Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

At age 18, Miyuki Kazuya was penniless, homeless, and jobless.

Don’t get him wrong, it’s not like he started at the top and plummeted to rock bottom. He’d never been wealthy—his family had been struggling his whole life. Plus, he chose this life—he chose to bolt from that rickety apartment with nothing but the clothes on his back and some chump change in his pocket. He’d ignored the concerned calling of his mother and whoever the other people were there with her, motivated solely by the adrenaline pumping through his blood and the energy that carried him out and away.

His 18th birthday had been only a few days prior and now, as a technically legal adult, he had two options—to move in with his mother and the man she’d been cheating on his father with for years, even before his recent death, or to make it on his own with virtually nothing to his name. So, naturally, Kazuya chose to literally leave his old life behind him and start from scratch.

It wasn’t easy. He had only a few bucks and that wasn’t nearly enough for a hotel room; he had no friends and no extended family he could room with (that lived in the country, at least—supposedly he had cousins in France who he’d never met before). His only option was tricking the bank into cashing the checks his father left him, which he luckily had stuck in his pocket when he ran from the apartment.

When that didn’t work and nightfall hit, he just tried his best at the cheapest motel he could find. Of course, life wasn’t about to be a walk in the park—it never had been. 

“Please, you have to listen,” Kazuya had begged at the receptionist at the motel, leaning up against the wooden desk and trying to look as pitiful as possible. “Please!”

“I don’t want to hear your story,” the man brushed him off with a tight frown. “Two checks have bounced now, kid. Two.” Despite the bad news, Kazuya kept trying, as persistent as always.

“You know how much trouble I’m in?” Kazuya continued. The receptionist started to turn away. Feeling desperate, Kazuya went on, speaking faster as his anxiety rose up into his throat. “Listen, I’m telling you the bank—they made the mistake. I’ll write you another check right now!”

“Do I look like I was born yesterday?” The man gruffly responded, clearly not about to fall for that ploy. He was onto Kazuya’s scheming, that was for sure. He had to try another tactic. With a soft sigh, Kazuya glanced at the clock, brows furrowed tight.

“Look, it’s midnight,” Kazuya said with a gesture to the dark sky outside the window. “Where am I gonna go?”

“You’re a goddamn kid,” the man snarked. “Go home!”

With a cringe and a sigh of defeat, Kazuya had no choice but to leave. He received the same cold responses from pretty much every motel and hotel he could find within walking distance—so that was how he ended up sleeping on a park bench for the night. It certainly was not his proudest moment, but hey, he’d rather be anywhere besides with the cheating woman he might’ve once referred to as his mother. 

Alright, maybe that was harsh, and of course some part of Kazuya still loved her—but he couldn’t deal with the realization that his mother had been cheating on top of the weight of grieving over his father’s recent death. 

One might think he was going to an extreme level by running away like this, but Kazuya had never felt more disgusted in his life. His father was a good man, a man who was solely devoted to his mother his entire life. Kazuya saw with his own eyes, growing up from a little boy into adulthood, just how deeply he loved her. She could have married rich, but Miyuki Toku, with a heart of gold despite unfortunately owning no real gold to match, swept her off her feet. 

It wasn’t about the money—it was about passion, the pursuit of happiness, and mutual, true love. Or so Kazuya thought. 

Kazuya had his suspicions about his mother’s fidelity starting around when he was 16—he came home one too many times too early to discover his mother giving her coworkers “tours” of the apartment. The men reeked of her perfume and sported messy hair, indicating they had been a little close and playful for a simple visit for business purposes. Kazuya had pushed such encounters to the back of his mind for a long time now, not willing to face the truth, not wanting to expose the secrets and break his father’s pure, loving heart.

Every day, Kazuya watched how hard his father worked to support his wife and only child, but the world had its back to the Miyuki household. That was why his father taught him from a young age how to make his way through their cruel society, how to become a master at trickery, how to convincingly tell white lies and how to create handy inventions to ease his way through the toughest bits of life. He’d learned a lot from his father, more than he could say or remember at any given moment, but he would always value the skills he’d learned from his unusual upbringing.

After all, Kazuya was a perfect product of his parents, who were both clever and scheming in their own good and bad ways—he was blessed with his father’s wit and his mother’s beauty. The saying goes that flattery gets one nowhere, but Kazuya was willing to argue that with a pretty face, anything was possible.

As Kazuya approached a new bank teller with his phony checks the following morning, an old memory resurfaced of when Kazuya’s father needed Kazuya to wear a suit for a day. He couldn’t afford the suit, but what he really couldn’t afford was the disrespect of letting his son show up to an important event in a scruffy t-shirt and sneakers. In order to make sure they got a suit, he told Kazuya to stay quiet while he worked his magic at the nearby thrift store. It was a secondhand shop, but they had nice clothes and plenty of suits, ranging from all different sizes and colors.

“Ma’am, open up, please,” Toku had insisted, knocking on the window of the small clothing store on the corner early that morning a few years ago. “Ma’am, it’s important.”

“We don’t open for half an hour!” She answered, trying her best to keep her back facing the father and son. Kazuya gazed at her, then watched his father’s reaction, anxious and uncertain.

“Just open the door, please?” Toku begged. “It’s important!”

“I-I’m sorry, we don’t open for half an hour,” she repeated, this time with a stammer. Kazuya would be a fool to miss the opportunistic gleam in Toku’s eye—there was his chance. She was beginning to crack and like hell would Toku back down and walk away now.

“What’s your name, ma’am?” Toku asked instead of acknowledging her words, now stopping his knocking since he had her attention. She hesitated for a moment, as if debating whether or not to engage this man in a conversation or not when she thought she made her point pretty clear. In the end, she caved in and spoke with him anyway.

“Rika,” she said.

“Rika,” Toku repeated with a kind smile. “That’s a pretty name.” After she grinned but didn’t say anything, Toku gestured to Kazuya and went on. “You see, I’m in a bit of a fix. I need a suit for my kid. This is my son, Kazuya.”

“Oh, hello,” Rika said to Kazuya with a small wave. Kazuya didn’t verbally answer—he merely nodded in greeting, knowing better than to start chatting and ruin Toku’s bargaining. One slip of the tongue could shatter the whole illusion—Kazuya knew this well. 

“Kazuya needs a black suit,” Toku explained.

“Black suit…” She echoed with a murmur, brows furrowed as she tried to figure out if they had any available. Of course they did, but Kazuya knew she was pretending to think hard about it when in reality, she was probably trying to dig up another excuse to brush them off.

“There was a death in the family,” Toku elaborated. Even though he was startled, Kazuya had long learned to hide his surprise and confusion whenever his father started spouting off something completely out of the blue. His expression didn’t even flinch—rather, he managed to pull off a somber frown as he glanced to the ground thoughtfully. “My father, who was 85 years old… we lost him recently. He was a war hero.”

Clearly hooked by Toku’s emotional explanation, Rika’s eyes rounded and watered slightly. “Oh…”

“There’s a funeral this afternoon—you know, it’s a really big military event,” Toku said with a reminiscent expression. With the smooth way he spoke, he even began to convince Kazuya that they were actually going to a funeral for a grandpa he never even met. “Kazuya needs to borrow a suit for a couple of hours.”

Rika glanced aside nervously now that they were back on topic. “I’m sorry. We don’t loan suits, and we’re not open…” Kazuya’s heart sank slightly. Was it not going to work? He cast a doubtful look at his father from the corner of his eye.

“Rika...” Toku pressed up against the glass. “Please?”

With a sigh, the woman turned around, as if to dismiss them. That was when Toku pursed his lips and pulled out the final trick he had stored up his sleeve. “Wait. Rika, is this yours?”

At the same time as Rika, Kazuya turned to look at what his father was holding. Sure enough, dangling in his grasp was a sparkling golden necklace with a pretty gem gleaming from its lowest dip. Even if the necklace wasn’t truly hers, the woman would have to be a fool to deny free jewelry that looked that expensive and eye-catching. She didn’t know what to say and she stared at the necklace for a moment, lips parting from surprise.

Finally, she looked back up to Toku questioningly. His father flashed a charming smile and said, “I just found it in the parking lot. It must’ve slipped right off your neck.”

Just like that, Rika allowed the two inside, gave Kazuya the suit he needed, and the two of them were on their way without spending a dime. That had been years ago, but since then, Kazuya had mastered the very same trick himself. Now, it would come in handy, Kazuya was sure of it.

“I mean, I hope you understand,” Kazuya said once he’d started his pitch, trying his best to convince the pretty girl sitting there that his checks weren’t fraudulent (when of course, they were). “My boss sent me to one end of the city and back, and now he wants me all the way east to take a few clients out for a night in town.”

“I’m sorry, but we’re not allowed to cash checks from other banks,” the teller insisted with a strained customer-service smile. “How would we know if they were any good?”

Rather than answering her reasonable question, Kazuya tilted his head to the side, lowered his voice slightly, and asked, “What did you say your name was?”

She was clearly taken aback by the shift in his tone, but she still answered after looking at Kazuya skeptically. “Misaki.”

“Misaki…” Kazuya trailed off with a growing smirk. “You know what I found on the sidewalk out there?” He lifted a sparkling necklace from his pocket, one he’d picked from someone’s open shopping bag on his way in. Her eyes locked on the pretty accessory and he watched as her breath caught in her throat—she clearly really liked it. Right as she was lost amidst her yearning for the necklace, Kazuya flashed his trademark killer smile at her and said, “It must’ve slipped right off your neck.”

Misaki couldn’t resist blushing and grinning in response to his charming words. 

His trick worked, but it only got Kazuya enough cash to cover his ass for the day. The next time he returned to the same bank, Misaki was nowhere to be seen and his excuse of getting a present for his grandma’s birthday was ignored by the elderly lady he tried to sympathize with.

Bank after bank turned Kazuya away, and by now, he was starting to wonder what he was going to do next. He knew he could return home, but truthfully, he’d rather live in a cardboard box. Kazuya stepped out of the most recent bank he tried to bargain with and groaned, leaned up against the wall, and gazed at the clouds drifting across the sky.

Winter was coming soon, and he realized that he truly couldn’t afford living out in the streets at a time like this. He needed to use his witty mind and think.

The sound of a few women giggling amongst each other pulled Kazuya’s attention down from the sky and back to the streets. Curious, he found the source of the laughter and watched the cluster of women causing the sound. They were flight attendants. Kazuya’s brow raised from interest as a few of them stepped out of a large taxi parked by the side of the road. They practically glowed in the daylight, showing off neatly groomed hair, bright white smiles and faces done-up in makeup. Their pencil-skirt uniforms were tightly-fitted and navy blue, complemented by colorful scarves that donned their necks and bright red lipstick bordering their smiles. Their heels clicked the pavement as they gathered and waited for the rest of their companions to get out of the taxi.

Amongst them all was a tall, broad-shouldered man with sharp, clear eyes and a self-confident grin. He might have looked like just any other generally attractive man on a regular day, but with that crisp white-and-navy-blue uniform, he looked as if he were sparkling amongst the crowds of the city. Atop his head was a pilot’s cap donned with a gleaming golden star, embellished with a design unique to the airline company he was part of. Not a wrinkle was to be found on his crisp clothing, his black leather shoes were polished, and he didn’t have a single hair out of place.

The gears were starting to turn in Kazuya’s head. A man like that looked like he had his life together—he was mature, accomplished, and wealthy. A pilot would have absolutely no reason to turn in a fraudulent check. A pilot was not suspicious or just any other random guy waltzing into the nearest bank. 

A pilot was the perfect kind of person to become.

This was the best idea Kazuya ever had. He watched with interest as a little boy with sparkling eyes rushed up to the pilot and asked for his autograph. Kazuya was quick to follow the boy’s lead, and as soon as the kid ran back to his mother, the pilot turned to regard Kazuya with a curious raise of his brow.

“Can I have your autograph, too?” Kazuya sweetly asked. The pilot took Kazuya’s checkbook, which had been flipped upside down so the blank pages showed first, and began signing without a glance at what he was writing on.

“You gonna be a pilot one day, kid?” The man asked with a friendly grin. Kazuya mustered up all his excitement and nodded vigorously. “All right, then.” He handed the checkbook back to Kazuya, and patted Kazuya on the shoulder. “There you go. Work hard in school.”

Kazuya looked down at the signature with a swell of hope rising in his chest.

He could make this work—easy.

***

Truthfully speaking, it shouldn’t have been this easy, but Kazuya’s surname was Miyuki. Though he was born with the name, he felt somewhat like he earned it thanks to his father’s legacy. 

There Kazuya was, standing in a freshly-cleaned, brand new Diamond Air uniform. The employee on duty, named Makoto, cuffed his trousers and pinched the fabric to make sure that it would fit Kazuya like a glove.

It had been far too simple to get where he was now. Kazuya rang up Diamond Air, the operator redirected him to the purchasing branch when he inquired about a uniform, and he didn’t even get to finish his excuse before the purchasing supervisor was already moving onto the next step for him.

“I sent my uniform to be cleaned through the hotel—” Kazuya began when he called the Diamond Air headquarters, attempting to sound as exhausted as a real pilot would sound from this type of minor inconvenience.

“Let me guess, they lost the uniform?” The supervisor assumed and let out a similarly exasperated sigh. “Ugh, tell me about it. This sort of thing happens all the time. Go down to the Well-Built Uniform Company—” When she provided the address, Kazuya quickly memorized it and continued to listen. “—they’re our uniform supplier. I’ll tell the man working there today, Makoto, that you’re coming.”

That was how Kazuya ended up here, staring at his own reflection in a full-body mirror, mildly stunned that the black-and-gold color scheme fit him so damn well. Not a soul would question who he was now. He really looked like the real deal, except… 

“You look too young to be a pilot,” Makoto pointed out as he wrapped a measuring tape around Kazuya’s calf. That had been exactly what Kazuya was thinking. After a pause, Makoto asked, “What’s your rank?”

“I’m a co-pilot,” Kazuya supplemented without missing a beat. Clearly it made sense, for Makoto didn’t question him further. He finished whatever he was doing and stood up, then placed the final gold diamond-shaped pin on the front of Kazuya’s jacket that he needed. Kazuya couldn’t resist standing up straighter as he gazed at his reflection in the mirror, pride and exhilaration swelling in his chest. His father was a champion of wits, but Kazuya was no doubt going to surpass him in no time.

“How does that feel?” Makoto asked.

“It feels great,” Kazuya answered, his words earnest while his amber-brown eyes glinted, a secret mischief hidden behind his smile. When Makoto told him the price of the new uniform, Kazuya had no problem telling him that he would simply write him a check. This time, there were no complaints in response to that suggestion—Kazuya handed his check over and was on his way in no time.

Admittedly, Kazuya enjoyed all the starry-eyed looks directed towards him on his walk down the street—pretty women and men all openly gawked at him, pink dusting their cheeks at the sight of such a charming man in a pilot suit. Children began to grin at the sight of him, whispering excited remarks to their siblings and giggling amongst each other. He couldn’t help but to smile as he met the glances he received from all the passersby.

He swung into a bank he hadn’t tried yet with a deep breath, thinking that he might as well give it a shot. In no time he stood proudly at the counter, flashed his best smile, and nodded towards the teller.

He took note of the way one of the tellers—a young woman—kept sneaking shy glances at him, front teeth biting into her plush bottom lip as she tried to contain a flirty smile. Though he wasn’t personally interested in pursuing her, he was aware of how his upgraded appearance might allow him to pull more strings than he could before. Contrary to popular belief, flattery would, in fact, allow him to go very far.

It had been a long and exhaustive day, so Kazuya took whatever cash he could from the bank, winked at the flirtatious woman, and went on his way towards the nearest ritzy hotel to book himself a room. There, he used the resources provided by the hotel to call up Diamond Air again. He used an authoritative tone of voice to sound like an older adult than he was and booked an internal tour for his “journalist student” named Kaguya.

The following morning, Kazuya was at the front desk belonging to Diamond Air, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like a true high school student. He had a backpack he found abandoned slung over his shoulder and a pencil and clipboard in his grasp. His name for the day was Kaguya and he was writing an article for the school paper. He wanted to know everything there was to know about being a pilot. He definitely did his research beforehand, of course, but there were some puzzles about being a pilot that he couldn’t solve on his own.

“What does it mean when one pilot says to another pilot, ‘what kind of equipment are you on?’” Kazuya asked as he followed a pilot named Rai down a rather long stretch of the airport; he was being led towards the Diamond Air lounge.

“They just want to know what kind of aircraft you’re flying,” Rai answered casually. With a nod, Kazuya made a note.

“And what about those I.D. badges that I’ve seen pilots wearing?” Kazuya prompted as he looked up from the clipboard—this was particularly important.

“Well, every pilot has to have two things: their airline personnel badge—it looks just like this one here—” Rai picked his up from where it hung on a lanyard around his neck to show Kazuya. “—and the other thing they need is their license, which looks like this.” He flipped the lanyard around to show the badge on its other side.

Kazuya’s eyes gleamed at the sight of the materials he’d need to sneak his way into the profession. His mind was fast to think of a reason that he’d want to see those crucial documents closer. “Oh, sir, do you think I could make a copy of these to put in my article?”

“You can have this personnel badge,” Rai said as he handed a different card that had been in his pocket to Kazuya. “I brought some old stuff with me to prepare before your interview. That one is three years expired. But as for my personal I.D., I can’t help you with that. They’re special-ordered from Polaroid. The only way to get one of these is to become a real pilot for Diamond Air.”

It might have sounded like an impossible hurdle to overcome to anyone else, but Kazuya’s last name was Miyuki. This shouldn’t be a problem. 

The following day, Kazuya was at Polaroid Corporate Offices in an impressive suit and tie, which he had obtained in a very similar fashion to how his father got him one rented all those years ago. He sat with a salesman who eagerly showed Kazuya samples of all sorts of laminated I.D. badges. Kazuya was there under the guise of a spokesman from a different airline company looking for a supplier for their line of I.D. badges.

“As you can see, we make the I.D. badges for almost every major airline,” the salesman explained. When Kazuya caught sight of a familiar golden diamond logo, he leaned closer to the book, brows furrowed with interest. The salesman noticed his curiosity and sat back slightly to give Kazuya more space to observe. “That’s the current design for the I.D. badges for Diamond Air. Would you like to look at the brochure on that one?”

“I like this design,” Kazuya said. “This could be a good example for what we’re looking for. But… my boss wanted me to bring back an actual I.D. badge, not a brochure,” Kazuya explained with ease.

“That’s no problem,” the salesman answered, a pleasant, unsuspecting smile on his face. “We make all the badges right here with our equipment. I can make you one in a few seconds. Would you like to be the subject of the sample?”

Kazuya grinned—it was like every opportunity fell right into his lap. 

He walked out of the building that day with his authentic Diamond Air I.D. badge and headed back to the hotel, intending to cash out his last remaining checks at the front desk there. The fact that he was running out of checks was an issue, of course; he needed to get a new checkbook. More importantly, this time, he needed checks that looked like they belonged to a proper pilot.

On the commute back, Kazuya began devising the next step of his plan and set it into motion as soon as he returned. The hotel was able to rent him a typewriter and they even sent him a typist to give him a quick lesson on how to use it properly. After he got the hang of it and obtained a supply of blank counter checks, he recalled the toyshop on the corner and the figurines of airplanes he saw on display in the window. He didn’t mind the weird look he got from the cashier when he bought out their entire stock, for he was able to brush off their suspicions with the excuse that they were for needy children for Christmas.

That wasn’t entirely a lie, anyway—Kazuya wouldn’t know what to do with all the planes once he was done with them and there were donation boxes all over the city for the upcoming holiday. Disposing of the actual figures once he got what he wanted from them would be simple. 

Soaking the plane figurines in the bathtub did the trick. He used tweezers to tediously peel off the Diamond Air logos from the wings of the model planes, placed them on the corners of the blank counter checks, and pressed the completed phony checks in between pages of the telephone book provided in the hotel nightstand drawer.

The next day when he surveyed his first batch, he frowned at them. His sample checks weren’t bad, but they probably wouldn’t cut it, either. He’d have to go to the bank when the girl that clearly had a crush on him was working there and try to pull some strings.

Seducing her was a simple task; a few flattering words, a wink, and a dinner date got him behind the counter after hours that evening under the guise of “helping out” at her job. He took close note of how she fed the checks into the MICR encoding machine, which apparently read the special MICR ink and sorted the checks by routing number.

He needed one of those machines. Luckily for him, locating one wasn’t too difficult. A few days of research about banks, checks and the like at the public library later, Kazuya sat in on a conveniently timed bank foreclosure auction. The timing couldn’t have fallen more in his favor. He won the auction for their MICR encoder without competition, for no one else was interested in a machine with one specific purpose anyhow.

By the end of the week, he’d created over five hundred phony checks all encoded with proper MICR ink, stamped with the Diamond Air logo, and typed neatly with Kazuya’s fake name—Takahashi Kazuya—across each one.

Everything had gone smoothly, but then one morning, both the hotel receptionist and the bank teller he’d chatted up told him they were out of cash when Kazuya needed it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the teller said, batting her lashes prettily, “but I’m sure they can cash your check at the airport.”

“The airport?” Kazuya echoed in a moment of thoughtless surprise. “Who cashes checks at the airport?”

“Well, the airlines, sir,” she responded with a smile. “They’ve always taken care of their employees.”

Kazuya wished he’d learned this sooner, but now he at least had a legitimate reason to mull around the city’s airport and really fit in with his uniform. He strode inside with his usual confidence, shoulders rolled back and chin held high as he waltzed up to the front desk and greeted the ticket agent working there.

“Hi,” the ticket agent said with a nod, “are you deadheading?”

Dead… what? Kazuya froze up, not wanting to risk being put on the spot about something he was supposed to know about but actually didn’t. After being stared at for a moment by the agent who was clearly anticipating an answer from him, Kazuya realized there was nothing he could do besides act like he knew what he was doing. “Yes, I’m the deadhead.” 

“You’re a little late, but the jump seat is open,” the ticket agent continued as he typed something onto his computer. When prompted to show his I.D. and license, Kazuya flashed the documents with ease—they were barely glanced at for approval. The man wasn’t giving more context to Kazuya about what the hell deadheading meant, so Kazuya thought he’d try to find out about it while he still could.

“You know,” Kazuya chuckled bashfully, rubbing the back of his neck, “it’s been a while since I’ve done this. Which one’s the jump seat again?”

The agent simply laughed, the sound being the final nail in Kazuya’s coffin. His smile grew strained at the edges. Shit, he took it as a joke! Kazuya’s laugh was one of despair as the agent handed him some documents and said, “Have a nice flight, sir.”

That was the short version of the story about how Kazuya’s pilot disguise got him a lot farther than he ever anticipated. In no time, he was standing stiffly in the cockpit, glancing around for any sort of seat— seriously, what the hell is the jump seat —in the tiny, cramped space of the plane. He was introduced to the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer, but the entire time he was too distracted trying to find the mysterious so-called jump seat so they didn’t realize he was just a fraud.

Only after the stewardess chuckled endearingly at Kazuya’s confusion and tugged at a strap sticking out from the wall did a seat magically appear, dropping from its vertical position down. Kazuya glanced at her nervously and laughed, then took a seat as he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. Right. The jump seat. There it was, he found it.

Though the experience of taking off and sitting in the cockpit while being asked about his nonexistent career was terrifying at first, to put it lightly, Kazuya quickly got the hang of it. He learned, with a deep breath of relief, that deadheading meant to simply catch a free ride in the cockpit to another airport for the next flight he was theoretically operating. At the very least, he didn’t have to do anything and that was a huge relief, considering that flying a plane was absolutely no joke and he had as much experience as a child with the concept.

In no time, Kazuya figured out something crucial: he could deadhead to any city he wished for absolutely no cost.

Truly, who wouldn’t travel across the country for free if they had the opportunity? Especially since he wanted to avoid getting caught at all costs, moving locations from state to state was an ideal solution.

First, he headed back to his hometown and gathered his things from the hotel. After that, he began his new life as an aspiring young pilot named Takahashi Kazuya. He had to do absolutely nothing besides approach airport desks and bank tellers with his uniform on, which allowed him to cash his fake checks at various banks across the country day after day.

There was not a chance that anything could go wrong. Kazuya had this under control—he was practically invincible at this point. 

Hell, if faking his way through the world and receiving a lavish life in return was this easy, then there was no reason to stop. 

***

A map of the country flickered up on a projector screen, illuminating a dark, stuffy office room in one of the FBI’s many national buildings. The map was interrupted by a hand aggressively pointing at the line that divided the land and the sea.

“Takahashi Kazuya is a paperhanger, you see! He started on the coast and during the last few weeks, he’s developed a new form of check fraud, which I will dub… erm… I’ll decide on the name later! It’s not important right now! So, the details of this are—next slide, Toujou!”

When the slide on the projector didn’t change, the person presenting turned to look at Toujou, cat-eyed and stiff. “Toujou, next slide, thank you very much!”

“Uh, so, this uh… I think the remote thing is broken,” Toujou responded apologetically. He let out a small laugh and took a seat. “Sorry, Eijun. You’ll have to do the rest by hand.”

With a sigh, Eijun rushed to the projector and flipped to the next slide on his own. He had been on a roll with his presentation, spare a few bumps here and there, and he didn’t want his groove to be thrown off now.

“What Kazuya is doing is opening checking accounts all over the country, then changing the MICR ink routing numbers on the bottom of those checks,” Eijun explained. 

He was so absorbed in his presentation that he didn’t notice just how bored his colleagues were. Either that, or they were distracted out of their minds. Furuya was already asleep, Kanemaru was fidgeting with something on his desk, and Haruichi looked like he was trying very hard to concentrate despite not really caring about the subject matter too much. Kuramochi was about to kick the back of Furuya’s chair to wake him up, but then Ryousuke beat him to it. The sudden jerk of his seat caused Furuya to blink his eyes open and look around dazedly. Kuramochi’s snicker was barely covered up by the palm of his hand.

“Not to worry, this Sawamura Eijun will explain this clearly!” Eijun chirped. “You see, the optical scanners at the bank read the numbers on the bottom of each check, then they ship that check off to its corresponding branch. Simple as that!” Satisfied with his explanation, Eijun nodded firmly. He noticed that Ryousuke had raised his hand politely, so Eijun pointed at him and waited for his question.

“Eijun, for those of us who are unfamiliar with bank fraud,” Ryousuke smoothly spoke, though Eijun winced when his smile widened threateningly, “do you mind telling us what the hell you’re talking about?”

Cat-eyed and nervous now that he was put on the spot by his coworker, Eijun attempted to explain himself frantically. “W-Well, the last digits of each routing number correspond to the geographical location where the check was deposited!”

“You mean those numbers at the bottom of a check actually mean something?” Kanemaru remarked with a raise of his brow, as if he had only just stopped zoning out and was paying attention again. Eijun groaned, assuming they had established that ages ago, but apparently he hadn’t been listening. 

“You’re so rude!” Eijun complained with a huff. “All of this was in the report I filed two days ago! Did you guys even bother to read it!? Jeez…!”

“I think I understand, Eijun-kun,” Haruichi interrupted with a small smile curving on his lips. “So you’re saying that he would change the last few digits of the routing number so that rather than being deposited at the nearest geographical federal branch, it would be rerouted elsewhere in the country.”

“Yes!” Eijun exclaimed with a surge of newfound hope in his chest. “Harucchi, you’re an angel! That’s exactly it! And the thing is, because of all that rerouting, the bank won’t know that the check has bounced for at least two weeks. That means Kazuya can stay in one place and paper the same city over and over again while his checks circle the country. I swear… I’ll catch that slippery bastard if it’s the last thing I do!”

“Oi, Eijun, with all this knowledge, you’d make a pretty good wife,” Kuramochi called out with a wide, teasing grin. He had his chair backwards and was leaning up against the backrest like a high school punk. “After all, my mom was always the one to balance the checkbook at our house.”

