Rock...

Maybe having sex when your ribs were screaming at you not to move wasn't the brightest idea he's ever had.

What the hell is this? Ow!

For the better part of three years, he hasn't done anything even remotely sexually rigorous with someone, and out-of-practice side-effects were bound to happen this morning, true enough, but this was ridiculous.

Rock's body felt like it had been in an all-night-fight-for-his-life-all-out-war. He woke up with every inch of his person in protest from the slightest muscle signal, especially on his left side. He'd gone from the most sublime and the best uncoordinated-steamless-sexual bliss he's ever had, to aching pains on every surface. He'd anticipated some pains. After all, he was injured before all of this. Revy had battered and bruised him throughout his interview for the job of fucking her but what the hell was this?

A capricious roll of the dice? From bliss to pain. My price for coming within an inch of my life?

That's the best way he could describe his morning so far and what he was feeling physically. Where his emotions set up shop in his thoughts at the moment, however, he could've done without.

The simple act of getting off his bed was an arduous exercise geared to test the dogma of his principles. Had he been a lackadaisical individual prone to using excuses to dodge work, Rock was sure today would've counted as a sick day.

Injuries sustained in the bedroom after one hell of a night. How would that look on my profile? He mused while trying to ignore the course his emotions seem to be plotting.

Despite the discomforts his body was pissed at him for, Rock would have gladly taken a side order of agony right now if that would slow down these stupid feelings his stupid brain, currently located in his stupid dick, was giving him a stamp of approval on. An all-together stop would be received even better with open arms, a marching band, and a parade.

Break your three-year-long celibacy with four rounds of earth-shattering sex and then... Rock let that sardonic thought hang in a now vacant space in his head, where his logical thinking brain was supposed to be.

Old longings stirred from old parts of his mind, seemingly regenerating from old things he was sure he'd chase down a long time before and murdered in retribution for making him experience heartache so unimaginable, it made the efficacy of a bullet borrowing through bone meek in comparison. But the injury to his pride was worst than that.

Rock gave a hard shake of his head and both regretted it and savored it as his neck protested in a series of snapping creaks and the room spun for a second or two.

As his feet touched the cold tiles after the room became stable again, they vibrated with pins and needles from his soles, traveling up to his shanks in a numbing match.

"Ok," Rock said determinately, exhaling a long breath and talking to his body, "you are not going to make us late for work today. That's going to make me look bad," he told his lower limbs as he attempted to begin his morning regimen with stretches.

The pain was terrible. Snaking through his body like he was an old man with arthritis or something, but it wasn't unbearable, and he was grateful for that, at least. It took a couple of tries but thankfully, the painful protests all over his body didn't put up much resistance as he stretched the muscles in his limbs in repeated movements, rotating his neck in circles until it stopped creaking so much.

A few times, he had to cry out in shocked anguish when he stretched in a particular way and that part of his body was having none of that. But for the most part, he was back to normal as he made his way to the bathroom.

Striping off his boxers and marina in front of the bathroom mirror, Rock traced the pad of his forefinger over his chest, caressing the bite mark Revy gave him only two nights ago. It was mostly healed, but still a little tender from her bite on his nipple. His back, as he caught a glimpse of it in the glass, was scored from Revy raking her nails over his skin in the grips of the climaxes he'd wrought from her, half out of her mind with his name on her lips like prayers she'll never profess. Despite himself, he shudders with delight involuntarily, and a deep growl emanated from his chest as feelings stirred in his lower body when his mind began the replays of what they did; giving him a ghost's taste from the reservoir of pleasure they enjoyed so absolutely together last night.

His skin goose-bumped all over. Intoxicating signals triggering off by the memories, rampage through his body; igniting his feelings in those moments with Revy, making them come alive inside him now. They bargained for control with irrefutable bait. Then they won the contest.

Not that he put up much of a fight.

