It was starting to get kind of crowded.

Mainly because Shibata was over two and a half meters tall and about as wide as an adult kangaroo…they had spent too much time in Australia that year…but it was a good way to measure him. About as wide as an adult kangaroo. That was not an exaggeration, the man was big and wide and made everything about fifty times more crowded than it had to be…like this house. These living quarters were not designed with this many people in mind. Forget how many bedrooms it had, that was irrelevant, it was simply not big enough for three people.

It had barely been big enough for them and Shimazaki.

"….don't talk to the boss, don't look at the boss, don't even breathe in his general direction when he's pissed off…which is most of the time." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi closed their eyes and sighed. At some point Suzuki's entourage had grown by another person…for some reason. It wasn't because he needed the protection. Maybe he just wanted friends and this was the only way he knew how to make them…or maybe he just planned on collection people like trading cards. Minegishi didn't know and they didn't care.

They just wanted their peace and quiet back.

"What's he always so pissed off about? He's got it made. He's the head of Claw and he's got those two kids. God, they are so cute aren't they? I was watching Suzuki's son for him and he was showing me these drawings he did and he's a really good artist and he even drew me and then Suzuki's Daughter came over and she's so cute too, she was dressed like a princess and she said…." Said Shibata. Minegishi was tempted to tell him that if he loved Suzuki's kids so much then he could take up residence in the Suzuki family home and leave them in peace. He didn't seem to realize how loud he was, how the house shook with every step he took, his the windows rattled. Even the plants were afraid of him.

Shimazaki slammed doors and cupboards, he sang at random, and he slept with the same podcast blaring every night but he was the sort of annoying that Minegishi had learned to tolerate.

They'd had a few years to learn how to tolerate Shimazaki's presence. They worked well together, apparently, even if they had both been floating between different divisions. They'd even cohabited in the past, though never for this long, though it had been long enough to learn how to tolerate each other. Minegishi learned to keep the plant life to a few areas of the house, it messed with his perceptions, and he learned not to bother them when they were truly trying to sleep. The noise had taken some time to get used to but, hey, there were worse things.

He didn't stomp around the house so hard that Minegishi could feel it in their room, for one thing.

He teleported a lot, actually, with no thought to anyone else. Yeah, Shibata wouldn't last long once Shimazaki decided that the best time to pop into the bathroom and shave would be when he was in the middle of a bath. Even when they had separate bathrooms Shimazaki always bothered them…well let him bother someone else. It wasn't like they cared or anything. He was an annoyance…and the only reason that they were annoyed was because there was a second annoyance around, now, in their space and frightening their plants. That was all. Minegishi hadn't grown accustomed to it just being the two of them. Minegishi didn't care. If anything they wanted to live alone, all alone, so they could get caught up on their reading. They had been on the same goddamned page for twenty minutes now. Yes, if they had been all alone it would have been better…

What was with them tonight?

Well annoyance, obviously, since Shimazaki had decided to offer up their living space to Shibata without even asking. Apparently there had been a brawl in the cafeteria, all the exciting things happened when they were out on assignment, and Shibata had so impressed the boss that he just had to have him in the entourage. Then Shimazaki had decided that no, they couldn't let him continue to stay in the dorms of the headquarters, so he just had to move in with them…and that was how Minegishi had come home soaked in blood and fertilizer to find Shimazaki giving an all too enthusiastic rundown of their job.

What had Minegishi done to deserve this? Besides the numerous sins up to and including murder, of course.

"...just always at least a little pissed off but you'll get used to it. Just make sure nobody tries to kill him and watch his kid occasionally. Actually all the time. You can be the new babysitter. I do outrank you after all." said Shimazaki. Minegishi rolled their eyes. They all ranked the same since they all performed the same function. Follow Suzuki around, do his bidding, and occasionally take care of his children. God, he was always trying to be more than he was. Always so self-important.

Second only to the boss, that was how he had described himself when they'd met.

