Fic: Den of Thieves, Arashi RPF, Part 1.
Title: Den of Thieves
Author: sarka @ sarkasticfics
Fandom: Arashi RPF
Genre: Plot with porn.
Pairing: Jun/Ohno
Rating: NC-17 on the whole.
Word count: ~ 14.000 words
Content notice: ( Skip) General mischief of the illegal variety. Mentions of Tokyo's seedy underbelly, including human trafficking and sex as a commodity. | Warning policy.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters belong to themselves, not me. I make no money from this.
Summary: Written for a rainbowfilling prompt. I chose to write Jun/Ohno for the prompt "Life of a Con Artist."
Author's notes:
Me, to best friend: "I got this bingo-prompt table, right? And one of the squares was Life of a Con Artist."
Best friend: "Oh dear."
Me: *facepalm*
Den of Thieves
"So what are we going to run?" Ohno asks, sounding bored. Ohno always sounds bored; Jun has long since stopped taking it personally. "Hanging Dutchman? Romanian railroad?"
Jun smirks at his friend over the bar. "I thought we'd solve two problems at once, since Mr. Silao is bound to ask us for assistance with his little... marketing issue."
Ohno looks up. He doesn't seem like much - that's why he's so damn good at what he does - but Jun knows from experience that behind those sleepy eyes, one of the sharpest minds he'll ever encounter is working away. That's why he enjoys working with Ohno - Ohno keeps him on his toes.
Or at least that's the PG rated version; what Jun likes to tell himself when he feels like being lied to.
"You mean that Mr. Silao is coming into a fairly well saturated market?" Ohno asks. "And by 'saturated', I mean that the Hisagawas have it cornered?" Anyone else would think Ohno looks disapproving, but Jun has been working with him for long enough to know better. This is Ohno looking interested.
"You always said you hated them," Jun says blandly. He doesn't know if Ohno was referring to a specific family or the Yakuza in general, though he's heard the other man say it often enough that he's more inclined to believe the latter.
"I do," Ohno says, slowly, thoughtfully. "But I do not like to mix the personal with my work in such a way."
Jun shrugs. "You won't have to. I'll take the Hisagawas, you work on Mr. Takezaki."
There is a long silence while Ohno thinks about it, and then he starts smiling. "You want to run a Prisoner's Dilemma."
"With a Chomsky twist," Jun agrees.
"Three problems in one job, Jun, that is very ambitious of you," Ohno says, but he sounds delighted.
"I like to be efficient," Jun says, proud and a little pleased with himself, though he tries not to show it as he pours Ohno another drink.
+++
Jun is a very good con artist, but even the best can't fool themselves. If he's being honest with himself, he likes working with Ohno because he likes Ohno. Originally, it'd been because Ohno was scrupulously fair, very honest about what he would and wouldn't do, and, like Jun, he'd been in the game because he'd liked it, not because he was a desperate criminal always on the lookout for the big score. By now, Jun simply knows the man, and would trust him with his life.
It's difficult to learn to trust someone when your main job means that you lie for a living, and Jun is grateful for the hours him and Ohno have put into their relationship. They'd both started out as soloists, entrepreneurs who'd needed a safety valve, and recognized an opportunity in each other. It'd been a loose partnership, at first; Ohno had needed someone with a dazzling smile and quick hands; Jun had needed someone who wouldn't hesitate to rappel down the side of Shinjuku Metropolitan Government Offices, and somehow, learning to live with each other had meant that they felt unhappy about working alone.
"I don't understand how Mr. Takezaki hasn't been caught already," Ohno mutters at his computer screen, sounding grumpy. Jun is also grateful that he's gotten to know this Ohno - the Ohno that hates profiling and background work, but does it anyway, unless he can push it off onto Jun.
"He's in the pocket of the Hisagawa Yakuza," Jun reminds him. "I dare say they're keeping him out of trouble."
Ohno grunts and frowns at his computer screen, and Jun smiles to himself and goes to get them both a fresh beer. They're doing their research after hours at Jun's bar, which means that they could keep going for decades without running out of liquor. He glances over at the other man as he pulls the first pint, and lets himself look because Ohno is so engrossed in what he's doing.
They haven't turned on any of the main lights, preferring to work with the wall lamp above the booth, so as to not attract attention to the place being occupied this late, and the golden light suits Ohno's skin and colouring. He looks soft and sharp at once, his hair a mess of dark bronze spikes - a remnant from their last job - and his skin dusky, much darker than Jun would ever let himself get. He's biting the side of his bottom lip in concentration, his chin propped on a hand as he reads from the computer screen, and Jun wants to go over there and break his focus, climb into his lap and kiss him, and...
"Neee, Jun-kun," Ohno says, "I can't figure out what operations all this money is coming from."
Jun looks down, before Ohno looks up and catches him staring, and notices that his glass is near to overflowing. He picks up Ohno's and pulls the tab down again. "Me neither, but that's not really our problem, is it? It's enough to know that he's moving money up and down."
Ohno hums. "I know, and I can't see that he's being protected by anybody else... the extra money must be from the Hisagawas, it's from their subsidiaries."
"Exactly," Jun says. "I don't need to know the line items, as long as we know where the money is from."
Ohno wrinkles his forehead, and looks up from the computer to watch Jun getting back into the booth. "How are you going to get them all nervous about this, though? Prisoner's dilemma doesn't work without an external threat."
"I have the perfect person in mind," Jun says and hopes Ohno doesn't see through him on this one.
+++
Mr. Kenta Takezaki is neither a Minister of State, nor a Member of the Japanese Diet. He is, however, an Advisor to the Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, and also a cousin of the Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force.
He is, in short, a remarkably influential man, considering that he's only 40, with nothing particularly impressive on his resume, and taking into account the fact that he's got a weakness for imported gin and host bars.
Matsumoto Jun is not the first person to figure out his weaknesses, nor is his and Ohno's current client, Mr. Silao. In fact, Mr. Takezaki has already been bought by the Hisagawa Yakuza, who use him for a variety of purposes, some of which are obvious and some of which Ohno's background research only hints at. This means that under ordinary circumstances, Jun wouldn't plan a job where they'd have to go after Mr. Takezaki.
