Chapter 9 – Strange Bedfellows
Munakata Reisi felt like he had finally gotten a full night's sleep, which he had been chasing ever since he'd levitated that airplane and let an arcane rock suspend a blade over his head. He stretched his limbs, squinting in the morning sunlight, and unexpectedly kicked somebody's leg under the blankets.
There was a stranger in his bed. A handsome stranger who smelled like the streets of childhood – the sort of smell that makes you grope for a half-remembered summer day or winter morning – and Reisi felt an unaccountable desire to fold himself into the stranger's arms and slip back into sleep. But that would be insane, so he didn't. He wasn't afraid, obviously, because he was the Blue King and could defend himself from almost anything, but it was still disconcerting to wake up next to someone that he didn't know keeping a watchful amber eye on him from the next pillow over. Someone very good looking whom he couldn't remember inviting into his bed. Which was a shame, really. Not to mention acutely embarrassing.
"I'm sorry," he said, "I don't remember your name."
"I know," said the stranger. "It's fine. You're not supposed to. You woke up though, so I'll be going now."
Reisi had the strangest feeling then. Like that wasn't what he had expected to hear. It was too formal? Too considerate? The words were all wrong.
"No, stop," he said, "I know you. I'm just..." He didn't know how to explain it, but maybe an explanation wasn't necessary, because the stranger's amber eyes were now weighing him with renewed interest.
"You know me?" he asked slowly, pausing to enunciate each word.
"I mean I know you're not..." said Reisi helplessly. "This isn't how..." Gah! Why couldn't he remember anything from last night? "You don't say that," he managed finally.
The man looked curious now. "Oh?" he said. "I don't?"
"No. You say something like 'that's odd, usually they can't remember their own name' or some such."
"Huh," said the stranger. "You really do think I'm a dick. Listen, Munakata, I have never in my life fucked someone and been less than grateful. Also, we did not fuck. You got yourself kidnapped and probably hit your head. I was just here out of the goodness of my heart to make sure that you didn't slip into a coma permanently. And now it's morning and I gotta go."
That sounded almost right. Absolute drivel, of course, but delivered in the right spirit. As if anyone would dare kidnap him. He told the stranger as much.
"Lots of people might," the stranger corrected. "I could, for instance."
Reisi suddenly found himself in impenetrable darkness that he instinctively tried to dispel and found that he could not. Wait, why was it dark? He could still feel the heat of the sun on his skin. Was something wrong with his eyes? What had he been doing?
"Could knock you back unconscious," said a voice out of the dark. "Take you out of here in broad daylight. No one would see. No one could see."
Oh right, of course, the stranger. He had been arguing with some unusually solicitous jerk he'd found in his bed. Reisi forced himself to remain calm. "You wouldn't," he said.
"How do you know?"
"Just do."
The darkness lifted and he could see his adversary again. He wondered what clan the man belonged to and what exactly he had done. What had his words implied?
"Yes, but how?" the stranger insisted, peering deeply into his eyes before handing him his glasses. "You shouldn't know."
"You are hot-tempered, willful, and contentious," Reisi told him. "But also generous and loyal." He was completely sure of every word, though he had zero evidence to back it up. "We are friends."
The man looked surprised.
"Heh," he said. "Sure, yeah, friends. Except for the bit where you'll forget that I exist the moment you lose sight of me."
"I already did lose sight of you," Reisi pointed out. "But I remember you just fine."
The stranger considered this with a less than confident look on his face. "You did forget though," he said. "But then you remembered. Or at least recognized my voice. I suppose that is different. Is it because you are also a King? Do you really think all that stuff even though you don't know who I am?"
"Who are you?" Reisi was genuinely curious now instead of politely perplexed. The man had an unusual power and was apparently expecting to be edited out of people's thoughts even more thoroughly than Isana Yashiro the moment they took their eyes off him, or the moment that he did it for them.
"I'm the Colorless King."
Ah, that explained it. Not how the guy had ended up in his bed, but at least his ridiculous powers. Colorless King. The Black Saber that absorbed all light. Was that how he did it? Not letting any light reach Reisi's eyes? What kind of an ability was that?! Could it focus light as well as deflect it? A stealth cloak and a laser cannon?! Crap! Did it extend to his clansmen? The mere thought of a bunch of energy weapons, scurrying unseen around his city, was enough to plunge Reisi into a cold sweat.
