Miyuki's Zetsuai Page Zetsuai 1989/Bronze
Under the Moonlight, Part 4
By miyukichan

Despite his misgivings, Izumi had found it surprisingly easy to get to the place he'd been told Katsumi was being held. For a start, it was closer to the front than he had been led to believe, and he had found it easy to cadge a lift from a soldier who had been taking supplies to the base. He hadn't needed the faked papers yet and not even the man who had given him a lift thought there was anything suspicious about his travelling companion. A little sullen and uncommunicative, perhaps, but nothing out of the ordinary. The dark blue uniform he had been provided with had seen to that. If he had been wearing his more usual grey he wouldn't have lasted five minutes, but whilst at the front he had thought to ask for an enemy uniform.

No-one had thought to provide him with one, though, had they? Izumi took this as further proof that the bureaucrats didn't know what they were doing. First of all they had sanctioned this stupid mission in the first place, secondly they hadn't even prepared it correctly. He still couldn't believe he was doing this for the sake of some airheaded blonde conscript he'd never heard of.

He'd found it easy to get inside, too. As well as possessing faked papers Izumi had a natural confidence (some would have called it arrogance) and consequently found it very easy to look as if he fitted in once he'd got past the guardhouse. He had been fourteen years old when he'd worked out that if you did something wrong but acted as if the way you were acting was the only way to do it, a lot of the time people just let you get on with it.

That said, he knew enough to know that getting in had been the easy bit-things were likely to get much more complex from here on in. Finding one prisoner out of at least a thousand who were being detained was never going to be an easy thing to do, and as for getting out of the camp, Izumi had no idea how he was going to do it. Brazen his way out?

***

Eri Ijima sat in her apartment, dressed in a pair of short pyjamas and little caring about the lateness of the hour or her own exhaustion. Over a week after the event, she was still smarting from the reprimand she had gotten from Takasaka over her supposed "incompetence". But she knew better. She was not incompetent! She knew exactly what she was doing and if the idiots here didn't believe her, she'd just show them! Kunihide said she was resourceful, and he knew about these things. He was clever and smart and he liked her. He was no Koji Nanjo but he was a good friend and he had said she was a good spy and that was all that mattered.

"Incompetence", hah! Eri fumed to herself. I'll show that ass who's "incompetent". I'll just get him fired and then he'll be sorry. She shuffled through the documents she had taken from Takasaka's desk, fully intending to put them back early in the morning. Sat at her computer, she leafed through the documents. She would prove to them that she was a great spy. The information contained on these would be good enough for her to get at least official recognition and perhaps a better job.

Then she could meet Koji and finally he would be hers, the way it was always meant to be. And once she was Koji's mistress she could find out all sorts of important stuff.

***

Outside Eri's dingy apartment building, a black van pulled up. It was unmarked. The windows were made of tinted glass-impossible to see into. In his small, darkened room across the street Takasaka, who had been watching Eri's suspiciously lighted window through a chink in the curtains, saw the van and shivered involuntarily. He knew what that van meant. He knew who they were and why they were there even if Eri didn't-and she clearly didn't. He'd heard the girl had met Akihito Nanjo after work once and had no idea of the danger she had been in every minute she had spent with him.

Looking anxiously round the flat, he wondered if there was anything he could use as a weapon should the van have anything to do with him. If necessary, he'd kill himself before they could get to him. It would be a desperate action, and not one that came naturally to him-he was not the impulsive type, or at all inclined to make a martyr of himself. Takasaka knew, though, that killing himself would be an easy death compared to what the Secret Police could and would do to those they suspected of spying…

Happening to look out of the window again, he felt a sudden rush of relief as he saw the black-clad men disappear through the doors of the apartment block across the street. They had not come for him. Not this time at least. He wondered who they did want, only to realise that the answer was obvious. Eri. It had to be. It was all over for her…

But how long did he have left?

He walked over to the closet and pulled out a suitcase. It looked like the time had come for him to disappear, to leave the country and do it quickly before Eri could be forced into making any kind of confession. That way lay safety. He couldn't risk being caught in the backlash, as her revelation would undoubtedly have led to a tightening of security. He had managed to survive a couple of these, but he couldn't see himself being so lucky this time. By this time tomorrow he would have made contact with his own people again, if all went to plan. In under a week he hoped to be back home and ready to resume his own interrupted life, free from the twin worries of discovery or betrayal. But goodness only knew where Eri would be by then, or even if she would still be alive, he thought guiltily as he hastily began to pack his few possessions into the open case.

