Title: Saving The Long Since Passed
Pairing: Shige-centric. Hints of KoyaShige. Nyanta/Wagahai.
Characters: Shige, Koyama, Ryo, Tegoshi, Jun, Yamapi, Nyanta, Wagahai, Yokoyama, Subaru, Hina, and Koki
Disclaimer: Don't own.
Warnings: AU. Death.
Author's Note: This is a Kurosagi fic, but I tried to NOT steal the entire storyline as I took the plot and stuck other characters into it, so I hope you like this. For trivialaffair LJ.
As always, thank you for playing.
It was never about him, this job that he had started, never. Actually, it wasn't really a job so much as a vendetta. If Kato Shigeaki had become a Kurosagi in order to ease his own pain, then he wouldn't have been Kato.
It all started with his best friend in high school. Koyama Keiichiro had always been a kind and gentle sort, the type of fellow whom girls had no qualms about introducing to their fathers because they knew he would make only the best of impressions. He was also the type with whom guys had no qualms about going out drinking, even scoping for chicks because he would never steal their girl, even if that girl didn't want them and instead wanted him. However, what made Koyama Kato's best friend – other than the fact that he was his only friend – was his loyalty and truth. Loyalty was hard to come by in the fickle environment called high school, and even in his home life where his mother and father fought, his mother sleeping with anything on legs, and his father working into all hours of the night followed by drinking into all hours of the morning. It was really quite shocking that the two even had time to bicker – fight and throw things, crashing antique vases against walls, throwing belongings of sentimental value into the fireplace – but they somehow managed it, and it made Kato reluctant to trust people from the get-go. Thus, truth was important, and the time he spent with Koyama just talking meant more to Kato than anything else in the world. They knew everything about each other, and if Kato were truly honest with himself, he would say that Koyama was in fact the first love of his life, despite the fact that they were both male and it was still a very unforgiving world.
That all changed in Koyama's senior year, all the joking and happiness, the lighthearted times. He didn't change, not really, but his situation changed as, being more than a little gullible, he plummeted headfirst into the ensnaring darkness of a relationship with Matsumoto Jun, a disarming gentleman of less than above-board caliber. The man was plain devious, squashing people left and right solely to increase his own riches, if only by a penny. Koyama had always wanted to feel and Matsumoto allowed him to, provided him with that experience, tugging the other's heartstrings so gently, so poignantly that Koyama was hooked, and every other word out of his mouth became the latter's name practically. Once he had it, or anything really, he didn't want to give it up; Koyama was surprisingly possessive. So, when Matsumoto needed money to save his family, time and time again, Koyama gave what he could, time and time again until he sacrificed everything for a lie.
It was the lie that hurt him most.
Kato was there when the final fall happened, the fall that was not figurative, the fall off the roof of Tokyo Tower onto the concrete three hundred thirty-three meters below. Kato hadn't known at first why Koyama wanted them to go to the very tip top - his expression hadn't been one of excitement for the potentially amazing view - but Kato was in the habit of humoring the other for it was far easier than to risk causing Koyama's tears. They were the sort of tears that ripped your bleeding heart out of its chest roughly, scarring your psyche for life.
The image that followed changed Kato - the bloody pavement, the broken limbs akimbo, the smashed skull - and his parting words of "Don't blame Matsumoto-san for this. It was all my fault. Entirely my fault for believing him and being so stupid. This is the only way to fix it or my mother will be killed, and besides, someone else is truly in charge" It stuck with him always, and fueled him on in his path of subterfuge and revenge. He didn't care if someone else had been in charge; he would hate Matsumoto until his vengeance was exacted.
Kato changed that day, but only in the path that he walked, not in the pureness of his heart, or his utter hate for wrongdoing and the exploitation of innocents. That had always been there, and coupled with his friend's death made him perfect for the life role of Kurosagi, protector of the innocent, feeding on the downfall of self-centered cons everywhere.
After Koyama's untimely death, Kato just wasn't the same. It just wasn't the other's time in Kato's mind as they could have had so many more adventures; they, or rather Kato, had planned for them to go to college together, with Kato studying law and Koyama studying literature and poetry. Yes, Kato had had it all worked out in his mind. It would have been perfect. And they could have roomed together! But he waited for the law to run its course. He had faith in the system. It was infallible.
