Rain pelted his back as he bolted through the streets, running from the gangster's that had caught him photographing their deal. His vision was blurred, though from the rain or his tears he couldn't tell. He needed to get away. To get somewhere safe. He wiped at his eyes and looked around, his heart sinking as an unused key burned in his pocket. He glanced behind himself and spotted the bulky black figures that'd been chasing him looking around, struggling to find him in the torrential rain. Of all places to stop in front of.
He looked up at the apartment building above him.
Somewhere safe.
It's never safe there... but it's safer than out here, alone.
Akihito ran for the building, taking the steps two and three at a time before he relished in the cover of the eves and pushed his way through the glass doors. The foyer attendant nodded at him as he passed and he greeted him back with an apology as a river gushed behind him. His heart beat wildly in his chest as he panted for breath, trying to calm down from his marathon in the rain as he began to panic about just where he was taking himself.
He looked up at the clock above the elevator and sighed in relief. Asami was rarely home at this time of the day. He jabbed the call button of the elevator and was stepping inside within seconds, lightly pressing in the floor button of Asami's penthouse before he sniffed and hugged himself, partially for warmth, another part for comfort.
The elevator smoothly lifted him into the air, so unlike those jolted rickety machines in shopping centres around the globe. Classy music played softly in the background accompanied by the rushed pitter-patter of water as it coalesced into a puddle around his feet. It was a smooth ride straight to the top, no stops along the way. Like the universe was aligning to get him back to Asami as soon as possible, all he could hope for was that Asami was away on a business trip and wouldn't even know he'd been there until he'd long been gone.
With a light bing the elevator doors opened and Akihito stepped out and stopped, his heart beating heavily against his rib cage. He peered down both ends of the hallway and sighed in relief, his chest lightened as he stepped up to Asami's door and fumbled in his wet pocket for the key. No guards meant Asami wasn't home. He blinked away tears as he struggled to slot the key into the hole and turn it. The lock clicked and he pushed the door open, slipping in silently and pressing it shut behind him. The foyer was dark, the hallway was dark, and the rooms beyond were dark. But it wasn't cold.
The familiar smell put him at ease, encasing him in the comfort of familiarity. He sagged, realising just how tired he actually was and pushed off the door. He'd have to clean up the river trailing after him later, he thought, as he stumbled down the hall, into the lounge and into Asami's room. Nothing had changed since he'd last been there though everything appeared to have a thin layer of dust over it. Enough for Akihito to suspect that nobody had cleaned the apartment since he'd left.
Shrugging dismissively he slouched into the bathroom, it was possible Asami hadn't even been home since he'd left. He didn't bother shutting the bathroom door behind himself; nobody was home except for him. He flicked on the heat lights and stripped as quickly as he possibly could, eager to be out of his drenched jeans, thin shirt and squishy shoes. Asami's shower was calling to him, tempting him, he had wanted a bath so he could soak himself in the hot water but memories of Asami's shower permeated his mind and decided for him. That warmth, that pressure, that massage setting on the showerhead.
He almost jumped into the shower, swinging the glass door open without a care for its fragile consistency and catching it just before it shattered against the pristine white tiles. Turning the showerhead away from himself he pulled the leaver out and swung it high into the hot side, playing with the showerhead as he waited for it to warm up. The water pelted the tiles inside the shower, gushed forth and sprinkled lightly as he switched from setting to setting eventually settling on a steady thrum as steam rose around him and fogged the glass.
Akihito shifted the stream back to himself and stepped under the head, letting the water rush over his entire body at once as he held his breath. He stood there for as long as he could before the need for oxygen consumed him and he leant back to take a breath and turned his back on the spray. Its pleasant pounding eased his tense muscles and soothed his nerves into a dull background bother; he let his mind slip into a foggy haze. No real thoughts or memories immediately bothering him, not contemplating what he'd seen today. If he could, he would let himself forget. But he couldn't, for his job, for his life, for them.
Akihito shook his head and reached for the soap bottle, wiping his eyes as he reached across his body. Dispelling the toxic thoughts before they could form a flashback of the day's events as he flicked open the bottle, upended it and squeezed out a huge dollop of soap that would have had Asami scowling at him before he lathered himself from head to foot. Thoroughly cleansing his body of the dirt, sweat and blood that hadn't already been washed away by the rain.
After rinsing he turned up the heat and hummed as it burnt his skin, warming him from the outside in and turning his skin red. He waited around under the water for half an hour, enjoying the warmth. When the water began to drop in temperature he finally pushed the leaver in and stepped out, grabbing a towel from the shelf of clean ones he quickly dried himself off, draped the towel over the towel rack and walked from the bathroom to find a pair of clothes. None of his were there anymore; he'd taken everything he'd owned when he'd left. Well, everything barring one item.
He approached Asami's walk in wardrobe and tugged the doors open, revealing his over expensive suits and tailored semi-formal casual clothes. A smile tugged at his lips despite his exhaustion and inner turmoil. Asami would never leave anything less than perfect out on display. He immediately headed for the back of the wardrobe to a set of sleek draws made of rich dark wood and slid open the middle draw on the right, closest to the wall, and dug behind Asami's silk pyjamas that Akihito knew he never wore. Feeling around in the dark it took him some time to locate what he was looking for. He smiled and yanked out the set of clothes Asami kept hidden. A long sleeved white V-neck and light grey tracksuit pants. Still of a higher quality than anything Akihito would ever buy for himself, however, it was the most comfortable thing Asami owned.
