[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 107 ~Cascade~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. and maeda_marika
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be? How much is fate and how much choice? And how will their meeting change the world around them?
Author's Note: Well, the end of this was supposed to happen much more gradually over the course of several days but unfortunately, it turns out I'll have to work after all on Monday so I have to go to bed in three minutes. I didn't want to make you guys wait any longer so I condensed a lot and moved the other half to the next present!chapter. Sorry. But it's still a longer chapter than a lot of times.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!! THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 107 ~Cascade~
As he sat in the sanctuary with the Trio plotting another job (even after being with Kizuna for months he still called Massu, Koyama, and Shige that in his mind), Jin couldn’t get Girl out of his mind. Something about her really unnerved him. Not just the fact that the abuse she’d obviously experienced was heartbreaking. No, there was something more basic than that buzzing around the back of his mind, distracting him, and he couldn’t quite figure it out.
Oh, not that he thought she was dangerous.
No, it was more that he couldn’t shake the feeling there was something terribly wrong with how she saw the world around her and interacted with it. She… she didn’t connect…
He wondered if she’d ever had any normal human interaction or if her life was one long string of neglect and abuse. Had there ever been one moment in her life where someone just talked to her or smiled at her without wanting something from her?
“…but the cat didn’t know the frog was watching the whole time. The frog saw it all.”
Jin nodded but he wasn’t really listening to the plan. He was lost in thought.
There was a pause and then Koyama and Shige laughed. Shige said something and Jin just nodded again. The three of them were really good at planning this sort of thing so he was pretty much just agreeing with everything.
Massu’s voice again, “But where will we get a water buffalo at this time of day?”
More snickering from Shige and Koyama as Jin just nodded.
He really wanted to talk to Girl again. Ask her some questions. He…
“Jin?” This was Koyama.
“Yeah?”
“Did you have a fight with Kame?”
Still not really listening, Jin said, “It’s a good plan so f…. wait, what?” and his attention snapped to the three snickering men. “What does Kame have to do with…”
“You haven’t been listening to anything we said,” Shige teased.
Oops. Busted…
“S-sure I have. It’s a good plan. Really.”
“Which part - the cat, the frog, or the water buffalo?” from Massu, which sent all three of them into a laughing fit.
“Water buffalo? The hell are you guys talking about? Why would we need a water buffalo for an out-of-town jewelry heist?” Maybe he should have been paying attention.
“We just wanted to see if you were really listening…” Massu was laughing so hard he was nearly crying.
Grumbling, Jin said, “Yeah, yeah, fine… I’ll pay attention.” He did his best to push all thoughts about the strange girl aside. He’d worry about her later. “So, frogs and cats and buffalos aside, what were you saying?”
“I was saying,” and Massu shook his head, “that they have a regular armored car schedule and since there’s four of us, we could try it this way...”
They spent the next three and a half hours planning. Jin had never hit an armored car before but four of them ought to be enough. And even if they got there and judged it to be too risky, they could wait it out and still rob the jewelry store. Win-win, right?
***
Yuya found Kame in the kitchen ten minutes after Jin was kidnapped by Massu. He felt kind of bad that he’d completely forgotten Yuya wanted to talk to him. The first words out of his long-time friend’s mouth didn’t help.
“Was he really under the desk?”
It wasn’t like Kame hadn’t ever had sex where people could see it. Pearl Street wasn’t exactly private. But what he did with Jin was between the two of them and he found himself blushing. “I d-don’t know what you’re talking about. Where did you hear that nonsense?”
“Shige.”
Huh? “Well, how in the hell did he hear that?” It had only been four hours since then. God, the Kizuna rumor mill was fast.
Yuya laughed. “Maru.”
“Oh… that makes sense…” because he should have known that Maru would hear about anything Koki saw. The two were lovers, or at least close enough. Maru was apparently a complete gentleman when he wasn’t out exacting bloody revenge. But Koki didn’t seem to mind the slow pace.
Still… how embarrassing to be caught like that! He was going to kill Jin slowly and painfully for this.
Yuya jumped on Kame’s words with a shocked and amused, “It’s true? I thought Shige was just… I dunno, exaggerating. So Jin was really-”
But Kame interrupted, “… in another room doing another thing entirely and that’s what you should tell anyone who asks.” Yuya laughed again and that was enough. Kame snapped at him, “If that’s all you want to talk about, then I have noth-”
“It’s about Ryo… um, Detective Nishikido,” and just like that, the laughter was replaced with a look Kame was coming to know well himself. A softness in the eyes, corners of the mouth curled slightly in a smile… subtle things here and there that made a person glow.
