Chương 2: Prisoner

"Isn't he awake yet?"

"No. Do you want me to wake him up now or should we just continue to wait for him to wake up?"

Ren could hear indistinct voices talking around him. One appeared to be a female and the other one seemed to be a man.

"Why should we wait for him to wake up? Just kick him in the face already", said another male person.

Ren was not certain what or who it was that they were talking about, but he noticed that as seconds passed by, their voices were becoming more audible and clearer to him.

Slowly, he forced his heavy eyes open. The blinding lights of dozens of candles hanging against the walls and ceiling greeted his droopy eyes. He blinked for a few times then realized that he was in a room he had never seen before.

"Where am I?" he muttered in confusion. His mind was still in a daze from being knocked out. There was an uncomfortable feeling at the back of his neck. He tried to stretch his neck in an attempt to get rid of the discomfort, but he ended up flinching at the sudden sharp pain that occurred from the movement.

"Awww", he moaned.

"Oh look. No need to kick him in the face anymore. The fish has woken up", said a man in a black sweatshirt. Ren could see clearly his features, thanks to the hefty number of light sources in the room.

The guy had a light brown hair that was moderately disheveled and wavy. He seemed to be tall - at least to Ren's view - probably around five eleven to six feet. He was not the muscular type, but he was not that skinny. He also had an ivory skin. With his looks, he could easily portray one of those 'bad boys' in teenage movies. That one guy whom everyone had a crush on in their campus and who went breaking hearts.

He was grinning mischievously at Ren, his hands hidden in the front pockets of his sweatshirt. However, Ren didn't care about the way the guy was looking at him. He was rather more concerned with the nickname that the man gave him.

'Did this prick just call me a fish?' Ren thought to himself.

"So, you're finally awake," another man came forward.

Unlike the guy who called him a fish, this man looked more serious. He was wearing a white button up shirt with its sleeves rolled up on his arms. His hair that was carefully brushed up had the same color as the first guy's. Just add a pair of spectacles and he would look like a full-fledge office man. There was a cold air around him - something that made Ren feel that he was not someone to mess with.

As he came nearer and walked past the first guy, Ren realized that the two men actually had a striking resemblance to each other - the light brown hair, the brown eyes, the places where their faces were naturally contoured, and their skin color looked very similar. Ren could only assume that they were perhaps brothers.

The serious looking man stood in front of Ren, towering him. He was the same height as his presumed brother. With a piercing look, he met Ren eye to eye, but Ren was not the least intimidated. He had already met countless men who were just like the guy.

He tried to sneakily reach for his weapon in his waistband, but quickly realized that he couldn't move his arms. They were tied tightly against the chair he was sitting on.

He snorted a weak laughter upon the realization. To him, such ploys were petty.

"I do not think this is the right time to be laughing, sir. Not when you are about to die", the man warned Ren, his gaze as heavy as ever.

"Is that supposed to frighten me? Because honestly, I am not a bit terrified" Ren responded cheekily, his tone giving off an aura of arrogance. He could see the veins in the man's neck turn visible after hearing his response.

"Well, aren't you a cocky one?"

The sound of a loud laughter echoed all over the room, causing the man to glare at Ren. There was one word to describe how he felt about Ren at the moment: HOSTILITY.

He was oblivious at the fact that Ren was only trying to taunt him, and he was surely falling straight into his trap. "Trust me, I can be many things but cocky is definitely not one of them. I'm just really a blunt person. That's all."

"Are you two done feeding your egos?" someone suddenly said from the far end of the room, interrupting the two men's verbal fight. It came from a female voice and Ren thought for a moment that her voice seemed familiar.

"Seriously, men and your toxic masculinity, I just don't get it", the woman continued as she walked up closer to them.

"Hello", she said finally as she stood beside the man standing in front of Ren.

Seeing her face to face brought a series of flashback in Ren's mind: him sneaking into Miyamura's gigantic mansion, being interrupted in the midst of his interrogation, facing off an unfamiliar woman, and being knocked unconscious.

He clearly remembered the face of that woman he fought with - those red eyes that didn't look like human eyes and that long silver hair that looked like it came straight out of a fairytale - how could someone forget those. He was certain, the woman standing in front of him right now was the same woman he clashed with that night.

