“...........................................................”

  Ding.

  “.....................................................................................”

  Ding.

  “..............................................................................................................”

  Clang.

  The inside of the elevator looked like it was once intended to be highly reflective. It would have achieved that appearance now, if the shiny metal walls were not currently covered with grime, thousands of tiny crisscrossing scratches, and what seemed to be an entire bucket of black paint that had been dropped and splattered all the way up to the very ceiling. There were yellowed stains in the corners that were best not to linger on too closely. It smelled heavily of decay–mould, old bodily fluids and rotten food.

  Come to think of it, it was vaguely reminiscent of the smell Rin complained about all time, emanating from Yugi’s room. Akahoshi himself had never really noticed it before. To him, Yugi smelled of a strange, tinny metal, mixed with something alluringly sweet that he never could quite identify.

  Actually, I shouldn’t be thinking about another guy’s smell.

  The splatter of paint completely obscured his face’s hazy reflection, but the man’s eyes fixated on it anyway, because he was so tired he simply couldn’t move them away. In Akahoshi’s personal dictionary, ‘tired’ referred a link directly to ‘hungover’. The entirety of his body had a terrible feeling of weight attached to every muscle, like someone was hanging off of his neck.

  His hip flask–that was what he wanted to pay attention to. It was tantalizingly close, but he was too zoned out to begin reaching for it.

  Akahoshi realised the painfully awkward silence in the elevator had been broken a minute ago by Dexter’s voice, but he hadn’t listened to a single word the other man had said.

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah? Is that so?”

  “Oh, for goodness’s sake, Akahoshi!” He was grabbed roughly by the arm and shaken around a bit, and once his eyes stopped rolling Akahoshi could properly focus on the other man’s face. It was covered in distress.

  “I positively don’t want to be here! The least you could do is listen to me, since you’re incapable of coming up with a plan to roll out of bed in the morning by yourself–and stop staring off into the distance, can’t you focus just a bit? Oh, this is so stressful! And you’re drunk!”

  Dexter reached into one of his pockets to pull out a small pink lipgloss. Immediately the stale smell in the air was eclipsed by the product’s blinding artificial sweetness. Akahoshi’s stomach did an olympic flip, and he pressed a fist to his mouth as Dexter leaned in to use the walls as a makeshift mirror.

  In his weak and flimsy defence, the bender hadn’t been premeditated. Akahoshi hadn’t the slightest clue that his first job was right around the corner, otherwise he’d have stuck to sake instead of whisky. But he did recall Yugi mentioning yesterday’s date specifically as an important day.

  So perhaps it was his fault for disregarding that; but that at least meant it was his fault in an understandable and sympathetic way.

  Now that he’d been shaken out of his daze, Akahoshi fumbled to unhook the small flask from his hip, forgetting what he’d put in it last night. When the alcohol hit his tasteless tongue he realised it was probably more sake; fizzy. Cheap stuff.

  “Stop fluttering,” he instead opted to say, feeling his throat muscles sliding over each other like splinters.

  There was a bang.

  He blinked a few times to confirm it. Yes, Dexter had just slammed his hand into the elevator wall by his head, leaning in until their noses almost touched. He could hardly breathe through the suddenly overpowering mixture of fragrant clothing detergent, perfume, fresh mints, bubblegum lipgloss and shampoo.

  Christ, I’m doing it again.

  When the two of them had first met in a grimy neon-lit bar Akahoshi thought his best friend’s eyes were purple.

  It was an understandable mistake. The air had been bleary, full of cigarette smoke, and the lights seared the image on his retinas into a dark mess. Under his long mascara-tipped lashes, Dexter’s bright darting eyes shone lilac. They caught the refractions from his glass and glittered with every environmental colour that surrounded him–a hot-pink latex suit, a blue phone flash, a yellow headlight out the window.

