[fic] Silent Collision - Chapter Seven ~The Note~

[prettyorianna]

Title: Silent Collision
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame.  Ryo x Kame.  Ueda x Junno.
Rating: NC-17.  Eventually.
Genre: crime drama?  AU story
Beta by: nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own the people.  I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks.  But don't steal my plots, mmkay?  I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page.  But I value those too...
Summary:  Jin kills in self defense only to find himself a fugitive.  Along the way he meets a scared boy...
Warning: Character death(s).  Abuse, murder, gangs, kidnapping, etc etc.

Author's Note: Chapter Seven isn't very long, but here you go!

The Master Posts:
On my journal - Silent Collision Master Post
On the akame_ Community - Silent Collision Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - Silent Collision Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - Silent Collision Master Post

Chapter Seven ~The Note~

“Are you sure?” Koki asked the uniformed officer.  The man nodded.  Damn, now what?  Sighing, he dismissed the officer, telling the man to get the rest of the uniforms and head back to the station.

He knew Jin had to have been there, at least for a while.  The call he got had come from the house phone (Koki had almost spit his drink out in laughter when he’d found out that baka had called him from a house phone!).  But if he wasn’t here now, where would he be?

And Ueda seemed just as surprised that Jin and the missing boy were gone.  The uniform might have not noticed but he had.  But arresting the man was just a mountain of paperwork that he didn’t want to do and he was still waiting for the department to assign him another partner after his last one retired, so he didn’t have someone to push his paperwork on.

Besides, he really wanted that autograph.

He started to excuse himself and apologize for the inconvenience when Ueda slid a small folded note across the table to him.  “I think you’re forgetting something, Detective.”

Koki knew very well he wasn’t, which could only mean it was a message from Ueda that he didn’t want to say out loud in case any of the uniforms were still on their way out.  “Ah, thank you Ueda-san.”

And then he left.

Once he was back at his desk at the station, he took the note out of his pocket.

Meet me at Lina’s Café on 3rd street.  You can bring your book, too.

The date was today and the time was in two hours, roughly.

Two hours, huh?  That’d give him just enough time to go home to get “important case files” (read: all three of Ueda-san’s novels and the short story collection) and take a quick shower.  Okay, probably not in that order.

He did say “anything he wanted” signed, right?

+++

Jin couldn’t hear anything.  Every time he tried to talk, Kame shushed him and continued to listen carefully.  The whole thing was driving Jin crazy.  Rolling his eyes, he mumbled, “I don’t have time for this game…” and started towards the still-extended ladder.

But Kame grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back as hard as he could.

“What the…” Jin started to yell as he stumbled backwards into Kame and then landed on his ass.  He rapidly found an arm around him and a hand over his mouth.  Apparently Kame had landed right behind him, one leg on either side of Jin.

Mentally, Jin finished the curse Kame’s hand prevented him from saying.  Well, okay, he probably could have easily moved Kame’s hand away to finish out loud but he didn’t.  He might not be the brightest crayon in the box but something was definitely going on.  This wasn’t some weird game Kame was playing.  He was really afraid of something.

Well, no… not fear exactly.  More… concerned?  Because Jin had noticed, Kame trembled when he was afraid and having the boy’s chest pressed against his back told him he wasn’t trembling.  Was… was he doing this (whatever this was) for Jin’s sake, then?

Jin had no clue how long they sat there.  It started to get kind of awkward, truthfully, because the thought occurred to Jin that he rather liked having Kame against him.  But it wasn’t right to think like that.  Technically, the boy was legally old enough and very attractive, but… it still felt wrong to…  Because, wasn’t it?  Age difference aside, Kame wasn’t even a girl and Jin wasn’t gay, right?

Whatever.  Best to just derail the whole train.

Besides, Kame finally let go and backed away.

“Can I talk now?”  Jin asked quietly.  Kame didn’t slap a hand across his mouth again, so Jin figured that was an indirect yes.

“Okay, first of all, what the hell was that about?” he asked irritably.  “And second, what is this place?  How did you find this?  And thirdly…” only he realized there wasn’t really a thirdly, except maybe, “Um… I’m sorry for accidentally knocking you down.”  Not bothering to stand, Jin turned around to face Kame.

Jin had never seen that particular look on Kame’s face.  It had some odd mix of hope, confusion, desire (but, wait, that couldn’t be right… though it did look a lot like it…), and accusing wariness that just added up to a darkly clouded expression.  But finally Kame just shook his head and stood, walking to the ladder.  He disappeared up it in record time.

Sighing, Jin followed.Once the two of them were back in the closet and the ladder retracted, Kame opened the closet door.

Ueda was in the room, frantically searching through everything in the room.  Jin didn’t know what he was looking for but couldn’t resist trying to sneak up on his friend.  Unfortunately, Ueda spun around just as he started to leave the closet.  But it seemed to have worked anyway.  “Damn it, Jin, you scared the life out of me!  What are you doing, you idiot?  Were you hiding in the closet the whole time?”

