Snippet #2438922

Masaru trod carefully through the thief's domain. Traveling through the nastier parts of the city made him nervous, as if its inhabitants could sniff out police, or ex-police. Just when he thought nothing else could surprise him, Masaru laid eyes on the Phantom Thieves home. He didn't really know what he expected, but somehow it never occurred to him that someone like the infamous thief, who was more like a living myth than an actual person in the eyes of most of the city, could live in a fairly ordinary, albeit obviously abandoned house.

Watching his hostess tend to her injury was somewhat surreal. When he first landed the shot, part of him had been proud of himself, while part of him was ashamed at not finishing the job. Now all of him was just embarrassed. She was a criminal, but she was also just a girl when their game of cat and mouse had first began and not much older looking now despite the passage of time, and in the heat of the chase, he had actually wanted to... Maybe it was a good thing he wasn't a cop anymore, he thought.

He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "So... need any help with that?" It wasn't as if he'd lost his bitterness towards the woman, but she had invited him into her home and offered him protection. Masaru was raised to respect a gesture that, and anyways he had no desire to be in debt to the thief.