[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 85 ~Maru~
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. and maeda_marika
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: Here you go. Maru's stuff.
BANNER BY deshisoraba!!
Okay, now I have two banners and they're both amazing, so I will be rotating them out every few chapters. Thanks to both going_dangerous and deshisoraba for my wonderful two banners.
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 85 ~Maru~
“Maru?” The bathroom door wasn’t locked and since it sounded more like Maru was just using the sink, he decided to just open the door. After calling out the name first, mind you, because… well, to be honest, given Maru’s state at the moment, he didn’t want to come across as sneaking up on him.
Maru had taken his shirt off and it was sitting neatly folded on the back of the toilet. He’d taken great care to fold it properly despite the fact it was almost completely covered in creepily not-quite-dry-yet blood. And for every drop of blood on it there must have been three on Maru, because the water in the sink was completely red and there was still plenty left to wash off.
When Maru didn’t say anything, Jin cautiously called to him again. More silence at first - Maru didn’t even turn to look at him but continued ever so carefully cleaning the blood off of himself - but finally, “I can hear you, Jin.”
“What happened?”
“I went out for dinner after I closed up the shop for the night, but when I went back to feed the rabbits, I found a surprise waiting on me.” Maru let the water out of the sink and then, after rinsing the wash rag out as best as he could, refilled the sink. “Someone killed them. All of them. Slit their little bunny throats, lined them up on the front counter, and scrawled a couple of signature tags on the wall using their blood.”
Jin’s jaw fell open at the thought that someone would dare do that but at the same time a comforting sense of relief spread through him. It was all rabbit blood. “So, what are you going to do? Do you want to track down the, ah, rabbit murderer? Shouldn’t be hard since he tagged the wall.”
“She. She tagged the wall. And, no, she didn’t. It wasn’t really her. I knew that as soon as I saw it. But out of the thousands and thousands of tags used in this city, the fact the doer chose hers means she most likely knew the real culprit.”
Hm. Trust Maru to be able to notice that. He would have fallen for it. “Oh, so… you’ll go talk to her…”
“Done.” And even as he continued to talk, Maru’s tone never changed, he never turned towards Jin, and he never stopped his careful task of cleaning off the blood. “She was very informative. Eventually.”
Eventually? A chill ran down Jin’s spine. Just what had Maru done? Did he really want to know? “Okay… so… now you track down that lead, then?”
“Again, done. I found the real culprits and they told me everything I needed to know. Now every one of my darlings has been avenged individually and those horrible people won’t be able to hurt any other innocent creatures. The ones that aren’t dead are rather… incapable of it now.” His tone never changed. There was nothing in that voice but calm and cold. And Jin never feared Maru more than he did in that moment. He’d always known the guy was nuts but…
“But I can’t go back to my shop. It’s cursed.” Maru reached into his pocket and pulled out a blood card, something obviously from the same deck at the cards he and Koki had found in the sanctuary. Maru’s was called “Myk the Myomancer” and was numbered at 42. It looked like someone had soaked the edges in blood. There was a face in profile, big nose like Maru’s, though Jin had no idea what myomancers did. “Finding one of Tatsuya’s card at the restaurant was all the proof I needed. Everything in my shop is cursed.”
Well, he wasn’t going to try to convince Maru otherwise and he definitely wasn’t going to express his shock that Maru would go on an apparent killing-and-maiming spree over a bunch of fucking bunny rabbits.
“I still have the three warehouses, though, so do make sure Kame knows anything in them is at his disposal so long as he lets me help him kill Papa K when the time comes.”
“When the time comes?” Jin fumbled the words out, still at a loss due to shock over Maru’s actions.
“I assume when the cards all come back together. But I have no idea when that will be. You’d have to ask Tatsuya. He’s the only one who can answer that.”
There was silence for a moment, save for the slight sloshing of the sink water as Maru calmly continued.
So much blood…
Just how many people died over a bunch of rabbits and a card? And what the hell did he mean when he said Tatsuya was the only one who could answer?
“I…” and Jin stretched the syllable out as he tried to come up with something to say. He finally ended with, “Uh, will let you, um, you know, get back to what you’re doing. I’m going to help out in the kitchen now.”
He left Maru there trying to get blood out from beneath his fingernails.
Seriously, despite having always been at least tolerable if not nice to Jin, Maru was just fucking scary sometimes. But was Maru a bad guy, though? Well… morally speaking, there didn’t seem to be much difference in shooting someone during a robbery and shooting someone for rabbitcide. Did he really have the right to judge?
Though he tried his hardest to not have to shoot anyone during his robberies anymore, not now that he was better at controlling the situation. Practice makes perfect.
Ah, speaking of robberies…
He really should get off his ass and get back to work. Man’s gotta eat. Oh, sure, Kizuna was feeding him but it hurt his pride to just accept charity like that. So he’d get to work.
Actually, now that he was thinking about it, it might be a good idea to put together a series of jobs that he’d need a team for. And he should probably spend a few nights out at Kizuna’s strolls in the role of enforcer. Between the team robberies and the stroll guarding, he’d be able to really get a feel for all of Kizuna. And that is what he needed to do, the task Kame entrusted to him over anyone else he could have asked. And maybe it was because there was no one else he could ask, but that was beside the point. If Kame didn’t trust him, he wouldn’t have given him the job.
How did life get this complicated? Believe it or not, but living on the street, squatting wherever… it was surprisingly simple. Not always good, but not complicated. Everything seemed complicated now. And Maru showing up like he did, that wasn’t helping keep things simple.
Jin never would have imagined finding himself in this mess and yet, as he walked into the kitchen and spotted Kame’s small unguarded smile while he was elbow-deep in soapy water, he found he didn’t care how complicated life was becoming.
He’d give up anything just to see that smile.
Hopefully, that smile would survive hearing about Maru’s rabbit-inspired rampage.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 86 ~Marika~
A/N: Well, there you go. Those people shouldn't have killed Maru's rabbits.