Nakamoto's Intermission: context for Kings


It's been a month since Sawada Tsunayoshi disappeared. It's only been a month. Isn't that a shock? It feels like it's been years. It feels like they're being haunted by his ghost somehow - reminded again and again and again no matter where they go: there's a hole in Namimori that used to be filled.

Kei isn't sure that he's surprised that it's so. Tsunayoshi always seems unassuming most of the time, at least until his sensibilities would get offended. It didn't happen often, granted, but any reasonably smart person would never need a reminder about it. Though it's worth noting that reasonably smart people rarely ever go far enough to offend Tsunayoshi in the first place, so naturally: they forget. They forget and Tsunayoshi is content enough with that, up until the second offense: that's when he becomes scary.

At least Kyoya has the decency to be upfront about being a terrifying person, Kei often thinks. Although it's not just Tsunayoshi, is it? It's everyone that he left behind - Kyoya, and Yamamoto, and Haru, too. They all seem pretty okay at first, at least until they decide not to forgive you. No wonder those two came to be at Tsunayoshi's side - Kei wonders where a straightforward person like Kyoya fits into it, except that he must. He does.

He did, until Tsunayoshi left. Kei can't imagine that something like that was done willingly, even before they had the evidence of it. He has seen what Tsunayoshi is willing to do for those people's sake, after all: there's no way that he would have easily disappeared at all. That's what makes it worse.

No one stops Kei as he entered the warehouse, already familiar with his face by this time. He stays out of the way, making his way to the overseer's office. It's loud, but this late in the day, most of the worst of their work is already done with. They're so efficient, but Kei figures it's not as if Kyoya would have accepted anything else.

Outside of the office, he runs into Sawada Nana, coming down the stairs. There are lines on her face that didn't used to be there - gray hairs, too, he thinks, despite the fact that she's a young mother and shouldn't have those naturally yet. She's tried covering up the bags under her eyes with makeup, but she can't cover up the redness from sleepless nights and crying.

"Oh, Kei-kun," she says, and smiles. The resemblance to Tsunayoshi is startling, although it shouldn't be. Surely it's like wondering what came first: the chicken or the egg? Does Tsunayoshi come by his smile naturally, or was it something he learned from her?

"Sawada-san," he greets politely, feeling his heart give an unsteady thump. It's always a bit scary dealing with Nana, in a completely different way than dealing with her son.

"I've just bought Kyoya-kun a lunch," she says. "He's been working so hard recently, I worry about him."

"Thanks for looking out for him," Kei says, still not completely sure how to respond to the fact his indomitable taichou seems to have no defenses against this woman. The Sawada family sure is terrifying, he thinks with a grimace. "I'll keep looking after him, too, so please don't worry about it."

Nana puts her hand to her face, looking at him fondly. "You sound like my Tsu-kun," she says warmly. "But you're still in school, Kei-kun. Don't overwork yourself, okay?"

Kei pauses, and though he obviously already knows the answer, maybe better than Nana even, he says, "Still no news of him?"

Nana's smile collapses, crumbling away. She draws in on herself, and seems to shrink, even as the corners of her mouth trembles and tries to pull upright. "Not yet," she says lightly. "But I know that if anyone can find him, it's my hubby."

Really, Kei thinks, hot and vicious suddenly. Adults are all useless to begin with, but That Person has really proven himself to be beyond useless. It was five days before that man even showed up, and he barely stayed the night before leaving again. Is that really the kind of person Nana is being forced to rely upon? No wonder Tsunayoshi was always weirdly responsible for his own mother, even though Kei has spent all this time hating that part of him the most. Kei really hadn't understood his home situation at all. Not even that one time when That Person had come around and Tsunayoshi had gone all weird and refused to go home. Kei hadn't been the only one to have curiously poked his nose into that matter.

Still, even Kei had assumed something more benign than the truth - no. Hoshino had spent five minutes watching that man, and sneered, disgusted, and had made excuses for Tsunayoshi's sake.

Anyone who can make Hoshino bend the slightest bit when it comes to Tsunayoshi… Kei should have realized immediately.

