Eyes Full of Darkness [5/?]
Title: Eyes Full of Darkness
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2850
Summary: The mysterious man says he only wants to talk, but what is his real objective?
Notes: OH NO it took a month and a half to write this chapter. :( :( :( Um. WHOA there's a lot of talking in this chapter but maybe the plot will develop! Maybe.
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
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Chapter 5: Cloudy eyes, warped vision
Yukito immediately pushed Akutsu behind him and drew his sword. The man frowned, but didn’t lower his gun. “Yukkii,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice. “I only want to talk to you.”
“And you think hurting Shin-chan and my… his friends is the way to get me to listen?” Yukito replied in a calm, steady voice.
Akutsu stared at the man and immediately dismissed him as not being his type. For all that he was doing his utmost to be an imposing threat, there was something about him that seemed very soft and feminine and gentle. He might be an assassin, but Akutsu felt sure that he was of the ‘I have to kill you but gosh I feel awfully bad about it’ school. “You didn’t kill Shion and Shiramata, did you?” he asked casually. “You probably used some sort of tranquilizer or something to get them out of the way, right?”
The man looked at him. “Of course I did! Why would I kill two kids that didn’t even do anything?” he said, sounding horrified at the thought. “I told you, I just want to talk to you, Yukkii! But I can’t very well say what I have to say in front of all these other people! Can’t you have him at least go away for like, ten minutes?”
Yukito hesitated. Akutsu noticed that he hadn’t lowered his sword at all. “I… Shin-chan is… I don’t want to make him…”
Akutsu placed a hand on Yukito’s shoulder. “Anything you want to say to Yukito, you can say to me.” Yukito nodded gratefully.
“I can’t do that,” the man said, looking directly at Yukito. “You know the rules. Outsiders are not allowed to know about these things. I’m surprised you haven’t-”
“Shin-chan is special,” Yukito said firmly. Akutsu giggled under his breath because he had always known that line would be directed at him someday. “Anyway, he’s not an outsider, not anymore. You talk to both of us, or neither of us.”
There was something like shock on the man’s face. “Yukkii, you can’t mean… You can’t be thinking of bringing a Safety like him in. That goes against everything in the code! Anyway, he hasn’t been trained, if you seriously mean to bring him in you’ll be as good as killing him.”
“I won’t! I know he can do it if he works hard. Besides, he’s the one who said he wanted to try. Why shouldn’t I let him?”
“Yukito, you’re just being selfish. He-”
“Selfish?” A note of mania crept into Yukito’s voice. “I don’t want to hear you of all people saying that.”
The man looked uneasy. “I-”
“Sure it’s selfish,” Yukito said, his voice growing louder as he went on. “It’s selfish to want someone else to rely on. It’s selfish to want to have a partner.” There was an immense amount of bitterness in the last word, and Akutsu was slowly starting to realize how betrayed he must feel by what this man had done to him. “It’s selfish to want to do anything to stay with the only person who’s ever, ever done something kind for me without expecting anything in return.” (The man and Akutsu both winced at that.) “But it’s nowhere near as selfish as selling out your master, selling out me, your partner for more than ten years, just because you think you’re in love with the grandson of the man who had your parents tortured and killed.”
Akutsu was a little impressed by his speech and almost applauded. He thought about adding a “So there!” or something to emphasize the fact that antagonists were in no position to stop them from becoming an assassin dream duo, but decided it didn’t fit the mood.
The man had lowered his gun and seemed to be trying to blink tears out of his eyes. “Yukkii, you don’t understand. Kenki-sama is-”
“Oh, so he’s Kenki-sama now, is he?” Yukito spit out. “Kenki-sama is what? A good person? So was my sister. That didn’t stop her from getting killed. I don’t see why he should be any different.” He walked forward deliberately and held the katana to the man’s throat. He dropped his gun and held his hands up in surrender. Yukito advanced until he had him backed against the wall.
“I don’t suppose he’s just faking the whole thing, is he?” Akutsu said after a moment’s thought. “Like, it was just a trick to get, uh, Kenki-sama to trust him or something, so that your guy could then use him for his own benefit? And it’s because he believed in you that he knew you’d be okay even if he fake-betrayed you, or something. And that you’d find a new awesome partner like me maybe.”
