[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 07 ~Can't Catch a Break~
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. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: More Jin and Kame. Mostly Kame. You also get to meet Pi briefly. A bit more on Koki's back-story.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
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 07 ~Can't Catch a Break~
Jin looked up as the office door opened again. But this time it wasn’t Kame. This time it was the getaway driver. What was the name… ah, Roki, right? No, no… not Roki… Koki? Ah, there, Jin knew he’d remember it if he thought about it for a minute.
“How is he?” Koki asked without any sort of hello or, well, anything. Just the question.
“Look, I have a headache. I don’t want to play games. Just tell me who you’re talking about so I can answer and you can go away,” Jin sighed. He was beginning to seriously regret insisting he came with them. He may not have a clue how to get enough money in time, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting paid to sit on his ass by the desk, either.
“Tat-chan! Tat-chan, damn it! How is he?” In surprise Jin looked up, taking a better look at the man standing before him. Dark hair, short and spiked. A somehow simultaneously intimidating and goofy face (yeah, he didn’t know that was a possible combination, either!). At that moment, the man looked scared, though.
Confused, Jin asked, “You know Tat-chan?”
A nod. “Please, I haven’t seen him in five months. It’s too dangerous for me to go back to Pearl Street. How is he? Is he alive still?”
“I…” and Jin gave a defeated sigh, “I really wish I knew…”
“Oh…” Koki looked so sad. “Oh, okay…”
“That pimp of his, he gave me till Friday to come up with $40,000 or he says he’ll kill him. They just dragged him away! I promised to protect him and I couldn’t…” Jin voice broke as he fought to not cry.
“Wait, he tried to leave?” And Koki’s eyes went wide. “He tried to escape? He said he wouldn’t. He said he was too scared! Why did he change his mind? What happened to him?”
“He didn’t say. I just… well, he disappeared for a few days. And when I found him, he was high on something. I dunno, I think it might have been…” Jin started, but as he spoke, he saw Koki go bone-white.
“…heroin?” Koki whispered.
Jin nodded. “And his wrists had…”
“…rope burns? Oh, god. Oh god oh god… Excuse me, I have to go now!” And he suddenly fled the room.
The man didn’t even take the time to close the door behind him! What the hell had happened to him? And what had happened to Tatsuya? Because Jin would bet everything he had that Koki knew.
That’s it, he was going after him. He needed answers and he’d get them one way or another.
But as Jin stood, he saw Kame was in the doorway. “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO HIM?” Kame shrieked angrily at him.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Jin shouted back, just as angrily. “He asked me about Tatsuya and then he ran off.”
“You mentioned finding him drugged, didn’t you?!” It was an accusation, not a question. When Jin nodded, Kame just shouted, “YOU IDIOT!” He threw the tray he was carrying at Jin and ran off, slamming the door behind him.
“What did I do?” Jin asked, not that there was anyone to hear it. Now he had food on him, not to mention all over the office floor. How lovely…
But he had to eat and a little dirt wasn’t going to stop him. It was still better than scrounging garbage and god knows he’d done that often enough. So he scraped it up and sat back down, leaning against the desk again while he ate.
How had he ever thought he’d be able to help his friend? The past day just proved how completely useless he was. “I’m so sorry, Tat-chan…”
+++
“It’s okay, Koki. Just let it come up. You’ll feel better…” Kame whispered, rubbing his friend’s back soothingly as the man’s stomach emptied into the toilet.
But, despite having thrown the tray of food at Jin, Kame really blamed himself more than the idiot locked in the office. He never thought to tell Jin not to mention the state his friend was in when he found him wandering out of the alley. He should have. With everything he knew about Koki, it should have occurred to him. But it didn’t.
“I… I thought I was past this, Kame-chan…” mumbled after a few minutes. “I’m sorry, I made you worry again…”
“Don’t apologize. It’s nothing that’s your fault. You know that, right? What happened, it wasn’t your fault. It was your pimp. It was all his fault.”
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Koki nodded weakly. “I know. But… that man, the one in the office. He says he has to find $40,000. It’s impossible, isn’t it? He meant it to be impossible, didn’t he, demanding so much money? He plans to kill Tatsuya anyway… So, he won’t care anymore. He… it’s probably… I mean…”
But Koki couldn’t finish what he was trying to say because his stomach decided he’d said enough and he was throwing up again. All Kame could do for him was murmur encouraging words while his friend sobbed into the toilet.
It was okay, though, because Kame already knew what Koki was trying to say. The group that first Koki and now Tatsuya had been pimped to, the one that drugged them and tied them down, probably had him again. But this time, they probably paid more and it won’t matter to the pimp if they kill him… because he’ll be dead by Friday either way. Drugged, gang raped, murdered, and left in a gutter…
The cops won’t do a damn thing to help, either. It’s like they thought, just because you sell your body, you can’t be raped. Well, you can. Everyone has the right to say no, even prostitutes. If the cops weren’t so busy arresting them for just trying to earn money to eat, maybe they would do a better job protecting them!
God, this world was so fucked up… Did anyone survive it undamaged? Somehow, Kame thought not.
A little girl’s voice from the bathroom door, the same girl Koki had in his lap when he was reading to the kids a bit ago. “Is Koki-niisan sick?”
Before the surprised Kame could come up with an answer, Koki wiped his mouth again with the back of his hand and, still sniffling a bit from the crying, said, “A little bit, princess. Sometimes when you’re sick, your body just needs to get rid of it.”
