Chapter 6 – Unfinished Business

Mikoto did not wish to discuss his recent behavior. It wasn't anything he was ashamed of, but it also wasn't anything he wished to be made more concrete by words. He'd defended Munakata, yes – it had been the right thing to do regardless of his allegiance – and carried him off the field of something that had almost been a battle. And then he had been more than a little worked up, which Munakata had almost certainly noticed. So what. It didn't warrant getting clobbered. Or a lecture. Both of which he was getting and didn't deserve. Why did Munakata care anyway? Hadn't he given away all his caring? There wasn't even much to care about here; just some inopportune attention from the pants weasel. Which could have happened to anyone.

"I didn't appreciate being manhandled," said Munakata. "At all. Not your shoulder trying to evict my spleen, not your hands on my ass, nor any interest any part of your anatomy may or may not have expressed in any part of mine."

"Didn't you though?" said Mikoto's traitorous mouth before his brain could rein it in. The damn thing was always quicker than was good for his health. "This from a guy who tried to spoon me just this morning."

Munakata's ears actually started turning red. He clearly did not want to discuss his recent behavior either.

"Look," he said, taking off his glasses and beginning to clean them with a handkerchief that he had produced from somewhere inside his coat, "I used to want..." He paused, likely to catalogue it thoroughly in his head. "You. I wanted you. And you know that. But it was wrong, you weren't... Doesn't matter. I don't feel anything like that for you now. Can't we just move on?"

Could they? Mikoto wasn't sure. They had to, he supposed. Not like he was into Reisi or jonesing for some cock. Maybe a little. It had been more than a year since he'd last gotten laid, so he wasn't feeling very particular and would take whatever was on offer – man, woman, space alien – but even so, what Munakata said irked him.

"It's wrong," he said. "Not was wrong. Is wrong now. Was fine before."

"No, it wasn't," said Munakata. "Do you have any idea what it felt like?"

"Not at the time," admitted Mikoto. "But I saw you today, so yeah."

Munakata had looked like Mikoto had felt with a sword through him. Which is to say not great, kinda dying. If that was how Munakata had felt all the time, then Mikoto could not blame him for bartering it away.

"What is it you want, Suoh?"

Fair question. He wanted people around him to be happy. And a cigarette. He hadn't had one for hours. But if he asked Munakata now, he was going to get hit. It was bad form to ask for smokes when people were baring their feelings or lack thereof.

"Would it kill you to use my name?"

"It wouldn't be quite proper, but not outside the realm of possibility."

"How about if I used yours?"

"Certainly not in public, but in private you may."

Right. Okay. It wasn't much, but they had to start somewhere. Now for the important bit.

"Do you have any cigarettes, Reisi?"

"Fuck off, Mikoto."

That was a no then. But a great big honking success in interpersonal relations. Not only had Munakata used his given name, but he had also cursed for the second time in the last hour, which had to be his personal best. Not anything to write home about, but a rightly seasoned vocabulary wasn't acquired in a day.

"Look, I get it," Mikoto said. "You used to love me, but you had to kill me. The one did not undo the other. Same here. Killing didn't bring back what I'd lost. I've had a year to think about that. And I've had what, two days, to think about this? So maybe don't shove your sword up my ass just yet."

Perhaps not the best choice of words, but Munakata's right eyebrow twitched and then he sort of shook until laughter burst out of him in soft baritone peals.

"I keep wondering," he said, gasping for air between bouts of hysteria, "how I could have loved anything about you. You are such trash, it's practically poetry."

He had a nice laugh. The sort that made you feel warm on the inside. Softened you up so he could stab you with his words. Mikoto couldn't help but lean into it. Like he'd done with all of his vices. Smoking, drinking, fucking up dangerous people. Maybe it was only sweet if it could kill you. For a moment he imagined catching Munakata's laughing lips between his teeth and biting down, grinding his hips into the man, yanking his head back by the hair. It would be so satisfying.

And then Reisi would flatten him.

Yep. That was definitely not his vassalage talking. He was just a filthy deviant. Maybe that's why he'd never dared to so much as imagine taking Tatara to bed. He'd only make it ugly. Reisi, on the other hand, could probably suck off the entirety of Jungle and still come out looking like an emperor.

"Whatever you are thinking," said Munakata, "you should probably stop. It's not helping your cause."

Right. He was giving the Scepter 4 salute again. Suoh, ready. Mikoto willed his blood to return to its usual haunts.

