a/n: I'm just here to spend more time with my favorite ninjas. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
You can try to escape from an escape room, but you can't escape from your feelings forever
In all honesty, seeing a shinobi in broad daylight was almost akin to seeing a black cat in the middle of the night.
Ayame should have clocked something terrible was going to happen that afternoon once she saw her childhood friend in front of her. A breeze had fluttered by, lifting his fringe for a short moment as they made eye contact.
Those blue eyes were so cold. They belied a lifetime of acquainting himself so intimately of violence, of severing the tie between life and death.
She could never quite understand what went inside his head.
Quiet. Reserved. Always thinking, always in control of the situation. Assessing, re-evaluating. When he wasn't being sarcastic, he was -
Unsettling.
A perfect shinobi, designed as a lethal tool.
Time had honed him into a cynic. It had eliminated his need to prove himself better than his father. Once their master had lost the use of his legs years ago, it had sobered Zenzou into the person he was, keeping his thoughts carefully shuttered away.
He wasn't like Gintoki in that regard. He assessed risks carefully and decided on his terms whether to get involved. He trusted nobody, preferring to rely only on his skills that he had honed to the highest level.
There had been a time where she had been like this, would have remained in the same mindset as he did. After all, the creed of the ninja was to get the job done. Emotions interfered with their line of duty.
But now, Ayame never quite knew how to act around him. She had rightfully - whether she was acknowledged by him or not - worked her way up to her rank. What she did in her personal life was her own business, and for the most part, he had stayed away from it. She had changed. Maybe he had, too, but they were no longer the same.
He hadn't approached her - or hadn't bothered to check up on her, ever since Gintoki had gotten married. She assumed at that point that he'd lost some sort of interest in her. As colleagues, he remained mostly cool and professional.
It was that solicitous indifference that somehow made her keep her distance away from him for years on end. Even though they shared a history that ran deeper than it seemed on the surface, it didn't seem to make much of a difference now.
She supposed that was why she felt more compelled to hurt him. To make him crack. To somehow squash that sense of inferiority that came across her when she had once realized how much better he'd become as a shinobi than she'd ever had.
It only infuriated her that he never seemed to care. Well, he did - especially if her aim was careful to hit his asshole.
But it seemed superficial on the surface. It never seemed... personal.
He wouldn't snap at her like others would. Not like Gintoki.
"What are you doing here?" she asked him, suddenly self-conscious of the book she was holding. It was a beginner's guide to BDSM. Tsukuyo had asked her, in hushed tones, if she had any tips. She was more than perfectly happy to help, even if - even it meant -
Zenzou's voice cut through that rather awful train of thought.
"That Jump samurai told me he was returning one of the episodes I recorded for Saint Pegasus. He was supposed to be meeting me here... but well, you can't really expect samurai to be on time, can you?"
Ayame chewed on her lip. "I guess not."
He gave her a cursory glance. "Who are you waiting for?"
"None of your business."
He shrugged. "Suit yourself." He settled down on a nearby bench and took out a copy of Shonen Jump.
Oh, she despised him. She opened her phone, shooting off a text to Tsukuyo, hoping that the woman would come quickly, and then she could ignore that slow simmering resentment that seemed to bubble up whenever she saw him.
A few minutes passed. He continued to read his comic, and she waited in front of the statue in silence. She was about to close her eyes, leaning against the statue when she heard somebody speaking to her.
"Ma'am? Can I interest you with our latest product?"
She blinked. Some saleslady had gone up to her, a nondescript looking person holding a basket of samples.
"I'm not interested," Ayame replied curtly.
"I promise that if you put this perfume on around the one that you love, you'll make him fall heads over heels for you."
Ayame snorted, a skeptic by nature. Tsukuyo had told her that all the love incense in Yoshiwara had been discarded years ago. The damn bitch had weaseled her way into procuring a drug-induced confession from Gintoki - and it had turned out years later, said confession wasn't quite so drug-induced.
Still, the look on the saleslady was too earnest for her to rebuke thoroughly, and so she allowed the woman to spray a few spritzes of fragrance on her wrist.
She lifted it to take a sniff. It smelled cloyingly sweet, something she'd never personally wear - and then identified something else strange.
Chloroform.
Instantly, her hand reached for her kunai, but the chemical was already taking over her mental facilities, making her movements sluggish. The book she'd been holding onto dropped to the ground.
Fuck, she thought to herself. I let my guard down.