"I see," Kei says only, keeping his thoughts to himself. "Um. I know I'm only a high school student, Sawada-san, but - please. If there's anything I can do to help, even if it's just around the house, please give me a call, okay?"

Nana tilts her head and she smiles, and that's a smile like Tsunayoshi's too - the one he gives when he's thankful, but he will certainly never accept what was offered. Nana's more honest, though, because she says, gently, "Thank you, Kei-kun, but - if it's not Tsu-kun or Iemitsu, it's just no good, you know?"

"Regardless," he insists, because if at all possible, he wants Tsunayoshi to return without having to think poorly of all of them because they forgot to look after his mother in his absence. Although of course Kyoya and Haru and Yamamoto are all looking out after her, but - Kei wants to be relied upon as well.

Nana smiles once more, and then she takes her leave, nimbly navigating the floor without getting in the way of the men driving the forklifts. Kei watches out for her a moment longer before making his way up to taichou's office.

Kyoya never puts the blinds in his office down, standing at the glass window and staring down at the floor of the warehouse, his hands tucked into the small of his back. He must have seen anything, but he doesn't glance over when Kei steps inside. The bento that Nana made him, several layers high, sits on the corner of his desk.

"Hibari-taichou," Kei says, coming to attention, "there's still no news to report regarding that situation." Kyoya doesn't so much as twitch or grunt about it, so that probably remains true all across the board. He moves on. "The rehabilitation efforts established at TakeSushi continue as usual, and even though morale hasn't recovered, it's still high. The turnover has continued to slow, despite Yamamoto-kun's best efforts. No unusual arrests to report. Irie is still tracing the accounts, but the dead ends continue to increase." He pauses. Delicately adds: "Irie said that he still can't rule out the Hebi's account. The expenses are… suspicious."

The loose, unbuttoned cuffs of the overseer's uniform twitch. Kei entertains the thought that Kyoya had reached for his tonfa for a split second, even though he's not wearing them currently. He remembers there being some kind of drama when Kyoya's boss had tried to tell him he couldn't have them… well. He'd changed his mind quickly enough.

"Our priority remains locating that King Herbivore," Kyoya says evenly, not even glancing at him. He tilts his head. "After he's been returned to us, then I'll bother with the despair on that snake's face when he takes his retribution."

Kei wonders if Kyoya knows or is even capable of acknowledging just how treasured he is by Sawada Tsunayoshi. He still remembers clearly the day that he thought to test Tsunayoshi's loyalty the usual way - by suggesting that by taking Kyoya's side, they'd be making an enemy of the entire Hibari family. How a person reacts to that is always how they decide if that person will move up from being a simple lackey into being a true part of the Disciplinary Committee.

For Sawada Tsunayoshi, the moment that Kei had suggested that Kyoya's own family was his enemy? In that instant, the Demon that he truly is had shown its face. Every hair on Kei's body had stood on end, and the simple conviction entered his heart that if Tsunayoshi isn't stopped, he'll try to murder the entire clan.

(Really? He'd thought incredulously afterwards: Sawada kill somebody? That timid guy who was even shorter than Kei with the big clueless eyes that begged to be tormented? That total bottom-of-the-food-chain? Surely something like that is impossible. Surely, surely, surely.)

It's not really Kei's place to worry about why and who Kyoya wants killed, but it's unusually vicious of him to want Tsunayoshi to do it. Not because Tsunayoshi is particularly cruel in the manner in which he accomplishes his tasks - it's obvious that Tsunayoshi feels that surviving with those memories is often the more punishing consequence for their actions, and he's not particularly bloodthirsty - but because of the way Kyoya's cousin is. For someone like Hibari Ikumi, who is openly obsessed with Sawada Tsunayoshi… to make her face her actions by having Tsunayoshi take his retribution?

Well, maybe he's really the only one who can, given her last name. For whatever reason, the entire Hibari Clan seems to think that they can't directly lay hands on any Sawadas. Tsunayoshi has abused that more than once when they provoke him.