However, both his and Mr. Silao's research shows that Mr. Takezaki is at the bottom of quite the inverted pyramid. If the police get reason to dig into his finances, there will be questionable payments from all over, including one from his superior, the Secretary, which, when traced, will turn out to have come from the Minister's campaign fund. There should also be multiple transfers through Mr. Takezaki to the Minister.
This means that Mr. Takezaki is a relatively easy and indirect way of taking out a Minister - a Minister that Jun's employer would like to see gone, for a legislative reason.
The second reason they chose him, of course, is that Mr. Takezaki is owned by the Hisagawas in particular, and the Hisagawas are the part of the Yakuza that runs book on baseball. Mr. Silao has particular interest in that area, and would therefore like to see them gone, and that dovetails nicely with Jun's personal feelings, seeing as how the Hisagawas also control most of the prostitution rings in Tokyo.
Jun never claimed to be an honest man and he is assuredly in a den of thieves. The best he can do is to be an honest thief.
And if he's got an eye out for profit too, not to mention efficiency, who can blame him?
+++
The trick to getting yourself welcomed into a closed community is to figure out how you can make yourself valuable to that particular group of people. If it's a cadre of criminals, you'll need to be ready to be just as criminal, just to prove your credentials. If it's a community of politicians who have good reasons to be paranoid about their reputation, your best bet is probably to represent a purchase-able threat to that reputation.
Ohno is going in as a private detective with no morals and even less money. It's not the game Jun would usually have him run, except he's seen the pictures of Mr. Takezaki out on the town, usually with a pretty-faced young man or two in tow, and so, as much as he hates it, he's fairly confident Ohno will have him eating out of his hand in no time. Ohno himself had been harder to convince of that fact, though he'd seemed amused to discover that Jun thinks he's pretty.
"You just need to sit up an inch straighter..." Jun breathes into the mic that carries his voice into Ohno's ear bud.
"Don't tell me how to do my job," Ohno mutters without moving his lips, but his voice gets picked up loud and clear. He's inching out of his seat, and Jun has to admit that he's doing a damn good job of making it look like he's overplaying his commitment. He can see the exact moment Mr. Takezaki notices him, and watches as Mr. Takezaki dispatches a couple of bodyguards to go get him.
"Incoming," he breathes into the mic.
"See them. Shut up now, Jun," Ohno says, though it's not an unfriendly reminder.
Jun can hear the white noise as Ohno's ear bud gets turned off, and he swallows his uneasiness. Ohno is undoubtedly going to get searched, so he can't have a transmitter in his ear. Besides, he's carrying a cleverly designed camera that's already transmitting audio, though it's never as clear as the ear buds that Jun prefers.
It's clear enough to let him follow the conversation in Mr. Takezaki's office, and he could jump in, if Ohno got into trouble. Ohno, though, has gotten good enough at acting that Jun doesn't expect to need to. He still wishes that he had some way of talking to Ohno, but having a bug in the camera is better than nothing.
He smiles as he listens to the conversation in Mr. Takezaki's office, and scrolls down, searching for the telephone number he'd been planning to call when he thought the right moment was just around the corner. When he hears Ohno admit to working for a Shinya Hisagawa, Jun presses the call button.
"Hey," he says when the other side picks up, "it's me." He can hear Ohno detailing his 'agreement' with Hisagawa on the speakers; and he smiles to himself when Ohno presents his credentials as a private detective. According to their research, Mr. Takezaki is protected by a cabal of ex-cops, and while Ohno could have presented documents saying that he's a space alien from the planet Zorg, for all that Mr. Takezaki will know the difference, all his security advisers are liable to scoff at Ohno for having no law-enforcement background.
One of the first things he'd taught Ohno, once they'd started working together more seriously, is that most grift hinges on being underestimated in precisely the right way. They were quick to discover that Ohno is a master of seeming harmlessness; Jun has no doubt that now that Ohno's in, the rest of Mr. Takezaki's security advisers will never see anything coming.
"I've been waiting for an hour," his contact says, irritated, on the other end of the phone line.
"I'm sorry," Jun says, wresting his attention away from Ohno's masterful weaving of deception over the speakers. "Mr. Takezaki's meeting ran late, he didn't notice my partner until he practically resorted to flash photography, and it's taken them a bit to get around to the pertinent parts."
There's a loud sigh over the line. "I don't know why I'm helping you out with this," Sho grouses.
"There is a 'Story of the Year' award in it for you?" Jun points out. Over the speakers, Ohno is playing his hand perfectly, tidily breaking under pressure to accept work from Mr. Takezaki, rather than stay in the employ of the Hisagawa Yakuza.
"I already have one of those," Sho says grumpily and hangs up, probably because he knows Jun would point out that him and Ohno had given Sho insider line on that particular story, too.
Jun grins to himself and lifts his own camera, catching Sho on his approach to the building in which the Ministry of Justice has its offices, and then following behind, making sure to document it when Sho, after insisting loudly and somewhat rudely, gets let in to see Mr. Takezaki and his latest employee. Jun listens in as Sho asks Takezaki a few probing questions, all of whom are scripted and Ohno knew about beforehand, all of whom he's got prepared replies for.
One down, one to go.
+++
Again, getting into a closed group is all about knowing your value to that group - or at least making it up. Jun is going in as a fixer. The trick to being a fixer is having a problem to fix at all times, which is why Sho's in on the con from the start - as said problem.
It's a role reversal for them. Jun usually takes care of the slick politicos and businessmen in suits, while Ohno works the criminal element. However, Jun is forced to work this particular job under his own name, as who he is; the Yakuza know him, his reputation and his family name, and so his best bet is to play himself to one extreme or the other. That, combined with Sho's presence, has the whole thing threatening to become uncomfortably personal.
"Look," Ohno says evenly into his ear bud, "it wasn't my idea to bring in an ex-boyfriend." They've been having this argument for weeks during the setup, and unless Jun was to stop and turn around right now, it's too late to change plans.
