Crunch.
Kamina sank his teeth into a comically large slice of pizza, tomato sauce smearing the corner of his mouth as melted cheese drooped lazily onto his glove. His legs were kicked up on the scratched-up coffee table, leaning so far back on his chair it creaked in protest. Around him, the "office", which was still just the living room of Shmuel's apartment, smelled like grease, solder, and instant noodles.
Shmuel sat across from him on a rolling stool, hunched over a maintenance cloth and a small bottle of precision oil. He gently polished the knuckles of his mechanical hand, rotating each finger with quiet clicks. The machinery gleamed, catching the faint rays of daylight breaking through dusty blinds.
Then-
tap tap
A soft knock.
The door creaked open a second later, revealing a familiar face with round glasses, a neat bob-cut, and a puzzled look. She scanned the room, took in Kamina's bare chest and pizza slice, then finally spotted Shmuel.
"So this is 'The Great Kamina's Office,' huh?"
Bruno stepped inside, arms crossed and eyebrow arched. The smirk tugging at her lips betrayed her amusement.
Kamina gave her a greasy thumbs-up with the slice still in his hand.
Shmuel blinked once, then stood up abruptly—his stool rolling away and hitting the wall with a soft clunk.
"Bruno!"
Bruno didn't even have time to answer before Shmuel rushed over and pulled her into a sudden, slightly awkward hug. She squeaked, caught off guard, then gave a small laugh and patted his back.
"Okay, okay! I'm still breathing, you brute."
Shmuel pulled back, clearing his throat, ears reddening slightly.
"Right. Sorry. I—uh—didn't expect you to just show up out of nowhere."
Bruno brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and smiled.
Shmuel shook his head, amused, then motioned toward the couch. Bruno sat, folding her legs neatly beneath her, while Shmuel returned to his rolling stool-but this time, closer to her.
He leaned forward, both mechanical hands resting on his knees.
"So… how were you doing?"
Bruno beamed, proud but modest.
"I sent my CV to E Corp."
Shmuel's eyes widened.
"E Corp? You mean the E Corp?"
"Yep."
She held up her fingers, miming a bird nest. "Might be a feather soon."
Shmuel let out a long whistle.
"Wow. Can't believe you could actually make it there. A Nest, huh? With central heating and free hot water"
Bruno giggled.
"The dream, right?"
But her smile faltered just a touch, the corner of her mouth tightening.
Shmuel noticed. He tilted his head.
"What about… your dad? What's your relationship with him now?"
Bruno's face hardened slightly.
"The worst of the worst," she said flatly.
"I can't follow someone who runs a syndicate. I don't like it not because it's illegal, it's—"
She paused, fingers tightening around her skirt.
"It's disgusting. I'll never be part of that world."
Shmuel nodded, expression turning distant for a moment.
"Guess so. Never saw him at the guardian meetings back in school."
That earned a chuckle from her.
"He probably sent someone in his place. Some guy with a fake name and a bloodstained coat."
Knock knock.
The sound echoed through the quiet room.
Kamina tilted his head back from the couch, still chewing on the pizza crust.
"I'll get it," he said, standing up with a stretch and casually strolling to the door.
He cracked it open.
A teenage delivery boy in a slightly oversized courier vest stood there, nervously adjusting the brim of his cap. He held out a sealed envelope with an official wax emblem on it and a clipboard.
"Delivery for 'The Great Kamina & Associates,' from Hana Association, South Section 4."
Kamina raised an eyebrow.
"Oh? Sounds fancy."
He signed the clipboard with a flourish that almost looked like a signature, took the envelope, and paused when the delivery boy raised a second hand.
"Also selling this month's Fixers Monthly. Want a copy?"
He held up a crisp, slightly smudged magazine with bold headlines and a stylized image of a cool-looking fixer posing dramatically mid-combat.
Kamina grinned.
"Sure. Let's see if greatness has finally been recognized."
