A/n: This chapter is where the change in my writing style is going to be most noticeable, possibly. Hopefully, it's a bit smoother and more immersive! Thank you to anybody that's still reading, in spite of how awfully drawn out this process has been over the years. Love you all!
Some things were too important to just abandon. Takasugi had to understand. It hadn't occurred to Kinu until they went back through the house, but the thought of being forced to leave made her uncomfortable. She wasn't sure what the feeling was, but she knew it wasn't pleasant.
Kinu made it to the ship early, and started on the boiler room before even Kawakami was up to catch her in the hallway.
It had only been a few months, but the men of the Kiheitai didn't even wake Kawakami when Kinu arrived, anymore. They just let her pass. Some even smiled and greeted her. She let herself and her little robot with her toolbox in, suddenly aware of how silent the ship was. They were either out or sleeping in. The renovations were going well. Most of the work was in the assembly, and the cleaning between installations. One by one, the pieces slid into place though, and Kinu started on the compatibility breaks on the control panel.
She wasn't surprised that Takasugi's ship already bypassed federal regulations. His ship had probably been built before every commercial boat came with regulators limiting their engine output. It saved her a step in programming everything to read the other supposedly incompatible parts wrong, to force them to work together.
They had spoken about relocating, and she had meant what she'd said, though she hadn't given it much thought. Kinu couldn't think of anything she particularly wanted, aside from general peace. She wanted everybody to be happy, too. How could that happen if they were all broken up?
Takasugi would probably always be on the run. So she'd see him a few months out of the year, and that was probably good enough for her. He'd been speaking without thinking that night as well. Nice thoughts, sure, but realistic? Kinu didn't know. It had been hard enough to get away from the tea shop without being caught. Shinpachi had been sleeping in a booth near the shop door, and Kagura had passed out on the couch.
They had been staying over in shifts. Nothing had happened. It always seemed to work that way.
If he was actually her boyfriend, and not just saying things, she wanted him in one piece. So Kinu spent a little extra time cutting a panel out of the wall and adding an extra button. A proper throttle, and back up air. Just in case. Amagi was insane, but Kinu had never seen anybody complain about a propulps system. The diagram had been easy enough to replicate.
A jolt shot through her hand and she yanked back, shaking the sensation out. Another gripe about older ships was how much wiring was uncoated and needed to be replaced.
With a few extra tanks of concentrated oxygen, they were all set up.
They'd be able to take out another ship if theirs was sturdy enough. That made Kinu worry about the structural integrity of the front of their ship, though. She didn't have time to work on it.
The sun was well in the sky when she knocked at Takasugi's door. He sat up in bed, squinting as she peeked through the crack. From the look on his face, it took a moment for him to register who she was, but as soon as she closed the door behind herself, the man laid back.
"I'm not a sleep demon." The plastic bag at her side crinkled as she set it near the bed and fished out a green box of pocky sticks.
"Never said you were." Takasugi sparked a match, still half laying. He shook the flame from it after the ember had nestled into his tobacco, and a cloud of smoke washed over Kinu as she crawled over him. She didn't need to force her way into his bed, but sometimes he would catch her with his palm on her forehead, and make her say please.
He knew she slept better on the ship. Especially in the air, where it felt like nothing could reach her. Not debt collectors, or people writing books about target customers, and more importantly, not Amagi.
"You made a face." Kinu ripped the tab off her snack as she bounced onto the bed beside him.
"Jealous?"
He wasn't smirking until she fixed her narrowed eyes on him. Then it bloomed across his face, and hung there. A nice look, she decided. Irritating as he could be. She took a deep breath. Something to bolden herself and show exactly how he had misread her and the extent of her girlish charms.
And then she smiled.
Just like she did in the mirror. Bright, crinkled eyes, and a limber, curly mouth that lifted her cheeks some, but not all the way. It was stiff and unnatural if it lifted all the way.
