♊︎Year 5067, Month 4, Day 10, Time 9:02 am♊︎
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Her steps echo in the large room with equally large windows on every side. The black doc martins she's wearing today are a bit heavier than usual but she attributes it to her lack of sleep, again. She hasn't been able to get a speck of sleep these last few days because she had to go over the new assignment details.
In contrast to the room she's in, she's wearing a more causal outfit, one looked down upon by the receptionist that's waiting patiently for her to arrive at the front desk.
With her baggy, black cargo pants and her cropped, lace-trim cami she walks rather confidently, the multiple silver bracelets on either of her wrists and the chain at her waist jingling with her as she walks forward.
"You're back," the lady notices with a look of displeasure to see Kurenai in front of her again. Behind her is the large symbol she's come to recognize instantly of the two koi fish chasing each other's tails, hanged for everyone who walks in here to know that this building belongs to MALUS industries.
"I am. Now if you would, I'd like the keys to—,"
"Yes, yes, I know what you're here for." The receptionist cuts her rudely, shooing her away. "He has no more interest in you. I saw him with another girl last week, so I suggest you go away."
"I didn't ask if he was interested in me or not. In fact, I didn't ask for you to speak at all. I asked for the keys to his room." Kurenai snaps back, looking at the haughty lady with a deadly glare.
Here is a prime example of the second type of people she hates. The ones that think that just because they hold a 9 to 5 job behind a desk under a respectable company they can suddenly decide that they're better than everyone else. And frankly, Kurenai isn't the first person she's treated like scum.
"Well, if you want to see him, I have to tell you that he is a very busy man. He won't be able to see you today but you're always welcome to try again tomorrow." The receptionist smiles insincerely, handing her a piece of paper to write down that she was here. "For now, you can jot your name down and I'll let him know you passed by—,"
In the blink of an eye, Kurenai pulls the woman forward by her hand and uses the other hand to smash her head against the receptionist's desk, leaving the poor woman disoriented as she grabs the back of her hair to make the receptionist look at her.
There's a large mark left on the woman's forehead where she smashed it against the desk and fear grabs a hold of her as Kurenai leans dangerously close to her face to talk to her.
"I'm so tired of having to put up with your nasty attitude every time I come over," Kurenai tells her in a low voice, keeping an eye out for anyone that may unexpectedly stumble upon the two women. "And you know what I do to things that annoy me?" The woman shakes her head frantically, trying to stay as still as she can incase Kurenai decides to harm her further. "Good, it's best if we keep it that way. Now give me the damn keys or you'll find out real soon."
The moment Kurenai lets go, the receptionist fumbles for the corresponding keys, on the verge of breaking down from her panic at being threatened. The sight of the scared-out-of-her-mind female amuses Kurenai. In less than a minute, the keys are switching hands and the receptionist is repeatedly left muttering apologies. At least now, Kurenai can walk away content that she won't harass someone ever again.
Having walked these halls multiple times before, she swings the key around her fingers walking past multiple people she's seen only once or twice before.
She soon passes a specific studio where the only thing dividing her from the people inside it are the thick glass walls. Inside the studio multiple people crowd around fixing the lighting and other necessary things, but she only needs to grab the attention of one specific person that should be in the middle of them all, striking a pose or two.
Just as she had expected, she finds the man she was looking for, sitting on a stool they've given him and posing with his head tilted slightly upward. He's leaning back a little on one hand and the other is grabbing his neck as he moves his head into different positions for the cameras to get his best angle.
His shaggy brown hair falls in front of his eyes when he tilts his head downward and that's the same moment that he sees Kurenai standing in the hall with some keys in her hands. His room keys.
He smirks at the sight of her, surprised to see her here after a month of no calls or texts. She nods toward the general area of where his room lies with her head and he quickly grasps what she's asking for, getting up from his stool and dismissing the people around him, telling them he will be stopping there for today.
Seeing that he's understood her signal, Kurenai begins to walk toward his room, never letting her eyes stray from where she's going or looking back to see if he is following behind her.
Confidently, she arrives and unlocks the door to his changing room and steps inside, leaving it slightly open for him to get in as well. Once he steps inside and closes the door behind him, locking it, she can feel a build-up of butterflies in her stomach as he steps closer and closer.
"Why didn't you answer my calls?" He pouts endearingly, getting dangerously close as she sets down the keys on his vanity.
"You know why." She responds, looking down at her feet out of guilt for ghosting him. She had gotten mad at him over something petty and didn't show up for almost a month which made him worry.
