One Truth: Part 1
Late afternoon sunlight filtered into the living room through the closed blinds and caught the red-gold highlights in Sherry's auburn hair from where she lay on top of Gin. The both of them were on the couch, cuddling with and holding each other after their lovemaking. In opposition to the previous two occasions where Sherry had taken the antidote to spend time with her lover, they'd only shared one round and it was by far the calmest they'd been since the initial separation about a year ago. Sherry's cheek rested against Gin's chest hearing his heartbeat and Gin's fingers carefully picked at strands of her hair to hold up to the afternoon light, admiring the bright glow around them.
"I love you," he murmured softly under his breath and raised his head just enough to kiss the top of hers.
As soon as he lay back down against the couch pillow, Sherry turned her head and smiled serenely up at him. "Not more than I do," she said. Apparently, he hadn't spoken quietly enough, and she heard him.
She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, chaste and tender and so very sweet. When the kiss ended, she slid back a bit to see his whole face and she casually stroked the back of her fingers along his jawline.
"You look strange with stubble," she commented.
"Good strange or bad strange?" he asked.
Sherry pursed her lips and her brow furrowed. "I want to say 'bad', but I'm not sure if that's because I know you haven't been taking care of yourself or because you genuinely don't look good with it."
"I suppose it would be in my best interest to shave then?" Gin suggested.
She smiled and nodded sharply. "Yes. And to bathe while you're at it because you smell rank. If I hadn't been so scared and worried for you, I'm pretty sure I would have passed out from the stink alone when I first hugged you earlier."
All Gin could smell at the moment was sweat and sex, but he knew she had to be right. The last bath he confidently remembered taking was back when he was in Germany which was an uncomfortably long time ago as far as personal hygiene was concerned.
"Might as well since I'm already naked," Gin agreed as he placed his hands on Sherry's hips and moved her back enough for him to be able to sit up.
She slid off of him and sat on the far end of the couch while Gin swung his legs around and planted his feet firmly on the ground. He stood in one fluid motion and felt his long hair fall into place down his back and thighs as he made his way towards the back of his apartment where the bathroom was. He hadn't gone more than ten steps though when he heard running feet and then felt a body collide with his back while small arms wrapped around his waist.
"You took care of me when Akemi died and I didn't want to live, so let me take care of you now. I can help you wash your back if nothing else," Sherry said.
At any other time, Gin might have teasingly suggested that she could help wash him in other places too, but today, he didn't have it in him and only smiled gratefully while he glanced back over his shoulder at her.
"It's unfair of you to hug me from behind where I can't reach you, Shiho," he chided playfully.
Immediately, Sherry came around to his left side, smiling encouragingly up at him. He gently wrapped his arm around her waist, effectively pinning her against him, and they resumed walking together to the bathroom for a much-needed soak.
()()()()()
The warm afternoon transformed into a humid evening, darkness set in fully and the only light illuminating Karasuma's office was the single desk lamp that its owner was both writing and reading by.
A sudden knock on the door broke the tranquil atmosphere created by the soft pen scratches and key taps, and Karasuma glanced up. He moved his hand over to the cane resting against the desk and gripped the pommel. "Come in." The door opened and Karasuma's eyebrows rose a small margin. "Now this is a surprise. I didn't expect you to come back in to work for another week at most, Gin."
His tall, long-haired executive agent of General Oversight glowered and said, "It makes me sick to think of that woman roaming free for even a second longer with my sister's blood on her hands. I will have my vengeance, sir. It's the least I'm owed."
Karasuma exhaled softly and nodded as he leaned back in his chair. "I agree. There is at least a small percentage of culpability on my part for this tragedy occurring."
"Sir?" Gin said inquisitively with an expression to match.
"I dismissed your concerns regarding Vermouth's recent behavior as the product of your emotions, both your animosity towards her and your fear for Sherry's safety. I chose not to look further than that and arrogantly presumed that I had much more control over her than I actually did. To that extent, this is my fault, and I'm sorry," Karasuma said and bowed his head slightly.
When he raised his head again, Gin looked both puzzled and shocked. "Sir, I… You don't have to bow to me…"
"I believe you're wrong there, Gin," Karasuma countered as he stood up from his desk and slowly walked around to the front before the young man. "I may be old and getting senile, but I still vividly remember the first day I met you and your sister. You were both so thin and desperate for a reprieve, but so wary of being taken advantage of. What still stands out to me about that first meeting is the way you instantly shoved Emma behind you and stood protectively in front of her to block my view the moment you saw me after having attempted to knock me unconscious and rob me. As violent and paranoid as I've known you to be in the years you've worked for me, your first instinct has always been to protect your loved ones, which I know is where your fierce devotion to the Organization and I is born from."
As Karasuma drew closer, he could see the way Gin's jaw tightened and his breathing was both heavier and louder, and he turned abruptly so Karasuma couldn't see his emotional reaction anymore.