  When Akahoshi had leant over to speak to the bartender, his hand clipped the edge of Dexter’s drink. The two of them both reacted instantly, slamming two sweat-slick hands down and trapping the receptacle perfectly between them, and when Akahoshi looked up those eyes faded into the haze. Outside wasn’t much better, not once they held the one drink tightly between each other and joked about how it belonged to both of them now. The night and the clouds worked in tandem like their hands to wash the world blue, and all Akahoshi could see was blue, except for the white glare of the streetlamps ahead.

  It was when Dexter passed beneath one and looked back, readjusting his glasses with tanned fingers slipping off the glass that Akahoshi now clutched alone, that he saw his eyes were green.

  He knew now that he’d never really examined them properly. Or maybe he’d simply purged the memory from his head. Either way, the ring of hazel at the very centre was new to him.

  Dexter’s pupils narrowed as he continued to stare unblinkingly at the other man, before he suddenly clicked his tongue.

  “Listen, just let me balance your hormone levels, m’kay? I want you up and awake for me.”

  He took hold of Akahoshi’s upper arm, and the next thing he knew he was flooded with a rush of alertness, overexposing his vision. Once that bleached landscape faded, the buzzing in his veins remained. It felt like the first drag of a cigarette, but somehow more potent and more focused.

  「 Hormokinesis - 3rd Rank

  >>The ability to adjust the hormone levels of others. Can be used to achieve many things, such as stirring up anger, attraction and fear, or reducing pain perception and increasing drowsiness. 」

  What had he altered, exactly? Probably adrenaline and dopamine, the two things Akahoshi lacked the most. It felt a little like that artificial high one experiences when waking up early and getting dressed in a rush to go out.

  Akahoshi’s lips twitched into a grin.

  “...thanks. Just don’t make me horny. Might try something stupid.”

  The next second his ears were ringing from the slap that turned them red, and the elevator came to a stop with a tinny ping.

  “Get out. Out! I want this to be over as soon as possible.” Dexter shoved past him, almost knocking the flask from Akahoshi’s hand–probably deliberately.

  “Okay, wait.”

  The adrenaline had been a mistake, because now Akahoshi had the energy to be combative.

  “You already know what we’re doing, do you? Already made yourself a nice plan? Did you happen to catch me up telepathically, that why you didn’t say a fuckin’ word about it?”

  “You stay quiet,” Dexter hissed under his breath, with his lips as still as an expert ventriloquist’s, “And let me handle this myself.”

  The elevator had deposited them into a nondescript, chemical-odoured lobby room. At her desk, the bored receptionist tangled her manicured plastic nails into the telephone cord. Akahoshi loitered awkwardly behind Dexter as the other man approached her, his face slipping into that characteristic, silky-smooth grin. He felt out of place. He felt as if just existing here was dirtying up the place, even though it wasn’t much cleaner than him.

  Dexter leaned both elbows onto the counter, and the receptionist didn’t even look at him.

  “Dexter Blue, one room, correct?” She raised a trimmed eyebrow, the old and uncleaned keys of her keyboard clacking asynchronously.

  “Hey, Milly!” he greeted her brightly. “How has your new car held up? The old man didn’t scam you for something too bad, ehhhh? Trust me, if he did, you wouldn’t be the first. The offer’s still up if you want me to show you around some better wheels.”

  “Who told you that?” Milly’s icy face softened a degree. “No, it doesn’t seem like a scam. She runs like a dream.”

  “A good fixer never reveals his sources, or whatever they say, aha? Well, that’s great to hear.”

  “Mh, very. Now card on the machine.”

  Ugh, I hate listening to him, Akahoshi reflected. With nothing else to fidget with, his fingers tightened and loosened the cap of his hipflask. So goddamn fake. And I can see right through him, too. He doesn’t give a damn. Why even bother pretending? Can’t he just crank up her happy-chemicals and be done with it?

  “Ahh, thanks, Milly, but I’m not actually here for a room.” Even though there wasn’t a soul else in the lobby, Dexter still cast a subtle glance around before he leaned in and said:

  “Just need access to the club.”

