[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 93 ~Part One - Office Arrest~
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: Well, it's not an extremely long chapter but it is a bit longer for you. I wanted to get it to another point but it's getting pretty late and so I think I'll be able to put what was supposed to be the end of this chapter as the beginning of Chapter 95 which will make the chapter much more interesting than the mostly filler stuff planned for it.
Author's Note (EDIT): Okay, I've been reexamining a bunch of stuff that I was going to start next chapter with but that has left me the inescapable conclusion that it can't wait until after a past chapter. It really needs to be the same chapter with this stuff. So just like Chapter 19, THIS ONE HAS TWO PARTS.
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 93 ~Part One - Office Arrest~
Jin heard the click of the lock. Something about it sounded so final. He knew Kazuya was crying on the other side of the door despite the fact that he couldn’t hear it. Had… had he really kicked him out?
It didn’t matter. He didn’t care. Kazuya might have booted him but he wasn’t moving away from the door. He’d do exactly like he threatened.
Kazuya was not leaving that office.
Once he made the promise, Jin would go like Kazu… like he… god, he couldn’t even think it. It made his chest tight and he almost couldn’t breathe as the thought of being without him was just so…
Jin leaned back against the door, ready to catch himself at the slightest feel of the door swinging inward. Several people gave him strange looks and a few even tried to talk to him but he made polite excuses (or not so polite since apparently Okura just couldn’t take a hint).
He had no idea how long it would take before Kazuya actually tried to leave the office. As far as Jin could remember there were no weapons in the office and he was pretty sure he could overpower Kazuya… well, maybe… when the two had fought at the bank, he hit pretty damn hard…
Jin just had to keep him in the office. He should be able to do that.
So Kazuya’s father and Papa K were business partners - just a nicer term for a pair of pimps with a lot of greed and no conscience share between the two - but since it wasn’t enough for them to sell other pretty boys, they started selling Kazuya too. His father had let some monster torture him… did Papa K have a role in that? Did they do it together? Did Kazuya’s father do it behind his back and anger Papa K?
No, that might make sense if Kazuya stabbed his father in the eye but he didn’t. He blinded Papa K instead. But then what could he have done that would be worse than what Kazuya’s father did?
There was so much Jin still didn’t know. Maybe he’d never know.
Well, he was doing what he could. He hoped it was enough.
Oh, Jin knew he was being unreasonable about the promise. He knew he would never make it, not even if the stars fell from the sky and the sun burned down. Expecting Kazu to make it when he wouldn’t himself, it wasn’t fair.
But, well, Jin knew he was expendable. Kazuya wasn’t. Great as Jin knew himself to be, it’d be easier to find another person just like him. There wasn’t anyone like Kazuya. Life or God or whoever had given the world this incredible gift in the younger just didn’t do that every day. Anyone who ever would meet Kazuya would know for the rest of their lives they’d touched something that millennia stretching out in either direction couldn’t imagine.
Was it just his love making him think that? Stupid besotted Jin, making a fuss. That’s what Kazuya seemed to believe right now.
But Jin still couldn’t shake the feeling the younger was just on the other side of the door, heart aching just as much as Jin’s.
+++
Part of him refused to believe he’d just kicked Jin out. It wanted him to throw open the door, run after him, beg him to stay, offer him anything… everything… to not go. The same part of him that was just so tired of the weight of carrying so much for so many people…
God, if they knew how tired he was.
He was tired of facing the suffering of so many people when he had no good experience of his own to blind himself to their fate.
He was tired of killing. So much death...
And every tiny molecule of the rest of him felt the guilt of that. It wasn’t just his father, though that wasn’t helping. He wanted to let it all go and he knew he’d never forgive himself if he did. And what Jin wanted him to promise made him feel that tiredness even more keenly while simultaneously reminding him how very well he knew what would happen to those people he could have helped.
But now Jin was gone. Kame had thrown him out. He could swallow back down that tiny voice in him begging for a nice long sleep. The other voice, though, the voice currently screaming at him that Jin was walking away, Jin was leaving, he’d be gone and oh, god, he better stop him…
That voice just wouldn’t shut up.
His Kizuna family could probably help with that one, though. He… he really should talk to them. All of them. Not like a meeting; just… talk. Make sure they all know how much he loves them. That he won’t let anything happen to them. That he’ll do whatever he has to.
