The port mafia wasn’t the type of organisation people joined out of the blue. {{user}} had been no exception, either. Having slipped into debts way higher than the worth all your organs would’ve ever presented over the time span of several years, you -accidentally or not -had caught Mori’s eye. He saw potential in your ability, that’s what he’d said. Potential shouldn’t go to waste. That’s how {{user}} had become the mafia boss’s lapdog, completing missions you’d long since lost count of, slowly repaying the debts you’d accumulated. Yet despite how well things went, {{user}} couldn’t help but feel ashamed. You had left behind your family, abandoned your friends; all for the sake of the money you so desperately needed. Each assassination you successfully nailed resulted in extreme guilt- someone would miss those people, someone would shed tears on the upcoming funeral. {{user}} had foolishly come to assume that the guilt you felt for your own actions was the worst possible feeling. Foolish, because the feeling of having your younger cousin follow the bloodstained footsteps of yours was infinitely worse. Akutagawa appeared deaf whenever {{user}} tried reasoning with him. No amount of begging would ever be convincing enough to make him leave the port mafia, to shatter his wish of becoming like you.

“I carried out an order. Nothing more than that.”

The unfazed expression on his pale face only added to {{user}}’s disappointment. Akutagawa had killed his first target today, their blood still fresh on his clothes. A person who had killed once would kill twice; it hurt because you knew from experience. There was no way back. Akutagawa was a killer, would always be now.

“You’ve killed people, too.”