Oh how the innocent swiftly become aware of the true ways of the world.
It wasn't like he had just sat back and waited for results. No. Kato was that annoying person that came daily to check the progress of the investigation – just think Law and Order distraught mothers. Every morning before class, he would walk into the station. "I want to speak to Yamashita-sensei." Those words became the dread of everyone working at the station because they were invariably followed by "How's the case coming? Can you convict Matsumoto-san yet?" It was the next phrase that was the worst though. "Why not? The law is supposed to protect people! It's not working. Why isn't the law working?"
The law was failing right before his eyes, yet for weeks upon weeks, he started every morning with a trip to the station house. The first day he didn't show up was more unnerving than relieving to all the policemen at that precinct. Was he okay? Had he killed himself in depression over their inability to bring about justice? Many of them could remember times in the past – many, many times – when that had happened, many idealistic people jumping off buildings to escape a law so incompetent. But when they sent someone to check on him, he was still alive – though a little rougher around the edges. It was like he had transformed overnight, but he wasn't their problem. Let the state deal with him if he left the path of the straight and narrow; for now, he was not in their hair, and that made it quite a simple matter to mark the case cold and move on to much more pressing matters.
People don't just change overnight, or so it had been said. Yet, that is, essentially, what had happened to Kato. One moment he was still firmly planted in his belief that the law would prevail despite its obvious lack of luck; the law doesn't need luck. It relies on the competency of its officers and itself. And the next moment he was bitter, jaded, his soul left rotting in some dark and nameless alley, carrion flesh being the perfect supper for beetles and worms.
He had to do something. Anything.
It was fate that sent him colliding into one Tegoshi Yuya on a depressingly frigid winter's eve as he chased after Matsumoto Jun at his rumored place of business. Fate and a little thing called omniscient Tego-ism.
"Matsumoto Jun. I need to see him." Kato glared at the man in front of him who was probably forty years older than himself. "Now."
The man laughed, terribly amused by Kato's spunk. "The youth of today are growing some balls, ne!"
Unfortunately, this did nothing to appease the younger man's ire, and he moved forward, fists clenched at his side as if he, with all his former bookworm habits, would strike at any moment, given the slightest provocation. Truly, it wasn't in his character to be this way, but there were extenuating circumstances. Besides, who would be in their right mind after losing their best friend, and why was he noticing now, when it was too late, that Koyama had probably been the love of his life, propriety be damned?
"When I said now, I meant now. Not later. Now! Don't make me kill you too, old man! It would be nothing, since I'll already be going to jail anyways for Matsumoto's death."
"I highly doubt you could kill anyone, but feel free to try." Tegoshi obviously knew something about his character that even Kato did not know; Kato could ground someone mentally and emotionally into the ground to avenge a friend or in the name of justice, but he couldn't kill, ever, at least, not without a great change to his person.
Kato rushed forward to strangle the other man, and Tegoshi was pleasantly shocked. This boy just might have some potential. Though Tegoshi didn't need it, the man who had been hiding in the shadows behind him rushed forward in response and clocked Kato across the jaw. Tegoshi chuckled at Kato's shocked reaction, and reached over to ruffle his hair. "That is what happens when you mess with the big dogs. You get hurt, and trust me, that was nothing.
"But if you want to truly get back at Matsumoto Jun, I'll help you. I'll help you take down all the con artists in this city, for a fee." He handed over a card and pressed it into Kato's hand. "You think about it, okay?"
Kato mutely nodded, a hand rubbing his jaw wearily. Life is hopeless when you are unable to avenge your friend's death. Hopeless.
It was a few days before he called Tegoshi, a few days before he gave in, gave up, was sucked under. Tegoshi never knew what the catalyst was, the cause of the decision to work for him, essentially taking out all the competition. But Kato did. As did Nyanta.
But perhaps, that was because Nyanta was part of the cause.
Nyanta had been Koyama's cat. With the loss of Koyama, Kato had kept him as his last tie to his old friend – and sadly, no one else had wanted him, not even Koyama's family. Much like Koyama had thrown himself away, Koyama's family had tossed Nyanta aside, statements of "such a worthless mongrel," and "why did Koyama like the damn cat anyways?" following in their action's wake.
