A/N: This story takes place following Breaking Point.

Misaki relaxed on the sofa in a comfy shirt and pajama shorts, with a glass of wine in her hand, idly flipping through channels on the television. So far, nothing had caught her attention. She didn't watch TV consistently enough to be able to follow any serial dramas, and those game shows were so silly and over the top. She sighed; she'd promised herself that she wouldn't do any work this weekend, no matter what - she'd purposefully left her laptop and all her files at the office. But if there was nothing to watch on TV, she just didn't know what else she would do with her time. Maybe she could order out and find a movie; but she did that last night. Or perhaps read a book; there was a stack sitting on her bedside table that she'd been meaning to get through.

She paused in her channel-changing long enough to take a sip of wine. The television had landed on a news station. Misaki frowned; the lead story was on the recent 'outbreak' of amnesia in the city, with nearly two dozen cases being reported in the past month. There was no known cause, no connection between any of the patients. Even the length of time lost was different, with some people losing days, some weeks or even months. A family member of one of the patients had posted about his relative on a website, looking for answers; the media had picked it up, discovered the other strange cases, and run with it. By the time Section 4 had got wind of the story, it was too late to undo the damage.

Well, there wasn't any damage yet. No one was talking about ME - Misaki was sure that it must be unauthorized use of the technology - but it was only a matter of time before something classified was leaked. The worst part was, Section 4 couldn't use ME to modify the memories of those involved - that would just fan the flames of rumor even higher. She didn't know how they were going to get ahead of this thing.

No work tonight, she mentally scolded herself.

She was just about to turn off the television and go find a book to read when her cell phone buzzed. She looked at the text from Kanami: You busy tonight?

Not really, she typed, then hit send. A moment later she added, Unless you're hunting for a clubbing buddy - then yes, I am so busy.

Kanami sent back a pouty-face emoji, and Misaki smiled.

Either Kanami wasn't looking for someone to hit the clubs with after all, or she'd decided that it wasn't worth the effort of persuading Misaki, because she showed up at Misaki's apartment a quarter hour later in an old hoodie and yoga pants.

"Oh no," Misaki said. "Don't tell me you're having problems with Shinji again?" The yoga pants were a tell-tale sign of an impending breakup. It was a little strange though; she hadn't realized that Kanami was so attached to this guy.

Her friend shrugged, stepping into the apartment and kicking off her shoes. "Yeah, I called it off after he stood me up last night."

"Again? And wait, not last night?"

"Yep." Kanami deposited the canvas bag that she was carrying on the coffee table. "Valentine's, of all nights."

Misaki didn't care much about greeting card holidays like Valentine's Day, but Kanami enjoyed things like that. She pictured herself punching Shinji squarely in the jaw, ruining that flashy smile of his. It felt good to imagine, even if she would never actually do it.

Misaki settled back onto the sofa, Kanami sitting down beside her. "Well, you'd only been going out for what, a month?" Misaki said. "And he's canceled or not shown up to half your dates already - better you find out what he's really like and drop him now, rather than after you've started to get serious."

Kanami grinned at her. "I can always trust you to put things into perspective," she said. Despite the yoga pants, she seemed to be dealing with the breakup well. Misaki was a little curious as to why she hadn't just called to chat over the phone.

"I hope that that bag isn't full of alcohol," she indicated the bag on the table, "because Shinji isn't worth it. And I've had a glass of wine already tonight."

"Not booze, don't worry. My mom was cleaning out her storage cupboard yesterday, and she found this." Kanami reached into the bag and pulled out an old Super Nintendo system. "I thought it might be fun to try it out."

"Oh my god, I haven't played that in years! Probably not since…" Misaki trailed off at the memory. Her friend's smile was strained, and she realized that the breakup with Shinji had just been an excuse. Sometimes Kanami needed to talk things out; sometimes she just needed company while she worked through something on her own. This seemed to be the latter situation. "Well, it's been a long time. What games do you have?"

The two women pushed the coffee table out of the way so that they could sit on the floor in front of the sofa and hooked the Nintendo system up to the TV. Misaki dug through the canvas bag until she found her favorite game. The antiquated graphics looked terrible on the high definition screen, but the game was exactly the same as she remembered. Funny how you could not think once about something for years, only to have every detail suddenly come flooding back in perfect clarity. Even the feel of the plastic controller was familiar in her hands.

"Ha!" Misaki exclaimed as her go-kart sped across the finish line in first place, again. Kanami trailed in at fifth.

"You haven't touched this game in ten years, how are you still so good at it?" Kanami complained good-naturedly. "I knew I should have practiced before coming over." She picked up the remote and turned down the annoying victory music. "So, what did you and Li do for Valentine's? I need to hear that there's still romance in the world," she said with a melodramatic sigh.

Misaki shrugged and selected another race course. "Nothing. He had to work."

"What? But Ootsuka told me that you took the evening off. I can't even remember the last time you took a personal day - I was sure you guys must have had big plans."

