Chapter Text
Pacing the hotel room, Kaoru took deep breaths, trying to slow his pounding heart and calm the adrenaline racing through him.
Calm, cool, collected. And most importantly: controlled.
Always.
The job had gone off without a hitch, everything went perfectly according to plan—the image of the reticle was fresh in his mind, Kaoru still saw it stark and clear every time he closed his eyes.
As he waited, the hit continued to play on loop in his head:
The target—looking sharp in his dark grey three-piece suit—paused his stroll along the street, putting a cigarette to his lips and waiting for his ever-present bodyguard to light it. The bodyguard turned just slightly to pocket his lighter and the target, left hand casually in his pants pocket, held his cigarette between two fingers on his right hand and leisurely blew out a stream of smoke.
There was one second of opportunity.
Kaoru had shot him through the left arm.
It wasn’t even close to fatal; it wasn’t meant to be. It looked like a botched job…which was exactly what the client requested.
It couldn’t have gone any more perfectly, really.
Which was why Kaoru felt ridiculous that he was more amped up from waiting for the transporter than he had been for the hit.
Still…
The hit. His last hit. He bit his lips to keep from smiling, even though no one else was in the room to see him. This was it. This was it!
He was finally getting out.
Finally, he mouthed, as if in prayer. Almost superstitiously afraid to dare actually say it out loud.
The loud knock on the door nearly startled him out of his skin and he rolled his eyes at himself as he strode over to impatiently open the door.
And standing on the other side was the last person in the entire world he ever expected to see.
“Kojiro?” Kaoru asked, mind racing as he stared at that familiar-yet-not face. Of the million questions he should ask, all that came out of his mouth was, “You’re my transporter?”
“No,” Kojiro said, looking equally shocked standing there in his almost comically ill-fitting bellhop uniform. Too caught off guard to be anything but honest, he added, “I’m supposed to kill you.”
Kaoru immediately threw a punch, reacting to the situation faster than Kojiro, though he managed to throw up a block at the last minute. Which was fine—the punch wasn’t intended to land so much as to buy time by putting Kojiro on the defense.
Their tussle was chaotic and mostly pointless. Kojiro’s efforts were purely defensive, doing his best to not-die long enough to get a word in. Meanwhile Kaoru told himself that no one was going to stop him from getting out of this place, even if it meant walking over his ex-best-friend’s dead body to do it.
“Kaoru, will you just— Fucking— Ouch!”
“What are you doing here?” Kaoru asked, trying to choke him out from behind.
“I told you—” Kojiro gritted out, fingers digging into Kaoru’s forearms to relieve the force crushing his windpipe.
“No, I mean—” Kaoru grunted as Kojiro slammed himself backwards against the wall, sandwiching Kaoru none-too-gently between a rock and a hard place. Still, Kaoru clung tenaciously to his back. “You were supposed to get out.”
“Yeah, and you’re supposed to be dead,” Kojiro wheezed, swatting at Kaoru’s leg to keep him from locking his ankles around Kojiro’s waist.
“Fat chance!”
“No! I mean—” Finally Kojiro managed to get enough purchase and flip Kaoru around to his front, quickly falling and pinning him against the floor before he had a chance to regroup. “I thought you were dead. For years. How are you here?”
Kaoru opened his mouth to speak, to answer…the words dying in his throat at the sheer pain and confusion and hope in Kojiro’s eyes. Then Kaoru headbutted him with a loud crack.
“Ouchfuckmotherfucker, Kaoru,” Kojiro cursed with a scowl, keeping Kaoru’s wrists pinned with one hand and rubbing at his forehead with the other. He checked his fingers for blood and was obviously surprised they came back clean.
“The first thing you tell me is you’re here to kill me and then you’re all dramatic about a little headbutt?”
“I’m not going to kill you, dumbass!” Kojiro yelled, exasperated.
Kaoru frowned, genuinely confused. “Why not?”
“Well, because…” Kojiro trailed off, realizing he didn’t quite have an answer for that. Especially when he was suddenly distracted by Kaoru’s toes sliding along the inside of his calf, dipping into the ankle of Kojiro’s boot. It took him a second to realize he wasn’t being seduced but rather— “Kaoru, do not go for that knife!”
Kaoru barely let out an annoyed tsk when a knock on the door startled them both.
“Housekeeping!”
Kojiro and Kaoru just looked at each other, Kojiro still practically lying on top of Kaoru, using his weight advantage to keep him pinned and as least-deadly as possible.
…Though with his arms pinned overhead, his hair mussed, and his cheeks flushed from exertion to the prettiest shade of pink, Kojiro couldn’t help think this Kaoru was a different kind of deadly altogether.
“Get up, you heavy ass,” Kaoru hissed in a whisper, scowling for good measure.
“I’m pretty sure that’s not housekeeping,” Kojiro hissed right back, though he did ease off and actually extended a hand to help Kaoru up, years of muscle memory overtaking his better judgment.
Predictably, Kaoru just glanced at Kojiro’s outstretched hand and ignored it, gracefully rising unassisted.
“No shit it’s not housekeeping,” Kaoru said quietly, pulling back his long hair and retying it. “It’s probably my transporter.”
It may have been a decade or so since they’d last seen each other, but Kojiro knew Kaoru and could sense the tension rolling off of him.
“What if it’s also probably not your transporter? Was your transporter posing as housekeeping? Was ‘housekeeping’ the password?” Kojiro pressed. He already knew the answer: Kaoru had opened the door for him with just a knock.
Kaoru didn’t say anything—just gnawed his bottom lip and glanced away, which was answer enough.
The knock came again, louder and more insistent. “Housekeeping!”
Kojiro and Kaoru had learned this dirty business together—whatever other bullshit needed to be worked out between them, words weren’t necessary for this. Instead their long years apart just vanished and they only needed to lock eyes for a moment and give a brief nod before starting to move into position.
Neither expected whoever was on the other side of the door to simply unlock it. Unprepared, Kaoru nearly got a housekeeping cart kicked into his gut.
Kaoru immediately mentally berated himself as he scrambled for the pistol in his waistband, knowing full well it was too late. He’d never draw in time; the guy had burst through the door with his pistol already leveled at Kaoru. He’d been so distracted by stupid Kojiro—what a rookie mistake!
Wait, no, Kaoru thought. That was probably the whole point! These two assholes were working together, weren’t they?
Kojiro was the first attempt and if he didn’t finish the job, backup was already on the way, ready to take advantage of Kaoru’s rattled state.
None of this mattered when Kaoru put it all together way too late. The barrel was pointed at his head and the guy’s finger was already squeezing the trigger. The only thing Kaoru could do now was decide if he would stare down this no-name dickwad or glare daggers at Kojiro before his brains got blown out.
Kojiro didn’t really deserve Kaoru’s futile efforts at eye-lasering him to death, but Kaoru couldn’t help himself one last glance.
Just as his golden eyes slid to the side, Kojiro stepped out from his hiding spot, moving faster than a man his size had any right to, and cracked the guy’s neck with practiced ease and a sickening crunch.
Kaoru blinked in surprise, startled at Kojiro’s sexy effici—er, ruthless efficiency and also the fact that Kojiro actually saved him rather than helped this guy kill him. He shoved down his embarrassment at his apparently incorrect assumptions made at gunpoint and focused on the matter at hand.
“Who the hell is this guy?” Kaoru pondered, nudging the dead body with his foot. He glanced at the pistol lying on the floor where it had fallen from a lax hand. Whoever this now-dead guy was…he wasn’t Kaoru’s transporter.
“How would I know?” Kojiro asked.
“You killed him, don’t you know him?”
“Oh, like you know everyone you’ve ever killed?” Kojiro retorted.
“Well if you don’t know him, we needed to keep him alive to find out just who he is!” Kaoru argued. “Can’t ask a dead body questions!”
“Well, you can, it just can’t answer,” Kojiro said.
Kaoru just glared at him, nostrils flared and jaw clenched.
Another ten seconds and that vein in his temple will start throbbing, I just know it, Kojiro thought to himself. Guess it’s true: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Kojiro pretended he didn’t nearly have to bite his lips to fight back his smile and explained patiently, “Suppressor or not, I couldn’t risk him firing during a struggle and attracting attention. It was him or us, so I picked him.”
Not that I really thought that far, Kojiro mentally added. I thought he was going to kill you so I broke his fucking neck.
Kaoru sighed in annoyance, trying to tamp down the apprehension creeping up his spine.
“Still…” he muttered as he crouched down and quickly frisked the corpse, despite knowing he wouldn’t find any sort of useful identification. “I would have at least liked to interrogate him until he coughed up who is trying to, y’know, kill me.”
“Who isn’t trying to kill you?” Kojiro said with a sweet smile. Before Kaoru could stab him with a karambit that he pulled from god-knows-where, he hastily added, “But information or no information, we gotta get out of here.”
“What’s this ‘we’ garbage?” Kaoru scoffed. “Wait, aren’t you trying to kill me too—”
“You’re waiting for a transporter that’s never coming,” Kojiro said bluntly, ignoring Kaoru’s question. “Don’t you need to get out?”