"As you say," Kei acknowledges. "As for Naito Longchamp-"

Not for the first time, Kei is happy that he's been given his own aids to help manage all of the matters related to Tsunayoshi. What had seemed like a simple task had quickly grown into some kind of gargantuan monster. It's a bit ridiculous the way that Tsunayoshi collects people, but - well. Since Kyoya also benefits from it, then Kei will do his best.

It's for that reason that they'd been optimistic, of course. Knowing that Tsunayoshi had been taken… that hadn't happened immediately. Tsunayoshi has his own way of going about things, and only sometimes does he ask for help. That independence of his is troubling - although Kei is pretty sure that Tsunayoshi is trying in his own way to protect others by doing things on his own. But it means that it's not until late that first night, when he fails to come home for dinner, that they realize that something has happened.

Getting eyewitness accounts, and even some recordings from certain stores… they'd been optimistic. But the people behind his abduction are on another level completely from the people that they're used to fighting.

It's been some time since Kei has felt like a child at the whims of useless adults. He hates that feeling more than anything else. From now on, they'll definitely meet their opponents on a level playing field no matter what.

"-and that's all," he says as he finishes his report. Something like this could easily be communicated through the mailing list, of course, but - as Irie has pointed out, stuff like that isn't secure.

"Is that it?" Kyoya asks. His tone is flat and disinterested the way it always is outside of a fight. Kei used to cringe at it, thinking that it was a reflection of him - when really, it has nothing to do with him at all. "Fine. See to that matter of the female carnivore."

"... as you say," Kei says.

-0-

It's amazing to think back and remember that there was a time he didn't know people like Hibari Kyoya and Sawada Tsunayoshi.

Looking back, Kei had been a pretty stupid kid. His world had been broken and so he lost direction and meaning. The world had gone dark and cold and empty, and he hadn't known what to do then. Because of things that weren't his fault, because of decisions that weren't made in consideration to him, because he was depending on others and they weren't dependable-

And then the Disciplinary Committee found him. (Thank goodness it was the Disciplinary Committee that found him.)

He doesn't know it at the time, but Hibari Kyoya himself hand picks him to join. Kyoya handpicks everyone to join the Committee. Back then, it feels a little bit amazing. He has somehow been found worthy because - even if he doesn't directly meet Hibari Kyoya, he knows of him, and working for the Committee, he ends up in the same room several times. Hibari Kyoya is a person who commands respect and fear. Only it's more than just 'fear,' isn't it? Kyoya demands awe with his simple existence.

With the benefit of experience, and his association with Tsunayoshi, Nakamoto Kei is able to look back and realize that those unknown qualifications that Hibari Kyoya looks for when recruiting for the Committee is 'a desire to prove oneself.'

That's all it is. There is no hidden quality to a person, no 'worthiness' that makes them picked. They just have to be looking for a purpose and be willing to swear allegiance to Kyoya above all others.

If Kei asked Tsunayoshi about it, he's sure that Tsunayoshi would wonder: what's so bad about that?

-0-

From the shipping warehouse where Kyoya has taken over regardless of the will of people in authority, Kei takes the tram up toward the residential neighborhoods. The line ends long before where he needs to be, but like all residents of Namimori, Kei isn't afraid to let his legs do the rest of the work.

'Female Carnivore' … what a scary thing to say. Kyoya doesn't often say things like that. He usually has a lack of respect for anyone he calls a 'carnivore,' but in this case, Kei gets it. Normally, a person who can only survive by preying on others is someone to sneer at, and think of as pathetic, after all. But for this one?

Involving those people in the investigation had never been their intention, but shortly after finding out that Sawada Tsunayoshi had been taken against his will to a place far away, Sasagawa Kyoko had turned into someone else. It's scary. It reminds Kei of Tsunayoshi, if he's being completely honest. How many people around him even remember what Tsunayoshi used to be like as a kid? They might think they know, since Tsunayoshi is the kind of person who prefers to go with the flow and so he'll let idiots think whatever they want, but-

(has there always been something dangerous about him?)

