In the Red, chapter 4, part 1
A/N: Big thanks to my super hero editor in chief gwoman for her help in editing this massive chapter with a quickness. Hmmm...second time I've written a chapter so long that I've needed to split it into parts...I hope this isn't a trend...
Summary: AU, from the case files of Ichigo Kurosaki, P.I. The case continues, with an initial dose of self-realization, followed by a change of plans, a questionably legal method of information gathering covered by a guardian angel, a disappearance followed by getting chewed out by an angry partner, and concludes with me foolishly acting as the live bait and misdirection for a sting. I think there's also a visit to the hospital and a trip to bed, but it's hard to say in what order. NOTE: This story takes place after Seeing Red (Part 1 and Part 2), and builds on it.
Warnings: Bad language, badly punctuated texts, dirty talkin', explicit good sex (yaoi), dirty thoughts, fluffy thoughts, references to a number of illegal activities, kidnapping, assault, battery, death threats, gun violence, stabbing, minor character deaths, blood.
Usual disclaimers: I don't own these characters and don't make any money for these writings; I'm just creating these stories to entertain myself and (hopefully) you.
The people in this story are fictional, and so you might see them doing things that aren't strictly safe from a sexual standpoint. You are a real person, so please be safe when you play! If you want more information about how that all works, please click here, or here...there are plenty of other sites with good info on the web, too, so check them out and be safe.
All of the people depicted (or referred to) in sexual situations in my stories are intended to be and considered to be by the author of the legal age of consent in any jurisdiction, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from. OK?
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Missed Chapter 3? Click here.
Renji and I had still been tangled up with one another when I'd awoken early the next morning. It wasn't quite light out and Renji was still deeply asleep, on his back now. I had my arm slung across him and my face buried in his neck. His legs were wrapped around the one of mine that had ended up between his and I was struck with the sensation that I never wanted to move again, just stay like this forever. Of course, the minute I thought that, I felt I should get up and started rearranging myself gently, trying to get up in a way that wouldn't wake Renji.
I ended up face to face with him at one point and just had to stare, my gaze tracing his tattoos and the strong lines of his jaw, and stopping at his closed eyes. He looked so gorgeous and relaxed, but at the same time I couldn't get the memory of the way he'd looked last night out of my mind, and it stuck with me the whole time I went about getting ready. Tatsuki's flip comment ate at me as I remembered, and I found myself thinking about it seriously for the first time. I mean, I'd always blamed my own bad taste for a lot of the men I'd dated in the past, but it hadn't really occurred to me until now that I might share the responsibility for how badly some of my previous relationships had gone.
Now that I was beginning to think about it, however, I found myself mentally presented with a number of cringe-worthy incidents where I'd kept former lovers at arm's length, sometimes quite coldly, when they tried to get closer to me. I was still distracted by those memories as I went to check out the remaining Infinium sites, even though I tried hard to stop thinking about it. One thing in particular that I kept remembering as I attempted to focus on the old warehouse in front of me was the time Renji had found out I had a family. I'd been evasive when he'd excitedly asked about them, and just recalling the hurt look I'd seen in his eyes for a moment, before he turned away, was beginning to haunt me. I was also uncomfortably reminded that I'd skipped my family's last usual monthly dinner because of the fact that at the previous one they'd badgered me nearly the whole time about finally meeting “the man who captured your heart,” as my dad put it before I kicked him in the face.
I'd only made it to the eighth site out of ten by 10AM, even though I'd had an early start, so the sound of my phone ringing was a welcome distraction. “Ichigo,” Yoruichi said without prelude when I answered, “we've run into a snag.”
“What?” I asked with a frown.
“Ururu's scoured their computers, and the information you need isn't on them. She did find an e-mail addressed to the likely suspects reminding them that the invitation would come by regular mail, and to keep it in a safe place.”
Fuck, I thought, cursing paranoid bastards like Aizen who wouldn't send important information like this electronically.
Yoruichi laughed again then. “Relax, Ichigo, I can smell the gears in your brain overheating from here. Fortunately, you have us on the job. Because of the message, I asked Ururu to start scanning some of the major players' offices for a safe place to put things.”
I chuckled, realizing that Yoruichi was about as paranoid as Aizen. Maybe she was worried about someone listening in on our cellphone signals, so what I took from her message was that she'd asked Ururu to look at some of Aizen's lieutenants' buildings to see if she could find any safes, like the obscure reference in the e-mail. As I thought of that, something occurred to me. “How did she do that?”
“You know these overcautious types,” Yoruichi responded, almost purring. “Always putting cameras everywhere. Anyway, she found something in #1's office - the location, as well as the combo.”
“Really?” I asked, wondering if it could possibly be that easy. “So, can you give me an interior layout and some cover to get in there?” Hell if I was going to try to break into somewhere with a million security cameras, but if Ururu could manage a convenient outage...
“I think that could be arranged,” Yoruichi replied, her voice low and pleased. “Come by at midnight tonight to talk about it. You know where.”
Urahara's, of course. “See you then,” I said as I signed off.
I quickly wrapped up my study of the building I'd been watching, and a quick glance at the clock on the dash told me it was only slightly after 10AM. I wavered then, knowing I should go to the next couple of buildings on the list to finish scoping them all out and then maybe head home to get a little more sleep before the work I had to do tonight.
That wasn't what I wanted to do at all, though. Contrary to my usual constant feeling of energy when I'm on a case, I felt like I'd gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today, probably due to what had happened last night. What I felt strongly pulled to do was to go back to my house now. I knew Renji should still be there, probably awake by now, and I wanted to tell him...
What did I want to tell him, exactly? That the sex was mind-blowing, but that I could finally admit to myself that I wanted him for a lot more than that? That I'd wake up while he was still sleeping and have to stare at him for a moment while my heart made funny, off-beat thumps in my chest? That he was just as good a friend as he was a lover? That on nights he didn't show up that I'd wake up sometime in the middle of the night, missing him? He'd think I'm an idiot. I am an idiot, I thought, but I realized much too late that somewhere in the middle of thinking that I'd begun heading back towards home.
I remember sitting outside in my car for a while once I got there, wondering what the hell I was doing before I forced myself to just get out of the car and go inside. At some point, as I was running up the stairs, it all became so clear to me. I wanted him. I wanted him with me. I knew exactly what I was going to say until the moment I stood outside the bathroom, the door open just a crack and steam lazily floating out, and suddenly I had no idea what to say.
Forcing myself to do something, I opened the door and promptly forgot any thought in my head as I saw Renji stepping out of the shower. Trying to ignore the sight of steam still coming off his skin and the fact that he was naked and wet, I struggled to get my thoughts together. What should I say - I'm sorry? I want you? I wanted to tell you-
“Ichigo?” he asked, slipping a towel off the rack and settling it around his waist. “What are you doing home?”
I looked away for a moment, trying to stop getting distracted by his glistening skin and tattoos, as I fumbled for an answer. “Well, I've had a bit of a setback. I hired some help to get information about a meeting at the company I'm trying to help bust, one where they'll be discussing their illegal business, but it turns out that the only way to get the information is in person.”
Renji took a few seconds to digest that, but when he had, his face had paled. “Do you mean you're going to have to break into this company that the mob owns?”
“Well,” I replied, trying to sound positive, “at least they're not going to call the police if they catch me.”
“Yeah, they're going to shoot you in the head instead, idiot,” Renji growled, nearly under his breath. After he looked into my eyes, though, he clenched his fists and then sighed as he loosened them. “All right,” he finally said, his voice reluctant. “Don't take any stupid risks, though, OK?”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled and dropped my eyes, unable to keep looking at the grave look in his. Even as I stared at the floor, I could still see those serious eyes, though, and for the first time it got me thinking about how it must feel to date someone who could easily get killed at work. It also made my heart do funny things again as I began to appreciate Renji even more for being able to put up with it, but his voice interrupted my thoughts.
“So, I guess you came home now because you're going out tonight?” Renji asked, and I could see when I met his gaze again that he was smirking now, his previous seriousness forgotten. “I could think of a few ways to wear you out so you could get a good nap in.”
Hell if he didn't, I found myself thinking as I woke up later that afternoon, after 4:30. I'd been too tired to grab anything to wear after he'd finished with me, so I just headed straight for the shower and tried to get my thoughts together as I stood under the warm spray. After mentally cringing at the fact that I hadn't told Renji any of the admittedly chaotic thoughts that had been running through my head, I resolved that I definitely would the next time I saw him.
After that I tried to think about what I should do over the next few hours, and realized that the sun probably wouldn't have quite set yet, so I hurried to finish my shower and went out to try to scope out the last two Infinium Logistics buildings. I'd been able to get enough information by the time I got home a few hours later, and I took my time over dinner to transcribe my notes to the computer and to begin looking at everything I had so far to try to arrange it and make some sense of it.
