PROTECT ME: CHAPTER FOUR

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Protect Me
Author: andrew_in_drag
Pairing: Kaoru x Toshiya
Rating: mature
Warnings: sex, rudeness, swears, boyish attitudes, AU
Chapter: 4/??
Previously: prologue >> one >> two >> three
Synopsis: “Toshimasa Hara. Even now I sometimes find it hard to decide if his name gives me heartache or a headache…”

As a police officer in Shinsekai, Osaka, Kaoru has seen his fair share of trouble. Chaos takes a human form, however, in Toshiya Hara, a young local who seems intent on showing him that sometimes the right way is not always the good way, and that sometimes the wrong way can be the path to redemption…

CHAPTER FOUR

I don’t need to tell you that I fell in love with him.

The change was so quick that I hardly noticed it: gone, suddenly, were the days when I could avoid him and still will myself to fall asleep at night, to never think of him. In one kiss, he wrapped his wire around my heart and my mind. I became, truly, his.

Sometimes it seemed like I loved him all along, and perhaps I was just better at denying it at the beginning.  Maybe that was even the case; I don’t know. With each day that passed, though, I was aware of my dreams of him growing ever more vivid. Body and soul, he took me over. He held my spirit in his hands.

And god help me, because I knew he was trouble. I knew it like my own name, but what could I do? With every touch and glance between us, I betrayed myself more and more.  He could have been the devil in disguise and I wouldn’t have cared at all, because I was fairly sure that he was falling for me too.

That was the spring of Toshiya. For the first time in my life, work took a back seat, and I glimpsed a world beyond the one I had lived in before.

We went to restaurants, to movies; we spent a whole afternoon just lying on our backs in the city’s castle park, talking about nothing in particular. We rested under the trees and let the cherry and plum blossoms drift into our hair and blanket our bodies; when we sat up, we looked like brides. He threw handfuls of the flowers over my hair and screamed delightedly as I chased him, tackled him, rolled around with him on the sun-warmed grass. The breeze smelled of him. I felt the planet and I moving in harmony, both waking up from our long winters; mine seemed to have lasted all my life.

He laughed in my face as I pinned him to the grass, my grip on his wrists quickly turning into a caress.

“Kaoru,” he laughed, “I can hardly breathe!”

Reluctantly I pulled back, and instantly he flipped me over and straddled my stomach, deaf to my protests. He kissed me in the park; ran his big, careful hands through my hair; cupped my face like it was something special. His rings and bracelets flashed in the sunlight, and I didn’t know when I had experienced anything more perfect than the weight of his body on mine. The sun shone bright, and gently he shielded my eyes from its glare. The look he gave me then was one I had never yet seen on his face; soft, cherishing.

“I love you,” I breathed, hardly aware that I was even speaking aloud. A cloud drifted over the sun, throwing us into shade, and he squinted up at the sky. Without saying anything, he got thoughtfully to his feet and offered me his hand. The ease at which he pulled me up was comical, my small frame no match for his wiry strength.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, “Let’s go back to yours.” His eyes darted up to my face searchingly. “Or to a hotel or something.”

Something like liquid lightness ran through me. For a moment I was uncertain whether to laugh or cry.

“My place is a while away,” I said, “We can get a hotel. I mean, if you like. I’ll pay—”

“Yeah,” he cut me off, “You’re damn right you’ll pay.” He burst out laughing, kissed me hard on the mouth, and grabbed my hand. “Come on!”

I took him to the City Plaza Hotel in Chuo-ku, where I handed over my credit card without looking at the price of the room. I thought of how much I’d saved up over the years; of how nice it was to have somebody to spend it on.

“We could spend some time in the spa,” I commented nervously as we waited at the marble-topped reception desk. He was getting a few odd looks from across the foyer; the hotel staff were discreet, but the patrons were less so, and the knee-length dark skirt he was wearing over his jeans was attracting their eyes. He pushed his hair from his face unselfconsciously, taking in his surroundings with the air of one who refuses to be intimidated.

“Sure,” he replied distractedly, “Sure.” His eyes met mine, “But we can go up to the room first, yeah?”

I smiled. He made me smile. “Yeah,” I told him softly.

Satisfied, he leant back against the desk, scuffing his boots on the floor. He still had blossoms stuck in his messy black hair. I had never realised how catlike he looked sometimes; the feline way in which he moved.

Outside, it began to rain. We were given a room on the fifteenth floor.

