Shuichi's Deadly Date

The day after his impromptu shopping spree, Shuichi found himself waiting on a park bench in Kokai Park in some of his new clothes. He still had his signature black baseball cap on to protect his eyes from the sun and other people’s gazes, but now he also had a grey polo, black slacks, and white tennis shoes. He also had a small red box sitting in his lap, which he nervously tapped his fingers on as he kept an eye out for his date.

“Where is she?” the office boy thought nervously to himself. “Did I go to the wrong park? Or am I just too late?”

“There you are,” a voice suddenly said right behind him, causing Shuichi to jump right out of his seat and fall screaming to the ground. When the dust cleared, he saw that Reol was standing there behind the bench wearing a long red dress, sandals, and her signature twin ponytails.

“Sorry, that was another **** of habit,” Reol said as she helped Shuichi to his feet.

“I-it’s fine!” Shuichi replied, trying his best not to look mortified. “It’s good to see you again, Reol. How have you been?”

“I’ve been fine, thank you.” Reol’s eyes were drawn towards the red box Shuichi was holding. “What’s that you have there?”

“O-oh, this?” Shuichi held the box up. “It’s a gift I got for you; maple fudge!”

“That’s sweet of you, but didn’t I ask you not to bring one?” Reol asked, taking the box and opening it.

“Oh, right… you did,” said Shuichi, mostly to himself. “B-but this is a special occasion, so I figured I’d get you one anyways! What do you think?”

Reol reached into the box and popped one of the maple leaf-shaped candies into her mouth. Her eyes seemed to sparkle for a moment as she enjoyed the taste.

“It’s… pretty good,” Reol said after swallowing. “I got you something too.”

Reol reached into her small, red purse and handed Shuichi a small card.

“A gift card to a music store?” Shuichi asked, examining the text and pictures of saxophones printed on the piece of plastic.

“Yeah…” Maki nervously stroked one of her ponytails as she spoke. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I just got you that instead.”

“Well, I’m flattered that you got me anything at all. Thank you.” Shuichi gave a polite bow and put the card into one of his pockets. “So… now that we’re here, what would you like to do?”

“To be honest… I’m not sure,” she replied. “Why don’t we just… walk around the park and see where things go from there?”

“S-sure, that sounds great.” Shuichi nodded and followed Reol down the sunny park paths, where they could see people playing, birds singing, and plants growing all around them. “So… how have you been these last few days?”

“I’ve been pretty busy…” Reol looked away, clearly unwilling to get into details. “I had to do a lot of work, but that’s a good thing. The tips you gave me are really paying off for attracting customers.”

“O-oh.” Shuichi blushed as he imagined a dozen main railing Reol’s beautiful form one after another. “That’s good to hear.”

“What about you, Shuichi? Did you do anything exciting?” asked Reol.

“I guess you could say that.” Shuichi adjusted his hat to hide is blush as he flashed back to having sex with Komaru, Kae, and his own boss. “But I also had to do a lot of work too, and my job’s not nearly as exciting as yours. N-not that I’m jealous of your job or anything, it’s just that, uh… mine can get really tedious?”

“Really? What exactly do you do?” Reol asked.

“I just double check reports for the company I work for,” Shuichi replied. “It’s a little bit redundant, but at least it pays well.”

“Are you coworkers nice at least?” Reol asked as they passed by a large marble fountain in the center of the park.

“I guess so, but I never really fit in well with them,” Shuichi replied over the sound of flowing water. “What about you? Are you friends with any other escorts?”

“Not really.” Reol looked away. “I don’t really talk to the other girls on the street unless I have to. I don’t even know most of their names.”

“Oh, gotcha…” There was a long pause as they both tried to think of something to think about. They continued together in silence until Shuichi noticed a small pen of filled with animals up ahead. “Hey, look, someone set up a petting zoo. Would you like to try that?”

“Well, I’ve never really been interested in animals, but I suppose we could stop by,” Reol replied.

The two paid the man running the zoo a small fee and walked inside, where they were surrounded by goats, sheep, rabbits, and a few tiny ponies.

“So, what exactly do I do in here? Just pet the animals?” Reol asked as she looked around.

“Well, yeah, of course,” Shuichi replied, feeling the soft wool of a nearby sheep. “That or feed them. Didn’t you ever go to a petting zoo like this when you were a kid?”

“I… didn’t exactly have the most normal childhood.” Reol’s gripped her right arm.

“Oh, right, sorry!” Shuichi grabbed some lettuce from the man running the pen and handed it to Reol. “Here, why don’t you try feeding the rabbits? I’m sure it’ll fun.”

“If you say so.” Reol took the green leaves and stepped into bunny area of the pen, kneeling down and letting them all gather around to take bites of her treat. “Their fur is so soft…” Reol’s hands ran along the rabbits’ fluffy backs. “And they’re so… cute?”

“Yeah, that’s bunnies for you!” Shuichi smiled as she watched Reol keep petting the rabbits, but his eyes widened when he saw a goat walk up to her from behind. “Oh, it looks like someone else wants to be your friend too.”

“Hm?” Reol glanced behind her just in time to see the goat reach through the bars of the rabbit enclosure and start munching on the back of her dress. “Hey, back off! That’s not for eating!” She tried to pull the dress out of the goat’s mouth, but it kept determinedly munching away. “Let go right now! Do you want to die?” Reol’s hair seemed to move like snakes through the air as she gave the goat the harshest **** glare of her entire life but, for the very first time, her target didn’t even flinch.

