Of Truth and Lies

Chapter 8: Back to Square One

Takumi instantly heightened his alertness, adrenaline rushing through his veins. He saw Misaki throw a punch right at his way, and with a rather loud smack, he caught it with the palm of his hand.

Misaki was gritting her teeth, forcing each bit of her strength to somehow break through his palm and land a punch right on his face. She couldn't believe herself, how much more the truth? This man in front of her, who was supposedly a runaway rich guy, had actually killed her father, thus forcing her and her remaining family to live in dust until Minako found a job two years later. It was impossible for her not to react this way.

Then Takumi suddenly did something she never thought he would, and certainly not in this particular situation of all things.

His arm quickly snaked around her petite waist, gripping her tightly that it slightly hurt her. Her chest slammed with his with the sudden impact, and the next thing she knew was that his lips already smashed onto hers.

Her heart throbbed so fast and she felt a heavy blush on her cheeks as his wet tongue did a quick swipe over her lower lip, vaguely asking for entrance. Misaki couldn't take the sudden imaginary weight stacked on her, but at the same time it felt so good and so tempting. 'No, I can't lose like this,' she thought, barely focusing in her mind, when his tongue tasted a corner of her mouth.

'NO!'

Misaki's mind and body clashed against the will of her heart. Her hand stammered as she struggled to raise it. She felt him deepen their lip-lock, and she knew she couldn't take it anymore, no matter how convincing it was. Scooping every little bit of courage inside her, she hastily pushed Takumi's face sideward with the palm of her hand, gasping for air after.

She didn't even know that all of it happened in just a mere three seconds.

Tora watched agape at the short scene that unfolded right in front of him, just as dumbfounded and frozen as Kanou was. Takumi's face was dusted faint red, while Misaki's was as red as a tomato.

"Why the fuck did you do that for, you bastard?" Tora said through gritted teeth, glaring straight at Takumi.

Takumi, of course because of his ego, honestly didn't know the answer why he just kissed Misaki in the middle of a crisis, which was the one of the worst things to do during such a situation because countless possibilities could have happened in that short span of three seconds – one of it being backstabbed literally by Tora. And he definitely did not want the mafia boss to realize that either.

"ANSWER ME!" Tora yelled, and Misaki's spine practically shivered at his rage.

Misaki watched as Takumi silently glared at Tora, who was reciprocating the same level of deadliness. She didn't want to look at either of them, but she did admit that she wanted to know why Takumi suddenly kissed her like that.

Tora couldn't bottle his anger any longer, so he hoisted Takumi's hoodie collar and glared even more menacingly at him. Takumi didn't do the same, instead, he stoned his expression – a face devoid of any emotion, and Misaki never got scared of such a blank face before. The two blond men – one glaring, the other staring hard – remained in that position, and pressure-filled air consumed the silent atmosphere.

Upon feeling someone flick their hand sideways to the back of her neck, she quickly felt drowsy, then a second later, a loud thud echoed shortly from the spotless white walls of the room. Kanou stood behind the fallen Misaki, and both men had their eyes diverted to her collapsed form.

"What did you do to her?" snapped Takumi darkly, slightly resuming his glare at Kanou.

"I made her unconscious, just that," Kanou replied stiffly, then turned his gaze to Tora, who now had a calm expression. "She knows too much," he told his boss.

Tora exhaled and let go of his grip of Takumi's collar. "SOP, Kanou," he said, taking out a small dagger from the inside of his shirt while Kanou nodded and strode out of the room.

He then looked straight into Takumi's eyes, brows furrowed with a serious face. "I think I shall need to create a deal with you, A0001."

"I have a name, Igarashi, and you fully know that I'm not in your mafia anymore."

Tora smirked lightly. "Honestly, Usui . . . you were always the stubborn, annoying, hard-to-persuade one with the inflated ego."

"Don't remind me," Takumi said lowly.

"Oh? You don't want to remember what you were before? Want to forget what you were before? Surprising, it is, how that average girl softened you, but judging from my past interactions with her, I believe that she does have the ability to do that."

He heard Tora chuckle lowly. "She's really amazing . . . to have snapped some sense into your face when it was as hard as stone."

"The deal, Igarashi," Takumi said, "what's your deal?"

"The deal, of course. It's just a simple, rather childish and immature, deal, Usui, no need to get so stressed about it."

"Don't talk shit at me, go straight to the point."

Tora sighed teasingly. "Alright, I was just having some fun. This deal – is more like a trade. You fully give up on Misaki, and I fully give up on getting you back to the family [1]."

"You like her?" Takumi asked, almost disbelievingly. For Tora to make a deal this childish, Misaki must have been someone really valuable.