One of the things in particular that I focused on was the building that had been identified as being the headquarters for Aizen’s #1 division manager. When I flipped back to Yoruichi's information, I found that Coyote Stark held that position, and the cryptic note beside his name said “Strategy and Tactics.” Raising an eyebrow, I went back to my notes about the building itself. Stark's area seemed to be half of a pair of twin office buildings positioned in an older, slightly run-down business park in an old section of Karakura. The building was three stories and was connected by a walkway with its twin. I pulled up and studied a map of the area and found that it backed up onto a floodplain, which explained the woods I'd seen behind it when I'd stopped across the street to scope it out. As I backed the map further out, I raised an eyebrow as I noted that there was an apartment complex not far away that bordered the same floodplain. Smiling, I realized I'd just figured out where to park when I visited that evening.
After carefully combing through all of the information I could find about the building, including searching Google Street View to see how much of it they'd been able to photograph, I realized it was getting late, so I started getting everything together for that evening. I dressed in some black jeans and sneakers, then added a long-sleeved dark navy t-shirt with a dark autumn-weight jacket over it. I got the small black backpack I'd purchased for such midnight expeditions and packed my notebook in it, some pictures and maps, and a small set of tools. I didn't have the cheek to own an actual set of lock picks, but I'd been able to modify some tools over the years that did the job well enough. It wasn't my specialty, but I was competent at getting locks open if need be. I threw a dark ski mask and some black gloves into the bag and said a quick mental prayer that no one else would be able to get a look into that bag. I thought for a while about whether I should bring my gun, but I decided against it, figuring that if I went expecting trouble, I was likely to get it.
I arrived at Urahara's shop by a few minutes to midnight and was ushered inside by Tessai. “Ms. Yoruichi is waiting for you,” he explained, bringing me to the same room in which I'd talked to her the other day. She and Ururu were both sitting at the table this time, and I ended up in the same chair I'd sat in before. The two of them had been looking at something on Ururu's laptop screen, but Yoruichi broke off to look up at me as I sat down. “All right, Ichigo,” she said with a grin, “here's what we found out. Stark's office is in the northwest corner of the third floor of the building.” Ururu turned her laptop around to show an architectural diagram of the building I'd been looking at earlier. His office was on the side farthest away from the walkway, and I memorized where in the building it lay. Yoruichi continued after a moment, “I take it you've probably had some time today to familiarize yourself with the layout of the surrounding area?”
I nodded as she glanced in my direction, and she smiled more widely in response. “All right then, we'll leave getting in up to you, but since we weren't able to get you the information you needed directly, we're willing to help you get it. We figured the thing you'd probably need the most help with would be the security cameras on all four corners of the building and the ones placed liberally throughout the interior. We were thinking it might make sense to make it look as if there's been some kind of short and have all of the cameras go down while you're there. How long do you think it might take you to get in and out?”
Thinking about what I knew so far, I shrugged. “It depends on a couple of things, including where in Stark's office the safe is.”
Yoruichi nodded. “It's covered by a false wooden panel in the wall to the left of his desk. From what Ururu saw, there's a seam off the side nearest to his desk that you press to make it slide open. He keeps the combination underneath his desk blotter.”
I'm sure my eyes were wide as I jotted all of that down in my notebook. “You've got to be kidding.”
She laughed then, and as always, I couldn't help but appreciate how freely she expressed herself as her lithe neck stretched back and she closed her eyes as the laughter bubbled out of her. “It doesn't sound real, does it? Here, have a look at the security tape.”
I looked at the video in progress as she turned the laptop in my direction and watched from a perspective above the head of a tall, lanky man behind a big wooden desk. As I watched, he leaned over to what looked like a building support, but when he pressed something, the wooden paneling on it slid back to reveal a wall safe. I couldn't help my quiet laugh as I watched him lift his desk blotter and peek at a yellow sticky note as he dialed the numbers of the combination, eventually popping the door open to take an envelope out of the safe.
I was still shaking my head as Ururu pulled the laptop back to her. “Unbelievable,” I commented, adding to Yoruichi's earlier observations. “Well done,” I finished, looking at Ururu. She looked over in my direction and nodded coolly but was unable to disguise the slight pink hue that rose to her cheeks after my comment.
My brain was working furiously now, trying to calculate how long the job would take based on what I knew, but I couldn't come up with a definitive answer. “How about this,” I proposed, “if you give me some way to communicate with you, once I'm there I'll let you know when I need you to black the cameras out and when I'm out of the way so you can let them go again.”
The two women looked at one another, and Ururu shrugged as I watched, then rose to go into the other room. “I think that should work,” Yoruichi responded. “Anything else you can think of?”
I was shaking my head in the negative as Ururu returned with something small in her hand. I took it and examined the earpiece, from which something sticky was hanging. I could see the shadow of a grin on her face as she said, “Put it on. The sticky piece goes along your jaw.”
“Ururu should be able to hear you even if you're whispering,” Yoruichi explained. “Try it out.”
When I walked to the corner of the room and whispered her name, Ururu nodded. “I can hear you.”
I said my goodbyes then, wanting to get over to the office building and get to work as soon as possible. As I got into the right neighborhood, I turned into the apartment complex I'd decided to park in and was pleasantly surprised to note that although the complex was older, as was most of this part of town, it was well kept. I threaded my way through three-story brick buildings towards the tall trees in the back that I knew were signs of the floodplain behind the apartments. I couldn't help but smile as I reached the visitor parking lot and saw that not only did it back up to the trees I'd been trying to reach, but I could also dimly see the office building I was trying to get to not far away. Luck seems to be with me tonight, I thought.
Once I got closer to the office building, I leaned against a particularly tall tree. While still within the protective darkness the small forest offered, I began to scope out the place I was trying to get into. Noting that about half the lights in the parking lot were on, I realized that there would be no way I could approach the building without getting spotted by the external cameras. Mental note taken, I pulled out my binoculars and tried to get a closer study of the building itself, since there was enough light to see.
The building that was nearest to where I hid was the twin I wasn't here to see, but as I scanned the parking lot, looking for anyone who might be patrolling, I noticed something on one side of the building that looked like a series of horizontal lines jutting out from it. Adjusting my binoculars to the highest magnification, I moved to get a better look at that particular section of wall and then had to bite my tongue to stop myself from cheering.
What I'd spotted was a series of rungs sunk into the concrete of the building. From about eight or ten feet off the ground, they went all the way up to the roof. I managed to keep myself from yelling “Score!” by thinking about the fact that I wasn't ten feet tall. Sighing, I turned my binoculars back to the building, but I found myself biting my lip a moment later to stop from smiling. There was a garbage dumpster not far away from the rungs. I nearly shouted, but instead mentally thanked all of the gods who must have been looking over me that day.
“Ururu,” I said softly. “Are you still there?”
“I am. Are you ready?” she replied, her voice cool and competent.
“I am, but there's been a slight change of plans. Could you knock out the security cameras for the whole outside of the building and just the third floor? I think I've found a better way in. If it doesn't work out, I'll call back.”
“All right, they should be off in a moment,” Ururu replied and then paused for a few breaths. “OK, now you're good,” she finally reported.
I put on my ski mask and gloves before I went into the parking lot. Once I got there, I closed the dumpster lid (thankfully, it was the old metal kind) and hoisted myself up on top. Before I could lose my nerve, I backed up to the far edge of the dumpster and took a running leap for the rungs on the side of the building, the nearest rung being several feet away. I caught hold of the bottom-most, but one arm was yanked free as I swung to the side under the weight of my momentum. Kicking off the wall, I swung back and used that momentum to swing my free hand up to grab the next rung. After that, I quickly climbed the wall and reached the roof not long after.
Pausing a moment to catch my breath, I surveyed the flat tarpapered landscape up there before I moved to the side of the building nearest its neighbor. Walking that side, I grinned as I came upon something I'd been expecting. I could see the walkway strung between the two buildings, connecting the third floors. Sitting on the edge of the roof and swinging my feet over, I then stepped down onto the roof of the walkway, using that as my bridge between the two buildings.
Once I'd reached the roof of the building I was trying to get into, I was pleased to find that the door into the building was fairly easy to pick, even for someone like me who was out of practice. When I walked down a flight of stairs to the third floor, however, I ran into my first serious complication. The stairwell door had let me out into a small interior lobby containing nothing but elevators, a couple of potted trees, and doors into the offices, all of which were situated around the outer rim of the building. The doors were all locked by electronic card key, which made me nearly bang my head against the nearest doorframe. It was so obvious I should have thought of it, but it didn't occur to me until now that criminals might keep the same security systems as everyone else. I could try picking the lock, but there was no guarantee if I actually managed it that an alarm wouldn't be tripped wherever the security system was being monitored.
“Ururu,” I whispered. “Are you there? I've run into a problem.”
“What is it?” Her voice responded immediately, a touch of concern in her usual flat tone.
“All the doors are locked by card key. Can you get me in?”
I heard something that may have been a muffled curse, then a momentary pause before she said, “Take a look at the cardkey plate at the door where you're standing. Is there anything written around the edge?”