  Milly nodded with understanding, and she didn’t seem too surprised, but then she frowned as her eyes passed properly over Akahoshi for the first time. “Sure you do. You know we don’t take unmarked guests. What’s this about?”

  “I’m–” Akahoshi started, but Dexter smoothly cut over him.

  “Yeeeesss, but this is important, Mils. It’s a time-sensitive job, I really need to meet someone up there. It’s to do with my friend, y’know.”

  My friend.

  When Milly looked up at him, Akahoshi turned his head. Better that he project the image of someone unassuming, unthreatening. His dishevelled, hungover appearance added much to that.

  “You trust me, yeah?” He had to give Dexter credit–that desperation sounded genuine. It was genuine; just not for the reasons the receptionist assumed. “He’s expecting us, I’d really rather not keep him waiting. I know you’re a stickler for protocol, and you’re good at it too, but this will be quick–in fact, I’ll save you the trouble, I’ll speak to Atsushi myself. He’s got the job listed.”

  A sweat broke out on Akahoshi’s palms, and he fiddled faster with the lid.

  “Kotaki’s not here at the moment,” said Milly casually, and her face gave away no indication of any unrest. “He’s on a day’s vacation in Higouya. Uncontactable.”

  A fake location. Even Akahoshi could guess that much. So it seemed before he ran off, Kotaki had briefed all of his staff not to give anything away. That was going to make their job twice as hard. Asking around in this kind of environment would only raise suspicion; but Dexter seemed unfazed by the information.

  “Really? Well…I assume there’s somebody else at the club in his place, hmm? Think you could let me go speak to them instead?”

  “Mimizo is there, yes. I’ll save you the trouble. I can ring him myself.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Shit!

  Akahoshi’s shoulders immediately tensed up, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Dexter’s mouth twitch. Dammit, this wasn’t what he’d wanted. Their little story would shatter the moment Mimizo reacted with confusion about a scheduled job that didn’t exist. He felt it, felt the tension and the sudden energy coming from Dexter, and it made his own hands tremor even more than they originally had been.

  The adrenaline from Dexter was mixed with natural adrenaline now, but as it flooded his system for the second time it brought with it a kind of eerie clarity that he’d previously only achieved on stimulants. As Milly’s nails clamped around the phone and began dialling a number, Akahoshi forced his bloodshot eyes to focus on the shiny, scratched plastic. His head swam, but it was easily ignorable now. The world felt like it had slowed down now, colours becoming stretched out, bleeding together with a strange, chromatic distortion. His ears were buzzing.

  The sound of the keys faded into nothingness, and right as Akahoshi was suddenly sure he was far too dehydrated to be doing this and was definitely about to collapse right where he stood, the telephone’s cable split in half.

  Crack.

  “Oh, this old thing!” Milly exclaimed as the plastic covering spooled away from the frayed bundle of wires. She valiantly continued dialling for a few moments, but it was no use–the lights had gone out, and the buttons no longer made a sound.

  Akahoshi had turned a wan shade of grey, the tendons of his neck standing out in sharp relief. “I really should have replaced it– this is ridiculous,” she said irritably, as her hand dug underneath the desk in a last resort for her cellphone; but when she switched it on and began tapping the screen, the call failed to go through.

  “Ugh, there’s no signal either? I can’t believe-”

  “Milly, Milly, darlin’ ,” Dexter interrupted, one hand subtly steadying his partner and the other pulling a few banknotes from his shirt collar, where they had become slightly wrinkled and taken on a strong scent of passionfruit. As he handed them to the receptionist, their fingers briefly brushed together.

  “Please, don’t worry about it, the bad tech isn’t your fault at all. This should cover the costs, okay? A little fee for the trouble we’ve caused. I’ll just go on up, and I’ll make sure everything goes through to Atsushi when he comes back. Mhm?”

  About time, thought Akahoshi woozily. He watched the muscles in Milly’s face soften again, but this time artificially. Dexter was being gentle, but judging by the tiny droplet of sweat glistening on his temple, he was greatly holding himself back.

  Milly sagged.

