log: Bane and Fuji

[antipun]

Who: Kurobane Harukaze and Fuji Syuusuke
When: April 17th
Where: Saeki’s.
Summary: Fuji wants to visit Saeki again but ends up finding someone else home instead, and uncovering something from his past better left forgotten.
Warning/Rating: PG-13 / The subject of Bane’s uncle

Comment/Crits Allowed: Y

That visit to Saeki left Fuji wanting more of that. They had now settled in pretty nicely in the house, him and Kunimitsu, and while his boyfriend was out looking for job, or whatever it was he was doing, Fuji had taken his new camera and happily headed for Chiba, hoping to shoot something along the way if he was lucky enough.

This time it took less time for him to make it over to Saeki's, as he remembered better where the house was located. He walked up to the front door and rang the bell, pleased that he had indeed had the chance to take a few pictures.

Bane had been enjoying his day off work, even if it wasn't quite a day off work. He'd been camping out at Saeki's more and more lately, mostly to discuss the house and because he just liked spending time with his boyfriend. He was the only one home at the moment, which meant he was able to have his files from work that he was reading through and studying all nicely spread out in the living room while he napped on the couch, Shindo curled up on his feet.

The knock woke him up though, and he blinked his eyes open. It took him a minute to get to sitting up and awake enough to call out a "Coming!" before waiting for his feet to wake up from where they'd gone numb from his dog. Said dog was running to the door, barking excitedly. The owner soon followed, wobbling a little on his still half-asleep feet, and pulled the door open. "...Fuji?"

"Hello~" Fuji smiled brightly, and then kneeled down to pet the dog. "Hey boy~" After a bit of hand licking and around sniffing, Fuji was free to stand up again, and he grinned at Bane. "I hope it's not a bad time~ Is Saeki home?"

"Nah, Kouji's at work," Bane said before stepping aside and gesturing with his arm. "Y'wanna come inside anyway? It's just me and Shindo home at the moment." He reached a hand down to pet the dog on the head with a smile. He was still impressed at far the pup had come, from being too shy to even let Bane near him to actually going up to people to welcome them.

"If I'm not a bother..." Shindo seemed to recognize him from the last visit, which was always fun. He stepped into the indoor slippers and looked around. "You have any water?"

Bane closed the door once Fuji was inside and nudged Shindo back towards the living room. "Yeah, there's bottled water in the fridge," he said. "Seriously, whoever invented bottled water must make millions when natural disasters hit."

"But I guess you're being too hopeful if you imagine that they'll use those millions to help the people in need, nee?" Fuji gave a half crooked smile, opening the fridge and picking one bottle of water that was lightly apple flavored. He needed his water flavored, at least if he had the choice. If he drank it plain, he couldn't help but imagine all those little germs that swam around in the deceptively clear liquid.

"Yeah," he admitted with a slow nod. "But I've always been a hopeful one anyway." He grabbed a bottle of water for himself as well, and headed back into the living room. He ushered his dog out of the way and began piling up some files to give the guest some room to at least sit down.

Fuji looked a mixture between impressed, curious and rather baffled. "What are you doing in here," he asked, peeking his head inside the living room.

Bane blinked and glanced up. "Oh, uh... haha..." Bane straightened, a pile of closed files in his hand. "I spend my days off work studying. This-" He used his free hand to gesture to the rest of the files spread out. "-is my study. Closed and cold cases from work."

Fuji blinked. "... Closed and cold cases? Are you a detective?" Sad to say, he had no idea what Bane did for a living. Had rather assumed he went to school, but...

"Ah... not really," Bane gestured for Fuji to sit on the seat he had now cleared and placed the moved files beside the table on the floor. "I'm a social worker. But I guess it is kinda like a detective, huh?" He chuckled and sat back in the seat on the couch, a hand subconsciously reaching out to scratch behind Shindo's ears. "Use past examples to try and prevent history from repeating itself..." His gaze fell on an open file sitting on the table, the one he had been reading before he had began napping. Really, he wasn't supposed to have that particular article, but he couldn't help himself. A morbid curiosity and an urge to, like he had said, to prevent history from repeating itself.

"I guess it is." Fuji made himself comfortable on the cleared seat, stopping himself from picking up a file and flip through it; even if it was a cold or closed case, it was still private, he felt. Wrong for him to snoop in. But... "I never would have imagined. But it's good... Social services in Japan could use someone who actually cares a lot about people with special needs." He tilted his head to the side. "Ah... What do you have there?"

Bane gave a slight smile and leaned back in his seat. "It's great, really," he said. "Most people think it's just working with families with abusive parents or something, but it's more than that. I mean, I work with a couple families at the moment like that, but my first case I was assigned to was this lovely teenage mother who'd ran away from home and gotten herself a job working at the kindergarten her child went to." The smile widened a little at the memory, but fell again as Fuji brought his attention back to the open file. "Ah, that...? That's just..." He leaned forward and closed it, hesitating a little as he spotted the name on the front of it. "Just another old case I've been looking at."

