ナイフ妻 @knifeewifee - Tumblr Blog

The Space Between Stars

Pairing: Bubaigawara Jin x Gender Neutral Reader

Rating: General Audiences

Tags: Smoking, Burglary, Home Invasion, First Meetings, Meet Ugly, Domestic Fluff

Written as part of @shibaraki's KOMOREBI Milestone Collab!

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You thought your terrible day couldn't get any worse, but then you come home and accidentally interrupt a burglary in progress.

What follows is a series of questionable decisions you probably should have thought Twice about.

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"Uh- hello!" The man greeted with a nervous laugh, tugging the mask that was scrunched up on the top half of his face a little further down his nose, fumbling the corner of the TV slightly as he did so. "Don't freak out. I can explain."

"Yeah?" You murmured distantly, thoughts frantically racing as you tried to process the entire scene playing out before you.

Something in the man seemed to suddenly shift; his jaw clenching tightly and his shoulders pulling taut in a way that made your focus instantly sharpen- the same way all the animals in nature documentaries did when they finally realized a predator was in their midst.

"I'm stealing your TV."

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Continue reading below or follow the link to Ao3!

Today has been an awful day.

Not because any single, overwhelmingly bad thing had happened; you had just been worn down by a never ending gauntlet of unfortunate events.

Sometime during the night your phone cord had come unplugged and fully drained your phone battery, which meant that you woke up long after you had set your original and backup alarms to sound. As a result, you didn't have time for breakfast and ended up just using mouthwash instead of stopping to fully brush your teeth, but even that time save wasn't enough to keep you from missing your usual train.

You'd tripped on an uneven patch of sidewalk heading out to lunch and irreparably scuffed up the toes of your favorite dress shoes, and the presentation you had been working for the past two weeks to put together was somehow missing the last; and most integral, set of slides.

The subsequent verbal lashing that your boss and, more embarrassingly, your boss's boss, had given you lasted so long you'd ended up missing the train.

Again.

And as you sought to pass the time waiting for the next train to arrive by messing around on your phone, you discovered that the person you'd been seriously flirting with on the online dating site had suddenly blocked you without notice.

So when the skies opened up on your walk home, pouring down buckets of rain with such force that your skin stung from the impact, you comforted yourself with the knowledge that you could spend the rest of the day holed up in your apartment. You'd slip into some pajamas, snuggle up on the couch with your favorite blanket, and veg out in front of the TV you had scrimped and saved to buy; doing your best to forget that today even happened while you yelled at quiz show contestants for chiming in with incorrect answers. Perhaps you'd even go a step further and spend the commercial breaks on your phone, making wish lists full of products you'd never actually buy- letting yourself indulge in the fantasy of filling your overpriced and miniscule apartment with whatever gadgets and bits of decor that caught your interest.

It wouldn't completely erase your misery, but it was the best you could do on a limited budget and exactly enough energy to shuffle from your bedroom to the living room after you peeled off your drenched work clothes.

But your plans of relaxation were immediately foiled when you opened the door of your first floor apartment and were greeted by the sight of a man in a skintight black and white body suit trying to shove your brand new TV through your living room window; the bottom pane filled with with a spider web of cracks that spread even further with every heaving attempt to shove the flat-screen through the too small opening. He froze when he noticed you, a cigarette dangling from his bottom lip as his scruffy jaw dropped open in surprise from your sudden appearance.

"Uh- hello!" The man greeted with a nervous laugh, tugging the mask that was scrunched up on the top half of his face a little further down his nose, fumbling the corner of the TV slightly as he did so. "Don't freak out. I can explain."

"Yeah?" You murmured distantly, thoughts frantically racing as you tried to process the entire scene playing out before you.

Something in the man seemed to suddenly shift; his jaw clenching tightly and his shoulders pulling taut in a way that made your focus instantly sharpen- the same way all the animals in nature documentaries did when they finally realized a predator was in their midst.

"I'm stealing your TV."

And with that proclamation, your last frayed thread of patience snapped.

