[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 61 ~Distractions and Stories~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be? How much is fate and how much choice? And how will their meeting change the world around them?
Author's Note: Here you go. Enjoy! And Merry Last Hour of Christmas (at least in my time zone) to you all!
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!! THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 61 ~Distractions and Stories~
“He says,” Takeshi rolled his eyes as he spoke, “he works for Kizuna. Then he says he is one of JDA’s crew. Do you think Yasu-san would risk the border treaty in such petty ways?”
Kame shook his head. “I know it isn’t JDA’s doings. I’ve already been by to see Yasu personally.”
“Hear that?” Takeshi laughed, now addressing the drug dealer again. “Looks like we’ll have to try this again. But, you know what? I think before that, it might be nice to have something to call you since it seems you aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. We’re going to be good friends before we’re done, right?”
“Ushio,” the man said, lifting his head up a bit to look at Kame. Now that he was seeing the guy’s face, he did look vaguely familiar. He couldn’t quite place it, though. The bruises weren’t helping with the recognition, either.
“Ushio. Okay, Ushio. Now, who do you work for again?” this time it was Takeshi’s brother Shuta asking the questions.
“I don’t work for anybody,” Ushio admitted with a sigh.
Shuta slugged him and he grunted in pain. “See, that won’t cut it. Someone has been sending you guys. It’s not a coincidence.”
“Guys? More than one?” and Ushio sounded genuinely surprised. “Damn it, he told me…” but it was like he suddenly realized what he was saying and stopped. “Look, I used to work for somebody but he got killed and I’ve got my own thing going now.”
“I don’t believe you.” A gut punch and another loud groan from Ushio. “Again?”
But Kame interfered. “Wait! Take a break, you two. I’ll give it a go.”
“Aw, I was having fun…” Shuta pouted, which made Takeshi laugh and playfully ruffle his brother’s hair. The two of them leaned against the wall of the storage unit.
Grabbing the guy by the chin to get a better look at his face, Kame finally said, “You were one of Jiro’s dogs, weren’t you?”
“That was a long time ago. I’m my own man now. I… wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that, though,” he admitted with a cough.
“I believe you. But I don’t believe you just up and decided to come into my territory and start selling your product all on your own. I especially don’t believe you’d do that and then be stupid enough to claim to be working for me. The fact that you aren’t dead yet means you aren’t as stupid as you seem. So, even if you work for yourself, that’s not why you’re here.
Kame let go of Ushio’s chin. “So, you can tell me what’s going on or I can let these two have a bit more fun and we’ll try again. See, they really, really like hitting… well, anything. And it’s been so long and they’ve been so good. I should reward them. I should let them at you a while longer. It’s the considerate thing to do. But if you’ll spill without that then I guess I’ll find them someone else to hit. Someone else like the name you’re about to give me, right?”
Ushio’s eyes went wide. “I… I can’t! I can’t! He’ll… Please, don’t make me tell you. He’ll kill me! It’s what he does!”
That actually narrowed things down a lot, considering the information Ryo brought him. With Gackt gone from Malice Mizer, they were a lot more reasonable and less, well, scary. Really it just left Pierrot’s Kirito calling the shots or Papa K. But in another way, neither of those made sense. Pierrot would just declare war. They wouldn’t care to take the time for such trivial things when they could just kill everyone instead. And Papa K wouldn’t put his hand directly into sometime this low because he wouldn’t want to be identified as connected.
Kame made his eyes go cold and oh-so-serious. Looking the man face to face from mere inches away, he said softly, “And you really think I won’t?”
“Look…” the man whispered back fearfully, “He gave me a killer deal on my supplies, if only I’d sell them here and say I was from Kizuna if anyone asked. That’s it. I swear. Please, do you really need a name?”
Glancing up and over at Takeshi and Shuta, Kame snapped his fingers and impatiently said, “Knife. Now.” There. That ought to scare the guy.
“It was Papa K! It was Papa K! Please!”
Takeshi and Shuta both laughed. The three of them, they’d played this game before. It worked pretty well, too.
“So you just strolled on up to Papa K and…” Kame started incredulously.
Ushio interrupted him, “No. He came to me. I don’t know why. He just… it was such a good deal and since it didn’t matter where I sold as long as I made a profit, it was too good to turn down!”
“Why is he doing this now?” Kame asked calmly.
“You think he told me? I haven’t got a clue! I swear!”
“Hmm.” Kame sighed. “Well, then, what do you know?”
“Nothing! I promise! Please, you have to believe me!” Ushio glanced back and forth between the three of them desperately. “I don’t know anything else!”
To the two brothers, Kame said, “See if you can get anything out of him about a heroin addict named Yoko that worked for Papa K. If you believe him, cut him loose on any of our borders that aren’t JDA’s territory. If you don’t believe him… well, have fun!”
Oh, everyone in the room except Ushio knew they were going to let the man go. There was no reason to kill him. But he’d be more cooperative if he was afraid.
So. Papa K. It seemed pretty clumsy for him. He personally went to these drug dealers to make them the offer? But there wasn’t a single soul on the street who would point an accusing finger at Papa K if it wasn’t true (and probably not even if it was true). Everyone was too scared of the man.