Thoughts racing, Kaoru dragged his bottom lip between his teeth. If even the dumbest person in the room had figured it out, then the situation had changed drastically and for the worst:
Kaoru had been abandoned.
No, worse than abandoned. Not only wasn’t transporter not coming but Kaoru had also been betrayed and put on a hit list himself.
“I don’t see what that has to do with you,” Kaoru said, a little too calm and quiet. “You have the luxury of being able to stroll on out the same way you came in—”
“Exactly,” Kojiro said with a too-bright grin. He opened the door and pointed at the luggage trolley he’d hauled up while playing bellhop. “So the question now is: are you still disgustingly flexible?”
“I’m coming out,” Kaoru said, voice muffled and slightly strained from being scrunched in a large suitcase. He didn’t wait for approval before undoing the zipper (it was already sheer idiocy to let the guy sent to kill him haul him out contorted in luggage—he demanded to use the zippered case and not one that couldn’t be opened from the inside). He stretched out with a wince and a poorly-stifled whimper.
I can either get thrown around a hotel room by Kojiro or cram myself in a suitcase, I can’t do both, Kaoru thought as he stretched, muscles screaming and joints popping.
He frowned to himself; something about “thrown around a hotel room by Kojiro” sounded a little…wrong.
Oh well, he was in no condition to worry about mental semantics. He was battered, bruised, and more than a little nauseous from being wheeled out of a hotel and hefted into a van.
…And being tossed around in the back of said van as Kojiro put distance between them and the scene of the crime (crimes?) before giving Kaoru the go-ahead to extricate himself from the luggage.
“Don’t come up here yet,” Kojiro warned, glancing at his side rear view mirror. “I think someone’s following us.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kaoru hissed, neck twinging uncomfortably as he stretched too quickly.
“I wish,” Kojiro said. “Just stay back there for a second.”
“They’re after us so soon?”
“What’s this ‘us’ garbage?” Kojiro teased, throwing Kaoru’s earlier words back at him with a cheeky grin.
Kaoru pretended not to hear and vented his frustration at their pursuers by kicking the rigid suitcase next to him. “It’s all this guy’s fault.” He glared daggers at Kojiro from the back of the nondescript black van. “And your fault for killing him too early.”
“Yeah, yeah, it’s my fault,” Kojiro said, not sounding the least bit sincere. “I should’ve let him kill you first and then asked him what he was doing there.”
“Well for being in such a hurry, you had to take the time to bring him along!”
“What, I was just supposed to leave him there? Let the cops or worse, whoever is after you have some nice, fat evidence? A few clues to keep chasing you with?”
Kaoru stared at him flatly via the rearview mirror. “Right. And I’m sure your concern for the cute little maid who’d have to find him had absolutely nothing to do with it.”
“Why do you sound like a jealous girlfriend?!”
“I do not!” Kaoru hissed.
“And anyway, she’s the one that smuggled me the bellhop uniform, it would be pretty shitty of me to leave her with a dead body to clean up, wouldn’t it?”
“Why not, you already left her with chlamydia,” Kaoru muttered.
“I did not,” Kojiro grumbled.
“I can’t believe you seduced housekeeping to get a stupid bellhop uniform.”
“Why do you make it sound like I slept with all of housekeeping?” Kojiro squawked indignantly.
“Didn’t you?” Kaoru asked pointedly.
Kojiro opted not to answer. “Anyway, it’s a damn good thing I did my due diligence to get this uniform or else you’d still be sitting up there in your room extra dead.”
Kaoru rolled his eyes. “Why do you rudely assume he would’ve been successful in killing me—”
“Uh, maybe because he was totally going to kill you and I was the one who broke his neck?”
“Well maybe if you wouldn’t have been there in the first place, I wouldn’t have been so distracted—”
“Okay, fine,” Kojiro sighed, knowing he was never going to win a debate of ‘maybe’ with Kaoru. “Even if you’d killed this guy, then what? How were you going to get out of there? Walk out the front door where half the damn yakuza is waiting for you?”
A moment after the words left his lips, Kojiro tried not to grimace at his slip-up but it was too late; from the back of the van Kaoru glared at him with narrowed eyes.
“How did you know it was the yakuza?”
Silence filled the van. Kojiro should’ve known better than to hope Kaoru wouldn’t notice.
“Kojiro,” Kaoru said slowly. “Who sent you—”
“Hold on!” Kojiro barked, mashing the pedal, sending Kaoru sprawling off kilter and tumbling in the back of the van.
“Kojiro!” Kaoru yelled as he went flying, crashing into the heavy luggage. “No one is even following us, I know you’re just doing this trying to avoid answering the question—”
Kojiro glanced quickly at the side mirror and adjusted his grip on the steering wheel. “Hang tight, I can lose them but it’s going to get a bit bumpy—”
“Get a bit bumpy? You already about flung me into the back door, asshole! And who are you losing, there’s no one out there! Wait, are you just taking me to whoever it was that sent you in the first place? Am I really that fucking stupid to trust you?” Kaoru stared at the sliding door of the van; it wouldn’t be impossible to jump, but at this speed and with surrounding traffic it would definitely be ugly—
“You’re fucking stupid if you don’t trust me!” Kojiro said, knowing exactly what Kaoru’s next move would be. “Seriously, just…just don’t do anything psycho and just stay hunkered down back there—we’ll be alright in a minute, I promise—”
“Who’s ‘we’,” Kaoru mumbled.
Kojiro grinned in spite of himself.
After a few particularly sharp corners, Kaoru asked, “…Are we really being tailed?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“You absolutely would.”
Kojiro laughed. “I saved you, Kaoru, why don’t you trust me—”
“You said yourself you were sent to kill me!” Kaoru interrupted. “Why would I trust you?!”
Kojiro risked a glance in the rearview, Kaoru’s eyes golden shimmers in the darkness of the back of the van. Made Kojiro think of a stray cat trapped at the end of a dark alley, just those wary eyes visible and nothing else.
“Because I’m the only one you can,” Kojiro said quietly.
“Then how did you know it was the yakuza?” Kaoru pressed.
“…Lucky guess?”
“Kojiro!”
Kojiro was pretty sure he’d heard his real name more in the short time since reuniting with Kaoru than the last dozen years combined.
There was a time that he would’ve given anything to be nagged at by Kaoru again…but now that Kaoru was here, nagging away, Kojiro wished he wasn’t quite so stubborn and single-minded.
Then again, if he wasn’t so stubborn and naggy, he wouldn’t be Kaoru, would he.
Kojiro opened his mouth to make something up, but that wasn’t his strong suit. Not when he could feel Kaoru’s stare boring a hole into his brain, ready to tear apart any flimsy explanation he could come up with—
“Where are we going?” Kaoru asked with a heavy sigh, the change of subject a signal that he was giving up.
For now, anyway.
“We gotta get rid of this van and our buddy in the suitcase,” Kojiro said, glad Kaoru was willing to move onto the more pressing things at the moment.
Kaoru’s lips thinned in a tight frown. “I don’t…I mean, I haven’t been back here for years. I don’t know where…” he trailed off helplessly.
“I do,” Kojiro said confidently. Kaoru had left the area long ago—well, he was supposed to be dead, after all. But Kojiro still had a hideout or two as well as kept in touch with some contacts for when things got hairy. “Bad thing is, if I know of these places, they will too.”
Kaoru dared ease up between the seats, looking around. “Where is this? Are we going to Haneda?”
“No, we’re heading to a junkya—” Kojiro’s eyes flew wide. “Get on your phone and buy a plane ticket.”
“I thought you said we weren’t going to the airport!”
“We’re not,” Kojiro said, still cornering sharp enough to give Kaoru whiplash. “Where were you supposed to go? After your transporter got you out of the hotel?”
Kaoru hesitated. Irritated, Kojiro just rolled his eyes.
“Still don’t trust me? Fine it…it doesn’t matter. Just book a ticket to wherever. New York, Shanghai, Mars—I don’t care. Whatever leaves soonest.”
“Just one ticket?” Kaoru asked quietly.
Kojiro almost laughed in spite of himself. “Just one.”
Kaoru frowned haughtily. “Don’t think you’re some hero, trying to split them up or lead them away—” He stopped mid sentence, feeling like a moron for not realizing Kojiro’s plan sooner.
“No…” Kaoru muttered, putting it together. “I thought we were going to the airport so you’re banking on them thinking the same thing. The ticket is just for show—we aren’t going to the airport at all, let alone getting on a flight.”
Kojiro smirked at Kaoru’s slip up of “we”.
“No, we aren’t,” Kojiro agreed, smiling around the word. “So your tight ass might want to buy the cancellation insurance.”
“I did it for you!” Shindo Shoko wailed. “Y-you’re always saying how Yashiro is a thorn in your side, how if only he was out of the way you’d be promoted for sure—”
“If you’re going to get him out of the way, then get him out of the way!” Hirata boomed. “What kind of incompetent fuck shoots a guy in the fucking arm? Now he’ll be on guard, his guys will be out for blood, Misumi will bring him in even closer—do you realize what you’ve done?”