He quickly dressed himself, resigning to his status as commando as none of Asami's briefs would fit him. The clothes hung off him; his and Asami's sizes were far enough apart to make him look like a teenager in grown-ups clothes as he battled to keep the shirt on both of his shoulders at the same time. Why did Asami have to be so bloody broad?
Mumbling to himself he walked back to the bathroom, shutting the wardrobe doors behind himself and avoiding the line of water from when he'd walked in, and grabbed the remaining towels from the shelf. He draped them over his shoulder, bent down and threw his sopping clothes in the bathtub along with his runners and dropped a towel over the puddle he'd made. He pressed it down with his foot and left it to soak up the rest on its own as he moved on to his river and dropped another towel at the mouth, stepped on it with both feet and dragged it across the floor, mopping up as he went. By the time he'd gotten to the door of Asami's room he'd used another towel... He only had three left.
The towels didn't last until the front doors of Asami's apartment. Akihito honestly didn't think there were enough towels in the penthouse to soak up the lake he'd left behind by dallying in the genkan. He glanced at the soaked towels by his feet and sighed, he'd have to wring them out and just drop them on the pond before him. Ten minutes later he'd wrung them out in the kitchen sink and carefully placed them over Lake Akihito, tucking them under the door to get anything that had seeped beneath the doors and joined the stream in the hallway.
Stretching his arms above his head he walked back into the main room, stopped at the heater controls and turned it up to twenty-one degrees, and dropped himself on the couch, pulling over himself the one thing he'd forgotten to take. A thin olive green throw rug that clashed with the décor of Asami's modern penthouse, that clashed with purpose. It stood out amongst the glamour and magazine ready staleness of the penthouse, a small touch of something personal, something homely.
Within minutes of lying down on the couch and curling up beneath his blanket, Akihito was dead to the world.
#
The attendant smiled at Asami as he walked in, smiled as if he knew something Asami didn't. The attendant in question often irritated him but on a day such as today, Asami glared at him in return and stalked to the elevator. He jabbed the button and waited with his arms crossed, Kirishima and Suoh standing imposingly on either side of him. Kirishima with files upon files in his arms and Suoh carrying the new laptop they'd picked up less than half an hour ago and a bag full of hard drives. An unfortunate accident with his main computer at Shion lead to the destruction of years' worth of records not only for the club but also for other aspects of his business transactions.
He was thanking every deity he knew of that Kirishima had forced him to back up everything to external hard drives a few weeks ago. The files that Kirishima carried were the weeks between that point and now. He preferred having his records in hard copies. It made things far harder for those looking to steal information. They had a long night ahead of them, sorting the information and copying it to the new computer. Setting up the new computer would have to come first though. Asami had decided to leave that to Suoh, he needed a hard drink or five to recover from the day's events that had pushed him to chain smoking. He'd gone through a packet and a half within the last twelve hours as everything just went from irritating to fury inducing stupidity. It made Asami wish for Feilong's presence, any sort of intelligent company would do him good right now.
The elevator tinged and the doors silently rolled open, a woman in a cheap, tight gold sequenced dress and ridiculous stilettos stepped out and around them, head down as she fixed her red lipstick in a small compact mirror. They ignored her and filed into the elevator. Asami prodded the button to his floor and hit the close doors button to spite the young man running for the elevator. A childish sense of triumph filled him as the doors closed on the boys' miffed face.
"Asami-sama. Was that entirely necessary?" Kirishima asked, awkwardly pushing his drooping glasses further up his nose. The elevator rose as Asami's arms crossed again and his foot tapped impatiently against the floor, could this day not just be done already?
"No."
Asami's pissy tone stopped the conversation before it began and they rode the rest of the way in silence with no interruptions.
#
The lock didn't click when Asami turned his key. Kirishima handed the files off to Suoh as he and Asami pulled out their guns and Asami quietly opened the door. It dragged the towels across the floor and spread residue water across his floorboards; they'd been there for a few hours then. They stepped into the dark apartment, the only light source shining from within his bedroom, and slipped out of their shoes on habit before slowly making their way down into the lounge.
Nobody was around. Or if they were, they didn't want to get caught. At the entrance to the main room Asami stopped, something was off about the room. As if something was missing or out of place. He looked around to place what it was as Kirishima broke off and headed for the light source now obviously coming from the bathroom and Suoh unloaded their luggage on the kitchen bench, took out his gun and went to check the other rooms.
Asami peered around the room, having difficulty seeing in the near pitch darkness of his penthouse, and approached the sofa. There was definitely something wrong there. Something had vanished. But what was it?
"Boss, there's nobody in your room."
Asami nodded but said nothing. He placed a hand on the edge of the sofa and looked over it. His eyes settled on the curled up form of Akihito, throw rug bunched at his waist and fanned out over his legs. Asami's baggy shirt revealing half of Akihito's chest as he slept on his side, curled into the cushions of his couch. Asami felt a weight lift off his shoulders, his black mood lightening as he reached down and pushed Akihito's over grown fringe from his face. Just to make sure he could. Akihito had grown his hair out since they'd last seen each other.
Suoh's heavy footsteps announced his return. "All clear Asami-sama."
Asami stood straight and waved them both off, neither had seen Akihito on the couch yet.
"It's fine. It wasn't an intruder." He said, moving to the light switches. He flicked them on and glanced at Akihito.
"Akihito is back."