“I’ll take care of you!” she walked over, kneeling down. “I can tell stories.”
Kame smiled. “You’ll take good care of him for me?”
“Yes, sir!”
Patting her on the head, Kame smiled softly and said, “Thank you. I’ll leave him in your hands, sweetie.” Listening to stories from the little girl would probably help Koki more than anything Kame could do for him.
With one last nod to his friend, he stood and walked out of the room, fighting back tears. Every kid at the church had grown up on the streets. Sometimes, Kame thought what he did, what Kizuna did, would never be enough, that it was a completely futile mission. But the smile on that little girl’s face, even after so many years of being cast aside by the rest of society… maybe it really was worth it. Maybe they really did help, after all.
But he was suddenly pulled from his thoughts by Yuya and Massu. “How’d it go at Junno’s?”
“Eh, about that…” Yuya started.
Massu interrupted, “Oh, for the love of… just tell him. Look, someone ransacked Junno’s. The whole place is turned upside down. And now Junno’s got to clean up and do inventory and he says it’ll be about three days before he can take a proper look at the jewelry. He glanced at it and took a best guess on worth, went ahead and fronted us $100 for it and he gave us a voucher for the jewelry and told us to come back in three days for proper payment of the full amount.”
“Damn it!” Kame swore. This day was just getting better and better. “You went by the grocers?”
“Yeah. Spent the three hundred but not the $100 from Junno. Figured you’d want a little left over for ammo,” Yuya nodded. “Dropped the food off in the kitchen, set the little hellions to work putting it away.”
“You really shouldn’t call the kids that, Yuya…” but Kame chuckled. It was a name that wasn’t all that far off the mark.
“Hai, hai…” Both Yuya and Massu said mock-contritely. But then the expression on both of their faces change. “Ah, almost forgot. That reporter is hanging around out front again.”
Yeah, this day was definitely getting better and better. “I’ll take care of it. Thanks, guys.”
“No problem. Here…” and Massu handed the voucher and the remaining hundred dollars to Kame before both he and Yuya headed off.
Altering his course yet again, Kame walked through the chapel and out the front door. “Why are you here, Yamashita-san?”
“The usual. I know what’s going on. I know this is gang territory,” the man said, his eyes sparkling in that sort of mania all dedicated reporters seemed to have. “You might as well give me an interview. I could write a very flattering article…”
“I told you before, this is just a soup kitchen. There’s no gang here. These are not the droids you’re looking for,” Kame sighed. The reporter, a man by the name of Yamashita Tomohisa, came by about once a week sniffing for information. Kame had no idea why the man was so very concerned about Kizuna and their activities, but it was the sort of attention the gang really didn’t need.
“Cute. And I’m sure if I was looking for droids, I’d trust you implicitly. But this isn’t Star Wars. You know I’ll get the truth, one way or another. Wouldn’t it be better coming from you? And didn’t I tell you to call me Yamapi?”
Shaking his head, “Calling you Yamapi would be like inviting you to stay. Not gonna happen. Don’t make me call the cops.”
“You always threaten to call ‘em and you never do. I think you’re bluffing,” Yamapi said.
“Look, I really don’t have time for this. We have a lot of people to feed so we have to get started on dinner. If you’re donating food or money, then do so. Otherwise… GO AWAY.”
Sighing himself now, Yamapi said, “Alright, but you know I’ll be back. One of these days, you will talk to me.”
God, that guy really was an idiot. He was so sure the church was a gang cover and yet he made a nuisance of himself. Didn’t he know, gangs don’t like snoops? Why wasn’t he afraid? Oh, not that Kizuna would kill him. Not unless they absolutely had to and being annoying just wasn’t a good enough reason. But at least he did leave. Muttering to himself, Kame said, “Same time tomorrow?” which was most likely true.
Three days to wait on returns for the jewelry… well, they wouldn’t starve today. Tomorrow was a new day. Maybe if they promise him a cut, Ryo could help Junno sort out his mess. But it would be a large cut; Ryo didn’t help anyone for less than $200 and that was almost a quarter of what the voucher estimated the worth to be.
Hell, maybe Kizuna could help. A few hours’ work cleaning and ask a few questions around the neighborhood?
You know what? Worry about it tomorrow. He hadn’t lied; they needed to get started on dinner. And he still hadn’t decided what to do with the man locked in the office - his bedroom! - and he’d probably have to come up with someplace better to put him so the man couldn’t strangle him in his sleep.
Actually, maybe he could put Jin to work, have him help out with supper. He had to do something to earn his food.
Okay, okay, no… they wouldn’t let him starve. Kame just couldn’t do that, no matter how much of an ass and an idiot the guy was. But Jin didn’t know that. If he sort of implied that he had to work to eat, that wasn’t exactly the same as lying, right?
Though lying would definitely be the least of his sins…
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 08 ~Recovering~
A/N: Well, Ryo briefly mentioned. You'll find out more about him later. And you met Pi. And, no, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
The little girl made me cry :( I'm big enough to admit it. It just seemed, I dunno, wonderful and tragic and touching. Testament to the human spirit. I don't know, maybe you guys will find that silly. But whatever.
Next chapter, back to the boy!
Oh, look, LJ is being a whiny little bitch again. Wonder how many times it'll take to get it posted THIS time.
Looks like 5! Better than yesterday, at least!