Kyran is woken up by a jab on the back of his head.
He resists the urge to throw arms as he reluctantly gets up from the, admittedly uncomfortable, chair he'd been sleeping in for the past three hours.
He glares at his coworker, who is looking the most smug, because Ivica didn't have to write a fourteen-page report overnight while healing from a bullet wound. It's unfair, but life is unfair, so Kyran wakes up and makes his desk look fairly acceptable.
Dragging himself over to the printer and gathering the papers, Kyran staples them together. Newry's the city where the headquarters are located, so these report papers might be the official ones, ones that will go to the higher-ups for more research.
Looking them over for any errors and throwing them on Ivica's desk, Kyran makes a half-hearted wave to the door so he can go back to his apartment and make himself look somewhat presented as a police-detective officer rather than a hermit that had been living in the woods ever since secondary school. And, because he needs to get his point across, shouts across the office.
"Give those out to the boss, will you? And don't rip them, you can get fired after the case is officially closed."
He stays just long enough to hear Ivica scoff, but not long enough to hear what he says after.
-
The meeting is long, as all meetings should be, but being petty is part of Kyran's daily routine, so he still complains about it in his head.
"...And after the raid had commenced, we realised we had failed, but it was not entirely to be so. We had also gained a substantial amount of information that would lead to future extermination of these groups.
"I have gathered a report containing multiple details and a synopsis of what we have gained from this raid defeat. After all, success is only acquired through a flurry of failures. Thank you."
Kyran watches the board members whisper among themselves, and he can't help but compare them to schoolchildren, no matter how illegal it feels to do so. They discuss with each other in hushed tones and Kyran's eye twitches as his arm aches and he still has not gotten that much-wanted bonus.
He's being overworked, is his initial thought. The seed planted years ago but is starting to surface now. And unless he has some huge case that he happens to solve, he'll only be remembered as the one responsible for the solving of the mystery behind the burning building. And people are already starting to forget him. He reached his peak and passed far before he could even comprehend it. He'll be forgotten, as it was promised he would be.
But then again, he thinks, it isn't that he wants to be remembered, is it? He only wants to be in the field, to be anonymous. He needs to be forgotten if he needs to thrive. A positive slope with a negative angle and Kyran taps his knuckles on his desk as the board members disperse, one by one, until the office is empty and there are half-finished coffee cups on the desk, because of course there are.
He drives back to his official police station in Firay. A fairly lesser than average city that not many know about, but it's close to Newry, where the headquarters are located, so no one dies in the process.
As inconvenient as it may be, having the headquarters in a normal city like Newry has worked wonders for their private eye, investigation, and undercover units. You can't defeat an organization if you don't know where their core is.
Kyran finds himself in the station again because he always finds himself coming back here, and finds most of the team there before him. He's supposed to be in the boss' room, but the boss isn't here and isn't supposed to be here until five hours later.
And so, because he is lazy, Kyran sneaks out of the room and sits at his desk and stares at his blank computer screen while he attempts to formulate a morally acceptable excuse.
A file is suddenly dropped in front of him.
"What's this?" He asks, glancing at the file with about as much interest as dealing with a thousand firecrackers.
"It's called a folder." Ivica's voice says. "Ever heard of one? I'd expect not."
"I hate you," Kyran says lightly as he opens the file. A new case, it looks like. Kyran's eyebrows furrow with every word he reads. It isn't a background check or a missing person search, but rather. Another criminal group report. Just his luck. He can go and get shot again!
"I know, isn't this case just wonderful?" Ivica says, almost as if he could hear his thoughts, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "You've gotten multiple reports sent to your desk while you were in the hospital healing from your bullet wound, so I gathered them together and realised they were roughly from the same area. These documents are a culmination of 'em. I had kept them aside for you until something happened, but something has happened. In the form of an official case. Yeah, you're welcome."
Kyran usually might give out platitudes, say words dripping with gratitude, but all he can do is look at the papers in contempt and sigh. "Do I have to work on this? Can't we give it to someone else?"
"You have the best reputation in dealing with criminal groups like this. Remember when—"
Kyran twitches, as he always does whenever that investigation is implied. "Yeah, I remember. Never forgot. You don't need to remind me."
Ivica shrugs. "Sure, whatever you say."
"In any case," Kyran says, "We do need to look at our leads on the case." The topic change is jarring and unprovoked, but it's on-topic, and it's welcome, so none of them say anything.
Ivica taps the file. "We don't need to look at them, you need to look at them. Figure that out yourself, will you? It's your case, not mine. I have so many other things to take care of. Go to the boss later to make it official."
And before his coworker walks away, Kyran leans back in his chair. "Thank you."
Ivica huffs, but doesn't respond.
-
Kyran holds the kid close, shielding the unconscious boy's head from the falling gravel and debris swinging about everywhere.
Then he gets up, quickly so as to not send the block above them toppling over, and skitters one floor down. Hearing footsteps, Kyran presses himself to the wall as the brutes barge in and shoot two cartridge's worth of bullets before going to the next floor.
It's fast, it's quick, because all murders are, but Kyran desperately pulls through with his single cartridge that he's been saving like a lifeline, because it is.
