The blade slides in cleanly.
No hesitation. No sound.
His body stiffens for a fraction of a second before the weight leaves it, like a switch being turned off. I hold him upright until I feel it. The moment when resistance disappears. That's when I let go.
I don't look at his face.
Faces make things complicated.
I step back, already moving, already finished. The room smells faintly of metal and cologne. Expensive. Always expensive. Men like him surround themselves with luxury, as if it might convince the world they're untouchable.
They never are.
I wipe the blade once. Twice. Slide it back where it belongs.
By the time his body hits the floor, I'm already someone else.
---
I clean myself in silence.
Hands first. Wrists. Under the nails. I wash until my skin turns pink, until there's nothing left that doesn't belong to me. The mirror reflects a woman with calm eyes and steady breathing. No shaking. No regret.
Good.
I change clothes methodically. Black disappears into a sealed bag. Soft fabric replaces it. A pale cardigan. Jeans. Hair tied loosely instead of tight. The woman in the mirror now looks like someone who might complain about a long shift or a late train.
Perfect.
Before leaving, I pause.
Not because I feel guilty.
Because I'm tired.
---
They call me Kurotsubaki.
Black Camellia.
In this line of work, names don't matter. Reputations do. Mine is simple. I don't miss. I don't improvise. I don't leave traces. When a target is assigned to me, the operation is already over.
That's what they say.
What they don't know is that every time I walk away from a body, I'm not thinking about the mission. I'm thinking about the small apartment a few stations away. About the light that's usually still on. About whether he remembered to eat dinner.
Weak thoughts. Dangerous thoughts.
Mine.
---
The train ride home is uneventful.
I stand among office workers and students, my reflection blending into the glass. No one looks twice at me. No one ever does. That's the point.
By the time I reach my stop, I've folded the mission away neatly. Locked it somewhere deep. It stays there. It has to.
I unlock the door quietly.
"Welcome home."
Eiji's voice comes from the kitchen. Warm. Familiar. Just hearing it loosens something in my chest that I didn't realize I was holding together.
"I'm home," I say, and my voice sounds… normal.
I drop my bag and cross the room in three steps, wrapping my arms around him before he can turn fully. My face presses into his shirt. He smells like soap and a little like coffee.
Safe.
He laughs softly, surprised. "Long day?"
I nod against him. "The cafe was really busy."
It's not even hard to say anymore.
His arms come around me without hesitation, like this is where I belong. Maybe it is. I breathe him in, slow and deep, letting the tension drain out of me piece by piece.
He doesn't know that these arms have ended lives.
He doesn't know that this warmth is the only thing keeping me human.
And I won't tell him.
---
At night, when the lights are off and the city hums outside, I hold onto him like a secret. Sometimes he falls asleep first. Sometimes I do. But my hands always stay curled into his back, grounding me.
After every mission, it's the same.
I don't need alcohol.
I don't need silence.
I need him.
That's the part that scares me.
I wasn't supposed to fall in love. Not like this. Not with someone so gentle, so real. Loving Eiji wasn't part of the plan. It's a flaw. A weakness.
But when I'm here, wrapped around him, listening to his breathing even out, I almost believe I can live both lives forever.
Kurotsubaki by night.
A normal girlfriend by morning.
Two worlds. One heart.
And one lie that grows heavier every day.
I hold him tighter, my fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as if letting go would make everything spill out.
He shifts slightly in his sleep, murmurs something I can't quite catch, then settles again. Trusting. Completely unaware.
This is the most dangerous moment of my day.
---
The organisation doesn't have a name you'd recognize.
It never needed one.
It exists in layers. Handlers who never see the field. Brokers who never touch a weapon. Countries that deny involvement while quietly benefiting from the outcomes. I was recruited young. Too young to argue. Old enough to understand that saying no was never an option.
They didn't break me.
They shaped me.
I was taught how to disappear into crowds, how to wait without impatience, how to end things quickly and leave nothing behind. Emotions were treated like bad habits. Curiosity was punished. Attachment was… unacceptable.
I was good at it. Too good.
Being the best meant freedom. Fewer missions. More control. That's how they kept me compliant. That's how Kurotsubaki was born.
A name whispered when problems needed to vanish quietly.
---
My work is simple in theory.
Observe. Confirm. Execute. Leave.
No questions about why a name ends up on my list. No curiosity about consequences. I don't choose my targets. I only finish them.
I don't hate them.
I don't justify myself.
I just do the job.
That's what made me valuable.
That's what made me empty.
