***Thanks to lawless523 and Namaguza Bouzu, who both answered my question quickly and with a lot of detail! I really appreciate it.***
Gojyo stood in front of his mirror, lightly tousling his hair to achieve perfect imperfection before moving back to inspect his entire outfit. Some loose lint that had fallen on his mostly-unbuttoned blue shirt was picked off, and the material was smoothed down across bronzed skin. After one last look-over, he added the final piece of his ensemble: the emerald and gold bracelet that announced his profession to the underworld.
The gentle weight of the jewellery made him sigh; in the same way that it told his price, it was also as good as a pair of handcuffs. He'd been made completely aware of that almost two years ago, now.
{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~}
The sole of a shoe slammed down into Gojyo's stomach, wrenching him from unconsciousness as he coughed and spluttered, writhing in pain. Attempting to bring his arms around to soften any further blows, he found that he couldn't: coarse rope was biting into his skin, rubbing his wrists raw behind his back.
The foot stomped down again, barely missing his crotch as Gojyo groaned in agony. A familiar, rasping voice spoke out from somewhere nearby, "What did I tell you? Watch the face, and watch the groin! He's gonna need those."
Gojyo's still-scattered brain focused long enough to announce that it was Banri who had spoken, before retreating back behind a haze of pain. He had just enough sense to open his eyes to his surroundings; not that he could see much in the gloom of what seemed to be a basement or cellar.
"Oh, look, he is awake! I like this one's spirit, Banri. You always did pick the good whores." Gojyo couldn't pick that voice, and his neck hurt too much to look for the source. Curling in on himself, he tried to remember what had happened.
He'd been walking home…distracted by the fact that his plane to London was booked for the next day. A car had skidded up behind him and then…nothing. He had no memories after that horrible screeching noise.
"Don't go passin' out again, boy!" Another kick, this time to the ribs, "Did you really believe that you could get away like this? You underestimated little ol' me, and I resent that."
Gojyo's heart sank as he finally recognised the man's distinctive accent and speech patterns. It was the horrid twang of a certain loanshark…Hazel Grosse.
"H-…Hazel…" Gojyo tried to speak properly, but his throat burned and the words came out weak. How long had he been unconscious?
"Hmph, your mind is still workin', or so it seems. Maybe it might be easier to just pump you full of smack and tie you to the bed. That way you'll make me back my money, and we won't have to worry about you runnin' away. Are you gonna make me do that, whore?" Hazel finally walked into Gojyo's limited vision, crouching down to pull the redhead's face towards him. "But I do so adore the fire in your eyes. Even now, when you're on the ground like a fuckin' beaten dog…Good Lord in Heaven, I love it."
"Just k-kill me…" Weakly, Gojyo tried to hasten his death. If it was a choice between instantly dying or slowly fading from drug addiction, he was willing to hedge his bets for the afterlife. He didn't want to die, but anything was better than craving nothing other than the next needle.
Footsteps echoed around the room, and Hazel twisted Gojyo's neck to look at Banri as he approached. "I don't think so, Kappa. You make me a lot of cash, and I'm not about to give that up. That's why we had to stop you this time."
Gojyo somehow managed to bite back a scream as Banri brutally ripped out a chunk of his hair. "You thought you could take his money and run? You thought you could disappear like that? Let me tell you something, Kappa. You belong to me. You don't leave until I say you can."
Hazel laughed, a chilling sound that echoed slightly in the cold, bare room. "Now, now, Banri. Don't you be forgettin' that he's mine too. I'm the one he needs to pay back, after all."
The hand let go of Gojyo and he collapsed against the hard ground, where his head bounced off the concrete with a sickening thud. As he faded from consciousness once more, the memory that filled his mind was of a similar noise resonating from his step-mother, her skull cracked open by a simple lamp.
Only this time, Jien wasn't there to save him.
{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~}
Gojyo ran his fingers over the side of his head, where a slight lump still caused him to get agonising headaches on occasion. He'd woken up days later in his apartment, wounds bandaged, borrowed money missing and a pack of strong painkillers by the side of his bed.
How he'd wanted to swallow the whole lot and never wake up…knowing that he was now indebted to both Banri and Hazel, he'd considered suicide many times.
But he just couldn't go through with it.
Some small part of his brain kept telling him that he could get out. That there would be a way, some plan that didn't involve ripping off a merciless loanshark or dying, to leave his leashed life behind.
And so, almost two years later, he was still firmly under the thumbs of two men. Banri's position had been almost perfectly taken over by Zakuro, and Hazel sporadically reappeared to make sure that Gojyo never forgot where most of his earnings went.
As if he could.
Gojyo's ten thousand dollar, no-questions-asked loan had become much more than that, thanks to the fact that Hazel had reclaimed the original money and yet still demanded that Gojyo repay him- with ridiculous interest, of course. That way, Gojyo was forced to keep prostituting himself out to make the cash, which tethered him to Banri even further.
Looking into the red eyes of his reflection, Gojyo saw nothing but a kept man. It wasn't the prostitution that he had wanted to get away from; it had been the fact that he was another's possession, well and truly. Working for Banri had seemed like a good idea when he was alone on the streets, without any protection whatsoever; but then the reality of having a pimp had set in.
