JE/NEWS- "Dirty Work"
Title: Dirty Work
Universe: JE/NewS ( Gov AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS (appearances by KT, Tackey, TOKIO, and Inohara)
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC, sap, violence, bad action and police procedurals.
Word Count: 5,965
Summary: Being the good guys doesn’t always mean doing good guy things.
Dedication: Happy belated birthday cynicalism! DONE. FINALLY DONE THIS TOOK FOREVER.
A/N: Okay so my writer’s block has been ridiculous lately and so I started two random vague stories for you, Cyn. This is clearly the one that won out in the end even though it wasn’t really my first choice since it’s not really Massu-centric like the other one was. IDK, I am weird lately, it’s like I can’t write what I actually want to. >>
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1.
He chooses her.
Koyama lays eyes on her the moment he steps through the door and can’t help it when he goes to her instinctively, when he crouches down at her side and starts to work, pulling the panel off of the ticking device strapped to her tiny chest and moving as fast as his shaking fingers and his panicking brain will allow him to.
All around him there are more sets of eyes just like hers, silently staring at him. Helpless.
He tries not to look at them, tries not to feel them. Instead he makes himself concentrate on what’s there in front of him, between his fingers. When he forces himself to pay attention like that he can do his job as fast and as proficiently as any seasoned professional, and he does. With eleven seconds still left on the clock he manages to disarm the trigger; before he knows it he is pulling the vest off of her shoulders as the others’ devices continue to count down because there’s only one of him and not enough time.
He grabs her and carries her out of the building, makes it out just in time to dive into the dust at Inohara’s feet and shield her body with his. Behind him, the balloons on the other ten vests pop all at once as the counters on the vests simultaneously hit zero; there are suddenly a hundred fake explosions of air killing all of the other mannequins that Koyama wasn’t able to save this time around.
The one he did manage to save lies on the ground underneath him, safe and sound with her blank brown eyes staring lifelessly into the sky.
Koyama takes a deep breath and stands, still holding her, looking regretful.
“Why her?” Inohara asks him, after a beat.
Koyama looks into his arms, at the facsimile of a beautiful little girl resting in them. “I don’t know,” he admits after a moment. “I just did.”
Maybe it’s because a part of him imagined her mother and her father when he saw her; he could, for a brief moment, see them holding her in their arms and singing her to sleep at night. And maybe it’s because he thought that she looked like the type of girl who had cute little tea parties in her backyard with her stuffed animals and who cried during thunderstorms because they scared her. Maybe in the two seconds it took for him to choose her-out of everyone else there- he’d looked at her and thought she deserved to live more than the rest of them.
He hates himself right now, for thinking like that.
Inohara seems to understand and reaches out to pat his shoulder. “You did the right thing,” he tells Koyama. “It doesn’t feel like it now, but you did the right thing.”
It doesn’t feel like the right thing.
“How was picking who gets to live and who gets to die the right thing?” Koyama asks his instructor eventually, voice small. “Who am I to go in there and say, ‘I like you because you’re cute, so you can live’ while I leave everyone else to die?”
Inohara smiles sadly. “Because in this line of work, sometimes the only choice is choosing someone or losing everyone. We can’t save everybody. We’ll never be able to save everybody.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
Inohara’s hand on his shoulder squeezes gently. “We save who we can. For whatever reason.” Then he walks away, back to the rest of the class. “Nakamaru!” he shouts, “You’re up next!”
Koyama doesn’t watch the rest of the exercise as his classmates take their turns playing God one by one; instead he looks at the pretty little girl in his arms and wonders who he left-and who he will leave when this inevitably happens again in the future, except for real- back in that room to die so that she could live.
He knows somewhere in his heart that he made the right decision.
It’s just that he doesn’t think it should ever be his decision to make.
2.
A sniper is used to killing.
Shooting another human being, to a sniper, is as simple as one small motion of his index finger, one millimeter adjustment of his gun. It’s easy.
Ryo shoots people all the time- it’s something he does in the line of duty. It’s his job.
And the way he deals with it is by telling himself-by knowing-that every single one of the people he shoots deserves it.
For a long time it’s black and white like that for him; it’s easy to make the decision to kill because it has to be done. It’s easy not to feel bad about shooting someone because they needed to be shot.
Then, one day, during a bank robbery, a high school kid gets taken hostage. He gets used like a human shield.
The place is surrounded thanks to a silent alarm and the gunman is backed against the wall, finger on the trigger and nozzle right against the kid’s neck. “You’re gonna let me walk outta here with him!” the man screams. “You’re gonna let me walk away with him and the money and I will let only him go once the coast is clear! You hear me?”
“He’ll kill him,” Takizawa says bluntly. “If we let him go with that kid he will take off and he will kill him.”
Everyone knows it.
“We don’t have a clear shot,” Koki reports from the rooftop. “The kid’s in the way.”
“No shit,” Ryo growls.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Kame asks. “Wait him out? This guy is insane; he’ll kill everyone else in that bank one by one the longer we make him wait.”
“He’ll kill that kid if we let him go,” Shige rejoins just as easily.
“I’m giving you to the count of ten!” the man shouts into the bank phone, right into Yamapi’s ear. “Then I’m killing someone!”
Yamapi winces. “We have ten seconds.”
“No one can get a clear shot?” Kame asks.
“Not with the kid in the way. If we go for a headshot, even if he moves out into the open for a second, there’s no telling if the kid will move too,” Koki reports. “And the rest of him’s pretty much covered.”
“Take the shot if you even see the most remote chance,” Tackey orders. “Don’t hesitate. Koyama, try to talk him out of it.”
“Five!” the man shouts, sounding more and more irritated.
“Um!” Koyama starts, into the phone, “maybe you should just calm down, ne. Let’s talk!”
The man responds by screaming “Four!” and aiming his gun at one of the female bank tellers currently crouched on the floor.
Ryo sees a chance that no one else considers in that moment and takes the shot without hesitating, because he knows if he hesitates he’ll second guess himself, and if he second guesses himself, he’ll miss.
His bullet hits the high school kid square in the shoulder of his left arm and exits out of his back, right into the gunman’s heart.
The gunman drops dead; the high school student screams.
The agents on the ground rush in.
~~~~~
Later that week the story’s sordid details all come to light in a media blowout of epic proportions; newspaper headlines read “Koushien Hopeful’s Chances Ruined in Bank Robbery” or “Government Agents Sacrifice Star Pitcher to Kill Lunatic.”
Ryo reads all about the people he shot at the bar that Friday in those very papers; he spends the entirety of the evening using this month’s paycheck for liquid therapy as he does. One, Fujiyama Keisuke, 17, an all-star high school pitcher from Kanagawa. Two, Nishimori Sousuke, 42, former convict, drug addict, father of two.
He drinks to both of them multiple times that night, but toasts them each for very different reasons.
Yamapi finds him there in the middle of all that, slumped over the wood reading one of the articles again, for maybe the hundredth time.
Yamapi knows that the thing that gave Ryo strength every time he had to shoot someone was the knowledge that the person he was aiming at had done everything he or she could have possibly done to deserve it.