Shoko just sobbed, reaching for him with trembling hands but not daring to touch. “I wanted to make you happy! I was trying to help!”
“Help? If this gets out, I’ll be dead! Bitch, how fucking stupid are you!”
He raised his hand to slap her, but just clenched his fist and forced it back down to his side.
Shoko just crumpled to the floor, bawling hideously.
“I-I-I can fix it!” she blubbered frantically, clutching desperately at Hirata’s pant leg. “Honey, I promise I can fix it—”
“You can’t fix shit! You’re the one who fucked everything up in the first place!” Hirata nearly kicked her off but resisted. “Who’s the dumb fuckup that botched the job? We gotta get rid of him first, before this gets out. Tell me who you hired.”
“I don’t really…I mean—that secretary boy of Ainosuke’s is the one who—”
At that moment there was a brief knock; the person didn’t wait before letting himself in.
Tadashi stopped one step inside the room, face completely impassive at the sight of his boss’s esteemed aunt in tears groveling at the foot of an obviously irate yakuza boss in her own office.
“Excuse me, it seems now is not a good time,” Tadashi said in his usual monotone and turned to leave.
“No no no! Ta-Takashi-kun, we were just talking about you!” Shoko said, actually crawling on her knees and reaching for him. “Hirata-san was just asking who…who you, um, you know, for Ya-Yashir—”
Tadashi just nodded once, facing but not-quite-making-eye-contact with Hirata, ever the picture of professional subservience. “An old acquaintance of yours, I believe, sir. Nanjo Kojiro.”
Hirata frowned, trying to place the name. “Nanjo..?” Then it finally hit him and he took an involuntary step backwards, his knees wobbling a little. “Joe?!”
“Mm.”
“He’s alive?!” Hirata asked. He finally gave in to his anger and threw a very expensive vase across the room; Shoko shuddered as it smashed to bits against the wall. “Is everyone in this house a fucking idiot? Joe? Fuck, if he’s alive then next he’ll be after…no. No. You,” he pointed harshly at Shoko, “don’t say a fucking word about this, and don’t do a fucking thing. And you—” he grabbed Tadashi by the collar and yanked him forward, “—where is he? I’ll have one of my men take care of him.”
They had no way of knowing if the airport was being monitored but Kaoru had finished buying his fake plane ticket by the time they’d arrived at the junkyard. Apparently the guy who owned the place had done business with Kojiro before and he and Tokyo Bay would conveniently take care of the disposal of their getaway van and the dead guy inside, no questions asked.
Kaoru had accepted a helmet and found himself on the back of Kojiro’s motorcycle, nose full of the smell of Kojiro’s leather jacket (he’d changed in the back of the van and left his tragically distorted bellhop uniform behind to be destroyed with all the other evidence) before he even thought to ask where they were going now.
“My place.”
“Your place?”
“Well we can’t go to your place, dumbass, they’re trying to kill you. Plus you’re supposed to be on a plane any minute now. Besides, don’t you already have all the shit you need to book it out of here?”
Honestly, Kaoru didn’t have everything he would have liked, but he had enough. As long as he had money and a fake identity or three, he could always buy what he needed.
“So then why are we going to your place?”
“So I can get what I need to book it out of here,” Kojiro replied. Kaoru couldn’t see his grin, sitting behind him and all, but he could hear it in his voice clear as day.
“Kojiro, you don’t—”
“Don’t even say it,” Kojiro cut him off. “I’m going with you.”
Kaoru barely resisted the temptation to knock his helmet into Kojiro’s…hard. But the last thing he needed was to die in a stupid bike wreck after trying so hard to stay alive.
“But I don’t know where I’m going,” Kaoru muttered to himself.
…Which was how they ended up in Osaka roughly a two-hour train ride later, standing in the entryway of Kojiro’s friends’ house as he begged them to let him and Kaoru crash at their place, just for tonight.
“No,” a beautiful blond man said bluntly, arms crossed.
Kaoru froze, at a complete loss. That dumbass Kojiro had sounded so sure, so completely confident that since he’d done these guys a favor before—“guy was stabbed and dying, I patched him up and smuggled him out of the US and back to his boyfriend in Japan” Kojiro had said—there was no way they’d turn him down.
No, I’m the dumbass for believing him, Kaoru thought.
“Now, Ash,” the other guy (the Japanese boyfriend, apparently) said. “It’s only one night—”
“One night is all it takes for trouble,” Ash said adamantly. “I won’t have you dragging Eiji into your mess, Joe.”
That’s fair, thought Kaoru.
“That’s fair…” Kojiro begrudgingly admitted.
“No, what’s fair is letting them stay,” Eiji countered gently. “Joe would do the same for you if you needed help, Ash—he did do the same for you, actually. He’s not even asking for your participation, just a place to sleep…”
“Eiji!” Ash tried to protest. “Didn’t we leave New York to get away from this kinda shit—”
“We did,” Eiji agreed patiently. “But you would have never gotten out of New York alive without Joe’s help.” Seeing Ash waver, Eiji went in for the killing blow, “Even if you don’t feel like you owe him, I owe him for saving you and bringing you back to me. Alright?”
Kaoru was actually a bit fascinated at how Ash’s stony expression when facing Kojiro melted helplessly against Eiji’s coaxing words.
“It’s one night,” Kojiro wheedled, taking advantage of Ash’s momentary hesitation. “Just…just enough for us to kind of regroup and make a plan. We’ll leave first thing, before anyone even starts to look for us. You won’t be involved, no one will know.”
“Promise?” Ash asked sternly, trying to salvage some dignity as if it wasn’t already a done deal. Eiji smiled sweetly.
“We promise,” Kaoru assured him.
After all, if Kaoru had his way, he would be gone way before morning.
“Then it’s settled,” Eiji said happily. He gestured for them to actually come inside and follow him to the guest room. “It sounds like you’ve been through a lot today—”
“Don’t give us the details, the less we know, the better!” Ash warned.
“—so I imagine you two will want to wash up and get some rest.” He opened the door, smile a little too sweet and innocent. “You two don’t mind sharing a bed, right?”
Kojiro really didn’t mind sharing a bed but Kaoru, dramatic ass that he was, acted like he might actually die, squawking and huffing and fussing the entire time he very theatrically arranged his futon on the floor.
“You sure you don’t want to come up?” Kojiro asked, patting the sliver of bed next to him.
“You threw me around a hotel room, squished me into a suitcase, banged me around the back of a van—”
“Well, banging people is really what I’m best a—”
“Anyway,” Kaoru said loudly, cutting him off, “no, I do not want to be in any closer proximity to you than I absolutely have to.”
“That’s kind of a shitty attitude towards a guy who saved your life,” Kojiro said, folding his hands behind his head. The bed was actually too small even for Kojiro, let alone for the two of them together. But at least it was a bed—with all of Kaoru’s alleged bumps and bruises he really gave up on having a mattress way too easily.
“The guy who keeps saying he saved my life who introduced himself by saying he was there to kill me,” Kaoru reminded him.
“Yeah, well…” Kojiro shrugged, even if Kaoru probably couldn’t see it from his spot on the floor. “Life’s funny sometimes, I guess.”
Neither said anything for a moment, both lost in their thoughts. Kojiro opened his mouth more than once to ask why Kaoru was there, what he’d been up to, why he was alive—
—why he never looked for Kojiro.
But as much as Kojiro wanted an answer to all those questions he just couldn’t quite voice them aloud.
“Did you really not know?” Kaoru asked after a while, voice barely above a whisper. “That your target was me?”
“I didn’t!” Kojiro assured him, realizing it sounded truly preposterous. Kaoru was in the business too, there were certain procedures for this sort of thing. Well, usually. “I asked for a dossier, a picture, something but the broker just kept saying it was whoever opened the door to that room. That’s all I needed to know.”
“And you call yourself a professional?” Kaoru scoffed, as if they weren’t both currently in the same boat, professional or not. “What kind of half-assed job is that—”
“Usually I wouldn’t have taken it! But the more I said no, the higher the payout and…”
Kaoru snorted. “And you give me shit for being greedy.”
“It wasn’t just that! It was such a weird setup, y’know, it didn’t sit right with me and I had a hunch—”
“Oh great, your hunches again.”
“My hunch was right,” Kojiro insisted. “And I’m glad I took the job,” he said, his voice softening. “I was really happy to see you again.”
Kaoru didn’t reply but Kojiro knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. He cleared his throat awkwardly.
“What about you?”
“What about me what? Was I happy to see you again? Not at all—”
“Not that.” Kojiro smiled to himself in the dark. Kaoru’s panicked voice as he insisted he wasn’t happy to see him totally gave him away. “You just opened that door like it was nothing—did you really not think to check who was on the other side?”
“I—” Any excuse Kaoru could possibly make to defend himself died on his tongue. He thought about just not deigning to answer at all but mumbled, “I was just so excited to get out.”