"Jesus," Jun mutters. "I'm on the approach here, so shut the fuck up. Sho's an award-winning news reporter on precisely this kind of issue. Using him made sense."
"The job was personal enough already..." Ohno starts saying, and then lowers his voice - a habit neither of them can really break, even if the ear buds are not conspicuous, even if nobody else can hear them. "Be careful, Jun, you'll want to handle this with some finesse..."
"Don't tell me how to do my job," Jun mutters without moving his lips, and socks one of the doormen to Club Megumi in the jaw.
+++
Convincing Shinya Hisagawa that he's about to get sold out by his pet government official is ridiculously easy. This tells Jun that Mr. Hisagawa probably has something specific to hide. Ohno had had to work much harder than this for his placement in Mr. Takezaki's inner circle, and is already overworked, as an advisor to a government official, even if he's getting paid off the books.
Mr. Hisagawa doesn't even notice that the pictures Jun has brought of Sho, from his first "visit" to the Ministry of Justice, are all outside shots - they'd been lucky and managed to place Sho in a few pictures looking like he was following Mr. Takezaki into the building, when they hadn't even been introduced yet.
Three hours after socking Mr. Hisagawa's doorman one, Jun is buying that same man a drink to apologize and calling all the rest of his bodyguards by their nicknames. His new job is to figure out just who the hell Sho is, what he knows, and to make sure Mr. Takezaki behaves.
He lets himself tune back into Ohno, who's been a constant chattering presence in his ear bud for all those hours, and has to fight to keep the look of bemusement off his face when he realizes that Ohno is talking about fishing. He won't ever tell Ohno that he finds it charming.
"I'll have a gin and tonic," Jun says, the next time the bartender comes around, "and a fresh round of whatever my friends here are drinking." The all-clear phrase this time is 'a fresh round', much to the pain of Jun's wallet, since he's drinking with about twelve other guys.
When the loud cheers die out, there's an amused voice in his ear. "I spoke about fishing for an hour and thirty seven minutes," Ohno says. "Since you weren't listening, I figured I might as well talk about something I enjoy talking about. I was starting to think you'd forgotten all about the all-clear phrase."
Jun snorts into his drink. There's a laugh from the other end of the line. "Good job, Jun," Ohno says, and Jun smiles to himself and tries not to notice the fact that he feels warm all over.
+++
From then on, it's a matter of setup; it's a matter of making sure Sho is always where he needs to be, and also making sure that Sho doesn't get killed for being where they put him, though they try to avoid pointing the fact out to Sho.
At the end of the month, they've managed to stir up enough trouble that the Hisagawa Yakuza is ready to collect wholesale on the debt they feel they're owed, and Mr. Takezaki is certain that his political adversaries have received insider information of his misdeeds. For both groups, that would be the only way to rationally explain the media attention they've gotten lately - and in addition, each group has been carefully groomed to blame the other.
Jun is the first to suggest a meeting, though he's careful not to couch it in conciliatory terms to Mr. Hisagawa - he suggests that Mr. Takezaki needs a reminder of his obligations, and in fact, to demonstrate his commitment, offers his own bar, Bar Kuro, as a venue for the meet.
Two days later, after Mr. Takezaki gets some very nice shots of investigative news reporter Sakurai Sho hanging out with Matsumoto Jun - currently a member of the Hisagawa Yakuza - courtesy of Ohno, Ohno suggests more or less the same thing; to try to see if whatever deal Mr. Takezaki has with the Hisagawas can't be salvaged in some way.
"We've got him pretty spooked," Ohno says, having slunk the back way into Bar Kuro, the way he usually does, after Jun has closed for the night and sent home Atsuko, his one employee.
Ohno's got two fingers of whisky in a glass in front of him, the nice kind that Jun never charges him for, and is watching Jun go through the motions of washing pint glasses in the bar sink. "Sakurai is pretty good at his job, I wouldn't want to be his subject when he's on the warpath."
Sho nods tiredly in thanks, but he's looking at his half-empty beer glass. He'd refused the nice stuff, on account of celebrations not being appropriate before they pull the whole thing off, and so he's just drinking the normal draft beer. "The more I dig, the more suspect the entire thing gets, and I don't even want to know where you two get your information," he says. "I've told my editor that for the next week I'll be running with a story from the same source that got me the Ishihara story, and I think he's already waffling over how many column inches to give me in the weekend issue. I don't think he realizes that if you two keep having me up at all hours looking investigative at precisely the right moments, I'll be too tired to write even the weather report."
"I'm sorry," Ohno says, "but the opportunity to have Mr. Takezaki see you sniffing around the Police Department talking to people was just too good. He's absolutely convinced you're on to something, though he doesn't trust me enough yet that I know what it is. If you keep digging, you'll find something."
"I think I already did," Sho says, raising his glass slightly to Ohno. "I'd prefer not to say what it is, and I'm too tired to talk around things, so I'm strongly implying to you that this is a lot uglier than we expected, and that there's a cover-up ongoing, involving the Hisagawa family's other source of income."
"This could blow up in our faces," Jun says. "We can still walk away, but if we go through with the rest of tonight's plan, there's no going back."
They go silent as they contemplate the possibility, and unexpectedly, Sho's the first to speak up.
"I say take them out," he says slowly, much to Jun's surprise. "If they're doing what I think they're doing... I don't even care what criminal mastermind has got you two working this."
Ohno raises his glass to him. "Good man."
Sho shakes his head, but takes a big drink, then puts his glass down and picks up his scarf and jacket. "You ready for your closeup?" Jun asks teasingly, and Sho rolls his eyes at him.
"This better not get me arrested," he says, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder and waving goodbye as he exits the bar. Jun and Ohno wait, until Jun's phone vibrates, ten minutes later. Jun puts it on speaker.
"They were there," Sho says. "Dark Toyota, parked in the Mini-Stop lot across the street. I made sure to go in and pick up a bottle of water."