"Of course you are!" You laugh, frustrated tears welling up quickly and blurring your vision. "Why wouldn't you be? It's not like my day could get any worse !"

"Hey, now- don't cry!" The man pleaded, thoughtlessly reaching out towards you with shaking hands, the TV nearly crashing to the floor as he released his hold on it; barely managing to catch the corner with a sharp curse and lower it gently to the floor. "I'm not gonna hurt you or nothing- I'm just going to rob you a little !"

"A little? A little?" You shriek, wiping at your wet cheeks in frustration. "You're taking the most expensive thing I own! That feels like an awful lot of robbing to me!"

"That's- that's a fair point," the man conceded, scratching at his exposed chin nervously as he looked around your bare bones apartment with a critical eye; taking note of your collection of second hand furniture and threadbare curtains your old roommate's cat had delighted in shredding.

"I'm too tired to deal with this right now," you whimper as you take a step backwards into the breezeway, exhaustion winning out over more situationally appropriate emotions like absolute panic. "Take whatever you want, but I would really appreciate it if you could leave the urn on the bookcase alone. My Grandma is in there."

"I'd never-!" The man gasped, affronted by the implication he'd be despicable enough to make off with a jar full of Grandma dust.

"You're literally in the process of robbing me!" You laugh wetly, wiping your running nose onto your soaking wet sleeve. "I don't think you're allowed to be offended by my assumptions about the quality of your character right now."

"I'm sorry. This isn't- this isn't the kind of person I want to be," the man whispered, his nervously wringing hands tightening into shaking fists. "This is who I have to be."

"Whatever," you huff dismissively. "It doesn't really matter. Close the window on your way out so the rain doesn't soak down to the floorboards."

"You gonna call the cops on me?" The man asked, nervously puffing on the cigarette in his mouth, the pungent clove smoke pulled towards you by the cross breeze; drifting straight into your face and making you recoil.

"I don't live on the right side of the city for the police to care about a stolen TV," you inform him, grimacing at the tinkling sound of the buffeting rain upgrading into hailstones. "I'm just going to duck into a store or something. I'll be back in like, an hour, so it would be great if you could wrap up taking my stuff and be gone by then. It's getting late and I still need to cook dinner."

And with those parting words you gently pulled the door closed behind you and, recognizing the futility of locking a door during an active home invasion; stepped back out into the freezing rain without looking back.

The only store on your block that had bothered to stay open in such terrible weather was a tiny holistic store crammed in between a pawn shop and a seafood market. The shop owner, a serious faced woman with her hair slicked back into a painfully tight looking bun, did her best to cover up the pervasive fish odor that seeped in from the neighboring business by having three oil diffusers running all at once; but the only thing it really accomplished was adding nauseating strong floral notes to the briny air.

You felt bad lingering in her store for so long without buying anything, so after a drawn out production of pretending to consider buying crystals in a variety of cuts and sizes while internally balking at the price tags, you settled on purchasing a mood ring from one of the clearance displays. It had a large band size, too large for your fingers for sure, but it was the only thing that you could afford to purchase now that you'd have to start saving for a replacement TV.

The woman behind the counter was obviously disappointed with your thriftiness, but you pretended to ignore her sourly pursed lips as she thanked you for your business and recommended you return at a later date to have your aura cleansed.

"It's all muddy, you know," she informed you with a disapproving huff, tugging firmly on the stiff collar of her dress shirt to shift it back into place. "An aura that messy will only invite trouble and stress."

In your experience, trouble and stress never needed an invitation, but instead of voicing your thoughts you held your tongue, jammed the mood ring onto your thumb, and thanked her for the concern; snagging a business card in a show of false interest before bracing yourself for yet another slog through the rain.

It wasn't coming down quite so hard anymore, but you were already so thoroughly drenched that the waning storm felt like a meaningless show of mercy from the universe at large; a waste of whatever finite karma you'd accrued during your life thus far.

You'd boldly assumed that coming home to some guy stealing your TV would be the most surprising thing you'd walk in on today, but nothing could match the absolute astonishment you felt when you entered back into your apartment for the second time that evening.

