Awaiting Sunset - Part 2

The hours seemed to disappear faster than Kai could count to ten.

It was already 7:30 pm - the plan would commence as soon as the sun disappeared beneath the rooftops. As the minutes passed, so did the light out the window. The sun was slowly setting, casting a warm, hazy glow over the summer sky. Splashes of color streaked across the sky in a hundred shades of oranges, reds, pinks, and blues. The hint of purple crept at the edge of the slow, wispy clouds, making for quite the spectacular summer sunset.

There was a faint breeze blowing through the half-open window of their little inn room. It brushed across Kai's face as he leaned by the window, gazing out at the sky. There was a peaceful, serene look on his face despite the fast-approaching mission ahead of them.

Yet, as nervous and fearful as he should've been, Kai almost felt as though... he couldn't feel anything at all. No fear, no worries, nothing. Perhaps it was due to the hypnotically calming effect of the faint evening sunlight.

"Oi, catch!" Glen's voice cut through his daydream.

Something round and small flew through the air towards him, smacking him in the face just as he had turned around.

"Whoops." Glen chuckled, not looking very remorseful.

Kai sighed, and bent down to pick up the little circular object his partner had ever so conveniently hit him in the face with. It looked to be something wrapped in flimsy, bright red paper. Just from a glance, Kai instantly knew what it was.

A burger.

His mouth started to water. How long had it been since he'd last eaten? With all the changing events recently, from traversing the guild's long winding maze to the duel with Iris, to walking all the way to Fujin Village, then abducting the servant boy, Aito... It was an understatement to say that the past few days have been busy. Because of that, he'd never found any time to sit down and have a proper meal. His stomach growled quietly as if trying to force him to unwrap the burger.

Kai gave his partner a slight bow of gratitude, then turned back towards the window. He ate his meal while basking in the fading light.

"Looks like someone's hungry, eh?" Glen smiled. "If you want some more afterward, you can have mine too."

Glen crouched, taking out his still-wrapped burger and throwing it around playfully in his hand. "You'll need this more than I do."

Kai turned his head to the side, locking eyes with Glen for a moment. He paused, unsure how to respond to his partner's unnecessary kindness. Kai swallowed the bite of the burger he had been chewing on, and simply said,

"Thanks."

Glen shrugged and went back to check on the poisons he had been concocting. After all, the assassination did not only rely on Kai's ability to sway the noble, Naoki but rather more so on the potency of Glen's drugs.

While Kai was finishing up his burger, he heard a sound of shuffling from the bed. The tranquilizer which Glen had, quite forcefully, injected into Aito was beginning to wear off after seven hours. The boy gave a small groan and cracked open his eyes to look at Kai.

"Getting stabbed by a tranquilizer doesn't feel too great."

Kai threw out his wrapper and brushed his hands together. "So it seems."

"Hold on... it's already 7:45?!" Aito gawked, staring at the bedside clock as if the time were wrong. "I've been out for seven hours? Cut a man some slack..."

Aito lay back down, sighing. He didn't realize that there was a burger flying towards him. However, just in the corner of his eye, Aito noticed the little red wrapping and caught the package just as it was going to reach his bed.

After realizing what it was, the servant boy's eyes lit up in delight. He quickly unwrapped the burger.

"Thank you," He said in between bites.

Just then, Glen returned from... wherever he had gone off to, entering the room rather quietly this time around. When he noticed that Aito was awake, he approached the bed and gave a huff of amusement. Aito sat up quickly, still wary of his presence.

"G'morning kid... or should I say g'evening?" He joked rather dryly.

Aito stared up at him for a moment, then continued eating.

"Looks like you gave the second burger to him, eh?" Glen chuckled, turning away to admire one of the decorative paintings on the wall. "That's exactly something my brother would do, too."

A pause.

"We'll be leaving soon." Kai said to Glen.

His partner nodded, double checking all the materials in his bag. "I've got everything we need; the radio earpieces, the injection, your clothes, the accessory fans, but most importantly... your wig." He chuckled.

Kai nodded, "We'll leave for Akemi in ten minutes."

Glen nodded, then muttered softly to Aito, "Do you feel like your master's death is on your hands?"

Aito did not reply.

"You shouldn't feel guilty, you know. We didn't exactly give you much of a choice after all." He patted the boy's shoulder as if trying to be reassuring. Kai noticed that it did not help very much, to no surprise.

Glen leaned in closer to Aito's ear and whispered ever so slightly, "You should relax while you can. Don't waste your time on trivial things like guilt."

Aito's eyes were filled with fear, and he turned to meet Kai's gaze for the slightest moment as if pleading for help. However, it did not last long. Aito lowered his head and stared down at his hands blankly. There was an empty look on his face. He clenched his hand into a fist for a moment, then released it a second later. The gesture made it seem like he was letting go of something... what, Kai did not know. After all, he had not heard what Glen had whispered just then.

Aito, on the other hand, understood his message crystal-clear.

Glen was going to kill him.

Aito and Glen stared at each other tensely, threatening to crush the whole room with the silence. Kai was the one who broke the staring contest between them.

"Ready?" He asked Glen.

His partner stood up, "Ready when you are."

Glen took a step away from Aito, then stopped and put a finger to his chin as if he were thinking about something. "Ah! I almost forgot. I need to give Aito one more tranquilizer injection so he doesn't alert anyone while we complete our mission." Glen turned to Kai, "We'll free him after our mission is completed." He said to Kai with a strange look on his face.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a small vial filled with the same transparent liquid he had previously used on Aito. Kai watched as he dipped the tip of his syringe into the tranquilizer fluid, sucking the substance into the syringe barrel.

Glen glanced at Aito and smiled warmly. "Don't worry, this won't hurt."

"Wait." Kai commanded. He spoke in such an authorative way that Glen froze, with the syringe just inches away from Aito's arm.

"Let me."

Fear and disbelief washed over Aito's face as he watched Kai take the syringe from Glen. He stared up at the cieling with a bitter smile on his face.

"I was a fool to think you were any different from him." Aito hissed under his breath as Kai held the syringe towards him.

Kai's mouth pulled back into a faint smirk. That confirmed it. This so called 'tranquilizer' was not a simple sleep-inducing substance anymore. Glen had altered it without Kai's knowledge. However, if Glen was meaning to kill Aito the whole time...

"What are you waiting for? We've gotta get you all prettied up with Natsumi, kid. We don't have all night."

Kai narrowed his eyes and nodded, moving his body slightly to block the syringe from Glen's view.

"Goodnight." Kai whispered to Aito, who stared at the syringe silently.

However, instead of plunging the toxic fluid into Aito's arm, he stabbed it into the mattress just beside him. From Glen's point of view, it would've seemed like Kai was injecting it into the side of Aito's arm, yet little did he know that his carefully crafted serum was slowly being absorbed into the bed's soft material.

Aito watched as the substance sank into the mattress without a trace. He looked up at Kai, trying his best to keep any trace of emotion out of his face.

'Get out of here.' Kai mouthed, taking the syringe out of the mattress swiftly.

Aito gave Kai the slightest nod of gratitude then closed his eyes, pretending to have fallen into a deep, endless sleep.

"Let's go." Kai said, handing the empty syringe to Glen. He nodded and slipped it into his bag.

"Your glorious makeover awaits." Glen said, winking.

Kai followed Glen out the room, taking one last glance at Aito before shutting the door.

"So is Naoki."

The two of them left the inn room, leaving Aito alone to "sleep."