Sequence of Upsets: A Heisei Kumi Fanfic (2/23)
Author: ryosukekoibito
Pairing: Keito/Shoon (Shoto?), with some side Ariyama and Chiitaro
Rating: R, for violence and dark themes
Genre: Slice of life/Angst
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Summary: Keito has been in the Heisei Kumi for nearly 2 years now. He has a wonderful boyfriend, and he's become a strong fighter and an important member of the Kumi. Life has been good, but life as a Yakuza can never stay peaceful for long. This is a direct sequel to my first Heisei Kumi fic My New Family. This fic may be confusing if you haven't read that one, which you can find here. This fic takes place 8ish months after My New Family ends, so...yeah. I hope you like it!
Previous Chapters: 1
It was three days later, and Yuto had moved to the couch for the day, laying sprawled out with his torso propped up, his lanky body barely fitting across its length, Keito sitting with his housemate playing cards to pass the time when the front door swung open, Shoon stepping across the threshold. Keito stood, discarding his cards on their coffee table to welcome his boyfriend properly, taking Shoon’s jacket and scarf-the scarf Keito had given him two Christmases ago-and hanging them up, Shoon leaning in, asking silently to be kissed. Slightly embarrassed to be kissing in front of other people, Keito felt himself blushing, but he pressed their lips together, enjoying the feeling of it for a moment before pulling away.
"Hey! Come to see the cripple?" Yuto called jokingly from his spot on the couch. When Keito turned he saw Yuto swinging his legs over the side, standing up properly and he frowned.
"Yuto, you're not supposed to be moving." At his words Yuto shook his head, walking over to them.
"I'm fine 'ya know. That bastard's just being over protective." Shoon frowned a bit too, but his eyes narrowed, a small smirk on his face, and he said
"Well if you're fine I guess you won't be needing my surprise." He held up a large square thick brown leather book, and Yuto's eyes widened, and he looked from the book to Shoon’s face, surprised.
"You still have it? You've kept it all of this time?" Shoon smiled, his gaze falling to the book and he nodded.
"I've kept it." Yuto reached out for it, but Shoon pulled back, away from Yuto's outstretched hand, and said
"No-you're all healthy now, you don't need this. I think I'll just put it back in my closet." Yuto frowned, glaring indignantly at his former Kumi-cho, but he flopped back down on the couch, waiting patiently as Shoon took a seat next to him, the book in his lap. Curious, Keito sat down on Shoon's other side, and just as Shoon was about to begin Yabu and Hikaru burst through the door, chatting amiably. When they saw Shoon however they stopped, their eyes taking in the brown book in Shoon's hands.
"Is...is that what I think it is?" Yabu asked, almost reverently, eyes glued to the book. Shoon nodded, saying
"I was just about to open it."
"And you weren't going to tell the rest of us?! Mayo, that's just mean." Hikaru said lightly, flopping down on the couch next to Keito, swinging his tattooed arm across Keito's shoulders comfortably and shifting in close, craning his neck to look at the book. Yabu took post behind the couch, leaning over the back to see past Shoon's shoulder, but after a moment he stood back up, yelling
"Shoon brought his photo album!" There was a moment of silence, and then the thundering of footsteps down the stairs. Daiki, Yamada, Inoo, and Takaki came crashing down in a flurry of movement.
"No way!" Takaki exclaimed, but they all took seats in a big mass around Shoon. After another moment Ryutaro emerged from Chinen's office, the littler boy slipping out after him, and to Keito's amazement what had started out as a small gathering had turned into everyone in the house sitting or standing around Shoon, all because of this book. Once they were all situated, Yuto announced
"You can start now. Open it!" Shoon looked around at all of the eager faces, and he smiled.
"Just like old times." His voice was quiet, Keito only catching it because he was seated right next to Shoon, squished up close due to the way everyone was trying to fit. He raised a hand, pulling the cover open, and Keito immediately understood why this book was so special. There taped carefully onto the first page was a photograph of Hikaru and Yabu, no older than ten or eleven. They were tiny, thin, and Hikaru had Yabu curled up in his lap. In the background of the photo there was another figure, blurry and indistinguishable. Underneath the photo were the words Hikaru brings Yabu home-2000. Inoo giggled, and he whispered loud enough for everyone to hear
"Hikaru was cute when he was little!" Yabu rounded on Inoo, looking offended.
"What about me, wasn't I cute?" Inoo just giggled, and Yabu shoved at him playfully.
"What does it mean when it says you brought him home?" Keito asked, turning to Hikaru for the answer. Hikaru pointed to the picture, explaining.
