Skip to the end of this chapter for content warning for this chapter.
Moniwa read and reread Mai's letter in the officers' mess, attempting futilely to cheer his spirits with Mai's perseverance amidst the constant adversity of being a fugitive. Futakuchi and Aone had left by the time Moniwa returned from Iwaizumi's upstairs office. Kaname closed his eyes, leaned back, and envisioned his cousin happily engaged, celebrating a public wedding, free from fear, danger, or trepidation. Despite the wishful image, his face scrunched in pain, not unnoticed by Aone who reentered the room.
"Your cousin wrote you," Takanobu Aone said when he spotted the letter folded on Moniwa's chest. Moniwa often shared the letters with his longtime friend.
"Yeah. Sounds like she found a boyfriend," Moniwa blushed, but a frown remained, and Aone couldn't be fooled by it.
"That makes you sad?"
"Huh? No. I've got something on my mind…."
Then Futakuchi raucously kicked the door so hard it threatened to fly off the hinges. He tramped in carrying a crate filled with bottles.
"Guess what? We're having a party tonight!" he sang, waving a cheap liquor bottle about. "Already booked the space in the town over. Y'all with me?!"
Moniwa and Aone glanced at one another. Babysitting a drunk Futakuchi was a fulltime job.
Kenji studied the bottles meticulously, trying to pointlessly arrange them by "vintage," which in this case was measured in days, not years. Not able to think about aimless entertainment right now, Moniwa's faced soured even more.
"Come on! I can't have a party without you two! You're the only fun ones around!" Kenji exclaimed.
Pushing Iwaizumi's ultimatum to the corners of his mind, Moniwa forced a smile. "Sure," he said with repressed melancholy.
He didn't want to think about Iwaizumi's ultimatum. Futakuchi looked so jubilant this moment, carefree and completely secure in the presence of the pair.
The man would never suspect either of them would ever try to hurt him. Iwaizumi's comment that Kenji's comfortability around Moniwa would make Kaname's task easy replayed involuntarily in Moniwa's head.
As long as Moniwa knew Futakuchi, the latter liked to party. And as much as Futakuchi liked to boast, one thing he could not boast of was his ability to hold his liquor. The man got drunker quicker than a mouse in a beer keg; and when he got drunk, it was no exaggeration.
That being said, it was always a wild time.
After Moniwa volunteered to go, Aone revealed he'd received an assignment from Gen. Iwaizumi and so didn't show in the rented banquet hall at the small hotel. Thus, Moniwa knew from the start he'd be the designated driver, whether Futakuchi asked or not.
It might be said that a dystopia was only as successful as the people maintaining it, and one of the core weaknesses of the current regime (which was illegal to publicly admit) was its systemic corruption. It was one reason why the resistance only grew by the second, angered as much by a repressive state as they were by the malfeasance that crippled the military's ability to crush that dissent. Almost everyone had secrets they were hiding; Moniwa's communications with a rebel were perhaps objectively quite tame.
All that being said, Moniwa didn't care much for the totalitarian institution that employed him. He did his job to make a living, while deep down feeling these piecemeal efforts to break up the rebels were more of a Vietnam-style sham than a credible military exercise.
It was also why Moniwa knew he shouldn't accept Iwaizumi's ultimatum.
Kaname Moniwa had been caught doing illegal activity. Having his secret brought to light exposed how two-faced Moniwa was, fighting the rebels by day and quietly hoping they win by night. For the first time in his military career, he was forced to face how untenable his double position was.
As Futakuchi got drunker and drunker, the party slower and slower, Moniwa resisted the urge to drown himself in booze far more fiercely than he resisted the rebels. Watching Kenji try squat dancing on a table, Moniwa reflected on their growing up together: how Kenji falsely claimed sole responsibility for the pair sneaking away from primary school, sparing Kaname the lashes; how Kaname, Kenji, and Takanobu stopped at the turtle pond when walking home from secondary school every day; how teenage Kenji once saw a photo of Mai and squealed, "she's cute!"
Moniwa and Futakuchi didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things, but their friendship and that with Aone withstood all that. Moniwa couldn't forsake those memories for momentary selfish reasons. That, and—no matter what Iwaizumi thinks—Moniwa believed Futakuchi to be a perfectly capable officer. As long as the regime existed, Futakuchi deserved to rise in its ranks instead of being squashed by it.
That left one option for Moniwa: run away.
At the end of the night, Kaname manhandled the nearly blacked-out Kenji into the passenger seat of his car. It was 2 a.m.. He just had to drive Kenji home. Then, Kaname would leave.
Somewhere. Anywhere. Perhaps to Mai's side….
Futakuchi began to regain cognizance during the car ride, his mind floating to his idealized future in Tokyo. "It's gonna be soooo sweet. Comfy beds, fresh coffee, stronger booze…." He cackled at his own remark there.
"You'll enjoy it," Moniwa said.
"You bet I will!" Kenji screamed, assailing Kaname's eardrums. "And the best part is—wait." He snickered. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you that…."
"Whatever it is, that's probably wise," said Kaname with a faint chuckle.
"Well, you're a good guy, and you won't do anything with the info," Futakuchi whispered.
Moniwa said nothing, his eyes focused on the curved valley road in front, river to the left and wooded slope to the right.
"Imma let you in on a secret. Don't tell no one, OK? It's why I got my transfer. But you can't tell no one, got it?!"
