Archive of Our Own ^beta

1.
From the moment Hyuse met him, he can confidently say that he did not like Yuuichi Jin. Then again, he was a little too occupied with fighting to identify why. At first, anyways. It became apparent quite quickly. When Jin started treating their fight like a lunchtime gathering so he could spout nonsense about Hyuse's ‘future’ to psych him out, to be precise.

They were fighting so Hyuse gave in to the exponentially growing urge to stab him. Using Lambyris. It was the closest he could get to a sword at the time. Yet, that bastard had the audacity to dodge and start grinning like some maniac!

How annoying, he concluded. Jin was just toying with him. A completely unacceptable avoidance of his murder attempts was being employed, and Hyuse felt sorry for anyone who had to put up with the guy on the regular. At least he’d never have to see that stupid smirk again.

2.
He learned the hard way that Jin was serious when he said Hyuse would get left behind. In Hyuse’s completely objective perspective, Jin easily is the worst part of being stuck in Meeden. Maybe Hyuse has a bit of a grudge, but so what? Jin is irritating enough to deserve it.

The travesty doesn’t even end there. Jin literally lives in the same place Hyuse is being held prisoner! Who decided that was a good idea? No- how do the Tamakoma agents put up with Jin enough to live here too? Hyuse’s concern for the mental states of Tamakoma only skyrockets when they let him walk around the base.

Jin sits on a couch nearby for some reason. He doesn’t look at all disturbed by Hyuse’s death glare. Hyuse wishes someone would invent a trigger that would let him murder the agent by looking at him intensely enough, because Hyuse's expression would obliterate him in a millisecond. A point of pride he’ll never get to brag about.

A few seconds pass between them until Jin holds out the bag to Hyuse, “Want one? My Side Effect tells me you’ll like it.”

…

Jin looks at Hyuse.

Hyuse stares at Jin.

Jin smiles at Hyuse.

Hyuse looks away in rejection. He dares not encourage the agent by speaking to him. There is no way he would ever eat something offered to him by Jin of all people.

Fine. If glaring won’t work, he’ll just have to make a plan to take out Jin some other way. It's the least he can do. You better watch out, *Aftokratorian profanity*. The aforementioned profanity only tosses a rice cracker in his mouth and smiles.

3.
Youtarou is a surprisingly friendly kid. Hyuse only has to wait half an hour for his ‘supervisor’ to get hungry enough that they can go to the kitchen. A perfect opportunity to scout the Tamakoma base. The living room and basement only offered so much.

While the child is busy judging the lack of snacks in the pantry, Hyuse finds the cutlery drawer. Or what he hopes is a cutlery drawer. He can only identify some spoons from the mess of the drawer’s contents. Too bad Tamakoma doesn’t have any big, sharp knives. His murder plans would be so much more simple then.

He grabs a couple of the spoons and stores them in the conveniently placed safe, punching in a couple numbers. Weird that it has a window, but he ignores it in favour of investigating the other contents of the drawer.
“What are these sticks?” He asks, prying one from the heap.

“That’s a chopstick!” Youtarou proudly proclaims, “They’re for eating!” The boy then turns back to debating whether it's worth being healthy by eating an apple to stop being hungry.

Eating? It doesn’t seem that edible… Nevertheless, Hyuse’s master had taught him to try foods before judging them. The stick is halfway in his mouth when laughter starts echoing behind him.

Hyuse turns and comes face to face with one cackling Jin. Ew. Hyuse spits out the stick by the time Youtarou realises what crime Hyuse has committed. Making Jin laugh. He’s only comforted by the ‘safe’ bursting into flames. Huh. Arson wasn’t in his murder plan, but it’ll do.

Unfortunately, Jin ‘coincidentally’ happens to have brought a fire extinguisher with him and is able to thwart his attempt yet again.

Retrieved from the crime scene - the crime being making Jin any more unbearable than he already was, not arson - are three spoons and a wet chopstick. The ‘microwave’ did not survive. Hyuse laments that Jin did not share its fate.

