Up in Smoke: A Heisei Kumi Fanfic (9/36)
Author: ryosukekoibito
Pairing: Hikato, Chiitaro, Ariyama
Rating: R/NC-17
Warnings: Graphic Violence, Minor Character Death, Strong Language
Genre: Slice of life/Angst
Disclaimer: I do not own anyone.
Summary: After months of peace an attack leaves the Heisei Kumi reeling, and when an old enemy returns to the area reclaiming that peace starts to feel impossible.
A/N: The next installment in my Heisei Kumi AU, this one starts in the last days of December 2016 and continues on into 2017. If you'd like to read the other stories in this AU, please check out my masterlist. All Heisei Kumi fics have 平成組 next to their titles, to mark them as part of the AU!
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8
By the time Keito and Hikaru finally got out of bed it was nearly midday, the two of them taking a quick shower together before Yabu stole Hikaru away for a very long meeting in Hikaru’s office. Keito found himself hanging out with the Ariokas, eventually being talked into a two on one sparring match that found him out in the alley with the both of them attacking him-Daiki with his fists and Yamada with the sheathe of his sword. It was a little overwhelming, and while the two of them were holding back, Keito did end up getting a little bruised and battered. He was rescued when Ryutaro and Chinen came out to join in the fun, offering a two on two sparring session, and Keito was more than happy to step aside and let the couples go at it.
He went back in, grabbed his second meal of the day, and sprawled himself across one of the couches, his body sore from the practice in the alley. He had been watching Takaki and Inoo play cards when the door to Hikaru’s office finally opened, and their leader and his right hand man came back out, Hikaru meeting Keito’s eyes almost immediately. He walked around the couch, placing a hand on Keito’s shoulder, Keito tilting his head to look back at his boyfriend.
“You ready to go?” Hikaru asked, and Keito felt his breath catch in his throat, anxiety ballooning in his chest, but he nodded, getting to his feet and following Hikaru out the door past the housemates still sparring in the alley. Once they were around the corner Hikaru said “We’re going to talk about getting everyone comfortable with guns tonight during dinner; I just figured since you already knew we could get you started today. The sooner the better.” Keito nodded, and after glancing around to make sure they were alone he reached out, grabbing Hikaru’s hand and twining their fingers together. Hikaru didn’t object, a small smile tugging at the Kumi-cho’s lips, and Keito felt some of his anxiety wane.
“Where are we going?” He asked, looking around. He knew the territory east of the river pretty damn well, and they seemed to be headed back into the abandoned buildings, toward the ocean.
“The dock.” Hikaru confirmed. “There’s an old warehouse by there that we’ve been using as a beginner’s shooting range for years. Shoon taught me there, and I taught Yabu and Yuto there too. The kumi acquired it officially a few years ago, so we pay bills to keep the place functional to our needs. It’s good. You’ll see.” Keito nodded, trying to take in all of the new information Hikaru had just dropped on him. He’d thought he didn’t have much if anything left to learn about his kumi. He’d been in the group for going on seven years, and he hadn’t had a surprise like the one he’d just gotten in a long time.
He’d noticed over the years that his housemates liked to think of him-in Inoo’s words-as a sweetheart. And a lot of them seemed to work to protect that image they had of him. It was mostly little things, things like telling him they prefered when he didn’t use crude language, despite the rest of them having absolutely filthy speech, that would remind him that in their minds, he was more wholesome than they were. And so he could imagine that some of them, especially Hikaru and Yuto, would try to keep the kumi’s shooting practice a secret to preserve some of his perceived innocence. Perhaps they were right, at the beginning he had been naive, and blind to many of the horrors his companions had experienced in their lives. But he wasn’t eighteen anymore, and he found this blindsiding to be a little frustrating.
Not frustrating enough to dwell on for more than a few minutes however, when his attention was drawn back to the task looming ahead of him when he tripped and stumbled into Hikaru, his side pressing into Hikaru’s own, the harsh outline of a gun hitting his ribs unyielding. It immediately sobered him up, and his grip on Hikaru’s hand tightened as he regained his balance, Hikaru not commenting, just rubbing his thumb up and down the joint of Keito’s in slow, comforting movements as they walked. They had just gotten into the thicket of abandoned buildings when Hikaru took Keito left, steering him through narrow streets and away from the familiar paths before pointing to one place up ahead, rather separate from the others, and said
“That’s it.” It was pretty unassuming, all concrete and steel, dirty windows and an obvious shoddiness on the outside that made Keito wonder just how long the place had been abandoned before his group had stumbled upon it. Hikaru took him up to the front door, fiddling with the lock for a moment before pulling it open, and the door swung wide, squeaking loud in the silence. Keito ducked inside, taking a look around. He’d expected it to be warm, expected the building to provide a relief from the January cold, but all it did was cut out the wind, and he stood there just inside, shivering as he let his eyes wander. It was darker inside, the sunlight that was filtering through the windows muted from all of the grime, and Keito could barely make out anything distinct, his eyes still adjusting to the change. But then Hikaru came in, the door swinging shut behind him, and he walked along the closest wall for a moment, before his fingers came in contact with a switch, and he flicked the lights on.