"So they must've gotten some nice shots of your face," Jun replies.
"Unless they were asleep on the job, or completely useless with a camera," Sho says. "I'm going to go home and sleep, as long as I can get away with it. If Ohno could refrain from waking me up tomorrow morning at four AM, that would be nice."
"I make no promises," Ohno says, and Sho just sighs in response and hangs up.
Jun pours himself a shot of the same whisky Ohno is drinking, untying his apron and coming around the bar to the front. "No going back now," he says, clinking his glass with Ohno's.
"Nope. How are the Hisagawas?"
"I'm not entirely surprised that Sho has found something even worse than what we already have. They were twitchy before I even showed up; I told them that Sho found out about possible campaign money going astray, and they seemed relieved, but once he started looking into the Police force top brass and the Hisagawas found out about it, everyone went very tense. I wouldn't want to play this con much longer with Sho so vulnerable, considering how they're talking."
Ohno hums, and takes another drink. He's looking thoughtful, though that's not unusual for him. "How did the two of you end up together, anyway?" he suddenly asks, and Jun ends up with his own sip of whisky down his windpipe.
When he can breathe again, he looks at Ohno in disbelief. "Now you want to know? What happened to keeping my personal life out of the job?"
Ohno looks discomfited but shrugs. "That was back before we got to know each other. We've worked more jobs together, now. I'd rather work with you than without you."
Jun lifts an eyebrow, oddly flattered even if the compliment is just work-related, and answers the question. "We met on a job I was working that got completely fucked up. I was being let out of interrogation, since they had nothing to hold me on, he was wandering around with a notepad and pencil trying to get people to answer questions. I think I was some sort of walk on the wild side, for him, and once he realized I was going to stay on the wild side, he cut the walk short."
"Hmmm," Ohno says, not quite to Jun, more to the room at large. "It's just that I've wondered what you saw in him."
Jun blinks. "You know, almost everyone wonders what he saw in me."
Ohno looks at him with something Jun would swear is disbelief. "That is obvious," he states and Jun holds his breath. "You were exciting. I doubt he was in the habit of doing exciting things before you came along."
Of course. Jun breathes out and tries to explain. "He is attractive, he's intelligent, and he's very... dependable."
Ohno laughs. "And is dependability what gets you going?"
Jun feels himself go warm in the face, and he's helpless to stop himself from answering. "Not so much these days, no. Dependability is all well and good, but I think I prefer someone who'll go out on a limb with me and watch my back while we're at it."
Ohno considers that, and Jun finally takes a deep breath and asks a question himself. "And you? Any romantic entanglements I should be aware of if we do more jobs together? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Exes?"
Ohno thinks about it. "Nothing relevant. Last guy I dated was a fisherman, but that was a while ago." He thinks some more. "Ask me again if we ever run a job in Kyoto, though," he finally says. "Actually, better stay away from Kyoto."
Jun stares. "Why?" He finally asks, when nothing more seems forthcoming.
"I may have dated a member of the Ehara family," Ohno mutters into his whisky.
Jun puts his glass down, before he drops it. "You mean the Ehara Yakuza? Which member?"
Ohno looks like he wants to disappear into his glass. "The middle son," he admits. "Takuya."
"Right," Jun says, feeling faint. "You dated Ehara Takuya. I think you're right - we'd best stay away from Kyoto."
+++
Jun met Ohno while at his honest job - that is, as the proprietor of Bar Kuro. Ohno had wandered in from somewhere one day, probably the back, looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. Many of Jun's more colorful customers look like that on a good day, but Ohno's burgeoning fat lip seemed to indicate that this was perhaps not one of those. Jun had handed him a wet towel, before he could bleed on the upholstery, and slid a whisky across the table; he's no less proficient a bartender than he is a con artist, and Ohno had looked like a whisky kind of guy.
"First one's on the house," he'd said, when Ohno had looked up.
Ohno had barely been sitting there for ten minutes when Keito from the corner store had called Jun to tell him there was a police car turning into the street, and Jun had flipped the main lights off and on. There was a lot of coughing, scraping of chairs and general noise as the patrons of the place cleared out, most of them through the back door.
Ohno had been looking thoughtfully at him, and Jun had suddenly realized that there's a black eye starting to come up around his left eye. "Cops," he'd said drily. "Backdoor's thataway."
"Can't run," Ohno had replied. "Bust my knee. Better not to resist, if they're gonna find me."
Jun had thought about it. "They won't have a warrant yet, ne?"
Ohno had looked startled but answered immediately. "Not in the timeframe they've had, no."
"Office," Jun had said. "Door at the back leads upstairs. Lock it behind you," he added, handing Ohno the keys to the interior door. "Go," he'd said sharply, and Ohno had disappeared faster than a man with a busted knee should have been able to.
Jun had gone upstairs later, after the inspectors had gone, expecting to find the stranger he'd let into his apartment. Instead, he'd found a ten-carat diamond on top of a napkin, where Ohno had scribbled a 'thank you'.
He'd watched the news about the jewelry store heist four streets over with some bemusement, the next morning.
The next time they'd met, it had been at a private party, thrown in one of Ginza's most elaborately outfitted apartments, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of a business tycoon too wealthy for his own good, and stupid enough to invite a whole bunch of people he barely knows into a penthouse apartment filled with items worth billions of yen. Jun had been on the arm of a wealthy socialite in a dress that needed to be pulled both up and down to cover her properly, as her plus-one.
Ohno wasn't invited. He got in through the skylight.
They'd left together with enough artwork, jewelry and cash between them to net them a couple of million each. They'd divided it up in a room at busy business hotel a few blocks away, and gone their separate ways. That was the first time they'd worked together, and the first time Jun noticed that Ohno's ass looked really incredible in a pair of well-fitted pants.
Several months later, Jun had left his office after closing the bar and counting out the register, to find Ohno sitting in the sparse light cast by the lone bulb over the sink, drinking Jun's nicest brand of Suntory Whisky.
"I need a pickpocket," Ohno had said. "You up for some fun?"