Rock's eyes closed for a few heartbeats, his face to the ceiling before his head hung down slowly, where he exhaled a pent-up breath. A blistering need regain encroachment swiftly on his flaccid disposition, something that had waned and was forgotten during the execution of his exercises. His dominant hand descended to stroke himself just as a hiss vibrated between his lips, followed by a throaty groan as he hefted his balls in a palm, feeling them growing tight already. He could almost feel Revy from his memory, hear her in his ear. Their cries in ecstasy, drunk from lust. From need. From the connection they shared in his bedroom.

His skin remembers the heavenly press of her every curve and his breaths quickened, as his heartbeat kicked into overdrive imagining Revy's soft hand reaching from behind, working his length, her breasts rubbing against his now black and blue back, the bruises maturing since last night. Remembering how sweet it felt to have those ample breasts against him like that had him leaning his forehead on his forearm pressed up against the mirror. His exhales fogging up the glass as he pleasures himself, replaying last night's events as they theatre in his mind so vividly. Through his skin.

By the time his groans grew to rhymic curses, his ass tight, thighs ridge from the impending culmination, Rock was cursing himself internally for being so stupid and pathetic, but that didn't stop him from continuing and then coming, spilling into his hand and on the tiles and the lip of the sink. His shuddering finale amassed satisfied grunts as his morning quickie came to an end. He could've written his full names in the mirror in both English and Japanese if he wanted to, it was so fogged up from his hot breaths.

God! He's missed sex. He's missed eating pussy, too, he realized.

He's not the sort of man to put his mouth on every muff he came across that's willing to lift their skirts for his inspections. Learned that lesson the hard way at twelve years old when his mom's friend, who could be his mother if she was a little careless in her teens, took him to her apartment while her husband was out of town. Not that he had a choice or even understood at the time what was happening when she pinned him down on the bed, open her legs like a book in his face, then rub her crotch in it until she was satisfied. Twelve-year-old Rokuro Okajima, not so much. Let's just say, it was an acquired taste.

Different women, he'd learned, needed different things. Some needed a quick rut, for which his cock was very agreeable once both parties understood what that entails. Some needed a petting, just the touch of a man between their legs, or to feel a rough palm caress their breasts. Again, after both parties were in accord. And Rock is the type of man to take a while before engaging in anything like that. The bottom line was, he was choosy with whom he played with. For him to go down on someone, he was extremely selective. This was etched more deeply after Kari betrayed him, the woman he first and repeatedly made love to as thoroughly as he did last night with Revy.

Now that he's reminded his senses of what he's suppressed for so long, however, his sex- appetite was nearly overwhelming. A tide of greed, and want, and need flooded back into him. And he had it bad for one of Roanapurr's most wanted.

"Jesus Christ." Rock swore out loud. "How stupid can I get?"

For a man who held a strict control on his emotions, and on the principles he's set for his personality, he couldn't make up his mind what to feel or not to feel after debating with himself that what went down between him and Revy last night might just be a one-time thing. He would like to think so, using logic as his guide and what he thought he knew of women and what he knew of Revy.

Yeah, because that's worked before. A voice in his head said, spattering saucy sarcasm all over his thoughts like red paint.

He spent a longer shower than usual thinking about this, trying to guess what Revy's mood might be when he sees her at work this morning. He'd crossed his line. Widely over-shot his line was more apt, yet he regretted nothing and would gladly do it again in a nano-second if given the opportunity. But how did his bed partner feel about that?

Rock blew out a breath. If history made its appearance again, he'll need to find some way to distract himself from thinking about fucking Revy. He wasn't some newly minted ex-virgin feeling a woman's body for the first time, but what happened last night with him and Revy left an imprint on his consciousness. If he wasn't careful, he'd be distracted with intense sex replays for the entire time at work. He couldn't walk around with hard-ons popping up in his pants all day each time his mind skips reality for the pleasures of the past night's occurrences. Talk about an exercise in frustration. And it's a strong possibility that his fiery sex partner might take offense to unwanted attention from him.