Kojiro’s heart clenched but any reassurances stuck in his throat—
“…I should’ve known it wouldn’t be that easy,” Kaoru whispered, barely audible. “There’s only one way out, I know that; I’ve always known that.”
“No,” Kojiro blurted. “We’ll get out. Alive. We will.”
Who’s ‘we’? Kaoru wanted to retort.
Instead he rolled over and pretended to fall asleep.
“Kojiro-kun?” Kaoru’s mom asked carefully after hanging up the phone. “Did you run away from home?”
Five-year-old Kojiro straightened self-consciously, giving himself away. “No, I…I decided to go for a walk and just not go back. Kind of.”
Kaoru’s mom sighed, crouching down to eye level. Her eyes were sharp with intelligence and mesmerizing gold, just like Kaoru’s. “You can’t just leave without permission. Your family will worry. Come on.” She stood and held out her hand. “Let’s get you home.”
“No!” Kaoru shouted, grabbing onto Kojiro’s little arm with both hands. “I found him, he’s mine. I’m going to keep him.”
“Kaoru, he is a person not a stray kitten. You can’t just—”
“I told him he could live with us!” Kaoru continued, placing himself between Kojiro and his mother. “I promised!” He looked up at his mother, eyes blazing and lower lip quivering. “Please?”
“What’s the harm?” Kaoru’s dad said, coming into the room.
“What’s the—!” Kaoru’s mom whirled, then cleared her throat, calming herself. “A lot is the harm, honey. This young man needs to learn there are consequences and that his family was very worried—”
“I bet it was just the housekeeper,” Kojiro whispered to Kaoru. “My parents are too busy to answer the phone.”
The twitch in Mama’s jaw hinted that Kojiro was correct but she continued: “—and Kaoru needs to learn he can’t get his way just by being a brat—”
“Mooom, I promised!” Kaoru wailed dramatically. “I’ll take care of him!”
“—And that you can’t just bring home human beings and try to keep them as pets!”
“I’m nooot!” Kaoru insisted, crocodile tears turning into real ones. “He’s not a pet, he’s—he’s—Kojiro.”
“Don’t cry, Kaoru,” Kojiro said, patting his arm. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.” He tried wiping the tears away with a chubby hand.
“I’ll protect you, Kojiro,” Kaoru hiccuped through a stuffy nose, turning his head so Kojiro could better wipe his face. “I will. I promise.”
Kojiro groaned groggily as he scrubbed his face with a hand. It was hard to believe that had actually been their first meeting all those years ago; he hadn’t thought about it in ages. Considering what happened…after…Kojiro usually found it painful to think about Kaoru’s folks. For years they’d treated him so well, like their own son—more than his own parents ever did. Kaoru’s dad was gentle and patient and even if she’d been a little intimidating in the beginning, Kojiro had always thought Kaoru’s mom was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
(Needless to say, Kaoru took after his mother.)
But Kojiro couldn’t think of Kaoru’s parents without thinking of all the things that came next, the quagmire fate had in store. If…if things hadn’t gone downhill, hadn’t spiraled out of control…if their business hadn’t gone under, if Kaoru’s mom hadn’t disappeared, if Kaoru’s dad hadn’t gotten sick…
Would things have been different?
Would Kojiro have his restaurant? Would Kaoru be doing some stupid nerdy thing that made him ungodly rich? Would they bicker over glasses of wine, Kaoru shamelessly falling asleep leaning on his shoulder? Would they visit Kaoru’s parents once a week for dinner, maybe Kojiro could finally cook for them? Would Kaoru’s mom hug him and say she was so proud of her ‘other son’ while Kaoru’s dad just smiled warmly as always?
Kojiro had tortured himself with these thoughts over and over so many times before. But there was no way to turn back time so Kojiro stuffed all those memories back down and replayed the scene from his dream right before he woke up.
“I’ll protect you, Kojiro. I will. I promise.”
Kojiro snorted, thinking about that brat’s solemn face even as tears poured down his chubby cheeks. They’d been, what, all of five years old? Wait—Kaoru was younger so he might’ve still been four back then…
Had Kaoru really been so cute once upon a time?
Kojiro huffed a laugh and rolled onto his side, whispering to himself, “What happened, you’re sure not cute now—”
Kaoru’s futon was empty and the window was open.
“…So not cute.”
“What the fuck, asshole? So hell-bent on leaving me behind again?” Kojiro asked, slightly breathless. He’d grabbed his bag and jumped out the window, miraculously managing to catch up to Kaoru before he made it too far.
“What?” Kaoru asked, perhaps more surprised at Kojiro’s choice of words than he was at the fact he’d been caught so easily. “How’d you find me so fast? Wait, what do you mean ‘again’?”
“Nevermind,” Kojiro covered quickly. “But seriously, did you really think you weren’t being totally obvious? Name one other time you would ever volunteer to give up the bed. I almost think you wanted me to follow—”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Kaoru hissed. “Anyway, it’s me they want; I can’t stay here. I still don’t know who I’m up against and it’s not worth endangering these two. And you’re not even really part of this, unless you’re still thinking about finishing the job—”
“No, though you do make it tempting when you pull shit like this,” Kojiro groused.
“Kojiro, this is my problem. A-and, you know, if you want out, this is a great time to just…disappear. We killed the other guy—”
“I killed the other guy,” Kojiro corrected.
Kaoru continued, pretending to ignore him. “—so maybe they’ll assume I’m just that good—because I am—and killed you too. So just let them believe that. You said the money was good for this job, I’m sure they paid you half down, so even if you don’t get the rest for completing it—”
“Doesn’t the same go for you?” Kojiro interrupted.
“What?”
“Let’s run. Let’s get out.”
“‘Let’s’? What do you have to do with this?” Kaoru asked warily.
Kojiro clenched his jaw; how did this asshole get even more stubborn after twelve years? “You were waiting for a transporter, right? I’ll do it. Let me see the job through by safely getting you wherever it is you want to go.”
Kaoru hesitated.
“Someone is after you,” Kojiro pressed. “Maybe even two parties, judging by the clusterfuck at the hotel today. Wouldn’t it be easier with the two of us—”
“Nothing is easier with you,” Kaoru sulked. It was a lie—everything had always been so much easier with Kojiro…until it all hurt too much—
Enough of that.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro near-pleaded. He dared reach for Kaoru’s hand—it was even more freezing cold than usual. “Let’s run. Just tell me where you want to go.”
“Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” A handful of young thugs filled the otherwise-empty street, radiating the swagger and baseless confidence exclusive to the young and dumb. “Hold up. If you wanna go anywhere, you gotta pay the toll,” drawled the leader.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” Kaoru muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes even as he cracked his knuckles.
“Now, Kaoru, they’re just dumb kids…” Kojiro said, not paying much attention to the thugs at all, instead watching to make sure Kaoru didn’t go for the knife hidden at his side.
But the leader only had eyes for Kaoru, taking Kojiro’s hesitation to fight as sign of weakness.
“Or, y’know, you can always pay with your body,” the leader leered at Kaoru.
“B-boss, he’s a dude,” one of the guys spoke up nervously.
“Boss” just shrugged. “Eh, pretty’s pretty. All the same when they’re on their knees, sucking me off—”
He didn’t quite finish his sentence before his face collapsed inward, the wet crunch a eulogy for his nose and his front teeth.
Kojiro shook the blood off his fist then looked expectantly at the rest of the gang. “Next?”
The remaining gang members looked at each other, then in silent agreement they just bowed repeatedly, inching forward to grab their unconscious leader and drag him off, stammering apologies as they hauled ass as quickly as they could down the street.
Kaoru snorted, fighting a smile. “What happened to ‘they’re just dumb kids’?”
“Changed my mind,” Kojiro gruffed.
The smile faded from Kaoru’s lips as he stared in the direction where the gang had left. “Should we really just let them go? What if they’re connected to a real gang and word spreads that we were here?”
Kojiro shook his head. “Yakuza can’t be so hard up these days they’d let guys like that in; they’re just wannabes. Besides, even if they do tell someone they saw us, all we have to do is just not be here.”
“Does that mean you have an idea of where to go?” Kaoru asked too-lightly.
“Nope,” Kojiro said. “But I know you do.”
Kojiro whistled appreciatively as Kaoru led him across the dock to a very expensive-looking boat. Not that Kojiro was exactly a boat expert but Kaoru never owned anything that wasn’t expensive.
“Well, isn’t this fancy.”
“Yeah? It’s a yacht.” Kaoru shrugged, as if everyone had a yacht. A fancy one.
Kojiro obviously did not own a yacht and was kind of fascinated. “‘Bad Daddy,’ huh?” he read aloud with a snort. “Is that so you’re incognito or something? Because that name doesn’t seem very ‘you’ at all.”
“Came with the boat,” Kaoru said. “The guy who gifted it to me had horrible naming sense.”
“The guy who gif—who what?”
“The person who gave it to me,” Kaoru said, elegantly boarding his inelegantly-named boat.
