Chapter Text
For all of its uncertainty, we cannot flee the future.
- Sunday, April 5th, 2009 15:38 -
“I am thirteen years old,” Naoto said aloud, sprawled face down on the bare mattress, “and I will not throw a tantrum. It achieves nothing. There is no reason to complain.”
Logically, that might be true, but god, Naoto wanted to gripe about this mess. It should have been a perfectly normal year – he travelled with Grampa to work cases, learnt by his side as an apprentice-slash-assistant, and studied with Yakushiji in his free time. Normal. Fun.
Instead, Grampa decided that the case in Sendai was too dangerous to have Naoto around (absurd, considering he’d already been threatened twice for Grampa’s work and it had never been a problem before) and called in a favour to send him off to a so-called ‘family friend’ (though Naoto didn’t know how much of a family friend Ikutsuki could be if they’d never even met), which left Naoto here.
Alone in a completely new city. Going to a school for the first time in years. Stuck in a dormitory with thirty-odd boys of differing ages, ridiculous heights, and the same, juvenile disposition.
He was already sick of it.
Naoto groaned, indulging himself in self-pity for a few miserable seconds before he forced himself up. Sure, he’d like to lie here and feel sorry for himself, but he still needed to finish unpacking and compose his new schedule – not to mention pick up his new schoolbooks and uniform.
Yakushiji had offered to order school supplies directly to the dormitory (“So you’ll have time to make friends prior to school starting, Naoto-sama.”) but Naoto wanted to collect them himself. It would give him an excuse to look around the city.
He couldn’t stand not knowing his surroundings. Even with Yakushiji and Grampa, despite how much they travelled, they always made time to go out and explore the area as best they could. Naoto would scribble notes on his observations in his journal as they walked around, Grampa would question Naoto on his deductions and help him note points of interest, and Yakushiji would redirect them towards the hotel or police station whenever they got too off track.
Naoto blinked and swallowed back the lump in his throat. He was fine. Grampa had sent him away to keep him safe, so he’d be perfectly alright here. There was no reason to feel uneasy. He was fine.
“Knock knock!” Someone called cheerfully, twisting the doorknob as they did so. Naoto scrambled to his feet, panicked adrenaline thrumming through his veins as the door creaked open and a man with long, brown hair stepped into Naoto’s room without invitation.
“Good afternoon, Ikutsuki-san.” said Naoto sharply. The sudden intrusion into his room had Naoto’s heart hammering with alarm, but it would be impolite to voice it, right?
He couldn’t afford get on Ikutsuki’s bad side so soon after meeting him. It was too high a risk – Ikutsuki was his temporary legal guardian, and that opened a possibility of exerting power over Naoto, possibly to his detriment. Best to play it safe. Grampa had often told him to watch first, act second.
“Good afternoon, Naoto-kun!” said Ikutsuki, irritatingly chipper. Strangely, the honorific rubbed him the wrong way – Naoto only ever heard his name said with Yakushiji’s “Naoto-sama” (far too much, but the man had always been indulgent), or just a plain “Naoto” from his Grampa. Other than that, the police and people they worked with referred to him as “Shirogane” or “Shirogane-kun”.
Hearing the “-kun” affixed to his first name just sounded… patronising. Naoto knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was just the way Ikutsuki said it, bright and chirpy and oddly condescending.
“I thought I would check in again, just to see how you’ve been settling in. You’ve started unpacking, I see! Very proactive of you.”
“Thank you, Ikutsuki-san.” Naoto paused to compose his question in his head before he spoke it. Phrasing, phrasing. Grampa informed Naoto that his natural tone was impersonal, arrogant, even though it was simply his way of talking. They'd worked on it together, practicing inflections and phrasing until Naoto could manage polite conversation on his own - though it still took focus to not slip back into that natural, cold bluntness. “While you’re here, may I ask something?”
“Not a problem, Naoto-kun. What can I help you with?”
“Yakushiji-san may have informed you – I require permission to leave the dorm over the next few days to collect school supplies. Would… Would I…” Naoto stalled, trying to find the vocabulary to voice his request, and though the question was there, the words were gone.
His train of thought usually ran faster than his mouth, leaving his ability to talk lagging far behind it –something that was now coming out in full force. He chewed his lip uncomfortably, scrambling to reassemble his thoughts into something coherent, painfully aware of every passing silent second.
“Ah, of course!” Ikutsuki laughed, interrupting Naoto’s increasingly nervous floundering. “In these dormitories, you need to sign in and out at the reception if you’re going out. You’ll be given a lanyard to wear – that has all the school information in case you get lost – and you’ll be expected to be back here before eight.”