"You got an actual name?" he asked this instrument of mass destruction.
"Suoh Mikoto."
Didn't ring a bell. Not even one of those silent alarms.
"How long you been around, Suoh Mikoto?"
Reisi instantly detected a flash of wry amusement in the Colorless King's eyes. "Hard to say," the man drawled. "Do you mean alive? That would depend on how you count. It is either twenty-four years or a little over two days. A King? Hmm, since I was eighteen or less than twelve hours ago. In your bed? Most of the night."
"And we didn't fuck?"
Reisi wasn't sure where that came from, but Suoh laughed harder than the joke deserved, which made him wonder if he really had forgotten something important.
"Why?" said the Colorless King once he regained his composure. "Did you want to?"
It was hard to tell if he was also joking or really offering. And equally hard to say which of the two options Reisi preferred.
"Can't remember," he said. Seemed like the safest choice.
"Pity," said Suoh. "I'd give you my number in case it comes back to you, but you will just forget whose it is once I've gone."
Not necessarily true. "Not if I take a picture," Reisi suggested. "And leave myself a note about you. Paper doesn't forget. And I wouldn't forget what's on it."
He realized too late that he should not have said any of that. Not only did it make him sound desperate, but also now Suoh would make sure that he couldn't do it. Because why would anyone give up the element of perpetual surprise.
"Sure," said Suoh. "Go ahead." And when he saw the look on Reisi's face he laughed again. "Look, man," he said, "right now the only other person who can reliably recall that I exist is Weismann. Just think about that for a moment. Weismann. Your only friend." He paused dramatically. "Forever."
"So you do not have any clansmen?"
"What do you think?"
It was probably a very bad idea to tell Suoh what he thought. Luckily, the man's bonkers abilities did not seem to include telepathy. That would have been beyond awkward.
"And you cannot tell what I'm thinking," Reisi confirmed.
"Hmm..." said Suoh, making a show of scrunching his eyebrows. "You're thinking 'damn, that Suoh Mikoto is so hot he can shoot lasers out his asshole!'"
Which was uncomfortably close to Reisi's actual thoughts. Though he would never be so crass as to conflate Suoh's looks with his personal prowess.
"Relax, Munakata," the man added, "I am not going to spawn an army of laser monkeys."
"That... is good to hear."
Reisi got up, walked backwards to his desk without taking his eyes off the smug bastard, found a pen and a notepad by touch, and wrote himself a note. Then, he found his phone and snapped a photo of Suoh sprawled wantonly atop the blankets. Because of course he was. The Colorless King clearly delighted in pushing his buttons.
"Nice squirrel shirt," Reisi told him.
"It's Fushimi's."
The accompanying eyebrow wiggle suggested a sordid tale behind the shirt's provenance, which made it almost certainly a lie.
"Can he still walk?" Reisi asked, playing along.
"And here I thought you were a total stick in the mud," said Suoh, smirking.
"Known each other long, have we?"
Suoh didn't answer that. Instead, he too rolled out of bed and started looking for his socks and boots. He found the former inside the latter and busied himself with dressing his feet.
"It's nearly seven," he said. "I'm surprised Awashima hasn't come yet to see if you're still breathing. I shouldn't be here when she does."
"Shouldn't you give me that number before you leave?"
"Already in your phone," said Suoh. "Try to limit your drunk texting to a minimum. I am a busy guy."
He finished zipping up his footwear, gave Reisi a mocking salute, strode over to the door, opened it, and vanished. Literally. Into thin air. The door closed with a click behind him.
Reisi blinked.
Then he looked down. He was standing in the middle of his bedroom in his sleep tee and his boxers, holding his phone and a piece of paper. He wasn't sure why. He looked at the paper first. Suoh Mikoto is the Colorless King, it said. Look at your phone. Reisi glanced at his phone. A picture of a handsome grinning redhead took up the entire screen. This is Suoh Mikoto, Reisi's memory supplied. Then it supplied him with a scary recollection of Suoh Mikoto's powers. And the rest of the events of this morning.