“Ryo-chan,” he says gently, and takes a seat next to his friend. He orders water for them both. “Are you okay?
“Great,” Ryo replies breezily, and accidentally spills half of his next shot all over the paper-and Fujiyama’s picture- when he tries to reach for it. “That poor bastard will probably never pitch again though.”
“You saved his life,” Yamapi tells him patiently. “And everyone else in that bank’s life too.”
Ryo laughs a little around the rim of his cup, humorlessly. “By taking away some kid’s lifelong dream. A toast to me, huh? I’m a hero.”
“You saved his life,” Yamapi says again, firmly.
Ryo doesn’t respond.
Later that night, Yamapi helps carry his teammate out of the bar and drives him home.
3.
Massu has never been a violent person. He doesn’t like blood or gore or firing guns or exploding bombs or any of those other things that people think are cool when they hear about this job or when they watch movies imported from Hollywood. In reality, Massu prefers simpler things; he likes peace and quiet and good food and smiling children who get to walk the streets hand-in-hand with their parents during summer matsuri.
When he tells people this they don’t believe him. “You have to like the action,” they say, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing a job like this. You’d be a social worker instead, or a kindergarten teacher or something.”
Massu smiles and supposes it’s okay for them to think like that if they have to, because it probably makes more sense to them when it’s simple like that. He thinks it might be too difficult for him to try and explain the truth because the truth is, he does this job for entirely different reasons. He does it because he likes the excited way Tegoshi gets when it’s time to wear yukata in the summertime and because Yamapi loves yakiniku and because Shige laughs through his nose so hard it hurts him sometimes. He does it because even though Ryo always complains and calls them names when they pile into his apartment after a long day, Ryo also always has extra blankets and pillows ready for them anyway. Massu does it because he likes to listen to the funny, whistling snores Koyama makes whenever he’s fast asleep on the floor next to Massu after they’ve all had a big meal around Ryo’s tabletop grill.
Massu does a job like this because he wants to protect people.
He knows that the action is part of that, and he does it because he has to, not because he likes it.
Which is why he currently has his fist buried in someone’s stomach, as his opponent grabs his neck with one hand and tries to squeeze the air out of him.
But Massu knows he doesn’t need to breathe for exactly two minutes and twelve seconds (because that’s his record at the academy); he ignores the fingers wrapped around his throat and shifts his weight, changes his stance, and strikes with his elbow, a downward blow that goes fast and hard and shatters his target’s Humerus in just the right place.
There’s a scream of pain and the hand around his neck lets go; Massu doesn’t waste any more time before pivoting so that he’s sideways, bouncing on his toes.
His opponent regards him warily, clutching a broken arm as blood dribbles from his jaw. Massu knows that several of his ribs are broken too, because he heard them crack, felt them fall apart under his fists.
Massu wants his opponent to give up now because Massu doesn’t like violence, but Massu can tell by the way the bigger man is standing that he isn’t going to surrender, that really, he’s in pain and angry (which makes people irrational).
His opponent lowers his head and charges next, and when Massu reads the motion he instinctively tumbles forward into a handstand so that he can wrap his calves around the man’s neck and use his own momentum to flip them both onto the floor. Massu unwraps his legs and curls his body backwards as they land; his opponent ends up flat on his back on the ground and completely winded while Massu straddles his torso and digs his knees into the ribs he knows he broke earlier.
“Give up,” Massu tells the man in between pants. “You can just give up.”
“Give,” the man says eventually, and as Massu sighs in relief his exhausted legs lose some of their pressure.
Which is apparently what the man had been waiting for, because he bucks upward and tries to head butt Massu; luckily for Massu he is good at predicting people’s movements and rolls backwards just in time instead, onto to his feet as the man gets up too. Massu sighs. “You can still give,” he says, sounding hopeful.
The man glances sideways, to where he had dropped his knife ten minutes ago, after Massu had first disarmed him two steps into the door.
The man makes a dash for the knife; Massu follows.
The man manages to get to the knife before Massu can stop him and whirls it on Massu; he turns and slices a shallow cut along Massu’s shoulder when he swings but only because Massu lets him, because Massu knows that on the end of his arc he’ll be off balance. Massu is right; the man stumbles forward a little bit and when he does, it gives Massu the time he needs to turn sideways and dash in closer. Once he’s close enough he jumps up a little and extends his arm, wrapping it around the man’s neck.
Then he swings his weight up onto the man’s back and bends his elbow flush against his opponent’s throat; the force sends them both crashing to the ground with a thud.
Except Massu is the only one who gets back up this time.
His opponent lolls lifelessly on the floor at Massu’s feet because his neck has been broken; the knife is still clutched tightly in his hand.
Massu takes the knife.
And then, before he moves on, Massu stops for a moment to count backwards from ten so that he can catch his breath and prepare for the next phase, the next room, the next fight.
At one he stands up straight again and pushes on.
On his way out the door, Massu doesn’t stop to look at the body because he’s never liked violence or fighting; most of all he doesn’t like the killing, because it doesn’t feel like something he can wash off of him at the end of the night, not like the blood and sweat and dirt.
He pads down the hallway silently until he reaches the door he remembers seeing on the blueprints; he knows that behind it are two guards with knives very similar to the one he’s holding in his hand right now, and behind them is a door that will lead Massu to a Shige who needs to be saved.
Massu thinks that in the next few minutes he’ll probably have to kill those two guards too, and even though it doesn’t feel good, even if he hates violence and fighting and blood and killing, he knows he’ll do it anyway.
Because even if he doesn’t like the action like people think he does, he does know that he wants to hear that funny way Shige laughs through his nose again, for as many years as he possibly can.
With that thought in mind, Massu doesn’t hesitate in opening the next door; he throws the knife even before he’s fully through it.
It hits the closest guard in the forehead.
A minute and twenty nine seconds later, Massu kills the final guard by slitting his throat with his own weapon.
Massu does it because he knows the door behind them leads to Shige.
4.
“Reports show us that there are two gunmen in the main surgical room with their incapacitated leader and five gunmen guarding the hostages in the main lobby. According to their demands, they are going to kill one hostage for every hour we don’t find their boss a donor,” Takizawa reports as his units all stand outside the barricaded hospital, helpless and frustrated. “They’ll kill two civilians for every attempt we make to infiltrate and three for every time we try to contact them before they contact us. With those odds, we’ve got orders from upstairs saying we’re not to do anything risky.”
Given those kinds of limitations, no one really knows what to do except comply even though it’s clear that no one wants to. “There’s a compatible heart scheduled to go to a kid in Nagoya today,” Tackey adds. “It’s all we have, and it won’t be here for at least two hours if we do decide to take it.”
Yamapi’s brow furrows. “Counting that innocent kid, that’s three people dead, if we take the heart, ne. All to save someone who’s killed so many people in his life.”
“What choice do we have? There are close to one hundred people in that hospital still,” Kamenashi retorts, crossing his arms. “If we take the heart at least we’ll have a chance of infiltrating on the trade off and saving the greater number of people.”
