Mastermind | Chuuya Nakahara.

SIXTEEN.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
How could he refuse her?
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Chuuya sat alone in his office. The main ceiling light was switched off and instead, the lamp on his desk was on, bringing light onto to his desk and a two foot radius of a yellow hue around his desk. He had been scribbling for hours, filling in forms, writing letters, going over his finances. He had managed to get plenty of work done with Aki gone, though, he couldn't help but glance across at her desk every once and a while. It was eerily silent, something he typically loved, but it felt odd. He was slowly growing used to Aki's chatter-box self filling any silence, and without her there, it felt strange. It made him feel sick.

He reached out, picking up his wine glass without looking. He'd had at least two glasses so far—he'd also lit up a cigarette earlier, just after Aki had left. He'd smoked it by the open window, watching the streets of Yokohama as he inhaled the nicotine. But even with the open window, the smell of smoke still lingered in the room, fused with the smell of paper and wine. And strawberry. Aki wasn't even in the room and Chuuya could still smell her.

He looked up from his paperwork, taking a sip of his wine, holding it in his mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. Aki's desk was a mess, paper strewn across it, an empty coffee mug close to the edge, pens scattered and sweet wrappers left on the wood. Things had been weird ever since she gifted him the wine bottle—not on her end, because she was being her usual flirtatious, annoying self. But Chuuya found it even harder to be around her. He'd found out a lot about her recently, like how she was sold to the Double A as a child and how she would rather offer him a gift than thank him from her lips. It's not that he wanted nor needed a thank you from her, but rather, the concept of it intrigued him.

Aki was complex, there was no denying that. But he hadn't wanted her to be. He wanted her to be an assassin—nothing more and nothing less. He hated those that killed without purpose and she was supposed to be one of those people. She had killed some of his friends, his comrades. He hadn't cared if it had been on orders, he had hated her for it and he swore he would loathe her for all of eternity. But he couldn't deny the pang to his chest that he felt when she told him she had been sold as a child to the Double A. He couldn't help but think how terrifying that would have been to a normal child, being plucked from her life and trained to be a lethal assassin. She must have been scared out of her wits.

Chuuya couldn't picture a younger version of her, or rather, he wouldn't. He didn't want to think there was ever a time in her life where she had been afraid. He didn't want to sympathise with her. Shit, he didn't want to relate to her. She was supposed to be a monster, a soul-sucking vampire. If he allowed himself to think differently of her for even a second, he would be well and truly fucked. Akira Kitagawa was never the type of person he was supposed to understand.

Just as he was about to return to his paperwork, the door to his office creaked open. He narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look at the figure that poked their head in the room before entering. His breath hitched in his throat. Did I fucking conjure her? He thought to himself. Because there she stood, wearing an oversized sweater that hung at her bare thighs with a bottle of whiskey clutched between her fingers.

A drunk grin crossed her lips, "I knew you'd still be here, you loser," She announced, walking into the room, heading for her desk. She placed the bottle of whiskey down, knocking over her coffee mug by accident. A giggle escaped her lips. "Whoopsie!" She tried picking it up, but only knocked over a bundle of her paperwork onto the floor.