Eijun’s face heated with embarrassment from the jab. Kanemaru let out a cackle and Toujou tried in vain to suppress a grin. Seeing their amusement, Eijun grit his teeth and bristled at his less-than-kind coworkers. “Oi, that’s disrespectful to me and every hard-working woman I know, senpai!! Please think before you speak next time!”

“Look who’s talking,” Ryousuke remarked with a sly grin, clearly prodding fun at Eijun’s impulsive personality.

“So this is why you called an emergency briefing all of a sudden?” Kanemaru asked, apparently finished with creating an origami swan out of a piece of paper that Eijun had given him to take notes with. Well, that idea was clearly a flop; at least Eijun tried. “All because of a couple of bounced checks?”

“It was way more than a couple!” Eijun defended loudly, but then he sulked and let out a defeated sigh. “You know, I was hoping to get some back-up on this.” 

Eijun glared at Kanemaru as his cheeks reddened with humiliation. After his presentation, he thought at least some of his coworkers would understand how important this subject matter was. Did no one else in the office see why Eijun was so worked up!? This guy—this Kazuya Takahashi guy—single-handedly created a completely new form of check fraud, never before seen, and dammit, it’s been working for months now!! He needed help from his coworkers to pin down his current location and catch him red-handed!

“Don’t worry, Eijun-kun!” Haruichi announced as he got to his feet. His peach-colored eyes gleamed from between his delicate, strawberry-pink fringe, determined and as passionate as ever. “Furuya-kun and I will help you with this case. We’ll find out Kazuya’s true name and get him arrested together.”

Furuya finally blinked his eyes open and glanced around at the sound of his name being spoken out loud for the first time since he was called in here. “What?”

“I’ll find his current location for you,” Toujou offered with a sheepish smile and a hand raised in the air. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Toujou, thank you!” Eijun clapped his hands together in a grateful gesture as he bowed his head. “Thank you, Toujou!” He turned his attention to Haruichi with a pitiful expression. “If no one else, I always knew I could count on you, Harucchi!”

“Can we go on our lunch break now?” Kuramochi interrupted as he tried to stifle a yawn. Ryousuke was already pushing his chair back to stand up and leave.

“Sure, and thanks for nothing!!” Eijun snapped at the rest of his audience, but it was no use—they were already very used to Eijun’s antics and were not offended by his brash tone in the slightest. He huffed deeply out from his nose and crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

Thankfully, he wasn’t alone with this mission anymore. Even if Furuya just went along with the flow, that was one more person to help. Of course, at first, Furuya muttered about how he didn’t really want to help, but Haruichi practically gave him no choice in the matter. Eijun didn’t mind if he wasn’t too gung-ho about it—most of all, he was just excited to corner this guy and lock him up for good before he could scam the country out of even more money than he already had.

This Sawamura Eijun will absolutely get to the bottom of this case!

***

Toujou found out that Kazuya was staying at a resort hotel, which put Eijun, Furuya and Haruichi on the move instantly. They had to corner him before he had a chance to escape. Eijun would catch the scammer, get his pay, and earn the bragging rights about what he’d accomplished by the end of the night. It would be no problem at all.

“I was wearing a dress and high-heels,” Haruichi was saying, now in the middle of a story from his former years of work as they drove to the resort hotel in question. Eijun had heard about this adventure before, but right now, Haruichi was telling Furuya about it for the first time. With a cheeky smile, Haruichi softly added, “I even wore a bra.”

Furuya’s cheeks reddened from the suggestive comment and Eijun resisted the urge to grin from the understanding that there was some pining going on between his coworkers. He’d always been a fan of romance, and knowing there was something going on right in his very own workspace was exciting to him. He stayed uncharacteristically quiet for the time being to let them flirt, instead drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. 

Haruichi coyly avoided addressing Furuya’s obvious blush, instead only fixing Furuya with a mischievous grin as he continued to explain.

“I was chasing these guys through the park in this outfit,” Haruichi said. “They had a suitcase filled with bank robbery loot. I was screaming, ‘FBI! Freeze!’ but that wasn’t what made them stop, I’m sure. They were shocked to see that I could run in those heels, and they were even more surprised by the way I pulled my gun out from the bra. Their jaws dropped! I think they didn’t realize I was a man until I was close enough for them to realize the bra was holding nothing. Their surprise was what must’ve stopped them in their tracks.”

“I bet you looked very pretty,” Furuya commented with his usual forwardness. Eijun resisted the urge to stare at them with a giddy smile. “I would have stopped running, too.”

“You wouldn’t have the energy to run that long in the first place,” Haruichi teased back, eyes twinkling with mirth. “I think I chased them for three blocks or more.”

“Wow,” Furuya breathed, clearly enthralled by Haruichi’s impressive feat. There was a lapse in the conversation, so Eijun decided to ask a question that he’d always wondered about Haruichi’s work. 

“Harucchi,” Eijun spoke up, glancing to his side to catch Haruichi’s attention. “If you liked being undercover so much, why did you transfer to bank fraud?”

“I didn’t transfer,” Haruichi admitted with a small frown. “I was censured and reassigned. It’s like… it’s like being punished. I screwed up in the field.” For now, it looked like Haruichi wouldn’t elaborate or explain why he ended up in the same department as his older brother, Ryousuke. Eijun was curious, but he bit his tongue. Meanwhile, Haruichi turned to look at Furuya, who was sitting in the back seat. “What about you, Furuya-kun?”

“I was in a public relations office, but we were shut down,” Furuya answered simply. The thought of Furuya, of all people, being involved with public relations earned an eyebrow-raise from both agents in the front seats, but neither of them had a comment to respond with. They were pulling up to the hotel now, so Eijun went back to focusing on their mission as their conversation came to a natural end.

Of course, as the trio stepped out from their sleek black government-issued vehicle, their advance towards the lobby garnered a few curious glances. In order to get inside, they had to walk past the outdoor pool. Women in colorful bikinis reclining on sun-bathing chairs stared at the three agents, sipping on their cocktails and wondering what was up with the men in suits who stuck out like sore thumbs. 

No one could blame them for staring so openly, really. Wearing black suits, ties, and polished leather shoes in summer was a strange enough sight to see, but their belts with gun holsters attached were visible, making their presence even more alarming. Everyone who looked at them knew they were here for some serious, top-secret reason.

Once they stated their purpose to the hotel owner—a man named Mitsuki—he was quick to open up and be honest about his experience with Takahashi Kazuya.

“He’s been here for two weeks, in room 221,” Mitsuki said. “He’s written more checks than I can remember. The one that bounced was for twenty dollars. Here, you can have it.”

“Don’t worry!” Eijun assured him with a curt nod as Mitsuki reached down under the desk to grab the check in question. “No one will blame you for this, Mitsuki-san! We’ll just take the bounced check and, uh, pay a visit to his room!” 

With a cheery smile, Eijun took the check that Mitsuki handed him. With one glance at the check’s face, he knew this was one of the same checks made by “Kazuya Takahashi” that he’d been studying for the past few weeks. There was no doubt that the guy they were searching for was truly here! He gripped the sides of the check tightly and silently thanked Toujou again for his efforts in locating Kazuya for their team.

As soon as the group of agents stepped away from the counter, Eijun eagerly showed Haruichi and Furuya the check. “Look! I can’t believe it! It’s him, it’s really him and he’s here, right under our thumbs!”

“Great!” Haruichi reacted with a wide smile. Furuya’s eyes sparkled even if he didn’t smile like Haruichi. After glancing at Furuya, Haruichi asked, “So, what do we need to do?”

Immediately, Eijun’s expression hardened and he pointed at the door. “You guys both stay here and watch the front.”

“Eh?” Haruichi blinked and glanced to the doors, then back at Eijun. “Stay here? Why? Eijun-kun, this guy’s a check forger. He won’t have a gun.”

“Why can’t we go with you?” Furuya asked with a small frown.

“Just—let me handle it, okay?” Eijun insisted with a childish stomp of his foot. He didn’t want to admit it to them, but he wanted to do this mission all on his own for once. He was always going out with Kuramochi, who constantly protected him like he was his little brother or something—seriously, it was infuriating! Eijun always got all the boring jobs and this time, he wanted a chance to prove that he was capable of carrying out big jobs by himself.

Luckily, his coworkers relented and Eijun was not pursued as he headed down towards the room where the paperhanger himself was staying.

When he reached the room in question, he gulped. A ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign hung warningly from the door handle. Eijun held his breath and pressed his ear against the door to see if he could hear anything inside. He could detect some shuffling and movement—it was true. Kazuya had to be inside, with only the thin barrier of a door between them. 

Eijun’s heart began to pound with excitement. Now was his moment to shine. He was going to catch this guy red-handed and prove himself as a worthy FBI agent. His grip on his gun tightened, but just before he could bang the door down, a hotel maid turned into the hall and gasped. She was about to scream at the sight of his gun, but Eijun violently waved his hand around in a desperate gesture for her to please be quiet and remain calm.

She slapped her hands up over her mouth and just barely, but successfully, stifled the scream that threatened to sound. Eijun flashed his badge at her and animatedly waved his arms around, trying to convince her to leave and stay back. Getting the message, she nodded and then scurried away to get out of there. Eijun let out a sigh, hoping that Kazuya didn’t hear anything odd out in the hallway to give him a warning—not that there was anything he could do anyway. There was nowhere for him to run, nowhere to hide.

Eijun nudged the door handle softly and his heart skipped a beat when it moved. The door was unlocked. This couldn’t get any more perfect. Eijun pursed his lips, gripped his gun, and then lunged for the handle without waiting any longer.

He threw the door open, and it slammed against the wall, the loud sound resonating through the formerly peaceful hotel room. Eijun firmly stood there in the doorway, gun held out, legs spread in a determined stance to indicate that he was ready to spring forward and attack at any second if he needed to. 

“Freeze! FBI!” Eijun shouted at the man, eyes ablaze with fury.

Sure enough, his target, Kazuya, was right in front of him. For now, Kazuya had his back to Eijun. Shaking with adrenaline, Eijun lifted the gun higher. 

“Don’t move!” Eijun snapped when he saw Kazuya take a hesitant step to the side. His hands began to tremble, but he gulped and steadied his grip before he let his nerves get the better of him. “Put your hands up or I’ll—I’ll shoot!”

Even though the threat left his mouth, Eijun didn’t really want to shoot. That much was probably clear by the unsteady breaths spilling from his lips and the wild look in his eyes—he hated the thought of harming someone who didn’t deserve it. Kazuya was a check forger, but he wasn’t a violent man to Eijun’s knowledge. He didn’t need to get injured. Eijun only used the gun as a method to intimidate Kazuya, to get him to comply and understand that he’d been caught once and for all.

He tensed as Kazuya turned his head to the side enough to see Eijun. He peered at Eijun from the corner of his eye, not revealing an inkling of what he was truly thinking. The rest of his body followed the movement of his head and he gradually turned all the way around. Eijun’s breath hitched in his throat, and for a moment he could only stare back at the man, shocked by his appearance and strangely calm demeanor.

Kazuya was a broad, tall person—he was clearly fit and apparently quite young by Eijun’s judgement. He wore a white button-up shirt that was left undone to reveal the dip of his collarbones and the line drawn down the center of his torso. Eijun felt his skin heat up slightly as he compulsively glanced down, noticing the defined muscles on his stomach and the neatly-trimmed trail of hair that disappeared beneath his trousers. 

With a flush, Eijun attempted to snap himself out of it. What the hell was he doing!? This was no time to be ogling a good-looking man! Eijun raised his gun a little higher, trying to focus on the job by keeping his eyes trained on Kazuya’s face. This proved to be a terrible idea as well, for Kazuya’s face was just as alluring as his body—perfect, without a single blemish to be found. His jaw was cut and sharp, lips plump and brows thick and shapely. Those eyes gleamed a calculating amber-brown from behind a pair of rectangular glasses perched on the bridge of his nose.

His hair was slightly damp from what must have been a recent shower, locks of caramel-brown still wet and sticking to the nape of his neck. He had pushed some of his bangs back behind his ear while the rest fell messily about his eyes. Those eyes, lined with thick lashes and— 

Fuck, Eijun was getting distracted. Kazuya slowly lifted his hands in the air with a cheeky grin.

“Hey now, relax, kid,” Kazuya smoothly spoke and interrupted his statement with a chuckle, head tilting playfully to the side as he added, “you’re late. My name is Shiki, I’m from the Secret Service. Our boy just tried to climb out the window, but my partner has him cuffed in the alley downstairs.”

Eijun’s head was spinning. He was completely dumbfounded by that response to having a gun pointed at him. Eijun hesitated. First, this guy had the gaul to look so damn handsome for no reason, and now he was saying he wasn’t Kazuya? What was going on here?

“Secret Service?” Eijun echoed, brows pinched as he tried to get a grasp on this odd situation. “What are you talking about? I wasn’t told about—” Kazuya had begun lowering his hands so Eijun snapped, “Oi, I told you to keep your hands in the air!”

“You think the FBI are the only ones tracking this guy?” Kazuya scoffed, though he complied and kept his hands raised. Ordering Kazuya to do that was a terrible idea, because the gesture caused his open shirt to peel back a little more, allowing Eijun to get a clearer view of his sculpted chest and the v-line of his hips. His throat felt dry but he didn’t speak, instead continuing to listen to what Kazuya—or whoever he was—said to him next. “We've been following his paper trail for months and we almost had him way before this, too—would you mind taking that gun out of my face already? It makes me nervous.”

Doubt trickled in the back of Eijun’s mind from Kazuya’s demand. What he was saying made sense, but… Eijun narrowed his eyes and huffed. “Alright, fine, but let me see some identification first!”

The man standing before Eijun—who Eijun thought was Kazuya, but now he didn’t know who he was anymore—did not hesitate in the slightest and tossed his wallet over to Eijun. The gesture shocked him. Eijun gaped as he caught the wallet with his free hand and looked down at it with amazement. No criminal would so willingly hand his personal information over like that, so this guy must be telling the truth. 

“Honestly, will you lower the weapon already?” Kazuya remarked—no, this man must be named ‘Shiki’ like he claimed to be—and glared down at the gun. “We’re supposed to be on the same team.”   

Eijun hesitated a moment longer, but then he felt hot embarrassment well up in his chest. His face reddened and he finally lowered the gun, realizing with the burn of tears in the back of his eyes that he’d drastically misunderstood this situation. God, how humiliating! Judging by Shiki’s apparent age, Eijun was likely his senior. He really should look like he knew what he was doing in front of those younger than him, of all people. With a gulp, Eijun holstered his gun and tried his best to remain somewhat dignified, even though he made a total fool of himself in front of Shiki already.

“I-I’m sorry,” Eijun muttered softly, glancing down to his feet. He scratched shyly at the back of his neck. “I-I must have gotten a little carried away there… uh, I didn’t expect the Secret Service to be working on this too.”

“Counterfeiting is our thing,” Shiki said with an arch of his brow, as if this was common knowledge to everyone. He turned to continue shuffling through the materials he was facing before. “I thought you’d know that.”

“I do know that!” Eijun insisted defiantly, his voice raising for a moment before it softened again from embarrassment. “I just wasn’t—uh, I wasn't expecting…”

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Shiki cleared his words and waved his hand around. He then eyed Eijun speculatively. “Well, what’s your name? Can I see some identification, too?”

“S-Sawamura Eijun, at your service, sir!” Eijun practically squeaked out, cheeks heating as he realized he was being put on the spot now. When he went to reach for his wallet, he realized he was still holding Shiki’s. He tossed it back to the man and then pulled out his I.D. He handed the card to Shiki, who inspected it for a moment—damn, he was quite a good-looking guy, Eijun realized yet again—and Eijun’s eyes followed the movement of his tongue subtly swiping his lips to wet them. He blushed when Shiki looked up and met his eyes again.

“You can never be too careful these days,” Shiki remarked with a clever smirk that made Eijun’s heart throb. As if noticing what Eijun was trying so desperately not to look at, Shiki handed him his wallet back, then grinned wider and gestured down to his exposed torso. “Anyway, forgive me for the state I’m in. You wouldn’t believe it, but I had to tackle the guy down in his shower, so I took my jacket off to dry.”

“I-I see…!” Eijun laughed a little too loudly to be natural. “I-I was wondering why you were… um… in a state of undress! It was sort of distracting, if you know what I mean! Wahaha!”

“Distracting, hm?” Shiki hummed, gazing at Eijun with a newfound interest. His eyes seemed to penetrate Eijun’s mind, causing Eijun to go still with surprise. The charming man in front of him so openly stared him down and made Eijun feel a bit hot under the collar. Were they flirting? Was this happening right now? Eijun had gone from the thrill of the chase to being uncomfortably turned on by this enchanting stranger and he wasn’t sure how to react anymore.

“U-Um… forgive me if that was too forward, sir,” Eijun rushed out softly, addressing Shiki as his superior even if Eijun was fairly certain he was the older man between them both. There was just something about Shiki that demanded respect and Eijun was very eager to comply with such demands. 

He let out a small gasp when Shiki reached up suddenly and brushed his fingers along the underside of Eijun’s jaw—the touch was electrifying. He was pretty sure he was holding his breath when Shiki leaned in closer, tilting his head to the side so that his lips were angled to speak against Eijun’s ear.

“Say, would you be free later tonight, Eijun?” Shiki asked sweetly. “Maybe we can chat about this case together over a meal. It’s on me, of course.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa…! Eijun’s mind raced, though his heart hammered against his chest even faster. He barely had time to comprehend the question before Shiki was pulling away, a charismatic smile on his face as he winked playfully at Eijun. His musky-scented cologne enchanted Eijun’s nose, making it hard to resist the urge to lean in again just to get another whiff of that delicious smell.

“Sorry if that was unprofessional of me,” Shiki purred, “but you’re just my type and I couldn’t resist asking. Is that alright?”

“Y-Yes, it is!” Eijun blurted out with his cheeks stained a sweet shade of red. “U-Uhm, I am free tonight, yes! I could definitely go to dinner! Absolutely! With, um—with you, of course!” After a beat, Eijun beamed and suggested, “What about the italian place around the block? I heard that their lasagna is homemade!”

“How cute,” Shiki remarked softly to himself. The comment made Eijun’s heart thump loudly against his chest and he struggled to stop smiling. Cute!? He thinks I’m cute!? This can’t be real! Shiki’s eyes sparkled charmingly as he grinned. “Sure. I’m fine with that.” 

Unfortunately for Eijun’s growing excitement and interest in the man before him, Shiki began buttoning up his shirt and adjusting his clothing accordingly. It was a loss, but hopefully if things went well, Eijun would be seeing that torso completely exposed in no time. He watched as Shiki strode around the room, dressing himself while occasionally gesturing to the stuff on the desk that he’d been tinkering with before. 

“Isn’t this insane?” Shiki said. He began gathering the evidence up in his arms once he was finished getting ready to leave, sticking various stacks of paper into his briefcase and packing up the machinery. “This is his typewriter and MICR encoder. I’m gonna go lock this all up in my trunk. Do me a favor and guard this room for a minute? I wouldn’t want some maid walking through here. The police department should be here any second.”

“G-Got it!” Eijun nodded firmly and stepped aside to make way for Shiki to leave. 

Eijun’s eyes widened as he got a glimpse of Kazuya’s former materials, which included dozens of blank checks half in the making, a true MICR encoder, and so much more. It was quite the sophisticated setup and Eijun had to admit he was incredibly impressed by the mastery Kazuya seemed to have over the art of forgery. He was admittedly a little let down that he didn’t get to meet Kazuya himself and deliver justice with his own hands, but he was glad the guy had been caught in the end, even if Eijun was just barely beaten by the Secret Service.

Once Shiki finished packing up, he started to head to the door. He paused when he stood next to Eijun, but before passing him entirely, he smirked coyly down at Eijun.

“By the way, his real name was Miyuki Kazuya,” Shiki told him with a clever glint in his eyes. “Interesting choice of his to continue to use his first name as his fake identity, wasn’t it?” After a beat, he said, “I’ll catch you later, sweetheart.” 

Before Eijun could respond, Shiki leaned in, pressed a flirtatious, chaste kiss to Eijun’s cheek, and left. 

Eijun stood there for a moment, totally alone in the room with the burning sensation of the patch of skin that had just been touched by those soft lips. He was totally enraptured by his pounding heart and the giddy smile on his face, and he reached up to brush his fingertips on the spot that had been kissed.

Sweetheart… Eijun swooned from the pet name. He didn’t expect to encounter a literal prince charming during this mission, but he had to admit he wasn’t complaining. Eijun took a moment to regain his breath, relishing in the pleasant flutter of butterflies in his gut while his skin still tingled with warmth. 

He might’ve failed to catch Kazuya himself, but he had a hot date tonight—life could be much, much worse!

Eijun spent a while grinning and silently gushing about his experience, blissfully unaware of the eventless passage of time. Only after a good few minutes ticked by and absolutely nothing happened did he start to wonder where the police department was at. Shiki said they would show up any second when he left, but… Eijun glanced at the clock. It had been quite some time since Shiki took his leave.

Even as a weird feeling began to creep into Eijun’s mind, he waited five more minutes before he started to grow undeniably suspicious. When he couldn’t take the anticipation any longer, he called up the police department themselves to ask if anyone was on the way. The answer he got made him stiffen with shock.

“Shiki? From the Secret Service?” The woman on the other line echoed incredulously. Eijun’s blood ran cold with shock. “Never heard of him. We had no call requesting units to the resort. Sorry, sir. Did you want us to send some over now?”

Eijun’s hand was shaking as he gripped the hotel room landline phone. His heart was racing wildly as the realization of what had actually just happened dawned upon him.

He’d been duped by the man himself—Miyuki Kazuya. 

“T-That won’t be necessary, ma’am.” Eijun’s skin felt thousands of times hotter from a boiling mixture of humiliation, shame, and rage. “Good bye!!”

He slammed the phone down, grabbed the nearest pillow—one that smelled just like “Shiki”—and screamed into it.

“Damn you, damn you, damn you, Miyuki Kazuya…!!”

Chapter Text

Dead end. Dead end. Dead end. All Eijun could find were stupid dead ends when trying to track down that elusive son-of-a-bitch named Miyuki Kazuya. He couldn’t believe his eyes. No matter what information Eijun found, no matter who he got leads on, no matter where he thought Kazuya could be found… he came up empty-handed every single time. 

Somehow, against all conceivable odds, Kazuya’s record had all but disappeared off the face of the earth. It was like once he turned 18, he ceased to exist, and whatever was before his legal adulthood didn’t hardly matter to begin with. All Eijun could find on Kazuya—meaning, the real person—were records of his hometown, his childhood address that was no longer where he lived because an entirely new family had moved into that home apparently just last year, and where he attended high school.

He didn’t even have a high school diploma. He had excellent grades but he appeared to stop attending school sometime last fall and never actually finished his degree. What was up with that? Were it not for the lack of information telling Eijun that the kid had died or something, then he’d assume Kazuya was caught up in some unfortunate accident and was no longer alive.

However, all he had were old addresses, names of family members (which, for the record, were very scant—his father was dead and his mother seemed to be remarried), and his report cards from childhood, but none of that mattered to Eijun right now! How did Kazuya manage to completely disappear once hitting the age of majority!? He didn’t have a federal ID, a driver’s license or anything of the sort! According to these records, Kazuya would have been homeless since the moment he became an adult, which was just… impossible. There was no way this guy had been avoiding documentation for years now. Nothing added up!

Eijun looked up from his stacks of miserably useless documents when he noticed that someone was approaching his desk. Only then did he realize most of the office was empty and Eijun’s colleagues had turned in for the night. Meanwhile, Eijun was still hard at work, determined to get to the bottom of this wretched case. He swore he’d catch Miyuki Kazuya one way or another. 

The person who had been walking towards him stopped and stared down at him with a scowl on his face. Eijun tensed and felt a bead of sweat roll down his temple as he waited with anticipation to hear what he had to say.

“Furuya and Haruichi are clear,” Kuramochi said, hands in the pockets of his slacks as he gazed down at Eijun. A sigh of relief escaped from Eijun’s lips; he had been concerned for his coworkers and their reputability after they returned from their failed mission. Eyeing him pointedly, Kuramochi added, “I made sure to talk with the Boss just now. He wasn’t angry with you guys.”

“It was all my fault anyway,” Eijun muttered, still ashamed of himself as he lowered his eyes. 

He was glad his coworkers weren’t being penalized for losing track of Kazuya after having him right under the pad of their thumb. Eijun was the one who deserved all the blame, since Eijun had insisted on going up to the hotel room by himself. Maybe if he’d been accompanied by Furuya and Haruichi, all three of them wouldn’t have been duped. Haruichi definitely would have been too wily to see through Kazuya’s lies—this case could have been over and done with if Eijun had just let his friends come with him.  

Argh, why do I have to be as stubborn as a mule sometimes!? Eijun cried silently to himself, gnashing his teeth in frustration as he ran a hand through his hair. Kuramochi shrugged in response to his statement and leaned up against Eijun’s desk.

“Sometimes we all get a little lost out there,” Kuramochi assured him, eyes shifting away from Eijun’s face, as if he were recalling his own mistakes in the past. “No shame in being rusty. If you wanna talk about it—”

“No, no, no, I couldn’t take up your time like this!” Eijun insisted while waving his hands around in exaggerated motions, eyes squeezed shut with embarrassment. He bowed his head to his superior and bit out, “I made a mistake, Kuramochi-senpai, and that’s all there is to it!”

“Oh, forget about it, would you!?” Kuramochi snapped, now slamming his hand down atop Eijun’s paperwork so he couldn’t focus on it even if he wanted to. Eijun yelped and brought his surprised eyes back up to Kuramochi, who was now looming over his desk threateningly. “There’s hundreds of unknown subjects out there, Sawamura! You can’t catch them all, so stop being so goddamn hard on yourself!”

“I-I know, but I can get this guy!” Eijun insisted heatedly, eyes ablaze with determination as he thrust his face closer to Kuramochi’s, intending to drive his point further home. “The worst thing a paperhanger can do is show his face, and he did just that! He told me his real name, even though I’m finding out that doesn’t mean anything because he disappeared off all official records as soon as he turned 18… somehow… but still! He showed me his face, senpai! His face!”

“Five foot eleven, 160 pounds, Japanese, brown hair, hazel eyes behind black-framed glasses, 25 to 30 years of age,” Kuramochi said sternly, one brow lifting with unamusement as he gazed down at Eijun. The sudden barrage of statistics had Eijun pausing with confusion before he realized why they all sounded so familiar. Kuramochi frowned deeper. “I read the report, Sawamura. The description you gave for this Miyuki guy could be just about anybody.”

“W-Well, yeah, but I—he—” Eijun’s face grew hot as he stammered over his words. He’s super fucking hot and I’ve never seen anyone quite as attractive in my life, trust me, I wouldn’t forget that handsome face is what Eijun wanted to say, but he would rather die than admit just how mouth-watering Kazuya was to Kuramochi. Defensively, Eijun puffed his cheeks out like a child and muttered, “I saw his face and I heard his voice. His aura was distinctive! I’d know him again if I saw him, no matter who he was pretending to be next, so there’s nothing for him to hide behind anymore!”

Kuramochi narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but he then sighed and seemed to give in, understanding that he wouldn’t convince Eijun to give up his chase no matter what he said or did. Kuramochi straightened up so he was no longer staring down at Eijun with so much intimidation, like he was some sort of delinquent in high school. He let out a sigh and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Look, just be careful,” Kuramochi warned with a skeptical frown, peering down at Eijun with what looked like genuine concern for Eijun. His expression somewhat softened Eijun’s heart from the surprise of it all. “You already have a good track record and you practically wrote that book on bank fraud with Chris-senpai on the case he cracked. Your name is all over the credits for that book thanks to him vouching for you. That’s enough to make you section chief one day.”