“That’s still three people dead, you moron,” Ryo’s voice buzzes over the intercom, from where he and Koki and the rest of the agency snipers are stationed on the roof of the building across the street.
Tackey frowns as everyone turns to him to make the decision; it’s times like these that make being a leader the toughest.
“How did they even sneak in?” Jin mutters under his breath, “Isn’t this supposed to be the most high-tech hospital in the world?”
“So high-tech there’s no need for metal detectors apparently,” Shige responds, looking weary.
Tackey sighs. “We’ll have to take the heart,” he says after a moment, looking pained.
Director Kamenashi nods in satisfaction at the decision; it’s the same one he would have made himself if he were in charge of this operation. “It’s the best course of action,” he assures Tackey.
“Ano,” a small voice begins after a moment, and Tegoshi steps forward, hand raised. “I think I just came up with another option?”
Everyone looks at him in confusion.
~~~~~
The group crowds around a computer monitor in the back of one of the surveillance vans after Tegoshi’s explanation fifteen minutes later, watching the youngest agent type furiously away at the console.
“Can he really do that?” Nakamaru mutters fearfully, eyes transfixed on the screen as they hop from security camera to security camera within the confines of the hospital.
“If he says he can do it, he can do it ne,” Yamapi replies quietly.
They watch as Tegoshi finds a camera inside of the room that is currently housing the terrorists’ ailing leader, an old man strapped to a heart monitor and a breathing tube in Tokyo’s most technologically advanced hospital. The scene that comes up on the security feed is just like Takizawa’s intelligence had reported earlier; there are two gunmen patrolling the small space restlessly as they wait for the authorities outside to comply with their demands. Every shaky in and out of the man in the bed makes the two hapless terrorists jump in concern, and the surgeon they are currently keeping in the room with them is prompted to check on the old man at least three times in the course of a one minute period.
“Because they use computers in this hospital for everything, ne,” Tegoshi begins softly, “all the controls and information goes back to one centralized mainframe. With that kind of set up, I’m pretty sure that I can take control of anyone in any room in the entire building as long as they’re hooked up to one of the machines.”
A moment of hushed silence at that as he gets to work for real, the camera focused close on the face of his target. He smiles ruefully and says what each and every one of the other agents is thinking. “It’s kind of scary what kind of power technology can give you these days, don’t you think?”
No one replies.
He goes back to work.
It takes just under a half hour before Tegoshi stops typing and sits back, looking up at Yamapi for guidance. “Are you ready?” he asks, “I think I’m done.”
Yamapi nods. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“On three then. Taichi-kun?”
“We can break through the grating and be between the hostages and the other gunmen within thirty seconds,” Taichi’s voice replies, from where he and the rest of TOKIO are stationed from the basement’s sewer entrance.
Tegoshi looks thoughtful and nods. “I’ll be able to jam the other two's radios for a little bit so they won’t be able to tell them what’s going on, ne. But you’ll have to shoot fast because they’ll notice. They’ve been keeping in constant contact with one another.”
“We can shoot fast,” Nagase chimes in, sounding more than ready to go.
Tegoshi manages a small smile. “Okay then.” He puts his finger over the Enter button. “One…two…three.”
He pushes it.
The moment he does, nothing happens right away. But thirty seconds later, the heart monitor in the room suddenly starts to go crazy. The agents present all watch in a sort of horrified awe as the old man on the bed suddenly goes into a series of violent convulsions when the machine administering his painkillers automatically empties its entire contents into his body all at once, based on the orders Tegoshi programmed into the machine when he overrode its basic safety protocol.
The two gunmen curse and lose their heads the moment it happens just like Tegoshi had predicted; they both give up their security posts by the door and mindlessly rush to the old man’s bedside, dragging the panicky surgeon with them. “Fix it!” they scream at him, and shove him towards their ailing leader. “Hurry and fix it!”
A moment later, TOKIO bursts into the room firing; the two terrorists both drop like rocks from multiple gunshot wounds while the surgeon cowers and ducks between them, completely unscathed.
Before the two bodies even hit the ground, the heart monitor reports a flatline.
Silence.
Tegoshi sits back in his chair, wiping the sweat from his brow.
The rest of the agents present don’t really know what to say.
“Go secure the hospital,” Yamapi tells everyone still standing around, despite this case still being under Takizawa’s authority. “Get everyone else out. Kame, can you call the paramedics and tell them to go ahead with that kid’s heart surgery?”
“Um, sure,” Kame says, and eventually everyone in the war room clears out except for Yamapi and Tegoshi.
“You did good,” Yamapi tells the youngest agent calmly. “He wasn’t a nice man.”
Tegoshi nods and manages a small smile as he reaches out to flip off the camera feed and the horrible sound of the flatline that he caused. “Un,” he says eventually, and tucks his knees up against his chest as he listens instead, to the more reassuring sounds of the other agents freeing the hostages and taking back the hospital.
Yamapi’s hand on his shoulder bears him out.
5.
Shige thinks she’s too young to be here, too pretty and small and full of life. She can’t be more than sixteen, probably the precious only daughter of some hapless salaryman who borrowed money from the wrong people one too many times. She looks up at him defiantly, hates him, calls him names and tries to attack him except that the goons-his goons- are holding her back. One of them touches her inappropriately and Shige has to pretend that it’s okay, that he doesn’t care because it happens all the time.
He slaps her across the face with the back of his hand and cuts her tirade off, sends her face flying to the side. He’s fairly certain that she’s tiny enough for the rest of her to have followed, if not for the enormous hands holding her still and helpless.
He tells himself he’ll apologize to her for that later, that he’ll get her out of here and she won’t be kept like an animal anymore, that she and the other girls will get home safely. He’ll apologize for hitting her a thousand times when that moment comes.
For now though, for now he can’t pull his punches.
For now, he has to sneer at her pain. “You’ve got some kick left, don’t you?” he-or rather, who he is today-says to her, as he grabs her chin roughly and makes her face him again.
She spits at him; it hits his cheek.
He slaps her again.
From behind him, his current target roars in laughter; “She still not givin’ in to you yet, Sugata?” he asks, around a mouthful of steak.
Shige manages to remain impassive as he pulls out a linen handkerchief and wipes his face. “She will,” he replies coolly, and looks at her in a way that makes her stop for a second, makes her forget her bravado and actually feel a moment of real fear.
Shige tells himself he’ll apologize for everything later, that he’ll get her out of here and she’ll be free again, just like she ought to be. He’ll say sorry for all the hitting and the threatening looks and the inappropriate touching when he can, as soon as he can. But for now he’s doing everything in his power to get to the bottom of this prostitution ring as quickly as possible, because he doesn’t want this place to take away that liveliness from her; he doesn’t want her to become like all of the other girls he’s seen here so far.
She tries to kick him in the shin.
Shige grits his teeth and slaps her again, because everyone is still watching. “Enough for now,” he declares after a beat, with what he hopes is convincing enough apathy. “I’ll see to her myself at another time.”
