Routine…Diminished!
By Shin SankaiXxXxXxX
I'd never been your average normal person. It was never my style. I went by a strict routine. Wake up, meditate, shower, drink tea, dress, go to work, return from work (whenever that was), shower and then fall asleep. That was my routine.
I worked for a small organisation – a lethal organisation – and I am content with this lifestyle. Well as content as I, Korikaze, AKA Shinomori Aoshi, aged 29 could actually ever show. Emotion wasn't exactly a foreign word to me, I just never felt inclined to use such feelings that could one day be turned against me.
I lived a dangerous life, creeping about the underground world as though I too belonged there amongst the drug dealers, rapists and murderers. That is why I was known as Korikaze or just Kaze. And because of this I felt inclined to retract myself from normal everyday life.
As I worked within a small organisation, which I was certain was under some police authority, I never associated myself with cops and neither was I a private detective. I defined myself as a 'spy' or 'agent' that would sink to the lowest depths in the underworld to leak information to the right people.
Tokyo was in turmoil and something needed to be done. I was sure that it wouldn't be fixed in my lifetime, but perhaps those that roamed the underworld, doing what they could for the good of those trying to lead a normal life, would one day have their wish granted.
I wasn't the only spy underground either. I'd nearly killed a fellow spy, having had a run in with him. Spies worked alone. That was practically a code for us. When one is confronted with a situation where they could seriously be discovered it meant either to kill or to be killed. I'd nearly placed a bullet hole in the unknown mans head when he grunted out a name I knew all too well, Fujita Goro.
Fujita Goro was the man I answered to. I was certain from the small amount of information I'd gained about him that he was a cop, but not a dirty cop. He sent me on assignments, under his superior's authority. I'd no idea who his superior was and didn't care. As long as I was paid, my real name, background and home protected, I was fine with the lack of information from him concerning his superiors and any other agents working for them. All that mattered was a picture, a description and any useful information of who I was looking for or getting information out of.
Apparently the agent I had a running in with had been told about me and to assist wherever possible. This had not sat well with me for one, I nearly killed the man and two, I never wanted or needed any partners. Not after the last time.
About three years ago I'd been working with a small band of cooperative fugitives who took refuge in the underworld from the police above. Apparently they'd been set up on a scam job by dirty cops and had taken the fall, but had fled to the underworld and now resided there. I was sent to seek them out, confront them with a proposal from Fujita Goro and the four burly men had accepted. They were contacts for me…and over time I'd finally begun to trust and believe in their skills. However, the take down did not go according to plan and lives had been lost. Their lives…
Even to this day as I hunted for the nameless organisation above, I secretly hoped I would run into the bastard responsible for their deaths. And if I found him, his eyes glinting even more sinister then I could ever do, I would make him pay a thousand times over.
Death was not new to me. Truthfully, I'd lost count of the amount of scum I'd killed. Each time I'd place in a report to Fujita Goro and each time I'd been skirted out of doing any jail time. Evidence of their bodies had miraculously disappeared. Fujita's comment had been 'who would miss scum such as them?' and sometimes I'd like to believe that.
However, everyone had a family somewhere and there would always be someone crying over a death of a person, scum or not.
As for me, I'd grown up in an orphanage on the outskirts of Kyoto. Apparently the story of my conception and then childhood from the ages 1-2 wasn't a pleasant one at all. I'd overheard the nuns in the orphanage talking about me when I was 6 years old and even though I didn't understand it then, I certainly understood it now.
My mother had been a famous actress, who worked in theatrical performances. Apparently one evening on her way home, she had stupidly taken a short cut and was raped by a man who would undoubtedly impregnate her and become my father. While he fled to another country, my mother was left to try and pick up her now scarred life. Of course this never happened. She vanished from all theatrical performances, living a life of ruins and never told a sole about her rape until several months later. When she finally did confide in someone, a woman who had been a childhood friend of hers it was all too late and she was unable to terminate the pregnancy.