"This was before the Oyabun-well then he was the Kanbu-your father offered us a place in the clan. We were homeless children that lived together. Shoon, Taiyo, and I. We usually stayed in this abandoned apartment building, and one day I'm out pick pocketing people, and I found this guy-" Hikaru jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at Yabu. His tall companion just put a friendly hand on his shoulder, smiling. "-out with the trash bins. I brought him back with me, and he's just stuck 'round." After Hikaru finished Shoon interjected.
"I had this camera, it was old and someone had lost it. Anyway, I had just found it when Hikaru brought Yabu in. I was testing it out when I took this picture." He tapped the page, and Keito nodded, eyes sweeping over the young faces. Hikaru was smiling, looking amazingly innocent, and Yabu was tiny. Both were wearing baggy clothes, loose T-shirts and jeans. He assumed that the figure in the background had to be Taiyo. All of a sudden he realized that this album could be full of pictures of the dead boy. He was curious, but nervous to know more about their fallen member. Shoon flipped the page, and everyone leaned in, Keito now with a newfound interest. There on the page were four photographs, each one a portrait. There was one of Hikaru, and one of Yabu, and Shoon too was there, looking amazingly young. Then, the fourth photo was of a boy Keito assumed must be Taiyo. He looked like any other young boy, dark hair cut in an almost bowl shape fashion, with a large mouth and twinkling eyes. He could have been anyone. It was strange looking at his portrait and knowing that when the others did it evoked some emotion while he felt nothing. He didn't feel any affection, or sense of great loss when looking at the boy's face. Some part of him had expected to. Not liking the empty feeling it gave him, he turned his head. On the opposite page was a picture of them all together, sitting in an area that looked like a gym or a studio. Shoon pointed to it, saying
"Keito, your father took this one. It was just after I had agreed to become part of the clan. I think he has a copy of it somewhere." They all looked scruffy and scrawny, but they had smiles on their faces, and they looked clean.
"That day he gave us all new shoes, remember?" Yabu said, leaning over the back of the couch. Hikaru nodded, and then Shoon flipped the page. This next set of pictures was seemingly unrelated. On the left was a picture of Hikaru and another boy, this time Keito recognized him as Taiyo, arm wrestling in the grass. They were both giving it their all, their young faces screwed up with the effort. On the other page was a portrait of an adorable little boy, and as soon as it was revealed a series of coos were heard from his housemates. Keito himself fighting hard not to comment. Yuto was just too cute, with large brown eyes and babyish round cheeks, and an air of innocence that was associated with youth.
"There's a big gap between these two." Hikaru said, "I remember this one," he pointed to the picture of himself arm wrestling Taiyo "it was taken the day after we'd moved here," he gestured around, indicating the place they were currently living in. "and you took us to the park to celebrate. But Yuto didn't come until like two years later, right?" Shoon nodded, and he turned to Yabu, as if waiting for him to explain the time gap.
"I broke the camera, remember? We were unpacking, and it fell down the stairs. We got Shoon a new one for his birthday a few years later."
"Can we please just talk about how cute Yuto is?" Yamada interjected, and Yuto giggled, a small blush spreading across his cheeks.
"That was the day I came to live here, right?" Yuto said, leaning forward to look at the photo. Shoon nodded.
"You were little, and you just showed up on our doorstep, begging to be allowed to stay, so we let you in for dinner."
"I wasn't begging!" Yuto said, sending a glare Shoon's way. "I had to beat up a bunch of your guys just to get an address out of them." Ryutaro rolled his eyes.
"Beat up a bunch of guys? You were puny."
"No, he did though. I remember. How'd you explain it to us? Karate or something." Yabu's brow was furrowed in thought, trying to remember. Yuto nodded.
"My parents had me take karate lessons before..." That's right. Yuto still had a family out there, a mom and dad somewhere that never found out what had happened to him. It was so easy to think that none of the others had any previous life before they came to the Kumi. It was strange to consider that some of them had another home they could go to, with blood relatives to stay with. While Keito had his father, he'd grown up with the possibility of becoming a yakuza ever present, while the rest of them it seemed felt that there wasn't much of a choice.
There were a few more pictures of little Yuto interacting with the older housemates, and then Shoon turned a page, and Inoo yelled
"Dai-chan!!" The photograph was Daiki, looking tiny, sitting at the kitchen table. He wasn't looking at the camera, and he wasn't really smiling; he had a very serious expression on his face. He was bundled up in layers of winter clothes, but they seemed to be a bit too big. Behind him, Keito saw Yamada wrap his arms affectionately around Daiki's chest from behind, under Daiki's own arms, resting his head on Daiki's shoulder.
"You're so cute." Yamada said quietly, not really talking for everyone to hear but not bothering to whisper.