When he’d finally gotten past the overwhelming initial despair to reach that point, he was no longer crying. He straightened his clothes which had gone a bit awry when he literally pushed his lover out of the office and he smiled.
Unlocking the door, Kame grabbed the knob and turned it, pulling the door inward like he had so many times…
…except this time he found himself blocked. By Jin. “What are you still doing here?”
“Back in the office, Kaz… Kame.” Kame winced at the way Jin corrected himself. In a lower voice, one that only Kame could hear, Jin added, “Until you promise. Once you do, I’ll… I’ll go like you want. Not before then, though.”
WHAT? “You c-can’t…” Kame stammered, flustered now.
“I said I’d do it.”
“Let me past, Jin!”
“No.”
Kame tried pushing the man out of the way but he wouldn’t budge. “Get out of the way, you asshole!”
“No.”
“No.” Kame repeated in a mocking voice. “Is that all you can say? MOVE IT!”
“No.”
“No.” He glanced down at the floor for the briefest moment and then he slugged Jin in the face.
Jin grabbed the door frame to keep from flying backwards and just as Kame was reaching the realization that slamming the door shut on those fingers might just loosen Jin’s grip, Jin had pushed himself further into the doorway and Kame further into the room.
Koki came running from down the hall, shrieking, “What the hell is going on?”
“Koki, you have to help me!” Kame pleaded, trying to catch the man’s gaze around Jin but that baka was blocking most everything. “He won’t let me leave!”
+++
Jin turned away from Kazuya (he probably wasn’t allowed to call him that anymore and that thought really stung) and towards Koki. “Nobody in, nobody out. If you need something from him, get it from someone else and if you need to tell him something, you tell me and I’ll pass it along. Oh, and he’ll need someone to bring him something to eat in a while since he can’t go to the kitchen to get his own food.”
“What?” simultaneously in a surprised voice from Koki and an outraged one from Kazuya. Koki continued with, “Is he sick again? Last time he got sick, he was really uncooperative and wouldn’t rest…”
Jin shook his head. Mostly the details weren’t Koki’s business in light of his promises to Kazuya. He didn’t want to lie either though, so he said, “He’s under office arrest until he stops being an idiot.”
Behind him, Kame was throwing a temper tantrum that put to shame even the worst celebrity diva and Koki was just staring at him in a kind of blank confusion but finally Koki said, “Okay, then. I’ll bring him some food in… say… two hours?”
Jin could almost hear the shocked expression spreading across Kazuya’s face behind him. Normally Jin would tease him that Koki had taken his side but now just didn’t seem the time.
Koki left without asking anything else though Jin didn’t expect that to last forever.
Kame tried a few more times to push past him.
Jin called upon every tiny bit of his stubbornness and just wouldn’t move.
Eventually Kame slammed the door closed again with a pissed, “FINE!”
Was he doing the right thing?
He was, right?
Koki did eventually return with food for Kazuya and a whole bunch of questions for Jin. “How is he being an idiot, exactly?”
“Can’t tell you that.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so angry, Jin. Are… is this really necessary? He… he’ll…” Koki trailed off, apparently looking for words he couldn’t quite find.
Jin knew where it was heading, though, so he just said, “He’ll never forgive me, I think…”
“And you’re still doing it?” The look Koki was giving him now was much softer. “Jin, I thought you two…”
“He kicked me out.”
“So you’re going to lock him in the office until he changes his mind? Jin!”
That wasn’t it at all. “No. That’s not why.”
“So he’s mad at you, he’s throwing you out, and… and yet your solution to whatever the real problem is was to piss him off more? Don’t you still care about him? Just… just tell me what’s going on. I’ll… maybe I can help.”
“No. I gave him my word, Koki. My word. Do you understand me? I promised him! I just can’t tell you. Not just you. Anybody. I won’t do it!”
“But maybe I can…”
“Koki, I’d rather things end right here and now between us - let him hate me for the rest of forever! - than betray his confidence! So stop asking! I don’t care if you can fix it. I won’t betray him! But I will protect him. He’s going to stay in there until he stops being an idiot and then I’ll go like he told me but I made him a promise and I’m going to keep it before that happens.”
