“Wrong? What the hell do you mean, something went wrong?” You’s tone was somewhere between “Oh no” and “I told you so”.

Gackt shrugged. He lounged on his black leather couch, looking cool and unconcerned save for the tightness around his eyes. His hair was still damp from the shower, and his black dress shirt clung to his torso in places.

You was sitting across from him, forearms placed on his knees as he bent forward, as if to better examine Gackt. The glass coffee table separated them; there was nothing on it, except for something bundled in white silk.

Whatever it was, it was making You nervous. It seemed so out of place in the room... and yet it didn’t.

“Care to explain at all, old friend?” You asked finally.

Gackt just looked at him for a moment, but when You kept staring back with his determined expression firmly in place, he caved. Heaving a sigh, Gackt allowed his body to slouch forward on the couch. He rubbed his eyes.

“Nothing went the way it was supposed to. For one thing, I didn’t kill Anna Kroller.”

You’s mouth dropped open. His expression of surprise and disbelief was almost comical, but Gackt couldn’t seem to laugh just now. Too damn tired...

“You told me she was dead,” You stated.

“She is. But I didn’t kill her.”

“Well, shit, Gackt, don’t make me play twenty questions here.”

“She killed herself.” Gackt reached for the silk bundle, began unwrapping it. Pulled out a long, heavily-decorated dagger. It gleamed wickedly in the low apartment lights. “With this.”

“Jesus Christ,” You said. He couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the thing. If pure, unadultered hunger could be forced into a physical shape, he imagined, it would look like that. “Why did you bring it back with you?”

Gackt’s eyes were on the knife, but they were unfocused, distant. “I don’t know,” he said, voice soft. “She... told me to.”

“She said ‘Here, have a knife’, and then she stabbed herself?”

Gackt shook his head slowly. “She didn’t stab herself. She...” He made a frustrated noise and looked up, meeting You’s gaze. “She didn’t even cut her wrists. It was just a cut, just a tiny nick. She shouldn’t have bled to death from that.”

In his mind, Gackt recalled the alarming spread of blood across white fabric, and the swift-growing pool of crimson that had soaked the carpet in a matter of moments.

You was frowning, as if his mind were turning over a puzzle it didn’t really want to put together yet. “Okay,” he said, “so she’s dead. Maybe you didn’t actually do it, but the employer doesn’t have to know—“

“Ah, but it gets better.”

You froze mid-sentence.

“I think I’m gonna need a drink for this,” he said at last.

***

“Shit shit shit.” You paced behind the couch opposite Gackt, hands clasped behind his back. “This is so not good, Gackt.”

Gackt sipped at his vodka and said nothing. That the situation was bad went without saying. Not that this ever stopped You from saying it.

“You’d better drop out of sight till this blows over,” Gackt said at last, causing You to halt his pacing and look at him. “You’re the go-between, so yours is the only face they know. If they want to find me, they’ll come after you.”

You’s jaw was tight, but his eyes were determined. “I know. I can hide out for a while. What are you going to do, meanwhile?” The way he said it made it sound like “What are you going to do without me to watch over you?”

Gackt frowned into his alcohol. “I’m going to find out what the hell went wrong. I’m going to find out why I was hired to kill a woman if they had gunmen of their own--perfectly able gunmen, if they were trusted to take out a professional assassin.” His blue eyes went vague again. “And I’m going to find out what this thing is.” His hand strayed to the hilt of the knife, petting it absently, as though it were an animal.

You bit his lip. Gackt was being as spacey as usual—so why was it creeping him out so much?

“Who hired me?” Gackt asked.

You had a brief internal debate over professional ethics, but quickly decided this was a special case, being a double cross, as it were. Ethics be damned in a situation like this. So there was nothing wrong with telling Gackt—it was only fair. It wasn’t because You cared, or because he liked him or anything.

Really.

“Dominic Kroller,” You said at last. “Anna Kroller’s brother, and heir to most of the Kroller fortune. Heads the family business—an import/export corporation specializing in antiques.”

Gackt was silent for a moment. “Thank you, You,” he said at last, voice very quiet.

You looked somewhere between embarrassed and pleased. “Yeah, well... Don’t say I never gave you nothing.”