Huh. That was much more freedom than Naoto had expected – Grampa or Ikutsuki were always with him when he went out, and their limited free time was carefully scheduled between lessons and work. Plus, Ikutsuki had understood his request implicitly; it bade well for future conversations, at least. Hopefully they wouldn’t be held in his room. “I understand. Thank you, Ikutsuki-san.”
“Not a problem, Naoto-kun! Do you have any other questions? You can trust me with anything, you know.”
“I do not.”
They stood there in awkward, stilted silence for a minute.
“Well, that’s that!” said Ikutsuki, clapping his hands together. “Of course, as the Chairman of the Board at Gekkoukan, I’ll be quite busy – but as your guardian, I’m more than happy to help if you need something. Do stop by my office every now and then, won’t you? I’m also in charge of a high school dormitory – if I’m not in my office, you’ll likely find me there.”
“I’ll keep it in mind, Ikutsuki-san.” said Naoto. Of course, he had no intention of doing any such thing – if he required assistance, he’d hardly reveal that to someone he barely knew. He could call Yakushiji or Grampa if he needed. That would be enough.
“Alright. I’ll see you later, Naoto-kun. Take care.” And with that, Ikutsuki was finally gone. Naoto waited for the door to click shut before he flopped back down on his bed, dropping the feigned politely neutral demeanour for true irritation.
Ugh. Did privacy mean nothing to Ikutsuki? Even Grampa waited for permission to enter his room, or at least knocked before coming in if the topic was urgent. The thought of Ikutsuki barging in without notice again made Naoto feel nauseous. What if he wasn’t there? God, what if he was changing?
Grampa had impressed on him the importance of keeping his secret. If anyone were to find out, it would ruin his reputation for years, even decades, which would destroy his career as a detective. A girl pretending to be a boy was one thing. A trans boy was another thing entirely. If his secret ever came out, Grampa’s failsafe plan was to have Naoto pretend to be a girl to maintain Naoto’s reputation as best they could.
Any non-straight, non-cisgender person was cruelly seen by Japanese society. Grampa didn’t want Naoto to experience that ostracization – he knew that. He knew that. Even so, the discomfort of always, always being male to the world when he was sure that he wasn’t always was… unpleasant. Grampa might not have fully understood when Naoto explained, but he knew his choices would always be the same.
Naoto could either be seen as a reputable boy all the time, or be a seen as an imposter and a girl all the time. No matter how uncomfortable the first was, the second would be unconscionably worse.
- Sunday, April 5th, 2009 18:02 -
The bell for dinner rang two minutes late. Naoto checked it against his watch as he crammed the last of his clothes into the wardrobe and tucked both of his suitcases under the bed.
The room felt much less cramped with all his things unpacked. The surprisingly good quality furnishings – a small desk in the corner, two shelves, a wardrobe, and a western-style bed – were close together, with about enough room to walk from the door to the single window.
It was a generous space for a middle-schooler in a dormitory, especially considering that the accommodation was private rooms instead of shared bunks.
Even so, he ended up hitting his thigh on the sharp corner of the desk when he tried to stride around it to get to the door. The vulgarity he spluttered out would make Yakushiji choke, but Naoto thought it was quite warranted. He rubbed the ache out, glaring at the desk. The glaring didn’t help his thigh, but it did make him feel a bit better.
The shouting outside was loud and boisterous. He had no desire to be trampled by a dormitory of boys scrambling for the cafeteria, so he made the executive decision to wait for the worst of it to pass before he headed down.
Naoto hesitated in front of the door, considering his jacket. The concealed gun holster was near invisible while it was hung up like this, but the thought of someone finding it while going through his room made him sick with worry, no matter how unlikely the scenario was. It would look rather odd to wear an outdoors coat to dinner, but he tugged it on nonetheless. Better safe than sorry, as Grampa said.
Naturally, Naoto didn’t own an illegal firearm. His gun was a precaution above all else – one that Grampa fought tooth and nail through a sea of legalities for, procuring the license just before he sent Naoto to Tatsumi Port Island. Twice, Naoto’d been under threat from criminals due to his involvement in Grampa’s cases. Grampa had been quite certain it would only get worse from there.
Proving both his competence with a firearm and his mental stability had been the easy part of getting himself licensed. Grampa had been taking Naoto to firing ranges since he was ten, and Naoto had studied psychology as a passing interest at eleven. No, the hardest part of getting Naoto a Small Arms License had been the legal proceedings, which had stretched over the better part of a year.
