Am back with another chapter! This chappie is dedicated to Tsubasa-fan as an apology over… something that happened recently.
Note: This whole chapter is about Fai, Ashura, Subaru and Kamui's past in the Mafia. It's to explain how deep their relationship is or people might start asking questions about their actions. But don't worry; it's only for a chapter. The next chapter resumes back to the story.
Disclaimer: Blablabla yipyip…
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"… Are you sure you're okay with this?" Subaru looked at Ashura worriedly, who was looking rather sick and pale.
"To be honest, I'm not very sure," he said, cringing as a loud scream pierced through the air. The boy's cries and pleads from the next room were heard clearly from where they were now.
"Well, if you're going to do something about it, then you better do it quick," replied Kamui monotonously. The three of them could hear laughter and jeers from the room. He stared at Subaru worriedly.
Subaru noticed Kamui staring and gave a weak smile. "Don't worry, I'm used to hearing this sort of stuff."
Ashura stared to the door to the room where the boy was held captive. He was getting more and more disturbed these days by the number of children and teenagers kidnapped and sacrificed for snuff films. The Mafia has been losing a lot of money at the downfall of one of their biggest drug dealers, and was forced to find other ways to earn money to keep the organization from its own downfall.
And so, they landed on the idea of snuff films. Quick and easy, that's what they called.
He was alright with it in the beginning. They needed the money, and he needed his salary, but after some time of hearing blood-curdling screams and staring at the blood and bodies of those children…
Ashura stood up, his face scrunched up both in fear and determination. Slowly, he walked towards the door and twisted the doorknob to the next room. Waves of pain, happiness, anguish and power slammed at his face the moment he entered. The boy's cries increased 10 times louder and the man was tempted to just close his ears and run out the room, never to return.
Fei Wong stood there, a satisfied and sadistic smirk on his face. He smiled when Ashura entered, his buttchin raised in the air.
"What is it? Came to join the fun?"
"Stop hurting him."
Fei blinked for a moment. "What did you say?"
"Stop hurting the boy," he repeated.
Fei's face remained unperturbed before breaking into chuckles. "After such a long time carrying out this plan only did you raise your complaints to me," he smiled at him. Despite his fear, Ashura kept his gaze. The master boss of Mafia Fei may be, but without trying, there was absolutely no chance to save the boy.
Fei Wong met the other's gaze, slightly amused at his weakness. "I'm afraid I can't. The world's plummeting down to a recession. We have to be prepared for harder times, and with the police scurrying around, we have to brace ourselves for the worst. Besides," he chuckled slightly. "We still haven't earned enough money to support ourselves just yet. Or would you rather me leave you without your salaries for the rest of the year?"
By this point, Ashura could see the boy's torturers staring at him, some of them starting to chuckle. No, he did not want to live without his salaries. He still had a life to live, damn it! But the boy…
"Besides, what would you do if this boy remains alive? He'll probably go straight to the police and report to them. I never thought you were that soft, Ashura." Some of his colleagues snickered at the comment.
"Then at least spare his life."
The occupants of the room quickly turned to the door where Kamui was standing, his twin staring worriedly into the silent room behind. For a long while, the only voice heard in the room was the boy's fading sobs.
"Let the boy live. You'll find it useful to at least keep this one alive. One thing is that he'll be a stable source of income. In any desperate situations, we can pull this boy out for a snuff film anytime instead of wasting our time surveying and kidnapping people. What if some of them escaped and ran to the police? All we have to do is keep him here for emergency and convenience."
Fei narrowed his eyes. "Then what about this boy's welfare? Who would take care of him? Who would tend to his injuries? I'm sure that many of us here are rather unwilling to do it."
"Boss, you know the reason my brother and I are in the Mafia now is to pay of the university fees I borrowed years ago to get a doctor degree. I know how to tend to the boy's injuries, illness and even perform surgeries on him; I just need to buy the right tools. As for taking care and guarding him, I'm sure Ashura will take care of that," said Kamui, challenging his boss without fear. Subaru feared for his brother: Would Fei Wong take that as an insult?
Luckily, he didn't His mind was too busy Fei thinking, and seemed to be considering the idea. Tension and anticipation filled the room as the men awaited the final decision. Slowly, Fei drew a breath.
"Fine then. If you want this shit on you, I don't care. But…" His gaze transferred to the now unconscious boy and then to Subaru. "Make sure to keep in mind that if anything happens… all the blame will be on all of you and by then, I won't hesitate to kill any of you."
With that, Fei left the room.