He flicked the boy a few coins, snatched the magazine, and gave him a two-fingered salute before shutting the door with a smooth kick.
Back inside, Kamina tore open the envelope and waved it dramatically as he strode toward the living area.
"Hey, guess what? We've been promoted."
Shmuel, still sitting near Bruno, looked up.
"Promoted?"
Kamina dropped into the chair, legs up again, flipping the envelope around.
"Yeah! Official notice from Hana Association South Section 4. I'm Grade 7 now, baby. You're Grade 8."
Shmuel blinked, then a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Kamina proudly held up the Fixers Monthly.
"And let's see who's in the 'Top Ten Up-and-Coming New Generation Fixers,' huh?"
He flipped through with a bit too much eagerness, eyes scanning names and faces.
Then he froze.
Page after page, names like Ashel From the Cinq Association North Section 4, Vega From MindWork Office, Mimi of the Liu Association West Section 5, none of them were his. Not even an honorable mention.
His smirk faltered.
"…Tch. Guess the 'Great Kamina' still lives in a Grade 9 office."
Shmuel chuckled softly.
"We'll go to Hana South Section 4 Tower tomorrow. Get the report updated. Shouldn't take long."
As he spoke, Bruno leaned forward, clearly excited.
"Wait—you guys are actually moving up in ranks now? That's so cool!"
She looked at Shmuel with sparkling eyes. "What kind of work have you been doing?"
Shmuel rubbed the back of his head with his flesh-and-bone hand, modest as always.
"Hard to sum up, honestly."
She leaned in more, clearly eager.
"Come on, just tell me one or two jobs. What's it like being a fixer?"
Shmuel's expression turned slightly distant. He glanced at his mechanical hand, the cold steel reflecting the sunlight.
Then, with a small shrug, he answered:
"From meaningless errands, to exploration, to contract killing... we'll do whatever you wish, so long as you pay us sufficiently."
Bruno blinked, caught off guard by how matter-of-fact it was.
"…Wow. That's a little scary."
Shmuel gave her a small smile.
"It's just work. But we try to choose the right contracts when we can."
Kamina gave a lazy salute from the couch.
"Somebody's gotta punch the bad guys. Might as well be us."
Bruno looked between the two of them and couldn't help but smile.
Shmuel glanced at the corner of the room where the old calendar hung beside a rack of mismatched coats. He stepped over, scanning the marked dates. His expression soured slightly.
"Tch. Tax day tomorrow."
He tore off the current page, revealing the next, a red circle marked with 'Head Levy - Due' staring back at him like a threat.
Kamina, still lounging with the last of the pizza crust hanging from his mouth, blinked and tilted his head.
"Wait, taxes? We pay taxes? To who?"
Shmuel looked back at him with his usual quiet deadpan.
"The Head."
"…The head of what?"
"No. The Head. You know. The one that oversees all Wings, Nests, and the City in general? That Head."
Kamina sat up, now clearly a little lost.
"Oh. That Head. Thought it was like a… landlord or something."
Bruno, perched on the armrest of a nearby chair, chuckled under her breath while watching Shmuel sit down at the cluttered desk and start pulling out paper receipts, ledgers, and a battered old calculator.
Shmuel ran the numbers in silence, his artificial fingers clicking softly against the buttons. The clacking of keys, the scratch of pen on paper—it all had a certain rhythm. Bruno watched, arms crossed, brow lifted.
"You're still doing all this by hand?" she asked.
"There's like, two dozen auto-balance apps out there."
Shmuel gave her a small shrug, eyes still locked on the documents.
"Don't trust them. They round wrong."
Bruno leaned in a little more.
Shmuel let out a slight grin.
Bruno snorted, elbowing him lightly in the shoulder.
He turned slightly to face her, one eyebrow raised.
She smiled.
Then Shmuel leaned back slightly and added,
"You know… I've still got the old chess set. From middle school. And first year."
Bruno perked up.