Koki looked like he was going to argue further but he stopped, tilting his head to the side slightly and taking a long look at Jin. “If he’s being stupid, that means it’s about us because he only gets stupid when he cares too much. That means either you or us but if it was you, there wouldn’t be a door between you. Whatever it is, don’t take too long to reach him. That door only locks from the inside because though he sometimes needs to keep people out, he still remembers what it’s like to be locked in a room for days at a time.”
Another tally under the “Reasons to Kill Kazuya’s Father” column. It was getting to the point Jin wasn’t sure he could count them anymore.
+++
Kame listened hard for the sound of Jin finally giving up and going but instead he got to hear almost every word of the conversation between Koki and Jin, even though everything at the edge of his awareness seemed a bit fuzzier than usual. He’d almost say he was drunk except he’d had no alcohol. It must just be the anger.
But what they were talking about, it…
Jin would leave because Kame told him to but even with everything he’d shouted at the elder, even with Koki and probably eventually others pushing, trying to find out what the whole mess was about, Jin wouldn’t betray him. No matter what, the other… he wouldn’t…
He would rather lose everything he had here and possibly even his life (Kame realized with a jolt that it’s exactly what his father’d ensure happened once Jin left the protection of Kizuna and the church) than to break Kame’s confidence or waiver in his stubborn efforts to protect Kame…
Just like he’d promised…
I’ll protect you from your father and from Papa K. I’ll protect you from me. I’ll protect you from yourself, Jin had told him all of these things at one time or another. I can’t promise I’ll be very good at it all the time, but I will do it nevertheless…
He was doing exactly that. And maybe he wasn’t doing the best job of it. Maybe he was overreacting or being unreasonable but he was doing his best, wasn’t he? He… he felt the weight of that promise to Kame just as strongly as Kame was feeling the weight of his promises to Kizuna. Of COURSE Jin would be like this. He was doing exactly what Kame himself was.
Maybe there was some sort of compromise. Something he actually COULD promise Jin and not be lying and not be abandoning the responsibilities to Kizuna he in his love chose to bear.
That and…
He didn’t want Jin to go.
Slowly Kame opened the office door, hoping Jin would take the calm pace as a sign he wasn’t going to try to dart out past him again. “Jin?”
Koki was already gone. Jin turned in the doorway and softly murmured, “He’s some food for you, Kazu-lo… uhm… Kame. Please eat it.”
Kame accepted it but kept his eyes on Jin’s face. “Jin, you know I can’t… but… please, come back in and let’s… I mean, maybe there’s… Please…”
“You can’t eat?” Jin asked, looking puzzled.
“No no no, I meant about… well, come in here and let’s talk alone, okay?”
Jin stepped through the doorway and closed the door behind him, leaning against it again exactly as he had a few hours earlier at the start of all of this after-meeting mess. “Well?” Jin asked expectantly, though his voice wasn’t rude or judgmental.
“Do you mean it?”
“I mean everything I’ve said to you. Don’t you know that?”
“I do, I just meant… about finding another way. You think you can find another way? Because…” and Kame took a deep breath before continuing, “I’m not even sure if I did that it would work. I need another option. I’ll do it if I have to even though the thought of it terrifies me and I know that I will which is why I can’t make you that promise. But if I promise… to tell you, to not run off alone. To give you that chance to do what you promise, to find me another way… That promise, is it good enough?”
“You’ve kicked me out, Kame. How can I find you another way when I’m gone?”
“I DON’T WANT YOU TO GO!” Kame shouted suddenly, throwing his arms around Jin. “Don’t go! Don’t go, Jin! I didn’t mean it!”
“Kazuya…” Jin’s voice was soft and held no anger.
That’s the last thing Kame was aware of before the room swayed again. Maybe it wasn’t his anger that had made everything fuzzy around the edges after all…
He’d overworked himself again with too little food and sleep and entirely too much stress, hadn’t he? With everything going on, he'd even been worked up in what would otherwise have been quiet moments of recovery.
Koki was going to be pissed…
Jin was still talking to him but it seemed so far away…
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 93 ~Part Two - Too Much Again~
A/N: Well, there you go. Jin is being stubborn and so is Kame but it seems like Kame's overdone it. Probably explains why he said so much to Jin in the last present!chapter he was normally keeping to himself: he's not himself after all right now.