"Well, I did tell him that I was taking the night off; I thought maybe he could come over a little early and we could have dinner. But his schedule isn't very predictable." For some reason, she felt the need to defend Hei. He probably didn't even know that it was Valentine's Day; and if he did, there was no reason for him to think that it would mean anything to her. Because it didn't. "It's not a big deal - neither of us is really the romantic type, anyway."

She tried not to think about the refrigerator that she'd stocked full of ingredients for him to cook them a nice dinner, or the cherry blossom-scented candles that she'd bought. Instead of going to bed at a decent time, she'd found a marathon of cheesy romance movies to watch while she waited for him, until she'd finally fallen asleep on the sofa. Silly of her.

"His schedule with his other job, you mean?" Kanami gave her a knowing look - though she still didn't know the half of it - and Misaki shrugged again, keeping her eyes on the game. "Tonight's your normal night off, right? Is he coming over?"

"I don't know; I haven't talked to him in a couple of days. It's not like I can call him and discuss it -"

"Because the phones might be tapped?"

She couldn't tell if Kanami was being facetious or serious. "Because he doesn't have a phone," Misaki finished pointedly. But because she always had trouble lying to her friend, she added, "And it would be too risky for him to call me. Because the phones might be tapped. Better to be cautious." She didn't really believe that anyone would be listening in on her phone calls, but Hei refused to take the risk, so she humored him.

"Sometimes I really envy the two of you, because you're so great together," Kanami mused. "And then I remember the circumstances, and wonder if any relationship is worth that kind of trial. He still makes you happy?"

Misaki smiled. "Yes. It isn't exactly easy, but for me, it's worth it."

"So has he said the 'L' word yet?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "It's not that kind of relationship. And he's kind of…reticent, when it comes to expressing feelings, anyway." And what would it mean for a contractor to talk about love? Misaki didn't doubt that Hei's feelings for her were genuine; but no matter how human he seemed, he was still a contractor. Contractors had emotions - they just based their decisions off of cold, rational self interest instead.

Kanami paused the game, forcing Misaki to pay attention to what she was saying. "Misaki, it's never going to be 'that kind of relationship' if you don't talk to each other about things like that. If he's reluctant to say it, why don't you - and don't you dare tell me that you're not completely in love with him."

Misaki stared down at the gray game controller in her hands, and realized that she was gripping it so hard that her knuckles were white. "I can't love him," she said. "Because if I love him, I have to lose him."

"What does that mean?"

How could she explain this in a way that made sense? "Eventually, he's going to be transferred out of Tokyo. Or maybe he'll be arrested. He's starting to talk about leaving his organization, but I don't know how he can, without having to go into hiding. Whatever happens, whether it's voluntary or not, he's going to leave me." She willed her hands to relax their death grip on the controller. "If this is just a fling, a temporary love affair, then when it's over it's over, and I'll move on with my life. If I love him…it'll be too hard to bear."

Without warning, Kanami threw her arms around Misaki, enveloping her in a stifling hug. "Kanami? I'm okay…"

"I just want you to be happy," Kanami sniffed.

Misaki sighed, and returned her friend's squeeze. "This isn't about me and Li, is it. Or Shinji."

Kanami let go of her and sat back, wiping her eye. "No, I guess not. I haven't thought about Miko in years; then I saw that stupid thing" she nudged the Nintendo with her foot "this morning, on top of Shinji's b.s., and it all just hit me at once. Life kinda sucks sometimes, you know?"

"Yeah. I know."

Kanami stayed for another hour; they played old Nintendo games and abused Kanami's newly-ex boyfriend. By the time she got up to leave, her melancholy seemed to have mostly lifted.

"Thanks for the diversion," she said, giving Misaki a warm hug. "Today was a pretty crappy day, but I feel better now. Hang on to the games for me for a while, will you?"

"Sure."

Kanami paused in the doorway on her way out. "Say," she said thoughtfully, "does Li have a brother? Or a sister, I'm not picky."

Misaki laughed. "Maybe that's your problem."

"Yeah, maybe." Kanami gave her a rueful grin, then headed out.

Misaki re-hung her scarf in the bedroom window - she'd taken it down when Kanami had asked to come over - then settled back onto the floor with her legs stretched out in front of her to play some more. Probably there wasn't any point in hanging up the signal this late; if Hei had stopped by earlier, he would have seen her light on and no scarf, and gone home. She doubted that he would stick around to see if anything changed.

Or maybe her friend's melancholy mood had just rubbed off on her a bit. The past was depressing; but so were thoughts about the future. She was usually successful at not dwelling on her situation with Hei, but tonight she couldn't get her conversation with Kanami out of her mind.

After about an hour of attempting to distract herself with the video game, Misaki was ready to call it quits and go to bed - when she heard the door to her balcony slide open. She turned to see the Black Reaper enter, shutting the door behind him.

"I'm not going to get called to a crime scene later tonight, am I?" she asked as he dropped his jacket and weapons harness onto the sofa.

Hei folded his legs and sat down next to her, hip pressing warmly against hers. "I thought it was your night off."

"It is. But I'll still get a call if something big or particularly messy happens. Or if it involves you."

The corners of his mouth turned up in a slightly amused smile. "You've never even been aware of half the jobs I've done here; you won't hear about this one."