Annoying. He had been annoying when they'd met. He was still annoying now. Yeah, Shibata wouldn't last. Shimazaki would run him out by tomorrow…if he didn't kick him out in the morning…not that Minegishi even cared. He could do whatever he wanted, they didn't care, just like they could do whatever they wanted and he wouldn't care. They owed each other nothing…though it was a courtesy not to bring someone back home…at least it was a courtesy that they had both followed up to this point. Minegishi had known him for years. He had a type and it was pretty much anyone who would fall into bed with him.

That was fine.

Minegishi had better standards than that. They were choosy…well they had been before they'd met him. They had a type, too, but that was fine. Who cared if it was annoying and wore too much cologne and sang off key in languages he barely spoke and didn't know the meaning of boundaries and…and other things that they did not care about at all. They didn't give a damn about Shimazaki or what he did or how he had interrupted their pathetic play at domesticity.

Auras pass near their door.

They don't know whether they want to tell Shimazaki to leave them the hell alone or to go out there and claim the living room. To begin to claim parts of the house because now they feel like it has to be portioned out. It's a stupid way to feel, an irrational way to feel, but it's the way that they feel. This isn't their house, this isn't anybody's house. They don't know where the houses come from, who's in charge of buying and furnishing them, but they know that when Suzuki decides that it's time for everyone to move on then someone else will live here and the endless cycle will continue. This house belongs to everyone and it belongs to no one. This is just walls and a roof, that's all, just another cheap prefab or whatever and it's only superficially different from the next place that they will be forced to call home when they're moved again and again and again….

They need a drink.

"That's Minegishi, you've probably seen them around. Don't bother them though, they can be kind of testy after work." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi resented that comment. They were kind of testy even if they hadn't been grinding future traitors into fertilizer for the better part of the day. They turned onto their side and faced the wall. They did not want to be bothered, they decided, not by anyone. In facing the wall they could feel another aura, one that was way too bright and also kind of upset. They did not want to be bothered by anyone, even the kid, even if it felt like world war Suzuki was still going strong.

They wanted to be alone.

"With the purple hair? The one that the boss has…." Said Shibata. Minegishi imagines Shibata making the cut across the throat motion. He was still too new, that one, and he wouldn't last. A comforting thought if there ever was one.

"I have no idea what purple is." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi rolled their eyes. It was so easy to forget that Shimazaki couldn't see. A person would think that he would have gotten sick, eventually, of delivering that line. The way he said it. The seriousness that, if you didn't know him, you would think was real. The way that, if you didn't know his aura, you could imagine that the little hiccups in it were a sign of anger. Minegishi knew better. He liked making people uncomfortable like that. He relished it, actually, because he liked being an asshole.

Minegishi just was on asshole. They didn't go out of their way to cultivate those sorts of traits within themselves.

"Oh….I'm sorry. It's just so easy to forget that you're…that you can't…" said Shibata. This was the time to get any and all nervousness and discomfort out of his system. Shimazaki was blind. He knew it, the world knew it, and he liked to use it to mess with people. He liked to go out of his way and be an asshole. He liked to wake you up at three a.m. and pretend that he couldn't find his room even though he had found your room just fine and…yeah.

He could be a real asshole sometimes.

"Well now I feel like crap. Thanks for that." Said Shimazaki. He was such an asshole. Such an annoying asshole. Minegishi said what they meant and meant what they said. They never tried to make anyone feel any way in particular. They never did this, said things to make people squirm, and Shimazaki had said that just to make Shibata squirm. Minegishi may have been an asshole but they, at least, weren't that big of an asshole.

Better an asshole than an agent of chaos.

Honestly, that man could not stand to be bored even for a moment. He would, back then they had first met, start fights just to amuse himself. Not just with Minegishi, either. Anyone around would do. Shibata wouldn't last ten seconds around him. As imposing as the man was physically it was hard to take him seriously with all the gushing he had done about Suzuki's kids. He was way too soft for this, for Shimazaki, and he'd be out the door in no time.

Or Shimazaki would drive him out the door.