I bent down to get a close look and read Ururu the numbers embossed in tiny writing along the very edges. “All right, wait just a minute,” she told me once she had the information.
So, I waited. Since I looked at my watch so many times, I can report that it actually took her less than a minute to pop the lock, but to me that short span of time seemed to stretch into centuries. The building itself was probably part of the problem; since it was older, it made any number of creaks and groans in the otherwise silent evening. Each of those noises seemed louder to me than it probably was and I found myself unable to stay still, pacing between the door I was trying to get into and a potted tree near the elevators, alternately planning attacks for anyone who came through the doors and thinking that if I just hid behind the tree I could probably go unnoticed.
I somehow refrained from crying tears of joy once Ururu told me I could get inside to where the offices were, and I located the one I wanted with no trouble, finding the door closed but not locked. It was when I sat in the chair behind the big desk, the same one I'd seen the man in the security video sitting in, that I started to worry again. Even though I was now where I'd been trying to go, something just seemed off, and my stomach clenched in on itself nervously. Trying to put those thoughts out of mind, I instead focused on the bead of sweat on my forehead and checked the security camera behind me, confirming that its red functional light was off. Swiping my ski mask off to get more air, I kept it close at hand so that I didn't forget it and reached for the edge of the desk blotter.
Flipping up the edge of the blotter, I saw a yellow sticky note with “Safe combo,” written on it, which made me roll my eyes. Running my other hand along the seam of the wood paneling, it didn't take long before I found a catch and it slid open to reveal the safe door. After entering the combination I'd found, the safe door clicked open at the first try. I grabbed the messy pile of papers inside and began paging through them, carefully keeping them in the same order as I found them. It was the fifth page I came to that grabbed my attention; it was an invitation to a quarterly meeting where, “all business of the company will be discussed.” The wording made me lift an eyebrow, but the next sentence, which commanded that, “Vice Presidents and Division Managers are all required to be present, no exceptions,” made me think that this must be the meeting I'd been searching for information about.
When I pulled my notebook out to write down the time and place, however, my heart sank when I realized that the meeting had been called for 10PM tomorrow night at the Infinium Logistics headquarters building in Karakura. Sighing, I carefully wrote the information down and then checked it against the invitation one final time to make sure I'd copied everything correctly. Quickly scanning the rest of the papers in the stack, I didn't find anything else that seemed relevant, so I piled them all back together in my best approximation of the artful messiness I'd first found them in and moved to put them back into the safe. Raising my eyebrow at the guns, piles of cash and even a few pieces of gold in the safe, I left all of those untouched as I put the papers back exactly as they had been, closed the safe, and slid the panel shut. I was momentarily reminded of the words of an older detective I'd met when I'd started in this business who'd told me, “Don't steal from criminals, kid. They get even more grumpy about it than the government.” Chuckling softly, I slid my notebook and pencil back into my bag, put my ski mask back on, and made my way out of the office.
As I retraced my steps out into the night, I found my thoughts centered on the information I'd gotten, and not in a positive way. About the only good thing I'd found out tonight was that the meeting hadn't happened yet. The fact that it was tomorrow night wasn't great news, though, especially in light of the fact that when I'd gone to look at their headquarters building initially, I'd found it to be a security nightmare with a front desk staffed with security guards who seemed to patrol the grounds regularly, card key entry, and security cameras everywhere. Of course, that's just on the outside, I thought glumly. It's probably worse inside the building.
I let Ururu know once I got back to my car that she could turn the security cameras back on whenever she wanted, but she wasn’t ready to let me go yet. “Sure, Ichigo. Also, Ms. Yoruichi wanted me to find out from you where the meeting is.”
I thought about it for a moment, weighing whether or not I should tell her, but eventually came to the conclusion that if my initial idea about how to get the information had worked, they would both already know. “OK. Tell her that it’s in the headquarters boardroom tomorrow night, 10PM. As you know, this all completely confidential.”
“Of course,” she said, and I thought I heard a note of offended pride in her usual monotone that I would even bring it up. After a pause, however, she asked, “Why do you sound so down, Ichigo?”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever checked that place out,” I said with an annoyed sigh, “but it’s set up like a fortress. I’m not sure how I’m going to get in there.”
“Will you need our help?”
Thinking for a moment, I weighed my reluctance to get anyone else any more involved in this mess against the need to get the job done, but came up with no conclusions. “I’m not sure. I still need to think it over some more. Can I call tomorrow?”
“Yes. We’ll expect your call tomorrow afternoon.”
The connection went dead then, and I took off the ear piece and threw it in my bag along with the mask and gloves before starting up the car and heading for home. I'd been obsessively thinking about what I'd found out tonight for the entire drive and was still mulling it over once I got back, until I realized I'd promised to contact Renji to let him know how it went. Since I felt guilty about the idea of waking him up yet again in the middle of the night (hey, I try to make it only once in a while...), I texted him to let him know how it had gone and that I'd call tomorrow afternoon.
It was only a few minutes later that I heard the buzzing that meant a return text message. “Whens the meeting?”
“I thought youd be asleep,” I replied, then added, “tomorrow, 10PM.”
There was a longer pause, then, “Couldnt sleep.”
I felt a lump in my throat as I looked at my phone, and for a long while I couldn't think of a thing to say. Finally, I just went for the cowardly way out and typed, “Maybe you should, uh, wear yourself out so you can. Think about me while you do.”
I got a smiley face in return, followed by, “Good suggestion. Night, Ichigo.”
“Night, Ren. Call you tomorrow afternoon?”
“You better.”
I chuckled as I put the phone away. I spent the next few hours thinking of ways to get into Infinium's headquarters and came up with several possibilities, one or two of which might actually work. Finally, around the time it was starting to get light out, I tumbled into bed, my face buried in the pillow Renji usually used, breathing in his scent and feeling like he was there somehow.
It was afternoon by the time I woke up, and a bit later than I'd intended. I quickly showered and got moving, using the time it took the coffee to brew and my bagel to toast to run through my final list of ideas and figure out what help I'd ask Yoruichi and Ururu for, having finally accepted that I'd definitely need it. I'd gotten myself mostly functioning by 2 and called Renji as I was putting my things together to head out. I got a funny feeling in my stomach when Renji's phone rang a number of times and then went to voicemail, since he was usually awake and available at that time of day, but it clenched tight when I heard a strange voice on the recording.
“Kurosaki,” the voice said, and it sounded oily and creepy all at once. “I think you know who I am. My name is Gin Ichimaru, and I've come to have something of yours in my possession. If you want to retrieve it, we'll be expecting you at 10PM tonight at our headquarters building. I don't think I need to mention that if you try to get the police involved that your item will be lost forever. See you then!”
The voicemail beeped and I hung up, then called back, hoping that the previous time I'd gotten the wrong number, but instead of Renji's reassuring deep tones, I only heard the same, grating message again. It was all I could do not to throw my phone across the room as I hung up. My thoughts started racing out of control, but I struggled to focus, deciding to call over to the tattoo studio in the hopes that Renji had gone to work early that day and this was all just a hoax. Once I got Shuuhei on the line, however, I found I wasn't so sure the call had been a good idea. “Can you tell me if Renji is there?” I asked him, hesitantly.
“No, he’s not here for another hour or two. Did you need me to pass on a message or something?” he asked.
I couldn’t help swearing, apparently not under my breath, because he quickly spoke up again, his voice suddenly tense. “What’s going on?” Then, after a pause where I said nothing and he swore, he said, “Wait a minute.”
It was muffled, but I thought I could hear him telling Rikichi that he had to take this call. A moment later, he was back again, probably shut in the back room. “All right, Kurosaki, spill it. What the hell’s going on?”
Belatedly realizing that I probably should have spent the past few moments thinking of what to say, I struggled to tell Shuuhei something that wouldn’t sound like a lame excuse. “Renji isn't going to be in today. I’ve been working on a case, and apparently the subject of my investigation figured out who I am because I got a message today saying that they have Renji.”
“What? How the fuck could you let this happen?” he shouted.
“I’ll get him back!” I replied, trying not to sound as defensive and suddenly scared as I felt.
“You’re damn right you’ll get him back, you stupid fucker!” I could almost hear him pacing. “Fuck! The whole fucking five years we’ve been in business and he’s never even called in sick once, even when he’s been so out of it I had to tell him to go the hell back home.” I heard a bang as if he'd punched something, and I gritted my teeth and waited for the rest of it. “Listen, asshole, do me one more favor while you’re at it. If you’re not looking for anything more than a good fuck, do us both a favor and break it off with Renji, because if you’re too dense to realize it, he’s looking for something more than that. When,” he said, his voice full of seriousness and anger, “when he’s back at work tomorrow - because anything else would mean the end of you - I’d better not hear one more thing about how distant you can be and how he doesn’t know what you want. Do you fucking understand?”