He nods at the goons and the goons say, “Yes, sir,” before dragging her away. She continues to fight them, screaming a string of obscenities at Shige in the meantime.
He looks at the back of his hand-red and slightly smeared with her tears and makeup- and he tells himself he’ll answer for all of this later.
~~~~~
He finds out the next day that there is no later, at least not for her.
The goons dump her body on the floor at his feet when he walks into the boss’s office that morning and sees his boss sitting at his desk, sporting a fresh black eye and a split lip.
“Stupid bitch,” his boss growls, and spits on her body as another, much more frightened girl gently holds an icepack to his face. “Some of them just aren’t worth the trouble, Sugata,” he says, and waves a fat hand at one of the door guards in silent order.
The goon obediently picks her up by the hair and carries her lifeless body out of the room like a sack of trash.
“We don’t have the time or funds to invest in the spirited ones,” Shige’s boss says rather philosophically, as the door closes behind the goon and the body. “We’re in the business of entertaining very important clients, after all.”
Shige grits his teeth and remembers the look in her eyes yesterday, staring hatefully at him. He remembers the feel of her face against his hand too, and the red, angry marks he left there.
Most of all, he remembers how lively she had been, just one night before.
And he thinks that he wants to jump over the desk and strangle his boss to death right there, right now. That he could probably do it too, before the second guard at the door shoots him in the head.
But instead, he just smiles back at his boss obediently and says, “Yes sir, we are,” like he doesn’t care about her either. Like he thinks of her as trash too.
He tells himself that it’s because there are other girls a lot like her still being held back in that gilded prison; he tells himself that all of those girls, at the very least, still have a later to look forward too, a later when he can look them all in the face and get on his knees and tell them how sorry he really is for everything, for not being able to help sooner.
For now, he makes himself forget about her because it’s too late for regrets when she’s already dead.
He can’t let her haunt him right now, when there’s still so much work to be done and so many people to save.
“Later,” he tells himself under his breath over and over and over again, “later.”
6.
Yamapi tries not to glare at the person in front of him because it’s unprofessional.
He can’t bring himself to smile either, and so he settles for something painfully neutral, even though he’d like nothing more than to dismiss the reporter with a few choice words and get back to the real work.
But this- as Takizawa had informed him back in the academy many, many years ago- is something they have to do. Every single one of them, on rotation like clockwork.
This month it’s NEWS’s turn to talk to reporters, to have a small scandal and trade information.
It’s a necessary evil.
Because even if the agents’ relationship with the press is a not-like and outright hate one at best, the sharing of information networks and the various cooperative efforts and capitulations on either side keeps the more dramatic events in check and helps investigations along that might drain too many agency resources otherwise; cooperating with reporters (as sleazy as they are sometimes) has been common practice since the agency’s inception and Yamapi knows that even if he doesn’t like it he’s never been a rebel either. He can’t selfishly fight something this powerful for the sake of his own pride and not regret it afterwards, not when he has more than his own career to think about right now.
He has a team.
He’s a leader.
“So, let’s get down to business, shall we?” the reporter states after a moment of charged silence, and crosses his legs while looking around Yamapi’s office. “I trust Internal Affairs informed you that I’d be here?”
Yamapi nods. “Yes.”
The reporter laughs. “With a face that blank, I can’t tell if I’m welcome or not, Director. If I’m not, feel free to show it; even if you can’t do anything about it I prefer to at least know where I stand.”
Yamapi doesn’t give him the benefit. “Internal Affairs says you might have information to trade us about the case my men are currently investigating.”
The reporter nods. “The slave labor case. I mean, the talent agency case.” He grins. “I’ve got information that will bust the whole thing wide open, as a matter of fact. But first, you’re going to give me something as a show of good faith. Luckily for you I’m feeling generous today because there’s been lot going on lately; you go ahead and choose which story you want to ‘leak’ to the press, Director Yamashita. The lesser of five evils, if you will.”
Yamapi’s brow furrows. “Five?”
And this is where the reporter seems to be at his most triumphant, leaning back with an ominous unmarked dossier in his hand.
“My informants have told me that in the last few months, your unit has been involved in a lot of action, Yamashita-kun. Lucky for you, our newspaper would have already published all five stories if it wasn’t for the agency’s long-standing agreement with our owners. Personally, I would pick the case about the dead girl, but my editor says we’re not America and we can’t always do what we want regardless of the consequences. We are, after all, more concerned about the safety and peace of mind of Japan’s citizens than we are about just going out there to find the truth willy nilly. That’s why you get to choose which story breaks and does less damage to your institution’s reputation.”
Yamapi sighs. “So I get to pick my scandal.”
The reporter smirks and pulls a stack of photos out of his dossier, laying them out on the table in front of Yamapi. “So?” he asks, indicating the photos, “Which one will it be? We’ve got a sniper taking shots at high school kids without any direct orders to do so, we’ve got government hackers taking over some of the most powerful private computers in the world and killing people with them on a whim. Then there’s that murder of that high school girl that I was just talking about; my sources say she was killed long after the initial investigation had started. Negligence on the part of your men? A simple lack of concern? You tell me. Oh, and let’s not forget the unnecessarily violent deaths of several hired gunmen who didn’t actually have anything to do with the case you were investigating, and that one where some people blew up and some people didn’t.”
Yamapi can’t help it when he actually glares.
The reporter looks triumphant. “There they are, Director Yamashita’s true feelings.” Smile. “So, what’ll it be? Pick your poison.”
“All of those are classified,” Yamapi says, darkly.
“And all of them will get published if you don’t choose one.”
Yamapi takes a deep breath. “You really have information that will help us on our current case?”
“I wouldn’t be so confident if I didn’t. Especially when you’re making such a scary face at me, Director.”
Yamapi looks down at the pictures in front of him and considers his options while feeling sick at having to do something like this at all; it’s like he’s making deals that involve betraying both his teammates and himself-his ideals and his pride- somehow. But at the same time, it’s also something that could save the lives of ten or twenty or thirty or a thousand people who he will never meet face to face, his own soul for the life of a nameless, faceless stranger.
He knows that this has always been the price of this work.
So eventually, reluctantly, he makes a decision and reaches out to pick up one of the photos from the pile on his desk. “This one.”
A grin. “Good choice, Director. They were right when they said you were a real pro despite being so young.”
Yamapi doesn’t respond.
The reporter doesn’t seem to care. “Now,” he says brightly, “let’s get down to the real business at hand, shall we?”
~~~~~
Later, once the reporter is long gone from the office (though his stench somehow still lingers in the air after him), Yamapi sits at his desk and looks down at his hard won file of evidence. As he does, he thinks to himself that being a good guy doesn’t necessarily mean always doing good things. It isn’t something he should take personally; it’s just part of the job.
But even still, he can’t help but wonder to himself vaguely, if his teammates have ever felt as dirty as he feels right now.
Part of him knows that the answer is probably yes.
It is, after all, the price of their work.
