Positive and Negative Magnetic Poles

Gin: "…"

Gin deeply understood that 'you don't need to run faster than a viper, you just need to run faster than everyone else', and also deeply understood that 'you don't need to curry favor with the Devil just right, which is difficult and risks arousing the Devil's interest, you just need to pull up the hate value of others'.

He walked over to the sofa and sat down, saying lightly: "A clever tongue and a dying struggle."

Three minutes ago, Ichijō Mirai was clearly interested in Gin, interested because of 'Akai Tsutomu', now, three minutes later, Ichijō Mirai is clearly interested in Belmode.

No matter how fast Belmode ran, no matter how much she tried to backstab others, the viper would just carelessly swim past them, at most biting them in passing with interest, and the main focus would be on her.

Now, the cleverness of the tongue was just a death wish.

"Wow," Ichijō Mirai couldn't help but applaud, "you seem to understand."

Then he asks Belmode, "Do you understand?"

Belmode:"..."

"That's a strange way to ask it," Ichijō Mirai mused again, "as if I'm some kind of a tiger in the way, bullying people."

Wasn't it?

Neither Gin nor Belmode said a word, but the quiet air seemed to speak in unison, questioning the soul.

Ichijō Mirai pretended not to read the air, still whispering thoughtfully, "It's obvious we're all bad."

'All'.

Gin had to speak, succinctly, "I can be 'not a thing'."

But not 'not a good thing' like Ichijō Mirai.

To ordinary people, Gin is a cold-blooded, brutal darkness that even the members of the organization fear, and some of those who are too afraid and too confused, in a variety of moods, tend to abuse him behind his back, using words that range from the most blunt to the most vulgar organ words and genealogical implications.

Compared to that, the adjective 'not a thing' is a milder one.

Gin's behavior was worthy of the insult, and he was more than happy to accept it.

He didn't want to accept Ichijō Mirai's use of the word 'all' in reference to himself.

Using the same adjective as Ichijō Mirai is an attempt to discredit Gin, and he's not so discredited as to be a criminal.

The same goes for Belmode.

The word 'all' should have been 'all', but they're not all guilty.

"Yeah, well, 'not a thing' is worse than 'not a good thing', isn't it? I see, you think you've been walking in the darkness longer than I have, and are more cruel and cold than I am, and don't care to use the same word as my soft-hearted and kind-hearted savior," Ichijō Mirai said without changing his expression, "but it's you who are kind, isn't it?"

These words, they were a rare moment of truth.

Belmode had never thought of 'kind' in relation to himself, having always considered himself the opposite of 'kind', and the closest he'd ever come to it was the day when those jewel-like aqua-purple eyes gazed down at him from New York City, with a hint of azure color.

And the owner of those eyes stretched out her slender but strong palms, obviously about to lose her grip, exerting herself to the point where her neck was a deep red, but still stubbornly tensing her arms, squeezing her body's instincts to exert herself harder and harder, exerting herself to the point where her rounded fingernails turned white, wanting to save a murderer from the bottom of her heart.

But now, Belmode couldn't agree more: yes, I'm kind.

Compared to Ichijō Mirai, she's a saint.

At least she didn't go around the streets of New York with a sniper's rifle and say, 'Let's play a game of "Let's go to hell"'.

Recalling those watery purple eyes that looked like jewels, moist and shiny from the exertion, Belmode sat up a bit straighter, remembering Ichijō Mirai's eyes.

Those eyes that weren't blood red, but that made everyone who knew what he did think 'eyes that look like they were made from a pool of blood', were the opposite of Mouri Ran's eyes, but they were the same eyes that Belmode cared about.

She cared for Mouri Ran because she was moved by a specific behavior at a specific time, in a specific state, at a specific time, and the soul that had been drenched in the sea of hell's blood was moved by the goodness of the earth, and it resonated and trembled.

The meaning of Ichijō Mirai is due to...

"How are you doing?"

Belmode collects his thoughts and asks tentatively, "Are you unwell? Are you emotionally stable? What do you want to ask me?"

Was there a physical problem and he wanted to find out, or did he recognize in some detail that she had taken similar medication?