He hated to think about what would happen to the poor girl now the secret police had caught up with her, but he had to worry about his own safety first. That was one of the things that had been reinforced time and time again during his training. If the worst comes to the worst and you have good reason to suspect that you are about to be discovered, don't wait to check. Get away. Don't worry about anyone else-they'll only hold you back. You had to leave them to their own fate, not let them worry you. He had to get himself out. He'd tried to warn her and he'd failed through no fault of his own. There was no way now he could help her without immediately becoming a suspect himself.

To Takasaka it seemed worse than heartless to just abandon her, but what was there to do?

***

If Eri hadn't chosen to put her Walkman on, she might still have stood a chance of escape-however slender-but she had decided to listen to an old tape. It would help her keep awake whilst she sat at her computer and inexpertly attempted to hack into the Government computer system (when Akihito was later informed of what she'd been trying to do and how she'd been attempting it, he couldn't help but laugh). It would be a long night for her, and she hoped that she would be able to keep awake at work tomorrow. If it hadn't been for the fact that one of the girls she knew at work, Rumi, was leaving to get married, she would have been home earlier-as it was, she had only just made curfew.

Eri sighed, and rubbed one eye with the back of one hand. She hated computers with a passion. Okay, so the net made it a lot easier to find out some things, but that didn't change the fact that they were near-impossible to get the hang of. She had to use computers all day at work and having to use them at home as well… it was too much and her eyes were hurting… she hoped that sitting up late over a computer screen hadn't damaged her eyes. She didn't want to have to start wearing glasses-it would make her look ugly.

She didn't hear the footsteps on the stairs, didn't hear anything until the door to her flat was forced open. She tore off the Walkman headphones, turned in surprise that rapidly turned to panic on spotting the black-clad, heavily armed men pouring in through the door and fumbled for the off-switch on the computer. She looked desperately around for a means of escape, but there was none save the window, and that would have meant certain death.

Eri hadn't realised that the men in her flat meant certain death too.

***

Akihito's sudden decision to arrest Ijima had been caused by Hirose voicing his fears over Koji's disappearance. He had more important things to do now than keep tabs on a stupid blonde girl's half-assed attempts at spying. He had to make sure Hirose was safe. Hirose had wanted Koji found, and he was going to concentrate all his efforts into finding Koji. When Hirose needed something done, Akihito would do everything in his power to ensure it was done.

Eri had to be got out of the way. She may have been an incompetent spy but there was no way Akihito could run the risk of her accidentally, by sheer dumb luck, stumbling on something important. That would have been disastrous, and Akihito had also to remember his own position. If it got out that he had known of the existence of a spy, even such an incompetent spy as Eri, but had done nothing about it, then he could have ended up arrested himself. He could have been accused of treachery, and the very thought of treachery toward Hirose filled Akihito with horror. And as for the thought of being taken for a traitor himself…

One of the reasons for Akihito's fanaticism in hunting down those perceived as traitors to the state was the thought that in so doing he was protecting his elder brother, albeit from a distance. His father may not have deliberately set out to capitalise on the young man's affection for his brother in allowing him to take his current job, but it was a good way to work.

***

After wandering around inside the prison for what seemed like hours, Izumi was getting irritated. He hadn't felt confident enough to actually check on the inhabitants of the cells he had passed at first, and when he finally had started to look he was already fed up of the place. It was cold, too dark and he was convinced it was damp as well. Basically, it was the kind of place to induce insanity, and pretty quickly.

Fortunately for Izumi, Katsumi was a distinctive-looking boy-his hair colour alone saw to that. Blonde hair was uncommon enough to make it a notable feature, and it had been stressed to him several times that Katsumi did not, to the best of anyone's knowledge, dye his hair. Such a thing would not have been permitted in the army anyway. That meant it was simply a matter of finding him, not finding a number of similar-looking boys (small, slender conscripts who looked as if they should have still been at school was not as uncommon as sight as could have been hoped) and trying to work out which was the one he was looking for.

He found the boy after an hour and a half of searching-quicker than he had expected. He hadn't expected the boy to have a cellmate though, and he certainly hadn't expected them to look so similar.

"What do you want?" the one in glasses who plainly wasn't Katsumi Shibuya asked suspiciously, an undercurrent of tension noticeable in his voice. The one who was Shibuya was looking warily at him as if he were afraid. On first impressions he seemed to be much tenser than Izumi had been led to believe. Izumi couldn't help but notice that he looked as if he'd recently been crying.
"I want to talk to Shibuya."
"Don't you guys ever give up? You `spoke to' him less than two hours ago! Can't you wait until the poor boy's at least had time to catch his breath before you start on him again? Why can't you just leave him alone?"