END
EDITS? o.o
Universe: JE/NewS ( Gov AU)
Theme/Topic: N/A
Rating: PG-13 for violence
Character/Pairing/s: NEWS (appearances by KT, Tackey, TOKIO, and Inohara)
Warnings/Spoilers: OOC, sap, violence, bad action and police procedurals.
Word Count: 5,965
Summary: Being the good guys doesn’t always mean doing good guy things.
Dedication: Happy belated birthday cynicalism! DONE. FINALLY DONE THIS TOOK FOREVER.
A/N: Okay so my writer’s block has been ridiculous lately and so I started two random vague stories for you, Cyn. This is clearly the one that won out in the end even though it wasn’t really my first choice since it’s not really Massu-centric like the other one was. IDK, I am weird lately, it’s like I can’t write what I actually want to. >>
Disclaimer: No harm is meant by this!
1.
He chooses her.
Koyama lays eyes on her the moment he steps through the door and can’t help it when he goes to her instinctively, when he crouches down at her side and starts to work, pulling the panel off of the ticking device strapped to her tiny chest and moving as fast as his shaking fingers and his panicking brain will allow him to.
All around him there are more sets of eyes just like hers, silently staring at him. Helpless.
He tries not to look at them, tries not to feel them. Instead he makes himself concentrate on what’s there in front of him, between his fingers. When he forces himself to pay attention like that he can do his job as fast and as proficiently as any seasoned professional, and he does. With eleven seconds still left on the clock he manages to disarm the trigger; before he knows it he is pulling the vest off of her shoulders as the others’ devices continue to count down because there’s only one of him and not enough time.
He grabs her and carries her out of the building, makes it out just in time to dive into the dust at Inohara’s feet and shield her body with his. Behind him, the balloons on the other ten vests pop all at once as the counters on the vests simultaneously hit zero; there are suddenly a hundred fake explosions of air killing all of the other mannequins that Koyama wasn’t able to save this time around.
The one he did manage to save lies on the ground underneath him, safe and sound with her blank brown eyes staring lifelessly into the sky.
Koyama takes a deep breath and stands, still holding her, looking regretful.
“Why her?” Inohara asks him, after a beat.
Koyama looks into his arms, at the facsimile of a beautiful little girl resting in them. “I don’t know,” he admits after a moment. “I just did.”
Maybe it’s because a part of him imagined her mother and her father when he saw her; he could, for a brief moment, see them holding her in their arms and singing her to sleep at night. And maybe it’s because he thought that she looked like the type of girl who had cute little tea parties in her backyard with her stuffed animals and who cried during thunderstorms because they scared her. Maybe in the two seconds it took for him to choose her-out of everyone else there- he’d looked at her and thought she deserved to live more than the rest of them.
He hates himself right now, for thinking like that.
Inohara seems to understand and reaches out to pat his shoulder. “You did the right thing,” he tells Koyama. “It doesn’t feel like it now, but you did the right thing.”
It doesn’t feel like the right thing.
“How was picking who gets to live and who gets to die the right thing?” Koyama asks his instructor eventually, voice small. “Who am I to go in there and say, ‘I like you because you’re cute, so you can live’ while I leave everyone else to die?”
Inohara smiles sadly. “Because in this line of work, sometimes the only choice is choosing someone or losing everyone. We can’t save everybody. We’ll never be able to save everybody.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
Inohara’s hand on his shoulder squeezes gently. “We save who we can. For whatever reason.” Then he walks away, back to the rest of the class. “Nakamaru!” he shouts, “You’re up next!”
Koyama doesn’t watch the rest of the exercise as his classmates take their turns playing God one by one; instead he looks at the pretty little girl in his arms and wonders who he left-and who he will leave when this inevitably happens again in the future, except for real- back in that room to die so that she could live.
He knows somewhere in his heart that he made the right decision.
It’s just that he doesn’t think it should ever be his decision to make.
2.
A sniper is used to killing.
Shooting another human being, to a sniper, is as simple as one small motion of his index finger, one millimeter adjustment of his gun. It’s easy.
Ryo shoots people all the time- it’s something he does in the line of duty. It’s his job.
And the way he deals with it is by telling himself-by knowing-that every single one of the people he shoots deserves it.
For a long time it’s black and white like that for him; it’s easy to make the decision to kill because it has to be done. It’s easy not to feel bad about shooting someone because they needed to be shot.
Then, one day, during a bank robbery, a high school kid gets taken hostage. He gets used like a human shield.
The place is surrounded thanks to a silent alarm and the gunman is backed against the wall, finger on the trigger and nozzle right against the kid’s neck. “You’re gonna let me walk outta here with him!” the man screams. “You’re gonna let me walk away with him and the money and I will let only him go once the coast is clear! You hear me?”
“He’ll kill him,” Takizawa says bluntly. “If we let him go with that kid he will take off and he will kill him.”
Everyone knows it.
“We don’t have a clear shot,” Koki reports from the rooftop. “The kid’s in the way.”
“No shit,” Ryo growls.
“Then what are we supposed to do?” Kame asks. “Wait him out? This guy is insane; he’ll kill everyone else in that bank one by one the longer we make him wait.”
“He’ll kill that kid if we let him go,” Shige rejoins just as easily.
“I’m giving you to the count of ten!” the man shouts into the bank phone, right into Yamapi’s ear. “Then I’m killing someone!”
Yamapi winces. “We have ten seconds.”
“No one can get a clear shot?” Kame asks.
“Not with the kid in the way. If we go for a headshot, even if he moves out into the open for a second, there’s no telling if the kid will move too,” Koki reports. “And the rest of him’s pretty much covered.”
“Take the shot if you even see the most remote chance,” Tackey orders. “Don’t hesitate. Koyama, try to talk him out of it.”
“Five!” the man shouts, sounding more and more irritated.
“Um!” Koyama starts, into the phone, “maybe you should just calm down, ne. Let’s talk!”
The man responds by screaming “Four!” and aiming his gun at one of the female bank tellers currently crouched on the floor.
Ryo sees a chance that no one else considers in that moment and takes the shot without hesitating, because he knows if he hesitates he’ll second guess himself, and if he second guesses himself, he’ll miss.
His bullet hits the high school kid square in the shoulder of his left arm and exits out of his back, right into the gunman’s heart.
The gunman drops dead; the high school student screams.
The agents on the ground rush in.
~~~~~
Later that week the story’s sordid details all come to light in a media blowout of epic proportions; newspaper headlines read “Koushien Hopeful’s Chances Ruined in Bank Robbery” or “Government Agents Sacrifice Star Pitcher to Kill Lunatic.”
Ryo reads all about the people he shot at the bar that Friday in those very papers; he spends the entirety of the evening using this month’s paycheck for liquid therapy as he does. One, Fujiyama Keisuke, 17, an all-star high school pitcher from Kanagawa. Two, Nishimori Sousuke, 42, former convict, drug addict, father of two.
He drinks to both of them multiple times that night, but toasts them each for very different reasons.
Yamapi finds him there in the middle of all that, slumped over the wood reading one of the articles again, for maybe the hundredth time.
