"Hey, hands off the girl" Matt ordered while swallowing down his fear of the two burly men. "You're just here to transport her back to headquarters, not anything else." he said, thankful for having the advantage of being Mello's right-hand man. Because of the fact, the men would be forced to follow his orders or receive Mello's wrath.
The Yagami girl shivered slightly, her grasp of English less-than perfect, so she most likely had no idea that she was now free from harm. "T-thank you" she said in heavily-accented English, her voice cracking with fear as the man's hand was removed from under her skirt.
It took everything Matt had not to facially display his sympathy and pity for the girl; an act that signaled weakness and an opportunity to strike for the mafia members. "What are you waiting for, put the gag on" Matt said, watching as the men added a cloth gag to the ropes and blindfold she was already burdened with.
"Mello didn't give us any other orders after we got the girl," a gruff voice said.
Matt eyes the man from the rear-view mirror before turning to merge into the Tokyo traffic. "You're to meet another man at the airport and hand Yagami off to him. Then, you'll all board the 6:30 to LA and pretend you're strangers to each other until you receive a signal. You'll know what to do from there" he stated, glancing at the young woman bound and shaking in the back seat. Something in his gut told him this was wrong, She's never done anything bad. Except for being born to the Yagami's, she's not involved in the case at all. She's so innocent. And who knows what those guys will do once their out of my sight-Matt cut off the thought and switched lanes on the highway; taking the exit for Tokyo International Airport.
Suddenly, a ringtone cut through the tense silence of the van and Matt pulled the device from his pocket with a frown. "What do you want?" He asked moodily into the receiver, fully expecting another one of Mello's annoyed orders after having somehow found out the pawn shop cell phone's number.
"Whoa, what's wrong?" Eddy asked.
Matt nearly face-palmed as he immediately recognized her concerned and confused tone. "Nothing. Sorry. What's up?" he asked, maneuvering the van as he spoke.
"Oh, um, okay" she said, obviously not believing him but somehow dropping it as she went on. "Hanging out with Misa today gave me some really good info, and I came up with a plan for tonight. Hopefully to get Misa on our side"
"Tonight?" he questioned.
"Right! I forgot! Ed and Danni are going to the Tokyo tower tonight and invited you and me. Then, I invited Misa and Light. If we play this just right, I'm sure my plan will work. Or we can at least help distance Misa from Light more" Eddy said.
"Well, that sounds great, but what time?" Matt asked, pulling up to a strip joint just outside of the airport; the meeting spot where they'd hand off the Yagami girl.
"Ed said 8, but I suspect that he'll be later then that. Maybe 8:30-ish?" she said, "you sound really distracted… I can call back later to explain my game plan if you want?"
That gives me two hours to finish this up and get over there. Matt thought as he turned in his seat to observe the men freeing the Yagami girl of her bindings and blindfold, "Leave the gag in, and hold on a sec" he said to them while covering the phone receiver with his hand. "Yeah, that's for the best. I'll call you when I can"
"Okay. I love you" Eddy said hesitantly, her worry coming through clearly in her voice.
He couldn't help but smile into the phone. "Love you too" Matt said quickly before snapping the phone shut. "She can't go in a place like that in a school uniform. There's a duffel bag behind the back seat, get the clothes out of it" Matt directed the men before focusing on the teary girl.
"Sayu, right?" Matt asked calmly in Japanese, hoping his tone and the familiar language would calm her down. She nodded a slow 'yes' at him, and Matt continued. "Under my orders, these men are not to hurt you or touch you. That being said, don't give them a reason to. Our plan depends on you behaving normally, so any screaming or running or any attempts to convey your situation to others in any way is an incredibly stupid thing to do. I'm not the overall boss of these men, and he's probably encouraged them to discipline you if you do anything like that. Do you understand?"
She nodded another 'yes', still looking incredibly scared with an accompanying relief in her features as well. "They cannot understand what I'm saying to you, so I'm free to say this; we want you to return to Tokyo unscathed. We really don't want to hurt you, but that doesn't mean that they won't hesitate to. These men are ruthless, and I'm telling you that your best chances of surviving is simply to do as they say. Will you?" he asked, smiling softly when she nodded a 'yes' at him again.
"Alright, take off the gag, she won't give us anymore trouble" Matt said to the men, who quickly did as they were told. "Now, give her the clothes and step out of the van"
"No way!" One of the men spoke up, "We were told by Mello not to let our eyes off her even once"
Matt frowned at them, sighing as he retrieved a cigarette from the glove box and put it between his lips, "I don't give a damn what Mel said to you" he stated in a dangerously low voice before pulling the hidden gun from the clutter of the glove box and whipping it around to face one of the men right between the eyes. "Get out of the van. She'll join you shortly"
Reluctantly, the men did as they were told largely because neither of them had weapons since they'd had to come through customs to get to Tokyo. "Change quickly" Matt said to Yagami in Japanese once the men were outside. Matt lit his cigarette, and as the rustling of cloth sounded, he conveniently looked out the window to watch his smoke curl away through the open space.