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"How long will it be 'till he wakes up?" Subaru turned to his brother. Ashura sat in a corner, fast asleep.
"Not long now," he said, staring at the boy after throwing his bloody bandages into the dustbin. Apparently, this child was a blonde, and was barely 8 years old. "He'll probably be in pain once he wakes up, though. We already spend enough money buying all these medical supplies than morphine. Ashura said he saw him waking up quite a few times for the past two weeks, so he'll probably be up by-" His sentence was cut short by the sound of rustling cloth.
Both eyes turned to the little boy on the bed who was muttering something under his breath. Turning around, the child slowly opened his eyes, his gaze unfocused. He scanned the room, vaguely wondering how and why he was here in the first place. Suddenly, the memory struck him like a hard blow as his sapphire eyes rested on the both of them. He started screaming.
"… Shut the hell up, kid! You're getting us in trouble!" But the blonde child didn't stop screaming. He tried wiggling his way further from the twins, ignoring his condition and pain. "Kid… Shut. The. Hell. Up." Kamui glared murderously at him. Seriously, if the boy doesn't shut mouth soon…
A hand on his shoulder broke him from his sadistic thoughts and he turned around. Subaru was looking at him, almost angrily. "Stop it, you're scaring him." By the time he finished, the boy was starting to cry, his screams interrupted by sobs.
Ashura was rudely woken up by the screaming. He groaned, trying to remember why the place was so loud. He opened his eyes and saw the boy, and instantly, his eyes lit up and widened. He left the comfort of the chair to kneel beside the child's bed. The little boy cowered back to the wall, staring at them in horror.
"Shhh… don't worry. We're friends, we won't hurt you," he whispered gently, touching the boy's cool cheek. He flinched away immediately, but Ashura continued his kind and gentle efforts, effectively calming the child somewhat. He stopped screaming and crying out loudly, but tears were still streaming down his face. Ashura stood up and sat on his bed, pulling him gently into his arms. A fearful sob escaped the boy's lips as Ashura shushed him again, rubbing his back gently, trying not to touch his injuries. Being too weak to support himself, the boy fell limply into the man's hold, sobbing loudly as his body shook violently.
After a few hours in which Kamui and Subaru left to prepare lunch, the little boy finally stopped crying. His eyes were glazed over in exhaustion, but Ashura wanted to ask him something before he fell asleep once again.
"Kid?"
The boy looked up with a questioning gaze.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The boy lowered his head and slumped deeper into the man, closing his eyes while an almost inaudible whisper left his lips.
"Yuui."
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"Haha! Look at the mighty Ashura, taking care of a stupid little kid!" His colleagues jeered and laughed when he entered the lounge with Yuui clinging onto his leg. His fearful eyes darted around wildly, scanning the new place and flinched when the loud voices boomed on him. Ashura quickly pulled the boy closer to himself. Immediately, Subaru and Kamui stood on either side of Ashura, trying to protect both Yuui and him from harm. Both of their eyes grew piercingly cold, and reached for their gone.
"Don't touch them."
"Who said we were trying?" One of them snorted before lashing his arm out all of a sudden. Subaru reached out to block the hand when all of a sudden, it went below, striking Yuui hard on the face, causing him to fell to the floor, crying out in pain and sobbing. Ashura quickly picked him up and hugged him close, inspecting the bruise slowly forming on the pale face while Subaru pushed the man away, causing him to stumble to the ground. He hissed and stood up, only to cower back in fear when Kamui glared at him angrily.
"What's this whole ruckus about?" a voice suddenly asked from the other side of the room. Kyle walked in and smirked when he saw Yuui, clinging onto Ashura in fear.
"Stupid little thing, isn't he? Don't you think of him as a waste of time? If I were boss, I would have killed him back then. Piece of garbage, if you ask me."
"He's not garbage," answered Subaru firmly. Kyle smirked again and yanked him with his collar until his face merely centimeters away from the man. He could hear Kamui growling threateningly on the other side.
"Just because you're in charge of him doesn't mean you have authority over us. We can do whatever the heck we want to this kid as long as he doesn't die," he whispered tauntingly, face pulled into a wicked smile.
And he left, just like that, laughing all the way.
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Subaru walked towards the room Ashura now shared with Yuui. The boy has been here for at least a year now, and was healing a lot quicker than they expected. He still had trouble walking properly, but at least he could move his body about by now without any problems. He remembered that it wasn't long after they met Yuui when Ashura was given the role of Yuui's caretaker, Kamui the doctor and Subaru as the teacher. A sense of responsibility welled inside him, and Subaru was actually happy to be in charge of the boy's education and safety.
