I stood there, just thinking in silence for some time. I turned a tap on, splashing cold water in my face. I’ll tell him, then it’s up to him if he gets pushed away or not. Maybe I could run away, I don’t really care any more. I left the bathroom.

“Hey..” I looked at him, raising an eyebrow, he was walking around and looking under the arcade machines. “What are you doing..?”

“Oh, hey.” He stood up, looking in my direction. “I’m just looking for the change machine.” He grinned.

“Under the..” I sighed. “Whatever.”

“You good? You look like something’s on your mind.”

“I do?” I tried to make my expression blank, like it usually was. “Well, look” I walked over to him. “I’m going to tell you something, but at least try to stay calm, okay?”

“Okay?” His expression showed his confusion.

“Well..” I put my hand on his shoulder. “I’m uhh.. Technically meant to be killing you-”

“What?” He started trying to laugh. “Great joke..? Haha..” He stepped backwards, his face showing unease.

“No-” I dropped my arm to my side. “Look. Just listen, wait.”

“Okay, elaborate, but let me see your hands. And keep around a metre between us, yeah?” He was actually going to hear me out?

“Alright.” I put some distance between us and sat down, cross legged, making sure to always keep my hands visible to Cassian. I don’t think he realises I could still kill him without my hands, if I wanted too. “Basically, do you want the full story?”

“Yes.” He also sat down, he was being quite trusting honestly.

“So, I was born into the mafia. And I guess I ended up being an assassin, so I wasn’t wasting space, or something? I don’t really enjoy the killing that much, though. I would try to escape but I’ve seen it before, they’d just try to hunt me.” That’s all he needs to know.

“So, you enjoy the killing, but not that much.”

“Yes.”

“You want to escape?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe we could escape together?” He grinned.

“What do you mean?” Huh? Escape together..? Why is he still talking to me after all of this? Why doesn’t he think I’m going to kill him?

“Well, I don’t really like my family. And you don’t want to stick around the mafia. We share a common goal. Why not join forces?”

“But how? Can you even fight? Have you ever killed before?”

“I can kind of fight. Not too well though. I could just rely on my fight or flight or something, though, right?” He scratched the back of his neck and looked away, at a piece of floor. A sign. Nervousness. He was hiding something. Dodging my question about killing. Well, your actions can show more than words, Cassian. “Plus I’m quite a quick learner.” He added.

“Is that your way of asking me to teach you or something?”

“Would you teach me?” He looked up. “You don’t have to, of course. But would you?”

“I guess. Hypothetically, If we were working together it would be better for you to know how.” But would teaching him be a hindrance? I would have to teach for reasonable amounts of time, all while planning and running away from the mafia. I sighed. If he can’t pull his own weight is it really worth taking him with me? Is it even worth running away?

“So are we running away or not?”

“Well, are you okay with most likely dying while running away from the mafia?”

“It depends.” He played with his shoelace. “If there’s a chance of survival, of a good life, or well slightly better then it is now for both of us I don’t see why we shouldn’t.”

“Do you have anything you would need to do before running away?”

“Not really. Well, looking at it logically, I think it would be better if I didn’t go back to my family, so there’s nothing.”

“How is it better?” What’s he talking about?

“If I go back to my family. And then left to run away, It would look more like I ran away, If one of your assassination targets or whatever suddenly runs away from home and you also go missing. It would probably be quite easy to piece two and two together, right?”

“I guess?” What is he getting at? 

“But if I disappeared suddenly after being with my siblings.. It would look like I got kidnapped or something. And it might look a little like you had killed me or kidnapped me and were just advancing on the rest of your targets. Or something, I don’t know.” He’s kind of right. How the fuck didn’t I notice this?

“You have a point.” If he’s consistent. Maybe this could work. “Is there something anyone could track you with?”

“What, like a phone or something?”

“Yeah. We should leave it somewhere in case somebody tries to track it.”

“Right.” He dug a phone out of his pocket. “Like on a street or something?”

“Maybe.”

He chucked his phone at me. “Where would we run away to?”

“Wherevers safe. Chances are quite far.” I put his phone in my pocket.

“Could we go to Australia or something?”

“Probably. Why?” He asks a lot of questions.

“I’ve always found it to be a beautiful country I guess.”

“Beauty, huh?” I’ve never really viewed things as beautiful.

“What?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He looked at me strangely for a moment. “Okay..” There was a slight hesitation in his voice.

“So escape now or tonight?”

“Sooner the better?”

“Okay.”

“Did this really come from not having the money to play street fighter?” He laughed softly.

“Apparently.” I stood up. “Are you sure you want to do this, though?”

“Well, yeah” He also got up.

“Even though we will probably have to fight the mafia and steal and stuff?”

“Yep.” He looked at my hands. “You don’t have to keep those in my sight by the way.”

“Right.” I stuffed them into my pockets. “So, what now?”

“We go wherever we want.” He grinned. How is he so care free? Why is he so casual about this, isn’t he literally just throwing his life away?

“You do know how dangerous this is, right?”

“Dangers never really been much of a problem for me before.” I stiffened, it was like he suddenly turned dark as he spoke, it was almost fear-inducing. No, I shouldn’t feel fear, why am I feeling this. Although if I’m running away do I abandon what I learned? Is he imply he’s been in danger before? What is he hiding?

“It could be now.” He’s just raising more questions.

I walked towards the door, pausing. I could’ve sworn I saw something moving.

“Someone might be watching us.” I didn’t face Cassian as I spoke.

“What? Already?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Just pretend we didn’t notice though.”

“Okay. Where actually are we going?”

“We should probably get out of this city as soon as possible.” If i’m right we’ll have at least a few days before they start searching outside of the city.

“So, by walking I’m assuming?”

“Seems like it. Unless we use that twenty you got from that man. That might get us near the outskirts at least anyway.”

“Okay. Lets go, then?”

“Yeah.”