He could barely do anything without someone watching; his freedom was nearly non-existent. He had borrowed Hazel's money, without any intention of paying him back, so that he could leave the country and start again as a free man. He'd actually been planning to go legal with the money; he just hadn't been entirely sure what he'd do.
Too bad that his half-baked plan had backfired, leaving him with two masters and a massive debt that was only half paid off.
Slamming his fist into the wall beside the mirror, luck alone keeping skin and plaster intact, Gojyo shook himself. Now was not the time to be worrying about something that he couldn't change; depressing himself wouldn't get the debt paid off.
Going to work, however, would.
Clearing his throat and drawing himself to his full height, Gojyo shook back his hair. The face in the mirror changed from an anguished fool into a sexy, confident playboy: the mask that he managed to wear most of the time. He smirked at his transformed reflection, ignoring the way that the expression didn't quite meet his eyes.
He would go to the club, and he would fuck a stranger. He would act like he was loving it, and he would make as much money as he possibly could.
And he certainly wouldn't remember the way that he'd briefly woken up during the previous night, Sanzo's pale arm wrapped tight around him in a strangely comforting gesture.
Before he could fall into his mind again, Gojyo turned and left his bedroom…and the apartment that Banri owned.
When Sanzo arrived home after work, he was glad to find his apartment devoid of life. Taking a quick look around, he determined that nothing important had been disturbed, apart from the extra dishes in his sink.
The only excuse that he could come up with for leaving those cupboards open earlier was to stop Gojyo from hunting about. He didn't want a virtual stranger digging through his possessions…and yet, he had allowed the man to stay alone in his apartment.
He'd trusted a whore to not rob him of everything he had. Sure, it seemed to have been a winning bet, but now that he was thinking properly, it had been the epitome of stupidity. There wasn't a person on Earth that he fully trusted, but he'd put his faith in a man he'd done little more than bang.
What in the Hell had inspired such a ridiculous act of fucktardation?
This was what happened when he turned off his mind and let his body take control. Complete and utter idiocy. If only Sanzo- the original Sanzo- could see him now…
Snorting in disgust, the blonde rethought that last idea. His adoptive father would probably have loved the fact that his antisocial 'son' turned into a complete airhead the minute he got a good screw. The older man had been the most laid-back person Sanzo knew, completely opposing his own cold, mocking demeanour.
He was sure that Gojyo would have gotten along with his father like a house on fire.
But the man had been dead for ten years now, and so he wasn't going to be getting along with anyone, thanks to the leader of a rival organisation who decided that Sanzo was disrupting their business. He had thrown himself in front of the thirteen-year-old Kouryuu when the group had burst into their home, and he'd been gunned down for his efforts.
Sanzo had spent the next four years searching for the man who had led the attack, gaining himself the name 'Sanzo' along the way from his determination to avenge his guardian. However, when he'd finally gotten close to his target, the man had been killed in a bloody coup by that organisation's soon-to-be leader: Kougaiji.
Sanzo had reluctantly given up, knowing that revenge was forever out of his reach. He'd thrown himself into work for Doku, taking out his anger on members of Kou's gang as often as he could. That pimp had been just another in a long line of dead bodies.
If he couldn't have the one member that he had wanted, he was going to destroy as many others as he could. A pathetic substitution, yes, but it made him feel marginally better about the fact that he had failed the one person who cared about him.
After that, he vowed never to let anyone close. Failure made him feel weak, and he refused to let himself be brought down by that. He had nothing to lose; he hadn't held anything of worth since the night he had held his dying father.
He shouldn't restart now. He didn't need to ever see Gojyo again; he just wanted to. Wants were something that he didn't have to entertain, and so he had to break off with the man before he began to need. After all, this morning had proved that the man was bad for Sanzo's mental health. It was also still likely that the redhead was completely untrustworthy, despite what Sanzo's instincts weakly tried to tell him.
Looking up from where he was vaguely reading the newspaper, the blonde glanced at the clock. Ten forty-eight in the evening.
Completely unbidden, Sanzo's thoughts returned to Gojyo. It was a Saturday night…he would surely be working at the club. Regardless of the fact that its owner had died and been replaced, the joint was working almost as well as it had previously. Taking out Banri had done very little in the short-term.
As such, Gojyo would probably have found himself a john for the night; just the next entry in a list that Sanzo had already joined…twice.
Sanzo blinked rapidly as a realisation dawned. He still couldn't bring himself to be disgusted by that fact. The only thing he felt was a growing anger…a smaller-scale version of that which he had felt in the alleyway.
Someone else was fucking Gojyo; someone who probably didn't appreciate how fucking beautiful the man looked as he came.
Sanzo suddenly became aware of a tearing noise: his fingers had involuntarily tightened around the fragile newspaper, ripping a hole directly through a report on industrial sabotage…or maybe it was about celebrity marriage- he hadn't been paying attention in the least.
Like a small child, he was furious that someone else had taken something that he wanted.
Wanted. Not needed.
He could not allow himself to need anything…least of all a gorgeous male whore.
***If 'fucktardation' wasn't already a word, it is now! It was the best thing I could think of to describe that level of stupidity. (Fun fact: originally, I had 'fucktardedness'. Ugh).***