Nyanta was a kind-hearted cat, and when Kato saw the cat with another cat, a surprisingly purple-tinted tabby, stopping it from jumping from the roof of a building, he broke down in tears. It was like a reminder. Kato took the cat in, named it Wagahai, and Nyanta nursed Wagahai back to happiness with her own special brand of care.
The sight, well, to say that it had spurred Kato into action would be an understatement. But it was only the beginning. The beginning.
It was initially hard for Kato to get used to his new role, so counter-intuitive to his framework, to everything he had put stock in up until Koyama's death. But he adjusted. He changed. He wasn't the same idealistic boy of people's childhood memories; he was harder, jaded, adult.
Tegoshi hadn't been surprised to hear his voice over the phone line, and soon Kato found himself jotting down the address of a fancy department store with plans to pick up information later that day.
Initially he had thought that he would go after Matsumoto directly, but according to Tegoshi – and Nishikido, that snarky bastard of a man – he wasn't ready. It didn't matter that he was reasonably intelligent, or that he could fool almost anyone into thinking he was weak and pathetic right before he pounced on them in a flurry of vicious words. He wasn't ready, and that probably hurt more than anything else, because he knew – he knew! – that Koyama wouldn't have wanted this, not the change, the transformation from what he had known into this con-conning machine who was working primarily at the whims of an old man, a strong old man, but an old man nonetheless.
But, what must be done must be done. And Koyama deserved vengeance; it was worth the change if it meant that Matsumoto would no longer force bodies over tall buildings with the force of humiliation, something that in some ways was much more tangible than simple physical action.
The first target was not just one man, but rather a trio. Subaru, Yokoyama, and Hina were running a perfectly respectable business, wherein business denotes con operation and perfectly respectable is indicative of being on the wrong side of the law but able to evade the consequences thus far. They ran an organization for the protection of animals, and took donations from the kind souls in the community with the promise that the stray animal problem would be eradicated. That wasn't the bad part, though; it was true that there were fewer strays, but that was simply because they were taking all the stray animals and making them fight each other, laughing at scruffy tabby cats cornering big ugly mutts, at the hisses and whimpers mingling in the air, a new sort of symphony.
The charitable side made Tanaka Koki a perfect target. He was a man that liked to pretend he was tough, macho, heartless, but really, he had a heart of gold, was caring, and a staunch advocate of animal rights. Had there been a PETA in Japan – or at least one that he knew about – he would have joined immediately.
Thus, when PETA-like Animal-Lovers by HYS came into his realm of awareness, he jumped at the opportunity to help out the many animals of the city that did not have a caring home or a child to play with them and love them.
He had invested all his life savings into the company, but when he found out what was really happening, he wanted that money back. It wasn't right. That wasn't truly an animal loving organization…
He couldn't take them to court for the money, for the rights of the animals that they were simply hurting further, and that was where Kato came in.
"Um. Excuse me sirs." A conservatively dressed man bowed slightly, out of respect before raising his eyes to the trio before him. "I heard from a friend of mine – we both love animals so much, and hate the lack of care this city gives its strays – that your organization does good work for animals, and animal rights. I. I want to help."
Kato watched their faces intently, noting the brief moment of eye contact between the three that said "Let's milk this sucker for all he's worth." He had them right where he wanted them already.
The thing that made Kato good at this job was his ability to observe and evaluate in a split second without others noticing. So, obviously, they didn't expect it when the cops burst in, Kato long gone, with Yamashita at the forefront and seized their remaining belongings, all that Kato had left them when he smuggled their cash in a move stealthier than they would have ever expected from a staid business, one who went on, and on, and on about animal welfare. It had been a surprise, a shock, and for a con artist, that stung worse than the loss itself. Con artists make their living on their ability to accurately read people, and each failure to do so cuts to the quick.
It hurt inexplicably more with words playing in their minds, a mockery of their abilities, skills.
"As always, thank you for playing."
