Donde Estas Corazon

The Way of the Gun

"Good luck on your finals kitten." Haru told the neko, pressing a kiss to a flushed cheek.

Kyou grabbed the strap of his schoolbag from the floor of the cruiser and smiled at the ushi, feeling the blush burning his face. The neko waved goodbye before heading up the stairs to the university, looking back as Haru drove away to work. He would have to take the train home of course, but it was great to be able to have Haru drop him off at school.

Entering the building, Kyou saw Tohru waiting for him by the door to the class they were both in. She was sweating badly and clutching her schoolbag to her chest. Exams were never her strong point, the neko thought.

Kyou waved his hand in front of the girl staring blankly at nothing. "You ready for this?"

Tohru snapped out of her trance, "Uh…" She dropped her eyes to her feet. "I hope so…"

Patting her shoulder to offer some support, Tohru gave Kyou a weak smile then the two entered the lecture hall.

•••

It had been four months since he had started work in the crime prevention unit of the police force. Haru didn't particularly like the paperwork involved, but the street duty balanced out the job nicely.

The street work was a lot like the traffic detail he had been assigned to for a week, only it involved cruising until a call came in instead of snagging speeders at random from the road. Even now though, he had the sick satisfaction of being able to call ahead to the traffic cops in the area when a car would fly past.

The ushi's mind wandered to the last few calls he had been on. One was a drug bust involving a small syndicate of the Yakuza that were smuggling weapons into Japan. An officer ended up in the hospital after the intense battle that ensued and his job was switched over to an office one due to the wounds he received. Haru's own bulletproof vest had a few noticeable nicks in it from a stray bullet that hit him and his leg was grazed by another bullet but didn't need any medical treatment.

The other police officers and swat members that were hit weren't seriously injured either. You really had to be hit badly to be switched over to office duty. Haru hadn't bothered to tell Kyou about that particular bust since it would only worry the neko even more. The ushi had done all he could to alleviate Kyou's fears, but it still shown in his ruby eyes every time Haru would walk through the door when his shift was through.

He definitely didn't want to be pulled from street work either, the ushi mused. It was dangerous, but it was also exciting and a great adrenaline rush. Thankfully, he worked alongside excellent people who also knew their job extremely well and took their profession seriously.

If he didn't, then he would have some severe problems and start considering changing his specialty in the force. Hell, even desk work would be an option then.

•••

The exam was surprisingly easy, Kyou acknowledged. He was about half way through the final when he started thinking about dropping down to only a course a semester. Normally, two courses were little challenge, but that damn ps1 game was tougher than he first thought it would be.

Kyou leveled his eyes. It just didn't seem right that a ps1 game would be that involved. Stupid Front Mission 3, he mentally grumbled.

No! Stop thinking about playstation games…exam, exam.

Sighing, Kyou erased the chibi mech with gattling gun arms he had been doodling on the back of his exam and returned to work on the math problems.

•••

A call had finally come in. It was for a bust and all officers on crime prevention that were in the immediate area were being ordered to the site. The bust wouldn't be much of a problem since the officers already on the site had the situation inside the warehouse under a semi balance of control.

The dispatcher related that they needed to contain the area and pick up stragglers who had slipped away after the warehouse was stormed by the undercover agents and uniformed officers. Also, there were some shots being fired inside the building. The majority of the suspects had given up willingly, but there were always holdouts.

Haru pulled up on the site and saw two officers there already among the other empty cruisers and unmarked cars.

The one officer that Haru did know, who was a veteran on the force, turned to the ushi and told him, "I'm going to take the rear entrance! Cover this one!"

Haru nodded and took up the ready stance against his cruiser with his gun drawn. In his peripheral vision, he kept an eye on the side door while keeping his gun pointed at the main entrance.

This was going to be easy, the ushi thought.

•••

Why the heck did she take this course? Tohru whimpered to herself silently. She couldn't believe that this sort of math was required for general studies!

Tohru sighed, debating whether or not to switch over to the nursing major. She was pretty sure that was what she wanted to do, since it was obvious the teaching major required some rather heavy duty math also. She wondered if Hatori would help her if she went into nursing.

Math! Tohru chided herself, struggling with a problem on the exam.

Both Yuki and Kyou had helped her study for the exam, but it was so hard! She glanced over at Kyou and saw that the neko was already on the last page. Then, panning her eyes to the clock, she saw that there was only an hour left for her to finish.

"Ahhh! I'll never get this done!" Tohru screamed, then fell silent when all the students and the instructor looked at her. Her face turned bright red and she let her eyes fall back to the exam. Need to finish…still only on first page….