Yoshiya had had enough. He couldn't care less who this person was, what they wanted, or what they could do to him for answering back in this way. He'd had enough of everyone in this stupid place acting like they could do what the hell they wanted to Katsumi just because he wore a different-coloured uniform and had a slightly different accent. If Katsumi was too scared to fight back-and right now he seemed terrified, which was hardly surprising given the circumstances-he'd have to do it for him.

Katsumi closed his eyes and sighed. He felt nauseous and his throat still hurt from screaming. No matter how hard he'd tried, he hadn't been able to stop himself. Please, don't let me cry this time, he thought, and realised that it was impossible. Two hours they'd left him alone… It wasn't long enough, it was barely long enough to come to terms with what they'd done. The fact that they'd done it again was bad enough.

"Look, it's okay. I'm not going to bite him. I want to get him out of here."

"It's not that we're worried about!" Yoshiya snapped back. "And why should we trust you?"
"I'm here to get him out. I don't want to hurt him." Izumi repeated. "I'm not going to do anything to him." What the hell was he meant to do now? Counselling? He had always expected problems, but he hadn't expected one of them to be coaxing Katsumi out of the prison. He'd heard someone tell him once that when you opened the door of a prisoner's cell, the first response was often bewilderment, but he hadn't really believed it.

Katsumi found his voice. "I'm not going anywhere without Yoshiya." He was surprised by how calm he sounded, when he felt so frightened.

Izumi had expected this almost from the moment he realised Shibuya had a companion. "That's not a problem," he replied. It was, kind of, but he didn't really care. Again, not through humanitarian grounds-he thought it would make it simpler to convince Shibuya to leave. Seeing that he still looked uncertain, Izumi tried again. "I'm working for your uncle. He sent me to find you."
Katsumi still didn't look entirely convinced that Izumi was genuine, but nonetheless seemed to have made up his mind. "I'll go with you. But only if Yoshiya can come too."
Puzzled, Yoshiya asked, "You think we should go with him? Do you trust him?"
"No I don't, but I don't care. At least we'd be out of here! I can't stand this place, Yoshiya! I don't care what he wants, it has to be better than this!" Katsumi sounded near-hysterical-again, this was not a characteristic Izumi had expected him to have. Then again, who knew what had happened to him since he got arrested?

***

Koji was bored. If there was one thing he had not expected to be during his grand plan, it was bored, but the endless platitudes of the base commander were sending him to sleep. He concentrated on staring out of the window behind the man's head at the snow-it was falling heavily again-and commenting only when the situation really seemed to demand it.

"You don't say," he said for the tenth or eleventh time.

The man didn't appear to notice he did not have his guest's full attention and continued with the long-winded justification for the base's continued existence which Koji really wasn't interested in. Maybe, Koji thought to himself, we could find a use for this man as a weapon. We send him into the enemy's senate and within three weeks the entire government would have been driven to suicide through sheer boredom. If that doesn't defy the Geneva Convention, that is. It was a puerile thought and Koji liked it. Puerile thoughts had got Koji through many a boring meeting with his family or the Army Council. Considering that he found listening to old men droning on about tactics he barely understood an only slightly less excruciating use of his time than the idea of spending it with his beloved father and elder brothers, it was hardly surprising that Koji's attention often wandered during such meetings. About the only thing Koji envied Akihito for was his ability to fall asleep with his eyes open, an ability which Koji dearly wished he had.

Outside, it had begun to snow harder. Nothing moved outside save the idly drifting flakes. Most of the men on the base were working indoors-outside it was bitterly cold, and Koji knew for a fact that the wind was biting. He didn't envy the poor sods out in the front line at all. Not for the first time, Koji felt profoundly relieved to have belonged to a wealthy family.

"You don't say," he said for the eleventh or twelfth time.

Most, but not all. Through the window, Koji noticed a figure moving needlessly slowly given the weather. Surely whoever it was out there had to be freezing. He had to be completely insane to even contemplate going out on such a horrible evening as this, or desperate enough not to care. Intrigued, Koji shook himself out of his daze and watched the figure more intently, searching for a clue as to their identity but disappointingly discovering none.

Looking up again he noticed the figure had been joined by two others. None of them looked dressed for the weather. Right, that settled it. There was no way he was staying in this dingy little room with this boring little man when there was a far more interesting world waiting for him just outside the window. For too long Koji had been stuck on the other side of the glass. Feeling more and more perplexed by the second and determined to discover just who these people were and what they were doing, Koji made his excuses to the startled base commander and after hastily pulling on his coat, left the room to intercept the small group outdoors.

***

"It's bloody freezing!" Katsumi said unnecessarily, and coughed. He'd had a cold coming on for the last few days. Secretly, Yoshiya was very worried about him. Being out in this weather would probably make Katsumi get very sick very quickly.