He hates murder, hates it with all his being, but the field he works in requires it. If he needs to save ten lives then one has to die in the process. If he needs to prioritize who to save and who to not — he'll do it. And if he has the chance to save everyone, he'll take it.
But. He turns the man over, and presses his hand to his chest. He's still breathing, albeit slow, but he's alive. If Kyran leaves him here, There's no chance he'll survive.
He feels a bit too hypocritical, now. Saving the man he had just shot. Dragging him along as he holds burdens too heavy to bear. He does it anyway, though, because his morals are as dead as he is about to be. He doesn't get out of here, he's finished. And if he's dead, then five other lives are dead too, and he can't let that happen.
So Kyran hesitantly puts a hand to the kid's forehead as the boy slowly wakes up. Then he's pulling him by the hand, rushing and rushing as savages he didn't even know were there, suddenly appearing like demons from the darkest pits of hell.
They have multiple guns and multiple cartridges and Kyran desperately wonders what he had done to deserve such determination towards his demise. He drops the man that definitely would have been killed and bites through pain and runs and runs and runs.
And suddenly, he's turning this way and that, hiding behind steel poles and wooden crates abandoned and left to rot on the floor, and the rogues are still shooting. It's disgusting, Kyran thinks, because if it was him it would be fine, he would understand. But children? They're just kids.
Then he's breathing and helping the kid breathe, and he's so close to exit, he should've done better, been better, and a bullet gets a bit too close and—
-
"The boss just got here. Go, you owl. Talk to him. He called you."
Kyran rubs his knuckles together and notices they're a bit paler than usual. Shrugs it off, because he really doesn't care. A visit to the boss isn't quite so bad. He just asks for progress reports and the current case he's working on. On rare occasions, he asks for advice, but Kyran has never figured out as to why. His advice is half-hearted at best and terribly overused at worst.
He knocks on the door once, and it flies open. Kyran puts his hands in the pockets of his trench coat and walks to the front of the boss' desk.
Nikon Blaine. He's been working in the field for more than thirty-five years. He's talented, used to be a detective himself before going into the direct police field and eventually becoming a manager and then a boss. Kyran had been wary of him, at first. But then case after case, as it always comes with working in dangerous fields, he began to earn Kyran's trust.
But trust is always dangerous and fiendish and cruel, so Kyran still keeps him at arm's length, never too close. Never too comfortable.
"You called, boss?" He says.
Blaine looks up from his paperwork. "Ah yes, Mr. Nakaharo. Have a seat here."
Kyran sits down, but still doesn't remove his hands from his pockets. "You want a progress report, correct?"
Blaine smiles. "I see you've gotten comfortable with your visits here," — he hasn't, he's just gotten used to what the boss expects of him — "I'm glad to hear it. Yes, I do want a progress report, if you will. You've been the most informational and truthful of any of my employees.
The latter is a bold-faced lie, because the most truthful officer here is Kiara, obviously. She looks like she's never lied in her life, and she doesn't. Only rarely. She's the best at interrogations, and top of the line. Who knew the best of interrogators was someone who nearly always said the truth?
"I'm honoured to hear you say such high praise about me," he says, half-sincerely, and half-sarcastically. They both know he doesn't mean it, but it also penetrates deep into his soul to hear the false compliment; curse his hypocritic emotions.
Kyran pulls a file from his coat, to which the boss looks mildly surprised about. He shouldn't, really, because Blaine's the one who gave him the idea.
He places the folder on the desk, and opens it, flipping through the pages.
"A progress report, sir, information gathered since the last one. All solved cases, unsolved cases, and cold cases recorded. Current cases of every employee documented, including mine. At the end is a paper of the statistics and rate of success and failure."
The boss looks absolutely dumb-struck, but talented as he is, looks at Kyran's monotone and passive half-smile, and hesitantly takes the folder like taking poison from a viper.
"Oh!" He exclaims. "It looks like you've gotten more comfortable in this role than I thought! I had never expected you to do all this — when on earth did you get time to do it?"
"Time certainly wasn't an issue, I just worked on it for a certain amount of hours every day. It wasn't too difficult. I had initially thought I could make a detailed report like this one for every progress report, but…"
"Well, that would not be an issue! It seems your timeframe was perfect, Mr. Nakaharo. I have a meeting tomorrow with the managers of different police districts, and this information will be extremely helpful for the employee analysis. Thank you, Mr. Nakaharo."
Kyran shuffles in his seat. Those five minutes of nonchalance took all the social energy from him, so now he's just sitting there awkwardly. He's never been good with compliments.
"It's a pleasure, boss. I'm glad to be of assistance."
"You've been very helpful, Mr. Nakaharo! Thank you, you're dismissed."
Kyran walks out of the room, throwing a parting glance at Blaine flicking through the files. Inwardly smiles to himself. Goes back to his desk.
He's moving, because he always has to keep moving. And he's still moving, when he sits at his computer and does extensive research in the form of multiple spontaneous Internet searches. It means he's doing something, and that something is enough.
-
"You're sure you can trust him, Agent?"
Blaine puts a hand to his earpiece. Takes another puff of smoke. Fills out the form for another shipment.
"For now," he says.