“It’s not…that’s not what I want…it’s not like that,” I said numbly, somehow unable to make my suddenly thick tongue explain away my bad reputation as unfortunate luck and my own general idiocy. I felt like an iron band had constricted my chest all of a sudden as I realized once again that Tatsuki was right, damn it, and I swore to any deity that might happen to be in the general vicinity that I’d get Renji back somehow and make things right.
“Well, man the fuck up and tell him, bastard! And someone better give me a fucking call the minute you get him back!”
The phone buzzed in my ear then as the connection broke, and I just stared at it stupidly for a moment before I closed it. For one of the first times in my life, I had no idea what to do. My brain seemed stuck and I clenched my fist tightly as the desire to have Renji with me seemed to swamp me, as well as the realization that there was no way that could happen at the moment. After a few black moments, I realized that I'd dialed Yoruichi's number and was just waiting dumbly, listening to her phone ring.
“What's up, Ichigo?” she finally answered in a low, teasing tone, and an intense feeling of gratefulness shot through me.
It still took me a few seconds to think of what to say, but I eventually came out with, “They have Renji.”
“How do you know?” she asked skeptically, her voice uncharacteristically hesitant.
“Well, one of the Infinium vice presidents left a weird message on Renji's voicemail, implying that they had him, which I got when I tried to call him earlier. I guess I could go by his place and see if he's there-”
“Ichigo-”
“-or maybe they just got hold of his phone somehow-”
“Ichigo-”
“-which wouldn't be bad, if he's somewhere else-”
“ICHIGO!” she shouted in my ear, making me wince. “Just shut up for a minute. First, it's safe to assume they have him if they told you like that, I was just asking to learn how you found out. And judging from how you're rambling, I'm guessing this was unexpected.”
“I'm not rambling,” I snapped. “I'm just concerned.”
“Ichigo, while it's really cute how worried you are for Renji-”
“I didn't say that!” I interjected, and I could feel the shock that had been freezing me in place start to burn off due to the anger that was starting to spring up.
“-you need to focus,” she continued, her voice maddeningly even and serious. “Pack whatever you think you'll need for your adventure this evening and come over. We'll figure out what to do, and we'll outfit you for going over there. I've already lost enough to these assholes. I am not going to lose this round, and I am not going to lose out on my bonus! Get your ass over here as fast as you can so we can start getting you ready!”
She sounded completely gung-ho while I sighed at the end of her little pep talk. I should have known that's why she's so motivated I thought, rolling my eyes. “All right, I'll be on my way soon,” I said before hanging up. Throwing whatever I thought might help into my bag, I locked up and rushed over to the Urahara shop.
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Hours later, as I walked up through the immaculately groomed garden in the front of the Karakura headquarters of Infinium Logistics, a 25-story building in white concrete with dark tinted windows, I found I was barely registering my surroundings due to the fury I felt. It hadn't taken long for the shock to fully wear off, and by the time I'd made it to the Urahara shop, I was spitting mad. I found myself repeating in my mind now what Yoruichi had told me then.
“Play along, Ichigo,” she'd said. “I know you're mad, and so am I, but if we want to finish this job successfully, you need to get into that meeting, and you need to convince them that they have the upper hand. It'll be easier than we thought, since you have an invitation now. Just bite your lip and play the game for a while, and then we'll hit them so hard they'll never know what happened.”
My teeth were clenched as I went into the building, and by the time the two security guards heard my name and immediately pulled me into a small room nearby to frisk me, I was grinding them together so hard it's a wonder they didn't shatter. By the time one of the men had told me to “assume the position” over a desk and said as he was basically groping me, “You know, my partner's hanging out across the room because he hears you're sweet on the boys,” I couldn't help but let out an inelegant snort of laughter, however.
I briefly surveyed the man, whose hands now seemed to be lingering on my ass, and replied, “Well, in a general sense, that's right. If, however, this is your un-subtle way of trying to pick me up, let me assure you that in my opinion, an ugly, rude bastard like you would have problems getting a date no matter what gender you were going for.”
I just about had time to finish what I was saying before I was gasping due to the sucker punch in the gut. Painful, but not altogether unexpected.
“Be careful,” the thin guy leaning on the wall said. “The boss told us specifically not to rough him up.”
“Ah, I see your friend here is a rebel,” I replied, looking back at the leaning man. “And as for you,” I continued, turning to the one who'd punched me as I painfully straightened up and tried to make it look as if it was nothing, “if this is another sample of your seduction technique, I think I should tell you that I'm not one of those guys who likes it rough. If you care to go another round, however, I will kick your homely ass from here to Toledo. Or, perhaps you're not actually up to socking someone who can fight back?”
The man gave me a weasely, mean look, as if he'd really like to punch me again but was too afraid to. Luckily for him, his partner stepped forward. “Come on, let's just bring him upstairs.”
The elevator ride was blessedly silent, and it wasn't until we went through a set of heavy wooden doors on the 25th floor that things got interesting again. The room that I saw was set on one corner of the building, so windows flanked a big, glossy wood conference table on one side and one end. The security guards pushed me forwards to the man in the glasses that I'd seen a picture of on the website. “What did he have on him?” Aizen asked them. They produced the cell phone and mini-recorder they'd taken from the pockets of the leather jacket I was wearing and the gun they'd taken from my back waistband. “Very good,” he told them. “You may leave now.”
I took the moment of silence following that to scan the table quickly, and I couldn't help but grin as I spotted Renji almost right away. He'd been looking angry the moment I saw him, but when he spotted me as well, he returned my grin but after that I could see him tense up almost imperceptibly and give me a sharp look. You didn't come here alone, did you, I could read in it. In reply, I shook my head slightly, hopefully not enough that anyone else would notice, lifted my hand slightly, and then gave a brief smile that I hoped held more confidence than I felt. No, just wait, I tried to convey to him in my glance. Happily, I saw him relax just the slightest bit, which made me think he'd understood.
“Mr. Kurosaki, thank you for joining us,” Aizen said, bringing my attention back to him. I didn't have any trouble switching to a scowl as I looked back at the man.
“You didn't seem to leave me much of an option,” I replied. “What is it that you want?”
“Well, when we found out that you broke into our offices last night-” he began, but I interrupted.
“What? Where did you hear that?” I asked in annoyance. How the hell did they find out about that? I thought I'd covered everything...
“I found your picture this morning in one of the micro-cameras I've installed in all the company safes,” another man broke in, with a cheerful tone and a grin, and I thought I recognized him from his picture on the website as Gin, the one who'd left the message. “Similar cameras are used outdoors as wildlife camera traps. In this case, I've programmed them to take a picture of anyone opening the safe outside of normal business hours. Most of the time they don't amount to anything, but in this case, well, your look is very distinctive and you have quite a reputation in this town, so it wasn't hard to track down someone who knew you, and knew what you value.”
I looked over at Renji with a glance that said “See? This is why I don't have tattoos.” He just replied with a raised eyebrow that told me that he still thought it was because I didn't have the guts to get one done, to which I scowled in reply.
“So, Kurosaki,” Aizen continued, “I knew that there's only one person we're in dealings with who'd be stubborn enough to hire someone to find out more about us in order to improve their negotiating position, and that's Kuchiki.”
I bit my lip to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. Play the game, play the game, I thought, hearing Yoruichi's words in my ears again. I did my best to look like I'd been caught and was worried, but I could only hope it was convincing. I couldn't believe I'd been caught in such an amateurish way, though, and I wanted to kick myself for it. Aizen's next words brought my attention back to him, and the more I listened, the more I could feel myself scowling.
“Because I'm a generous man, I'm going to let you sit in on this meeting, and you can find out everything about my business and what we're planning to do once we have control of Kuchiki Industries. Once you've heard all of that, though, it's unfortunate that we're going to be unable to let the two of you talk about it.”
My fists were clenched now as I looked at his seemingly benevolent expression, and I had to work really hard not to reach out and punch him in the face. Play the game, I reminded myself, trying to calm down. “Why not let Renji go now?” I asked, trying to look as scared as I could muster over my now fiery rage. It was getting less difficult, however, since I was more worried about Renji now than anything else. “The only reason you brought him here was to lure me over.”
I couldn't help but glance at Renji as I said that, and shook my head slightly at his glare in return. He relaxed a bit but still looked pissed. “I'm sorry, Mr. Kurosaki, but that's impossible,” Aizen replied, still smiling like a saint. “Technically, we've already committed a crime in bringing him here, and I think he knows by now that we're going to be discussing others. The two of you will be disposed of together after the meeting here; perhaps Kuchiki can take your dead bodies as a warning to fall in line.”
And then I saw that flat deadness I'd seen in his gaze in the picture, eyes with no human feeling left in them, and my worry about the situation spiked to new levels. I clamped my mouth shut and just glared at Aizen in reply as he continued to smile that maddeningly benevolent-looking grin. “All right then. If someone could offer Mr. Kurosaki a seat,” Aizen requested, his glance traveling over the packed conference table.