  “That’ll be alright, then,” she said eventually. “I’ll trust you to get that all sent through.” She curled her grip tighter on the money. Akahoshi swayed, but Dexter’s firm hand pressed into the small of his back as he began to guide him away, giving a demure little wave to Milly as he did so.

  “You’re an absolute gem, Mils, mmm-kay? Thank you~”

  Jesus, I’m gonna be sick.

  With a click, the unobtrusive door over at the other end of the lobby was unlocked by a push of Milly’s finger. It opened into a small stairwell, spiralling up and up into the floors above them. Akahoshi lurched inside the moment Dexter shut the door behind them, making a strangled retching noise over the banister.

  “Please don’t do that.”

  “God—oh—fuck,” Akahoshi wheezed, just barely holding onto the bile that was begging to escape him. The sound of the blood in his ears was mounting in volume, and he could hardly feel the cold metal underneath his palm.

  “Sit down for a moment.” As his thighs hit the stairs, Dexter reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a bottle of water and a small chocolate bar. “Here…blood sugar levels are usually low after a hangover. You didn’t have to interfere with the internet connection as well, you know.”

  After a pause, Akahoshi shakily grabbed the offerings, tearing the wrapper with his teeth and taking a quick swig of water. The soothing coolness spilled down his throat, chased right afterwards by a burst of thick sweetness.

  “I know,” he rasped, “But I wanted to be– ugh- thorough.”

  “If you wear yourself out before we even get to the club, you’ll be dead weight,” Dexter sighed. The friendly affect had dropped from his face and voice, leaving behind only a weary, apathetic air.

  “I know.”

  Akahoshi left a smear of chocolate on his lower lip as he devoured the last of the snack, feeling his stomach wondering whether it should accept the sorely-needed sustenance or simply vomit it back up again. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. Dexter had brought it for him—had remembered the toll his ability took on his body, despite the look of disinterest on his face.

  “...that was quick thinking, though,” Dexter admitted then, after the silence began to expand into an insurmountable gulf. It sounded like his words were crumbling in his mouth.

  “Run the plan by me again,” Akahoshi said.

  “Yes…right. We’ll go upstairs, and I’ll ask around as subtly as I can to see if anybody has a lead on Atsushi’s location.” Dexter’s fingers tapped a rapid beat into the plaster wall. “You already know your job. Stay by me, take note of everything you hear, and don’t start any disturbances.”

  “What if someone starts a disturbance with me?”

  “Then I trust you’ll finish it.”

  There was still chocolate on his lower lip. When Akahoshi felt one step closer to human again, he stood up, and blinked as Dexter’s thumb came down to swipe across the cracked, dry flesh, roughly, almost impatiently.

  Akahoshi wasn’t quite sure what to make of the look on Dexter’s face.

  It was only for a moment, before the other man started up the stairs and he was forced to quickly scramble up and follow.

  The hidden area within the unassuming, out-of-the-way office building did not appear to be anything at first glance. That part of the design was intentional. Few people came and went, at least not all at once. A quick code word and a glance at Milly was all that was needed in order to bypass the empty building’s front and make one’s way into the heart and soul of Matsuto?’s thriving criminal underground– the Night Dancer club.

  Akahoshi had to take another deep breath when Dexter grabbed the handle and slowly opened the door. He was assailed by a wave of heat and heady perfume. His stomach simply couldn’t catch a break today. In total contrast to the bright, washed-out hue of the cloudy afternoon, the interior of Night Dancer was flooded with searing neon lights. The large windows had even larger blackout curtains drawn closed across them, to preserve the privacy and identity of those within. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, as Dexter pushed ahead and he was left staring at the flashing and glowing poles to which clung various scantily-clad, curvaceous women.

  His eyes were shamelessly fixated there. He watched their breasts bouncing while squeezed into tight latex and sequined satin, the fat of their asses shaking through each sway and drop, strands of hair splaying into glittering blonde and black and dyed-blue fans. Some of them moved as if the pole was their lover, caressing it, rubbing against it, others danced as if locked in combat, gripping it with their whole weight as if they wished to pull the metal right out of the ground. Some were lithe and slender, like waving blades of grass. Some were bottom-heavy, writhing to the applause of the men gathered at the base of the stage; admiring the Venuses.

