A/N: First of all, thank you all so, so much for your patience! I am touched by the amount of attention that this fic has been getting. Now we're back!
ALSO ARE ALL OF YOU EXCITED TO SEE YUUJI IN THE ANIME NEXT EPISODE I CAN'T WAIT!
Yuuji ran forward, his arms outstretched toward a distant figure. "Wait!"
He called out for them to stop. Four additional heads turned, but Yuuji was only focused on the one. Her skirt was a plaid pattern, red as a bulls-eye. He couldn't let this slip away. His pride burned hot inside his chest.
Yuuji started talking. He offered to show the girls his 'special dance'—beginning immediately to shake his head from side-to-side while shimmying his shoulders.
The girls stared back. Each of their expressions held one clear message: Not Interested.
Yuuji grinned. His knees kicked up. He moved in time to the beat, shifting and flowing into each step, moving with the ease of one who had been watching people dance in clubs since he was six. The girls weren't responding, but that was alright. If he kept this up, he would surely win their-
There was a 'ping' as Yuuji's elbow hit against something hard.
He turned to see a foreigner standing there, some man who was tall and blonde, wearing jewelry along with mirrored sunglasses. A pint of beer was soaking into his leopard-skin coat.
The fear didn't fully hit until the man's fists came to Yuuji's shirt. They shook Yuuji back and forth until his head bobbed. The man growled into Yuuji's face, saying he'd better pay up. Yuuji stuttered, trying to twist his face away. God, that man's teeth looked awfully sharp.
One strong hand grabbed Yuuji's cheeks, digging into his skin. The man sneered out a price—one million, three million? Yuuji didn't care; it wasn't as important as escaping with his life. Suddenly nothing seemed more important than that. A lot of super-dangerous types frequented this hotel, and Yuuji had a good idea of what this guy could do to him. He heard himself relent, muttering something about his father paying for it, so sorry, just don't hit-
Movement on the left.
The girl's kick hit the man in the chin. She bent at the waist, swinging her entire body like a pendulum almost too fast for Yuuji to see. Her foot was sent smashing into the side of the man's head, jerking his neck to the side. His eyes rolled back in his head as he fainted. Two other girls were suddenly there, waiting to catch him with a soft grunt.
Yuuji's jaw dropped open. He stared at the girls as if they had just appeared from flying saucers.
One of their group members called over a hotel employee. She directed them to the fainted man, saying that he had passed out. The employee carried the man away, mumbling something about overdosing and company liability.
Immediately, the girls turned their attention onward. One of them beckoned to the others. Another bent down in front of Yuuji and whispered for him to get back to the dance floor, and to keep quiet about what he saw. He couldn't form words to answer.
It had all gone off like a well-oiled machine. Planned. Quick. Too quick for normal middle-schoolers. With one smooth turn, the five had faced away from him and already moved on to the next stage.
Yuuji hadn't noticed his legs giving out, but the next thing he knew, he was down on the floor with his back pressed against one of the club walls. He watched the girls leave, their skirts swishing in time. His gaze stayed frozen in fear. They…they could knock a guy out with one hit?
Who were these people?
"Yeah, it's so easy for girls to be cool," came a voice, coupled with a breathy laugh. "But guys need to try so hard to act like it."
Yuuji blinked, noticing a figure standing in front of him. It was the girl that he had talked with earlier: Nagisa-chan.
She looked down at him and smiled. "It sucks, right? Being a guy."
That was the first time he had seen it—a bright smile that seemed to light up the room, filling his vision and making everything else fade into the background. Lips that curved into an honest grin. Eyes squeezed shut with happiness. A hint of embarrassment that only made it all the more sweet. A levity that made Yuuji, despite the entire situation, feel like he wanted to join in the laughter too. It was a face that exuded a feeling of warmth, like the onset of summer.
Yuuji's breath hitched. He felt a warm blush burst over his cheeks and settle there. His heart fluttered as if it wanted to fly right out of his ribs.
Nagisa said something more about trying to act cool, and something about how choosing something other than drugs or dancing would be nice.
Then she turned and ran, taking his heart with her.
Yuuji sat up. He stared after where she had gone. 'Nagisa-chan…' he whispered.
He was left sitting there against the wall, staring off into space. His expression was blank. It was as if he did not want to even look away from where she had once been, trying to hold on to every last bit of her.
After a few minutes, without looking down at all, one hand drifted toward his pocket.
