Chapter 9

The rice today that I had for breakfast tasted a bit like mildew and made its way down my throat like tiny cinderblock shards. Maybe it was the supremely foul mood I had woken in. Perhaps it was the fact that the sky had been dark and cloudy from the moment I had opened my windows. It might have even been that the concealer I had had expired and turned my face into a reddish mess around the purple, swelled masses along my temple and jaw. I looked like someone had dragged me into a dark alley and tried to steal my wallet.

Or it might have simply been that today my doors had attracted the worst sort of customers.

"Have you ever thought of having a uniform, dear?" I resisted the urge to grimace, the crinkle of wrapping paper pausing as I shoved a few croissants inside. That's the funny thing about doing anything on your own - everyone wanted to give suggestions. Especially if you were a single, undateable girl.

I forced a smile, pushing the sealed bag toward the elderly woman. "Not particularly. 700 yen, please."

"Well, I just think…" Her eyes slit, her mouth curly down as Riku walked back, her hair a lovely shade of periwinkle, her bell-bottomed pants the same tint. She was an absolute delight today, her hair short and wavy with small, ivory flowers adorning them. "I just think that you're giving a very different image than you want to present."

"Mm." I murmured, trying hard to suppress my own annoyance. She was a customer and worse, she was a human with strong opinions are insignificant things. And humans like her held accounts with every online review service that they could think of. "I think you're right." I flash of a smile stole across her face. "I rather like the idea of a circus bakery, don't you agree? I could paint the walls to look like a tent… Hm… I'll have to up my own game - have you seen Riku? She's absolutely killing it."

Riku walked past, flipping her hair. "You know it."

I smiled so hard that my eyes closed. "700 yen."

"How did you do this to yourself again?" Riku whispered to me, her voice a slithering sort of criticism.

I grimaced, letting my hair fall around my face once more as I leaned farther over the espresso machines. If it hadn't been for the fact that Riku got snippy when the customers proved to be too tiresome and that Haruto was an absolute mess at anything besides cleaning and shelving goods, then I would have been in the back. As it happened, I had already seen 5 people blanch when they walked through the door and turned to leave while 3 others had offered me help. Which had actually warmed my heart.

"Mugged," I muttered, trying to hide the obvious lie as I frowned into the steam of a shot of espresso. "By two wily youths."

Haruto snorted, the sound quickly stopping in a cough as the humidity from the proofing cabinets engulfed him. After a few months, the lack of a decent paycheck finally seemed to get through his thick skull. It was odd but he needed to actually show up on time to work to get a good amount of hours - a strange habit of growing up.

He had yelped as he had slouched in, his hands drawing up to his mouth as he eyed my battered appearance.

"My bets on mobsters," he murmured, shoving a first aid kit into my hands with a grimace. The proofing shelves rattled behind him as he loaded dough into their great metal shelves. I glared across the space at him. The only mobster I had met was a golden-haired Adonis who thought that it would be easier to let me die than teach me a single thing to allow me to live.

I shoved the first aid kit away, childishly petulant. I refused to do more than put some healing ointment into the creases of my ripped nail beds and the cuts and bruises lining my face, hands and legs. Did I look like a disaster? Yes. But it was a disaster I needed to remember so that the next time I saw his stupidly handsome face-

"You."

Nanami blinked across the space at me, his face smoothing into something between surprise and amusement. Flashes of the night before buzzed through my mind - the limp, horrifying body of the boy with no nose, no eyes, only a wide, screaming mouth. The scramble for freedom, the dizzying, hopeless fall into being caught. And then him. His broad back, the splatter of blood on the wall, his short answers, his broad hands on my arms, caging me in as he… well, as he told me that he would rather I tried to cower my way through life than understand what I was up against.

My jaw set. "Riku, Haruto - please go to the back."

Blonde brows went up, a hint of a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips as he stared down at me. He was wearing the same outfit as the night before, the tailored fit of the suit making his obvious strength blindingly blatant.

"Isn't he-" Riku started but I cut her off, my words sharp.