I was born on an icy cold day in January and for two years I was the reminder of what my mother was trying to forget. Apparently the landlord of my mothers one bedroom run down apartment had barged her way inside, demanding rent and had not only found me, screaming my lungs out on the floor of the living room, but my mother dead having overdosed on drugs. I was placed in the orphanage after being released from hospital as doctors worked tirelessly on me to survive some illnesses I'd contracted and also malnutrition.
That was the beginning of a tough road ahead for me as the next 4 years I was not once taken in by a single family…and not once made a single friend in the orphanage. Children my age, younger and even older ran away from me, teasing me that I was some scary freak. Though I always remember it, I never felt affected by it…much.
It was on another cool day, just a few months before I turned 7 that life was going to get better for me. After I overheard two nuns talking about me, I thought like any normal 6 year old would and ran away thinking I was a terrible boy and that they were angry with me. I ran outside, heading towards the gate with eyes closed but ended up pumping into a trench coat glad woman who had an umbrella obscuring her face. She picked me up out of the mud, took my hand quietly into hers and led my crying self back to the nuns.
Twenty-four hours later I was sitting quietly on a plush couch in a brand new place, which would turn out to be my new home. The beautiful woman who'd taken my hand that rainy evening was sitting next to me, a smile so bright like the sun breaking over her lips as she brushed a stray strand of hair from my left eye. I'd never seen such a smile on anyone's face before and it had been directed at me, making my small heart beat wildly inside my chest. I was dressed in new denim shorts, a white shirt and socks and a pair of black-blue sneakers. With hands in my lap and bright green eyes moving about the place, looking at how big and bright everything was compared to the orphanage my "investigations" were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening and closing and a male voice, deep in volume prominently voicing, I'm home.
'Anata, we are in the lounge room' the beautiful lady had voiced as the man came into view. His hair was black in colour and parted down the middle. His eyes were brown and calculating and yet didn't hold a shred of cruelty within them. He was dressed immaculately in a lavish business suit and a leather black briefcase was held in a strong hand.
I had been prompted to stand up and my large eyes stared quietly up at the man who was looking back down at me. I had no idea what to expect, but what came was something that to this day I'd never forget. The man dropped to one knee, letting go of his briefcase and placed both hands gently onto my small shoulders.
'This is Aoshi…' The smiling woman boasted and I blinked at her and then back over to the man who's lips broke into a serene smile, just like hers.
'Aoshi-kun, do you know who I am?' I didn't know a lot at that age, so I quietly shook my head no, even though something, which I now knew as warmth and contentment, began to grow within me. 'I'm going to be your father from now on, okay?'
'Otosan…?' I had watched him nod his head and then looked over at the pretty woman who was now kneeling beside him with the exact same smile as well. 'Okasan…?' She nodded too and as I bent my head, eyes searching the plush carpet at my feet. I had a small idea of just what a mother and father was and knew I envied those children that had them. I had wanted a mother and father, ones that would take care of me and not abandon me so for the first time in my life I ended up hugging someone – them.
Though I was still a relatively quiet boy, life was getting better and I was the happiest I'd ever been. I got everything that I'd ever wanted. A mother who would tuck me in at night and read me bedtime stories and a father who once he came home from work would play outside with me. I had a room to myself, two pet cats and the faceless parents from my dreams were now real and right before my very eyes.
Two years later, something was beginning to change and I found out that my new Okasan was in fact having a baby of her own. Over the past 5 years before I cam to live with them, they'd been trying to have a baby with no success. It was also at a high risk because Okasan's immune system was very weak and the chances of her or the baby surviving the pregnancy was very small. However, she was one determined woman and in November, 2 months from my 9th birthday my Okasan gave birth. It was a little girl.
I didn't know how to react, as she lay weakly within the hospital bed. She looked so frail, so ready to fall asleep and never awaken again. I didn't want that to happen, but instead I watched as Okasan smiled down at. It was that same joyous smile from when I first arrived into their home – our home - no matter how sickly she looked.
