"Well then," Akira announced into the silence left by Tsukushi's abrupt departure, "I guess I'll go fetch Rui then, shall I?"
"No need." Rui's flat monotone interrupted Akira in the act of getting to his feet.
"Oh good then." Akira responded with false cheer, trying to dispel the tension that still lingered in the air, "I guess we're all here."
"Oh shut up, would you?" Soujiro sighed, "You're not helping any."
"Now play nice, kiddies," Rui's lips twitched up in the faintest shadow of a smile, as he inched into the room, "Didn't you hear the good doctor? I did, and I wasn't even here."
"Well actually," Akira commented, "I was just reading this fascinating document here." Indicating Tsukasa's computer with a wave of his hand.
"Yes. That." Soujiro redirected his anger back at its original object: Tsukasa. Tsukasa in turn, moved to sit sullenly on the bed, and glare obstinately at the accusing stares of his friends. "You have a lot of explaining to do."
"I just want to state," Rui interrupted unexpectedly, "That I'm with Tsukasa on this. Whatever it is. If it's his money, he can do with it as he pleases. It's not up to you to control."
"You would like that philosophy." Soujiro muttered.
"Come on, can't we just talk about this without fighting?" Akira, again.
"There's nothing to debate." Tsukasa finally spoke, as if he'd been fighting internally with himself about what to say. "It's already done."
"Am I the only one here who doesn't know what he's talking about?"
"I thought you didn't care about anything!" Soujiro spat spitefully, "Why don't you just go back to your room and stare at the ceiling some more?"
"Soujiro!" Akira admonished, even while Rui rose to his feet,
"It was only of academic interest anyway." He calmly said, even as the light dimming in his eyes belied his disinterest.
"Rui, sit your sorry ass back down." Tsukasa ordered in tones that brooked no argument. The closest he could come to a silent apology to Rui for Soujiro's behavior and a tacit plea for him to remain involved, shining through in his intent gaze, "Since those two seem to have the urge to stick their noses in where it's not needed, I'll tell you what's up. Our erstwhile employers underestimated our -- my," he amended after a sharp glance from Akira, "desire to remain independent. This breach of contract suit of theirs -- they could probably win it. By conventional means. It's all a matter of owning the right people. And they do. I did some research." He paused again to glare at Soujiro, "What, you think that just because I'm not civil, I'm dumb? You always have been the bigger idiot than I." His sharp features twisted in rising anger, "I'm not a dumbass, My mother taught me well. I learned more from her than I ever learned in college!" He stopped and took several deep breathes to let his volume subside, as if he was replaying Tsukushi's warning in his head, "They were gonna grab us by the balls and not let go. Our lawyers were good but they weren't dirty enough. You can't win a rigged game by playing fair, You know that!"
It was as if he was pleading for confirmation. Rui knew just what he was talking about. Life on the streets didn't play nice, either. You had to fight dirty to get by, the rules were different. Civilized rules were for sheep and idiots. He caught Tsukasa's eye, and nodded deliberately. Feeling himself being caught up even more in the web of shared experience that bound him to this life.
Soujiro however, still looked skeptical, and Tsukasa continued. "It doesn't matter what you think. I fixed it. I was already mucking around with my inheritance. . ." Akira looked confused, and surprisingly, it was Rui who laughed at his ignorance, and answered his silent question,
"How do you think the good doctor was persuaded to dedicate her life to our little lost cause?"
"I thought he just bribed the hospital?"
"In this day and age?" Rui lofted a skeptical eyebrow at his friend's innocence, "You can't get far with bribery alone. If you could, Tsukasa would've won this case for you guys months ago."
"Blackmail, Akira. Blackmail." Soujiro chimed in, "You've got a file in front of you on the sex life of the most recent lawyer our former label just attempted to hire to take on the case against us. It appears he likes to molest small children." It was unclear if the disgust in his voice was for the material or for the man who would stoop to using such methods.
"How do you get this stuff?" Akira paged down the screen, fascinated by the listing of names, dates, places, even detailed descriptions of acts. "I bet the cops would love this shit."
"The cops don't have my connections." Tsukasa shrugged self-deprecatingly.
"Plus, it's fucking illegal." Soujiro scowled furiously.
"Don't be such a bleeding heart." Again it was Rui who surprised them all by replying before Tsukasa could.
"All I wanted was to find the latest set of lyrics Tsukasa was writing so I could work on the score," Soujiro began tangentially, "But I clicked the wrong file, and what did I see? Fucking child molesters and drug addicts. Extramarital affairs and graft. Tsukasa. This is wrong! You can't fight our battles like this!"
"It's the system. You have to work it." Tsukasa muttered adamantly.
