CHAPTER SIX
NO SMOKING ALLOWED

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AS THE SHINKANSEN PULLED INTO SHIN-YOKOHAMA STATION, ESTELA STEPPED OFF THE PLATFORM, WATCHING AS PEOPLE WALKED IN AND OUT OF THE TRAIN. Her hand rested on her chest, beneath the breast pocket of her blazer, just in case she had to make any emergency pulls for the Beretta.

She stood outside the door that separated carriages three and four, whilst the two fruits stood further up and down the platform.

Although she was supposed to be looking for that Ladybug man to deboard the train with the decoy case, Black Cat couldn't prevent her mind from wandering. She found it so odd how, depending on the circumstance, rivals can become partners in the best and worst of times; she was finding this out firsthand, from going from anxious the fruits would find her with the briefcase, to losing the case and now working with them to find it again.

Lemon seemed nice enough, with his soft eyes and Thomas the Tank Engine obsession, which was sort of endearing for him being a contract assassin. Tangerine, on the other hand, had not presented himself with the best first impression; he was hot-tempered and potty-mouthed, neither of which were a flattering combination, and the porn moustache wasn't really doing him any favours, either.

The woman peered up the platform, to where Tangerine stood, eyebrows furrowed as he glared at every person passing him. His silver gun glinted under the overhead lights as he held it firmly by his side. He held himself with confidence, though Estela was unsure if it was true confidence, or just cockiness, which wouldn't be surprising.

Almost a minute had passed and no ladybugs had stepped off the train, and the platform was beginning to grow less and less busy as people boarded and deboarded the Shinkansen.

At the bottom of the platform, Lemon, gun in hand, looked over at Tangerine and Black Cat with a shrug and solemn shake of his head. Black Cat's lips tugged into a line, and she looked further up the platform to spot Tangerine. He rolled his icy eyes and let out a grunt Black Cat could hear from her place on the platform, and he turned around and boarded the train.

Black Cat looked back over at Lemon, and the two shared a shrug and stepped up onto the Shinkansen once again.

No sign of The Ladybug and his stupid silver case.

The trio met up at the bottom of the Shinkansen, the baggage compartment just before the first economy carriage. They decided that Black Cat and Tangerine would work their way up the train in search of the man with black glasses, and Lemon would stay with The White Death's son, in order to ensure no more harm came to him, working his way slowly up the platform to search for either briefcases more thoroughly.

"No sign of the cunt," was the first thing Tangerine said as he emerged from Carriage One, hands in pockets and a scowl upon his face.

Black Cat shook her head, indicating the same for her.

"Where'd you last see him?"

Black Cat stared through the window of the automatic door leading into Carriage Two. "Way further up. We were just out of Economy."

Tangerine let out a huff. "There's nothing back there, so I guess the only thing left is to go up the cars until we trap the piece of cunt."

The taller, moustached, tailored-suited, fruit-named man put no more time to waste, and pushed past Black Cat to walk through the automatic door into the first carriage, and the woman followed (not too closely) behind.

As they walked, there was another thing Estela could think of that put her off the man; his so blatant lack of kindness and respect, when it was so easy to just avoid doing a certain action that came off as rude. Of course, she didn't expect every contract killer to be outstanding in positive personality, but some things were just bare minimum.

For the first few moments, there was silence between them, and neither were sure if it was comfortable or not, until the woman spoke up.

"Your shoelace is untied."

"What?" Tangerine uttered, thrown off-guard as he stopped abruptly in his tracks, causing Estela to bump lightly into his back. He looked down at his shoe and began to grumble as he bent down to retie the loose lace.

Once he'd swiftly laced up his shoe, he was back on his way with no more small talk. Estela followed behind, looking about the overhead baggage store, puffing some air in her cheeks out of boredom.

Was teaming up with The Fruits really the best idea?

