Disclaimer: Kazuya Minekura owns Wild Adapter. I do not.
Warning: Language, sexual content (of the hetero variety), mild Tokitoh angst.
Notes: Oh, hookers...
Beretta 10
brkstrtrcr
June 2009
You're sorely tempted to leave Tokitoh outside of this massage parlor with Ryoji, but you take him by the arm and practically drag him inside.
You were halfway through your conversation with Kou regarding this undercover whorehouse when Tokitoh tossed a beaten-up business card at you in that restaurant and left the table without a word.
Kyan Kyan Cherry, it had read in big gold letters. Underneath the name of the place was Anna's name and number. You'd ignored the twisting in your guts and politely ended your call to Kou before taking off after your mortified roommate.
As you approach the front desk a middle-aged man beams at not you but the miserable cat in your grip. "Ah, long time no see, sir!" he says, a little too enthusiastically for your tastes. "Are you looking for Anna-chan?"
Tokitoh nods in humiliation. "Well, we'll have to charge double if there are two of you, but she can definitely handle both of you," the clerk winks slyly at you. You successfully resist the urge to shoot him. "Right this way!"
You follow silently down a narrow corridor and past several rooms before your tour-guide pauses outside of one particular door. You aren't oblivious to the cacophony of grunts and forced theatrical moaning pounding through this flimsy wooden door. The clerk smiles and shrugs. "Sorry, gentlemen but it seems her last session is running late--"
Going against your better sense you push past him and open the door unceremoniously. He sputters in disbelief. "Sir, you can't go in there!"
His outburst seems to have garnered the attentions of the room's other three occupants, and you don't bother to look away as the two young men screwing the living hell out of this prostitute freeze in surprise and direct their attention to you. "You wanna fuck off, pal?" one of them growls.
You push the sleeve of your right arm up and flash your Izumo brand at them, and their expressions morph from indignant to terrified in less time than it takes you to smile. Within moments they're struggling back into their pants and running from the room. In their wake, an attractive, harassed-looking young woman glares up at you.
"What the hell is wrong with you, Makoto?"
She sighs angrily and turns to the clerk, who looks a little beside himself. "He's fine. He can stay," she grumbles, shimmying back into her panties and shirt. The clerk gestures vaguely at Tokitoh, hidden behind you, and fumbles for words.
"Him, too?" he mumbles.
Anna arches an eyebrow and you step aside to push Tokitoh into the room. You close the door sharply behind yourself and turn to find your roommate staring at his shoes like they hold the cure for fucking cancer and Anna glaring at the opposite wall.
Now this is interesting. It smells like cheap perfume and musk and sweat in here, with a sharp undertone of hopeless loss. The scent lingers in your nostrils for longer than you're truly comfortable, and absently you wonder if Tokitoh's unnaturally heightened senses can sort through these unpleasant odors clinging to the yellowing walls and pick out the slap of desperation tying them all together.
"Would you like to explain why you just barged in here in the middle of my shift?" Anna asks the wall, lighting a cigarette and looking decidedly put-out.
You sit down on the edge of a coffee table and pull out your own pack of Seven Stars, firing up, sighing. "I'm a little pressed for time," you say, and she shoots you an incredulous look. "I need information on some of your clientele."
Anna scoffs and stands up, stalking over to you on long, slender legs. She runs a hand through her bleached-blonde hair in exasperation. "Makoto, I have a phone, y'know."
You smile unnervingly up at her around your cigarette's filter. "I lost your number."
"Then how the hell did you find out where I work?" she hisses.
You turn to look pointedly at your hitherto silent companion. Anna frowns. Her pretty green eyes linger on Tokitoh's embarrassed form a little longer than necessary, and you can't help the cold, possessive anger that wells up into your eyes when she looks back at you.
She takes a step back, startled by the shift in your expression and the rage bleeding into it. "Oh, no!" she says firmly, shaking her head. "I don't know what he told you, but nothing like that happened!"
Your eyebrow arches at her questioningly and she snorts in disbelief. "You don't believe me? Ask him!"
You frown. "That isn't why I'm here, Anna." It doesn't escape you how easily you can say her name, even now. Truth be told, she was never just a convenient fuck for you. Nothing about Anna was ever what you'd classify as 'convenient.' Women rarely are. But you didn't care for her nearly as much as she loved you, and you know that she loved you.
And maybe that's why you're a bit ticked off that she's showing so much interest in Tokitoh and he's acting so obviously fucking guilty.
Maybe he fucked her. You still aren't altogether certain how they know one another, or what this tension is between them, palpable enough to choke on. Maybe he showed up here looking for something, and his dick found it in Anna.
But that's stupid, you realize, puffing on your cigarette with single-minded intensity. Tokitoh simply doesn't operate like that. It isn't his style. Staring at the soft curves of her hips--curves that you yourself have used before as leverage in more carnal endeavors--you understand that your cat is simply too awkward and shy when it comes to sins of the flesh. He still blushes like a fucking virgin when you touch him.
Which means that if they did engage in some fumbling version of sexual promiscuity, Anna would have been the one to instigate things. And considering that she makes her living with her thighs open to anyone with a decent roll of money, that doesn't really surprise you. It does, however, make you exceptionally angry. Tokitoh is no innocent, by any variation of definition, but he certainly doesn't come across as the type of deviant that would frequent a whorehouse. She would have to have taken serious advantage of his endearing idiocy where it concerns women.
Technically you suppose this means that Anna fucked him. You will down another homicidal impulse and exhale smoke and rage.
When Tokitoh finally breaks the awkward tension in the room by speaking you pay rapt attention. "Nothing happened, Kubo-chan," he mumbles, but he has the good sense to look you in the eye, however much he obviously doesn't want to. You know that he's telling the truth, but it doesn't get rid of that knot festering in your stomach or the automatic twitch in your trigger finger. "She just..."
