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The moon shines through the curtains, casting a silver tint across the bedroom where two men and their cats lay asleep. Their arms are wrapped around each other, both resting after a quiet evening in. A certain ringtone wakes Madara from his sleep, carefully slipping out of HiMERU’s grasp to answer his phone. He takes the call in the bathroom, not wanting to wake his roommate with the sound of his voice.
“It’s Mikejima.” He says, awaiting a response from the caller. He knows exactly who it is, and what the call is about. A crucial mission awaits Double Face, action needing to be taken tomorrow evening. Madara sighs as he’s given details, knowing how dangerous this mission will be. Hesitantly, he accepts.
The call ends, Madara promptly receiving an encrypted text message with the finer details and objectives of the mission. He looks over it, committing the plan to memory before the text disappears. He leaves the bathroom to head back to bed only to find HiMERU sitting up, looking at him with worry in his eyes.
“...I’m sorry. I really am,” His shoulders slump. “But I need to take this mission, I don’t have any other choice.” Madara says with a sigh. He ambles into bed, plugging his phone back in before slipping under the covers.
The other man looks at him with brows furrowed not in anger, but in frustration. Madara can guess what he’s thinking, and it only adds to his anxiety about tomorrow evening.
“HiMERU hates it when you go on missions, he hates not knowing when you’ll be back, and then you come back in the middle of the night injured. It worries HiMERU.” His eyes begin to tear up, his hand gripping the blanket.
“I know, I don’t like it any more than you do. If I could, I wouldn’t take them, but it’s my duty, I’m obligated to fulfill that.” Madara says, attempting to comfort HiMERU. Unfortunately, his words don’t seem to help at all. HiMERU gets up, taking a pillow with him. He leaves the bedroom to sleep on the couch without another word, leaving Madara alone.
He can only sigh and at least try to go back to sleep, but his worries eat at him the rest of the night. He doesn’t sleep well at all, and when he gets up in the morning to get breakfast, he finds no trace of his roommate but a note on the fridge, telling him he’ll be out for the day.
Madara spends his morning and afternoon preparing for his mission, lonely. Once evening rolls around, he meets Kohaku at the disclosed location, going over the plan once more.
Everything had been going as planned.
Double Face’s mission tonight was to take out a target at a banquet, simple as that. Of course, there would be bodyguards, other guests, and the like, but the pair were more than adequately trained to deal with them without issue.
The factor that made this specific mission more dangerous was that they had to be essentially invisible, and there was a heavy requirement that the assassination had to be as discreet as possible. Make it look like an accident , the instructions had stated. Such a mission would be easier if there weren’t cameras manning every angle known to man, making such a task a billion times more difficult. One wrong move and the pursuit would be a failure.
Kohaku had been assigned the task of keeping the crowd distracted, making small talk to avoid drawing attention to the target. Madara, however, was entrusted with the actual assassination, blending in as one of the bodyguards. Kohaku knew how to tell him apart from the others, making his part of the job a little easier. Madara made an effort to stay quiet, only talking when spoken, making it easier not to slip up and forget a detail he may have lied about to someone else. The time to assassinate the target was drawing near, the plan to poison the target’s drink. The toxin was tucked in a small, secure pocket in Madara’s sleeve, ready to be poured in without a moment’s notice.
He sees the target pick up a drink, and right as he’s about to bring it to his lips, Madara interferes. “Wait, let me see that, allow me to have a taste first, I can’t have you getting spiked on my watch.” He says, taking the drink and pretending to have a sip, secretly poisoning it instead. “It seems to be fine, I apologise.” He fibs, handing the drink back. The target thanks him with a chuckle, saying it’s ‘better safe than sorry, I suppose.’ He takes a big sip, oblivious to his imminent demise. The poison takes a minute to take effect, giving Madara a small window to slip away.
Unfortunately, he’s stopped, the crowd too dense for him to get away in time. The target falls over, foaming at the mouth, his bodyguards rushing to his side. Madara, still keeping the illusion, does as well. The crowd steps back, gasps and hushed words shared among the guests.
This is where Madara messes up. The bottle of poison manages to slip out of his sleeve, clattering to the floor. The target is dead by now, the bodyguards directing their attention solely on Madara, who is already beginning to escape.