In the end, though, Grampa ensured that Naoto could carry a gun with the stipulation that Naoto would disclose his weapon to any guardians and authorities in the area; including Ikutsuki, Gekkoukan, and the Port Island police department. Naturally, that was more than agreeable to him – he wasn’t expecting to need his gun while he was away from the inherent danger of Grampa’s cases, and even if there was a situation, he’d learnt enough basic self-defence to escape.
Grampa had drummed that one into his head. Escape. If you are attacked, if there’s something out to hurt you, you run and you don’t look back. Your last resort is fighting back – your first instinct should always be to escape. It had been the precursor to any shooting lessons and any martial arts instruction.
Naoto blinked. He’d been standing here for too long; the rush of boys in the hallways was almost silent. Naoto straightened his coat, patting the pocket that concealed his gun to reassure himself before he left his room.
xXx
The cafeteria was surprisingly cosy. Beige walls and yellow lights gave the large space a warm tone that stopped the size from making it seem too exposed. One wall was less of an actual wall and more of a long set of displays that opened into the kitchen, serviced by staff that doled out food on trays for the queue of children. Tables were scattered around in a loose checkerboard pattern. Boys clustered around them, dragging chairs over from other tables with scraping sounds that resonated uncomfortably with the loud chatter ringing through the air.
Naoto already had a headache from the chaos of it all. He joined the queue and waited for it to shuffle forward, trying to keep his focus off the overwhelming volume in the room.
A kid behind him said something – trying to strike up a conversation, perhaps? – but the words were lost over the buzz of chatter around them. Naoto pretended he hadn’t heard anything and continued attempting to block out the entire cafeteria, and the kid eventually lost interest and started chatting to the boys behind him. Naoto hid a grimace; their idle chatter just added to his headache, making his ears ring with pressure.
Dinner was simple chicken katsu curry over white rice, a seasoned salad in a small dish, and a plastic-wrapped slice of cake. Naoto picked up the tray and walked purposefully away from the throng of kids around the bigger tables, aiming for a solitary chair in the corner of the cafeteria.
Having two walls behind him deadened the noise somewhat, and being able to see the entire room soothed the discomforting awareness of his own vulnerability, but it simply wasn’t enough.
He was too used to Grampa standing behind him. The absence left him wary and unsettled, a feeling bareness crawling up his spine and clinging to the nape of his neck. Naoto shifted his chair around to feel the walls at his back. It didn’t help much.
Naoto ate at record speed. As hungry as he was, staying in the cafeteria made eating decidedly unappealing. Sticking the plastic wrapped slice of cake in his pocket, Naoto dropped off his tray and rubbish off at the cleaning station before striding out of the door as confidently as he could with his heart beating so hard that he could almost taste it. He didn’t bolt through the halls, but it was a near thing, and he had to stop at the base of the stairwell to catch his breath.
The muted chatter of children through the hallway was infinitely more manageable than being in the cafeteria. Even so, the slightest sounds quickly became overwhelming, a dripping tap to his already overflowing sink. His boots echoed up the empty stairwell as he headed to his room; Naoto walked on his toes of his boots to quiet the unbearable noise.
The key jammed in the lock of his door twice. He blamed his hands for shaking, then remembered that his hands don’t shake because detectives’ hands don’t shake so it must have been the key’s fault. Naoto opened the door, closed and locked it, then dropped down on his bed, sitting on his definitely-not-shaking hands to keep them still, not that he needed to stop them trembling. Because they weren’t. Trembling, that is.
There wasn’t anything wrong. He was perfectly in control. His heart wasn’t racing, and his hands weren’t shaking, and he wasn’t breathing so fast that his vision was beginning to blur, and oh, who was he even kidding?
This was awful. He hated it here, he hated it so much; he’d give anything to be back with Grampa and Yakushiji, working over case files or plodding through schoolwork. Being in the Gekkoukan dorms was loud and different and he despised feeling so trapped in one place and he couldn’t feel safe without Grampa and Yakushiji here – but how could he say that to them?
Naoto was a Shirogane. He wasn’t supposed to be having a meltdown over simply going to school, over living in dorms that hundreds of other kids could do without issue. The mere thought of telling anyone made him recoil.
He was a Shirogane.
Everything would be fine. So long as he was calm, and he reacted as he was supposed to, everything would go as it should. A thought occurred to him just then and Naoto jumped back up, checking his pocket – only to repress a groan at the mess within.
He’d sat on his cake.
- ??????, ????? ???, ???? ??:?? -
There was soft opera playing. It was a beautiful sound. It reminded Naoto of halcyon days, when Grandma would gather Naoto and her parents in the sitting room so they could watch one of the televised performances she’d so coveted.