The lift climbed in silence. Toshiya stared at the buttons, examined the lit-up floor number display, brooded. He shot me several appraising glances over the course of the ascent, and I was conscious of doing my best not to squirm. Years of staring down criminals in interview rooms stood me in good stead, but even so, I was troubled by his demeanour. His attitude was pin-balling between  affectionate, salacious and downright indifferent, and it worried me; uncertainly, I touched his shoulder, and he jumped.

“Hey,” I said quietly, “You know nothing has to happen, right? If you’re having second thoughts—”

He smirked, chuckling dryly. It wasn’t a happy, pleasant chuckle.

“Kaoru, I wanna have sex with you.”

There was a little ruffle between the other two people that stood in the lift with us; my face burned, but Toshiya seemed oblivious. His voice was many things: rough, slurred, accented, playful and sometimes downright indecipherable, but in that particular situation it certainly wasn’t quiet and it definitely wasn’t ignorable. The atmosphere within the lift shifted with such a palpability that I imagined I felt it go, shift-and-clicking into its new slot. The lift hit the fourth floor and our company left with unsubtle haste. Slowly, the doors slid shut again, and we proceeded on upwards with such a smoothness of passage that I could hardly feel it.

“I don’t like lifts,” he said suddenly. “Small spaces, really, but lifts are the worst. They weird me out. Isn’t that stupid? I once saw a—” he stopped abruptly.  

“What did you see?” I prompted, and he shook his head tiredly.

“Doesn’t matter,” he said vaguely. Silence again.

All at once, I imagined I could feel the lift moving after all. The disorientating movement matched how I felt on the inside: how strange, I thought, to love someone and yet hardly know what to say to them – hardly, in fact, know them at all. From the first meeting I had with him, I’d managed to figure out that the man in the skirt was much more complex than he looked: now, I was wondering just exactly what kind of mind and soul it was I’d fallen for. What was it that went on behind those beautiful but unreadable eyes? I wasn’t sure if I stood a chance of ever finding out.

Then, suddenly: “I once saw a gang killing,” he said. He frowned a little. “It was some guy who hadn’t paid his gambling debts or whatever. So they repossessed him. That’s how they put it, they repossessed him. Right through the back of the head. And being in a lift bothers me about as much as seeing that bothered me – if not a little more. What does that say about the kind of person I am?”

His tone was light as he spoke. He offered me an artful little shrug and spun around to face the doors. He seemed antsy as he waited for them to open and let him out. I found myself speechless, so I took his hand. That alone seemed to startle him, and he examined the link between our bodies with a feral curiosity. He seemed to be looking for some kind of trick and, finding none, he looked up at me with a shockingly youthful uncertainty around his eyes. The instinct struck me, quite unexpectedly, that perhaps Toshiya had not seen a great deal of kindness in his life.

“You’re a good person,” I said shortly. “I’m not going to sugar-coat anything, because I know maybe you’ve done some bad things—”

My mind ticked: records of the drugs and the motto carved into his door were accessed and promptly skipped over.

“But I believe that you’re a good person,” I repeated, somewhat short of breath, “And I can’t really explain why. But it is my job to appraise people, to figure out motives and intent, and if you’ll allow me a little conceit, then I’d say I’m better at it than most juries. I’ve looked at people and seen all kinds of things in them, Toshiya. Some of them are just evil, and I know that sounds defeatist, but it’s true.”

I paused for breath, stunned by my own outburst. “But,” I continued, each word an effort, “I don’t see that in you. Not at all.”

Awkwardly, my speech ended. I gave a slight, firm nod and left it there. My throat seemed to ache with all the words I was holding back, but it seemed I’d said enough. I could see him weighing up my words, struggling to come to a conclusion about what to think; it was evident to me that he was smarter than perhaps the average bystander would give him credit for, and his mind was working like a machine.

In the end, he said nothing at all, but his fingers laced themselves around mine and he gave my palm a gentle squeeze. The elevator doors slid open with well-maintained fluidity, but I continued to look at his face as he worked over whatever thought was troubling him; I watched as his face changed, as his thoughts changed, adjusting to accommodate a never-before-considered possibility. 


>> to chapter five >>

Comments

[deg-no-kasumi.livejournal.com]

Oh noooooooooo ! çç You couldn't just cut it like that ! éè Great as ever! Hope you'll continue soon ! =3

[andrew-in-drag.livejournal.com]

haha, thanks! well there is some sex 'n drama coming up so I'm certainly not cutting it now ;)

[lady-sb.livejournal.com]

This is really moving along at a nice clip (and thanks for the speedy updates!). I love the thought of them just dating, just spending time together, its romantic and lovely and it builds the relationship between them more.

Now I am anxious about what happens next!

[leifang666.livejournal.com]

Poor Toshiya. They should have taken the stairs!