Click here for Chapter 4, part 2
Summary: AU, from the case files of Ichigo Kurosaki, P.I. The case continues, with an initial dose of self-realization, followed by a change of plans, a questionably legal method of information gathering covered by a guardian angel, a disappearance followed by getting chewed out by an angry partner, and concludes with me foolishly acting as the live bait and misdirection for a sting. I think there's also a visit to the hospital and a trip to bed, but it's hard to say in what order. NOTE: This story takes place after Seeing Red (Part 1 and Part 2), and builds on it.
Warnings: Bad language, badly punctuated texts, dirty talkin', explicit good sex (yaoi), dirty thoughts, fluffy thoughts, references to a number of illegal activities, kidnapping, assault, battery, death threats, gun violence, stabbing, minor character deaths, blood.
Usual disclaimers: I don't own these characters and don't make any money for these writings; I'm just creating these stories to entertain myself and (hopefully) you.
The people in this story are fictional, and so you might see them doing things that aren't strictly safe from a sexual standpoint. You are a real person, so please be safe when you play! If you want more information about how that all works, please click here, or here...there are plenty of other sites with good info on the web, too, so check them out and be safe.
All of the people depicted (or referred to) in sexual situations in my stories are intended to be and considered to be by the author of the legal age of consent in any jurisdiction, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from. OK?
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Missed Chapter 3? Click here.
Renji and I had still been tangled up with one another when I'd awoken early the next morning. It wasn't quite light out and Renji was still deeply asleep, on his back now. I had my arm slung across him and my face buried in his neck. His legs were wrapped around the one of mine that had ended up between his and I was struck with the sensation that I never wanted to move again, just stay like this forever. Of course, the minute I thought that, I felt I should get up and started rearranging myself gently, trying to get up in a way that wouldn't wake Renji.
I ended up face to face with him at one point and just had to stare, my gaze tracing his tattoos and the strong lines of his jaw, and stopping at his closed eyes. He looked so gorgeous and relaxed, but at the same time I couldn't get the memory of the way he'd looked last night out of my mind, and it stuck with me the whole time I went about getting ready. Tatsuki's flip comment ate at me as I remembered, and I found myself thinking about it seriously for the first time. I mean, I'd always blamed my own bad taste for a lot of the men I'd dated in the past, but it hadn't really occurred to me until now that I might share the responsibility for how badly some of my previous relationships had gone.
Now that I was beginning to think about it, however, I found myself mentally presented with a number of cringe-worthy incidents where I'd kept former lovers at arm's length, sometimes quite coldly, when they tried to get closer to me. I was still distracted by those memories as I went to check out the remaining Infinium sites, even though I tried hard to stop thinking about it. One thing in particular that I kept remembering as I attempted to focus on the old warehouse in front of me was the time Renji had found out I had a family. I'd been evasive when he'd excitedly asked about them, and just recalling the hurt look I'd seen in his eyes for a moment, before he turned away, was beginning to haunt me. I was also uncomfortably reminded that I'd skipped my family's last usual monthly dinner because of the fact that at the previous one they'd badgered me nearly the whole time about finally meeting “the man who captured your heart,” as my dad put it before I kicked him in the face.
I'd only made it to the eighth site out of ten by 10AM, even though I'd had an early start, so the sound of my phone ringing was a welcome distraction. “Ichigo,” Yoruichi said without prelude when I answered, “we've run into a snag.”
“What?” I asked with a frown.
“Ururu's scoured their computers, and the information you need isn't on them. She did find an e-mail addressed to the likely suspects reminding them that the invitation would come by regular mail, and to keep it in a safe place.”
Fuck, I thought, cursing paranoid bastards like Aizen who wouldn't send important information like this electronically.
Yoruichi laughed again then. “Relax, Ichigo, I can smell the gears in your brain overheating from here. Fortunately, you have us on the job. Because of the message, I asked Ururu to start scanning some of the major players' offices for a safe place to put things.”
I chuckled, realizing that Yoruichi was about as paranoid as Aizen. Maybe she was worried about someone listening in on our cellphone signals, so what I took from her message was that she'd asked Ururu to look at some of Aizen's lieutenants' buildings to see if she could find any safes, like the obscure reference in the e-mail. As I thought of that, something occurred to me. “How did she do that?”
“You know these overcautious types,” Yoruichi responded, almost purring. “Always putting cameras everywhere. Anyway, she found something in #1's office - the location, as well as the combo.”
“Really?” I asked, wondering if it could possibly be that easy. “So, can you give me an interior layout and some cover to get in there?” Hell if I was going to try to break into somewhere with a million security cameras, but if Ururu could manage a convenient outage...
“I think that could be arranged,” Yoruichi replied, her voice low and pleased. “Come by at midnight tonight to talk about it. You know where.”
Urahara's, of course. “See you then,” I said as I signed off.
I quickly wrapped up my study of the building I'd been watching, and a quick glance at the clock on the dash told me it was only slightly after 10AM. I wavered then, knowing I should go to the next couple of buildings on the list to finish scoping them all out and then maybe head home to get a little more sleep before the work I had to do tonight.
That wasn't what I wanted to do at all, though. Contrary to my usual constant feeling of energy when I'm on a case, I felt like I'd gotten up on the wrong side of the bed today, probably due to what had happened last night. What I felt strongly pulled to do was to go back to my house now. I knew Renji should still be there, probably awake by now, and I wanted to tell him...
What did I want to tell him, exactly? That the sex was mind-blowing, but that I could finally admit to myself that I wanted him for a lot more than that? That I'd wake up while he was still sleeping and have to stare at him for a moment while my heart made funny, off-beat thumps in my chest? That he was just as good a friend as he was a lover? That on nights he didn't show up that I'd wake up sometime in the middle of the night, missing him? He'd think I'm an idiot. I am an idiot, I thought, but I realized much too late that somewhere in the middle of thinking that I'd begun heading back towards home.
I remember sitting outside in my car for a while once I got there, wondering what the hell I was doing before I forced myself to just get out of the car and go inside. At some point, as I was running up the stairs, it all became so clear to me. I wanted him. I wanted him with me. I knew exactly what I was going to say until the moment I stood outside the bathroom, the door open just a crack and steam lazily floating out, and suddenly I had no idea what to say.
Forcing myself to do something, I opened the door and promptly forgot any thought in my head as I saw Renji stepping out of the shower. Trying to ignore the sight of steam still coming off his skin and the fact that he was naked and wet, I struggled to get my thoughts together. What should I say - I'm sorry? I want you? I wanted to tell you-
“Ichigo?” he asked, slipping a towel off the rack and settling it around his waist. “What are you doing home?”
I looked away for a moment, trying to stop getting distracted by his glistening skin and tattoos, as I fumbled for an answer. “Well, I've had a bit of a setback. I hired some help to get information about a meeting at the company I'm trying to help bust, one where they'll be discussing their illegal business, but it turns out that the only way to get the information is in person.”
Renji took a few seconds to digest that, but when he had, his face had paled. “Do you mean you're going to have to break into this company that the mob owns?”
“Well,” I replied, trying to sound positive, “at least they're not going to call the police if they catch me.”
“Yeah, they're going to shoot you in the head instead, idiot,” Renji growled, nearly under his breath. After he looked into my eyes, though, he clenched his fists and then sighed as he loosened them. “All right,” he finally said, his voice reluctant. “Don't take any stupid risks, though, OK?”
“Yeah, sure,” I mumbled and dropped my eyes, unable to keep looking at the grave look in his. Even as I stared at the floor, I could still see those serious eyes, though, and for the first time it got me thinking about how it must feel to date someone who could easily get killed at work. It also made my heart do funny things again as I began to appreciate Renji even more for being able to put up with it, but his voice interrupted my thoughts.
“So, I guess you came home now because you're going out tonight?” Renji asked, and I could see when I met his gaze again that he was smirking now, his previous seriousness forgotten. “I could think of a few ways to wear you out so you could get a good nap in.”
Hell if he didn't, I found myself thinking as I woke up later that afternoon, after 4:30. I'd been too tired to grab anything to wear after he'd finished with me, so I just headed straight for the shower and tried to get my thoughts together as I stood under the warm spray. After mentally cringing at the fact that I hadn't told Renji any of the admittedly chaotic thoughts that had been running through my head, I resolved that I definitely would the next time I saw him.
After that I tried to think about what I should do over the next few hours, and realized that the sun probably wouldn't have quite set yet, so I hurried to finish my shower and went out to try to scope out the last two Infinium Logistics buildings. I'd been able to get enough information by the time I got home a few hours later, and I took my time over dinner to transcribe my notes to the computer and to begin looking at everything I had so far to try to arrange it and make some sense of it.
