[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 68 ~Beginning the Taro Plan~
Title: The Things We Can't Control
Author:
prettyorianna
Pairing: Akame. Others to be added later.
Rating: NC-17.
Genre: crime drama au
Beta by: my cat Gemma. okay, seriously, nobody
Disclaimer: I don't own KAT-TUN, any of its members, any other JE people. I write this for fun and for other fans of these fine folks. But don't steal my plots, mmkay? I put a great deal of time into them except for when I'm randomly spastically spitting words onto a page. But I value those too...
Summary: Two criminals with vastly different styles meet by chance one day. They immediately clash but is that all they'll ever be? How much is fate and how much choice? And how will their meeting change the world around them?
Author's Note: Kame begins to make good on his promise to Yurina.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!! THE MOST AWESOME BANNER EVER AND I WILL FIGHT ANYONE WHO DISAGREES!
Warning: This gets graphic often occasionally, containing at the very least foul language, character death, nefarious crimes, rape, etc etc.
The Master Posts:
On my journal - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_ Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the akame_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the je_kamenashi Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the kattun_fanfics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
On the jin_fics Community - The Things We Can't Control Master Post
Chapter 68 ~Beginning the Taro Plan~
That night, Yurina went to bed and Kame went to the couch but just as he was just falling asleep, he heard her door creak open. She didn’t say anything. She just brought her blanket and pillow and stretched out on the floor in front of Kame, pressing her back along the couch. He could hear her crying softly but there didn’t seem to be much use in pointing that fact out to her. If she wanted to talk, she would.
The next morning, Kame and Yurina walked back to Ito’s grocery store. He felt somewhat bad at skipping out on his job for so long but what he had to do was more important. When he tried to apologize to the man, though, Yurina jumped on the opportunity to have something useful to do, offering to take his place and do the work instead.
Ito-san quickly told them it was unnecessary, that the store would get by fine but Yurina just said, “Please, I just… need to do something. Anything. A distraction. You don’t have to pay me, I just…”
“If you work, you get paid. It’s the way of things. I just meant, you shouldn’t feel obligated. I’d be very grateful for the help, miss,” Ito explained, smiling softly at her. “I do have to say, you were delightful company yesterday so this old man is happy to have you back.”
Kame mouthed, “Thank you,” to Ito and gave a small nod to Yurina. She nodded back with small smile but as she turned to walk into the store he saw the smile drop.
Well, there wasn’t much he could do for her that he wasn’t already doing, he supposed. Best get to work.
First, he went back to the apartment and pulled out everything. Every bit of information he’d ever gathered about the different people and places of the city’s underworld. He got Abe’s address book and started to compare the two, trying to link the names in the address book to the information he’d gathered.
He was able to eliminate several names in the address book, just based on the approximate age range in his notes. One section he was able to discount in its entirety once he realized that the section title of “Bitches” actually referred to people he hated, rival drug dealers and flesh peddlers.
Kame’s task was complicated by the fact that half of the names in the address book were nicknames and the ones that weren’t tended to be first initial and last name. In other words, no “Taro” to be found and there was five names he couldn’t eliminate with a first initial of ‘T’ written in the same sloppy handwriting as the rest of it.
Maybe the phone book could help narrow it down? If he compared the phone numbers to the names in the book, he’d get first names for them.
But as the twins’ apartment didn’t have a phone, Kame had to go down to the street to a payphone to get a phone book. The thing was fastened to the phone so he had to do it all right there on the street, but he got the information he needed.
Yamada T, also known as Yamada Taro.
That had to be him. He was the only Taro in the whole book.
Now he needed a plan. A three-part plan. First, he had to confirm that Yamada Taro was the right person. Next, he had to get the names and locations of the other seven men from him. Then, he had to kill him and cover his tracks.
This was going to get messy… but he couldn’t afford to second-guess. He’d worry about his conscience once the last man was dead.
Back in the apartment, he grabbed the city map from the kitchen drawer and spread it out on the little card table. Let’s see… the address put him… right there… It wasn’t a good part of town. Not that there really were many “good parts of town” south of the river.
You know, he might be able to bluff his way in to the guy’s house. Kame had no way of knowing whether Abe’s friends had discovered his body or not (hell, the police might have found him by then!) so trying to bluff his way in would collapse… unless the bluff was actually to deliver news of Abe’s death. That bluff would work whether Taro already knew it or not.
But what if Taro wasn’t alone? As far as Kame could tell, he wasn’t a big-time dealer like Abe since he was pretty sure he’d have come across the name before if he was. So it was not likely the man would have bodyguards the way Abe did. But there was still the potential that one or more of the other seven men that assaulted Yurina or even other unrelated bystanders would be there.
