I walked. Every step was a tactical retreat from the scene of my failure. The park, with its trees and children's laughter, now felt like a minefield I had just detonated. My mind, the cold, calculating command center of Kage, was in a state of chaotic disarray.
Cover Mission Assessment: Catastrophic failure. Identity compromised. Anomalous combat capability revealed to multiple civilian witnesses. Probability of incident generating police report: 85%. Probability of such a report being flagged by intelligence agencies monitoring anomalous activity: 40%. Probability of L seeing it: Unacceptably high.
I won the fight. I lost the war. The war for anonymity. My protective impulse, a relic of humanity I refused to eradicate, had betrayed me. I had protected Chitoge, but I had exposed Kage.
"Tanaka-kun! Wait!"
The voice cut through my internal storm. I recognized it instantly. The rhythm of her footsteps, the cadence of her call. Subject: Kirisaki, Chitoge. Rapidly approaching from rear. My first instinct was to accelerate, disappear into the crowd, break contact. But where would I go? My cover was already ablaze.
I stopped and turned slowly, recomposing my face into the mask of impassivity that was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. She stopped in front of me, breathless, her chest heaving, her cheeks flushed from the run and excitement.
"You can't... you can't just do that," she gasped, "and then... and then just leave like nothing happened."
A raindrop landed on her nose. Then another on my shoulder. The sky, which had been bright blue, had turned a leaden gray in a matter of minutes.
"Who were they?" she demanded, her voice regaining its strength. "The way they talked to you... and the way you... what you did..." She shivered, remembering the clinical efficiency with which I had dispatched my brother. "That wasn't just a street fight, Tanaka. I know. My... my family has bodyguards. They move like that. Who are you?"
I looked at the sky as the rain began to intensify, the drops becoming a veil between us. It was a question I couldn't answer. If I told her a lie, she, with her bulldog tenacity, would uncover it. If I told her the truth... the truth was so monstrous, so unbelievable, that it would either brand me as insane or put her in mortal danger.
"It's none of your business, Kirisaki," I said, my voice the cold, flat tone of Kage. It was a wall, a defense. "Go home. You're getting wet."
"I don't care about getting wet!" she shouted over the increasing roar of the rain. The water soaked her blonde hair, plastering it to her face, but her blue eyes burned with an intensity that rivaled any storm. "I care that my classmate, the gloomy, weird kid I've been trying to figure out, just dismantled two thugs like he was a goddamn Navy SEAL! I care that I defended you because you seemed so... alone, and that you were right to seem that way!"
Her words hit me harder than any punch. Alone.
"I know there's something chasing you!" she continued, taking another step closer, water streaming down her face like tears. "You don't have to carry it alone. You can talk to me! You can tell me, you idiot!"
You can tell me.
Such a simple offer. So human. And to me, so impossible. Telling her would be signing her death warrant. Knowledge was a burden, and mine was radioactive.
So I resorted to the only thing my training dictated in a no-win situation: retreat.
I turned and began walking again, this time towards my apartment, which was just a few blocks away. The rain was now a deluge, a torrential downpour that soaked us to the bone in seconds. The world became a blur of water and reflected neon lights.
"Don't you dare turn your back on me!" she yelled, her voice fighting the storm. She ran after me, stubbornly following.
I reached the small apartment building and quickly ascended the stairs, the sound of her soaked footsteps behind me. I opened my apartment door, hoping, praying, that the closed door would be a sufficient barrier.
I was wrong.
I stepped into my apartment, and she slipped right in behind me before I could close the door, standing in the small entryway, trembling, dripping water all over the wooden floor.
The apartment was silent. It was a spartan space. A couch, a table, a bed, a kitchen. No photos. No books. No posters. No clutter. It was a soldier's temporary abode, not a teenager's home. It was sterile, functional, and devoid of all personality.
Chitoge took it all in, water dripping from her hair and skirt, forming a puddle at her feet. The fight seemed to leave her, replaced by a kind of despair. And then, her frustration, fueled by mystery, concern, and my cold rejection, finally erupted.
"This!" she screamed, her voice breaking. "This is what you are! An empty space! A blank wall! An empty room! I defend you from those thugs! I worry about you because you look like a lost puppy about to get hit by a truck! I try to understand you, to talk to you, and you give me absolutely NOTHING!"
Her fists were clenched at her sides. "Are you even human?! Or is everything just a game to you? Do you enjoy watching everyone around you confused and scared? Do you enjoy being an enigma?"
Every word was a blow. Empty. Blank wall. Lost puppy. Images of my father, my brothers, flashed in my mind. The accusation, though born of her frustration, came too close to the truth I feared about myself. I was so focused on being Kage, on being a ghost, that perhaps I had emptied myself of everything else.
I needed her to stop. I needed her to be quiet. Her emotional assault was demolishing my defenses in a way no bullet ever could. I had no protocol for this. I had no weapon for this type of combat. My logic, my training—all of it was useless.
So I resorted to the illogical. To desperation. To a tactic so alien to my character that not even my own System could have predicted it.
In a single fluid motion, I crossed the space between us.
She took a startled step back at my sudden movement. I gently placed a hand on her wet shoulder. Her diatribe stopped cold, her eyes wide. She was expecting a shout, a threat, a shove.
Instead, I leaned in and kissed her.
It was an act of pure, absolute tactical panic. Objective: Cease subject's verbal assault. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't tender. It was clumsy, a desperate act from a man who had run out of options. My lips, cold from the rain, pressed against hers. For an instant, the world stopped. There was only the sensation of her lips, the smell of rain in her hair, and the thunderous silence I had created.
Chitoge stiffened like a statue. Her brain, like mine moments before, seemed to short-circuit. I could feel her shock through the point of contact. I waited for her to push me away, to slap me, to scream.
But she didn't.
After a second of icy stillness, something shifted. A tremor ran through her. And then, the universe flipped.
Her shock melted into something else entirely. An explosion of all the emotions she had been holding back. She kissed me back. And it wasn't shy or hesitant. It was a fierce kiss, as chaotic and passionate as she was. Her arms, which had been limp at her sides, shot up and wrapped around my neck, pulling me in with surprising strength.
Now I was in shock. My calculated maneuver to seize control had resulted in a total and utter loss of it. The calculated kiss had turned into a wildfire. She was kissing me back, with a desperation that mirrored my own.
It was a disaster. A soaked, salty, overwhelming disaster. The taste of rain and frustration and something else, something I couldn't name. Her body pressed against mine, and in a movement that was more hers than mine, we stumbled backward, out of the entryway and into the main living room.
My apartment door slammed shut behind us, the sound echoing like the final gunshot of a battle I had just lost in the most spectacular way possible.
It cut us off from the outside world—from the hallway, from the building, from the torrential rain. And it locked us inside. Together. Soaked, trembling, and trapped in a ceasefire that felt more dangerous than any war.