Sasagawa Kyoko is also turning into someone like that, Kei thinks. She's been gentle and only thinking of simple things and worrying over her blockheaded brother all this time, but… for some reason she's really taking Tsunayoshi's disappearance to heart. Why is that, he wonders. Did she like him? That wasn't the sense he got of things, not from Kyoko or Tsunayoshi or Hana, but - he's not sure why else it would bother her so much. No matter how good of partners they made in taking over the entire school, it wasn't like they were even actually friends.

"Do your best, Nakamoto-kun," Sasagawa-san says solemnly as she lets him in, the way she normally does. "I'd like to work at it, too, but someone has to keep an eye on Nana-chan, you know."

("There's no point in worrying about Kyoko-chan and Hana-chan," Tsunayoshi had said, idly shoving his hair out of his face and glancing at Kei from the corner of his eye: slanted and sly, like they're co-conspirators sharing secrets. "Sasagawa-san used to go to work with my Dad, you know? In the construction business." He seems to find some kind of bitter humor in saying so. "She's strong - she said it herself. So we can rely on her to make sure nothing bad happens to either of them."

"Relying on an adult," Kei had protested mulishly, and the bitterness had left Tsunayoshi's face. It always pleased Tsunayoshi most when he came across points that he was aligned with another person on.

"It's hard for me to leave it at that, too," Tsunayoshi had assured him with a warm smile, "but - in this case, it's probably fine." And he'd really seemed to mean that. And it had really worked out that way, too.

Kei had thought, then: Sasagawa-san who works with That Person in construction - I see. For people like them, it's easy to see to the heart of the matter: people so proficient in those kinds of activities that they don't need a day job.

How scary.)

If Sasagawa Naoko wants to do something to help them then she should. But Kei isn't here to start a fight with some useless adult who can't even use their strength for anything that counts, and goes instead up to Kyoko's room. Of course, he's not allowed to shut the door, but it's not as if he'd want to in the first place.

Sasagawa Kyoko sits at the desk up against the wall, her phone still clutched in hand even after she's called for him to come in. The charms that hang from it are as cute as ever - a boxing glove charm, and a heart that Kei suspects comes from some kind of cartoon given how ornate it is.

"Nakamoto-kun," she says. "Thanks for coming all this way."

It's not as though he had a choice, but - he doesn't hate it, either. "Sasagawa-chan. There haven't been any new leads on our end."

"I didn't think so," she says, but she still seems disheartened. She has that same keen look in her eye that Kei has always mostly associated with Tsunayoshi, though the length of her hair, and how it hangs neat and straight help to stop it from becoming weird.

Tsunayoshi had always called it a 'household' - his, and also that Kyoko had one. He must have seen this side of her a long time ago; it's only now that Kei thinks he can acknowledge it of her, too.

He launches into another recitation of the tasks and information that they've collected so far. It's a bit odd for Kyoya to have shifted his attention to her like this, he thinks - part of him rebels at the idea that Kyoko is taking Tsunayoshi's place. She can't. Tsunayoshi is too well embedded into Kei's heart, and the heart of the rest of the Committee. They won't accept a replacement no matter what - but it strangely seems that despite being close before, Tsunayoshi's 'household' won't approach Kyoko on their own. Yamamoto, Haru, and Kyoya even won't call her if they can help it, let alone come face to face.

"It's more of the same on our end as well," Kyoko says, pinching her brow unhappily. "Nagi-chan tells me that there hasn't been anymore information from the streets or from Haru's contacts, either."

"Ah - and how is Nagi-san?" Kei asks, startled to be reminded about her. It's not his fault, since he's pretty sure that outside of Kyoko, everyone else other than Tsunayoshi forgets about her, too - but Tsunayoshi will want to know that they've been looking out for her as well, the same as his mother. He asks after her all the time, after all.

Kyoko smiles, and it's like her old ones - bright and full of warmth. "Nagi-chan is doing well - right, Nagi?"

Kei startles, turning toward the doorway. Although she's seventeen like the rest of them, Nagi jumps to be noticed peering into the room like a little kid, just her fingertips and one eye peering through the doorway. "Yes," she says, quiet as she always is, blushing a bit as she edges through, clutching that same, massive white owl plush that she's had since Kei met her. "Um," she adds, glancing at Kei uneasily. "S-so, Tsunayoshi-san hasn't been found yet, then?"

