Work Text:
Irina Jelavic was merely 12 years old, and she had taken a life.
She stood there, the cold metal of the gun numbing her fingers, staring down at the man who had been alive just a few moments ago. While the sound of the gunshot had been deafening, it was nothing compared to the silence that followed. Except there wasn’t silence – not really. It was only that her brain wouldn’t - couldn’t - receive sound at a time like this. The din carried on outside the little house Irina stood in - many more gunshots than the one she had triggered blasting, each ending a life of its own. Screams where tearing through the town, though those would die out soon. When there was no one left to make them. She heard none of it. The ringing in her ears didn’t allow for it. Not even for the soft drip, drip of blood coming from the ceiling could penetrate her now. Though, she knew it was there. She knew what it was. From the angle she had been at when she pulled the trigger – the height he was at, towering above her – there was only one explanation for what was causing the sickening noise. She knew what was there alright, even though she couldn’t quite hear it just yet. She refused to look, however. So, Irina stared. She stared and stared at the body in front of her, because it was the only thing she could do. She stood there from the door of the closet she had mistakenly hidden in and stared.
His mouth was slightly agape. Perhaps he had been meaning to yell out, Irina distantly wonders. His eyes wide, brows raised. He had been shocked, then? It was certainly a reasonable reaction to the little girl in the closet pulling a gun on you. Except, his features where not what her eyes were so focused on. It was the hole in his forehead where a bullet resided, leaking blood, that she couldn’t tear her eyes from. Sicking as the sight was, she simply couldn’t. Not when it meant looking up at the spatter on the roof. Not when it meant her eyes falling on the other two individuals in the same state, barely 5 metres away.
No. Irina simply stared. She did not move, and she stared.
But she must move. The thought pushed into her mind, though she didn’t know after how long. The chances were it had been too long. Too long had she stood and stared. This man was most definitely not the only one of his kind – she knew that. At least one other was bound dash into this house at some point, looking for any victims not yet found. In her numbed, shocked state, she knew one thing. She would not be found. The last words her father had spoken to her as her pressed his pistol into her hands was to run. To hide. To survive. Her eyes drifted to where he lay.
He was unmoving. It was remarkable how similar he looked. Yet how different. He was lying on his stomach; face turned scarcely in her direction. His eyes were half open, lightless. Unmoving. As was the rest of him. Had he regretted it? In his last moments, had he regretting spending the last minutes of his life saving her? Giving her the only proper weapon in the house, leaving himself defenceless. As much as she wished he hadn’t given himself up for her, she hoped he hadn’t shared the same thought. Her sight drifted to the crumpled form of her mother, and found herself wishing the same desire. Had her mother resented the fact her husband had given up their protection for their daughter? No. Her parents had always given everything for her. She was their baby, they would say, there is nothing in the world they wouldn’t give her. And so they had given her their lives.
She would not waste it.
There a pit of nausea in her stomach, tears had splashed down her face at some point. She swallowed thickly. She pushed push it down. The shock of the situation – while slowing her reactions greatly – had at least granted her the mercy of deadening her grief. At least for the time being. And she would use the few mercies she was granted.
Tearing her eyes away from her parents – desperately and purposefully not thinking about the fact that this would be the last time she ever saw them – she fell to her knees, scrambling at the collar of the corpse. With the gun tucked away in her waistband, she seized the cloth around the man’s neck with two fists. Breath coming in quick, sharp bursts, she yanked on his thick jacket. He barely moved an inch. She stumbled forward slightly, nearly tripping over the body before steadying herself. She pulled once more. Again, he shifted, but only a terrifyingly minuscule amount. Panic set it. For the first time, it was really hitting Irina the situation she was in. Her parents were dead. They could not help her; they would never help her with anything again.
They were gone.
She was alone.
Alone in her living room. With nothing but the monstrous weight of her victim, and the even larger weight of her guilt. Of the self-loathing that had already settled in. She longed for the numb to come back.