Eijun’s eyes widened with wonder when Kuramochi brought up the project he’d worked on with Chris, one of the senior specialists in their division. Chris was deeply respected and renowned across the field, but no one knew who Sawamura Eijun was until Chris decided to take Eijun under his wing and give him a reason to be recognized. It was true that thanks to Chris and that book on bank fraud that they wrote together, Eijun was finally being recognized for his hard work (even if some of his coworkers seemed to not care at all, as demonstrated from the last time he pitched a case to them).

Still, hearing Kuramochi’s compliment made his jaw drop with surprise. Did Kuramochi really mean what he said? It was such high praise to be told that he might become this section’s leader in the future, and in fact, that was all Eijun wanted. His heart skipped a beat from the understanding that even his older coworkers were acknowledging his abilities, enough to even predict that he would be more successful than he already was.

When Eijun didn’t respond, too speechless to answer, Kuramochi rubbed the back of his neck somewhat bashfully. He let his words settle between them for a beat longer before turning around, intending to walk back to his desk and likely pack up for the evening.

“Just don’t put yourself in this type of position, kid,” Kuramochi added once he had his back facing Eijun.

“What type of position?” Eijun asked.

“The position of being humiliated,” Kuramochi answered. 

Eijun stared at Kuramochi’s back as he walked off, lips pursed with thought. Despite his usual shtick of giving Eijun a hard time and bullying him relentlessly, Kuramochi was always looking out for him—he saw Eijun as somewhat of a little brother. At least, even if this was just Kuramochi’s way of being friendly, Eijun sure felt like he was always being doted on. Kuramochi was the tough-love kind of guy, and though he had fun taunting Eijun, he never meant any actual harm to the kid. In actuality, he was fiercely protective of Eijun and would tear anyone apart who dared to lay a finger on him.

Eijun couldn’t help but smile a bit to himself once Kuramochi left the office. He appreciated his senpai’s advice, but Eijun was not about to back down from this challenge for the sake of his image. Besides, wouldn’t it look worse for him to just throw the towel in and give up? Don't get him wrong—he’d continue to fulfill his duties in the meantime, but he was not going to shrug and move on to catch the next paperhanger. 

He refused to forget about Miyuki Kazuya, and he was utterly determined to find him, even if it was the last thing he did.

Over the next following days, Eijun tirelessly checked the fingerprints left behind on his wallet that were not his own as well as the prints left behind on a few objects he took from the hotel room. Anything metallic or glossy he could find that might retain fingerprints well was surveyed, and he then compared them to the fingerprints in his book. Maybe Kazuya used another fake name and his prints were in the book associated with a different alias. Eijun couldn’t rule out any possibilities until he checked them all. 

He worked through page after page, tediously searching for a match, unaware of how dark it already was outside. There were barely any lights on in the office besides the one on his desk and the colorful lights of the city outside. Eijun was probably the last one in the building besides perhaps a janitor or two.

Even then, he was pretty sure he was actually entirely alone. It was nearly eleven at night, after all—or actually, it might already be the next day. Eijun looked at the clock, confirming it was actually half-past midnight. No wonder it was completely quiet in there.

At least, it was dead silent until the phone began to ring on his desk. The sound snapped Eijun out of his daze, for it was his landline phone—a call meant specifically for him. He brought his eyes back down to the book, deciding to continue searching so he didn’t break his focus while he dealt with whoever decided to try and reach him in the middle of the night on his work phone, no less. Who would even assume he was here?

“Sawamura Eijun speaking!” Eijun said into the phone, now cupping it against his ear. “Good evening!”

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Sa~wa~mura. Do you always work this late?”

Eijun’s blood ran cold with shock before suddenly, his face was ablaze with a fiery heat. He knew that voice. He’d know that voice anywhere, god dammit! He gripped the phone tighter in his hand and felt his entire mind go blank as he zeroed in on the man on the other line.

“Miyuki Kazuya,” Eijun growled, gritting his teeth and glaring at the phone like a bristling cat, as if the man could actually see him. The response he heard from Kazuya was a low, seductive chuckle that made his stomach fill with butterflies. Curse this asshole for having such a husky, sensual sounding voice that made it harder for Eijun to really hate him!

“Oh, so you remembered my name,” Kazuya remarked bemusedly. “I was expecting you to call me O Powerful King Shiki.”

“Cut the bullshit!” Eijun snapped, standing up in his spot like he was actually confronting Kazuya in person. “I’ve been trying to track you down now for the last couple of days, and now you call me all of a sudden!? How did you find me? This makes no sense!! What do you want!?”

“You,” Kazuya smoothly responded with a purr. Eijun froze, the next words he wanted to say dying on his tongue as heat coursed through his blood.

“W-What?” Eijun squeaked nervously, heart pounding in his chest from the sudden turn of events. What followed Eijun’s question was an irritating, nasally laugh that made Eijun want to strangle the jerk on the line with the telephone wire. Was Kazuya just messing with him!?

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Kazuya teased. Eijun wanted to punch him square in his perfect nose for toying with his heart like that, even if Eijun was the fool for being swayed into believing his little trick to begin with. Kazuya went on before Eijun could unleash a string of colorful threats upon the asshat for flirting with him even more. “I wanted to apologize for what happened when we met. I didn’t originally care about apologizing, but now hearing you work by yourself on the most romantic day of the year makes me sorry for you. I feel like you’re lonely. You don’t have a family to go home to tonight? No wife to bring chocolates to?”

This entire situation was so bizarre. Eijun’s heart was pounding from a mixture of rage, embarrassment and arousal. He was pissed, more than anything, that Kazuya had to have such an enchanting, velvety voice—it was like he was whispering right against the shell of Eijun’s ear. The mere thought of being pressed up against the other man again had him gulping to suppress a needy shiver.

He was annoyed that Kazuya was trying to take pity on him, but he’d let that slide for now. The worst thing he could do was get all riled up and give Kazuya the reaction he was craving from Eijun, who was always so animated and expressive, even around total strangers like Kazuya.

“No wife,” Eijun confirmed begrudgingly. “And my family all lives in the country. More importantly…” Eijun narrowed his eyes as he held the phone tightly. “If you want to talk to me, fine. But under one condition: let’s talk face-to-face.”

“Alright,” Kazuya agreed with a chuckle, then told Eijun the number of a suite in a well-known ritzy hotel. Eijun began to frantically write it down, but then he paused as he processed that it was definitely a lie. He shouldn’t trust a single word that came out of Kazuya’s mouth. Frowning, Eijun set down the pen and glared pointedly at the phone, realizing that Kazuya was making shit up on the spot so effortlessly all over again. “I’ve got a flight I’m boarding in the morning, so you’ll have to get here quickly. My bed is awfully large and lonely, Sawamura.”

“Y-You think you’re going to get me again?” Eijun challenged, gulping down the excitement that inevitably built in his chest at the prospect of sleeping with the man. Like hell he’d stoop down to that level—his dick was just a little distracting at the moment, that was all. He was an adult and he knew he could control his urges enough to avoid the temptation of sleeping with his suspect. 

When Kazuya didn’t respond quickly enough, Eijun gathered himself and heatedly ranted, “I already know that you’re not going anywhere this weekend. You’re not even at that hotel! You’d just love for me to send out 20 agents in the middle of the night to barge into the hotel and knock down the door just to find out that you were never even there in the first place. You’d love to make a fool out of me again, wouldn’t you, Miyuki Kazuya!?”

“Aw, are you humiliated, baby boy?” Kazuya sweet-talked, the words only making Eijun’s hackles rise with pure fury. “I thought you might actually be into that sort of thing, if you catch my drift.”

“The truth is that I knew it was you the entire time!” Eijun barreled on, very pointedly choosing to ignore Kazuya’s implication that he was interested in being sexually humiliated. Whether or not that accusation was true wasn’t the focus! Eijun shouted, “Maybe I didn’t get my cuffs on you, but I knew it was you!”

“Kinky,” Kazuya snickered. “But I think you’d look even prettier with the cuffs on your wrists instead.”

“Argh, what the hell are you getting at!?” Eijun snapped at last, face ablaze with heat. Thank god the office was vacant. He’d had enough of Kazuya’s jerkish attitude and innuendos. “Did you just call me t-to make fun of me!? Is that it? Are you just trying to rile me up because you can tell that I’m—” His throat tightened as he hesitated, not wanting to admit it out loud, yet he realized that there was no point in hiding it to the man so aggressively hitting on him. Bitterly, Eijun finished, “—you can tell that I like men? That’s really fucking low of you, you know, you asshole—”

“Whoa now, sweetheart, settle down,” Kazuya interrupted with his stupidity suave voice. Worst of all, it worked. Eijun actually stopped talking and caught his breath while Kazuya responded. “I’m just like you, you know. Never had an interest in women like other guys…” The line crackled as Kazuya let out a sigh. “Look, I know I’m not the kinda guy you can trust, but I swear I’m not lying to you when I say I’m interested in you. I just like toying with my food.” 

And clearly, you don’t know your limits and when to fucking stop, Eijun added to himself irritably. He breathed pointedly through his nose, grunting like a bull as he got a hold of his raging emotions.

“W-Well, it’s never gonna happen, so cut it out,” Eijun grumbled, trying his damndest to ignore the way his heart was pounding against his chest at Kazuya’s admission. 

Baby boy. Sweetheart. I’m just like you. 

I’m interested in you. I’m interested in you. I’m interested in you. 

The words echoed in Eijun’s mind despite his best efforts to forget about them. Kazuya was a master at manipulation and no doubt a natural charmer—Eijun couldn’t let himself get swept away by those sweet words and husky promises. Regardless of his logic, Eijun’s ears felt feverish to the touch and he barely suppressed a groan of exasperation. He wanted nothing more right then than to shrivel up and melt into the floor. Why was he so weak to this jerk?

“Never say never,” Kazuya answered in a sing-song voice. “Are you sure about that?”

“I’ll tell you what I’m sure of,” Eijun growled with his eyes narrowing furiously. “You’re going to get caught by me one day, Miyuki Kazuya. I’m the cat and you’re the mouse in this situation, understand?”

“Hmm, well, I’m afraid I have to cut our late-night chat short,” Kazuya regarded with a lazy tone of voice. He acted so damn nonchalant in response to Eijun’s threat, much to Eijun’s annoyance. A vein on his temple throbbed as he gripped the phone tightly, enough to make him wonder if he’d crack the plastic in his palm. “I have a flight to catch tomorrow. Happy Valentine’s Day, Eijun.”

“Don’t call me by my first name!” Eijun snapped. “I never gave you permission!”

“Do I really have to ask?” Kazuya sighed. “Stop calling me by my full name and maybe we have a deal.”  

With that, the line went dead and Eijun’s anger boiled over. He practically threw the phone back down onto the receiver before letting out an infuriated shout, just enough to give an outlet to his high-strung energy. He even threw his fingerprint book down onto the floor in a fit of rage, losing his spot and forgoing all possibilities of finding a match.

Damn you, Miyuki Kazuya!! Eijun thought for the second time, hands shaking as he curled his fingers into fists of rage. His face was hot and his pants felt a little tight, and dammit, he was more pissed off than ever before. His target was practically right in his reach and yet no matter what, he just couldn’t grab hold of the slimy bastard.

He collapsed back onto his ass, sitting in his chair and feeling as stumped as ever. He wracked his brain as he thought over their conversation, bleakly wondering if there was anything Kazuya said that could have given him a hint to finding him. He didn’t think Kazuya would be that careless, but there had to be something. 

Did anything Kazuya said stick out to him? Anything besides gratuitous innuendos? Was there anything of substance about the hotel, the numbers, the name— 

Wait a second. Eijun went still as his brain latched onto something said early on in the conversation. 

“I was expecting you to call me O Powerful King Shiki.”

Eijun frowned as the gears turned in his mind. Why did that overly fancy title strike familiarity inside him? Why did it sound like something he’d heard before? It was almost like it was…

… a reference to something.

With a pounding heart, Eijun yanked open the drawers of his desk and quickly rummaged through his things. He got all the way to the back of his bottom drawer, where his stash of shoujo manga comic magazines were tucked in a secret location. He didn’t want the whole office to know he was obsessed with comics meant for women even if Jun seemed to unironically really enjoy them himself. 

“King Shiki… King Shiki… King Shiki…” Eijun muttered to himself as he flipped through the black-and-white pages, brows tensed with concentration. He had a creeping suspicion that there was something up about that title, but he just had to get confirmation for himself before jumping to conclusions. If he could just find that single advert nestled between the pages where he thought he glimpsed a similar title, the maybe he could— 

Aha! Eijun’s eyes widened as he stopped racing through the pages. There, pushed into the seam of the book, was an advertisement for the printing company’s partner that produced shounen magazines. Right on the flyer was a character with jet-black hair and piercing eyes, an all-too-familiar smirk on his lips that seemed to fit Kazuya far too well, and the title of the manga printed in wild letters right behind his head.

‘IL RE: The Story of the Powerful King Shiki, A God of Trickery!’

“That’s it…!” Eijun breathed as he stared down at the picture of the manga character. That was absolutely without a doubt who Kazuya was inspired by. Maybe this fact was meaningless to anyone else, but the pieces were all starting to come together in Eijun’s mind.

Sure, he was an adult man who read women’s manga, but the target audience for shounen manga were kids. Boys, to be exact. Teenage boys.

There was a reason that Kazuya was off the record, why he seemed to disappear off the face of the earth as soon as he turned 18, why Eijun couldn’t find a single document to certify his existence past the moment he entered legal adulthood.

Miyuki Kazuya wasn’t as old, experienced, and suave as Eijun had once thought—no, in fact, he was actually just a damn runaway kid!!

***

Takahashi Kazuya was no longer a pilot—now, Kazuya had become Miyagi Kazuya. It was a bit closer to his true name, sure, but it was such a risky move that no one would expect him to be crazy enough to do such a thing. 

He knew he needed a new occupation now that his days as a terminally dead-heading Diamond Air pilot were over. He still had to get on a plane and fly across the country in order to minimize the risk of being caught where he was previously staying, so he had to go through an airport at least one more time. While he was at it, he’d cash his last few Diamond Air embellished checks as well. Of course, just this once, he was going to use a throwaway pilot name—Ikeda Akira—now that the FBI was all over the place, desperately looking for Takahashi or Miyuki Kazuya.

What he wasn’t expecting was to see his face plastered up on posters all over the damn place once he arrived at the airport. Kazuya nearly froze and gave himself away upon walking in and seeing that he was being displayed like a criminal—well, he supposed he technically was one, but jeez, it’s not like he was a murderer or something—all over the airport. He then grinned wryly to himself, since they’d chosen his high school ID photo. Thankfully, that photo was taken during Kazuya’s first year and he had grown a lot more since then.  

Feeling proud that he’d decided to don a pair of aviator shades today, he headed confidently to the front desk as if he were not the paperhanger they were on the lookout for. 

Surprisingly, his checks were cashed without suspicion and he went directly to his gate, keeping his chin raised high with the self-assured stride of a man who was supposed to be there, not a high school dropout wearing a costume to blend in. There were uniformed officers scattered all throughout the terminal, all holding his high school photo, looking around with narrowed eyes. 

Kazuya had to admit that the sight of them all had his pulse fluttering fast with anxiety, and he almost buckled when four cops appeared to be walking right towards him. Luckily, he pretended not to pay them any mind and the officers passed him without a second glance. As soon as they were behind him, Kazuya sped up his pace, polished loafers clicking on the floor, hands growing slightly sweaty with doubt. He could see his gate now. He just had to go a little further… 

Kazuya was just about to pass the gate when someone called out, “Sir!”

His heart nearly stopped. Kazuya froze immediately, bit back a curse under his breath, and turned to look over his shoulder with a brow raised and a strained smile on his face. The woman standing there could be a detective for all he knew and if she saw through his facade, it was over. Kazuya would be caught.

Dammit, dammit, dammit… he squeezed his fingers briefly, but then lowered the shades just enough to gaze at her form over their ledge. A flirtatious gaze always helped distract people from whatever they were trying to do originally. “How may I help you, ma’am?”

The woman looked back at him evenly, and to Kazuya’s simultaneous relief and confusion, she simply beamed at him and said, “I just wanted to inform you they’re currently cleaning out the aircraft, in case it smells like sanitizer in there. We just changed to a new brand and it stinks. Have a nice flight!”

Jesus Christ. Kazuya let out a laugh that he prayed didn’t sound nervous before going, “Noted on the sanitizer, ma’am. Have a lovely day.”

Against all odds, he was across the country in no time.

***

“Shiki, the King! Boy’s manga! Shiki is from the manga!!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eijun-kun, slow down,” Haruichi laughed, lifting his hands to try and steady Eijun’s flailing arms the following day at work. Eijun couldn’t blame him for being overwhelmed—after all, Eijun probably looked like a complete freak with bags under his eyes and messy hair. He barely slept at all the night before. 

Still, there was no time to waste! He bit back his ranting as Haruichi tried to wrap his head around everything Eijun had just spewed out at him first thing in the morning. 

Finally, Haruichi sided and admitted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“He’s a kid!” Eijun expressed desperately, heart hammering against his chest from the revelation. “Miyuki Kazuya just turned 18 a few months ago! That’s why we couldn’t match his prints! That’s why he doesn’t have a record!”

Having processed the revelation, Haruichi gawked and shared a stunned glance with Toujou, who had been walking into work beside him. Toujou looked equally as bewildered and had nothing to say in response to Eijun’s discovery.

“Now, I want you to contact the police department for this town—” Eijun thrust paperwork directly into Toujou’s arms, “—and ask for every juvenile runaway in the past 6 months! And don’t forget the airports! He’s been kiting checks all over the country!”

“But why here?” Toujou asked with a nervous chuckle. “It seems kind of random…”

“That’s where he’s from!” Eijun demanded. “He might still have a home base there! Harucchi, you and I are going to his mother’s house, stat!”

“H-His what?” Haruichi squeaked out. He could say nothing to stop Eijun in his path as his elbow was linked by Eijun’s, helpless to his friend’s whims. He was dragged out of the office and into a squad car in a flurry. 

One phone call with Kazuya’s mother later (thanks to Toujou, since he was the one who did the courtesy call from the office) they arrived at her home—notably a different address than the one Kazuya lived in with her and his father—and were seated in the living room being treated to various snacks and drinks. 

Eijun was almost distracted from his task as they made small talk with his mother, who was probably one of the most gorgeous women Eijun had ever seen. She looked as if she hadn’t aged a day past twenty, all curves and perfect proportions, with a bright white smile and luscious lashes. There was no doubt where Kazuya got his charming beauty from.

“My husband is a lawyer,” Kazuya’s mother—Ritsuka—said with a proud little smile curling on her lips in relation to their conversation. Eijun decided it was time to start moving away from simply chatting and get to the point of their visit. 

“What about your first husband, Miyuki-san?” Eijun asked, knowing well that Kazuya’s father was not the man she was currently married to. If he wanted to understand Kazuya better, then the more he knew about his family situation, the better. It might give him hints into Kazuya’s choices, why he traveled where he did, and perhaps, Eijun would understand his motive for running away. 

“I go by Fukuda-san now,” Ritsuka corrected him with a rather calm, collected gaze. Eijun was slightly surprised to hear that, considering Miyuki Toku hadn’t even been dead for a year. He thought that she was rather… fast on the draw when it came to getting her name changed. “Toku… he was a charming man. He came from nothing, you see—he entered the service and we met during the war, when the troops set up camp near my town, Montrichard. We have some family there still, but after I got pregnant, we moved overseas fairly quickly, with all sorts of hopes and dreams for the future… you know, the rosy sort of visions young newlyweds have.” She took a sip of her tea, then seemed to notice that neither Eijun nor Haruichi were eating as much as she liked. She pushed the plate of cookies towards them more pointedly. “Help yourselves.”

On cue, Eijun and Haruichi took another cookie each, clearly not keen on offending the woman allowing them into her home. Eijun glanced at his friend and nodded firmly, understanding that Ritsuka wouldn’t be willing to talk further on the subject of her deceased ex-husband. Her rather flippant attitude towards her name change and husband had Eijun wondering how much more there was to this story, but he knew they weren’t here to simply waste time chit-chatting with a housewife over some sweet treats.

“You filed a missing person’s report for a runaway juvenile by the name of Miyuki Kazuya,” Haruichi said.

“Is Kazuya okay?” She asked with a frown. 

“Peachy, just peachy, Fukuda-san, he is doing just fine, so fine that—” Eijun began to seethe, but Haruichi nudged him in the side with his elbow to stop his ranting before he got the ball rolling. He grumbled to himself as Haruichi took over with the more serious business and the reason for their visit.

“You’re aware of the fact that he wrote some checks on a closed account formerly owned by your husband, Miyuki Toku?” Haruichi prodded.

“Oh, yes,” Ritsuka answered, sighing with a shake of her head. “The police think he’s some type of criminal. It’s ridiculous!”

“What he’s doing is a felony, Fukuda-san!” Eijun barked out with all his usual gusto. She stiffened briefly, clearly still determined to defend her son even if they didn’t have a relationship any longer.

“Oh, it was just a little cash, what harm could that do?” Ritsuka argued. “Half the kids his age are on drugs, throwing rocks at police, trespassing on abandoned property, whatever! Didn’t we all do petty crimes at that age?” She set down her drink and pointed accusingly at Eijun. “You represent the FBI! Do you know how frightening that is to an average citizen like myself? All because my son made a little mistake…! He’s hardly 18, you know! He needs to eat and have a place to sleep. What do you want me to do? Obviously his father can’t help him.”

But what about you!? Aren’t you still his mother? Eijun thought with a flare of rage in his gut, but he swallowed down his words in order to prevent himself from making a scene. It didn’t make sense to him that Kazuya resorted to running away when clearly, his mother was financially stable enough in this second marriage to support him. However, Eijun did notice from looking at the records that she married quite soon after Toku’s death, as if…

… as if there were more to the story than what meets the eye. Eijun lowered his gaze to the floor briefly, lost in thought, debating to himself what could have caused Kazuya to make his rash decision of running away.

“We understand,” Haruichi answered soothingly, his voice snapping Eijun out of his thoughts. He looked up and sucked in a deep breath to focus again. Haruichi fixed Ritsuka with a small, kind smile and asked, “Would you happen to have a picture of your son?”

“Oh, yes,” she said as she got to her feet. “I have his old yearbook.”

While Ritsuka was busy fetching the book, Eijun leaned in close to Haruichi and muttered, “Okay, okay, uh… once she comes back with it, we need to contact the printers as soon as possible to make posters with his photograph. Then we need to call the airports and—”

“Is Kazuya in trouble?” Ritsuka asked, and Eijun flinched, not realizing she would return so quickly. He went cat-eyed and stiffened, then looked to Haruichi desperately for some sort of wisdom at that tense moment. Thankfully, Haruichi was always the one with a level head in situations like these.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry to inform you, but… your son is forging checks,” Haruichi explained with a troubled frown.

“Forging checks?” Ritsuka echoed with widening eyes. Then, she seemed to get over the shock and offer a smile to the two agents. “Wait, really? If that’s all, I’m sure we can take care of that! I’m working part-time now and my husband would surely understand if I need to borrow from our savings account. Just tell me how much he owes and I’ll pay you back.”

Eijun gulped and Haruichi took in a deep breath.

“So far, ma’am, it’s…”

When he stated that the number Kazuya had stolen was in the millions, Eijun was relieved that she hadn’t been holding anything fragile or important—the resounding bang of the yearbook hitting the floor was jarring enough.

Needless to say, after that, they had full permission to take Kazuya’s photo and create posters. Eijun was a little disappointed that this high school photo was the most recent photo she had of him, since in the picture, he really looked like a kid. There was no doubt he was no older than 16 in that photo, which was a problem. In the three years since that photo had been taken, Kazuya had aged remarkably well and definitely appeared as an adult man (as he technically now legally was). Still, he hoped that this image would help people identify him better—it was all they could do.

The posters were in production at a lightning speed. When they returned to the office, Eijun called up all the airports around the hotel where they met and loaded them with officers and detectives. He was determined to pin Kazuya down before he left the area. It might already be too late, but Eijun was going to try, god dammit.

Despite their best efforts, days passed, and everyone returned to him empty-handed.

Eijun knew that against all odds, Kazuya had slipped right through his fingers. Now what the hell did he do?

***

“You were the top of your class, graduated from one of the most reputable medical schools in the country, and you even volunteered overseas to help cure sick children,” the hospital administrator said with a raise of his brow. Luckily, it was not a remark of suspicion—rather, he was grinning widely at the sight of Kazuya’s brand new resumé. The man was convinced it was all true. “This is proof of a pretty impressive career already, Doctor Miyagi. Why do you want to work here specifically?”

“Well, I came to this city to get away from home, but I’m honestly a little bored,” Kazuya answered smoothly, one leg crossed over the other, a charming smile resting on his lips. “I saw the hospital was hiring and decided to give it a shot.”

“Unfortunately, the only position I have right now is an emergency room supervisor for my midnight-to-eight shift,” the administrator said. He looked embarrassed that he couldn’t offer Kazuya a better job. “You know, someone to babysit six interns and thirty nurses, but I doubt you’d be interested in that…”

“Quite the contrary, sir,” Kazuya interjected with a widening grin. “I’m more than happy to help out wherever I can.”

Needless to say, the administrator was thrilled that Kazuya was willing to take up that undesirable shift. One handshake later and Kazuya was a certified doctor. 

He’d figured out quite quickly how to create a phony medical school diploma by snatching a brochure from the nearest university. He moved into his new home and rapidly began searching for a new “job” to continue gaining an income without actually doing anything to earn it. It was a walk in the park to create fake letters of recommendation and a medical license after doing enough research and asking around.

When he returned to the hospital a few days later to begin his job, he was handed a folder of documentation by the administrator who said, “Doctor Miyagi, here is your temporary license, which allows you to practice medicine in this region for up to a year. Let me be the first to say: welcome to Ace Hospital.”

“It’s a pleasure to join your team,” Kazuya said with a friendly nod. His eyes gleamed with amazement at how simple it was to forge those documents and thought, this is far too easy.

He was given his own office, where he hung his framed fake degrees and accomplishments up on the walls, and was granted a crisp white coat to wear over his usual formal button-ups and ties. If all Kazuya had to do was teach himself some basic medical jargon and watch over some blundering interns and nurses, surely this job would be suitable for a year. Kazuya had no concerns.

He spent his evenings watching films and television programs about doctors, memorizing the terminology they used when operating or speaking with patients and more importantly, each other.

“Any change in the patient, Doctor?” One character said to another on the TV.

“Sir, I think we should try the shock therapy before it’s too late,” he responded nervously. “Doctor Abe, do you concur?”

“Yes,” the character named Dr. Abe answered. “I concur.”

Easy-peasy. Kazuya took down a few notes about the dialogue and shrugged, then turned back to the brand-new typewriter in his home and continued to create more counterfeit checks for himself. This time, they had doctor’s embellishments all over them and were crafted to appear as authentic as possible. He had to say, he’d gotten much better at this since crafting his first Diamond Air-style phony check.

For a few weeks, he did basically nothing besides sign documents, check that the nurses were doing their jobs, and grant permission for interns to carry on with their duties. He scribbled on his paperwork with the worst signature imaginable, recalling his own doctor’s awful handwriting, and simply acted like he knew everything there was to know. No one had a single suspicion over his true identity.

He was signing some documents late one night for one of his nurses when suddenly, the intercom called for his name and ordered him to go to the ER. The nurse—Aiya—gave Kazuya a look when he stiffened and seemed to ignore the announcement.

“Shouldn’t you go?” Aiya asked after a moment of awkward silence. Kazuya didn’t want to admit that he was nervous over the thought that someone could actually be dying in there. Kazuya could only fake his way out of so much; he couldn’t perform surgery or anything for real and save anyone’s life. Hell, if he were handed a scalpel and told to do some sort of incision, he’d absolutely kill the person from his ineptitude. There was no doubt about it.

Kazuya gulped and tried to think of a reason why he could avoid responding to the announcement. An idea came to mind and he spoke on it immediately.