"From what I've picked up over the years... There are the cases with ab--abusive parents or whatnot." He stumbled over the words and hated himself for it. He had to marvel over how easy it was for him to slip up, start to think about his parents, about his father, even though he had told himself he should not. "... But I know some drunkards that have gotten some help from social services... Or people who were laid off and didn't know how to get back on their feet... Things like that. All sort of people need help sometimes, I think." His curiousity was piqued now, however and he looked at the file in Bane's hands. "What's it about?"

"I mostly work with kids and families but.. yeah," Bane nodded. "There's such an amazing range of people that we help. Like we sent a team of senior staff up north to the worst hit areas to help out wherever we can." He sort of wished that Fuji hadn't noticed the file. It was a story that few outside his direct family knew about, and none of them knew that he had the file for the case, not even his own boyfriend or the uncle that had let him into the case file storage. But... "My uncle." On his dad's side.

"Your uncle?" Fuji assumed there had been some sort of trouble, financial perhaps, and that uncle had to go to social services for help. "I'm sorry. What happened to him?"

Bane gave a shrug and dropped the file on top of a pile further away from Fuji. "It was a long time ago," he said. "It's sorted now..."

"Okay. I understand if it's personal, I won't snoop." He smiled, crossing one leg over the other while he took a gulp out of the water bottle. "Did Sae tell you I stopped by for a visit?"

"He mentioned it," Bane sat back again, taking a sip of his own water. "Showed me those drawings you did. Damn artists." He laughed.

"Oh, that." Fuji laughed as well. "If you think it's too much, of it isn't your taste at all, you make sure you tell me, nee?"

"Hey, I'll just be happy with four walls, a roof and a door. Everything else is just luxuries."

"A man of lesser material needs, mm?" Fuji chuckled. "So basically you're saying I have free reins as to how your future abode will look like~ Freedom is a dangerous thing in the wrong hands, hohoho~ ♥"

Bane laughed again, patting the space beside him on the couch until Shindo jumped up to sit beside him. "Remember, there'll be three dogs there as well, and Daxter'll chew on anything he doesn't like the look of." He lifted a hand to rub the side of his head with a lopsided grin. "Or maybe that was just my head."

"Oh, but this is a problem. I have next to no experience dealing with dogs. Should I make the rooms small and narrow so they can knock down just about everything you hold dear, or should I make the rooms insanely spacey so that you can walk them indoors?" Fuji looked quite fox like at the moment, almost like you could expect him sprouting whiskers and a big, floofy tail right then and there.

"Or maybe we could save money on foundations and framing and just have one giant room with everything in it. Except the bathroom and toilet."

"That's what the sea's for." Nod nod.

Nod. "The sea and an outside shower to rinse off the salt and the boards."

"Of course." Fuji giggled. "Sae took me surfing once. It... Went about as well as you can expect."

Bane smiled, taking another mouthful of water. "I miss surfing..." He sighed a little. "I haven't been since I got back from Okinawa... I was invited to go on the National team for the tournament in January."

"Really? I didn't know that." He sucked thoughtfully on his waterbottle. "I guess I'm more into winter sports, than summer sports. Not counting tennis. I like that refreshing feeling... That I'm sure one can get when they surf as well." He thought for a moment. "How serious are you about surfing?"

"I wouldn't call the feeling I get from surfing refreshing. It's... just something else completely. Like this amazing adrenaline rush that never ends. Especially if I go out at night or something." Bane's hand rested on top of Shindo's head where the dog had started using his owner's leg as a pillow. "Surfing is.... Kouji's the only reason I turned down the offer to do it for a living. Kouji and my boys."

"Wouldn't Sae support you if you wanted to fully devote yourself to it?"

"Yeah, he would. I know he would. But... I wouldn't be able to be apart from him for that long. And my boys..." He looked down at Shindo with a sad smile. "Especially Shindo... It took me long enough to get him used to me... if I start going away for most of the year he'll lose that trust in me."

"All right, I see." The tinier boy nodded, giving the dog an affectionate smile. "You're really a good guy, aren't you, Bane? You really give your all when trying to help others." He paused, eyes narrowing. "So how often do you allow people to help you?"

The smile slipped from Bane's lips and he sighed. "I could ask you the same question."

Fuji's features didn't change, but his hands, that lay in his lap, clasped, tightened their grip around themselves. "... Oh?"

"I know the people around me, Fuji," Bane said calmly, his expression soft. "I've known you long enough to know you're someone who doesn't like asking for help. Hell, I don't think there's a lot of people from the old circuit who did."