Nothing but blind panic could make a 12 year old freshly-orphaned child covered in the blood of her parents’ murderer persist. She heaved and she heaved. Each time, her feet slipped slightly on the bloodied floor, but she did not care. She hauled the corpse slowly but surely across the room, down the hall, until finally – finally – her destination had been reached. She lugged her burden down the cellar stairs, leaving nothing but a mass of congealed gore on the ceiling to ever prove either of them were ever there.
“Hey, Karasuma. Do you know what it means? To kill.”
He blinked at her. She couldn’t blame him. Here he was, trying to eat his dinner, while she was, ruminating over her first victim. Still though, he did seem to be contemplating her question. She wasn’t entirely sure exactly why she’d asked him. Despite her many faults, Irina had bothered to learn at least a little about the man in front of her, she knew his past. One rarely came out of many years spent with Japan’s air force without some glimpse of death. Maybe, it was because, after sharing such a story of her own, she simply wanted to hear his. Wanted to know more about Tadaomi Karasuma.
God, those darned students were right. She couldn’t pretend like they weren’t. Here she sat, after 9 years filled with blood, betrayal, lust, and false loves, hopelessly enamoured like a schoolgirl with a man who had never once expressed even the slightest interest in her.
But it was the way he was looking at her right now, after listening to her tale without interruption. It was if he could actually see her. See past the vulgar exterior and revealing clothes, through to who she actually was – a woman who had taken, not just the one life when she was 12 years old, but a countless number since that day. A woman who had not been perceived as such, but instead as an object for desire. A woman who hadn’t felt the safety or stability of being cared for in a long, long time.
Karasuma was not one for something as frivolous as lust. Karasuma was a man who had a job to do, and was going to get it done. Never once had he looked at her with the same look her lovers did, never once had his eyes wandered. To him, Irina was a colleague – an assassin who, too, had a mission. Someone to be respected.
Never lusted. For which she was deeply thankful.
Never loved. For which she wanted to sob in the way she had in that cellar.
But even so – always respected.
How could she not be hopelessly enamoured with him.
She forced herself to move her gaze away from his. She placed her palms flat on the surface of the table and stood, pushing back her chair effortlessly with the back of her legs. She did not want to hear his answer anymore. She just wanted him to stop looking at her the way he was, because if he continued, she would surely be lost to him forever. He did not object to her leaving, try to stop her. He simply looked at her with that contemplative stare.
“Sorry”, she told him. “That story was a downer, wasn’t it?”
Silence from his end. His napkin was the thing that managed to break her out of her reverie. Neatly folded and tucked into his shirt collar. Even on a vacation to Okinawa couldn’t get Tadaomi Karasuma to relax, to drop his professional manner for even a second. Irina doubted even love would sway the man to ever become involved with one of his colleagues. Not that he would ever love a woman like her.
“By the way, your napkin is on way too properly”, she spoke once more, the faintest hint humour passing her lips.
She took a few small steps toward him, his eyes following her movements. It felt like they were the only people in the world, nothing to disturb them. The soft lapping of waves and the gentle warmth of the setting sun set such a romantic scene, it almost allowed Irina to pretend that this wasn’t her reality; that maybe she was in a dream, a world where Karasuma did love her. Leaning close, she outstretched her hand and took the corner of his napkin. The fabric was soft against her skin. She brought it to her lips, placing a soft kiss upon it, before meeting his eyes once more. His eyebrows raised a fraction of an amount, furrowed inward. Slight shock, slight confusion. He met her eyes. She pressed the cloth to his lips – the same place her own had touched.
And then she pulled away. And it was over.
She turned to leave, and as she did so, she thought she saw that his ever stoic expression might have at last broken to reveal something else. Anything else.
But as she turned her head once more, he simply looked at her. Same as he always did.
“I like you, Karasuma”, she breathed. “Goodnight”.