+++
Part Two
Author: sarka @ sarkasticfics
Fandom: Arashi RPF
Genre: Plot with porn.
Pairing: Jun/Ohno
Rating: NC-17 on the whole.
Word count: ~ 14.000 words
Content notice: ( Skip) General mischief of the illegal variety. Mentions of Tokyo's seedy underbelly, including human trafficking and sex as a commodity. | Warning policy.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters belong to themselves, not me. I make no money from this.
Summary: Written for a rainbowfilling prompt. I chose to write Jun/Ohno for the prompt "Life of a Con Artist."
Author's notes:
Me, to best friend: "I got this bingo-prompt table, right? And one of the squares was Life of a Con Artist."
Best friend: "Oh dear."
Me: *facepalm*
Den of Thieves
"So what are we going to run?" Ohno asks, sounding bored. Ohno always sounds bored; Jun has long since stopped taking it personally. "Hanging Dutchman? Romanian railroad?"
Jun smirks at his friend over the bar. "I thought we'd solve two problems at once, since Mr. Silao is bound to ask us for assistance with his little... marketing issue."
Ohno looks up. He doesn't seem like much - that's why he's so damn good at what he does - but Jun knows from experience that behind those sleepy eyes, one of the sharpest minds he'll ever encounter is working away. That's why he enjoys working with Ohno - Ohno keeps him on his toes.
Or at least that's the PG rated version; what Jun likes to tell himself when he feels like being lied to.
"You mean that Mr. Silao is coming into a fairly well saturated market?" Ohno asks. "And by 'saturated', I mean that the Hisagawas have it cornered?" Anyone else would think Ohno looks disapproving, but Jun has been working with him for long enough to know better. This is Ohno looking interested.
"You always said you hated them," Jun says blandly. He doesn't know if Ohno was referring to a specific family or the Yakuza in general, though he's heard the other man say it often enough that he's more inclined to believe the latter.
"I do," Ohno says, slowly, thoughtfully. "But I do not like to mix the personal with my work in such a way."
Jun shrugs. "You won't have to. I'll take the Hisagawas, you work on Mr. Takezaki."
There is a long silence while Ohno thinks about it, and then he starts smiling. "You want to run a Prisoner's Dilemma."
"With a Chomsky twist," Jun agrees.
"Three problems in one job, Jun, that is very ambitious of you," Ohno says, but he sounds delighted.
"I like to be efficient," Jun says, proud and a little pleased with himself, though he tries not to show it as he pours Ohno another drink.
+++
Jun is a very good con artist, but even the best can't fool themselves. If he's being honest with himself, he likes working with Ohno because he likes Ohno. Originally, it'd been because Ohno was scrupulously fair, very honest about what he would and wouldn't do, and, like Jun, he'd been in the game because he'd liked it, not because he was a desperate criminal always on the lookout for the big score. By now, Jun simply knows the man, and would trust him with his life.
It's difficult to learn to trust someone when your main job means that you lie for a living, and Jun is grateful for the hours him and Ohno have put into their relationship. They'd both started out as soloists, entrepreneurs who'd needed a safety valve, and recognized an opportunity in each other. It'd been a loose partnership, at first; Ohno had needed someone with a dazzling smile and quick hands; Jun had needed someone who wouldn't hesitate to rappel down the side of Shinjuku Metropolitan Government Offices, and somehow, learning to live with each other had meant that they felt unhappy about working alone.
"I don't understand how Mr. Takezaki hasn't been caught already," Ohno mutters at his computer screen, sounding grumpy. Jun is also grateful that he's gotten to know this Ohno - the Ohno that hates profiling and background work, but does it anyway, unless he can push it off onto Jun.
"He's in the pocket of the Hisagawa Yakuza," Jun reminds him. "I dare say they're keeping him out of trouble."
Ohno grunts and frowns at his computer screen, and Jun smiles to himself and goes to get them both a fresh beer. They're doing their research after hours at Jun's bar, which means that they could keep going for decades without running out of liquor. He glances over at the other man as he pulls the first pint, and lets himself look because Ohno is so engrossed in what he's doing.
They haven't turned on any of the main lights, preferring to work with the wall lamp above the booth, so as to not attract attention to the place being occupied this late, and the golden light suits Ohno's skin and colouring. He looks soft and sharp at once, his hair a mess of dark bronze spikes - a remnant from their last job - and his skin dusky, much darker than Jun would ever let himself get. He's biting the side of his bottom lip in concentration, his chin propped on a hand as he reads from the computer screen, and Jun wants to go over there and break his focus, climb into his lap and kiss him, and...
"Neee, Jun-kun," Ohno says, "I can't figure out what operations all this money is coming from."
Jun looks down, before Ohno looks up and catches him staring, and notices that his glass is near to overflowing. He picks up Ohno's and pulls the tab down again. "Me neither, but that's not really our problem, is it? It's enough to know that he's moving money up and down."
Ohno hums. "I know, and I can't see that he's being protected by anybody else... the extra money must be from the Hisagawas, it's from their subsidiaries."
"Exactly," Jun says. "I don't need to know the line items, as long as we know where the money is from."
Ohno wrinkles his forehead, and looks up from the computer to watch Jun getting back into the booth. "How are you going to get them all nervous about this, though? Prisoner's dilemma doesn't work without an external threat."
"I have the perfect person in mind," Jun says and hopes Ohno doesn't see through him on this one.
+++
Mr. Kenta Takezaki is neither a Minister of State, nor a Member of the Japanese Diet. He is, however, an Advisor to the Secretary of the Ministry of Justice, and also a cousin of the Superintendent General of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Force.
He is, in short, a remarkably influential man, considering that he's only 40, with nothing particularly impressive on his resume, and taking into account the fact that he's got a weakness for imported gin and host bars.
Matsumoto Jun is not the first person to figure out his weaknesses, nor is his and Ohno's current client, Mr. Silao. In fact, Mr. Takezaki has already been bought by the Hisagawa Yakuza, who use him for a variety of purposes, some of which are obvious and some of which Ohno's background research only hints at. This means that under ordinary circumstances, Jun wouldn't plan a job where they'd have to go after Mr. Takezaki.