If Kyoya is Kei's God, then for Nagi, Tsunayoshi might be something similar, he thinks, and softens his stance a bit. "We know who has taken him, if not why. It's just a matter of finding where now. Overseas, we think."

Nagi hums, ducking her head a bit so that her bangs cover most of her face, one dark indigo eye watching him warily. "The world outside… it's really big," she murmurs.

"Yes, but - well, it's Tsunayoshi, after all," Kei says. "Even if it takes him a while, he won't let anyone stand between him and his friends."

"Nakamoto-kun is right," Kyoko agrees. "I'm sure that as soon as it's safe to, he'll find a way back."

"But - what if…" Nagi clings to the plush, lifting it higher in her arms so that she can bury her face into the back of it's head. The expression on that owl is a bit weird, for a toy, Kei thinks. "What if they've killed him?"

Kei had thought so, too. He still thinks so, from time to time. As difficult as it is to think of anyone getting the upper hand on Tsunayoshi - as impossible as it seems to think that he might be dead… it's a possibility, isn't it? If they managed to steal him in the first place? But there's been no ransom notice, as far as they've been able to find out, so? What if the Hibari family finally got tired of Tsunayoshi's meddling? What if their forbearance has finally reached its limit?

After all, that snake in the grass-

"Kyoya-taichou, and Yamamoto-kun, and Haru-kun, they've all sworn it isn't so," Kei says, trying to project all of their certainty into his voice, even if he isn't sure that he believes it himself. How would they know? Even if Nana her self swears that Tsunayoshi isn't the sort of person that dies easily- aren't they all invested in one outcome? Isn't that just 'wishful thinking?'

He doesn't want to think about it like that, but what if Tsunayoshi never comes back?

-0-

But all those years ago, Kyoya did pick him up and use him, so even if Kei is just a tool, he doesn't hold a grudge about it. To him, Kyoya is still the God that gave him Meaning for his life, that gave him purpose and direction and comrades and even to some extent: Sawada Tsunayoshi. Because if it weren't for the fact that Kei had seen the way things were heading regarding Kyoya and Tsunayoshi, he never would have approached that guy on his own. Not ever, ever ever. Tsunayoshi is strange.

Somehow, early on, Kei makes the mistake of thinking that they're the same kind of person. He's never taken notice of Tsunayoshi before he'd started to bother the Committee, but the person that Kei sees isn't at all like the other people that Kyoya rejects to join. He's not sure why Kyoya refuses again and again and again to acknowledge Tsunayoshi's existence.

(With the benefit of hindsight: of course Kyoya doesn't acknowledge Tsunayoshi. Tsunayoshi won't heedlessly swear his life and loyalty and allegiance away to Kyoya. Tsunayoshi wants Kyoya, and Kyoya doesn't want anything to do with that. He doesn't trust it. Not yet.

The first mistake that Kei makes is upholding Kyoya as a God when Kyoya is just a person, and suffering the same as him.)

At first, Kei thinks to make a friend of Tsunayoshi. He feels bad that his God does not acknowledge Tsunayoshi, despite the other trying, and trying, and trying. So being friends is- well, Tsunayoshi isn't anything at all like Kei, he learns that fast enough. In the first place, Tsunayoshi sees the world strangely. To him, it's a place of darkness and shadows and bad things, even though he has Haru beside him. Secondly, he has some kind of quality that makes other people - Gods - see him whether he likes it or not.

And then Kei's God makes the decision to remain on the Nami Middle campus while teaching himself the material that Kusakabe Tetsuya sends over, and completing the schoolwork on his own to be sent back and graded, all for the sake of-

If a God bends like this, then what is Sawada Tsunayoshi? And then when he sees Tsunayoshi that first time in the new year: he doesn't recognize him. Not really. How had Kei even thought for a second that this thing was anything at all like himself? It surely hasn't been that long, a week maybe, since he last saw him, but it's a bit like Tsunayoshi has peeled back some kind of mask or skin.

(Nakamoto Kei has sworn allegiance to his God, and yet: Sawada Tsunayoshi smiles, and Kei's heart yearns to be at his side. He's surely some kind of Demon.)