It was love. Nothing else looked like that. Not even close. He’d been with Jin long enough to know that. For Yuya’s sake, Kame hoped Detective Nishikido someday returned the feelings. Yuya still had no idea what the man felt for him and had been too nervous to ask it so far.
“I haven’t seen or heard from him in a while. What’s up? Is there some kind of trouble?”
Shaking his head, Yuya said, “Nothing like that. His senpai is retiring and he’s putting together an event next week. He’s asked me to pick out some of Kizuna’s finest - two men, two women, and myself - to be the entertainment. But not just pretty faces, he said. Not just great in bed. He wants table talk. He’s paying a lot for this.”
Table talk was the ability to carry on intelligent conversation with just the right amount of suggestiveness so that it can’t be missed but that you can still feign innocence. It was a lot like what he did as a waiter in The Club, actually, with the exception that he didn’t sleep with the members there. To be honest, there weren’t many street whores who learned specifically how to do this but Kizuna members were smart and any of them would probably get by. But the best in Kizuna (aside from Kame) was probably Yui, Shibari, and Okura. Those three all worked for the same crooked establishment that catered to corrupt businessmen and politicians until the company… fell apart.
Hmm… That was a start but they’d need one more woman. And one more thing, “If they don’t have other plans, take Okura, Shibata, and Yui with you. I’ll leave the fourth choice in your hands. But I insist you take Takeshi with you too or this doesn’t happen.”
“Takeshi?” and Yuya sounded surprised. “This is for Ryo. You can trust him. And don’t we owe him that level of respect after the favor he did for us a few months ago? The secret police files? And these are going to be cops so isn’t Takeshi overkill?”
To be honest, Kame wasn’t sure he completely trusted the detective. The man wasn’t on Kizuna’s side exactly. Oh, he wasn’t against them but the truth was that the man was for hire and not exclusively to Kizuna. Then again, Yuya trusted the man and Kame trusted Yuya. It was irrelevant though, because, “It was a cop that shot Koyama. Ryo might be completely trustworthy but that doesn’t mean the others are safe. With everything going on with Papa K, we need the cops on our side so we can’t afford to turn down this job despite that risk and Takeshi is known to the cops already as a convicted killer. No criminal will dare attack at a police party and no police officer will dare with Takeshi on hand.”
“Ryo won’t pay him. He didn’t ask for an enforcer.”
“We watch out for each other. I know Takeshi understands that. If you want, I can ask him for you but I don’t think I’ll have to.”
Yuya shook his head again and said, “No, I’ll ask him. Maybe I should give him part of my share… it’s what we do a lot of the time with whoever protects the strolls for us…”
“He’d do it for free but even so, I agree that you should compensate him if Ryo won’t.”
“Thanks, Kame.” Yuya went to leave but then stopped after a few steps. “Ne, Kame?”
“What is it, Tesshi?”
“You really are the glue that holds this whole thing together. You find the one path for us that makes us fit together into something greater than any one of us could have dreamed for ourselves.” A pause and then, “I like what I see here. I like the way I am around you because you make me want to be the best I can, for my own sake and for everyone here. Though I know I’ll never like selling myself, somehow I can be proud because I do it for all of us. You’ve taken what was worst in my life and made it into a source of strength.”
And Kame had no idea what to say to that other than the utterly truthful, “You are my strength. All of you.”
“You’ve come so far if you aren’t arguing anymore when I say something like that to you. I just… I wanted to tell you, so…” Only now Yuya looked kind of unsure. But when Kame tried to ask him if something was wrong, he just said, “Eh, not so much. Anyway, I’ll go talk to Takeshi now.” He walked off without another word.
What was that there at the end? Something was definitely bothering Yuya but it seemed he didn’t want to talk about it…
Ah, well. He had things he had to do anyway so he’d let it be for now. Speaking of which, what was taking Koki so long? He was only supposed to give Maru a goodbye kiss and get the warehouse key from him! Somehow, Kame suspected Reina was involved in the delay. That child had him wrapped around her little finger.
