Yami laid down horizontally across the couch, knowing it was a waiting area for someone's office, but he didn't care. He kept the water bottle tucked under one arm while he carelessly tossed the dog toy up down in the air.

He knew the class would be slow to open up to him, and he didn't mind that either. It reminded him that he needed to build human connections with other people, like his therapist suggested.

Inside the conference room, Anzu was being interrogated by her co-workers.

"Are you friends with him? You two seem really close!"

"You let him just pick you up like that! Are you not scared?"

Anzu crossed her arms with a huff and said confidently, "he's my friend. Really. You can trust him. He's really sweet deep down, and believe me when I say he has zero interest in women." She narrowed her eyes specifically at Makino-san and the woman nodded anxiously.

"I didn't really read his file," she said with a tense shrug. "Half of it was blacked out and the warning was 'violence' so I didn't read it..."

"Well he has no reason to be violent here, when he has our best interests at heart," Anzu said with a nod, knowing that sounded outrageous, but the Yami she'd been hanging out with in the past year had made her change her tune about the assassin.

Unable to look her co-workers in the eye anymore, Anzu turned to exit the room, seeing Yami lounging casually on the couch, and she moved to sit next to him, trying to catch the dog toy when it rose in the air, but he sat up to catch it.

"Too slow," Yami smirked and Anzu gave him a tired smile.

"They're fucking scared of you," Anzu said quietly seeing some people exit the conference room and head to the elevators to use a bathroom on another floor. "I thought it would go better."

"It's going great," Yami said with a reassuring pat on her knee. "They see you acting familiar with me, and that should help. Drink something, won't you?"

Anzu grimaced and nodded, rising to her feet to grab a refreshment.

The only two men from the group cautiously approached and bowed tentatively.

"Sir," the muscle-man wouldn't make eye contact. "I hope you won't be offended by my desire to quit your class after the first lesson. I don't find the tactics useful... and I think my spot would be better off filled with someone like...my daughter, or another co-worker of mine who is smaller than me. I'm the biggest guy in my group. I don't need this training."

"To be honest, I feel the same way!" The taller man bowed and looked Yami bravely in the face. "Our department heads sent us here, thinking you'd be teaching combat...secrets. I was just speaking with Makino-san, and even she thinks my 9-year-old girl would benefit from this. N-Not the firearm part, but-but everything else. Especially if you will be teaching hostile grips towards women, I'd like to sit in and learn...f-from you please."

Yami gave them a lazy wave. Good riddance.

"Clear it with whoever lets you in and out of this building," Yami lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm not in charge. I'm..." he lifted the badge from around his neck. "Asset 1. I don't have any responsibility. Good day."

He closed his eyes and tucked his hands behind his head.

Anzu let out an amused huff and stayed by the table, peeling an orange, watching the two men stand awkwardly and shuffle away.

"I mean I told people you were teaching 'small-person' defense," Anzu said loudly, tossing the peel into the trash with a backhanded throw. "Their department heads didn't listen and sent them here forcefully. Time wasters."

"Were your department heads men?" Yami asked knowingly, and Anzu growled, "yes."

"Then that's why," Yami smirked and didn't open his eyes. "Oppressive pigs."

He heard a gasp somewhere to his left, and he bit the inside of his cheek. Oops.

He was in the pigsty, so... maybe calling the cops pigs to their faces was a bad move.

Definitely a bad move.

"Yamiii..." Anzu growled, and she gave her co-worker a half smile. "Don't mind him! Gutter mouth!"

"But truth," Yami added, unable to help himself, and he received a soft gut-punch that made him curl up on instinct. "Hey! Unfair advantage."

"Get up, stop sleeping," she snapped, and she dropped an unfolded napkin across his face. "You have fruit bits all over you."

Yami palmed the napkin away from his face and sat up quickly, shrugging off his hoodie to drape it over his shoulders, walking back inside the conference room. The women had taken the chairs down and put them into groups according to their color, and Yami could appreciate that.

He scanned the room, counting 28 heads. Good.

A chair had been set up for him by the podium, so he quickly sat in it and crossed his legs, watching everyone settle in and remain respectfully silent, giving him their full attention.

"I'm glad we got rid of the two obvious intruders to these exercises," Yami said ruthlessly, giving one of his bangs a bored flick. "And I'm happy to see us all sitting in our groups. I'll explain the colors..."

