"OLD MEMORIES"

warnings; none.



Kieran stared at the classroom filled with other fifteen-year-olds. Already, they seemed to fit the stereotypes he always saw on tv back in Russia; jocks, cheerleaders, nerds, and more. It was true that none of them had uniforms. At least that was one good thing, he wouldn't feel stuffy in some uniform.

Scanning the classroom, he paused when he noticed a girl in the back of the class. Her head was crammed into a notebook, cheek against the paper, as she wrote something down. Wasn't that pose hurting her neck? Why was she so close to the paper? She wasn't taking in the teacher's information while Kieran was waiting to be introduced. The class was chaos in a nutshell and all the students were chattering so loud that his ears were going to fall off.

"Now class, all of you need to pay attention to this!" the teacher huffed, clapping her hands, "come on! pay attention. Unless you all want some homework over the weekend!"

It was like magic. At the mere mention of homework, the entire class stopped talking. He bit the inside of his cheek when all the eyes in the room were suddenly on him. A few girls giggled, some boys leaned forward in their seats, and some gave him sweet smiles. He already hated all of them. Why did they stare at him like he was a new exhibit in a zoo?

The girl in the back of the class raised her head, wincing and rubbing the back of her neck. There was a sparkle in her eye and Kieran pursed his lips. She seemed to be one of the annoying chatter-box girls with that happy look.

"Today we are introducing a new student to our class, Kieran. Be nice, he just transferred here from London, so he might have to get used to how this school works for a bit," the teacher beamed at him, "why don't you go sit beside (Y/N)? She's a good student, she will help you with anything you need."

The class burst into welcomes, giddy excitement, and questions. Kieran had a gut feeling that they were only acting this way because he was a foreigner. He was aware that if they knew he was Russia, they would either be interested in his culture or racist about it. His father warned him that a lot of people were mean to Russians at times just because of Putin. Sure, not all of them, but he really didn't want to be called a terrorist just because of his ethnicity.

(Y/N), who he realized was the girl in the back, slowly raised her hand. That sparkle in her eye was something much more nervous now. People nudged and whispered at her, glancing at him with giddy eyes. Great. He was going to be stuck to the weird girl who writes like she has a broken neck. He ignored the pestering stares and whispers around the room as he walked to the back of the class and sat next to her. At least her name wasn't obnoxious.

While he desperately ignored her, he noticed the girl glancing at him from the corner of his eye. She gnawed on her bottom lip and her leg bounced up and down, followed by her opening her mouth to say something but then quickly shutting it.

Kieran's father taught him a lot of lessons growing up and one of those lessons was about cowards. The Morozov family wasn't fond of people who couldn't speak their minds, at least that was what his father told him, because cowards often ruined business. Of course, Kieran wasn't allowed to know a lot about his father's job, but he went ahead and applied that advice to this situation. He didn't understand why she was stammering so much and why her eyes bored holes into the side of his head. Was she just dumb? Maybe a dumb coward? His eye twitched and he leaned against his palm.

Finally, she managed to speak up.

"Uhm—do you... do you want to share my textbook for this class? I see you don't have yours yet. We are learning exponential equations," she proposed, "I'm not the best at them yet, but I can teach you what I know so you can get caught up with the class."

"Sure."

(Y/N) was taken aback by his harsh accent. He knew that it was thick. When he lived in London for two years, the private school he was at always had issues understanding what he was saying. This caused a lot of bullying, especially by the posh brats who didn't have anything better to do than flaunt their wealth and complain about how their parents didn't buy them a specific set of shoes for their birthday.

Her eyes lit when she realized he agreed and she quickly fumbled to put her desk next to his, opening her textbook so the two of them could see it. Kieran was glad he was forced to learn English at a young age because who knew he'd be in a situation like this once he got older? He still struggled with English now and again, certain words and sentence structure confused him, but he knew how to read the majority.

Kieran's eyes flickered to the side. (Y/N) was nervously rambling about something, pointing and poking at the page.

In truth, he was surprised she talked to him. His first impression of her was some weird, shy girl who didn't have a social life (even if that was extremely judgmental, he didn't care). The way she wrote in her notebook like some gremlin in the back of the class was enough to give him that impression. However, she seemed kind so far, even if she was jittery and nervous around him. He knew that even if she was some yellow-bellied coward, he'd rather talk to a coward instead of a bitch.

Back when he was a transfer student in London, people who tried to talk to him immediately retreated when they realized they would have a hard time understanding him if they continued the conversation. They had so much fear of putting themselves in an awkward situation that they didn't want to talk to the boy with a thick accent. Not that he cared, most of the time he just wanted to be left alone.