Doubt flickered in Yukito’s eyes. He brought the sword back slightly. “Is that true?” he demanded.
The man relaxed ever so slightly. “Yes… and no. You know we were facing pressures from the others to have him taken out, but honestly, he really isn’t a bad person. But the guy he has as his heir is. This was the only way we could think of that could spare his life without losing that much face with the others.” He reached out carefully and rested a hand on Yukito’s head. “But I knew you’d be okay. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, though? You know you can tell me these things! You know I’m a good enough actor, and if I’d been prepared I might not have gotten hurt this badly, you know?”
“Yukkii, I…” Apparently overcome, the man leapt forward and embraced him, heedless of the katana that was now cutting into him. (To be fair, Akutsu supposed, it probably wasn’t really that sharp since it wasn’t actually meant to be used.) “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry I hurt you. Yukkii, I’m so sorry,” he said again and again, tears streaming down his face as he clutched Yukito tightly.
Yukito wavered, then dropped the sword and returned the embrace. “I hate you, senpai,” he sobbed, clinging to him. “I hate you so much. But I’m glad you didn’t mean it. I’m glad you’re all right.”
Akutsu grimaced. Possibly he had just ruined everything by getting them to talk instead of fight, and now they were going to be partners again and hit him with a memory erasing beam so he wouldn’t get in their way. Also, he was getting a little weirded out by their emotional display. To take his mind off of it, he thought about what they both had said - what was a Safety, for example? What was with the depressing orphan setup? He wondered if Yukito had noticed that the man hadn’t given him an explanation for not telling him beforehand. He figured there was a good reason for that, but he had to get some other groundwork out of the way before he tackled that stuff.
He cleared his throat. “Um, Yukito? Who is this guy, exactly?”
They finally separated. “This is, well… Mitsuya-senpai. We were partners until last night, but… I don’t think we’re going to be partners again for a long time,” Yukito said firmly. Akutsu smirked at that. In your face, pretty boy. “But we basically grew up together, so… he’s probably the person who knows me the best.”
“Hmm,” Akutsu said. He looked the man over again. He still wasn’t his type, but if you were into ultra-feminine boys, or motherly-type guys, Mitsuya would be a pretty good choice. Ever since he had first spoken, there was no chance of mistaking him for a girl, but he thought he might have been fooled if he had just seen a picture of him or something. Maybe in official art they’d make him crossdress from time to time, he decided. Probably ostensibly for a mission, of course, but really mostly for fanservice. He thought he could get behind that. “So, he’s the one to go to for baby pictures and embarrassing stories?”
“Yeah,” Mitsuya said at the same time Yukito said “No!” with a pout. Akutsu filed that information away and changed tactics.
“How’d you know to find us here anyway?” he asked, super casually. “Some kind of tracking device?”
“More like… I know Yukkii too well. He wouldn’t have gone to anyone else unless he had to.”
Yukito shot a sharp look at Mitsuya. He obviously didn’t want him to say anything more. Akutsu wanted to hear more, though, so he said “What do you mean by that, exactly?” in a politely puzzled tone, ignoring the way Yukito’s glare intensified.
“Um. I take it you haven’t heard about Safeties yet, then?” Mitsuya said. “Well, they-”
“Shin-chan. I’ll tell you about it later, so don’t worry about it for now, okay?” Yukito said in a slightly strained voice. “I want to be the one to explain it to you, so just wait.”
“Okay,” Akutsu said, and prepared himself to receive not entirely accurate information when that time came. “In that case… you said this Kenki-sama guy was the grandson of the guy you were telling me about last night, right, Yukito?” Yukito nodded eagerly, clearly happy about the change in subject. “Maybe you could tell us more about him, Mitsuya-senpai?” He hoped referring to him as a senpai would convey the idea that he wasn’t going to give up no matter what, but he didn’t think Mitsuya had noticed. The second he mentioned Kenki-sama’s name, his eyes had lit up. Akutsu supposed he had never actually denied being in love with him. He wondered if Yukito had noticed that too.
