Hello, Old Friend
It had taken a crew two months to clear away the rubble that Sei had reduced Oval Tower to after setting off the self-destruct function (how very Toue to even have that feature). Of course, nobody knew it had been an inside job and Sei certainly had no intentions of telling anyone, allowing the public to think it was terrorists. Considering all it represented, nobody was lamenting its destruction.
Sei sat in his office, feet up on the empty glass desk. Today he sported a pair of expensive sneakers, dark jeans and a simple black t-shirt that read "Keep Calm and Conquer On." In a corner of the room was an expansive virtual screen, the newest technology that had replaced physical TV's in most locations of Platinum Jail. In place of Oval Tower, the new structure that had been built was just as equally (and to Sei, just as unnecessarily) tall and had been formally named…Platinum Tower. It wouldn't be winning any awards for creativity but it'd do.
He was using his powers to change the channels as he'd misplaced the remote and didn't feel like getting up, but was snapped out of his channel-surfing by the room intercom giving a soft beep. "Sei-san, he's here to see you," Virus said pleasantly.
"Send him in, please," Sei replied, swiveling in his chair to take his feet down.
"Hai."
The door opened up and he watched as Trip graciously bowed to let Akushima enter. He didn't miss the amused grin as he shut the door behind the detective, and Sei knew he was probably highly curious as to what business he had with this man, of all people.
For Akushima's part, he looked just as confused as well. Sei took in his appearance and realized that he looked quite gaunt and stressed. His clothes weren't ironed and his hair looked as though he'd rubbed his fingers through it. It was also impossible to miss the smell of alcohol on him. Yes, Akushima was the poster boy for the troubled police officer.
"Good afternoon," Sei greeted him, giving him a small bow with his head.
"Mn."
"Please, have a seat. Care for any refreshments?" He reached over to the mini-fridge beside his desk and held up a plastic bottle of water and another of green tea.
"Water's fine," the man said and took the bottle while nervously darting his eyes around the room. "Who the hell are you and where's Toue?" he asked.
Sei folded his hands under his chin and smiled benevolently. "Toue-san never returned after what happened last year. However, until the time he makes an appearance again—if he appears again—I've been appointed to operate the company for him. If I'm not mistaken, you worked closely with Toue, correct, Akushima-san?"
This earned him another grunt. "You already know the answer to that question. Why'd you call me here?"
Sei respected that he was a man who didn't care for small talk and as the gruff police officer cliché's stacked up, he leaned back in his chair and smiled wider. "Well, in short, I need you. I need to garner the trust of the island and as you've been on the police force for so long, I figured you could help me with that."
Akushima took a large swig of water, shaking his head. "One, I'm assuming you never got the memo that I actually retired."
"I did," Sei said to his first statement but let him continue.
"Two, nobody trusts me. There's no way in hell I could be some kind of crusader of trust for these people. And frankly, I hate trying to be a white knight anyways."
"I don't want you to be. In fact, I want you to be my dark horse."
The detective scratched at a patch of stubble on his chin, raising an eyebrow. "Eh? What the hell do you have up your sleeves?"
Sei laughed softly and spread his hands innocently. "No tricks up these sleeves. But I do have a really good assignment for you that I feel would be right in your field of expertise. The pay will also be well-worth your effort and if everything is a success, I'll reinstate your retirement fund. When the government initially seized control, they cancelled that for you, right? Please, one more job and then I'll be happy to let you retire peacefully."
The two stared at each other for a long while, Sei with his neutral smile, Akushima with bleary, dark eyes. Finally, Akushima sighed. "You know, for some random little shit, you sound a lot like him."
Before Sei could catch himself, his face immediately clouded. "What, Toue? I assure you, we're nothing alike."
Akushima attempted to roll his eyes but in his half-drunken state, it nearly resulted in him becoming disoriented and falling out his chair. "Whatever. So what's the job and how much you paying?"
By the time Sei was finished, he hoped he had done a decent job with gaining the detective's trust. Well, trust was a strong word. And it was clear the man held very little respect for him. But something had certainly changed in his posture.