That was just a risk he’d have to take, he supposed. He’d come up with something if he had to.
So… bluff his way in. Deal with bystanders. Then… then…
Well, shooting people in the knee seemed to work pretty well for getting information before. It’d probably do the trick now. Except… well, Abe’s duplex was off by itself, no neighbors to hear the gunshots. Lucky thing, too, because Kame hadn’t exactly been thinking straight; he’d been too caught up trying to save Yurina. But if Taro was in an apartment (the address did say “apt 207” after all), a gun would make far too much noise to be of use for the questioning. As it stood, he was going to have a hell of a time getting away unseen after just the one shot to kill the man.
Well, he had knives. They’d be quiet. The thought of intentionally carving up a guy, regardless of the reason, turned his stomach and he had to keep pushing down thoughts of his own experience on the receiving end of just such a thing that threatened to surface unwanted, but… he couldn’t really see another way.
More faces to add to the growing list of people he’d killed. One more thing to hate himself over. So what else was new?
Folding the map, he put it back in the drawer. He grabbed two knives and fastened the sheathes on either side of him. He put the gun in a backpack and slung it over his shoulder. He raided the cash for about a thousand dollars, putting some of it in his pockets and the rest in the backpack with the gun.
It took two buses but he was finally standing in front of the right building. Once he saw the place, though, he stopped worrying about being heard. The building was pretty much on par with the place Jiro and Masaru owned. Oh, he would probably be heard. But he was also sure that, at least as far as cops were concerned, nobody would admit to hearing a damn thing. Hell, it probably wouldn’t even be the only time they heard a gunshot that day. The area was scary-bad.
Best to look confident, though. He didn’t want to be seen as weak since he was alone.
He walked boldly to the front door, stepping around some cracked-out guy who managed to take up most of the outside steps all by himself through some odd break in the rules of physics Kame couldn’t quite wrap his head around. Apartment 207 would be on the second floor. The elevator, which was missing its door, was blocked off by tape, so Kame took the stairs inside as well.
Half of the apartments seemed to be missing their doors as well. But 207 at least had one. Thank goodness, because he wasn’t sure how he’d question Taro without a door to keep prying eyes out. Not that this was the sort of place where eyes would be eager to pry. This was a “safer you don’t know” sort of place; he’d put money on that bet.
First Kame took the gun out of the backpack and put it at the small of his back, hiding under his shirt. Pounding hard and impatiently on the door, he took a deep breath and then pushed all doubts away.
When nobody answered, he started banging on the door and didn’t stop until he heard a voice coming from inside. “Yeah, yeah. I heard you the first time, you ass!”
A pause. Taro must have looked through the peep hole because Kame heard, “I don’t know you. What do you want?”
“Are you Yamada Taro?”
“Yeah. Why?” The voice sounded suspicious. Not that he could blame the guy, considering the area.
“I need to speak to you about an… Abe Mitsuru?”
“Mitsu-kun? Why? Is he in trouble again? Whatever whoever said, she’s lying.”
“Please, sir, if I could just come in and talk. This isn’t the sort of thing to be shouted through a door.”
Kame heard some grumbling but he couldn’t make out the words over the sound of the locks and then the door opening.
The man was tweaked out on something. If he was like his friend Abe, it was most likely cocaine. Not that it really mattered. Though Kame was barely through the door when Taro started locking it once more.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the apartment. Taro looked to be about the same age as Abe, which was a good sign as far as likelihood he’d found the right man. Only Abe’s personal bodyguards and his high school friends knew his address, which means that the eight men had to be his group from high school, right? They’d all be about the same age.
Still, he had to be sure.
“You’ve known Abe-san for many years, yes?” he asked cautiously.
“Since we were kids. Look, I’m kind of busy. What is this about?”
Taro didn’t seem to realize Abe was dead. At least Kame was sure he was looking at the right man and they were alone in a locked apartment. This could have gone a lot worse. “Please sit, Yamada-san. We should really talk.”
Rolling his eyes, Taro dropped down on the couch. “Fine. I’m sitting. What is this about?”
That’s when Kame pulled the gun.
He hadn’t intended to shoot the guy to get the information, but, well, the door was locked and he was pretty sure nobody who could possibly hear it would even care. And though objectively he knew there was little difference ultimately, he was much more comfortable with shooting the guy a few times than trying to use the knife to get the same result.
So he went ahead and shot him in the knee.
Taro screamed and then started shouting obscenities at him.
“Now we can talk.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 69 ~Some Things Unexpected~
A/N: Oooh, cliffhanger. But next past chapter, you'll find out what Yurina had meant before when said said, "Taro was the one that..." before she shut down the memories again.