056

The Port Mafia granted breaks the same way a serpent might offer warmth — coiled, calculated, and always a little too close to the jugular.

Yours was hard won. Earned only after Mori, perhaps sensing you were becoming too... enthralled with the crimson threads of your own fascination, ordered you to take some time off.

"Rest," he’d said, in that tone of his that always carried the scent of veiled threats and subtle warnings.

Elise had chirped something about blood ruining her new dress.

Again. You'd smiled, touched your ribs gently, and excused yourself with a bow and a hollow laugh.

Of course, you didn’t rest.

You had something more pressing to do.

Find them.

The one behind this.

Because the sniper who shattered your shoulder, and the knife that sank between your ribs — it wasn’t them.

No, no, no. They were tools. Puppets on silk strings. Sloppy in precision but immaculate in orchestration.

And whoever moved those strings... they understood you.

Intimately.

It wasn't the pain you recalled. Not the blood, nor the heat of tearing flesh.

It was the pause.

That breath of hesitation between your teleportation flicker and their strike.

Calculated. Timed. Deliberate.

They didn’t want you dead.

They wanted you marked.

That thought made your stomach flutter.

So you scoured the edges of the city, the crevices that belonged neither to the mafia nor the law.

Forgotten buildings, burnt archives, data trails that had been too neatly erased.

You followed the crumbs with a smile on your lips and that same dreamy gleam in your eyes, the kind that unsettled most humans.

You weren’t summoned often by Mori these days.

Perhaps he was still nursing that delicate fear he tried so hard to mask.

So you used that time to hunt.

But no matter where you looked—back alley info brokers, bribed informants, even hacked military communications — it always ended the same way.

Clean.

Erased.

Too clean.

Whoever this person was, they were dangerous in a way that sang directly to your bones.

And maybe it was reckless, but you couldn’t stop thinking about them.

What would they say if you met? What kind of gaze would they have? Cold? Curious?

Would they smile at you?

You were in the warehouse district when it happened.

Rust clung to the air, mingling with the salt of the nearby sea.

You knelt beside the remnants of a shattered communication rig, fingers ghosting over the bent metal.

You tilted your head.

Then you felt it.

A shift.

The quiet breath of another life entering your awareness.

You vanished.

And reappeared behind them, scalpel already drawn.

The man didn’t flinch.

He didn’t turn either. Just raised both hands as a sign of peace, slow and nonchalant, and said,

"I’m with the Port Mafia. Orders from the Boss. Please don’t stab me."

You paused.

Just for a second.

A frown tugged at your lips. You lowered your weapon.

He turned.

A man in a simple coat, hands in pockets. Calm. Steady. Tired eyes that looked like they’d seen too much and chose peace over participation.

"Name?" you asked, voice smooth but edged.

"Oda Sakunosuke."

Your brows rose.

Oda Sakunosuke. The mafioso who doesn’t kill.

Interesting.

You’d heard of him, of course. He's quite well known. The contradiction wrapped in skin and cigarette smoke. A soldier who refused to be one.

"You should’ve introduced yourself sooner, Sakunosuke-san," you said lightly. "I nearly carved your spine out."

"I figured," he replied.

Deadpan. Calm.

You liked that.

He didn’t even comment on your reputation, didn’t flinch at your gaze, didn’t glance at the drying blood on your sleeves. Just stood there, patient and observant.

"You're here to report on me," you said.

He nodded once. "Yes, sir."

You stepped closer.

"Why? Because I’m in love?"

He didn’t blink.

"Because the Boss thinks you’re not."

Your smile widened.

Clever.

"You don’t believe I’m in love?"

"I believe you think you are."

That earned a pause. Just a flicker. A twitch at the corner of your mouth.

You studied him.

He didn’t elaborate. Didn't press. He’d said what he needed to, then let the silence breathe.

Most people filled silence with noise.

But not Sakunosuke.

He let it expand like fog. Slow. Patient.

So you tilted your head.

"You see through people, Sakunosuke-san. That's dangerous."

"Not more dangerous than deluding yourself into calling a void 'love.'"