“Yamaguchi Kenki-sama, 29 years old, birthday July 17, blood type B, son of Yamaguchi Goro, son of Yamaguchi Yukio. Has two brothers and two sisters. His grandfather strongly disapproved of his father’s marriage to a Filipina woman and cut off contact with the family, but took notice of Kenki-sama’s talent and took him into his household. However, he is the opposite of his grandfather in every respect save leadership ability. Where his grandfather was cold, strict, and senselessly cruel, Kenki-sama is warm, open-hearted, and unbelievably gentle.” Akutsu could practically see the cartoon hearts floating around Mitsuya’s head. “He took me in without question, even though I had been one of his enemies, and the same is true of many of his other followers. He’s… he’s trying to change the system. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I want to believe in him.”
All in all, it was a bit of an info dump, but Akutsu did his best to make sense out of it. He had to doubt Mitsuya’s assertion about taking him in “without question,” because if he really did things like that, he’d already be dead, unless assassins all had some kind of really strict honor code that involved never betraying anybody. Assassins and betrayal just went together somehow, like otaku and moe. You could have one without the other, but on the whole it was best for everyone involved if they stuck together. Therefore, he deduced that either Mitsuya was lying or somebody had spread the word to Kenki-sama’s people beforehand. If Mitsuya was lying… then there was a condition that had to be met before he would truly be allowed to join him, and that condition might very well be something like “finish off your former partner.” If Kenki-sama had been told by someone he trusted that Mitsuya was going to join him, and would serve him with unquestioning loyalty, then he might have been willing to take him in, if only temporarily. That created another problem, though. If Yukito’s master was indeed responsible for creating this plot, and had deliberately given Kenki-sama information about the attempted assassination and false betrayal, but hadn’t told Yukito a thing, that meant that he saw him as expendable, and that he, and by extension Akutsu, were in constant danger. Akutsu shivered a little. This was getting exciting.
Yukito was saying something about how everyone was already working to change things and Mitsuya was getting defensive about it when he managed to tune back in. Before he could make a comeback that would probably only reveal the depths of his love for Kenki-sama, Akutsu cut in. “Why didn’t you tell Yukito though.”
Mitsuya froze. “I… don’t…”
“You haven’t given us any sort of reason for not telling Yukito what was going on beforehand. You apologized, sure, but you haven’t explained anything.” Akutsu folded his arms and stared Mitsuya down. Beside him, Yukito looked confused before a look of comprehension dawned on him.
Mitsuya looked from Akutsu to Yukito and back. “There’s a reason, but… I don’t wanna tell you,” he wailed. He threw himself at Yukito again, but after a moment of back-patting, Akutsu pulled him off.
“Just because you don’t want to tell us doesn’t mean we don’t have a right to know,” he said firmly.
Mitsuya sniffed and wiped his eyes. “Maybe… maybe I can’t tell you though.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense. You have to!” Akutsu, who was quite a bit taller than Mitsuya, started shaking him back and forth a little roughly. In the four or five minutes he had known him, he had lost all fear of becoming the next victim of his assassinish ways.
When Akutsu finally let go of him, Mitsuya coughed lightly. “If you insist… I’ll tell you. But only you. No matter what, Yukkii can’t know about this.” He shot an apologetic glance at Yukito, who didn’t look appeased.
Akutsu nodded and asked Yukito to wait in his room, all the while giving him subtle winks and thumbs-up to indicate that whatever Mitsuya told him, he’d pass it along to Yukito as soon as he could. Yukito continued to frown, but he looked like he had gotten the message. After he stepped carefully over Shiramata and shut the door, Akutsu flopped down on the couch. “So? What’s the deal?”
Mitsuya sat down next to him. “Yukkii really likes you,” he said. “I’m not sure he's ever opened up to anyone this quickly in the time I’ve known him.” Akutsu thought about being snarky and pointing out that that was obvious since he was the protagonist after all, but decided that wouldn’t get him anywhere and settled for nodding instead. “And I guess you like him a lot too, huh?”
Akutsu’s tsundere instincts kicked in on that one. “It’s not like I like him or anything! I-I mean. I guess we’re friends. Or something. T-that’s all!”
Mitsuya looked a little confused, but smiled tentatively. “I’m glad he was able to make a friend, if only for a short time.”
“That’s right, friends! Wait…” Akutsu drew back, but Mitsuya grabbed him before he could make a break for it. He had a blue needle in his hand, which he brought down to rest just above Akutsu’s throat.
