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Michizou is not used to receiving visitors at any time when he's in his Mafia-assigned apartment... or in general. It's a lonely life, this life of his, no matter how sure he is that there are certain people within the Mafia he can count on—Hirotsu, Higuchi, even Chuuya, though he is objectively intimidating. Gin. Gin, silent and adversarial but always reliable. If he must choose someone to watch his back, he would always choose him. It's a trust he didn't think he'd ever find there.
Unaccustomed to receiving visitors, he startles a little when he hears the doorbell ring. He blinks, thinking that maybe it's one of his neighbours' ring, but the bell rings more insistently, confirming that it is definitely the doorbell of his apartment.
He does a mental review: where he keeps his guns hidden, where he keeps his knives. He reaches for one of his pistols and tucks it into his belt, covering it with his shirt as he walks to the door and checks through the peephole to see who it is.
On the other side, there's a girl he doesn't remember ever seeing.
He can't quite see her, but she has long black hair, falling to the sides of her face with a certain elegance. There is a smear of blood under her left eye and a trail of it from her chin to her chest, staining her white dress crimson. Her features are delicate, as if carved by hand, even though her brow is furrowed. And she insists on ringing his doorbell.
Seeing her doesn't turn off the alarm bells. It doesn't make sense for anyone he doesn't know to come to his apartment. Michizou is not the best at remembering everyone around him, despite being especially careful about his own subordinates, but he thinks that if he had seen someone as—well, someone like her before, he would remember.
It doesn't look like the girl is going to stop ringing his doorbell, so Tachihara opens the door a little. Just a little. Just enough to be able to talk to her.
“Yes?” he says, one hand on the doorknob and the other on the area where he has the gun hidden, just in case.
The girl is covered in blood from head to toe. Her hands, with their long, slender fingers, are completely stained. Her dress will be unwearable even if she washes it, which is a pity, because it looks like good quality cloth.
She is standing strangely and has a wound on her arm, but there is no way all that blood is hers.
She doesn't respond. In the blink of an eye, she pushes the door open all the way and slips into the flat with incredible speed, leaving her shoes forgotten by the door as she slips out, silent as a cat, before Michizou can react. Her movements are vaguely familiar, it's an agility that is known to him, but then again, if he had met her before he would know that.
Michizou is not someone who is easily impressed. His coworkers in the Hunting Dogs are amazing, all in different ways. Chuuya is amazing in an overwhelming way, power and energy at its purest. Even Akutagawa, for all their unfriendliness and dislike of each other, is powerful and elegant in his own way. He has been surrounded by people with unimaginable abilities for most of his life, so there are few things that blow him away.
This is one of them. The girl now stands in the middle of his living room, barefoot and illuminated by the white light, the blood covering her body highlighting the pallor of her complexion. She has beautiful grey eyes.
All his astonishment does not stop his from drawing the gun.
“Who are you?” he says, pulling out the safety catch and pointing it at her forehead. His aim is perfect. He can add a little more blood to that picture.
She watches him, unimpressed, and doesn't respond. She doesn't flinch as he approaches, his pulse steady, one finger on the trigger.
“Who are you?” he repeats.
Approaching was a mistake, as he soon comes to discern, because the young woman grabs the barrel of the gun to deflect it, dodges the shot, and soon he has the edge of a blade at his neck, squeezing the jugular area gently enough not to do him any real harm, but firmly enough to make the threat clear.
Michizou doesn't even know at what point she has come so close. He watches her gray eyes, the way she holds the blade against his neck, her jaded expression, and soon remembers where he knows all this from.
“Gin?“
She (he?) relaxes her expression a little, gesticulating fucking finally with her lips without a sound, and she hits him on the temple with the handle of her blade before backing away.
“Hey!” he grumbles, because that was harder than necessary and too mean, even for Gin.
He follows them with his eyes as they go to close the door, outlining his figure with his eyes. He's staring, and he's lucky Gin is not paying attention to him. They limps a little, but still, no sound. She tucks the knife back into her back, hidden between the fabric of her dress and behind her hair. God, his hair. Has he always had it this long?