“You say that as if people just give other people boats—yachts—all the time.”
“No one’s ever given you one?” Kaoru asked with exaggerated innocence. He gave Kojiro an critical once-over evaluation and added, “No, I guess they probably wouldn’t.”
“What? What the hell does that mean?” Kojiro blurted, following Kaoru to the cockpit. “And anyway—why?”
“Why what?” Kaoru asked, more focused on getting them on their way than on Kojiro’s questions. He tapped his watch to a section of the control panel.
“Why would a guy give you a fucking yacht?”
“Does it matter?” Kaoru asked faux-sweetly. “I guess because he wanted to give me something; does he need any other reason?”
“Oh, I bet he wanted to give you something, alright,” Kojiro muttered darkly.
Just then, one of the black screens on the control panel lit up with a glowing C.
“Hello, Master,” came a woman’s voice from somewhere.
“Hello, Carla,” Kaoru said happily.
“Carla?” Kojiro repeated, looking around even though he knew damn well the voice came from the speakers. “I thought this was Bad Daddy, why is daddy a lady…wait…”
“Carla is the captain, not the yacht itself.”
“That Carla?” Kojiro asked, finally putting it together. He looked at the C on the screen then down at Kaoru’s wrist. He’d thought it was just some overpriced tech nerd watch, a status symbol for geeks or something, not—
“Mm,” Kaoru said, not bothering to hide his triumphant little smirk. He gave the bracelet on his wrist a little jiggle. “That Carla.”
“Y’know, it feels kinda weird, running for our lives, people trying to kill us, and here we are sitting on a yacht, drinking wine in the sunset.” Kojiro swirled the wine in his glass and took a sip. “Not that I’m complaining.”
Kaoru took a sip of his own, using the wine glass to hide his sideways glance. Truly, Kojiro looked perfectly at home reclining lazily in his deck chair—shirtless, of course.
Kaoru let his gaze linger in the name of science; Kojiro was so much a mixture of familiar and foreign, he couldn’t help but look. The muscles Kojiro was so proud of were still there…but they’d gotten even bigger. And there was the sun tattoo on his shoulder that Kaoru could trace with his eyes closed, as well as several of the scars. But now there were also dozens of scars—some fresh, some long faded—littering that sun-kissed skin that Kaoru didn’t recognize at all.
It felt slightly uncomfortable to admit he had no idea when Kojiro had gotten them or how.
“Can’t say I blame you,” Kojiro said.
Kaoru’s head snapped up, heat rushing to his face, mortified at getting caught staring. But Kojiro wasn’t talking about that, wasn’t looking at Kaoru at all. He still gazed out at the ocean.
“…What?” Kaoru asked uncertainly.
“If you’ve been living like this,” Kojiro said, then knocked back the rest of his wine in one swig before looking at Kaoru. “I can’t blame you for not looking for me.” He huffed a deprecating laugh. “Here I thought you were dead—you let me think you were dead, while you were out here living the good life on free yachts with expensive wine. Why the hell would you look for me.”
“I…” Kaoru started to protest weakly.
“You couldn’t even just tell me you were okay?”
Initially, Kaoru expected the long train ride from Osaka to the yacht harbor in Kagoshima to act as a cage—he’d be stuck with Kojiro in an enclosed space for hours, there was no way Kojiro wouldn’t spring all of this on him then. But instead, maybe because they’d spent the night running around or because Kojiro was afraid Kaoru would ditch him at one of the stops, Kojiro just insisted Kaoru get a nap in.
Kaoru was more than happy to fake sleep, even legitimately dozing off once or twice.
He’d been foolish to think that just because Kojiro hadn’t pinned him down with questions then meant he wouldn’t bring all this up eventually.
It had been over ten years; Kojiro deserved answers, no matter how much Kaoru didn’t want to give them.
“I thought about searching for you,” Kaoru admitted quietly. “So many times. Just because I’d be so relieved to find you living some normal life, working in a restaurant somewhere, with a pretty wife and a dozen kids. But I didn’t because…”
Because I was so afraid I’d find you living a normal life, working in a restaurant somewhere, with a pretty wife and a dozen kids.
The only thing worse was seeing you when I opened the door and realizing you were still living like this.
After being more or less unofficially adopted by the Sakurayashikis, little Kojiro thought his life was perfect. And their childhoods were rosy and idyllic…for a while.
As children, they didn’t know exactly what was going on behind the scenes, but they could both tell that something was happening. The most beautiful woman in the world couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes and that infinitely patient and kind man was increasingly distracted, staring off into space with a worried frown.
Neither one smiled anymore.
Then one day, Kaoru’s mother disappeared.
Left, died, kidnapped…they didn’t know. She’d simply disappeared.
And that’s when Kaoru and Kojiro started hearing the whispers. Sometimes it was the neighborhood ladies, who at least had the decency to hush themselves and glance away when they saw the boys walk by. But their classmates didn’t bother to hold back, almost gleefully regurgitating what they’d no doubt heard their parents and households gossiping about:
“She couldn’t take it anymore and ran away.”
“Her husband’s business went under so she left him for someone who still has money.”
“She got kidnapped but her family doesn’t have money anymore to pay the ransom.”
“I heard she ran off with a host! She was having an affair with a younger man!”
“No, that’s not it. Sakurayashiki-kun’s dad took out shady loans trying to save his business and she was the collateral—surprised the loan sharks didn’t take Sakurayashiki-kun too.”
“That’s too complicated. She couldn’t stand being poor so she killed herself.”
With classmates like that, it was actually a relief when the boys got transferred to a public middle school. Kaoru’s dad apologized profusely to the boys for not being able to afford an elite private school for them anymore; he didn’t know they probably would’ve just gotten kicked out for fighting if they’d stayed there much longer anyway.
Ever since the disappearance of his wife, Kaoru’s dad was little more than an empty husk. Essentially parentless, Kaoru and Kojiro spent their middle school years getting into trouble—nothing too major, just some fights here and there, something to pass the time and vent their frustration until Kaoru’s dad snapped out of it.
But Kaoru’s dad didn’t “snap out of it.” Instead, he continued to deteriorate until he was hospitalized their first year of high school.
Then in their second year, they ran into an old acquaintance from elementary school:
Shindo Ainosuke.
Those childhood years seemed like a lifetime ago, a completely different world from the one they lived in now. In their time apart Ainosuke had spent several years in the US where he adopted the name Adam; a name he continued to use in certain circles now that he was home in Japan. Ainosuke didn’t seem the least bit put off or even surprised by their current lawless lifestyle. Rather, he even offered up a few business ideas, a job here and there if they wanted to make some easy money…
Kaoru thought they should go for it; Kojiro was against it. He argued that being a delinquent was one thing but being an actual criminal was another. Kaoru didn’t seem all that convinced but he eventually relented and they told Ainosuke they weren’t interested.
Rather than going down an even darker road, Kojiro had a plan. They’d get the hell out of this place, away from the bad memories and the nasty rumors, and start over. Kojiro had a passion for cooking (which was a good thing, or Kaoru would’ve starved to death long ago) and wanted to make a career of it. Kaoru was always dicking around on his computer, doing some programming shit or something, couldn’t he do that anywhere? Like maybe…Italy, even?
By the time Kojiro visited Kaoru’s dad in the hospital, Kaoru had already told him everything. So while he went in with a heart heavy with guilt and trepidation, he left with Papa Sakurayashiki’s wholehearted blessings.
…On the one condition that Kojiro promised to look after Kaoru.
“I know it won’t be easy, he won’t let it be easy,” Kaoru’s dad said with a slight smile, the first one Kojiro had seen in ages. “And you’re just a kid too; I know it’s cruel of me to ask this of you, Kojiro. But I have no one else to ask. Please take care of Kaoru.”
Kaoru’s dad died two months before their graduation.
Despite being delinquents, they did graduate. Kaoru was smart enough that school was easy whether he went or not. Kojiro squeaked by somehow; probably because girls were happy to lend him their notes or help him cheat on tests.
“Kaoru. Where did you get this?” They’d been working part time jobs, trying to save up for their new life. Plane tickets, housing, all that crap—it wouldn’t be cheap, especially with two of them.
But Kaoru handed him a surprising stack of cash. “Surprising” both because Kaoru was hardly the type to just give away money he’d hoarded and also because of the impressive amount.
“I’ve been dabbling in some stocks,” Kaoru lied. “It’s enough, right? To get you over there?”
Kojiro looked at the cash in his hand, chewing his bottom lip nervously. Kaoru tried not to hold his breath, waiting to see if Kojiro would call his bluff or if he’d look the other way and take it.
“It’s enough,” Kojiro said finally. Quietly. Then he looked Kaoru in the eye. “Are you really sure?”
“Of course,” Kaoru said easily. Because he was absolutely sure. He wanted to get Kojiro the hell out of here, get him somewhere better, get him whatever it was he needed to realize his dream and fly.
“I don’t want to go without you,” Kojiro blurted as Kaoru saw him off at the airport. “Maybe I should put off my apprenticeship until we can go together—”
“Don’t you dare,” Kaoru warned with a scowl.
