PROTECT ME: PROLOGUE

[andrew_in_drag]

Title: Protect Me
Author: andrew_in_drag
Pairing: Kaoru x Toshiya
Rating: mature
Warnings: sex, rudeness, swears, boyish attitudes, AU
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. 

PART ONE: INFATUATION

PROLOGUE

What’s protection, really?

It used to be my job to know: I was on the police force. I started as an officer when I was twenty, and since then I worked my way up pretty steadily. I’d been on the force for six years when they promoted me to assistant inspector, and started me working vice. I did that for two years before I got fired. I loved it.

It’s not everyone’s dream job, I know: it means a lot of late nights spent in dangerous neighbourhoods, and seeing a lot of things that are hard to see. You get to make a difference, though, and that was always the clincher for me. Locking up drug dealers and people who ran brothels: I knew I was making the city safer.

That said, you can’t save everyone. That’s one of the first things you learn on the police force, and it can wear you down in the end.

I worked downtown Osaka. Shinsekai, mainly, and that was where I met him.

I really hated Shinsekai at first. The problems the district had with homelessness and substance abuse were disheartening, and the heavy yakuza presence meant that many members of the community were in doubt about who truly ran the streets they lived on. Bosozoku were common. A lot of the shops had bars on the windows.

But the more I worked there, the more I began to see the good things, too. The community’s transvestite population were often out in full force, wolf-whistling at traffic cops and officers on the beat, but I soon started to enjoy their colour. I learnt that if you smiled and waved at them, they’d return the gesture sincerely. The bosozoku liked to think they were pretty tough, but under their aggressive hairstyles and pierced faces they were boys, just boys, with pathetically downy whiskers growing on their cheeks.

And of course, there was him.

Toshimasa Hara. Even now I sometimes find it hard to decide if his name gives me heartache or a headache. When we met he was just another young man about the district, with his fingerprints over all kinds of not-exactly-legal business: word about town was that the occasional transvestite was also an occasional rentboy, when money was tight, and always good if you wanted to buy alcohol but had the tricky problem of being underage, and maybe good if you wanted to buy something stronger than alcohol, too – but you can’t convict somebody based on gossip. Toshimasa’s name was down on my list of regular suspects in indelible ink before I even started patrol in that district; even so, it was six months before our paths actually crossed, when he was taken in by my colleague for receiving stolen goods.

I hear his voice in my head: for allegedly receiving stolen goods.

I remember that I told him his reputation preceded him, and he smiled.

The story was that his boyfriend had been the one to give him the stolen goods – which consisted of, in that case, a necklace with a cash value of around 1,700 yen. He sat in my interview room, sometimes sullen and sometimes lively, and if I hadn’t been so concerned with maintaining my professional face, on a few occasions he would’ve made me laugh. I let myself laugh later, when I got home for the night, in bed. I should have known that I was destined for trouble then: I make it a rule to never, ever take my work home with me.

I can still see it in my head, though, the way he looked that very first day we met. He wore a grey faux fur coat over an oversized sweatshirt with black and white stripes; a ruffled black miniskirt; laddered black tights; scuffed black combat boots. His expressive eyes were outlined in kohl liner, and he rolled them a lot. His hair was bluish black and spiky, and there was peeling purple polish on his nails. He smoked almost constantly in the interview room, prompting me to get up and empty the ashtray at least once. He asked for multiple cups of water, used the bathroom about three times; overall, he made a routine interview take up five hours of my day.

“I don’t want to be here either,” he sighed, “Well, how would you feel? I thought that necklace was a lovely gesture. Now I look like an idiot.”

“Toshimasa,” I said strictly, “You sold it.”

He smiled a little, twisting in his seat. “It was a nice gesture,” he repeated, “Not a nice necklace.”

That was it: our first meeting. Five hours in an interview room, talking about a crime that may or may not have taken place, until I was eventually able to draw the conclusion that, though he had fought me every step of the way, it was most likely that he hadn’t known his gift was stolen. Innocence wasn’t a word readily linked with Toshimasa Hara, but in this case I had to grudgingly agree that it applied. Stubborn, he refused point blank to tell me who his mysterious boyfriend was. Whatever the identity of the man, I pitied him: it seemed he’d be in trouble when Toshimasa got home.

If I’m honest, that first day, I truly didn’t know what to make of him. The real surprise of him was to come later, a long time after I started calling him Toshiya, like he asked: even at that time, though, it was what he brought out in me that I began to fear. I didn’t know that it was to grow to such proportions: that he would enslave me so. Innocent. I wish.

I went home that night and dreamt of him. In my dream he was naked on the table of the interview room, smoking slowly. He sat up, stubbed out his cigarette, kissed me on the cheek, and slid a cool, knowing hand below the waistband of my underwear.

I jumped awake, embarrassed. I knew right away that it wasn’t the last dream I would have of him. 


>> to chapter one >>

Comments

[cateris.livejournal.com]

OMG!

omgomgomg
CHAPTERED FIC! FJRIGIRDJIRJHITIHJNIRIN

THIS IS CHRISTMAS OR WHAT?

I COMPLETELY love how this starts and the premise of it all. I'm also a sucker for AU and yours sounded pretty professional (you made me think of all the awesome 90'ies Hong Kong police movies I've been seeing until this point in life vgbgonoghogtin). I can't wait to see how this will evolve and who is Toshiya's boyfriend :DDDD Also, great characterization and background for Kaoru! Totally loved that part!

[andrew-in-drag.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks very much. I'll have to try very hard not to disappoint you now :P

Writing things from Kaoru's point of view is always pretty fun because he's...just so weird!

So I'm glad to have your interest in this. Hopefully you'll continue to enjoy it!