-0-

"Well, of course he is," Saitoh Itsuki says to him, willingly in the Committee's presence, in Hoshino's presence, in Kyoya's presence simply because Sawada Tsunayoshi asked it of him. Saitoh looks down at Kei a little pityingly. "Didn't you notice? Sawada is the kind of person that you end up following whether you like it or not. Be thankful that he's a good person, okay?"

But is he really?

-0-

Outside of those three: Kyoya, and Haru, and Yamamoto - Nakamoto Kei is probably the one that has seen the most of Sawada Tsunayoshi's different faces. It's not that he goes out of the way to hide them or anything - as sly and cunning as Tsunayoshi can be, he's not the kind of person that tries to hide the secrets of his heart. They're obvious to read: lay hands on the people that belong to him, and suffer the consequences.

It's hard to say if 'Tsunayoshi is a good person.' Can someone like that really be 'good?' Does he really give the people who trespass him enough warning not to - or do those people deserve to reap what they've sown for being so callous in the first place?

It's the kind of complex morality that Kei can't figure out on his own. He doesn't know. He can't say. Hana called him a 'natural born subordinate' and maybe this is what she means by that: Kei would rather trust Kyoya and Tsunayoshi's lead and allow himself to be made a tool so that he doesn't have to think of these things himself. He thinks that they're good people - he thinks that they're doing good things, but-

-0-

Kei is fifteen when the girl who doesn't go to the Nami campus approaches them, pulled into herself with dark circles under her eyes and jumping at the slightest movement. It's him that she approaches, and he's with Tsunayoshi at the time, and she tugs on Kei's sleeve and says that she needs help. Kei hears her out, even though she's not wearing a Nami uniform because this is where Kyoya was always going with this, and-

"Ahh-" Tsunayoshi says. It sounds a bit painful. Sympathetic. Suffering because she's suffering. He smiles at her and she stares at him with wide eyes and Kei watches it happen: that moment when people see Sawada Tsunayoshi. "It'll be okay now," he promises her, his eyes wide open and his expression gentle. "The Committee and I - we'll fix this, okay?"

Although she's been flinching from the boys, somehow she starts to lean in toward Tsunayoshi. Something kindles inside her. A light flickers in her eyes. Kei thinks something like that is called 'hope.'

Or maybe it's just reverence.

(The moment when they see him is like watching a God be born, isn't it?)

"Are there friends you can stay with? Or will you be comfortable waiting on school grounds?" Tsunayoshi asks her, and goes out of his way to make sure she feels safe and comfortable, and then they use the Committee resources.

"Are you sure you want to come along?" Tsunayoshi asks, looking up at Kei with wide blinking eyes. There's only a shade of that concern he showed that girl left - his mask is peeling back, but he has enough humanity to look at Kei, while he rings Haru, and say with complete confidence: "I think Haru and I will be enough for this."

Despite the cold prickling at the back of Kei's neck, he says: "She asked the Committee for help, so-"

And Tsunayoshi says, "I see. That's fine. Ah - in that case, could you bring someone strong with you? A person who can lift heavy things? Actually, if Nozaki-kun is available, that would be ideal."

Kei isn't sure to this day what he really thought was going to happen when he meets up with Tsunayoshi and Haru outside of that loan shark's home, and saw them wearing gloves. Teaching that man a lesson - that much he'd been sure of. Kyoya himself would have 'bitten' that guy to death and left him crippled for life - maybe left in a hospital bed. Maybe he thought that they'd use Nozaki's strength to break through the locked door.

"Ah, you're here," is how that Demon greets them mildly, head cocked, shoulders relaxed, feet set just so. Haru stands behind him, her sharp eyes cold and narrow, and she has a crowbar in hand. The Demon turns to her and holds out its hand, and as she places the crowbar into it, it says: "You'll be quick with the files?"

"Hrmph!" Haru sticks her nose in the air. "Leave it to me! There hasn't been a lock I can't crack in years."

