[fic] Two Kingdoms - Chapter 01 ~The Capture~
Title: Two Kingdoms
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: au, drama, romance, some smut
Beta by: my cat Gemma. and maeda_marika
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Everyone knows you can't trust the Darkness.
Author's Note: Okay, I decided to go ahead and post this. Next will be TWCC update (in a week-ish?), assuming I don't get a second chapter written for Two Kingdoms during this next week. It's at the point in the story that I can just write a paragraph here and there in TK simply because the story isn't complicated yet. But after things settle back to normal, I'll be focused on TWCC again.
Warning: I'm giving this my normal warning for TWCC simply because, well, I don't know what this story will be but I do tend to put some or all of these things in my stories. So... Possibly...
This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the akame_ Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
The Characters:
Two Kingdoms Character Page
Chapter 01 ~The Capture~
I was a musician, you know. My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. You might even have heard of me. For five years I dominated the charts. 1582? That was my biggest hit.
Ah, I see you do remember it. Most people do.
What I remember is the shock on the reporters’ faces when I announced I was taking a year-long break right at the height of my popularity. I suppose I was a little shocked, too, though. I’d worked so hard to get there. It was my dream. I always wanted to be a world-famous singer.
That’s the thing about reaching your wildest dreams at such a young age. You sort of lose yourself for a while. You have to search for a new dream.
Kamenashi Kazuya, age twenty-four. Dream seeker.
That’s me.
Three months after the announcement, I was still searching. I wasn’t hurting for money or anything. I just… I didn’t know what I wanted. There had to be something missing in my life, something for me to strive for. Something that would matter to me, like singing had mattered to me.
I started taking these long walks, exploring the city. Nowhere bad. I wasn’t that stupid. Nice, bright, happy places. I was looking for inspiration.
Even happy places can become dangerous in the dark, though. The Darkness is never safe, right?
I should have taken a cab home from the club that first Friday night in June. Instead, I let myself get kidnapped.
Spare me the lecture on the stupidity of walking home drunk in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I see that now. It’s easy to judge from the safety of your own home (I know because I did plenty of it once I got to the safety of my home).
I was walking south along Patterson Street, the mirror of the path I’d walked to get to the club four and a half hours earlier. I’d walked the route before many times, though admittedly never at one in the morning. I hadn’t gone four blocks before I got the distinct feeling I was being followed.
A quick glance over my shoulder showed me a young man. It was a bit difficult to see many details in the low light of the street lamps but what I could see was dark hair with bangs and long sides, matched to equally dark eyes. One on cheek, in either black or possibly dark blue, three tattoed symbols of the Kingdom of Darkness. He made absolutely no attempt to hide himself or his intentions, walking steadily towards me with an unflinching stare.
Oh, god, I had a member of the Midnight Club after me, didn’t I? Nighters (people of the Kingdom of Darkness) were bad enough but the Midnight Club was the worst. It wasn’t a club in the traditional sense in that there were no meetings or membership dues and most of the members had nothing to do with each other. It was more of a movement, really. Likeminded souls determined to show the world just how cruel the Darkness could be. All it took was a few tattoos shouting your allegiance to the night and the dedication to hurt the very society that labeled you evil in the first place.
I was far enough from Club Chaos that my shouts would never be heard by the doorman. There weren’t a lot of businesses open that late in the area, either. I was on my own.
My brilliant solution? Duck into an alley where I’d be even more alone.
Did I mention I was drunk? Yes? Ah, well…
Guess it’s never really a good excuse anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder nervously only to find he’d followed me into the alley. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I didn’t know if he planned to just rob me or if he was going to kill me and I really didn’t want to let him catch me so I could find out which.
So I started running.
When I glanced back again, he was still walking steadily. He hadn’t sped up to catch me at all. It didn’t make any sense.