"My word," The one eyed man said, sitting up. His thumb pressed into her chin. "that's terrifying." He chuckled, and for a moment, his mouth slipped across hers. Too quickly. She thought that he would return. That she detected some warmth. There was a flicker of a thought in her when he didn't. Preemptive dread, maybe. Takasugi always had a certain grace about him. He moved smoothly, like his muscles were always going exactly where they wanted, when they wanted without the resistance of mortal limitations. Like Momo.
When a man moved like that, there came a certain natural dignified air. That made it hard to tell whether he was being diplomatic, or boyfriendly. She hadn't been able to see him much in the two days since the incident at the tea shop.
"Ship's finished." Kinu said when Takasugi threw his legs over the side of the bed.
"Already?" Back to her, he went to the drawers embedded in the wall beside the closet. Piece by piece, he donned a new outfit while she nibbled at the mint frosted biscuit sticks. If she'd known he was getting up she'd have gone home.
"It's been two months."
"Has it?" He said, nearly under his breath. As if he'd only half heard her, and was noting it for the back of his mind.
"I added some toys." She tried again. Takasugi apparently liked the articles she sent him when new boats and tech came out. "Oh, and I accidentally shocked myself. We should check my tracker. But when I saw that diagram for the propulps system, there were some pointless feeds that mucked up the works, so I drew out a-"
"Kinu," The sound of her name made her sit up a bit straighter. He had said it gently, and paused as if it needed time to sink in. "He's alive. In recovery, and well hidden. Canceled a public appearance for undisclosed reasons."
"Oh." She squeezed her right hand, watching as the muscles flexed at her command.
"It's clear we've all been duped."
"Have we?"
Takasugi turned then, fixing his belt in place with a little tug for good measure. He came back to the side of the bed and pulled his pipe away from her.
"Haven't we? You think you were random to him? It doesn't make sense. We've been doing some digging, you should…" His shoulders bunched with a breath, and pinpricks ran up Kinu's spine. Was he panicking?
He didn't give her time to ask any questions, but he left the door open.
It took some time for him to trail through the living quarters. Kinu wasn't far behind, but as Takasugi walked he started to slide doors open, saying nothing as he passed.
Beyond the first open door, Takechi was sitting up in his bed. Instead of an offhand greeting, he caught a glimpse of her and was immediately on his feet. Just ahead of Kinu, Matako skipped through her bedroom door in snug pink pajama pants and matching button up top.
Her hair was down, and she made no effort to pull it back but the comfort of knowing that even Matako's hair was messy when she woke up was lost in the jittery sensation creeping around Kinu's stomach.
They came to the meeting table, in varying levels of dress. Kawakami had only rolled out of bed in pants, and Takechi looked like a shrine ghost in his white yukata. Takasugi spared no details on informing the crew of what was happening, which meant that they all knew. Everybody but Kinu.
In a way, that gave her a painful twist. Takasugi didn't give her time to unpack that feeling, though. He turned the monitor on, and an access screen popped up, bright green with a blinking password prompt.
"Takechi, please." Takasugi paced away from the screen, waving one of his crossed arms over his shoulder.
"Kinu-chan," The older man started, pulling a folder she hadn't noticed from under the table. He laid papers out, giving each a moment of consideration as he spoke. "If you will look at these, this is your grandfather's seal, and your father's correct?"
Frowning, she stared down at the papers. "And this is you." He was right. Clear as day, right next to her trainee stamp. The papers were four years old, and her grandfather's seal was a printed image next to her father's. An homage to him and his family tea form.
Her mother called it a "spirit stamp".
Kinu was looking at a registration form for her first assisted tea ceremony. There had been a stint the first few times her father got clean. He had to be with her as her teacher, but she had performed for a dozen business men that day.
There was even a picture to prove it. Kinu was looking at a chronological timeline starting at that day. She saw herself, sitting at the kettle and brazier in bright blue silk. Back before they'd had to sell that kimono, too. It had been her favorite, and she had dreamed of buying it back for two days. Right up until it disappeared from the pawn shop window. Then she was at the entrance ceremony for her school.