It had been easy to imagine that your place would be a ransacked disaster at this point, electronics long gone and your personal effects scattered around haphazardly as the intruder fruitlessly searched for valuables. Instead, everything was in the same, or better, condition than you'd left it in.

The TV had been returned to its proper place on your third-hand entertainment stand, a large scratch on the side of the frame but seemingly no worse for the wear as the weatherman on screen droned on about the unprecedentedly large storm rolling through the city. The cracked window had been covered In layers of carefully placed packing tape to keep it from shattering completely; a towel spread out on the carpet beneath it to soak up the rainwater that had collected inside during the thief's botched getaway.

All the shoes in your entryway, the ones you normally kicked off and left where they landed, had been lined up in neat pairs next to the coat closet. The blanket you'd left crumpled on your lumpy couch after a quick nap yesterday had been neatly draped over the back of the sofa.

And the thief, who you thought would be long gone by now, had made himself at home in your kitchenette. With a set of mismatched hot pads on his hands he pulled a half sheet pan out of the countertop oven, the telltale aroma of baking bread filling every corner of your small apartment and driving out the lingering stench of cigarette smoke. Desperately, you wondered if he'd noticed your arrival; cautiously rocking back onto your rear foot in preparation for making a quick escape when he called out to you from across the apartment.

"Don't just stand in the doorway," the man chastised as he slid the hot tray down onto the stovetop, a small saucepan set to simmer on the next burner over. "You'll let all the warm air out."

"Uh- yeah. Of course. Sorry," you apologized reflexively, wildly unsure about what to do but deciding that the best course of action is to likely play along and keep the burglar-turned-baker calm. Pushing the door closed with a shaking hand, you did your best to keep your breathing calm and level despite the dread violently roiling in your belly; your sense of self preservation blaring in the back of your mind like a siren.

"Welcome home. Again," the thief greeted pleasantly, the toothpick in his mouth straining under the force of his clenched teeth. "You said you'd be gone for an hour."

"I- I ran out of stuff to do and figured you'd be gone by now. And not, you know- staying to clean up my apartment."

"Yeah," the man laughed, rubbing at the back of his half-masked head nervously; hand still shoved into one of your plaid oven mitts. "This isn't how these sorts of things usually go down."

"Then why did you do it?" You ask with a nervous swallow, the domestic setting making you bolder than the situation would typically dictate. "Stay, I mean?"

"It just- it seemed like you were having a really bad day," the man murmured sheepishly, pulling off the oven mitts one at a time and tossing them down onto a clear swath of counter next to the stove. "And I didn't want to make it any worse."

"Oh."

"This is- so awkward. I'm sorry," he muttered, scrubbing a hand across the stubble on his chin in frustration. "I wanted to be gone by the time you got back to avoid all of this."

"It's okay," you say, unsure as to how sincere you actually were.

"It's not okay," the man laughed dryly. "I was going to rob you- picking up your living room doesn't make it okay! It doesn't make me okay!"

"You could have done worse."

"I could have," the man nodded solemnly, the action switching to a frantic shaking a moment later. "I wouldn't have."

A realization struck you abruptly. "Tell me a lie," you demanded.

"What?"

You wrench open the coat closet door and reach inside, pulling out a chunky blue scarf; a gift from a close friend during their brief but prolific crocheting phase.

"Say this is red," you said, holding the scarf aloft for him to see. He froze, every one of his muscles set on edge as he stared at the length of knotted yarn in your grasp.

"I don't know what you're trying to prove here. You already know that I can't."

"I just- I want to make sure," you insisted, holding the scarf up a fraction higher. "Please."

"Okay," the man said, deflating as he exhaled in defeat. "The scarf is red. It's obviously blue."

Emboldened by the first successful test of your hypothesis, you stepped further into the apartment, snagging a purple tissue box off of the coffee table with your free hand and holding it up for the man to see.

"And this?"

"Green. It's purple."

Gliding further into your apartment, you deposited the scarf and the tissue box onto the card table you ate your meals at, and grabbed an overripe banana from the bowl of half-rotten fruit you kept replenishing each week; ever hopeful that you'd wake up one day with the self restraint necessary to reach for an apple instead of a bag of chips when you felt snacky.