Yamapi knows that the thing that gave Ryo strength every time he had to shoot someone was the knowledge that the person he was aiming at had done everything he or she could have possibly done to deserve it.
“Ryo-chan,” he says gently, and takes a seat next to his friend. He orders water for them both. “Are you okay?
“Great,” Ryo replies breezily, and accidentally spills half of his next shot all over the paper-and Fujiyama’s picture- when he tries to reach for it. “That poor bastard will probably never pitch again though.”
“You saved his life,” Yamapi tells him patiently. “And everyone else in that bank’s life too.”
Ryo laughs a little around the rim of his cup, humorlessly. “By taking away some kid’s lifelong dream. A toast to me, huh? I’m a hero.”
“You saved his life,” Yamapi says again, firmly.
Ryo doesn’t respond.
Later that night, Yamapi helps carry his teammate out of the bar and drives him home.
3.
Massu has never been a violent person. He doesn’t like blood or gore or firing guns or exploding bombs or any of those other things that people think are cool when they hear about this job or when they watch movies imported from Hollywood. In reality, Massu prefers simpler things; he likes peace and quiet and good food and smiling children who get to walk the streets hand-in-hand with their parents during summer matsuri.
When he tells people this they don’t believe him. “You have to like the action,” they say, “Otherwise you wouldn’t be doing a job like this. You’d be a social worker instead, or a kindergarten teacher or something.”
Massu smiles and supposes it’s okay for them to think like that if they have to, because it probably makes more sense to them when it’s simple like that. He thinks it might be too difficult for him to try and explain the truth because the truth is, he does this job for entirely different reasons. He does it because he likes the excited way Tegoshi gets when it’s time to wear yukata in the summertime and because Yamapi loves yakiniku and because Shige laughs through his nose so hard it hurts him sometimes. He does it because even though Ryo always complains and calls them names when they pile into his apartment after a long day, Ryo also always has extra blankets and pillows ready for them anyway. Massu does it because he likes to listen to the funny, whistling snores Koyama makes whenever he’s fast asleep on the floor next to Massu after they’ve all had a big meal around Ryo’s tabletop grill.
Massu does a job like this because he wants to protect people.
He knows that the action is part of that, and he does it because he has to, not because he likes it.
Which is why he currently has his fist buried in someone’s stomach, as his opponent grabs his neck with one hand and tries to squeeze the air out of him.
But Massu knows he doesn’t need to breathe for exactly two minutes and twelve seconds (because that’s his record at the academy); he ignores the fingers wrapped around his throat and shifts his weight, changes his stance, and strikes with his elbow, a downward blow that goes fast and hard and shatters his target’s Humerus in just the right place.
There’s a scream of pain and the hand around his neck lets go; Massu doesn’t waste any more time before pivoting so that he’s sideways, bouncing on his toes.
His opponent regards him warily, clutching a broken arm as blood dribbles from his jaw. Massu knows that several of his ribs are broken too, because he heard them crack, felt them fall apart under his fists.
Massu wants his opponent to give up now because Massu doesn’t like violence, but Massu can tell by the way the bigger man is standing that he isn’t going to surrender, that really, he’s in pain and angry (which makes people irrational).
His opponent lowers his head and charges next, and when Massu reads the motion he instinctively tumbles forward into a handstand so that he can wrap his calves around the man’s neck and use his own momentum to flip them both onto the floor. Massu unwraps his legs and curls his body backwards as they land; his opponent ends up flat on his back on the ground and completely winded while Massu straddles his torso and digs his knees into the ribs he knows he broke earlier.
“Give up,” Massu tells the man in between pants. “You can just give up.”
“Give,” the man says eventually, and as Massu sighs in relief his exhausted legs lose some of their pressure.
Which is apparently what the man had been waiting for, because he bucks upward and tries to head butt Massu; luckily for Massu he is good at predicting people’s movements and rolls backwards just in time instead, onto to his feet as the man gets up too. Massu sighs. “You can still give,” he says, sounding hopeful.
The man glances sideways, to where he had dropped his knife ten minutes ago, after Massu had first disarmed him two steps into the door.
The man makes a dash for the knife; Massu follows.
The man manages to get to the knife before Massu can stop him and whirls it on Massu; he turns and slices a shallow cut along Massu’s shoulder when he swings but only because Massu lets him, because Massu knows that on the end of his arc he’ll be off balance. Massu is right; the man stumbles forward a little bit and when he does, it gives Massu the time he needs to turn sideways and dash in closer. Once he’s close enough he jumps up a little and extends his arm, wrapping it around the man’s neck.
Then he swings his weight up onto the man’s back and bends his elbow flush against his opponent’s throat; the force sends them both crashing to the ground with a thud.
Except Massu is the only one who gets back up this time.
His opponent lolls lifelessly on the floor at Massu’s feet because his neck has been broken; the knife is still clutched tightly in his hand.
Massu takes the knife.
And then, before he moves on, Massu stops for a moment to count backwards from ten so that he can catch his breath and prepare for the next phase, the next room, the next fight.
At one he stands up straight again and pushes on.
On his way out the door, Massu doesn’t stop to look at the body because he’s never liked violence or fighting; most of all he doesn’t like the killing, because it doesn’t feel like something he can wash off of him at the end of the night, not like the blood and sweat and dirt.
He pads down the hallway silently until he reaches the door he remembers seeing on the blueprints; he knows that behind it are two guards with knives very similar to the one he’s holding in his hand right now, and behind them is a door that will lead Massu to a Shige who needs to be saved.
Massu thinks that in the next few minutes he’ll probably have to kill those two guards too, and even though it doesn’t feel good, even if he hates violence and fighting and blood and killing, he knows he’ll do it anyway.
Because even if he doesn’t like the action like people think he does, he does know that he wants to hear that funny way Shige laughs through his nose again, for as many years as he possibly can.
With that thought in mind, Massu doesn’t hesitate in opening the next door; he throws the knife even before he’s fully through it.
It hits the closest guard in the forehead.
A minute and twenty nine seconds later, Massu kills the final guard by slitting his throat with his own weapon.
Massu does it because he knows the door behind them leads to Shige.
4.
“Reports show us that there are two gunmen in the main surgical room with their incapacitated leader and five gunmen guarding the hostages in the main lobby. According to their demands, they are going to kill one hostage for every hour we don’t find their boss a donor,” Takizawa reports as his units all stand outside the barricaded hospital, helpless and frustrated. “They’ll kill two civilians for every attempt we make to infiltrate and three for every time we try to contact them before they contact us. With those odds, we’ve got orders from upstairs saying we’re not to do anything risky.”
Given those kinds of limitations, no one really knows what to do except comply even though it’s clear that no one wants to. “There’s a compatible heart scheduled to go to a kid in Nagoya today,” Tackey adds. “It’s all we have, and it won’t be here for at least two hours if we do decide to take it.”
Yamapi’s brow furrows. “Counting that innocent kid, that’s three people dead, if we take the heart, ne. All to save someone who’s killed so many people in his life.”