"Sorry for doubting you for even a moment," the Demons says with an uncanny, indulgent smile on its face, and then it turns and drives the narrow end of the crowbar into the seam of the door.

Kei can't quite help but to jump and look around at the neighborhood, but - well, it's not a great one. They'll probably mind their own business beyond maybe calling the cops if they're feeling particularly virtuous. It's evening. People are having their dinners.

With strength that he shouldn't be capable of with his small frame, the Demon drives the crowbar in deep and then heaves. Haru adds her strength to it, and with a thunderous crack, the door gives way. There's shouting from the inside - Kei recognize the man who charges the opening the broken door has created from the files. The Demon says: "Haru."

Haru reaches through the opening and she has a taser in hand. She fires it without flinching.

While the man collapses and lays convulsing on the floor, the Demon turns and smiles at Nozaki. It's an empty kind of smile that doesn't reach those eyes, which have turned into chrome - into mirrors, showing nothing but reflecting a person's face right back at them. "Nozaki-kun," it says mildly. "A little help?"

Kei glances up, but Nozaki seems completely unperturbed by this turn of events, moving forward and cracking the door out of its hinges. With the crowbar still dangling from its hand, the Demon steps inside.

It's mostly for the sake of not being seen on the streets outside this house after whatever happens… happens that Kei follows them in. His hands are shaking. Haru goes immediately for the bank of locked filing cabinets against one wall, while the Demon is checking a door - finding the bathroom, it seems. It turns and approaches the body. The crowbar in its hand gives Kei a sudden tremor of premonition.

Like it senses that, the Demon glances at him. "It's fine to leave the rest to me," it says calmly, even though the loan shark is coming around. It grasps the man by the ankle and begins to drag him toward the bathroom. Before the door closes completely, its eyes seem to glimmer strangely.

It's the kind of noise that Kei doesn't think he'll ever forget. He's glad to have been born a son, really… really. But, ah, at least someone is around that takes umbrage at this kind of thing.

Haru is carefully, carefully setting fire to all the paper records in the file cabinets, abusing the kitchenette with that range hood over the stove, by the time that the Demon emerges from the bathroom. There are suspicious stains on its cardigan, but its face is clean and so is the crowbar.

"I found it," Haru sings out, not even looking up from where she's dumping another sheet into the trashcan standing on the stove.

"I see," the Demon says, coming over to join her at the stove. She picks up a nearby piece of paper and hands it over to it, and the Demon looks at it closely before turning back to the desk by the cabinets. There's a phone there on the desk, and he glances over at Kei and Nozaki. "Don't say anything while I make this call," he instructs them.

"Ooh!" Haru coos, abandoning the kitchenette to stand beside him, bouncing on her feet. "Can I say some things, too?"

"If you like," the Demon says, and then eyeballing the sheet, dials the number on the phone, and then clicks it over to speaker so that the dial tone rings out into the whole room. It's a bit eerie.

A man on the other end picks up. "Hello?" he asks, and he sounds like he's dreading whatever he'll hear.

Of course, if he can see where the number is coming from, it's the loan shark's number. Naturally that's no who he wants to hear from.

"I don't really get someone like you," the Demon says, as mild as milk, without bothering to say anything else, like hello, or introductions. "Allowing trash like that to lay their hands on something as precious as a family member… it's weird. I don't get it. You should have died sooner than let that happen."

For a moment, it's nothing but breathing. "W-who is this?" the man stutters. He sounds like the kind of man that would sweat. He sounds like he's probably trembling, shaking, although that's just a feeling that Kei gets rather than anything he hears. He's a little glad. For someone so cowardly that he'd let someone do something like that to his daughter-

The Demon's brow pinches into something a little scolding. "If you continue on this path," it says without answering that question, "you'll really become the kind of scum that isn't worth suffering to live. Please consider Chiyo-san's feelings. She doesn't need to become an orphan before even graduating high school, you know?"

"It's unforgivable," Haru says, her voice crackling and snapping like the worst kind of sky-breaking thunder, "it's really, really unforgivable! We've stepped in for Chiyo-chan's sake, but don't think for one second that you're in the clear. Despicable actions like yours… I won't forgive them!"