However, both his and Mr. Silao's research shows that Mr. Takezaki is at the bottom of quite the inverted pyramid. If the police get reason to dig into his finances, there will be questionable payments from all over, including one from his superior, the Secretary, which, when traced, will turn out to have come from the Minister's campaign fund. There should also be multiple transfers through Mr. Takezaki to the Minister.
This means that Mr. Takezaki is a relatively easy and indirect way of taking out a Minister - a Minister that Jun's employer would like to see gone, for a legislative reason.
The second reason they chose him, of course, is that Mr. Takezaki is owned by the Hisagawas in particular, and the Hisagawas are the part of the Yakuza that runs book on baseball. Mr. Silao has particular interest in that area, and would therefore like to see them gone, and that dovetails nicely with Jun's personal feelings, seeing as how the Hisagawas also control most of the prostitution rings in Tokyo.
Jun never claimed to be an honest man and he is assuredly in a den of thieves. The best he can do is to be an honest thief.
And if he's got an eye out for profit too, not to mention efficiency, who can blame him?
+++
The trick to getting yourself welcomed into a closed community is to figure out how you can make yourself valuable to that particular group of people. If it's a cadre of criminals, you'll need to be ready to be just as criminal, just to prove your credentials. If it's a community of politicians who have good reasons to be paranoid about their reputation, your best bet is probably to represent a purchase-able threat to that reputation.
Ohno is going in as a private detective with no morals and even less money. It's not the game Jun would usually have him run, except he's seen the pictures of Mr. Takezaki out on the town, usually with a pretty-faced young man or two in tow, and so, as much as he hates it, he's fairly confident Ohno will have him eating out of his hand in no time. Ohno himself had been harder to convince of that fact, though he'd seemed amused to discover that Jun thinks he's pretty.
"You just need to sit up an inch straighter..." Jun breathes into the mic that carries his voice into Ohno's ear bud.
"Don't tell me how to do my job," Ohno mutters without moving his lips, but his voice gets picked up loud and clear. He's inching out of his seat, and Jun has to admit that he's doing a damn good job of making it look like he's overplaying his commitment. He can see the exact moment Mr. Takezaki notices him, and watches as Mr. Takezaki dispatches a couple of bodyguards to go get him.
"Incoming," he breathes into the mic.
"See them. Shut up now, Jun," Ohno says, though it's not an unfriendly reminder.
Jun can hear the white noise as Ohno's ear bud gets turned off, and he swallows his uneasiness. Ohno is undoubtedly going to get searched, so he can't have a transmitter in his ear. Besides, he's carrying a cleverly designed camera that's already transmitting audio, though it's never as clear as the ear buds that Jun prefers.
It's clear enough to let him follow the conversation in Mr. Takezaki's office, and he could jump in, if Ohno got into trouble. Ohno, though, has gotten good enough at acting that Jun doesn't expect to need to. He still wishes that he had some way of talking to Ohno, but having a bug in the camera is better than nothing.
He smiles as he listens to the conversation in Mr. Takezaki's office, and scrolls down, searching for the telephone number he'd been planning to call when he thought the right moment was just around the corner. When he hears Ohno admit to working for a Shinya Hisagawa, Jun presses the call button.
"Hey," he says when the other side picks up, "it's me." He can hear Ohno detailing his 'agreement' with Hisagawa on the speakers; and he smiles to himself when Ohno presents his credentials as a private detective. According to their research, Mr. Takezaki is protected by a cabal of ex-cops, and while Ohno could have presented documents saying that he's a space alien from the planet Zorg, for all that Mr. Takezaki will know the difference, all his security advisers are liable to scoff at Ohno for having no law-enforcement background.
One of the first things he'd taught Ohno, once they'd started working together more seriously, is that most grift hinges on being underestimated in precisely the right way. They were quick to discover that Ohno is a master of seeming harmlessness; Jun has no doubt that now that Ohno's in, the rest of Mr. Takezaki's security advisers will never see anything coming.
"I've been waiting for an hour," his contact says, irritated, on the other end of the phone line.
"I'm sorry," Jun says, wresting his attention away from Ohno's masterful weaving of deception over the speakers. "Mr. Takezaki's meeting ran late, he didn't notice my partner until he practically resorted to flash photography, and it's taken them a bit to get around to the pertinent parts."
There's a loud sigh over the line. "I don't know why I'm helping you out with this," Sho grouses.
"There is a 'Story of the Year' award in it for you?" Jun points out. Over the speakers, Ohno is playing his hand perfectly, tidily breaking under pressure to accept work from Mr. Takezaki, rather than stay in the employ of the Hisagawa Yakuza.
"I already have one of those," Sho says grumpily and hangs up, probably because he knows Jun would point out that him and Ohno had given Sho insider line on that particular story, too.
Jun grins to himself and lifts his own camera, catching Sho on his approach to the building in which the Ministry of Justice has its offices, and then following behind, making sure to document it when Sho, after insisting loudly and somewhat rudely, gets let in to see Mr. Takezaki and his latest employee. Jun listens in as Sho asks Takezaki a few probing questions, all of whom are scripted and Ohno knew about beforehand, all of whom he's got prepared replies for.
One down, one to go.
+++
Again, getting into a closed group is all about knowing your value to that group - or at least making it up. Jun is going in as a fixer. The trick to being a fixer is having a problem to fix at all times, which is why Sho's in on the con from the start - as said problem.
It's a role reversal for them. Jun usually takes care of the slick politicos and businessmen in suits, while Ohno works the criminal element. However, Jun is forced to work this particular job under his own name, as who he is; the Yakuza know him, his reputation and his family name, and so his best bet is to play himself to one extreme or the other. That, combined with Sho's presence, has the whole thing threatening to become uncomfortably personal.
"Look," Ohno says evenly into his ear bud, "it wasn't my idea to bring in an ex-boyfriend." They've been having this argument for weeks during the setup, and unless Jun was to stop and turn around right now, it's too late to change plans.