"This? This is not the system. The system is courts of law, our rights versus what we owe the label. We'll fight their spurious claims, we'll win, and we'll be free to perform again. That's what we all want!"
"You're living in a dream." Tsukasa laughed, "This is how it works. If you want to win, you have to play by the real rules. And besides, what's done is done. I spent my money, and it's all automatic from there. I just get the reports."
"But it's not done! You're just fighting a delaying action." Akira accused, "All you're doing is digging up dirt on the lawyers. . .sooner or later they'll find someone to take the case who is clean. And then we'll be right back where we started."
"No we won't." Tsukasa denied, "Cause I got the agents working on the actual bastards behind this. It just takes longer to get what we need against CEO's and such -- they've been at this game and hide their tracks better. But sooner or later, we'll get them."
"You're bringing us down to that level, then" Soujiro was back on a self-righteous jag, "I'm a musician damn it. Not a mobster! Who's to say that they won't dig up dirt on us?"
"What dirt?" Rui laughed again, a harsh ugly sound, "You said it yourself, we're musicians. What dirt can they possibly have on us that would scandalize anyone? I'm an addict. Big deal. You're a slut, and Akira's an adulterer. Tsukasa's just violent. And rich off dirty money. Even Sinatra had mob connections. That's expected of people like us. At least you're not a pedophile, a murderer, or necrophiliac. And if you were, it'd just enhance your rep. But lawyers, businessmen? To expose their personal life is a loss of face. The more fucked up, the greater the loss of prestige. Exact opposite of our world."
"But that doesn't make it right." Soujiro was beginning to sense the futility of his argument.
"Soujiro." Rui's tone softened, and he met his companion's eyes directly, as if about to impart some great truth, "No one ever said it was. But That's Life"
Akira, for his part, perked up suddenly, and stared at Rui, as if seeing him for the first time. "You've finally accepted it then?" in surprised disbelief. Almost immediately, Rui clenched his jaw shut, realizing he'd given away more than he'd meant to. As if grudging each healing step he'd ever taken.
"Are we done here?" Tsukasa gruffly interrupted, to shield Rui from having to answer by shifting attention back to himself.
"Of course we're not done," Soujiro, mercurial, rising to the bait, "Who appointed you god? Who gave you the right to do this shit without consulting us? You could have asked."
"And you would have said no." Tsukasa glared, hating this back and forth of words, words, words. Action was what had been called for and action was what he had taken, what more was needed? What was there to discuss?
"Damned right I'd have said no."
"Well there you go. It needed to be done. It was done. You didn't know. You're innocent. No one can blame you. You tried to stop me. Too late. Don't worry about it."
"Don't worry. Don't worry, he says. It's my life too."
"We're all in this together, guys." Akira reminded the both of them, rather pointedly.
"I'm tired." Rui. Bored of the debate already.
"Oh, go away." Soujiro waved a dismissive hand at the door.
"I'm tired too." Tsukasa's low growl more a demand than a statement.
"You go away, then."
"It's my room.
"Fine then, I'll go!"
"Akira. . ." almost a threat,
"Look Tsukasa." Akira began placatingly, "I can't say I approve. But I'm with Rui. What's done is done. I won't fight you now. But I hope you aren't just digging us deeper into a pit. I don't like your methods. But I'll do what it takes to get our freedom back. I'll go with the flow for now, but you need to be more open with us. We need to know what's going on. You're a part of us too. You have to let us in." Tsukasa had always been big on bluster and action, but not so much into the touchy feely "this is me" sort of revelatory discussions. It was amazing that Dr. Makino ever got enough truly personal information out of him to work with in her therapy. Maybe she didn't, at that. Maybe that was the problem.
Well, Akira sighed, as he turned to leave, at least they'd learned something today. They'd learned Rui was less aloof than he pretended, and that alone had to be worth something. If only the doctor had been there to see his progress. Now if only they could do something about the latest rift between Soujiro and Tsukasa. Or about the stress from the lawsuit. Or their inability to perform in public -- their necessary catharsis-- until after that suit's resolution. And how the lack of release led to heightened tensions among them. Until the entire house felt like it was pulled tight as a guitar string, thrumming with energy. Perhaps the doc could feel it, at that, Akira mused, and that was why she was so wound up this morning. Or was that yet another issue, another mystery which the young woman was slow to reveal? As if they needed more issues around here.
------
The room was quiet at last. Tsukasa sprawling back on the bed. Rui, oddly enough, remaining, silent and immobile on the hard wooden floor.