"That thing that's been held over your head," the Demon adds, "we'll destroy it, but… there are people listening for the moment that Chiyo-san cries out for help, so - try to become a diligent parent she can rely on, okay?"

And then he hangs up the phone. And it's not the Demon after all, but Tsunayoshi that looks across the room curiously at Nozaki. "Do you think you can break a few things around here? Take the drawers off the desk? Things like that?"

"Make it look like this guy was muscling in on territory?" Nozaki asks. "Sure."

Haru sets the final record on fire, and then takes great glee in sending all of the things on the desk flying off it with a sweep of her arms and a loud crash.

"You're a lifesaver, Nozaki-kun, Kei-kun," Tsunayoshi says lightly. Given his usual prudent, subdued character, it's said almost cheerfully. "That went quicker than I expected. We should go let Chiyo-san know that it's okay to leave."

And just like it never happened, like he doesn't have suspicious stains in worrisome colors speckled here and there on his clothing, he turns his back on this scene of a crime and walks away without showing it for one instant.

Kei's fingertips are cold. His hands shake. Doesn't he already know that sending people to prison is no good? He's certain that someone would have made the argument that the loan business was perfectly legal. That it's a private matter. That it's something for Chiyo's father to figure out for himself and decide on his own. And if this had happened to Chiyo, then how many other times had it happened?

It's scary. It's for the best.

-0-

It's the first time Kei knows of Tsunayoshi passing judgement, but it isn't the last. At seventeen, Kyoya so carelessly tosses his cousin at that Demon's mercy and Kei only sighs about it a little bit, not even surprised, no longer giving pause. There will be no mercy for the likes of Hibari Ikumi when it comes time for judgement to be passed and her judge and executioner casts his gaze upon her.

If a sickly predator attacks the herd, then the strongest, healthiest members come out and stomp that predator and gore them to death, don't they?

That's simply natural selection at work.

-0-

In the end, it's less complicated to just trust in those people. Neither Kyoya nor Tsunayoshi have a habit of asking more than he can give, no matter what, and so he learns to trust in their wisdom, absolutely. Tsunayoshi may be a Demon, and Kyoya may be a God, but despite their hobbies, they end up being gentle tyrants who work to better the lives of others. Is that so wrong?

Kei can't see how it could be.

So he swears his allegiance and he hands over his heart, and works for their sake ahead of his own, since they put everyone else before themselves. If he's a 'natural born subordinate' then he'll be the best subordinate that he can be.

-0-


NOTES:

* Kei just heckin… disassociates through the entire thing. "oH .. are we,, commiting a murddr.. Okey :) … im … gonna just.. Chil over here :) :) :)"

* he also has his history with loan sharks :\ but he's basically a gentle kid who dislikes violence no matter what. Pls… allow him to be a secretary somewhere, happily filing things.

* If this were a Manga, I'd use that alternative reading thing that happens sometime and use the same word for both Kyoya and Tsunayoshi. Though honestly, I'm attached to the idea of using 'bakemono' for Tsunayoshi since Kei thinks of it as a 'demon that puts on a Tsunayoshi mask.'

Fun fact, I almost had Nana call Iemitsu 'Iemi-chan' :V maybe if she ever gets mad at him?

* At the rate that things escalated from c1 to c20… Tsunayoshi at age 15 deliberately hunting down an adult who is sexually assaulting a fourteen/fifteen year old girl shouldn't be shocking. As for Haru, she's always been the more bloodthirsty of those two anyway. Remember her canon aspiration was to 'become a mafia wife?' Haru pls.

* Sasagawa Naoko can't be involved for Namimori Omerta reasons. Even if Kei knews this reason, he wouldn't be impressed. Then again, he often looks to fault adults no matter what. Kei-kun! You're seventeen already! What will you do when you're basically an adult yourself?!

* Nozaki is a new face, but at the rate that Tsunayoshi meets and collects people, it's no surprise that he'd have one in mind even for something like this... Nozaki himself once felt put into a corner where he thought he'd have to murder someone so his 'resolve' is good.

* I kind of wanted to call this intermission "God, the Devil, and Bob" :V