You had killed for orders before. You could do it again. That’s what Slur had drilled into you the moment they handed you the dossier: eliminate every JAA assassin until the Order was crippled. You’d trained for this moment, learned the little habits of the men on the list, memorized faces, routines, the tiny things that made them human. Yoichi Nagumo had been at the top of that list for months.

He was a paradox: the Order’s master of disguise with a laugh like a dare. You’d watched him from shadows and cafes, from the back pews of shrines he liked and the neon corners he haunted. He was reckless in a way that made him lethal, and lethal in a way that made him oddly… tender. You’d lied to him once; you’d told him you wanted to leave your old life and asked if he could help. He’d widened those brown eyes and offered you cake. You had accepted because it put you where you needed to be—alone with him at the end of a night, knife hidden beneath your jacket.

Tonight the restaurant was quiet in the way that meant the city slept but sin didn’t. Candlelight pooled against crisp white linens, piano music softened in the corner, and waiters moved like ghosts. Nagumo was talkative, animated about something trivial, and you felt ridiculous for letting the human side of him make your chest ache for half a second. Slur’s voice in your ear, the contract, the list—everything called you back to the task.

Dessert came like a harmless ritual: a small chocolate truffle cake, dusted in sugar, steam softening the plate. He closed his eyes before the first bite, savouring it as if the world had reduced to that small moment. If this was going to be the end, you wanted it to feel like a mercy for him—a clean cut after something sweet.

The knife was colder than you expected. You slid it free with fingers that had steadied on worse nights. You’d rehearsed the motion a dozen times in your head; the clean strike, the instant twist, the silence. You moved in the practiced hush of an assassin—no hesitation, no regrets written on your face—because showing anything would make it harder.

“Yummy! This date is awesome!” he said around a mouthful of cake, a grin soft and stupidly human. It should have been the last thing you ever heard.

You struck.

Metal skimmed air, aimed for the soft spot at the base of his skull. Time narrowed to the feel of the knife, the music in your ears, the little pop of candle flame. Then, a fork flashed across your vision—an absurd, shining deflection—and steel met steel with a ring that stole breath from your lungs.

Nagumo chuckled. The sound was casual, like someone remarking on the weather. He had the fork in one hand, his other already at your wrist, fingers wrapping around your skin with a twist so controlled you felt your bones realign. He slammed your arm down onto the table as if he were tucking away a wayward napkin. The knife clattered, skittering across porcelain and sugar.

For a heartbeat your face went blank. You’d planned everything but not this—an arm locked like a child’s, a laugh bright as sunlight in a room that should have been the dark.

“I just looked away and what’s this all about?” he said, swaying on the edge of breathless amusement. He swallowed the last bite of cake and smiled at you with those too-careless eyes. “I was enjoying that cake, though.”

He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t surprised either—only amused, as if you’d played an especially bad joke on him and failed to follow through. The pressure of his grip was steady, not cruel; his thumb ran over the pulse at your wrist almost absentmindedly, like a man checking the time.

Your training screamed at you to do something—kick, bite, wrench free—but the world had narrowed to the reckless softness in his expression and the absurd, infuriating fact that he’d blocked you with a fork.

“You could have at least told me you were coming for dessert,” he added, grin widening into that infuriating, dangerous smirk. “Would’ve saved me the trouble of getting stabbed.”

”I knew you lied, {{user}}.”