An apartment. Dusk shoving into the room. Dust. Stains on the kitchen counters. Twelve did not investigate their origin, but he knew what they were. Nine called them mold; he begged to differ. They were broken dreams.

Bunk beds on a mezzanine. Identical Macbooks. Glasses on a wooden desk – missing. Nine did not leave Twelve. Twelve would never allow him to. Not because he was clingy or that he needed Nine – it was the other way around. Who would soothe Nine through his nightmares if not for Twelve? Who would acknowledge Nine's existence and remind him that he was cared for?

A battered couch. Lisa. Short hair, orange dress. Worried looks. Maybe clinginess and neediness was a part of the reason he had always stuck to Nine.

Hah. Did it even matter, now?

Bombs. Plutonium. A heist. Phones, all connected via a private network. Unfinished bombs, components, laying around a table in the corner. Screwdrivers. A toolbox. An open laptop – one of Nine's – and voices coming through. They were grey. Dull.

"Hisa-" Lisa started, and didn't know if she should continue the word or revert to 'Twelve'.

What a name.

What a life. Children running away from the world, from burning explosions in the background, from a little spider with spun, silver webs as hair, from plagues.

Kokonoe Arata, more commonly known as Sphinx number 1 from the terrorist group, Sphinx, was arrested at 07:58 this morning.

"-mi-kun?" her voice petered out.

Twelve turned to face her, and smiled. "Is something wrong?"

"No. Um, you- Nine-"

"Is captured."

"Are you- what are you going to do?"

The girl was stuttering all over the place. Words, tumbling across the ground. Nine never did that, always spoke smoothly, firmly. Twelve didn't want stutters right now. He wanted eloquence.

He smiled again. "I'm going to take him back, of course."

It wasn't a smile, Lisa thought. It was anger warped into twisted lips.

"Are you leaving?" Lisa asked, standing in the threshold of the door.

Twelve stood with his back to her, his backpack slung over one shoulder. "Yup," he replied. She could hear the not-smile in his voice.

"Are you coming back?"

London bridge is falling down, my fair lady.

Five won't hurt her, not if she no longer had any relations to himself and Nine. She would have a place to stay. She would be fine, Twelve told himself. She would be fine. She would be fine. She- he took a breath. He still refused to turn and face her. Nine was in danger.

He exhaled.

"Of course," he said.

Two heartbeats later, Lisa said, "I- I look forward to your safe return!"

"And Nine's," he added.

"And Nine's," she corrected herself.

"Good luck, Hisami-kun."

Twelve waved a goodbye as he walked away, pretending to not have caught the insinuation of her last sentence.

At least she was more experienced with separations than cooking.

Late nights. Rides on a sleek, black bike. Alone. With another. Once, delicate limbs wrapped around his waist. Several times, sturdiness against his back. Strength. A wall of protection from behind. Always, two against the world.

Twelve left his bike behind tonight. He had decided to walk to his destination in his usual street wear – a beanie, an unbuttoned shirt over a loose t-shirt, pants that reached down to the middle of his calf, sneakers.

He was found in an abandoned warehouse. Police have gathered from the evidence present that he had been assembling explosives. Sphinx number 2 was not at the scene.

"Did you hear?" Fuchsia said. "Sphinx was captured!"

"Really?" Flitting orange.

"Wasn't it only, like, one of 'em?" Magenta.

Twelve wanted to quicken his pace, hurry to where Nine was waiting, but he had learnt to suppress that sort of instinct after years of training. He smiled instead, like he was happy the public was finally safe from the threat of terrorists.

He didn't actually want to. He preferred laughing.

He wanted to laugh like magical nights with a girl on his bike, feigning normalcy. He wanted to laugh like waking a boy up when the stars were asleep and whispering 'happy birthday' to his obvious disgruntlement. He wanted to laugh like the air floating in his lungs.

All that came out was a disgusted mockery of the world.

He turned the corner around the next block and slipped into an alley. A door swung open. Light flooded the space before him. A man appeared, taking the trash out, and all he saw was cardboard boxes piled atop one another. Sphinx number 2 was hiding behind a stack, in the back of his own restaurant. He would never know.

The door closed and Twelve stepped back into the darkness. He turned a manhole open and climbed down, sliding the cover back into place after him.

Rats. Slime. A pair of boys, nine years young, cowering in the distant past. A pair of boys, nine years old, scourging for food. Murky water. The conditions were horrible, but what Twelve couldn't stand most was the stink.

Well, at least he wasn't cursed with seeing colors in smell.

He shrugged his bag off a shoulder and unzipped it, taking out a pair of rubber boots and gloves and trading his sneakers for the boots before removing his whole outfit and neatly placing it inside. He was wearing a skintight jumpsuit underneath.

He trudged on.