He would throw away the blunts. No high could possibly compare.
Yuuji's feet pounded against the ground as the summer memory faded.
He had run through the same side door after Nagisa, and now found himself in what looked like a back alleyway. His eyes flicked around, trying to orient himself.
The walls were dirty brown around him. The streets here were mostly clean, although grime collected at the corners. Two large dumpsters passed by on Yuuji's right as he ran. The short fenced-in pathway soon led out to a larger corridor, stretching onward to either side. Lanterns hung unlit on the walls. There was not a hint of blue in sight.
"Tch…" Yuuji scowled. He looked from side to side. With barely a second's thought, he dashed right. This way was closest to where the blast had come from.
After a few moments more, a low, brown building appeared up ahead.
The structure was made entirely of wood, with what looked like sliding paper doors lining its sides. It appeared to be some sort of storage shed. Some tiles had clattered down from its rooftop. A broom stood propped up against the front wall. Judging by the stained handle, it had not been used in a long time. The shed's body was wide, and it leaned towards the back of the restaurant like a child reaching for its mother.
From where Yuuji was, he could see that the main door was slightly open.
Yuuji slowed down as he approached, each breath tearing at his throat. God, he hated running.
Once he came to the building's front, he paused. Yuuji glanced around the side—should he keep going? No, he thought. It looked like there was a dead end up ahead. That settled it. If Nagisa really had gone this way, this was the only other place he could be.
The shed's wooden frame loomed above him. Yuuji gulped, ignoring the chill that ran up his spine.
Yuuji reached out to take hold of the paper door and carefully pulled it to the side. Slowly, he slipped through the opening.
It was quiet inside the shed.
The air here was thinner than Yuuji had expected. Still, it tasted of oldness and molded food. He clutched the strap of his bag across his chest, gripping it with both hands while he looked around. There were stacks and shelves everywhere, filled to the brim with tools, broken-down equipment, and bags upon bags piled on top of each other. A layer of dust and pale dirt coated every surface. But, he noticed, not the floor.
Yuuji took a few steps inward. Even the dust motes remained still, moving only when scuffed to the side by his shoes. All of the junk crowding this place made it somewhat difficult to navigate. The tall shelves obscured his vision, forcing Yuuji to lean to the sides to look around them.
He blinked at one shelf as he passed. There was some dangerous-looking stuff here, too. Tubes grouped together in a pile, and what looked like wires poking out of the top of one bag hidden in the shadows… When Yuuji looked toward the far side of the room, he saw a pair of thick gloves poking out from behind a box. From what he could see, they looked free of dust. He frowned. Did the restaurant do its own electrical repairs?
It was all too quiet.
The thought dawned on Yuuji that he had a reason for being here. He stopped his feet after passing the next shelf. "Hello?" he called.
No answer. The shed was still.
He tried again. "Hello? Is anybody here?" He paused. "Nagisa?"
Yuuji took a breath. "Nagiiiisa-"
Movement.
Or not movement, but a sort of intangible shift—a tremor through the very air around him. Suddenly Yuuji knew he wasn't safe. Not 'felt'. 'Knew'. A deep ancestral fear pooled in his bones. The hair on his arms raised as if it also had sensed what his mind could not: the hint of bloodlust.
The shadowy shape of a man rose behind him, where Yuuji could barely see. Somehow, without looking, he knew what was there. The figure was tall, with a black coat and gloves that made his image a blur, and two sharp eyes glaring out from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. In the corner of Yuuji's eye, the man's arms were pulled back, a pipe raised to strike. But Yuuji's mind wasn't working fast enough. Only 3 milliseconds had passed, and his gut was screaming at him that he would be killed, there was death somewhere behind him, he was going to die—
WHAM!
Someone tackled the man from the side. The two figures went sprawling past Yuuji, crashing to the floor.
"Ah!" Yuuji leapt away, his every nerve feeling like it sparked with electricity. The man! He was real! He had fallen out of Yuuji's daydream nightmares and straight into reality, thumping there with his black gloves against the floor.
Yuuji gaped. That split-second vision—it hadn't just been his imagination. The sweat on his skin ran cold. Somehow, he had been saved.
The next thing Yuuji noticed was a head of blue hair.