"Ah..." He dipped his head to the side and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes played on his lips. "I can't think of anyone... Funny, that." He got to his feet and started to carefully walk around - he didn't wish to wake or startle Shindo. "Where's the bathroom?" But apparently he didn't walk carefully enough, because as he turned, his elbow hit a stack of files - where the one about Bane's uncle lay - and a few of them were knocked over. "Oh. Ah, sorry, I'll pick it up." He bent down, quickly trying to make sense of the small mess he had created, and then stopped. Looked down on the file he was holding. There was a photograph there. Of a man. I know him, he thought, distantly. But from where? He couldn't pin-point the man's face at all, just that it was familiar. And... Scary looking? That was ridiculous.

The sudden shock of files falling the floor startled Shindo awake, though half of the shock was Bane quickly getting to his feet with a, "I'll help." He began stacking some of the fallen files, though stopped when he noticed Fuji had as well. As soon as he saw what file he was looking at, he swallowed. He reached out a hand, fingers purposely covering the photograph as he grabbed the file.

He barely noticed the file being taken from him. He could hear Shindo barking in the background, but it was like it came through a muffling filter. "Is that... Your uncle?"

Bane gave a slow nod. He place the file on the pile in his hands and then returned the pile to the table before file turning his head to look at Shindo, softly telling him to be quiet.

"I've seen him before. Somewhere." It was frustrating, not being able to grasp onto that fleeting memory. "Why was there a file on him again?"

"...He's a paedophile." He barely managed to get the word out. It was something he hated talking about. He hated being associated with it liked this, not only by being family, by being named after him as well.

"A what...?" Okay, so... If he was convicted, then maybe Fuji had seen him in the news sometime. That would make sense. But... But... "H--How long has he been locked away?" He hated pressuring Bane with the questions, but... Again. That 'but'.

A familiar knock against the side of his leg prompted Bane to place a hand on top of Shindo's head. It was something the pup had picked up off Jak, being able to notice Bane's mood changes and responding to them. "Almost thirteen years... I was five."

"... Did he...?" Touch you, he wanted to ask, but simply couldn't.

Bane shook his head slowly. "Not me..."

But someone else then. He wouldn't ask. Not his business. "Oh." Was all he said. And he wondered why he had feared that the man had done something bad to Kurobane. Five years old... That was a bit young, right? Too young? Five most definitely had to be too young. Just like four. Four even more, of course. Right? Where did that thought come from? And... The soft serve ice cream that had dropped to the ground. He was crying because he was supposed to bring it to Yuuta. And... And then... Someone came. Comforted him. But... His head hurt and he felt light headed. "I... have to sit down, I think."

The older boy just gave a slight nod. He used his free hand to help prop himself up on the table, his other hand curled into fur. He looked at the file again. "...there were six," he murmured.

"Six victims?"

Bane nodded slowly again before moving to sit back down on the couch, away from the file. He tried to ignore the face in docks when he closed his eyes, instead concentrating on what had been written in the file. "I only ever knew five, though... kept contact with them after to see how they were..."

"I... guess I can see where you wanting to be a social worker's coming from." He paused. "... A-and the sixth?"

"The sixth...." He glanced at Fuji.

His throat was dry, as well as his mouth. He could feel his hands shaking. "... I was four. That's not... It's not possible."

Bane looked away again. "Saito and Murai were four as well... Noma and Hatano... they were both five. Kenta was seven... that was why he could speak out..."

"How... How do you know that... That it's me?" It was a wonder his voice worked. It was a wonder his brain worked.

"...I don't," he admitted, staring at the table. "All the report says about the sixth... was that he had a sister... a brother... and they'd moved to Tokyo."

"But... But that's..." It had to be them. If he remembered correctly they moved either his fifth or sixth year. He felt sick. "I... I don't remember." But that wasn't entirely true. Not anymore.

Bane just watched him for a long moment before shifting from to couch to move closer to him, a hand reaching out to grab Fuji's. He gave it a soft squeeze.

"... How... How far did he... Do you know?" He squeezed Bane's hand right back.

"I don't know, Fuji...."

"... Someone ought to know..."

"Someone will know..."

"..." Fuji looked slowly at him, through something that seemed like a haze. He couldn't think.

The hand holding Fuji's squeezed again before Bane lifted his free arm to pull Fuji into a tight hug.

He didn't object at the hug, he leaned numbly into it, still feeling like he was somewhere else, watching this scene play out without not really knowing the exact details, without knowing who these people were. "What... am I supposed to do with this?"

"I don't know," Bane admitted quietly, his hand rubbing Fuji's back.

"... Mom and dad must have known. They didn't tell me." Was the move because of this? Did I cause Yumiko-neesan to uproot from everyone she knew and everything she held dear, when she was in the middle of Junior High? Was it my fault?

