Twisted Fate | Akutagawa Ryūnosuke ✓

14 | Partners in Crime

"We have another job to do."

You were pulled away from your daze, eyes snapping across to meet Akutagawa's; desolate, empty, trapped in an eternal twilight.

They say the eyes are the doorway to the soul.

You drew in a long breath, tapping your fingers against your kneecap. "What about your subordinate? Why can't she go?"

Akutagawa's cheek rippled. "Because you're doing it. So stop with the questions and get moving."

Does he have a soul? Or does it belong to the devil?

You dragged yourself to your feet, following with grudging steps after the male. "Where are we going?"

I wonder what people see when they look into my eyes?

"I said stop with the questions."

Or are they empty too?

❖

"Why are we here, Ryu?"

The man glowered across at you, his eyes sparking like flint suddenly striking an ember. An ember that soon blazed into nothing but ash. "Don't call me that. We're on a surveillance mission. So shut up and follow me."

Breathing sharply through your nose, the intoxicated air making your throat itch, you refrained from speaking any further and trailed him through the urban jungle.

The slums.

The place where the diseased resided, neighboured with the poor, the unfortunate, the forgotten ones. The ones abandoned, betrayed, by the people they had once stowed their trust into; the people they once held most dear.

The place you and Akutagawa used to call home.

Dappled sunlight broke through the canopy of rooftops above, slinking down broken guttering and landing in golden pools on the ground below, where it highlighted the traces of rotten livelihoods.

Your footsteps were quelled by the thick layer of grime beneath your feet, smudging mud and dirt across the pavement.

Grotesque faces leered at you from the shadows, deep-set, hazy white eyes sneering at you from the dark. The shadows rustled with movement, the growl of traffic retreating to the distance, whilst here, the sounds were infected, toxic. Pollution, disease, lies and corruption. It was all the same; it was life in the slums.

The hairs on your neck bristled under unseen eyes, and you took a step closer toward Akutagawa. His coat swished about his legs, hands folded carelessly into the pockets, eyes set in a straight line. Yet he seemed more tense than usual - his shoulders were drawn forwards slightly, his cheeks more sunken. There was friction; it was uncomfortable to get too close to him, and yet you were undoubtedly drawn. Drawn by instinct; an innate magnetism to the one whom could relate with your affliction.

Remember when it had been just you two?

You two, against the rest of the world.

You two, companions in life, partners in crime.

You two, together, nobody else.

"Down here," the male said quietly, dipping his head as you passed beneath a low-hanging archway.

"You said this was a surveillance mission?"

"Yes. We have eyes on an associate to one of our major political rivals," he replied stiffly, never taking his eyes off the path - a narrow, winding backstreet that led into the very heart of the inner-city slums.