When it came to things such as social cues, human traditions, and reading a room full of other people, Rin was not known for her tact or her gentleness.

  She was well able to understand hostility and aggression from others. She was tuned to it like a lightning rod, ready at a moment to respond should they begin turning it her way. A defense mechanism of sorts. Even the slightest finger-twitches towards a hidden knife couldn’t escape her awareness when she was alert.

  But this feeling filling the room as Dexter and Akahoshi stared at each other wasn’t the kind of anger Rin was used to. It was something far more complicated, ugly and awful, that permeated her prickling skin and settled in her stomach like a lead weight. She felt the bitter taste of acid filling her mouth, and the rising urge to get away, but not for her own safety’s sake– no, just to avoid the rising tension that built each moment that the two men met eyes and gazed, in dumbfounded, shocked silence.

  She couldn’t tell what the tension was building to– maybe an altercation, maybe something else. It left her agitated.

  One sideways glance at Yugi, and she knew immediately that he had expected this. Planned it, even. He was observing the two with a look of bland curiosity, completely unperturbed by the atmosphere that crawled into Rin’s bones.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  When Dexter finally exclaimed, his voice was thin and a little high-pitched. It was the first time he’d sworn. He rounded on Yugi, cutting Akahoshi off with a single raised hand.

  “How did you- You knew. You knew how I’d feel about- how did you even find him, huh? Did you go through my phone? You stole my goddamn phone!”

  Yugi only blinked, not a shred of remorse passing his face.

  “I did. Akahoshi’s landline number was at the bottom of your saved contacts.”

  “And it didn’t occur to you, not once, not once, that maybe the reason why I didn’t bring him up to you was because I don’t want to work with him? I found you plenty of people! You didn’t need-”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want to see me?” interrupted Akahoshi. He stepped in forcefully, slamming the door shut behind him and causing Dexter to retreat backwards instinctively. “I’m so sorry for expecting, what, a greeting, a hello? After FOUR YEARS, Dex! Didja even know I was out of prison? Or did you hope I fuckin’ died in there? Surprised to see I’m still up and about, is that it?”

  For a split second Rin genuinely thought Dexter was going to kill him right there and then. After a brief pause, where it looked as if he were deciding whether to lunge at Yugi or Akahoshi, he exhaled sharply.

  “I’m not doing this,” he said flatly to Yugi. “If you keep him in the syndicate, you can kiss goodbye to my assistance. I don’t want to see him, do you hear me?”

  The stare that came from Akahoshi’s dark eyes was enough to bore directly through iron, despite the overall pitifulness of his appearance. He fixed his gaze on the back of Dexter’s head, not moving or blinking, thin mouth set into a hard, grim line.

  “Dex-”

  There was something like hurt deep in his irises.

  “No, don’t call me that. Do they know what you did time for?” Dexter demanded, but Yugi only looked at him silently, giving him no answer.

  “Don’t tell them.”

  “Why not, huh? You don’t want them to know-”

  At that moment, Rin felt like the air had been knocked out of her chest. She felt the flare that came from Yugi’s psychofield as it pulsed once, briefly, causing a sudden loud tinnitus to rise in her ears.

  Being the target of a flare was not unlike having one’s train of thought be tased, and Rin took a moment to recover. The two men seemed to take it harder, falling briefly silent as their eyes glazed over, going dull and muddled.

  “I have my own reasons for the people I want to be part of my syndicate,” said Yugi softly. “Please, hold yourselves in check. It’s not right to say such hurtful things underneath the eye of God.”

  The silence returned, but this time it was flat and drained of all energy.

  “If you’d really like to leave, then you are welcome to send me back the ￥800,000 I paid you.”

  Dexter pulled back a little.

  “You said that was an upfront payment!”

  “I said that I would pay you half of what you are owed when you finish finding me the people that I need.” Yugi’s voice was not cold, it was merely calm and steady, but Rin felt like she’d stepped right into a fridge. “We aren’t done yet. You haven’t run your course with me yet. ….Daniel Anson.”

  He lingered delicately on those last two words, and immediately both Akahoshi and Dexter widened their eyes in shock.

  Huh. Did he really..? Rin raised her eyebrows.

  Dropping a person’s real name did not go over well in Namato. It wasn’t generally common to have aliases, but that only hammered it further home when a person did have one that they did not want to be exposed, or have their information left open to the public.

  Yugi almost pronounced it like an insult, though his expression remained as blank as ever. Dexter’s Adams' apple bobbed up and down in his throat as he swallowed, and Rin felt like she’d just been flashed.

  “Where did you find that out?” he hissed incredulously, while Akahoshi looked away. “Don’t spread it around, do you hear me? I don’t like the way you treat me! You’re backing me into a corner here, and–”

  “Please, Dexter,” murmured Yugi, and for the first time something threatening began to creep into his low, almost gentle words.

  “I don’t want to have to leave you afloat, with nothing to pay off your loans.”

  Rin watched a small bead of sweat roll down Dexter’s forehead and drip off his chin, bright and glistening in the light.