The man sighed again and scratched his dirty hair, flakes and motes catching in the noon sunlight. "And you swear I can retire after this? None of that Mission: Impossible or Die Hard crap with old cops doing shit that the young generation should handle themselves, right?"
Die Hard? Mission Impossi—what?! Sei very quickly extended his conscious to scan the Internet and immediately came back with information about two popular American movie franchises. Ahh, I get it now. "Yes, after this, I will no longer have need of your services and you're free to do whatever you wish."
Akushima gave a grin befitting a wolf and shrugged his shoulders. "Fine. When do I begin?"
~.~.~
"Look man, all I asked for was vodka, half and half, on the rocks, shaken, not stirred, with a sprig of mint, a wedge of lemon and a pinch of salt. Is that so hard to get right?"
Clear had bowed to the customer so many times, he thought his back was going to short circuit. "P-please forgive me!" he apologized yet again, his hands shaking as they clenched the bottom of his bartender vest. "I promise I'll remake it!" Before the man could say anything else, he snatched the glass from the table and beat a fast retreat to the bar.
He'd been working at Black Needle for three months and had thought he had finally learned the tricks of the job. Through weeks of stammering with customers and breaking countless glasses, Mizuki had been patient in training him and had commended his work. He'd even become good at telling patrons that were smashed and getting rowdy to leave without ever having to get physical.
…Okay, there'd been one customer who'd gotten drunk and had hit on Aoba when he was visiting. Clear had never experienced jealousy before and found it something quite difficult to control. Clear couldn't very well come out and tell the guy he was dating Aoba so…he told him with his fist. Aoba refused to speak to him for the rest of the evening and then the next morning, both apologized to each other, Clear of course for knocking the guy's lights out and Aoba for not understanding that Clear didn't know how to correctly express himself.
Back behind the counter, Clear tried his hardest to remember what the request had been. "It was vodka…with rocks…no, that's not right! They wanted a wedge of mint…and a pinch of lemon…but only half? Waah~! Mizuki-san never showed me this!"
As he tried multiple times to mix everything together properly, the customer at the end of the bar let out a loud huff. "Geez, it's not that hard! Fine, I'll just take a Coke."
Just as Clear was about to pass the drink to him with a relieved sigh, the door burst open and in a magnified voice, they heard someone yell "WHAT'S THAT ABOUT COKE?!"
There stood Akushima with his ever-present megaphone. Behind him, multiple police officers in riot gear swarmed in, blocking off all exits. Looking extremely pleased with himself, Akushima grinned at the stunned crowd. "We've been casing this joint for months on the tip that this place is operating a drug ring! I want everyone on the ground NOW! If anybody moves, there'll be hell to pay!" As to emphasize this, the front of the megaphone opened up to reveal a multi-barreled gun.
Clear trembled as he went to his knees, hands behind his head. Hadn't this man retired? Everyone had rejoiced when word had gotten around that he was no longer working, finally feeling like they could relax. Maybe retirement just didn't suit the guy. Either way, this was bad, this was real bad.
As the police officers began to arrest people, each person was patted down, all items confiscated. Money was taken from wallets and pocketed with the remains thrown in a plastic evidence bag. Just as someone was making their way towards Clear, he heard a commotion outside and a moment later, Mizuki appeared, looking highly pissed-off.
"What the hell is going on here?" he shouted, pushing his way inside.
"Sir, I'm going to need you to take a step back," an officer said, but Mizuki easily knocked his arm out of the way, causing Akushima to turn around and train the gun on him.
"You…I thought you were done working!" Mizuki yelled, taking a step to the side to try to get out of the line of fire, but a red laser trailed his movement.
"Yeah, but I got a rather interesting proposition that I couldn't refuse." Or, as Akushima figured, he'd be a fool to. "Surrender the drugs willingly and maybe we'll let you take a plea deal!"
Still backing away, Mizuki swore under his breath before calling out, "Dry Juice! ATTACK!"
The many members of his gang sprang up off the floor, rushing as one toward the police. There were way more in number than cops and as they whooped in their inevitable victory, a streak of white singed very close to Mizuki's ear, causing the entire group to come to a halt.