“But—”
“I’ll be right behind you,” Kaoru lied.
“You will?”
“Yeah.” Kaoru smiled, trying to look natural. “Let me just rack up some easy money and I’ll be there before you know it.” He grinned, genuine this time as he let himself pretend. “I’ll be your taste-tester.”
Kojiro grinned back and Kaoru tried to commit every detail to memory. The sparkle in the chestnut eyes, the errant green curls haphazardly across his forehead, the hint of dimples when Kojiro smiled just-so.
“Okay,” Kojiro said, holding up his pinky. “Promise.”
Not trusting his voice, knowing it would break just like his heart had, Kaoru nodded and ignored the hooked pinky, bumping his knuckles against Kojiro’s instead.
“Promise,” he whispered, almost whispering, forgive me instead.
“Ah, the power of friendship,” Ainosuke said, joining Kaoru as Kojiro vanished, swallowed up by the airport.
“Shut the fuck up,” Kaoru said, no heat behind it.
“Now now,” Ainosuke said, a smirk on his lips. “Is that any way to speak to your benefactor?”
Kaoru had been dabbling…but not in stocks. Instead he’d been experimenting with a little programming and more than a bit of hacking and ended up stealing a lot of money—
From the wrong people.
Fortunately, Ainosuke happened to be acquaintances with these “businessmen” and interceded on Kaoru’s behalf. They weren’t entirely unreasonable; they were happy to let Kaoru live—and even keep some of the money he’d stolen (as a loan with very high interest, of course)…as long as he agreed to work for them with his fancy new program.
Naturally, Kojiro knew none of this, which was exactly how Kaoru wanted it. And soon Kojiro’s apprenticeship dominated his time, his texts to Kaoru increasingly few and far between. Which was fine—their conversations were little more than a broken record at this point with Kojiro asking when Kaoru would be coming and Kaoru continuing to stall weakly with “Just a little more…it’s gotten tricky” or “A little longer, just a little longer.”
Kaoru had come to terms with the fact that it was all just a fantasy, that he would never follow Kojiro to Italy.
…That Kojiro’s only real possibility of happiness relied on never reuniting with Kaoru.
But then one day Ainosuke stopped by with that seductive devil’s smile of his.
“Ah, Cherry. I happen to have a project you just might be interested in.”
“Kaoru?” Kojiro asked incredulously. “Kaoru!”
For just a moment, Kaoru let himself forget why and how he was here, let himself forget their usual banter and teasing and just launched himself at Kojiro, who swung him around in a hug.
“You’re here,” Kojiro said into his hair. “You’re here.”
“I told you I’d get here!” Kaoru said, his cockiness betrayed by the wetness in his eyes.
“Yeah, you told me that like nine months ago!” Kojiro laughed, setting him down. “Better late than never, I guess.”
Kaoru socked him in the arm. “Better be.”
Fortunately Kojiro’s apprenticeship still kept him very busy, giving Kaoru the run of his—now their—room during the day. It was plenty easy to move around the city or work on his computer “projects” without Kojiro nosing into his business. It was almost more than Kaoru could ask for; after all, the whole point was to keep Kojiro out of this rotten kind of life.
…Not to mention how disappointed Kojiro would be if he found out Kaoru was involved deeper than ever with the underworld.
Of course it was sheer folly to expect Kojiro to willingly stay in the dark forever.
Not when he woke up one night to find Kaoru trying to sneak back into their room, bloodied and bruised.
“Kaoru,” Kojiro said, barely a breath. He swallowed thickly, going to him, fingers raised to his swollen cheek, stopping before he touched. “Kaoru, what’s going on?”
But Kaoru could tell by the tone of voice, by the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes that Kojiro already knew the answer. He’d always played dumb but unfortunately wasn’t actually that stupid. Kaoru inhaled shakily, frantically trying to think of a fib or a lie or a distraction.
“I’m sorry,” Kaoru said instead, sniffling as the tears threatened to fall. I fucked up.
“Are you hurt?” Kojiro asked, which was almost laughable because Kaoru was quite obviously hurt, hurt and bleeding—
Kaoru shook his head, burying his face into Kojiro’s neck as he started to bawl, so frustrated and furious with himself. And so fucking tired.
You weren’t supposed to see this, weren’t supposed to know anything about this. I fucked up.
He’d rather die than look weak, he absolutely couldn’t stand Kojiro seeing him this way, but he couldn’t stop the tears.
“I’m sorry, Kojiro. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Kojiro whispered, hugging him, careful not to squeeze too tightly in case Kaoru had injuries he couldn’t see. “It’s okay.”
Then, because Kojiro was Kojiro:
“Kaoru, who are we up against? What do you need me to do?”
Sometimes those years in Italy felt like a dream. Sure, Kaoru—and now Kojiro—were doing illegal, potentially deadly things. But they were together and having fun. During the day, Kojiro learned cooking and at night, he ran around with Kaoru and learned...
“The Business.”
“Just a bit longer” “just a little more time” “one more payment” and they’d be free.
It was all a lie.
Much too late they realized that the time spent in Italy wasn’t to work off their debts or clean the slate; they were being trained. They returned to Japan, owing more and sinking deeper than ever.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Ainosuke greeted with a smarmy grin. “Nanjo-kun—oh, wait, you go by Joe now, right? It’s been too long—”
“Cut the shit, fuckhead.”
“Fuckhead?” Ainosuke asked, still smiling, eyebrows raised. “That’s a new one.”
“I know you’ve been using him—”
Ainosuke held up a hand. “He’s hardly the victim you think he is, Joe. It’s much more accurate to say we’ve been using each other.”
In Italy they at least had the semblance of freedom, they could pretend. Pretend it was temporary. But now that they were back in Japan, reality was all too brutal.
This lifestyle, the stealing and scamming and killing…it wasn’t a one-off deal. Wasn’t temporary. Wasn’t “just until they could get out.” They were baptized by fire, full-fledged criminals. Killing machines.
There was no way out for them now.
Well…no way out alive.
Before long, they settled into a tense, mutually self-destructive spiral. Being around Ainosuke was a constant reminder to Kojiro of how easily Kaoru had been suckered in. It was easier to focus on blaming Ainosuke for taking advantage of Kaoru than to deal with his own guilt of letting down Kaoru’s dad, for breaking that promise made on his deathbed.
Besides, how could he not despise Ainosuke and be furious at Kaoru when Kaoru always took Ainosuke’s side?
Meanwhile, Kaoru could only watch Kojiro getting further and further away from him, drowning himself in women (and other questionable vices), getting snappier and harsher with his words and actions both. Of course he did—he had to numb the pain of being dragged back into this life when he was out. How could he not resent Kaoru for fucking things up for him? Showing back up like he did, ruining his dream life in Italy?
No matter how hard Kaoru tried to do the right thing (or the least-wrong thing) he always fucked it up for them. No matter how hard Kaoru tried to set Kojiro free, he only bound him tighter.
Such self-loathing and tension couldn’t go on indefinitely; the jagged feelings had been building for too long, there was no holding them back anymore.
Of course at the time, Kojiro had no way of knowing it would be their “last fight.” Years after, he could still recall it as if it was yesterday. It had been a day like any other, a rehashed argument they’d had seemingly a million times already; another yelling match over Ainosuke’s unreasonable “requests.”
It was almost as if Ainosuke was just playing his own sick game, seeing how far he could push before Kaoru flinched, told him to find someone else.
But Kaoru never said no.
Kojiro didn’t care how much of an adrenaline junkie Kaoru was—they both were—these jobs were getting too deadly, too dangerous.
“You owe him? For what? For using you like a fucking indentured servant?” Kojiro yelled. “It’s not like he put you through college or something to better yourself, he trained you as a fucking assassin so you could do his dirty work!”
“I owe him,” Kaoru repeated stubbornly. “Just drop it.”
“He’s going to get you killed one of these days, Kaoru.”
“Not if I’m a good enough assassin,” Kaoru said flippantly.
“It doesn’t matter how good you are, Kaoru. People in this line of work don’t die of old age.”
“Neither do gigolos, but you don’t seem to let that stop you.”
“Fuck you. Fine, do what you want. I don’t care.”
That was the last time they saw each other.
Kojiro found out later that the job had been meant for him but Kaoru had taken it instead. For years he wondered if it was because of that fight, because Kaoru was mad and trying to show him up. Or if it was because Kaoru wasn’t mad at him and was just trying to keep Kojiro out of danger.
Or if someone had said something, egged him on…
The only one who knew the real answer to that was Kaoru, who unbeknownst to Kojiro eventually woke up, drugged to hell on pain meds and not entirely sure how he was even still alive, his very first word being:
“Kojiro?”
“Ah, try again!” a wry, too-cheery, and very not-Kojiro voice answered from the bedside. Kaoru’s eyes still wouldn’t focus and he hurt too much to turn his head to look. The speaker either took pity on him or lost patience and chirped, “Yashiro!”