  “Dex, you’re being unreasonable,” Akahoshi snapped, with an edge of fear (Panic? Shame, perhaps?), but as he raised a hand to rest upon Dexter’s shoulder it was slapped away with enough force to ring through the room.

  “I’ll stay,” said Dexter at last. “But don’t expect me to like him. I don’t want him near me, I won’t speak to him.”

  Whatever Yugi had been about to respond with was cut off when Dexter pushed past Akahoshi, reaching around to slam the door shut with a bang that rattled its old, rusted hinges.

  Yugi let out a listless sigh.

  Rin watched all this occur with a deadpan, unimpressed glare. She had little time for petty drama, or unresolved traumatic issues. They interfered with her own peace of mind, and she had no patience for it. Whatever it was that Akahoshi had done, that had caused Dexter to so vehemently despise him–she doubted it would ever become her problem.

  Humans. So complicated and mysterious. Must be on purpose.

  “We’re done here,” said Rin, as she walked towards the door. Akahoshi ducked nervously out of her way, seemingly only just realising that there was an extra person in the room. She ignored him completely.

  “You and Akahoshi will be working together underneath me, as teammates,” stated Yugi with little inflection, watching her with a fixed eye, as if gauging her reaction to that information. “Rin. Please, sit back down.”

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  Then she felt it again.

  That subtle, almost unnoticeable rise in temperature, the static electricity in the air. Yugi’s face was perfectly still, big eyes unmoving, unblinking, emotionless. When she turned her head to glare at him, she realised the edges of her vision had become grainy and vaguely desaturated.

  Yugi was angry at her.

  He showed nothing at all beyond a gentle, impassive front with the others. Like a still lake that gave only the slightest ripples to any disturbance. He was unfazed by the argument, by Dexter’s dissent, by anything at all; or so it seemed.

  But Rin?

  She made him seethe.

  She had no inkling why. For some reason, Yugi seemed reluctant to force her into submission like he did with the others. Perhaps he saw in her a kindred spirit, with a stony will that brooked no compromise or difference. Perhaps she was too valuable to him to damage.

  “No. We didn’t know each other.” Somehow, Rin didn’t quite believe that anymore.

  On the small concrete wall that overlooked the nearby road, where cars roared back and forth on the highway that divided Doroi and Suzumachi, the air was thick with the scent of impending rain.

  That was soon joined by the smell of smoke, as the lighter clicked with a thin hiss and delivered a brightly dancing flame, which curled and licked around the end of his cigarette. It caught, and he exhaled deeply, watching the fumes begin to curl up and away into the sky.

  Dexter was not a habitual smoker. He held the firm belief that it was not worth the later medical expenses and lung damage, even when his friends laughed and labelled him a killjoy. Unfortunately, he’d found that the clients he spoke with in his job as a fixer tended to relax at the offer of a cigarette, in which he was always expected to partake. It was a peace offering, something that broke the tension, fooling them into feeling like it was just a smoke break with a friend, someone who understood them.

  Would you like a cigarette? Fancy a drink? Want to discuss this over a meal? All things he repeated over and over. And every time he’d say, That’s my favourite brand, It seems we have the same tastes, I always order that dish when I come here. If Dexter was good at anything at all it was chameleoning, changing colours to match every shade of the people whom he connected together. And it had the intended effect– he was well liked, well known, and well received everywhere he went.

  If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t even remember what his actual tastes were anymore.

  Once more, he took a deep drag, imagining the tar slowly sticking to the inside of his lungs. Now, of all times, was the rare occasion he genuinely craved a cigarette. He’d never worked with a client as difficult as Yugi–not even the richest, most spoiled joushi.

  It was a simple enough career path– after someone hired him, he’d scour his extensive contacts across the city, and link the client up with people who could fulfill their requests. Afterwards, he’d take a cut of the pay, and everyone walked away satisfied. Easy as that.

  Only Yugi didn’t make it easy. Something about him made Dexter feel like dropping his guard, and that unnerved him. He couldn’t get a read on the young man, couldn’t work out how to butter him up or steer him one way or the other. He was simply carried along by Yugi’s willpower. The night they’d met, he had scraped through and brought up twelve potential members immediately, as soon as he was asked, as if he were in a daze.

  The tension between him and Yugi was that of when a chameleon met a chameleon.

  When Dexter heard the door a few steps down click open, he didn’t need to turn around. He knew that pattern of footsteps like the back of his hand.

  “Get out.”

  There was no movement, no immediate response, from Akahoshi’s figure clinging to the stairway beside him.

  “I’m already outside,” he finally replied. “What else do you want?”

  His voice was so similar and yet so different to what Dexter remembered. It was still grim, raspy, low-pitched and tired. Just… all of those negative attributes had been cranked up to eleven, and it sounded like the vocal chords were made of sandpaper.

  “You’re right. I misspoke.” Dexter tapped his cigarette ash over the side of the rails, shifting his position into a one-armed lean facing the other man.

  “Let me put this in more legally distinct terms, then– fuck off.”