“What you have to know is that Yukito is far too dangerous to be allowed to remain alive. There’s something inside of him, and if it’s activated, he’ll kill… well, everyone he can until his body shuts down. I thought if I could persuade him to get out now, he could be spared, but… now that you’ve convinced him to bring you in, that’s no longer an option. I’m sorry, Akutsu. Please just forget about him. He’s a broken human being who can’t be fixed no matter how hard you try.”
Akutsu opened his mouth to launch the standard defense about how anyone could be saved, or something, but didn’t get past “Why-” before Mitsuya jammed the needle into his neck and he suddenly lost all feeling in his limbs. Mitsuya got up and advanced towards Akutsu’s door. Akutsu tried in vain to move or at least call out a warning, but his vision was blurring and it was all he could do to maintain consciousness. He watched desperately as the door opened and the sounds of a struggle ensued. Abruptly, all sound ceased and he fell into a dark slumber.
-
He awoke with a cry, startling Shion, who was shaking him. “Geez, don’t scare me like that! You have a bad dream or what?” he said cheerfully after he picked himself off the floor.
“Yukito! Where’s Yukito?”
“Yukito? Who? Your new husbando or something?”
Akutsu stared at Shion in horror. “Don’t tell me… you don’t remember him?” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed him away and ran into his room, stumbling over his feet. His room was a mess, and not the kind of mess where he knew exactly where everything was even if nobody else did. Pillows had been thrown all over the room and his Kunoichi Dash! poster had been sliced in half somehow. In the center of the room was a stone Akutsu immediately recognized as Yukito’s earring.
It was a dramatic moment, his one and only chance at being a protagonist had just been kidnapped and possibly killed by a girly pretty boy assassin, and if he was being totally honest, he had always wanted to do it at least once. Akutsu threw back his head and screamed “YUKITOOOOO!!!!!”
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Thank you to everyone who always reads c: I appreciate you so much always but especially today for some reason!!!!
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Next Chapter→
Pairings: Nishin (Nishii Yukito/Akutsu Shintarou), others TBA
Genre: AU
Chapter Rating: PG.
Word Count: ~2850
Summary: The mysterious man says he only wants to talk, but what is his real objective?
Notes: OH NO it took a month and a half to write this chapter. :( :( :( Um. WHOA there's a lot of talking in this chapter but maybe the plot will develop! Maybe.
←To Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
--
Chapter 5: Cloudy eyes, warped vision
Yukito immediately pushed Akutsu behind him and drew his sword. The man frowned, but didn’t lower his gun. “Yukkii,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice. “I only want to talk to you.”
“And you think hurting Shin-chan and my… his friends is the way to get me to listen?” Yukito replied in a calm, steady voice.
Akutsu stared at the man and immediately dismissed him as not being his type. For all that he was doing his utmost to be an imposing threat, there was something about him that seemed very soft and feminine and gentle. He might be an assassin, but Akutsu felt sure that he was of the ‘I have to kill you but gosh I feel awfully bad about it’ school. “You didn’t kill Shion and Shiramata, did you?” he asked casually. “You probably used some sort of tranquilizer or something to get them out of the way, right?”
The man looked at him. “Of course I did! Why would I kill two kids that didn’t even do anything?” he said, sounding horrified at the thought. “I told you, I just want to talk to you, Yukkii! But I can’t very well say what I have to say in front of all these other people! Can’t you have him at least go away for like, ten minutes?”
Yukito hesitated. Akutsu noticed that he hadn’t lowered his sword at all. “I… Shin-chan is… I don’t want to make him…”
Akutsu placed a hand on Yukito’s shoulder. “Anything you want to say to Yukito, you can say to me.” Yukito nodded gratefully.
“I can’t do that,” the man said, looking directly at Yukito. “You know the rules. Outsiders are not allowed to know about these things. I’m surprised you haven’t-”
“Shin-chan is special,” Yukito said firmly. Akutsu giggled under his breath because he had always known that line would be directed at him someday. “Anyway, he’s not an outsider, not anymore. You talk to both of us, or neither of us.”