Kaoru closed his eyes. He’d fucked up the hit, he was barely alive, and he was now the property of the very person he’d been sent to kill.
All he could think of was that whatever happened to him now, Kojiro would blame himself. Would think it was his fault.
“I—I have to—have to tell him—” Kaoru paused for breath; everything hurt, his heart worst of all. “Have to tell him I’m…I’m sorry…”
“Aww,” Yashiro said, sounding not at all sympathetic. “But even if I was in the mood to return you or pass on your message, it would do no good. You’ve been out for a good week; I heard your boy vanished.”
Kaoru’s head was still fuzzy; it took him a second to process what Yashiro had meant.
“Like…” Kaoru hesitated. “Bad vanished?”
“He got out,” Yashiro lied beautifully. “Without you, he had nothing holding him there anymore. Do you really want to drag him back in again?” Then, he leaned closer and whispered, “Isn’t this what you wanted?”
Kojiro stood on the deck of the obnoxiously-named Bad Daddy, trying to untangle his thoughts while staring at the endless ocean.
This early in the morning, Kaoru was still snoozing away in his cabin and likely would be for a while. He’d always been a late sleeper but people in their line of work rarely rested so deeply.
Kojiro couldn’t help but wonder how many years it had been since Kaoru had felt safe enough to get a good night’s sleep.
They’d talked for a while the night before but it wasn’t enough; there was still something Kaoru was leaving out. Kojiro churned it all over in his mind. Did Kaoru omit something intentionally? Probably. Was there something going on that even Kaoru didn’t know about? Also probably.
“Yashiro, huh?” Kojiro mumbled to himself.
Never in a million years did he think Yashiro would actually take in his would-be killer, let alone turn around and invest years into honing him into an even deadlier weapon.
Though if he knew anything about Yashiro, it was that he was unpredictable.
Kojiro knew who Yashiro was, of course. Everyone in the business knew his name (and the unsavory rumors surrounding him…not that Yashiro himself cared. Hell, he’d probably started half of them). Kojiro had even seen him a few times, though he was too low in the hierarchy to have ever actually spoken to him. Not that Hirata would’ve ever allowed it regardless—he constantly warned his guys to stay away from Yashiro or he’d “turn them gay.”
Little did Hirata know that there was really only one guy Kojiro would “turn gay” for…and it certainly wasn’t Yashiro.
No, no, Yashiro, Hirata—Kojiro was focusing on the wrong things. Hirata was a brute and notoriously cruel, but he wasn’t smart enough to pull off something particularly sneaky. And Yashiro’s involvement came after the fact; he was plenty smart to have coordinated something but the timing didn’t add up.
Kojiro took a deep breath, starting over with the facts:
1. Everyone knew Kaoru died while attempting a hit on Yashiro twelve years ago.
2. Kaoru was obviously alive.
…So who was the person that had actually told him about Kaoru’s death?
Kojiro frowned, thinking back. He’d been absolutely out of his fucking mind after he heard the news. It had been delivered without an ounce of emotion, which really wasn’t out of character for this person but that voice was for meetings, agendas, confirming lunch reservations or something. It shouldn’t be for telling Kojiro his best friend was dead…
His body moving on his own, he chased after the man, grabbing desperately at his immaculate suit jacket. There was no disdain in those eyes, no emotion at all as they looked at Kojiro.
Kojiro begged, actually crumpling to his knees in the hallway, pleading to see Kaoru. Kaoru’s body. To see him one last time.
Those impassive eyes looked back at him, completely unreadable as usual and utterly devoid of compassion.
“I wouldn’t show it to you even if I could,” Tadashi finally said. “You wouldn’t want your last memory of him to be that.”
“Kikuchi…” Kojiro murmured thoughtfully.
It hadn’t seemed all that odd at the time—then again, Kojiro was in no mental condition to think anything was odd back then. A budding politician like Ainosuke couldn’t very well be stopping by the yakuza office in broad daylight, so Tadashi was often sent as a liaison between Hirata’s group and the Shindo family.
So Kojiro hadn’t thought to question it; he’d assumed Tadashi had heard something from the police when Ainosuke was schmoozing with law enforcement or something.
But when it came down to it, the one who told Kojiro that Kaoru was dead, the one who implied the body was so mutilated that he wouldn’t even want to see it…was Tadashi.
…Why?
Kojiro didn’t have a good answer. Just like he still didn’t know who was after them now.
And on top of everything else there was another component that didn’t quite fit:
The second assassin sent to the hotel room.
Kaoru was understandably preoccupied staring down the barrel of the guy’s pistol at the time, so he didn’t notice. But from where he was off to the side, Kojiro had seen it all too clearly:
When the guy pulled the gun on Kaoru, he got a clear look at who he was aiming at…and hesitated.
Kaoru wasn’t his mark.
Which meant…
Kojiro was.
“They’re heading to Okinawa? Really?” Ainosuke asked as he swirled his teacup, wishing it was an appropriately expensive liquor instead. But this was just a short reprieve in a day full of repetitive meetings; smelling like booze really wouldn’t do. “Do you think they’re going to make a run for it? Flee the country?”
“Even if they do, they won’t make it for long,” Tadashi said. “Hirata-san happened to get wind of things and is sending people after them as we speak.”
Ainosuke chuckled. “What an idiot.” Then he sighed. “At least he’s a useful idiot. And Yashiro?”
“Yashiro-san is recovering nicely.”
Ainosuke hummed an incongruously happy little tune. “Isn’t it wonderful when things go to plan?”
Being a rhetorical question, Tadashi didn’t answer.
“You think they’ve figured it out yet?” Ainosuke asked.
“No.” Tadashi shook his head. “But we’ll know the second they do as they’ll likely be charging full speed toward your door.”
Ainosuke grinned, canines sharp and eyes glinting with genuine excitement. “I can’t wait.”
“Patience, Ainosuke-sama,” Tadashi said, as if he’d taken Ainosuke literally. “Things need to happen in their proper order for this to be worthwhile.”
“I know, I know,” Ainosuke said, smirk never leaving his lips. “The final act will be worth waiting for.”
“What the hell?” Kojiro blurted.
“What the hell what?” Kaoru asked, exasperated.
“Why are you as tall as me?”
“I might be taller than you.”
“Pshh, no. Anyway stop it. What the—” Kojiro swallowed in spite of himself. “W-why are you wearing heels?”
They’d picked Okinawa for a few reasons. It had the major advantage of being accessible by Kaoru’s boat but it was also their old stomping grounds and Kojiro still had contacts there. He wanted to pay one or two a visit and try to get some information about the current situation. Once they figured out exactly who they were dealing with, they could hide out on Kaoru’s yacht and cruise around the islands while they formulated a plan and decided what to do next.
However, them being familiar with Okinawa also meant Okinawa was familiar with them…which was kind of a problem with at least one if not both of them being pursued by the yakuza.
So Kojiro had suggested posing as a couple. He’d mostly said it just to be an ass—there was no way Kaoru would dress up as a woman—
Well. That’s what he’d thought right up until Kaoru came out of his cabin, looking every bit a rich heiress.
Why the hell was there a whole women’s wardrobe on this boat? Let me guess, that was ‘gifted’ too?!
“Because you told me you wanted to try this utterly ridiculous married couple cover,” Kaoru replied patiently, oblivious to Kojiro’s internal shrieking. “So unless you want to be the wife—”
“No but I’m not used to you being here.” With a vague motion indicating his height, Kojiro took a step to close the distance and they stood literally nose to nose. “I don’t like it.”
“So what?” Kaoru scoffed, turning away and putting some distance between them. “You expect me to go barefoot?”
“C’mon. You have to have flats.”
Kojiro really didn’t know that for sure; if he’d been the guy buying boats and women’s clothes and whatever the hell else for Kaoru, he probably would’ve just picked heels too…
He didn’t want to think about it.
“They don’t coordinate with this outfit,” Kaoru sulked.
“Kaoru.”
“Does it matter? I’m already too tall for a woman—”
“Nah, I know someone your height. But your height in flats.”
“Liar.”
“I do! I swear! A real Russian beauty.” Kojiro winked for good measure.
“I’m not Russian,” Kaoru said flatly.
“Yeah but anyone looking isn’t gonna know that with your big glasses and your fancy scarf and…” Kojiro gave a generic wave in Kaoru’s annoyingly stylish direction. “Anyway, it’s not impossible, is what I’m saying.”
“Fine,” Kaoru sighed in irritation and turned to look for different shoes in his cabin.
“Hey, um. Feel free to put those heels back on later. In private.”
Kojiro barely ducked in time to dodge the heel thrown expertly at his head.
Their disguise was a success because no one seemed to recognize them.
But their disguise was a complete failure because everyone did double-takes or flat-out stared because they just looked too damn good.
Wasn’t the point to not attract attention?!
“I might have to dress as the wife next time,” Kojiro mumbled to himself.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Kojiro said. “Ah, here’s the place.”
Kaoru stood in front of a row of shops and made a face as he read a couple of the awnings. “Is this really a tattoo parlor next to a florist? Really?”
