"Go wash yourself."
Yama nonchalantly tossed aside the towel smelling of shampoo after drying her hair, stretched, and crawled into bed. The glow of her phone screen hit her face.
Lin, sporting a bright red handprint, walked expressionlessly into the steamy bathroom to wash the scent off himself.
He'd been slapped. After he said that, he had been slapped without mercy. The other party clearly didn't have those thoughts, and when he asked why she wanted to collaborate...
"Would you collaborate on this topic with someone who looks so bad you can't even secrete dopamine?"
Yama disdainful look made Lin feel like an insect. "Thanks for making me realize that a 'creep' is still a creep even if he's handsome."
"No problem," Lin said calmly, clutching his face where blood vessels had burst. "As long as you don't [beep] me."
Splat!
Lin scrubbed his body hard. Though Sakura would bathe him, he still felt filthy. Extremely filthy. He leaned against the bathroom tiles, the saturated light from the heat lamp hitting his face. He hugged himself and slowly slid down the wall to the floor, letting the hot water flow over him.
Lin had places he could go, but... he could no longer trust those he once considered most important. What should he do now? Where should he go? Most importantly, how could he find what he had lost...
Thud.
Yama, confused, put her phone down and propped herself up. She saw the bathroom door open, white mist drifting out, and Lin collapsed on the floor, seemingly unconscious.
After leaving the shrine, the mental pressure released, and Lin finally succumbed to exhaustion. Yama looked at the motionless Lin and put her phone down with a sigh: "What a pain..."
...
"...Huh?"
While moving Lin to the bed, Yama touched her nose, thinking she had smelled wrong. Her sense of smell was always sharp—otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to stand the scent at the shrine. Now she found the smell of Privet flowers on Lin had vanished, replaced by a faint fragrance. It wasn't the smell of body wash, but a subtle, indescribable elegance.
"How does a man have a fragrance on him..." Yama murmured, quickly tucking Lin in, then walked to a chair to play on her phone. She felt she couldn't stay too close to that guy; it made her feel a bit strange.
She opened an unfinished anime and began watching. Yama covered her mouth and yawned, occasionally glancing at Lin sleeping soundly on the bed. Though they hadn't known each other long, Lin had left a bad first impression. Now, in his sleep, he actually looked quite nice—like looking at a piece of art through a screen.
Unknowingly, her attention had completely drifted from the anime, and she was staring straight at the sleeping Lin.
Wait!
Yama shook her head violently, suddenly wondering if her brain had been caught in a door. She, a girl, was staring at a guy until she was mesmerized? On what grounds? Just because he was slightly handsome? Yama scoffed. She wasn't an inexperienced little girl. Was this guy a male incubus or something?
After some mental counseling, she stopped paying attention to Lin. But just then, she heard a faint, nearly imperceptible sound... Yama drew a handgun from her nightgown, her expression grave as she stared at the window.
...
Lin was woken by water droplets. He woke up groggily to see the faucet above him dripping.
What's going on...
He felt a bit cold; the damp environment of a bathroom easily makes one's skin cold. But why was he here? He propped himself up to check, only for his hand to land in a pool of warm liquid.
Lin looked down blankly, his eyes struck by a piercing crimson.
Blood.
Beside him was a large pool of blood, and a dying person lay next to him, looking at him weakly. Yama clutched her abdomen. Judging by the trail, the blood that had almost formed a small pond had flowed from her body.
"Hey, you..."
"Shh..." Yama shook her head weakly, signaling him to be quiet. "Quiet... someone's here..."
Lin immediately lowered his voice, leaning down to her ear. "What happened?"
"Enemies..."
Yama was an assassin. This didn't just mean she was an executioner; she was also a poor soul walking the edge of life and death. She wouldn't tell anyone how helpless she was in choosing this path. To kill, and then be killed—it was just that natural.
"You... go..." Yama coughed up two mouthfuls of dark blood, the clarity in her eyes dimming. "Don't... make eye contact with anyone..."
"You..." Lin stared blankly at this stranger. They knew nothing about each other—they were strangers who had only exchanged names. Yet she had saved him. Lin was no fool; this wasn't the bathroom where he had bathed. Yama had carried him to another room. She could have easily abandoned him, but she had saved him.
The people he trusted had betrayed him. A stranger had saved him.
"Why did you save me? Why didn't you run?"
"...Cough... professional... ethics..." Yama pale face was expressionless. She covered her mouth to stop her coughs from being heard.
Gradually, blood loss blurred her consciousness. She opened her blood-stained mouth, wanting to say something to Lin, but lost consciousness unwillingly.
"...Professional ethics?" Lin gazed at the unconscious Yama with a complex expression. After a long time, he seemed to make a decision. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, a calm and sharp gaze appeared.
...
Walking into the room, Lin came to the window. Leaning against the wall, he used only his peripheral vision to scan outside, confirming the room they were in was one floor below the previous one. The position was confirmed.
Lin thought for a few seconds, walked to the table, and flipped the switch on the electric kettle. He then crouched down to lock the window and pull the curtains. Finally, he went back into the bathroom, turned the faucet to maximum so the water roared, turned off the living room lights, and silently stood behind the door holding the kettle of boiling water.
Because he had specifically left the kettle lid open, steam slowly began to fill the area beneath the ceiling...
Splosh. Water rushed.
Creak... The door was pushed open.
Lin, expressionless, stood on his tiptoes and poured the boiling water from above the door onto the face of the man in black who pushed the door open.