"I-I didn't mean to make you-" said Shibata. Minegishi could not believe that Shimazaki could tolerate this. That was genuine remorse. Annoying. Too easy, much too easy, which meant that Shimazaki would never get bored of him. He would never let this end. This joke, if it could even be called that, would be run into the ground. He would never stop pretending that he had been offended and he would never stop making Shibata kowtow and this was going to be Minegishi's life from now on.

For the foreseeable future, anyway, because Shibata was obviously not going to be able to take Shimazaki for too long. Asshole and agent of chaos that he was.

"Nope, too late. I'm going to cry. Congratulations, you've made a blind man cry. Going to go next door and scare the kids next?" asked Shimazaki. He wasn't funny, he was annoying, an annoying asshole. That was all. There was nothing funny about playing with someone's emotions so that their aura hiccupped all over the place and it seemed like they both wanted to kowtow to you and to kill you, at the same time if such a thing were possible. Minegishi could have told him that Shimazaki wasn't serious. They could have told him that Shimazaki was just being an asshole, they could have gotten up from their bed and dog eared their book and left the sanctuary of their room….

But they didn't.

They had no reason to. It was best not to get into the habit of saving people. It bred dependence and Minegishi did not need anyone dependent on them. Hell, the kid that hung out with them day in and day out wasn't even dependent on them. There was nothing attractive about dependence, not from anyone, because it was just too much responsibility. They had always been responsible for themselves and only themselves ever since they could remember. That was the way that they liked it. That was how they could find the agent of chaos so tolerable.

He only needed himself and he would be back to being by himself very soon.

Once he got on his bullshit. Once he got bored and started acting up like a toddler. Once he decided to dig through his suitcase and find that vial of acid he had been carting around since God only knew when, nobody needed that much acid for personal use in Minegishi's opinion, and then he would go on about how they should all take a swig and or go and leave some sugar cubes around for random kids to find or dose babies or any of his other crazy ideas that, unless you knew him personally, you could be able to give him the benefit of the doubt on and assume that he was kidding.

Never assume anything.

He wasn't kidding. He wasn't ever kidding…and if he ever drank from the vial Minegishi was not babysitting him. Let him think that he had died and replaced the real Ryou again. Let him end up sitting naked in front of the opened refrigerator again. Let him spend the night with his head pressed against the carpet, rubbing his head up and down, so he could hear the sound and then get whatever meaning he could from it. Let him suffer, he would bring it on himself if he drank straight from the vial, just like the time he had decided that he should be the one to measure doses despite being blind….

They had fun together, occasionally.

"What?! No! I would never!" said Shibata. Shimazaki was laughing now. Minegishi didn't care. Let him laugh. Let him laugh so hard that he turned blue, keeled over, and died. Good. More fertilizer. They had been planning on planting their own orange grove for a while now. Or maybe just throw a handful of seeds onto the ground and see what popped up on it's own. Heh. Maybe it would be a Little Shop situation…Shimazaki sure sang enough that Minegishi could have seen him coming back as a sentient, singing, plant.

They smiled again. They shouldn't make it a habit. It was bad for the skin.

"You sure? Rattling them, or at least the boy, is fun. Don't mess with the girl though, she's Suzuki's favorite. She's Toshi's favorite too and they will not hesitate to mess you up." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi digs their nails into their arms. He KNOWS not to call them Toshi. He knows full well that they don't like it when people take it upon themselves to call them Toshi. Especially if said person knew full well neve to call them Toshi.

It didn't usually make them this upset.

They reached over and made themselves a little fort around their bed. The turned over, sat up, and went through their drawers. They needed to sleep. They needed to sleep because it had been a very long day and tomorrow would probably be a very long day and every day would be a very long day until, eventually, they died. They would die as they lived.

Slightly pissed off, slightly drunk, and on medicine that had not been prescribed by a legitimate medical professional.

"Toshi? Oh you mean him…her….them…."said Shibata. Why were the walls so thin? Suzuki could have had actual houses built instead of these stupid prefabs. Why was what they were, what they were medically, such a point of importance, too, while they were asking why? Honestly. The only people it should have mattered to were the people that Minegishi planned on sleeping with…of which Shibata was not going to be one of them.

They had higher standards than that.