Aside from her distinct physical features, there was something else that really intrigued Ren about her, and it was her physical abilities. When she removed her mask that night, Ren observed that something changed in her - something very unusual that it allowed her to take him down so easily.

"Ehem", the woman cleared her throat. "Mind where you're looking at mister." Ren didn't realize that he was unintentionally ogling at her as his mind wandered.

"I wasn't...nevermind", he gave up on the idea of explaining and clearing his name as he thought it would be pointless to defend himself at this point.

"You might not know this yet, but you've been unconscious for almost twenty-four hours. While you were sleeping pretty, we were here waiting for what seemed like an eternity for you to come around. So, I suggest you better cooperate with us because quite frankly, we're at our limits now", the woman gave him a smile, but he knew better than to take it as a kind smile. In fact, it was the opposite.

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

"Who are you? More specifically, WHAT are you?" the woman asked insistently.

Ren lifted one of his eyebrows at the latter question. "What am I? What does that even supposed to mean? Am I supposed to say, a bird? A fish?" He turned to look at the guy who called him a fish earlier.

The guy gave him an amused look.

"Cut the crap. I'm not joking with you right now", the woman replied with an annoyed tone and a vexed expression on her face.

Ren caught her biting her lower lip for a second but quickly pulled back. Ren could tell that she was trying to control herself. He always had a knack for reading people easily. Since he was young, he had always been a keen observant of his surroundings especially people, which was a surprise considering how contradicting it was to his personality.

Sharp-eyed people are usually the silent type, but Ren was the last thing you could think of when you hear the word 'silent'. A walking microphone, a nut job, a humorist - were only some of the words people used to describe him.

"So am I. What I am trying to say is that your question was pretty stupid. What am I? Obviously, as you can see, I look like a human. Therefore, I am a human. I don't have gills and a fin. I don't have feathers and wings like a bird - though I'd love to have some even for just a day so I'd know what it feels like to fly."

There was a silence in the room for a moment. The woman and the man standing in front of Ren looked at each other at the same, as if communicating something that only the two of them could understand.

"Okay. We get it. The explanation was unnecessary though. You just made a joke out of yourself. It was honestly quite embarrassing to watch", Akira responded in an irritated tone, her face scrunching up.

"Which is exactly the point", Ren grinned like the nutcase that he was.

'For Pete's sake. This guy is outright crazy' Akira thought in her head.

She wanted to deal with him and finish their business as soon as possible. If humans had the potential to be allergens, then the guy was definitely the first thing that she would be allergic to.

She shook her head as she pushed back her thoughts of distaste about Ren and resumed with her interrogation, "Enough with the chitchat. Why were you at Miyamura's last night?"

"I was there to kill him", Ren replied straight away without any hesitation that it honestly caught the three people with him by surprise.

"Why? Why did you have to kill him?" the woman continued to question him, leaning a little closer to him. She appeared to get more and more impatient to get answers out of Ren.

"Well because I am a hired killer, and that was the request of my client."

The woman's eyes widened at the mention of the word 'client'. "Who was it? Who was your client?"

Ren shook his head then said, "I'm sorry but I'm afraid I cannot tell you that."

The woman finally lost her composure. She had been trying her best to remain calm throughout the entire probing, but she couldn't hold it in any longer. She was that bad at controlling her impatience and temper.

She grabbed Ren by the collar of his clothe in a very aggressive and forceful manner, the fury on her face was very evident.

"Are you freaking kidding me? Tell me who was the man behind it or else you wouldn't like what I'd do to you!" she demanded.

Ren flashed her a lopsided grin as if to mock her. It was a huge mistake of her if she assumed that such a display of rage and aggression would scare Ren. There was only one thing that really terrified him, and it certainly had nothing to do with threats against his own life.

"You're getting mad at me for not answering just one of your many questions. But don't you think that's unfair? You're the only who gets to ask me questions. How about I ask you something too?" Ren paused very shortly as he moved his face closer to the woman - their faces were just a few inches apart.

"What's the problem if I was sent there to kill Miyamura? Weren't you there for the same purpose?"