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andrew_in_dragRating: NC-17
Pairings: Kyo/Toshiya, Kaoru/Toshiya, Die/Shinya, Aoi/Uruha
General Warnings: AU, slash, violence, language, yakuza theme, character death
Chapter Warnings: nuffin'
Previously: The Prodigy | The Rent Boy | The Escort | The Imposter | The Professional | The Shateigashira | The Bargain | The Addict | The Rookie | The Long Night | The Lights | The Chase | The Brothel | The Pits | The Memory | The Truce | The Plan | The Shateigashira's Game | The Oyabun | The Suspect | The Revelations | The Oyabun's Advice | The Fortune Teller | The Escape | The Betrayal | The Aftermath | The Ghost | The City of Ashes
Notes: this is the prequel to Protect Me. For the yakuza terminology and hierarchy that I'm working with, please see here.
When a young prostitute is found with blood on his hands, he catches the eye of the Inagawa clan's prodigy and quickly finds himself tangled up within Osaka's criminal underworld. Taken into a yakuza house and pimped by the mysterious shateigashira, he is desperate for any means of escape - but in a house of cards, can anybody really be trusted?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: THE SPECIAL ASSIGNMENT
In Toshiya's dream, somebody was singing.
It was a low, sad song, very quiet but not unpleasant; when he strained his ears for it he found that everything else stopped hurting, and he felt calmer. He wanted to wrap that gentle stream of notes around him like a coat; clutch it to him like his own skin.
But then he blinked raw, unfiltered daylight. And everything was shot through with narrow bands of pain, and the singing was nowhere to be heard.
He lay on his back, pinned to his bed by several shafts of hard winter sunshine, and he could tell by the feeling that his face was somewhat distorted, swollen and burdensome; the thought made him crack his lips into a crooked smile. He hoped he was ugly. Nobody would want him, then.
Gradually he came to realise that he was not in his room, and that somebody was moving around the edge of his vision.
He thought perhaps it was Kyo.
He concentrated on the blinding square of the window and wished for a hard, numbing snowfall. He wished and wished and wished it until a great blankness took the place of the window, and then of the whole wall; he felt himself drifting towards it on a smooth, drugged current, and he was asleep again before he realised where he was.
“How is he, boss?”
Toshiya wasn't ill, Die knew, but still the atmosphere in the room made him lower his voice to a sickroom hush. Kyo stood by the bed looking quite calm and unmoved, but on closer inspection there was a new, tense angularity to his face that was unbecoming, and some little worried creases that were out of place on his young skin. He offered Die no answer but a minute twitch of his shoulders, the thinnest and meanest of shrugs. There was a misery to him that Die found frightening.
“He's in your bed,” the redhead said foolishly, “Won't that...I mean – it might look a bit odd...not that it isn't understandable, boss,” he added quickly, “Not at all.”
Kyo gave him a very sour look.
“It's not understandable,” he barked hoarsely. “What could explain it? He has his own bed outside this building. He should be resting there.”
He looked away from Die and down at the floor.
“I should have stopped the show,” he muttered.
The words had the curious effect of sounding larger than they were. Die looked steadfastly forward, but his cheeks flushed slightly.
“You couldn't have stopped it,” he said, careful not to sound too kind, “Not like that; not once it had started and there were all those people there. It would have been...”
“Too dangerous?” Kyo offered bitterly. He looked as if he had a lot to say on the subject, but he shut his mouth abruptly and looked back at Toshiya.
What do you think of him? he wanted to ask. It occurred to him that officially Die's opinion didn't matter, but on the contrary Kyo's desire for it made it matter; whilst the opinions of his superiors went unchecked, because he knew they would disapprove – and yet keeping Toshiya anyway was really saying that their opinions didn't matter. It was all upside-down and out of order. It made his head spin.
“You should be in bed, boss,” Die said, as if reading his thoughts. “You should rest up whilst you're ill—”
“This? This is a cold,” Kyo said dismissively. “Besides, where would I lie? I couldn't lie next to him.”
Die was quiet for a long moment.
“I suppose,” he said, in a very peculiar voice, “Nobody would actually have to know, really, would they? If I took care of you alone, and was the only person granted access; I could even clear this floor of the house, you know, if—”
“Toshiya thinks I did it,” Kyo said shortly, “He thinks I put him down there. I know. He looked at me, and I saw it.”
“If you told him the truth, he'd believe you.”
“No, I'm not going to tell him the truth. I think...” he paused, as if struggling greatly with the words.
“I think,” he repeated at last, “That in the circumstances, it's better that he doesn't know. He makes me act – strangely. I can't do that. I can't act like that. He needs to be away from me.”
It was almost imperceptible, but Die's lips firmed slightly.
“Sorry, boss,” he said shortly, “But – I'd tell him.”
“You? No, I forbid it.”
“I know, but I – I think I still would, boss.”
And then he tensed up, as if readying himself for a great blow which never came. He dared a sideways glance at the shateigashira.
“Are you saying,” Kyo asked, “That I have no choice in the matter? That it's quite – quite out of my hands?”