•••

Standard backup, that's all he had to worry about on this call. It was too bad that's all he had to do since it was fun getting to be part of the actual bust, and this time it was a drug and weapons trafficking ring as he found out when the officers inside the building were heard on the radio sending out clips of information during the raid. Haru could only imagine the weaponry that he was missing out on.

The worst part, he had to baby-sit a jittery new officer.

It turned out that the officer he didn't recognize was new to the force, and it was obvious from the way the man was acting.

The guy should have gotten over the whole firefight aspect during training, definitely when he was at the shooting range. Every time a shot was fired inside the building, the man would jump, his gun wavering.

The idiot was going to get himself, or someone else killed.

Haru sighed in annoyance seeing the officer was leaving his side wide open in his ready stance. What good was a bulletproof vest if it wasn't even being utilized? "You're leaving yourself wide open! Do you want to get killed?!" The ushi yelled.

The new officer was sweating badly but mimicked Haru's stance against his cruiser.

Didn't the guy have to go through the same exact shooting course he did? He must have someone with influence that got him the job, the ushi decided. The guy shouldn't even be allowed to have a gun.

The blasts from inside the building escalated and a door was slammed open to the left of Haru's parked cruiser. The ushi automatically adjusted, throwing open the door to his cruiser for cover and aiming his gun at the stunned man who had tried to use the exit as an escape route.

"Freeze!" The ushi commanded. "Drop your weapon!" The rifle the suspect was holding fell to the concrete and the man put his hands up.

Haru smirked, standard procedures put to good use. Hopefully the new officer was getting something out of this.

The other officer, not expecting a suspect to burst through the side door, freaked unfortunately and started firing wildly until the loaded magazine was empty.

•••

The exam was over and apart from Tohru's sudden outburst in class; she had told Kyou that at least she managed to finish the final.

Kyou asked her what caused the sudden exclamation during the exam and she told him that one of the problems on the first page had held her up for almost an hour, but the rest of the exam she completed without many problems, even if she was rushed.

Grinning, the neko told her that the particular problem was hard, and next time she should just skip the problems she had trouble with and go back to them when she finished the rest of the problems that weren't quite as involved.

Tohru smacked her palm against her face and told him she couldn't believe she didn't think to do that.

They parted at the train station, Tohru going back to Shigure's, and Kyou to his and Haru's apartment. During the twenty minute trip on the train, Kyou wondered what Haru was doing at that moment in time.

A small smile graced his features as he began thinking about his husband in uniform. The Kevlar vest had bothered Kyou at first, since it served to remind him about the danger of the job Haru had decided on. The first time the ushi had showed him the vest after being in a firefight; Kyou almost demanded the ushi quit the force. His worst fears were allayed when he took a closer look at the vest and saw how effective it was.

Haru had also taken Kyou to the stations shooting range and let the neko fire his Colt, which suppressed the rest of Kyou's misgivings for the most part. Although, Kyou had figured it was more so to molest him publicly when Haru 'showed' him the proper way to fire the gun.

The neko was simply glad that his husband knew his job exceptionally well. It was still troubling having to wait at home for Haru to return. The only thing he never wanted was to hear the knock on the door that could mean only one thing.

That one thing was something he would always worry about no matter how good Haru was at his job, thought Kyou shivering to himself.

•••

Watching in stunned disbelief, the suspect fell to his knees as a red stain blossomed on the beige grease splattered shirt he was wearing. Then there was an intake of breath and the suspect toppled over on the concrete unmoving.

Haru couldn't believe the idiot was allowed on the force. The man had surrendered, yet he fired anyway!

He heard the other officer gasp behind him, "Oh my god, I'm so sorry!"

He was going to kick the guy's ass, Haru thought, standing up from behind the door. Turning to yell at the cowering fool, the ushi felt a painful stinging in his side.

Coughing, the ushi brought his hand up to his mouth and when he felt a warm slickness, he looked down at his hand and saw red. The moron not only killed the suspect, but shot him as well! Oh, that idiot was going to pay and pay dearly for this!

It was hard to breathe, Haru noticed, the bullet probably punctured his lung. Sitting down heavily in his cruiser, the ushi picked up the radio and attempted to call dispatch. When he tried to speak, nothing emerged from his mouth but a wheezing liquid sound. His vision was also going blurry, not a good sign.

Shit, thought the shocked ushi, he was really fucked up.

Kyou's face flashed through his mind, and everything went black as he passed out.