At the time, her seat had been just behind her teacher, Ishii's. Off to the left a bit. Kinu's head was on her mother's shoulder. Back when she was blonde. She was among the flowing fields and daylilies of dreamland; it had been an awful night before, and she had promptly fallen asleep when they sat down.
The image had been taken from the stage. Where Kinu had once only seen herself, her mother, and Ishii, now she saw Amagi in the row in front of her. Her face was just over his shoulder. Buried in the crowd of her classmates and their families.
Takechi laid a familiar pamphlet on the table. The same one her mother had. Beside Amagi's name and picture was another face. One in the background of the tea ceremony.
"Look."
He didn't have a silver streak, but he was smiling all the same. Thinner in the face than when they'd last seen him, and with a dark coating of stubble. If they hadn't been side by side, she never would have recognized him.
"Is that..?" She asked, knowing full well that she didn't need to be told. Still, she had to. To know that outside of herself, others were certain as well. Takechi left the papers for her to try to piece together what they were getting at for herself. Beside him, Kawakami was typing away at the display screen.
"And his father." Takechi said, pointing to the frail gray haired man beside him. Kinu remembered that guy, but not Amagi. The old guy had been the host. They had spoken briefly, but she couldn't remember the conversation. "They didn't make an impression on you then, Kinu-chan?" Takechi asked, as if it wasn't obvious.
"They could have all been the same person for all I knew. I was so nervous I thought I'd puke." She had nearly the same feeling now.
"Maybe you should have." Takasugi said from across the room. He was staring through the windows, watching the deck. That didn't make her feel any better.
If they were laying all of this out, that meant they thought it was important. If it was so important, why couldn't Kinu remember any of it well? She could remember the days, and knew where she had been, and generally what she had done, but they had all melded together into a haze of a time period.
What kind of idiot was she? Needing people to piece together her life and figure out where something had gone wrong when they hadn't even been there. Another stack of papers was pushed towards Kinu, this time from Matako.
"Your mother… She said your dad gave her these last night." Envelopes spilled over onto the table, all ripped open, and thoroughly examined. They were addressed to her, but she had never seen a single one of them. "He said he only read them in the beginning, but stopped after the first month. Started pocketing the cash, and stuffing 'em under their mattress, I guess."
Cash? Kinu had wanted to ask, but as she unfolded the paper, she froze. It was an actual letter.
I had the best day with you, it said. You should have sat closer to me on the train. There's no shame in shyness, my dear. Next time, I will take the initiative.
The last line told her to buy herself something. It was dated three years ago. She cast an uneasy glance towards the stack on the table. There were dozens of them. Slowly, Kinu opened the next letter. Same handwriting.
I love you, it said. Two years. Then a year and a half. By the time she reached the next, she nearly ripped it in half in her hurry.
The next was more recent. Four months ago.
Can't you see me now? Ishii said that you weren't looking. He made me introduce myself to you again. As if we hadn't been together all these years. A game is all. It's only a game.
Another. Kinu started in the middle again, skimming the words as quickly as she could.
It's true, isn't it? All this time! And you've been ignoring me! Blind! Am I nothing to you?!
A month.
The more she read, the more erratic the handwriting was, as if it was distorting itself in accordance to her heart rate, and as she tore through another letter, a heavy hand smashed the entire stack back on the table.
"That's enough." Takasugi said, suddenly beside her. "I've read them. You don't want to."
Kinu looked at him, wide eyed and panting. Her face was hot, and her eyes were burning, but her body was freezing cold. She didn't feel like crying, she wanted to scream.
Takechi stood up before she could and took the pointer from the table, gesturing to the display behind her. When she turned back, she found more documents. Unfamiliar ones this time, but as she read the lines, she got the sense that her mother would recognize them. Registration forms for the ownership of the teashop, made out to her father. The loan taken out against it was due to the Aso family.