"I'm not telling you, figure it out on your own. Actually what you should do is ask. Just go up to them and ask. They really love that, I swear." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi decided that, yes, they would be going to sleep. Let them carry on and on about them like they couldn't hear. They picked up a marker and wrote out on their forearm that they were not to be bothered. That was in case Mob decided to let herself in…which she would have judging by the aural light show they were seeing. A fair bit of Suzuki's aura…poor kids.

They decided to end their message with a smiley face just to raise the kid's spirits. No sense in the kid getting too upset and sending them all the way of the Eighth Division. No sense in Minegishi being in such poor spirits, not that they were in poor spirits at all, and upsetting the poor kid. They would be better tomorrow, not that they weren't fine now, they would just be more…better…tomorrow. That was all. The finished their message, took their non-prescribed prescription medicine, and laid back down with their book. Another trashy, pulpy, romance novel that, really, they should not have been wasting their time with. They still had to read the novelization of Frozen that Mob had lent to them…heh…their book exchange went both ways now. It was nice to have someone to exchange books with…even if that person was nine and only read movie novelizations and manga…but it was better than trying to learn brail…

They could recognize a few words.

Well not right then, of course, because they could not focus on what it was that they were reading. It was all Japanese to them…because it was Japanese…heh. Well they thought that they were funny and that was what mattered. Fuck what other people thought….of their thoughts….heh. Thought about their thoughts…well Mob would have laughed if she had been around….but she was not around and she should not have been around for this…her life was messed up enough already….didn't need Minegishi's bad example….never asked for responsibility like that anyway…

The energy around them shifted.

"Toshi? You dead?" asked Shimazaki. He was sitting on the end of their bed. They pushed him but their strength wasn't in it. They were much too tired. That was it. They were just much too tired.

"Don't ever call me that." Said Minegishi. They kept their eyes closed. That made things just a little more even between them. Or maybe he was the one with the advantage. He could still see them. They could feel his aura on them. They could feel him watching them.

"Oh come on, you like it." Said Shimazaki. He leaned back against them. They could feel the cool leather of his pants against their leg. They could feel the softness, the impossible softness, of his shirt against their hand…which they pull away. They had been seeing him, that was all, in one of the ways that he had seen them…

He hadn't needed to touch them to see them but he had…and they had let him….because they were a moron when it came to him.

"You know that I don't. I've said so many times before-" said Minegishi. What was he bothering them for? He had a shiny new toy to play. He had someone who wasn't used to him, yet, and there was just so much that he could do with that. The potential for endless chaos. He knew that he couldn't get to Minegishi…so why bother with bothering them?

"You say a lot of things." Said Shimazaki. He took their hand in his and began to pick at their nails. He dragged the pad of his finger against the top of their nails. One after the other after the other. He ignored the callouses on their hand, he'd felt them before, but the nail polish is something new. They didn't pain their nails that often, it was annoying waiting for them to dry and they chipped like crazy, so this was new for him.

They pulled their hand away again.

"I do. Like leave me alone. How about that?" said Minegishi. They wanted to roll over, to turn their back to him, but the gesture would have been meaningless. He was still looking at them and they would always be stared at. His aura was over theirs now. They couldn't pull away. There were plants around. Their aura always stuck to plants. Great.

"What's with you? Come on, this guy is hilarious, and I was thinking, too, that if you still had some-" said Shimazaki. Minegishi shoved him a little bit, just a little, because they did not have the strength to hurt him. Too tired. It had been too much, that day, that was all. They were just…tired. That was why their hand had lingered on his shirt. They wondered if he knew how he looked. They wondered, they had wondered since they had met him, why he dressed like that. Did he know how he looked? Or did he just pick out his clothes based on how they felt? Everything was soft, that he wore anyway, and they wondered how that felt to him. He felt things differently than they did. Other senses compensating and all of that. They wondered her their clothes felt to him. Heavy and baggy things…cotton, they liked cotton a lot. He liked silk. Silk and leather and cotton, too, sometimes.

They stopped touching him.