Naoto’s earliest memory was of all of them watching the opera, Carmen, and it came back to him vividly as the music around him rose in a crescendo. Mother trying her best to sing along to ‘L'amour est un oiseau rebelle’– her pronunciation clear from studying French, but struggling to hold a note. Father laughing and joining her in dancing (Mother was incredibly skilled in ballroom dance, and Father had learnt to keep up with her. Somewhat.) around the room.
Father singing along with Mother in horribly accented French, mangling the words but finding the notes with expert skill, like they were as simple as singing a nursery rhyme. Grandma flapping her hands at them in fond irritation, trying to get them to quiet down so they could watch the opera properly, but their silence never lasting more than a few minutes before they were back to their obnoxious performances.
Grandma scolding them with laughter in her voice, heaving four-year-old Naoto onto her lap and telling her earnestly-watching granddaughter that she was much better company for watching opera than both her ridiculous parents. Naoto didn’t remember how he’d answered back then; only the memory of pride at Grandma’s praise remained.
The soprano soared, leaping to clear, impressive notes that rang out above the swell of a lone piano. Naoto couldn’t help but feel a little sick.
He opened his eyes.
In front of him, an old man with an abnormally long nose grinned, the smile stretched eerily wide. The blonde woman beside him – Naoto could not place her age, but he put her somewhere in her teens to twenties – seemed resigned, almost apologetic by the slant of her back and the curl of her shoulders.
The man spoke.
Naoto could not hear him.
The man offered a piece of paper.
The words were illegible.
The man tilted his head, never losing his unnerving smile.
The woman blinked her mismatched eyes.
And the room shi F t e D.
“My dear Guest,” the man said, his voice high and amused. He didn’t stop smiling. Naoto was sure the man’s lips weren’t moving. “Welcome to the Velvet Room. My name is Igor… it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
The woman didn’t move. Her black shirt and blue waistcoat were immaculate, and her hair was scraped back into a perfect bun. Her face was so still that it felt as though she might be made from porcelain – she seemed more a doll than a person. Like a wax figure in a museum.
“This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. My dear Guest,” Igor’s expression was sharp with intent scrutiny, as though he was a scientist and Naoto were a particularly interesting experiment trapped in Igor’s petri dish, “in this place where time means nothing, we have waited a long, long time for your arrival.”
The woman didn’t say a word. She stared determinedly forward – her right eye was a liquid gold, while her left was black with a spiked ring of gold around the pupil. The spiked ring rotated slowly; it was the only visible movement she exhibited. Without counting, Naoto was strangely, unquestioningly certain that the number of spikes on the ring was twenty-two.
“A Guest of your circumstances is most intriguing. Ah, but before I forget; your contract, dear Weaver.”
Igor gestured to the paper on the table in front of him. Naoto could not have moved a muscle if he tried, but his eyes sank to the page without his input. The letters were in elegant print. He could read it perfectly.
~ Fate is a script to be composed, a wheel to be turned, ~
~ A thread to be spun, but not a puppet to be controlled. ~
~ The Wheel of Fortune turns endlessly onwards for all, ~
~ And regardless of power, ambition, or status, ~
~ Shall take the price it is owed. ~
~ I hereby agree to the statement above ~
~ And swear to weave my own fate, heedless of the tapestries I must unravel to do so. ~
Below the delicate script was a dotted line for a signature. Just above the line, a droplet of blood stained the white paper – old enough to be completely dry, but still a vibrant, illogical red.
There was a white quill in Naoto’s hand. He didn’t know when it got there but it made perfect sense in his grip. Of course it would be there. This was his contract, wasn’t it? What else could he possibly do, if not give himself to it?
He signed the line.
The woman closed her eyes and breathed, slowly, out. Igor smiled ever wider.
“Do you swear to abide by the contract and to take responsibility for your decisions henceforth?” Igor’s bloodshot eyes felt as though they were burning through Naoto’s soul with their intensity.
“I do.”
The words fell from Naoto’s lips without thought. He wanted to agree. He needed to. He didn’t know why. Igor took the contract and slid a key across the table; it was elaborate and old, looking like it could be made from wrought iron if not for its unnatural shade of blue. Naoto (when did the quill vanish? He couldn’t remember.) picked up the key. The cool metal warmed in his grip; he held it tight to his chest, like a prayer.
“We shall see you again soon, Weaver.” Igor’s tone was satisfied, but the woman beside him pressed her lips together and looked away. “This Velvet Room awaits your return eagerly, as do Alexis and I.”
And Naoto wanted to ask, wanted to understand what he had agreed to, why he had so desperately desired to, but even as he opened his mouth to question-
His vision swam, and then there was only darkness.