“Yeah?” Kojiro didn’t see the problem, waltzing into the tattoo parlor with easy familiarity. “Is that weird?” He didn’t wait for Kaoru’s answer, instead sweeping the place with a glance and making sure they were alone before settling on the owner.
“Hey, Oka.” Kojiro grinned, peeling off his t-shirt. “I’m here for my touch up.”
“Joe?!” Oka blurted incredulously. The place was empty, but his eyes darted around nervously anyway, lingering for a moment on Kaoru.
“What’s up, man?” Kojiro asked, voice friendly but his grin a little sharp. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
With another glance at the door, Oka pulled his black face mask up over his nose and jerked his head toward a chair in the back, going along with the act just in case. “Can you blame me?” Oka muttered, a little muffled by his mask.
“You alright here?” Kaoru asked, eyes sliding away from Kojiro’s naked torso just a little too late. “I’m going to go next door.”
“Aw, gonna pick me out a bouquet, sweetheart?”
“Funeral wreath,” Kaoru said, flipping him off as he left.
Oka squinted uncertainly as he watched Kaoru leave, then his eyes widened and he nearly gave himself whiplash turning to Kojiro.
“Was that..?” Oka asked in disbelief.
“A real looker?” Kojiro supplied nonchalantly. He shouldn’t have even let Kaoru set foot in the place, but who would recognize a guy who’d been dead for over a decade? “Forget it, bro, that one’s wayyy out of your league.”
Oka rolled his eyes. “That’s not what I meant…” He trailed off again, thinking carefully.
“Doesn’t matter,” Kojiro said, turning serious. It made him a little uncomfortable to have Kaoru out of sight, but he definitely didn’t want Oka to get a better look and it worked to his advantage to have Kaoru out of hearing range. He didn’t know what sort of information to expect from Oka but he did know that he wanted first dibs at it without Kaoru around. “Why did you look so surprised when I came in? What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” Oka repeated incredulously. “You tell me! What the fuck were you thinking, Joe? A hit on Yashiro, of all people?”
Kojiro barely kept a straight face, choking back the flabbergasted What?! that nearly flew out of his mouth.
He was so startled he almost missed what Oka said next.
“Fortunately—or unfortunately, I dunno—Yashiro is still alive. Allegedly, anyway. Some guys are saying that’s just a lie the Doushinkai put out to buy time. Misumi’s trying to keep everything on major lockdown so no one really knows the truth. Sometimes I hear he’s on death’s door, still on life support at the hospital. Other times I hear it just winged him, blew off a pinky or something, he’s totally fine.”
Kojiro frowned to himself. This was one revelation after another—first that the hit had been on Yashiro—which seemed a bit…strange…after only now finding out that Kaoru had “died” after a failed hit on him over a decade before.
But more pressing:
Kaoru…missed?
Something wasn’t fucking right.
Oblivious, Oka continued yammering on. “But you know the yakuza, dead or alive, you went after their boss—his guys are seriously out for blood. I just knew you had to be dead already. You must be nuts to even still be in the country, you should probably get out and lay low for a while—”
“What?” Kojiro blurted. “Me?”
Oka stared back, a little confused. “…Wasn’t it you? I swear everyone is out looking for you, eager to make points with the Doushinkai. How did you get here, anyway? You better not be leading them here!”
It started falling into place: Kaoru’s surprise at the hotel—not just at Kojiro but at any attacker. The second hitman, not after Kaoru at all. Oka looking like he’d seen a dead man. “What the fuck were you thinking, Joe? A hit on Yashiro of all people?” “Wasn’t it you? I swear everyone is out looking for you…”
This was deliberate. And big.
“Thanks for the info, Oka! I owe you one,” Kojiro said, hurriedly pulling on his shirt as he charged out of the tattoo parlor. He nearly ran into Kaoru, who hadn’t gone to browse flowers at all but was keeping watch outside the door.
“What’s wrong—”
“We gotta go!” Kojiro said, grabbing Kaoru’s wrist and pulling him along. It didn’t matter that Kaoru was disguised, at least one group wasn’t after Kaoru in the first place. He wanted to get them both out of Naha as soon as possible, either back on the ocean or to a more remote island where they’d be less likely to be recognized or followed.
“What happened?” Kaoru asked as they hurried back to the yacht.
“They’re still after us—uh, you,” Kojiro fumbled. He wasn’t quite ready to correct Kaoru’s assumption that the hotel “room service” had been for him instead. “I thought we’d have a bit of a breather but it doesn’t sound like they’re going to let up.”
“Who is after us?” Kaoru asked. “They’re here? How?”
Kojiro glanced at Kaoru, wanting to see his expression. “Yashiro’s guys. The Shinsekai, maybe even the Doushinkai.”
Kaoru nearly stumbled, obviously surprised. And while Kaoru wouldn’t hesitate to lie through his teeth, he wasn’t particularly good at it—at least not to Kojiro.
So that surprise wasn’t fake.
But that didn’t make sense—Kaoru shot their boss. Why would he be surprised that Yashiro’s group was after him for revenge?
“That can’t be right,” Kaoru said weakly.
“You really shot Yashiro?” Kojiro asked point-blank.
“He wouldn’t send his guys after me,” Kaoru insisted. Realizing that sounded incredibly odd, he tried clarifying, “We’re already in Okinawa; they wouldn’t come this far—”
“You don’t think his guard dog would hunt you to the ends of the fucking earth? Hell, that psycho would find you in space, tracking you to Okinawa is nothing—”
Kaoru shook his head insistently. “Doumeki won’t be here, he wouldn’t leave—”
“You killed his boss!” Kojiro yelled, baiting him.
“But I didn’t—” Kaoru protested, catching himself too late.
So you did miss. You knew you missed. Because it was on purpose.
…Why?
Kojiro opened his mouth, not even knowing which of his million questions he’d ask first—
“Look out!” Kaoru yelled and flung a knife that whizzed past Kojiro, landing with a firm thunk into the guy behind him.
A dozen thugs poured out from between the small buildings and metal containers lining the docks, putting Kojiro’s questions on hold.
There was a stark difference between low-level yakuza thugs and professional killers; even swarmed, Kojiro and Kaoru held their own easily. This wasn’t the old days when Kaoru and Kojiro had fought back-to-back, perfectly in sync—too much time had passed, they had changed too much. But at the same time, habits were hard to break and even with the years stretching between them no one knew their styles better than each other.
They just had a few more secret tricks up their sleeves now.
Kojiro glanced over just in time to see Kaoru deliver a vicious kick to a guy’s head, the body dropping limply to the ground after a sickening crunch.
Kojiro grinned. “Aren’t you glad you switched to flats?”
“Oh shut up,” Kaoru groused, rolling his eyes before he threw up an arm to block a punch. “How’d they find us so fast?”
“I dunno, ask them,” Kojiro grunted, taking out a guy with a spinning back elbow.
Kaoru restrained his current assailant. “Who are you guys working for?” He felt a little dumb straight up asking such a tropey movie line—
“Like I’d tell a dead man!” the guy snarled, even more cliche and embarrassing.
Kaoru stabbed him twice in the throat at lightning speed and then moved away before the blood could splatter on his clothes.
“They aren’t very helpful,” Kaoru reported, already fighting the next guy. “Who would even know to look for us here?”
“What about the guy who gave you the boat? He might suspect it.”
“Can’t be,” Kaoru said instantly.
“Why not?” Kojiro asked, ugly tendrils of jealousy squeezing his heart. Here they were in deep shit and Kaoru was being willingly obtuse for the sake of some sugar daddy—
“Because that guy was a mark of mine.” Kaoru paused, then added for clarification, “‘Was’ being the key word.”
“You killed a guy after he gave you a yacht?” Kojiro asked incredulously.
“I’m an assassin, Kojiro,” Kaoru said, actually killing another thug in the next moment as if to drive home his point. “What, was I supposed to turn it down? ‘Oh, sorry, I’m going to kill you later, you shouldn’t give me presents’?”
So much for those tendrils of jealousy. Kojiro almost felt sorry for the poor dead schmuck. Almost.
“But still…he gave you like, a boat,” Kojiro mumbled to himself, his slightly conflicted expression at total odds with the fact he was currently choking a guy out.
Either Kaoru was ignoring him or he genuinely didn’t hear. “I had the marina fuel up the yacht,” Kaoru said, looking at the assortment of dead and unconscious bodies littering the ground. “We can either head for one of the islands and lay low and regroup or we can get our stuff off the boat and head to the airport—”
Kaoru had yet to finish the thought when his freshly-refueled yacht exploded spectacularly, erupting into plumes of toxic black smoke and sending shrapnel flying in waves of scorching heat.
“What the fuck!” Kaoru cursed, dusting himself off as he stood. He’d hunkered down as soon as the explosion hit; he’d assumed Kojiro had the reflexes to do the same. “My yacht!”
“Looks like we’re heading to the airport without getting our stuff off the boat,” Kojiro sighed.