Thinking about last night with that delivery guy, it would be wise if he didn't try to do anything out of context than their usual relationship permitted. Revy didn't even want that weasel to know that she was there with him. Could she maybe feel regret that they've been together? These things happen. She might feel the same way about others finding out about what they did. Ashamed, even. That thought punched a hole in his gut, effectively leaching him of any post climatic euphoria.

"And why wouldn't she?" Rock asked aloud to the empty bathroom, feeling ashamed at himself for how he maneuvered her.

What happened between him and Revy wasn't just sex. It might look like that, but he felt like he'd won the award for 'world's biggest asshole' when he thought about the real meaning behind their bed play. It wasn't just about fucking each other. Revy didn't just share her body with him last night, she shared her trust. She opened up to him, freely, willingly. The only man she's ever done that with.

He'd all but given her an ultimatum to leave or fuck him last night. A choice on her part, yes, if you want to look at it like that, but still a low-key psychological manipulation tactic even if he didn't do it on purpose. He was pissed at her, of course, for dangling her sexual attributes cruelly in front of him like jugs of cold water tantalizing a dessert-weary-traveler. But by completely walking away from Revy, who was standing there naked before him with all that would attract any man, Rock made her feel unattractive by rejecting her outright. Essentially, he attacked her vanity as a woman. No woman, no matter who they are, wants to feel unattractive or less than capable of enticing a man.

His hands balled into fists, thinking of who he learned that tactic from because it had once been used on him.

A curse escaped his lips unbidden. "Damn her!" Rock said, feeling like a waster for siphoning off chunks of his temperament on a memory. Especially anything to do with Kari. But he would allow it this time.

"Damn you, Kari for doing that me,"

Anger transformed him into Rokuro Okajima, the old Rokuro. The one that was so stupid, it's blistering to think about the time he existed. The things he'd done to keep a snake in his bed. He has no one to blame but himself for having eyes and a brain in his head and not using them. Truth was the ugly reality he didn't want to face, the bitter medicine that he didn't want to drink, though, it would have profited him better than the fantasy he desired and got burned for.

Rock turned on the shower and let the warm water run over his head, soaking the sable strains of his hair. Flashes of the past went off behind his eyelids as he raised his head from under the thrall of the water and lathers soap between his palms. Whenever his mind wonders in this direction, Rock instinctively represses or redirects his thoughts to something mundane. Something less painful. Right now, he let them play out.

Kari Hinamori.

After three years, he allowed his thoughts to truly form a chain with her at the center. Perhaps as a deterrent from what his mind was spinning to him about Revy. That there can be a future with his former kidnapper, to which Rock replied,

I'm not that stupid anymore, mind.

Rock let his thoughts open that door in the back of his mind where he kept things suppressed. Were it a physical room, he'd akin it to an oversize walk-in closet or a corner office that needed some serious spring cleaning. Were it a physical room, he'd have scores of boxes and files, stocked from floor to the high ceilings, dating back to his earliest bad memories. The levels of bullyism that nearly pushed him into suicide a few times. How his family barely gave a token's notice to what happens to him outside of academics. When they paid any attention, it went to the A's on his report card. His father's fake smile in the company of others when he wanted people who mattered to believe that something like a family lives at the Okajima resistance. His mother's attention arrearage paid in full to him when her friends came over to the house. And how he craved having those women over no matter how plastic and awful they truly were. Same feathered-birds gossiping and pretending together.

How easily that attention evaporated the moment the door closed behind the last 'friend' with a soft click. Almost metamorphically, Rokuro watched that ruthless neglect come back swiftly, cutting plastic smile, and fake warmth alike from his mother's face as she looks down at her second son and the focus point of her disappointment. Her dark-grey gaze cold again after her performance was complete. The proximity between them widened as if he had a contagious disease. Her husband and her first son received the lion's share of her affections. Rokuro got imitation attention, fake smiles, and fake motherly love. Sparingly. And don't ask if he didn't gobble up every morsel of that when he could like nourishment.