"When you got our shipment, we assumed the Aso clan had planned to double cross us. They were never known as diplomats, or strategists. Just common thugs. No real brawn, and less brain to make up for it." Takechi circled the loan holder's agreement and the names underneath. On the next page, a family tree came up with Amagi at the head. Beside it, different trees of varying lengths tried to compare. None came as wide or long as the Amagi umbrella, though. "We saw a topknot, and assumed they were skipping out with the guns, but anybody can have a topknot, Kinu-chan."
Said the man with the top knot. Why was he telling her?! She knew that, and it sounded like they were the ones that needed to be reminded!
"What does that mean?" Kinu just wanted to know how this all tied in. They were winding her tighter with the small details. Any more and she would burst. Kawakami cut in.
"It means torture doesn't work, Shinsuke. And we all should have known that."
"You tortured someone?" This was all too much.
Kinu was on her feet in an instant. Her hands smoothed at her stomach and sides, unable to stay on her hips as she sucked in a deep breath and took up pacing. She couldn't look at those pictures any more.
"Somebody had to do it." Takasugi muttered, but when Kawakami scoffed, he continued. "I didn't see you making a fuss about it before, Bansai. None of you did."
"I'm not about to start now." Kawakami stated.
"We're getting off topic. This has all been a set up, Kinu." He kept calling her that. It made her want to pace again, but it looked like they were all just skipping past the torture part. Wasn't that a war crime? Fighting was one thing but that was completely different. "The shipment was a plant, so was the bird. He sang what he was told and pinned us against Aso. Or he was double crossing Aso, doesn't matter now. Either way Aso went to Amagi for protection, and signed over his choice of their properties as insurance." He'd had so many things going on in the background that he hadn't been telling her about.
"And then we killed them." Takechi said, his calm voice suddenly grating against Kinu's ears. "Your debt collector…" Another image flashed onto the screen as Takechi pulled up the image of a squant man with jet black hair and yellowed teeth. The sight sent her heart into her throat. "Oba Eiji, fifty three years old, and the former primary assistant of Amagi Seiji. It sounds like he was appointed by his father, though." The image flipped to the man standing on the side of a stage carrying a clipboard.
Kinu's insides churned, but Takechi continued.
"He fell into some debts shortly before your incident." Her incident, he called it. Hers. The man stared back at Kinu with the same nose that was too skinny for his face, and the same thin cracked lips.
She could hear him breathing. Gurgling just like in her dreams, when he was still trying to tell her that she had to come with him. Still trying to speak. Begging her. Her stomach heaved.
"Takechi." Across the room, Takasugi's voice chimed in, but she had already seen him when the screen changed. Why hadn't he given her a warning? Something. Not just Takasugi but any of them, ever?
The entire time he'd been coming to her shop she had been obsessed with whether he liked her, and if she was cute enough. Wanting the perfect girl's summer, with stuff like affection and a real boyfriend that wasn't programmed to recite dreamy scripted lines to her and all the other girls like her. Pocket boyfriends didn't hide imminent danger from you, though.
Kinu had thought something was off. She thought it was the people texting her. Girls being mean for some reason, at least, she always pictured them as girls. They used cute emojis and slang. It must have bled together for her, she realized. If both had been going on at the same time, and she was only aware of one, how could she know who had done what?
The screen behind Kinu flashed bright, and she watched as Kawakami pulled up the official website for the tax office. She watched as he clicked around, navigating through the pages until they reached a search bar. Then he typed in the address for the tea shop. A result came up, and he pulled the document up. The bottom half was different. Aso's stamp was gone, and in its place, a single oblong splotch of ink sent her heart into her throat. She was sick.
Amagi Seiji.
He owned them.
The home that had been so large when she was a girl that it had felt like a sanctuary from the rest of the world. When the garden was ten times the size it was now, and covered the entire block with a scenic passageway to the shrine and tea room. It was already so tiny now, what more could they take?
She had been with the Kiheitai the entire time, and Takasugi hadn't thought to tell her about it. Somehow he had found time to explain his stupid childhood with Gintoki and his crazy conspiracies about the government and the aliens, but not how her entire family had been in danger.