“I...” Die hesitated. “I am, boss, yeah.”
Kyo gave a deep sigh, and closed his eyes for somewhat longer than a blink.
“If you make that decision, then you must honour the commitments that come with it. My enemies will see Toshiya in my presence; they'll talk. They'll...they will think that harming him is a way to harm me.”
“Boss?”
“You will make me a promise,” Kyo said painfully, the words clearly costing him a great effort. “You will promise to protect him. Ideally he would have his own guard, but I don't trust anybody else. You will swear it to me right now that if it becomes necessary, you will – you will lay down your own life to protect his. Keeping him safe is your number one priority; your special assignment. Is that clear?”
“It won't come to that,” Die murmured, eyes wide.
“But if it does.”
The shateigashira was unswayed, and he stared Die down with a fervidness that bordered on desperation. He waited, and after a long moment Die nodded and bowed deeply.
“I promise,” he said.
“Good. Dress his wounds, and make sure he's comfortable. I am going to have a talk with the proprietor.”
Die agreed to do all of that – he would probably have walked over hot coals if Kyo had asked him to – but found that the task of taking care of Toshiya quickly ran thin: whether or not the other man was asleep, it wasn't sure, but he kept his good eye just as tightly closed as the one that was swollen shut, and he didn't stir so much as an inch. Gradually, as if he was reluctant, Die lowered the blind and closed the door quietly behind him.
Then, he almost ran down the hall to Shinya's room.
He couldn't say, exactly, just where his fear had gone. Seeing Aoi's broken-down face had pushed away some of it: so what if it made him a homo or a queer or a fag – so what? He was one already. It wouldn't make that fundamental truth any more true; it would just make his current life less of a lie.
He took this in with a grim kind of triumph. What that left, then, was a dimmer and more complex fear, shoved way down deep where he hardly ever had to access it: the fear that Shinya was not truly one of them; not in the same way that he was or Kyo was. He had been sworn in, but he was still – in some undefinable and unprovable way – different. Die knew all the facts about him; that he was a computer genius who held a fierce grudge against the police department that had, by some sheer dumb luck, managed to thwart him – but when he looked at Shinya, he got the eeriest feeling that all these facts did not ring entirely true.
He thought of Shinya's face, his smile. His small hands cupping his pet's tiny body, and the gratitude in his eyes. The intelligence he believed; the grudge he didn't.
But what was Shinya, then?
Die tapped lightly on his door before entering, and smiled at the scene that opened before him: Shinya sat cross-legged on the floor, Miyu sound asleep in his lap and a neatly-ordered collection of springs and sprockets on the floor in front of him. He was sorting them with deft fingers, stirring them around until his quick hands alighted on the one he was after; he plucked it from the pile and fitted it seamlessly into place within the body of a clock that he had apparently dismantled.
“Hi,” Die greeted, and received a vague nod in return. “Having fun?”
That merited a more vigorous nod. Shinya tucked a strand of hair behind his cheek, smearing a thin, dark line of grease over his cheek. It stood out like a scar and made him look victorious.
“Wish I had bigger,” he said busily, “Car engines and computers.”
“What about that computer?” Die asked, gesturing over to the elaborate machine that sat precariously on the desk in Shinya's room, like a great fat bird on a spindly twig. Shinya shook his head.
“Already built that,” he answered, keeping his breathless tone. His hair kept falling in his eyes, and Die leant over to carefully smooth a fallen lock of it out of the way.
Shinya seemed to grow rather flustered then. He patted his ponytail distractedly and accidentally prodded a rogue spring so hard it went flying, a bright silver corkscrew, across the floor. Hastily, he busied himself with assembling the clock – which Die slowly started to recognise as the timepiece that had always stood on the mantel in Shinya's room, a beautiful thing of lacquered wood with inlays of jade, and a gold-edged pendulum – and Die didn't have the heart to tell him that there was no point; that clock had never worked, not even once, in all the time he had been there. The silence grew quite comfortably, Shinya tinkering and Die watching. Miyu gave a great yawn and stretched elaborately, quite a routine for such a small dog – she couldn't really have gotten cramped, Die thought with some amusement – and settled herself back down sleepily.
“Hey,” Die said, as if it was perfectly normal, “Why are you here?”
And Shinya didn't look up, but his shoulders stiffened slightly.
“Don't know,” he said cautiously, “Lot of reasons.”
He visibly hesitated. His fingers were still working on the clock, but with none of their earlier enthusiasm. When he realised that this answer was not enough for Die, his shoulders slumped.
“Didn't ever fit in anywhere else,” he said quietly, “Maybe I fit in here.”
He looked up, the smear of grease a vivid slash across his cheekbone. “You?” he asked.
“Me?” Die held his hand out for Miyu, and she gave the tips of his fingers a delicate lick. “I ran away from home.”
Shinya's eyes widened. Running away: how many times had he daydreamed about that? It seemed he'd thought about it every single day he'd been at home.
But he'd always been too scared. Or, not scared, but disturbed: the thought of the dirt and the mud, the cold rain, strange people. Policemen would peer down into his face and ask him if he was that runaway boy, and he would have to talk to them.