Her knees were starting to give in, her vision beginning to turn dark.
Somebody was calling her name, but she couldn't hear who it was.
-x-
When she had gained consciousness, she blinked blearily. For some reason, Zenzou was next to her in a similar position.
This was a far cry from Kabuki-cho. At once they rolled to their feet, their guards set on edge from years of experience.
Was this a trap? They both stood in silence, their hands gripping with kunai as they shifted into a defensive position as was their instinct in unfamiliar settings.
Her ears were on the lookout for hidden detonators, but all she could hear was the sound of her breath.
After a minute or two, she exhaled in relief. "I don't think anyone's trying to kill us."
Zenzou stowed away his own weapons. "I can't detect any killing intent, either."
Ayame frowned. "Then why are we here?"
"Beats me."
"How did you get here?"
"Somebody came up to me and said they had a permanent cure for hemorrhoids - "
She made face, putting her hand up. She'd heard enough.
"So we were set up."
"Apparently."
It was the strangest room that she had ever been in. In fact, this room had no door. Or windows. She walked around, and noted that the floor seemed to be carpeted as her feet made minimal noise.
"Ah, fuck! Why did they set us up in this weird creepy room?" she shrieked, kicking her toe into the wall. "Why couldn't it have been Gin-san trapped with me, instead of you?"
"Believe me, Sarutobi, I'm asking the same question!" he snapped at her. Unlike her, he was skimming the seams of the walls. He preferred to be proactive, versus reactive.
It was just another difference between him and her. As if he wasn't fucking constantly reminded of it.
Surprisingly, her toe wasn't injured for how forceful she'd kicked the wall. Taking a cue from him, she did the same thing on the opposite walls.
They searched for a crack or a weakness in the cell, but five minutes later, they'd been forced to conclude that there were none whatsoever that they could exploit.
The wall was made with plastic material with no seams anywhere. When they threw kunai with both of their combined forces, the metal bounced off effortlessly as if a child had attempted to do so.
Zenzou cursed quietly to himself.
This was ridiculous.
"What do you think the motive was, to trap us here?" Ayame asked, clearly aggravated. "Do you think this is like that show Octopus Game, where they're trapping people to kill each other for money?"
"The one you used to record on my DVD player without my permission and then never bothered to watch for weeks on end? Neither of us are in debt," Zenzou pointed out. "Unless you had a recent gambling problem... ?"
"Of course not," she snapped at him. "And I totally watched it, asshole!"
"Oh good, so I can delete the episodes later," he noted, ignoring her scowl. "Well, if that was their intention, I can't imagine them getting much entertainment out of us."
Ayame was about to reply something rude to that, before she heard a noise behind them.
Quick as a flash, the two of them reached for their kunais, whipping their heads towards the source of the intrusion. To their surprise, a hologram of some sort had appeared.
"Escape room," Zenzou read out, bemused. "Okay, so maybe you weren't totally off-base with that Octopus Game comparison."
"We'd win if it was the case," Ayame asserted.
Still, the apparition had made both of them deeply uneasy. It was a sign that someone was watching them - and without a clear reason why, it kept them on edge.
Then a slip of paper came out of a slot, which disappeared as soon as it had appeared.
She was the first one to unfurl the scroll.
"To escape this room, you must kiss the other person for three minutes."
-x-
Zenzou waited for her to stop shrieking, timing the start of her rant elegantly with his Rolex, all while managing to have it escape her notice. During missions, he'd heard her complain for hours on end about how Gintoki was making the wrong mistake, marrying someone who was specifically not her. Most of the time, he was mentally organizing his tasks for the next day - things like what he was planning to cook for dinner, or which delivery routes were likely to order pizza depending on what day of the week it was. If she was feeling especially passionate, he could even start thinking about which convenience stores he was most likely to avoid fighting a certain samurai over the last copy of Shonen Jump.
Once he noticed she had finally slumped over in utter defeat fifteen minutes later, lying face-down on the floor, he sat next to her. It was his own way of being compassionate.
"Sarutobi, I'll set a timer for three minutes," he said, and took out his cell phone. Unfortunately, there wasn't any reception, which led him to conclude they were either located deep underground or somewhere high above the stratosphere. "I don't think we have a choice. If you close your eyes, you can pretend that you're kissing someone else."
The implication of who he was talking about somehow irritated her. Who the hell thought that way? As if she was so heartless... Or ruthlessly pragmatic, for that matter.