Gin turns to look at him and he opens his lips to say something, anything, but this is unexpected and confusing and, for God's sake, Gin is beautiful. There was always something attractive about them, but Michizou believed it was his curious attraction to every person who could absolutely obliterate him—he had a brief crush on Jouno when he first met him, and he still feels a knot in his stomach when he sees Chuuya smile. Gin is lethal and graceful, agile and silent. Michizou liked it when they looked at him like they were talking to the stupidest person alive and was ready to erase his existence from this world because, well, maybe he deserves it a little, and because there's an air of confidence about them that is inevitably attractive.
But this is a different appeal, a soft and gentle one that Michizou would never have imagined seeing in them. He's not sure what to do, and sometimes his mouth works faster than his mind, so the words start forming before he even knows what he's going to say.
“You look like the final girl in a horror movie.”
Gin stares, unamused, watching him like he's little more than the dirt on their shoe, and Michizou feels himself start to blush like he's a teenage girl with a crush. Fucking hell.
He moves closer, however, as if a gravitational force is pulling him towards the bloodied figure bursting into the peace of his living room, with their gray eyes and pink lips. Michizou doesn't remember ever seeing his face uncovered, at least not from the front and for more than one second, not in a way that he can analyze every detail that adorns it.
Gin takes a step back as the distance between them decreases more than he deems acceptable and Michizou comes to a full stop, taking a deep breath.
He points to the open wound on his arm and it takes Michizou a moment to understand what he is referring to.
“The bathroom is in the hallway, first door on the left. I must have a first aid kit over there. Do you need...?”
Gin leaves before he finishes speaking, silent as a shadow, and Michizou watches the movement of her hair and the skirt of her dress as she moves forward, mesmerized.
He decides to follow them to the bathroom, though Gin slams the door in his face. He stays on the other side, hearing the water in the sink running.
“What happened to you, anyway?” he asks, and he might as well be referring to the blood, the wounds, or the fact that his hair is long to his waist. How does he disguise that?
Gin doesn't answer, as expected. Michizou sighs. He lowers his gaze to his toes, thinking they're showing him something he doesn't deserve to know, displaying an honesty he cannot reciprocate. Perhaps Gin believes he's genuine and worthy of her trust, and while it should relieve him to know that his mask is believable enough to elicit this reaction from the most careful person he's ever met, Michizou can't help but feel like a traitor and a jerk.
It's ridiculous. He knows it's ridiculous. There is only one reason he is there, and it has nothing to do with making friends in the wrong places or being confused about where he should place his affection. His goal has nothing to do with Gin.
When the door opens and Gin appears, their body clean of blood except for that which stains their dress and with her bandaged arm, Michizou is struck with the indisputable reality that there are many things inside him that have to do with Gin.
Gin gestures to indicate that she needs pencil and paper and Michizou goes to get it without argument. Like a dog on a leash, Hirotsu would say if he could see it.
They sit on the couch in the living room and Gin takes what he offers her to write on.
“Some men followed Ryuunosuke. We were together when they came. We confronted them and split up, but I couldn't go home,” reads the sheet once Gin hands him the notebook.
“Ryuunosuke?” he asks before thinking about it. “Wait, you mean Akutagawa? Since when do you refer to him by his name? And what were you doing with Akutagawa in the middle of the night?”
Michizou had no knowledge that they were friends. They are friends, aren't they? Although he can't imagine Akutagawa having friends in general.
Gin looks at him like he's stupid. He takes the notebook from him and writes a single word.
"Brother."
Tachihara blinks once, twice.
“Akutagawa is your brother?” he says, almost shouting, but Gin kneels on the couch to get closer to him and covers his mouth with one hand.
“If anyone else finds out,” he whispers, and his voice is high-pitched and soft, sweet like nothing Tachihara has ever heard before, “I'll rip out your tongue and shove it down your throat.”
Michizou should feel more uneasy about the threat, because he knows he means it, but he finds himself swallowing saliva and staring into that pair of eyes he has always liked, but which he feels he's seeing for the first time.
Gin smells of roses and blood. The hand covering his face is that of death incarnate, and if Michizou were to die at some point, he wouldn't mind if it was because of him. It would not be bad, indeed, if this were the last image he would see upon his death. It is the image he will see if one day his treachery is discovered—Gin will carry the weapon meant to assassinate him, because Gin is the one who gets rid of people like him.
