broken : Chapter 2 : Thief
Title: broken
Pairing: KoKame, KamePi
Rating: NC-17/18 (probably)
Warnings: Strong language, violence, sexual references, possible sexual scenes, references to prostitution, torture, character death and some other things as to which I'm not yet sure
Summary: Set in an alternate reality, it's 2012 and Tokyo has become a centre for corruption, hidden under a false face of hope and justice. The advancements in technology are used both as reassurance for the people and a dangerous hidden weapon. Tanaka Koki is a police officer who doubles as a vigilante, intent on challenging Japan's ever-increasingly corrupt legal system. By chance, he happens upon a young drug addict named Kamenashi Kazuya whom he finds himself determined to help even despite his just having murdered a man. But, Kazuya possesses a dangerous secret, the discovery of which has Koki finding himself on an extremely difficult mission to protect those last few slivers of hope that Japanese society still possesses, against a powerful enemy that the advantages of money and science at their disposal. Koki will risk his life to protect all that he believes in and keep his promise of helping Kazuya against all odds.
A/N: Finally, the second chapter~! There are some switchy POVs in this, though. But, it's also the entrance of Kazuya into the story!
Kamenashi Kazuya had never planned for things to turn out like this. But, then, really, who would? So, he had started off as a fairly regular kid, living in a mostly stable household, with a maybe slightly obsessive passion for baseball - everything had been okay, not perfect but okay. Though, looking back on it and comparing it to his current situation, Kazuya realised that life had been a heavenly contrast. Once, he had been happy with life. Once. But, now, he was cornered against the wall of a convenience store, being harshly stared down by a quite pissed off looking pair of police officers. Kazuya had never asked to be in a situation where stealing shit was his only option. It wasn’t like a hobby, something he enjoyed and often decided to do on a whim. He did to live, to survive. Now, was that really such a crime?
He glared straight back at them, lips pursed. The officer on the left was throwing a shitload of questions at him; demanding to know stuff like why he was doing this, whether or not he understand the moral implications of the act, if he felt guilty about it and so-on, so-forth. Kazuya stayed quiet, fully convinced that he had already told them enough just before when he had admitted to the crime and given a reason as to why had done it - they were still nagging at him for a reason as, apparently, hunger wasn’t a valid reason for stealing food. When this simply fucked-up truth came to light, Kazuya came to realise that nothing he could say as to his motives in stealing made any difference to the situation. As far as they were concerned, he’d stolen something and that was, probably, all they cared about. Kazuya could have come up with most distressfully heart-rending sob story imaginable and they would have still given the same punishment. Heartless cunts. To that effect, he didn’t quite understand how it was even any of their business, anyway.
In all honestly, Kazuya just wanted to go home. He was cold and hungry and tired. He finally managed to get himself a day-off from his far from pleasant night-job so he had been looking forward to that blissful freedom and a chance to finally get a decent night’s rest. Yet, here he was, late at night, having his time wasted by a pair of pitiless pricks, standing outside and shivering as the icy air nipped cruelly at his flesh through his clothes. And, though, after having a shower, had gone at his hair thoroughly with a tower, it was wet and clung to his face with what seemed like irritating desperation - it certainly didn’t raise his body temperature any. Kazuya wrapped his arms tightly around his chest in a most likely futile attempt to warm himself as his teeth chattered uncontrollably, still refusing to speak a word to the men before him.
However, Kazuya possessed no desire to stand about feeling sorry for himself. If anything, he, somehow, felt sorry for the fuckwads who were whiling away the time trying to force answers out of a guy who, quite plainly, refused to talk. It was becoming far too obvious how irate this twat on the left was as he began to practically scream out his interrogations. Kazuya rubbed his forehead, his brow furrowed. He could feel a headache coming on. He prayed that this shit-for-brains would just calm the fuck down. Still trapped in a painful trance brought on by a distracting throbbing in his skull, he gave the men absolutely no response and his eyes were tightly shut. Kazuya was pulled back into reality as his shoulder was taken in a violent grip by the guy on the left, who then attempted to yank him forward. Kazuya shook out of his grip and, before he could even pause to think about what he was doing, he swung a fist towards the policeman’s face.
‘So, what’s out there all about, then?’ Koki mused, referring to the group he had just seen outside, as he hand his money to guy at the till, the manager of the shop’s son, whom Koki knew simply as Shige - he had told him his full name once before, but, he had also told Koki just to call him Shige and, well, it kind of stuck so well that Koki ended up forgetting his full name.
Taking the money and stealing a quick glance out of the window, Shige replied, in a low voice, ‘They’re dealin’ with a shoplifter’
‘A shoplifter?’ Koki echoed, ‘That so?’
‘Mm’, Shige said, turning to collect a box of Koki’s chosen cigarettes, ‘He stole a bunch of stuff. A tin of soup, a cereal bar, a take-away sandwich, a bag of crisps, a bottle of Pocari Sweat, a can of coffee and some alcohol - shoved it all into a rucksack and was off with it. Little bugger actually had the audacity to come up here and buy a big bag of rice and a pack of fags to make him look less suspicious, can you believe that?’
