Up in Smoke: A Heisei Kumi fanfic (24/36)
Author: ryosukekoibito
Pairing: Hikato, Chiitaro, Ariyama
Rating: R/NC-17
Warnings: Graphic Violence, Minor Character Death, Strong Language, Explicit Sex, Major Character Death
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! HI SORRY I DIDN'T POST LAST WEEK. I was traveling back to my hometown, and I stayed in the mountains in the middle of nowhere and we had no internet, no computers, and patchy at best cell serivce. So I couldn't post. I did mention it on my twitter, but I forgot to here, and I'm sorry about that.
Previous Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23
Keito woke up mid afternoon the following day to Yuto staring at him, his friend still in his pajamas, perched on the ladder to Keito’s bunk with his face only about ten centimeters away from Keito’s own. It was startling, and he jolted up, Yuto raising his eyebrows bemusedly at him as he said
“Thank god you're up. I'm so fucking bored.” Keito blinked blearily at him, trying to focus on his friend and calm his pounding heart. “I'm getting stir crazy stuck in this damn house all the time.” Yuto sighed, huffing as he dragged himself down off of the ladder. His leg was still swollen immensely, and he said that while it hurt near constantly, he couldn’t actually feel much with it like he used too. He walked slowly, with a limp, still unable to do much more than putter around the house. He had that cane Hikaru had given him, but he hated having to use it, usually leaving it tucked into a corner of their bedroom. Still, he was lucky to have that leg at all, and dwelling on it for any length of time always put a lump in Keito’s throat.
Despite Yuto’s whining, when Keito got downstairs he came to realize that although it was mid afternoon he wasn’t the last one awake. The only other people downstairs were the Ariokas, and they were sitting at the table with breakfast food, looking like they too had just dragged themselves out of bed. Keito yawned, murmuring morning greetings to them, Yuto shoving at his shoulder, telling him to get something to eat. Keito didn’t need to be told twice, flopping into his seat with a full plate. As he ate Hikaru emerged from his room, telling them that he was going to sit with Yabu, something he had taken to doing in the past two weeks. The reminder of Yabu unconscious lying up in Takaki’s bed made Keito’s stomach flop anxiously, and he tried not to dwell on it.
It was another hour before Chinen and Takaki came down the stairs, Keito having relocated to the couch, Yuto’s legs sprawled across his lap as the taller man told him all about some weird dream he’d had a few nights previous. Chinen had barely finished his first meal of the day when Hikaru padded down the stairs, catching Chinen’s eye and gesturing to his office. They didn’t need to say anything, the two of them walking in together, shutting the door quietly, as everyone watched, a tension in the room. They didn’t emerge for almost three hours, Takaki and Keito eventually working on dinner, while Yuto chatted away from his spot perched on the counter, Yamada and Daiki having gone back upstairs to sit with Inoo.
The smell of food seemed to draw everyone out, Inoo, Yamada, and Daiki coming down the stairs and setting the table, while Hikaru and Chinen emerged from the Kumi-cho’s office just as the rest of them were all sitting down. The change in the atmosphere was instant, everyone’s curiosity about what had been discussed charging through them, Keito himself openly searching his boyfriend’s face. Hikaru looked tired, and his eyes were red, like he’d been crying, but there was a spark of determination there, something hard and angry, and Keito wanted to reach out, to touch him, but he found himself frozen in his seat. Chinen had a similar air about him, an exhausted sort of rage burning under his skin. Hikaru noticed the anticipation in the air immediately, and he simply said
“After we eat.” Keito reached out under the table with his left hand, finding Hikaru’s thigh, and Hikaru rested his own hand on top almost at once, fingers curling around Keito’s palm, hot and strong, and they shared a quick look, Keito anxious about the conversation to come, but already less anxious with Hikaru’s eyes on him, and Hikaru’s hand in his. Dinner was rather awkward, what with the discussion they all knew was coming as soon as it was over, and it was Inoo that broke the tension, going into a vivid description of how Daiki fell off of Inoo’s bed and onto his ass earlier, Daiki protesting throughout the entire retelling, his grumbling half-hearted at best. It was sweet, and it gave them a few minutes of levity, before the meal was finished, and the table was cleared, and everyone fell silent, all eyes on Hikaru once more.
Hikaru’s grip tightened on Keito’s hand, but it was the only indication Keito got of Hikaru’s nervousness, and when he spoke his voice was steady and confident.
“Chinen and I had a long conversation today.” Hikaru started, and a few of them nodded, eyes going to Chinen. He was stony faced, expression blank. “I know there was some speculation as to if he’s going to be punished over his disappearing act. I decided against it. We don’t need to be divided. We don’t need to be punishing each other. Not right now. In a time like this we need to be unified, more than ever before. There’s been enough hurt.” Hikaru let out a heavy breath, his shoulders tense, the weight of the war weighing on him visibly as he spoke. “Now that that’s settled, I want to get into why I really wanted to have this meeting.” He paused, his eyes meeting Chinen’s, and Chinen nodded to him assuredly, the sight strange.