But I should have spent more time focused on what was in front of me than what was behind me. I ran straight into something. No, not something… someone. A person. Crashing into him sent him stumbling several steps backwards. As for myself, I ended up landing hard on my ass on the ground where we’d collided.
Before I could push up to my feet or even take proper stock of my surroundings, I was apologizing profusely for running into him. Inside, though, I was raving as I looked up, raving mentally about how it wasn’t really my fault because why the hell was he skulking about the alley in the first place and who the hell did he think he was and…
Oh, oh, no, this was not good. My gaze had reached his face. More facial tattoos, in this instance a large blood-red crescent moon and a blue symbol of the Dark slightly overlapping it. Black hair, shorter than the man following me but not by that much. I trailed off mid-sentence as my reality sunk in.
The man behind me, meanwhile, had caught up to us with that steady walk of his. With a laugh, he called to his companion, “Not too bright, is he, Domoto-san?”
“Not too bright at all, Domoto-san. Not too bright at all.”
“I… I have money. I’ll… you can… all of it,” I mumbled, feeling sick to my stomach. Why oh why did I drink so much? Oh, that’s right… Pi. It was all my best friend’s fault. He was the one that got caught by both girlfriends. I was just the good friend. I was being supportive even though I told him that would end badly!
Pi, I swear to God, if I survive this, you’re dead. That was all I could think in that moment.
And then even that passed as I was roughly jerked to my feet by the Domoto in front of me. “Don’t worry, we’ll take that, too. But it’s going to take more than a bunch of pocket change to get you out of this.”
“You’re going to kill me…” I whispered.
“That depends on whether your agency will release your money to get you back,” the Domoto at my back said. I didn’t have to face him to know he was smirking. I could just hear it in his voice. “That is, if they still think you’ll sell. With your hiatus, who knows?”
Great. Just great. They knew who I was. This wasn’t random. They targeted me. I should never have tried to walk home by myself so late. I could rail at my friend Yamapi for being an idiot but he wasn’t the one who went and got himself kidnapped.
Er, nearly kidnapped. Nearly. It wasn’t quite there yet. If they planned this, they’d take me somewhere else. Somewhere they could control me until they got what they wanted. If I let them take me there, that was the end of it. They’d have the upper hand and I’d never be able to escape. I’d just have to hope they let me go.
That was too uncertain for me. Better to not let it get that far.
Attempt one.
Bribery.
“Look, can’t I just write you a check or a whole bunch of smaller checks or something?” I mumbled as I glanced around, trying to feel out my surroundings the same way I do during rehearsal for a live tour performance.
I turned to face the man behind me as he gave another laugh, only this one sounded pretty bitter. “You really think a bank would give us an account, or even just honor any checks we try to cash? You fucking Lighters are all the same. Judgmental.”
“I just…” I started but I didn’t get to finish because the next thing I knew, I had a hand on each shoulder and then a knee to the gut.
“I don’t care what you just,” the guy hissed. I sank to my knees, coughing. My stomach churned and everything I drank that night came up, just barely missing my hands (yay!) and his shoes (damn!).
The Domoto that originally pulled me to my feet, the one I’d literally ran into, grabbed the back of my shirt and jerked me to my feet once more. Addressing the other kidnapper, “Koichi, chill for now. This isn’t the place for that shit.”
Koichi grumbled a bit but did as he was told. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. Laughing, I said, “Huh. Looks like he’s in charge and you’re just dumb mus-”
I never finished the sentence. The fist came faster than my ability to realize it was even a threat and then there was darkness.
I woke who knows how many hours later. My head was throbbing and my face felt like someone had swung a brick into it. That was some punch Kidnapper Grunt Domoto Koichi-san had on him.
The first thing I noticed was that the room around me was almost as dark as it had been out on the street. I could vaguely make out the interior. It didn’t seem to be any sort of house. No normal furniture. Lots of boxes. High ceiling. Stairs along the wall across the room from me (at least probably, anyway, because though I could not see the stairs I could see a light through a window much too high off the ground to be the bottom floor).
