gone to bed, Zakuro had continued reading under a lamp in a corner where Gojyo's rickety, wooden chair was, and concluded that Houtou really was a far cry from Kinzan.

When Houtou talked about death and despair and despondency, Kinzan talked about existence, endurance, and exuberance. Kinzan's words were of unceasing hope in life and finding happiness in the smallest of things, whereas Houtou's words were of relentless downward spirals of hatred in life and finding grievances in the smallest of things. If reading books from Houtou gave readers a sense of hopelessness in a deep pit of ennui, reading books from Kinzan gave readers a sense of optimism in a floating bubble of contentment in the world.

Polar opposites, they were, and for the first time, Zakuro understood what drew people to Kinzan's works—they were literature like no other.

Zakuro closed 'The Love of Death' feeling lighthearted, and a small smile that he couldn't stop from forming spilled from his lips. It was, as Sha Gojyo had said, a story about two anthropomorphic personified emotions, Death and Love, on which Death fell in love with Love, but both couldn't exist together, for Love would die should Death touch her, and so both remained apart, loving one another from afar. It was a story that had brought the proud Zakuro to quiet sobs.

He sniffled and wiped his runny nose on the hem of his sleeveless shirt, and discreetly glanced at the slumbering Gojyo in bed. Since he had laid eyes on these books, he formed a decision in his heart, and he nodded to himself as he returned the book back to its shelf, and he went over to the living room to sleep on the couch.

He hoped—a word that he had never once used in any of his books—that his decision this time would not bring him to the streets once more.

Sighing, he switched off the lamp and willed himself to sleep.

.

It was barely five in the morning when Sanzo woke up to an incessant rapping at his door. Nudging a whining Goku on the ribs, Sanzo muttered a string of curses when Goku rolled over the bed and opted to bury his head on Sanzo's neck instead, refusing to answer the door in his pajamas. He clicked his tongue and blindly grabbed at his gun on the table in the dark and nudged a whining Goku aside. Sanzo sluggishly made his way over to the front door, switching on all the lights on his way, and checked the peephole before cursing and opening the door.

"Do you have any idea what fucking time it is?" Sanzo growled with his eyes squinted and bloodshot at being woken up rudely. In front of him, a wide-eyed and awkwardly shifting Zakuro stood, smiling sheepishly at Sanzo.

"Uh, can I come in?"

"Fuck you. Where's Gojyo?"

"Upstairs still sleeping. Ah, he's alive, I promise," Zakuro held his palms outwards upon seeing Sanzo on the verge of yelling, his bloodshot eyes glaring daggers at him. "I just want to talk to you, Genjo Sanzo."

"Can't it fucking wait until later in the day, you ass?"

"Uh," Zakuro looked away, then back at Sanzo, "no?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake," Sanzo roughly scratched at his nape and bedhead, slamming the door wide open, "come in, fuckface."

Zakuro let out a low laugh and entered Sanzo's apartment, and flinched as he took off his shoes when Sanzo's cat glared at him with the same intensity as her owner. He shuffled on the sofa with a small, tightlipped smile as Sanzo glowered on the opposite side.

"Well? Start talking. You better have a good reason to wake me up at goddamn five," Sanzo crossed his arms, bare foot tapping on the carpet. When he heard shuffling from the corner behind him, he sighed.

"Sanzo... who was it...?" Goku grumbled as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and dragged his slippered feet on the carpet. He paused in his tracks when he saw Zakuro sitting across Sanzo, all wide-eyed with his mouth hanging open. "Oh, hi," he mumbled, his voice gruff and laden with sleep. Stepping into the kitchen, he yawned as he scratched his stomach, a hint of his ink showing underneath the wrinkled, white dress shirt, "Sanzo, you want coffee?"

"Nah, I got enough coffee in the form of this pissface banging on the door," he grumbled, stifling a yawn. "Well? Get on with it, Zakuro. It's Saturday and I need more sleep."

The aforementioned heaved a deep breath, his shoulders and chest rising as he braced himself. "Genjo Sanzo, after... reading all of your company's works, I felt something. I felt light and relieved. I don't know why, but..."

He gulped, and noted that even Son Goku had paused in stirring a mug of coffee and squinted groggily at Zakuro.

"I, the great Zakuro, wish to become a writer in Kinzan."

It took moments before Zakuro's words sank in, and when they did, the sleep and the bloodshot eyes from Goku and Sanzo left their consciousness, and they exclaimed in unison.

"You want to be a what!?"

.

Dougan pinned a small memo on his corkboard. 'Ni Jien Yi, chief of Houtou – notify Pres. Genjo', and at the bottom of the paper beside an asterisk, there was a smaller print, 'kind man'. He smiled, and noted to himself that President Genjo would be proud of what he had done. Glancing at the scribbled notes he had made during his 'interview' with Chief Ni, Dougan felt a rush of elation at what he had accomplished. His goal was to get a certain list of people that had worked in Godworks and Houtou—from where he would get such a list, he didn't know. Although after his sense of accomplishment, Dougan felt his self-esteem rise, and made another appointment to visit Houtou under Chief Ni's guidance.

All of these were, of course, not part of President Genjo's instructions—Dougan felt half-guilty upon hiding agendas from his president, but another part of him felt a rush of pride, proud of making President Genjo feel proud for Dougan's achievements.

At least, Dougan hoped his president would be proud of him.

He beamed at his work on the table, then at the overlooking view of Kinzan from a distance away.

"I'll have my rightful place by President Genjo's side, Son Goku. Don't worry."

.

A/N: There are actually no black eyes (even if Ni's eyes are said to be black)—just very, very dark brown eyes that looked almost black. :3 Also, I'm quite aware of Ni's name as Jian Yi in his bio, but I stuck myself with Jien Yi, the early spelling of his name. Um. Idk why. XD