One of the things in particular that I focused on was the building that had been identified as being the headquarters for Aizen’s #1 division manager. When I flipped back to Yoruichi's information, I found that Coyote Stark held that position, and the cryptic note beside his name said “Strategy and Tactics.” Raising an eyebrow, I went back to my notes about the building itself. Stark's area seemed to be half of a pair of twin office buildings positioned in an older, slightly run-down business park in an old section of Karakura. The building was three stories and was connected by a walkway with its twin. I pulled up and studied a map of the area and found that it backed up onto a floodplain, which explained the woods I'd seen behind it when I'd stopped across the street to scope it out. As I backed the map further out, I raised an eyebrow as I noted that there was an apartment complex not far away that bordered the same floodplain. Smiling, I realized I'd just figured out where to park when I visited that evening.
After carefully combing through all of the information I could find about the building, including searching Google Street View to see how much of it they'd been able to photograph, I realized it was getting late, so I started getting everything together for that evening. I dressed in some black jeans and sneakers, then added a long-sleeved dark navy t-shirt with a dark autumn-weight jacket over it. I got the small black backpack I'd purchased for such midnight expeditions and packed my notebook in it, some pictures and maps, and a small set of tools. I didn't have the cheek to own an actual set of lock picks, but I'd been able to modify some tools over the years that did the job well enough. It wasn't my specialty, but I was competent at getting locks open if need be. I threw a dark ski mask and some black gloves into the bag and said a quick mental prayer that no one else would be able to get a look into that bag. I thought for a while about whether I should bring my gun, but I decided against it, figuring that if I went expecting trouble, I was likely to get it.
I arrived at Urahara's shop by a few minutes to midnight and was ushered inside by Tessai. “Ms. Yoruichi is waiting for you,” he explained, bringing me to the same room in which I'd talked to her the other day. She and Ururu were both sitting at the table this time, and I ended up in the same chair I'd sat in before. The two of them had been looking at something on Ururu's laptop screen, but Yoruichi broke off to look up at me as I sat down. “All right, Ichigo,” she said with a grin, “here's what we found out. Stark's office is in the northwest corner of the third floor of the building.” Ururu turned her laptop around to show an architectural diagram of the building I'd been looking at earlier. His office was on the side farthest away from the walkway, and I memorized where in the building it lay. Yoruichi continued after a moment, “I take it you've probably had some time today to familiarize yourself with the layout of the surrounding area?”
I nodded as she glanced in my direction, and she smiled more widely in response. “All right then, we'll leave getting in up to you, but since we weren't able to get you the information you needed directly, we're willing to help you get it. We figured the thing you'd probably need the most help with would be the security cameras on all four corners of the building and the ones placed liberally throughout the interior. We were thinking it might make sense to make it look as if there's been some kind of short and have all of the cameras go down while you're there. How long do you think it might take you to get in and out?”
Thinking about what I knew so far, I shrugged. “It depends on a couple of things, including where in Stark's office the safe is.”
Yoruichi nodded. “It's covered by a false wooden panel in the wall to the left of his desk. From what Ururu saw, there's a seam off the side nearest to his desk that you press to make it slide open. He keeps the combination underneath his desk blotter.”
I'm sure my eyes were wide as I jotted all of that down in my notebook. “You've got to be kidding.”
She laughed then, and as always, I couldn't help but appreciate how freely she expressed herself as her lithe neck stretched back and she closed her eyes as the laughter bubbled out of her. “It doesn't sound real, does it? Here, have a look at the security tape.”
I looked at the video in progress as she turned the laptop in my direction and watched from a perspective above the head of a tall, lanky man behind a big wooden desk. As I watched, he leaned over to what looked like a building support, but when he pressed something, the wooden paneling on it slid back to reveal a wall safe. I couldn't help my quiet laugh as I watched him lift his desk blotter and peek at a yellow sticky note as he dialed the numbers of the combination, eventually popping the door open to take an envelope out of the safe.
I was still shaking my head as Ururu pulled the laptop back to her. “Unbelievable,” I commented, adding to Yoruichi's earlier observations. “Well done,” I finished, looking at Ururu. She looked over in my direction and nodded coolly but was unable to disguise the slight pink hue that rose to her cheeks after my comment.
My brain was working furiously now, trying to calculate how long the job would take based on what I knew, but I couldn't come up with a definitive answer. “How about this,” I proposed, “if you give me some way to communicate with you, once I'm there I'll let you know when I need you to black the cameras out and when I'm out of the way so you can let them go again.”
The two women looked at one another, and Ururu shrugged as I watched, then rose to go into the other room. “I think that should work,” Yoruichi responded. “Anything else you can think of?”
I was shaking my head in the negative as Ururu returned with something small in her hand. I took it and examined the earpiece, from which something sticky was hanging. I could see the shadow of a grin on her face as she said, “Put it on. The sticky piece goes along your jaw.”
“Ururu should be able to hear you even if you're whispering,” Yoruichi explained. “Try it out.”
When I walked to the corner of the room and whispered her name, Ururu nodded. “I can hear you.”
I said my goodbyes then, wanting to get over to the office building and get to work as soon as possible. As I got into the right neighborhood, I turned into the apartment complex I'd decided to park in and was pleasantly surprised to note that although the complex was older, as was most of this part of town, it was well kept. I threaded my way through three-story brick buildings towards the tall trees in the back that I knew were signs of the floodplain behind the apartments. I couldn't help but smile as I reached the visitor parking lot and saw that not only did it back up to the trees I'd been trying to reach, but I could also dimly see the office building I was trying to get to not far away. Luck seems to be with me tonight, I thought.
Once I got closer to the office building, I leaned against a particularly tall tree. While still within the protective darkness the small forest offered, I began to scope out the place I was trying to get into. Noting that about half the lights in the parking lot were on, I realized that there would be no way I could approach the building without getting spotted by the external cameras. Mental note taken, I pulled out my binoculars and tried to get a closer study of the building itself, since there was enough light to see.
The building that was nearest to where I hid was the twin I wasn't here to see, but as I scanned the parking lot, looking for anyone who might be patrolling, I noticed something on one side of the building that looked like a series of horizontal lines jutting out from it. Adjusting my binoculars to the highest magnification, I moved to get a better look at that particular section of wall and then had to bite my tongue to stop myself from cheering.
What I'd spotted was a series of rungs sunk into the concrete of the building. From about eight or ten feet off the ground, they went all the way up to the roof. I managed to keep myself from yelling “Score!” by thinking about the fact that I wasn't ten feet tall. Sighing, I turned my binoculars back to the building, but I found myself biting my lip a moment later to stop from smiling. There was a garbage dumpster not far away from the rungs. I nearly shouted, but instead mentally thanked all of the gods who must have been looking over me that day.
“Ururu,” I said softly. “Are you still there?”
“I am. Are you ready?” she replied, her voice cool and competent.
“I am, but there's been a slight change of plans. Could you knock out the security cameras for the whole outside of the building and just the third floor? I think I've found a better way in. If it doesn't work out, I'll call back.”
“All right, they should be off in a moment,” Ururu replied and then paused for a few breaths. “OK, now you're good,” she finally reported.
I put on my ski mask and gloves before I went into the parking lot. Once I got there, I closed the dumpster lid (thankfully, it was the old metal kind) and hoisted myself up on top. Before I could lose my nerve, I backed up to the far edge of the dumpster and took a running leap for the rungs on the side of the building, the nearest rung being several feet away. I caught hold of the bottom-most, but one arm was yanked free as I swung to the side under the weight of my momentum. Kicking off the wall, I swung back and used that momentum to swing my free hand up to grab the next rung. After that, I quickly climbed the wall and reached the roof not long after.
Pausing a moment to catch my breath, I surveyed the flat tarpapered landscape up there before I moved to the side of the building nearest its neighbor. Walking that side, I grinned as I came upon something I'd been expecting. I could see the walkway strung between the two buildings, connecting the third floors. Sitting on the edge of the roof and swinging my feet over, I then stepped down onto the roof of the walkway, using that as my bridge between the two buildings.
Once I'd reached the roof of the building I was trying to get into, I was pleased to find that the door into the building was fairly easy to pick, even for someone like me who was out of practice. When I walked down a flight of stairs to the third floor, however, I ran into my first serious complication. The stairwell door had let me out into a small interior lobby containing nothing but elevators, a couple of potted trees, and doors into the offices, all of which were situated around the outer rim of the building. The doors were all locked by electronic card key, which made me nearly bang my head against the nearest doorframe. It was so obvious I should have thought of it, but it didn't occur to me until now that criminals might keep the same security systems as everyone else. I could try picking the lock, but there was no guarantee if I actually managed it that an alarm wouldn't be tripped wherever the security system was being monitored.
“Ururu,” I whispered. “Are you there? I've run into a problem.”
“What is it?” Her voice responded immediately, a touch of concern in her usual flat tone.
“All the doors are locked by card key. Can you get me in?”
I heard something that may have been a muffled curse, then a momentary pause before she said, “Take a look at the cardkey plate at the door where you're standing. Is there anything written around the edge?”
