I was watching the mini-series "Human Trafficking" and I felt like writing something related. I also wanted it to be short as I can't handle any more longfics. So this was the result. If you've watched the series, you will find plenty of similarities between it and this fic. I hope that doesn't make you think that I lack originality haha.
Have a good read.
HUMAN TRAFFICKING
His silence is much too terrible.
Like wind.
When wind caresses the tree leaves, menacing. You may find it soft, calm, warm. But this same delicate air may turn into a thunderstorm, a hurricane, a tornado, ripping life from earth. No second thoughts. Just plain destruction.
His silence is scary as that.
His white, way too slim hands press against the bedsheets, his mouth squeezes as to not let anything out. His eyes are halfway open, staring at the emptiness of the wall, the nothingness of the air. On top of him, someone, anyone, please themselves by thrusting over and over again over his white figure.
But, silence. Silence is all that can be heard coming out from him. Silence, dead silence. Dangerous silence. Scary, terrible silence.
If he had the strength, he would turn and shred this man to pieces. If he could, he would shred them all to pieces. But he can't.
Isn't that the whole point, to have him powerless? To trap the air in his lungs, about to explode, about to collapse…
Pressing against the sheets, his face turned, his cheek to the pillow, his soft blue eyes staring at the window, opaque stained window.
Isn't that the whole point, to not look at his face? To picture anyone in his place, anyone instead of him.
But…
He's beautiful. Who wouldn't want to look at him? Who would exchange him for a mere illusion?
But he is, in many ways, an illusion. A cracked illusion of glass, something that you cannot always own.
Except that it is so easy, actually, to own him…
When the attacker is done, he simply pulls away, discards the used condom and proceeds to get dressed. He has paid money for this boy. Good money. It was as he was promised, a beautiful figure of ice, silent and obedient, tight, handsome. He falls over the bed and looks at nothing. Waits for the man to leave. The man exits the room and then it's just silence.
Suzuno will bite his nails. They're ugly, 'cause he bites them all the time. They're nervous. He wishes he could have a cigarette, right about now. He wishes he could smoke fire, hot and wild like the hair of his friend Burn.
Burn. He's the only person that is keeping him here. He's the person that keeps him trapped. He's the person that turned him into a slave.
Except Burn doesn't know anything about that…
Fuusuke was taken when he was returning home from school. He was sixteen, he's seventeen now. They took him a couple of blocks away from the doors to Sun Garden. If he had walked a bit faster that day, if he hadn't stopped at the store to get a soda, if he hadn't…
That probably wouldn't have changed anything. They had already targeted him. They knew everything about him. They knew he was a hopeless orphan that nobody would be searching for too hard once he was gone.
Except for one person. The one person that kept Suzuno trapped. They told him that if he tried to escape, if he tried to do anything other than what he was told, Nagumo would pay for it.
Therefore Suzuno doesn't do it. He doesn't escape. He obeys.
He can't kill Burn. He's all he's got, and they know it. He was targeted, and if he had walked faster that day, if he hadn't stopped at the store, nothing would have changed. He would still have been their prey and eventually, if not that day, another, he would have been caught.
What can he do. What can he do.
He doesn't know if the beasts that attack him are worse than the beasts that attack the five girls he lives with. He's watched them deal with monsters that would make you throw up. They have to put up with them. They all do.
Touko sits next to him. It's her father they've got. One wrong move on her part, and he's gone. They are now sitting in the small kitchen, where an old wooden table and two small chairs serve as promoters of their short social break. She lights up a cigarette, breathes the smoke in, and then delivers it to him. He appreciates the poison in his lungs. The smoke coming out of Touko's mouth and nose also holds a nice aroma. If he liked women, he would like Touko, he thinks. She's brave. She still has this valiant face despite all that she's been put through. Despite being humiliated twelve times a day by twelve different beasts. Her skin has traces of violence. It has traces of her resistance, of her still not wanting to be a vain toy. He fears for her. He fears the day they decide to make an example out of her for the others to see. It has happened before. They both have been for a longer time in this house. The other four are new, replacements for other four that were taken somewhere else. They're the oldest ones, and it really feels that way when they try to calm the new ones down, to make them understand there's no way of changing their reality, and that the only way they can hope of escaping here, is by dying.
Some have done it in the past. Dying. One of the old girls threw herself from a fifth floor when she was supposed to be attending a customer. She fell on top of a car and died instantly. Suzuno still wondered why he hadn't done the same already.
If he had any hopes of seeing Nagumo again, if it was that that kept him alive.
If it was that that kept him a prisoner with nothing but useless dreams.
Touko tried to escape only once. She was beaten up, raped horribly and tortured for three days. A man was killed for not watching her properly. She didn't try it again. Nor did any of the others that had seen what had happened, especially Suzuno. He couldn't give up, no matter how much he wanted to.
The only retaliation towards his attackers that he was allowed was being silent as death when they were with him, picturing all of the horrible things that could happen to them once they left the house and carried on with their lives. All of the ways he would kill them if he had the chance. He would even smile sometimes at these thoughts. But briefly. He won't give his smile to them.
A few months later he is told that he will be taken to a new place, in New York. He's currently in Washington. He feels fear crawling through his stomach, his chest, his throat, he feels like he's going to vomit desperation. He can't leave Touko's side, what will be of him if he leaves Touko's side… what?
But he's taken. He barely has the chance to tell her goodbye, gripping her hand, not knowing if he will ever see her again.
Burn is in his brain. Burn is in his throat. Burn is in his soul injected like scorching venom.
