Sequence of Upsets: A Heisei Kumi Fanfic (15/23)
Author: ryosukekoibito
Pairing: Keito/Shoon (Shoto?), with some side Ariyama and Chiitaro
Rating: R, for violence and dark themes
Warnings: Character Death
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 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
"Shoon...his cancer is back?" Yabu sounded completely stunned, his words void of emotion, as if he didn't actually believe them. When Hikaru responded he sounded utterly defeated.
"Yeah. He found out a few months ago, at the beginning of March."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"And he told you?" Yabu was sounding upset now, but for a completely different reason than before.
"No...I figured it out that evening when he said he was quitting his job. He quit because he'd started having seizures again, not because of any of the other shit he told everyone else." Keito felt sick as his thoughts raced back to that night, the way Hikaru had hugged him, refusing to let go and refusing to say why. Hikaru had known, all this time...
"Seizures?"
"Yeah...I guess having a tumor in your brain can cause them. He said he had seizures last time too. He's on seizure medication and some other shit for his migraines, but he said its terminal this time...There's nothing the doctors can do to fix him."
"So now what, he's just going to fucking die?!" Keito could hear the tears he knew were running down Yabu's cheeks in his the tone of his voice. Hikaru didn't respond, but his silence spoke for him. The silence lasted a long while. Keito was still frozen outside the door, his throat prickling unpleasantly, his stomach churning; his whole body wracked with an intense panicked dread, and it was in that silence that he realized he was crying, hot tears streaming down his cheeks silently. No...no...it couldn't be true. It couldn't be true....anything but....but that...
Suddenly, Yabu said
"No one else knows?"
"No."
"Not even Chinen? He didn't tell him?"
"No." There was another, smaller pause.
"Oh god-not even Keito?!" Keito felt a jolt of unreasonable fear run down his spine when his name was mentioned.
"No."
"Oh shit-that's....fuck. Poor Keito..."
It was at that point that Keito stopped listening, as his own voice-his own sobs-grew loud enough to drown out the voices coming muffled through the door. He hadn't realized he was no longer being quiet until he opened his eyes-when had he shut them?!-the empty living room reminding him where he was. One coherent thought occurred to him; don't let them know you heard. He uprooted himself from his place by the door and as quickly and quietly as he could, despite his shuddering breaths and his tears still running relentlessly down his face he made his way up the stairs to the closet he always hid in.
It was the place he went the first time he saw Hikaru kill a man, a place he felt he would be left alone, unnoticed. He shut himself in the darkness, and it was there amongst the extra towels and a vacuum and a mop that he allowed himself to cry; grief and fear and dread washing over him relentlessly, Hikaru's words imprinted in his memory, ringing in his ears. He cried for what felt like years, but at some point there in the dark he finally managed to fall asleep.
When he woke the next morning, he felt terrible. He had a headache, and his eyes were puffy and bloodshot from all of the crying. He had knots and stiff muscles from sleeping in an unnatural position, and his mouth was dry. He still had a deep, immense sense of complete and utter dread immersing his intestines, and he was shaking a little, depression settling over him like a layer of dust on a forgotten object. Despite all of this he found that he was more composed. He'd done all of his crying-at least for the time being.
His first order of business was to take a shower. The warm water relaxed his muscles, and as he washed he realized something that hasn't occurred to him before. He was going to have to see Shoon again. Soon. Possibly today. If not today, then at the very latest next week on their anniversary. What was he going to do? Was he going to say something? Shoon didn't want him to know, but now that he did know was there any point in keeping it a secret? At the same time, if Shoon really was-Keito couldn't bring himself to even mentally acknowledge the word, the concept of dying-then shouldn't the rest of their time together be spent in a happy way, instead of worrying over things like tumors and seizures? He wasn't sure which would be worse; pretending to be oblivious, or having to talk about it.
He threw on sweatpants and went downstairs, scarfing down some breakfast before grabbing Takaki for some sparring out in the alley. Recently they had been a pretty even match-the two of them the same height-and Keito had even beaten Takaki a few times, much to the older man's chagrin. Today however, Keito was failing miserably. Takaki told him so after managing to pin him down three times in an hour.
"You fucking suck today, Keito." The handsome brunette announced, offering Keito a hand and yanking him to his feet. "It's like you're not really trying. Are you getting sick or something?" Oh, the irony.
"Sorry." Keito was sweaty, and he had scrapes on his shoulder blades where he'd hit the asphalt. Takaki shrugged. Then from behind him a voice called out
"Keito! Takaki!" Takaki broke out into a grin, waving, and Keito turned to see Shoon strolling over to them, a smile on his face. He froze, watching as Shoon got closer, and then somehow Shoon was in his arms, giving him a tight hug and placing a kiss on his lips, and he felt so healthy and strong, and everything seemed as if nothing was wrong, and that in itself seemed somehow twisted.
"You're sweaty." Shoon said as he pulled away, wrapping his arms around Takaki in for a quick hug, and it was in that moment, as Keito was watching Shoon smile and be so strong for all of them that he decided he'd do his best to follow his boyfriend's lead and act as if nothing was wrong. At least around his housemates. He wasn't sure if he should talk to Shoon about it. He didn't know if he could handle that conversation, and he wasn't sure Shoon wanted to talk about it. He knew that Shoon would have the conversation if he brought it up, but...Keito felt himself getting worked up, and he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind, taking Shoon's hand and swooping in to put a kiss on the shorter man's cheek.
"Hey."