“What choice do we have? There are close to one hundred people in that hospital still,” Kamenashi retorts, crossing his arms. “If we take the heart at least we’ll have a chance of infiltrating on the trade off and saving the greater number of people.”
“That’s still three people dead, you moron,” Ryo’s voice buzzes over the intercom, from where he and Koki and the rest of the agency snipers are stationed on the roof of the building across the street.
Tackey frowns as everyone turns to him to make the decision; it’s times like these that make being a leader the toughest.
“How did they even sneak in?” Jin mutters under his breath, “Isn’t this supposed to be the most high-tech hospital in the world?”
“So high-tech there’s no need for metal detectors apparently,” Shige responds, looking weary.
Tackey sighs. “We’ll have to take the heart,” he says after a moment, looking pained.
Director Kamenashi nods in satisfaction at the decision; it’s the same one he would have made himself if he were in charge of this operation. “It’s the best course of action,” he assures Tackey.
“Ano,” a small voice begins after a moment, and Tegoshi steps forward, hand raised. “I think I just came up with another option?”
Everyone looks at him in confusion.
~~~~~
The group crowds around a computer monitor in the back of one of the surveillance vans after Tegoshi’s explanation fifteen minutes later, watching the youngest agent type furiously away at the console.
“Can he really do that?” Nakamaru mutters fearfully, eyes transfixed on the screen as they hop from security camera to security camera within the confines of the hospital.
“If he says he can do it, he can do it ne,” Yamapi replies quietly.
They watch as Tegoshi finds a camera inside of the room that is currently housing the terrorists’ ailing leader, an old man strapped to a heart monitor and a breathing tube in Tokyo’s most technologically advanced hospital. The scene that comes up on the security feed is just like Takizawa’s intelligence had reported earlier; there are two gunmen patrolling the small space restlessly as they wait for the authorities outside to comply with their demands. Every shaky in and out of the man in the bed makes the two hapless terrorists jump in concern, and the surgeon they are currently keeping in the room with them is prompted to check on the old man at least three times in the course of a one minute period.
“Because they use computers in this hospital for everything, ne,” Tegoshi begins softly, “all the controls and information goes back to one centralized mainframe. With that kind of set up, I’m pretty sure that I can take control of anyone in any room in the entire building as long as they’re hooked up to one of the machines.”
A moment of hushed silence at that as he gets to work for real, the camera focused close on the face of his target. He smiles ruefully and says what each and every one of the other agents is thinking. “It’s kind of scary what kind of power technology can give you these days, don’t you think?”
No one replies.
He goes back to work.
It takes just under a half hour before Tegoshi stops typing and sits back, looking up at Yamapi for guidance. “Are you ready?” he asks, “I think I’m done.”
Yamapi nods. “Whenever you’re ready.”
“On three then. Taichi-kun?”
“We can break through the grating and be between the hostages and the other gunmen within thirty seconds,” Taichi’s voice replies, from where he and the rest of TOKIO are stationed from the basement’s sewer entrance.
Tegoshi looks thoughtful and nods. “I’ll be able to jam the other two's radios for a little bit so they won’t be able to tell them what’s going on, ne. But you’ll have to shoot fast because they’ll notice. They’ve been keeping in constant contact with one another.”
“We can shoot fast,” Nagase chimes in, sounding more than ready to go.
Tegoshi manages a small smile. “Okay then.” He puts his finger over the Enter button. “One…two…three.”
He pushes it.
The moment he does, nothing happens right away. But thirty seconds later, the heart monitor in the room suddenly starts to go crazy. The agents present all watch in a sort of horrified awe as the old man on the bed suddenly goes into a series of violent convulsions when the machine administering his painkillers automatically empties its entire contents into his body all at once, based on the orders Tegoshi programmed into the machine when he overrode its basic safety protocol.
The two gunmen curse and lose their heads the moment it happens just like Tegoshi had predicted; they both give up their security posts by the door and mindlessly rush to the old man’s bedside, dragging the panicky surgeon with them. “Fix it!” they scream at him, and shove him towards their ailing leader. “Hurry and fix it!”
A moment later, TOKIO bursts into the room firing; the two terrorists both drop like rocks from multiple gunshot wounds while the surgeon cowers and ducks between them, completely unscathed.
Before the two bodies even hit the ground, the heart monitor reports a flatline.
Silence.
Tegoshi sits back in his chair, wiping the sweat from his brow.
The rest of the agents present don’t really know what to say.
“Go secure the hospital,” Yamapi tells everyone still standing around, despite this case still being under Takizawa’s authority. “Get everyone else out. Kame, can you call the paramedics and tell them to go ahead with that kid’s heart surgery?”
“Um, sure,” Kame says, and eventually everyone in the war room clears out except for Yamapi and Tegoshi.
“You did good,” Yamapi tells the youngest agent calmly. “He wasn’t a nice man.”
Tegoshi nods and manages a small smile as he reaches out to flip off the camera feed and the horrible sound of the flatline that he caused. “Un,” he says eventually, and tucks his knees up against his chest as he listens instead, to the more reassuring sounds of the other agents freeing the hostages and taking back the hospital.
Yamapi’s hand on his shoulder bears him out.
5.
Shige thinks she’s too young to be here, too pretty and small and full of life. She can’t be more than sixteen, probably the precious only daughter of some hapless salaryman who borrowed money from the wrong people one too many times. She looks up at him defiantly, hates him, calls him names and tries to attack him except that the goons-his goons- are holding her back. One of them touches her inappropriately and Shige has to pretend that it’s okay, that he doesn’t care because it happens all the time.
He slaps her across the face with the back of his hand and cuts her tirade off, sends her face flying to the side. He’s fairly certain that she’s tiny enough for the rest of her to have followed, if not for the enormous hands holding her still and helpless.
He tells himself he’ll apologize to her for that later, that he’ll get her out of here and she won’t be kept like an animal anymore, that she and the other girls will get home safely. He’ll apologize for hitting her a thousand times when that moment comes.
For now though, for now he can’t pull his punches.
For now, he has to sneer at her pain. “You’ve got some kick left, don’t you?” he-or rather, who he is today-says to her, as he grabs her chin roughly and makes her face him again.
She spits at him; it hits his cheek.
He slaps her again.
From behind him, his current target roars in laughter; “She still not givin’ in to you yet, Sugata?” he asks, around a mouthful of steak.
Shige manages to remain impassive as he pulls out a linen handkerchief and wipes his face. “She will,” he replies coolly, and looks at her in a way that makes her stop for a second, makes her forget her bravado and actually feel a moment of real fear.
Shige tells himself he’ll apologize for everything later, that he’ll get her out of here and she’ll be free again, just like she ought to be. He’ll say sorry for all the hitting and the threatening looks and the inappropriate touching when he can, as soon as he can. But for now he’s doing everything in his power to get to the bottom of this prostitution ring as quickly as possible, because he doesn’t want this place to take away that liveliness from her; he doesn’t want her to become like all of the other girls he’s seen here so far.
She tries to kick him in the shin.
Shige grits his teeth and slaps her again, because everyone is still watching. “Enough for now,” he declares after a beat, with what he hopes is convincing enough apathy. “I’ll see to her myself at another time.”
