Belle âme || Bungou Stray Dogs × Child!Reader

VIII.

Roses - (y/n)'s perception of the woman who stood right before her.

She was a bouquet of Pitimini roses finding solace in the darkness of the world. Tenebrosity gave not an absence of hue; rather, it complimented the cerise of her petals. Kouyou was a precise definition of macabre grace in a place she had been purposefully put in: Port Mafia.

Her brow raised in thought at the view of the foreign frame of a little girl inside a building that wasn't quite befitting her ingenuousness, though her countenance eased upon gaining contact with the child's clueless eyes.

"Kouyou! Fancy seeing you." Exclaimed the boss. He gave the executive a close-eyed smile as her slitted eyes narrowed further towards the child and her boss' held hands. "What brings you here?"

"Chūya had told me about a child taken to the headquarters by Akutagawa." She replied. "I had to see her in order to kill my... bothersome curiosity."

That had truthfully occurred; she simply left out the fact that Chūya had entreated her to tend to the child as soon as possible before Mori would do anything, rather, unpardonable.

"I see." Mori said. "We'll get going, then."

"You aren't taking her to your office." She spat, lacing venom in her voice with deliberation. She seemed to have expressed her disgust without reluctance to the thought of being inferior in ranking. Although certainly, she was nowhere inferior in terms of individuality.

"We were just about to go there!" He explained eagerly, turning to the child with expectancy; Kouyou possessed a power that he, even as mafia boss, couldn't quite own. Perhaps it was due to her essence as a woman of absolute independence and control. "Afterwards, the river, yes?"

"Mhm." The little girl nodded with a smile.

White lilies, Kouyou thought, the modesty of a virgin; the purity of a child.

But at another moment of glancing at their holding hands did the urge to pull (y/n) from him and towards her emerge as the sun would do in the break of dawn to claim the darkness of a leaden night. She had no qualms disclosing utter abhorrence and detestation, bringing the child to question in concern as to why she held such belligerent countenance - it did no good to her beauty.

"You aren't certain if she's as definite as she seems." Kouyou started, glancing down at the ingenue with mild derision, though forwarding her words to the man before her. "It's not the safest decision to bring her along with you."

"That I am aware of very well, but neither would this place be the safest for her to start a fiasco." Mori replied. "It wouldn't be wise if she were to do so, either."

"I won't risk elusive danger. Clearly, this child is deceptive."

"I am not hiding things," intervened the little girl, "even if I were, I wouldn't keep it a secret if it's harming anyone."

Her voice was laced with neither an offended tone nor a precariousness that would prove the suspicion of Kouyou. Everything about her was as humble as her physical comeliness had promised, and strangely, the female executive felt a budding possessiveness over the child she scarcely even knew.

"She may be dangerous. Allow me to interrogate this girl." She stated.

(Y/n) felt immensely insulted by the claim. "But I am not!"

Mori replied to Kouyou's candid request, dismissing the child's exclamation as if she was only a specter that shouldn’t be bothered. "Oh? How will you do so?"

"In a way that for certain will benefit me information afterwards."

"Shall each of her nails be taken away in the process?" He asked, tilting his head with the most evasive indication of mockery. "Because if so then that's exceptionally brutish of you, Kouyou. Even I would harbor a guilt should I be obliged to interrogate a little girl mafia-style, nevertheless I can be able to extract information from her without performing such atrocity."

"Though that would be quite informal of you, wouldn't it, Boss?" She countered arrantly. "Interrogation to captives are executed solely by subordinates under my discretion, and that excludes not a girl of an age that I need to be cautious of my cruelty. An interrogation led by me bears no unceremonious impression; after all, I don't lead the professional torture unit for no apparent reason."

A foreboding notion of competitive superiority against one another hung on the air between the two that they nearly forgot the presence of the child had she not clutched Mori’s hand tightly for him to take notice to her evident anxiety - with which Elise had responded by clinging onto the convenient arm of the smaller girl.

At length, he sighed. "I suppose you're right." Then, he lightly ushered (y/n) to the female executive, as she allowed the child to be within her grasp.

She looked up to Mori with eyes that disclosed disconcertment. "Aren't we going to your office?"

"Perhaps," he answered, "if I'm still able to see you afterwards."

"Afterwards what?"

The query was left disregarded as Kouyou began walking away while holding the shoulders of the little girl - she glanced back at Mori, who gazed at her with a smile that assured that they would meet another time, when he would take her to his office, and they would go visit the river just as he had promised.

"I like her," Elise said, "will we see her again?"

"Of course."