The place was suddenly bathed in light, fluorescent tubes hanging down from the ceiling illuminating a long empty space, the walls all unpainted concrete, the one furthest away riddled with little divots just the size of a bullet. Keito glanced over at Hikaru, hesitant but curious, and Hikaru gestured for him to go look, before turning away to a row of shelves full of cardboard boxes and what looked to be rolls of tape, Keito’s eyes catching for a moment on a large first aid kit, the sight making his heart leap up into his throat. He walked through the space, eyes wandering, trying to take it all in. This place was a piece of their kumi’s history. This had been one of Shoon’s places, before they’d known each other. This place was where some of his closest friends had learned to kill, and now it was going to be his turn.
He ran his fingers over the divots in the wall, places that bullets had hit concrete. There were a startling amount of them, easily hundreds, mostly in clusters, some sort of target practice, and his stomach was twisting knots as he felt the jagged indentations under his fingertips.
“Keito!” Hikaru called, and Keito turned to see his boyfriend dragging a small metal cart out from one of the corners of the room, a few small boxes on it’s surface, along with what looked like cleaning supplies and the parts to what had to be multiple handguns. He moved to join him, Hikaru meeting him halfway across the room and pulling the cart to a stop. Keito looked over everything, peeking inside one of the boxes to see rows of bullets, and he took a deep breath. His nerves must have shown on his face because Hikaru pulled him a meter or so away from the cart, cupping Keito’s face with his hand and pulling him in for a long reassuring kiss.
“I’ve got a surprise for you.” Hikaru told him after their lips had parted. Keito was feeling better after that kiss, the nerves in his stomach retreating to a low buzz. “Ready?” Hikaru asked, and Keito nodded. He wasn’t going to get any more ready than he was at that moment. Hikaru turned, pointing to the handgun parts that were lain out on the top of his little metal cart, and said “There are three guns here. Two of them are my Glocks-” He pointed to the two grips and their corresponding parts on the left side of the cart. “-and that one is going to be yours.” He pointed to the one grip on the right side of the cart.
“I figured we could clean them and put them back together, and then afterwards I’ll show you your surprise.” He sounded much lighter and more optimistic than he had almost all day, and while Keito registered that it was probably an act put on for his benefit, he appreciated it, so he didn’t comment. They got to work, Hikaru explaining every little thing to Keito, from what the parts of the handguns were called to how to clean the gun, to which way the slide went on. It was slightly reassuring, just how confident Hikaru seemed, both of his own handguns all cleaned up and put back together before Keito had finished his one, Hikaru helping with his hands as well as his words to get everything done.
As soon as the gun was all put together in his hands Keito had one immediate observation.
“It’s different from yours.” Hikaru nodded, taking it from Keito’s hands and checking it over to make sure everything was as it should be, before handing it back with a satisfied nod.
“This one used to be Shoons; it was the gun your dad gave him after we joined the Kitagawa group.” He paused, and Keito blinked in surprise, looking down at the weapon in his hands, fingers running over the matte black metal, feeling the scuffs and trying to imagine Shoon with this gun in his hand. “Surprise.” Hikaru said, smiling a little, and Keito felt a small smile growing on his own face. It was silly, probably, to give something a higher value because it used to belong to someone he loved, but he did, regardless. “I thought it would be appropriate for you to have it. And not just because of the history; this gun has a safety feature that I think you’ll find comforting. Here, let me show you.”
Hikaru took Keito’s gun and laid it down on the cart’s surface next to his own handguns.
“The rest of us use Glocks. I have my two twenty-twos, Daiki has a twenty-three, and Yuto has a nineteen. Yabu usually used one of my guns when I taught him, so he’s going to be getting a twenty-two of his own too. Your gun however is a Sig Sauer two-two-six. It’s still a semi-automatic pistol, but yours was made by someone else, so it works a little differently.” He picked up one of his handguns, fingers running over it as he talked. “The Glocks don’t have any external safeties, which is one of the reasons I like them so much. There are some built in ones, like the dual trigger-” Hikaru pointed to a the trigger, Keito noticing for the first time that there were two pieces there, instead of one. “-but there’s nothing you have to remember to turn off, or something. You just load, point, and pull the trigger and the gun will go off. Simple.”
Keito nodded. He personally didn’t really like the idea of not having some sort of ‘off switch’, some action he could take to make sure that no matter what, he wasn’t going to hurt somebody. But he understood why Hikaru might like that. Hikaru seemed confident and comfortable with his guns, and having as little to remember as possible was probably good for learning, or combat. Hikaru seemed to understand his train of thought exactly, because the next words out of his mouth were
“Your gun has an extra step. You can decock it to make sure it won’t go off, no matter what, until it is cocked again.” Keito raised his eyebrows in surprise, and he found himself looking down at his gun, eyes running over it, and Hikaru set his own pistol down and picked Keito’s up. “This back here is the hammer.” He said, pointing to a little lever on the back of the barrel, and Keito nodded, watching as Hikaru’s thumb came up, pulling the hammer down until a click was heard. “I just cocked it. Now, if we had any bullets in the gun, it would be ready to fire. As we haven’t loaded it yet, it’s still harmless, and even if we were to pull the trigger, it wouldn’t do anything.” To showcase his point Hikaru turned to the wall, finger pulling the trigger, the gun making a clicking sound as the slide moved harmlessly. He smiled, lowering the gun and pointing to a little tab on the side.