"This banana?"

"Teal. Black- that's one nasty looking banana!"

"It is, isn't it? I should probably just throw it out," you say with a grimace as your finger hits a soft spot on the peel and sinks down into the goey inner banana flesh.

"Here, catch!" the man called out, tossing a slightly damp dish rag towards you, which you miraculously managed to snatch out of the air.

"Thank you."

"No problem."

It was quiet for a moment while you wiped the mealy banana goo from your finger, digging under your nail with the stiff corner of the towel. "So you can't lie," you mused. "Is that a Quirk thing?"

"May as well be, I guess," the man sighed, turning to examine the squat loaf of bread cooling on your stove top. "I want to go ahead and slice this. You won't freak out if I grab a knife, will you?"

"Depends," you reply evasively with narrowed eyes as he pulled a knife half way out of the knife block, examining the edge with a frown before sliding it back into place. "Do you plan on slicing me up, too?"

"These knives are so dull I don't think I could even if I wanted to," he groused, pulling another knife out for inspection with a dissatisfied frown. "And I don't want to."

Eyes locked on the intruder's back; you lowered yourself down carefully into the closest dining chair; knees weak and mind reeling from the surreal turn your evening had taken. "So you don't want my stuff, and you don't want to hurt me- what exactly do you want?"

"What I want-," the man paused, a triumphant fist pump accompanying his discovery of a serrated blade. "Is for you to try this bread that I made."

"And then you'll leave?"

"I'll leave right now if that's what you want," the man offered, running the scalloped edge across the craggy top crust of the bread and laughing delightedly at the scraping sound it made. "Do you hear that? That's one crispy crust! This loaf is gonna be goooood."

"How did you even make bread, anyway? I know for a fact that I don't have any yeast."

"You don't really have much of anything. Believe me, I checked," the man grinned cheekily over his shoulder at you, as though he thought his confession about rifling through your apartment was charming and not a blatant invasion of privacy. "But lucky for you, I'm well versed in poverty meals. Mix up a basic bread dough, add in a beer where the yeast should be, shove that baby into the oven and you're ready to go! There's a bit more to it than that."

"Well, it smells wonderful. This is probably the best this apartment has ever smelled."

"No kidding! You get a discount for having the unit right above the dumpster?"

"I wish," You sighed forlornly, taking a moment to imagine how much easier your life would be with even a slightly lower cost of living. "But taking out the trash is pretty convenient, I can just drop it in from the fire escape."

"Bowls?" He inquired as he shut the heat off under the saucepan, giving it one final stir.

"Oh- I only have a couple. They're probably on the drying rack."

He salutes you sharply before shuffling off to follow your instructions, carefully selecting and stacking the dishes into his arms like they were valuable pieces of china and not the very worst a home store clearance rack had to offer. You twisted your too-big mood ring anxiously around your thumb, reminding yourself with every turn that the man in front of you, despite his seemingly affable nature, wasn't a guest. He was an intruder in your home, no better than the mice that darted behind your fridge when you turned the kitchen light on in the middle of the night.

Although the mice had never cooked you dinner before, so you suppose that was a point in his favor.

"Careful- careful," the man whispered quietly to himself, inching across the floor towards you with two bowls of soup balanced on his forearm; bracing the overhanging rims with a plate stacked lopsidedly with still steaming bread slices. He gingerly deposited the bowls onto the table, sliding yours to a stop directly in front of you without any of the broth sloshing over the edge; an impressive feat considering that he'd filled it up to the brim.

"Nailed it!" He crowed in pride, tossing the plate full of bread down onto the table unceremoniously, the thick slices nearly bouncing off the plate from his rough handling. Collapsing into the folding chair opposite if you in what could only be described as a sprawl, you watch with thinly veiled interest as he pushes his mask up over the bridge of his nose. Nostrils fully uncovered, he hunches over the bowl of soup and inhales deeply, flapping his hands to fan the aromatic vapors directly towards his face.

"Not too shabby for a can of soup and leftover veggies!"

"Is that what this is?" You ask curiously, giving the soup a small stir, trudging up a floret of seared broccoli that definitely came from takeout earlier in the week.

"Don't be shy now. Dig in!" The man encouraged, placing a large chunk of soup-drenched bread into his mouth with a happy sigh. The soup was perfectly edible, nothing to write home about but still a notable effort considering the meager ingredients your kitchen had to offer. But the bread was a different story entirely.

"This crust is incredible!" You gasp, the dry crumbs sticking to your lips.

"A good dinner for a rainy night," the man stated, holding his half devoted bread slice out towards yours. "Cheers?"

"Cheers!" You laugh, pushing your slice of bread against his; the crusts impacting and sending a dusting of flaky bread crumbs tumbling onto the surface of the table.

"Whoopsy-daisy! I'll get that, don't worry," the man reassured you, licking his finger and tapping it across the table, picking up crumbs as he went.

"'Whoopsy-daisy', huh?" You muse, sipping at a spoonful of soup thoughtfully. "How many kids do you have?"

"Kids? Oh, no- I don't- I don't have any of those," he stammered, shoving his crumb covered finger into his mouth and removing it with a comical pop. "Her name's Himiko."

"That's…quite the discrepancy between those two answers."

"Himiko isn't- she's not mine, mine. But she's mine, you know? In all the ways that should matter."

"So you love her then?"

"Of course I do. She's a great kid."

"That's all that matters then, isn't it?" You smiled sincerely, the first grin of the evening not strained through a filter of worry. The man seemed to notice the subtle shift in your demeanor, the tension in his posture softening ever so slightly as he somehow managed to slouch even farther down in his seat.

It had been a long time since you'd eaten alone with someone. You went out after work with colleagues sometimes, but the places that you always ended up were crowded and noisy; tables and booths crammed to near bursting to accommodate the ravenous waves of dinner rush patrons. The last meal you'd eaten at home with someone was likely before you moved into this apartment, when you still lived off-campus with a couple of roommates you liked progressively less with each passing week.

You'd been beyond thrilled to land a job that paid enough to allow you to live alone, even though affording to do so meant relocating across town to a less desirable zip code. But a slight downgrade in living conditions was well worth the benefit of knowing you'd never again have to live through the experience of walking in on your roommate and their booty call having sex on your bed because it was 'more comfortable' than theirs.

While you would never miss the stacks of unwashed dishes left to putrefy in the sink or having to wipe urine splatters off of the toilet seat before you could relieve yourself, it was hard to deal with the constant quiet sometimes. The drone of the TV couldn't replace someone asking about your day or replicate the joy of shared laughter.

And you couldn't help but wonder if it was a similar situation for the man across from you.

"Is it okay for me to ask your name?" You murmur quietly, eyes locked on your own hands as you push a tomato chunk around your bowl with the back of your spoon. "I understand if you don't want me to know. The less I probably know about you the better, huh? I'm sorry, that was stupid of me. Forget I said anything-"

"Twice. You should call me Twice," the man interrupted; letting out an irritated grunt before opening his mouth once more. "I want you to call me Jin."

Thrown off balance once again by his contradictory requests, your brain races frantically to find some sort of middle ground between the two.

"Do you want me to call you Jin…twice? Like, JinJin?"

"That's a little ah- intimate , dontcha' think?" Jin said, a nervous cough punctuating his sentence sharply. He pulled the bottom edge of his mask down further, trying to cover up the tell-tale embarrassed burn of his cheeks without compromising his ability to eat. "Just Jin is fine."

"Alright. Thank you for the meal, Jin. This is a much nicer dinner than I would have put together for myself, even if I hadn't been delayed by some guy breaking into my apartment," you joked, sending a pointed look Jin's way; politely averting your eyes and pretending not to notice his splotchy blush creeping even further down his cheeks.

"A burglar, huh? Sounds like a real heel."

"Maybe," you murmured thoughtfully as you watched Jin try and cram an entire slice of bread into his mouth at once. "But I don't think he's all that bad."