Time passed by, and he surpassed con after con, each fallen soul a stair step , a cobblestone on his journey to the downfall of Matsumoto. Then, one day, Tegoshi approached him with the words, "You're ready," and a packet containing the location of Matsumoto Jun.
Now was the time to learn whether the changes had been worth it or not, whether the pain had been worth it or not. The costs, his disillusionment, his withdrawal, his hardened heart, were they worth it simply to bring down Matsumoto?
If he was successful, yes. Undeniably.
Matsumoto was sitting in his office when Kato arrived, acting much like Koyama, or rather, a terribly exaggerated version of Koyama. The character hurt his soul, but he knew that Matsumoto would fall for such a persona.
He had called the other man first, mumbling through a statement about getting the number from a friend, having heard that he was a great guy to talk to when things hurt inside, emotionally. Matsumoto had seemed deceptively nice on the phone, and Kato knew he'd have to be careful, but he could do this.
"Hello Matsumoto-san. Thank you for seeing me. I know you're very busy, a very busy man. I'm sorry for taking up your time like this. Um… Should I just start? I mean." He paused to sigh there, evaluating Matsumoto's response, inwardly smirking at the faux-rapt attention Matsumoto was paying him. "I mean, I just need to talk to someone and my friend said you're good, and I know I went over this on the phone but it's rather embarrassing to just come right out and admit to things two seconds after arriving, and can I just sit down for a moment?"
"First of all, calm down. I agreed to see you." Kato watched his face as he said it and could see the mental eye-roll. It was almost a tangible thing, though it would have never shown on the other man's face. "Now. Just say it. I'll listen and I won't judge."
"Well, you see, I. I." He broke down into tears for affect there, letting himself seem unguarded and vulnerable. "Here… I brought some cookies. I always bake when I'm depressed like this. Have one? Or two? It'll make it easier for me to talk. I know that's irrational… so just bear with me, alright?" Matsumoto didn't know that the cookies were laced with a heavy dose of arsenic, much more arsenic than one man needed to die, and Kato mentally smirked as Matsumoto picked one up.
"Fine. What are these?" Matsumoto sniffed them. "Like almond flavored or something?"
"Yes." Kato sniffled, seemingly trying to pull himself together again. "It's an old family recipe." He watched as Matsumoto took a bite and had to tell himself not to smile. "Okay. You wanted me to talk fast… I just. I hate admitting this, but I love my best friend, and I don't know what to do. My best friend is a guy and my mom will die and he's homophobic and I don't know. I don't ever feel like I'm loved. It's not that I don't like doing things for people, but it's nice to feel the emotion return back every once in a while." He started crying again, and took a cookie from the arsenic free side of the box, a vision of broken youth comforting itself through food and girlish tears.
"I don't see the problem. You're attractive." Ah, and here was how Matsumoto had reeled Koyama in. Love. Koyama had always been quite susceptible to the emotion, and the fact that Kato thought he, himself, wasn't was a testament to how much he had changed, evolved, hardened. He had grown an emotionally impermeable skin, and it was such a sad loss of youth.
"No, I'm not. I'm all bony angles and weird expressions, and I fall all over myself. How does that translate to attractive?" There was a dash of insecurity to cement the deal. He smiled on the inside as he saw Matsumoto breathing shallow out before his eyes widened, and he frantically started pulling air, only accelerating the process. It was ironic that someone could die from the very thing that was supposed to keep him alive, though isn't it a fact of life that what is supposed to help you in fact hurts you? Just look at law.
"What. Are. In. These?" Matsumoto had to gasp and pull in more air between each word. Kato couldn't hold in his cruel laughter any more.
"Your doom. Your death. My vengeance. My Revenge. Call it what you will, but I won."
Matsumoto's eyes rolled back in his head a moment after opening wide in shock at the words. He had finally been bested. And it had cost him everything.
"As always, thank you for playing."
Kato didn't feel entirely better, and he probably never would, but his mission was complete, and he had honored his friend's death in the only way he knew how. Now it was time for his true beginning, as he embarked on yet another threshold.
He had much to learn, but only of life's positive things, the negative out of the way, conquered.
Looking in the mirror, he lifted a hand to point a finger at his reflection, a mock gun.
"As always, thank you for playing."