"Move and your leader gets it," the detective threatened, the gun already reloaded with each barrel whining. The next shot would fire multiple rounds that would be much harder to miss. In frustrated despair, they backed up, hands held high in surrender. "That's right…now, tell us where the drugs are and nobody gets hurt."
"Wow, you're getting senile, old man," Mizuki laughed, even with his own hands up. "Where the hell did you get that we have—"
"Found it!" Came a shout from the back of the building and an officer stepped out of one of the secluded lounge rooms with a small Ziploc bag filled partially with a white substance.
"Bingo!" Akushima cackled.
"You planted that!" Mizuki screamed, fighting as two men wrestled him to the ground and put him in cuffs. "That's not mine!"
"THAT'S WHAT THEY ALL SAY!" Akushima yelled into the megaphone, causing everyone to cringe. "ARREST THEM! ARREST THEM, ARREST THEM, ARREST THEM! THEY'RE ALL CRIMINALS! FURTHERMORE…" He leaned over the bar counter, causing Clear to shrink down to hopefully avoid being noticed. Instead, his eyes were trailing the wall, particularly focusing on something that'd been put in a frame. "THIS LIQUOR LICENSE IS EXPIRED! YOU HAVE BEEN UNLAWFULLY OPERATING A BUSINESS WITHOUT THE PROPER LEGAL DOCUMENTATION! TAKE ALL OF THESE DEGENERATES! AAAAAALLL OF THEEEEM!"
This last blow took the wind out of Mizuki and without struggling, he allowed himself to be dragged into an awaiting armored police truck. Also sunk by the news, the other members barely fought back either and in an orderly fashion were guided outside. Clear, still behind the bar, shifted to his hands and knees and was beginning to crawl away when Akushima refocused on him.
"Oi, you! Stand up slowly and don't try any funny business! You're coming with me personally."
"M-me?" Clear trembled. Oh no…his grandfather once had warned him that something like this would happen if he showed his face. He had thought that it was related to Toue and the Alpha units but…was this what he was talking about?
While he could take a few rounds of Akushima's modified megaphone, he didn't want to risk damaging himself when he was now outnumbered. It'd taken over a year to fully get all of his functions fixed and it'd been a close call at that, eventually resulting in his consciousness being transferred into an Alpha's body. He knew he might not be so lucky if he was to break down like that again and not only that, but he didn't want to inconvenience Tae-san and Aoba.
Aoba… "Master…I'm sorry," he whispered as he was led away to a separate car.
With the building now nearly cleared, Akushima held up the small baggie with gloved hands. "In truth, I didn't think we'd really find anything but whaddaya know. Besides, isn't dry juice just another name for crack? Smart bastards thought nobody would catch on. Well, while we're here…"
Licking his pinky, he opened the bag and dipped it in, then tasted it. "Oh wow, this shit's the real deal!" he laughed impressively.
"Aku…shima…what are you doing?" One of the officers said, the only one left in the room.
"Relax, what's the most they can do, fire me? Tch, I'm retiring again after this job." With that, he opened the bag further and spread a thin line on the bar. Using a rolled yen note, he deftly snorted the line, going over it twice to make sure he'd cleared it all. "DAMN! That's some premium blow!" Turning to the other guy, he held the yen out to him. "Want some?"
The other guy paled. "N-no..." the man declined, backing away.
Akushima shrugged, unrolled the note and used what was left on the edges to smear on his fingers and rub around in his mouth. "Whatever. Let's go."
They left Black Needle with upturned tables and broken glass everywhere, not even bothering to fully shut the door behind them. After the vehicles drove off, the room was filled with a dark silence. Suddenly from under the wreckage, a small mound of splintered wood quivered before something small and cubed popped out.
"Pi!" It cried and began a frantic hop out the open door to provide this new information to its master.
I implemented some of the themes from Clear's drama CD in here, which I'm really happy I stumbled across in time for this story. And yes, Clear is wearing a bartender outfit. Just think…Shizuo Heiwajima's outfit from Durarara!