---
Eiji shifts again, one arm tightening around my waist, instinctive even in sleep. My forehead rests against his shoulder, and for a moment I close my eyes.
I met him because of work.
That's the cruelest part.
He was never a target. Just a point of access. A convenient, harmless connection that let me blend in, build a cover, stay invisible. A normal man with a normal life. Exactly the kind of person I was supposed to stay far away from.
At first, everything was calculated.
Smiles measured. Conversations guided. Distance maintained.
Then he started remembering small things. Asking if I'd eaten. Waiting up when I was late. Complaining about his job like I was someone who mattered.
He treated me like a person.
Not a weapon.
Not an asset.
Just… me.
---
I didn't fall for him all at once.
It happened quietly. Slowly. In moments the organisation never trained me to defend against.
Shared dinners. Late-night talks. His hand finding mine without thinking. The way he looks at me like I'm something precious instead of dangerous.
Somewhere along the way, the cover stopped being a cover.
And I stopped wanting to leave.
---
That's when I realized the truth.
I can kill without hesitation.
I can lie without flinching.
But loving him?
That's the one thing I don't know how to survive.
If the organisation finds out, he becomes a weakness.
If he finds out, I lose him.
So I stay here. Holding him. Breathing him in. Pretending this warmth isn't borrowed time.
Tomorrow, I'll wake up as his girlfriend.
One day, I'll be Kurotsubaki again.
And tonight, in this narrow space between who I am and who I want to be, I let myself believe that both lives can exist.
Even if I know better.
Eiji is asleep against me.
That's the first thing I register.
The second is the feeling.
It crawls up my spine, cold and precise, the way it always does when I'm no longer the most dangerous thing in the room.
Someone is here.
The door is locked. I remember the click. I remember checking it twice. The windows are closed. Nothing is out of place.
Which means whoever entered didn't need permission.
Another assassin, then.
Not surveillance. Not intimidation.
A finisher.
---
I don't move.
Eiji's breathing is slow, even. His face is relaxed, trusting. The trust hurts more than the fear. My arm is around him, my hand resting between his shoulders like I can shield him just by being here.
I can't.
If this turns loud, if it turns messy, if even one wrong sound escapes this room, his life shatters. Not just tonight. Forever.
So I stay still and listen.
The presence isn't clumsy. It's patient. Waiting. Measuring.
They know who I am.
And they think they can end me in my own bed.
---
I slide away from Eiji inch by inch, careful enough that even the mattress doesn't protest. He stirs, reaching for me, fingers brushing my sleeve.
I freeze.
Please don't wake up.
Please don't see this version of me.
After a moment, his hand falls back to the sheets.
I step into the darkness.
---
The apartment feels smaller now.
Every sound is an enemy. Every breath is controlled. The air is thick with intent. Whoever this is, they're good. Very good.
But they made one mistake.
They came into my home.
What follows is fast. Silent. Final.
There is no room for hesitation, no room for mercy. I don't think about countries or organisations or consequences. I think about the man sleeping ten steps away.
That's enough.
The presence shifts.
That's all the warning I get.
My body moves before thought catches up.
The hallway is narrow. That works in my favor. One step forward, weight low, breath held. The world compresses into distance and timing, into the space between one heartbeat and the next.
He lunges.
Too loud. Too eager.
I turn with the motion, slipping past the line of attack like water around stone. My hand comes up, blade already where it needs to be. There's no flourish. No wasted movement.
A single, precise arc.
The resistance lasts less than a second.
I stay close, guiding him down, absorbing the weight so it never hits the floor. His breath leaves him in a sharp, broken exhale that never becomes a sound.
I hold him there until it's done.
Until the tension drains from his body and the danger leaves the room with it.
Then I let go.
---
Silence rushes back in, thick and fragile.
I stand still, listening.
The bedroom remains quiet. No movement. No startled breath. No footsteps.
Good.
My hands don't shake. They never do during the act. That comes later. I wipe the blade clean on fabric that will never be seen again and tuck it away like it was never there.
Another shadow erased.
Another threat that never reached him.
---
When I return to the bedroom, Eiji is still asleep.
I slide in beside him, my body finally remembering what fear feels like now that it's safe to do so. I press my face into his chest, fingers curling into his shirt, grounding myself in the steady rhythm of his heart.
Only now do my hands tremble.
Not from the kill.
From how close it came to touching him.
---
This version:
Shows her dominance
Feels lethal without instructions
Keeps the assassin aura intact
Hits emotionally harder than technical detail