It was a warehouse? I didn’t know there were any in that area of town. Or had they loaded me into a car? I doubt they’d have been able to get a valid license with those tattoos but that didn’t mean they couldn’t drive. It just meant they couldn’t do it legally. I was pretty sure that wasn’t much of a deterrent for those two.
So I could be anywhere…
When I tried to stand, I realized something else. My hands and feet were bound. Not only that, but my wrists were tethered to an old radiator by a two-foot cord. I wouldn’t be able to stand even if my ankles weren’t tied. There just wasn’t enough length tying me to the radiator.
I didn’t want to die. I knew I had been sort of aimless recently. Lost, really. I just… I knew I had it in me to find another purpose and the thought of dying before that was just depressing. And, though I hated to admit it because it made me feel weak, I was scared. Terrified.
The agency hadn’t been very happy with me about the hiatus. Would they just write me off? True, my money would be divided according to my will which at this time in my life means my parents and brothers, but it specifically states in my contract that upon my death, all of my music becomes the property of Johnny-san and the agency. They wouldn’t have to pay me royalties on my work if I was dead. And what if the kidnappers wanted more than I had? I wasn’t even sure how much money I had. My accountant (agency-provided, of course) handled all of my bills and gave me an allowance each month.
Fear really does nothing to help alleviate a headache. Big shock there, huh?
“H-hello?” I called out into the room. “Can anyone hear me?”
I heard some movement to my left, maybe six or seven yards away and a voice telling me to shut up. There was a door there I’d completely overlooked and someone was there. It was hard to tell in the dark but I think it was one of the two men from earlier… Domoto… Koichi? That one?
If he was watching the door, did that mean it really was just the two of them?
That was a lucky break…
Assuming I could somehow slip my bonds, that was. I flexed against the rough cord they’d used to bind me but it was so tight.
I closed my eyes at the sudden flood of light which filled the once-dark warehouse. After a few seconds, I hesitantly opened them, letting them adjust to the lights.
The other kidnapper, then one I only knew as Domoto-san, was walking down the stairs along the opposite wall, gesturing for Koichi. They were too far away to hear but I didn’t like what their body language was saying. It was saying that Domoto-In-Charge was disappointed and Domoto-The-Grunt was oddly excited and neither of those things really spoke well for my future.
But then it seemed like they started arguing. Koichi’s excitement sort of drained out of him and his shoulders slumped as he got louder and louder and then I could hear him well enough to make it out, “…ver let me have any fun, Tsuyoshi!”
I couldn’t quite make out Tsuyoshi’s response though it was good to have a name for my other kidnapper. If I made it out of here, I wanted to be able to tell the police exactly who to look for. I didn’t want them to have a second chance.
Granted, the way things were going, they weren’t going to need a second chance…
And now they were both walking my way and neither of them looked happy. That’s when I noticed the video camera in one of Tsuyoshi’s hands. The other had a piece of paper with some sloppy writing scrawled across it. He thrust the paper at me and said, “Read this.”
Groaning as I shifted to grab the bottom corner of the page as best I could with my wrists bound, I scanned it and without thinking, “I can’t read this.”
“Just do it.” This was from Tsuyoshi. His voice was low and even but very menacing.
“No, I mean, I can’t read it. I can’t… the words, I… I can’t read the writing.” I was speaking faster and faster, trying to get him to understand. I wasn’t being difficult. I literally couldn’t read the writing. Oh, I got a word here and there despite the unevenness of the letters. I suppose I should be impressed he was able to write at all and if my head and heart weren’t both pounding, I would be. Most Nighters couldn’t write.
Koichi was snickering and Tsuyoshi didn’t like that, it seemed. He snatched the page away from me irritably and hissed, “Fine. Proof of life. Say hi to the lovely folks at Johnny’s Entertainment. Tell them you want to see us paid and that we haven’t hurt you.” He leveled the camera at me. “Yet.”
Cameras were nothing new to me, so I just stared straight into it. I didn’t want to give my kidnappers the satisfaction of appearing rattled despite the fact that, well, I really was. “I am being held against my will.”
“Yeah, I think they already know that part,” Tsuyoshi interrupted.
“Well, then what should I say?”
Koichi was the one to answer. “Say you’re alive and tell the date.”
“I’m alive, unhurt…” but I trailed off. Addressing the kidnappers again, “Is it still the same day?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake… Say Saturday. Saturday.”
Back to the camera. “It’s Saturday. Not sure what time. Give them whatever they want. Please. I don’t know… what they’ll do to me if you don’t. I know we have our difference over the hiatus but please, please, just do what they ask.”
Apparently that was enough because Tsuyoshi flipped a switch on the camera and spun away from me, stalking (still irritably) towards the stairs on the far wall leading to the office. Koichi made for his original spot by the door.
“Bunch of criminal fucking masterminds got me, huh…” I murmured sarcastically to myself. It didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Maybe it really just made them more dangerous.
It wasn’t until Koichi turned sharply around that I realized I’d actually said it out loud. Quietly, sure, but not silently. “What did you say?”
“N-nothing. Nothing!” I started shaking my head vehemently despite the intense headache. “I didn’t s-”
The sight of the knife silenced me for a second but as he got closer and closer, I was suddenly begging. “Please, please, I didn’t mean… No! Please, please, please…. don’t kill me…” But he didn’t stab me. Instead, he cut the cord going from my wrists to the radiator. Grabbing the front of my shirt, he jerked me up and forward and then threw me towards the center of the small warehouse. I did my best to put my hands up to break my fall but there wasn’t much I could do with them bound.
I pushed up to my knees but wasn’t that way for long. A strong kick to the gut rocked me hard onto my side, followed shortly by two more. So hard to breathe… for a moment, all I could do was cough, instinctively curling up for protection. Those kicks hurt a lot more than I would have even guessed. And when he pulled me up by my hair, I saw such rage in his eyes. “S-stop please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The tears weren’t manly but I was scared and all of that hatred directed at me, it was toxic. I’d never done anything to this man aside from a few ill-advised sassy remarks, but I just kept begging - apologizing - as fast as I could. He had the knife still. From the corner of my eye I could see the light glinting off of it and for a second there, I knew he’d do it. He’d do it and he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
But he didn’t. He glanced suddenly up towards the office where the other kidnapper had gone and then just sort of stood there for a moment, knife in one hand and me in the other. But finally, he growled and threw me back down to the ground. Another kick and he just left me there in the middle of the room trying to control my sobs.
He really would have killed me…
Oh, god…
All desire to be anything less than extremely polite and entirely accommodating was now gone.
Did we really treat the Nighters so badly to deserve all of this hate that fuels the Midnight Club?
They’re the ones that can’t be trusted. We didn’t make them that way. They were born like that.
Everyone knows that.
Right?
Fat lot of good it did me now. Deserved or not, that hate was all on me even as it threatened to interfere with my kidnappers’ big-picture goals of ransom.
I just wanted to go home…
++++++++++++++++++
Previous ++++ Next
A/N: Well, there you go. Give me a minute or two and I'll have a link back to the previous chapter (the prologue) and a bunch of Master Post links up in the heading and a character page having, thus far, pictures of Kame and both of the members KinKi Kids modified to look sort of comic-book-ish and to include the tattoos. Or, well, at least the ones Kame has seen on their faces. They have more on their bodies but it's covered by clothes. And yes, that blue crescent moon circle with the line going across is the symbol of the Kingdom of Darkness. You'll find out more about the Kingdom Marks (the real ones, not the tattoos) later. And I'll try to get a clear image of both Kingdom Marks for you guys so you will know exactly what they look like (^_^)b
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: au, drama, romance, some smut
Beta by: my cat Gemma. and maeda_marika
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Everyone knows you can't trust the Darkness.
Author's Note: Okay, I decided to go ahead and post this. Next will be TWCC update (in a week-ish?), assuming I don't get a second chapter written for Two Kingdoms during this next week. It's at the point in the story that I can just write a paragraph here and there in TK simply because the story isn't complicated yet. But after things settle back to normal, I'll be focused on TWCC again.
Warning: I'm giving this my normal warning for TWCC simply because, well, I don't know what this story will be but I do tend to put some or all of these things in my stories. So... Possibly...
This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the akame_ Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - Two Kingdoms Master Post
The Characters:
Two Kingdoms Character Page
Chapter 01 ~The Capture~
I was a musician, you know. My name is Kamenashi Kazuya. You might even have heard of me. For five years I dominated the charts. 1582? That was my biggest hit.
Ah, I see you do remember it. Most people do.
What I remember is the shock on the reporters’ faces when I announced I was taking a year-long break right at the height of my popularity. I suppose I was a little shocked, too, though. I’d worked so hard to get there. It was my dream. I always wanted to be a world-famous singer.
That’s the thing about reaching your wildest dreams at such a young age. You sort of lose yourself for a while. You have to search for a new dream.
Kamenashi Kazuya, age twenty-four. Dream seeker.
That’s me.
Three months after the announcement, I was still searching. I wasn’t hurting for money or anything. I just… I didn’t know what I wanted. There had to be something missing in my life, something for me to strive for. Something that would matter to me, like singing had mattered to me.
I started taking these long walks, exploring the city. Nowhere bad. I wasn’t that stupid. Nice, bright, happy places. I was looking for inspiration.
Even happy places can become dangerous in the dark, though. The Darkness is never safe, right?
I should have taken a cab home from the club that first Friday night in June. Instead, I let myself get kidnapped.
Spare me the lecture on the stupidity of walking home drunk in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done. I see that now. It’s easy to judge from the safety of your own home (I know because I did plenty of it once I got to the safety of my home).
I was walking south along Patterson Street, the mirror of the path I’d walked to get to the club four and a half hours earlier. I’d walked the route before many times, though admittedly never at one in the morning. I hadn’t gone four blocks before I got the distinct feeling I was being followed.
A quick glance over my shoulder showed me a young man. It was a bit difficult to see many details in the low light of the street lamps but what I could see was dark hair with bangs and long sides, matched to equally dark eyes. One on cheek, in either black or possibly dark blue, three tattoed symbols of the Kingdom of Darkness. He made absolutely no attempt to hide himself or his intentions, walking steadily towards me with an unflinching stare.
Oh, god, I had a member of the Midnight Club after me, didn’t I? Nighters (people of the Kingdom of Darkness) were bad enough but the Midnight Club was the worst. It wasn’t a club in the traditional sense in that there were no meetings or membership dues and most of the members had nothing to do with each other. It was more of a movement, really. Likeminded souls determined to show the world just how cruel the Darkness could be. All it took was a few tattoos shouting your allegiance to the night and the dedication to hurt the very society that labeled you evil in the first place.
I was far enough from Club Chaos that my shouts would never be heard by the doorman. There weren’t a lot of businesses open that late in the area, either. I was on my own.
My brilliant solution? Duck into an alley where I’d be even more alone.
Did I mention I was drunk? Yes? Ah, well…
Guess it’s never really a good excuse anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder nervously only to find he’d followed me into the alley. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. I didn’t know if he planned to just rob me or if he was going to kill me and I really didn’t want to let him catch me so I could find out which.
So I started running.
When I glanced back again, he was still walking steadily. He hadn’t sped up to catch me at all. It didn’t make any sense.
But I should have spent more time focused on what was in front of me than what was behind me. I ran straight into something. No, not something… someone. A person. Crashing into him sent him stumbling several steps backwards. As for myself, I ended up landing hard on my ass on the ground where we’d collided.
Before I could push up to my feet or even take proper stock of my surroundings, I was apologizing profusely for running into him. Inside, though, I was raving as I looked up, raving mentally about how it wasn’t really my fault because why the hell was he skulking about the alley in the first place and who the hell did he think he was and…
Oh, oh, no, this was not good. My gaze had reached his face. More facial tattoos, in this instance a large blood-red crescent moon and a blue symbol of the Dark slightly overlapping it. Black hair, shorter than the man following me but not by that much. I trailed off mid-sentence as my reality sunk in.
The man behind me, meanwhile, had caught up to us with that steady walk of his. With a laugh, he called to his companion, “Not too bright, is he, Domoto-san?”
“Not too bright at all, Domoto-san. Not too bright at all.”
“I… I have money. I’ll… you can… all of it,” I mumbled, feeling sick to my stomach. Why oh why did I drink so much? Oh, that’s right… Pi. It was all my best friend’s fault. He was the one that got caught by both girlfriends. I was just the good friend. I was being supportive even though I told him that would end badly!
Pi, I swear to God, if I survive this, you’re dead. That was all I could think in that moment.
And then even that passed as I was roughly jerked to my feet by the Domoto in front of me. “Don’t worry, we’ll take that, too. But it’s going to take more than a bunch of pocket change to get you out of this.”
“You’re going to kill me…” I whispered.
“That depends on whether your agency will release your money to get you back,” the Domoto at my back said. I didn’t have to face him to know he was smirking. I could just hear it in his voice. “That is, if they still think you’ll sell. With your hiatus, who knows?”
Great. Just great. They knew who I was. This wasn’t random. They targeted me. I should never have tried to walk home by myself so late. I could rail at my friend Yamapi for being an idiot but he wasn’t the one who went and got himself kidnapped.
Er, nearly kidnapped. Nearly. It wasn’t quite there yet. If they planned this, they’d take me somewhere else. Somewhere they could control me until they got what they wanted. If I let them take me there, that was the end of it. They’d have the upper hand and I’d never be able to escape. I’d just have to hope they let me go.
That was too uncertain for me. Better to not let it get that far.
Attempt one.
Bribery.
“Look, can’t I just write you a check or a whole bunch of smaller checks or something?” I mumbled as I glanced around, trying to feel out my surroundings the same way I do during rehearsal for a live tour performance.
I turned to face the man behind me as he gave another laugh, only this one sounded pretty bitter. “You really think a bank would give us an account, or even just honor any checks we try to cash? You fucking Lighters are all the same. Judgmental.”
“I just…” I started but I didn’t get to finish because the next thing I knew, I had a hand on each shoulder and then a knee to the gut.
“I don’t care what you just,” the guy hissed. I sank to my knees, coughing. My stomach churned and everything I drank that night came up, just barely missing my hands (yay!) and his shoes (damn!).
The Domoto that originally pulled me to my feet, the one I’d literally ran into, grabbed the back of my shirt and jerked me to my feet once more. Addressing the other kidnapper, “Koichi, chill for now. This isn’t the place for that shit.”
Koichi grumbled a bit but did as he was told. I knew it was stupid, but I couldn’t help myself. Laughing, I said, “Huh. Looks like he’s in charge and you’re just dumb mus-”
I never finished the sentence. The fist came faster than my ability to realize it was even a threat and then there was darkness.
I woke who knows how many hours later. My head was throbbing and my face felt like someone had swung a brick into it. That was some punch Kidnapper Grunt Domoto Koichi-san had on him.
The first thing I noticed was that the room around me was almost as dark as it had been out on the street. I could vaguely make out the interior. It didn’t seem to be any sort of house. No normal furniture. Lots of boxes. High ceiling. Stairs along the wall across the room from me (at least probably, anyway, because though I could not see the stairs I could see a light through a window much too high off the ground to be the bottom floor).
It was a warehouse? I didn’t know there were any in that area of town. Or had they loaded me into a car? I doubt they’d have been able to get a valid license with those tattoos but that didn’t mean they couldn’t drive. It just meant they couldn’t do it legally. I was pretty sure that wasn’t much of a deterrent for those two.
So I could be anywhere…
When I tried to stand, I realized something else. My hands and feet were bound. Not only that, but my wrists were tethered to an old radiator by a two-foot cord. I wouldn’t be able to stand even if my ankles weren’t tied. There just wasn’t enough length tying me to the radiator.
I didn’t want to die. I knew I had been sort of aimless recently. Lost, really. I just… I knew I had it in me to find another purpose and the thought of dying before that was just depressing. And, though I hated to admit it because it made me feel weak, I was scared. Terrified.
The agency hadn’t been very happy with me about the hiatus. Would they just write me off? True, my money would be divided according to my will which at this time in my life means my parents and brothers, but it specifically states in my contract that upon my death, all of my music becomes the property of Johnny-san and the agency. They wouldn’t have to pay me royalties on my work if I was dead. And what if the kidnappers wanted more than I had? I wasn’t even sure how much money I had. My accountant (agency-provided, of course) handled all of my bills and gave me an allowance each month.
Fear really does nothing to help alleviate a headache. Big shock there, huh?
“H-hello?” I called out into the room. “Can anyone hear me?”
I heard some movement to my left, maybe six or seven yards away and a voice telling me to shut up. There was a door there I’d completely overlooked and someone was there. It was hard to tell in the dark but I think it was one of the two men from earlier… Domoto… Koichi? That one?
If he was watching the door, did that mean it really was just the two of them?
That was a lucky break…
Assuming I could somehow slip my bonds, that was. I flexed against the rough cord they’d used to bind me but it was so tight.
I closed my eyes at the sudden flood of light which filled the once-dark warehouse. After a few seconds, I hesitantly opened them, letting them adjust to the lights.
The other kidnapper, then one I only knew as Domoto-san, was walking down the stairs along the opposite wall, gesturing for Koichi. They were too far away to hear but I didn’t like what their body language was saying. It was saying that Domoto-In-Charge was disappointed and Domoto-The-Grunt was oddly excited and neither of those things really spoke well for my future.
But then it seemed like they started arguing. Koichi’s excitement sort of drained out of him and his shoulders slumped as he got louder and louder and then I could hear him well enough to make it out, “…ver let me have any fun, Tsuyoshi!”
I couldn’t quite make out Tsuyoshi’s response though it was good to have a name for my other kidnapper. If I made it out of here, I wanted to be able to tell the police exactly who to look for. I didn’t want them to have a second chance.
Granted, the way things were going, they weren’t going to need a second chance…
And now they were both walking my way and neither of them looked happy. That’s when I noticed the video camera in one of Tsuyoshi’s hands. The other had a piece of paper with some sloppy writing scrawled across it. He thrust the paper at me and said, “Read this.”
Groaning as I shifted to grab the bottom corner of the page as best I could with my wrists bound, I scanned it and without thinking, “I can’t read this.”
“Just do it.” This was from Tsuyoshi. His voice was low and even but very menacing.
“No, I mean, I can’t read it. I can’t… the words, I… I can’t read the writing.” I was speaking faster and faster, trying to get him to understand. I wasn’t being difficult. I literally couldn’t read the writing. Oh, I got a word here and there despite the unevenness of the letters. I suppose I should be impressed he was able to write at all and if my head and heart weren’t both pounding, I would be. Most Nighters couldn’t write.
Koichi was snickering and Tsuyoshi didn’t like that, it seemed. He snatched the page away from me irritably and hissed, “Fine. Proof of life. Say hi to the lovely folks at Johnny’s Entertainment. Tell them you want to see us paid and that we haven’t hurt you.” He leveled the camera at me. “Yet.”
Cameras were nothing new to me, so I just stared straight into it. I didn’t want to give my kidnappers the satisfaction of appearing rattled despite the fact that, well, I really was. “I am being held against my will.”
“Yeah, I think they already know that part,” Tsuyoshi interrupted.
“Well, then what should I say?”
Koichi was the one to answer. “Say you’re alive and tell the date.”
“I’m alive, unhurt…” but I trailed off. Addressing the kidnappers again, “Is it still the same day?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake… Say Saturday. Saturday.”
Back to the camera. “It’s Saturday. Not sure what time. Give them whatever they want. Please. I don’t know… what they’ll do to me if you don’t. I know we have our difference over the hiatus but please, please, just do what they ask.”
Apparently that was enough because Tsuyoshi flipped a switch on the camera and spun away from me, stalking (still irritably) towards the stairs on the far wall leading to the office. Koichi made for his original spot by the door.
“Bunch of criminal fucking masterminds got me, huh…” I murmured sarcastically to myself. It didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. Maybe it really just made them more dangerous.
It wasn’t until Koichi turned sharply around that I realized I’d actually said it out loud. Quietly, sure, but not silently. “What did you say?”
“N-nothing. Nothing!” I started shaking my head vehemently despite the intense headache. “I didn’t s-”
The sight of the knife silenced me for a second but as he got closer and closer, I was suddenly begging. “Please, please, I didn’t mean… No! Please, please, please…. don’t kill me…” But he didn’t stab me. Instead, he cut the cord going from my wrists to the radiator. Grabbing the front of my shirt, he jerked me up and forward and then threw me towards the center of the small warehouse. I did my best to put my hands up to break my fall but there wasn’t much I could do with them bound.
I pushed up to my knees but wasn’t that way for long. A strong kick to the gut rocked me hard onto my side, followed shortly by two more. So hard to breathe… for a moment, all I could do was cough, instinctively curling up for protection. Those kicks hurt a lot more than I would have even guessed. And when he pulled me up by my hair, I saw such rage in his eyes. “S-stop please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
The tears weren’t manly but I was scared and all of that hatred directed at me, it was toxic. I’d never done anything to this man aside from a few ill-advised sassy remarks, but I just kept begging - apologizing - as fast as I could. He had the knife still. From the corner of my eye I could see the light glinting off of it and for a second there, I knew he’d do it. He’d do it and he wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
But he didn’t. He glanced suddenly up towards the office where the other kidnapper had gone and then just sort of stood there for a moment, knife in one hand and me in the other. But finally, he growled and threw me back down to the ground. Another kick and he just left me there in the middle of the room trying to control my sobs.
He really would have killed me…
Oh, god…
All desire to be anything less than extremely polite and entirely accommodating was now gone.
Did we really treat the Nighters so badly to deserve all of this hate that fuels the Midnight Club?
They’re the ones that can’t be trusted. We didn’t make them that way. They were born like that.
Everyone knows that.
Right?
Fat lot of good it did me now. Deserved or not, that hate was all on me even as it threatened to interfere with my kidnappers’ big-picture goals of ransom.
I just wanted to go home…
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A/N: Well, there you go. Give me a minute or two and I'll have a link back to the previous chapter (the prologue) and a bunch of Master Post links up in the heading and a character page having, thus far, pictures of Kame and both of the members KinKi Kids modified to look sort of comic-book-ish and to include the tattoos. Or, well, at least the ones Kame has seen on their faces. They have more on their bodies but it's covered by clothes. And yes, that blue crescent moon circle with the line going across is the symbol of the Kingdom of Darkness. You'll find out more about the Kingdom Marks (the real ones, not the tattoos) later. And I'll try to get a clear image of both Kingdom Marks for you guys so you will know exactly what they look like (^_^)b