Koki shook his head and let out a disheartened sigh, ‘But, what about the other two, how do they fit into all this?’
‘Ah, they were just coming in to buy some drinks. Canned coffee to keep themselves alert, y’know?’ Shige explained, passing the carton of cigarettes through the barcode scanner, which let out a irritating beep, ‘And, then, they happened to see this guy shove all this stuff into his bag, march up to the till and then leave. They looked pretty pissed about it and got all ready to just bolt out through the door when I asked them what happened. One of them just ran out and grabbed the guy in a headlock and the other explained to me the situation. And, now, they’re dealin’ with him, like I said’
‘Ah, right, but, I guess you gotta be pretty desperate to pull tricks like that just to get basic provisions and stuff. Especially when there are police officers near you’, Koki said, more to himself than to Shige; he had been thinking aloud.
Yet Shige still responded, frowning as he hand the cigarettes to Koki, who shoved the little carton, messily, into his pocket, ‘Well, things are hardly good for that guy’
‘You know him?’
‘Yep, sure do. He worked here as a part-timer for a bit’, Shige said, ‘He’s about our age, if I remember correctly. He quit a couple months back but, even then, I heard he had some kind of dodgy night-job on top of the part-time things he does. He refused to talk about himself when I knew him, mind you, so I can’t really judge the rumours’
Koki tilted his head slightly, ‘Then, how d’you know he’s got it so bad?’
Shige tapped his fingers against the counter as he, Koki guessed, attempted to word in his mind a decent reply - so, even genius law students get tongue-tied and all stupid in the brain when it’s too late?
‘Well, it’s hard to say, I don’t know the exact details, y’see. Basically, my dad understands the whole thing far better than I do. He refused to talk to me about it, said it was none of my business. I was just told to be careful for since he has a lot going on and things are hard for him’
Koki nodded, as it became apparent that Shige didn’t really know the culprit, after all. Koki honestly wasn’t all that interested, anyway - he’d just wanted to start up a chat and police interrogations had made him a nosey git. Just as Koki bid farewell to his conversational partner, seeing as there was little left to talk about, he heard a mess of voices, tangling, outside. Off-duty though he may have been, he was going to have to deal with it before it got out of hand. Oh, for fuck’s sake...
‘Get your hands off of me, you cunt!’ Kazuya gasped, wriggling his way out of the infuriated officer’s grip. Okay, so, yeah, maybe, clobbering the guy in the face wasn’t the best idea, he couldn’t admit that, but he still didn’t like being handled by this like he was some kind of pest. Besides, being held like this was painful.
‘You assaulted a police officer!’ shouted the third man, who had been pretty silent until now - Kazuya had been wondering why he hadn’t opened his trap yet.
With a low laugh, Kazuya growled, ‘Why the fuck should I care about that?’
‘It’s the law!’ came the flustered response.
‘Oh, come on!’ Kazuya groaned, ‘You really think we’d be doing this right now if I was bothered about the law?’
The third guy hesitated as he attempted to come up with a civilised response - Kazuya could tell he was really trying to be rational here. It was pretty obvious that the other guy wasn’t, though, as he grabbed Kazuya from behind and threw his fist at his face. This was followed by him hammering the back of his head, repeatedly. Kazuya could feel his oncoming headache worsening with every blow, his skull beginning to burn as his vision slowly started to fade and contort itself.
‘Oi!’ came a voice, muffled by the deep pulsating in Kazuya’s skull and the screaming voices of people he’d rather not be forced to remember. Image of wires and explosions littered his thoughts, tormenting him, teasing him and taunting him, until his skull felt about ready to tear itself in two.
‘Let him go!’ yelled the voice, ‘Right now!’
‘Don’t you order a policeman around!’ the violent prick holding Kazuya retorted.
Kazuya, in his dazed stated, attempted to struggle away from the man, only to discover that he was in far from any condition to do so and, in a futile attempt to verbally protest, let out an agitated moan.
‘I’m a policeman too, big guy’, said the voice, cockily, accompanied by a sound like someone flipping open a book- Kazuya guessed that he was showing them a badge or license or something like that, ‘and, oh, looky here, I’m also your Senpai, so, if I were you, I’d be doing as I was told’
A loud groan of reluctant defeat was given in response and, now that this guy had stopped attacking him, Kazuya’s vision and sense of mind were returning to him. He discovered that he had been staring at the ground - in fact, his face was just inches from the tarmac, so close that a little puddle had gathered where blood had fallen after having trickled its way down from his nose and lip and dripping onto the ground below.
‘But, sir’, said the one that Kazuya had deemed as the rational one - though, he only thought the man to be rational in comparison to the brute whose grip he was stuck in -, having clearly decided that it would be in any way helpful to interject, ‘he assaulted a policeman!’