Chinen had never been someone Hikaru had looked to for support before. But Hikaru was still holding onto Keito’s hand under the table, and that was another thing that was different. Hikaru didn’t like displaying their relationship. But right now, he needed it. He needed all of the comfort he could get, and that, combined with the set in his jaw and hardness in his eyes made Keito’s heart break a little. Something about it made Keito ache for Yabu to wake up. They needed him. Hikaru needed him. His eyes settled on the empty chair down at the other end of the table, but they’d barely landed on it before Hikaru was speaking again, and Keito was ripped out of his train of thought, focus pulled to his leader’s words.
“I no longer feel that killing Ichinojo is enough to finish this war. I don’t think it’s that simple any longer. Too many have died for it to be that simple. I don’t think that we could expect it all to end, even if we managed it. And I fucking hate them all. Every single one of them. I want to slaughter the bastards.” Hikaru’s voice was raw, and while he wasn’t speaking loudly, the rest of them were so quiet and still that his voice was clear. “I want to stamp them out and rid the earth of them forever. I want to take their land, take their home, and kill them all for what they’ve done to us. We’ve lost fifteen boys. And had countless injuries, scars and traumas that will never heal completely.
“I want this nightmare to end. And if that means a massacre, then...then that’s a price I’m willing to pay. I’m not willing to let this drag out. To let more of us die, for their war. I want this over.” He paused, slumping a little, pursing his lips. “But I’m not going to act unless you all feel like I do. I know I made you all carry guns, and I made you learn to shoot, and I’ve dragged you into fight after fight, but I’m done. I may be your leader, but I won’t make you kill for me.” His grip on Keito’s hand had gone slack, and he was trembling a little. Keito squeezed his hand tight, Hikaru squeezing back. Keito found that he wasn’t really surprised by Hikaru’s declaration. He had been expecting something like this. What did surprise him however, was his own response.
He wanted them all dead. It wasn’t just a desperate scramble at any solution, any answer to get the war to stop-although there was some of that going on. It wasn’t just the grief, the black abyss of despair that he’d managed to pull himself out of only a few years before that he was teetering on the edge of once more. It was a rage, a bloodlust so blindingly strong it terrified him. When Shoon had died he’d wanted something to blame, something to hurt, and now, now he’d lost fifteen people-close friends and kids and people he cared for, people he was supposed to protect-in just three months, and he found that he wanted not only to make it stop, he wanted the Wakaba to pay for the suffering they’d inflicted.
They all seemed to more or less feel the same way he did, and as Daiki and Chinen and Yuto all declared that they were in, Keito found it surprisingly easy to throw his name in too. He was up for it. Up for any plan they came up with. Up for anything that would bring this horror to a close. It became apparent when Yamada asked how they were going to manage a slaughter on the scale Hikaru was proposing that a decision had been reached, and it was simultaneously terrifying and relieving. They were going to do it. Now they just had to figure out how. A weight seemed lifted from everyone, and it was twisted, how good it felt to have decided on mass murder. But as weeks had stacked up it had started to feel like they were trapped in this new hell, and now, good or bad, there was an end. And that was freeing.
The conversation started out with wild ideas being thrown around, some as simple as a long range firefight-which was tossed out as it was considered too ineffective; to as ludicrous as running the Wakaba over with cars-none of them could actually drive. It was a lively discussion, almost comical in how casually brutal it was, and Keito found himself unable to contribute, just sitting there, watching it unfold almost as if it wasn’t happening to him. As if he were an outside observer, a fly on the wall. After a few minutes of this Hikaru regained control of the narrative, and they set a few base rules their plan would have to follow.
The plan needed to keep from putting themselves in life threatening danger as much as possible. Best case scenario they wouldn’t involve the underlings at all. There’d been enough death, no one else in their group needed to die because of this war. It needed to kill mass amounts of Wakaba members, enough that the war would undoubtedly be over after they’d taken action. And lastly, it needed to be quick. No long game plans. This needed to end as soon as possible, so that the Wakaba couldn’t see it coming. Those three things limited the viable options harshly, the ideas being thrown around becoming more and more sparse as the night wore on. Until finally Takaki said
“Fire.” He had that special brand of excitement in his voice only an epiphany could produce, and he declared “We trap them in their base and light it up. Burn them all.”
“Yes.” Yuto said at once, pointing emphatically at Takaki. “Yes!”
“As long as we’re not next to it when it goes up in flames we should be fine. And if they didn’t know we were there they wouldn’t even get a chance to fight back.” Inoo said, thinking through the idea as he spoke. “That really could work.”
