[3rd POV]
(Reze's apartment)
Steam fogged the small tiled room until its edges dissolved into nothing. Water struck the floor in a steady rhythm, loud enough to drown out thought if she let it.
Reze stood beneath the shower, eyes half-lidded, unmoving, as if waiting for the heat to burn something out of her that refused to die.
Orders were supposed to be clean, precise, cold and final.
She had lived on them for years. Lived as them for years,
So she knew.
Orders were not supposed to feel like this, disgusting, frightening, and doubtful.
"Kill Jin Nakahara, the Pig Devil,"
The words should have fitted together neatly, the way they always had before. They should have slid into place like ammunition into a chamber. Instead, they scraped. Refused to align. Every time she repeated them in her head, something twisted out of shape.
The hot water ran down her hair, her shoulders, her back, tracing lines she didn't bother to feel. Half an hour into the shower and a part of her didn't even know where she was.
She pressed her forehead lightly against the cool tile, breath fogging the surface.
Lies were her native language. The cruel training she had before made sure it was. She could smile on command, cry on cue, say I love you in three languages and mean none of them.
Her handlers called it talent.
Well, perhaps they were wrong.
She didn't feel too talented at the moment.
Because at one point, the lies she told him stopped behaving like others.
The image of Jin surfaced in her mind once more, absolutely uninvited. She recalled the way he spoke without measuring each word. The way he looked at the world as if it were something amusing.
And the way he looked at her.
The way he saw her before she even saw herself. She was not a living weapon, a spy, or a piece of flesh that was good to look at.
At first, she thought he had seen through her. He had seen through all her lies. But no. He just saw her.
Saw her.
And it was only through the reflection in his eyes that Reze got a glimpse of herself.
The water kept falling on her body, tracing her shape from head to toe. No droplets fell off her body before they reached her feet, as if her shape was just perfect and there was no reason for them to fall.
Reze exhaled slowly, fingers curling against the tile when she felt the hot water turn lukewarm and then cold.
"Fuck," she cursed out in a whisper.
It cannot be denied anymore. When faced with the finality of those orders, she realised the truth.
She fell for her own lies.
She didn't even fall for his lies. How could she, because he never lied. He was always truthful when in comparison with her.
Her lies fell for his truth.
And now she must pay the price.
She turned off her shower and slowly stepped out of the bathroom. Her wet hair left their water on the ground, but she didn't care.
She was not going to return anyway.
...
...
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[3rd POV]
"Reze?" Jin answered the door when she knocked on his apartment.
Jin had just returned from the party. He was already done with dropping Denji off in his apartment and only a few minutes after he entered his, he heard a knock on his door.
He thought it would be Aki. Maybe Denji had vomited on the floor.
But Reze's figure greeted him when he opened the door.
"Hi Jin," Reze said, forcing a smile. For the first time in her life, she found the act to be hard.
"What are you doing here?" Jin asked, confused, and his eyes narrowed at her smile.
"I got you a gift," she said, hands around her back "Give me your hand."
Jin gave her his left hand, and she put on a new watch on his wrist.
"Ta-da," she said after she was done.
Jin pulled back his hand and closely inspected the watch. He then took out his phone to check the time. It said 9:15 on his phone, but the watch said it was 9:20. That meant the watch showed the correct time since the phone Makima gave him had the wrong time. It was always five minutes late.
"Thank you," he said and also a bit embarrassed. Maybe this was her way of saying that he was late too often.
"Do you want to come in?" he invited her.
She kissed him for an answer.
His eyes widen in surprise. Reze was standing on the tip of her toes, her whole body leaning into his as she trusted him not to drop her.
Jin felt himself backpedalling, and Reze closed the door when they were inside.
"What are you doing?" he asked, but Reze shut him up again with her lips.
At that point, Jin gave in and kissed her back.
They moved towards the bedroom. Their clothes dropped on the floor piece by piece. No one knows who stripped whom, but when they fell on the bed, both were completely naked.
Their lips continued their clash. It was an ugly kiss. There was no harmony. Reze was kissing him as if to steal everything she could before she made the final choice. Jin tried to reciprocate but he couldn't match her desperation.
Jin fell on the bed, his back on the mattress. Reze straddled him on top, she could feel the hardness of his member on her sex.
After minutes of kissing, Reze finally stopped.
Their faces were only an inch apart. Both could feel each other's breath.
"What's going on, Reze?" Jin asked again after catching his breath.
She didn't reply.
She grabbed his hand, the same hand that had her new gift. She slowly guided his hand to rest on her neck and then she let him pull out the pin on her neck.
It was like the pin of a grenade. And pulling that began her transformation.
Still straddling him, Reze's body began to transform. Dark tendrils began wrapping around her arm. It was like a black glove that went up to her elbow.
She placed her hand on his chest.
On his heart.
Jin knew exactly what she was doing, and his eyes reflected that. But he didn't do anything to stop her.
There was silence.
Her head had transformed, but her face remained the same. She was still too afraid to finish the final act.
Her human face cried, both in sadness and in pain, because being stuck mid-transformation hurt every inch of her body.
"It's okay," Jin said as her tears fell on his face. He tried to show her a calm smile.
Her heart twisted, hurting more than the transformation hurt her body.
"I'm going to kill you," she said.
Stop her.
You know now. So stop her.
She screamed those inside her mind.
"Just do it," Jin said and put his hand on top of her hand that was marking his heart.
A massive explosion at point-blank range without his transformation might just really be the end of him.
A little more silence that felt like eternity.
And then sparks lit up the dark room.
...
...
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(Crossroads Cafe)
Makima looked out of the glass walls. A cup of black coffee in her hands.
She was sitting in the same seat Jin would sit on whenever he came for breakfast. It was Jin and Reze's favourite spot.
She had a small smile on her face even when she was alone in that cafe.
After finishing half of the black coffee, she began adding sugar to her cup. She added until the coffee reached the tip of the cup. It was half sugar, half coffee.
She stirred it well.
And then took another sip.
..
..
[IMAGE]
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Author : Short and cruel. Extra chapter if we get 500 stones today. We were sitting at 442 so 942 is the goal