[fic] The Things We Can't Control - Chapter 10 ~That First Day~
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. Can they work together or will they end up destroying each other?
Author's Note: Finally, the identity of the boy is revealed. Though I think some of you already suspect.
BANNER BY DESHISORABA!!
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 10 ~That First Day~
Well, now what?
He didn’t have enough money to rent a hotel room and even if he did, he didn’t have the foggiest idea how to find one or even where he was. The boy had just picked a direction and ran and now he was lost. The people he passed all gave him strange looks but not one of them stopped to ask him if he was okay.
He heard one woman whisper to her companion as they walked past, “Is that blood on that doll? Must be some street brat…”
To which her companion replied, “Yeah, but what’s he doing in this neighborhood? I thought the dregs all stayed south of the river?”
But then they were out of hearing range.
Still, south was as good a direction as any, as long as it didn’t take him by his house. If he stayed in the good neighborhoods, it seemed a lot more likely his father would find him. Maybe he could just disappear into the homeless masses to the south.
What he really needed was to find a place he could buy a backpack and maybe a map, too.
Now, which way was south?
He tried to stop some people to ask directions but they all ignored him.
After what felt like hours, though, one of them actually stopped. “South?” The man looked around. “That way, I think.” And the man pointed in one direction which, thank goodness, was not back the way he’d come.
“Thank you so much!” The boy was trying to hold back tears as he was overwhelmed with relief and gratitude that finally someone wasn’t treating him like he didn’t exist. The man walked on and the boy took off in the direction he’d indicated.
After walking for what felt like forever, the boy finally came across something promising. It looked like a gas station. A gas station might have a map, right?
But the shopkeep ran him out, shouting that the store wasn’t going to get robbed on his shift and that he’d call the cops if the boy came back. The lad tried to shout that he had money and didn’t want to rob it but the man wouldn’t listen.
Did he really look so bad? Or was it the stuffed animal? He knew he’d gotten blood all over it. It wasn’t like he could wash it. His dad would have probably found it if he tried to put it through the washing machine. But… he couldn’t just leave the thing. It was all he had of his mother.
So on further southward the boy traveled and he did eventually reach the river. He followed along the river until he finally found a bridge crossing it.
North of the river and south of the river were different like day and night. Everything to the north was alive and green and prosperous and everything south was grey and dirty and the buildings were so tall! Factories spewing god knows what into the air, abandoned warehouses, crumbling remains of businesses that were probably quite successful in their time but that had been swallowed by the city…
At least the boy could understand now what those two women had meant…
But to keep his father from finding him, south of the river would do just fine. He could just disappear and the man would never find him.
Once he was across the bridge, the boy looked for someplace, anyplace, where he could sit and rest. He ended up settling down on some steps that looked like they went up into a really crappy apartment building. Hugging his stuffed animal tightly to his chest, the lad tried to figure what to do next.
Well, his first concern should probably be food. He had… let’s see, forty dollars… It would go further at a grocery store than buying fast food but he didn’t have any way to cook. A bit of panic knotted in the pit of his stomach at the thought of what he’d do when the forty dollars was gone, but he pushed it back down. One thing at a time, right?
Maybe one of the women across the street could tell him how to find a McDonalds or something?
So the boy stood back up and walked across the road. But before he could even ask, one of the older ones shouted, “Hey, what did we say? You pretty-boys aren’t welcome here. This is our street; get your skinny ass back where you came from and don’t let us catch you past Pearl Street again! Do you guys want another war?”
“W-what?” the boy stuttered, not expecting such a reaction. “I… I don’t understand…?”
“Chill, Crystal. He ain’t one of ‘em,” one of the other women said.
“Well, he looks like one…” from, apparently, Crystal.
“I don’t want to cause problems. I just want to know where I can find a fast food place around here?”
“See? Told you he ain’t one.” The woman looked thoughtful. “There’s a takoyaki guy with a sidewalk stall maybe three blocks that way,” and she pointed. “Just look to your left when you hit the corner.” But apparently finally bowing to the glares the other girls on the street were giving her, she ended with, “And then don’t come back, okay? Seriously, if you’re not going home, you best get yourself past Pearl Street…”
Nodding, the boy hurried off in the direction she pointed. He really was getting hungry. It felt like a lifetime had passed since breakfast.