His own mother barely wanted to speak to her son when they were alone, much more touch him, as if he'd done something wrong just for merely existing in her life. His parents never physically abused him but hell if they didn't make up for it with enthusiasm in other forms of abuse by the fistful.

He slams that file quickly. God! Who knew emptiness could hurt worst than any bully's beating at his most pissed off. There was a special pain-stain neglect left on your mind even after you understood what the hell was happening to you.

His resolve to explore this sector of his head almost ripped to ribbons in the face of that pain.

Most kids hated their parents and could pull off the 'i don't give a fuck' attitude easy enough. Rock had that down pat by the time his parent truly turned their backs on him. When he was no longer expected to live the lie that he was a part of a family.

But imagine being small and ignorant, and expectant of the only people in the world you know as family. Should be able to feel safe and trust as family, treat you like the stranger who's overstayed his welcome in their house. Imagine how they supply you with necessities and amenities. Make you depend on them for food, clothing, shelter, education, and money. Imagine the pressure under the rule of reciprocity on a child's psyche to give back in any way to parents who you badly needed to not ignore your very existence. Whose expectations are not just above average, they're superlative.

Before they turned their back's on him, Rokuro's life has always been one long schedule of results and expectations. Nothing more than that. If that sounds similar to an empty container, hollow and echoing? It's not far from the mark.

Have you ever been ignored, pass over, or forgotten? Has anyone ever pretended like you weren't there? Like they can't hear you or see you. How did that feel? Now imagine going through that with every breath from kindergarten until the end of your high school, and maybe even before that, and not understanding what you did wrong, or how you should fix it. And the only thing they tell you when they talk to you at all is to be a good boy, and get good grades, don't bring shame to the Okajima name.

''Make sure you're worth every cent of what I spent on that private tutor.'' his father always comments when the opportunity presented itself. Which was every night at dinner when he wasn't on a business trip or working late at the office. Even when that private tutor was using their underage son like her personal sex toy. Rokuro kept his mouth shut and powered through Mandarin, Cantonese, and, wouldn't you know it, French, until he could stop taking her tutelage.

Not like they would believe me anyway or spare a minute to listen to me, even if I had chosen to talk to someone about it.

It would have been his word, the word of a child they barely acknowledge, against the teacher his father wrote checks big enough to pay the rent on her penthouse suit every month, and one of his mother's friend.

Pretending was his bread and butter back then. Pretending like he wasn't disgusted after every tutor session when he was alone with Otama Fujinato. Pretending in front of others that he was happy and satisfied with his life, and not dying of the loneliness eating at his guts inside.

Now imagine the irony of others looking in from the outside with envy for that life, even to the point of hatred, as in the case of Rokuro's school bullies. They didn't get it. They wouldn't be able to understand how empty all of that was in comparison to what was missing. They wouldn't know how much Rokuro would have traded for a sliver of their life, with parents or even one parent who loved and cared for him instead of looking at him as nothing more than an investment to carry on the Okajima family name legacy, as if he was an inanimate thing instead of a breathing, living, human being.

They couldn't begin to comprehend how he needed to have a mother or a father who gave a damn about him outside of how he was doing in school academically. A mother who didn't scorn her son when others were not looking would have been a blessing in his life, and willingly accepted at any time between ages three and seventeen. They didn't get it that the shoe was on the other foot the whole time and that he envied them. That he hated them. Because they have, whether they appreciated it or not, all that he craved. A parent that gave warm, genuine smiles, hugs, and affection. Someone who might not give two shits if their son got a B or a C on his report card, but worried as all nine hells if he comes home with fresh cuts and bruises every day from school clearly visible in the places not covered by his long sleeve uniform. A parent who can tell when something is off about their child because they actually fucking pay attention, even for a moment. Because they not only notice that they have a child, they acknowledge his existence. They would talk to him, listen to him even when he's talking about kid shit they don't understand, they would still hold a conversation and they'd try.