It was Nagisa. The boy struggled for a few seconds more with the man before breaking away and tucking himself into a roll. He sprang up to his feet. Nagisa spared only a glace at Yuuji, shocked brown eyes meeting focused blue. "Yuuji?!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
Yuuji backed up against a shelf, the wood pressing painfully into his shoulders. "I…I…"
He couldn't say that he had wanted to see him. He couldn't tell Nagisa about how he had gotten the feeling that this time, if he left, their paths might never cross again. And how that thought had been unbearable. Yuuji couldn't do anything but stare now at the scene unfolding in front of him.
The shadowed man had also come back up in a flash. Him and Nagisa were now a few paces away, standing in a gap between two major lines of shelves.
Yuuji had imagined a fire starting at the back of the restaurant. He had pictured a boiler blown out. What he had never expected to see was Nagisa standing with a knife in his hand.
Nagisa and the man faced off. The two figures stood like mirror images, both of them poised. Nagisa was on the right, while the man had his back to Yuuji. A look of sharp concentration was on Nagisa's face. And… oh God. That green, pointed thing in Nagisa's hand…was that a real knife?
Yuuji did the only thing that seemed natural. He screamed.
"H-Hieeeeeeee!"
Yuuji stumbled backwards on instinct, tripping over his own two feet. He fell down hard on his butt. One of his feet kicked against a shelf, causing the whole structure to tremble.
The shelf wobbled, its overloaded top swaying back and forth. The top row of pots and pans swung over to hit a neighboring rack. That shelf moved in turn, smacking into another. Then another. Then another.
From the next one that was hit, a sack full of wires dropped down. It landed in front of the two fighters with an enormous CRACK.
The man flinched. Nagisa recovered just a split-second faster.
Nagisa tackled the man. He drove an elbow into the figure's gut, causing the person to bite out a groan.
With one powerful thrust of a hand, the man wrenched himself free of Nagisa. But he didn't lunge forward. Instead, he turned and scrambled to his feet, holding one hand to his stomach as he raced for the door.
Nagisa let him go. The boy stayed crouched, watching like a panther as the man left. His eyes followed the man as he charged through the opening. Silently, Nagisa's mouth traced a few words as he counted down on his fingers: 'Three…two…one…'
There was an eruption of noise from outside. A muffled rattle came from the roof, as if people had jumped down onto the man from atop the shed. There was a series of thumps, followed by a bought of muffled screaming. Then, silence.
Nagisa heaved a sigh of relief. He stood up. "Well. That was exciting."
Yuuji sat on the ground, quaking, staring. His hands dug into the floorboards. His bag felt heavy against his side. He stared up at Nagisa, the boy in a waiter's uniform, who now seemed so terrifying.
Nagisa looked down at him. His gaze was calm and cold. There wasn't a hint of warmth in his face. "You weren't supposed to see that," he said.
Yuuji's head swam. Thoughts and images passed by—a black coat, a pipe, a knife, sacks of wires, and skilled, fast strikes. Suddenly nothing made any sense. Visions of Nagisa swirled in his head, of the boy, the boy that had seemed so small and quiet, standing poised there with a weapon, standing with a strength Yuuji never knew he had, holding off a man at least twice his own size….
Yuuji swallowed. He said the only thing that came to mind. "Nagisa, are…are you being targeted? Do you need help?" his voice croaked.
He reached out towards the other boy, fingers trembling. "Look, if…if you got mixed up in something, something bad, it's okay. I can… I'll do something. With my father's influence and enough cash, maybe…maybe…"
Nagisa blinked back. The boy's expression held slight confusion, fading fast into amusement.
Then he laughed. Nagisa actually laughed, hiding his mouth behind one hand to let out small, stifled sounds. "That's very nice of you, Yuuji," he said. "But that won't be necessary."
Yuuji didn't understand. The seconds seemed to tick by as if made of molasses—as if he were trapped in a dream world, where everything was inside-out. His breaths sounded loud inside the fog of his mind. He fought to hold back a rising panic. This wasn't funny at all!
"Uh…let's see, how to explain this?" Nagisa said, fidgeting with the weapon in his hand.
Nagisa glanced off to the side. "I guess we couldn't keep it a secret forever," he muttered to himself. "Someone was bound to find out eventually…" Then a sigh. "That's what you get for always showing up around me."
A secret? What secret? Yuuji's mind spun, trying to form coherent thoughts.
There were a few more thumps from outside. The earth crunched as if trodden by feet. Through the paper-screen doors, the sounds of muttered conversation could be heard.
"Nagisa? What's going on?" Yuuji squeaked.