She heard a faint, low chuckle, closer to the phone, as if Ichijō Mirai was laughing at her lack of rebuttal and avoidance of answers.

There was something about the laughter that didn't make sense.

If they were new acquaintances, or someone else, Belmode would have been careless, wagging her fox tail around the other person's wrist, lightly hooking them, if at all, to catch a fish.

No matter whether the other person is a man or a woman.

But now I'm facing Ichijō Mirai.

Just like when Belmode thought it was Gin, he would casually flirt with him, but when he realized it was Ichijō Mirai, he immediately restrained his flirtatious attitude. Belmode had no intention of flirting with him, and he had a very solemn expression, just like an elder who doesn't know about male and female love, "What's the matter?"

She knows how to deal with humans who are easy to love, humans who are hard to flirt with, and non-humans who have no idea what they're doing.

Ichijō Mirai was the last.

It wasn't a question of what kind of woman she was attracted to, or how hard it was to flirt with her, but rather the question of whether or not this guy was human.

And the answer to that question is vaguely in the direction of denial.

Anyway, when Ichijō Mirai looked at other humans, he didn't look at them as if they were his own kind, but rather as if they were ants.

...Was it the effects of the drug that had been coursing through his bloodstream for years, so closely linked to him, that he had lost a part of his humanity at a very young age?

"I wonder," Ichijō Mirai said slowly, "if you really are isolating and bullying me."

"You weren't like this with Gin, you weren't like this with me in the beginning, you used to hook up with me and talk softly, and now you're so cold."

"What, am I upsetting you?"

He sighed, and before Belmode could make a bad move, he continued without moving, not giving her a chance to make an A. "Well, I've been in bad shape lately, and my technique is a bit rusty, so next time, I'll try to work on it."

Next time?

Gin immediately stared at Ichijō Mirai without saying anything, and Belmode almost blurted it out, but swallowed hard.

It's not that they don't want to stop them, but if they do, they'll definitely do it.

Ichijō Mirai did not bother to read the air, inquired: "What were you thinking?"

"You're quietly smearing and slandering me."

"No," Belmode denied, "I was thinking that it wouldn't do you any good."

"You're not that boring, are you? Not interested in love affairs." 

So, she's not an 'isolated bully'.

She didn't retort, "At first she'd hook up with me, talk softly, try to hit on me," or ask, "Did you realize we'd met? .

Ichijō Mirai doesn't point out that she doesn't refute it, but only agrees with Belmode's judgment of herself, "Yes," and retorts, "Yes," and "Yes."

And then, "No."

Yes, but no.

'Yes', which is very Ichijō Mirai, and 'No', which is very not Ichijō Mirai.

Belmode didn't even try to hide it, and without any need for pretense, she was surprised, "You have... a liked person?!"

In that short sentence, she emphasized three parts of the pronunciation, the first part was 'have', the second part was 'like', and the third part was 'person'.

When she bit down hard, there was also a slight creepiness, like a cat turning around under a human's feet, suddenly thinking that it would not be stepped on by its own tail, so it deliberately paid attention to the human's feet, only to realize that the human did not have any feet at all.

Ichijō Mirai: "Guess."

He wasn't too happy about being teased himself, but he was happy about teasing someone else, and purposely wiggled the hook for just a moment, satisfied: shocked, curious, pricked up his ears and scratching his head to find out more, right?

And lifting the hook coldly, just as 'Ichijō Mirai' wasn't going to be responsible for him at all, he wasn't going to be responsible for Gin and Belmode at all, and went straight to the heart of the matter: "I've heard from Gin that you've been active in Tokyo a lot, and that you've killed a lot of FBI people?"

"Tell me more, I'm interested."

Read 'I'm interested in this', write 'I heard you kill FBI too?'.

Ichijō Mirai's interest is something horrible.

Belmode had only dared to try to arouse Ichijō Mirai's interest the first time she met him, but now she tried to avoid his interest as if it were a flood, a beast, a natural disaster, or something less resistant to human resistance.

But right now, she's a bit oblivious to the fact that she's experiencing the special attention of an earthquake, tornado, avalanche, etc., and is still incredibly shocked, "You have a favorite?!"

...That's impossible!

How could Ichijō Mirai like someone!