"Seriously? The one with the magnets underneath?"
"Yup. Still under my bed upstairs."
"Mind if I grab it?"
"Go ahead."
Bruno trotted upstairs, footsteps quick and casual. The upper floor was quiet, lit by soft rays of dusk filtering through narrow windows. She pushed open the door to Shmuel's room.
It was... modest.
A mattress on the floor. A few crates acting as shelves. The bed wasn't well made—just a single pillow, a folded blanket, and a fan humming gently by the foot.
But it was clean. Practical. Entirely him.
She crouched down and pulled a scuffed wooden box from under the bed. Wiping the thin layer of dust from the lid, she smiled at the etched initials scratched into the wood: S & B, 2nd Yr.
Memories flooded in with cafeteria chess duels, rainy afternoons, skipping gym class.
She carried the box back downstairs and set it on the low table with a solid thunk.
Opening it up, she began to pull out the magnetic pieces, setting the board between them.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The familiar sound of the pieces snapping gently into place filled the room.
Shmuel sat across from her, the budget paperwork temporarily forgotten.
"White or black?" he asked.
"You always go white," Bruno replied, already setting her pieces.
"Some things never change," Shmuel said, moving his pawn forward with a clean,
Click.
Bruno countered.
Click.
And just like that, they were playing.
The room was filled with soft tension and Clicks.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The gentle clack of chess pieces with magnets underneath echoed softly in the room, filling the otherwise quiet living space with an oddly nostalgic rhythm. Shmuel and Bruno sat across from each other at the table, locked in a match that carried years of unspoken memories behind each move. Bruno smirked with that familiar half-shrug, tomboyish and confident, while Shmuel's ears were just faintly pink, his concentration faltering.
Kamina, arms stretched and belly full of pizza, lounged on the couch like a victorious lion surveying his quiet kingdom. He watched the two with half-lidded eyes and an amused grin tugging at his lips.
"Lovebirds," he muttered with a lopsided smirk, just loud enough for the teasing word to land.
Shmuel's cheeks instantly flushed red, and he muttered something incoherent while trying to hide behind his bishop. Bruno laughed, light and sharp. Kamina chuckled to himself.
"Yep. Totally not obvious," he added, then stood with a stretch that cracked his shoulders. "I'm headin' back to dreamland. Wake me up if someone messing around"
He turned with a wave and sauntered off toward the spare room, the sound of his footsteps slowly fading down the hall. The laughter behind him quieted, replaced again by click... click... click...
As Kamina flopped onto the creaky cot in the room they'd haphazardly claimed as his bedroom, something in the silence stirred deeper.
His arm fell over his eyes, blocking out the flickering ceiling light, but his mind didn't follow him into sleep just yet.
Yoko.
The name surfaced unbidden. Sharp, warm, frustrating.
He remembered her glare-the way her eyes could slice through him when he was being dumb, reckless, or, well... pervy. But more than that, he remembered her respect. The way her gaze shifted, almost imperceptible, when he stood tall, when he believed, when he led. That look she gave him only when he was at his best. The one that said she trusted him. That maybe... she believed in him, even more than he did.
He swallowed hard.
"She only liked me when I wasn't being a dumbass..." he whispered to the dark ceiling. "Guess I deserved that."
But there was no bitterness in his tone. Just the calm weight of truth.
Still, the memory of her voice came back—fierce and clear. The way she'd shout at him, fight beside him, watch his back. And somewhere in there, beneath the fights and the jabs and the snark... was something tender that had never quite bloomed.
Kamina reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the old, worn scrap of red cloth he always kept with him. A piece of the old cape. The one he wore before the world turned upside down.
"You'd laugh if you saw me now, Yoko," he muttered, a crooked smile crossing his face. "A man in a world that doesn't even know who I was or a man who doesn't know who he was in this world."
He stared at the cloth for a few seconds, then closed his eyes and let the weight of the day pull him down into sleep.