'Do you want to see her Aoshi-kun?' I was lifted onto the bed by Otosan before I could shake my head no – not wishing to look upon the thing that had made my Okasan so weak and stared down at the gurgling form with a tuft of blue-black hair on its head. She squirmed within the blanket, a cry escaping her lips before her eyelids peeled open to reveal…
My beeper went off, jerking me from my reverie. I unclipped it from my belt as I stood dressed in black jeans, black shirt and black leather jacket. I was still walking around the run down apartment bare foot and walked to the cordless phone and dialled the number on the LCD of the beeper. As it picked up I patched in an English numerical code – it spelling out korikaze if someone was smart enough to figure it out and then waited.
I was currently residing in this dump as I was stacking out the two apartments directly across from this one and the empty one beside me. On my scratched up coffee table sat two folders with information and photos of two men I was looking for. Fujita had given me a surveillance system in the room, which was linked to the lobby area and the two apartments across from mine. They were generally vacant, but these days, things had been picking up and unknown men had begun to use them for dealing drugs and screwing whores. Around 3:30am I noticed one of the men I was trying to locate was in fact screwing a whore doggy style and recorded the footage for Fujita to see.
The two men I was looking for were partners that sold drugs and blew bullet holes into whores once they were finished with them. I was certain that something was going down very soon in either of those two apartments and made sure to update Fujita whenever possible.
The number I was currently contacting was Fujita himself.
"Update…" Came the deep voice over the other end, this being Fujita and I monotonously spoke all I knew from my findings exactly 4 hours earlier. It was currently 9am. I'd gotten up at 7:30 to look over the recorded footage I'd taped after finally going to bed about 4:30 this morning. The romp in the apartment across from me only lasted half an hour (the drug fucked moron had no stamina) and then he seemed to smoke a cigar and then drop off to sleep without placing a single bullet hole in the whore beside him. I thought that had been a good time to sleep myself and got in three hours myself.
"You have a problem?" I listened to him voice and tried going back over my mental notes as to whether I forgot to tell him any relevant information. I came up with nothing and quietly waited for him to answer me. Instead the bastard said,
"Knock, knock Shinomori…" I listened to the engaged signal for about three seconds before there was in fact a knock at my door. My eyebrows furrowed as I slowly made my way towards the door, my left hand still holding the cordless phone while the other was underneath my jacket and shirt where my gun rested at the small of my back.
Unfortunately another negative remark about this apartment, beside the fact it was a piss of shit, the door had no peephole so I left the security chain on and slowly listened to the door creak open. My eyes came in contact with a young girls back to me and a very long braid with the end swishing against her jean clad ass.
"Yes?" I remarked as I took my hand away from my gun and pulled the chain away from the door to get a better view of the girl and watched as she turned around.
"Hello, neighbour!" I was a little taken back, not only by the cheery voice, the bright blue eyes and the sudden news that I had a neighbour but also for the simple fact that the smile on her face…I'd seen it before. "I just moved in, well me and not my stuff since it won't be here for at least another day and thought I'd greet my neighbours. I went across the hall, but I think those places are vacant and when I heard some rustling from your door I thought I'd come on over with some cookies and introduce myself." I did nothing but blink down into her wide blue eyes. Those eyes were just like hers.
"I don't eat cookies." Those words came out laced with annoyance and I watched as the young woman took a step back before her hands clenched the glass jar of cookies she was holding.
"I'm sorry." Something tugged within me at that small voice and I didn't know what to do about it. "I just moved here from Kyoto and…and I wanted to make friends so I thought cookies were a good icebreaker. My Okasan loves cookies, so I thought it'd be nice to have the homemade cookies she made me with my neighbour."
"Your…Okasan…" I couldn't help but murmur and watched those blue eyes look up at me again. Instantly my breath hitched into my throat. It couldn't be…could it? "Mi-Misao…?"
"Eh? Yeah, my name's Misao, Makimachi Misao, how'd you know that? I didn't know I introduced myself already, but then I'm so forgetful when I ramble at times." I watched her bop the side of her head before she let of a small laugh and her lips broke into a smile, the same smile that belonged to my adoptive Okasan.
She jumped slightly when my cordless phone rang and I instantly picked it up, even if my eyes would not break from hers.
'Lose her Shinomori, you have guests coming.'That meant only one thing. The suspects I was spying on had entered the lobby and were heading up the lifts to these two vacant apartments.