“But how do we make sure that they don’t just run out of the building once it starts to go up?” Chinen asked, frowning. The doors lock from the inside.”
“Yeah, and the higher ranking ones have keys to-KEYS!” Yamada slammed his fist down on the table, a long string of curses spewing from his lips, before he said “I’ve got it.” They all turned to him expectantly, and he faltered for a moment, suddenly a bit more reserved. “When...when I was held captive with the Wakaba, I wasn’t allowed to leave my room. But-but they could come and go as they pleased, and I always listened. They had a system, most of the boys that lived there didn’t have keys to the place, but the higher ranking ones did. It was mostly a symbolic thing to get a key, because they didn’t really lock up often. You had to earn one.
“But if we managed to get a key then it would be easy to get copies made, and then we’d just need to lock the doors from the outside and break the keys off in the locks. If we could do that first, they’d be stuck inside.” It was falling into place sickeningly well, and Keito started to get the feeling that this plan might actually work.
“Okay, so what, we just kidnap a bunch of Wakaba until we find one with a key and then steal it from them?” Inoo asked, his skepticism clear in his tone.
“Nah. Kill the fuckers.” Daiki declared, rage bubbling just under the surface, the reminder about what the Wakaba had done to his husband having brought out the old anger.
“No, Daiki.” Keito spoke up, finally finding his voice “We’re not supposed to let on that we’re planning anything. If we start killing them off one by one it’s going to be noticed. Even one is risky.”
“I don’t think we have a choice about killing off one.” Hikaru said, looking thoughtful, and immediately Keito’s thoughts went back to the night he’d caught Hikaru and Yuto torturing and killing Wakaba underlings for information, the reminder of the gruesome scene making his stomach clench as Hikaru continued. “I’ll have the underlings do some information gathering. Strictly from the shadows, no contact, to try and figure out just who it is that has a key. After that we’ll decide just how to go about getting it. If we think we could just pickpocket them, or if we’d have to take them out. Either way, I think this is our best bet.” The whole thing rather felt like it was coming together, but there were some details Keito wasn’t clear about, and he furrowed his brow, thinking hard about it before he said
“How exactly are we going to light the place on fire though? I mean, we can’t just strike a match and hold it to the side of the building.”
“Gasoline?” Yuto offered. “If we pour gasoline around the doors and exterior walls, the place will go up like that-” He snapped his fingers, but even as he did Inoo was shaking his head.
“What’re we gonna do, just siphon gas from parked cars and gas stations around town? It would be too suspicious.”
“Well, gas isn’t the only thing that’s really flammable-”
“Kerosene.” Hikaru said, and everyone turned back to him. “You know, like the kind used for space heaters. It’s easy to buy, cheap, and no one will bat an eye if we all buy a couple of containers spread out over the course of the next few weeks. We’ll stock up, and then when the night comes we’ll be ready.” It was the perfect solution to the last major problem Keito could find in the idea, and he nodded, the table falling silent as they all realized that the whole thing was-at least roughly-worked out. Hikaru leaned back in his chair, and suddenly Keito was struck with how late it was, exhaustion hitting him all at once now that they had a solution to their problem.
“Alright.” Hikaru said, folding his hands on the tabletop in front of him. “Does anyone object to this plan?” His question was met with blank faces and shaking heads, and he nodded. “Good. I want to give us a little bit of time to gather everything we’re going to need to pull this fucking thing off. My goal is to attack before the end of the month. I’m thinking the night of the twenty-sixth. That will give us about two and a half weeks to get the kerosene and the keys we’re going to need, and figure out all of the details. Does that sound reasonable to everyone?”
There were nods circulating the table this time, but Keito barely noticed, stuck on what Hikaru had said. The twenty-sixth. He caught his boyfriend’s eye, as the meeting was declared over, everyone dismissed. The other six men all stood up, making for their beds, as it was once again the early hours of the morning. But Keito stayed put, Hikaru too making no move to get up, seeming to sense that Keito wanted to speak with him. It was only once they were alone that Keito reached out, over the table, taking Hikaru’s hand comfortably as he asked
“The twenty-sixth?” Hikaru ran his thumb over the back of Keito’s hand slowly, nodding.
“Yeah.” His voice was quiet, like he was thinking, and Keito said
“That’s the day after-”
“The day after our anniversary; I know.” Hikaru’s eyes had been on their twined fingers, but they came up to rest on Keito’s face. “I don’t want to drag this war out but...but there’s no guarantee our plan will work, and before it all goes down I want that day. For us.” His voice was quiet, almost solemn, and there was something heart wrenchingly romantic about it, Keito’s chest aching with the love he felt for Hikaru, and how overwhelmingly grateful he was to have him, and he nodded, feeling himself getting choked up as he said
“Yes. Okay.”
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