  The nearest girl wore a red bunnysuit molded tightly to her waist and thighs, one that glittered with each change of the lights, and like any man, Akahoshi stared. She met his gaze, winked a pink-shadowed lid at his attention, and his eyes trailed raptly over the infinity-sign that she spelled out with her hips.

  A warm hand clamped onto his shoulder.

  “Shimeda!”

  Just the use of his first name was enough to make Akahoshi startle, blinking as Dexter came back into focus.

  “Can you please not stand there like a lobotomy patient and come over here to do your job?” the man snapped at him, those final secretive words trailing off into a hiss.

  Akahoshi wanted to snap back, but it was pointless–the club was too loud to bother with an invested argument, and he was already being dragged along to the furthest corner of the room, where the elongated sofas held various sitting talking figures and various waitresses passed back and forth with drinks balanced precariously upon their arms.

  He had been to many a strip club before, but never this particular one. His ex-wife had always bristled with jealousy at the mere mention of it, even when it was required, even when Dexter had invited him to network and familiarize himself with the upper echelon of Matsuto?’s nokemono. A girl with bright red hair flipped herself upside down on the pole, running her hands provocatively up and down her stomach. Akahoshi looked away immediately, as if he’d been burned.

  It had been a while since Dexter had been to Night Dancer.

  He made a beeline for the table that possessed a magnetic aura that somehow, though invisible and intangible, caused the surrounding seats to remain respectfully unoccupied, like a neatly-folded reservation sign. The man who reclined upon the middle of the long seating had one boot kicked up onto the low table before him, the two other men who sat by him hanging onto every word he said.

  Dexter sidled close enough to become visible in the periphery of one of them, and the very moment he was, a flash of recognition passed over his face.

  “Dexter Blue? Oh, it’s been a real long time since you swang by, ehh?”

  A blur of greetings and pleasantries– unimportant. What he was here for was information, cold and factual. Akahoshi leant against the wall an innocent distance away, mouthing at his cigarette like a drip feeder as he stared off at the dancers. He needed to appear unconnected to Dexter, for both of their sakes–if it were to come out that Dexter was affiliated with a joushi now, rather than remaining a mediating party, the both of them would be in trouble; but were something bad to happen, he at least knew Akahoshi was there to defend his back.

  How familiar.

  He shook the hand of the man commanding presence at the table. Takaki Mimizo was a man with a rich dark complexion, long braided black hair and deep, narrow orange eyes. He was a very pretty man. Dexter did not have a particularly high standard for men, but even if he had, Mimizo could easily have cleared it.

  “Good to see you, too,” he greeted, in his gravelly rumble of a voice. Dexter could tell he was enjoying himself tonight; not only appreciating the view, but savouring the rare occasion when Kotaki was out of town and he had the chance to step up into a leading position. In his own opinion, Mimizo was no skilled leader. He was too eager, too arrogant, more concerned with his own appearance than the cleverness of his tongue, of which he sorely lacked.

  “Sit down, have a drink…what can I get you?”

  “I’ll have whatever you recommend!”

  Mimizo waved his hand, calling over a waitress. She was dressed in nothing but an oversized black shirt tightly buttoned over her chest, acting like a makeshift minidress, and the red lace of her bra peeked out from beneath the lapel. Dexter vaguely recognised her, in fact– if memory served, he had been the one to recommend the position to her in the first place.

  He looked away and winced a little as an expanse of her cleavage filled his field of vision. Mimizo only laughed at his discomfort, taking two glasses of wine off the plate and handing one of them to Dexter.

  “She not your type of lady?”

  Dexter hesitated as the waitress walked away, running through the multitude of possible answers in his head. He chose the safest option.

  “I…suppose you could say that.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you here tonight. I know you’re always busy with work, so it’s a sight to see you here to unwind…unless that’s not what you’re here for?”