Or maybe he wouldn't even be missed.
“Ran away when I was seventeen,” Die said slowly, like he was easing himself into it. “I wanted to go to one of the big cities. I packed up what I could carry and put my guitar on my back—” he laughed suddenly, although it was uncharacteristically mirthless, “Back then I really thought I'd be a musician. I thought I'd be a rock star.”
He was smiling, but it was sad, and he pumped his fist in the air to show that he could have really been on the stage.
“I ended up in Kyoto. I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I slept in doorways or in parks, and during the day I busked so I wouldn't have to beg. I was getting pretty good, too, and then one night I came across this gang, a bunch of guys who'd been on the street a lot longer than I had. They took my guitar and my cash, and I tried to fight them, but there were so many...” he frowned, “And then this voice said, 'stop'.”
“Who,” Shinya said immediately. He leant forwards, looking utterly absorbed, and Die felt both flattered and embarrassed by the sudden rapt attention.
“I didn't know, then. But they all stopped. They moved aside, made a path between them, and I saw this boy – couldn't have been older than sixteen. But he had said stop, and they listened. And...” Die struggled, trying to push his hazy ideas into words, “And he wasn't tall, or anything. Wasn't strong. He wasn't bigger or tougher or older than any of the others, but they all listened to him. He told me that his name was Kyo and he liked my guitar. He said it was his gang. They weren't his friends,” he remembered suddenly, “It was like he was the boss and they did what he said. He didn't like them. He just liked their skills; liked the way they talked about power. Gave him power.”
Die shook his head slowly.
“I never felt like I had any power at all,” he said. “I'd look at my arms pick up my amp at home and wonder how they managed to lift that big weight; why they didn't shake. But he...everybody listened to him. Like no matter what idea he had, or what he liked or believed in or wanted, it wasn't crazy. Because he said it, it wasn't crazy. I decided that I wanted to be a person like that.”
A soft ticking noise punctuated his sentence, and he glanced down in surprise. In Shinya's hands there was the shell of the clock; the fragile face and hands unsheltered and unbordered, the pendulum swinging into empty space.
But still it swung, and counted the seconds, for the first time in thirty years or more.
“How did you do that?” Die asked, and Shinya shrugged shyly.
“It's only parts,” he said, “You just have to look at them. They're just gears and metal and springs, but when you put them together they change. When they're together, they work.”
A/N: I'M BACK BITCHES. Eight days without internet could well have killed me (I am quite allergic to literally everything else) but other than that it was lovely to see my grandparents. Old and questionably racist as they are. Errr, I saw a snake too. In Cornwall. Safe.
Also fuck am I sunburned.
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no subject
Date: 2013-08-10 10:24 pm (UTC)From:*goes to read*
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Date: 2013-08-10 10:25 pm (UTC)From:lol jk, I have so many friends.
...lol jk
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Date: 2013-08-10 11:20 pm (UTC)From:But fuck if I care. You're back. HELL YEAH.
And I had no idea if I should have smiled or gasped or rose an eyebrow when I saw Kyo making Die promise to protect Toshiya with his own life. Seems like breaking his precious Toshiya made him finally acknowledge that he cared about him. And yes, hurting Toshiya is a way to hurt Kyo. Mister invincible just acquired a rather massive weak spot. Congratulations. Also, I quite like the fact that Kyo is somewhat shy or just plain uncomfortable with the idea of sleeping next to Toshiya, even though it's his own damn bed. Either he has a rather traditional strike in him, or he wouldn't want Toshiya to know he might care about him. I'm still wondering. Though he should have listened to Die and finally allowed himself to rest. At this rest, this cold will turn into a full blown pneumonia.
And I'm already cackling inside. Kyo is going to talk to the proprietor. I'm excited to read that. Very much so.
I had forgotten about Shinya being a traitor. Quiet little Shinya is good at making his presence quiet and subtle. And if Die finally allows himself to get closer to Shinya, this might hurt him. I know he wouldn't like Shinya to lie to him. And he wouldn't like someone trying to hurt Kyo in any way.
And I should stop starting every fucking sentence with "and". This just proves that my mind just sprouts nonsense and my fingers can't keep up, and if I didn't have to breathe or shorten sentences, those comments would be one fucking long phrase. Thank gods comas and periods exists. *snorts* Periods. I'm not so sure about that. *giggles*
Okay, my mind is also a drunken fool. A perverted one. A stupid one, to top it off. But well. *shrugs*
Also, I am proud of Shinya for making that clock work. He can make anything happen. I like that.
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Date: 2013-08-11 06:10 pm (UTC)From:Except for the drinking part. My internal organs don't agree with alcohol. D:
Gawsh that scene with the clock *squee!!*
<//3
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Date: 2013-08-12 08:20 pm (UTC)From:Oh Toshiya, I don't know what to say, My poor baby, just *gives you hugs* and, tells you I loves you so much. I wish I could jump through the screen and get you the fuck up out of there.
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Date: 2013-09-16 05:41 am (UTC)From: