Now and Forever...Itsumademo... - Chapter 18B
Title: Now and Forever…いつまでも…
Author: Mayonaka no Taiyou/Unare Haineko
Pairing: [Juntoshi] Matsumoto Jun x Ohno Satoshi
Rating: R-ish, but NC-17 for this chapter.
Summary: This story follows Ayumu, a more or less normal child born in 2012, three years after the ending of ‘Kodoku kara Umareta Ai’ (which you can read here). His parents, Jun ( Read more... )
Daisuke, who had just emerged from the main premises of Host Club Nozoki, had a disturbed mien on and looked very distracted, scarcely noticed the shadow of the carriage on the pavement in front of him.
“Get in, handsome,” a voice commanded, as the sounds of a door opening greeted his hearing. The would-be pastry chef looked up and was astonished to see the devil-therapist holding out a hand to him, gesturing for him to step into the blood red and maroon interior of the brougham.
“Sensei, am I supposed to see you today?” The lad looked around him, frightened that he would be seen consorting with a known inhabitant of hell.
Her ladyship instantly played the coquette and hid her laugh behind a daintily raised hand. “No, I just wanted to see you.”
Tired and drained in every possible sense, Daisuke fought back the disquietude he felt at stepping into the clutches of his devilish therapist and took her hand. From there, it was an easy thing to be pulled into the carriage proper. Uncertain as to what he was doing in the company of a devil, he waited until the brougham moved off in a strict trot before addressing his therapist: “Is there something wrong, sensei?”
“Must something be wrong for me to want to see you?” she teased, slipping her arm through his and resting her head against his shoulder. “Alors, petit, it is I who should ask you what is wrong. You are out of sorts. Chewed up by your 666 Boss, hein?”
The lad quickly stiffened and looked askance at her ladyship, who was to all appearances, happily nestled against his shoulder with closed eyes. “How did you know?”
“I can see the teeth marks all over you,” she replied in an off-handed manner, disdainfully flicking out the fingers of her free hand. “Didn’t I tell you, petit, those of us who are real devils have honour because we protect our own. That 666 Boss of yours doesn’t even deserve to be called devil.”
Sighing and shifting uncomfortably into the plush blood red cushions at this flippant dismissal of old Kitagawa, Daisuke reminded his therapist, “If he finds out that I helped Kazu-san to escape, I’m done for. True, I killed the lights and nothing much could be seen, but what if… Kakia may have said the surveillance tapes didn’t show anything but I can’t be sure. What if someone knows something and is using this to hold against me? The Boss will kill me literally.”
“Attendez,” interrupted the devil-therapist tightening her talons on Daisuke’s wrist. “What makes you so sure someone had masked your involvement for the time being? How do you know this? Et aussi, who is this someone? Surely, you must suspect someone, hein?”
Daisuke had the good sense to look abashed as he hung his head close to his chin. “I don’t know, sensei,” he murmured, feeling a great deal worse than he did when he was grilled by old Kitagawa. He had been used to cavalier treatment for most of his life, and even with his devil of a therapist, he had been reined in with a firm dosage of unorthodox violence. It therefore pricked his conscience when he was being talked to like an ordinary human being.
“Then, you must find out, and when you do, pray hard that it is M. Gima. Even if it is M. Gima, do not let your guard down. Knowing your enemies, knowing their characters and what they are like are useful things. Have you learnt nothing from your 666 Boss?” she hissed in a low tone sounding like a snake slithering its way under the radar. “Everyone has pressure points, petit. Find them and squeeze.”
“I can’t do that!” argued Daisuke in terror. “I don’t know how. I don’t want to harm Kazu-san.”
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“How am I to get the better of him? I’m just a minion,” the lad disconsolately confided in a small voice, making no attempt to break free from his therapist’s iron grip.
“You’re very young, mon petit and may not know this, so I will teach you what it’s really like in the underbelly of underworld organisations like that Kitagawa fiend,” drawled the devil evenly, her eyes twinkling with the hint of something dangerous. “In organisations headed by through and through villains, there are often all manner of positions running at all possible levels. These positions range from sacrificial minions to would-be-world-vanquishers desirous of using the organisation and eventually betraying it.”
“Sensei isn’t serious,” Daisuke whispered hoarsely, hoping that the glint in the devil’s eyes did not mean she was in earnest.
“But I am,” she purred, venom coating her syllables. “Pay attention to what happened when that fiend called for the meeting between Kakia, Reiya, Gima, Kei and yourself. Look at how the flow and the tone of the sound grilling went. In that fiend’s point of view, you and M. Gima are the sacrificial minions and completely expendable. This is why he has you two do the most menial of things. And you two do it because that fiend is squeezing very hard on your pressure points. That does not earn you any respect or points in the fiend’s eyes, mainly because he sees you two as pathetic and weak, easily jerked around. Also, he despises you two because he has the power to give you something you want but you two don’t have any real skills he can use for ‘his’ self-perceived greater good.”