The man sighed. Things have not been going well ever since Yuui came. They've been teased and taunted at by their own colleagues, and Kamui was almost hurt the other day for beating someone up for insulting the boy. It was clear that the addition of this new life in their current trafficking team had changed them. All of a sudden, he remembered someone telling him something before, someone he met but couldn't remember who.
"Lives by blending, interconnecting and mutually influencing one another; Even a merely trivial meeting can bring about changes to both heart and body."
He twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The first thing that greeted his sight was the boy sitting on the floor, drawing something on his piece of paper using the box of crayons Ashura had bought for him earlier ago. Yuui lifted his head and grinned widely upon seeing Subaru. It was the first time Subaru had seen the child's face so bright and cheerful, his race radiating life and light. It warmed his heart immediately, and wished he could actually see it more often. Yuui stood up and stumbled towards Subaru, handing him the picture he just drew.
There were four stick persons in the badly drawn picture. On the left was a man with long hair, beside him a child with blonde hair and blue eyes. Right next to the child stood a man with short, black hair and golden eyes, and on his right was a man who looked exactly like the one on his left except that he was drawn with a frown on his face and with sharp, jagged teeth sprouting from his mouth. The four figures were holding hands, linking them in one big chain. Yuui giggled and pointed at the one next to the scary-looking guy.
"Subaru-san." He then pointed to the scary-looking one, giggling madly. "Kamui-san." His skinny finger then shifted to the far left. "Ashura-san." Then finally, to the blonde kid standing in the middle. "Yuui." The boy then stepped back and made a huge circle with both his arms in the air. "One big, happy family!" he exclaimed, beaming.
Subaru didn't say anything. He just stared at the smiling boy, speechless as he held on the picture. His face contorted in pain and sadness before pulling the boy into his arms.
"Yes, Yuui," he whispered. "One big, happy family."
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"So how are you dealing with the kid?" asked Yuuko, stroking the sleeping blonde child on her lap. The group arrived a few moments ago, apparently sneaking here without permission and knowledge of their boss. She had dealings with Ashura before, therefore knew that's how they found her.
Kamui was the first to speak. "He's annoying," he said, and Subaru gave him a nudge at his side. "What?" he snapped. Subaru smiled innocently and met the woman's gaze. "On the contrary, he's actually a very sweet boy. He's been naughty for a number of times, especially to Kamui and has a thing for bullying bad tempered people," Subaru giggled at that. "But he's a good child. Look," he handed out the drawing to Yuuko. "He drew this a few weeks ago about us, even Kamui smiled at this."
"Shut up," his brother snapped again, looking bored and a little embarrassed.
"Hm…" Yuuko inspected the picture. "That's rather adorable," she commented, glancing at the boy before returning the picture. "So Ashura, let us talk about the reason you're here. You're in my house because you have a wish, right?"
All eyes turned to the figure sitting on the couch. Silence filled the room for a while and it was a few minutes before Ashura spoke.
"I want you to take care of Yuui if anything happens to us," he said, looking at the woman in front of him with dread and worry. "We're in a dangerous position and it would only be a matter of time before something happens. If that happens, I want you to get Yuui out of there and raise him."
"That's quite a demand, and a price is required."
"I know."
A pause. "The price is this: If any of you wishes to take Yuui along, either to escape or whatsoever, you have to be separated from him. When that time comes, all ties between the both of you are severed. You will still remember each other but are unable to be together. This will bring pain to you yourself as well as the child," said Yuuko thoughtfully, staring into Ashura's blank eyes. "Do you still wish for it?"
Ashura found himself looking back. He remembered the days they spent together like a family. He remembered the sense of pride when he watched Yuui struggle with the new things exposed to him in life and remembered the pain etched deeply into his soul whenever he got hurt or distressed. He remembered the strange feeling soaring in his chest when he saw all of them together, smiling and laughing and just spending time together, even if it was for a while.
At that moment, he finally realized that he got attached to the boy. Was he willing to sacrifice this deep connection between the both of them to protect him?
A painful smile spread across his face when he finally made his decision.
"Yes."
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Kamui held the unconscious boy in his arms, glaring at the 20 men before him.
"What did you do to him?" he hissed, glancing at the crowd.
"Well, nothing new, it was the usual. We beat him up, raped him and laughed," Kamui's eyes seemed to sharpen at this point. "C'mon, don't tell me you're still mad. We've been doing snuff films on him for years now, and boss said that we could use him as much as we please, just get used to it."
