Non Ducor, Duco 〈 Mikayuu 〉

❌31- Watch Over Me❌

I'm dating a hacker.

Something easy and simple in retrospect, but God. If I had known the difficulties it came with before hand, I would have stopped myself while I was ahead.

For starters, he hacks into security cameras like Cynthia and Hyacinth. Except he does it at unexpected times, when he's miles away where I cannot catch him. It's especially frequent in my apartment, where he pops in to watch me go through my daily routines.

'What's with the home cooked food on your counter?' He had asked one day. I had shot my head up to the camera and stuck out my tongue, having Cynthia shut him out of the system. Truth was- I didn't know where the bags of food that wasn't frozen came from. They appeared a day after our meeting with Pension and never ceased. But what Yuu didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

'You look cute hugging that pillow.'

Really? But you should stop getting into my cameras.

'You don't do anything to keep me out. I know you're able to make a blockade.'

You would just find a way around it. Besides, it's not me who watches the security. it's Cynthia.

'That explains the glitches.'

We were texting each other at seven, right as I had returned home from a movie shoot. He must have been waiting around on my camera, because he had greeted me through text with a comment. It was 'nice butt', if anyone was wondering. He was like another Cynthia.

Why don't you actually come over instead of watching over me?

'It's easier. Plus, Kimizuki and Yoichi locked me in my room and I'm not sure how to get out.'

Jump out the window?
Wait no

'I already tried. And I can't pick the lock from the outside.'

But I can.

'Please.'

I didn't help him, of course. Instead I instructed him on how to unlock doors from the inside (a tedious job, at that). Cynthia told me that I was heartless for not going to his aid, to which I told her she would have done the same had our roles been switched.

"Okay, you're on my screen," Yuu said with an exhausted sigh. I turned to the nearest security camera, sticking my tongue out at it with a grin. "Even when you're on a security screen you're beautiful. That's unfair."

"I'm sure you look just as good as I do, Yuu," I reassured him. He laughed on the other line, and I heard him type on his computer.

"Okay, Alyssum is a block over at this moment, so you have to act fast. The vault is pretty tight as of now, but it shouldn't be too difficult," He began, typing furiously on his keyboard.

"You have five minutes until Alyssum's next victim burns," Hyacinth clarified. So that meant that I had to grab and run.

"Hey! What are you doing?" I heard Kimizuki's stern voice ask in the background.

"Work. Go away, dumbass," Yuu murmured in response, his typing pausing for only a second before it continued.

"But you're talking to Mikaela."

"Point being?"

"You don't talk to him when you work."

"Oh, shove off and go back to your own work. I believe Yoichi would appreciate it?"

"I really would!" The boy in question cried dramatically.

"God, they always bug me on these jobs," Yuu sighed, his typing returning in my ear as I anxiously paced upon the rooftop.

"Because they expect you to be absent. We have to hurry, on top of Alyssum there is still those hackers that delete our security feeds for us. Who knows what they can find."

"It's alright, Mika we never do anything to reveal ourselves other than banter. They only survey the areas surrounding our jobs," he reassured me. It didn't do much, but it did relieve part of the knot forming in my chest.

"I got it. Go quickly," he said with a puff of victory. By the time he finished his sentence I was already opening the window, anchoring myself to the roof, and jumping through the space.

My face was facing the floor, hand supporting my weight by holding the black rope as it pulled me further down. Hyacinth was within the mainframe, measuring how far to put me.

The cord tensed on my weight, face about a foot off the ground.

"I'm having Deja vu."

"Oh, really?" Yuu asked curiously as I flipped myself to my feet, harness unclipping from my waist. I stalked past the counter of the bank and to an ATM, nodding.

"Yeah. The day I met you, I was doing something similar in the ways of getting in the building."

"So you just... casually turn into spider-man on heists?"

I laughed, watching the screen bloom to life.
"I took contortion classes at sixteen, spent my middle school years in ballet and spent most of my childhood in Gymnastics," I recited as the screen shifted, the output balance of 20,000 dollars popping up. The bag in my hands was soon filled to the brim, and the screen should have turned off.

"You know, those classes could be used for something else-" Yuu had begun. I all but choked on my own saliva before recomposing myself. My lips pulled into a grin and then shot an invisible kiss to the ATM screen, but the words I said quietly afterwards betrayed the action.

"Lock him out, Hyacinth."

"As you wish," her calm voice said with a hint of mischief I knew she held deep within her mainframe.

"You used a virus," Yuu said through the phone, voice exasperated.

"Yup."

"Against your own boyfriend."

"Indeed I did."

"Remind me again as to why I love you?"

"The human existence can make connections that make you believe you belong with someone. But those thoughts can be incorrect."

"Mika, that's messed up."

"We've both killed men, Yuu. It pales in comparison to that," I sighed, kicking off my boot and watching the black shape fly across my room.

"We had no choice," he pointed out quietly.

"No, you didn't. Your mother's life was in danger. You did what you had to for her and yourself to survive. Even I can understand that, through my lack of a mother. I, however, had a very simple choice," I said, laying back on my bed. I was still in my suit, but that didn't matter. I stared at my ceiling with a bitter, self-depreciating look, lips pressing together. My heart strained at the compiled memories I tried oh so hard to compress into a tiny space behind a locked door.

"And I chose wrong."