Tora smirked, which looked more like a small, evil smile. "It's more like, I'm attracted to her, both sexually and romantically."

Takumi raised his brows. "She's both blown something significant to our lives, but no, Igarashi."

"Are you implying that you won't give her up?" Tora asked, anger starting to drip in his tone again.

As if on cue, Kanou entered the room again, this time carrying a small vile of clear liquid. It was surely not water because it looked very thick.

Takumi and Tora watched as the bespectacled man dragged Misaki near to a wall and readjusted her arms and legs into a sitting position. He unscrewed the vile cork and tugged Misaki's chin downwards, opening her lips slightly but not waking her up. He then spilled all the contents of the vile into Misaki's mouth, down her throat, and almost immediately, she jerked from her unconsciousness.

Takumi was thinking – Why make Misaki unconscious when he's just going to let her drink reviving liquid afterwards? And then the thought hit him . . .

"She knows too much." Kanou had said, and Takumi remembered that this bespectacled, hooded guy was one of the mafia's prime aces – codename SouKa, a hypnosis and memory specialist – who joined Tora's mafia just before Takumi left them. He was going to erase Misaki's memories, and he wasn't very sure if he was going to erase just this event or all of her memories of him.

"Yes," Usui responded icily. "So you're going to play dirty and erase her memories of me instead?"

"As you very well know, I always play fair." Tora said.

Usui could almost snort at what he said – a mafia boss, play fair? Like a chance of a snowball in hell.

"Only her memories of this event are to be swept clean, to reassure that she won't spread bullshit and get my reputation ruined, as if it wasn't already – and that goes for your safety as well, Usui. She also knows that you're a criminal now, and knowing how just she is, she might report it to the police."

"You planned this all out, didn't you?"

"Not really, I was planning to let the gentleman façade dig into her permanently, since I wasn't planning to let her know anything about this mafia business going on. But there was a change of plans, of course. She just needed to know that she was actually the queen of the biggest mafia in Japan."

"And I'm sure she'll find about it sooner or later anyway," Usui said.

"I'll ask you once again, Usui. Are you saying that you won't give her up? Is she really that important to you? You can fuck any girl you want anytime, and she's nowhere as good as your standard women."

"Let's just say," Usui drawled, "that's she's just as important to me as much as she's important to you."

xxx

Misaki couldn't make out anything that the two blond men, whom she knew were Takumi and Tora, were saying. All their words were a blur to her ears. Add to that, her head was spinning so fast she wanted to sleep, but couldn't. Her eyes were drooping, but whenever it closed, it would always spring up again. The only things she could see were Kanou's spectacled face in front of her, and two blond men talking behind him.

"Ayuzawa Misaki," Kanou started to say, barely a whisper. "Forget anything that occurred to you from 2100 hours yesterday until the last moment you see before you lose your consciousness after this."

". . . she's just as important to me as much as she's important to you." Misaki was glad that she clearly heard what one of the blonds said, but she wasn't so sure as to who it was.

And he snapped his fingers before her eyes. Instantly, she lost her consciousness and her upper body limped again.

xxx

"Then let's take this to a contest then," Tora announced, eyes streaked with menacing glee. "The two of us do it the hard way, win her heart, and the loser is to forget about Misaki and whoever she ends up with. Swear you'll abide to it, Usui."

"I swear."

With that, Tora lifted the dagger he was holding and Takumi held up a finger to him. The dagger made a light cut, and blood immediately surfaced from the bottom of his epidermis. Tora then made a small cut on his finger, crimson red blood peeking out as well, and Takumi dripped the blood from his own finger to the cut on Tora's.

And their combined blood, along with their word to abide the rules of their game, dripped onto the floor, making a red taint on the pure white tiles it once were.

xxx

Sunlight streamed abundantly from the windows. Misaki stirred up from her sleep. She swore she had been dreaming something weird again, but she couldn't remember a faint glimpse of it.

She got out of bed, surprised as to why she was still wearing her outside clothes. She usually wore comfortable clothing whenever she went to sleep, but she might have just dozed off last night.

Misaki went through her daily morning routine, so when she was about to throw her empty noodle cup into the wastebasket, she noticed something that shouldn't be there – an empty can of beer. Now Misaki wasn't a kind of girl who would buy beer just because she was in the right age to do so, she didn't even remember buying it in the first place – but why was it there?

Ignoring this thought, she threw the empty noodle cup into the wastebasket, grabbed her bag, locked her door and proceeded to the college campus. When she was walking downstairs, she now really knew something wasn't right. The apartment's common restrooms were surrounded by yellow police lines, with investigators and the owner of the apartment crowding the place.

