Sixfold Adventures: A Collection of One-Shots

Mafia!Karamatsu x Reader

Inspired by ara_jhoo's prompt.

Why did I agree to this?!

The room was quiet, divided into eight lanes with tall dividers between the waist-high countertops of each lane. I was led by a man in black slacks and a partially unbuttoned blue shirt with the long sleeves rolled up to his elbows, following him into one of the lanes and watching carefully as he set down the small box of bullets and carrying case. He took one of the rather large earmuffs hanging from his forearm and held it out to me, a gentle smile on his lips as his dark hues met my own colored ones.

"You're going to need these."

"Okay..." I took the hard earmuffs from him and settled them over my ears while he unlocked the carrying case, revealing a black pistol and magazine sitting perfectly on dark gray foam. Swallowing the sudden accumulation of saliva in my mouth, I watched as he took the magazine and began loading it with the bullets from the box, setting it down on the counter along with the empty pistol.

"You're going to be okay, (y/n)," His gentle words didn't bring much comfort as I put on the safety glasses, uncertainty plainly on my face.

"How can you be sure, Karamatsu?"

"Because I'm right here," He took a small step back and pulled me to where he was standing before, "I'll show you the safest way to handle a pistol."

He talked me through in explicit detail about the correct way to pick up the pistol, how to ensure that the chamber is empty, and how to load the gun. The weapon weighed a little more than I thought it would, paying close attention to what Karamatsu was talking about and following his instructions. His hands hovered over mine as he instructed me on a good position to fire from, the pistol aimed straight out from my chest with my arms nearly fully extended.

Karamatsu's voice was soothing to listen to, his movements and words making me feel a little bit more confident about the deadly weapon clenched between my hands. His instructions moved me slowly through the process of a proper grip on the pistol, what to expect when I fired it, and how to recover from the blowback.

"Ready to shoot?"

"No..." I couldn't hold back the whine in my voice. I wasn't entirely comfortable with this idea in the first place, but I knew that it needed to happen. It was better for me to have some knowledge of how to defend myself than to remain a helpless target, "...but let's do it."

Karamatsu had already set up a paper target for me to aim at, hanging about twenty meters away from the booth I was at. He moved to stand a little behind me, giving me the go-ahead to start firing. I squeezed the trigger, feeling the pistol slam back into my palm as the force rocked down my arms and into my shoulders. The gun didn't jump from my hands like I feared and I didn't go flying backwards.

"Whoa...!"

"Nice first shot," I quickly glanced at the paper to see that the bullet never hit it, "Try keeping your arms a little higher up. Everything else looked pretty good."

Karamatsu's hands helped level my arms out to where they should be, much higher than I was for the first try. He cleared me for another shot, my finger squeezing down on the trigger and my stance absorbing the recoil of the pistol. The target had a small hole near the humanoid's shoulder.

I didn't hear him tell me to stop, so I kept firing until the magazine was empty, following his instructions on ejecting the magazine and ensuring the chamber was empty before laying the pistol flat on the counter.