“Rei… I think you went a little bit overboard with your kidnapping attempt…” sighed Iru, leisurely pushing his dusty locks of hair back as he simply remained laid down on top of the debris of the building they accidentally crashed into.

“…” M0 nothing said in his own defence, remaining silent while laid down on top of Iru’s chest. After long minutes of not exchanging any more words, M0 stirred his body around just the slightest. “…you’re the worst, Iru-kun…”

“I’ve been under the impression throughout my whole life that I was the best but go right ahead with your reasons for saying such, my ‘Beatrice’,” said Iru after lightly chuckling. He put one of his hands on top of M0’s head, gently stroking his smooth hair.

“If I ever were to kill you, then I would die right afterwards!” yelled M0 against Iru’s chest, more tightly grabbing into his bloodied clothes. “I don’t mind dying but I don’t want you to die because even if I’m dead, I can keep on living if you’re living and—“

“I know, Rei,” interrupted Iru, surrounding M0’s body with his arms and gently hugging him. “I probably shouldn’t have said that but there’s something about Yamase that just annoys me to the point of nearly making me fall under the temptation of chopping him to bits while I was clearing my section.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t have escaped from the lab…” whispered M0, grabbing at Iru’s clothes even more tightly. “The outside world is better than the lab, yes, but… I know what happens inside of the lab. I don’t know what happens outside. It’s scary, Iru-kun…”

“If we had stayed there, only two things could have come out of it,” said Iru, slowly rolling his body around against the debris and gently laying M0’s back on top of them. “One. They would have deemed us as fully completed projects and we would have been sold somewhere, probably to never see each other again. Two. They would have discovered that you’ve been lying to them. For as perfect as I may be, not even I know which one of the two would be worst.”

“…” At hearing those words, M0 completely froze underneath Iru’s body, his grey eyes widening in surprise. “Was that the reason why you told me all of that before we started this elimination mission?”

“The Japanese army now has access to every single data about us that was being kept inside of the lab,” said Iru, his facial expression dead serious as he looked straight into M0’s eyes. “I don’t think they would react very nicely if we were to show them the discrepancy between what is written there and what you can do. Especially since they ‘trust’ us just as much as we ‘trust’ them. That’s why I told you to hold back by restricting you of several things.”

“Ah…” hesitantly acknowledged M0, thinking more closely about Iru’s reasons. “But isn’t doing that a waste of time? We’re their neighbours now, lying to them just to be caught of doing such later on would be just as harmful as letting them know about it right now.”

“It’s not lying, it’s doing the same thing we’re doing about the true nature of all of the members of Yamase’s squad,” pointed out Iru, a frown starting to crease his brows. “Rei, stop giving me reasons to feel even angrier. I don’t want to think about that so stop reminding me of it.”

“Ahaha. You have a weird look on your face, Iru-kun,” softly laughed M0, a smile popping up on his usually expressionless features. “But I guess you can consider this as payback for earlier.”

“Heh,” snorted Iru, a mischievous smirk slowly tugging at the corner of his lips. “Then following that thought process, you’re about to be punished. You did disobey my, the commander’s, orders. Better than enjoying the success of your payback, you should be worrying about your position at the moment.”

“Iru-kun, now it’s your words that are weird,” deadpanned M0 but when he heard a long ripping sound, he was forced to look down at his own body. He tilted his head. “What are you doing?”

“As you have disobeyed me, you took certain actions outside of my expectations so now I need to make sure that none of the blood soaking your clothes is yours,” casually explained Iru, tugging the fabric of M0’s upper clothes with one of his fingers and ripping it in half in the process.

“Even if it was, all of my wounds would already be healed by now,” pointed out M0, readily grabbing Iru’s wrist to prevent the further ripping of his clothes.

“I wouldn’t know since the data from the lab is incorrect,” said Iru, his smirk widening even further. He suddenly lowered his head and gave a quick peck to M0’s lips, using M0’s surprised state to shake his hand away and rip his upper clothes even further. “Just let me certify myself that you’re not hurt and you’ll be free to start planning the next way to find a loophole in my instructions.”

“Sometimes I really dislike this side of you…” sighed M0, fully slumping down his body on top of the rubble and allowing Iru to just do as he pleased.

“I, on the other hand, really love this side of you, Rei,” chuckled Iru, sitting on top of the debris at the same time as he pulled M0 up along with him. A tender smile remained on his lips as he gently positioned M0 on top of his lap. “I love all of your sides, even the one that kills without mercy.”

“…”

“Don’t let what PS5 said bother you,” gently whispered Iru, his hands cupping M0’s pale cheeks. “Even if all you know at the moment is how to kill, you just need to learn more things from now on. And that’s something that you would never be able to achieve if we all had stayed in the lab. There are things that you can only learn about by experiencing them.”

“Like the ‘kiss’ that Atsumu-kun told us about in the letters?” asked M0, tilting his head slightly as he continued to peer over at Iru.

“Exactly,” acknowledged Iru with a nod of his head. He pulled M0’s face closer and softly kissed his lips once again, both making it stretch further and further in length.

“Iru-kun…” whispered M0, circling Iru’s neck with his arms and tightly hugging him. “You’re so warm, Iru-kun. Being able to see you, touch you, hug you and kiss you… I’m already plenty of happy for having learned all of these things. I’m sorry for having said that we shouldn’t have escaped the lab. If we hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here with you right now and I wouldn’t have gotten to know that my heart could feel this weird while inside of my chest. I don’t know why it’s doing this unknown thing but… It’s because of you, isn’t it?”

“For who else would it be?” chuckled Iru, giving a light peck on the side of M0’s neck. Immediately afterwards, he opened his mouth wide and sunk his teeth on the pale skin right next to him, a few trickles of blood running down M0’s slender neck.

“…?”

“It’s nothing,” sighed Iru, gently licking the blood off of M0’s neck. The bite mark was already nowhere to be seen. “I just felt really angry at the fact that you might have caused the hearts of others to go weird inside of their chests too.”