Once he found the guy, he bought enough for now and some for later. The guy was nice enough to give him a bag to carry it in and even sketched out a map on a napkin to get him to Pearl Street. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, those women had been talking about but from the sound of it, he’d blend in better there with the other ‘pretty-boys’. Besides, he didn’t want to piss any other people off for being in their space.
It was almost dark by the time he finally found where he was going.
God, he was so tired…
The boy leaned against a brick building. He’d made it there. He had a bit of food and a bit of money. The next thing he needed was a place to sleep.
Well, it wasn’t like he could afford a place to stay. Did that mean he’d have to sleep outside? Maybe find some alleyway somewhere, curl up next to the wall and hope for the best?
A voice interrupted his train of thought, “Ah, new face! How long you been whoring? You moving to this stroll?”
“Huh?” the boy asked, “Why do you think I’m gonna…”
“Easy. You got the look but your clothes are clean. You’re not new to whoring, you just ain’t been on the streets before.” The kid that was speaking couldn’t have been more than a year older than him but the way he carried himself, he seemed a whole lot older. “You’re carrying around a doll? Seriously?”
“It’s mine; don’t get any ideas!” the boy hugged his Snoopy doll protectively.
“Geez, lighten up. I don’t want it anyway. If I did, I’d have just taken it, not asked about it.” Shaking his head, the kid said, “You really are new. Guess that means you haven’t been initiated yet?”
“Initiated?” He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that.
“Alright, kid…” and the older boy put his arm around the lad’s shoulder, “There’s a few things you gotta know about the street. Here, walk with me. Anyway, first thing is, don’t go east of Pearl Street, hear me? You’ll bring trouble down on us and we don’t like trouble.” And the kid was not quite so subtly leading him into the alley. He didn’t like having that kid’s arm around him.
“Okay. Is that it?” the boy asked, though not in a rude way. Not that he had intentions of selling himself anymore. He’d… well, he wasn’t sure what he’d do yet, but he’d find another way. There had to be another way, right?
“No. See, different parts of the street belong to different crews. Some are pimp-controlled, like down around the hotels, so you don’t want to be caught there without permission. But some, like this part, are controlled by another whore or a group. You always gotta ask before you work. People will kill over this, you get what I’m saying? Now, this here is my stretch… a three-block area on both sides of Pearl Street running from second to fifth.”
And then the two of them were in the alley, past the dumpster. So very suddenly, the older kid had him pinned with his back against the wall, a hand covering his mouth. Instant panic, causing his heart to race as he tried to push the bigger kid off of him but he was so exhausted and the kid was so much bigger. The stuffed animal dropped to the ground along with the bag housing the takoyaki.
The boy screamed, but with the hand over his mouth, he doubted anyone out on the street could hear him. And the dumpster blocked the view from the street, so no chance of being spotted and saved either.
In short order, the other kid had his pants open, pushing them down roughly and then one-handedly unbuttoning and unzipping his own. He pushed into the boy and took him hard and fast while the boy struggled and cried. But it was over in a few minutes, thankfully; the older kid came and then just let go, zipping back up his pants.
As he walked away, the older kid said, “First lesson of the street. Don’t trust anyone. Well, you bought yourself a week. You wanna work this area past that, you gotta pay up again after the week's up. Good luck!”
As the boy awkwardly pulled his pants back up, he heard the other kid’s voice from the end of the alley, “Oh, I didn’t catch your name?”
Seriously? He wanted his name now? But the boy was too tired to argue with him, so, sniffling still from the crying, he answered, “Kame. My name is Kame…” And he zipped his pants and then slid down the wall to sit on the ground, snatching back up his stuffed Snoopy doll.
“I’m Ryuichi. Welcome to Pearl Street!”
And Ryuichi left Kame crying in the alley.
+++++++++++++++++++++
The story continues:
Chapter 11 ~One Town Over~
A/N: Well, a lot of you probably already figured Kame was the boy, but now you know for sure. This is about 10 years earlier than the alternate Jin/Kame chapters. I'm thinking of making a poll. There's two ways I can go from here.
A.) Every chapter from here on out is just the present and tidbits of Kame's past are revealed here and there.
OR
B.) I can continue alternating chapters so you guys get to know what's going on now, and how Kame got from here to founding Kizuna and all that jazz.
You'll get a much richer, more detailed version of Kame's past with option B, but on the other hand, you'll have to remember that even chapters and odd chapters are two different time lines. So would you guys rather have option A or B?