Twelve hours after Kokonoe Arata's capture, he still refuses to divulge the whereabouts of Sphinx number two. The Prime Minister has arranged an emergency meeting to discuss the fate of the juvenile terrorist.

Left. Left. Left. Right. Three overhead arches. Sharp turn. Nine was the one who memorized steps; Twelve could never be as brilliant as that. Straight, sewer breaks off, right. Left. Left. But, no matter how stupid he was, he still carved the way to Twelve in his head so deeply that it could never be uprooted. He could at least manage to do that.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. That's what he was. Stupid.

Twelve unhooked the ventilation grilles and eyed the space within impassively.

Nine was in danger. He climbed in.

Fifteen meters in, he threw in a colorless smoke bomb infused with chemicals that would confuse the sensors along the prison walls.

Three hundred and thirty eight meters in, he was on the other side of another grille.

He took it off, slowly allowed himself to crawl out, and placed the grille back on.

He looked at his watch. Ten minutes.

He dug out the uniform and cap he's prepared beforehand from his bag and put those on before walking outside, fastening a fake set of keys around his belt loop.

He scanned his fabricated ID and waited for the elevator to pick him up. He stepped inside the box and pressed G12. Lowest floor, highest security clearance.

He greeted the guards stationed in front of the elevator. Seven minutes and eleven seconds.

"Came to escort that terrorist for a bath," he said. He had to remind himself it was an act. Terrorist – Nine wasn't – Nine was in danger. Six minutes and fifty five seconds.

They nodded, gestured for him to scan his card – he did – and watched as the metallic doors glided open. Twelve strolled in.

He walked to the isolated cell at the end of the hall and scanned his card again, his fingertips grazing the surface of the door. Even through his gloves, he could feel how cold it was.

He unlocked the door. Five minutes and fifty nine seconds.

There was a shadow leaning against a wall. Eyes closed. Hair already looking like it needed cutting. Dried crusts of blood lingering on skin. Something clenched up within Twelve – he wasn't sure whether it was his throat or his guts.

"You," he said. "Stand up."

He watched as Nine slowly opened his eyes. He stared at Twelve, like he would if Twelve was just another police officer demanding him to 'stand up'. Nothing in his expression betrayed his recognition.

Five minutes and thirty two seconds. Nine stood up.

Nothing in his expression betrayed his recognition, but there was something in his countenance that Twelve was supposed to see. Five minutes twenty five seconds. Uneasiness? Five minutes twenty four seconds. Uneasiness.

"Hurry up, we don't have all day."

Nine shuffled along behind Twelve. Five minutes twenty seconds. Warning. Five minutes nineteen seconds. Twelve's eyes were about to dart around and take in the room when he realized that was stupid, even for him. That would be giving himself away. Five minutes thirteen seconds. But warning for what?

Five minutes five seconds – they arrived at the end of the corridor. It was chilly, and the door opened before Twelve could press his card onto the scanner. Five minutes three seconds.

He steeled his jaw and took Nine's hand in his and fuck it, fuck it all, he was going to protect Nine no matter if it was his life or his heart in exchange. It was his fault. He was stupid. He must've fucked up somewhere. His ID or his uniform or something. Something.

"Freeze." Five minutes.

A swarm of men clad in protective gear invaded the room. Encircled them. "Hands behind your back!" some of them shouted. "Kneel down and put your hands behind your back!"

They stayed unmoving. For the first time, Nine gripped back.

"Move or we're going to shoot!"

"Three!"

Two boys. Holding hands when they should be running. Maybe they were tired, and holding hands? It was enough.

"Two!"

Two boys. Given a life for one reason. Taken back their lives and their reasons. Branded 'terrorists'.

"One!"

Two boys. First snow pattering down on Tokyo. A girl alone on a battered couch, hands on her lap, wet stains on her sweatpants.

Hisami Touji realized two things simultaneously: one, he should've talked Nine into staying as Kokonoe Arata. Two, the timer on his watch was still running.

Gunshots. Four minutes forty four seconds.

We have a live broadcast of recently captured terrorist, Kokonoe Arata, who has agreed to reveal the location of Sphinx number 2, with the condition that he would be granted this live broadcast fifteen minutes after the police has set off in search of his partner.

The screen turned blue for a second before Nine's face lit up the whole of Tokyo.

This is Kokonoe Arata. Today's riddle is:

Twelve,

Static noise.

Run.

Author's Note

I AM OBSESSED OVER THIS SHOW to the point where I'm kind of like, "Why haven't I written more fics for Zankyou, hmm?" It might have something to do with how tough it is to capture these characters and the relationships they share with each other because 1) we don't know their true motives 2) I can't even sort out my own feels, lol.

Anyway, thank you all for reading! If anybody wants to talk to me about Zankyou, I AM ALWAYS OPEN FOR FANGIRLING/DISCUSSIONS, here or over on Twitter ( anatarae).