Tsukasa felt the urge to take a drink, or to throw a few punches at the wall, or perhaps merely to go sulk and glower spitefully in the den, to show his displeasure at the way his friends questioned his leadership. He deliberately fought these urges and did nothing -- instead, he took a page from Rui's book and stared silently at the cracks in the ceiling. Tracing the paths that they made as they crisscrossed, and the shadows from the flaking edges of plaster. A very hypnotic and calming activity, he found. No wonder Rui spent so much time at it.
"What do you really think?" he forced himself to speak at last. The words directed at the statue that was Rui.
An elegant shrug, barely audible in the shifting of cloth against skin. All the answer that Tsukasa could discern from his position on the bed.
"That's it? You don't care? Or you just won't say?"
Another shrug.
"God damn it, Rui. Don't play your games with me!" Unconsciously echoing Dr. Makino's words from earlier that day. "How long have I known you? Long enough to know when you're hiding something. And you're always hiding something. You play your games with Tsu -- Doctor Makino" Quickly covering up his slip, "You play them with Akira and Soujiro, but you won't play them with me! Either you assume your role as a functional member of this household, with duties and responsibilities, or you go back to being an incompetent. I'll send you back to therapy. Don't think I won't. You'll hate every goddamned second of it. And there'll be no Dr. Makino to see you through. You think you're crazy now? Just wait. You've tried my patience long enough. I'm not stupid, I have eyes as well as anyone, and I know that you're playing at something, I just don't know what it is!" It was plain that that ignorance made Tsukasa very, very angry.
"Ask Soujiro." Rui's monotone was calculated to provoke.
"I'm asking you." Dangerously close to the edge.
And so Rui taunted a little more, "You act so smart, but you're so blind still. So biased in your own way that you can't see what's in front of you. Or is it that you're just too stubborn?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"What do you think Dr. Makino is doing now?" Switching to airily vacuous in the blink of an eye. As if staking a claim to something. Something that Tsukasa couldn't understand. Or perhaps simply refused to see
"The hell does that have to do with anything?"
"She seemed rather upset this morning."
"You don't think that had anything to do with you?"
Rui shrugged, and left the question hanging in the air, for Tsukasa to mull over on his own. "I'm going to go take a nap." He announced, although it was only midmorning, and silently departed.
Tsukasa, finally alone, frowned, and got up to pace in front of his desk, reviewing Rui's gibes and cryptic questions. The doctor? Makino? Was Rui fighting with him about the doctor? Was that it? Was he upset at losing his day's sessions today? Is that why his threat to recommit Rui had struck such a nerve? It never occurred to him that Rui might also be jealous of the time He spent with the young doctor, might be worried about what bonds she might be forming with her other patient. How could Tsukasa know, when he spent his days writing and scheming and practicing, with only the too-short (for him) hours spent with Tsukushi to distract him from his responsibilities, and not enough real time to spend focused on what might be going on in the minds of his friends.
But that, Tsukasa finally resolved, was a situation he would endeavor, in the future, to change, starting today. Or maybe, given the amount of shit he sill had to do now, tomorrow might be a better time to begin.
TBC
--Merry Christmas, yo. There was going to be a lot more to this chapter, but I got home tonight to find that the guy, who, years ago, was my first boyfriend (sorta) in college, just got engaged. So I went out and got drunk instead of finishing the chapter. (ironically enough, I called up the guy who is half of the real reason that . . . . and I never had much of a real relationship, and went drinking with him, right after I emailed the girl who is the other half of the reason, to spread the gossip. Two of my best friends, now, still, and god do I feel old. and drunk.. how did the time slip away? So yeah. I figured, I'd post what I have rather than making you all wait until whenever it is I have more time, since I can barely type right now. . .
So yeah. I was going to do review responses but yeah.. . . the typing thing. So I'll summarize instead of individual replies,
1: the swearing. Yeah yeah. I get that complaint a lot. Unfo, my friends and I happen to talk like that. so, so do the characters I write. words are words. The more you use them, the less they mean. . . sorry for the offense, but I hardly notice it myself anymore. Only when talking to my boss do I switch to proper language, and that involves a shift to a whole separate part of my brain to do. . . .
2. Yuki. Thank god I'm not the only one who thinks she's an annoying twit in the manga. God, my version here may be a bit overblown in the stupid innocence quotient, but damn. I never could stand the story arcs she appeared in. the yuki-soujiro arc just made me ill.
3. And as usual. Thank you all so much for your kind reviews and encouragement. I'm always psyched that people can relate to my writing and enjoy the vicarious angst and suffering!
4. Next chapter preview (added bonus if you can determine which of the following are true!) Tsukushi wonders why the world is out to get her, and gets paid some unexpected visits. Yuki realizes the error of her ways, or does she? Tsukasa shows another side of his personality! Soujiro and Akira share a tender moment! Rui speaks using actual inflection! The author goes to sleep! ---