#nagurion

“A pathetic mess, huh?” thought Yoichi as he played with the cigarette in his right hand, its ends starting to wither.

“Something to remember me by” she had said playfully back in the day, when one carefree afternoon she threw that cigarette at him. Before he even realized, he had caught it might it.

Rion smirked, another cigarette swinging on her lips.

“Good boy”. And then her face lit up.

“You’d die before you smoke it.”

Nagumo instinctive smiled with that disgusting, sweet grin that made her skin crawl. Rion always found it extremely unsettling, the closest to an uncanny valley she would ever know in her whole life. She knew, better than anyone, how fake it was. His real smile barely crossed his face nowadays, especially after she captured it in a photo she refused to delete. 

Yet, she still actively chose to pretend she didn’t notice the difference. 

She seemed unaffected by that grin on his face.

Whereas Taro was the closest to an older brother she never had, Yoichi was the closest to a best friend she would ever have in her lifetime. But in their line of work, none of them could afford vulnerability, fragility or strong bonds.

“Call yourself lucky if I don’t throw it away later.”

Calmly, she just gave her first huff.

“Be my guest” and her amber gaze fixated on his dark eyes. “Deep down, you won’t dare”

He hated that she was absolutely right. 

Of course, she was.

Months later, he was still holding to that cheap cigarette because it was his last memento of her, the last memory of her he could cling to, the last reminder that she was real and not a figment of his imagination.

Rion Akao was dead.

Or at least, that was the word on the street. They claimed that Kei Uzuki had killed her.

Yoichi couldn’t help but to hysterically laugh at the absurdity of the rumor. Had they truly seen Uzuki? That man was as weak and pathetic as it could be. And if he remembered correctly, Rion was a bit taller than him. How the fuck did he manage to put a bullet in her?

She was stronger than him. She could’ve pinned Uzuki down and disarmed him quicker than what it took to say his first name.

Unless…

Kei Uzuki had managed to achive the only thing Yoichi Nagumo always failed at: Earning Rion Akao’s full trust.

The cigarette in his hand was burning him, despise the fact that it remained unlit. He wanted to throw it away, as it was suddenly a reminder of his own cowardice. Born into a family of spies, he had rationalized that love was transactional, an excuse to inflict pain on others without feeling regret. And for an assassin, what was the use of love? Love was just a tragedy in the making…

Yoichi wasn’t in love with Rion. But her face was the first thing in his mind when he woke up, and her name was still the only one he desperately called in his dreams. 

His body remained still in the cold rain, the grip on the cigarette firmer than before. 

The end of Rion Akao’s life sounded like the kind of fucked up jokes she loved to throw around, especially when Uzuki and her body faded into nothing.

Perhaps, she…

Unable of letting it go, Yoichi Nagumo, once again, put the cigarette inside his chest pocket, close to his heart. 

He would relentlessly tease her about falling for Uzuki. She would get so annoyed, but before she could land a punch on his face, he would give Rion her cigarette back, lighting it up. And as she always did, she would find that nicotine sweet enough to soothe her, enough for her to cockily smile about her being right: Yoichi wouldn’t dare to throw her away. Yoichi would just smile in return.

For his sanity, he needed to find her. He selfishly desired for her last smoke to be with him. After all, he still had her cigarette.