She worked best alone, so why did she think this "collaboration" of sorts would be a good idea? Maybe it was because she knew having a partner, or partners, would save her ass by one third. If it were just her alone having to face the consequences for stealing from The White Death, chances are both arms and a leg would be gone, but with two other people, it would probably be one arm each, which would be better than just a single leg remaining. Might as well make the most of it, right?

"How do you and Lemon know each other?" Black Cat asked, trying to make small talk, which felt less unnerving than walking in complete silence.

"Brothers. We grew up together."

"Oh, brothers?" The woman repeated, sort of taken back in surprise. "I wouldn't have expected that. Are you, like, biological, or...?"

"Why does it fuckin' matter?" Tangerine scoffed with a roll of his eyes, glancing over his shoulder to shoot a short-lived glare in her direction.

And Estela took this harsh-wording as a sign to shut up.

Tangerine clearly wasn't the warm type, or nice, or anything positive, really. If Lemon truly was his brother, Estela pitied the time he spent having to grow up with him.

Together, one behind the other, they continued to walk down the aisles, trying to appear inconspicuous, moving further up the train cars.

It wasn't until they'd just made their prompt way out of Carriage Five, that Tangerine's phone buzzed from within his blazer. He pulled it from his inner breast pocket and stared at the No Caller ID on the screen. The two joined eyes, and Tangerine broke the eye contact first. "I'll just be a moment."

Estela nodded and stepped into the sixth train car, which was a great introduction to the first carriage in First Class.

As she walked through, careful with each step so as to not disturb the people trying to get some shut-eye, Estela took note of a young girl sitting with the same shaggy-looking man who'd bumped into the trolley lady. Her pace slowed as she approached them, trying to inspect them closer.

The young girl was White, whilst the man was Asian, which she found an odd combination, considering how he hadn't been with this little girl at the beginning of the trip. But, if she'd learnt one thing from this mission, it was to not judge two people who claimed to be related if they weren't the same race.

Her judgements were dissolved as she heard the door zip open behind her, followed by a long string of profanities grumbled under breath. she stopped in her path to wait for the expletive-ridden man.

As he walked past the little girl and shaggy man in brown, Tangerine quickly noticed their presence. "I beg your pardon, sorry, I wasn't aware there was a young lady present. Apologies."

The man in brown waved a hand dismissively. He didn't seem too thrown by his language, which seemed suspicious, as a normal father would tell adults to watch their profanities around their young children. Unless she wasn't his child?

But, at this point, he was on a roll. Tangerine continued, his eyebrows upturned and his mouth pulled into a grimace. "Uh, you didn't happen to see someone come by with a silver briefcase, did ya?"

The young girl, short black hair and matching pink clothing, spoke up. "Actually, yeah!" Her voice was high in pitch, with a cute tone attached. "Um, a man with black framed glasses had it. he went that way." She pointed with her thumb back down the train, the direction in which Black Cat and Tangerine had just came.

Tangerine let out a deep sigh, and looked back over at Estela. "I just had my first encounter with the fucker," he spoke lowly, eyes twitching in anger. Was rage his default emotion?

He glanced back down at the little girl, trying to control his anger as he spoke. "Thank you, love." He offered a short smile, which ended up looking more like a pained grimace, and he was off down the aisle again.

"That fucking bastard," Tangerine seethed as he stomped down the aisle, Estela by his side. "He was fucking listening to me on my fucking phone call, that fucking creep."

As the duo returned to the large storage compartment separating economy from First Class, Tangerine whipped out his mobile once again, and Estela noted the West Ham sticker stuck to the back as he furiously typed away.

Once he'd hit send on his screen, Tangerine pushed his mobile into the pocket of his navy pinstripe trousers, and positioned himself in front of the lit-up mirror, running a hand over his chestnut hair to smooth down any fly-aways.

"So you support West Ham?" Estela piped up, rummaging through the external pockets of her oversized blazer for her half-empty pack of Benson & Hedges.