He arrives to a new place. There are not only five girls here, but about thirty. It's a large construction, designed to hold their activities a secret. It seems to have only one floor but it has a huge basement, where they sleep and where they take their customers. There is a façade, it looks like a beauty salon, but it's not. Here there's another boy like him, Fubuki Shirou, who comes from Finland. He himself is from Kiev. Shirou explains him in an almost perfect English that he has a twin brother back in Prague, where he was living at the time he was taken, and he cannot escape or they will kill him. Suzuno tells him about Nagumo, and after those explanations they both remain silent. Everyone here has their own story, one reason why they can't escape.
Shirou has been in the system for almost as long as him, a year and a couple of months. He's one year younger, sixteen at the time they meet. He's handsome. He's also just as silent as him when he's with a customer, as if he was dead. Suzuno wonders what part of them is the one that is actually still alive, because whenever he tries to think of any, nothing comes to mind, other than the stubborn hearts that keep beating and the senseless lungs that keep breathing air.
Maybe it has something to do with the parts of his body that still have memories of Nagumo. His fingers that remember what Burn's hair in them felt like, or his neck that remembers what his hot and hungry kisses on it were like.
Maybe it's nothing so cheesy. Maybe they live out of instinct.
Fuusuke and Shirou visit the store that is next to the beauty salon every once in a while. They stare at the colorful candies that they cannot have. The owner learns that they come from different countries and that they have no money and gives them a little bag of candy as a present. Shirou is ecstatic. Fuusuke feels like his cold face is about to drop as he feels like crying.
It'd been so long since any of them could have any kind of luxury like this…
He thinks of Touko that hasn't left the house they lived in in over a year. Not even to get some fresh air at some tranquil hour of the afternoon.
They're prisoners, and prisoners are not supposed to get candy. He feels like crying.
They only eat one gummy bear each from their bag. They bring the rest to try and divide them among the thirty girls. They know that they shouldn't become too hopeful, but they hope that this present isn't a one-time occurrence.
Two weeks later they get another bag, although this time it's one of the girls that received it. She comes to the beauty salon as if she had accomplished something. In a way, in the eyes of the other 29 girls, she has.
Two weeks later they don't get a new bag. They get police cars and an army of armed people entering the beauty salon. Everyone is arrested, both them and the customers. Their bosses escape. Suzuno was found when he had his face between the legs of a fortysomething man. His wrists are kept in place with a thin plastic bracelet.
A man with spiky white hair and tanned skin interviews them all with remarkable patience. When Suzuno's turn comes, he falls silent. He has Burn in his brain, and this man doesn't know of the damage he can cause by asking questions.
Fuusuke stares at the floor while Goenji Shuuya tries to get something out of him.
"Suzuno, please."
"Has anyone told you anything?"
The officer remains silent.
"And why do you think that is?" his icy eyes come to encounter Goenji's black ones.
"I cannot help you if you don't tell me anything. Is there anyone you are worried about?"
Burn. Burn and Touko, goddammit. And Shirou and his brother and the thirty girls and the four that he left back at the house with Touko.
Goenji doesn't know anything.
"You can't provide us security." He affirms in his strong Ukrainian accent. Goenji sighs.
"You're right. I cannot provide you anything as long as you don't tell me what is going on."
Fuusuke looks down.
"I have to think of Burn."
"Who is Burn?"
"Someone. And they know everything about him just as they know everything about me. Goenji, they are too powerful. You won't be able to do anything against them."
"Where is this Burn?"
"Kiev."
Goenji sighs again. A small realization. This is indeed bigger than they had anticipated.
"And if we could get Burn somewhere safe?"
"Like what? Here? Nowhere is safe. Especially Kiev."
"We can get you to a safe house."
"Even then…"
"Suzuno, don't you want to help us stop them?"
Suddenly there is Touko in his brain.
Touko. Shirou. The hell they live in. The hell they will stay in if…
But he can't. He can't risk Burn, he can't!
And he… he starts wondering yet again why the fuck is he still alive in the first place. Why.
"Yes, I do."
"Help us, then."
"I…"
Can't.
He lowers his gaze again and his fingers are twitching on top of the metallic table. He blinks.
Maybe Burn would forgive him.
"Okay."
Nagumo Haruya is found by the Ukrainian police in Kiev, two days after Suzuno has been arrested. Police says they're taking him to a safe house so that Suzuno Fuusuke can freely declare against his captors in the United States. He understands nothing but is so shocked and happy by the fact that Suzuno is still alive. He gets in the car, they leave Sun Garden behind.
When they stop at a traffic light, a car rapidly runs in front of them, coming out of the perpendicular street, and shoots come from the window.
The two policemen and Nagumo are killed.
Suzuno is also found in the safe house that the government of the United States has provided for him, however it's not necessary for the gunmen to do anything. Suzuno is dead in the bathroom, his wrists sliced and a bright puddle of red blood around him. He knew that Burn had died.
Two weeks later arrests are made, thanks to the information Suzuno provided. It's not the end of human trafficking, but Touko, the other four girls, Shirou, his brother and the thirty other girls from the beauty salon are safe, along with many others from the same network that were also rescued.
A few days later, Touko shares a cigarette with Goenji on the roof of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. She taps it with her thumb to let the ashes fall and spin in the air.
"Fuusuke always pictured in which ways he would kill them if he had the chance, you know? Helped him get through." She takes some poison in. Lets it out. Goenji is frowning. He hopes he hadn't failed. "I hope they are condemned to death and Fuusuke haunts them forever in hell."
Air takes her words. Silent, vicious air.
If you've liked this, please let me know in a review, I'll be much thankful. Also, forgive me for any grammar or spelling mistakes, I am not an English native speaker.
Ciao!