Taglist: @weirdnewbie @jennilynn63
It happened on a day that began like any other.
That was the cruelest part.
Sunlight spilled across Maohi like gold poured over glass. The sea was calm, the wind soft, the café already waking with the smell of baked bread and citrus peel.
You were behind the counter.
Quiet. Present. Real in a way neither of you had ever planned for life to be.
Hattori sat by the window, watching fish move beneath the waterline, unbothered by the idea that the world could change.
At first, it was just noise.
A distant crack—too sharp to be thunder, too precise to be accidental.
His head lifted slightly. His body went still in that way it always did when instinct replaced thought.
You frowned. “What was that?”
And that was the moment everything broke open.
It wasn’t the island that was targeted.
Cipher Pol didn’t leave loose ends.
And unfortunately, you had become one.
The world outside blurred into motion—figures moving fast, too fast, trained and silent. The café’s windows shattered outward, wood cracking under impact.
You barely had time to turn.
Lucci was already in front of you.
You heard your name once.
You weren’t sure who said it.
The next moments were not clean enough to understand.
A voice cutting through chaos.
The sharp certainty of someone who had lived too long in violence choosing where it would land.
Just… final in a way your body understood before your mind did.
You remember Lucci catching you before you hit it properly.
Holding you like the world had narrowed to just that space between his arms.
Because his eyes were not.
It was something raw enough to fracture the air around it.
More than it should have.
And when you finally did, it came out soft.
“I love you, Rob Lucci. I’m glad I met you..."
Like the world had stopped obeying physics.
But it didn’t reach you the second time.
Your fingers, which had been holding onto his coat, loosened.
Not because you chose to.
Like it had decided it was time to stop fighting.
Lucci held your hand tighter.
As if pressure could reverse inevitability.
“You are not allowed,” he said.
His voice broke in a way that had never happened before.
“You do not get to decide this.”
But your hand didn’t respond.
Your eyes, still open, didn’t focus anymore.
The world kept breathing.
He didn’t realize he was shaking at first.
Now his hands wouldn’t stop.
He pressed his forehead to yours.
As if proximity could anchor something that was already gone.
“Answer me,” he said quietly.
The silence was not empty.
Full of everything that had just ended.
A soft sound came from somewhere nearby.
The pigeon did not move at first.
As if even instinct didn’t know what to do with absence.
As if any sudden motion might undo what had already been written.
Not understanding how to.
“I told you,” he said softly, almost to himself. “I told you I do not know how to do this.”
His hand brushed your hair back from your face.
Like the way he had always touched things he could not afford to lose.
“I was not made for this,” he whispered.
Time did not resume correctly.
It never does in moments like this.
He stayed there for a long time.
Long enough that the island began to move around him again—carefully, hesitantly, like it knew better than to interfere.
Hattori eventually settled beside him.
As if letting go would confirm something the world had already decided.
When he finally spoke again, it was not to the world.
“I did not know,” he said softly.
His thumb brushed your knuckles once.
“…that this was what it meant.”
“And I hate understanding it.”
The café would close that day.
As if the island itself had decided that something sacred had ended and nothing more needed to be said.
Lucci would not leave immediately.
He would not speak for hours.
And Hattori would not fly.
Because some things, even on a sunlit island full of life, are too heavy for the air to carry.
The island did not feel like itself anymore.
Nothing moved the way it should have.
Even the café seemed to hesitate in its own existence, like it had forgotten how to be a place where people ordered tea and laughed softly in the morning sun.
He knelt where everything had ended, shoulders rigid, hands still holding onto what the world insisted he should release.
Because if he let go, something final would happen.
And he was not ready to accept anything final.
The pigeon did not speak, did not coo, did not flutter. He simply remained near Lucci’s shoulder like a shadow that had forgotten how to detach.
The islanders did not approach.
They watched from a distance instead.
Because even they understood:
This was not something you walked into.
His breathing was steady.
His mind was not present at all.
There were no missions in it.
A smile behind a counter.
A voice calling his name.
Warm water around his hands.
A flower tucked behind an ear.
Things that did not belong in his life.
Things that had somehow become its center.
And for the first time in a long time—
He did not see anything when he did.
Just presence replacing air.
Agents spread across the edges of the space, forming a perimeter without speaking.
“Agent Lucci. Mission status report.”
A third shifted uneasily.
Lucci was not unresponsive.
He was simply somewhere else entirely.
The air changed when Kaku arrived.
Like tension gaining structure.
He stepped through the outer line of agents, expression already tired in advance of whatever he was about to witness.
“…Ah,” Kaku said quietly.
That single syllable carried too much understanding.
He walked forward slowly.
The agents tried to follow.
Kaku lifted a hand without looking back.
One frowned. “We are retrieving the asset.”
But colder than anything around him.
He stepped closer to Lucci.
Then stopped a few paces away.
“…Lucci,” he said softly.
Then looked over his shoulder at the agents.
“Step away from him,” he said.
“…Unless you want to get hurt.”
The tone was not dramatic.
Every agent there understood exactly what it meant.
They did not move closer.
Kaku looked at Lucci again.
“…They sent you to retrieve him?” one agent whispered.
Kaku’s expression tightened slightly.
“…And I would advise them to stop trying.”
“He’s not on assignment anymore.”
Another agent frowned. “He’s still operational.”
Kaku finally turned his head.
“That man,” he continued, gesturing faintly toward Lucci, “is not operational.”
The word landed like something foreign.
As if reacting to something only he could hear.
His fingers tightened once.
Kaku noticed immediately.
He took a careful step forward.
“Lucci,” he said again, quieter now. “It’s me.”
Still no verbal response.
But something in Lucci’s posture changed.
“…You don’t have to do anything right now,” Kaku said.
“That’s an order, if you need it to be.”
Lucci’s head tilted down.
“…Yeah,” he muttered. “That’s what I thought.”
Even Cipher Pol understood, at some instinctive level, that this was not a containment issue.
Not even a mission failure.
Something they did not have protocols for.
Something that could not be filed.
Kaku crouched slightly—not too close, not too far.
Just enough to be human in the space.
“…We’ll handle the reports,” he said quietly. “They’ll say what they need to say.”
“You don’t need to come back right now.”
That finally did something.
Lucci’s fingers twitched.
The agents waited for instructions.
Instead, he simply stayed where he was.
Guarding the distance between Lucci and the world that wanted him back.
Even Cipher Pol understood:
Some things, once broken, do not return to function.
The island stayed silent that night.
And somewhere in that stillness, Rob Lucci did not move from where he last held onto something he could not replace.
Kaku did not let the world take what remained of him.