Someone raised their hand politely, and Yami nodded at her.

"...Do you really care or...are you being...forced to do this?" She asked quietly, and Yami tilted her head at her with a small smile.

Right. His therapist had worked with him about this.
People would automatically be suspicious of him and he'd think it's something personal, when sometimes it wasn't.
Oftentimes it wasn't.

"If I was forced to be here, I wouldn't be here," Yami said with a truthful nod. "I was part of the process from the beginning, and Anzu here kept me updated with your careful selection over the past three months. My..." He paused and decided to say it, "...boyfriend even spent months helping me mentally prepare to teach a class. A highschooler taught me how to bow to a class. It was fun. I enjoy being here. Thank you for asking."

There was a stunned silence and Anzu, sensing the question already, piped up, "You could do better than him. I'll recommend some upstanding guys I know who would be interested."

"He hates you because you keep saying stuff like that," Yami replied blandly, sensing the room's atmosphere lightening. "I've already yielded two manicure days in a month. Keep fighting with him and see how that will impact our spa days."

Anzu let out another huff and rolled her eyes. Yeah whatever.

She was always going to butt heads with Seto Kaiba.

Now, did the playful banter work? Because everyone had been holding their breath.

"Anyway, our petty fighting aside," Yami held his hand up to playfully cover Anzu's face from his peripheral view, and she slapped him a high-five, making a few people giggle. "...which is still happening..." He closed his hand into a fist and rested it calmly on his knee to show that he was relaxed, "the groups you're in signify the weakness you need to be aware of. Ready?"

Heads nodded, and Yami addressed the red sticker group.

"Red leader, you and your team have the most issues," Yami said, deciding to go with the bad news first. "Your up-front defense was absolutely horrible. You screamed either on purpose or accident, then acted distressed and didn't maintain calm when the attack was in progress. Your fighting back was delayed. So you are my group to watch for first-instinct reactions."

He nodded at the green sticker tagged group and said, "green team, similar issue but you reacted faster, but not fast enough. You're my group to watch for following-through in your defenses."

The green team tensed, and Anzu looked down at her own nametag.

It was...yellow...

"Yellow team," Yami said easily, enjoying the attention. "You're lukewarm in all areas. Could use refinement. Don't get too confident. It just means you responded correctly, but I still managed to disarm you and no one came up with a way to efficiently disable me."

Solemn nods followed his words and Yami felt much better about everything.

"Today, was supposed to be a lecture, hence the tables and chairs," he said, taking out the dog toy and giving it a squeeze, making it squeak. "But since we are eager to learn, I will add a hands-on demonstration for every point. Let's talk grips."

There was a shuffle and the women dug notebooks or phones out of purses that were hanging off the chairs, and Yami felt a strange feeling swell in his chest.

Seto might be completely right, once again.

He loved teaching helpful tips.

The day breezed by pleasantly.

They had lunch catered, delivered by the two burly senior officers, and everyone ate in small groups, acting friendly and cheerful with each other. The mood had lightened drastically.

After Yami's lecture about his entire planned curriculum, others were quick to offer scenarios where Yami wrote down himself and decided to add it on.

It was things even he hadn't considered...because he wasn't a woman.

His tactics all corresponded with a small, compact body, and adult male strength.

Some women expressed they had issues racking their guns, and that was alarming, so he added that to the list of things to teach in the next few days.

They told him they were demoted or treated unfairly because of the racking issue, and Yami felt a flare of anger. It was merely improper training.

Not a matter of the gun, or even intelligence.

Several women even expressed they were afraid to move up a rank because it would involve gun training.

So Yami slipped into a full-disclosure incident where he told the women he'd been handling guns too big for his own hands at age 8, and still managed to disarm an enemy, so...it was a matter of training.

Everyone fell silent after that and paid even more attention.

Yami learned he didn't need to go through the bare-bones basics like 'how to make a fist', since everyone was already academy trained. It was the specialty-incident stuff.

Like being treated unfairly in a fight because they were women.

The class ended on a resonate chord where Yami worked himself up into a mini-rage about how larger men always had biases when seeing a smaller person, and would love to begin taking advantage, and he was received with vehement nods.