A chase begins, bodyguards pulling out their guns and parting the crowd to run after him. Chaos ensues, people and tables alike knocked over as Madara makes his way outside, a mad dash for the van he and Kohaku are supposed to retreat to. The problem is that it’s halfway across the large estate where the banquet is taking place.
Madara is shot at, managing to take cover behind various sculptures littering the property, the marble taking more damage than him. He peeks out to shoot at the guards, hitting a few of them in the legs before moving forward.
Only about half a kilometer remains until he reaches the van, but one of the guards manages to get a good shot in, a bullet piercing through Madara’s side. He falls to the ground immediately, blood pooling around him onto the gravel below. Dragging himself behind the nearest statue, he props himself up. His hand grips his side, trying to stop the bleeding, but the wound is too deep, and he can feel a sharp pain where his pancreas is located. The world around him fades to nothing but a dull buzz, all he can do is sit there.
As he slowly bleeds out, he can’t help but think about how he didn’t get to say bye to HiMERU before he left, how the last time they saw each other he was upset at him. More blood stains his clothes and hand, and he realizes there’s a chance he won’t make it. He wonders how Kohaku is holding up, if he managed to chase after his perpetrators.
His mind drifts to HiMERU again, recounting the nights they spent in each others’ arms, regretful that he hadn’t told the other man how he loved him. It was stupid, but sometimes he felt like he didn’t deserve the connection they had; how HiMERU treated him with such care and trust. He wasn’t a good man, really, he had done terrible things. But being with HiMERU made him feel like he was better, like he was worth caring for.
Warm tears flow down Madara’s face as he slowly starts to pass out, and he can’t help but think how much of a burden he must be, going in such a way that’s inconvenient to the people he loves. Dying in an easy way was simply just out of the question for him, it seems.
He hopes Kohaku is managing, but he knows he’ll find Madara dead against the statue he’s sitting behind. He’ll have to collect his body and report back about what happened, Madara can’t even begin to imagine the impact it’ll have on HiMERU.
It’s a bit selfish, but Madara is a little glad it turned out the way it did, for him to be alone so nobody would have to bear witness to his final moments. The last thing Madara sees before he loses consciousness is a vague pink shape, and his eyes close.
Madara wakes up.
Everything is warm. He tries to move, but a sharp pain in his abdomen prevents him from doing so. “ Shit …” He hisses, gripping at his side. He sees bandages, and notices that he’s… in his own bed? Madara looks around to confirm that he is, in fact, at home. Tangi lies asleep at his feet, and everything seems like he was never gone. A glass of water sits on top of his bedside table, untouched.
The bedroom door creaks, HiMERU walking in holding Aiko. A mixture of feelings pang through Madara’s chest; adoration, relief, and guilt. HiMERU sets Aiko down on the bed, the cat walking over to lay beside Tangi.
“...HiMERU is still mad at you, you know.” He says with a gentle smile. Madara softly chuckles, nodding his head. “I figured.”
He knows how the other man is really feeling; though he wears a smile, worry is heavily apparent in the bags under his eyes. Madara can’t begin to imagine what’s been going through his mind for however long it’s been since he nearly died, heavy feelings suddenly weighing down on his chest.
“I’m sorry…” Is all he can say, not able to express himself the way he wants at the moment. He’s met with a soft kiss to his lips, his worries melting away for now. “Oukawa managed to get you both out safely, and you were taken to a private hospital to treat your wound.” He states.
Madara sighs in relief, his shoulders relaxing. “Ah, so that’s how I got back…” He looks away, not knowing what else to say. There’s a tension in the room, neither man wanting to address it. They sit in silence for a long while, the purring of their cats the only sound to break up any monotony.
“...I didn’t think I was gonna make it.” Madara admits. “I… I was ready to accept death back then.” He works up the courage to look up, tears beginning to fall down HiMERU’s cheeks. “...Don’t say that.”
He walks over to the other side of the bed and climbs in, carefully resting against the injured man. “ Kazuya …” Madara says quietly, holding his hand. “Just rest…” HiMERU replies.
Madara tosses his thoughts to the back of his mind, focusing on relaxing. He doesn’t want to worry HiMERU any more than he already has, after all. After a while, he falls asleep again, this time, in the comforts of his own home, the man he lives for snuggling against him.