“This here is how you decock your gun. All you have to do is slide this down and back up-” He did, with his thumb, showing Keito, the hammer returning to it’s previous position. “-and now it’s decocked. Easy, yeah?” Keito nodded, and the relief he was feeling must have been visible on his face, because Hikaru had an amused little smile on his lips. He passed the gun back to Keito, and Keito practiced cocking and decocking the gun. It took more effort than Hikaru had made it look like it would, but it wasn’t actually all that difficult, and it wasn’t long before he felt like he had the hang of it. Hikaru seemed to agree, because he took Keito’s magazine off of the cart’s tabletop and passed it to him, saying
“Let’s shoot a few rounds.” Keito watched Hikaru load his own guns, and then he copied him, sliding the magazine in with slightly shaky fingers. He’d gotten swept up in the sentimentality of the present, and for a few moments he’d forgotten why they’d come; why he was being given the pistol in the first place. It was then that Hikaru reached under to the bottom shelf of the cart and pulled out two silencers, checking them over for a moment before handing one over to Keito. Again, Keito copied what Hikaru did, and then Hikaru checked his gun over, making sure everything was how it was supposed to be, before he nodded, smiling, and gestured to the wall.
“Shoot it.” Keito could feel the nerves welling up in his chest, anxiety and fear that he was going to fuck up clawing at his throat as he looked over at the wall, the gun heavy in his hand. He nodded, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth, too big to talk, and he raised the gun up to eye level, hand tight on the grip, and cocked the hammer before taking a deep breath and pulling the trigger, his eyes snapping shut as he did so. It was mostly quiet, and while Keito knew that would happen, it still surprised him. The loudest noise the sound of the bullet hitting the concrete, and after a few heartbeats Keito opened his eyes to see Hikaru standing next to him, eyebrows up in a look of disbelief, and he said, tone serious
“You can’t shoot with your eyes shut, Keito.” Keito just nodded, his heart still racing, and he quickly decocked the gun, placing it down on the cart, feeling embarrassed. He was being a wimp. Hikaru picked his own gun up, pointing it over at the wall, and said “Here, watch me.” He shot off five rounds, the bullets biting the concrete in quick succession. He looked calm, and held steady, eyes on where he wanted his bullets to go, and afterwards he glanced over at Keito, and asked, his tone serious “See?” Keito nodded, and Hikaru gestured for him to try again, Keito making sure to focus on one spot on the wall, and aim for that, before pulling the trigger.
His bullet didn’t make its mark, hitting the wall a little to the right and down, but Hikaru deemed this a major improvement of his previous attempt, and Keito tried to focus on that, instead of how he was still shaking a little. They practiced for what felt like hours, Hikaru telling him that the most important thing was that he get used to the gun first, and they could really start to work on his accuracy after he wasn’t shaking like a leaf. They used a couple hundred bullets between the two of them, and by the end of it Keito’s head was ringing a little, despite the silencers. Hikaru was very patient with him, serious but calm, never upset or angry or afraid as he helped Keito work on his aim, and getting used to the feel of the gun in his hand.
It was a relief when Hikaru declared them done for the day, Keito decocking his pistol, surprised to find that he did feel like he was much more comfortable with his new gun than he’d thought he would be. Hikaru seemed pleased by the work they’d done, an air of satisfaction around him as he and Keito started picking up the bullet casings. After they’d put everything back where it belonged, guns tucked into waistbands, safely hidden under jackets Keito reached out for his boyfriend, Hikaru letting Keito bury his face into his neck and breathe him in. Keito felt exhausted, the emotional turmoil he’d been through throughout the day, as well as the strain practice had put on his body-different from any way he’d used it before-leaving him drained.
“I’m glad you’re doing this. I already feel better.” Hikaru told him, and Keito nodded. This was good. He wasn’t the only one that felt that way. That evening at dinner Hikaru told the rest of them what he and Yuto had learned from their interrogation, Ichinojo’s declaration of war not really surprising any of them, just leaving a hard determination in the room. And as such when he broached the subject of gun training with the rest of the house it was met with nods and serious looks, everyone seeming to be on board with the idea, faces serious. It was decided that they would take turns practicing with their guns, no more than two people a day at the warehouse, and that put Keito at ease. He wouldn’t be going back for at least a week.
After dinner Hikaru and Yabu dug around in the closet under the stairs, pulling out an array of handguns and laying them out for everyone that didn’t already have one, helping them choose which gun they were going to use. It was rather foreboding, Keito feeling that wave of nausea threatening to claw back up his throat as he watched his housemates pick their weapons, faces cold and focused.
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