He emphasized that his size was great for tactical survival, and that everyone sitting before him had the ability to become top officer in their class...because if he could achieve it illegally, they could do it...legally.

Anzu had cracked a smile then.

When everyone stood up to leave at the end of his two-part lecture, the senior officers were waiting by the door with the men that had left the class earlier, and with them, were two children.

A little girl about the age of 14 and another even smaller girl, around the age 10, Yami guessed.

"Can we have 15 minutes?" The muscle-man begged, and more than half the class stayed to see what Yami would say. A couple of women had to leave, and they threw anxious looks over their shoulders, looking like they wanted to stay as well.

"Sure," Yami said with a shrug, taking a swing from his water bottle, quite invigorated with the attention. "I won't teach children firearm tactics. That is against my beliefs."

There were tense smiles in the room, and the men looked stunned for a moment before replying, "no, no. The...carrying-style defense. Can you show her? Or demonstrate on Miss Anzu again?"

"Nope. Tired," Anzu said with a wave of her hand over her nose. "Pick someone else."

The two girls stood silently side by side, eyeing Yami's appearance with careful eyes.

A rock star.

With styled hair, earrings, rings, eyeliner, bracelets and everything.

"I'll do it," the red-team leader stood to volunteer. "Nice to meet you. You may call me Ohara-san." She bowed to the two girls, and the girls bobbed their heads back nervously. "No need to be afraid of...Mr. Yami here. He's a nice guy."

All the men in the doorway tensed, and Yami smiled widely, sensing their discomfort.

"Okay, take a seat," Yami said as he gestured for them to take any vacated seat. "Hurry now, please. Everyone has been here all day already."

That seemed to make the girls move faster, and they quickly sat down in the nearest seats, acting nervous and unwilling.

"Your dad's force you to be here?" Yami asked knowingly, not looking at the guards by the door. "We can make them leave. I find them annoying."

The girls cracked a smile and the men in the doorway protested "HEY!"

"Papa can stay," the older girl declared, pointing at the chair beside her, and the taller man moved obediently to sit beside her, his hands formally atop his knees. The muscle-man followed suit and the moment he sat down, he was kicked out of his seat and made to move to the back by another woman.

Yami smirked and reached his hand out to shake the red-team leader's hand. She grasped his hand warmly and gave him a relaxed grin. Good.

"Let's do the walking scenario," Yami said, eyeing the clock because he wanted to make sure he wasn't going on for another hour. "This is my friend's favorite defense, because she said it's most likely to happen if a creepy guy is following you. So we'll act it out here."

He walked to the far end of the room and felt the red team leader trot loyally behind him, and he started illustrating in his favorite way.

"We just had a date, or chances are, she knows me, I know her, we are boyfriend-girlfriend," he said, gesturing for her to step in front of him. She did, and glanced nervously behind her shoulder, thinking he was going to attack her.

"No. Just a simple wrist grab," he said reassuringly, and she nodded, facing forward again.

The room was deathly silent, with the guards in the doorway watching too.

"She's mad at me, or wants to leave our date. I don't want to let her, I'm in the wrong," Yami patted his chest and slowly stepped forward, asking Ohara-san to start. "Walk away fast like you're angry with me."

She strode forward with a firm motion, and Yami shot his arm out to grab her by the wrist, feeling her resist and then stop, waiting for his narration.

"So she..." he playfully shook her arm and she swayed in his grip. "And says, 'Let go of me, we're breaking up! You're a creep!' So I...pull her back to me harder and don't let go," he yanked her hand to his chest and clamped his other hand down on her wrist, "at this point, I'm holding both your hands, it is too late to retaliate when you had an opening earlier."

He let go and walked back to the starting point.

"Again, and this time, we'll perform the correct action," Yami said, and she walked back to stand in front, crossing her arms in a huff, pretending to be mad.

She strode forward without his cue so Yami reached out to grab her organically, calling out, "wait! Don't leave me!" And she spun around to grip his thumb, pausing to look at the girls, and Yami spoke, "if you can, grab his hand like this and..." His hand was flung off with force, and the officer dashed away.

People's heads nodded.

Yami stepped forward and grabbed the red-team leader again, holding her wrist and really using force, feeling her struggle comically and cry out, "let goooo! You're hurting me!"

"Other hand, palm-strike," Yami called, seeing a palm narrowly graze his nose, he angled his head back and looked straight again. "Too violent? In a crowded area?... Spin around to shin-kick...now!"

