Tangerine ~ Bullet Train

9 - "We can't let ourselves get distracted"

Lemon wanted to know how his brother handled it, but Tangerine wouldn't say. 'It's being handled,' was all he would tell his brother. Normally Lemon wouldn't question his brother's plans or decisions, but this time he couldn't help but think there was something more going on here. 'You know that girl, don't you?' he wanted to know. Tangerine shrugged. 'I met her once,' was his reply. He didn't add anything more, but Lemon could see his body tensing up. 'You didn't only just meet her once,' he noticed, 'she means something to you.'

Tangerine felt caught. His brother spoke the truth, she did mean something to him. A whole lot in fact. But he couldn't do anything with it. He thought he would never see her again, but now that he did he couldn't help but feel awful about it. To let her go one time was bad enough, but now he had to let her go for the second time. She thought of him as a wonderful person, but her opinion of him would surely change within the coming two hours. He couldn't begin to describe how that felt.

'We can't endanger our mission,' Lemon said warningly whilst looking straight at his brother. 'I know,' Tangerine replied, not succeeding in hiding his despair. 'I fucking know that,' he mumbled whilst sighing, 'I - I just... fuck.' They both didn't know how to react. Lemon had never seen his brother like this before. There had to be something about this girl that hit his sensitive string, but Lemon didn't know what he could do, because up until this point he didn't even know Tangerine had one.

As for Yuina, she finally gathered the courage and strength to walk back into the wagon. Part of her wanted to ignore his warning and just join them again. She didn't want to let him go again, but he was really serious when he made clear that she shouldn't be around him anymore. She believed that he did dangerous things, but that didn't make her want to avoid him. Maybe it only made her want to be around him even more. It seemed like he carried this burden of being in constant danger for so long. She wanted to help him lift part of it off his shoulders, but there was nothing she could do. She would only get in the way, which would endanger him even more.

With that being the sole reason for her to do so she started walking through the wagon, looking straight ahead and passing the two brothers like they were complete and total strangers. She succeeded in not looking at Tangerine, but the other way around it appeared to be quite difficult. His eyes were drawn to her without him being able to stop it. He felt a twinge in his stomach when she wouldn't even look back.

Tangerine was startled when Lemon slapped him in the face without warning. 'Snap out of it, man,' his brother said. 'This is very important. We can't let ourselves get distracted.' Tangerine knew his brother was right, yet he couldn't bring himself to let it go so easily. He knew he had to, though, because they could both hear the man in the four-seater next to them yawning, just waking up. It was time. The Twins had to jump into action.

'Oh, hey Yuina,' Himari said in a fairly loud voice, as if to warn the others of her appearance. The fact that they stopped talking immediately, only to look up to her with a caught expression on their faces, betrayed they were just talking about her. She trusted them not to do so in a good way. 'We were just talking about you,' Himari said. 'Or rather about those two creeps and how they treated you,' she added quickly.

'Yeah, what a wacko's!' Akira agreed. 'Did you come here to sit with us instead?' It sounded like she wished the answer would be "no". 'Yeah,' Yuina replied, to which they all acted to agree with. 'Good choice,' Koto said. 'Those guys seemed trouble.' Lemon didn't act too friendly, Yuina had to admit, but Tangerine was definitely not trouble. No, she realised with shock. He was. She just didn't mind very much. What would that make of her? She decided to not get into that.

She only just sat down in the four-seater next to them when she saw a man with black glasses and a weird bucket hat walking by, briefcase in hand. The thought of it being hers crossed her mind, but then she remembered there was another one stashed in the rack, so she could relax again.