"Hey." Shoon replied, adjusting his grip on Keito's hand, and Keito gave Takaki a nod of thanks for his sparring practice before leading Shoon back into the house, and as he turned to go up the stairs Shoon said
"You're bleeding." Oh yeah, his shoulders. "Let's clean that up. What happened?" They meandered into the kitchen, Keito straddling a chair backwards as Shoon fished around in a drawer for a washcloth.
"I was just slow." Shoon shook his head, taking the wet washcloth to his scrapes and cleaning the ground bits of rocks and dirt from the wounds. Keito bit his bottom lip, trying not to wince at the way it stung. Shoon still noticed however, and he giggled.
"Keito, man up!" He peered around Keito's shoulders to look at his face, and Keito pouted at him comically, and Shoon's smile only grew bigger, and he pressed his lips to Keito's, and Keito pulled him in, responding more enthusiastically than Shoon had been anticipating. He wanted to feel as much of him as possible, to not waste any moment, but at the same time he felt detached from what was happening, detached from the careless, flirty, happy exterior he presented for Shoon all day, and the conflicting states left him exhausted at the end of the day, and he felt completely drained by the time his head hit his pillow.
This continued for nearly a week before Keito caved in. It was the perfect opportunity, honestly. He was over at Shoon’s; they had been celebrating their anniversary with a romantic candlelit dinner. It was just the two of them and Keito was going through the cabinets and drawers in Shoon's little kitchen looking for the hand towels to pick up the pieces of a glass Shoon had accidentally dropped when he found them-Shoon's pill bottles. He had a drawer with a grouping of the little plastic tubes thrown haphazardly inside. They both froze when Keito opened the drawer, staring at its contents for a moment, and Keito felt himself beginning to panic a bit. This was it. Oh god.
Shoon had gone white, and he looked up at Keito with wide, panicking eyes. Keito wasn't sure what his face was doing, his emotions running high, and Shoon said
"Keito, I-" Faced with the reality of Shoon's situation, staring back at him from the bottom of the drawer Keito felt his self control crumbling, and he covered the distance between them, scooping Shoon up in a hug, physically picking him up as hot tears working their way out of eyelids squeezed tight, and he cut the older man off.
"I know." He took a deep, shaky breath. "I know about the...the cancer." Shoon pulled away just enough to look at him properly.
"You know?! How?" He sounded shocked, but his voice was soft, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears.
"I heard Hikaru talking to Yabu about it. They didn't know I was listening." He fell silent, rubbing small circles on Shoon's biceps with his thumbs, and Shoon rested his head on Keito's chest, wrapping his arms around Keito's waist.
"How long have you known?"
"Not very long. Only about a week."
"Oh." Shoon fell silent. They stayed like that for a minute, Keito just holding Shoon close, feeling his chest expand and contract with every breath as he tried to hold the wave of despair at bay. "Keito, I'm sorry." Shoon said quietly. "You shouldn't have found out that way." Keito just shrugged. What was he supposed to say to that? "Here, let's sit and...and talk about it, okay?" Shoon offered, leading Keito by the hand to the couch, where they sat side by side, and Shoon asked "Keito, what did Hikaru say, when you found out?" Keito's mind raced, going over the conversation; the words etched into his memory, trying to organize it into a more coherent phrase of explanation.
"He said that you found out about the cancer in March. He said that you quit work because you're having-" he felt the next word stick in his throat for a moment. "-seizures. He said you're taking medicine for them, and for the migraines, and he said..." He felt a hot tear roll down his cheek, his voice getting shakier as he continued. "...he said you were dying this time. He said you're not going to get better." He looked over at Shoon, who sighed, nodding.
"That sounds accurate." Keito shook his head a bit at that, hating the confirmation.
"And there's nothing we can do? I mean..." He thought cancer could at least be fought, couldn't it?
"Well, not really. What I have, it's terminal. Sure, I could go through a bunch of nasty surgeries and treatments, but I wouldn't be able to do stuff the way I used to, and the doctors said that it would only extend my life for like another six months or so. It's just..." Shoon reached out, gently fixing a flyaway hair by Keito's ear, his fingers trailing along his cheek. "I'd rather have a shorter, happier life than a drawn out painful one." They sat in silence for a while, Keito crying, tears silently rolling down his cheeks. He took a deep breath before he asked
"How long...what do the doctors say?"
"Right now they're saying I have two more months, give or take." Two months. That seemed like an impossibly short amount of time. He tried to put it in perspective, to understand. He nodded.
"Okay." He looked over at Shoon. "Okay. This...it'll be alright. We'll get through this together...if that's okay with you."
"Oh Keito..." Shoon pulled himself into Keito's lap, straddling him, his knees on either side of Keito's hips, and he kissed him, cupping his face with his hands. The kiss lasted until they both were gasping for oxygen, and Keito wrapped his arms around Shoon's thighs, holding him tight and standing in one swift motion, intending to carry him to the bedroom, but instead he got to his feet, lost his balance, and together they promptly fell flat on the floor, Keito took most of the hit, landing on his back with Shoon on top of him.
"Shit! Shoon, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. Are you okay?" The words were out of his mouth as soon as they hit the floor, and he was panicking, disoriented, but Shoon pulled himself so that he was on his hands and knees over top of Keito, and he laughed, laughing until he cried. Keito looked up at Shoon from the floor, and once he realized that no one was hurt he felt a smile growing on his face.
"I love you." Keito said, and Shoon grinned a blindingly bright grin, wiping tears from his eyes, and he said
"I love you too." He pulled himself to his feet before offering Keito a hand. "To the bedroom? We were celebrating before everything got so damn depressing. Today is a special day. Anniversaries are important. Let's make this one a happy one." Keito nodded, allowing himself to be led around the corner, allowing any thoughts of the future, and the next few months to be out aside. They were celebrating, after all. Today was a special day.
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