Kame left the kitchen with the intention of tracking Koki down but he was not expecting Yamashita to suddenly duck out of the office right in his path, horribly tangling the two of them together so they landed on the corridor floor with Yamashita on top of him.
They did not stay that way for long, though, because Kame shoved the man off of him as hard as he could despite having the breath knocked out of him. Yamashita rocked back hard, hitting his head on the wall with an undignified shriek of protest. “Watch it!”
Hissing, Kame said, “You’re the one that came out of nowhere and bumped into me!” He didn’t like the fact that the reporter was still with them. The man didn’t even help with meals past making sure he never missed the chance to eat. He didn’t seem even remotely sorry for sleeping with Tatsuya when he was drugged up at the rough trade house. He only seemed to care that he got caught. He certainly hadn’t apologized. “What were you doing in there, anyway?”
“The phone…”
“You insisted we take you in because you’re hiding from Papa K’s men but you’re making phone calls? I thought the point was for people to think you are dead! You know that girl you were dating is better off not knowing where you are because Papa K won’t mind going through her to get to you.”
“I’m not stupid. That’s why I called my boss to talk to her for me.”
Thereby making the chain of innocents even longer. For such an educated man, Yamashita was an idiot. But Kame didn’t want to argue with him so instead he stood and excused himself. He could hear Yamashita grumbling to himself as he walked off in the other direction, but honestly Kame didn’t care. He’d gotten used to that as the reporter spent most of his time grumbling over the current state of his life.
As if what he was going through was any worse than the rest of them.
Koki was indeed still with Maru and the street kids but he looked angry and all of it was directed at Maru. It probably had something to do with the fact that both Hotaru and Reina were crying. “-scare them like that. They have enough to worry about without you making it worse with crazy stories!”
“But takara-chan,” which was what Maru had taken to calling Koki recently, “it’s true! I swear! They should be afraid!”
“I’m not s-scared!” Reina insisted, wiping her face on her sleeve. “I’m not! I’ll find it!” and she took off running, pushing past both Maru and Koki.
“See? The bunnies are fine.” Apparently Maru was still calling them that.
Koki sighed and shook his head only to finally notice they weren’t alone. “We’ll talk about this more later, Maru. I have to go. Just… just stop scaring the kids, okay? Let’s go, Kame.”
Kame mouthed a quick apology to a now-sulking Maru and followed after Koki who started walking away the moment he finished speaking. After they were out of earshot of Maru, Kame’s curiosity got the better of him and he finally asked,”What was that all about?”
“Oh, Maru’s just being his normal superstitious self.” From Koki’s tone, it was clear he didn’t want to talk about it.
A lot of people didn’t want to talk about a lot of things this day, it seemed.
Despite all the little things popping up throughout the day that ranged from the worrisome to the annoying, the day passed fairly quickly. Kame hated going to sleep by himself but Jin was out of town with Koyama, Massu, and Shige so there wasn’t anything to be done for it. It was lonely…
At least he was surrounded by Jin’s scent even if he wasn’t in the warmth of Jin’s arms.
By the next day, Kizuna was buzzing. He heard Yuya telling Noriko at one point, “I saw it too!”
Shuta was telling Yurina, “Maybe they’re right and maybe they’re wrong but things DO move or disappear entirely if you turn you back for just an instant. It’s creepy.” Yurina quickly responded that the whole mess was foolish and how surprised she was that he was following the masses into idiocy.
Taipi, Tamamori, and Kitayama were sitting together leisurely on the steps of the alter in the sanctuary and Kame was pretty sure Kitayama said something about “cold eyes that see right into your soul” to which Taipi said, “Next time I’ll get it on camera! I’ll prove it’s real!”
Kame never would have guessed Maru’s superstitious ways were so contagious. Now he had over half of Kizuna believing in ghosts or gremlins or whatever it was they all claimed to have seen. Oh, this was just what they needed. It wasn’t enough to have a scarily powerful living man set against them; apparently they had to have a supernatural one as well!
He tried many times during the day to explain that there were no such things as ghosts. Even when Jin got back that afternoon to help, nobody listened. In fact, the new theory was that the ghost had always been in the church, trapped in the tower room until Jin found the way up and let it in the rest of the church.
Just what was he supposed to do about this?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 108 ~Favor the First~ *new - Mar 19*
A/N: Well, there you go. Sorry no time for good author's note must go to bed. The whole Maru scare thing gets funny in the next present!chapter, I swear.