Jin, having gone back for a second serving of soup, was the last to finish eating. You swooped in and grabbed his bowl before he could object, placing it on the counter as you waited for the sink to finish filling so you could begin washing the dishes.

"You don't have to do that," Jin grumbled from his position behind you, standing close enough for you to feel him nervously shuffling from foot to foot. "I can clean up after myself. "

"Nope, sorry. It's the house rules," you sighed forlornly, acting as though you weren't the sole person responsible for making those rules. "If you cook, you don't clean up."

"Is there anything else I could do? Help you out a little more?"

"I guess you could help me dry?" You offer, scooting over slightly to make room for him in your tiny kitchen area.

"Aye-aye, Captain!" Jin saluted as he slotted into place next to you, grabbing the dripping wet cup you offered out to him with one hand and picking up a dry dishrag with the other.

The sounds of clinking cutlery and the slow but steady dripping of your faucet worked together with the rumbling storm outside to craft a peaceful atmosphere; one that helped soften the sharp edges of reality and allowed you to gloss over the fact that you were having a very pleasant time with the man who had started out the evening with the intention of robbing you blind.

It was reckless and stupid, but you couldn't help but worry a little about what would happen to Jin once he left your apartment. If he was desperate enough to resort to theft for some quick cash, you couldn't help but wonder and worry about what sort of life awaited him outside of the cramped comfort of your home.

"Are you going to be okay? Once you leave?" You ask, prying up a stubborn piece of dried food from the tines of a fork with your fingernail.

"That's one heck of a loaded question!" Jin laughed sharply. "The world is an absolute mess right now, society is on the brink of collapsing in on itself- I don't think anyone is going to be okay for a long, long time."

"Yeah, but- there's nothing I can do about any of that stuff," you sigh quietly, watching the small bubbles on the surface of the water swirl around your wrists. "But I can help you, if you need it. I probably have enough money to put you up at a hotel for the night. Keep you out of the storm."

"You're too kind," Jin murmured quietly, his voice heavy with appreciation. "But I don't want you to worry about me, okay? Things are…difficult right now. But it won't last forever."

"I wish I had your optimism."

"It's not optimism," Jin said, placing the last plate into the drying rack next to the sink and passing you the dish towel to wipe your hands on.

"What is it then?" You asked, unable to fully dry your hands on the wet cloth, so you settled for simply wiping off the lingering film of bubbles from the back of your hands.

"Experience,” he said, scratching thoughtlessly at the scruff growing unevenly across his exposed jaw. “My life has always been- well, bad. Mostly. I used to really hate that. Thought it wasn't fair. But now I don't mind so much."

"Why not?"

"Well, eventually I realized that the bad times I went through made all the good things in my life seem even better," he said, turning his head to gaze out of your taped up window, as though he would be able to see the sky and not the moldering plaster exterior of the apartment complex next to yours. "Stars wouldn't be anything special if it wasn't for all that dark space between em', you know?"

You thought back on your day, on the series of disastrous events that had weighed you down soured your disposition, and how now; with the passage of time and the balm of Jin's companionship, the day didn't feel quite so dreadful in retrospect.

"I hope you saved room for dessert," you smiled, turning to riffle through a cabinet for the small package of cookies you kept tucked away for emergencies.

"Thanks, but I'm still full from dinner. There's always room for a treat or two!"

The bag of cookies, already half empty from propping you up emotionally during the dramatic season finale of the show you'd binged last weekend, didn't last long. But you and Jin did your best to stretch out the warm comfort of the evening as long as you could; chatting over the commercials as the emergency weather broadcast came to a conclusion.

"Welcome back, viewers!" A man with slicked back hair and an unfortunate mustard colored blazer greeted as the title card for the incoming show disappeared from the screen. "You're tuned in to 'Top 10 at 10', the show where we look back at the week's top moments from the Top Ranked Heroes! Next up is the Winged Hero: Hawks, swooping in for a rescue-!"

"Ugh," you groan, patting the couch cushions around you in search of the remote. "Is the controller over by you? I want to change the channel."