"I told you I was sorry. I really am." He apologizes, tilting her chin up with his hand gently to make her look at his pleading eyes. "Is there no way that I can get you to stop being mad at me?" No response. "Not even a kiss?"
He suggests as he brings his lips closer to hers, steadying her by setting a free hand on her hip. Kurenai doesn't even struggle against him, not finding it in herself to back away.
She sets her palms flat on his chest, feeling the fabric of his loose silk shirt that's unbuttoned at the top. He kisses her lightly, not pressing his lips against hers too much as a way to keep her wanting more.
"Mingi, we need to talk—," Kurenai tries to push him away but ends up succumbing to him when he presses his lips against hers again to cut her off.
When she reaches around his neck to deepen the kiss, Mingi picks her up, startling her a bit, and walks over to the blue, velvet sofa presses up against the far wall. He sets her down softly, reattaching his lips and moving them together with hers in sync.
His lips leave hers to begin exploring the rest of her, skimming the smooth skin along her jaw and leaving an electrical buzz behind as he steadily peppers kisses. His sweet scent of rose water intoxicates her, elevating her to a whole new escape.
As her hands get tangled up in his messy brown hair, she tugs on it slightly, letting out soft whines. She feels his lips grazing her skin lustfully, taking in her sweet taste hungrily.
He grips her thighs tighter, pulling her closer to him as he trails down her throat, and then her collar. He quickly finds her sweet spot on her collarbone, hearing a pleased gasp escape her lips. Knowing that he's doing everything right, he smirks against her skin, going lower and lower.
Kissing down her chest, and then her torso, he drives her insane. Her whines have turned into pleasure-filled moans, and his teasing touches send her overboard.
She begins to lose her grasp on the reason she was even here in the first place and to save herself from falling deeper into her wants she lifts a hand to strike the back of the man's head.
"Ow!" He yelps when her hand comes down on his neck and he instantly pulls away from her with a glare. "What the hell was that for?!" He cries out.
Kurenai finds herself stammering, looking for an answer as to why her first reaction was to hit him.
"I mean, you were all over me and I tried to stop you but—,"
"Tried to stop me? Ma'am if I can recall correctly, you were pulling me closer just a moment ago and moaning like there's no tomorrow— OUCH!" He cries again when she hits the top of his head with her knuckles. "This is abuse!"
"And it'll soon be murder if you don't shut your mouth." He quickly clamps his mouth shut and she takes that moment to push him off.
Respecting her wishes, he gets off, walking over to the clothes racket in the room and unbuttoning the last buttons of his shirt as he slides it off and hangs it.
She watches the man in silence, admiring his slender but well-sculpted figure and regretting making him stop what he was doing. He soon catches her staring at him and he hugs himself, covering his chest and abdomen area.
"Stop looking at me," He orders and she raises an eyebrow, incredulous at the way he's acting.
"Are you serious? I've seen you like this a hundred times and now you're deciding to cover up?"
"Well, it feels different to have someone staring while you're just trying to change. Now hurry up and look away!" The man that had just seduced her a moment ago is now whining like a little child to get her to stop staring. There's always something new with him.
"You're unbelievable," she exhales loudly, getting up from her spot on the sofa and walking over to the mini-fridge in the room.
She opens it and snoops around for a second before pulling out an apple cider, the only thing besides Pepsi that Mingi has in his fridge. Attempting to open it but failing miserably with her injured hand, the tall man walks over to her in his new change of clothes and takes the bottle from her to open it. When he hands it back, he sees her right hand wrapped up in bandages and a couple of fading bruises and scrapes along her exposed skin.
He reaches out to touch one specific bruise on her stomach, lightly rubbing the area with his thumb before asking her what happened.
Kurenai can see the care and worry in his face and it makes it so much harder to give him the cold shoulder, so instead of slapping his hand away she only removes his hand from where it was on her waist and walks over to the sofa once again.
"I got hurt on my last assignment. Nothing serious, though." She shrugs it off coolly.
"What was your last?" He questions her, suspicious as to why she has all these injuries while he walks over to the fridge to get something to drink as well. She had told him before that she worked as a courier for the rich but never the specifics.
"Mingi."
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"No, it's just—," Kurenai struggles to find the right words to ask him who he really is. Opening his bottle of apple cider, the man takes a swig, looking at her curiously to hear what she has to say. "Who are you?" She asks plainly which strikes him as odd.