“There’s a staff doctor in the emergency ward, right?” Kazuya said as nonchalantly as he could manage. “They’ll be fine.”

“But what if that doctor’s in surgery?” Aiya suggested, which would be the most reasonable explanation for why they were paging Kazuya instead of the usual staff doctor that was in there. He realized he had no reason to avoid the call no matter how badly he wanted to. With a curt nod towards Aiya, Kazuya then stiffly walked towards the elevator with his heart hammering his chest.

As soon as he was alone in the elevator, he wiped off his sweaty palms on his white coat and took in deep breaths. Kazuya couldn't panic in front of the others—real doctors didn’t panic. He had to be cool, calm, and collected. If he cracked, they’d know in an instant that he was nothing but a fraud.

It’s fine, he told himself, I can just make the interns do the procedures if needed and tell them they need this sort of hands-on experience. How bad could it be?

When he arrived at the emergency room, he was alarmed by the sight of nurses running back and forth, ducking past a closed curtain and popping out again. He smelt the metallic odor of blood and tried not to let the churning of his stomach get the better of him. Kazuya gulped and began to rethink this whole doctor thing, but it had been fine until now! Who could blame him for not being prepared for this sort of situation?

Okay, well, maybe one could say he had it coming, but… Kazuya wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Then again, he reminded himself that this was sort of how he felt before he knew what deadheading meant. That had been no big deal, so surely he could grit his teeth and deal with this situation as well. Kazuya clenched his fists and steadied himself. He could do this.

Kazuya pushed the curtain aside and stepped into the thick of the chaos. His eyes widened at the sight of a little boy with his leg totally torn apart, skin torn back and exposing… something underneath that shouldn’t ever be exposed to the open air. Kazuya couldn’t tell if it was bone or not. Either way, it was nasty. 

Holy shit. The sight and stench combined had Kazuya feeling nauseous. He wanted to gag but he swallowed down the urge and looked at the three interns who were huddled by the boy’s side. They were pale and clearly too scared to take action on their own volition. When Kazuya appeared, they all turned their heads to gaze at him with hope gleaming in their eyes.

“Well, what do we have here?” Kazuya asked in an attempt to sound as relaxed as possible amongst the boy’s crying and cringing from the pain in his leg. The poor thing needed treatment immediately and Kazuya didn’t know what the hell to do. He cleared his throat and tried desperately not to stare at the boy’s open wound.

“It was a bicycle accident,” one of the interns named Sachiko said, her voice wavering slightly. “A fracture of the tibia, about five inches below the patella.”

Kazuya glanced down again and oh god, there was flesh dangling off the side of his leg. Real, shredded, bloody flesh— oh god. Kazuya’s vision went fuzzy at the edges and he had to squeeze his fists in the pockets of his jacket to ground himself again.

“Yoshito, do you concur?” Kazuya asked sternly. The intern he questioned looked at him with furrowed brows.

“Concur with what, sir…?” Yoshito asked awkwardly.

“What Sachiko just said,” Kazuya stated, lifting his chin confidently. Concur was definitely a doctorly word to use even if he didn’t really know what the hell it meant. It would have to do for now—anything as long as they didn’t notice the way Kazuya was starting to sweat profusely.

“Well… it was a bicycle accident,” Yoshito answered with a confused frown, “and we know this because the boy told us…”

“So, you concur?” Kazuya pressed with a firm frown, demanding an answer from the younger doctor (which was quite ironic, since there was no doubt the man was older than Kazuya—yet in this situation, Kazuya was perceived to be at least ten years his senior).

“Well, I’m not sure that we can yet…?” Yoshito said and awkwardly grimaced.

“I think we should take an x-ray, then stitch him up and put him in a walking cast,” Sachiko suggested with a definitive nod. God, Kazuya could kiss her right now just for that.

“Very good, Sachiko,” Kazuya complimented her with a nod while biting back his sigh of relief that someone knew what to do for this poor wailing boy. “In that case, you don’t seem to have a need for me here. You have my permission for this procedure. Carry on.”

As Kazuya turned away, Yoshito expressed to the other interns with a whimper, “I blew it, didn’t I? Why didn’t I concur? I panicked!”

In most circumstances, Kazuya might have laughed at that remark, but he was too focused on getting as far as he could so that he could go throw up in the bathroom. 

Once hunched over the toilet with his face dampened from sweat, Kazuya decided that he couldn’t keep up this doctor facade no matter how easy it had been to secure the position initially. He wiped at his forehead and felt helpless for a while. He couldn’t think of what to do with himself next.

Did he just quit and try to search for the next best thing? What if there were no more opportunities? Kazuya couldn’t make a decision yet and he decided he needed to sleep on it, but he would keep up the act until he knew what he was going to do next. 

Besides, could it even get worse than this?

***

“Waaaaaah!!”

Half the office jerked in their seats with various forms of surprise and fear, some spilling coffee while others dropped their pens and pencils. Everyone shot a glare at the source of the jarring sound, who was on his feet, staring wide-eyed at the documents in his hands. Eijun was shaking as he looked over the newest forged checks directed to Eijun to investigate.

“Would you please refrain from screaming in the office?” Ryousuke asked with a razor-sharp edge to his tone, his smile strained as he directed his burning wrath towards Eijun.

For once, Eijun wasn’t afraid of the elder Kominato demon in their office, for he was too focused on the revelation that had just crashed upon him. He flipped the check around and shoved it right into Kuramochi’s face, who was the person that happened to be walking by when Eijun’s outburst occurred.

“Look!” Eijun shrieked. “It’s Miyuki Kazuya again!! This time as Miyagi Kazuya! Doctor Miyagi Kazuya!! We found him again, and he’s all the way across the country, but we found him!”

Kuramochi, who had been the person warning Eijun against embarrassing himself all those months ago, ended up beaming at Eijun with a sparkle of pride and excitement in his eyes. Clearly, he believed his younger coworker that the man behind this new case was yet again Miyuki Kazuya, and he was fully supportive of his chase. 

To express his support, he grinned and threw his arm out to coil it around Eijun’s neck. Eijun yelped as he was pulled into a headlock, unable to escape Kuramochi driving his knuckles into his scalp. 

Kuramochi cheered, “Kyahaha! Hell yeah, Sawamura! Let’s go get him!”

The next day passed in an exhilarating rush—Eijun rounded up a group of five agents consisting of Haruichi, Ryousuke, Furuya, Kuramochi and himself. They were granted immediate approval to corner Kazuya at the hospital and arrest him on the spot. Eijun felt like the pack leader when they charged down the hallways of the hospital, footsteps thundering across the floor. He couldn’t resist letting out his trademark victory call.

“Oshi, oshi, oshi!” Eijun cheered as they rounded the corner, knowing the end of this madness was in sight. “Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide! Miyuki Kazuya is mine!”

They arrived at a door with a metal sign engraved: MIYAGI KAZUYA, M.D. Eijun felt adrenaline pulse through his veins as he grabbed the door handle and tried to open it. He wasn’t surprised to find it was locked, so he took a step back and eagerly rolled up his sleeves.

“Alright! Let’s knock it down, senpai! Wahaha!” Eijun called out with a cackle. “You and I can—”

“Yeah, yeah, just get out of the way,” Kuramochi insisted, though before Eijun could even step aside, Haruichi was yanking him away to prevent him from getting charged by Kuramochi. He was just in time, too—a second later, Kuramochi slammed his foot into the door, and that was all it took for the thing to open up. 

Eijun forgot all about whining over not being able to kick the door with Kuramochi. His eyes gleamed brilliant gold, for the sweet taste of justice was right on the tip of his tongue. He would see the gobsmacked look on Kazuya’s face and get the satisfaction of cuffing him right here and now, putting an end to this chase once and for— 

Everyone stood there silently when it dawned on them that the room was totally vacant. 

Eijun’s heart sank as he stepped inside, the smile falling from his lips as he looked around, eyes stretched wide with disbelief. Kazuya wasn’t there.

The window was thrown open and there was a breeze coming through its gap, causing the curtains to flutter. The typewriter on the desk was humming from recent use and Eijun could still smell his distinctive musky-scented cologne lingering in the air. Fuck, Eijun remembered that smell like it belonged to him. He would never forget when Kazuya had stood so close to him during their first encounter, a taunting smirk on his lips as he whispered right into Eijun’s ear. 

There was no doubting that Kazuya was literally just here.

How did he know that Eijun was coming!? Clearly if he had more notice, he would have packed up and erased all evidence of his existence here long ago, so could it be that he just heard the running and assumed they were all here to arrest him? How did he even manage to act that quickly? It was way too unfair!

While his head spun with questions, Eijun looked around frantically, trying to think of what to do next. Haruichi approached the diplomas on the wall and took them down, knowing well they were also fraudulent and would be useful to take in for examination back at the office. All Eijun could do was spin in circles like a dog chasing his tail, bewildered and disheartened by his shocking and unexpected failure.

“H-He’s gotta be around here somewhere!” Eijun cried out desperately. “We have to search the premises, quickly, before he gets any farther!”

Even so, despite their best efforts, the search was no use. They investigated the hospital exhaustively and even found out where Kazuya was living, but by the time they got to his home and kicked down the door, the place had obviously been gutted a while before. Kazuya had taken off running with his most essential belongings. The doctor’s coat was left behind, thrown on the ground in a haste, all crumpled up and abandoned.

When he saw it, Eijun kicked the lab coat with frustration and let out a cry.

Miyuki Kazuya had escaped just in the nick of time again.

***

Kazuya donned his pilot uniform as he walked towards the door of the nearest Printing Supply Plant, head held high, aviator shades perched on his nose. He smiled as he approached the man he was looking for and shook his hand in greeting. He was guided behind a secure door and taken into the heart of the massive plant.

“As I stated in my call prior to meeting with you,” Kazuya began once they were settled, “Diamond Air has been quite unhappy for some time with the quality of their expense checks. We’re looking for a new firm to handle the printing.”

“How large would the order be?” The owner asked, clearly interested in providing for the well-regarded airline company.

“About twenty thousand checks a year,” Kazuya answered easily.

“Oh, man, I want that account,” the owner remarked with a laugh. “What do I have to do to get it?”

“For starters,” Kazuya smiled cleverly, “why don’t you show me how you make your checks?”

The ploy worked perfectly. Kazuya learned how to make even more authentic checks straight from the source itself and he acted quickly. The following day, he deadheaded a flight to another corner of the country, rented a space in a standard office building that was right across the street from the city’s Diamond Air corporate building, and had all the necessary equipment shipped directly to the office.

All he did was copy what the printing firm had shown him. He used an I-TEK camera, which did all the work in creating new checks from scratch. Gone were the days of Kazuya manipulating other faulty checks into Diamond Air-branded checks—he simply created them himself. Thanks to this, the checks were virtually flawless in design and appearance.

He might have only escaped by a hair last time, but now, he was back in familiar territory. Pretending to be a pilot had worked out splendidly, for all he had to do was deadhead and there were no other issues to be dealt with. No kids with broken legs, no surgery scares, nothing. 

The only difference was that this time, Kazuya wouldn’t get caught.

***

“I’ve called this briefing to update you all on the Miyuki Kazuya situation,” Kuramochi announced to the room once everyone had settled in.

Kataoka Tesshin, their director and most importantly, Eijun’s boss, was present along with a variety of other important, high ranking people in their building. They were all sitting in a smoke-filled conference room, darkened by the curtains pulled over the windows to block out the humid afternoon sun. Eijun was so nervous that he was trembling slightly—the last thing he wanted was to disappoint his boss in front of all the major directors and representatives in their firm.

“Who?” Rei, one of the directors, asked with a pinch of her brows.

“The Skywayman,” Kuramochi answered, using the nickname that the newspapers had dubbed Kazuya back when he was first a deadheading pilot. Anyone who heard the news knew who that name referred to. Kuramochi turned to nod towards Eijun. “Agent Sawamura from bank fraud has been the man appointed to this case since the beginning, so I’ll let him fill you in.”

That was his cue. Kuramochi nodded firmly at him, as if telling him to relax without speaking. Eijun gave him a dopey smile of gratitude, then stood up unsteadily and approached the projector with a pounding heart. He couldn’t believe that tracking Kazuya down had become one of the biggest jobs in the agency, yet there he was, hot on the tail of a man who could be considered one of the FBI’s most wanted.

“Everyone!” Eijun barked out at a volume highly unnecessary for the space they were in, then turned to gesture at the screen once the presentation had begun. “This Miyuki Kazuya is no longer forging checks—he’s moved on to counterfeiting!”

He held his breath while some of the directors murmured amongst each other, eyeing the slides on the screen with confused expressions. Eijun realized with a jolt in his chest that they might not know what the term meant, so he hurried to explain.

“Counterfeiting means, u-um, he’s making his own Diamond Air expense checks from scratch!” Once he said that, Eijun felt pleased upon seeing the stunned faces of his audience as they processed what he meant. Right, they got it now. Eijun grinned and nodded, proud of himself, then changed the slide so that an image of one of Kazuya’s newer, much more advanced checks was presented on the screen. “The amounts have increased, and as you can see, the quality is without a single flaw to be noted. They are virtually identical to true Diamond Air expense checks.”

“How much has he forged so far?” Someone asked from the crowd.

Eijun gravely told them the amount, which was practically incomprehensible for one 18-year-old to accomplish on his own. Eijun clenched his fists as he sucked in a deep breath to make his case.

“Miyuki Kazuya is now the most successful counterfeiter in the world,” Eijun determined, eyes ablaze with passion. “But I believe with more agents working alongside me, we can catch him.”

“How close are you to getting him?” Kataoka asked at last, eyes unreadable behind the shades he always wore. Eijun felt his heart quiver with excitement. Kataoka was the one who made the big calls—Eijun either blew it, right here and now, or he said the right things to earn the approval and resources he needed.

“Sir, with your help, I…” Eijun’s lips quivered briefly, but then he lifted his chin and determinedly shouted, “If you put your faith in me, I can track him down and arrest him anytime!!” 

A pause settled over the room as Eijun stood there, pulse racing from anxiety. If he screwed up, that would be the end of it—Kazuya’s case might be transferred to another agent, which was the worst case scenario in Eijun’s mind. He licked his lips as he looked wildly between Kataoka and the other directors, but it was to no avail. All eyes were on Kataoka. Everyone seemed to be awaiting his decision with much more patience than Eijun had.

“It’s decided,” Kataoka finally affirmed with a nod. “I’ll give you thirty more agents. From now on, I am declaring that Miyuki Kazuya is now on the top ten most wanted list.”

The statement sent chills down Eijun’s spine. It was exhilarating to hear his suspicions about Kazuya’s status as one of the FBI’s most wanted now being confirmed out loud by his boss, but there was something about those words that made Eijun’s stomach twist with dread. 

Why was he suddenly feeling… worried? 

This was what he wanted to happen, right?

“Sir, he’s barely eighteen,” Kuramochi spoke up, tone weary, as if he read Eijun’s mind. His arms were crossed over his chest and he looked at Kataoka with a tight frown on his lips. Clearly, there was no point in defending Kazuya, and yet… and yet, there was something about him that made Eijun want to think twice. Kuramochi obviously felt the same. He reasoned, “We’ve never put someone that young on the most wanted list before. What are we gonna tell the president?”

“The president keeps his money in a bank,” Kataoka responded, a small, rarely-seen smile curving on his lips. “We’ll tell him he’s fair game like the rest of us.”

Eijun gulped as the meeting was called to an end, for the decision had been made. This was really happening. 

He was now officially chasing down one of the FBI’s most wanted and the youngest person to ever be ranked so high on the list: Miyuki Kazuya.

Chapter Text

Somehow, despite all their best efforts, despite all the funding and the thirty new agents, despite knowing everything there was to know about him… Kazuya went off the radar. Again. They were nearing about two months of fruitless chasing, almost cornering Kazuya again and again only to fail every single time. For the last week he had been impossible to pinpoint, giving the team a difficult time as they sat and waited for a sign that he was even still alive.

Of course he was alive, but Eijun would reckon he found a temporary hiding spot, if all the silence from his end meant anything. There were no traces of someone sprinting cross-country as a deadhead pilot they could find. Though Eijun trusted his team, he feared that they were looking over bounced checks with details that only Eijun’s sharp eye could find flaws with. Perhaps they had encountered recent traces of Miyuki Kazuya and just didn’t know it.

The possibility kept Eijun up at night. He ended up staying at work for hours past his shift every night, double-checking all the evidence, and doing almost as much work as forty agents all on his own. It was impossible, it was draining, and Eijun was barely standing on his feet. Yet he didn’t slow down, not even when the weather grew colder and the festive glow of red and green began to emanate from the city. He was in charge of this case and so it was his responsibility—he refused to leave a single rock unturned. 

It was late on Christmas Eve. The sky was pitch black, the city was alight with the glow of Christmas lights, and distant caroling could be heard through the glass of their office building windows. Eijun had the radio playing Christmas music in an attempt to be festive while occasionally taking notice of the dinky tinsel tree in the corner of the office, adorned in a few cheap colorful bulbs. He enjoyed the holidays, but this year he didn’t feel like he had time to rest, not with the way things were.

He was mulling over his team’s reports and double-checking their feedback hours past his shift as per usual, making him the last person in the building. Usually Eijun went home for the holidays, but this year he made an exception. More than anything, he was determined to stay on Kazuya’s tail. He couldn’t afford to let the holidays distract him or throw him off-kilter.

Perhaps Eijun was truly just worried about closely monitoring his team’s reports, but it was more likely that he had subconsciously stayed behind in the office, praying that the phone would ring in the middle of the night at a time when surely no one would be present besides Eijun.

Lo and behold, a sudden loud sound rang through the office in the dead of night, and Eijun gaped as he processed the Christmas miracle. As the phone’s light continued to blink at him, beckoning him to answer, Eijun stared at the phone with bloodshot eyes. Part of him was convinced that he had actually fallen asleep while hunched over his desk and this was all just a strangely realistic dream. Even so, he didn’t want the call to drop, so he quickly reached out and grabbed the phone off its receiver with a shaking hand.

“Where are you?” Eijun demanded to know immediately, not even bothering to ask who it was or state his own name. He knew it was Kazuya—it had to be Kazuya. There was no one else he knew who would call his office line directly in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. No, actually… Eijun shifted his attention to the clock. It was already Christmas Day.

“Well, hello to you, too,” Kazuya’s voice scoffed into the phone. It took everything in Eijun’s power to resist the shiver of excitement that rolled down his spine—god, what was his body thinking? Kazuya was basically still a kid and one of the FBI’s Most Wanted at that. This was no time to be thinking about how sexy his voice sounded, all husky in the middle of the night as he purred into Eijun’s ear. “Merry Christmas, Eijun.”

“Just tell me!” Eijun bit out, wide awake now from the surge of adrenaline pulsing through his veins from the sound of Kazuya’s voice. “Answer me! Where are you?”

“I dunno… in a hotel by some airport, somewhere,” Kazuya answered, a bit of a slur on his tongue, and Eijun had to pause as he processed what was different about the sound of his voice. When it finally clicked, he tensed with realization.

“Are you drunk?” Eijun asked, bewildered, and for some reason, he was flustered that Kazuya decided to call him of all people. Grasping for reasons to talk and banter with Kazuya, he accused, “You’re underage!!”

“Local goody-two-shoes FBI agent scolds a kid on the most wanted list for sneaking some whiskey into his system, just 2 years shy of the legal drinking age, more at 12,” Kazuya responded with a snicker, clearly mimicking a typical news channel’s rhetoric. 

Eijun could picture him holding a glass of scotch, leaning back in a chair as he looked out a large, floor-to-ceiling window to gaze at the various planes lifting into the air and landing onto the colorfully lit runway. He attempted to ignore how attractive the image was in his mind, with Kazuya’s sleeves rolled up to the elbows to show off a ritzy wristwatch— a watch that he “purchased” with stolen money, Sawamura Eijun, don’t go thinking it’s an attractive luxury item now!! —and his polished oxford shoes propped up on the chair on the other side of his hotel room’s table.

“What do you want?” Eijun asked tensely as his cheeks burned hotly. He knew he wouldn’t get a location out of Kazuya right away so he would have to work at it harder. Still, what reason was there for Kazuya to call him when he had been slipping through their fingers like a slinky little weasel? 

Perhaps Kazuya had a secret motive behind calling Eijun like this out of the blue, something that Eijun could uncover as they talked. That was the reason he tried to get the truth out of Kazuya, certainly not because he simply wanted to know more about him.

“I…” Kazuya trailed off, then remained uncomfortably silent for a moment. Eijun could hear I’ll Be Home for Christmas playing distantly in the background on Kazuya’s end and he frowned, gripping the phone tighter between his fingers. With one hand, he wrote down the time that the song was playing, and decided to keep an ear out for any valuable information given from the radio as they spoke. He heard Kazuya’s intake of breath followed by his answer.

“I want this to be over.”

“What?” Eijun blurted out, his eyes widening with shock. The pencil he held slipped from his fingers and rolled along the desk. Was Kazuya about to turn himself in!? That would be a miracle, but if that were the case, surely Kazuya would have given away his location right off the bat. There would be no reason to lie to Eijun if that were his intention, so Eijun hesitated on getting himself to feel hopeful. Eijun’s mind spun as he tried to decode the meaning behind Kazuya’s words, but that was when he heard a shaky breath escape Kazuya’s lips. 

His heart felt like it stopped in his chest. Eijun spoke out loud as he processed the thought in his head at the same time. 

“Are… are you crying?” Eijun whispered.

“Please, I just—I want it to be over,” Kazuya repeated, his voice wavering slightly. It was a startling sound from someone who was always so smooth-spoken, so confident, so arrogant and full of himself. Eijun didn’t know how to react for a moment, shell-shocked into silence before Kazuya’s request caught up to him.

“You’ve stolen millions!” Eijun stressed, his brows tensing together as he battled against the conflicted feelings in his chest. He shook his head as he fought against the burn of heat against the back of his eyes, threatening to blur his vision with the beginnings of tears. “Kazuya, this isn’t something you can just… just walk away from!”

No, no, no, he couldn’t be feeling bad for a criminal right now. This was Miyuki Kazuya, the selfish jerk who conned their country out of an insurmountable amount of money for seemingly no fucking reason. Eijun was supposed to hate him and feel pleased when the thief was finally behind bars, not guilty. Eijun had no logical reason to feel guilty—he was on the side of the law. He was administering justice and Kazuya had no right to come to him of all people to cry for his sympathy.

And yet… and yet, despite all the logical reasons behind Eijun’s desire to dislike Kazuya, Eijun was struggling not to cry.

“I want to call a truce,” Kazuya tried, as if all of Eijun’s responses were going in one ear and out the other.

“No, no, no! No truce! Sorry! No can do!” Eijun barked out stiffly. He swallowed down the tears that had, for some strange reason, begun building in his vision at the sound of Kazuya’s broken voice. He had to make himself clear and try to get Kazuya to crack under his pressure. “Did you forget who I am? I’m Sawamura Eijun. I’ve been assigned to arrest you, Miyuki Kazuya, for robbing our country. Where did you think this was all going? Did you think you could live like this forever? You’ll be caught, you know! You’ll go to prison and I will be the one to watch you get locked away! That’s how it’s supposed to be!”

You’re someone I’m supposed to capture, Eijun added to himself, though he bit back the words before he foolishly spoke them out loud. Not someone I want to protect.

A ragged sigh tickled the phone’s receiver, the sound crackling against Eijun’s ear as Kazuya exhaled. Eijun could hear the clink of ice cubes against a glass and he figured Kazuya was taking a sip of his drink—the image of his throat bobbing crossed his mind and he tensed, trying to suppress the pang of heat in his gut that followed. Eijun was already a storm of emotions and Kazuya wasn’t making it any easier for him to cope with them. 

Distantly, Eijun wondered if this was Kazuya’s first time being drunk, but he dismissed that possibility quickly—there was no way in hell an 18-year-old brat on his own for the first time would wait to drink for this long.

“Just… leave me alone,” Kazuya muttered. If Eijun didn’t know any better, he’d assume Kazuya sounded irritated with him rather than defeated and hurt. He pursed his lips as Kazuya rambled on, tripping over some of his words, pausing here and there as he tried to keep his voice steady. “You’re the only one who knows how to find me, don’t you? You could… you could send them all off on the wrong trail… you could. You really could. Only you can save me—only you. Eijun, please. Don’t make me do this anymore.”

Eijun grit his teeth as he felt a moment of weakness and shook his head from side to side. No, he couldn’t let Kazuya’s vulnerable words get to him. This was his target, dammit, the man he was meant to arrest. Kazuya was 19 by this point—it had been over a year since he ran away from home—and the older he got, the more dangerous he would become. Eijun had to stop him in his path no matter what ‘stopping him’ meant.

“I’m close, aren’t I?” Eijun muttered, his eyes shifting to look distantly at the office’s tiled floor. He felt strangely calm as he understood his objective, his brows tensing with seriousness now that he was reminded of his mission. “You’re scared because I’m getting close to you. You want to run, Kazuya? Fine, be my guest. Go ahead. But remember this: your checks don’t lie as well as you do.” He paused, letting those words sink in before he went out on a limb and asked, “Hey, tell me, Kazuya… just how close am I?”

Of course Kazuya didn’t answer the question… of course not. Eijun should have known, but it was worth a shot.

“Will you stop chasing me?” Kazuya asked instead of giving him a response, his voice thin and almost hopeful for a moment.

“I can’t,” Eijun answered, feeling oddly… upset by the truth that he had to speak out loud. The words felt heavy on his tongue. “It’s my job.”

Why did he feel so conflicted? Why did he have the urge to cry? Why did he suddenly feel the weight of his badge in his shirt’s front pocket, like it was a stone pressing harshly against his heart? Right now, he had a tearful, lonely person on the other end of the line—someone who had no one besides Eijun to confide in. 

Eijun, who was the person assigned to arrest him, and simultaneously likely the only person Kazuya had ever come out to about his sexuality. He had entrusted Eijun with something so raw and personal about himself, something that wouldn’t help Eijun track him down in the slightest while at the same time giving him the sensation of emotional proximity. 

By the very nature of both being queer, they had a relationship based on a mutual, precious part of themselves and their identities. On top of all of that, there was the strange sort of pull Eijun felt towards Kazuya—the attraction, the yearning, the indescribable urge to be closer to Kazuya that didn’t have a thing to do with throwing him being bars.

How ironic was this situation? Eijun wasn’t equipped for this sort of emotional burden. During that tense silence, the radio still playing on Kazuya’s end revealed its station number and the city he must have been at. It was the next city over, startlingly enough. Eijun wrote all the information down with a shaking hand. God, he was so close to Kazuya, just an hour’s drive away. He knew where Kazuya was and his agents could take the next step once they returned from their holiday break in a few day’s time.

“It’s alright,” Kazuya answered after a heavy, long silence. “I just thought I’d… ask. Or something. Hearing your voice was… all I wanted. Merry Christmas.”

Eijun pursed his lips, feeling the tears finally surface to the edges of his vision as he stammered, “M-Merry Christmas, Miyuki Kazuya.”

He wasn’t sure why he returned the sentiment or why he let his voice tremble like that, but then the line went dead and Eijun lowered the phone as his arm went limp.

Only you can save me.

Don’t make me do this anymore.

Hearing your voice was all I wanted. 

Eijun collapsed back onto his office chair and ran his shaking hands through his hair. He never cared about the assholes he caught before. To him, they were all in the same category—rotten, twisted, scheming crooks who were driven by nothing but greed. They didn’t have a care in the world, hoarding all the money they could to themselves while mocking those who actually worked for their pay. 

Sure, Eijun knew that their economic system wasn’t perfect. A lot of people got screwed over no matter how hard they tried, plenty were marginalized from the get-go, and countless were unable to even get a chance compared to the privileged. The struggles of the country at large were all facts of life that Eijun acknowledged, but didn’t know how to fix. All he could do was try to catch those who cheated the game of life unjustly, to make sure the bad guys were punished so the good guys could even attempt to soar.