"Go through your own stash if you want to be stupid." Said Minegishi

"Come on, you always have better stuff than I do." Said Shimazaki

"That doesn't mean that it's yours. Go through your own stash if you want to act like an idiot and get messed up." Said Minegishi

"Hypocrite." Said Shimazaki

"I am not." said Minegishi. They opened their eyes and sat up. They were a lot of things but a hypocrite was not one of them. If they had been a hypocrite they would have…they didn't even know because they were more certainly not a hypocrite. They could not think like a hypocrite because they were not a hypocrite. They were themselves. Honest to a fault, spoke their mind, and wanted nothing from the world that they could not get by themselves.

"Really? Because I can see your aura and I can hear your voice. You're messed up right now." Said Shimazaki

"I'm trying to get to sleep right now. When I wake up I'll be fine. You, on the other hand, are going to do something stupid and end up staying up all night. You're going to be tired in the morning and when you get tired you get sloppy and you ruin your reflexes, the one thing that Suzuki keeps you around for, and then you'll end up with all the other people who piss Suzuki off and, honestly, I do not need the extra work." Said Minegishi. Not as eloquent as it had been in their head but they couldn't help it. It could be excused…not that they knew who it was that they wanted to excuse them. That was…this was weird. Why did he make them so self-conscious? The staring. It was the staring.

Even without eyes he still stared at them nonstop.

"Wow, I had no idea you cared so much, Toshi." Said Shimazaki. This time Minegishi did put some strength into it. They could have put their powers into it, there were plants all around them, but they didn't feel like it.

He caught their arm.

He traced the characters that they had written there. He could feel it, the marker, but the characters meant nothing to him. They meant nothing but he still traced them, the pads of his fingers tracing across the thick, black, characters drawn there. Across their skin. They could feel a little bit of his nails there, too, and it sent a shiver down their spine. Even in their current state he could still make them feel…everything.

"I don't." said Minegishi finally. They didn't. There was no point at all in caring about what happened to him. That asshole was responsible for himself just like Minegishi was responsible for themselves. That was the way the world worked. It was every asshole for themselves.

"You do. If you really didn't care then you'd let me mess up and end up on one of Suzuki's lists." Said Shimazaki

"He has lists?" asked Minegishi. They would have raised an eyebrow if they'd had one to raise. They didn't put it past their fearless leader to stay up long into the night composing lists of undesirables. They wouldn't have put it past Suzuki to have put those closest to him on those lists. Shimazaki would have known, being so close to the man, though his new partner might have known too. Minegishi didn't care what Suzuki did in his spare time. They didn't care if they were on meters and meters worth of lists. They weren't assigned to following the man around so what did they care?

"No clue but, hey, wouldn't you? Honestly I always assumed that you did. Being you, you know." Said Shimazaki

"Well I don't. I have better things to do with my time than sit around pouring over lists of enemies." Said Minegishi. They wanted to pull their arm away but they didn't have the strength. Well they did but they did not feel like finding it. They were exhausted, annoyed, and also quickly becoming ravenously hungry. The reached over with their other hand and called a vine to themselves. They could make a spider plant bear fruit, apples to be precise, and honestly that was a much cooler power than teleportation and whatever it was that the new guy could do.

Nothing as cool as making apples grow from spider plants.

"Thanks." Said Shimazaki before he bent down and bit into the apple. He then, apparently, did not know what to do with it so he just held it in his mouth like one of those fancy pigs that people in the movies ate. Minegishi rolled their eyes so hard that they knew he could sense it. He just smiled and leaned down close to them. Minegishi didn't take the bait, they knew he wanted them to lean in to take the apple and then he would drop it and they'd kiss or something, so they decided that they would just stop that before it happened. They did not want to deal with that tonight.

"Not for you." Said Minegishi before they took a bite. Tart, way too tart, but hey it had been enough of a feat to make an apple grow from a spider plant in the first place.

"I already had a bite." Said Shimazaki

"You didn't have a bite, you just bit into it, there's a difference. Now leave me alone. I have a lot to do. Apples to eat, books to read, sleep to get." Said Minegishi as they leaned back into their bed. Not really their bed, they preferred a futon, but a bed that they were told to sleep in. This wasn't their home. It wasn't anyone's home.