Again, your smile didn’t waver. But your eyes flicked down for half a heartbeat.

Touché.

He didn’t push further. Didn’t need to.

Because he’d seen it, hadn’t he?

But you didn’t hate him. Rather, you like perceptive people.

He stepped past you, crouching beside the metal remnants you’d been examining. "These scorch marks. They're different from port mafia tech. Foreign. Probably planted."

You watched him.

"You’re competent."

"I read, sir."

You gave a soft laugh.

He glanced at you then.

"You don't plan on stopping."

"Why should I?"

"Because obsession is rarely kind when it ends."

You knelt beside him. Close. Too close.

"Then I’ll make sure it never ends."

He didn’t respond.

You tilted your head.

"You won’t stop me?"

"Not my job."

You gave a satisfied hum.

You liked him.

He wouldn’t lie to you. Wouldn’t pretend. And yet, somehow, you could feel that his quiet wasn’t indifference—it was understanding.

That made him dangerous.

You stood, dusting your hands.

"You’ll report back to Mori-san, of course."

"Yes."

"Tell him I’m happy."

"You’re bleeding through your shirt again."

You glanced down.

So you were.

"Romantic, isn’t it?"

He didn’t answer.

You looked back once as you began to walk away.

"Sakunosuke-san."

"Sir?"

"If I die chasing this, I want someone to know I was smiling when it happened."

He met your gaze, level and unflinching.

"Then don’t die."

You laughed. High and amused.

It echoed across the empty district, sweet as silk and twice as suffocating.

The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not just the absence of sound, but the deliberate stillness of a room where whispers had just died.

The Boss’s office was rarely silent.

There was always the click of polished shoes, the rustle of papers, the faint laughter of the Boss' ability, Elise echoing from the adjoining room.

But now, it was quiet.

I had been summoned.

And I wasn’t sure why.

I was no one. Lower rank. Unremarkable, if not for the peculiar fact that I didn’t kill. A Port Mafia member who refused to stain his hands.

It was why most people left me alone.

So when Mori Ogai himself called me to his inner office, I assumed one of two things.

Either I was a mistake.

Or I was a body to be.

"Oda-kun," Mori said when I entered, voice dipped in something sugar laced and lethal. "I have a task for you."

There was a pause. His fingers folded neatly on the desk.

"You’ll be observing one of our executives."

I didn’t blink. Not immediately.

Executives weren’t assigned observers. They were given missions, bodies, bodies to make, bodies to erase.

They give orders. Not the other way around.

"Yes, sir," I said. Because that was the only thing to say.

He smiled. That surgical kind. The kind that makes you wonder if he was measuring the length of your spine.

"L/N Y/N," he said.

Ah.

The name was familiar.

A whisper in the ranks, a ghost in the records. A prodigy of sorts. Twisted brilliance wrapped in porcelain skin and stitched with sin. The Boss' "favorite," or so I've heard.

And now, my assignment.

I said nothing more.

But I knew, in that moment, that whatever this was, it wasn’t pleasant.

Now, in the present, I watched him disappear.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

His teleportation was fluid, seamless, and if I blinked, I would’ve missed the way his coat fluttered with the sudden displacement of air.

He reappeared two steps ahead, crouching beside a stack of dismantled relay nodes, fingers trailing the edge of a melted wire as if it whispered secrets to him.

"Whoever did this wasn’t trying to hide it," he murmured.

He didn’t look at me, but I didn’t expect him to.

He talked like someone halfway through a conversation with himself.

"They wanted me to find it."

I said nothing.

Not because I disagreed.

But because he was right.

The evidence was always too perfect, too conveniently placed.

The kind of breadcrumbs that weren’t meant to hide a trail — they were meant to pull.

He stood.

Then turned.

"Sakunosuke-san," he said, voice light, playful. "Do you think I’m pretty?"

The question came with a half smile and a gleam in his eyes that danced somewhere between genuine and maddening.

"I think that’s not my place to decide, sir."

His grin widened.

"You’re very polite. Do you treat everyone this kindly?"

I didn’t answer.

Because he already knew the answer.