Anna has the decency to blush a bit as she finishes his sentence for him. "Tried." The way she mutters that single word and drops her eyes to the ground is indication enough--to you, anyway--that she doesn't regret her actions. What she regrets is that he turned her down. And that doesn't sit well with you at all.
"That's irrelevant," you smile coldly. "I came here for information on some of the Tojou youth kids that you service," you say evenly.
She nods and takes a drag from her cigarette and sits down on the coffee table beside you. Her hip is pressed against yours and she leans her head against your shoulder. She smells like generic perfume over used latex. "I can get their info from the front desk, if you want," she sighs, one hand falling to your knee.
She's trying her damnedest to distract you from the seething fury building in your eyes, but it won't work. You're not one of her johns, and you know these tactics all too well. You've never been a pushover for a great body and a pretty face. "I need more than that," you say.
Anna frowns. "If you want names and collection routes you're out of luck," she pulls away. "They aren't exactly discussing Yakuza business when they're balls deep in me."
You chuckle, but there's no amusement in it. This whole field trip was a waste of time, and all you've succeeded in doing is piss yourself off. It's an asinine thing to get mad over, but you can't really help it. You've always been mildly irrational where Tokitoh is concerned, and that's being generous.
Anna gets up and tosses her long blonde hair over her shoulder before walking back over to the couch to slump against the armrest wearily. "I'm sorry, Makoto," she sighs, but you can tell that she doesn't really mean it. "It sucks to need a favor and find yourself up shit creek without a paddle, doesn't it?"
The maliciousness in her voice surprises you a bit. You have absolutely no idea what she's referring to--because she's obviously implying something between the lines--but you don't like her tone. And before you can open your mouth to retort, Tokitoh steps between the two of you and holds up a hand to stop you.
"Anna, it isn't his fault," he says grudgingly. "I never told him you called."
Her green eyes shoot up to Tokitoh's face in shock, then outrage. "What?"
His face is the spitting image of shame. "I-I got upset when you called, and after you told me about... y'know, I guess I got jealous. I never told him you needed his help. And I didn't tell you because I was kind of pissed, Kubo-chan. I'm sorry." He drops his gaze to the floor like a child caught stealing candy from the store.
You meet Anna's eyes and she smiles incredulously and shakes her head. The anger drains from her pretty face. "Unbelievable," she sighs. "You really know how to pick them, Makoto."
Tokitoh looks up at her, bristling. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"
You stand up and smack him in the back of the head, but there's no force behind it. "It means that you'd make a very poor secretary." Your own temper has vanished in the wake of his little confession, and you can't help but berate yourself mentally for having so little faith in him. You've never really been able to trust people, but with Tokitoh it's second-nature. It's something about the brightness of his eyes and that reckless smile that make you trust him implicitly, and only a female could have made you doubt that.
For her part Anna looks from him to you and rolls her eyes. "Well, that clears things up. And here I thought you were just avoiding me," she drawls and smiles at him suggestively. Tokitoh blushes furiously again and looks to you for some sort of assistance.
You shake your head in amusement and get to your feet. "Sorry to have intruded," you tell Anna, turning to the door. Tokitoh takes that as his cue to escape and bolts out into the hallway without a backwards glance. As you reach the threshold of the door Anna grabs your elbow and tugs. You glance over your shoulder at her with your eyebrows raised questioningly.
"Makoto, I'm sorry about what happened with him," she says quietly. "I think I might have traumatized him."
You smile. "I doubt it. He's always acted like that around women. I don't know why."
She nods and the two of you stand there for a moment, you staring at the floor and her staring at your back. You feel like she wants to say something else, but she doesn't have the courage to speak. So you ask the question on your own mind instead. "What the hell did you say to him, anyway?"
Anna smiles sadly. "I told him that I was your first."
Ah. So that explains the animosity between them. And why Tokitoh had been so inexplicably agitated that night that you told him not to come home. "I didn't realize that he wasn't just a fling for you until he dragged me down to the Mr. Donuts and practically begged me to help him get you out of jail. And I told him not to take it too hard, because you just don't like being tied down to people..."
She shakes her head in wry amusement and looks at you with her sad, pretty green eyes. "He had this completely serious expression on his face and he said that you belonged to him. And I remember thinking that he was a good kid, but he was going to get his heart broken."
You smile and look down the hall at your roommate leaning against the wall and fidgeting nervously. When he realizes that you're watching him he averts his violet eyes and blushes again.
"You actually love him, don't you?" Anna asks quietly, staring at your back.
So much that it fucking terrifies me, is what you think to yourself. You turn and kiss her on the cheek and smile enigmatically and walk away. You catch up to Tokitoh down the hall and he follows you silently, hands shoved into his pockets, head hung.
As you pass the disgruntled clerk and push through the front doors Ryoji looks at you expectantly but you shake your head. He kicks a beer can down the gutter in disappointment, and you all three head back towards the nearest subway station.
"Ne, Kubo-chan?" Tokitoh mumbles beside you.
You can tell from the miserable expression on his handsome face that he's about to apologize his little heart out again. You decide then that you're uncomfortable with how much his sad violet eyes remind you of the perpetually haunted look in Anna's pretty, melancholy green ones.
So before he has a chance to speak again you sling your arm around his shoulders and pull him closer and press your lips against his temple on this crowded, busy sidewalk in the heart of Yokohama.
"Don't apologize for things that haven't yet happened, or circumstances outside of your control," you say quietly, feeling immensely wise, smiling.
He gives you a dubious look, like he doesn't understand a word of what you've said, but his beautiful violet eyes are a little brighter after that.