"Couldn't touch," he reminded Munakata. "Myself included. For. A. Year." More than a year if he was honest, but Munakata did not need to know that. "A butterfly could flap its wings at my crotch right now and cause old faithful to go off."

"Ah."

He seemed so genuinely relieved that it wasn't personal that Mikoto couldn't help but add "So unless you want to help a fella out..."

"No, definitely not."

"Then I am going to go take a shower. A really long one."

He could practically see the gears in Munakata's head turning. He'd taken a long shower yesterday. In Munakata's suite. In his bathroom. Kneeling against blue tiles. Gripping the towel rack for purchase. Water sluicing down his body, slick with vetiver soap.

The flush was spreading from Munakata's ears to the rest of his face. He didn't seem to be aware of his hands clutching at the edges of his coat sleeves or know where he ought to settle his gaze. It slipped all over Mikoto's body like an awkward lover, lingering on his lips. Then Munakata shook his head and the tension broke.

"Yes, do that," he said. You degenerate plebe hung in the air, begging to be tacked on.

So Mikoto went back to his quarters, peeled off his rank clothes, ran a hot bath, and had himself a leisurely wank, thinking of the coy, long-legged stranger that he had fucked fast and hard eighteen months ago in the alley behind the pub. Only this time she had purple eyes that sank hooks into his brain.

He couldn't go out in public shirtless – at least not without starting a riot – so after getting reacquainted with himself, Mikoto draped a towel around his hips, un-docked the tablet, sprawled across the bed, and logged into his account. To his surprise, it wasn't completely bare, which meant Fushimi had patted down the pockets of his corpse and scraped up a few credits.

Mikoto ordered clothes and a pair of headphones. With any luck they would arrive by tomorrow and he could sally forth into life equipped with more than just his dazzling wit. He also looked over the paperwork Fushimi had sent. It was mostly receipts for things that he had reinstated on Mikoto's behalf, including his resident ID. No strings attached, no fine print, no bill of sale for his wicked soul. Ho hum.

It was barely past noon, but since he had already taken care of everything, Mikoto pulled on the less offensive of the two pairs of cargo pants on his floor and made a furtive run to the vending machines down the hall. He waved his phone at them, and through the arcane mysteries of modern technology they gobbled up a few hundred yen from his wallet for a pack of cigarettes, a sandwich, and a fizzy drink.

Back in his room he ate his lunch and played video games for three hours, at which point he had been awake for ten, so he fell asleep in a sunny patch atop the covers and dreamed of Tatara giving him a black kitten with purple eyes.

He woke up to Awashima kicking him. It was dark and he was cold and his ribs had four more bruises than he'd gone to sleep with and the blonde harpy wasn't even done with her preliminary questioning yet.

"Where is he?" she was saying. "What did you do?" He had no idea what she was talking about, but every time she spoke her enormous bazongas bounced in his face.

"Good gods, woman," he said. "Put those things away. I'm only human."

"You were the last one to see him," she persisted. "And now he's gone."

"Who's gone?"

"The captain."

"Munakata is missing?" That did not seem possible. "How do you know? Maybe he's just out getting drunk." Not very likely, but more probable than vanished.

"I know," she said. "I always know where he is."

"You have his underwear bugged or something?"

"No." She scrunched her face in concentration. "We all know. It's like a... beacon. Even you should know. Not precisely, not unless there are a lot of us spread out, but direction at least. And he's not anywhere. Not dead, but also nowhere."

The woman, Mikoto realized, was desperate. And he was starting to catch her urgency. It gripped him with its clammy fingers and spun him around like a compass needle bereft of North. So he sought South instead, and found it greatly diminished. Anna was there in his mind, but her glow was dimmed. And Munakata's was absent altogether. Mikoto reached out through the darkness, and a bright blue spark streaked from his fingertips to the lamp atop his bedside table, setting it alight.

"You're right," he said. "He isn't dead."

"Can you find him?"

"No." But he was starting to get an idea. "Does this feel familiar to you?" he asked.

He expected her to give an immediate answer, but she surprised him by actually thinking about it. He supposed it was easy to overlook, what with her slavish devotion to her King, but she was a Blue, and they were an analytical bunch, so he gave her the piece of the puzzle she was missing.

"It is not just Munakata," he said. "Something is wrong with the Red King as well. Think back to what it was like a year ago."

"We were fighting," she said slowly, snapping the puzzle pieces into a picture of their tumultuous past. "Because you'd lost a man. But it was a distraction. We knew that it was a distraction, but we couldn't stop – you couldn't stop – because it was personal."

"Yes," said Mikoto. "I think it's personal this time too. And I am the distraction."