Kari understood perfectly what Rokuro needed, maybe more than he did about himself at the time. It wasn't just the least of the least from his parents in the way of acceptance or companionship with his older brother. It's not that he didn't have friends but he had to keep them at arm's length, hiding behind his own manufactured smile. Pretending like everything was alright. Trying not to put a smudge on the Okajima name like he was taught to do. In a way, his friends were more like people he saw rather than people who knew him personally. No one really knew him, personally. Until Kari came into his shattered world and made him experience everything he's been missing all his life.

Kari Hinamori sold him the entire package. A fantasy that out-performed his mother on her best day until he had doubts about his initial suspicions about her. And she did that every day for two years right up to the time she stabbed him with that knife. She wouldn't be the first woman or man to try and weasel her way into his life under the impression that his name as an Okajima is worth a damn. It was, as far as influence went. Use the name Okajima and doors open for you like clockwork, just don't put Rokuro before it. Add his father, his mother, or older brother's name though, and there wouldn't be anything standing in your way.

But that was just it, Kari never asked him for anything.

When people tried to get into his good graces, they usually offer something. And for girls, they offered him exclusive tours of their bodies. Some going as far as trying to offer their virginity to him in exchange for something he could do for them, some letter of recommendation he could get for them into some school of their choice, some job that required high connections to get even an internship or some high-end shit like that. Damn, that made him feel like the lowest of the low when he took them up on their offer, but that didn't stop him from doing it again after the first time it happened until it became sort of a habit, a shallow attempt to exorcise the pall of neglect wrapped around his life with the sweet brevity of a climax.

Males either beat the shit out of him or use the old buddy system of 'we're friends, aren't we?' and then beat the shit out of him when he didn't comply with their terms.

At one of the lowest points in his life, he met Kari Hinamori, right after his parents turned backs on him, in make-up classes at Cram school. Although he was suspicious of her, and in his frustration and anger at her insistence of getting to know him better, made it clear in no subtle terms to her how useless and fruitless it is to get to know him if she's looking for a favor from him since his name wasn't worth a damn so she shouldn't try, she still gave him friendship, then after many months later, a relationship. She'd asked him for nothing. Seeming to not care that he was an Okajima, even a broke-ass one working two jobs to pay for his college education. She stuck with him. Kari Hinamori sold him the ultimate girlfriend package. Complete with support, a listening ear whenever he might need it, affection, intelligent conversation, and attraction, etc.

Rokuro Okajima fell into a pattern of habit after Kari sold him on the idea that she wanted him, that she loved him. Not because of what he had or didn't have. Not because of his name. But she that loved him. And slowly, he fell for her, then completely in love with her. He felt like, for once in his misery-fill life, neglected by his own family all his life, and bullied by his peers constantly, that someone might be in his corner for once. That someone might actually want to love him, instead of using him for their own ends.

And like an idiot, I lowered my defenses. God! How am I not a monster with all this shit?

Rock turned off the water the same time he cut the chain of thoughts from his head, feeling his mood decidedly unpleasant just under the skin of his professional persona.

Self-Sabotage much, Rock? He thought, his mental voice irritable.

He was about to step out of the shower stall, the creamy evidence still on the tiles and sink calling his attention to be cleaned when his cellphone rang from the bedroom.

Thirty minutes later...

When faced with the choice between meeting up with an organization of murders and dealing with a possible wronged woman, Rock went the former.

"Taxi!" Rock calls, whistling between his fingers as he exited his apartment building. "Hotel Moscow, please." He instructed the driver, after getting in the back seat and slamming the old iron door decorated with bullet holes.