"Nope, no controller," Jin said, his focus solely on the TV as the Number Two Hero crashed through a window on the top most floor of a burning apartment building. "So, you're not a Hawks fan I take it?"

"Hawks gives me weird vibes," you admit, lifting up a throw pillow to peer down into the space next to the arm of the sofa as Hawks waved casually on the screen, a shaking Pomeranian tucked securely under his arm as he floated to the ground. "I don't trust people who always smile. It feels like they're trying to hide something."

"You're a good judge of character, aren't you?" Had you been less focused on your frantic search for the remote you would have noticed Jin's uncomfortable fidgeting and repeatedly clenching fists, but you'd missed those telltale signs that preceded a shift in his personality. So the sudden appearance of that voice, the brash one you'd grown accustomed to hear chiding and correcting Jin's half-truths, was unnerving. You wondered how loud his unspoken thoughts must be for that second voice to feel the need to comment on Jin's internal dialogue.

"I used to think so," you laugh dryly, the hand you'd been using to fish around in the couch coming up with a fistful of crumbs and an old tin of forgotten breath mints. "But recent events definitely have me reevaluating that assumption about myself."

"You shouldn't-," Jin swallowed thickly, carefully considering his words; weighting them for sincerity lest he stray too far off the line of authenticity and unwittingly reveal too much. "Don't make me be the reason you doubt yourself. I'll take the blame for all sorts of stuff, but I don't want that to be on me, okay?"

"Okay," you whispered, once again fumbling to regain your emotional footing. Talking with Jin was like walking across a messy room with your eyes closed, constantly tripping up and unsure of what caused you to even stumble in the first place.

"I mean, if you can't trust yourself, then who can you trust?" Jin asked, his voice only just beneath a bellow and pulled thin at the edges; a manic sort of cry that poorly covered his underlying distress. "I can't trust myself anymore!"

"You can’t?"

"No. I- I broke that trust. I broke myself."

Carefully, you lower yourself down on the cushion next to him; a vulnerable place for an unguarded moment. "I know that it probably doesn't mean much of anything coming from me- we're pretty much strangers," you admit with a helpless sort of shrug, extending a hand out towards him like you would a cowering animal; slowly, carefully, like you half expected to be bitten for your trouble. "But I trust you."

"You don't know me. I don't even know if I'm me," he admits with a watery sniff, accepting your outstretched hand with his shaking fingers.

"This Jin, this you- ," you emphasize with a tight squeeze of your hand. "-is the only one I know. And I happen to think he's pretty alright."

"Even for a bad guy?"

"You're the best bad guy I know," you assure him readily, the words somehow playful despite their sincerity. But it seems like Jin was looking for a way out of the mire of introspection he'd waded into and quickly took the metaphorical hand you'd extended; lifting himself out of his head with a breathy chuckle.

"I am pretty great, aren't I?"

"A terrible thief, but an excellent chef."

"Guess I missed my calling in life!" He grinned brightly, sucking up the bead of snot dripping from his nose.

"It's never too late to change."

"It is for me."

You waited anxiously, almost desperately for that second voice to cry out in objection, but the room remained silent except for the canned laughter piping in through the TV speakers. Whatever path Jin was on offered him no alternative, no deviation from the bumpy road beneath his feet.

"Earlier, you told me that this isn't who you want to be. That this is who you have to be."

"Who I need to be. Who they need me to be."

"Will you do something for me?" You asked, easily sliding the mood ring off of your thumb and spinning it between the fingers of your free hand. "One last favor and we'll call it even?"

"Of course," Jin nodded solemnly as his chest puffed up; proud to be entrusted with carrying out a task for you.

"When you have the chance, I want you to make the choice you want. Be the Jin you want to be," you pleaded, sliding the mood ring easily onto his much larger pointer finger.

"This like a promise ring or something?"

"I suppose," you hum thoughtfully. "But only if you promise."

