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The smog of the lower city is infused with the stink of its streets, and Rin pulls his mask back over his nose. He hates this crumbling maze of concrete and old-world tech, but that’s where most bounties hide out, and he hasn’t yet landed a prestigious job in the Grove—the living buildings cultivated to form the upper city—like Sae did fours years ago, leaving and never looking back.
“A bio scanner picked up the target a couple streets over,” Bachira’s voice crackles in Rin’s head. As a hacker, his skills are just above lukewarm. Still, it’s enough for him to be Rin’s first choice as a bounty hunting partner. “She’s probably headed for the abandoned subway station. Sending you the route now.”
For a moment, the dingy street disappears, replaced with a speedrun of the route he needs to take: a left, a right, another slanted left past grey buildings covered in graffiti. Then, he’s back in his body, boots soaking in the disgusting runoff that drips perpetually from the Grove. The sooner Rin is done with this job, the better.
“Got it,” he says. “Tell me if she changes course.”
He’s already off when Bachira responds, “Of course, Rin-chan.”
The streets darken as he closes in on the station, which is impressive given that the lower city is forever plunged in twilight. At the entrance to the station, the maw of the stairs yawning into blackness, Rin switches his eyes to night vision, bringing the stairwell and its rusted railings into stark, teal relief.
His footsteps are silent as he descends into the depths, in spite of the acoustics of the space. His quarry has made a mistake coming down here. There may be plenty of places to hide, but the emptiness and hard surfaces make it prone to echoes, which means Rin’s artificially-enhanced ears will pick up on her every move with ease.
“I’m about to lose you,” Bachira says, voice breaking up. “It’s up to you, now.”
“As if I need anyone else’s help,” Rin mutters.
He can’t make out Bachira’s response, but it’s likely a laugh.
The belly of the station, when Rin comes out into it, is cavernous. Rin shuts his eyes and extends the range of his ears. To his quarry’s credit, she’s good at keeping quiet—as is expected of a woman who managed to steal classified documents from the Ministry of Defense under the nose of the best security in the country. There is no tell-tale crunch of gravel that would accompany someone running full-tilt down the darkened tracks. But there are the faintest metallic taps, the faintest panting. She’s running, ever so lightly, along a single rail. There, off to his left. Her imperfections will be her downfall.
Rin leaps onto the tracks, truly soundless, and quiets his light. There is no one more perfect than him. Relying on his ears, he sets off after her, nothing more than a shadow.
If she’s heading for the next station, she’s not very sharp—it’s far enough that Rin’s stamina will win out over hers, which means she’s probably heading for something else; Rin wishes he could ask Bachira if there’s a service entrance nearby.
Whatever. He can outrun her if necessary.
He trails her around bends and down straights. The darkness stretches on, time suspended. It is only him and his quarry and the track and their quiet, controlled breathing.
Eventually, a turn reveals a small platform below a metal ladder, unlikely meant for passengers. His quarry slows just a hair. So Rin was right; she’d known there would be a service entrance. She’ll have to slow down more to climb the ladder, and that is when Rin will strike. He cuts the nerves to his cybernetic hand and hinges his fingers back, cocking the gun hidden within his second knuckle. Small but powerful, it is the only weapon he needs to carry.
Suddenly, pain lances through Rin’s head as someone crashes through the service entrance with all the elegance of an elephant on glass. He dials down his hearing, but the damage is done; he stumbles. Onto gravel— an amateur mistake—and he doesn’t need enhanced hearing to catch his quarry’s breath hitch. Which doesn’t even matter, because a second later comes the most gratingly familiar voice:
“Thanks for cornering her, Rin-Rin! Bounty’s mine now!”
Signature leather jacket, slicked-back blond-pink hair—it can be none other than Shidou Ryuusei, the bane of Rin’s bounty-hunting existence.
“You damn insect,” Rin grits. “No way in hell.”
His quarry books it back into the tunnel, no longer trying to conceal her presence. Rin takes off in pursuit, but Shidou bodies him, arm flying across Rin’s chest to hold him back.
“I said, she’s mine, shitty eyelashes!”
“I would’ve had her if you hadn’t come swinging in.” Rin body-checks him in retaliation, breaking free, but his victory is short-lived. A flash of pain, a burning line sliced across his thigh, a clang of metal against the tunnel wall where their quarry had just been—one of Shidou’s knives. Rin whirls with a snarl and shoots. Shidou needs to stay out of the way, no matter what it takes.
Of course he dodges, but his infuriatingly good reflexes aren’t good enough to keep the bullet from grazing him; Rin smells the blood it draws. Shidou stumbles, just a little, and Rin returns to the hunt, chased by an enraged scream:
“Oh, you wanna turn this into a death match?”
Rin ignores it.
He dodges the next knife that whizzes by his ear. Heavy boots pound the gravel, and then he is yanked back, hard enough he nearly loses his balance. The cold edge of a blade presses against Rin’s throat, making goosebumps prinkle across his skin.
“I can give you a death match,” Shidou growls low in Rin’s ear. The thick, spicy smell of his cologne clogs Rin’s nose, and he thinks only someone like Shidou would wear scent to a job like this.