"If it was my kid... I wouldn't have said anything either..." He gave a sigh and tightened his arm around him. "I really shouldn't have said anything..."

"I... don't know. Maybe you did the right thing." He pulled himself free from the hug and unsteadily got to his feet. "I..." It was so strange. He felt incredibly sick to his stomach, lightheaded and just plain uncomfortable... But at the same time, it felt like he simply knew that he felt like that, he didn't feel it. "I think I need to throw up..."

For a long moment, Bane just stayed crouching and looking up at him. Then finally gave a nod. "I'll take you to the bathroom," he offered, standing and leading Fuji there without waiting for a response.

Once in the bathroom, Fuji found himself staring down at the porcelain white and the cold water nestling in the bottom of the bowl, a faint, lemony smell rising from it. "Nothing's happening..."

Bane rested his hand on Fuji's shoulder. "Until the feeling passes. Just in case," he said before giving the shoulder a squeeze. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna go get your water."

"Mm." Maybe it was just the simple fact that he couldn't get himself to vomit when he had an audience, because soon after Bane had left, his stomach twisted itself together painfully. Once it was over with, and he had flushed, washed his face to get rid of tears and other things (but the tears kept falling, strange that) he simply sat down on the bathroom floor, back against the cool, glaze tiled wall.

The surfer had to pause in the lounge when he heard the unmistakable sound of Fuji throwing up. He'd never been the squeamish sort, but when it came to watching someone vomit, he just couldn't handle it. He waited on the couch with his hand in Shindo's fur and didn't move until he heard the toilet flush. He slowly stood again to pick up the other boy's bottle before walking back to the bathroom. He sat down beside him and offered the bottle, before pulling him into a tight one-armed hug again.

"So--sorry." He took a gulp of the water. "I just... don't know what to make of this. Of myself. Right now..." Leaning against Bane's shoulder, he felt so incredibly small it was ridiculous. "Would it have been better if I didn't remember...?"

"Don't apologize," Bane said, the arm around him shifting so he could run his fingers slowly through Fuji's hair, a tried and tested theory that seemed to work to calm down most people, especially himself. He didn't answer the question right away, just thinking on it for a moment. "... I can't say. At least if you didn't, you'd have less to stress over.."

He nodded. He still had to make it all the way home. He had to get up. Had to walk down to the station. Had to sit at the train with all those people and people and people and then walk away from the the other station and take the bus over to their neighborhood and then walk some more until he reached their house and... Stop it. "Can I... take a nap? Here? I... want to... Uhm. Collect myself. A little."

Bane nodded. "Stay as long as you need," he said quietly. "I'll tell Kouij you fell asleep while you were waiting because I suck as a host and bored you to sleep."

"Y--yeah. Thanks." He didn't want Saeki to know the truth. Not yet. He had to process this himself first. Even though he wasn't sure how to do that.

He could understand the need for secrecy. He had himself. It had taken years to even hint that something as bad as his uncle had done had occurred in his family. "And I'll tell Kouji to let you sleep if he's back before you wake up."

Fuji only nodded, closing his eyes. They burned, but the tears had stopped falling a couple of minutes ago. He supposed that was a good thing. He hoped it was.

Bane lifted a hand to wipe Fuji's face dry before slowly standing. "Can you walk?" he asked quietly. "I'll carry you if you need me to."

"Ca--can you? Please?"

"Alright." Bane smiled and leaned down to pick him up carefully, one hand under his back and the other hand under his knees. "I'll put you in Kouji's bed."

Yes. He wanted that. He liked that. Sae's bed. Like when they were kids. Sleepovers. (Oh god even back when they were kids he had... had... ) I was four. The thought appeared again, and he shuddered, staring up at Bane's face as if to make sure that he was there, that he was real. Because nothing felt like it was.

The shudder made Bane tighten his hold just a little. "It's okay, Fuji," he promised quietly, carefully and slowly carrying him through to his boyfriend's bedroom. With some awkward repositioning, he managed to pull the blankets back (he was pretty sure they were clean, not that it was exactly important) and carefully lay Fuji down. He pulled the blankets up around him, tucking them around him, before straightening. "I'll get your drink and a bucket and Shindo'll stay and keep you company. Do you need anything else?"

"A new life?" He quirked an eyebrow up at him, and then shook his head. "No, thank you. You're being really helpful, I couldn't ask f--for more."

Bane chuckled and a large hand ruffled Fuji's hair. "Get some sleep," he said, patting the bed until Shindo jumped up and curled up into the small boy's side.

One hand in that comfortable fur - he liked that he could feel the dog's ribcage move as he breathed - the blond's eyes closed and he tried his best not to think about anything in particular. He doubted that it would work very good... But somehow it did, because in mere minutes, he was asleep.