"I recruited you two and have watched you finish growing with both pride and frustration at times. You were minors for only the first two years you were here, but I still felt partially responsible for you." He reached out and laid a gentle hand on Gin's left shoulder. "But I was too stubborn and certain I was right to listen to you and your sister paid the price."
All of a sudden, hands clapped down on both his wrists and Gin spun around, twisting both their arms across the chest. The cane fell from Karasuma's loosened grip and before it even hit the floor, Gin had gripped both his wrists in one hand, flicked his right hand, and stabbed something long and thin into his neck before Karasuma even had a chance to react properly to defend himself. The result was immediate. Karasuma felt his body starting to go numb from the neck downwards and the effect was spreading fast. Already he was losing feeling in his own arms and his mind was becoming sluggish, like an evening fog slowly rolling in from the ocean.
"You… you're not Gin…" Karasuma bit out furiously with tremendous effort at the likeness of the blonde agent who'd withdrawn a few feet after stabbing him and was surveying him with interest. He was still holding the empty syringe in his hands.
'Gin' chuckled and Karasuma watched in shock as Gin's features started shifting. Not just his face either, but his whole body. The hair darkened a little and shrank to the middle of the back. The bangs shortened and parted and the hair grew new waves and curls. The eyes lightened to turquoise and grew bigger and the lips became a bright purple. He shrank several inches as did his shoulders and the waistline reduced, but the upper chest expanded and rounded, and so did the hips. The turtleneck seemed to constrict and flatten directly into the skin then became flesh-colored just like the dress pants did. The dress shoes' color remained, but they narrowed and rose at the heel which also narrowed considerably. The trench coat followed suit, tightening against the body in the arms and chest. The hem shortened to the knees and the parting meshed itself seamlessly together as though it had never been two pieces. The black sash that Gin used as a belt became a proper belt with a silver-colored metal buckle and tightened just above the hips, then the top part of the coat melted from black to mauve with airy frills around the wrist cuffs and the deep v-cut of the neckline.
"You know, Renya, this was quite a risky gamble on my part," Vermouth began with a coy smile. "As the founder of the Men in Black's Japanese branch, I wasn't entirely certain that even my newest mind serum would be effective against you, what with you being around since the beginning and your body being kept alive due to the alien drugs you're taking that could have interfered with the effects, but this outcome definitely makes things easier for me. You can thank my addition of Sherry's Apoptoxin to the formula; it was exactly what I needed to work out the kinks in the version of the drug I used on Curaçao."
A squeaking sound reached her ears and she whirled around sharply. The office door was partially open and there was someone standing there. They took off and their footsteps echoed as they ran, but the brief glimpse she'd gotten was more than enough. A man wearing a black suit and hat with sunglasses covering the eyes.
()()()()()
"Come on, Aniki, pick up, pick up, pick up!" Vodka muttered frantically as he started dialing Gin's phone number while he ran and his brain played back what he just saw.
Vermouth! Vermouth looking like Gin and stabbing a syringe full of the mind control serum into 'that person's' neck! And she saw him! She had to have! But even if she didn't, all she had to do was look out the door and she would see him because there was no one else in the hall! The only reason he was even here at this time was because he'd wanted to let the boss know personally that Gin was going to start getting better now. The only strategy Vodka had right now was putting as much distance as possible between himself and Vermouth and inform Gin of what he just saw.
He brought the phone to his ear after he finished dialing, and his heart sank when it skipped the ringing and went straight to voicemail. He remembered Gin mentioning that his phone battery was probably dead, but he'd hoped Gin would have taken care of that by now!
As soon he heard the beep, he launched straight into the message, "Aniki, it's me! I'm at HQ and Vermouth's here! I just saw her inject the mind drug into 'that person'! She turned into you to get close to him and now he's under her control! She's probably gonna use him to subdue other high-ranking staff and control the entire Organization too!"
Vodka hung up the call when thwack! A powerful blow suddenly struck him in the back of the head. His phone flew out of his hands and he fell forward stunned and seeing stars. He couldn't move, but he saw his phone lying a few feet away. He tried to reach for it even as his vision grew fuzzy and dark around the edges.
The last thing he saw was a pair of high-heeled black shoes come into view and a fingernail-painted hand delicately pick it up, then he heard an irritated female voice say, "You wretched little fool! If I didn't think you'd be more useful to me alive, I'd kill you right here and now and leave your mangled corpse for Gin to find for forcing me to hasten my plan to the next phase already."
I honestly wasn't sure whether to end this chapter here or not. It was either here or at a different point, both of which are natural cutoffs, but there's going to be a lot of unpacking to do with that section and I didn't know how long it would take, so... especially with COVID-19 still keeping people inside, I decided to at least give this much since I could. 2000 words is on the shorter end for me, especially with this story, but it still feels like a decent amount of material. It's over 1000 anyway, which is always my goal with chapters and oneshots.