I bent down to get a close look and read Ururu the numbers embossed in tiny writing along the very edges. “All right, wait just a minute,” she told me once she had the information.
So, I waited. Since I looked at my watch so many times, I can report that it actually took her less than a minute to pop the lock, but to me that short span of time seemed to stretch into centuries. The building itself was probably part of the problem; since it was older, it made any number of creaks and groans in the otherwise silent evening. Each of those noises seemed louder to me than it probably was and I found myself unable to stay still, pacing between the door I was trying to get into and a potted tree near the elevators, alternately planning attacks for anyone who came through the doors and thinking that if I just hid behind the tree I could probably go unnoticed.
I somehow refrained from crying tears of joy once Ururu told me I could get inside to where the offices were, and I located the one I wanted with no trouble, finding the door closed but not locked. It was when I sat in the chair behind the big desk, the same one I'd seen the man in the security video sitting in, that I started to worry again. Even though I was now where I'd been trying to go, something just seemed off, and my stomach clenched in on itself nervously. Trying to put those thoughts out of mind, I instead focused on the bead of sweat on my forehead and checked the security camera behind me, confirming that its red functional light was off. Swiping my ski mask off to get more air, I kept it close at hand so that I didn't forget it and reached for the edge of the desk blotter.
Flipping up the edge of the blotter, I saw a yellow sticky note with “Safe combo,” written on it, which made me roll my eyes. Running my other hand along the seam of the wood paneling, it didn't take long before I found a catch and it slid open to reveal the safe door. After entering the combination I'd found, the safe door clicked open at the first try. I grabbed the messy pile of papers inside and began paging through them, carefully keeping them in the same order as I found them. It was the fifth page I came to that grabbed my attention; it was an invitation to a quarterly meeting where, “all business of the company will be discussed.” The wording made me lift an eyebrow, but the next sentence, which commanded that, “Vice Presidents and Division Managers are all required to be present, no exceptions,” made me think that this must be the meeting I'd been searching for information about.
When I pulled my notebook out to write down the time and place, however, my heart sank when I realized that the meeting had been called for 10PM tomorrow night at the Infinium Logistics headquarters building in Karakura. Sighing, I carefully wrote the information down and then checked it against the invitation one final time to make sure I'd copied everything correctly. Quickly scanning the rest of the papers in the stack, I didn't find anything else that seemed relevant, so I piled them all back together in my best approximation of the artful messiness I'd first found them in and moved to put them back into the safe. Raising my eyebrow at the guns, piles of cash and even a few pieces of gold in the safe, I left all of those untouched as I put the papers back exactly as they had been, closed the safe, and slid the panel shut. I was momentarily reminded of the words of an older detective I'd met when I'd started in this business who'd told me, “Don't steal from criminals, kid. They get even more grumpy about it than the government.” Chuckling softly, I slid my notebook and pencil back into my bag, put my ski mask back on, and made my way out of the office.
As I retraced my steps out into the night, I found my thoughts centered on the information I'd gotten, and not in a positive way. About the only good thing I'd found out tonight was that the meeting hadn't happened yet. The fact that it was tomorrow night wasn't great news, though, especially in light of the fact that when I'd gone to look at their headquarters building initially, I'd found it to be a security nightmare with a front desk staffed with security guards who seemed to patrol the grounds regularly, card key entry, and security cameras everywhere. Of course, that's just on the outside, I thought glumly. It's probably worse inside the building.
I let Ururu know once I got back to my car that she could turn the security cameras back on whenever she wanted, but she wasn’t ready to let me go yet. “Sure, Ichigo. Also, Ms. Yoruichi wanted me to find out from you where the meeting is.”
I thought about it for a moment, weighing whether or not I should tell her, but eventually came to the conclusion that if my initial idea about how to get the information had worked, they would both already know. “OK. Tell her that it’s in the headquarters boardroom tomorrow night, 10PM. As you know, this all completely confidential.”
“Of course,” she said, and I thought I heard a note of offended pride in her usual monotone that I would even bring it up. After a pause, however, she asked, “Why do you sound so down, Ichigo?”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever checked that place out,” I said with an annoyed sigh, “but it’s set up like a fortress. I’m not sure how I’m going to get in there.”
“Will you need our help?”
Thinking for a moment, I weighed my reluctance to get anyone else any more involved in this mess against the need to get the job done, but came up with no conclusions. “I’m not sure. I still need to think it over some more. Can I call tomorrow?”
“Yes. We’ll expect your call tomorrow afternoon.”
The connection went dead then, and I took off the ear piece and threw it in my bag along with the mask and gloves before starting up the car and heading for home. I'd been obsessively thinking about what I'd found out tonight for the entire drive and was still mulling it over once I got back, until I realized I'd promised to contact Renji to let him know how it went. Since I felt guilty about the idea of waking him up yet again in the middle of the night (hey, I try to make it only once in a while...), I texted him to let him know how it had gone and that I'd call tomorrow afternoon.
It was only a few minutes later that I heard the buzzing that meant a return text message. “Whens the meeting?”
“I thought youd be asleep,” I replied, then added, “tomorrow, 10PM.”
There was a longer pause, then, “Couldnt sleep.”
I felt a lump in my throat as I looked at my phone, and for a long while I couldn't think of a thing to say. Finally, I just went for the cowardly way out and typed, “Maybe you should, uh, wear yourself out so you can. Think about me while you do.”
I got a smiley face in return, followed by, “Good suggestion. Night, Ichigo.”
“Night, Ren. Call you tomorrow afternoon?”
“You better.”
I chuckled as I put the phone away. I spent the next few hours thinking of ways to get into Infinium's headquarters and came up with several possibilities, one or two of which might actually work. Finally, around the time it was starting to get light out, I tumbled into bed, my face buried in the pillow Renji usually used, breathing in his scent and feeling like he was there somehow.
It was afternoon by the time I woke up, and a bit later than I'd intended. I quickly showered and got moving, using the time it took the coffee to brew and my bagel to toast to run through my final list of ideas and figure out what help I'd ask Yoruichi and Ururu for, having finally accepted that I'd definitely need it. I'd gotten myself mostly functioning by 2 and called Renji as I was putting my things together to head out. I got a funny feeling in my stomach when Renji's phone rang a number of times and then went to voicemail, since he was usually awake and available at that time of day, but it clenched tight when I heard a strange voice on the recording.
“Kurosaki,” the voice said, and it sounded oily and creepy all at once. “I think you know who I am. My name is Gin Ichimaru, and I've come to have something of yours in my possession. If you want to retrieve it, we'll be expecting you at 10PM tonight at our headquarters building. I don't think I need to mention that if you try to get the police involved that your item will be lost forever. See you then!”
The voicemail beeped and I hung up, then called back, hoping that the previous time I'd gotten the wrong number, but instead of Renji's reassuring deep tones, I only heard the same, grating message again. It was all I could do not to throw my phone across the room as I hung up. My thoughts started racing out of control, but I struggled to focus, deciding to call over to the tattoo studio in the hopes that Renji had gone to work early that day and this was all just a hoax. Once I got Shuuhei on the line, however, I found I wasn't so sure the call had been a good idea. “Can you tell me if Renji is there?” I asked him, hesitantly.
“No, he’s not here for another hour or two. Did you need me to pass on a message or something?” he asked.
I couldn’t help swearing, apparently not under my breath, because he quickly spoke up again, his voice suddenly tense. “What’s going on?” Then, after a pause where I said nothing and he swore, he said, “Wait a minute.”
It was muffled, but I thought I could hear him telling Rikichi that he had to take this call. A moment later, he was back again, probably shut in the back room. “All right, Kurosaki, spill it. What the hell’s going on?”
Belatedly realizing that I probably should have spent the past few moments thinking of what to say, I struggled to tell Shuuhei something that wouldn’t sound like a lame excuse. “Renji isn't going to be in today. I’ve been working on a case, and apparently the subject of my investigation figured out who I am because I got a message today saying that they have Renji.”
“What? How the fuck could you let this happen?” he shouted.
“I’ll get him back!” I replied, trying not to sound as defensive and suddenly scared as I felt.
“You’re damn right you’ll get him back, you stupid fucker!” I could almost hear him pacing. “Fuck! The whole fucking five years we’ve been in business and he’s never even called in sick once, even when he’s been so out of it I had to tell him to go the hell back home.” I heard a bang as if he'd punched something, and I gritted my teeth and waited for the rest of it. “Listen, asshole, do me one more favor while you’re at it. If you’re not looking for anything more than a good fuck, do us both a favor and break it off with Renji, because if you’re too dense to realize it, he’s looking for something more than that. When,” he said, his voice full of seriousness and anger, “when he’s back at work tomorrow - because anything else would mean the end of you - I’d better not hear one more thing about how distant you can be and how he doesn’t know what you want. Do you fucking understand?”
