VF-Fic: Taking a Risk - Part 3
Title: Taking a Risk - Part 3
Author: ninnive
Fandom: 'Viewfinder'-series by Yamane Ayano
Pairing: Asami x Takaba
Rating: G
Warnings: vague spoilers for the entire series
Summary: Asami has a busy day
Disclaimer: The whole 'Viewfinder'-universe is Yamane Ayano's.
chapter 1, chapter 2
*
The short but determined knocking on the door caught Asami completely unprepared and wrenched him out of an uneasy sleep. Slowly pulling the blanket from his body, he fought against the urge to roll himself into a foetal position, ignore the noise and hide from everything out there. But the knowledge that only an emergency could have caused somebody to disturb him in his own flat let Asami stand up and open the door, nearly knocking it into the man who stood in front of it in the process.
"Asami-sama?" One of his bodyguards; voice steady but the pinched face showed clearly that the man wished he was elsewhere.
Asami waved any further comments aside. "Whatever it is, it will have to wait until I've had a shower and a change of clothes," he declared brusquely.
Nodding, the other man hurried to his position outside the bulding, obviously relieved to get away. And when Asami arrived in the bathroom and glanced into the mirror, he suddenly understood why the normally unimpressible bodyguard had been in such a haste - he looked frightening with prominent sleep wrinkles in face and clothes, hair like an exploded hedgehog, a grim expression and blood-shot eyes. After a brief sniff at his shirt, he wrinkled his nose and added 'smelling like a whole barrel of whisky' to the list. Well, all that was nothing an ice-cold shower wouldn't be able to fix.
*
Nineteen hours later Asami finally found the time to sit back and relax. It had been an ugly day - the escalation of a long-simmering quarrel with one of the newer players in Tokyo's underworld. They hadn't been able to keep the authorities out of the business and two of his men had been injured, one of them seriously.
Asami had organized their transport to a hospital where they would get an excellent medical treatment without having to answer any annoying questions and was just finished grilling some of his contacts in the responsible police department, when he realized that this was all for today. There was nothing else to be done for now; any possible further steps would have to wait until some of today's ruffled feathers had been smoothed. Looking over the stacks of paper that had gathered on his desk over the last two days, Asami desperately wished for a drink, and a good one - but the memory of the state he'd been in last morning quelled that particular impulse as soon as it came up.
He opted for a coffee instead and began to tackle the piles of documents in front of him vigorously, brushing aside everything that wasn't high-priority and making short work of the things that were.
When he'd cleared anything work-related off his desk, Asami stared for a long time at the remaining few sheets. The report on Takaba, printed on baby-pink paper, just to rile the young man up in the improbable case he ever found the file somehow. That thought coaxed a smile onto Asami's face and he decided that he'd earned to indulge his obsession a little. Reading through the scarce but thorough report he noted that the content didn't surprise him one bit - Takaba was fairly predictable after all, especially when he was angry, and Asami was usually a reliable judge of character; he wouldn't have made it very far in his 'profession' otherwise.
Still smiling, Asami leaned back and focussed on the exact words he was going to say later. That wasn't something he had to do often - normally he just commanded everyone around him without thinking about it, and at the rare opportunities at which he dealed with equals, there often was a rigid protocol dictating large parts of the conversation. This was different - for the first time in years, Asami wanted something that he couldn't just buy some way or another and to get it he would have to be very careful with what he was going to say.
*
Takaba had radiated anger when he'd first noticed Asami loiter around the periphery of the photoset he was working on, but the longer the Yakuza just stood around, not even smoking, the more nervous he became. And after nearly an hour of pretending to ignore Asami, he finally seemed to be at the end of the line.
Suppressing a triumphant smile, Asami watched Takaba storming towards him. The photographer was trying very hard not to run and ended up stumbling, barely managing not to fall to the ground. "What do you want here?!" The question was flung in an acidic tone, but Takaba had never been able to stay angry very long, and already his expression began to soften, hovering somewhere between curiosity, suspicion and excitement.
"I came to ask if you have time this evening - I need to talk to you."
"And that's why you're hovering around here for ages? You could have just called! And since when does it matter if I have time; you usually make me have time for you."
"Yes, but this is important." Asami let some of the seriousness of the matter bleed into his voice, showing clearly that this was not one of his power games. "Do you have time?"
"Uhm… yes. Yes, I have. Asami… what is this about?" Takaba asked warily. "Has something happened?"