"I have to be going?" I absently voiced when I hung up the phone.
"Really? Well here, have some cookies anyway." Misao held out the jar to me, placing the cold glass against my right hand urging me to take the cookies from her.
"No thanks."
"No really, its okay, just take them. Its not like they're laced with poison or anything. Come on what's the harm in some cookies from your neighbour." I heard the lift ding down the end of the hall to the right and cursed under my breath. There was no fucking way I could get rid of Misao as my eyes darted to the right, watching the lift slowly move open and with that I did the first thing I could think of.
"Eh? Hey!" Misao let off a surprised gasp as my right hand jerked out, moving around her neck as I thrust her towards me and back stepped into my apartment before clicking the door closed. I hoped the bastards in the lift hadn't gotten a slight look at either of us. She was fiddling against me, probably causing a small amount of noise against my door and I needed to shut her up quick.
"Stop moving…" I commanded through clenched teeth and watched her freeze when I placed the barrel of my black steel handgun against her temple. She instantly stiffened within my grip, eyes closing as though waiting for her fate but all I did was lean heavily into her body – absently noting hers molded well against mine – before placing my ear against the thin door. Footsteps clomped down the hallway before stopping at one of the apartment doors. A few incoherent murmurs were made before the door opened and closed.
I dragged the stiff Misao towards my lounge room and turned on the television and flipped to the security system looking in on the goings on in the "vacant" apartment across from mine.
"Is that…"
"Ssh…" I whispered into her ear, having pressed record on the VCR, my eyes catching everything even though the sound was on mute. Misao was clearly frightened while she sat stiffly on my lap as I was slumped into a busted old chair and my handgun rested on her lap and still very much in my hand. Her back was against my chest and I could feel her heart beat erratically within her ribcage. I held her to me with my left arm, which was around her waist but my hand was holding onto her right shoulder, the sides of my forearm feeling the mounds of her clothed breasts. Her confused eyes were trained on the television screen like mine while her body let off small shivers every now and then.
The shivers instantly stopped when I witnessed as did Misao one of my suspects pull out a silencer on a faceless man. A baseball cap was obstructing a full view of his facial features, but it didn't matter now when my hand went over her mouth to conceal her scream as the trigger was pulled, right at the mans face and blew out his brains. Her teeth sunk into the skin on my hand for several seconds before she began to hyperventilate.
While I held her in my arms I quickly dialled Fujita's number, placed in my code once more and then spoke four words before hanging up. We have a body.
I placed the phone and my gun on the coffee table, this letting go of Misao and as the small echo of the apartment door open, Misao's lips parted, looking ready to scream and I instantly cupped her face, my lips falling upon hers.
Her eyes were wide before they drooped closed while I listened to the footsteps fade away. When I couldn't hear anything I pulled away from Misao and hadn't caught her hand as it smacked over my cheek. She raced for the door, but my strides were quicker and because she was now a witness to a murder my hand swiftly came down against her neck and shoulder area and sent her into dream land, her body falling back against my own.
I placed her onto my rolled out futon, leaving the door open so I could hear when she awoke and hit the redial number. The code was punched in once more and I listened for his voice.
"Now I have a problem." I remarked and hung up knowing I'd have agents around to decide on what to do next.
As I stood at the doorway of my bedroom I walked inside and kneeled at the side of the futon and brushed my hand over Misao's forehead. I hadn't seen her since she was two years old. Circumstances had torn me away from her and my adoptive parents.
"Mm…" I heard her moan slightly as she shifted, awakening from her unconsciousness. I hadn't meant our reunion to be like this.
Time had really done a good number on her as my eyes scaled down her body before moving back to her face as I observed her blue eyes open to gaze around before locking with my green ones.
Xx To be Continued xX
Authors Notes: Well, I thought up this about 8 hours ago and it took me that long to write this chapter (and its only 6 pages long!). It won't be really long, maybe 5 chapters or less.
Glossary:
Korikaze – Ice Wind
Fujita Goro – Obviously Saitoh Hajime's alias name
Anata - Darling
Otosan – Father
Okasan – Mother