So it was shocking, to say the least, when (Y/N) started asking him questions.

"So, how do you like our school so far?" she beamed, nervously picking at her sleeve, "I hope you haven't met Jenson yet. He's rude to everyone, but I have a feeling he won't be nice to you."

Kieran pursed his lips, muttering, "...ah, well, everyone likes to stare here."

(Y/N) tensed and tilted her head. Ah... he knew that reaction. Did she not understand him? Annoyance bubbled in his chest and he gnawed on his bottom lip, tapping his fingers aggressively against the table. He opened his mouth to repeat himself and—

"Oh, yeah! People stare a lot here, but if you stare back at them, they will look away. I do that sometimes when some of the girls from art class stare at me," she interrupted, "sorry. Your accent is very thick—I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way! Uhm, it just took me a second. It's very pretty!"

Kieran blinked. His mouth clamped back shut and he awkwardly shifted in his seat, glancing away from her. "It's fine."

His hands stopped tapping at the table and he politely placed them in his lap. His ears felt hot and he rolled his shoulders back, doing his best to shake off the sudden awkward itch on the back of his neck. His accent was pretty? Was she just saying that to be nice? His teeth nibbled on his bottom lip.

(Y/N) brought out her notebook and started to doodle on one of the pages. He glanced over and saw that she was drawing a lot of animals on one page. A dog, a cat, an otter, there was a whole plethora of small critters on her page. She started to draw a black cat, absentmindedly containing the conversation, "Was your school in London cool?"

Why is she suddenly drawing a black cat?

He shrugged, "...not really. Posh brats everywhere."

Her eyes lit up. Whatever she was thinking, he didn't have to place it together quickly to understand what she was going to ask him next. "A lot of people in school romanticize British people. It's probably not the nicest thing to do, but I know a lot of girls from the grade above have been talking about visiting London one day. Did you go to a fancy school in London?"

He nodded. "A private school, but I was homeschooled in Russia."

God, he was delighted to be out of that place. Not everyone was rich and snobby in that place, and he knew it was because of their wealth and not where they came from, but he liked to blame it on the fact they were British. Just like he always liked to blame a lot of things Americans did just because of the fact they were American. All of them had shitty food compared to the delights in Russia, at least in his opinion.

"Woah! That's so cool," she looked up at him with a large smile, "where did you live in Russia? "

"Yakutsk," he deadpanned, "a port city on the Lena River."

(Y/N) blinked. She scribbled in the corner of her notebook and made a dark spiraling circle, her lips pulling into a much more awkward grin. "Uhm, did you say Yaktooz? I'm afraid I don't know where that is. If I am honest, I only know of Moscow, and I don't even know where that is."

Kieran's smiled a little bit more. It has been a while since he talked of his home, even if it wasn't the best place to live. He missed the food and the people, but there was a lot he didn't miss either. He shook his head and pulled out a piece of paper from his notebook, writing down the name of his town and then trying to write it down in English. He grumbled and erased it.

"No, it is pronounced Yakutsk," he paused and muttered to himself, "how would an American say it... shit, I don't know how to pronounce it in a way you'd understand."

(Y/N) tilted her head and looked at the page, "can you say it again?"

"Yakutsk."

When written down in Russian, the word looked completely different, something she wouldn't be able to understand at all. The word 'Якутск' stared back at her heavy yet fluid handwriting. She took her pen and tried to copy the Russian letters right under it. It was messy, not fluid, and hesitant handwriting.

"I--I don't think I will be able to say it as cool as you say it. Is it cold where your home is?"

Kieran didn't blame her for not repeating it. She did butcher the pronunciation when she tried the first time, whatever the hell she was trying to say.

"Summers were short and our winters are very cold. Russia is big, so not every place is cold, but Yakutsk is in Siberia. People have named it the coldest city in the world."

The only reason his family lived in that part of Russia was because it was because of the low crime rate and the fact it was easy for people to go missing there. The Lena River was one of the longest rivers in the world, and Kieran knew that his father sometimes took out people who wanted to cause them harm and threw them there. Why did they want to cause his family harm? he didn't know, his father never shared, but only said "You'll understand when you get older."

However, he wasn't naive. He knew that his father did something illegal. It wasn't just his father, but his entire family. They always kept strong peaceful ties with the authority in Russia and his father always managed to have the highest ranking of power to anyone they met. His father was a kind person, he smiled at everyone, and was so polite that it made him sick--but he also knew that scary look he had behind closed doors when he was talking with some of his men.

One day, he would get all the answers. He was still impatient about it though.