But Kazuya… Kazuya was not neatly fitting into his idea of a ‘bad guy’ that Eijun had construed in his mind. He didn’t fit the image of a person that Eijun could throw in cuffs and send off in a car that flashed the victorious lights of red and blue. Kazuya was a kid who ran away from home for reasons Eijun still couldn’t decipher, but suspected that it was something to do with neglect and the death of his father. Something about his father’s death had permanently changed Kazuya’s life and set him off on this path of endless theft and crime.

Simply put, the blaring truth of the matter was that Kazuya wasn’t rotten at the core. There were murderers and rapists out there that they could be chasing down, people who actually deserved the worst punishments imaginable, but they couldn’t ignore the fact that literal millions were being lost due to one conniving young man, either. 

In the end, Eijun didn’t know how to properly administer justice to a kid who lost everything he knew and went spiraling off the deep end. He wasn’t murdering or assaulting people, he wasn’t robbing pockets, and he wasn’t laughing as he stepped on the faces of the innocent. He was getting by in the only way he knew how. 

While knowing this, how was Eijun supposed to feel proud for capturing him in the end?

Eijun lowered his gaze and pressed his forehead to his desk. 

I love my job, he reminded himself, but it sounded more like a bitter attempt to convince himself rather than a mantra he often repeated in earnest. I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.

When the radio began to play I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Eijun let out a soft, shaky sob. He was grateful that he was alone in the office that night.

***

His moral dilemma aside, Eijun didn’t sit around and waste time. He coped with the emotions, shoved the rest aside to a mental corner somewhere to deal with later, and got back on track with what he was assigned to do. 

He was well aware that he sounded mental when he told the team that he knew where Kazuya was because he marked down which radio station Kazuya was listening to the night of Christmas Eve. Regardless of how looney he appeared to the other agents, Eijun was grateful that they decided to believe him anyway. 

“We have to stop him before he leaves the country,” Eijun told his agents, brows tensed with seriousness as he placed his hands flat on the table in front of him and leaned forward. “I want everyone we have inside the city’s international airport. He’s used that airport before and he knows the layout like the back of his hand, I’m sure! One way or another, he’ll end up there, and the problem is that we don’t know when.”

“He doesn’t have a passport, Eijun-kun,” Haruichi supplied with a small, worrisome frown. Eijun turned his attention to his friend, knowing that his team was likely thinking the same thing. Haruichi was right, but that didn’t mean anything when it came to Miyuki Kazuya. Before he could answer, someone else spoke up.

“He also attended an ivy league medical school and became a doctor in less than a month after we discovered him disguised as a pilot, so I’d warrant he could get his hands on a passport without struggle,” Ryousuke answered his younger brother with a tight-lipped smile. Looking slightly embarrassed, Haruichi’s cheeks reddened and he nodded with agreement.

“I still think he couldn’t do it immediately,” Furuya interrupted, though he had a point. “I can look up how long it takes to process a passport. It will buy us a few days to prepare before we should fill up the airport.”

“Right, good thinking,” Eijun said with a grateful glance in Furuya’s direction. “It’ll take him at least a week, give or take.”

“I’ve already talked to the local police,” Toujou informed Eijun with a nod. “After reading your report last night, I wasted no time in calling them. They’ve offered fifty uniformed cops in two shifts of twenty-five.”

“Whoa, hold on—Sawamura, that’s like, nearly a hundred guys in one airport with our agents added on top of the police force,” Kanemaru pointed out with a tense frown. “Don’t you think we should spread them around the country more? What if he’s on the move already?”

“Yeah, I trust your reasoning, Sawamura, but Kanemaru has a point,” Kuramochi added with a tilt of his head. “I have to ask…” Kuramochi then leveled his intense gaze with Eijun, giving him a slightly doubtful frown. “How do you know he’s not gonna rent a car and go to another city between now and then? For all you know, he could have already taken his leave, right?”

His team all posed good questions, ones that could not be left unaddressed. Eijun felt a little vulnerable explaining his gut instinct, but then he swallowed that feeling down and looked up at his agents. They needed to know Eijun was completely, one-hundred-percent certain about what they were doing. There was no room for doubt and if they wanted to catch Kazuya, then all cards had to be out on the table. 

Decided, Eijun lifted his gaze to look over them all, his brilliant golden eyes ablaze with the utmost conviction and assurance. His fists curled into tight balls and he took in a deep breath.

“Because even if indirectly, he told me where he is,” Eijun declared, voice unwavering, “and because I know where he is, he won’t leave without saying goodbye to me.”

There were a few skeptical glances shared between a few of the agents, but in the end, no one could argue with Eijun when he had that stern, confident look on his face.

After all, at this point, no one else knew Miyuki Kazuya like Sawamura Eijun did.

***

Kazuya woke up one day and realized that at this rate, he couldn’t stay in the country anymore.

He had never been particularly attached to his hometown, hence the reason he took off and decided to bounce around the country in the first place—the last thing he wanted to do was hang around a town where he’d been stuck all his life, where every street corner was haunted by memories he shared with his father. He couldn’t deal with that, and the urge to get out was like an itch just beneath his skin that he couldn’t reach until he followed that instinct to leave.

So of course, Kazuya did just that. He became a deadheading pilot, splurged, and saw the world from the elevated perspective of a wealthy, respected man. It had been simple at first, but now he couldn’t rest, not with Sawamura Eijun of all people hot on his heels pretty much all the time. As long as he remained here as part of the system, he would be running, and running, and running.

Kazuya was tired of running. He’d been ducking his head under the radar and running for a year now. He had no one and nothing to comfort him, and even though he found a few brief partners to fuck around with, it was all loveless. Hell, Kazuya wasn’t much of a romantic, but he wasn’t soulless either. Most of all, he may not have been fond of his home, but leaving the country was a daunting thought that hardly crossed his mind before.

The understanding that he had to leave his country behind had crushed his heart. It was the final push he needed to have a breakdown on Christmas Eve, which resulted in some heavy drinking and a call to Eijun to beg him to get off his case. He knew it was futile but he tried, because if he hadn’t tried he’d never know what would have happened if he did.

There was that and, of course, the strange yearning he felt for Eijun and his company. He was becoming attached to the comfort he felt when he could let down all his masks and become Miyuki Kazuya in front of someone else. He craved the solace he had cultivated in knowing that he could share all of his big, terribly illegal secrets with another person completely openly. He could tell Eijun and only Eijun. 

Eijun was the man trying to cuff his wrists, sure, but he was the only person on the force to have ever actually looked him in the eye while knowing exactly who he was.

Kazuya had no friends to turn to, no lover to confide in, no close family to lean on. Forget his mother, she might as well be dead to him, too. He got himself into this mess and he had no one to blame but himself, but at this rate, the least he could do was take Eijun along on the ride with him. He had no one else and he was desperate to clutch onto the only sort of stability he had in his wild, unpredictable life. 

Briefly, Kazuya did entertain the possibility of turning himself in, but he feared what would happen if he went to prison. Right now, he was free. He traveled across the country and lived in luxury, but if he were imprisoned, his situation would become the total opposite. He’d be confined, locked in a cell, monitored at all times, and entirely unable to make his own choices.

The thought of being jailed like that utterly terrified him. He technically wasn’t free right now, he supposed, for as long as he needed to run from Eijun—but a realization dawned upon him as the holidays arrived that year. 

If he finally gave up his connection to Eijun and truly severed their ties once and for all, he would lose the last thing that made Kazuya, well, Kazuya. After shedding the last semblance of his identity by turning his back on the only person who knew exactly who he was and what he was doing, then he might have a shot at freedom again.

It was a devastating realization to process that he was going to get rid of who he was… probably forever. He would have to leave everything behind—his home country, the culture he knew, the world he existed in. All of it would have to be sacrificed. Of course he couldn’t help but to cry over his loss when he heard Eijun’s voice calling him by his real name, no matter how much bitter hatred dripped from his tone.

He cried, grieved over the decision he was about to make, and allowed those feelings to pass. Upon waking up, his mind was clear and he was ready to face this new chapter of his life. Their game of cat and mouse had been fun, but now he was leaving Eijun behind. The day he left would be the day Miyuki Kazuya died once and for all. His horizons were expanding beyond the comfort of his home country—now, he was going to start robbing the pockets of the entire world. 

Once the Christmas holiday was over, Kazuya acted quickly. He went to the nearest hall of records, located the death records for the region, and found the name of someone who died in infancy about a decade before Kazuya was born that he could use as his next identity. He memorized their information, quickly went to the city hall, and filed for a copy of a birth certificate by using the deceased child’s information. After all, no indication of death was on one’s birth certificate.

As soon as he got the certificate, he went directly to the first passport office he could locate and applied. The process took a few days, but luckily things moved quickly considering the time of year since most people were relaxing at home rather than trying to renew their travel documents. 

While his passport was processed, he made a few phone calls to local universities and informed them that Diamond Air was initiating a new recruiting program over the following spring. They were leaving almost immediately and they were looking for prospective stewardesses, though Kazuya admittedly wasn’t worried about any of their qualifications. All he needed was a group of young women distracting enough to take the attention off himself. 

They would be just as essential for his escape out of the country as his passport. Kazuya was no idiot—he realized when he woke up the next morning after calling Eijun that Eijun would track him down somehow. He had no time to lose. Sure, Eijun acted pretty stupid, but he was truly far from it. In fact, he probably picked up on something Kazuya said or did on their call and would be kicking down his door with his signature ‘oshi oshi oshi!’ chant in no time.

Because of this, Kazuya was certain that when he tried to make his escape, the airport would be swarming with officers. He knew that it would be the final test and he would have to be prepared.

Finding his posse of stewardesses was a quick, easy task. There were plenty of young women absolutely clawing at each other over the opportunity to travel the world with a dashing young pilot and get work experience out of the whole journey.

Kazuya retrieved his passport and had his uniform cleaned. He “purchased” another one under the guise that he lost his uniform, just like how he started off with becoming a pilot in disguise in the first place. This spare uniform would be an important part of his carefully executed escape plan. He even did a drive-by the airport in the back seat of a cab (pretending his flight got cancelled and he had to leave was a piece of cake) and confirmed with his own two eyes that the airport was surrounded by officers and agents.

There was no doubt that Eijun would be there looking for him. With that in mind, Kazuya was sort of excited to see him even if it meant that he couldn’t risk interacting directly with him. He’d just get a look from a distance and let it sink in that it was the last time. As oddly depressing as the thought was to finally put an end to their chase, he ultimately couldn’t resist teasing Eijun one final time. A smirk played on his lips upon thinking about the look on Eijun’s face when he realized that Kazuya got away from him again.

Once he found his flight and arranged to have actual pilots fly the plane (Kazuya was confident but he certainly had no clue what all those buttons did), he made sure his stewardesses would be ready, in every sense of the word. All the arrangements were already in place for their destination—France. He packed only what he would need, got rid of everything else, and finally set his plan in motion.

This was goodbye to the world he knew and the first step in the shoes of his adulthood.

***

Anyone approaching the international airport over the next few weeks would assume that the officers there were preparing for war. Uniformed officers, undercover cops, and local detectives were all taking their positions in and around the airport for another tense day of investigation. Eijun was getting sick of their routine as well, but he was adamant that they didn’t give up. The moment they slacked could be the moment Kazuya slipped on by and got out right beneath their noses.

Eijun paced through the airport, making his rounds throughout the international terminals as he usually did. He gave threatening glares to every Diamond Air pilot he came upon, eyeballing them and making them sweat nervously with each stare-down. They didn’t know he was trying to assess if they were Miyuki Kazuya or not, but Eijun didn’t bother explaining himself before letting them go and moving onto the next pilot he spotted. 

At times he even sprang onto tall, brunet men from behind while screeching that he finally caught him only for the man to turn around and look nothing like Kazuya whatsoever. His cheeks heated from those memories.

… yeah, he had quickly learned that attacking before getting a look at their face wasn’t a good idea. The commotion he caused by his outbursts was not worth it in the slightest. Since then he’d been more careful, but of course that included glaring wildly at the pilots he passed while muttering ‘mumumumu’ under his breath.

Unfortunately, many officers were very clearly bored to be spending yet another day at the airport. Eijun caught most of them sipping coffee and pacing around aimlessly, distracted and more interested in chatting to each other rather than watching the faces of the passing pilots closely. He realized after a few days of this routine that perhaps having all these agents and officers was pointless when only Eijun would really be able to tell Kazuya apart from other pilots, but he wasn’t about to send them all home. He still needed all the help he could get.

It was early in the day when he heard a voice over the P.A. system paging for him. “Will Sawamura Eijun please pick up a white courtesy phone. Sawamura Eijun, please pick up a white courtesy phone.”

Eijun sighed as he approached the nearest courtesy phone in the terminal. He picked it up, though something caught the corner of his eye as he did. He looked up and was slightly startled by what he saw—there was a group of flight stewardesses, all stressed up in pristine uniforms and smiling broadly. Their hair was silky and flowing, their faces were touched up with flawless makeup, and their brand new heels clicked against the polished floors of the airport. They were as bubbly as could be, attracting all the attention of the officers and agents they passed by.

“Did you see that blonde in the front?” Eijun overheard one agent saying to another.

“I should’ve been a pilot,” his buddy answered, awestricken by the sight of the women practically parading down the hall like they were models on a runway.

Though Eijun squinted irritably at the officers who were clearly gawking at the women, he couldn’t be too surprised. The women were absolutely glowing and it was hard not to be stunned by their beauty regardless of Eijun’s romantic interests. A pilot was amongst the bunch, but Eijun didn’t even notice him until the group had already rounded the corner and he could only see the pilot’s back. He squinted at the pilot. He was pretty tall, broad and his hair was— 

“Eijun-kun, your walkie-talkie isn’t working!” Haruichi’s frantic voice burst through the phone the moment he pressed the button to accept the call waiting on the other side. The sound completely snapped Eijun out of his staring and he was distracted instantly. “There’s a pilot in a Diamond Air uniform sitting in a limo in front of the international charter terminal—he’s got his pilot’s cap on, I think it’s him!”

Eijun didn’t even respond to Haruichi before he threw the phone down. He took off running down the terminal and headed right past the group of the flashy girls and their pilot.

“Oshi oshi oshi! Everyone, outside the terminal immediately, we’ve got eyes on none other than Miyuki Kazuya!!” Eijun cried out, catching the attention of his officers and agents. They all started to run as well, following his lead with hope in their eyes. Finally, this repetitive waiting around and searching was coming to an end. Eijun and the other agents created quite the crowd, storming down the hall and causing casual travellers to scatter in an attempt to get out of their way.

With his team in tow, Eijun burst outside as fast as his legs could carry him. He spotted Haruichi and Furuya and rushed towards them immediately. Eijun and the other agents surrounded the limousine in question, ensuring it couldn’t suddenly drive off. 

Eijun drew his gun, heart pounding and hands shaking as he tried to wrap his head around the realization that this was it. He finally had Kazuya right where he wanted him—cornered, unable to run any further. 

This crazy chase was over at last.

“Miyuki Kazuya!” Eijun called out to the figure inside the limo, not moving his eyes away for even a second. “Get out of the car and put your hands on the hood! There’s no place to run now, you sneaky bastard, so just—come out and make it easy on yourself!”

Shockingly, the door flew open instantly. Eijun had expected a little more hesitation, but to his relief and confusion, Kazuya stumbled out without a second thought. Eijun held his breath and stepped forward, but when Kazuya turned to look at him, he gawked and felt himself go pale.

The pilot… 

… wasn’t Miyuki Kazuya.

“D-Don’t shoot me!” The man stammered, hands raised shakily in the air. His pilot’s cap began to tip sideways, sliding off his head as he trembled. “I-I’m just a driver! A-A man with glasses—he paid me to put this uniform on and told me to pick someone up at the airport!”

“Who’re you picking up!?” Kuramochi snapped at him, clearly enraged and fed up with the situation at hand. Eijun couldn’t even blame him for his anger.

Frightened by Kuramochi’s threatening tone, the driver squeaked out, “I don’t know, some guy named S-Sawamura Eijun!”

All eyes immediately landed on Eijun. Everyone lowered their guns, Eijun included, and caught their breaths as the truth dawned upon them. It was a trick, and Kazuya’s way of informing Eijun that he was too late.

They had failed. 

Kazuya was gone.

***

His silence didn’t last very long. Truth be told, Kazuya was bored again fairly quickly. He took his crowd of pretty stewardesses around Europe, gave them their memories and fun, and then sent them back home with a smile and a wave. 

Sure, when he cracked that night on Christmas Eve, he cried, grieved, and lamented over the situation he had gotten himself into. Now and again, he wished for some semblance of normalcy. However, after getting that angst out of his system, he was fine accepting that this was his life for the foreseeable future. The sensation of escape and the rush of triumph he felt about fooling Eijun again was too addictive for Kazuya to ignore, and over time he came to realize that he actually never wanted the chase to end.

It was true—Kazuya never wanted Eijun to stop. Eijun’s determination made Kazuya feel wanted, important, and seen. There was more going on between their back-and-forth than simply Eijun doing his job, Kazuya knew it. He could sense it. 

In the end, as irrational and risky as his behavior was, Kazuya decided he couldn’t resist sending a friendly little postcard to his adamant pursuer, just to show off and get Eijun’s gears grinding again. Maybe the hint would get Eijun to try and chase him down. He was pretty sure Eijun hadn’t given up, but Kazuya was bored now and he needed a new game to play. Eijun wasn’t following him closely enough. It was time for Kazuya to bait him, to get him on the move, to get the chase going again.

Well, so long for his plan of leaving his identity as Miyuki Kazuya behind in his home country.

***

An international chase wasn’t entirely out of Eijun’s hands, but it was a bigger challenge that, quite frankly, Eijun and his team were trying to desperately avoid. It cost more, it was astonishingly more difficult to get their hands on bounced checks, and communication was a nightmare. That was why they swarmed the airport for two weeks straight and did everything they could to stop Kazuya before he got away and made their mission feel damn near impossible.

However, in spite of all their careful planning, they had failed. 

For a while, Eijun was stumped. Kazuya could quite literally be anywhere in the world and Eijun didn’t have a clue where to begin. Worst of all, he felt desolate and hollow, as if someone had broken up with him or something. Seriously, what gives? Eijun felt like all those nights he spent laboring over fraudulent checks, working hours beyond his pay as he obsessively tried to pin Kazuya down were worth nothing now. It was like no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t matter anymore—Kazuya had left him behind in the dust and proved to him that Eijun was not a good enough agent to catch him.

That was how he felt until he received an envelope, sent to him like a beacon in the dark of Eijun’s life.

Inside were pictures of a group of pretty flight stewardesses, beaming and clustered together in front of various iconic landmarks across Europe. Sites included the Spanish Steps in Rome, Buckingham Palace, Scotland Yard, and the Eiffel Tower. 

Before this moment, Eijun had suspected that the only pilot he didn’t get a close look at that fateful day, surrounded by a group of flashy, happy-go-lucky women, was Kazuya. He had that sinking feeling once he tore back through the airport, desperately searching each terminal only to have salt rubbed into his wound that told him he was just too late. Now, at the sight of those young women who were dolled up to look like models in the photographs, his suspicions were confirmed. Kazuya was merely showing him the pictures so that Eijun realized just how close they had been. He just wanted to flaunt how his trick had worked like a charm.

The final thing inside the envelope was a postcard. It was from Paris, and on the back was a hand-written note from Kazuya to Eijun.

Wish you were here ♡

Eijun pushed his chair back abruptly and shouted out into the cluttered office, “Everyone, pay close attention and look for any suspicious activity from France!! Miyuki Kazuya has given a sign of his location at last! It may or may not be his permanent residence, but we should be careful!”

It was not much, but it was a start. Eijun wasn’t going to give up hope, not yet.

***

For a few months, Kazuya traveled around the world simply because now, he could. Why wouldn’t he take advantage of his situation and leave a trail of breadcrumbs for Eijun to follow as far as Diamond Air could reach? He felt like during those months of endless travel, he matured at a rapid pace, wandering the towns of cultures he’d never even heard of and soaking it all in. He knew this was an experience very few people got to have so of course he was going to milk it as thoroughly as he could.

Eventually though, he needed to make more checks. He was running low again ever since abandoning his post in the office building. Luckily, he knew where he could go.

Kazuya spent some extra time in France thoroughly investigating his family history to locate those distant cousins of his that he had more or less entirely forgotten about. Finding them was surprisingly simple and from what others in the neighborhood said, they were a very friendly and welcoming bunch. 

Once he approached their home, it all went well—a woman around his mother’s age answered the door on Kazuya’s first try. When she saw Kazuya, she gasped with recognition, no doubt seeing his mother’s features reflected on his face. She introduced herself as Akari and she was Kazuya’s aunt. He was ushered inside, offered a bed to sleep in, and given meals to eat for as long as he wanted to stay.

For a while, Kazuya got a taste of normal life with them. He helped around the house, tended to the garden, and got to know the family he never knew he had. It was comfortable, but Kazuya was beginning to gaze at the sky again, eyes following the distant trails of cloudy-white left behind by planes soaring high, high above. He wondered if he should just stay there in France and hope he remained under the radar, or if he should drop Eijun another hint to try and start up their chase again. It had been a while since he tried cashing his fake checks ever since he had undertaken this humble life with the family in Montrichard.

That was when his next opportunity fell right into his lap. Takeda, his uncle, required help at work—a job that Kazuya never bothered asking about until he caught wind that the family business was with paper. He sensed an opportunity, volunteered to go with, and was astonished at what he saw.

The family owned a professional printing press in a gigantic warehouse on the outskirts of town. The warehouse was situated in the middle of nowhere, packed with a breathtaking amount of resources, from materials to machinery, all in one convenient little spot.

The feeling that rushed through Kazuya’s veins upon following Takeda inside was probably what drug addicts experienced when hitting a new high. His eyes darted around, soaking it all in, his breaths thin with the possibilities that this new location opened up. Takeda was showing him how the printing press worked, instructions rolling off his tongue as if he were simply talking about the weather. He explained how to set the back gears up for color printing, how they then proceeded to put the plates in upside-down, how the ink was poured in last, and how the cylinder brakes should be rolled until they caught… the endless instructions filed into his mind as crucial information he could not forget.

Like hell Kazuya could remain in this small town in France, living a humble life gardening and cooking. The thrill of tricking the world with his schemes was too damn tempting for him to resist.

The desire he had for Eijun to pay attention to him again was itching at his fingertips. He couldn’t sit around anymore. He had to start the chase again. He lived for the chase and without it, he was nothing.

This was it.

With this printing press, Kazuya would be unstoppable.

***

Kuramochi grinned as he dropped a stack of papers onto Eijun’s desk, snapping him out of his haze. He turned his eyes to the papers, then looked up at Kuramochi with an expectant gaze.

“He cashed a check in Madrid,” Kuramochi said, his toothy smile widening. “The bank there was the first to notice what was happening. They contacted Diamond Air, who in turn called us—I was the one to pick up the call two days ago. I didn’t want to get your hopes up too soon before I knew that it wasn’t a false alarm, so… on my own, I doubled back on some bounced checks they sent me from a network of other banks around the world. I found even more just like the one from Madrid. Singapore, Egypt, Australia, Brazil… he’s out of control. It has to be Miyuki. The chase is back on, Sawamura.”

A thrill unlike any other flooded Eijun’s chest. It was almost like the solemn bags under his eyes faded on the spot as he began to beam at Kuramochi. He was eternally grateful that his coworker had picked up the slack and managed to sniff out Kazuya’s trail when Eijun was too depressed to be of much help.

They were in a conference room with Kataoka within the week. The meeting had been scheduled as soon as Eijun’s team began to finally find all the checks that Kazuya had cashed—at least, as many as they could.

“How many checks are there?” Kataoka asked almost as soon as he took a seat, arms crossed over his chest. He leaned back in the conference room chair, brows tensed with severity. He was likely shifting his gaze between Kuramochi and Eijun, though Eijun couldn’t tell when he wore those shades he always wore perched on the bridge of his nose.

“Thousands,” Kuramochi reported grimly, the number evoking a few raised brows and sharp gasps from other high-ranking officials that were seated around the room. “He’s hit almost every major bank in Europe.”

“Why wasn’t I called sooner?” Kataoka demanded, his frown deepening.

“N-No one was called, sir!” Eijun answered stiffly, still nervous as all hell to be up there speaking in front of the big-wigs again. “The banks didn’t know what was happening until this past week. We think he’s been doing this for six months, at least.”

“That’s impossible,” Kataoka challenged Eijun with a glare that reached just over the rim of his glasses. “Diamond Air would have called us back then.”

“They didn’t call all this time because the checks... let me explain: Miyuki Kazuya is not counterfeiting, sir!” Eijun said with a tense frown. “He’s doing something else!”

“Well, what is he doing?” Kataoka gritted out.

“Miyuki Kazuya is making real checks,” Eijun answered. “They’re so perfect that Diamond Air cashed them all. They had no idea what was going on until that bank in Madrid reported their suspicions.” He paused heavily, gathered himself, and took in a deep breath. “Look, Miyuki Kazuya is the greatest bank robber the world has ever known, but he is habitual. When he gets to a new city, he starts out slow, hitting the banks on the outskirts of town. At first it’s small checks in small banks that pose little to no threat. Then he starts moving in, circling the city like a mother hawk, picking off every little bank he can find, slowly inching his way toward the center of the city.”

All eyes were on Eijun as he went on, voice shaking slightly as he desperately tried to convince them that he knew what he was talking about.

“There’s always one bank that’s bigger and richer than all the others,” Eijun elaborated. “This is what he came for and he’ll watch it for days. He’ll know if they add a security guard or bring in a new teller, and if he sees anything out of place, he’ll move on to the next one. That’s the luxury of having the entire world at your disposal.”

“How would you go about stopping him before he strikes?” Rei questioned, having been silent and observant until this point.

“A great question!” Eijun answered loudly and boldly. He grinned as he went on, impassioned to be explaining these fine details about Kazuya that he had memorized over the last nearly two years. “He’d make his move right before lunch, when everyone’s mind is on food and the lines are short. He likes to stand out and draw attention to himself—the more people see him, the more invisible he becomes. We’d catch him right then, at the bank counter, before the teller even had a chance to look at his check.” 

Kataoka scratched at his temple, clearly frustrated with the situation just like the rest of them. Finally, after a hesitant silence, Kataoka let out a heavy sigh. “Where is he now?”

This was where it got tricky. He had their trust now that he knew exactly how to corner Kazuya, but this last bit of information was… uncertain, to say the least. He had no proof besides the hint of the postcard, which he was a bit too embarrassed to explain at length.

“France,” Eijun answered firmly, golden eyes gleaming as he stared across the long conference table at Kataoka. “Paris, most likely.”

“But the last check was cashed in Madrid,” Kuramochi interrupted with a quizzical glance in Eijun’s direction. “What the hell makes you say he’s in France all of a sudden?”

“He told me,” Eijun answered, voice shaking as his pulse pounded wildly in his veins. “In his own, weird way, he told me. He’s gotta be there. We have to go now, today, this very instant, even—”

“To fuckin’ Paris!?” Kuramochi hissed, bewildered. He always had Eijun's back, but even he couldn't find a way to support Eijun's wild theory in front of Kataoka at that moment. “Oi, Sawamura—”

“Look at the map!” Eijun snapped, gesturing wildly back at the projected image still flickering behind them in the dark, dusty room. “He’s making a circle and France is the bullseye right in the center! He’s running out of checks and he needs to go back to where he’s printing the checks! I think that’s why he’s moving through Europe right now, and if we track him from Madrid, I’m sure we’ll end up in France where he—”

“Sawamura.” Kataoka’s voice was low and stern with disapproval. Eijun knew that tone—he winced as he turned towards his boss, a kicked-puppy look in his eyes as he sulked. He knew that whatever Kataoka was about to say would sting, but he still couldn’t prepare himself in the end. “You sound like you know him and his habits quite well, but surely these were all hints that you picked up on while he was still robbing the banks in our country. What makes you think you can catch him in France if you couldn’t catch him here?”