She approached a guy somewhere her age, looking in confusion at the scene as well.

"What happened?"

The guy shrugged his shoulders. "Dunno, just woke up this morning because the owner suddenly screamed from the bathroom, and then it went to this. They found a freshly murdered body, I heard."

Misaki frowned, took one more glance at the scene, and went on to school. When she was about to go out of the main entrance, the guy called her.

"Hey! Ayuzawa, right?" he said, approaching her.

"Yeah, do you need something?"

"You know, this is gonna sound weird, and somehow nosy, but . . . were you really that girl in that scandal video with Tora Igarashi?"

Misaki furrowed her brows. "I don't get what you mean. What scandal video? And Igarashi of all people?"

The guy scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Well, there was this news shown last night, somewhere around 11 I think. It was a video submitted by a young woman – the reporter said – and there was this video about Igarashi and you, um . . . it was more like he was about to rape you, actually . . ."

"WHAT?" Misaki suddenly exclaimed. "But last night I was – last night . . ." her voice trailed off. She didn't have a reason why, but she had no memories whatsoever about what she did last night. She can still remember cleaning up the dishes at her part-time job, but what happened after that, it was just all a blur.

"Then just this morning, the news announced that the blond guy wasn't Tora Igarashi, instead, it was just a poser," the guy continued. "But I somehow don't believe it at all."

Misaki bit her lip. Why has her life suddenly gone weird all of a sudden? "I'm really sorry, but I just don't know what you're talking about. Bye."

With that, Misaki ran as fast as she could to the university.

xxx

"Misaki-chan! Here!" Sakura said cheerfully, waving at her from the campus entrance.

Misaki looked up, and a smile graced her face as she approached the pink haired girl.

Shizuko and Shintani were standing on either side of Sakura, and both had weird looks on their faces.

"Misaki-chan," Sakura's voice changed from into a serious tone, and Misaki flinched about it. "Are you all right? Did Igarashi-kun hurt you? Ugh! I can't believe why I trusted that guy – he was actually –"

"Calm down, Sakura," Shizuko said, scowling at Misaki almost pityingly.

"But Shizuko-chan, you saw it too! It was definitely Misaki and Igarashi in that video – in fact," Sakura dropped her voice into a whisper. "I was the one who submitted the video! I saw the whole thing with my eyes! I'm not lying!"

"Misaki," Shintani cut in. "Tell us everything about what happened last night, because I don't get anything at all!" His voice was slowly becoming louder with each word, mixed with anger and concern. "If the news was true, then why are you still here, perfectly all right? Did he – did he . . ."

Misaki looked worryingly at Shintani. He was always concerned about her, and he did that ever since they were children. "Shintani, I'm okay."

"Did he bring you home and slept with you?"

"W – WHAT?" she exclaimed, shocking Sakura and Shizuko as well. She was blushing hard, and her words were stammering. "N – no way! That did not happen!"

Shintani looked at her with complete relief and happiness, and stared at her amber eyes like she was a saint who helped him get through a problem. "I'm relieved. Thank you, Misaki!"

He hugged Misaki so tightly she almost couldn't breathe – but a vague flash of a memory appeared in her mind just for a second.

[His arm quickly snaked around her petite waist, gripping her tightly that it slightly hurt her. Her chest slammed with his with the sudden impact, and the next thing she knew was that his lips already smashed onto hers.]

"NO!" she yelled, and yanked her body away from Shintani's embrace. "Don't – don't . . ."

Sakura and Shizuko stood speechless and frozen at Misaki's reaction, but it shocked and hurt Shintani more.

"Misaki . . ." he muttered dementedly.

"What – oh my – I'M SO SORRY!" Misaki bowed, muttering apologies and how she didn't know why she did that in the first place.

The bell rang, signaling the start of classes. The four hurriedly went to their respective classrooms.

As they strode the lengths of the hallways, Shintani found himself wondering, 'What's wrong with Misaki?'

xxx

[1] 'family' is another term for 'mafia,' though its members tend to call their organization as a 'family' because in mafias, loyal brotherhood is always observed, and partly to call their mafia affectionately – or that's how I understand it XD

Um, sorry I'm late! I just got lost on the path of life, or rather . . . I just started a new obsession with that particular ninja manga which I completely adored when I was in grade school, then came back to me after a few years with a blast, and now I like it even more than before.

Anyways, um . . . this fanfic is going to be more on crime, so of course there will be profanities, violence and such, but I assure you that the romance will bloom as the story progresses. I just won't let you know who Misaki will end up with ;)

Review? :3