The officer kept her hand in his grip, slow-motion turned on her heel to rest her shoe against the tops of his shins. He let go, stumbled back, and charged forward again, picking her right up off the floor with his arms around her waist, and the girls gasped in fear.

The officer kicked and flailed comically against him, thumping her fists on his back while he said, "so he tried to overpower you like this, because he's so mad, so violent, what can you do now? I want an answer."

The girls shook their heads fearfully, so Yami walked closer to them to show them the tactical head grab, and when he finally set the officer down on her feet, the girls were pale-faced but alert, paying attention to his additional scenes.

"Last one, I want to emphasize, elbows," Yami tapped his own elbows and reached down to grab the officer's hand again. "I'm holding your hand and won't let go. You're walking away..."

The red team leader tried to walk away, but got yanked back. She skidded on her heels and drove her elbow down in slow-motion on his wrist, and Yami nodded approvingly.

She was great at it.

"Weak point, my hand doesn't release but my grip weakened, then..." Yami grabbed her hand to place it on his thumb. "Don't be afraid to touch him again to get free! Thumb wrench, then...front kick," the officer flung his hand off and pretended to kick him again, "scan the area for an opening..." she jerked her head to the side, and dashed away. "Run! …. Good."

Yami straightened up and rubbed his own wrist even though nothing hurt, and received polite applause. Aww...

"Hair grab! Run after her and do the hair grab assault!" Anzu cried, and Yami gave her a tired sigh. Really?!

"I'm tired," Yami declared, running a hand through his bangs with a small smile. "We'll wait for the soft mats to be delivered or wait until obstacle course days."

People shook their heads and whined audibly, "nooo... no... Please do it now."

Yami took a deep breath and bowed politely to the officer, "excuse me. I'll be grabbing your hair," he said and there was a round of laughter in the room.

The officer bowed half-way back to him while wrangling her hair up into a ponytail, and he braced himself to be tired today.

They went through the exercise well enough for the 14-year-old girl to step up and try it.

Slightly afraid, Yami's hand shook as he rested it on her shoulder, and people noticed.

"He's scared of you! Already!"

"Ana-chan! I can see him shaking!" The women were cheering them on and laughing.

"You can do it! He doesn't grab hard!"

The girl turned to give him a polite bow, and he bowed back, walking to the starting point and feeling very odd having her follow, then reenact walking in front of him.

He reached out and gave a verbal warning, "hey you there, pay attention to me!" And he dug his fingers into her hair tie, yanking back with half-strength and going slowly, seeing her tiny hands come up to lock around his wrist just as he'd taught, then she spun around and charged forward to shoulder him in the chest, sending him to the ground ass-first, where he skidded slightly on the shiny floors and he sat there, shocked.

Well...

Success.

"You weren't even grabbing!" She cried, her hair disheveled. "You just touched my hair! That's why you fell! ...Are you okay?!"

"Well I'm a cowardly criminal with a weak grip," Yami said with a smirk. "You win this one."

"No, go again," one of the women said sternly, standing at her chair and looping her purse over her shoulder. "I needed someone to teach me this at an age before I entered highschool. Do it again, please."

Feeling a bit worn out, Yami slowly got to his feet and did the exercise with the little girl again, making sure to grab harder and seeing her swing impressively around to give him the pretend-strikes to the nuts and shins. The 9-year-old took her turn doing the wrist grab, and finally, after that did the women consider the class to be over and start to leave.

He was exhausted.

Two weeks of this? It was a rewarding sort of exhaustion.

Everyone bowed to him on their way out, and the girls gave him thankful hand-shakes. He had a feeling they wanted to hug him, but their fathers were standing right there, exuding a hostile pressure.

"Oh! ...Firearm lecturing tomorrow," Yami cried to Anzu, but the class was already empty. "Can everyone bring their standard issue in so I can see what problems they're having?"

Anzu shrugged and picked her purse up to head out the door, "I'll send out an email. You were awesome today."

"You helped," Yami replied with a charming smile, and he followed her out the door, his heart bursting with a strange feeling. Fulfillment, maybe? Either way, it was a nice feeling and he couldn't wait to tell Seto about it.

Author's note:

More to come! :D thank you for following this story along so far!