Eijun clenched his fists. Dammit, if anyone was shouldering the burden of letting Kazuya escape nearly ten months ago, Eijun was. He didn’t need anyone to remind him. Kuramochi looked between the two of them, a worrisome frown on his face.

Pleadingly, Eijun tried again. “B-But boss, if we don’t go to France, we’re gonna let him get away again and—”  

“Do not say ‘we’ let him get away,” Kataoka interjected, a cruel glare in his eyes that pinned Eijun to his place as he abruptly got to his feet, “when it was you who let him get away, Sawamura.” 

Eijun’s heart sank to his feet and he lowered his head shamefully. That thought had been haunting him ever since the day Kazuya left him and was the sole cause of his slump. Hearing it spoken out loud in front of the other higher-ups had him tensing with pure embarrassment and misery. Even as he opened his mouth to defend himself, all that came out was a soft, broken sound—he couldn’t even speak.

Kataoka turned his back on him and added, “Don’t bother calling me back until you have more evidence for his location. Then we can regroup again. This meeting is over.”

It could have been worse—Kataoka could have fired him or told him he had to drop the case, so he knew he would feel grateful that Kataoka even allowed Eijun more time to get his evidence together. Regardless, Eijun felt horribly insecure at that moment. He was grateful that Kuramochi was there to place a supportive hand on Eijun’s upper back as the other higher-ups left the conference room as well.

At least they wouldn’t see the bitter tears well up in Eijun’s eyes as his skin burned with humiliation.

***

It must have been four in the morning or so, but Kazuya didn’t slow down. He couldn’t remember feeling this enthralled with anything in his life. He was brilliant—an unstoppable genius. He could become the most powerful, wealthiest man in the world like this. Long gone were the days where he soaked plastic planes in that dingy motel bathtub to peel their labels off for shabby fraudulent checks.  

His checks were perfect. In fact, they were beyond perfect now—they were real and they would hand him a lifetime of wealth. Kazuya would have more than he would ever need. If only his father could see him now. Toku would be so proud, seeing his son absolutely swimming in luxury after they had been deprived of that privilege their entire lives. Kazuya came from nothing, but now he was going to be the one in control. He was going to rule. No one would be able to pin him down.

Not even Eijun.

Thousands upon thousands of checks shot out of the printing machine, piling up in stacks all around the warehouse. They were crisp, without flaws or a single imperfection. Kazuya had removed his shirt early on in the night, remaining only in his work trousers and a thin white tank that was soaked through with sweat. His hair was messy and damp, ink was smudged on his cheeks, and the muscles of his arms bulged from the workout he got handling the machinery for hours on end.

The crazed light in his eyes kept him going, the manic smile pulling at the corners of his lips only growing wider. His heart beat frantically against his chest as he trembled with laughter and excitement, getting drunk off the images of where he could travel to next, what he could see, who he could meet. The possibilities were endless for him. Kazuya could do whatever the hell he wanted and no one was there to prevent him from making his dreams come true.

No one.

***

One humiliating and disheartening experience was not enough to stop Sawamura Eijun. After sulking, he rose up with more determination than ever before, heart ablaze with a fervent desire to get Miyuki Kazuya cuffed and jailed once and for all. The doubt and hesitation over the morality of what he was doing was still there, lingering like skeletons in his closet, but he kept the door firmly locked and shut. Kazuya had gone too far now and no matter how he had gotten to this point, Eijun was the one who had to put a stop to his addiction to thievery. 

Eijun had no choice but to prove himself. His reputation was on the line, so he did the only thing he knew during a desperate time like this: Eijun went to none other than Takigawa Chris Yuu.

Chris was the most renowned senior specialist in their division until he decided to resign and switch careers. He was still deeply respected by the FBI, and ever since his resignation, he made it clear that he was always open to helping whenever he could. Before this, Eijun had been determined to figure out his plan with the help of his current team, but they were all stumped and at this rate, they wouldn’t make any progress. They needed Chris’s help.

Luckily, Chris was more than willing to come take a look at the checks with Eijun, especially due to his new career. Ever since he left the FBI, he had gone into the field of printing and bookmaking, of all things. Eijun wanted to kiss the ground from gratitude knowing that Chris had decided to continue in a field that could be relevant to them in the future. His expertise on printing techniques was crucial at a time like this.

Haruichi and Furuya came along, and together they sat on the other side of the table from Chris, with all of their materials spread out between them.

“A perfect one-16th all the way around,” Chris murmured details about the printing with awe as he bent over the most recent checks that Kazuya had crafted. “The color separation is flawless… there’s no bleeding. Nobody does work like this here.” Chris paused to give Eijun a clever smile as he referred to his own printing company, “Nobody but us.”

“Can you tell where it was printed, Chris-senpai?” Eijun prompted, hands squeezed into tight, nervous fists. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. Eijun may have known checks like no one else, but Chris was the master of printing, ink, and all the materials needed to craft a fine sheet of paper.

“Wherever it was printed, it was on a monster of a machine,” Chris said with a small chuckle and an astonished shake of his head. “This definitely came from a Heidelberg or an Istra… hm, most likely a Heidelberg.” 

Chris lifted the check up to the light and brought it back down, resting the paper in his palm. Eijun, Furuya and Haruichi watched tensely as Chris caressed the check with his fingers, smoothed his fingertips over its perfectly flat surface, and threaded his eyebrows tightly together with concentration. “You can practically smell the weight of Heidelberg on this check alone. The Heidelberg… it weighs two tons already, without the ink. This quality is pristine.”

“Heidelberg… it sounds German,” Furuya murmured. “Was it printed in Germany?”

“Potentially,” Chris answered with a tilt of his head. “They only do printing like this in Germany, Great Britain, and France.”

“Wait, France!” Haruichi gasped. The sound of his startled voice caused Eijun to practically snap his neck with how fast he turned to look at his partner. “Miyuki’s mother said the name of a village in France, where she had family! I can’t remember it, though… I think it began with an M or something… Marseille?”

“Montrichard,” Eijun blurted out, so suddenly and randomly that it startled even him. Haruichi looked at him, bewildered by the speed at which he answered. Eijun felt his skin redden from how easily he had remembered such a small, passing detail in the conversation with Kazuya’s mother. After all, he had devoted himself to knowing everything about Kazuya that he could. “It was Montrichard…!”

Chris ended up smiling fondly at them as he set the check down. “Looks like you didn’t need my help after all, Sawamura. You’ve grown a lot.”

The compliment had Eijun beaming so bright that his smile could light up the room. He knew that without this final push from his former mentor, he wouldn’t have proof to convince Kataoka that they needed to go to France. Now that he had substantial evidence of Kazuya’s location, there was nothing stopping him. He could pin Kazuya down and this time, he wouldn’t mess it up.

“That’s not true, Chris-senpai!” Eijun corrected cheerfully. “I always need your help!”

***

It had been… an experience to get to this point, to put it lightly. For the past two years, Eijun had been hot on the heels of the trickiest bank robber in the world—Miyuki Kazuya, the most sophisticated conman the world had ever seen. Banks around the world had lost millions all to one single man who was currently only 20 years old. He had achieved what no one else ever had.

Now, just a couple days past Christmas Day, this exhaustive chase would all finally come to an end.

Eijun approached the door of the warehouse almost reverently, a seriousness about him that was not usually found when it came to Eijun. He was always such a lighthearted, spunky person, frequently laughing with a boastful tone and causing a ruckus wherever he went.

Today, however… he walked this last leg of the journey alone. Kataoka had enough of employing all of their agents and the local police and then some just to have them all scramble and make fools of themselves. Eijun understood his frustration, so he agreed and accepted Kataoka’s challenge of going to France on his own. After all, it worked out—he wanted to be the one to cuff Kazuya and prove himself to his boss again. 

Eijun decided he wouldn’t return home until he could bring Kazuya back with him.

The warehouse wasn’t locked or secured in any way—there was no reason for such security measures with how remote the warehouse was in comparison to everything else. Eijun had been lucky enough to find it in the dark like this. Snow crunched beneath his shoes and the air was crisp against his skin, but when he got inside, it felt as hot as a sauna from the energy of the machinery burning inside.

Jesus, it was too hot. Eijun glanced around once he shut the door behind him and saw a huge switch to his left, marked with a word that looked like ‘ventilation.’ Whatever worked. Eijun flipped the switch and there was an immediate surge of power that audibly rushed through the building. The switch caused the massive blades of the fans up along the top of the warehouse to start spinning, and the sudden gust of wind sent papers flying everywhere. 

Eijun paused, breathless at the sight before him.

Diamond Air checks, brand new and hot off the press, came raining down around him in an insurmountable quantity. There were thousands of checks fluttering in the air, swirling like a storm, reminding Eijun of cherry blossom petals when they finally drifted off the branches of their trees in the spring.

And there, in the eye of the storm, was Miyuki Kazuya.

Eijun almost flinched at the sight of him. He looked as if he had just been snapped out of his work, staring up at his surroundings with a crazed look from behind his glasses lenses. His bangs pushed back out of his eyes, making his features even easier to see. He wore nothing but a thin, dirtied wife-beater shirt that clung to his body obscenely, leaving little about Kazuya’s physical build to Eijun’s imagination. His exposed skin was shiny with sweat and his broad, muscular chest was heaving, hands trembling no doubt from hours of frenzied exertion. 

When his confused gaze finally settled on Eijun, he broke out into a wide smile, amber-brown eyes gleaming with nothing short of obsessive joy.

“Well, well, well, would you look at that,” Kazuya breathed with an uneven laugh. “It’s a Christmas miracle. You really came to me, Eijun.”

At the sound of his name purred out like that, Eijun’s pulse pounded loudly in his ears. His eyes flickered down to Kazuya’s collarbones, exposed over the top of the thin shirt he wore, and tried not to wonder how someone could be so in shape when he was busy printing checks. It just wasn’t fair.

Dammit, Kazuya’s firm, shapely chest was distracting.

“Put on a shirt, Miyuki Kazuya,” Eijun bit out shakily, trying to ignore the flush on his cheeks that he blamed on the hot air of the warehouse. “You’re under arrest.”

“Hm?” Kazuya drawled as he looked Eijun up and down, a sleazy smile spreading across his lips. “Is that a gun in your pants or are you just excited to see me?”

For a second, Eijun felt his skin burn hot— was he seriously getting hard!? —but when he looked down at his crotch, he realized too late that Kazuya was just teasing him. Embarrassed, he shot a scandalized glare up at Kazuya only to see that he had turned his back on Eijun already. He was crouched on the ground like an animal, frantically grabbing armfuls of the checks that had scattered around his feet. He moved awkwardly, agitated and shaken—it was obvious to Eijun that he hadn’t expected to be caught.

Then, the truth dawned upon him: it was the first time that Eijun had actually cornered Kazuya since the moment they met.

“I don’t have a gun,” Eijun admitted as he took a few steps closer to stand beside the printing press which was still buzzing with energy. He eyed it briefly—if Chris was right, this was a Heidelberg. He knew nothing about how to tell if Chris was right, but the press certainly matched the description Chris gave. The machine sure looked like a monster.

“Well, Eijun, I’m flattered you came to see me, really,” Kazuya laughed out, “and I’m being honest when I say I feel the same way, but I didn’t hear your favorite little chant as you kicked down the warehouse door today. Is anyone else waiting outside…” 

Kazuya paused from where he was crouched down. He looked over his shoulder with a feral, eerie gleam in his eye that paused Eijun in his tracks. “...or is it just you and I?”

Eijun pursed his lips as he stood his ground. There was no reason to lie to Kazuya now when Eijun had done nothing but tell him the truth since the beginning. “It’s just me, Miyuki Kazuya… but the French police are on their way.”

Just then, there was a piercing sound from the corner of the warehouse. The warehouse phone had begun to ring. After casting a glance at Kazuya, Eijun walked over to answer it.

A heavily-accented voice demanded to know if Eijun was going to have Kazuya ready in the next few minutes.

“There’s no problem!” Eijun reported quickly. “We’ll be out shortly!”

After that, he hung up the phone. Kazuya scoffed from where he was pacing around, rapidly gathering things in his arms as if he could bolt out of there on foot. Considering the way he continued to messily drop what he was holding, he probably understood, deep down, that this was truly the end of the chase.

“That was good,” Kazuya remarked with a nervous laugh. “That was good, Eijun—what, did you pay some hotel desk clerk to make that call for you? Is that what you did?”

“It was the police captain, you slippery bastard!” Eijun answered with a snippy tone. “Why don’t you believe me? I’m telling you the truth!”

“And why should I believe that?” Kazuya snapped right back, voice raised with unmistakable panic. He paused to glare accusingly at Eijun, the playful smile finally wiped from his features.

“B-Because I would never lie to you!” Eijun shouted, his voice echoing throughout the warehouse. He even shocked himself with the force of his own emotion and how it resonated in his booming voice, making his cheeks flush hot and his eyes glimmer from tender affection. 

Fuck it, Eijun thought as he balled his hands into fists and stood his ground. He couldn’t act like this oddly personal relationship they had was nonexistent. He wasn’t about to put on a mask and pretend to only be doing his job.

“You have to trust me on this, Kazuya!” Eijun pleaded. “These people are embarrassed! They’re angry! You robbed their banks, stole their money and lived in their country for months right under their noses!” His voice wavered as he stormed forward, closing the distance between them as he fervently added, “I told you this was going to happen! I told you that there was no other way for this to end!” 

Kazuya took an unsteady step back as Eijun advanced, his arms shaking from where he clutched as many checks as he could to his chest. The paper was becoming wrinkled and creased, checks were slipping from his pile, and Kazuya was on the verge of dropping them all to the ground. The sheen of tears that clouded over his gaze wavered and he smiled while he laughed, but his eyes were loaded with fear—he was so far gone and unstable that he barely looked like Kazuya anymore. The cornered expression on Kazuya’s face pained Eijun’s heart and he had to swallow down his tears, but he wondered how long it would take for him to start crying freely. He was pretty certain he wouldn’t be able to hold down his emotions in the end.

“Keep pushing that lie, Eijun,” Kazuya weakly tried to defend, as if he could convince himself that Eijun was wrong even though he had absolutely nowhere left to run. “Keep pushing it until you make it true.”

“I’m not lying!!” Eijun shouted, finally lunging forward and grabbing onto Kazuya’s shoulders. His eyes shimmered with tears—so long for holding them back—as he shook Kazuya back and forth. “You idiot! You stupid, goddamn, thick-skulled idiot!! Do you think I’m really, truly proud of all of this!? Do you think I enjoy putting someone as young as you in prison, someone I could see myself falling in love with if we just lived in another, simpler world!?”

Kazuya could do nothing but stare, awestricken as Eijun squeezed his shoulders with trembling hands. At the same time, Eijun couldn’t believe he was feeling Kazuya’s touch for the first time since they met. He was already addicted to the shape of Kazuya’s shoulders beneath his palms, the warmth of his skin against Eijun’s fingers, the way sparks ran down his spine from that touch alone. 

Kazuya was actually in front of him . They were no longer stewing in their mutual feelings while across the country from each other, connected by a frail phone line and a paper trail that was becoming harder and harder to follow. This time, Eijun was breathing in the same air as Kazuya with tears dripping down his cheeks, opening his heart to the criminal he was in the midst of arresting.

When he first decided to become an FBI agent, Eijun never thought he’d get to this point. Eijun’s breaths came out as choppy, hitched whimpers as he broke down, the truth spilling out of him uncontrollably. 

“Dammit, you’re just—you’re still such a kid, you’ve never—” Eijun stopped himself with a small, wry smile. “W-Well, I guess you have seen the world m-more than I have… but you’re—you’re so alone, Kazuya, aren’t you? Hey, aren’t you so lonely that it makes your heart f-feel hollow, just like me?” His shoulders shook with a nervous laugh. “You and I, we’re—we’re the same, we’re outcasts of society. You didn’t get married to some woman under my nose, did you? No, you would have told me, right?” He was laughing a bit now as he pried one hand from Kazuya’s shoulder to messily wipe at his tears. “D-Don’t tell me I’m the only one who felt this way all this time—”

Eijun saw the checks all fall to the floor as Kazuya dropped his arms, releasing everything he had been holding. The paper covered their feet for a moment, and Eijun barely had time to look up before he was being backed against the wall behind him. Had he not been in such an emotional state, he might have defended himself, assuming that Kazuya was trying to attack and harm him. 

Instead, he could only gasp as his back hit the wall and Kazuya’s hand took a hold of his jaw. Their gazes clashed only briefly before their lips met in a fervent first kiss, so powerful that Eijun felt the sensation run all the way down to his toes. He shivered and desperately clung onto Kazuya, whimpers and other muffled sounds erupting from his throat as Kazuya’s mouth utterly dominated his own. He kissed back with just as much pent-up passion, mind spinning from the pure need in their gestures and every movement of their lips. They were touch-starved, frantic, and well aware that they probably wouldn’t get a chance to do this again.

“Hah—” Eijun gasped in between the smacks of their lips, now tangling one hand through Kazuya’s hair to urgently pull him closer. Kazuya rolled his body forward, keeping their hips flush together while his tongue yearningly pushed past Eijun’s teeth. Just as eager for more, Eijun opened up for him willingly. His legs shook and his skin heated with each rub of Kazuya’s tongue against his own, feeling the frenzy between them build to an astonishing height. 

Fuck, why did Kazuya have to taste so good and feel so perfect pressed up against him? Now Eijun would never be able to move on. No matter how many willing men he found to kiss him, he was positive their kisses wouldn’t spark adrenaline in his veins, wouldn’t make his senses feel dialed up to the nines, wouldn’t make Eijun want to forget the entire world and lose himself in their embrace. Without knowing it, Kazuya was ruining him by pouring forth his passion like this, kissing him with enough pent-up desire to drown Eijun with it in an instant.

Kazuya’s hand slipped down Eijun’s side, petting the curve of his waist down to the mild swell of his hip while his other hand was busy cupping the side of Eijun’s neck. He probably felt Eijun’s pulse pounding against his palm as he took Eijun’s bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling it and making Eijun’s hips twitch with an urge to grind against something. 

Eijun was aching for more, wanting to cry against his mouth and beg him to never stop because once they stopped, it was over. That would be it.

Gradually, their kiss broke apart—it took some time since Eijun kept chasing his lips, not wanting the moment to end, not wanting to acknowledge that time was ticking away their blissful time together. Eventually he had no choice but to relent and allow Kazuya to part from him. Their lips split and Eijun released a shaky breath and a pitiful whimper. 

Delicately, Kazuya’s hands traced the metal curve of the handcuffs that were attached to Eijun’s belt. He made no jokes about the kinky potentials or teased Eijun about reversing their positions over who was being caught; there was nothing but a grave silence that thickened between them. Kazuya caressed the edges of the handcuffs almost reverently, his teary-eyed focus settling on the tool meant to symbolize the end of it all.

Without a word, Kazuya gently unhooked the handcuffs. Eijun watched with bated breath as Kazuya cuffed one of his wrists, then extended his arms for Eijun to complete the job.

“Guess you caught me in the end, anyway,” Kazuya murmured at last, his voice low and breathy with a mixture of suppressed arousal and a solemn acceptance of the end. “Congratulations, Eijun.”

Eijun’s throat felt thick as he clicked the cuffs in place, his vision blurred with regretful tears. “You dumbass… th-this… this whole situation is all your fault.”

“I know,” Kazuya answered, head lowered as he smiled regretfully. “Sorry. I would have… I think I would have liked to experience life with you.”

“Shut up,” Eijun gritted out between his clenched teeth. He couldn’t meet Kazuya’s gaze. “Stop saying stuff like that when it’s impossible for us now, Miyuki Kazuya.” 

“I guess you’re right about that,” Kazuya murmured, voice subdued, as if he were only now understanding just how bleak his future was. 

Eijun turned to start guiding them towards the door. Once they stepped through that threshold into the bitter nighttime air, it would all be over. The heat simmering between them could never blossom into something beautiful, like it should have under any sort of normal circumstances. What a shame that they couldn’t have just met at a ball game or something equally as mundane. Eijun was possessed with the need to curse the world and fate for twisting their stories this way, but he would have to wait for a private moment to let it all out.

He attempted to look as dignified as he could when he pushed the warehouse door open, not that it really mattered. He squeezed Kazuya’s wrist tightly, wondering if Kazuya could tell if it was to make sure he didn’t try to run off or to comfort him one last time. Even Eijun didn’t know what the squeeze actually meant.

The two of them were instantly bathed in the blinding white of police car headlights. Eijun hissed and had to lift his other arm to shield his eyes, recoiling from the sudden painful lights shining in his vision before he had a chance to try and look again. When he could see, he lowered his arm and saw that policemen were circling them, shouting at each other in French as they pointed their guns at Kazuya.

“I have him in custody!” Eijun shouted. He grabbed Kazuya’s cuffed wrist to lift his arms higher, proving that Kazuya was no threat, for he was already unable to move. “It’s alright! I’ve got him, I’ve got him!”

At this, the men mostly lowered their guns. As Eijun and Kazuya approached the nearest police car, Eijun met the eyes of the police chief he had spoken to before.

“Hey, I—you know, I want it on the record that Miyuki Kazuya surrendered of his own accord!” Eijun demanded, though he grew distracted when Kazuya was suddenly ripped from his grasp and shoved down against the hood of the cop car. Kazuya let out a grunt and glared at the cop behind him, but once they saw that he was cuffed and finished patting him down, they hoisted Kazuya upright again. 

Eijun looked between Kazuya and the police chief, brows threaded with worry since the shouting in French had continued all around him. The chief seemingly didn’t hear him or bother to answer him. 

“Am I understood!?” Eijun yelled, but the chief wasn’t even looking at him anymore. Glaring heatedly at him, Eijun tried again. “Oi, did you understand what I just told you!? Miyuki Kazuya surrendered willingly! He didn’t try to—”

When it was evident that the chief was ignoring Eijun, he cussed under his breath and cut off his own words. Eijun quickly gave up on communicating with him. Instead, he rapidly turned back towards Kazuya, fearful of what was happening now.

Kazuya was being roughly shoved into the backseat of the car. Eijun rushed forward to get inside the car beside him, but an officer shoved him out of the way to sit next to Kazuya instead.

“H-Hey, where are you guys taking him!?” Eijun shouted, his voice raising with panic. Kazuya looked at him from within the car, bewildered and desperate. The edges of his eyes were rimmed with pink and Eijun almost let out a sob on the spot at the sight of that expression, but he gathered himself and instead tried to get into the car by force. “I’m supposed to go with—oi, stop pushing me, let me in! Let me in the car! Are you listening to me!? Let me in the— oof!”

Instead of getting his way, Eijun gasped as he was roughly shoved back. While he was still on his ass, the door was slammed shut. His heart lurched and Eijun scrambled to his feet, reaching out towards the vehicle with a startled shout. Eijun lunged forward, attempting to grab at the door handle, but the car was already moving away.

Kazuya was being taken from him. 

“K-Kazuya!!” Eijun shouted hopelessly, tears blurring his vision, feeling like his heart was being clawed out of his chest. As the car rolled away, Kazuya craned his neck to peer out the rear window. He stared at Eijun with a look loaded with distress—a look that screamed out for help.

At that moment, Kazuya’s words from an entire year ago haunted Eijun’s mind.

Only you can save me, Eijun. Only you.

Eijun could only stand there as all the cars sped off, leaving Eijun alone in the dark with a stream of hot tears dripping down his face.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

He might’ve caught Kazuya, but he couldn’t keep him. Letting him get taken away was not part of the deal and at this rate, Eijun was still a failure. Scared and angry with the way things turned out, Eijun clenched his fists together and let out a shout of frustration. He kicked the snow beneath his boots with a distraught sob.

“Dammit!!”

By the time he managed to catch his breath, Eijun set his fiery eyes on the road where Kazuya had disappeared from his sight. A new goal was emblazoned on his heart.

Eijun would get Kazuya back… even if it was the last thing he did.

Chapter Text

That night, Eijun had no choice but to go back to his hotel room and make a call back home. He wanted to be happier reporting the big news—that he had arrested Miyuki Kazuya—but his joy was dampened by the addition of, “by the way, the French police took him away to god-knows-where so I need to find him again.” Kataoka offered him a gruff word of approval, likely still not believing him entirely, but at the very least, it made Eijun feel a little proud of his efforts before he passed out for the night.

He didn’t sleep very well, but the rest was necessary. He was up bright and early the next morning and it took him half a day to figure out where the prison was and how to get there. After getting some food in his stomach, he went to the prison and was promptly ignored when the officers realized he didn’t speak French.

Left with no other option, Eijun turned tail back to his hotel, where he could make calls back to the office. He had to wait until later since no one would be there yet due to their time zone differences. Now knowing the exact prison that Kazuya was held captive in, Kataoka said he would do all he could from his end to allow Eijun inside the prison the following day. Naturally, that would have to wait until the evening. Full of anxiety and dread, Eijun slept another fitful night and was up early the next day.

After confirming with Kataoka about timing, Eijun left the hotel and headed to the prison. There was a downpour and Eijun had to balance a large, black umbrella on his shoulder as he pulled out his FBI ID card. He did the same thing yesterday, so the guards were at first pretty determined to ignore him, but then the guardhouse received a call. When one guard answered and heard the voice coming through the other line, he paled and began nodding profusely in order to agree with whatever the man on the other end was saying.

For a moment there, Eijun wondered what the hell was happening, but then the guard hung up the phone and immediately bowed his head to Eijun.

“F-Forgive me, sir,” the guard stammered unevenly, “I will lead you inside now. Ryousuke sends his regards.”

Eijun wanted to bust out laughing. Of course —he had forgotten Ryousuke was able to speak French. He could only imagine what colorful threats Ryousuke spelled out in the event that they continued to deny Eijun entry into the prison. Feeling a little more relieved, Eijun followed the man inside where it was dry, but not much warmer than the bitter outdoors.

The prison was… dreadful, to say the least. Eijun was guided down a long corridor flanked with rusting barred cells no bigger than closets. The walls were made of cold gray cedar blocks and any color that had been painted there decades ago was faded and mostly chipped. 

The grungy, scraggly prisoners clambered up against the bars to ogle the unfortunate visitor stepping through the corridor. They whistled and leered at Eijun, no doubt giving him loaded looks that Eijun very pointedly  refused to return. His skin tingled uncomfortably under their stares and he kept his eyes trained ahead, brows furrowed and heart pounding the further they ventured. 

The further they went, the more upset Eijun felt as he wondered where the hell Kazuya was locked up. It felt all far too unnecessary. Kazuya forged checks—it’s not like he was a mass murderer that needed to be incarcerated in the depths of France’s most secure prison. Then again, Kataoka reported to him on the phone that over 20 prisons worldwide were angry that Kazuya was being returned to his home country. All of them wanted a chance to punish the robber that made fools out of the world’s most prestigious international banks.

Worry pricked Eijun's heart as he came to a stop in front of the warden and two more guards. Eijun nodded to them and pulled out his ID card again.

“Sawamura Eijun, at your service!” He barked out. “I have orders to see your prisoner, Miyuki Kazuya!”

The warden gave a look to the guard who had been accompanying Eijun. He said something to the warden in French, and it was supposedly enough for the warden to nod and unlock the door beside him. He gestured with his head for Eijun to follow while the guards were left behind.

They had to travel down yet another corridor to reach Kazuya. Eijun felt his heart clench as they were closed off from the main prison. At least Kazuya wasn’t locked up with the lunatics in the main area, but this place was… eerie. The hallway was narrow, isolated and worst of all, extremely quiet. The doors were all made of cement with numbers taped to the front—there were no bars, no windows, nothing. It was quiet, though Eijun could have sworn he heard a few shuffles behind the doors. These doors felt the most secure, as if the worst of criminals were locked here to suffer.