"How am I supposed to do that if you won't shave that goatee off your chin?" she asked indignantly, rolling to her side.
"Use your imagination - don't you do that all the time? I'm already trying to picture you with a hare lip, you know."
She was going to kill him once they escaped this damned room. She was going to stuff him full of kunai, tie him up in ropes, and set him on fire. She'd swear in front of the statue of Marishiten that she would assassinate him, and then head straight to his estate to set his compound on fire, too.
"You are so - "
"Think about the final destination," he reminded her, his tone less than patient. She could have sworn it was bitter. "The quicker we can get the hell out of here, the sooner we can pretend this never happened."
"Fine," she snapped, and finally got back to her feet. He did the same. "But at least brush back your bangs. I at least want to see your eyes."
With a scowl, he complied, revealing they were the color of crystal blue. "Happy now?"
Unfortunately for Ayame, it was a step in the wrong direction. She'd thought it would have allowed her to pretend he was Gintoki.
She was dead wrong.
In many ways, personality wise, he was diametrically the opposite of what had attracted her to the silver-haired samurai. That part was impossible for her to ignore. Zenzou's sense of individualism, his desire to remain alone clashed against what she instinctively gravitated to.
Physically wise... he was leaner. Having hugged Gintoki enough times (unwanted, of course), she could differentiate their scent. As much as she loved Gintoki, he always smelled like bad decisions on a Saturday night. Booze. Strawberry milk. Unwashed socks.
She supposed it was a small blessing that her boss at least cared enough about personal hygiene to put on aftershave.
He looked at her, understanding the situation perfectly, and chuckled. With the pad of his thumb, he brushed her eyebrow, causing her to shiver. "Close your eyes, then. I'll try not to make it horrible for the two of us. After all, it's not your first kiss, right?"
Why was his voice suddenly playful? And... sad?
She nodded.
His hand slid up her neck, and she realized they'd never been this close before.
The panic started to surge in her chest.
He has hemorrhoids, she kept chanting to herself, trying to calm her heart down. He has hemorrhoids, he has hemorrhoids, he has hemorrhoids -
It wasn't working.
Why was she frozen in one place? Why didn't she push him away, as her normal instinct would on any other given day?
"If you don't want me to do it, then tell me now," he said softly. She couldn't decipher his expression. "We can try to find another way to get out of here."
She shook her head. "Just get it over with, then."
(Why didn't she pull away from his touch? Where were her words when she needed them?)
A finger traced her jawline delicately, before his index and thumb lifted her glasses from the bridge of her nose, folding the frames together with a small click. Another hand cupped her chin gently, and lifted it upwards.
As soon as her mouth touched his, he took control - as if something had sprung inside of him. The same hand that had cupped her chin slid to the back of her head, his fingers interlacing with her hair. He tasted like spearmint gum and smelled like soap. Clean scents, she thought vaguely, right before she realized how dangerously intimate this was.
For two people who had loudly proclaimed that they were not in love, or would never be in love with each other, his kisses were unhurried. Slow. Deliberate. As if he was determined not to make it a chore for her - or him, now that she thought about it.
Very Zenzou-like. Always determined to end up on top, even if it was a losing cause.
Before she was aware of it, she found herself leaning in towards him.
He was using the grip on her hair to control the pace of the kiss. His tongue flicked out against her bottom lip, and as she gasped, he took it as a cue to dive even deeper into her mouth.
A tension was starting to pool in her belly.
It was impossible to pretend that she was kissing someone else, as much as her mind willed her to do so. She'd never been one to shy away from physical contact, but this was considerably... different.
For someone so emotionally cold, he was so warm to the touch.
The irony of it all caught her off-guard, and she froze, unable to pull away. It'd been so long since the last time she'd been kissed. In fact, she couldn't even remember the last time anyone else had kissed her so intensely.
Another unwanted thought struck her abruptly.
Neither of them were supposed to mean it. This was just a sick means to escape each other's presence. Some voyeur was probably getting their jollies off, watching two people who didn't care for each other, doing these kinds of things -
She fought to breathe without crying.
Zenzou noticed. He retreated, and smilled ruefully as he took a step backwards, his hand leaving behind the ghost of warmth.
He took out his mobile, and shut off the alarm. She had barely registered that it had gone off in the first place.
"All over now," he said blandly. "There's a door behind you, so mission accomplished," he added quietly, his hair already hiding his eyes.
He sounded calm. Collected.
As if nothing had happened in the first place.
.
.
.
tbc
.
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