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“I- I need to see Mikey-kun!”
Hanagaki’s voice echoes in the empty warehouse – trembling but determined.
Standing before him, looking down at him, Izana tips his head almost like he’s considering the request. Like he’s intrigued by it – by a peasant’s audacity in the face of a king.
“Hmm… I think not.”
He stands before Hanagaki all calm and poised, but anyone who knows him would be able to see the storm roiling underneath the surface.
It would be a cold day in hell before Izana allowed anyone outside of their organisation to get to his Mikey – and that especially applied to Hanagaki. A ghost from Mikey’s past. One last tether to a world where Mikey was free from Izana’s influence.
“He has no need for distractions.”
Izana laughs quietly, cruelly to himself. Twisting the knife.
“Though he has been quite good at getting rid of them himself.”
Something flashes in Hanagaki’s eyes. Bruised and swollen as his face is, he’s still as easy to read as he was so many years ago.
So easy that even Izana can see it.
“I need to talk to him,” Hanagaki insists, even though there are certainly many more words at the tip of his tongue. Way less polite, full of denial and fury.
It’s obvious that despite everything, he still thinks he can save Mikey – whatever he thinks that even means.
He still thinks Mikey is worth saving even though he literally just attended the funeral of one of their shared past friends, brutally murdered, and he can’t be that much in denial to not know who did it. Even the police are on the case. That nosy officer, Tachibana, seems to have been planning to contact Hanagaki after the funeral, according to one of their informants on the force – but Izana was faster.
“You know,” the latter says conversationally, like the two of them are just old acquaintances catching up with each other, “I never understood it in the first place. You’re a pathetic person, Hanagaki. You leaving Toman was probably the only useful thing you ever did in your life. And yet,” Izana’s faux polite smile drops from one moment to the next, “My Mikey got so whiny about it. About someone like—”
Hanagaki’s pained yell cuts through the air as Izana’s explosive, lightning-fast kick meets his ribcage.
“I should’ve gotten rid of you right then and there,” the latter continues, returning to his calm tone while Hanagaki gasps for air.
“But fortunately, there is still time to tie up loose ends.”
Hanagaki glares up at him, eyes damp but full of fire as he looks at Izana giving a casual little wave of his hand.
“Mikey-kun isn’t-”
His words are cut short by the shot that rings out with the finality of one truth: There was only ever one way this could end.
Izana slowly claps his hands.
“Good job, Kakuchō.”
Mutely, Kakuchō holsters his gun and watches the dark, red puddle spreading out from Hanagaki’s body. It still baffles him sometimes – how quickly it can be over. One pull of the trigger, and – gone. An entire life, simply gone.
He’s gotten good at disregarding things that won’t benefit him. Izana taught him well. Not well enough, though, to stop his finger from hesitating on the trigger for the smallest of moments. He thinks that it happened, at least. All he truly remembers is the icy cold feeling of seeing his childhood friend kneeling there primed for execution with such a look on his face, because the feeling lingers. He feels numb all the way into his fingertips.
Did Izana notice? If so, Kakuchō is certain he will find out about it soon.
But Izana smiles at him, all the benevolent king he knows how to play so well when it serves him.
“Let’s get something to eat now. I’m starving.”
Kakuchō doesn’t move, still cautious of his friend’s moods. They’ve grown worse under Kisaki’s influence, but if there ever was a point where Kakuchō might have been able to do something against the latter, that point has long since passed.
Izana, however, seems to be in a particularly generous mood today and willing to let a few small misgivings slide.
In walking past Hanagaki, he gives the latter’s slumped form on the floor a light kick.
“Call Inupi. Tell him to dispose of this.”
Kakuchō pretends he did not see the body twitch. He pretends he did not hear the pained gasp. He forces himself to not consider a possible world where Takemichi makes it out alive. Where he somehow survives this, where someone comes to help and calls an ambulance and gets him to a hospital in time. Where he makes a full recovery and gets to live a happy life, far away from Tokyo and Toman and everyone who could see him as an obstacle in their path.
Takemichi never deserved this. But then again, neither did many others whose blood sticks to Kakuchō’s hands. It’s easier to stop mulling over such things and simply deal with what- or whoever Izana points him at.
Today, it simply happened to be his friend from a time that he has long lost and said goodbye to.
Kakuchō can’t stomach the thought of putting a second bullet in him (putting him out of his misery), so he doesn’t. He walks away with Izana who is already asking him what kind of dinner they should have. He doesn’t look back, doesn’t think about the quiet, gasped “Kaku-chan” that might have just been part of his imagination.
And maybe the cruellest thing he’s done that day is that he aimed for the chest and not for the head.