No, the drug dealers weren’t important. They were… distractions. Had to be. Something to take Kizuna’s time and eyes away from his real goal.
Which begged the question of what, exactly, his real goal was.
Kame didn’t know. And though he cared, it wasn’t even what was foremost in his mind. No, what bothered him the most at that moment was that, if Papa K was sending the drug dealers and the previous one snatched up Yoko, did that mean he’d already been sent back? Did Papa K now have in his hands a man who could possibly lead him right to Kizuna’s doorstep?
Please, let Yoko not remember his way!
+++
“His first rescue? When he was eighteen?” Jin thought back to everything Kame had told him before. “I thought he only started Kizuna a few years ago.”
“Official, yes. But he was saving people long before that,” Yurina responded.
“So… what happened? Did you get snatched up before you could make it home?”
“No, I got home. Kame met me and we took the bus home. I didn’t need the rescue until a few weeks later. See, there was this drug dealer name Naito…” and Yurina spun a tale about being forced to run money and drugs for the man and how very, very wrong it went. It was obvious she was skirting around some of the details but it didn’t strike him as an attempt to be secretive so much as just not wanting to discuss the most difficult parts.
But, reading between the lines, the story was heartbreaking. Jin barely was able to keep the tears forming in his eyes from falling. Thankfully he did, though, because he wasn’t sure his manly image wouldn’t survive breaking down in front of so many people over a story, no matter how sad it was.
“Everyone here… they are the same? They’ve gone through, you know, stuff like that and then Kame rescued them?” Jin asked the group.
“Not everyone. Some of us just had shitty lives and he took us in and taught us we were deserving of respect and love. He saved us all, but not all of us needed such dramatic rescues,” from Noriko.
Okura added, “A lot of us did, though. We each have our story. Some longer than others. Some more heartbreaking than others. But we’re here, together. That’s what matters to us in the end. No matter what, we’re a family and we stay by each other.”
“So… about that apartment you two were at,” Jin as addressing Yurina again. “Why aren’t you still there?”
“Well, we still have it. It’s not gone. But after a while it just got too crowded. Nowadays, we tend to take drug addicts there to watch over them, help them through withdrawal someplace where they can have more privacy than at the church, somewhere with a bed instead of just a blanket and floor.”
But suddenly Yurina’s eyes narrowed. “Has Kame not told you anything?” She looked suspicious.
“Well, I know some stuff, yeah. I just don’t know this stuff,” Jin admitted.
“So what has he told you then? And why aren’t you asking him this stuff directly?”
Damn, that woman was sharp. Jin sort of shifted awkwardly, “What he told me, I think is not your business. If you already know it, then you don’t need to hear it from me. And if you don’t, then you won’t hear it from me. And I guess… I didn’t really think to ask him yet. We just… I mean, there hasn’t been time and everything’s changed suddenly but he’s so busy. That’s why I figured I’d ask you guys.”
Yurina didn’t look very satisfied with that answer but it did seem to mollify the rest of the group.
“So… Why is he punishing himself?” That was the question Jin really wanted the answer to.
The entire room went dead silent.
It stayed like that for what felt like forever. But Yurina finally said, “We don’t know, but we see it, too. There’s something he hasn’t told us. We all know it. It’s not that we aren’t curious and we don’t understand what could be so bad that he’d be too afraid or ashamed to tell us when he trusts us enough to tell us about killing Ryuichi or beating that other guy to death with a lamp.”
“Woah, wait, back up! Beat to death with a lamp? Kame? He did that?” Jin asked incredulously.
From Okura, “Oh, I hadn’t heard that one.”
“The man had just raped him, or… something pretty damn close anyway. Sometimes the line between what's technically consensual and rape, it isn't so clear...” Yurina looked thoughtful. “It was… I think the man responsible for my brothers getting arrested. During the police raid, he caught Kame and dragged him off to some hotel and when he was done with him, Kame sort of snapped, I guess? His memory’s a little fuzzy on some of the details. I think it was the car crash that did it.”
“Car crash?” Okay, Jin had to admit, he knew absolutely nothing about the man he’d fallen for.
Well, no, that wasn’t true. He knew very little of the events in his life. He did know Kame, though. Like, he could feel him, feel his… light. Yes, light was a good word for it. He knew Kame; he didn’t know about Kame. There was a big difference.
Still…
He’d rather hear it all from Kame.
“Yeah, he tried to drive that man’s car home but he’d never driven before and he crashed it. He hasn’t driven since, either. It’s why Koki takes him everywhere these days.” Yurina shook her head. “Enough about Kame. We all know about him and if you want to know, you can just ask him. I want to know your story.”
A round of “hear, hear” from the whole group.
“My story?” Jin gave a bit of an embarrassed laugh, scratching the back of his head nervously. “Okay. I’ll tell you my story.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++
The story contiunes:
Chapter 62 ~Finding Yurina~
A/N: Muahahaha I'm so evil, stopping right there. But you guys want to know more about Jin's life, yes? You'll find out soon. And next update you'll get more of the rescue of Yurina. Actually, it's taking all my willpower not to post both of them right now. I don't know if I'll be able to hold out until tomorrow evening or if you'll get it in the morning. It's written. I just have to give it the once-over.