“What about Kei and Reiya? The Boss talks down to them too,” pointed out Daisuke, hoping against hope that his therapist was wrong and was reading too much into things.
“True but academic,” snorted Lady Strange dismissively, tightening her hold on his chin and digging her nails into his cheeks. “He let them go when they had to without so much as a shout at them. Why is that, hein? Because Kei is useful in fiddling with the book and earns him extra money in that odious club, and also because Kei doesn’t want anything from the fiend. The fiend needs Kei’s talents in book fixing more than Kei needs anything from the fiend. The same goes for Reiya. Reiya doesn’t need anything from that Kitagawa fiend; Reiya gets to have his sexual high and is paid for it and he is happy. Your boss however needs Reiya to bring in the money as a MatsuJun lookalike host. Ergo, Kitagawa has more use for Reiya and Kei than they have use for him. This is why Kitagawa allows them some small leeway in the things they do.”
Realising that his devilish therapist was right, Daisuke worried his lower lip and screwed his eyes shut in self-reproach. “I get it,” he said in a small, thin voice, “Kakia is useful to him as she’s his business face in the Host Club business. The Boss trusts her and he knows what she can do and he values what she does for him. This is the reason why he lets her off with a ‘Don’t let this happen again’ even though Kazu-san escaped.”
“Exactly,” concurred her ladyship, releasing her grip on the lad’s face. “To survive in that kind of hierarchy, you have to either make yourself useful to the head fiend or gather allies. Since you and M. Gima aren’t going to be useful to Kitagawa in any way, you have to band together to protect each other’s interests as it were.”
“You make it sound like it’s easy,” mumbled Daisuke dejectedly.
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“Sensei, that doesn’t help me…”
“If you’re not going to use your bloody brain, keep your trap shut and learn what I’m trying to teach you,” her sharp voice cut through his words with icy venom as the pressure from her talons at his throat constricted his breathing. “Ecoutez, you know where Kakia, Reiya, Kei and Gima stand with Kitagawa, but they don’t know where you stand with him vis-à-vis the whole issue with Mr Ninomiya. You can exploit this to your benefit. M. Gima is like you forced by circumstances to be a minion of that Kitagawa fiend. His cause is a lot more meaningful than yours. Yours is self-serving but his is for the sake of a sister whom he adores, quite like you adored your sainted mama. Don’t you want to help him? Do you want him to sink to your level? Do you want the both of you to sink to level of Kei, or heaven forbid, Reiya?”
Daisuke fell silent as her ladyship’s grip eased a little to facilitate the flow of oxygen to his brain. He realised that his therapist had raised a valid point, yet he remained apprehensive. “But what can I do?”
“You’re supposed to be spying on Mr Ninomiya. In the course of this ignoble duty, you came across the real Ohno Satoshi. Chances are, you may meet him again since he frequents Host Club Nozoki. Coincidentally or not,” her ladyship sniggered knowingly without losing the train of her thoughts, “Gima is assigned to spy on this same Ohno Satoshi. You have a common ground. Work on it. Win Gima over by showing him what the single minded pursuit of money can do to him. Shock him, horrify him, make him realise that the path you both are walking is a crooked one in the middle of the desert. Then when you have firmly in your bosom as an ally, find out if it was he who suppressed the tapes wherein you assisted Mr Ninomiya’s escape, and if it was him, find out his angle.”
“It’s not going to be that simple,” sighed the lad melodramatically.
“I never said it was easy.” Her ladyship jabbed him in the ribs with more force than was playful. “Then there’s your business with Mr Ninomiya. If you really want to get out Kitagawa’s power before it crushes you totally and you end up a wretched vaguely humanoid creature like Kei or Reiya, be honest with Mr Ninomiya. That fellow doesn’t judge another person’s hell because he’s probably seen it before.”
“I can’t do that. The Boss will kill me, sensei. There must be some other way,” pleaded Daisuke as the brougham ground to a halt.
As Lady Strange opened the door, she favoured Daisuke with a secret but cold smile. “What a touch choice - death from Kitagawa when you’ve outlived your purpose or death by your own hand when you’ve tried to make something of yourself. Let me know what you choose.”
“Wait… Sensei,” cried out Daisuke as he was unceremoniously booted out of the carriage. But his verbal ejaculation was too late, for the brougham had disappeared along with the sudden flash of lightning and strong wind.
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