(Y/N) raised an eyebrow. She went back to doodling her cat, humming, "Oh, that's so cool! Do you still have some relatives in Ru—"

"(Y/N), please stop bothering the new student," the teacher snapped and pointed her pen at her, "Kieran is here to learn, not listen to you ramble."

She sank back into her seat and her lips pursed shut. She didn't blush, but by the way her eyes lowered to the floor and her body folded in on itself, she was embarrassed. He stared at her from the corner of his eye while the class burst into giggles and chatter. Some of the other students tried to ask him questions but he ignored them. Instead, he finished the black cat doodle in her notebook, adding a small 'meow' in Russian right next to it.

"Now, everyone pay attention! can someone come up to the board and answer this question?"

Whatever the teacher was saying, he blocked it out. The class went back to doing whatever they were doing, (Y/N) raised her head and doodled a second black cat to go with the first one, and then he added a third. Her doodles were better. When she doodled a pigeon, he was quick to doodle an owl. The rest of the class was spent wasting their time and not paying attention to the board.

Kieran bit his lip to keep his lips from twitching upward. He still would have preferred to be alone, but she wasn't that bad or annoying, and she was so far keeping him from being bored... He supposed he could talk to her a little bit more.

╳

Kieran sighed and stopped scribbling on the blank paper on his desk. There were many times when he reminisced, remembering the time he first met (Y/N). It was hard to believe that he didn't like her at first. He didn't understand his past self, how he could have found her bright smile annoying. Now it gave him butterflies each time he thought about it.

Their time spent in school was wild, to say the least. Kieran wasn't the ideal student but he managed to get good grades throughout, good enough that his mother and father didn't scold him when he got home. How ironic that (Y/N) always got the best grades yet somehow her parents never thought it was enough. He licked his teeth at the thought, cursing them under his breath.

He never liked them. He was glad they were out of her life.

They got married six months ago and a couple of her family members were there, but their presence brought down the entire wedding. His family on the other hand were a little bit too loud.

His mother kept cooing and complimenting (Y/N) in Russian each time she had the chance and his father kept telling her baby stories about him. It was embarrassing. His parents adored her, which was good, but they were too adoring at times.

He glanced over at the watch on his desk. It was a gift she gave to him whenever they were in high school. It didn't fit him anymore but he still kept it close, reminding him to be careful and not get shot, because she was waiting at home for him.

Though... something had been off about her.

He knew that she was upset because of him. Kieran was busier than normal, he'd been out of the house more, and he'd been craving her touch. The nights she wasn't with him are the nights he couldn't sleep at all. Did she feel the same way? Was she lonely? God, he felt lonely, and he was the one going out and working all the time.

Not that he could stop. While he was the boss, just throwing away the mafia would get him killed. He had to make sure she was safe and throwing away his job just to be close to her would get her and him killed together. It wasn't like his father was in the States to help protect her either.

His mind flashed back to what happened last night. His expression soured, thinking of the two gang members he found talking to her, and her salty tear-stained cheeks. She was angry at him but didn't want to tell him. She wasn't a good liar, especially when she had an expression of gut-wrenching guilt. Why was she guilty? Did he make her guilty? Fuck, he never wanted to hurt her. He'd rather gut out his intestines and string them up for the crows instead of hurting her.

Kieran tried talking to her about it when they got home, but the conversation didn't go anywhere. He didn't know what to say to make her feel better, telling her the truth was more dangerous than lying, but he knew either option was hurting her. He knew she was lying about so many things. She was an open book. There were many times she pretended to be asleep just to avoid him. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He needed to find those thugs that talked to her. His ties with the police were beneficial for to the mafia, it kept them off his hide, but maybe they'd know their address when he didn't. He didn't want to go around asking his extra personal contacts for something small like thugs in minor gangs.

He groaned and his head fell into his hands.

God, he missed her.

He missed her scent, her laugh, the way she bites her bottom lip when she's embarrassed, her touch, her panting breaths when he kisses her—Kieran cleared his throat. Thinking about such things at work would leave him with a problem and he didn't want to explain to Sam why he wouldn't leave his office for an hour or two. Yet he couldn't deny that he craved just the brush of her fingers against his arms, his neck, his cheek.

He craved for her body pressed against his. He could imagine it already; (Y/N) cuddled next to him on the couch, watching a horror movie, her hands grabbing whatever they could get ahold of each time she was scared. The feeling of his clothes shifting, the way her body would move, her innocent eyes glancing at him to see his reaction to the movie.

Would she get all embarrassed if he leaned in closer? What sighs would leave her lips if he kissed her neck, caressing her like the goddess she was? God, he'd worship her like a temple, her breath enough to topple him to his knees.