So why did they care that they could feel it shaking because a certain uninvited housemate couldn't walk across the floor without stomping as hard as they could?

"Or you could watch TV and get messed up with me and the new guy." Said Shimazaki in a tone that was supposed to be tempting but just came off as annoying. Minegishi was not going to smile and they certainly had not taken another bite of their too tart apple to keep from smiling.

"You can't 'watch' anything." Said Minegishi after they finished chewing. Adult company did sound nice…and so did passing out on the couch in front of the TV…but not nice enough to pry them from their bed.

"No but I can listen and sit next to you and poke your aura when you start to get too comfortable." Said Shimazaki. Minegishi shook their head.

"Pass, now leave me alone." Said Minegishi

"And don't bother you until tomorrow for any reason and then a smiley face?" asked Shimazaki. Minegishi was confused before they looked down and remembered what they had written down on their arm. Huh. Even after years of knowing a person they could still surprise you….but then again that had been written out as simply as possible because Mob was only nine and Minegishi had no clue how well she read beyond, well, tormenting her with books that grown adults had trouble comprehending.

"I didn't know you could read. How long have you been keeping this from me? Any other secrets that I should know about?" asked Minegishi

"I used to steal all the time when I was a kid, things I didn't even need. One time when I was three I swallowed a hundred yen coin just to see what would happen. Also I ate candles until I was-" said Shimazaki. Minegishi had no clue if any of that was true, well they knew that the candle things was true but the rest could have been a total fabrication, but it didn't matter. This could have been one of those times when he just said things to say them.

"But when did you learn to read, that is the question." Said Minegishi. It was amazing how he could have kept that from them for all of these years….you thought you knew a person…not that they cared. They could have been hiding literally anything else from them. They didn't care. None of their business. They barely had enough time to mind their own business let alone someone else's.

"You've seen me read. Hell, I've read to you. Remember Sapporo?" asked Shimazaki. Yes, they clearly remembered their mission to that little town just outside of Sapporo during the winter when they had to take out some traitor's little pet project. Recruiting from within Claw and thinking that nobody would notice…what a moron. They remembered how cold it had been and how there had been literally nothing to do pre and post mission. They also remembered that Shimazaki's books were boring as hell. Nothing but sex and pointless fights…much like the man himself. They remembered laying down on some shitty double bed in the middle of nowhere and sitting close together to share body heat, literally to share body heat, and then everything that came afterwards. They remembered sitting down to read and come down from the heady feeling that they always got afterwards. They remembered him sitting down and just…reading aloud like it was…like they didn't even know what. They remembered drifting off at some point in the night and waking up to the shittiest tea that they had ever had.

"Vaguely." Said Minegishi before devouring the core of the apple. Maybe the cyanide would get to them. They could only hope. It took about two pounds of seeds, not apples but seeds, to do a grown adult in. They would need to make more apples.

"Well there, I can read." Said Shimazaki. He honestly sounded offended there. They could tell when it came to him. Well then let him be offended. It was not so far out of the realm of possibility that, by chance, he would not have been able to read written Japanese. On account of the whole 'not being able to see' thing.

"Brail." Said Minegishi simply

"I can recognize some kanji too. Some hiranga and some kanji…by touch. My mom…she had some stupid idea that I could learn to read like that. Some idea that I could have been normal or whatever." Said Shimzaki. Nope. Too close to emotional depth for them. They were upset with him, they reminded themselves, and they were not going to be swayed into…whatever….by the sad, sad, very sad tale of the life of Shimazaki Ryou.

They made another apple. They shoved it in his mouth.

"You're a man of many surprises, Shimazaki Ryou, now surprise me by getting out of my room and letting me get some sleep already." Said Minegishi. Shimazaki, sparingly enough, did leave them the hell alone.

Which was what they had wanted in the first place.

Now they could be alone in their room and just…sleep. Even though voices still carried through the walls and the house still shook. They were alone, they shouldn't have felt this way…

Like this house was getting way too crowded.