Nagisa smiled at him. "I'm sorry, Yuuji. Let's just say that me being a guy isn't the most surprising thing about me."
A buzzing sound pierced the air, making them both jump.
As Yuuji brought one hand to his chest, checking that he hadn't actually jumped out of his skin, Nagisa brought one hand to his waist. He took a phone out from one pocket and looked at it for moment. Then he held it up, pressing a button.
"Whoo-hoo! We did it, guys!"
"Takebayashi, you deactivated all of the remaining bombs, right?"
"Obviously. They were no match for me and Akane-chan."
"Dude, naming your computer is really kind of creepy."
"Don't get so cocky, Nakamura. Your group didn't do crap!"
"Well I can't help it that I make such a cute waitress! The customers all loved me. Besides, it's Megu's fault for stationing us so far from the action."
"Quiet, all of you. Target retrieved. Terasaka and I are removing him to the car now."
"Roger that, Itona. Containment team, initiate clean-up procedures. We can all chat later."
A chorus of "Yes, Isogai."
"Roger," Nagisa said into the mouthpiece. Then he hung up and placed the phone back in its holster.
For a moment, Nagisa stayed facing away. His face was hesitant, as if judging how much to say. His eyes flicked to Yuuji and then back.
Then, after a few seconds, Nagisa nodded. He turned to Yuuji. "Alright. You said that you want to know what's going on?"
Dully, Yuuji nodded back. It felt like shock had carved itself permanently into the lines on his face.
Nagisa let out a long sigh. "Then, here goes everything."
He sat down in front of Yuuji. "Basically, all of that stuff you saw there? Forget it. You can never tell anyone what you saw, or the things that you're about to hear. Also…" He fixed Yuuji with a direct stare. "If I tell you everything now, then you can never go back. You might wish to return to the way things were before. You might wish to forget. But that can never happen. Are you okay with that?"
The thoughts in Yuuji's mind were still slightly blurred as they came. But he understood one thing well enough—there was Nagisa, sitting in front of him now. One path led to understanding more about him. The other did not.
Yuuji forced himself to nod.
Nagisa smiled. "Thought so," he muttered.
Nagisa took a deep breath. "My friends and I are part of a unique…program. We're training for something super-secret. The government has forbidden us to tell anyone about it, even our family and friends." He frowned, as if realizing how short the explanation was. "So I'm sorry, but that's all I can say about it now."
He folded his hands in his lap. "I'll try to answer all of your questions."
Questions? Yuuji's mind spun with the idea of picking just one.
He cleared his throat. "Are…are you really Nagisa?"
The other boy blinked back. "Um. Yes. I can remember everything about the time we met on the island, if you need proof."
"N-no, that's fine," Yuuji said, waving one hand to dismiss the question. He didn't even know why he had asked. "That's enough."
He shook his head, trying to steady his thoughts. "You're…a soldier?"
"Technically, assassin."
Yuuji blinked. The gears in his mind jerked to a halt. That was not computing. The input would not enter his brain. It was too illogical. This was Nagisa, this was gentle, kind Nagisa-
This was Nagisa who had just held someone off in a knife fight.
He took a shuddering breath. "Okay. Okay. An assassin. You mean like…killing people?" Yuuji had the sudden thought of Nagisa putting something in his napkins or food, even though he had ended up never ordering anything. With a start, he realized that he probably wouldn't have even noticed.
"Yes- No!" Nagisa said in a hurry. "We have a target. A mission. But we aren't being taught to kill human beings, I promise." His face took on a softer look, as if thinking back on some sort of memory. "No. We aren't being taught that at all."
"Really?"
Nagisa nodded.
This couldn't be real. Yuuji had a momentary feeling of floating. Maybe that was it. Maybe this was all a dream. He brought one hand up and pinched his cheek.
Yow! He winced, blinking tears out of his eyes. Nope. Nagisa was still there. And Yuuji wasn't sure if he was relieved or frightened by the sight.
"So, who was that guy just now?" he asked.
"A rival assassin." Nagisa said that word so easily—like it didn't have years of history attached to it, or blood soaked into its every letter. "He was hired by somebody to take out our mark, but we couldn't let that happen. He was starting to get too close, and it was kind of distracting from our lessons. Plus, our tulip garden got uprooted. Again. We had to send a message." Nagisa shrugged. "Besides, Karasuma-sensei made it extra credit."