Even if he fell in love with a dog, and liked to carelessly tease it, rub its fur, bathe and trim it regularly, care for its health and regular vaccinations, tolerate it jumping up and down on the bed at night, and treat it as a family member and a companion, it's still much more reasonable than if he fell in love with a person, and would hold hands with her!

Does that make sense? No!

How can a man like an ant? How can one like an ant when it's impossible to have a slight crush and control one's desire to try and test the ant's tolerance without pressing one's fingertips against it?

It's creepy.

It's scary as if a storm could fall in love with a human, something so unbelievable that everyone who hears about it will be stupefied and won't believe it.

Belmode didn't want to believe it.

Gin was calm, he looked up at Ichijō Mirai, and after an initial frown, as if he had heard some outrageous nonsense, his expression returned to one of unperturbed indifference.

He reminded Belmode in a light tone, "He's asking you about the FBI."

This calmness was due to the fact that Ichijō Mirai had not been around many women at all.

If he'd suddenly said he was in love with a cat or a dog, Gin would have been able to find some suspicious targets, wondering if Ichijō Mirai was just babbling about how pleased he was with Inuo's deferential attitude toward him.

But it's unlikely that he'd say he's in love with a human.

Recently, few female humans have come into contact with Ichijō Mirai and survived.

...Much less a male human.

The only male FBI agent who survived, after being hung on a hook twice, was so rabid that he was making incoherent calls for help, with the aesthetic of a senior patient in a mental institution.

Obviously, he's too played out to be 'Ichijō Mirai's type', and if Ichijō Mirai really liked that type, he could happily create hundreds of dream girls in just one day's work, and delight in their varied and repetitively stagnant aesthetics.

Then Ichijō Mirai must have been talking nonsense and making fun of people carelessly.

Gin had gotten pretty good at being intentionally amusing, and it only took two or three seconds for him to calm down and frown at Belmode's reaction: what's the point?

With a reaction like that, the guy should find it interesting and probably create something out of nothing.

He picked up the small teacup on the coffee table, unscrewed a bottle of pure water from underneath it, washed the cup briefly before pouring two-thirds of the water into it, and placed the palm-sized teacup in front of Ichijō Mirai.

The bottom of the teacup clinked against the glass of the coffee table with a soft, reminiscent sound.

Belmode barely managed to contain his shock, and hurriedly answered Ichijō Mirai's question, "Well, some of the FBI in New York are mostly after me."

"For the most part, they're not aware of the organization's existence, they're after the various identities of the missions I've been on, tracking me down with the attitude of tracking down a common serial killer, the kind of FBI you don't need to be too concerned about,"

"A small portion, are the FBI that have sensed the existence of the organization, I have to clear them out in time." She spoke quickly, finished her answer, but then slowed down intentionally, "...what are the characteristics of the humans you like, that are purebred, uh, sorry..."

I'm sorry, it's a bit strange to use the term 'purebred' to describe a human, ignoring the fact that there are some studies that should never be publicized that only purebred humans seem to be able to do.

So...

"Why do you like her?"

"Male, female or intersex?"

"Do you have strange urges towards that human?"

Belmode's tone became serious, and after a moment's delay, even though he didn't spend much time in Tokyo and didn't know much about Ichijō Mirai's day-to-day interactions, he still reacted to what Gin had reacted to, and thought that Ichijō Mirai probably didn't have a lot of contact with the object of his affection.

Ichijō Mirai didn't have much contact with the person he liked, but he still liked him.

"Did you fall in love at first sight?"

"When you met... I'll assume it was a woman," She was more tense than before, but her voice was softer, and her tone was one of pure curiosity, "when you met that lady, did you feel something like a strange heartbeat, an abnormal acceleration of the blood, a body that wasn't quite right, like it was about to go out of control, something like that?"

It's similar to the feeling you get when you take drugs.

From the time he was a fetus, that dreamy drug was involved in the construction of Ichijō Mirai's flesh, bones, blood and veins, like golden threads woven into a colorful rope.

He's not like ordinary people, he's a somewhat inhuman being.

So, is his 'heartbeat' the same as a normal human's heartbeat, or is it a dream drug in action?

It's like a positive pole meeting a negative pole.

Are there other drug survivors?