…
Eddy stepped out of the subway and heartily took a breath of fresh air, "Why is it that all subways smell like piss?" She grumbled to herself, flicking her hair back over he shoulder as she continued to hurriedly walk the half-block down the street to the Tokyo tower. It was almost 7:30, and if she walked any slower, she'd be late.
"Eddy-chan~!" came the sudden greeting among the beeping horns and humming traffic. Eddy turned to see Misa waving at her from a taxi window, the car driving up next to her on the sidewalk before stopping. "How long have you been walking, silly girl! Get in!" Misa suggested cheerfully, opening the door for her from the inside.
A smile immediately overtook Eddy at the actresses' peppy demeanor. "I just got off the subway, so not long at all, but thanks for the ride" Eddy said with a smile as she shut the door, the taxi immediately veering back out into the traffic.
"No problem! Since we're going to the same place, it's no trouble at all!" Misa said with a smile. "Can you believe I've lived in Japan all my life, but I've never done any of this tourist-y stuff? Tonight is going to be so much fun!" Misa chattered.
"Yeah, I haven't seen Ed for awhile too, so I'm pretty excited as well" Eddy said, looking around the inside of the taxi before raising a brow at Misa. "Hey, was Light not able to come after all?"
Misa vigorously shook her head, "No! He's just working, so he'll be a bit late. But why isn't Matt with you?" she asked.
"Oh, the same. You wouldn't think Matt's a workaholic just by looking at him, but when something important come up he really hops to it" Eddy said with a laugh.
Misa giggled along with her, "Boys, huh?" she said, just as the taxi came to a stop.
The driver muttered something in Japanese in a gruff voice that made it hard for Eddy to catch anything but the price, which she was still inexperienced with and therefore unsure weather or not it was affordable. "Hey, let me chip in a bit" Eddy offered, but was quickly shushed and ushered out of the taxi by Misa.
Once on the curb, Misa happily linked arms with Eddy and the two of them entered the tower in unison. Like any tourist attraction, it was pretty heavily populated, but not so much that it was impossible for the girls to recognize Ed's identical pale-blonde hair. "Ed~!" Both Misa and Eddy greeted as they made their way over to him, but upon reaching the scene both of the girls balked in their tracks.
"Can't you at least give me a reason?" Danni said, tears glistening around her eyes as she clutched desperately to Ed's hoodie.
Ed sighed painfully, Eddy could immediately tell that he was loathing doing this to Danni. "Come on, you can't tell me you haven't seen this coming. We fight all the time, and when we don't, we're fooling around. That isn't healthy. It's weird to not be able to talk to my girlfriend about stuff; weather it's little things, or big stuff that's really bothering me. When I try to talk to you, you always act like you don't care or try to turn it into sex. It's weird" he said.
Danni huffed at him, reddening at his words, "Don't act like I'm some kind of freak! Just because you don't want to have sex all the time, doesn't mean it's not normal! Any guy WOULD KILL TO DATE A GIRL LIKE ME!" she screeched, her voice suddenly rising into hysteria as Ed winced. "GIVE ME A REAL REASON, YOU ASSHOLE!"
"Danni, come on, don't make a scene. Calm down" Ed pleaded.
"CALM DOWN?" she yelled, several bystanders curiously observing the two now, "YOU BRING ME UP ON THIS STUPID TOWER, WHICH I THOUGHT WAS GOING TO BE ROMANTIC, AND YOU BREAK UP WITH ME? AND THEN TELL ME NOT TO MAKE A SCENE?"
"Hey, people are staring" he said, trying to keep his voice quiet as he leaned into her and gently took her arm to lead her off to someplace more quiet.
"DON'T YOU FUCKING TOUCH ME!" Danni screeched, ripping her arm from his grasp and shoving him backwards. "JUST TELL ME THE REAL REASON, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!"
Ed was getting frustrated now, and it was sheer exhaustion with the situation that caused him to yell back at her, "BECAUSE I DON'T LOVE YOU! I HAVE FEELING FOR SOMEONE ELSE! I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT UNDERTAND, AND WE COULD BE FUCKING FRIENDS! IF YOU'RE GOING TO YELL AND BE A CRAZY BITCH, THEN JUST LEAVE!" he yelled back at her.