It's not exactly that he was putting off seeing Revy. Alright, he was. He couldn't know beforehand what to expect. If that made him a coward, or to put it in Revy's words, a pussy, then he'll graciously join the long line of men in Roanapurr who were scared shitless of Two Hands and justly so.

This was the point in the plan where he'd told himself he would F.I.T.F.O. Figure it the fuck out, tomorrow. Tomorrow turned into today and he was still at 'figure it'. Rock felt like an open book, especially after that little memory skim he had in the shower, which did more harm than help. He felt like if he went into work now, his boss and co-worker would know something was up from the minute he walks into the office and he wasn't in a frame of mind to pantomime normalcy before Dutch and Benny to convince them or himself, for that matter, that nothing has changed between him and the vanguard of the Lagoon Company. Everything has, in his opinion. But who's to say Revy feels that way too.

He'd been thinking about how to go into work today for twenty minutes during his stretch session.

If Revy were any other woman, he wouldn't be stressing over this. And that sounds so bad for him to think, but it's the truth. Sex with past women was what he'd expected it to be. He made love to them. He fucked them. But in the morning, there isn't much of a difference. He felt invigorated, sure enough. De-stressed, to be certain. But that's the extent of it.

Maybe his mind was exaggerating how good it felt between them last night. Maybe the sex was incredible because it had been so long for him. He felt things he couldn't explain with words fit to describe what went through his body when he was inside Revy. To Rock, it felt like harmony grounded him in the middle of the chaos he and Revy wroth in his apartment. There was a deeper-than-surface-level connection when they touched each other as if they've been lovers for years. Rock just knew how to please her, where she wanted to be pleasured, how to give it to her. And fuck! That sounds so stupid and crazy, especially since this was their first time being with one another. But whatever it was, he wanted - no! he needed it again

And that has me feeling like running like all the nine hells were chasing me in the opposite direction of anywhere near Rebecca Lee. Rock thought panicked because this was so similar to last time. No, worst. It felt stronger. It's almost as if he was in love with Revy.

Which is insanity! Rock reproved his thoughts as the taxi turned the corner then stopped at a red light. From here, he could see the outline for Hotel Moscow, about five minutes if he ran into any traffic. That gave him a little more time to continue his self-assessment. What he was feeling right now for Revy, couldn't be any more than old needs pulling at his psyche. The old adage, 'when you find a good thing, you don't let it go'. Which was the exact opposite of Revy and him being together. It not a good thing. The only thing that both of them were, are two broken people, screwed up and screw over by their childhood and their family.

"You can't love her, Rock." He told himself vehemently, repeatedly, while ignoring the pains in his muscles as he stretched them out an hour ago. What man falls for a woman after one night? Albeit, one spectacular and turbulent night of fucking. He took a sharp breath in. "You do not love her." He told himself again. "You want her. You want to fuck her. That's it. Get that through your-ouch! Get that through your thick head. Remember what happened with Kari. You can't love her, Rock. You idiot! Govern your goddamn emotions, Rokuro. Shit!"

Sex is not love. No matter how incredible it feels. He knew that from all the times he tried to use it as currency to buy affection, seeking a reprieve from the neglect and emptiness from older women who wanted what their husbands were too busy or too disinterested to give them.

Like two of my mother's friends and one of my teachers in high school.

If he fell in love with Revy because of her physical attributes, it would not only be the dumbest, not to mention the most selfish thing he could do but a gross injustice to Revy, as it would mean that he would only love her for what he could get from her.

"You know these truths already, Rokuro," Rock whispered to himself while in the shower stall.

And Rock shouldn't be wanting anything to do with love anyway!

Revy is his first after three years of self-imposed celibacy and his best in memory, but that shouldn't be a petition for anything more than another tryst between them.

Just because we're two broken people, doesn't mean all our jagged edge fit.

