[1st POV]
(The next day)
"What are you doing?"
Aki asked, his body lazily sprawling on the two-seater couch of my living room. He was very tall for a Japanese, standing at six feet. It felt wrong to see him lying on a small couch like that.
"I'm dressing up," I said, fixing the corners of my shirt.
"So what do you think?" I said, presenting myself to him.
Aki carefully eyed me up and down before he shrugged his shoulders. He looked satisfied with the outfit.
"You look surprisingly normal," he said.
"You make that sound like a compliment," I said, deadpanning.
"It is when you normally look like you just woke up from an emergency," he said.
"Great," I rolled my eyes before heading into my room. There were many clothes on my bed, all newly bought. And I tried the second outfit, which I bought because I thought they would match well together.
I came out after I was done and presented myself once more.
"What about this?" I asked.
"It's trying too hard to impress. The bright colours don't match your hair," he said.
I headed back to my room and came out wearing another set of clothes.
"You look like old people."
I headed back and came out wearing another set of clothes.
"What's with the baggy parallel pants? You look like a grandma," he said.
"It's the new fashion," I said, shifting my pants. Then I remembered I bought these considerably cheaper than the other pants.
"Yeah, definitely not," he said.
"Maybe you're right."
I headed back to my room and looked at the massive pile of clothes that still needed to be put on. But I think I finally found the reason why Aki thought nothing looked good on me. My sense of western modern fashion came from the future, it was not a good choice to wear them during this time period.
I tried the most inconspicuous outfit I could find and came back out.
"Clothes are supposed to make you attractive. It's the opposite here. Your looks make your clothes attractive," Aki said.
"So it's good?" I said with a grin.
He sighed. "Where are you going out so late? It's dangerous, you know."
I ignored his comment. What was he, my father? And I am the danger. It's dangerous for other people precisely because I'm heading out.
"I have a date," I said.
"A date?" his lazy eyes widened. "At this hour? Is she an older woman?"
"Nope, a high school girl," I said. "She had school during the day, so it's an evening date. We're grabbing dinner together."
"And here I thought you were finally dating an older woman with big boobs, like you said you would," he said.
I shrugged. "Men plan, God laughs. The girl I'm dating is quite literally the opposite of that."
"Curious. That means this isn't something shallow to fill your week off," he said.
"Nope."
Aki thought for a moment before he got up from the couch and grabbed my hand. He began pulling me towards the door.
"I'll lend you my clothes," he said.
We went to his house, and Aki helped me dress up there. We were both similar in size so I could fit every one of his clothes.
In the end, we picked a simple outfit. It was a plain white shirt that was tucked neatly into a loose pair of jeans. Then I had a black leather jacket to top it all off.
I was dressed like a gangster, but maybe that was what Aki was going for.
He nodded in satisfaction after he looked at me.
"You don't need to do much. Just dress neatly next time," he advised me.
"Thank you," I said and looked at the clock. It was nearing 4 pm.
"I'll go now," I said.
"Good luck on the date," Aki said behind me as I left his house.
But before leaving, I needed to get my wallet and lock my house properly. So I headed into the next apartment. But when I entered the apartment, the smell of someone made me pause.
There, standing in my kitchen, was Makima.
She turned to me, no smile on her face, but her features told me that she was happy to see me.
"Hello Jin," she said.
"I just got off from work and thought I'd make a visit," she said. "But looking at your expression, I guess I shouldn't have done that."
"Yeah, it's kind of a bad time," I said and took my wallet and keys.
"Are you going somewhere? You look good," she said. And then her voice dropped a bit low. "Is it a date?"
"Yes," I answered. "It's a date with the city. I've never checked out the nightlife of the city, so I thought why not?"
She stayed silent. The mother of lies could sense her children a mile away.
I just did useless things around the house, checking the cupboards, locking the rooms. To be honest, I was nervous. Not because of me, but because of Reze.
Makima was the one who killed Reze after all.
I definitely didn't want to spark trouble.
"Sorry to interrupt you," she said and put the papers in her hand back into her coat pocket. I only noticed that now.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Nothing important," they were movie tickets from the glimpse I got. "I will visit another time. Maybe I should call beforehand next time."
She then made her way to the door and went out in silence.
I exhaled loudly after she left.
"Oh fuck me."
...
...
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[1st POV]
Shinagawa at night felt different from the rest of Tokyo.
It was still bright, still alive, but the noise was restrained. It was not like the frantic chaos of Shinjuku or the restless hum of Shibuya. This was a place that worked late, not a place that partied late.
Reze walked beside me, hands clasped behind her back, her steps light and measured. She did not wear the cafe uniform I had become familiar with. She wore a cute black dress and black stockings that somehow made her dark purple hair shine bright in the night.
It was refreshing to see her out of uniform. I barely recognised her as a character with her dress. She felt like a person I didn't know.