Tangerine's icy eyes met hers in the mirror, appearing even brighter in the vanity light. "Yeah... What about it?"

"Nothing, I just noticed it on your phone," the girl replied with a shrug, opening the pack and pulling a stick out between her lips. "Don't get why you have to be so defensive about it."

Through the mirror, Tangerine continued to inspect her, eyes following her movements as she replaced her pack, and ran her hands over her pockets. She looked up at him, eyes on his true self rather than his reflection.

"Do you have a lighter?"

"You shouldn't smoke inside, love."

Estela's eyes trailed over to the sign stuck to the side of the silver restroom compartment: "No Smoking Allowed."

Cigarette still hanging from her plump lips, her eyes narrowed. "Do you have a lighter?"

The corner of Tangerine's mouth quirked up in the ghost of a smile. He reached inside his blue waistcoat and pulled out a shining silver lighter.

The man slowly stepped forward, eyes on the woman before him, expertly flipping the cap off with his thumb. He stopped in front of her, hand lingering beneath the butt of the cigarette. A small orange flame burst to life with a click of the flint wheel against steel. The flame flickered under the white stick for a moment, to burn the material, and then it disappeared and pulled away.

Estela inhaled softly, and exhaled a small amount of smoke, the stick between her index and middle fingers. Maybe it didn't count as smoking inside if she just breathed out less smoke, you know?

Tangerine flipped the lid back on his Zippo, and tucked it away into his blazer breast pocket. He stepped back a few, situating himself against the wall opposite Estela, covering the "No Smoking Allowed" sign, so now she technically was allowed.

"What 'bout you, Black Cat?" he asked, nodding his chin up at her, digging his veiny hands into his pockets. "You support any sports?"

With a soft smile, accompanied with a chuckle, Estela blew out some more smoke. "Do I look like the support-any-sports type?" She teased, raising an eyebrow and shaking her head softly as she brought the cigarette back up to her lips.

Jutting out his bottom lip, the man shrugged. "I wouldn't know." His eyes narrowed as he looked her over again, scrutinising her. One hand pulled itself out of his pocket and pointed at her lazily. "You know what you look like?"

Estela's eyebrows furrowed, pulling away the stick to ash it into the wall-mounted bin beside her. "What...?" She replied lowly, her tone suspicious and unsure.

"You look like you'd support Chelsea."

A small laugh brushed past the girl's lips. "Chelsea? Really?" She rolled her eyes and brought the cigarette back up to her lips. "That might be the worst insult I've gotten in the past six months, and I've been called some bad shit."

Now when Tangerine smiled, his teeth were just about on show, revealing his ice thawing somewhat. "Alright, then, love, who do you support?"

"I'll give you a hint," Estela began, breathing out her final puff of smoke before burning the cigarette out on the rim of the wall-mounted trash can. "They're not Premier League."

"Oh..." Tangerine hummed, bringing his hand up to scratch pensively at his chin, eyes narrowing to scrutinise her again.

The woman didn't give him any time to think of his answer. "Barcelona," she stated, dropping the burnt-out cigarette into the bin. "You know where that is, right?" She asked, waving a hand to separate the smoke in the compartment and moving in front of the mirror.

"Course I do," the male replied, watching her as she inspected herself in the mirror.

Estela tilted her head to the left and leaned closer to her reflection. Along where her temple connected to her forehead, a green bruise began to form, still just lingering beneath the skin. A small profanity brushed past her lips as she brought a finger to trace the sickly colour.

Tangerine's eyes narrowed, and he peered around the woman before him, trying to get a better look at the bruise in the mirror. "That looks shitty, how'd you get that?"

With a sigh, Estela leaned back to her full height and met the man's eyes in the mirror. "Bumped my head."

"Looks like you bumped it pretty hard. You lose some braincells with that?"

"Let's just go," Estela grumbled with a roll of her eyes, pulling away from the mirror once she'd spied Tangerine's cheeky smile and teasing tone.