As if tethered, his mind flashed back to Kari and again, he didn't try to impede its course back to that dark time in his life. Back when an abyss's edge separated him from losing his identity to hatred, and pain, and despondency. Rock allowed his memory to soak his body into what he felt. Back to when he'd truly loved someone for the first time with everything in his being. Trust, abandon, the whole freakin' haul. Someone he'd thought would've been his wife. The diamond engagement ring was in his pocket as the physical proof of how serious he was the day she stabbed him.

Dodge a bullet there. He told himself, using that as the plus side to his mental dilapidation and his increasingly sour mood.

His cell rang just as he stepped out of the shower. Rock didn't bother to wrap a towel around him, being alone in his apartment. Wet feet slapped against the cool morning tiles, as he trod purposefully towards his bedroom. Picking up the cumbersome thing and checking the square dingy green screen, Rock saw it showed 'private number' written across it. Without hesitation, he flipped open the cover on the dial pad and pressed the answering button.

"Hello," Rock said evenly.

"Yaponsky," came the smooth voice of Balalaika.

"Ms. Balalaika," Rock responded cordially, "Good morning,"

"Good morning to you," Balalaika intones oddly, almost girlishly, which made Rock's brows performed an 'ok then' arch on his forehead. He imagines that's what a sadistic tiger sounds like licking the blood of her prey from her claws with relish and high from the hunt. He douses that image from his head immediately. As a rule, he tried to think of people objectively as best he could. Clouding his mind with projections of Balalaika's legendary cruelty and blood-soaked reputation, even in a fictional sense, is not the attitude of a professional businessman, standing naked in the middle of his bedroom.

On the line, Ms. Balalaika asked him to come into her office at his earliest convenience. Upon hearing that, Rock's brows furrowed in suspicion.

"May I ask what this is about, Ms. Balalaika?" Rock was so bold to say to the Russian woman running the local mafia. It was politely put enough. Certainly. His tone measured, evened, and business-focus as he selected his words diligently. As long as he could avoid it, and as much as a fast thinker as he is on his feet, Rock preferred to be, at least a fraction prepared for any eventuality. But his confidence had leveled up, he could tell. Which was dangerous. The last time he felt like this, he'd tried to beat Chang at his gamble by throwing the island of Roanapurr into a death game, involving American soldiers, Roberta, the head maid of the Lovelace family, Hotel Moscow, the Lagoon Company, and the Ripoff Church, while he played chess master; moving the many pieces around, and seeing ten moves ahead.

He felt loose, the most relaxed he's felt in years, and not just physically. Sex has that effect on him, he now recalled. Perfect sex, as he experienced with Revy last night, balance him on a razor's edge, a feeling better than any high he could get from a drag. His mind felt clear and sharp, sensing that its 'game time'. The only disadvantage was that his emotions were chaotic. He's tried to pin them down last night with logic and reason after Revy left. Amazing how that didn't work.

There was a pause on the line, perhaps born from his audacity so early in the morning. Balalaika's tone matched his almost perfectly when she spoke next, but Rock picked up on the subtle 'don't push your luck' in her sonorous response. "No. You may not."

"Very well." Rock replied easily, his mind racing, "I'll be there as soon as I can."

The line went dead without a response.

Normalcy and Roanapurr, he observed, not for the first time, did not mix well in the same context.

It didn't take the taxi long to arrive at Hotel Moscow. As he exited the taxi, Rock told the cautious-looking driver to keep the change, close the door, and then turn sharply on his heels. Rock's face almost slammed into the mountainous chest attach to the man that showed up at his ruined hotel room the day before and then had escorted him at 4 am to his new apartment, the movers' van trailing behind the black sedan.

"It is good to see you again, Mr. Rock," the man's heavy Russian accented words rumbled out from between his lips like distance thunder.

Rock took a step back before craning his neck up to meet the man's eyes, then responded courteously, "and you as well, Vlad."

Where the hell did he come from? Rock thought, surprise still coloring his thoughts.