Immediately, her face crumpled up and Danni was reduced to tears as she stormed off, the opposite direction from Misa and Eddy. Ed stared after her, embarrassed at his own reaction as he ran a hand through his hair with a sigh. Observing the still-gawking crowd, Eddy hurriedly made a beeline for her brother. "Okay, Fight's over, you can go back to whatever you were doing!" Eddy said, putting an arm around her brother and leading him towards the balcony and away from the bystanders, Misa speechlessly following behind them.
"Aww, Ed, I'm so sorry" Eddy said gently, patting him on the arm and sharing a sympathetic stare with Misa as they both rubbed Ed's back comfortingly.
Ed sighed, "That's just not the way I meant for it to go down at all" he said forlornly.
"No one could have seen that coming, Danni's normally so level-headed" Misa commented, making Ed jump as he appeared to only just notice her presence.
He covered his face with his hands and rested his elbows on the balcony, "Ugh, sorry you had to see that Misa" Ed said regretfully.
Eddy smiled to herself at the situation, while she wasn't happy about Danni's meltdown and her brother's resulting mopey-ness, it was a perfect set up for her plan. "You know what, I'm gunna go grab you a coffee from the vending machine, it'll make you feel better" she said, hurriedly making her departure in order to leave little time for protest. However, Ed seemed not to notice either way, since Misa was now giving him a very touching speech about 'other fish in the sea' and 'destiny'.
"Well, thanks for the thought Misa, but I've heard all of that before, and I don't really think it's going to make me feel any better" Ed said. "I just can't believe I do these stupid things all the time. I didn't really mean to break up with Danni, but when we got up here I couldn't stop thinking about how there was another person I'd much rather share it with. And then I just started telling all of this to her, about how we weren't right for each other and everything. I just blurted it all out like an idiot. I'm so stupid sometimes"
"You're not stupid, Ed. People make mistakes, things happen. You're a great actor, you're so genuinely caring and sweet, you read all the time-you know tons of stuff I haven't even heard of! Plus, you're a really great brother to your sister. You're a great person" Misa finished with a smile.
Ed finally uncovered his face in order to look up at his co-star. "No, I'm not. I'm the one that got me and Eddy disowned by our parents. If I hadn't said I wanted to go to art school, Eddy wouldn't have said so either, and we'd be living easy off a trust fund. Acting is a fun job, and I love to do it, but it forces Eddy to work at a job she hates in order to pay our rent in LA. I'm selfish. I do care about people, but usually when I try to help them I end up putting them in worse trouble then they were in before. And anything I actually know about no one cares about anyway. I'm useless. I'm doomed to dying alone, poorer than dirt, pining after some girl" he said mournfully.
A long silence enveloped the two of them as they stared out the balcony and observed the sparkling view of the Tokyo lights below. "Have you ever heard that story about the red string of fate?" Misa questioned quietly, finally breaking the silence. When Ed shook his head, she continued, "Well, it starts out talking about a poor street urchin boy who lived in an alley and survived by stealing food and making money when he could by singing, dancing, or acting out famous texts in the street. Despite how he lived the boy was kind and gentle and always gave half of his food and money to an old man, who lived in the alley like him, but who was too sick to obtain his own food."
"One day, while singing and dancing on the street, a big parade came by with beautiful banners and dancing servants and many musical instruments. It was a parade to celebrate the young princess, and when she rode by in her carriage, the boy immediately fell in love with her. Not only was the possibility of a relationship between them hopeless because of his status, but because the parade was to celebrate her marriage to a prince of another land. Full of sadness, the boy walked back to his alley where the old man quickly noticed his mood and asked him what was wrong."
"After telling the old man the dilemma, the boy was shocked to see the old man laughing heartily. Before the boy could respond in anger, the old man told him a story about the gods. He said that, a long time ago when the gods realized that sometimes the perfect mortal couples of the world would never meet and die of sadness instead, that they needed to intervene. A matchmaking god made a long length of red string out of pure fate, invisible to mortals, and tied it around the pinkie fingers of couples destined to be together. The string could stretch and tangle, but it would never-ever break."
"Anyway, the myth goes on to describe the true love between the princess and the street urchin, and that even though she was to be married to another, that she had fallen in love with the boy the minute she'd seen him through the carriage window. The two of them find each other and flee the land together, and they both live happily ever after. All because of that little string of fate on their pinkies" Misa finished, lifting her right hand and wiggling her pinkie finger for emphasis. "It's a silly story, I know, but I want to believe in it" Ed was silent, Misa was suddenly self-conscious, and she once again placed her hand on the balcony. Perhaps it was an accident-that her hand overlapped his only slightly as she placed it on the balcony railing, or perhaps it was something larger that was simply going to according to plan-as their pinkie fingers interlocked each other perfectly.