Damn it, now her curiosity was piqued. She bit her lip in an attempt to prevent herself from asking him about it. But he surprised her when he said, "I broke into an electronic safe. No one saw me. I had to use my ability several times to get past all the security checks, but I doubt it was enough to register in your system."

"What did you take?"

"Nothing."

When Misaki raised an eyebrow, he added, "My instructions were to leave something."

"Leave something? What was it?"

He shrugged, and his fingers trailed along the inside of her thigh, leaving tingling goosebumps in their wake. "I don't know."

That was probably true. Misaki was beginning to notice that if he didn't want to answer a question, he would stay silent rather than lie to her. If he said that he didn't know, it was because he didn't. Would he tell where this safe was?

"What are you doing?" he asked, looking up at the TV screen and forestalling her question. His hand was still stroking her skin with that torturous light touch of his.

"What? Oh - playing Mario Kart. Kanami brought it over earlier." At his blank look, she said, "Didn't you have a Nintendo when you were growing up?" The gaming system had been ubiquitous in Japan during the 90s.

"No. I knew a kid at school who did, but I don't think I ever played on it more than once or twice."

And then of course, his childhood had been cut short. Misaki could have kicked herself for being so insensitive, but Hei didn't seem particularly bothered by it.

"Want to learn?" she asked. It was his turn to raise an eyebrow, and Misaki grinned. "Come on, it's fun."

She showed him how to work the controls, then reset the game and pulled up an easy race course. Hei learned quickly; his hand-eye coordination was excellent (which came as no surprise), and after a couple of rounds he was finishing every race in second or third place. Right behind her. Misaki wondered with a flash of irritation whether he was letting her win - but she decided that, no, he simply wasn't that competitive. Certainly not enough to try and beat her.

The game was boring without competition. But maybe if he had an incentive…

"Care to make this interesting?" she asked in her best attempt at a seductress' voice.

Hei turned a slight frown on her. "Interesting?"

For a moment his confusion confused her, but then she realized the problem. She was always forgetting that Japanese wasn't his native language - he spoke it so well, and when he was being himself with her, his exaggerated Chinese accent faded as to be barely noticeable. Even so, he wasn't completely fluent, and occasionally an idiom or piece of slang would throw him.

"A bet," Misaki explained. "Best of five wins; winner gets to have his or her way with the loser."

His eyes darkened perceptibly, and she knew that he understood that expression. "Alright."

She switched the game to the dueling battle mode, and Hei's attitude immediately switched from laid-back to intense. That intensity, especially when directed towards her... She wet her lips, and forced herself to focus on the game.

Misaki was by far the better driver, and she won the first round easily. It was almost disappointing; irritation at the thought that he was still letting her win slipped back into her mind.

But she shouldn't have worried. She also shouldn't have expected a contractor to play by the rules; with so much at stake, Hei played dirty. During the second round, his foot would casually brush against hers every time she was about to take a shot at him, making her jump and miss. It also made her determined to end the game as soon as possible - those little touches and suggestive brushes sent her blood coursing through her veins, and she couldn't wait to get him into bed. She scooted over a few inches, out of easy reach, before they began the third round. He gave her an amused look, but didn't comment.

Misaki's strategy was always to find a good power-up with which to arm herself, then track down her opponent and shoot. Hei, on the other hand, stalked her, and it was almost as terrifying as if she'd been alone and unarmed in a dark alley somewhere in the city. He laid traps for her around the corners he knew she liked to take; he followed right on her tail with a turtle shell but wouldn't shoot, unnerving her until she would make a mistake and then he would strike. He toyed with her.

By the fifth game they were tied, two and two. Misaki narrowed her eyes as she focused intently on the screen, heart pounding. Her kart only had one balloon left - but so did Hei's. She was armed with a target-locking red shell; Hei only had a green. "Where are you…?" she muttered, mostly to herself, stealing glances up at his half of the screen. Every time she thought that she had him pinned down, he would disappear on her. Wait, there he was, lurking over in the blue zone. She would sneak up from behind, and as soon as he reached an open area, she'd have him.

Misaki made a beeline for the blue section of the course, paralleling his path; then she zipped into the gap between the color zones and took a hard corner, swinging into the middle lane -

And came face-to-face with Hei. Before she could react, he shot her last balloon. Her kart spun out as Misaki stared in shock, the animated character weeping in grainy melodrama.

She slowly set her controller down with sweating hands, then turned and gazed up into his dark eyes. He looked even more intense now; a shiver of nervous anticipation ran down her spine.

"Anything?" Hei asked, his voice low and heavy as he carefully removed her glasses and set them gently on the sofa behind her.

Misaki bit her lip to keep from grinning stupidly. She nodded.

He leaned in close, so close that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin, and it was only with great force of will that Misaki prevented herself from reaching up and pulling him into a fierce kiss. He'd won; he would decide whether she kissed him, and when. "You'll stop me if I go too far?"

Too far? Impossible. She nodded again, her breath catching as he cupped her face in his calloused hand, thumb stroking her cheekbone. Misaki closed her eyes blissfully. She didn't need candles, or flowers, or romance. She just needed Hei.

…to be continued