Well, more danger than the usual bill collectors were.
No wonder things had gotten so aggressive.
"The night we took you…" He hesitated, but pushed on. "We think you were walking into a trap. Originally, we were hired to find Amagi a wife. As an exchange. "
"Me?" She asked and while everybody else at the table lowered their gazes or looked off, he stared straight at her.
"No. He gave us a different description. It sounded nothing like you." He was at the window again. Smoke trailed from his mouth, shaped by his words, but raising all the same. Takechi spoke in support of the claim.
"It's possible that was to mislead us. If he was leading us to you, describing you may have come off in a certain way..."
"Reverse psychology." Matako chimed in, wagging a finger towards Kinu.
Takasugi was looking at her. As if he expected her to say something. After he had spent months knowing he was plucking at the strings that made her family dance.
Or maybe he had just gotten tangled in them.
Either way, it was a place he had no business being.
And to tell her that they thought she was involved in their business somehow. All Takasugi had done was sleep with her and play pretend shrink with her head the entire time. Because he was bored, she bet.
He was always bored.
No, a voice inside of her whispered as she looked over the Kiheitai again. Once more for good measure. A free mechanic. Free food, free entertainment.
Their ship had been a piece of shit, and he'd needed a mechanic that didn't keep records. The sex had been a benefit. How else could he explain keeping her in the dark until she finished his ship?
They were all in on it. All had to know. And none of them had told her. Even though she had spent entire days and nights here, in the background sure, but here. Cooking and eating with them. Spending hours on end with Matako playing on their phones. She had even taken a delivery pod with Kawakami and Takechi once to a little mountain town to pick up a crate. They had let her drive, joking about her killing them the entire way, and they hadn't thought to tell her what was happening just behind her? Nobody had spoken for a long while.
It had taken him two days to find the puzzle pieces that brought everything together, all of which had been devoid of any contact. A text, a call, anything. How concerned could he have been if he hadn't even called?
More importantly, why hadn't he looked before?
Either it took her being attacked for them to consider her to be on a need to know basis, or they were all hiding it from her. Complicit. Knowing what could happen to her and her mother any second.
With no regard for her or her own.
She had been so stupid.
And her father! Kinu couldn't even begin to think. So she did what she could. She marched directly to Takasugi's room, ignoring the way he called after her. Both of them had, because of course Matako thought she would be the one to draw Kinu back in. Talk some sense into her, as they would probably claim, but it was more like manipulation.
Kinu understood perfectly now.
Gintoki was right.
"Oi," Takasugi was behind her. Just walking, but as she turned the corner, his footsteps quickened. She had just destroyed her best defense. Kinu had spare parts, but it had taken over a year to craft the upper portion of her bot. It hadn't even been finished. She didn't have that kind of time to make another, and the chance of another Amanto life ship being scrapped at the local yard was slim. Less than, even.
Kinu scooped up her bag of pocky and peach soda. She had bought two, but they were both hers now. Dry as her throat was, she needed it. The bubbles did little to quench her thirst. They burned on the way down, a painful little lump that churned her stomach when it made it down.
Months spent thinking the bill collectors were just nameless enemies randomly springing up to shake them down. It was hard enough being just her and her mother. Kinu had heard of the threats made against Shinpachi and Otae, and similar stories across Edo. Kinu expected it to be something like that, not a sudden half decade long stalking.
If that was the case, that didn't make it better. It meant that he'd just bumbled in with no regard for anybody but himself and started making things worse!
As she fastened her purse to her wrist, the man reached the doorway.
"You couldn't wait ten more minutes for your juice? This is serious."
He was telling her.
She hummed once and brushed past. Takasugi had made no room for her.
"Kinu," She didn't turn back. Not when his footsteps picked up behind her, and not when he tried again, a touch softer. "Kitten…"
Not this time, she wanted to say. Not this time, and not right now, I can't take any more.