When the taxi pulled up to the building's entrance, Rock was certain no cliffs masquerading as a human, were standing close by. Hard to miss one of those.

The man, Vlad, nodded his wide face over his stocky neck once, before informing him, "Kapitan is in good spirits this morn and she's urgently expecting you." He paused then gave Rock an assessing look with steely blue eyes as if he was measuring his character for the first time or more in detail. "It was wise of you to come on short notice."

Not knowing what to say to that, Rock mimicked Vlad's curt nod before following the man's broad back into the hotel lobby.

There was no one else there, seemingly, as they walked through the lobby. A silence stretched between the two men as they walk towards the elevator, but it wasn't disquieting or tense, just filling the void and in Rock's case, purchasing acres upon acres of real estate in thoughts, as he tried to figure out what this was all about. Another job, maybe? That's the only thing he could think of.

The elevator dinged, and they went inside. Because of his size, Vlad took up a large portion of a space built to hold thirteen people. The man was nibble, for a walking hillside, Rock couldn't help but notice. And not for the first time as he expertly took advance of one side of the lift; his motions almost as fluid as Balalaika's feline grace.

"I trust you had a restful night, Mr. Rock?" Vlad spoke when the elevator closed then began its ascent. His deep voice snapping the silence in twine. It was a hospitable question and to anyone else, it would have been seen as Vlad attempting to be polite by making small talk. But Rock didn't take it that way.

A year in Roanapurr and too many deliveries to shady people while working for the Lagoon Company, and everything had an underbelly. Every word was a double standard. It can make someone paranoid fast if they weren't careful. Perhaps it was his accent or his choice of words, but Vlad's 'innocent' inquiry about his accommodations, set off alarms and suspicion, lighting up under Rock's skin like the Sumidagawa Fireworks Festival in July.

"Why do you ask that?" Rock said, injecting a calm he didn't feel into his voice. He turned his head in the man's direction, analyzing his expressions and mannerisms, watching for the slightest twitch in his facial muscles under his white skin. His mind tried to rationalize that Vlad was only asking this because they went apartment shopping together at four in the morning. And that is true, but his alarms were still blaring.

And why did he used the word, 'night'? Rock thought searchingly for the source raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Why not say 'day', or just rest?

Remember, Rock got his apartment in the morning, not in the night, not in the evening. He could have and did sleep for most of the day until Revy invited herself over by breaking into his place. It's not some Russian idiom that the man had to use as a substitution for his barely passable English.

"Well," Vlad said, shrugging anvil-like shoulders as casually as anvils could be shrugged. Rock noticed him watching the metallic doors of the elevator that reflects their blurry images. Did he think that Rock was gonna go tree climbing on his back or something? The man had to bend his blond head to fit into a seven-foot-tall elevator. Just because he's Asian, that didn't mean he's a cookie-cutter-version of Jet Li or Jackie Chan with a deadline on a death wish. "I was merely, how you say, inquiring on your accommodations, considering the nature of the project and the hours you spent working-" Vlad was saying, reasonably but unconvincingly in Rock's ears, when the elevator dinged and two faces appeared as the elevator doors slide open. One of these faces had brown dead eyes, a cigarette near to dangling from a plump bottom lip that he'd traced with his thumb and the tip of his tongue over just hours before. The familiar scowl on her face didn't change with his arrival.

"Revy." Rock greeted, smiling a little. His body beginning to flood his mind with exciting signals at seeing her. He was confused that she was here, and kinda squirming inside since coming here instead of going to work was his way of rescheduling seeing Revy but some part of him was thrilled nonetheless. Then Rock remembered everything he told himself this morning and calmed down. When he spoke again, it was more with a conservative demeanor. "What are you doing here?''

Revy tsk. Ignoring him and his question, she turned to Balalaika instead, her face scowling even deeper then asked curtly, "What the fuck is he doing here? What the hell is going on, Big Sis?"