"That was my birthday! I remember; the rest of us had made friends with Inoo, and we invited him over to celebrate, right Inoo?" Yabu turned to Inoo, and his younger housemate nodded, remembering.
"I brought Daiki along, and then Shoon offered to let us stay after I voiced my concern that Daiki was gonna die. The little bastard was too small to be out in the streets in January with no winter clothes."
"I was fucking fine." Daiki growled, but Inoo rolled his eyes.
"You had one ratty T-shirt. Shoon made me get you warmer clothes as soon as you walked through the door." Hikaru protested. "That outfit in the picture was mine." The next few pictures were of Yabu's birthday celebrations, Inoo looking just as scrawny as Yabu, their dark hair overgrown slightly, falling around their smiling faces. Taiyo was taller than all of the others, but he looked like he was the same age as the rest of them. There were more pictures of the housemates, and in them Inoo seemed to be getting along with the other boys, but Daiki didn't seem to be interacting much, standing away from the rest in almost all of the photos, unsmiling. Then, a new face came up. It was Takaki, but he had changed a lot since he was younger. The face was the same but he had dark hair, and bangs. Keito barely recognized him.
In the photo he was nursing a bleeding lip, and he was glaring, looking rather miserable.
"This one was the first day Daiki showed any affection toward his housemates." Shoon said, turning to talk directly to Daiki. "I was worried that you didn't care for them at all, but then this little bastard-" He glanced over at Takaki, who to Keito's surprise looked a bit embarrassed. "-crept up on us and stabbed Taiyo of all people, and Daiki immediately socked him right in the face, as hard as he could. We were all shocked."
"Oh, just turn the page already." Takaki grumbled, and to Keito's surprise the next picture was of Takaki smiling like an idiot, surrounded by the other boys, and in the pictures that followed he seemed to have fit in almost immediately, despite his hostile welcome. They all seemed rather happy and healthy, until one photograph came up labeled Christmas-2005. The boys were all looking ragged, beat up and worn out, some with black eyes and split lips, Hikaru and Shoon both sporting bandages. They were all sitting in the front room, the room they were in right then, around a Christmas tree, presents littering the ground. In one corner of the couch a little figure was curled up in a ball, wearing clothes that hung off of its tiny frame. The boy was almost skeletal, and it took Keito a minute to realize who it was. When he did, he gasped.
"Yamada!" Yamada looked down at the younger version of himself, face hard and stony. "What happened?" Keito asked, shocked by the state all of them were in in the picture.
"We had raided the Wakaba that Christmas Eve, and we got beaten pretty badly. That was when I brought Yamada home." Shoon explained. Keito nodded, reexamining the photo. Yamada's sullen, sunken face, so amazingly thin sent a shiver down his spine, and he had to fight back a cringe as he remembered what Yamada had gone through before he'd come to their Kumi. Within every photo Yamada was in throughout the rest of the album you could see his progression to better health, his weight gain, muscle building up on his bones; and in nearly all of them Yuto was by his side. It was easy to see how Yamada could fall for him.
When the first picture of Chinen came up Keito was amazed. The little boy in the photo was minuscule. Of course, he was still short, but even so he was ridiculously small. Even more surprising perhaps was the expression on his face. He was smiling, his smile wide, exuberant in his obvious happiness. It was amazing. Keito had never seen Chinen look that happy in the time he'd known him. Not once had he ever seen him smile like that. It looked so easy in the photograph. There were only two pictures before another new face was staring at them from the book's pages. Ryutaro was very small, and he wasn't smiling, just staring at the camera. Then abruptly the pictures ended, the pages going blank.
"That's it?" Inoo asked, leaning over the couch arm to flip a few pages back and forth for some more pictures. After a few he did find one, wedged in the back, loose. It was a picture of all of them except Shoon standing posed in the entryway to the kitchen next to the stairs, like a family portrait. The young ones were in the front, Yamada, Yuto, Chinen and Ryutaro standing there with serious expressions on their faces. Behind them the older boys had arms slung across each other’s shoulders, still looking young. Taiyo, the tallest, was in the center flanked on either side by Yabu and Hikaru, and when everyone caught sight of it they all stilled. It went deadly silent, a weight in the air that put Keito on edge. Even Shoon had frozen, eyes glued to the photograph. Keito leaned forward, picking it up tentatively, searching the picture for indications to his housemate’s reactions. Sure, it had Taiyo in it, but plenty of the other pictures had him in it, and they didn't act this way. He flipped it over, checking the back. Scrawled in pen across the image was a date. October 21, 2006 Keito found himself freezing up in shock as a sickening realization washed over him. October twenty-first… He flipped the picture back over, staring into Taiyo's face as nausea churned his stomach. That picture was taken the last day Taiyo was alive. Hours later he had died.
