[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 70 ~Knowing Too Much~
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. and maeda_marika
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: 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: Well, there you go. Past!Kame and Taro.
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 70 ~Knowing Too Much~
“Now we can talk.”
Taro looked positively miserable, though Kame supposed he couldn’t blame the man. Being shot in the knee probably hurt like hell. “Talk? About what?” he hissed.
“About Yurina,” Kame said. When that brought no glimmer of recognition to the man’s eyes, Kame continued with, “The last girl from Abe’s. I know he called you over.”
“Her? But I barely touched her! I was too busy running the came…” but he caught himself and then repeated, “I barely touched her!”
“You know, I don’t care. Barely is still too much and… wait, camera? You filmed it?!” Kame could feel the anger swell
“No! No, I…” but his eyes darted to the table for a split second and when Kame looked that way, he saw a VHS tape sitting on the corner of the table, labeled with the date Abe kidnapped Yurina.
“Why did you film it?” Kame asked in a low, even voice. He took a deep breath, trying to keep the anger from overwhelming him. It was too early for vengeance. He needed information first.
“Look, I just… we…” Taro sort of trailed off.
Kame shot him in the same knee again and he screamed. Taro was pretty much sobbing now. “Answer my question.”
“We sold it. We always…” and he looked terrified. “Always sell it…”
“You’ve already sold it?” Kame asked with a growl. Who would want to buy a tape of a girl getting gang-raped? That was just sick!
Much as he didn’t want to watch it, much as he felt he really had no right to watch it, it was actually going to be very helpful. If he could get a good look at the other seven, get Taro to give him names and addresses, he wouldn’t have to torture information out of any of the others. He could just shoot them and be done with it. Hell, if he felt he could take the shot, he could actually take them out from a distance since he’d know what they looked like for sure.
But the thought of seeing it made him feel queasy.
He was having to do a lot of things he didn’t like in order to keep his promise. He supposed one more thing wasn’t going to make a whole lot of difference. But he absolutely could not tell Yurina the tape had been sold.
“Yeah, a few copies…” Taro said weakly. “Please don’t kill me. Please. I… I… don’t want to die..”
“I won’t… yet. If you give me the information I need.” And he grabbed the tape and stuck it in the first VCR and turned on the TV. Remote… remote… ah, there it was. Actually, before he started the tape, he should probably tie Taro up. The man was wounded, true, but not completely immobilized.
It took a minute to find something (phone cord, just like Abe), but Kame wasted no time in tying Taro’s wrists and ankles. Then he snatched up the remote and pressed play. He pulled Abe’s address book out of his back pocket and grabbed a pen from the side table.
He did his best to not focus on Yurina, her crying and begging and the awful, awful things they were saying to taunt her, but it nevertheless wound its way down, making his chest tight and stoking that anger.
As soon as the first of the other seven men was clearly in focus on screen, close enough to see details and be confident of his ability to recognize the man later, Kame paused the tape. “Him. Who is he? Where does he live? What’s his routine?”
Bit by bit, he got the information from Taro. One man right after another and oh, god, Yurina’s weak begging was going to stay with him for a long, long time… He could tell she was trying to scream and just couldn’t get it to come out loud enough to do any good and it broke his heart. And as soon as he had everything he needed to know, Kame stopped the tape. He pulled it out of the VCR and shredded the ribbon. At least he hadn’t had to watch the entire thing. What he’d seen was horrible enough without watching the rest.
Poor Yurina… and that was just the first night…
“Is that the only copy left here?” he asked sharply. “Do the other seven have their own copies?”
“It’s the m-master copy and no, they haven’t bought one y-yet… I ran out of blank tapes…” Taro had stopped sobbing but tears were still falling and Kame decided he really didn’t care. He shot the guy in the chest and the head and then clicked on the safety and dropped the gun back into the backpack. He took off, trying to get as far away from the building as possible before anyone got a good look at him.
At least it seemed like he’s judged correctly that nobody would be paying attention to him even with the gunshot sounds.
Hmm… five of the seven men would be at work now, so they would have to wait. The other two… brothers who lived in a building six blocks away in two adjoining apartments on the first floor. Technically speaking, the place was abandoned and they were really squatting because they were too poor to pay rent even for a crappy one-room apartment like Taro’s but it amounted to much the same thing in the end, he supposed.
Shooting them was almost easy. All Kame could hear was their voices, teasing and insulting Yurina while they took her, laughing… but they weren’t laughing anymore now, were they…
And then Kame took the bus home, because there was nothing more to be done that day. He’d have to wait for the weekend, to be sure he caught them at home.
He needed to go get Yurina but he had to clear his head first. Stripping, he took an entirely-too-hot, extra-long shower and put on clean clothes and did his level best to push back any thoughts of that… that horrible tape.
When he got to Ito-san’s grocery store, Yurina did seem to be doing a bit better. It still didn’t quite reach her eyes but she was smiling more, it seemed like, and she seemed a bit more like herself, at least as best as he could tell from the limited amount of time he’d known her.
Kame thanked Ito-san once again and promised he’d be there for work properly the next day and that he’d most likely have Yurina with him again. Ito said he didn’t mind.
Once they were out of earshot of the place, Yurina asked, “How did it go? How close are you to tracking down Taro or the man with the tattoo?”
“Taro’s dead. So are two of the others and I know where to find the rest but there’s nothing I can do about them until Saturday.”
“Good,” was all she had to say.
They walked most of the rest of the way in silence but out of nowhere, Yurina added, “I’m going to take knife fighting classes and learn how to shoot a gun properly. Maybe learns some other ways of defending myself, too…”
If it would make her feel safer, more secure, Kame was all for it. “I think it’s a good idea.”
“Ito-san suggested it. Well, he wasn’t specific but he recommended learning to defend myself to regain my confidence from being… kidnapped. But I already know how to fight, so… I guess I need to learn more ways to do it.”
“Whatever the cost, I’ll cover it.”
They didn’t talk much the rest of the afternoon and through dinner. Kame was afraid he’d say something stupid because he just couldn’t get the images and sounds from the tape to stay buried, so he decided it was best to just not say anything. And Yurina just seemed exhausted.
But it was okay. Neither of them seemed to mind the silence all that badly. And that night, Yurina didn’t even try to sleep in the bedroom but rather went to lay back down on the floor by the couch. But Kame insisted she take the couch and he took the floor in front of it instead. Every now and again, he could feel Yurina’s fingertips brush against him as if to confirm he was still there but the two of them fell asleep fairly quickly.
At least Yurina didn’t cry herself to sleep again.
That was an improvement, right?
++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 71 ~Firsts~
A/N: Hmm... five more to go. Do you think Kame will ever tell Yurina about seeing the tape? She obviously knows the guy was filming because she almost told Kame that before but she doesn't know Kame knows about it, let alone that he's seen it. And she doesn't know that Taro sold copies of it. Poor girl.