"..." A vaguely metalic sheen was attached to this persons skin, the coppery sheen rippling in the light as they turned towards Akaashi. The whole fear thing was sort of off balance due to the whole office setting, down the the dulled tiles under Akaashi's sneakers.
"..." Akaashi blinked, and they did too, rather owlishly. It seemed like some sort of greeting.
"You won't do it again." He was pretty sure they were talking about him toppling from one of the upper levels of one of Tokyo's vast shopping malls. Not exactly his fault, but okay.
"No."
"Good. I can fix it."
"How?"
"You only get to die when I say so."
"That's sort of selfish of you." A razorblade smile opened their lips, revealing shark like teeth of tungsten.
"I try." One of the arms lifted- it was only then Akaashi noticed it wasn't exactly attached so much as it hovered by their shoulder- and patted his hair fondly. "Most cases do not make it to thirteen without incident. I am rather proud of you."
"There are other cases?"
"Hmm. My favorites outside of my own cases include a girl that drowned forty for times in half a day, a boy who stabbed himself repeatedly just to flirt with his handler, and someone who managed to get themselves shot over two hundred times in one month. Oh, but they were in a top ranked mafia famiglia, so it was to be expected, I suppose." They turned their eyes back to him, stern glare suddenly furrowing their brow. "I do not like to deal with such things myself, but you have been good so far."
"I try to be, for my own sake."
"Good. You will have your own trouble to deal with soon enough, anyway. Damn owls."
"Owls?" But he was back in the shopping mall, this time rather careful to put his mother between himself and the guardrail. He would look back, two years from then, and sigh exasperated. The damn metal person had know Bokuto was going to run into him, and hadn't had the decency to actually prepare him for the colossal pain in the ass Bokuto could be. Damn owls indeed.