"We should put some more pictures in this thing. We could fill it up." Yuto's words broke the silence, and Keito put the photograph back inside of the album as Shoon gently shut the large book. There were a few nods of agreement, and they all gradually scattered, Takaki starting on dinner. Yuto stood, joining Takaki in the kitchen, sitting at the dining room table and chattering on to him, leaving Keito and Shoon alone on the couch. Shoon set the album on the coffee table, turning his full attention to Keito, slipping his hand into Keito's own and leaning forward to brush a loose hair off of his forehead.
"So, I was hoping you'd come by this Thursday." Shoon said, his thumb running softly over the top of Keito's own.
"Oh?" Keito said, tilting his head to the side a bit, playing coy.
"Yeah, I was thinking we could have a nice dinner, maybe you could...stay over?" Shoon kept his eyes on Keito's face, a small smile on his lips, and Keito felt a flutter of anticipation in his stomach. Shoon just sat there waiting, his big eyes sure and steady.
"What's the occasion? We don't usually get together on Thursdays." Shoon blinked in surprise at the question before a grin of delight broke out over his face, and he let out a little giggle of happiness.
"Keito...it's White Day! Thursday's White Day!" Oh. Shoon pressed a kiss to his cheek, and said
"I'll be expecting you. Seven thirty, don't be late." He stood, releasing Keito's hand with a small squeeze and scooping up the photo album, tucking it under his arm. Keito stared at him in confusion. Why was he leaving?
"I have to go and meet with a client; one of those dinner business meetings. I gotta go." He slipped on his jacket as Keito stood, and after a quick glance to make sure no one was near, Keito cupped his boyfriend's face, curling one big palm around the base of his skull, and he tilted his head forward, giving Shoon a gentle kiss. Shoon pulled him in, hands hard on Keito's hips, deepening the kiss. Suddenly there was a wolf-whistle and Keito jerked back, mortified. His head whipped around, a blush burning his cheeks. Hikaru smirked, leaping over the back of the couch and sprawling out on the cushions and giving Keito a pointed look. Shoon just wrapped an arm around Keito's waist, giving him a quick hug and whispering
"You don't have to be embarrassed, it’s okay." before slipping out the door. There was a moment where they just stood there looking at each other, but then Hikaru pulled out a pack of cards, and soon they had a friendly game of war going.
"So, d'you think they've done it yet?" Hikaru asked, scooping up Keito's eight of clubs.
"Who?"
"Daiki and Yamada." He smacked down a ten of hearts, beating Keito's seven of spades, but Keito barely noticed as he thought about the question. Daiki and Yamada were going on five years together, and their relationship had been pretty steady, apart from that thing with Yuto that had happened over a year ago. Then again, when Hikaru had asked the previous June, Daiki had brushed off the question at once. He thought about just a few days before when Daiki had casually slipped his hand into Yamada's back pocket, and he tried to figure it out. Honestly, he didn't know. Probably. Then again, maybe not. That all depended on...Yamada.
"If they are, I'll bet Daiki tops." Hikaru said, slamming down a three of clubs and whining a little when Keito beat him with a jack. Keito tried to force the mental image of Yamada and Daiki rolling around on their bed together out of his mind, but he nodded. Daiki would definitely top.
"Okay, let's talk about something that doesn't make you blush." Hikaru said, and Keito saw an opportunity.
"Hikaru, how old were you when you started hanging out with Shoon?" Hikaru paused for a moment before smacking down his card.
"Seven." Keito was floored.
"Seven?!" Hikaru nodded, straightening up his stack of cards waiting to be played.
"Yeah, I was on the streets for about a week before he found me. I ran away. My parents weren't the greatest, and my brothers-I had two older brothers-they didn't want any reminders of the home they had left."
"Had? Did they...?" ...die? The unspoken word was registered, and Hikaru shook his head.
"My brothers? No. I doubt it. My parents? I don't know. A heroin addiction isn't really the best way to keep yourself alive. I hadn't thought about it, honestly." Oh. Hikaru's gaze turned from the cards on the table to Keito's face, judging how he was handling the news.
"Keito...it's okay. I mean...it's not. But it was a long time ago." He rolled his shoulders, flipping down another card, and barely glancing at it before scooping Keito's up.
"Dinner!" Takaki called from the kitchen, and Hikaru stood immediately.
"C'mon you fool. Food." He said, and Keito stood, following his housemate to the table. Hikaru shook his head a bit to himself, flopping down in his seat at the head of the table opposite to Chinen. Keito took the seat next to him, and the conversation was closed.
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