"Extra credit?"
Nagisa winced. At least it seemed he had the decency to realize how little sense he was making.
"Fine, forget it," Yuuji said. "And, uh, those people?" He pointed weakly to the ceiling and then Nagisa's phone.
"My classmates."
Yuuji blinked. "Your classmates. Right."
Images of Kunugigaoka Middle School floated through Yuuji's head. He couldn't remember much about Nagisa's classmates from his time at the school festival, but the school hadn't seemed like a place for crazies.
Or maybe… Suddenly a memory came to Yuuji with a flash. There had been two weird men, hadn't there? They had popped out of the bushes, both of them with foreign accents, and said strange things to some other guy. Yuuji had nearly forgotten, given how he had spent most of his festival time with Nagisa. He frowned. Come to think of it, it might have been Nagisa who explained them away at the time, too…
Yuuji felt his face pull even further into shock. Crap. Maybe this story really was plausible.
"They're in the program with me. All of this is, of course, top-secret," Nagisa explained. He knelt besides Yuuji and put away the knife. Upon closer inspection, Yuuji could see that it wasn't made of metal—just some sort of reinforced rubber.
"Look, I can't tell you what we do," Nagisa said. "But if it bothers you, I can promise one thing: I am safe."
"Safe?" Yuuji burst out. "But with what happened just now…"
Nagisa shrugged. "I had the training for it, didn't I?"
Yuuji fell quiet. After a moment's pause, he spoke again. "You're not in danger?" For some reason, his mind seemed to seize on this. He might not fully understand what all of this meant, but as long as Nagisa was safe, that was all his mind needed in order to feel satisfied.
Nagisa smiled back. "Nope." His eyes were open, as if trying to convince Yuuji of his honesty. There was a faint flash somewhere deep within, as if that 'nope' had been followed with the thought of 'most of the time'.
Still, it was a smile just as gentle as all of his others.
Yuuji groaned. "…You really aren't lying."
"Nope." Nagisa replied again.
A long silence fell.
Then, Yuuji let out a bitter laugh. "So, the guy who I thought was a girl is not only actually a guy, but also some kind of…secret-soldier-in-training. Great. Just great."
He didn't know how to react. His emotions were all over the place. Yuuji felt everything bubbling up inside of him like an acid volcano, and for a moment felt tempted to just ride away on the tide. Maybe this was the brink of hysteria.
Nagisa looked down at the ground, his expression regretful, as if he had just been caught stealing from the cookie jar. An unknown emotion flashed through Yuuji's chest. He looked so…goddamn normal. "Pretty much," Nagisa said.
There was another pause. Then Nagisa looked up. His gaze slid momentarily towards the door, still left open. "Are you going to run away again?"
Nagisa's pose was relaxed. If Yuuji did, it didn't seem like he would stop him.
Yuuji sat motionless for a moment. He stared off in a daze, looking blankly back towards the doorframe. It held the light inside itself, shining through the opening like a beacon. Out there was light and warmth. In here was...
Yuuji sat up. "No," he said, and the resolve in his voice surprised even him. "I'm not going to run away from anything about you anymore."
"I-I mean…" he said, embarrassed. "That didn't turn out so well for me last time. For us." He took a breath. "And I'm not going to leave you alone like that ever again."
Nagisa looked surprised. Then—was Yuuji imagining it?—a bit touched. Nagisa looked down, his bangs hiding a small smile.
The boy stood, turning away to take out his phone. He spoke into it. From where Yuuji sat on the floor, he couldn't quite see, but it looked as if Nagisa was just speaking to the home screen.
"Ritsu, put my name down on the rollcall," Nagisa said. "Let everyone know I'm alright. I'll just be going home a little early today."
"Roger that, Nagisa," chirped a voice. "Approximately 27 congratulatory messages await your return."
Nagisa hung up. He turned around and held out a hand. "Well, if you're still willing to trust me after all that, then come here," he said, a familiar lighthearted-ness returning to his voice. "Let's get you home."
Yuuji blinked. Or hesitated. He wasn't sure which. The image of the girl he had met in the club mixed with the figure of the boy now standing in front of him. The two thoughts merged, colliding together and dissolving into a different, unfamiliar shape-
He reached up and took Nagisa's hand.
Afterword: Three guesses as to where the name "Akane-chan" came from. ;) Hint: It was in a previous series by Matsui Yuusei, the creator of Assassination Classroom.