“Don’t pass him anything through the door,” the warden gruffly told Eijun, then paused at the final cell in the hallway. He opened what looked like a mail slot and then wandered away, giving Eijun a little bit of space and privacy as he talked to Kazuya. Eijun nodded to him nervously, cat-eyed and slightly sweaty, then finally braced himself to face Kazuya again as he knelt down.

“Your knight in shining armor has arrived, Miyuki Kazuya!” Eijun bellowed out. “Greetings, my poor woeful prisoner! Waha—ha…” 

With his laugh dying off, the rest of Eijun’s playful attitude faded away once he peered through the slot and got a good look at Kazuya. He thought it would be kind of funny to see Kazuya sitting like a kid in time-out, trapped in a dinky little cell, but it was evident that this situation was much more severe than Eijun was expecting. He felt all the color drain from his face as he gazed at Kazuya, concern filling his chest in a heartbeat.

Kazuya was glaring at him—he had bags under his eyes and it was obvious he hadn’t slept well in days. His glasses were crooked on his nose and he was sporting a five-o-clock shadow along the sharp cut of his jaw. His chestnut hair was a tangled mess, dark and damp with sweat. He was shaking as he clutched a thin blanket over his shoulders, but the blanket had a few holes and was scuffed with dirt; it looked like it wasn’t doing much to warm him up. Eijun had noticed how chilly it was inside the prison, but he didn’t realize just how cold it must feel without proper clothes or bedding to help.

“What have they been doing to you?” Eijun asked nervously, his brows tensing as he soaked in Kazuya’s ragged appearance. Kazuya was white as a sheet as he stared back at Eijun, looking more frail and vulnerable than Eijun had ever seen him. The silence that stretched between them as Kazuya stared at him with disbelief made Eijun tense up with fear. He hated the atmosphere stirring between them, so he shook his hands around and continued on. 

“Argh —nevermind that, Miyuki Kazuya!” Eijun looked through the slot and frowned tensely. “Just hang in there for a night, okay? Now that the FBI knows exactly where you are, they’re busy talking to the Embassy here and are working to get permission to take you home! We’re lucky since the entire world wants you in their prisons and France almost doesn’t want to let you go. But Kataoka, my boss, told me tomorrow is probably the day we can—”

“Help me,” Kazuya rasped, clearly not caring about whatever Eijun was telling him. The sound was so pitiful that Eijun’s heart began to pound with worry.

“T-That’s what I’m doing right now, you know!” Eijun went on, trying to ignore the building anxiety in his chest. “Tomorrow, we’ll fly back together and then you’ll go to court to be sentenced properly!”

“Help me,” Kazuya repeated, voice weak and thin with exhaustion. The sound made his heart throb, but Eijun couldn’t fall for his tricks again. He clenched his fists and grit his teeth at the same time as Kazuya pressed on, “I-I’m… sick—can’t breathe—”

“Stop trying to fool me!” Eijun hissed through the slot, ignoring the pang in his heart upon seeing Kazuya in such a pathetic state. “I’m… I’m doing all I can, dammit, but you’re just gonna have to hang in there for one more night. That doesn’t mean I don’t c-care about you or—”

Eijun was cut off when suddenly, Kazuya slumped over onto the ground. Alarm seared through his heart like a bullet once he realized that Kazuya’s eyes had rolled back and his glasses clattered to the ground. Even if he had been faking before, that drop was real.

“What’s happening!? Oi, K-Kazuya!” Eijun shouted against the door, hands pressing up against its unforgivingly cold surface. “Dammit, just calm down and get a hold of yourself! Get up!”

When Kazuya remained unresponsive, Eijun began to panic.

“S-Shit—!!” Eijun leapt back from the door and turned in a hurry to face the retreating figure of the warden. As loud as he could, Eijun hollered, “We need help! I need a doctor!!”

A frenzy followed—a group of guards were summoned immediately. The cell door was thrown open, Kazuya was roughly hoisted up by two guards, and his large frame was finally dragged out of there. Eijun grabbed Kazuya’s forgotten glasses from the cell floor and shoved them into his pocket before rushing after them. He flitted around the men carrying Kazuya’s limp body with fear written all over his features.

“I-I don’t think he’s breathing!” Eijun cried out, and his fear only increased the pace. Eijun gripped his fists as the warden joined him. Feeling furious and concerned, Eijun pointed an accusing finger in the warden’s face. “Dammit, I’ve worked too long and hard for this! I’m not letting you take him away from me—if he dies, you’re all responsible! He needs a doctor!”

“The doctor comes in tomorrow,” the warden answered gruffly. Eijun seethed—these damn Europeans! He’d drag Kazuya’s cold, nearly-lifeless body to the doctor’s doorstep if he had to! 

Curses spilled from his tongue as they were rushed into a small empty room with four dingy hospital beds. Kazuya’s feet dragged across the floor, but once he was lifted up higher, his legs kicked out and took down one of the thin curtains from the wall. The guards unceremoniously dumped him onto a bed and instantly rushed towards a sink at the edge of the room.

Bewildered, Eijun spun on his heels to follow them. “Oi, what are you doing!? What’s happening to him now?”

“We’re washing off the dirt,” one of the guards answered, as if their cleanliness was more important than Kazuya’s survival. Eijun’s blood was boiling by this point and he stormed towards them, a fierce glare in his eyes.

“Listen here, you jerks!” Eijun snapped as he cornered them against the side of the room, eyes ablaze with fury. “I have orders from the Embassy to get him home! You can’t just let him die here! If anything happens, I swear, you’ll have the entire country as your enemy, not to mention the rest of the world who demands to see justice! Dying of starvation in your dinky little prison is not the easy-out that the people want him to have, you hear me!?”

Following Eijun’s energetic outburst, everyone paused and no one knew how to respond. The room was calm and the guards, warden included, all looked past Eijun’s shoulder at the bed. Eijun followed their gaze and turned around, heart briefly stopping in his chest. Why was it so quiet? Kazuya was just flailing about and coughing a moment before, but now there was nothing but silence.

Did something terrible happen?

Fear seized Eijun’s heart as he charged back towards the bed. His lower lip wobbled momentarily as emotion surged up in his chest at an alarmingly fast rate. He even felt the hot burn of tears at the backs of his eyes. Dammit, Miyuki Kazuya, don’t you dare be dead— 

Frantically, Eijun pushed aside the bedside curtain. His blood ran cold.

The bed was empty.

For a moment, Eijun couldn’t move. He just stared at the empty bed as the ringing in his ears grew louder, almost overwhelming the panicked shouts of the French guards and the activation of the prison’s alarm. 

Kazuya just faked some sort of fainting spell in order to trick Eijun and get him out of the cell. 

That damn wily bastard!

By the time Eijun snapped out of his shock, he was rushing down the halls after the guards, heart pounding wildly in his ears. Kazuya didn’t get very far, of course—he was weak and starved, only making it down the main hall before he inevitably tripped and started crawling on the ground in an attempt to make it out. The prisoners were whooping and hollering at the sight of Kazuya’s escape, treating it like they were watching a circus show. The sounds of their cage bars rattling made the entire scene even more chaotic in their attempts to cheer Kazuya on.

Eijun made it to him by the time a guard had his gun cocked and pressed against Kazuya’s head. Heaving for air and defeated, Kazuya let out a short laugh and flopped onto his back. While sprawled out on the ground there, Kazuya still managed to flash a charming smile up at Eijun, not paying the gun pressed against his temple any mind.

“Alright,” Kazuya wheezed, then shakily extended his arm up to offer his bare wrist to Eijun, “I’m ready now. Let’s go home.”

***

Kazuya didn’t know how Eijun managed it, but he got permission to take Kazuya out of the prison that night rather than keeping him in there for another night. Of course, when Eijun left, he had his own wrist shackled to Kazuya’s, not willing to let him out of his sight for even an instant. Kazuya was dragged around like a dog on a leash, shaking and sweaty, probably stinking to high heaven as Eijun hauled him into a taxi and had them driven back to his hotel.

Eijun was probably talking to him during the whole transition, but Kazuya could barely focus on him when he was on that thin line between consciousness and unconsciousness. He hadn’t been able to feel his toes in days and now that there was some warmth in his body, he was painfully aware of how famished he was. In every sense of the word, Kazuya was a wreck, and he could do nothing but follow Eijun along with the last bit of strength he had left in his body until they reached Eijun’s hotel room.

After making a show of securing all the locks on the door, Eijun stood in front of the bathroom with a frown on his face as he unlocked the handcuffs. He shoved Kazuya inside with some clothes, told him to shower, then slammed the door shut behind him. Kazuya could see the shadow of his feet as he stood against the door, clearly not about to step away for a moment to give Kazuya the chance to escape.

He had to resist scoffing at Eijun’s antics. Kazuya would have to be a lunatic to deny a hot shower right now. Even more interesting was that Kazuya noticed that his glasses had magically appeared atop the folded clothes that Eijun handed him—Eijun must have been carrying Kazuya’s glasses with him the entire time. 

The thought of that made Kazuya’s heart flutter. He gazed at his glasses and the clothes for a moment, then snapped out of his daze and realized he should get a move on. He stripped off the grimy, sweat-soaked clothes he’d been wearing for days and wasted no time in stepping under the stream of hot water, where he stood and soaked in its warmth for as long as he was able to.

At some point during his shower, Eijun’s physical body was replaced by a chair under the doorknob that kept Kazuya inside. He didn’t bother trying to open the door, instead taking his time re-dressing in clothes that were just a bit too tight on him. 

It took him a moment to realize that they were Eijun’s clothes. He would have to apologize to Eijun for how stretched out this undershirt would become. 

Kazuya then spent his time shaving and freshening up. As he wiped his face clean, he heard the hotel room door open and smelled what had to be dinner—Kazuya’s mouth was watering already. He sat down on top of the toilet lid as he waited for Eijun to retrieve him, anxious and dying for something to eat. Luckily, after the hotel employee left, Eijun cleared his throat and hesitantly cracked the door open to peek inside.

“A-Are you done in here, Miyuki Kazuya…?” Eijun mumbled, and Kazuya noticed just the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks from what he could see through the door’s crack. He offered Eijun a sideways smile and got to his feet. 

“Smells like Italian,” Kazuya commented fondly, stepping closer and closer until he was leaning against the doorframe, peering down at Eijun from the small crack in the door. He lowered his voice as he purred, “Looks like we’re finally having our first date.”

Obviously flustered by his comment, Eijun slammed the door on him. The reaction evoked a small laugh from Kazuya, who couldn’t resist finding the gesture very very cute. He stood there and waited as Eijun shuffled around, moved the chair back to where it came from, and finally opened the door all the way. He stood there with a scowl on his reddened face, handcuffs extended. Kazuya paused, not sure how to advance.

“Isn’t eating going to be difficult with one hand each?” Kazuya wondered out loud. He pulled his eyes from the silver cuffs up to Eijun’s eyes, which were glittering with uncertainty as he held the cuffs out with a hesitant hand. “Besides, I think if I take more than a few more steps without eating, I’ll actually die. I’m not going to try and run right now, Eijun.”

For once, Kazuya was being completely honest about that. Eijun seemed to understand and lowered the cuffs, but still stood firmly between Kazuya and the hotel room door as Kazuya left the bathroom. Kazuya nonchalantly stretched his arms above his head with a sigh and approached the room-service cart with a low whistle of appreciation. There were silver domes over the plates of food to keep them warm and Kazuya was already dying to rip them off and dive right in. He took a seat at the table and grinned cheekily at Eijun.

“Let’s eat!” Kazuya suggested. Eijun glared at him and came closer, cheeks red with a frown firmly set on his face as he huffed from his nose like an angry bull.

“You’re awfully chipper for someone who nearly died in a French prison,” Eijun pointed out, then plopped in the chair across from Kazuya. He set his gun down on the table—a reminder that Kazuya was, in fact, being held hostage. Despite that pointed gesture, Kazuya didn’t let the presence of the weapon startle him. 

For some reason, Kazuya felt… safe here with Eijun, and he wasn’t feeling the urge to bolt.

“But I didn’t die, so of course I’ll be happy about that,” Kazuya countered. Eijun unveiled a dish of pasta drenched in a creamy white sauce and slid the plate over to Kazuya. His stomach clenched from excitement and Kazuya tried not to let his hands tremble as he pulled the food towards him. “Instead, I got to finally go on that dinner date with the cute FBI agent I met two years ago. Lucky me.~”

“This isn’t a date,” Eijun hissed stubbornly, but Kazuya didn’t miss the way the redness on his cheeks darkened and spread to the tips of his ears. So damn cute. Kazuya itched to reach across the table and grab the collar of his shirt to haul him closer. Eijun very aggressively stabbed at the sausage on his plate, making Kazuya wince slightly from the implication. “You’re just lucky I got away with doing this!”

Kazuya would have teased him more, but in no time he was scarfing down his food like a wild animal. He couldn’t help it—he had barely eaten in the days since he was arrested. Having a warm meal was a godsend and Kazuya was unable to slow himself down, not until he polished off his plate, inhaled some bread and downed a bowl of vegetable soup.

He’d been so focused on his food that he almost missed the way Eijun was looking at him. Only once he was wiping his mouth with a napkin did he look up and catch the conflicted expression on Eijun’s face. He took in the warmth and affection undeniably gleaming in his gaze and how that contrasted with the furrow of his brows and the tense frown on his lips. He looked like he wanted to smile and enjoy the sight of Kazuya eating, but he knew he really shouldn’t be enjoying that moment as much as he was.

Self-conscious warmth tickled Kazuya’s skin. He cleared his throat around sipping at a glass of water, keeping his gaze aside for the time being. It had always been amusing for him to tease Eijun and make the man squirm over the phone, but so much more had happened since their chase began. He quite literally owed his life to Eijun and he wasn’t sure how to wrap his head around that fact. Eijun was both the cause of his downfall and his constant, shining ray of salvation—how was he supposed to behave around a man like that? 

Besides, there was the elephant in the room of what happened between them at the warehouse. Kazuya subconsciously pursed his lips, recalling how right it felt to kiss Eijun, to succumb to the yearning pull in his chest he felt for the other man. He eventually looked back over at Eijun, wondering what Eijun thought about the whole situation as well. It was clear to him that Eijun didn’t see Kazuya as some ordinary criminal—the feelings between them were complicated by their position as an FBI agent and one of the FBI’s most wanted.  

Damn, talk about Romeo and Juliet. Kazuya had to suppress a laugh as he thought about their messy relationship. He never thought the person he’d come to love the most would be someone trying to throw him in jail for who-knows-how-long.

“What are you giggling about over there, you slimy bastard?” Eijun hissed, a pout on his lips as he glared at Kazuya over the rim of his glass. Kazuya didn’t realize he was grinning enough to be noticed and he let out a sigh of defeat.

“Just thinking that if we were normal, we could have gone out on an actual date,” Kazuya pointed out, reclining in his seat as he crossed one leg over the other, “but instead, I’m a criminal wanted by the world and you’re supposed to put me behind bars tomorrow afternoon. How romantic.”

“As if we’d be dating under any other circumstance!” Eijun snapped, his face flushing redder. “You’re just some kid! I’m almost thirty, you know!”

Kazuya smirked lasciviously at him. “Guess that makes me jailbait in any situation.”

He could hear Eijun’s mortified little squeak even across the table. Kazuya couldn’t resist laughing to himself—the least he could do was joke a bit about the situation while he still could. It was obvious to Kazuya that his life was never going to be normal and he would never be able to settle down with someone he loved—he would spend probably the rest of his days behind bars for his crimes. He supposed it was inevitable considering the path he’d chosen.

With a stomach full, Kazuya’s exhaustion caught up to him. He wouldn’t be able to remain awake much longer and Eijun looked similarly drained, which was such a contrast to the energetic, bright-eyed man Kazuya was accustomed to seeing (but mostly hearing). Noticing that it was time to turn in for the night, Eijun’s face colored pink again as he stiffly got up and ensured the door was locked securely. He paced around and finally approached Kazuya again, where he pointedly placed one handcuff on his wrist and held out the open cuff to Kazuya.

“You’re seriously making me sleep while wearing that?” Kazuya muttered, glancing between the handcuffs and Eijun’s reddening face. “I’m dead tired, you know. And we’d have to sleep in the same—”

“I know, dammit!” EIjun snapped, face now aflame with embarrassment. Kazuya couldn’t ignore the way his heart started to flutter hopefully at the sight of that shy expression. “B-But I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if you slipped away under my nose, so… just deal with it for tonight.”

Kazuya had to squeeze his hands against his thighs. Damn, he was pissed at the aching of his physical body at that moment. He wished more than anything that he had energy to do more with Eijun while they still could. This opportunity would probably never come up again.

His skin felt hot as he lifted his arm up obediently and allowed Eijun to hook their wrists together. He was so distracted by the pounding of his pulse in his ears that he failed to notice where Eijun hid the key, which was normally something he would have been paying close attention to. It wasn’t fair that Eijun was his weakness, otherwise he surely would have found a way to escape by now. Knocking Eijun out cold when he opened the bathroom door was certainly possible, but that thought hadn’t even crossed Kazuya’s mind.

All he wanted was to share a peaceful meal with Eijun. He really had grown soft. 

Kazuya followed Eijun to the bed, where he watched as Eijun hesitantly sat down and fiddled about, clearly unsure of what to do next. He grabbed his gun when he moved across the room and set it on the nightstand, but now he was just sitting there, hesitant and shy, keeping his eyes away from Kazuya while he nervously stared at his fingers.

Though Kazuya’s heart yearned to push him down and express his pent-up desires, the look of that soft, open bed was painfully tempting. He managed to crawl atop the mattress and lay down onto his side, one arm tucked under his pillow while the other had to rest against Eijun’s side. There was nowhere else for his arm to go when they were connected by the handcuffs like this. Kazuya laid as still as he could while Eijun got situated, then reached over and shut off the bedside lamp, leaving them in nothing but darkness and a sliver of moonlight peeking through the curtains.

For a while, they laid there in awkward silence. Kazuya was exhausted; his body felt heavy as a rock and his eyes burned, yet despite how obviously tired he was, he couldn’t ignore the way his heart was pounding like a hammer against his chest. He was achingly aware of the gap between their bodies, of the warmth of Eijun’s body against his arm, of the stuffy quiet that somehow was louder than the sound of the nearby freight train rattling by in the middle of the night.

Kazuya had every opportunity to escape. He could force himself to remain awake until he detected that Eijun was asleep. Then, he would feel around until he located the key to undo their handcuffs. It would be tricky, but he was sure he could manage. Maybe he could even convince Eijun he needed to pee, and in a groggy haze Eijun would just let him go rather than forcing himself awake to follow Kazuya to the bathroom.

The possibilities were endless and Kazuya was certain he could make it out. The problem was that Kazuya didn’t want to.

As time ticked on and Kazuya’s opportunity seemed to be staring him in the eye, he refused to act upon it. He knew it was because he was tired, grateful for the warmth of the blanket, and comfortable with a full stomach that he was being so relaxed. He knew that in the morning he’d regret it—he’d start looking for another way out as soon as he had gotten enough rest. Yet again, the urge to run and have Eijun chase him around the world would be too intense to ignore. 

Kazuya knew all of this. He knew it well, but he still decided to give up and let out a sigh of defeat. With his decision made, Kazuya scooted closer, coiled his arm around Eijun’s middle, and pulled him into his embrace. 

A shaky gasp escaped from Eijun’s lips as his back was pressed against Kazuya’s front, leaving no space between their bodies any longer. Kazuya nearly started to shake from the rush of the moment, but instead he buried his nose in Eijun’s hair and took in a deep breath, allowing his lashes to flutter as he closed his eyes and simply indulged. Eijun smelled like sunflowers, like citrusy shampoo, like the warmth and comfort of home.

“W-What are you…” Eijun started to ask, voice trembling with undeniable embarrassment as Kazuya snuggled up to him. He trailed off as Kazuya squeezed him a little tighter, cutting off his sentence without words of his own needing to be spoken.

Kazuya felt raw and exposed, like the skin of his chest had been peeled back to reveal his pitifully throbbing heart. He felt stripped naked, bare down to the bones and under the spotlight of the world. 

Everyone had their eyes on him. Everyone wanted to tear apart the man who had mastered the art of forgery, the high school dropout just barely a step into legal adulthood. He had traveled the world, seen the sights, dined on the finest cuisines and had the entire population of the globe bowing down to serve him. 

He knew what life looked like from the top—now, he was going to experience life from rock bottom.

Throughout it all, Kazuya had almost been alone. Almost. Were it not for the one person who never gave up, who never let the chase die, who never let Kazuya slip away into obscurity, he wouldn’t have had a reason to run for this long. Somehow, Kazuya had fallen in love with that very same person, the only one who saw Miyuki Kazuya . Not just one of his aliases, not the Kazuya from his childhood, and not even the Kazuya that was on the FBI’s most wanted list. Instead, Eijun knew all of them at once. He was the only person who knew how they all combined to make the man whom Kazuya truly was. Hell, Eijun might even know Kazuya better than Kazuya knew himself at this point. 

More than anything now, he wanted to spend eternity latched onto Eijun’s side. God, that was all he wanted. No matter how badly he longed for this happy ending, the real world was uncaring of his emotions. Fate granted him a mere, single precious night with Eijun. He knew that the night was going to be over before he knew it. 

The pull of sleep was overwhelming and Kazuya was barely hanging on at this point. No matter how he struggled, he’d be asleep before he had a chance to complain. The least he could do was hold Eijun tenderly, to experience what might be his last peaceful rest in a comfortable bed with someone he loved—even if that someone was physically handcuffed to him, forced together under the strangest of circumstances.

“A-Are you cold?” Eijun asked after a moment. He started to move away. “Hang on, maybe I should turn up the—”

“Don’t,” Kazuya hissed and restricted his hold around Eijun like a vice. The tightening of his grip had Eijun releasing a shaky breath—like this, he could feel the rapid flutter of Eijun’s heart against his own chest. Kazuya’s throat felt thick with emotion as he whispered, “Don’t go. Please. Not yet…”

“O-Oh… okay…” Eijun answered hoarsely, like he couldn’t believe his ears. He laid there in silence for a bit, simply letting Kazuya squeeze him like a pillow. Kazuya’s eyes adjusted to the darkness by this point and he was able to see the way Eijun’s shoulder was hunched up, like he was shrinking back into himself. Kazuya couldn’t detect many details in the dim lighting, but he had no doubt that Eijun was blushing up to his ears by then, slightly quivering and emitting heat like a furnace from where Kazuya held onto him.

Then, Kazuya’s breath hitched when the figure in his arms began to move around. It was a little awkward thanks to their connected wrists, but Eijun maneuvered himself in Kazuya’s hold until suddenly, they were laying there face-to-face, heads pressed against the same pillow. The new position caused their breaths to mingle together. 

Kazuya could barely see the details of Eijun’s face—it was too dark, not to mention that his glasses were on the nightstand—but they were close enough that Kazuya could see the way those golden irises glittered with yearning. The sight was so beautiful that it made Kazuya want to cry.

The chainlinks connecting their handcuffs clattered gently as Eijun lifted his hand up, tracing his fingertips along Kazuya’s jaw while Kazuya held onto the back of his hand. Then, he closed his eyes, briefly feeling like he had floated into heaven when Eijun’s lips softly pressed against his own. 

Their kiss was chaste and tender, the opposite of that desperate, starving, all-consuming first kiss they had shared in the warehouse. By contrast, the delicate nudge of Eijun’s lips against Kazuya’s in the dark evoked a feeling within Kazuya’s chest that made his heart ache. Emotion surged up inside him, making his eyes feel wet as he tilted his head to the side and kissed Eijun back with all the love he could communicate without words.

Kazuya wasn’t sure if he let those tears building in his eyes fall or not. The last thing he recalled was the feeling of Eijun’s fingers lacing with his own, keeping them connected despite the dig of the metal in their wrists, and the affectionate brush of his lips on Kazuya’s cheek. With that kiss came a softly-spoken message.

“I’m here with you, Kazuya.”

***

The flight back was spent mostly in silence. Kazuya was lost deep in thought after they woke up the next morning, tangled up in each other, unwilling to break the serenity of their private little bubble until it was absolutely necessary. When the hotel room phone began to shrilly ring and shatter the illusion of peace they had, Eijun had no choice but to sit up and answer. He confirmed Kazuya was with him—that he hadn’t escaped overnight—and that they would be returning to the country that evening.

During the flight, Kazuya still tried to think of ways out. He figured there was nothing more he could do; there was nowhere he could run, nowhere in the entire world. If he couldn’t hide away in a warehouse in the middle of the countryside of France, then he sure as hell couldn’t escape to a secret place anywhere in his own country. Both Kazuya and Eijun knew this.

Yet Kazuya felt an ache in his heart that just wouldn’t go away. The only people left in his world were his extended family in France, unknowingly caught in the crossfire, Eijun, and maybe Kazuya’s mother. He was bothered that he hadn’t seen his mother in two years—feeling betrayed, he left her in the dust and went down this spiral all on his own. To be fair, she did jack shit to find him or reach out to him, but the unexplainable bond between a parent and their child made Kazuya feel some sort of intrinsic guilt for never turning back up at her doorstep. He wondered if she missed him, if she was torn apart, if she shed tears for the way her son had turned into a wanted criminal.

He needed to know. He needed to see her just once before he was locked away, but he also knew that seeing his mother was closure that he knew he would have to obtain himself. Surely the police waiting at the airport for him wouldn’t be keen to take a detour into the suburbs for a visit to his mother’s house.

Kazuya figured he’d just need to take matters into his own hands. He doubted anything would come of his visit, but his mother, as unreliable as she was, was his last resort. She was the final ray of hope shining through the seemingly impenetrable clouds of his future and if he didn’t at least try to grasp at that hope, then he wasn’t sure if another ray would ever appear.  

They were ten minutes to landing when Kazuya asked to use the bathroom, and Eijun simply undid the handcuffs to let him go relieve himself. They were on a plane with a bunch of people, and Eijun was likely thinking there was no way for Kazuya to escape him on an airplane, of all things.

As always, Eijun underestimated him during a crucial moment. Once locked in the tiny airplane restroom, Kazuya fished out the fork he kept hidden in his shirt sleeve and used its sharp metallic point to unscrew the hard plastic plate above the toilet. The screws came free remarkably easy and he was able to pull the entire toilet unit back from the wall. It was a tight fit to go through the crawlspace, but he somehow managed and tugged the toilet back against the wall to cover up his escape path.

Waiting for the plane to land down there in the dark was pretty terrifying, but Kazuya held on, feeling around the bottom of the plane for an escape that he could jump from when it was time. It was easy to tell when the plane landed by the massive lurch and impact of the wheels against the runway. As soon as the plane stopped moving, Kazuya undid a latch by the landing gear and crawled out.

He jumped about fifteen feet to the ground, lessening the impact on the hard ground with a full-body roll, then stood and took off at full speed down the tarmac.

Kazuya didn’t see the way Eijun was plastered against the tiny airplane window, spewing out a string of colorful curses as he begged the flight attendants to let him off the plane immediately.

***

That evening, Eijun found Kazuya standing outside his mother’s house. He was staring inside the window with a shattered expression on his face.

A two-year old child who looked suspiciously similar to Kazuya was peering out of her cozy home at him with round, curious honey-brown eyes. Her hands were pressed against the glass and she was illuminated with the gentle glow of Christmas lights. There were footsteps in the snow leading up to where Kazuya stood in the front lawn, staring at the child in disbelief, not needing to see or hear anything more to understand just how swiftly Fukuda Ritsuka had moved on with her life. 

Kazuya may have been the child who ran away, but Ritsuka was the mother who never bothered to find him. 

Ritsuka approached after the flashing red and blue of the squad cars caught her attention. She showed up just in time to see the way Kazuya was tackled to the ground, getting his face shoved in the snow as he was thrown back in handcuffs. He went right down without a fight, body limp and lacking resistance.