As sensible as he was trying to sound, bless him, Kazuya couldn’t seem to shake off the thought that this guy had the moral depth of a five-year-old, repeating the same accusation in a tone of infantile shock.
‘Be that as it may’, the voice reasoned, as Kazuya began to register the face of the man to whom the voice belonged - he was a somewhat rough-looking man with a soft edge, who looked capable of both sadistic cruelty and welcoming warmth; he was not, Kazuya decided, a book worth judging by its cover, ‘Was there really any need for such a brutal retaliation? Shopping isn’t all that bad, you know, he didn’t hurt anyone’
Kazuya had been thinking the same thing.
The policeman pointed at Kazuya and followed the action up with a not-so-graceful nervous twitch, ‘B-but he assaulted-’
‘We get it’, Kazuya hissed, getting really pissed off by this idiot. He was like a broken bloody record.
The interruption did very little to help Kazuya, though, and, instead, only managed to warrant him a sound smack, around the back of the head, from the more violent policeman of the trio currently surrounding him, leaving him with a slight stinging sensation.
‘Let him go, now, would ya?’ Koki grunted, dismissing the pettiness of the guy’s brutality.
The policeman let go of the thief and gave him a rather aggressive shove in Koki’s direction, almost knocking him, who seemed to still not have quite found his footing yet, over. Koki sent the policemen off, feigning irritation at their having slacked off and gone to shops despite being on-duty and assuring them that he’d deal with the thief himself. Once they had properly buggered off in their car, Koki turned and bent over to pick up the rucksack full of stolen goods, eyeing it unsurely. It wasn’t even like the thief had stolen the pricier versions of things. Looking away from the bag, he noticed the thief backing away from him, wearily, with an expression upon his face that made clear that he didn’t trust Koki. Koki watched the thief, who was now standing with his shoulders flat against the wall. His eyes were full of doubt and there was hint of fear in there, too. He didn’t like Koki, it was fucking obvious. Koki didn’t know the guy but, still, he couldn’t but feel a little hurt, considering he had just helped his sorry arse. Though, he did have to consider that this guy probably hated the police and, doubtlessly, had no idea that Koki did too. And, this guy, he was skinny. Like, really skinny. Koki guessed that he genuinely wasn’t in a good situation and couldn’t afford the food - whether he was just out of money or he was spending it on something else was neither here nor there, he needed it.
‘Hey, listen here’, Koki said, walking over to the thief and dangling the bag in front of his face, ‘You take this and I’ll pay for your stuff, okay?’
The thief just glared at him. His eyes were burning with such hatred and ferocity. It was a fucking awkward moment with Koki trying to look as kind as he could, just smiling like a total idiot, while this other guy just stared at him. His eyes were so piercing, too. Koki broke eye contact with him and looked to the side - the emotion in those eyes ached. Suddenly, the thief snatched the bag from Koki’s hand and threw one strap over his shoulder before walking away and around the corner without so much as a ‘Bye’ or a ‘Thank you’. Okay, so, Koki could tell he being mindlessly hated but, come on, manners were manners, right? Deciding it wasn’t worth getting hung up on, Koki entered the shop once again so that he could pay for the stuff. Why did he even offer to do that? This vigilante was meant to beat up people who did wrong and were let off despite that, not stick up for thieves. Or was he just supposed to protect people he believed were being wronged by society? Yeah, that was it. That worked. He felt less like he was doing something wrong that way.
Koki had planned to drive back to the hide-out pretty quickly since Yuichi as probably going to be pissed at him for taking so long and immediately assume that he had been off getting involved in something that had nothing to do with him. That would be a correct assumption to make, granted, but that wasn’t the point. It didn’t make Yuichi any less of a nag, now, did it? However, despite his intentions, as he drove round the corner, he noticed the thief leaning against the wall, casually smoking a cigarette. Odd, from the way he had been shivering, Koki had assumed that he would have headed straight home. Koki hadn’t noticed that he had slowed the car down as he watched him, but the thief himself apparently did. Their eyes caught each other’s and Koki tried to smile at him again, hoping that his confusion wasn’t totally obvious. Not that Koki would ever know whether it was or not seeing as all the thief did was glare back at him and, then, flip Koki off. Koki could take a hint. And, so, he drove off, leaving the thief far behind in the cold, dark night.
------
Author's Notes
Okay, so, I don't exactly like how this came out, but, blegh, whatever. I hope it's not as horrendous as I believe it is. Also, I hope the violent prick guy was as horrible as I wanted him to be. Did he seem psychotic enough?
Also, Shige was a pretty random choice. I dunno why. I could see him working as a part-time till guy, I don't know why.
I hope the switchy POVs aren't an issue, either, and that I made the switches obvious enough without having to explicitly point anything out.
Sorry for being mean to Kame! Things only get worse for him, though e.e
I also made the dialogue easier to read this time!!
And, of course, thanks for reading!
Previous Chapter Next Chapter