  As Dexter raised the glass to take a sip, the lights reflected through and glinted off the rim of his glasses. “No,” he admitted, “Not really. Ah, you see-” He couldn’t help but glance at where Akahoshi was still smoking idly, bored out of his mind. “I was meant to meet a client here, but it seems they’ve disappeared on me. Such a shame, right?”

  Lying came as easily to Dexter as breathing. Mimizo scoffed, rolling his golden lip ring.

  “Really? It seems like there’s been a run of bad luck for the syndicates recently. One of ours went missing all of a sudden, just a few days ago.”

  “So we’re gossiping like high-school girls now, are we?” Dexter teased. Project a friendly and normal exterior. Make them feel as if they’re leading the conversation.

  “Believe it.” It never did take much to get Mimizo’s tongue wagging. “Some ‘intern’ girl I don’t remember the name of. Was it….Gakuhari? I think it was Gakuhari. Either way…she applied to the syndicate last week, did one job, and then the next thing we know– gone. Snatched right from her car in north Suzumachi.”

  A strange feeling settled in Dexter’s stomach. He sought to remedy it with another sip of wine, deftly setting the glass back onto the table. He had no interest in getting a clouded mind during the job; unlike a certain man he knew.

  Tenkawa. Tenkawa unexpectedly stopped contacting me today, and I last spoke to him in Suzumachi.

  Of course, he could well be stringing two unrelated events together.

  “Oh, that’s just awful,” he exclaimed. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who it was that took her?”

  Mimizo shook his head, letting out a frustrated sigh. He was clearly slightly rattled, despite his outward affect– Dexter saw the signs in the tapping of his finger, and the rapid darting of his eyes back and forth, back and forth.

  “No, not a clue. I wouldn’t put it past her to have faked it, to be honest. She was a slippery rat, never did like it when we ordered her about and told her what to do.”

  “And you,” said Dexter slyly. “Are you enjoying not being told what to do tonight?”

  Mimizo coughed on his drink, before he collected himself with a cocky grin and a readjustment of his collar.

  “So you already knew? Ah, I guess I shouldn’t put it past you. You know far too many things for your own good.”

  Because your receptionist told me without hesitation…

  Dexter allowed his curiosity to colour his face and posture, but he kept it light. Casual. As if his interest had just been caught now, out of nowhere.

  “Well, I only knew that Kotaki’s gone on a vacation, and he left you behind. Why the secrecy, eh? Is there maybe something you aren’t telling me?”

  And then he saw it– Mimizo’s tiny flinch, the smallest twitch of his eye and flexing of his hand. There it was. In a friendly, supportive gesture, Dexter laid a hand on the man’s shoulder, giving his hormones a gentle probe.

  Easy does it, otherwise he’ll notice. I need him to feel relaxed. Lower his suspicion, but keep his frustration prominent. He needs to want to vent it out to me, without feeling secretive.

  It was a delicate process, and Dexter only had a few moments to complete it before he would have to remove his hand again. Mimizo made an irritable ‘tch’ noise, raising his glass to his lips and downing the rest of the drink in one.

  “Well, on the books, he’s just taking a short break for the sake of his health. But, you know, off the record…” Mimizo leaned a little closer, his dark skin reflecting back the blue neon glow, hair hanging half-across his face.

  “He had a little altercation with someone.”

  Dexter tilted his head closer, until the two of them were directly next to each other, and the volume of their voices lowered into a murmur.

  “Is that so? Is he alright?”

  “I’m sure. He’ll be back soon, he’s just waiting for it all to die down in a hotel somewhere. I can’t tell you where, of course.”

  Oh, you dear fool, Takaki. You already have.

  There were a total of three major hotels in Matsuto?.

  Yugi had made it clear he already knew where Kotaki was. In that case, having been sent straight to Matsuto?, there was no more doubt that Dexter had already narrowed it down.

  “Of course,” Dexter returned at equal volume. “You know I’d never ask. His safety always comes first.”