“She’s getting away, insect.”
“I can take you both.”
Unfortunately, Shidou is strong, his arm wrapped tightly around Rin’s shoulders to pin his arms. Rin catches his wrist but can’t do much to pull the knife away; his only defense is the barrel of his gun pressed to Shidou’s thigh. It’s infuriating; anyone else would be eating dust while cradling their injuries. Shidou always brags about being all-natural, having no cybernetic enhancements and using genetic alterations only for aesthetic purposes. Rin has an excellent physique and sought-after, jailbroken enhancements by none other than the brilliant engineer Itoshi Sae. And still, Shidou has always been his worst match-up, his weakness, his constant nemesis. He is everything Rin isn’t, but they’ve come to understand something of each other, clash after clash. Rin feels a sort of morbid satisfaction when the blade against his jugular does not follow through on the threat.
It's also difficult for Rin to ignore the bulge pressed up against his ass.
“Gotta say,” Shidou says, “I might be a little sad to see you go, though. Haven’t really gotten to see you explode yet, have I?”
“I’ll kill you.”
Just as Rin is twisting his hand around to aim for something a little more lethal than a thigh, he catches the rapid patter of footsteps. There’s a woosh, a flash of pink, and a grunt, followed by a crunch of gravel.
Rin and Shidou both freeze in time to see Chigiri Hyouma kneeling on their quarry’s back, binding her hands.
“Looks like the bounty’s mine,” Chigiri says, hauling the woman to her feet. “Did either of you actually want it, or do you just like fighting each other?”
If Rin didn’t still have a knife to his throat, he would commit double homicide.
As Chigiri parades his victory past them, Shidou’s grip slacken ever so slightly—enough for Rin to take advantage of his distraction. He elbows him in the gut, hard, and to the tune of colorful cursing, streaks away into the darkness, the memory of Chigiri’s smirk searing his face with shame.
The wound on Rin’s thigh needs a few stitches. He’s found a crate in a tiny alley, removed from any prying eyes, so that he can staunch the blood before making the long trek back to his apartment. Crammed between a smoke shop and a shady tattoo parlor, it’s a far cry from the cleanliness of his bathroom; it stinks of urine and garbage. Pants stripped, he perches on the crate and pulls disinfectant from his suture kit—kept on his person at all times, given the perils of the job. It’s just that those perils don’t normally stem from his fellow bounty hunters.
“That fucking insect,” he seethes as he leans into the stinging burn of disinfectant. “He’s like a rabid dog.”
“Hm, but y’know, Rin-chan,” Bachira sings in his head, “knowing you, you were pretty hot-blooded out there as well.”
“Shut it, bob-cut.”
“Aye-aye—oh. Um, Rin-chan, the bio scanners are picking up—”
“Rin-Rin! So this is where you ran off to.”
The universe is against Rin. All he asks is one moment peace to tend to his wounds, both external and egoistic. Instead, Shidou looms in the mouth of the alley—the only mouth, because the alley runs short to a dead end—eyes alight and demonic grin fixed in place. Above him, a purple neon sign advertising synthetic tobacco flickers and buzzes, giving his blond hair a lavender sheen.
“ Hoo, that looks nasty,” he says, eyeing Rin’s wound. “But anyone ever tell you that you’ve got great thighs?”
“Shut it. This is your fucking fault. Get lost, insect.”
“Nah.”
“Did that sound like a question? You lost me a bounty today that could’ve paid my way to the Grove. I don’t want to see your ugly mug.”
“Hey now, I object to that. Not my fault eyelashes senior won’t pay your way to the Grove for you, and the way I see it, you lost me the bounty.” Shidou prowls over, bending down into Rin’s direct line of sight. “And you can call me all the names you want, but this? This ain’t ugly.”
His breath fans hot across Rin’s face, his pink eyes unblinking. Rin refuses to look away first and lose. There is a dangerous fire in those eyes that makes it hard for Rin to breathe.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks, mortified at how his voice cracks at the beginning.
“Wanted to ask you something,” Shidou says, straightening up. “But I’ll be nice and help stitch you up first.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Aw, c’mon, eyelashes. I can’t see this thing well. I do you, you do me, right?” Shidou points to the wound Rin’s bullet had carved into his chest, his tongue hanging out of his mouth lasciviously. As if Rin would ever trust that face.
Shidou seems to sense this; he puts the tongue away, all teasing and innuendo dropped. “Rin. I’m not gonna fuck you up with this. I promise to be gentle.”
It’s so rare for Shidou to use Rin’s name so plainly, and in such a quiet, low voice; it crawls under Rin’s skin and makes him shiver. Fixed in place by Shidou’s gaze, he numbly offers up the suture kit.
If Shidou really wanted to kill him, he reasons, he’d already be dead. Besides, the wound is on the outside of his thigh—not easy for him to reach.
“There’s a topical anesthetic in there,” he rasps, mouth dry. “And at least disinfect your hands first.”