There was something like shock on the man’s face. “Yukkii, you can’t mean… You can’t be thinking of bringing a Safety like him in. That goes against everything in the code! Anyway, he hasn’t been trained, if you seriously mean to bring him in you’ll be as good as killing him.”
“I won’t! I know he can do it if he works hard. Besides, he’s the one who said he wanted to try. Why shouldn’t I let him?”
“Yukito, you’re just being selfish. He-”
“Selfish?” A note of mania crept into Yukito’s voice. “I don’t want to hear you of all people saying that.”
The man looked uneasy. “I-”
“Sure it’s selfish,” Yukito said, his voice growing louder as he went on. “It’s selfish to want someone else to rely on. It’s selfish to want to have a partner.” There was an immense amount of bitterness in the last word, and Akutsu was slowly starting to realize how betrayed he must feel by what this man had done to him. “It’s selfish to want to do anything to stay with the only person who’s ever, ever done something kind for me without expecting anything in return.” (The man and Akutsu both winced at that.) “But it’s nowhere near as selfish as selling out your master, selling out me, your partner for more than ten years, just because you think you’re in love with the grandson of the man who had your parents tortured and killed.”
Akutsu was a little impressed by his speech and almost applauded. He thought about adding a “So there!” or something to emphasize the fact that antagonists were in no position to stop them from becoming an assassin dream duo, but decided it didn’t fit the mood.
The man had lowered his gun and seemed to be trying to blink tears out of his eyes. “Yukkii, you don’t understand. Kenki-sama is-”
“Oh, so he’s Kenki-sama now, is he?” Yukito spit out. “Kenki-sama is what? A good person? So was my sister. That didn’t stop her from getting killed. I don’t see why he should be any different.” He walked forward deliberately and held the katana to the man’s throat. He dropped his gun and held his hands up in surrender. Yukito advanced until he had him backed against the wall.
“I don’t suppose he’s just faking the whole thing, is he?” Akutsu said after a moment’s thought. “Like, it was just a trick to get, uh, Kenki-sama to trust him or something, so that your guy could then use him for his own benefit? And it’s because he believed in you that he knew you’d be okay even if he fake-betrayed you, or something. And that you’d find a new awesome partner like me maybe.”
Doubt flickered in Yukito’s eyes. He brought the sword back slightly. “Is that true?” he demanded.
The man relaxed ever so slightly. “Yes… and no. You know we were facing pressures from the others to have him taken out, but honestly, he really isn’t a bad person. But the guy he has as his heir is. This was the only way we could think of that could spare his life without losing that much face with the others.” He reached out carefully and rested a hand on Yukito’s head. “But I knew you’d be okay. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
“Why didn’t you tell me, though? You know you can tell me these things! You know I’m a good enough actor, and if I’d been prepared I might not have gotten hurt this badly, you know?”
“Yukkii, I…” Apparently overcome, the man leapt forward and embraced him, heedless of the katana that was now cutting into him. (To be fair, Akutsu supposed, it probably wasn’t really that sharp since it wasn’t actually meant to be used.) “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry I hurt you. Yukkii, I’m so sorry,” he said again and again, tears streaming down his face as he clutched Yukito tightly.
Yukito wavered, then dropped the sword and returned the embrace. “I hate you, senpai,” he sobbed, clinging to him. “I hate you so much. But I’m glad you didn’t mean it. I’m glad you’re all right.”
Akutsu grimaced. Possibly he had just ruined everything by getting them to talk instead of fight, and now they were going to be partners again and hit him with a memory erasing beam so he wouldn’t get in their way. Also, he was getting a little weirded out by their emotional display. To take his mind off of it, he thought about what they both had said - what was a Safety, for example? What was with the depressing orphan setup? He wondered if Yukito had noticed that the man hadn’t given him an explanation for not telling him beforehand. He figured there was a good reason for that, but he had to get some other groundwork out of the way before he tackled that stuff.
He cleared his throat. “Um, Yukito? Who is this guy, exactly?”
They finally separated. “This is, well… Mitsuya-senpai. We were partners until last night, but… I don’t think we’re going to be partners again for a long time,” Yukito said firmly. Akutsu smirked at that. In your face, pretty boy. “But we basically grew up together, so… he’s probably the person who knows me the best.”
