ᴅᴀʏᴅʀᴇᴀᴍ ᴀɴᴅ ᴠᴏɪᴅ | ʜ. ᴍɪᴋᴀɢᴇ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ x ᴄ. ᴜᴛꜱᴜᴋɪ

『nine: poison』

Chapter 9

"Invited into someone's dreams"

It was another busy day at the mall. It was the weekend after all. There were different cliques present, the same as families out on a little trip. The chatters of high school girls taking a leisure stroll around the mall quickly faded into the background as Izumi spoke up.

"It's rare of you to ask me out, Chikage-san...." Izumi wondered out loud. 

"I thought I should work on getting to know you a little better, Director-san," Chikage replied with his usual closed-eyed smile.

This made Izumi a tad bit suspicious. What's with his change of attitude? However, her suspicion didn't go unnoticed by Chikage.

"Don't be so suspicious. It's a spice shop, so I thought you might be interested too, Director-san." Chikage replied as smoothly as ever. 

"Eh? A spice shop?" Izumi asked back. 

"Yup. Curry-lover Director-san is the only person around here who would enjoy that sort of thing." Chikage added to his reply. 

"Well, I guess that's true, but...." Izumi replied, still hesitant. 

Izumi knows Chikage tends to dislike women. It was something he, himself stated previously, so why would he invite her to go out? He could have invited his fiance, why her? Izumi brushed these off. She and Chikage do have something in common, their love for spices. 

Right across Izumi and Chikage was another pair, one had plain raven hair paired with dark brown eyes and the other one was fairly disguised. She originally had [hair color] colored hair which was now concealed under a wig that was silky and colored white. She had violet colored contact lenses hiding her [eye color] colored eyes. 

"Ne~ K-chan~ Don't you think it's a beautiful day today?" [Name] asked the girl she named as K-chan. 

However, her cheerful attitude demeanor took a turn as she lowered her voice into nothing but a mere whisper.

"If you even think about acting out, just know my nails are perfectly manicured with my newly created poison. I'm sure you wouldn't want a replay of what happened to Subject 0010, would you?" [Name] asked with a sardonic grin. 

K, also known as Test Subject K could do nothing but smile back at [Name] with fear. She was only a human guinea pig in her eyes. She wouldn't daresay defy her master, specially when her life is on the line. 

Things were better when August was still there. He'd stop November when she gets too carried by her sadistic side. August would bring them remedies to November's poisons. Ever since he disappeared, November would just make and inject poisons one after another.

"Oh!~ They're starting to move now, K-chan! Let's go~" [Name] sang in a cheerful tone as she dragged K along with her, silently following both Izumi and Chikage. The latter pair headed to the spice shop, which the former pair kept an eye for.

The plan was to exhaust Izumi by dragging her all around the mall. Eventually they'll rest while getting food, that's where Chikage would use [Name]'s poison to mix it in with Izumi's food. It was very easy, nothing compared their past missions. 

[Name]'s breath hitched in her throat as she saw familiar figures all around them. This was going to be risky seeing that a few members from Mankai Company came here to enjoy their free time as well. 

Muku and Yuki were the first pair that Izumi and Chikage ran into. 

"...Huh? Isn't that Director-san and Chikage-san?" Muku asked Yuki.