Eijun’s racing heart slowed down into a dull, throbbing ache as he approached Kazuya and peered sympathetically at him. Kazuya turned his face to the side so he could look up at Eijun, a wry smile on his lips as his eyes watered with the faintest shine of tears.

The only person left in the world who was still by his side was Eijun. Eijun, who was standing over him as his face was smeared with melted snow, wrists getting cuffed one last time.

Even his mother had lost all hope for her wayward son.

As Eijun stood in the courtroom shortly after, hearing as the judge’s final verdict echoed throughout the room, he distantly wondered if Kazuya’s mother kept up with the news.

Miyuki Kazuya was sent to the nearest highest-security prison. He was ordered to be kept in an isolation cell for the entirety of his sentence of 12 years.

***

One Year Later

Perhaps it was strange of Eijun to turn up to the prison so often, but the guards and staff had grown so used to his face that they stopped giving him weird looks every time he came to visit. No one else knew how often he visited Kazuya, after all—no one except for Kazuya himself.

No matter how many times Eijun went through the visiting process, he still felt his heart throb and flutter when Kazuya was brought out to see him. Simultaneously, he experienced the ache of pain upon seeing him in his orange suit and the odd bubbling of excitement in his core, like butterflies in his stomach, when Kazuya’s eyes met with his own. He couldn’t suppress a small smile as Kazuya was guided into the visitor’s room and sat down in a chair. Bulletproof glass separated them, and once the guards stepped out of the room to give them some privacy, Kazuya picked up the black phone on his side. Eijun did the same thing.

“Merry Christmas, Miyuki Kazuya!” Eijun shouted into the phone, grinning ear-to-ear as Kazuya winced and pulled the phone away from his ear. He couldn’t resist giggling when Kazuya sighed and finally brought the phone back to his ear. Eijun lifted up a bag in the air so Kazuya could see it. “I brought you a gift!”

“Hoo… would you look at that, it’s my first Christmas present in a while,” Kazuya remarked with a hum. He tilted his head to the side inquisitively. “How kind of you, even if it’s a few days late. I can’t complain.” He offered Eijun a wink that made Eijun squirm slightly in his seat. “So… what’s in the bag? Fruit-flavored condoms?”

“D-Don’t be such a pervert!” Eijun hissed, his face immediately heating as he smacked the bag down onto his lap again. “Besides, what the hell would you even do with a bunch of condoms, anyway?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Kazuya retorted cryptically. Eijun glared at him and muttered ‘mumumu’ under his breath before pulling the present free from the brown paper bag he brought it in.

“I wasn’t able to wrap it nicely, because, you know, inspection and all,” Eijun said with a bit of a flutter in his chest, “but ta-da!” Eijun held up a few manga magazines in his grasp with a cheeky grin. “Here are all the latest chapters of Il Re since the last time I saw you! This Sawamura Eijun remembered the name of your favorite manga, isn’t that impressive!? Wahaha!”

“I’ve been wondering about what’s gonna happen with the main character and his brother,” Kazuya remarked with a gleam of curiosity in his eyes. “How thoughtful of you. Now I feel bad I didn’t get you something in return. Would you like a cue-tip? Oh, or maybe some canned beans?”

“Keep your beans!” Eijun insisted. “They’re good protein!” 

Eijun then tucked the manga magazines back in the bag with a content smile, warmth rushing across his skin knowing that he was helping Kazuya out in some way. He was the reason Kazuya was locked up there in the first place, so the least Eijun could do was provide some entertainment and interaction whenever he was able to. After all, Kazuya could do nothing but remain in his isolated cell. He needed all the distractions he could get to prevent himself from going insane.

Kazuya cocked his head to the side to nod down towards something by Eijun’s feet. “You’ve got a briefcase today… and you’re in a new suit.” The way Kazuya’s eyes raked over his body made Eijun suppress a shiver, and he suddenly felt a little hot under the collar. He went stiff as he gazed at Kazuya through the glass, only catching the faintest glimpse of his blushing reflection before his eyes re-focused to the man sitting across from him. Kazuya smirked. “How professional. What are you up to?”

“A-Ah, um, I’m on my way to the airport!” Eijun answered. He offered a lopsided smile as he laughed nervously. “There’s a paperhanger working his way through another part of the country… he’s driving us crazy! He’s almost as bad as you were, you bastard!”

“Ehh…” Kazuya drawled, one brow arching inquisitively. After a beat, he asked, “Got any of the checks with you?”

“Indeed, Miyuki Kazuya, indeed!” Eijun affirmed with a deep nod. He reached into his briefcase and pulled out an accordion folder, which he opened up to retrieve a counterfeit check. As he held one of the checks up to the glass for Kazuya to see, he carried on. “I have a counterfeit that the paperhanger drew right from the center branch of the city, see? He’s just using a stencil machine and an Underwood.”

“It’s a teller at the bank,” Kazuya said, matter-of-fact, with just one glance at the check’s face. Eijun tensed and went still with shock.

“C-Come again?” Eijun stammered.

“The paperhanger is a bank teller,” Kazuya repeated without a shred of doubt on his face. “Every bank uses hand stamps for the dates. They get used over and over, so they’re always worn down, and the numbers are always cracking—the sixes and nines go first. Look at the date on that check.” 

Bewildered, Eijun pulled the check from the glass to look at it himself, eyes widened with shock as Kazuya carried on.

“The ink is worn flat and the nines and sixes are cracking,” Kazuya said, voice speaking right into Eijun’s ear from the phone’s speaker. Eijun observed those very same markings across the check’s face that he never noticed himself. “That’s the stamp of a teller, Eijun. Looks like you got yourself an inside job.” With that, Kazuya flashed a cocky grin at Eijun, winked, and teased with a sing-song tone, “You~ are~ welcome.~”

Eijun could hardly believe his eyes. Kazuya had given Eijun the most solid lead he’d seen in weeks, all in a matter of seconds, with one look at the check through a barrier of bulletproof glass.

For the first time in months, Eijun felt a rush of hope surge through his chest. He looked up at Kazuya, bright golden eyes alight with an idea that just might actually work.

Kazuya stared back at him, dumbfounded, and completely unaware of the revelation that had just dawned upon Eijun. His smug smile faded away in favor of honest confusion. 

All he could think to say to Eijun was, “What?”

***

Kazuya couldn’t help but to feel a little jittery when his cell door was thrown open a few months later and he was told to get up, without any other explanation. He cracked a few jokes at the guards that had accompanied Kazuya down to a different room, one set apart from the usual visitors area, and wondered if he did something to warrant a very extraordinary visit. Of course, the guards didn’t react to his jabs, remaining stoic as ever. They held onto their rifles and pushed Kazuya into the new room.

His heart instantly pounded when recognized Eijun, who was sitting there with those sweet sunshine-gold eyes and a delicate blush on his cheeks. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling when Eijun grinned at him, far too thrilled at the fact that he was seeing Eijun so soon—better yet, without anything physical to divide them. He was able to catch traces of Eijun’s scent from the occasional gift passed down to his cell, but it was another experience entirely to be in the same space as Eijun again.

God, it had been so long. He would have rushed forward and kissed him stupid had they been alone. Instead, Kazuya’s attention shifted to the man seated beside Eijun. He was buff and tanned, with his black sleeves rolled up to the elbows and a pair of dark sunglasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He had a fierce gaze that reminded Kazuya of a tiger as he stared at Kazuya from over the ridge of those glasses, a firm frown on his lips, like he was already partway through judging Kazuya even though he hadn’t spoken a single word.

He couldn’t deny that he was nervous, but Eijun’s presence immediately put him more at ease than he would have been on his own. He took a seat across the table from Eijun and the other man, who was introduced to him as Kataoka Tesshin, the Director of the FBI. Kazuya had to gulp down his amazement that he was even in this man’s presence, and he couldn’t help but to fidget under his stare. After all, Kazuya was the cause of much of Kataoka’s stress for years and they all knew it.

There wasn’t much preamble. Kataoka pulled out a file and said, “I’d like you to take a look at something for me. Tell me what you think.”

Kazuya shared a glance with Eijun, who had stopped smiling in favor of matching the serious atmosphere, and gave Kazuya an affirmative nod. Without words, he communicated a single, important message to Kazuya: give it your best shot.

Filled with determination, Kazuya took in a deep breath and accepted the payroll check handed to him. As soon as his fingers touched the paper, Kazuya frowned and looked right back up at Kataoka.

“It’s a fake,” Kazuya said, not missing a beat.

“How do you know?” Kataoka asked, brows tensing tightly. “You haven’t even looked at it.” 

“There’s no perforated edge, which means the check was hand cut, not fed,” Kazuya explained while running his fingertip along the border of the check. “The paper is double-bonded, making it much too heavy for a check.” His thumb swept across the check’s face and he shook his head with disapproval. “No good. The ink is raised enough that I can feel it against my fingers. It’s not flat like it should be.” Kazuya then lifted the paper to his face so he could take in a whiff of its scent. “Plus, this doesn’t smell like it came from a MICR encoder. It’s probably drafting ink. You know, like the kind you buy at a stationary store.”

Kataoka was completely silent for a moment. He turned and stared at Eijun, expression unreadable as he remained speechless. Eijun met Kataoka’s intense gaze with a shaky smile, the kind that made his cheeks bunch up and redden. He looked smug as all hell and Kazuya barely suppressed a laugh at the sight, but he was truly wondering what this was all about. Kazuya set the check down on the table and Kataoka retrieved it as he cleared his throat.

The silence stretched between them for a beat or two longer. Finally, Kataoka took in a deep breath through his nose.

“Miyuki,” Kataoka said sternly, “would you be interested in working with the FBI’s fraud and counterfeiting unit?”

Kazuya was so dumbfounded by the question that the first thing he blurted out was, “I already have a job here. I deliver the mail.”

“Who cares about the mail!” Eijun snapped, now standing up with both hands braced against the table. He was beaming, excitement making him practically tremble like an overeager puppy. “Don’t you see what this means? We can get you out!!”

“Out?” Kazuya echoed, the word striking his heart like an arrow. It was too good to be true. For a moment, he couldn’t look away from Eijun’s eyes, even as Kataoka continued to speak. He had to force himself to look at the director.

“We have the power to take you out of prison,” Kataoka explained, the beginnings of a smile forming on his lips for the first time since Kazuya arrived in that room. “You would be placed under the custody of the FBI, where you would serve out the remainder of your sentence as an employee of the federal government.”

“Custody?” Kazuya repeated. The buzzing of white noise in his mind was making it hard for him to think around all of his shock. He had been so thoroughly convinced that he’d spend the next decade of his life in that dingy little cell that he never even considered he could be freed so soon. What would he even do with himself? Kataoka’s words caught up with him, and so he asked, “Who’s custody?”

Rather than answering, Kataoka looked at Eijun.

Kazuya’s heart stopped when their eyes met again. He was hardly able to breathe when a smile broke out across Eijun’s face.

Eijun didn’t even need to confirm it out loud, but when he answered, the corners of his eyes crinkled and the blush on his cheeks pinkened with pure joy.

“Mine!”

***

Kazuya was given the day to sign the necessary paperwork, gather what little belongings he had, and prepare to leave for work the next morning. He hardly slept, still bewildered by the fact that it was somehow his last day in the cell he thought would be his “home,” if he could even call it that, for another ten years. A year had already felt like an eternity. Now, he was being told he would have some semblance of freedom again.

Sure, he didn’t get to choose his own path in life, at least not for the next decade, but his options were fairly limited to begin with. Between sitting in his cell and getting to spend his days working alongside Eijun, his choice was pretty damn clear.

At least, he thought that was the case, but he found himself feeling doubtful even at the last moment.

That evening, he was handed new clothes—his size, Kazuya noticed—for work and told he would be escorted out of the prison at 7:30 sharp the following morning. Kazuya had never been happier to take off that orange jumpsuit and put on an outfit that made him feel normal again. Even so, putting on a suit made him feel queasy. He was about to step out of the cell and face the world again, for the first time in a whole year.

He admittedly was nervous entering the FBI building that day. He wasn’t putting on a show, concealing his identity or pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He was just… Miyuki Kazuya, the runaway kid who scammed the world out of millions, somehow given an opportunity despite everything he’d done to infuriate them all. He couldn’t ignore the nagging voice in the back of his mind insisting that he didn’t deserve it. There were good people in the world who didn’t steal money from the globe—so how come Kazuya was getting a second shot? 

These questions haunted Kazuya’s mind as he approached the receptionist desk and asked for directions. After being directed to the first floor, he endured the staring from all the agents as he passed by their offices. Of course they all knew who he was and they were likely briefed before his arrival from Kataoka about his acceptance into the division. He tried not to meet everyone’s eyes, fearing he would see disdain and hatred written all over their faces, and simply kept his focus set ahead. Luckily, someone was standing there waiting for him with a giddy smile.

“Morning!!” Eijun bellowed out across the hall, energetic and sunshiney as ever as he waved his hand around in the air. “Come follow me, Miyuki Kazuya! I’ll be showing you where you’ll be working!”

Kazuya tried not to look so eager to stand by Eijun’s side. He caught the sharp glare of a gruff-looking agent with spiky green hair. He stared at Kazuya with the same expression as a delinquent. Even when Kazuya offered a shaky smile at the man, his scowl only worsened. Admittedly, Kazuya felt a little more unsettled by the strained smiles of the pink-haired twins lingering at his side. There was a heavily defensive aura emitted by pretty much everyone in the office as they watched Kazuya follow Eijun into their shared office space.

The pressure was… intense. Suffocating, even. Kazuya felt so exposed in that space, like he was put under a spotlight for careful inspection. He was there as himself, not as some guy named Takahashi or Miyagi, not as any Kaguya or Ikeda. The realization had him feeling like he might crumble under their scrutinizing stares.

Could he handle this? Could he endure being Miyuki Kazuya in the public eye after everything he’d done to run from himself over all these years?

By the time they reached their destination, most of the agents had at the very least started to pretend that they were working on something rather than openly staring at Kazuya. He knew he was still being closely monitored even if they appeared to be shuffling through their work, so he didn’t feel any more at ease than before. 

Eijun gestured down at a stack of papers neatly set atop a new desk. The files must have contained hundreds of checks, mug shots and piles of counterfeit money. Kazuya tried to clear the blackening edges of his vision as he looked down at the stacks of work he was now expected to sort through. He hoped his shallow breathing wasn’t too noticeable.

“Here you are, Miyuki Kazuya, and your desk is right next to mine! Wahaha!” Eijun tossed his head back and let out a boastful laugh. “This way, you’ll never be out of my sights!” He placed his hands on his hips and glanced at the clock. “Right, so, every weekday, we start at 8:15 and we work until 5:00 sharp. Everyone is allowed to take 45 minutes for lunch.”

“And the weekends?” Kazuya asked, shifting his eyes over to look at Eijun. He prayed his voice wasn’t shaking from anxiety, so he did what he always did best when he was feeling the most uncertain—tease those around him. As long as the focus was anywhere other than himself, he’d make a few comments to deflect the situation. Desperate to feel like he wasn’t the center of attention anymore, Kazuya smirked at Eijun. “I’m under your custody, aren’t I? Will you have me sent to daycare, hm?”

“N-No, of course not!” Eijun sputtered, his face heating as he avoided Kazuya’s leering gaze. “You’ll just have to find a hobby to indulge with at home, I suppose! This weekend, I’m going to fly to the country to visit my family, so you’ll just have to occupy yourself until we have work again on Monday, alright?”

The nervous thrumming of Kazuya’s heart slowed down slightly as he latched onto a particular tidbit of information dropped in that sentence. Kazuya eyed him curiously. “Home? Where’s home for me?”

Eijun couldn’t meet his eyes as the red color of his blush reached the tips of his ears. “... with me, of course, you idiot.” He stiffened and quickly added, “But for the weekend, we have you booked at a hotel, you got that? I kept putting off the repairs for the heating in my house, but now that you’re gonna be with me, I finally had a reason to fix it. Of course they’re gonna be there all day fixing it, taking their sweet time, tinkering with the unit…”

Though Eijun rambled on, the gears were already turning in Kazuya’s mind. He felt the stares of the other agents boring into his back, making him want to shake them off his shoulders. That combined with the itch to escape all tingled under his skin, like an addiction that hadn’t quite been stomped out entirely.

***

Well, shit. Kazuya let out a small huff of amusement as he came to a gradual stop. Standing in his way in the middle of that vacant airport hallway was Eijun, hands balled into fists, a frown set firmly on his face. Kazuya glanced at the clock, noticing that it was four hours past the time Eijun said his flight would depart. He realized at that moment that Eijun had been the one to trick him this time—in fact, Eijun wasn’t going anywhere that weekend. His hometown visit was just a farce to bait Kazuya into the airport and it worked.

“So?” Eijun asked, jutting his chin up as he met Kazuya’s eyes across the hallway. “What are you doing here?”

Kazuya didn’t have an answer at first. What was he doing there? Why did he spend the afternoon nabbing a new pilot’s uniform, crafting a new I.D. badge and planning out his weekend trip all on his first day out of prison? The answer seemed to be because he was scared to live life again and all he knew was the thrill of the chase, but Kazuya was reluctant to voice that thought out loud. Since he remained silent for too long, Eijun was encouraged to carry on.

“Look, you four-eyed idiot, go back to Europe for all I care!” Eijun shouted, fury ablaze in his shimmering golden eyes. “Just know that this time, I won’t be there to drag you out of that prison! Do you even realize what I had to go through while you were incarcerated? I spent all that time trying to arrange your release!” Eijun took a few steps forward, closing the distance between them until he was standing right in front of Kazuya. “I had to convince all my bosses and the Attorney General that you wouldn’t run again. So?” Eijun narrowed his eyes. “Care to explain what you’re doing right now, Kazuya?”

If he was going to expose his insecurities to anyone in the world, it would be Eijun. Kazuya glared back at him, defensiveness prickling along his skin as he tightened his grip on the handle of his briefcase.

“Sometimes it’s easier living the lie,” Kazuya answered stiffly, though his voice trembled with the honesty of his response. Sensing his genuine emotions, Eijun’s frown deepened as he took a step back. He didn’t realize he was looking at Eijun pleadingly at that moment, as if begging him to follow. Kazuya was grasping at the only dynamic he knew to exist between them even though there was no reason for them to continue on with their old ways.

“Fine,” Eijun bit out, averting his gaze as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Go on, then! Fly around the world all weekend if you want to.” He huffed and stuck his nose pointedly in the air. “I won’t stop you, cause I know you’ll be back for work on Monday.”

What? Kazuya’s brows tensed with confusion, but he covered up his shock with a snarky laugh. “Oh yeah? What makes you so sure I’ll come back to your beck and call, EIjun?”

“‘Cause I’m the only one who accepts you for you.” Eijun raised his eyes to meet Kazuya’s awestricken stare. “Right now, you think you want the chase, don’t you? So… if I’m not chasing you, then what’s the point?” He let out a short sigh and stepped past Kazuya, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as he walked away. “You’ve played hard to get for too long now, idiot. I’m done running after you.”

Those words repeated and echoed in Kazuya’s mind the entire time he was gone. The further he got from home, the more he felt like he was digging his own grave. 

One last time, Kazuya had to decide.

***

By the time it was 8:30 on Monday morning, Eijun was starting to grow anxious. He sipped his coffee and continued to pace around his desk, cat-eyed and sweating slightly. Kuramochi was the last to wander into the presentation room. He paused before stepping inside, eyes hesitantly lingering on Eijun.

“Is Miyuki here yet?” He drawled, clearly not sure that Eijun made the right choice by letting Kazuya out of prison so soon. 

“No,” Eijun answered awkwardly, but he knew they couldn’t delay the meeting any longer. He would just have to start without Kazuya and pray he showed up, or else Eijun might start freaking out mid-presentation. He told Kazuya he was done chasing him, but dammit, if Kazuya really was gone… Eijun didn’t have a Plan B.

There was nothing he could do right now besides have faith. He took in a deep breath and stepped into the room after Kuramochi, then shut the door behind him. After taking in a deep breath, Eijun briefly closed his eyes to compose himself. Please come back to me, Miyuki Kazuya!

“Good morning, everyone!” Eijun called out loudly at the agents all seated at the various tables in the room. The slide projector was up and running, showing a map up on the pull-down screen in front. He made his way up there with brisk steps. “Thank you for coming! I’ve called this emergency briefing to discuss a check fraud and counterfeiter who’s been hitting banks all over the southwestern corner of the country!”

“Just tell us how much he’s gotten,” Kanemaru piped up, already looking like he wanted to leave. Eijun frowned at him but quickly noticed that Kanemaru was only a sip or two into his coffee—no wonder he was crankier than usual this morning.

“He’s passing checks as large as five figures!” Eijun reported sharply, perhaps a little too loud. He feared his tone was worrisome, considering that he was preoccupied with the possibility that Kazuya may not show up. “He’s washing and altering checks, then passing them—”

Just then, the door opened. Eijun paused and held his breath. The other agents turned to see who walked in.

Kazuya stood there in the doorway, dressed in his suit with a clipboard in hand. He met Eijun’s eyes and offered a small smile.

“Sorry I’m late,” Kazuya announced as he closed the door. He then stepped down the aisle until he found an open seat in the front. Kuramochi glared at the back of his head and clicked his tongue, then pressed his foot up on the edge of his desk so he could lean on the back legs of his chair. Meanwhile, Eijun was practically buzzing with excitement and relief at the sight of Kazuya being there.

It was a miracle—Kazuya had returned. He did his soul-searching, found the answers he needed, and ultimately decided to come back to Eijun. He could have leapt across the table and kissed Kazuya at that moment, but instead he puffed out his chest proudly and continued with the presentation. The next slide showed an image of the check blown up for the group to see. At the same time, he pulled out the check in question from a folder as he spoke.

“There’s impressions on every line and it looks like the original amount was what you see written on the check, but it actually cost the bank tens and thousands of more,” Eijun explained. He turned his focus onto Kazuya and extended the check to him. “Behold, everyone, the breathtaking talents of Miyuki Kazuya! Tell me what you think of this!”

With a small grin of amusement, Kazuya reached out and took the check from Eijun’s grasp. Only one touch later and Kazuya already had some conclusions to share.

“It’s a real check…” Kazuya murmured, then looked down and studied the piece of paper closely. “It’s just been washed. The only thing that’s original is the signature. Otherwise, it’s perfect. They didn’t use hydrochloride or bleach… no, it was something new.”

“Waha! It took me days to get to this point!” Eijun boasted for Kazuya’s sake. The other agents watched closely as Kazuya deciphered the check, amazement written all over their features. “You’re right, Kazuya! So if not bleach or hydrochloride, what do you think he’s using?”

“Maybe nail polish remover,” Kazuya speculated. “The acetone would remove the ink that hasn’t been printed.” He smirked as he brought his eyes back up to meet Eijun’s gaze. “I bet this guy steals checks out of mailboxes. He washes off their names and puts his own down instead.”

“You’re saying he’s a local?” Kuramochi asked. He was the first person to speak to Kazuya besides Eijun since he entered. Kazuya looked slightly surprised to be addressed, but he answered without missing a beat.

“Well, if it were me, you know… I’d call the bank first,” Kazuya suggested while lifting the check up a little higher in the air. “I’d check out the balance and make sure there’s enough money in there to make it worth my while.” He paused and tilted his head to regard Eijun again with a clever smile. “You know, I think this guy’s pretty smart.”

“I guess all we have to do now is catch him!” Eijun suggested, the rush and thrill of a good chase starting to rile him up already. He saw the same flame of anticipation in Kazuya’s eyes: there it was, the spark that Eijun wanted to see so badly from Kazuya this entire time. That addiction of theirs—the game of cat and mouse—could now be applied to a shared target rather than running after each other. Eijun let out a disbelieving laugh by how quickly it was all coming together. “We’ll start right after I dismiss this meeting!”

“You might as well let us go now,” Kuramochi suggested with a snicker, “since you two lovebirds seem to have it all under control.”

Though his comment had Eijun reddening bashfully, he took Kuramochi’s advice and cleared the other agents from the room once he finished summarizing their findings. They left in a single-file line, and Ryousuke was the last one to step out. He gave Eijun and Kazuya a conniving look, then shut the door behind him very pointedly. The click of the door made Eijun’s heart skip a beat. What was that demon Kominato up to, closing him in the room with Kazuya like this…?

Eijun held his breath as Kazuya got to his feet and stood in front of Eijun, a sort of wistful shine in his eyes. He had his hands tucked in the pockets of his trousers and his silhouette was illuminated from behind by the powerful light of the slide projector. Eijun realized that with the blinds covering the windows of the meeting room, no one was able to see them lingering behind in there. For a few blessed moments, they had privacy.

“You were right,” Kazuya admitted. “There is no point if you’re not part of the chase. I never thought I could be bored on my first vacation in a year.”

“I told you so!” Eijun insisted with his hands placed on his hips. “I had to lie to the higher-ups and say you were under my watch, you know! I could have been caught letting you go like that and it would have been the end of all of this, for real. So don’t go running off again, okay?”

“I won’t go,” Kazuya agreed with a small laugh, “not anymore.” 

Then, Kazuya extended his hand to Eijun, silently asking for a handshake as if to make some formal agreement. Feeling a bit stumped by the gesture, Eijun looked at his palm and then back up at Kazuya, brows furrowed with wonder. Kazuya’s smile widened as he explained himself. 

“I think we’d make a pretty good team together, Eijun. Think about it—I was the best bank robber in the world and you were the man who caught me. I don’t think there’s anyone who could escape us if we worked on the most elusive cases—you and I, together.” Kazuya paused for a beat, then lowered his voice as he asked, “What do you say, partner?”

Eijun felt his joy rush through him from head to toe, making his skin tingle as he grinned uncontrollably. It was like the forces of the entire world were encouraging this moment, like everything was finally lining up, like this was truly the right thing to do.

He wasted no time in grasping Kazuya’s hand. He gave it a firm shake and nodded at Kazuya, barely able to contain his excitement. “Oshi! This Sawamura Eijun humbly accepts your proposition! Let’s do this, Miyuki Kazuya!”

“Good,” Kazuya purred, then used his grasp on Eijun’s hand to yank Eijun closer. Eijun let out a surprised yelp as their bodies pressed flush together. Suddenly, their noses were brushing against each other as he peered up into Kazuya’s enchanting amber eyes. Kazuya’s other hand was sliding around to his lower back, keeping him close and snug as he spoke huskily against Eijun’s parted lips. “Now, what do you say we give this whole dating thing a proper shot, too?”

Though Eijun felt his skin burn hot to the touch, he flirted right back, blinking prettily up at Kazuya from beneath his lashes. A small pout rested on his lips when Kazuya used his grip on Eijun’s hand to shift his hold and lace their fingers together instead. It reminded Eijun of the way they held hands when sharing that hotel bed, with their wrists cuffed to keep Kazuya from running off in the dead of night. 

“This better not be some bluff again,” Eijun muttered as his heart thundered against his chest, “or I really won’t forgive you this time.”

“Definitely not a bluff,” Kazuya insisted, already leaning in as he tilted his head to the side. “From now on, I swear to speak the truth and only the truth.”

“Yeah, right, we’ll see how long that lasts,” Eijun bickered with a small, playful grin. “Prove it to me that you’re being honest by showing me how bad you want to kiss me.”

Kazuya didn’t respond with words, instead finally closing the gap between them by pressing their lips together in a deep, yearning kiss. Eijun smiled against his lips and arched up into his body, seeking his warm embrace. He truly felt whole again now that there was no longer any space separating them.

As the breath was kissed out of him, Eijun believed that now, Kazuya would be honest with him every day going forward. After all, if he wasn’t being truthful, then the only one who could find a way to get the truth out of him was Eijun. He had proven to Kazuya countless times before that he would never give up on him—hell, if he had to prove himself again, then so be it.

That, in Eijun’s mind, was what partners were for.