"Be thankful that it is." Izumi replied tersely. "There'll be less people around to ask what the hell you two are doing here." Not for the first time, he cursed himself for not thinking to find a change of clothing for his companions so they would at least have been able to get out of the base without being spotted.
Strangely enough, Katsumi couldn't quite find it in himself to be grateful that he was outdoors in the middle of a blizzard, but freezing to death was preferable to slowly going mad. Maybe that just meant he was mad already but he couldn't have stayed in there. Whatever Izumi wanted with him, he at least had some chance of escape. If the worst came to the worst, he could always find some way to get away from Izumi, even if he had to hit him over the had with a rock.

Yoshiya was the one who first noticed the tall man watching them, and his eyes widened slightly with shock and panic. He wished he'd taken his chances with the authorities back home and refused to enlist. He didn't want to be here, in enemy territory with a brown-haired lunatic on a suicide mission as his only hope of escape. Not that he held out any hope for that. If they managed to get out of the base alive-a pretty big if given the fact that they had been spotted-there was no guarantee that they would be able to get anywhere else.

***

Koji stopped a few yards away from the three people he had seen through the window, looking at them. Close to, they looked even stranger. There was a feeling that the three of them didn't seem right together, an essential discord. A pretty mismatched group. He couldn't have said what it was that made him look a bit closer, to try and work out what it was that gave him that impression, but it was an impulse he nonetheless acted on. Koji acted on most of his impulses.

The smaller two he glanced briefly at, and dismissed almost immediately. There was nothing of particular interest to him there. It was the third-the tallest of the group, the brunette he had seen first-that particularly interested him. There was something about him that intrigued Koji, though again, he couldn't have said what it was.

"What do you want?"

The brunette was talking to him. Turning, Koji saw that he was looking directly at him down the barrel of a small handgun. Koji smiled icily and looked directly at him. Despite the fact that Koji had led a sheltered life, he remained unfazed by having the gun pointed at him. It would take considerably more than that to worry him.

"Nothing," he replied. The look in the man's eyes as he stared coldly at Izumi left Izumi feeling a little shaken, and almost as if the man had somehow been able to read his mind simply by looking at him, but he determined not to show his unease. He refused to allow his arm to shake even slightly as he held the gun, and continued to make eye-contact. To look away would be an admission of weakness in himself. By contrast, Yoshiya had taken a step backward and was frankly staring at the stranger, unable to hide his own alarm.

"Tell me why you're here." Izumi said quietly, his voice practically lost in the wind, though Koji heard him well enough.

"Because I saw you." Koji replied obliquely.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Izumi asked brusquely, still pointing the gun at Koji's head. The man was a threat. Izumi might not have approved of the mission he was on, but now he was actually doing it, he was committed to it and was not going to fail his superiors.
"My name is not important, and I want to know what you are doing here." Koji replied, his voice still perfectly level.
Izumi laughed mirthlessly. "You're pretty confident for a guy standing on the wrong end of a gun."

Standing a few feet behind Izumi, Yoshiya continued to watch the two in trepidation. Was there anything he could do? He doubted it. He had no weapons of his own and wouldn't have felt sure of his ability to use them even if he had. Despite the fact that Izumi was one of the most professional soldiers he had ever met, Yoshiya doubted his ability to keep this man at bay. The man was clearly dangerous.

"Yoshiya?"

Surprised at the interruption, he turned to look at Katsumi, who was stood next to him with a small frown on his face. He was not afraid of the stranger, Yoshiya realised with a start. He was almost becoming used to Katsumi being scared of things-almost, but not quite-and his sudden calmness unnerved him. "What is it?"
"What do you want to hold my hand for?"

Koji continued to stare at Izumi. He was fascinated by this man. If Izumi had found Koji's eyes cold and expressionless, the defiance and spirit in his own eyes mesmerised Koji completely. Who was he? Koji wondered. What was he doing here? He had practically forgotten the presence of the other two, and had totally failed to notice their uniform. They just weren't important.

So many things just weren't important.

The only thing that mattered to Koji was this strange young man in front of him. He didn't even know the person's name, but that didn't matter. It didn't matter that the young man was gazing at him with intense hatred. It didn't matter that he had no idea who the person was. None of it was of any significance to Koji. All he knew was that the man in front of him was more important than anything else in his life had ever been, and he wouldn't let him walk away from him as suddenly and easily as he had appeared.

And Koji was used to getting his own way.

Onto part 5

Back to the fics page
Back to the index

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page


var yviContents='http://us.toto.geo.yahoo.com/toto?s=76001078yviR='us';yfiEA(0);geovisit();