“It’s not…that’s not what I want…it’s not like that,” I said numbly, somehow unable to make my suddenly thick tongue explain away my bad reputation as unfortunate luck and my own general idiocy. I felt like an iron band had constricted my chest all of a sudden as I realized once again that Tatsuki was right, damn it, and I swore to any deity that might happen to be in the general vicinity that I’d get Renji back somehow and make things right.
“Well, man the fuck up and tell him, bastard! And someone better give me a fucking call the minute you get him back!”
The phone buzzed in my ear then as the connection broke, and I just stared at it stupidly for a moment before I closed it. For one of the first times in my life, I had no idea what to do. My brain seemed stuck and I clenched my fist tightly as the desire to have Renji with me seemed to swamp me, as well as the realization that there was no way that could happen at the moment. After a few black moments, I realized that I'd dialed Yoruichi's number and was just waiting dumbly, listening to her phone ring.
“What's up, Ichigo?” she finally answered in a low, teasing tone, and an intense feeling of gratefulness shot through me.
It still took me a few seconds to think of what to say, but I eventually came out with, “They have Renji.”
“How do you know?” she asked skeptically, her voice uncharacteristically hesitant.
“Well, one of the Infinium vice presidents left a weird message on Renji's voicemail, implying that they had him, which I got when I tried to call him earlier. I guess I could go by his place and see if he's there-”
“Ichigo-”
“-or maybe they just got hold of his phone somehow-”
“Ichigo-”
“-which wouldn't be bad, if he's somewhere else-”
“ICHIGO!” she shouted in my ear, making me wince. “Just shut up for a minute. First, it's safe to assume they have him if they told you like that, I was just asking to learn how you found out. And judging from how you're rambling, I'm guessing this was unexpected.”
“I'm not rambling,” I snapped. “I'm just concerned.”
“Ichigo, while it's really cute how worried you are for Renji-”
“I didn't say that!” I interjected, and I could feel the shock that had been freezing me in place start to burn off due to the anger that was starting to spring up.
“-you need to focus,” she continued, her voice maddeningly even and serious. “Pack whatever you think you'll need for your adventure this evening and come over. We'll figure out what to do, and we'll outfit you for going over there. I've already lost enough to these assholes. I am not going to lose this round, and I am not going to lose out on my bonus! Get your ass over here as fast as you can so we can start getting you ready!”
She sounded completely gung-ho while I sighed at the end of her little pep talk. I should have known that's why she's so motivated I thought, rolling my eyes. “All right, I'll be on my way soon,” I said before hanging up. Throwing whatever I thought might help into my bag, I locked up and rushed over to the Urahara shop.
__________________________________________________________
Hours later, as I walked up through the immaculately groomed garden in the front of the Karakura headquarters of Infinium Logistics, a 25-story building in white concrete with dark tinted windows, I found I was barely registering my surroundings due to the fury I felt. It hadn't taken long for the shock to fully wear off, and by the time I'd made it to the Urahara shop, I was spitting mad. I found myself repeating in my mind now what Yoruichi had told me then.
“Play along, Ichigo,” she'd said. “I know you're mad, and so am I, but if we want to finish this job successfully, you need to get into that meeting, and you need to convince them that they have the upper hand. It'll be easier than we thought, since you have an invitation now. Just bite your lip and play the game for a while, and then we'll hit them so hard they'll never know what happened.”
My teeth were clenched as I went into the building, and by the time the two security guards heard my name and immediately pulled me into a small room nearby to frisk me, I was grinding them together so hard it's a wonder they didn't shatter. By the time one of the men had told me to “assume the position” over a desk and said as he was basically groping me, “You know, my partner's hanging out across the room because he hears you're sweet on the boys,” I couldn't help but let out an inelegant snort of laughter, however.
I briefly surveyed the man, whose hands now seemed to be lingering on my ass, and replied, “Well, in a general sense, that's right. If, however, this is your un-subtle way of trying to pick me up, let me assure you that in my opinion, an ugly, rude bastard like you would have problems getting a date no matter what gender you were going for.”
I just about had time to finish what I was saying before I was gasping due to the sucker punch in the gut. Painful, but not altogether unexpected.
“Be careful,” the thin guy leaning on the wall said. “The boss told us specifically not to rough him up.”
“Ah, I see your friend here is a rebel,” I replied, looking back at the leaning man. “And as for you,” I continued, turning to the one who'd punched me as I painfully straightened up and tried to make it look as if it was nothing, “if this is another sample of your seduction technique, I think I should tell you that I'm not one of those guys who likes it rough. If you care to go another round, however, I will kick your homely ass from here to Toledo. Or, perhaps you're not actually up to socking someone who can fight back?”
The man gave me a weasely, mean look, as if he'd really like to punch me again but was too afraid to. Luckily for him, his partner stepped forward. “Come on, let's just bring him upstairs.”
The elevator ride was blessedly silent, and it wasn't until we went through a set of heavy wooden doors on the 25th floor that things got interesting again. The room that I saw was set on one corner of the building, so windows flanked a big, glossy wood conference table on one side and one end. The security guards pushed me forwards to the man in the glasses that I'd seen a picture of on the website. “What did he have on him?” Aizen asked them. They produced the cell phone and mini-recorder they'd taken from the pockets of the leather jacket I was wearing and the gun they'd taken from my back waistband. “Very good,” he told them. “You may leave now.”
I took the moment of silence following that to scan the table quickly, and I couldn't help but grin as I spotted Renji almost right away. He'd been looking angry the moment I saw him, but when he spotted me as well, he returned my grin but after that I could see him tense up almost imperceptibly and give me a sharp look. You didn't come here alone, did you, I could read in it. In reply, I shook my head slightly, hopefully not enough that anyone else would notice, lifted my hand slightly, and then gave a brief smile that I hoped held more confidence than I felt. No, just wait, I tried to convey to him in my glance. Happily, I saw him relax just the slightest bit, which made me think he'd understood.
“Mr. Kurosaki, thank you for joining us,” Aizen said, bringing my attention back to him. I didn't have any trouble switching to a scowl as I looked back at the man.
“You didn't seem to leave me much of an option,” I replied. “What is it that you want?”
“Well, when we found out that you broke into our offices last night-” he began, but I interrupted.
“What? Where did you hear that?” I asked in annoyance. How the hell did they find out about that? I thought I'd covered everything...
“I found your picture this morning in one of the micro-cameras I've installed in all the company safes,” another man broke in, with a cheerful tone and a grin, and I thought I recognized him from his picture on the website as Gin, the one who'd left the message. “Similar cameras are used outdoors as wildlife camera traps. In this case, I've programmed them to take a picture of anyone opening the safe outside of normal business hours. Most of the time they don't amount to anything, but in this case, well, your look is very distinctive and you have quite a reputation in this town, so it wasn't hard to track down someone who knew you, and knew what you value.”
I looked over at Renji with a glance that said “See? This is why I don't have tattoos.” He just replied with a raised eyebrow that told me that he still thought it was because I didn't have the guts to get one done, to which I scowled in reply.
“So, Kurosaki,” Aizen continued, “I knew that there's only one person we're in dealings with who'd be stubborn enough to hire someone to find out more about us in order to improve their negotiating position, and that's Kuchiki.”
I bit my lip to prevent myself from rolling my eyes. Play the game, play the game, I thought, hearing Yoruichi's words in my ears again. I did my best to look like I'd been caught and was worried, but I could only hope it was convincing. I couldn't believe I'd been caught in such an amateurish way, though, and I wanted to kick myself for it. Aizen's next words brought my attention back to him, and the more I listened, the more I could feel myself scowling.
“Because I'm a generous man, I'm going to let you sit in on this meeting, and you can find out everything about my business and what we're planning to do once we have control of Kuchiki Industries. Once you've heard all of that, though, it's unfortunate that we're going to be unable to let the two of you talk about it.”
My fists were clenched now as I looked at his seemingly benevolent expression, and I had to work really hard not to reach out and punch him in the face. Play the game, I reminded myself, trying to calm down. “Why not let Renji go now?” I asked, trying to look as scared as I could muster over my now fiery rage. It was getting less difficult, however, since I was more worried about Renji now than anything else. “The only reason you brought him here was to lure me over.”
I couldn't help but glance at Renji as I said that, and shook my head slightly at his glare in return. He relaxed a bit but still looked pissed. “I'm sorry, Mr. Kurosaki, but that's impossible,” Aizen replied, still smiling like a saint. “Technically, we've already committed a crime in bringing him here, and I think he knows by now that we're going to be discussing others. The two of you will be disposed of together after the meeting here; perhaps Kuchiki can take your dead bodies as a warning to fall in line.”
And then I saw that flat deadness I'd seen in his gaze in the picture, eyes with no human feeling left in them, and my worry about the situation spiked to new levels. I clamped my mouth shut and just glared at Aizen in reply as he continued to smile that maddeningly benevolent-looking grin. “All right then. If someone could offer Mr. Kurosaki a seat,” Aizen requested, his glance traveling over the packed conference table.
Click here for Chapter 4, part 2