"Snuff films are one thing, but all of you know that Yuui hasn't fully recovered from the last film we made. He's still very weak and even has trouble eating," he said.
Kyle stood up from behind. "Does it look like it concerns us?" He motioned to the others. "Let us all get out of here before he kills us," gazing at the murderous eyes under him. One by one, they left, and slowly after that, Ashura entered, a sad expression on his face.
They knew what the other was thinking without saying anything. Yuui has grown up, and each year, he had to at least endure the pain of from the snuff films for once or twice, causing him to suffer from serious physical injuries as well as emotional scars, not to mention the countless of rapes and abuse over the years. And now, they could see that it was starting to affect him, badly. He started becoming quieter and quieter, and spaced out more often. Light has seemed to vanish from his beautiful blue eyes, leaving behind emptiness. They knew it was slowly killing him, and if they don't do something about it, he will eventually become an empty shell of a person, dead either way.
Kamui stared at the naked, bruised body in his arms before meeting Ashura's gaze.
"This can't continue," he whispered, and they know that the time has come.
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"Where is Ashura-san going?" Yuui, now 13, looked at his guardian. He had his back turned from him, and was acting all… strange for the whole day. Come to think of it, Kamui and Subaru were acting weird too. Now, in the middle of the night, both Kamui and Ashura dragged him out into the cold night air outside.
"We're leaving, but Ashura's going another way."
"… Why?"
"He'll keep the others busy for a while, looking for him. As for you, you're coming with me," he said.
Yuui glanced around. "Where's Subaru-san? What about him?"
Pain flashed across Kamui's face for a moment. "He's not coming with us."
"But why?"
"If he comes with us, he'll be killed if they find us, but if he stays in the Mafia, even though he'll be somewhat badly treated, but at least he won't get hurt or killed since he hasn't done anything wrong or betrayed them. Fei Wong never physically hurts or kills people that could serve for an important purpose in the future."
"Then why can't Ashura-san come with us?"
"I told you: he'll be keeping the others busy for a while. Most of them would think you're with him than me," he replied almost indignantly.
"But what if he gets caught? What if he doesn't come back?"
The place went quiet, the only sound heard was the chilling wind beating against their bodies. Slowly, very slowly, Ashura turned around, a sad smile on his face. He walked towards the boy and cupped his face gently.
"I'm sorry, but I can't stay with you, not now. But we'll meet again one day, just wait and see." Ashura seemed to be speaking more to himself than to Yuui. "But no matter what happens, wherever I may be, I want you to know that I'll always be proud of you. Just you wait; we'll see each other again, soon."
He could have screamed at Ashura to stay. He could have pleaded for them to be together, forever and ever and ever, as one big, happy family. He could have cried and begged Ashura not to leave him, all alone in the pain and darkness he never shared or revealed, to spend his remaining days with one of the only persons who treated him like he was special.
Instead, he said nothing. And the moment Ashura's figure disappeared from sight, Fai's world crumbled completely.
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He needed a new name in his new life now, so he took upon his brother's name as Fai. He did well in class, and went to university, and got a job, but even so, the numb feeling that overpowered him a long time ago never seemed to disappear. It was like hard ice, erasing his ability to feel any emotions, not even pain was spared, but he didn't want anyone to worry. He smiled at them when they worry, trying to convince them that he was fine.
Ashura wrote to them a few times, but mostly it was about important things. Occasionally, he would ask about 'Fai', but besides that, nothing. He was empty. His life was empty. His world was empty.
But the moment he met Kurogane, everything was turned around.
He was able to feel, as if a horrible weight has been lifted from his very being; someone who made him feel happy and free, an escape from his horrible past, but somehow, it was more than that. Every time he saw Kurogane, his heart beats faster. For as long as he remembered, he was finally happy.
… But even though he was happy, he still craves for a family. He still craves the unconditional love and care from a family. But no matter how much he wanted it to happen, no matter how hard he wished for, things just couldn't go back to the way it once was.
And the picture and hope of one big happy family in his mind vanished forever.
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Don't even start with how lame this chapter or how Ashura-Kamui-Subaru-Fai centric it and angsty this chapter was! I'M TIIIIIIIIIIIIIRED!
But don't worry! I know some of you are impatient, but next week the story's gonna continue! And yes, they'll be a whole lot more KuroFai-ness in the later chapters! So, erm, just keep on waiting. I'll try updating earlier next time.
… Just review.