He knows that's not something he should be thinking about. No one can blame him for being unable to think clearly when the hand covering his face cuts off his air intake and the realization still has him a little dizzy.
He nods to show that he has heard and understood their words, and only then does Gin back up and sit back down on the couch.
“How do you know where I live?” he then asks, to which she just lifts her shoulders, averting her gaze as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Okay... Hey, strange question, but how should I...?”
He gestures vaguely, pointing at him. Gin frowns, but when she understands what he means, she lifts her shoulders again. He doesn't care. Fine. "He" will do.
Gin picks up the notebook again and writes down a single word. "Room." Michizou blinks. He swears he's not usually this slow. He's a trained soldier, for God's sake. He can't let a pretty face distract him like this.
(It's not because he's a pretty face, it's because he's Gin. Gin, being as honest as anyone could be. Showing himself in front of him with no masks, no covers.
What would she say, if Michizou were to tell her the truth?
Hey. You're not who you say you are. I'm not, either. Sometimes I don't know who I am at all. My lies have gotten the best of me. Has it happened to you? Seeing yourself in the mirror and not knowing who it is that's looking back at you?)
“I'm not giving you my bed,” he says when he finds his words, frowning. “Sleep here.”
Gin shakes his head, grimacing.
“Do you have a problem with my couch?”
Gin wrinkles his nose and the expression on his face shows so much displeasure that Michizou begins to question if there really is something so wrong with his couch.
“You know what, my bed is big. We can both fit.”
Gin raises his eyebrows and blinks. He opens his lips as if to say something, and when Michizou notices a small blush begin to appear on the other's cheeks he blushes so much that his face burns.
“I didn't mean it like that!”
Gin purses her lips and, after a second's pause, laughs. It's a soft, brief sound, delicate like the rest of his appearance. He covers his mouth with one hand, looking at him with amusement, and Tachihara stands up while sighing exaggeratedly.
“Follow me. I'll give you clothes, too. You're not getting in my bed covered with blood.”
Gin rolls his eyes, but doesn't hesitate to follow him in the direction of the bedroom. He takes a while to find comfortable sleeping clothes that would fit his guest, and when he hands them over, Gin leaves to the bathroom. It gives Tachihara enough time to put on the worn-out shirt and old pants he wears as a kind of pajamas and crawl into bed, appropriating the right side.
When Gin returns, it takes all of Michizou's willpower not to analyze him from head to toe. He has tied up his hair and Michizou's clothes, being too big for him, hide every curve that his dress highlighted. If Gin were to put on the mask, he would look like the Gin Michizou knows. Seeing him like this makes things a little easier for him. He's still attractive, but this is an attractiveness he's used to. If his stomach turns a little when Gin raises an eyebrow when he notices him looking at him, well, it's another secret he hopes he can take to his grave.
“Does anyone else know about...?” Michizou says, not knowing how to state what he means. He doesn't need to.
“Higuchi.”
“You told Higuchi and not me?” he claims, feigning offense, though he knows he has no right. Gin shakes his head.
“She found out. I was going to go to her, but I don't know where she lives.”
That does offend him a little.
“So I'm your second choice.
“Don't be a baby,” Gin grumbles, climbing into bed. He gets under the covers and settles on his side so he can look at him. Tachihara remains seated, motionless, and swallows. Maybe he should have left the bed for GIn to sleep alone. “You're the first one I've told willingly. Stop crying.”
That makes it worse. Michizou feels guilt settling in the pit of his stomach, but he swallows down the nausea with everything he can't say without condemning them both. He tries to convince himself that it's for both their sakes, but he sees a scar Gin has on his cheek and his eyes look bigger and brighter than ever and he feels this is all a mistake.
He smiles, hiding behind the facade he uses at work—this is work, too. If only it were something more. If only meeting Gin wasn't a consequence of doing his duty. If only he hadn't gone to his apartment covered in blood just because he had nowhere else to go.
If only Gin didn't trust him at all.
“Oh, Gin. I knew you adored me deep down.”
“I'm going to kill you in your sleep,” he says matter-of-factly, hugging his pillow.
“No, you won't.”
“If you don't wake up tomorrow, you'll know why.”
Michizou rolls his eyes and lies down with his back to him. In the silence, all he hears is the sound of his breathing. He feels that this will haunt him for the rest of his days.