[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 27 ~The Reporter's Report~
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: Okay, this chapter is insanely short and I'm sorry. I'm just tired. But my computer room is like 90% clean now, so, yay! Seriously, though, the info in this chapter is important but it's a bunch of little stuff leading to "the event" which is, of course, the rescue. So the present chapters, they probably won't be overly long for a few more and then there will be an epic one or two LOL.
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 27 ~The Reporter's Report~
Waiting for the reporter to return was, simply put, maddening. Jin had taken to pacing around the office while he waited. True, there were plenty of bigger rooms to pace in, but the office was the one place he knew the reporter would come to first. He wanted to be there, to talk to him personally. To ask about Tatsuya… if he’s…
It seemed that Kame could only stand so much of it, though. “God, you’re driving me nuts with all that pacing! Just… I don’t know, sit or something!”
Jin started to glare at him but the image of Kame’s scarred chest flashed through his mind - not for the first time in the past two hours, either! - and he found he didn’t have the heart to glare at him. And Kame seemed to have figured out finally that Jin’s reactions were being tempered by what went down between them last night, because he finally sighed and said, “Close the door, Jin. I guess… we should talk.”
So Jin closed the door and leaned against it, arms crossed over his chest. To tell the truth, he wanted to talk about last night but at the same time… he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. He cared too much to leave it be and he didn’t like that one bit.
“Ask your questions. I can’t promise I’ll answer but I suppose this conversation is just unavoidable,” Kame finally said after the two of them stared at each other wordlessly for a few minutes.
“Okay, I have a question: What in the hell happened to you?” Jin hadn’t meant to sound quite so… well, confrontational, but it was too late to change the tone of his question.
Kame’s eyes went sort of misty and he was no longer looking at Jin, or at least he wasn’t looking Jin face-to-face. “What does it look like happened?” His voice was flat, emotionless.
“It looks… like…” but Jin couldn’t say it. Finally, he settled for, “Someone hurt you.”
“Yes… t-three days. For three days. My father…” Kame started.
Jin interrupted, “Your father did that?!”
Kame blinked. “Oh… um, no, not directly, no… There was a customer but he was different than the other guys that paid him to take me. My father let that man… hurt me. I ran away when he told me the guy was coming back again. I couldn’t,” and he sighed. “Another three days like that… I think it would have killed me.”
“And Kizuna doesn’t know? None of them?”
“They know so much about me, about my past. But they don’t know this. I… don’t like to… talk about it… I just pretend it didn’t happen. I have to. I need that comfort.” And now Kame risked looking Jin in the eyes. “Which is why I hope you understand that after this, we won’t talk about it again. Ever. Okay?”
“Okay, Kame. I won’t bring it up again.” Though Kame had been the one to bring it up this time, anyway. But there wasn’t any real need to point that out to him.
“Any other questions?” Kame asked.
Yes. A literal fuck-ton of them. But he was afraid to ask them. He didn’t want to remind Kame of any other painful things, even though he desperately wanted to talk about the ill-advised kiss. “No. No, I’m good.”
But they were spared the obligatory awkward silence by a knock on the office door.
It was that reporter!
Before the man was all the way in the room, Jin was already burying him in questions. “Did you get in? Was he okay? Did you give him our message? How is he? Is he… has he been hurt? How bad is he? Is..”
From Kame, “Jin, go see if they need any help in the kitchen.”
“But…”
“Now.”
“I’m not some member of Kizuna you can just push a…” but Jin stopped mid-sentence at Kame’s suddenly dismayed and surprised face and the soft-yet-triumphant gasp from the reporter. Jin had no idea what he’d just done but apparently it was bad, because Kame’s surprised expression was quickly replaced by a glare.
“Uh… right. I… um… think I left the oven on…” And he retreated from the room as fast as his legs could carry him, closing the door behind him.
+++
“So, Kizuna, is it?” Yamashita asked.
No use in denying it now. “Yes. Kizuna.”
“Oh, don’t look like that that! I’d have gotten it out of you anyway.” The reporter smiled.
“Look like what?” Kame asked indignantly.
“Well, like you just tried to swallow a rotten egg. So, what is that man, Jin, to you if he’s not a member of your gang?”
Kame shook his head. “First information. Then interview. It’s what we agreed to do.”
“Now, Kame-chan…”
“Don’t call me that.”
“…life is just one big interview anyway, isn’t it?”
Kame didn’t answer him.
“Okay, fine. Oh, by the way, you owe me two hundred dollars. I had to pay that up front just to get into the damn place. Nice house, though. Must have cost a fortune to set that place up…” Yamashita looked thoughtful. “Anyway, I took the liberty of sketching out a rough map while I was talking to that young man… er, Ueda Tatsuya.”
Yamashita slid the page across the desk to Kame before continuing, “There are two guards there, staying in those rooms there on the first floor. There’s also a desk right there in the living room where they do the business transactions. As for the upstairs, there are five bedrooms, each with its own adjoining bathroom. Those doors are locked at all times; you have to be let in, so I’m partly guessing but Ueda-san said that’s what he’d seen when they first brought him there.”
Kame took the map, folding it up and slipping it into his pocket. “Is he… okay?”
“Oh, he’s beat all to hell and back… well, except the face. Perfect, flawless face. Quite nice, actually…”
That got Kame’s attention. “Tell me you didn’t…” Had Yamashita actually slept with Tatsuya?
“Oh, no, of course not…” Yamashita said rather quickly, nearly stumbling over his words. “I would never…”
Frowning, Kame asked, “Okay, did you at least tell him we’re coming for him?”
“That I did. I would have thought it’d cheer him up but he barely seemed to register it. I’m not even sure he believed me.”
“The map… everything you know is marked on it? Every person, every room?”
Yamashita nodded.
“Fine, you get your interview. Make it quick, though, because we need to get things going, prep for dinner and prep for, well, this.”
For another hour, the reporter (who finally succeeded in getting Kame to call him Yamapi, if only to hurry him along) asked way too many questions about information their deal specifically forbid, which led to an argument on the terms of the deal once more, but by the end of the hour they’d sorted it all out.
Kame even agreed to let Yamapi take some pictures for the paper, as long as you couldn’t really get a good look at the building and absolutely nothing from the inside. He figured a picture or two of gang members handing out food wouldn’t really hurt anyone.
Kame did absolutely insist that he not be in any of the pictures, which Yamapi was really unhappy about, but he finally gave in on that point. Then Kame gave him the two hundred dollars to cover his expenses and, for lack of a more polite way of putting it, kicked him out.
++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 28 ~Everything Changes~
A/N: Well, Yamapi's mission apparently worked, so here's hoping he keeps his word about the article. Because, really, what can they do to him if he prints what Kame forbid anyway? Not a damn thing.
Anyways, to make up for this tragically short chapter, the next chapter, with past!Kame, is over 4300 words AND is finished. But I'll post it tomorrow afternoon-ish, once I look over it again and make sure I'm satisfied with where the cut-off is at the end of the chapter. It's... well, it's a very, very important chapter in Kame's life. Everything changes.