4.
It’s a great day when Jin goes to HQ. Hyuse has no idea what he does all day there, but it takes a long time. Any time in Tamakoma without Jin is superior to when he’s within 10 metres of Hyuse. He’d prefer to be in Aftokrator, even if to just be that much further away from Jin, but Hyuse can make do.

Today is one of these great days, but instead of taking a moment to celebrate, he decides to implement phase two of his plan. After carefully observing the agent’s behaviour, Hyuse has identified Jin to be addicted to those weird Meeden snacks. It doesn’t take long for him to track them down to their source.

He was wrong about the depth of Jin’s addiction. These boxes could feed Aftokrator’s poor for several days. Opening one of the top boxes, he finds it already half depleted of packets. Are they really that good? Or perhaps they are the fuel source of Jin’s irritating qualities.

The plan was to poison whatever Hyuse could get his hands on, but there is no way he is leaving without trying some Meeden delicacies identifying the true purpose of the items. For professional military purposes. No time to waste. Hyuse surreptitiously absconds with a few packets of rice crackers.

Somewhere in a meeting, daydreaming about rank wars and resisting the urge to pull out a packet of rice crackers, a certain power elite is alerted to a rather interesting future. ‘It’s been a while since someone last touched my stash…’

The poisonous ‘chili’ Hyuse was warned of by Youtarou lies unused in the kitchen. It would be disrespectful to the rice crackers to alter perfection.

5.
Out of “the power elite’s deepest compassion for his new kouhai”, Hyuse is dragged along by Jin to the store less than a week after receiving authorization to do so and a trion body to hide his horns. Youtarou had begged to come along, though suspiciously quieted down after Jin whispered something to him.

Everything is fine. Jin can’t pull anything, - though, if Hyuse can somehow bypass his Side Effect and take Jin into an alleyway then maybe - Hyuse can. Or at least scout for a new murder method.

Would Hyuse have agreed if he was given the choice? Probably not. But Jin has blackmail from the chopstick incident. Regardless, Jin walks cheerily beside him in that irritating way he always does, “Hey, Hyuse?”

Shamelessly choosing to talk to him. Hyuse dignifies the other’s response with a grunt, scowling. Jin should feel honoured he even did that much.

“Youtarou did teach you about cars, right?” Jin looks at him. Except, Hyuse knows now that Jin is really ‘looking’ at something else entirely. It's so annoying that Hyuse doesn’t even notice that Jin has stopped walking until a large metal machine bashes into him.

Jin’s face is priceless. Much better than that smirk he always wears like a scarf (Hyuse should look into buying one for murder purposes).

Hyuse’s assailant somehow looks more appalled than Jin, though he’s stopped caring. This is Jin’s problem now. The benefits of going around in a trion body disguise now includes saving you from Meeden’s ‘cars’. Maybe Jin will get executed for letting something like this happen. Hyuse ends up zoning out, leaving him unaware of what supernatural convincing power Jin possesses.

The rest of the trip goes peacefully. Too peaceful for Hyuse’s taste. He never got the chance to drag Jin into an alleyway as they somehow kept ending up on the wrong side of the road to do so. Annoying. Hyuse doesn’t dare venture across on his own.

+1
A smug Youtarou greets them when Jin and Hyuse get back to Tamakoma, eagerly awaiting Jin’s praise. What are they plotting? Hyuse doesn’t have time for Jin’s schemes. Schemes in general are a sore topic for him. Turns out being on the bad end of one and getting left behind in a foreign, and largely hostile, nation by your own people does that.

With all the nonchalance an angsty teenager possesses, Hyuse heads off to his room. He nearly dies by doing so.

In some impossible feat, a stupidly large amount of rice crackers fill his room like a sea, pouring onto him aggressively. If the impact wasn’t enough to do the job, almost drowning under them should’ve. But Hyuse is a trained warrior, so no snack will be enough to take him down. He slashes his way out, scattering rice crackers everywhere in his fury.

The culprits are obvious, but Youtarou was under Jin’s spell, so Hyuse will let him live. On the other hand…

“JIN!!!”