"I'm Song Mingi. You know, the most handsome man on the planet. MALUS's best model. Kurenai, where are you even going with this? You've known me for over a year now and you're still questioning me?"
"Yes, I am questioning you because you haven't been honest with me. Now answer my question correctly. Who. Are. You?" He leans on the small fridge, staring her down as he considers what to tell her.
He had expected her to come by at some point, but he just didn't expect her to drop by so soon and for these reasons.
"Well, what do you want to know?" He gives in finally.
"Who do you really work for?" She shoots her first question and he tries to avoid it by answering MALUS but she doesn't bite.
"The Meisters," he sighs, noticing that she's rather keen on him.
"What's the name of your next project?" This question catches him off guard and he hesitates to answer just yet.
His mind flickers back to the first instant when he read the profiles given to him on his other members for this team, recalling the profile that had no information and no picture. It was just a name. Her name.
"How do you... I can't tell you that. Where did you even find out this stuff about me—,"
"Answer the damn questions!" She barks, frustrated that he's holding back so much information from her.
She's known him for two years and she never realized that he was a fellow subject. And if he really is the subject that's she read on in her new members' profiles that changes everything for the two of them.
"Alright, calm down." Mingi reaches out to soothe her but she slaps his hand away, holding herself back from punching him. She feels hurt and betrayed that he didn't tell her straight up that he worked for the Meisters. "I've been assigned to Project Gemini."
"Subject number?"
"289099," Kurenai laughs humorlessly, shocked to see that everything he's said lines up with the information on his profile. He realizes that his hunch was in fact correct, the single name with no other information except the death status was hers. But how? "Kurenai, I can explain. I was going to tell you, but I was worried you would look at me differently if you knew who I really was."
"But a year? You hid this from me for over a freaking year!" He stares at her blankly, not understanding why she's so mad which infuriates her even more. "Do you even realize how bad this is for us? I'm a damn subject, too, idiot!"
The gravity of the situation they're in gradually sets into his expression when she tells him this vital piece of information. They're both subjects.
"Then if we're both subjects... that means we broke Rule Number 3."
There's a moment of silence that passes between them as the thought of what the consequence for breaking one of the 3 rules is. Death.
"As far as I know, nobody knows about our relationship and I plan on keeping it that way."
"Which means what?"
"Which means that whatever we might've had or have currently needs to stop. We can't go on like this." The weight of her words sets in and Mingi can feel an invisible rope tug at his heart when she says this to him so impartially, but he doesn't understand why.
They were never officially together in a relationship, they were more of a way for the two of them to fill in a lonely hole in their hearts. Whenever one of them needed to get their mind off things they always had the other to help.
For Kurenai, their relationship never grew into anything more than a fling of lust and greed, but for Mingi, he can't say the same thing. He's become too attached, too dependent on her, which is probably why he feels this way when she said it's time to cut of the only string that connects them to each other.
"Are you sure that's what you want to do?" Kurenai thinks about it, but then decides thats it's for the best.
"I don't want to put each other at risk, and besides," she scoots closer to him, setting a hand on his thigh and looking up at him with saddened eyes. "What we have going on isn't healthy. You have to realize that at some point. We're just using each other and I don't want to hold you back from finding your perfect match. Because I know it's not me."
"And if it was you?" He asks.
"It's not." She flatly rejects him, squeezing his leg before she continues. "I've also been placed in Project Gemini which means we'll be working with each other. I want to keep the relationship between us professional, but most importantly I don't want to put you in harms way."
"I've missed you, Kurenai." He drops his voice to a whisper, feeling like he'll break everything if he raises his voice any higher.
Kurenai doesn't answer him, getting up and walking away to avoid admitting that she's felt nothing for him since she's been away.
Truthfully, she feels nothing of the sorts toward him, not even acknowledging him as a friend and it makes her feel terrible. She can see that he's really into her even though he doesn't say, but she has to remind herself that it's not her fault that he became attached. He should've known better.
"Our first meeting is later today." Mingi speaks up one last time before she exits the room and leaves him alone. She stop in her tracks, her bottle in her left hand, and she turns her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Will you need a ride?"
She shakes her head. "I'll bus it, but thank you."
She exits the room, closing the door a bit harshly and leaving Mingi behind with his maelstrom of emotions. He feels like crying and like destroying something but he still doesn't know what's affecting him.
He thought he had everything under control, so what went wrong? Where did he slip up? When did he fall?