"Fuck," he said and went to look for his special glasses.
He found them where he'd left them. In their special case inside his desk drawer. He put them on his nose and synced them to his phone, transferring Suoh Mikoto's photograph to hover permanently in his peripheral vision. Then, he looked up Suoh Mikoto's name in the Scepter 4 database and learned that the Colorless King had a shocking level of access to all systems. He was listed as one of Reisi's own lieutenants, living across the hall and drawing a salary. And in the notes section of his profile somebody had helpfully scrawled a reminder that he was also quote – Munakata's bedwarmer – unquote.
This had Fushimi written all over it, and sure enough when Reisi went to check the name on the account responsible for the latest edits to this particular entry, Saruhiko's name came up at once. What also came up was a short list of Suoh's previous accomplishments, which included having been the Red King, in jail, and dead – in that order – then alive again and temporarily assigned to Scepter 4 on some kind of trial basis.
"Fuck," said Reisi again and started hastily deleting Suoh's system privileges and barring his access to sensitive files.
"Don't care about your files, Munakata," said a voice behind Reisi's back, and then Suoh materialized again over his shoulder. "Do care about my money. A little monkey worked hard to defrost it, cause we ain't all rich like you."
Reisi resisted the urge to punch him. The redheaded menace had only pretended to leave, but had instead turned himself invisible and stayed to spy! On second thought, Reisi pretended to be startled and "accidentally" zapped the bastard right in the face. And also trod back on his foot for good measure.
"Whoa there," Suoh Mikoto said, grasping him by the elbow and arresting his backward momentum. "Just keeping you honest is all."
This close to the man Reisi could once again smell his enticing scent, and for a moment he was transported back to his teenage years, inhaling his first breath of summer vacation in the heat wafting off the sidewalk. He could almost feel it too, in the warmth radiating off Suoh's skin and soaking into his through the thin material of his shirt. He wanted very badly to lean into it, but knew it would be a grave error. He hadn't let another body come this close to his for a long time, and having Suoh flush against his back was giving rise to bad ideas. Which the man wasn't helping him exorcise. Suoh's hand had slipped from his elbow to his ribcage and his other hand had found rest on Reisi's hip, gripping him with such assurance that it sent pangs of pure animal need radiating in seismic waves from the point of contact. Reisi practically leapt out of Suoh's hold. Or tried to, but the desk got in the way.
The Colorless King released him, hands up in the air. "My bad," he said, walking around the desk that Reisi was now cursing under his breath for the bruise he was sure to have in a somewhat unfortunate location. "I'm really leaving this time. I'll let you know where to send my money."
"Not sure that I had got your money's worth," Reisi hissed at him.
Suoh stopped. Turned around. Marched right back. Grabbed Reisi by the front of his shirt and yanked him across the desk roughly enough to leave another bruise.
"Is that so?" he asked, smashing their mouths together in the next instant with a violence more suited to a bite than a kiss.
Reisi's glasses were shoved askew on his face and he dared not close his eyes. If he forgot Suoh Mikoto now, he might drop his Sword on the headquarters. The man had no right to taste this good first thing in the morning. His files said he smoked. By all rights he should have tasted like a stale ashtray, which would've made Reisi feel better about being unable to recall when he had last brushed his teeth, but no... Suoh Mikoto tasted the way fir trees smelled, if you set them on fire. Memories, thought Reisi. The Colorless King tasted, felt, and smelled like other people's memories.
Suoh Mikoto released him and pulled back. "Say something dumb again," he dared Reisi.
"Why? You gonna finish what you started?"
"Can't," Suoh told him. "Got a kid waiting for me at home."
"This kid remember you?"
"Oh, fuck you, Munakata," Suoh spat. "Mind your own playpen."
And then he left.
Reisi made sure that he saw the door close before he lost sight of the Colorless King. It'd be stupid to get caught by the same trick again. Then he adjusted his glasses and licked his lips. They felt a little bruised and he could still taste the memory of Suoh's assault on them, like a Christmas bonfire. There really did seem to be aspects of their relationship that Suoh hadn't bothered to enlighten him about. But it did not matter whether he could not remember them, because he knew – last night, or the night before, or at some other point in his past – he did want to fuck Suoh Mikoto.