He nods at the goons and the goons say, “Yes, sir,” before dragging her away. She continues to fight them, screaming a string of obscenities at Shige in the meantime.
He looks at the back of his hand-red and slightly smeared with her tears and makeup- and he tells himself he’ll answer for all of this later.
~~~~~
He finds out the next day that there is no later, at least not for her.
The goons dump her body on the floor at his feet when he walks into the boss’s office that morning and sees his boss sitting at his desk, sporting a fresh black eye and a split lip.
“Stupid bitch,” his boss growls, and spits on her body as another, much more frightened girl gently holds an icepack to his face. “Some of them just aren’t worth the trouble, Sugata,” he says, and waves a fat hand at one of the door guards in silent order.
The goon obediently picks her up by the hair and carries her lifeless body out of the room like a sack of trash.
“We don’t have the time or funds to invest in the spirited ones,” Shige’s boss says rather philosophically, as the door closes behind the goon and the body. “We’re in the business of entertaining very important clients, after all.”
Shige grits his teeth and remembers the look in her eyes yesterday, staring hatefully at him. He remembers the feel of her face against his hand too, and the red, angry marks he left there.
Most of all, he remembers how lively she had been, just one night before.
And he thinks that he wants to jump over the desk and strangle his boss to death right there, right now. That he could probably do it too, before the second guard at the door shoots him in the head.
But instead, he just smiles back at his boss obediently and says, “Yes sir, we are,” like he doesn’t care about her either. Like he thinks of her as trash too.
He tells himself that it’s because there are other girls a lot like her still being held back in that gilded prison; he tells himself that all of those girls, at the very least, still have a later to look forward too, a later when he can look them all in the face and get on his knees and tell them how sorry he really is for everything, for not being able to help sooner.
For now, he makes himself forget about her because it’s too late for regrets when she’s already dead.
He can’t let her haunt him right now, when there’s still so much work to be done and so many people to save.
“Later,” he tells himself under his breath over and over and over again, “later.”
6.
Yamapi tries not to glare at the person in front of him because it’s unprofessional.
He can’t bring himself to smile either, and so he settles for something painfully neutral, even though he’d like nothing more than to dismiss the reporter with a few choice words and get back to the real work.
But this- as Takizawa had informed him back in the academy many, many years ago- is something they have to do. Every single one of them, on rotation like clockwork.
This month it’s NEWS’s turn to talk to reporters, to have a small scandal and trade information.
It’s a necessary evil.
Because even if the agents’ relationship with the press is a not-like and outright hate one at best, the sharing of information networks and the various cooperative efforts and capitulations on either side keeps the more dramatic events in check and helps investigations along that might drain too many agency resources otherwise; cooperating with reporters (as sleazy as they are sometimes) has been common practice since the agency’s inception and Yamapi knows that even if he doesn’t like it he’s never been a rebel either. He can’t selfishly fight something this powerful for the sake of his own pride and not regret it afterwards, not when he has more than his own career to think about right now.
He has a team.
He’s a leader.
“So, let’s get down to business, shall we?” the reporter states after a moment of charged silence, and crosses his legs while looking around Yamapi’s office. “I trust Internal Affairs informed you that I’d be here?”
Yamapi nods. “Yes.”
The reporter laughs. “With a face that blank, I can’t tell if I’m welcome or not, Director. If I’m not, feel free to show it; even if you can’t do anything about it I prefer to at least know where I stand.”
Yamapi doesn’t give him the benefit. “Internal Affairs says you might have information to trade us about the case my men are currently investigating.”
The reporter nods. “The slave labor case. I mean, the talent agency case.” He grins. “I’ve got information that will bust the whole thing wide open, as a matter of fact. But first, you’re going to give me something as a show of good faith. Luckily for you I’m feeling generous today because there’s been lot going on lately; you go ahead and choose which story you want to ‘leak’ to the press, Director Yamashita. The lesser of five evils, if you will.”
Yamapi’s brow furrows. “Five?”
And this is where the reporter seems to be at his most triumphant, leaning back with an ominous unmarked dossier in his hand.
“My informants have told me that in the last few months, your unit has been involved in a lot of action, Yamashita-kun. Lucky for you, our newspaper would have already published all five stories if it wasn’t for the agency’s long-standing agreement with our owners. Personally, I would pick the case about the dead girl, but my editor says we’re not America and we can’t always do what we want regardless of the consequences. We are, after all, more concerned about the safety and peace of mind of Japan’s citizens than we are about just going out there to find the truth willy nilly. That’s why you get to choose which story breaks and does less damage to your institution’s reputation.”
Yamapi sighs. “So I get to pick my scandal.”
The reporter smirks and pulls a stack of photos out of his dossier, laying them out on the table in front of Yamapi. “So?” he asks, indicating the photos, “Which one will it be? We’ve got a sniper taking shots at high school kids without any direct orders to do so, we’ve got government hackers taking over some of the most powerful private computers in the world and killing people with them on a whim. Then there’s that murder of that high school girl that I was just talking about; my sources say she was killed long after the initial investigation had started. Negligence on the part of your men? A simple lack of concern? You tell me. Oh, and let’s not forget the unnecessarily violent deaths of several hired gunmen who didn’t actually have anything to do with the case you were investigating, and that one where some people blew up and some people didn’t.”
Yamapi can’t help it when he actually glares.
The reporter looks triumphant. “There they are, Director Yamashita’s true feelings.” Smile. “So, what’ll it be? Pick your poison.”
“All of those are classified,” Yamapi says, darkly.
“And all of them will get published if you don’t choose one.”
Yamapi takes a deep breath. “You really have information that will help us on our current case?”
“I wouldn’t be so confident if I didn’t. Especially when you’re making such a scary face at me, Director.”
Yamapi looks down at the pictures in front of him and considers his options while feeling sick at having to do something like this at all; it’s like he’s making deals that involve betraying both his teammates and himself-his ideals and his pride- somehow. But at the same time, it’s also something that could save the lives of ten or twenty or thirty or a thousand people who he will never meet face to face, his own soul for the life of a nameless, faceless stranger.
He knows that this has always been the price of this work.
So eventually, reluctantly, he makes a decision and reaches out to pick up one of the photos from the pile on his desk. “This one.”
A grin. “Good choice, Director. They were right when they said you were a real pro despite being so young.”
Yamapi doesn’t respond.
The reporter doesn’t seem to care. “Now,” he says brightly, “let’s get down to the real business at hand, shall we?”
~~~~~
Later, once the reporter is long gone from the office (though his stench somehow still lingers in the air after him), Yamapi sits at his desk and looks down at his hard won file of evidence. As he does, he thinks to himself that being a good guy doesn’t necessarily mean always doing good things. It isn’t something he should take personally; it’s just part of the job.
But even still, he can’t help but wonder to himself vaguely, if his teammates have ever felt as dirty as he feels right now.
Part of him knows that the answer is probably yes.
It is, after all, the price of their work.
END
EDITS? o.o