And she looked good.
I noticed how her pace matched mine as we walked together. I didn't know if it was intentional or not, but it made me feel like we were one and we were together.
We didn't speak at first. Not because it was awkward, but because it wasn't. The silence between us felt earned after the big dinner we had. Like something we didn't need to fill just to prove we were comfortable.
"You come here often?" she asked eventually.
"More or less," I replied. "Training facilities are nearby, but my patrol routes don't exactly cover them. This place is covered mostly by devil hunters from the second division."
I did not have to say all that. I was basically giving information to an enemy spy. I wonder what that says about me.
She became silent for a thoughtful minute before she asked, "Do you train here often?"
"Almost every day," I said. "Aki likes it here. It's where he trained when he first got into the Public Safety Commission recruitment protocol. But I do go train in other facilities too, or I would go to a normal gym."
"You and Aki must be close then."
"He's my only friend," I admitted. "You said I dressed well, right? That's because Aki is the one who dressed me. I can't dress for shit."
"Really?" she blinked, and then she gave me a stupid smile. "Don't let him dress you next time. I want to see you dress in the silly clothes you come up with."
"Next time?" I teased.
She pulled back with a small red on her face. "Well, if you enjoyed tonight as much as I did, then there should be a next time."
"Okay then, next time," I said.
"Next time," she confirmed.
"We should do it on the weekends," I said.
"The weekends will be perfect," she confirmed.
"We can do some normal date things then. Maybe go to parks or shopping malls, you know. Not just walking along the streets at night," I said.
She no longer confirmed. "I like this too."
Her hands shyly moved to her side, no longer clasped behind her back. They did not reach for me but I got the clue. I took her hands in mine.
We both turned our heads to the side simultaneously, not looking at each other as her small, dainty hands perfectly fit in mine.
Slender fingers, soft flesh, small hand. You'd need a miracle to convince someone that this hand could blow up a city.
"Jin..." Reze spoke again after a moment of silence. "Do you have a family?"
I shook my head. "Nope."
"Were you an orphan?" she asked, her ears perking.
"Nope," I denied.
"Are they dead then?"
"I don't know. My mother sold me when I was a kid," I said.
She slowed down her steps until she stopped completely. I turned to look at her, our hands still connected.
"???"
"Isn't that...sad?" she asked sincerely.
"It is," I admitted after a pause. Even sadder when you think about what happened to me afterwards.
"Reze, do you have a family?" I asked.
She gave me a quiet stare. Her mind seemed to be thinking about how to answer my question.
"No," she said in the end. "I'm an orphan. It's why I have to work hard even though I'm still in school."
"That's sad," I said, trailing a bit before I added, "Too bad, I really wanted to see your mother. She must've been pretty."
Completely caught off guard and eyes wide, Reze burst out in genuine laughter. I watched as the sad tone disappeared between us completely.
She wiped a tear after a long laugh. "What's up with that? And besides, your story is much sadder. But I have to ask, for how much were you sold?"
She caught on to the joke quickly.
"Twenty thousand yen," I said, barely holding a laugh.
"I wish I were there. That's a bargain," she said and finally, I laughed.
We both laughed in the middle of the street. People were giving us weird looks, probably thinking we were a drunk couple. We didn't care. We didn't care about anything or anyone else.
Life is a tragedy up close but a comedy in a long shot. I was fortunate enough because I was thrown into a world previously fictional to me. So it was easy for me to look at life from a long shot.
That was why I could be so indifferent at times.
But people like Aki and Reze brought me close sometimes.
"We have to go. We can't stay here forever," I said, still chuckling and pulling at Reze who was bent over.
"Hm."
We continued to walk around the city and we headed into a cafe after a while. I ordered my usual coffee while Reze ordered something along the lines of fruit tea. Or was it mango tea?
"Coffee again? Don't you sleep?" she asked when she heard my order.
"I do," I said. "I have a problem sleeping well, so I drink coffee and I am able to sleep when the crash happens."
She laughed. "That's the opposite use of what it was made for."
Illuminated by the lights, the cafe seemed to be designed for this exact moment. The lights bounced off her clear skin, her emerald eye a nice contrast to her black dress and dark purple hair.
And those eyes that seemed to see a brighter, more beautiful world looked at me like no eyes had ever looked at me before.
She smiled a smile that seemed truer than true.
"Tell me more about you, Jin," she said.
..
What is the second division?
How many people are there in the second division?
Where are the exact patrol routes?
How do the recruitment protocol work? Is it strict to get into the Public Safety Commission?
All the questions I expected a spy to ask were not asked during the whole date. She didn't ask me anything that seemed important. In fact, she seemed to be avoiding those topics instead.
I wonder what that says about her.
..
..
[IMAGE of the dress]
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