"Jesus," Jun mutters. "I'm on the approach here, so shut the fuck up. Sho's an award-winning news reporter on precisely this kind of issue. Using him made sense."
"The job was personal enough already..." Ohno starts saying, and then lowers his voice - a habit neither of them can really break, even if the ear buds are not conspicuous, even if nobody else can hear them. "Be careful, Jun, you'll want to handle this with some finesse..."
"Don't tell me how to do my job," Jun mutters without moving his lips, and socks one of the doormen to Club Megumi in the jaw.
+++
Convincing Shinya Hisagawa that he's about to get sold out by his pet government official is ridiculously easy. This tells Jun that Mr. Hisagawa probably has something specific to hide. Ohno had had to work much harder than this for his placement in Mr. Takezaki's inner circle, and is already overworked, as an advisor to a government official, even if he's getting paid off the books.
Mr. Hisagawa doesn't even notice that the pictures Jun has brought of Sho, from his first "visit" to the Ministry of Justice, are all outside shots - they'd been lucky and managed to place Sho in a few pictures looking like he was following Mr. Takezaki into the building, when they hadn't even been introduced yet.
Three hours after socking Mr. Hisagawa's doorman one, Jun is buying that same man a drink to apologize and calling all the rest of his bodyguards by their nicknames. His new job is to figure out just who the hell Sho is, what he knows, and to make sure Mr. Takezaki behaves.
He lets himself tune back into Ohno, who's been a constant chattering presence in his ear bud for all those hours, and has to fight to keep the look of bemusement off his face when he realizes that Ohno is talking about fishing. He won't ever tell Ohno that he finds it charming.
"I'll have a gin and tonic," Jun says, the next time the bartender comes around, "and a fresh round of whatever my friends here are drinking." The all-clear phrase this time is 'a fresh round', much to the pain of Jun's wallet, since he's drinking with about twelve other guys.
When the loud cheers die out, there's an amused voice in his ear. "I spoke about fishing for an hour and thirty seven minutes," Ohno says. "Since you weren't listening, I figured I might as well talk about something I enjoy talking about. I was starting to think you'd forgotten all about the all-clear phrase."
Jun snorts into his drink. There's a laugh from the other end of the line. "Good job, Jun," Ohno says, and Jun smiles to himself and tries not to notice the fact that he feels warm all over.
+++
From then on, it's a matter of setup; it's a matter of making sure Sho is always where he needs to be, and also making sure that Sho doesn't get killed for being where they put him, though they try to avoid pointing the fact out to Sho.
At the end of the month, they've managed to stir up enough trouble that the Hisagawa Yakuza is ready to collect wholesale on the debt they feel they're owed, and Mr. Takezaki is certain that his political adversaries have received insider information of his misdeeds. For both groups, that would be the only way to rationally explain the media attention they've gotten lately - and in addition, each group has been carefully groomed to blame the other.
Jun is the first to suggest a meeting, though he's careful not to couch it in conciliatory terms to Mr. Hisagawa - he suggests that Mr. Takezaki needs a reminder of his obligations, and in fact, to demonstrate his commitment, offers his own bar, Bar Kuro, as a venue for the meet.
Two days later, after Mr. Takezaki gets some very nice shots of investigative news reporter Sakurai Sho hanging out with Matsumoto Jun - currently a member of the Hisagawa Yakuza - courtesy of Ohno, Ohno suggests more or less the same thing; to try to see if whatever deal Mr. Takezaki has with the Hisagawas can't be salvaged in some way.
"We've got him pretty spooked," Ohno says, having slunk the back way into Bar Kuro, the way he usually does, after Jun has closed for the night and sent home Atsuko, his one employee.
Ohno's got two fingers of whisky in a glass in front of him, the nice kind that Jun never charges him for, and is watching Jun go through the motions of washing pint glasses in the bar sink. "Sakurai is pretty good at his job, I wouldn't want to be his subject when he's on the warpath."
Sho nods tiredly in thanks, but he's looking at his half-empty beer glass. He'd refused the nice stuff, on account of celebrations not being appropriate before they pull the whole thing off, and so he's just drinking the normal draft beer. "The more I dig, the more suspect the entire thing gets, and I don't even want to know where you two get your information," he says. "I've told my editor that for the next week I'll be running with a story from the same source that got me the Ishihara story, and I think he's already waffling over how many column inches to give me in the weekend issue. I don't think he realizes that if you two keep having me up at all hours looking investigative at precisely the right moments, I'll be too tired to write even the weather report."
"I'm sorry," Ohno says, "but the opportunity to have Mr. Takezaki see you sniffing around the Police Department talking to people was just too good. He's absolutely convinced you're on to something, though he doesn't trust me enough yet that I know what it is. If you keep digging, you'll find something."
"I think I already did," Sho says, raising his glass slightly to Ohno. "I'd prefer not to say what it is, and I'm too tired to talk around things, so I'm strongly implying to you that this is a lot uglier than we expected, and that there's a cover-up ongoing, involving the Hisagawa family's other source of income."
"This could blow up in our faces," Jun says. "We can still walk away, but if we go through with the rest of tonight's plan, there's no going back."
They go silent as they contemplate the possibility, and unexpectedly, Sho's the first to speak up.
"I say take them out," he says slowly, much to Jun's surprise. "If they're doing what I think they're doing... I don't even care what criminal mastermind has got you two working this."
Ohno raises his glass to him. "Good man."
Sho shakes his head, but takes a big drink, then puts his glass down and picks up his scarf and jacket. "You ready for your closeup?" Jun asks teasingly, and Sho rolls his eyes at him.
"This better not get me arrested," he says, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder and waving goodbye as he exits the bar. Jun and Ohno wait, until Jun's phone vibrates, ten minutes later. Jun puts it on speaker.
"They were there," Sho says. "Dark Toyota, parked in the Mini-Stop lot across the street. I made sure to go in and pick up a bottle of water."
"So they must've gotten some nice shots of your face," Jun replies.