“Bingo!” Shidou pulls out two wrapped wipes and uses one to clean off his hands. When he’s done, he gives Rin a once-over. “You’re gonna have to let me get closer.” His warm, calloused hand falls on Rin’s knee, urging his legs open. “C’mon, open up.”
He cannot possibly be letting Shidou patch him up.
He parts his legs.
With one hand heavy on Rin’s bare thigh, Shidou wipes the anesthetic across the wound, smearing the sluggish blood. It’s fast-acting, and the skin around the laceration is already tingling as Shidou readies everything, unexpectedly sure with how he handles the needle driver. Rin distracts himself from the odd prickle of sutures being drawn through skin by studying Shidou: bleach-blond hair brushing the collar of his leather jacket, broad shoulders hunched. His skin shines dully with sweat, the dimness of the alley casting shadows around his eyes. Those dark markings that edge them are pristine, and Rin wonders—not for the first time—if they’re tattoos, genetic enhancements, or just really powerful makeup. Whatever they truly are, they certainly make the pink of his irises more unnerving.
“Enjoying the view?” Shidou asks lowly.
“You wish.”
“Sure do, eyelashes. Look, all done! Told you I’d be gentle.” He thumbs at the edge of the sutures, and Rin’s heart convulses. That can’t possibly be healthy.
“Huh,” he says.
“What?”
“They’re actually not terrible.” A straight and neat row of three, tied off securely. “Of course someone as violent as you has practice with this.”
He has to reel back when faced with a flurry of cloth as Shidou sheds his jacket and shirt, and then there is a very bare and very well-defined chest far too close to Rin’s face.
“My turn!” Shidou crows. “C’mon, no anesthetic. I can take it.”
“You’re a freak,” Rin grumbles as he snatches the suture kit back. He doesn’t care about being rough with the disinfectant, Shidou’s pained hiss more of a balm than any numbing agent. A gentle pull at the skin reveals a wound that’s more of a scratch than anything, a simple graze.
“You don’t even need stitches.”
“Aw, c’mon, patch me up anyway, doctor Rin-Rin.”
Rin wrinkles his nose and digs his thumb into the scrape.
As he pulls gauze and tape out of his kit, Shidou’s hands slip down to the tends skin of his inner thighs, stroking closer and closer to the line of his briefs. Rin tosses him a glare; Shidou squeezes in response.
Rin works as fast as he can, taping gauze securely over the wound. Shidou’s skin is soft and warm, his heartbeat fast under Rin’s palm. The smells of sweat and cologne fills his head, and he swallows the lump in his throat.
“Done. Now spit it out. Why are you here?”
Shidou’s smile slinks onto his face. “We’re getting in each other’s way a lot out in the field—”
“You mean you get in mine.”
“—and don’t get me wrong, fighting you really gets me going, eyelashes. Like, I’ve been totally hard this whole time—”
“Get to the damn point,” Rin spits, but his eyes flick to the bulge in Shidou’s pants.
“—but I think you could get me going in other ways that don’t interfere with our work.”
Rin shoves at Shidou’s chest, making him laugh.
“You think I would ever fuck you?”
Arms braced against the crate on either side of Rin’s body, Shidou leans in close. “Yeah, I think you would.”
And then there are warm lips suckling at his pulse, and he forgets how to breathe.
“I remember how much you liked that last time,” Shidou murmurs. “Come over sometime. I’ll show you the glowstick.”
“The what.”
Shidou cups his boner through his pants and humps the air. “Firefly genes, baby.”
“You’re lying.”
“Guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.” He pulls his jacket back on and strolls down the alley, hands shoved in his pockets. “Bye-bye, Rin-Rin, you know where to find me.”
And then Rin is left alone to lean on his crate, Shidou’s spit cooling on his skin and his own pants a little tighter than he’d like to admit. Unfortunately, he does know where Shidou lives—all the way on the other side of the Lower City and far away from Rin’s place—thanks to a single drunken night that he’s grateful he only remembers bits and pieces of—shoving his tongue down Shidou’s throat, Shidou’s lips on his neck and hands on his ass, flopping back on the bed to apparently word-vomit all his bottled-up frustrations and dreams before passing out. He has a sudden recollection of Shidou telling him the Grove was full of snooty fucks and that the Lower City was where he’d find a real life.
“So.” Bachira’s voice crackles to life. “Are you going to see it?”
“See what?” Rin sighs.
“The glowstick~ ”
“Shut the fuck up.”
For once in his life, Bachira does as he’s told.
Now, with his head to himself, Rin groans and drops his face to his hands. He can still feel the ghost of Shidou’s hands on his thighs, his lips on his neck. That bulge hadn’t been insignificant, either. There’s no way his dick glows. There’s no way Rin’s going to be haunted by the thought of it glowing. He’s just lost a bounty. He can’t get distracted by such inane things.
Would he be able to see the glow through his own stomach if he were to pin the insect down and ride—
He mutters, “Fucking hell.”
It’s been a long, frustrating day. And, well, he could stand to let off some steam.
When he finally leaves the alleyway, he turns right instead of left, heading away from his apartment.
He’s not going home tonight.