“Um… I guess in a way…?”

“Those cops are idiots, forgetting to check a closet.  But thank goodness because I didn’t have any way to warn you at all…”

“Woah woah woah what?  Cops?!”  Ueda nodded.  Jin turned to Kame. “How the heck did you do that?  How did you know?”

While Kame pointed at his ears, Ueda asked, “What do you mean, Jin?”

“Um… Kame?  Would you do whatever it was that brings the ladder down?”

“Ladder?  What ladder?  What are you talking about, Jin?  I’ve been living in this house eight years.  There’s no la…”  Only Kame had triggered the latch and the ladder was sliding down. “…dder…  Now, isn’t that something…  Where does it go?”

“Across the ceiling and then down into a really, really dirty room.”

Ueda’s eyes were sparkling as Jin spoke.  “Oh, I have got to see that!”  So, yet again, Jin and Kame crawled up and around and down into the room, Ueda following right behind them.

“Hm… I expected no windows, or I’d have noticed it from the outside… It must be sandwiched between the hallway, the guest room, the master bedroom, and the master bathroom.  So dusty…” and so on and so on.  Ueda seemed to have completely forgotten Jin and Kame.  “I ought to put it in my next bo…”

“Oh, dear.  Um, guys, have fun.  I have to go out for while.  Now.  Bye!”

“Out?  Again?  Why?  What could you possibly have to do that you couldn’t do the five hours you were gone earlier?”

“Just, out.  Don’t worry about the details.  It doesn’t concern you.  And stop whining Bakanishi; Kame will be here so it’s not like you’ll be alone.”

“Don’t call me Bakani…” but Jin trailed off as he saw Kame leaning with one hand and his forehead on the wall and the other around his stomach, silently laughing.  “Hey, it’s not funny!  Stop it!  Stop laughing!  I swear to god… Oh, no, not you too, Tat-chan!  Guys~!!”

Jin, miffed, said, “Okay, fine, you two can stay here and act like children.  I’m going back to the rest of the house!”  And he stormed off, at least as much as you can when your route is up one ladder, across a ceiling, and down another ladder.

Only halfway there, he realized he had no idea how to make the other ladder go down.  He couldn’t really see anything; the faint light from the hidden room didn’t travel far enough to be much help.  Actually, he had no clue how Kame’d been able to find the switches to both ladders in this darkness in the first place.

On top of that, how had he heard the cops?  Jin hadn’t heard anything and he always thought his sense of hearing was quite good.  It helped a lot as a thief if you could hear the tumblers in the locks more easily.  It gave Jin an edge over other thieves.

Resigned, he returned to the other room.  “Kame, can you let me out of this thing?”

Still practically giggling (though, again, silently), Kame nodded and went up the ladder with him.

Whispering to Kame, Jin said, “I’m not a baka, not really.  Right?”

Of course, Kame didn’t say anything.

Which, Jin had to admit, probably made the boy far wiser than he.

+++

Ueda follow Jin and Kame out of the dusty room.  He’d get the boy to show him where the switches were later; for now, he had to go meet the detective at the café.

He hoped he was doing the right thing.  Jin was his friend and it felt almost like betrayal.  But sometimes Jin wasn’t his own friend.  Sometimes, he needed someone else to do the hard things that help him despite himself.  He’d always been like that.

So Ueda decided it would be better if he sat down with the detective and explained why Jin hadn’t brought Kame in.  The whole story, really, because he doubted Jin had given the best telling of it on the phone (the idiot did tend to leave a lot of major things out of his stories).

Also, it probably would help Jin’s self-defense excuse if the detective had at least some inkling as to why anyone would even bother trying to kill him.  Actually, Ueda wasn’t completely sure what had happened between him and the gang.  A few days before Jin showed up with Kame, he’d come by and looked like he’d been in a serious fight.  He didn’t say what it was about.

But Ueda was pretty sure it was the cause of all of these troubles.

Though, it wasn’t just to provide information that Ueda wanted to talk to the detective.  He was hoping to get some information, too.  Namely, what would happen to Kame if they did go ahead and bring him in.  Kame was, judging from how he and Jin hid from the cops, probably still not big on the idea of going to the police.  Ueda needed to be able to tell him something to change his mind and that meant knowing what would be in store for him at the police station.

The whole situation was just getting more and more tangled and for both Jin’s sake and Kame’s, hopefully he and the detective would be able to sort things out.

That’s what friends were for, right?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The story continues:
Chapter Eight ~The Meeting~

A/N: Okay, the chapter feels like so much filler to me but Ueda did need to find out about the room and to make arrangements to meet the detective away from a.) Jin and b.) the other cops.

Though I think I like Detective Koki LOL.  He's just his own brand of adorable and sometimes-serious.  And Kame and Ueda laughing at Jin's nickname of Bakanishi just makes me smile.