"Back. Now." At her widened eyes, I forced out a tight, "Please."

"Yes, ma'am." Haruto all but sprinted to the back, his eyes never so much as glancing at Nanami. Riku was a bit slower, her eyes definitely going to the broad expanse of his shoulders, the tapered way that his suit hugged his waist and thighs. It was hard to not get the full picture of how annoyingly in shape he was.

He watched the whole ordeal with a sort of distant entertainment, his head tipped to the side as if he was trying to work out something particularly complicated. After both of them had crept to the back, that piercing gaze of his slid back to me.

He had chosen a particularly deserted time to come into my shop, his familiar order sitting primly in the space between us.

"I take it you don't trust me." I had almost forgotten how gravelly his voice was. Almost.

My eyes narrowed, chin tipping back as I stepped closer to him, my counter digging into my hip. "You've given me nothing to trust."

A deep rumbling sound vibrated up from his chest and I startled as a crooked, half-smirk curled his lips. It was startling - an altogether bewildering expression on such a stern man. "Except for the whole saving your life part. That, I think, was particularly faith-inducing."

I scowled. That had been. Until he ruined it. "Throwing someone to the wolves has a way of revoking all past privileges."

"Bit dramatic."

My eyes narrowed further, his face going blurry as a shot of pure aggression tightened my muscles. "You're right. Supernatural cretins from the land of the damned are much worse than wolves."

That steely gaze of his flicked just over my shoulder, his body leaning closer as his voice went lower. "I don't think you know what you're talking about."

"And whose fault is that I wonder?"

His eyes met mine, his gaze oddly dizzying, the little part of me that still swooned at the sight of him all but keeling over in giddy delight. But the vast majority of me still quivered with the burn of humiliation - humiliation from feeling so utterly helpless.

He finally blinked, his jaw flexing and I saw the muscles of his shoulders roll. His eyes flicked briefly to the darkening bruises across my jaw and I watched as his Adam's apple bobbed. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

An odd thrill tightened my organs, making my ribs feel too tight for a moment before creeping dread slid in. He had said something similar last night - said that it was best that I forget. How can you forget something that taints all of your senses though? How can you forget about the monster under your bed once it's already crawled out?

"I don't have much of a choice anymore." I was surprised at the vulnerable cinch to my words, his brows tipping down as he took me in. My waspish attitude waned, leaving behind the bone-deep exhaustion, the aching feeling of powerless.

An odd softness lightened the severe tilt of his brow for a moment, leaving his expression oddly bare. It was the sort of look that felt almost private and I felt a searing blush itch at my neck.

His next words were soft. "Meet me in an hour at Aroma Cafe. I'll tell you what you need to know." I didn't miss that he didn't say that he would tell me everything. And the way that his head tipped to the side seemed to say that he didn't assume I did. His fingers brushed gently along the curve of my jaw, startling me. "And I'll help with your injuries."

I couldn't help the incredulous tip of my brows. Not only could he kill monsters with blunt knives but he could heal people as well.

What he was offering was exactly what I wanted. But staring up at him, a few blonde strands slipping free from where he had shoved them away from his face, I couldn't entirely understand why he was allowing me this when he had been so adamant only a night before.

My fingers curled around the thin plastic wrapping of the casse-croute, sliding it toward me and underneath the counter.

"Unfortunately, we're out of your usual today, Mister Nanami." I smiled thinly, watching his eyes as they darted toward the nearly full display case. "Come again."

He didn't move for a moment, debating. Whatever response he wanted to give was forced away with a sigh though, his eyes meeting mine once more in soft reprimand before he was striding purposefully for the door. A soft jingle sounded along with the silent exhale of my own. He was an enigma - one that I was sure to regret fostering.

A low whistle rang through the tiny shop, signaling Riku's inevitable eavesdropping. Her head poked out from behind the counter alongside Haruto's. "Monkey suit got a glow up."

Haruto's eyes darted to me. "Get his number?"

They shared a conspiratorial glance. "I heard plans for a lunch date."

I rolled my eyes tuning them out. If this was a date then I was the crypt keeper.

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