Kinu knew what would happen if she spoke to him. If she gave him even an inch he would find some way to sweet talk her into begging him to take her with him. He wanted to take her somewhere. He claimed a hide out, but she bet it was his ship. So he had a proper mechanic on deck to push his engine when he had to outrun the law or whoever was chasing him.
He'd get angry and defensive, and then he'd kiss her. Before letting her fully argue her point. Or Kawakami and Matako would whisk her away to pat her on the back and hold her hand. Convince her there was a method to his madness.
She wondered how much he had known, but any answer would have been the same. Too much.
"Look, you can be pissed if you want so long as you do it alive. We have a plan, but we need everybody to be involved. I need you to-"
"No you don't." She was talking before she could help herself. Nobody had left the table. Slow to the uptake, as if they thought she was just having a moment and needed to be fetched to resume. "And I'm not gonna."
"What, are your feelings hurt?" Across the room, Matako spoke up. As if she had a place in the conversation. "Everything's so dramatic with you. Sit back down, you big baby, we're gonna fix everything anyway. You saw how we handled him before."
"You're not my friend." Kinu watched Matako's face for any flicker of emotion. Maybe a cartoonishly evil smile to solidify the image once and for all. Instead the woman frowned. Her mouth hung open for a moment, and she blinked, fully aware that everybody was staring at her. Wondering what she would do or say. "And you're not my boyfriend. Let me leave."
A single wide green eye was fixed on her, the other permanently shut and on display. At the table, Matako was on her feet, suddenly yelling.
"I'm not your friend!?" She stomped the table with her foot. "I never said I was! And what's your problem?!"
"I'm taking you off my double date list." Kinu would have reached for her phone to make a point, but Kawakami and Takechi had to grab the woman before she made it over the table. Letters and papers scattered across the floor, and Matako's arms flailed over her head as her legs went forward.
"You don't even have anyone else on your stupid double date list! I don't care if my Sparkle points take a hit, I can just buy more!" Matako snapped back. That struck a chord.
"I have better things to buy, thanks to you." Kinu watched as Matako's short struggle gave out and Takechi and Kawakami tested the waters of release. Kawakami's arm stayed in front of her, just in case. "All of you."
Takasugi was just standing there. Not even looking at her. The moment she was on equal footing with him was completely controlled. He wouldn't even try to reason with her; he'd already gotten everything he wanted. It was the same when she actually left, but when she opened the door, Kawakami was behind her, ushering her along but keeping her in grasp. He'd caught her by the hand and drawn her in a circle out of the door before promptly shutting it behind himself.
"Kinu-chan, just a moment more, please," The man started, slow and formal as he always was, but she was already wiping at her eyes with her wrists. Trying not to let her face scrunch, but all of the pressure in her body was building behind it. Burning her nose. Kawakami waited as she turned her back to him, blinking at the cloud speckled sky. Breathing to settle her nerves.
He gave her a solid moment before continuing as if nothing were happening. "I understand that this is distressing, but consider our position." When she was silent, he pressed on. "Compared to the kind of Samurai you normally read about, we're the lowest of the low, aren't we?" The man's brow arched, and his lips pressed into a tight smile.
"I read about a samurai that set off a reactor core beside a children's hospital once."
"Oh." The man said, crossing his arms. He leaned back against the wall, and for a moment, they were silent. Kinu almost started to wonder if he'd had a reason for grabbing her when Kawakami started again, apparently having given something time for consideration. "It's probably for the best." He finally said. Kinu pursed her lips. "For everybody, not just you. But for what it's worth, you'll be safer with us on your side than without. I'll send your payment before we leave."
"What do you have on you now?"
The man made a face, but he fished his wallet out nonetheless and pulled a small wad of bills from inside it.
"Don't be stupid."
She nodded once, no longer able to speak.
Kinu's head turned towards the ramp to shore, then the rest of her body, and she was off. Her steps felt mechanical as she crossed the deck, then the ramp and the sidewalk, all the while chanting in her head.
Don't look back. Don't look at his window. Don't look. Don't.