He hissed. His pants suddenly felt tight, unbearably so, and he rubbed at his face. Work was leaving him pent up.

Kieran would be truthful and admit that there were times when it was hard for him to not touch her. All he wanted to do was to cradle her, to make her bend to his touch, to see how pretty she was on top of him... but being a killer didn't mean he was monstrous enough to force her to do something with him. She had to be safe with him, to trust him, so giving in to every horny thought about her wasn't the way to keep her happy, especially since she wasn't ready. He didn't care if she was never ready--she would stay with him forever, even if they weren't intimate.

However, there were times like this. Where the mere thought of her would rile him up, leave him breathless in his office, with no way of having privacy for longer than thirty minutes.

Kieran gritted his teeth as he shuffled in his chair, forcing his mind somewhere else. Somewhere boring. Walking out of his office pent-up was something he didn't want his men to see.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Thank god, a distraction!

Kieran glanced up, sighing whenever he noticed a familiar face peering through the cracked door to his office. Of course, Sam would bother him at a time like this.

"Why didn't you respond to my message?" he snapped, his voice thick with a Italian accent. "You left me on read and everything. I know you are cold, but I didn't expect you to be that cold. We are the only two higher-up immigrants here! We gotta be nice to one another!"

Kieran pinched the bridge of his nose. He was spouting nonsense again without any context. He should have expected this right when he saw him, he was always doing shit like this. "Come inside and stop talking through the crack of my door. What the hell are you even talking about?"

Sam huffed before barging into the room and shutting the door behind him. He was a short man, about 5'7, but the mass of his muscles compensated for it. He was about ten years older than Kieran but still appeared somewhat youthful. His dreadlocks were pulled into a bun and his colorful clothes only added to his unique and distinctive personality. He flipped the orange sunglasses off his nose and slapped them down on the desk.

"You know what you did, Kieran—

"Boss."

"—Boss!"

Kieran was usually confused each time he talked to Sam. Sam, short for Samuel, was a friend of his father's and someone who was meant to help him with the men underneath him. The Morozov Mafia was a dangerous place to work, especially since it was moved from Russia to the States. His father dragged all his people whenever they moved to both London for two years, and then to the United States. Sam was there throughout it all.

Were they close? Well, they were as close as mafia business partners could get. They recognized the respect between the two, they knew each other from growing up. Hell, Kieran could remember the day Sam turned 22. It was hard to believe that was 8 years ago.

"I don't know what I did," he confessed, "so what are you complaining about now?"

Sam frowned. "I messaged you at around ten yesterday morning and you left me on read. I told you to respond and everything because you didn't tell me where the hell you were after you said you'd meet with me. That's so cold of you, I thought we were like brothers."

"...I wasn't home at ten this morning. I already told you that I got caught up in some shipment yard where Kozlov fucked up and got some petty gang members into our territory."

It was messy work. The shipment yard was moving a box of slaves; people who were in debt with the mafia due to past agreements and refused to pay up. Their fault, they were the ones who decided it was a good idea to make contracts with the mafia when they didn't have the money to pay it all back. So hopefully they'd find some use elsewhere, likely back home in Yakutsk with his father and mother.

Even so, he wasted bullets on gang members. He viewed them as kids, infants with baseball bats and an occasional Glock G19, a common gun that anyone could get in the States if they tried even a little bit. Of course, such guns were sloppy, but that didn't stop one of his men from being shot in the leg. To put it simply, it was humiliating.

"Isn't the app on your phone? Are you sure you didn't glance at it and forgot then?" Sam asked, suddenly piqued in curiosity.

"I didn't."

"...I mean, maybe your wife read—"

"Sam," Kieran warned.

Sam leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms. He sighed and his leg bounced up and down, staring at Kieran with a knowing look. "Then who else would have read the message? You only have that app on your laptop and your phone, which I doubt anyone would go through unless the woman who has access to it, did it. If the systems were hacked, which we'd already know by now if they were, then that'd be an issue. But they aren't."

Kieran glared. Quickly, the issue of being pent up went out the window, doubts starting to cloud his mind. Anxiety filled up his bloodstream like poison.

What would he do if she knew?

How could he keep her safe?

Who would hurt her?

How would he keep her with him?

"I know what you're thinking, but you already know the answer to that," Sam picked up a small candy from the tray, unraveled it, and plopped it into his mouth, "You either drag her in or you throw her out, kid, that's how this business works. Hell, you're lucky the Big Boss loves her so much that he allowed you to marry her."

"Sam," Kieran warned again, his voice tighter, face falling to hide behind his hands as a headache grew.