"Mhm," Moniwa said. Not that Kenji would know it, but who was Moniwa going to tell once he himself trotted off into the night in a couple of hours?
Futakuchi giggled like a little child, bursting with excitement to share a secret. He leaned in close to Moniwa. "I know where the rebels' base is in Tokyo."
The car's brakes slammed hard. Futakuchi, without a seatbelt, sprawled over the dashboard, his head dizzy for a moment.
Moniwa gawped at Futakuchi and wanted Kenji to repeat his statement, hoping he misheard. But Moniwa knew he hadn't misheard.
He didn't know how Futakuchi acquired this alleged knowledge, but if he were transferred to Tokyo, knowledge like that might eliminate the resistance instantly.
Including Mai….
"Geez! Learn how to drive!" Futakuchi griped, cushioning his forehead that now hurt worse than the inevitable hangover.
"S-Sorry," Moniwa said, pretending to be fixated on something on the steep, tree-dotted slope. "I thought I heard something…."
"Wha? Where?" Kenji let himself out of the car to investigate.
Kaname left the engine running as he followed Futakuchi, who was climbing the hillside on his own accord.
"Where at?" Kenji called.
"Up there."
"What? I don't see nothing."
"It's there." Moniwa pulled out his handgun.
"I think you're hearing things!"
Kaname fired one shot, echoing through the deserted valley.
Gen. Hajime Iwaizumi used the trees to assist his climb. A ways up from the road, there lay the fresh corpse of Kenji Futakuchi. The general descended to Moniwa, moping beside the car, face buried in his knees.
"Excellent. He left a party drunk, was ambushed by the resistance who shot him. It's unimpeachable," Iwaizumi commended matter-of-factly. Moniwa didn't accept the compliments.
Iwaizumi arranged for the body to be disposed of and returned to HQ with Moniwa. Back in Iwaizumi's office in the wee hours of the morning, Moniwa refused eye contact with his superior.
"I'm actually surprised you went through with it," Hajime said in a feeble attempt to show empathy. "I know how this will affect your cousin."
Moniwa broke from his depressive stupor to question Iwaizumi's face.
"Oh? I assumed you knew your cousin and Futakuchi were dating. Course, I only found out yesterday. It had nothing to do with why I think Futakuchi was a hack…." The rest of the general's statements fell on deaf ears. Images of Mai cascaded through Moniwa's mind. She spoke so highly of the tall, handsome bit-of-a-bad-boy she met—about whom she prudently had said nothing of his occupation, only that he was in a position to greatly help them….
Kaname understood now what she and Futakuchi had meant…as well as the gravity of his own actions.
He collapsed to his knees and devolved into ugly tears. Iwaizumi made no move to curtail the display.
"Anyway, as promised, I will not report your exchanges to the higher-ups."
Kaname Moniwa was beyond listening. He couldn't accept what he'd done, what had happened. It was a lie. He hadn't done this. None of it had happened. Iwaizumi knew nothing. He recited every denial in his mind to futilely make them true.
"Please stand, Kaname Moniwa," Iwaizumi commanded.
Moniwa wailed some more, and Iwaizumi waited patiently until the man calmed himself down enough to obey the order. Kaname got to his feet, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor.
"I hope it's clear to you that what happened tonight must never be repeated to anyone."
Moniwa said nothing, trying not to cry.
"I want to know that you understand that," Iwaizumi said again.
Kaname sniffed and nodded.
"Yes, I understand…."
"Good," said Iwaizumi who then activated the intercom on his desk. "Come in."
Entering the room now in response, poised on the other side of the office door for an indeterminate amount of time, was Takanobu Aone. Kaname's puffy red eyes questioned what Takanobu was doing here.
With no words, Aone drew his pistol and fired a bullet between those puffy red eyes.
There was silence. Iwaizumi peered at Moniwa's body leaking blood over the carpet.
"Thank you, Aone," he said and proceeded to position Moniwa's pistol in the dead man's hands to emulate a suicide.
"Sorry, Moniwa, but this is the only way to protect myself…."
Aone did feel sorrow for a moment but accepted the necessity of it all.
After all, as he had secretly informed Iwaizumi many a times when Moniwa shared his letters, he knew Kaname Moniwa was communicating with a fugitive.
Moniwa wasn't the only one Aone was snitching on, though. During Moniwa's conversation with Iwaizumi that afternoon, Futakuchi had confided something else: he had fallen in love with a girl, who was a rebel in Tokyo, named Mai Nametsu.
Ironically, Aone quickly realized Futakuchi didn't know it was Moniwa's cousin….
When soldiers entered the room, Iwaizumi stated Moniwa had confessed to murdering Kenji Futakuchi and shot himself. Takanobu Aone attested to be a witness. The morning promised to be full of report writing for Iwaizumi, but it was worth it.
When the commotion died down and Iwaizumi and Aone were alone again, Hajime would have dismissed Takanobu if a last-minute thought hadn't occurred to him.
"One more thing, Aone. As we agreed, in gratitude for your cooperation, I will submit the paperwork to headquarters recommending your promotion to fill Gen. Kuroo's vacancy."
Content warning: character death
This is the darkest thing I've written, especially in terms of the end. Nothing else I've written to completion has concluded this irredeemably (as of 23 August, 2020, anyway).
If you'd like to take a stab at requesting Bad Things Happen Bingo from me, visit my profile page. (It probably won't be as dark as this one!)