"Nothing dangerous; don't worry. I'll let one of my men pick you up around eight, okay?" Asami turned around before Takaba could ask further questions and walked over to his car without a backwards glance, all the while repeating one sentence in his head: The first step is done.
chapter 4
Author: ninnive
Fandom: 'Viewfinder'-series by Yamane Ayano
Pairing: Asami x Takaba
Rating: G
Warnings: vague spoilers for the entire series
Summary: Asami has a busy day
Disclaimer: The whole 'Viewfinder'-universe is Yamane Ayano's.
chapter 1, chapter 2
*
The short but determined knocking on the door caught Asami completely unprepared and wrenched him out of an uneasy sleep. Slowly pulling the blanket from his body, he fought against the urge to roll himself into a foetal position, ignore the noise and hide from everything out there. But the knowledge that only an emergency could have caused somebody to disturb him in his own flat let Asami stand up and open the door, nearly knocking it into the man who stood in front of it in the process.
"Asami-sama?" One of his bodyguards; voice steady but the pinched face showed clearly that the man wished he was elsewhere.
Asami waved any further comments aside. "Whatever it is, it will have to wait until I've had a shower and a change of clothes," he declared brusquely.
Nodding, the other man hurried to his position outside the bulding, obviously relieved to get away. And when Asami arrived in the bathroom and glanced into the mirror, he suddenly understood why the normally unimpressible bodyguard had been in such a haste - he looked frightening with prominent sleep wrinkles in face and clothes, hair like an exploded hedgehog, a grim expression and blood-shot eyes. After a brief sniff at his shirt, he wrinkled his nose and added 'smelling like a whole barrel of whisky' to the list. Well, all that was nothing an ice-cold shower wouldn't be able to fix.
*
Nineteen hours later Asami finally found the time to sit back and relax. It had been an ugly day - the escalation of a long-simmering quarrel with one of the newer players in Tokyo's underworld. They hadn't been able to keep the authorities out of the business and two of his men had been injured, one of them seriously.
Asami had organized their transport to a hospital where they would get an excellent medical treatment without having to answer any annoying questions and was just finished grilling some of his contacts in the responsible police department, when he realized that this was all for today. There was nothing else to be done for now; any possible further steps would have to wait until some of today's ruffled feathers had been smoothed. Looking over the stacks of paper that had gathered on his desk over the last two days, Asami desperately wished for a drink, and a good one - but the memory of the state he'd been in last morning quelled that particular impulse as soon as it came up.
He opted for a coffee instead and began to tackle the piles of documents in front of him vigorously, brushing aside everything that wasn't high-priority and making short work of the things that were.
When he'd cleared anything work-related off his desk, Asami stared for a long time at the remaining few sheets. The report on Takaba, printed on baby-pink paper, just to rile the young man up in the improbable case he ever found the file somehow. That thought coaxed a smile onto Asami's face and he decided that he'd earned to indulge his obsession a little. Reading through the scarce but thorough report he noted that the content didn't surprise him one bit - Takaba was fairly predictable after all, especially when he was angry, and Asami was usually a reliable judge of character; he wouldn't have made it very far in his 'profession' otherwise.
Still smiling, Asami leaned back and focussed on the exact words he was going to say later. That wasn't something he had to do often - normally he just commanded everyone around him without thinking about it, and at the rare opportunities at which he dealed with equals, there often was a rigid protocol dictating large parts of the conversation. This was different - for the first time in years, Asami wanted something that he couldn't just buy some way or another and to get it he would have to be very careful with what he was going to say.
*
Takaba had radiated anger when he'd first noticed Asami loiter around the periphery of the photoset he was working on, but the longer the Yakuza just stood around, not even smoking, the more nervous he became. And after nearly an hour of pretending to ignore Asami, he finally seemed to be at the end of the line.
Suppressing a triumphant smile, Asami watched Takaba storming towards him. The photographer was trying very hard not to run and ended up stumbling, barely managing not to fall to the ground. "What do you want here?!" The question was flung in an acidic tone, but Takaba had never been able to stay angry very long, and already his expression began to soften, hovering somewhere between curiosity, suspicion and excitement.
"I came to ask if you have time this evening - I need to talk to you."
"And that's why you're hovering around here for ages? You could have just called! And since when does it matter if I have time; you usually make me have time for you."
"Yes, but this is important." Asami let some of the seriousness of the matter bleed into his voice, showing clearly that this was not one of his power games. "Do you have time?"
"Uhm… yes. Yes, I have. Asami… what is this about?" Takaba asked warily. "Has something happened?"
"Nothing dangerous; don't worry. I'll let one of my men pick you up around eight, okay?" Asami turned around before Takaba could ask further questions and walked over to his car without a backwards glance, all the while repeating one sentence in his head: The first step is done.
chapter 4