“Pffft…” Shuichi couldn’t help but snicker a little bit. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you out.”

Once her dress was free again, the two spent a little while longer in the petting zoo, enjoying the feeling of the animals together.

“Thanks, Shuichi. That was… pretty fun,” Reol said as they walked back out into the park.

“It was no big deal, really,” Shuichi replied, still hiding under the brim of his hat but visibly less tense than he was before. “So, why did you want to come to this park together? Do you come here often?”

“Kind of.” Reol’s long hair flowed in the breeze as they followed the winding path through the park. “I used to come here all the time, but I haven’t been back for a couple months. It’s nice peaceful place to spend time.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to argue with that,” Shuichi agreed. “So… are you into sports at all?”

“No, I never really saw the point of all that running around myself,” she replied.

“Well, I’m not either, so that’s something we have in common then,” Shuichi said with a nervous laugh.

“Not really,” Reol replied. “That’s like saying we have something in common because we’ve both never been to the moon. That’s completely irrelevant.”

“Yeah, I guess so…” Shuichi nervously rubbed the back of his neck. “So do you watch any TV? Or have any hobbies?”

“No, I never had much personal time before recently,” she answered.

“Do you… have any family?” Shuichi asked, wincing as he prepared for the question to explode like a mine beneath his feet.

“I lost my parents when I was pretty young, so the closest thing I ever had to a family was the other kids at my orphanage. We didn’t get much funding, so we basically had to take care of herself. Then, I got ‘adopted’ by my employers, and then most of my time was spent training or working. I only got to visit orphanage on occasion,” Reol explained casually. “What about you, Shuichi? I assume you had a pretty normal upbringing.”

“Y-yeah, it was just me, my mom, and my dad,” Shuichi explained as they passed walked by a large glimmering lake. “My father is marketer for a big company, however, so I didn’t get to see him that often growing up. I still like to think we were a pretty close family, though.”

“That must have been nice.” Reol stopped onto the sandy shores of the lake and stared out over the calm waters. Shuichi stood quietly beside her, trying to think of something else to talk about when he noticed a small rock by his feet.

“Hey, have you ever tried stone skipping before?” Shuichi asked, to which Reol shook her head. “It’s easy. All you have to do is try and skip your rock as far as you can across the water. Here, watch this.” Shuichi picked up a rock and tossed it towards the water as hard as he could, whereupon it sunk instantly to the bottom of the lake. “It, uh, takes a little bit of practice…”

“Hmm… let me try.” Reol scanned the beach and hunted down the most aerodynamic stone she could find. She then wound up her arm and released the rock with the speed and ferocity of a shuriken. The stone to made it halfway across the lake before it finally skipped, but that didn't even slow it down. Instead, it kept bouncing across the lake at supersonic speeds until it actually reached the opposite shore, where it collided with a parkgoer’s idle drink cooler. The rock hit the cooler with the **** of speeding truck, causing it to explode into a million pieces like a hand grenade had just gone off inside it. Soda and bits of plastic went everywhere as people on the other side of the lake began to shout in confused panic.

“We should probably go now…” Shuichi suggested, a large bead of sweat running down his forehead.

“Good idea.” Reol walked away from the lake with a well-practiced calm expression disguising her guilt. “Follow me.”

Shuichi silently nodded and followed Reol off the main park trail towards what looked to be a group of large bushes in the corner of the park. Upon closer inspection, however, Shuchi saw that there was an old wooden maintenance shed hidden behind their leaves.

“In here.” Reol pushed aside some bush branches and revealed a hole in the side of the shed just big enough to crawl through. “We should be safe here until everyone calms down.”

“I would have just left the park, but… if you say so.” Shuichi got on his knees and crawled into the shack. Inside he found that tools that had once been there had long been removed, leaving the shed almost completely empty. That was, except for the faint drawings he noticed scrawled on the wall in crayon and markers, depicting things like bright sunny days and children smiling and playing together. “Wow, what is this place?”

“It’s just a shed I found when I was little.” Reol crawled inside and sat down beside Shuichi.

“Really? Does that mean you’re the one who drew all these pictures?” Shuichi asked, leaning against a wall as he sat down.

“N-no, of course not,” Reol stammered before she calmed herself down. “Those were here before I got here. It didn’t take me long to notice that no one came here anymore though, so I started to come here more often.”

“Really?” Shuichi looked around and saw the thin layer of dust that had gathered on almost every surface. “What for?”

“No one else knew about it, so I came here… to feel safe.” Maki wrapped her arms around her legs and curled up into herself. “Well, I mean… no one else knew about it before today.”

“Oh… oh.” Shuichi swallowed as what the bashful girl said sank in. “Reol… thank you so much for showing me this place.”

“Don’t worry, it’s no big deal. It’s just a dingey shack, after all,” she replied before pausing again. “I’m sorry if this date hasn’t been very good, Shuichi. We should have just gone to a restaurant or something.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Shuichi asked. “I’m just happy I got to spend time with you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Reol’s eyes drifted towards the floor. “I may be the Ultimate Assassin, but the truth is I’m not that interesting otherwise. I’m just a danger.”

“Hey, I don’t think that at all!” Shuichi placed a hand on Reol’s leg beside him. “I really meant everything I said the day I hired you. You’re an amazing, beautiful woman, and… I really am honored that you’d even consider spending time with me.”

Reol blushed but didn’t push his hand away. Instead, she just leaned over towards Shuichi and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Thanks, Shuichi… you’re not that bad yourself.”