He skipped ahead again — another flicker, another gust of air — and paused at the edge of the street.

His coat flared as he turned his head slightly.

"Dessert."

I blinked.

"Sir?"

He pointed across the street.

A newly opened patisserie. Window glittering with pastel cakes and sugared fruits. The smell of cream and sweet yeast wafted from the open door.

"Elise would like some. Mori-san won’t. He says she’s had too much. But I don’t really care what he thinks."

He didn’t wait for permission. He was already walking.

I followed.

Inside, the shop was bright. Warm. Surreal.

He wandered between the displays like a child in a candy wonderland, fingers hovering near the glass but never touching.

He paused at a row of cream filled choux.

Then at the golden slices of matcha mille crepes.

Then a cherry tart.

Then another.

"Sakunosuke-san," he said, tilting his head, "which do you think suits me better? The black sesame mochi or the strawberry shortcake?"

"The mochi."

He grinned. "Because it’s black like my soul?"

"Because it’s hard to chew."

That earned a laugh. He actually laughed. It was soft, but it made the clerk flinch.

In the end, he bought one of everything.

Two strawberry cheesecakes.

Three of the chocolate eclairs.

He turned to me. Pressed a box into my hands.

"For you."

I blinked.

He smiled wider.

"For being likeable."

I looked down at the box. Cream frosting peaked over the lid.

The kids will like these, I thought.

Back home.It's not every day those children get to have desserts.

He was already walking again, box swinging lazily from one hand, the other tucking a custard tart into his mouth without decorum.

Outside, the sea wind had picked up.

He stood at the corner of the walkway, head tilted back.

I stood beside him, quiet.

He was still chewing.

"Sakunosuke-san," he murmured, voice sticky with sugar, "Do you think it’s love?"

I looked at him.

The wind pushed his hair, covering his eyes.

He didn’t meet my gaze.

"What they did. It was personal."

I didn’t answer.

Because he didn’t want one.

He was already chasing ghosts. Already halfway convinced.

And that was the danger.

It wasn’t that he was unhinged. That much was obvious.

It was that he believed — deeply — that this feeling inside him was pure affection.

And maybe that belief was what made him so terrifying.

Because I’d seen that look before.

In children who had been starved of love so long, they’d begun to carve it out of whatever shape fit. No matter how wrong.

He wanted to believe this person — this phantom — was meant for him.

That the marks they left were proof of meaning.

Of intimacy.

He wouldn’t say it. But I could see it.

Buried beneath his smile. Behind his glittering eyes.

Hope.

And that was the cruelest part.

He turned to me then.

"Do you think I’m wrong?"

I held his gaze.

"I think you’re hurt, sir. And that hurts have a way of wearing masks."

For a second — just a second — he didn’t move.

His lashes lowered.

A breath caught.

Subtle.

Then gone.

He smiled again.

"You’re good at this. I see why Mori-san picked you."

"I didn’t volunteer."

"No one does."

We walked.

Past rusted rails. Crumbling warehouses.

He flitted from shadow to light, always a little too fast, always just far enough to seem like he didn’t care if I kept up.

But he always paused when I fell behind.

Always glanced over his shoulder.

Just once.

As if to check.

He was used to being alone.

He was also used to being followed.

But he wasn't used to being seen.

Not truly.

And I think that’s why the Boss sent me.

Not to report on what he did.

But to see what he was.

And the answer, I think, was this.

A child who learned too early that pain meant attention.

A boy who mistook control for affection.

And a man now standing on the edge of his own madness, smiling at the void and calling it love.

He might be terrifying to most, yes.

But he was also something else.

Lonely.

And that’s what made him dangerous.

Because lonely people don’t stop.

They chase the ghost that almost fits.

They chase until they bleed.

And then they smile as they do it.

I watched as he reached for another tart.

"Sakunosuke-san," he said. "You should try this one."

I took it.

Not because I wanted to.

But because I knew he needed someone to.

He watched me take a bite.

I nodded.

"It’s good."

He beamed.

And for a second, just a flicker — he looked whole.

Then he turned away.

And the silence returned.