  It really was so out of character for him to curse. He watched a complex web of emotions interplay across Akahoshi’s face, leaving behind small muscle twitches and tiny tremors, his pupils dilating and shrinking over and over again.

  “Dex-”

  A poorly-timed voice crack prematurely ended his sentence.

  “Dexter,” he tried again, the full name sounding so uncomfortable in his mouth. “Dexter, listen to me. I don’t need ya to go back to– I don’t know, whatever we called it, the ‘old days’– I just, I just want you to hear me out. You’re not listenin’ to me. You act like I killed someone! You act-”

  “That would’ve been better,” Dexter interrupted sharply.

  He curled his fingers on the railing, the rough iron serrating the tips of his neatly manicured nails.

  “Look, we killed people before, Shimeda. Hell, I watched you do it. I respected you.”

  The mental image was crisp in his mind. It wasn’t that he didn’t value human life. It was just that, when Namato was a rough and brutal city and passing through the underground came with its own dangers and challenges, he had once valued how Akahoshi’s gun was always pointed protectively ahead of him.

  “And then you abandoned me.”

  “...”

  There it was again. That horrible silence in which Akahoshi’s eyes glazed over.

  “I didn't mean to be gone so long.”

  “That’s got nothing to do with–why do you never listen to me?” There it was again; repetitive old words. “You aren’t hearing me, Shimeda. Whatever we had, whatever friendship was there–it’s gone. You let it all down. You did.”

  On Akahoshi’s side of things– he felt an ache to vomit, churning up his insides into soup. In fact, for a moment he thought he really would vomit. His throat convulsed, and he choked back acid.

  Dexter turned back to the railing, exhaling deeply and watching the smoke drift up and turning the light that reflected onto him dirty grey.

  “I didn't expect you to break out of jail just to come see me,” he quipped. It was a useless joke. The hurt in his voice undercut any humorous effect it might have had.

  I wish you had.

  After a long pause wherein he battled the nerves that writhed in his stomach like snakes, Akahoshi opened his mouth and croaked out, “You were doin’ fine on your own.”

  How Dexter wished he hadn’t chosen to phrase it like that, because it only made him feel even more ashamed of himself for his pitiful thoughts.

  “I’m sorry.” He folded both arms as he leaned fully on both elbows. “I shouldn’t have entertained the thought that my best friend would have given me some support. I should’ve picked myself back up by my bootstraps. Right?”

  Akahoshi wobbled where he stood, knees coming so close to buckling that he had to rest all his weight on his arms. If he had been a better man, maybe he would have made a proper apology. Tore the bramble out of his stupid throat, and actually tried to explain himself. What came out instead was a humiliated scoff.

  “So, what now? That’s it? You’re gonna make your point and ignore me because, what, I didn’t give you money?”

  And right about at that moment, it felt like something snapped. Whether it was Dexter’s patience, or the last thread of Akahoshi’s self-awareness, was hard to say.

  Dexter’s cigarette burned out. It had been searing at his fingers for the past minute, staining the skin with ash. He flicked the stub out over the wall.

  “What’s done is done,” he answered, in a quiet, even tone. “I suppose you’ve already made up for it in prison. But that doesn’t make me like you any more.”

  Akahoshi was rooted to the spot, unable to move his legs to leave. Down on the road below, a four-wheel drive that was doing twenty miles over the limit suddenly screeched to a halt at the red light, and the little car that had been tailgating it crumpled into the rear. The tripped alarm blared loudly through the silence that hung between them.

  People began to emerge, milling around and drifting to congregate on the pavement. Dexter stared after them, lost in a charged tension that set his nerves alight.

  It had always been like this with Akahoshi, even on their best days. When they fought, they fought drawn-out, and they fought dishonestly, dancing around the facts. This conversation was refreshingly straightforward compared to back then, but the cloying feeling of his eyes on the back of his head was the same, same as ever. Like he was hoping Dexter would crack and grant him absolution.

  Akahoshi’s voice had gone curiously numb now; he’d deflated, like a popped tire. Dexter preferred that to the blame.

  “So…you’re working with Yugi as well?”

  “Not in the way that you are. I’m just his fixer, nothing more.”

  It was an irreverent thought, but right now he wanted to punch the angel in the face. For using his real name, for holding his debt over his head, for bringing back such a slew of ugly memories that did to his cheery facade something like what a well-thrown rock did to a window. For a lot of things.

  “I’ll be gone as soon as he finalises the members of his syndicate–and when I’m actually paid for my troubles.”

  Uninterested in being dragged into the empty small talk, Dexter pushed off the wall as he readjusted his jacket, brushing off the ash and preparing to go back inside.

  “Right,” said Akahoshi as he sagged, turning his head to look after the other man with a mix of anger and embarrassment burning his chest.

  “Then… I’ll see you around.”

  Dexter’s fingers curled into themselves within his pocket, the torn nails digging deep into his skin and leaving red little marks against the tanned flesh.

  “I sincerely hope not, Akahoshi.”