“Hmm,” Akutsu said. He looked the man over again. He still wasn’t his type, but if you were into ultra-feminine boys, or motherly-type guys, Mitsuya would be a pretty good choice. Ever since he had first spoken, there was no chance of mistaking him for a girl, but he thought he might have been fooled if he had just seen a picture of him or something. Maybe in official art they’d make him crossdress from time to time, he decided. Probably ostensibly for a mission, of course, but really mostly for fanservice. He thought he could get behind that. “So, he’s the one to go to for baby pictures and embarrassing stories?”
“Yeah,” Mitsuya said at the same time Yukito said “No!” with a pout. Akutsu filed that information away and changed tactics.
“How’d you know to find us here anyway?” he asked, super casually. “Some kind of tracking device?”
“More like… I know Yukkii too well. He wouldn’t have gone to anyone else unless he had to.”
Yukito shot a sharp look at Mitsuya. He obviously didn’t want him to say anything more. Akutsu wanted to hear more, though, so he said “What do you mean by that, exactly?” in a politely puzzled tone, ignoring the way Yukito’s glare intensified.
“Um. I take it you haven’t heard about Safeties yet, then?” Mitsuya said. “Well, they-”
“Shin-chan. I’ll tell you about it later, so don’t worry about it for now, okay?” Yukito said in a slightly strained voice. “I want to be the one to explain it to you, so just wait.”
“Okay,” Akutsu said, and prepared himself to receive not entirely accurate information when that time came. “In that case… you said this Kenki-sama guy was the grandson of the guy you were telling me about last night, right, Yukito?” Yukito nodded eagerly, clearly happy about the change in subject. “Maybe you could tell us more about him, Mitsuya-senpai?” He hoped referring to him as a senpai would convey the idea that he wasn’t going to give up no matter what, but he didn’t think Mitsuya had noticed. The second he mentioned Kenki-sama’s name, his eyes had lit up. Akutsu supposed he had never actually denied being in love with him. He wondered if Yukito had noticed that too.
“Yamaguchi Kenki-sama, 29 years old, birthday July 17, blood type B, son of Yamaguchi Goro, son of Yamaguchi Yukio. Has two brothers and two sisters. His grandfather strongly disapproved of his father’s marriage to a Filipina woman and cut off contact with the family, but took notice of Kenki-sama’s talent and took him into his household. However, he is the opposite of his grandfather in every respect save leadership ability. Where his grandfather was cold, strict, and senselessly cruel, Kenki-sama is warm, open-hearted, and unbelievably gentle.” Akutsu could practically see the cartoon hearts floating around Mitsuya’s head. “He took me in without question, even though I had been one of his enemies, and the same is true of many of his other followers. He’s… he’s trying to change the system. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I want to believe in him.”
All in all, it was a bit of an info dump, but Akutsu did his best to make sense out of it. He had to doubt Mitsuya’s assertion about taking him in “without question,” because if he really did things like that, he’d already be dead, unless assassins all had some kind of really strict honor code that involved never betraying anybody. Assassins and betrayal just went together somehow, like otaku and moe. You could have one without the other, but on the whole it was best for everyone involved if they stuck together. Therefore, he deduced that either Mitsuya was lying or somebody had spread the word to Kenki-sama’s people beforehand. If Mitsuya was lying… then there was a condition that had to be met before he would truly be allowed to join him, and that condition might very well be something like “finish off your former partner.” If Kenki-sama had been told by someone he trusted that Mitsuya was going to join him, and would serve him with unquestioning loyalty, then he might have been willing to take him in, if only temporarily. That created another problem, though. If Yukito’s master was indeed responsible for creating this plot, and had deliberately given Kenki-sama information about the attempted assassination and false betrayal, but hadn’t told Yukito a thing, that meant that he saw him as expendable, and that he, and by extension Akutsu, were in constant danger. Akutsu shivered a little. This was getting exciting.
Yukito was saying something about how everyone was already working to change things and Mitsuya was getting defensive about it when he managed to tune back in. Before he could make a comeback that would probably only reveal the depths of his love for Kenki-sama, Akutsu cut in. “Why didn’t you tell Yukito though.”