…
Eddy stepped outside the Tower entrance while cursing at her phone. "Fucking thing makes me pay a shitload for overseas coverage, but won't get a single reception bar when I'm in the tallest fucking tower in Tokyo?" she muttered to herself in disbelief, starting to dial Matt's number as she stepped into an alley to get away from the traffic noise.
"Eddy?" Came the voice from behind her, and she jumped in spite of herself before wheeling around to spot none-other than Light Yagami getting out of a taxi.
She sputtered for a moment, checking the clock on her phone before snapping it shut. "You're early! Misa said that work was going to keep you a bit late!" Eddy said, unable to keep her voice from slightly squeaking out of nerves. If Light goes up there now, he could ruin everything! With Ed and Misa finally alone in such a romantic setting, it could be the chance for her to see that Light is the exact opposite of a good boyfriend! Eddy thought in a panic.
Light gave her an odd look at her behavior. "Things wrapped up quicker than I expected. Why are you down here, isn't Misa here already?" he asked.
"Oh, no it seems like I'm the first one to arrive! I figured I'd wait out here for them" Eddy said, grinning at herself for how easily the lie came to her.
"That's odd, considering Misa called me in a taxi 45 minutes ago and said she was a block away from the tower" he said, immediately making Eddy pale under his intimidating scrutiny. "…And you have the Tokyo tower stamp on your wrist for re-entry…"
Eddy's eyes were wide, Shit! Now he definitely knows something's up! If he's really Kira, then that just might mean that he's going to kill me for trying to get Misa away from him! She thought in a panic, wincing as he grabbed her upper arm with a surprisingly brutal strength.
Light was grimacing at her, his handsome innocent boyfriend act slipping further as he spoke, "Just what the hell are you trying to pull here?" his voice was deathly serious and made her break into a nervous sweat despite the cool night air.
"Y-you're hurting me" Eddy squeaked quietly, unsure of what to do as she grew more and more fearful of what Light would be able to do in the alleyway. It was far enough from the tower entrance that no one would see them unless they passed by on the sidewalk, not to mention that if the concrete surrounding them blocked out most of the traffic noise, that no one would be able to hear any noise coming from the alley.
"You think you can come into my town and start messing up my plans?" Light asked, his nails digging deeper into her arm despite her protest. "Listen to me, if you think Misa wouldn't do anything for me, then you're-"
"HEY!" A loud shout interrupted Light's threat, and as both of them turned to see Matt charging towards them from the alleyway entrance, Light retracted from her as if she'd burned him. "What the fuck do you think you're doing, you fucking prick?" Matt asked, shoving Light further away from Eddy as soon as he got close enough.
Light pasted his usual 'I'm just the perfect boyfriend' smile over his face. "Whoa, calm down. Eddy was just upset about why you were so late, and I was trying to comfort her" he said. "Their's no problem"
Eddy gaped at Light as he lied through his teeth, about to correct him herself when Matt spoke. "No. There most definitely is a problem. I'm going to the tower to get my friends and we're leaving. You're not welcome around us. And if I ever see your fucking hands on her again-" Matt leveled a gun right between Light's eyes, making both him and Eddy gasp aloud. "I'm a damn good shot" he finished, wrapping an arm around Eddy as Light lifted his hands in surrender. The couple backed out of the alley, fearful of turning their backs to Light, and it was only when they were firmly on the sidewalk again that Matt hid his weapon.
"Did he hurt you?" Matt asked gruffly, clearly still pissed as they hurried towards the entrance of the tower.
She was dazed, "Since when did you get a fucking gun, Matt?" she asked in an astonished half-whispered tone as she looked around at the crowd milling outside of the tower entrance. It made her wince when she noticed Light trailing close behind them.
"I said, did he hurt you?" Matt asked again.
"Um he grabbed my arm really hard, I think it might bruise, but I don't think his nails broke my skin" she said as they entered the lobby. Matt said nothing more and quickly paid for a ticket before he covertly managed to avoid the metal detector, thanks to the large crowd, and they started up the elevator. In no time they made it into the second lobby, the floor that Ed and Misa had been on, and got out of the first elevator the same time Light emerged from the forth one across the hall.
It was through great strength of will that Matt only managed to give Light a glare instead of a black eye like he desperately wanted to, and the three of them reached the outside balcony at exactly the same time. Which meant that all of them were simulantiously exposed to Misa and Ed's deep kiss.
A/N: OH MAN! The shit really hit the fan in this chapter! Things are getting intense! I hope it was worth the wait, so, so sorry for making you wait so long ;_; As always, I highly appreciate your reviews and favs :D -Luv, Cart