"Unless they were asleep on the job, or completely useless with a camera," Sho says. "I'm going to go home and sleep, as long as I can get away with it. If Ohno could refrain from waking me up tomorrow morning at four AM, that would be nice."
"I make no promises," Ohno says, and Sho just sighs in response and hangs up.
Jun pours himself a shot of the same whisky Ohno is drinking, untying his apron and coming around the bar to the front. "No going back now," he says, clinking his glass with Ohno's.
"Nope. How are the Hisagawas?"
"I'm not entirely surprised that Sho has found something even worse than what we already have. They were twitchy before I even showed up; I told them that Sho found out about possible campaign money going astray, and they seemed relieved, but once he started looking into the Police force top brass and the Hisagawas found out about it, everyone went very tense. I wouldn't want to play this con much longer with Sho so vulnerable, considering how they're talking."
Ohno hums, and takes another drink. He's looking thoughtful, though that's not unusual for him. "How did the two of you end up together, anyway?" he suddenly asks, and Jun ends up with his own sip of whisky down his windpipe.
When he can breathe again, he looks at Ohno in disbelief. "Now you want to know? What happened to keeping my personal life out of the job?"
Ohno looks discomfited but shrugs. "That was back before we got to know each other. We've worked more jobs together, now. I'd rather work with you than without you."
Jun lifts an eyebrow, oddly flattered even if the compliment is just work-related, and answers the question. "We met on a job I was working that got completely fucked up. I was being let out of interrogation, since they had nothing to hold me on, he was wandering around with a notepad and pencil trying to get people to answer questions. I think I was some sort of walk on the wild side, for him, and once he realized I was going to stay on the wild side, he cut the walk short."
"Hmmm," Ohno says, not quite to Jun, more to the room at large. "It's just that I've wondered what you saw in him."
Jun blinks. "You know, almost everyone wonders what he saw in me."
Ohno looks at him with something Jun would swear is disbelief. "That is obvious," he states and Jun holds his breath. "You were exciting. I doubt he was in the habit of doing exciting things before you came along."
Of course. Jun breathes out and tries to explain. "He is attractive, he's intelligent, and he's very... dependable."
Ohno laughs. "And is dependability what gets you going?"
Jun feels himself go warm in the face, and he's helpless to stop himself from answering. "Not so much these days, no. Dependability is all well and good, but I think I prefer someone who'll go out on a limb with me and watch my back while we're at it."
Ohno considers that, and Jun finally takes a deep breath and asks a question himself. "And you? Any romantic entanglements I should be aware of if we do more jobs together? Boyfriend? Girlfriend? Exes?"
Ohno thinks about it. "Nothing relevant. Last guy I dated was a fisherman, but that was a while ago." He thinks some more. "Ask me again if we ever run a job in Kyoto, though," he finally says. "Actually, better stay away from Kyoto."
Jun stares. "Why?" He finally asks, when nothing more seems forthcoming.
"I may have dated a member of the Ehara family," Ohno mutters into his whisky.
Jun puts his glass down, before he drops it. "You mean the Ehara Yakuza? Which member?"
Ohno looks like he wants to disappear into his glass. "The middle son," he admits. "Takuya."
"Right," Jun says, feeling faint. "You dated Ehara Takuya. I think you're right - we'd best stay away from Kyoto."
+++
Jun met Ohno while at his honest job - that is, as the proprietor of Bar Kuro. Ohno had wandered in from somewhere one day, probably the back, looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards. Many of Jun's more colorful customers look like that on a good day, but Ohno's burgeoning fat lip seemed to indicate that this was perhaps not one of those. Jun had handed him a wet towel, before he could bleed on the upholstery, and slid a whisky across the table; he's no less proficient a bartender than he is a con artist, and Ohno had looked like a whisky kind of guy.
"First one's on the house," he'd said, when Ohno had looked up.
Ohno had barely been sitting there for ten minutes when Keito from the corner store had called Jun to tell him there was a police car turning into the street, and Jun had flipped the main lights off and on. There was a lot of coughing, scraping of chairs and general noise as the patrons of the place cleared out, most of them through the back door.
Ohno had been looking thoughtfully at him, and Jun had suddenly realized that there's a black eye starting to come up around his left eye. "Cops," he'd said drily. "Backdoor's thataway."
"Can't run," Ohno had replied. "Bust my knee. Better not to resist, if they're gonna find me."
Jun had thought about it. "They won't have a warrant yet, ne?"
Ohno had looked startled but answered immediately. "Not in the timeframe they've had, no."
"Office," Jun had said. "Door at the back leads upstairs. Lock it behind you," he added, handing Ohno the keys to the interior door. "Go," he'd said sharply, and Ohno had disappeared faster than a man with a busted knee should have been able to.
Jun had gone upstairs later, after the inspectors had gone, expecting to find the stranger he'd let into his apartment. Instead, he'd found a ten-carat diamond on top of a napkin, where Ohno had scribbled a 'thank you'.
He'd watched the news about the jewelry store heist four streets over with some bemusement, the next morning.
The next time they'd met, it had been at a private party, thrown in one of Ginza's most elaborately outfitted apartments, to celebrate the fiftieth birthday of a business tycoon too wealthy for his own good, and stupid enough to invite a whole bunch of people he barely knows into a penthouse apartment filled with items worth billions of yen. Jun had been on the arm of a wealthy socialite in a dress that needed to be pulled both up and down to cover her properly, as her plus-one.
Ohno wasn't invited. He got in through the skylight.
They'd left together with enough artwork, jewelry and cash between them to net them a couple of million each. They'd divided it up in a room at busy business hotel a few blocks away, and gone their separate ways. That was the first time they'd worked together, and the first time Jun noticed that Ohno's ass looked really incredible in a pair of well-fitted pants.
Several months later, Jun had left his office after closing the bar and counting out the register, to find Ohno sitting in the sparse light cast by the lone bulb over the sink, drinking Jun's nicest brand of Suntory Whisky.
"I need a pickpocket," Ohno had said. "You up for some fun?"
+++
Part Two