Mitsuya froze. “I… don’t…”
“You haven’t given us any sort of reason for not telling Yukito what was going on beforehand. You apologized, sure, but you haven’t explained anything.” Akutsu folded his arms and stared Mitsuya down. Beside him, Yukito looked confused before a look of comprehension dawned on him.
Mitsuya looked from Akutsu to Yukito and back. “There’s a reason, but… I don’t wanna tell you,” he wailed. He threw himself at Yukito again, but after a moment of back-patting, Akutsu pulled him off.
“Just because you don’t want to tell us doesn’t mean we don’t have a right to know,” he said firmly.
Mitsuya sniffed and wiped his eyes. “Maybe… maybe I can’t tell you though.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense. You have to!” Akutsu, who was quite a bit taller than Mitsuya, started shaking him back and forth a little roughly. In the four or five minutes he had known him, he had lost all fear of becoming the next victim of his assassinish ways.
When Akutsu finally let go of him, Mitsuya coughed lightly. “If you insist… I’ll tell you. But only you. No matter what, Yukkii can’t know about this.” He shot an apologetic glance at Yukito, who didn’t look appeased.
Akutsu nodded and asked Yukito to wait in his room, all the while giving him subtle winks and thumbs-up to indicate that whatever Mitsuya told him, he’d pass it along to Yukito as soon as he could. Yukito continued to frown, but he looked like he had gotten the message. After he stepped carefully over Shiramata and shut the door, Akutsu flopped down on the couch. “So? What’s the deal?”
Mitsuya sat down next to him. “Yukkii really likes you,” he said. “I’m not sure he's ever opened up to anyone this quickly in the time I’ve known him.” Akutsu thought about being snarky and pointing out that that was obvious since he was the protagonist after all, but decided that wouldn’t get him anywhere and settled for nodding instead. “And I guess you like him a lot too, huh?”
Akutsu’s tsundere instincts kicked in on that one. “It’s not like I like him or anything! I-I mean. I guess we’re friends. Or something. T-that’s all!”
Mitsuya looked a little confused, but smiled tentatively. “I’m glad he was able to make a friend, if only for a short time.”
“That’s right, friends! Wait…” Akutsu drew back, but Mitsuya grabbed him before he could make a break for it. He had a blue needle in his hand, which he brought down to rest just above Akutsu’s throat.
“What you have to know is that Yukito is far too dangerous to be allowed to remain alive. There’s something inside of him, and if it’s activated, he’ll kill… well, everyone he can until his body shuts down. I thought if I could persuade him to get out now, he could be spared, but… now that you’ve convinced him to bring you in, that’s no longer an option. I’m sorry, Akutsu. Please just forget about him. He’s a broken human being who can’t be fixed no matter how hard you try.”
Akutsu opened his mouth to launch the standard defense about how anyone could be saved, or something, but didn’t get past “Why-” before Mitsuya jammed the needle into his neck and he suddenly lost all feeling in his limbs. Mitsuya got up and advanced towards Akutsu’s door. Akutsu tried in vain to move or at least call out a warning, but his vision was blurring and it was all he could do to maintain consciousness. He watched desperately as the door opened and the sounds of a struggle ensued. Abruptly, all sound ceased and he fell into a dark slumber.
-
He awoke with a cry, startling Shion, who was shaking him. “Geez, don’t scare me like that! You have a bad dream or what?” he said cheerfully after he picked himself off the floor.
“Yukito! Where’s Yukito?”
“Yukito? Who? Your new husbando or something?”
Akutsu stared at Shion in horror. “Don’t tell me… you don’t remember him?” Without waiting for an answer, he pushed him away and ran into his room, stumbling over his feet. His room was a mess, and not the kind of mess where he knew exactly where everything was even if nobody else did. Pillows had been thrown all over the room and his Kunoichi Dash! poster had been sliced in half somehow. In the center of the room was a stone Akutsu immediately recognized as Yukito’s earring.
It was a dramatic moment, his one and only chance at being a protagonist had just been kidnapped and possibly killed by a girly pretty boy assassin, and if he was being totally honest, he had always wanted to do it at least once. Akutsu threw back his head and screamed “YUKITOOOOO!!!!!”
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Thank you to everyone who always reads c: I appreciate you so much always but especially today for some reason!!!!
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