He held the ring up in front of his face, watching the colors swirl and shift rapidly across the gleaming black stone; far more active than it had been on your own hand. Jin clenched his fist, locking the ring onto his finger like he was scared it might tumble from his grasp and disappear into the unknown abyss alongside your remote, never to be seen again. You couldn't see his eyes, only the expressive patterning on his mask that managed to contort with his fluctuating disposition, but there was a sudden weight upon your shoulders that let you know that you were the sole object of his intense focus.

Jin lifted his ringed hand into the air between you, splaying his fingers wide in front of your face. The dark, swirling gem of his ring glimmering merrily from the vicinity of your forehead, a third eye for Jin to take with him; an eye that would see him in the way he craved- as the Jin that existed solely in your gaze.

"I promise."

The night, as all things, could not last forever. But you were unprepared for the abrupt way that Jin threw himself up from the couch when the late night News broadcast cut to live coverage of a crime in progress; a patch-skinned man cackling in delight as he threw bright blue flames from the back of a speeding van at pursuing police vehicles.

"That idiot, " he hissed, patting his sides and butt like he was checking for keys or a phone that were very obviously not tucked into his spandex suit. "I have to go."

"Oh ," you manage to say through the clenching knot of dismay that had tied itself up in your chest. “Will you come back?"

"I- I shouldn't," he whispered, regret palpable in every syllable. "I want to."

Hastily, you stumbled to your feet and strode across the living room, grabbing the ceramic urn you had on prominent display before circling back and stopping directly in front of Jin.

"Here,” you said, pushing the vase firmly into Jin's arms. “Take this.”

"For the last time, I'm not going to take your Grandma!" Jin cried in exasperation, pushing the floral patterned urn back into your arms.

"Please," you snorted, lifting off the lid and pulling out a small plastic bag of gray ashes, shaking it back and forth in the air. "This isn't actual people powder. It's a bunch of charcoal ash I grabbed from my neighbor's grill."

"Then why do you-?"

"I'm not totally naive," you said, hooking your hand on the rim of the urn and gently jostling it, the tell tale clinking of coins echoing from inside. "Every burglar grabs a piggy bank, but very few think to check a jar of apparent human remains."

"I can't take your savings," Jin protested weakly, staring down longingly at the handfuls of bills scattered amongst the change. "I'm not gonna steal from you."

"Of course you're not. First of all, this is a gift ," you emphasize, pushing the urn more firmly against his chest. "And second, this isn't for you."

"It's not?" Jin asked bewilderedly, twisting his head around to check if a second criminal had snuck into the apartment while he was distracted.

"Nope. This is for Himiko," you explained, letting go of the vase and stepping back so Jin had no choice but to tighten his grip on the money jar or let it crash to the ground. "Buy her something nice, okay? And treat yourself while you’re at it."

"I- I will," he promised, unable to refuse your gesture if it meant securing some measure of comfort for Himiko. Tucking the urn safely into the crook of his arm, Jin tugged his mask down; obscuring his face fully for the first time. It was impressive how much that narrow swath of exposed skin had been carved into your memory in such a short span of time. Even now, through the cover of a mask, you could still make out the small hints of Jin that lay beneath; the jut of his chin, the set of his jaw, the jittery way he clicked his teeth together.

With a grace you wouldn't expect of a man his size, he slipped towards the patched up window, prying up the frame and squeezing an entire leg out onto your fire escape before he noticed your bewildered expression.

"What is it? What's wrong?"

"You- you don't have to sneak out the window," you explained, pivoting your body to point towards the entryway. "You can just use the door."

"Right! The door! Of course!" Jin laughed, smacking himself in the forehead as he pulled his leg back into your apartment, hopping clumsily on one foot until his appendage was fully free. "Forgot that you had one of those."

"Well, I hope you don't forget again," you chastise playfully, guiding him out of your front door and into your apartment breezeway. "Because I sure would appreciate it if you'd knock next time."

"Next time?" Jin asked, voice hitching hopefully at the invitation.

"Bye, Jin," you smiled, giving him a small wave as you slowly closed the door. "See you later!"

"Right," he murmured, staring down at his fluctuating mood ring, a smile creeping along his face as white specks scattered across the dark blue stone; like stars glimmering brilliantly in the dark night sky. "Later."

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