"I'm just saying! She's probably curious about where you are leaving all the time. You're editor, so of course you meet up with your clients sometimes, but not every goddamn night."

"Poor woman doesn't even have her man there to sleep with her. Who knows, maybe she'll go out and find some other guy—"

Sam stilled whenever he saw the two green eyes peeking out behind Kieran's hands, staring at him with enough intensity to knock the air out of his lungs. Thousands of spiders crawled up his spine and sweat built on his brow. He opened his mouth to fix his mistake, to undo what just slipped out of his mouth, but he couldn't speak. Not whenever the cold eyes of the devil were threatening to swallow him whole.

Kieran was glaring with icy anger. No, it wasn't quite anger. It was hard to explain, whatever look was in his eyes, but Sam had a gut feeling that he wouldn't have any issue placing a bullet in his head if he continued to talk about his wife. The sparkle in his emerald eyes was gone. It was dead, daring, threatening.

The two went way back—but he knew very well that Kieran loved and adored his spouse more than anyone and anything. He was obsessed. She was a drug and each time he was two feet away from her, he started to show cold symptoms of withdrawal. Bloodthirsty withdrawal.

"I—I was just joking boss," Sam backpedaled, "you don't have to look at me like that."

Kieran's eyes narrowed. Like a snake scrutinizing its prey, Sam felt like a mouse about to be served on a dinner plate. He shivered and his hands instinctively crossed his chest in a mere attempt to guard himself. Not like that would work. He was stronger than Kieran, but Kieran also knew martial arts. He could easily slam his head into the table with enough force to watch him choke and bleed out on the cold concrete floor.

"So... anyway, you should—you should talk to your wife. If she saw the message, she probably assumed it was something... indecent."

He needed Kieran to speak. To say something. Because the silence was getting overwhelming and his gaze was drowning him in tar. Hot, sticky tar that made his body break out into a sweat and his lungs clog up each time he shuffled in his seat.

"Fine."

Sam exhaled. He was dizzy, just how long was he holding his breath?

Kieran leaned back into his seat and stopped cradling his head in his hands. He was still on edge, Sam could tell, but at least he wasn't staring at him like he was planning a blood-soaked feast.

"Sam."

He inhaled, "yes?"

"Don't talk about her again."

Sam flinched. His hands wiped at his thighs and he nodded, staring at the gritty concrete under his shoes, "...yes boss. I won't bring her up again."

He was lucky someone ended up knocking on the door.

Kieran's face fell into indifference whenever a runt knocked on the door. He called for them to come in and soon a hairy man, clear of all common mafia tattoos, scurried in. He lowered his head and nervously tugged at his beard. He was shaking. Sam and Kieran leaned forward in their seats, picking up the strange atmosphere.

"Sorry to bother you, boss," the man choked out, "but some members from Leovana are here. They—They said they have a gift and message for you from, uh, from their boss."

Sam's eyes widened. He glanced over to Kieran, noticing the emotionless facade he was wearing. Why did he seem so nonchalant about it? The damn CEO of Leovana was their known enemy, even if he wasn't in any close mafia groups. He was a standing pillar who somehow continued to stay upright even when he was in a field of mafia men. It wasn't normal for a random CEO and his business to stand tall even in situations like this.

"What's the gift?" Kieran deadpanned.

"They didn't say."

"What's it held in?"

"A small box, boss."

Sam chewed on his bottom lip. He doubted it was a bomb, the bastard wasn't that tactless. However, Kieran looked like his head was going to explode based on how much he was rubbing his temples. He sighed and shrugged the anxiety off his shoulders, turning to face the man before Kieran had to say anything.

He didn't. Instead, Kieran pushed up from his desk and fixed his undid his messy bun into a low ponytail. He brushed a couple of strands from his face and walked to the door. Sam had a gut feeling that he was planning something, like usual, but it was going to be gorey this time.

"Sam, you're coming with me."

He grabbed his sunglasses off the table and put them back on. "Aye Aye."



╳

RANDOM KIERAN FUN FACTS

• Kieran makes the MC food every morning each time he can. Sometimes he makes it before he leaves at night and puts it in the fridge so she can warm it up later. The only times he doesn't make breakfast is when he's away for days.

• Kieran got his first tattoo before age ten for mafia purposes. It's the symbol of his family's group.

• Kieran is ACTUALLY an editor. It's not some lie, he does work as an editor for a coverup and does speak with authors and clients in face-to-face meetups.

• Kieran has a special charm tattoo on his arm that he got so he could always kiss it for good luck. It's the black cat that she doodled when they first met. Yes, something as small as that is important to him.