A/N: I live! Sorry, I fell victim to my perfectionism again, and I couldn't write anything PoT-related. So much for faster updates, huh? They practically died completely. *winces*
The reference from the last chapter was Busty Asian Beauties, if you didn't catch that. It's from Supernatural; it's one of Dean Winchester's favorite porn sites.
Chapter 6
Friday Evening:
Ryoma stood on the tennis court in his backyard, tapping a chartreuse ball up and down on the edge of the racket. After every three taps – just for variety – he dropped it to the ground, and then he drummed again for a few beats. The vibrations from the tightly strung racket traveled up his right hand and into his chest: Boing, tap, tap, tap. One, two, three, four.
Shifting his feet gingerly, he lowered his cap even more to cover his fiery hazel eyes. Ryoma's blood itched. He felt caged – betrayed by his own weak body. This alien inactivity… The boy's lip lifted.
One, two, three, four.
Raised voices drifted out from the open kitchen window. Ryoma let the ball drop and bounce away as he listened. There – that was the pitch and cadence of his father's voice, but the twelve-year-old couldn't pick out any words – until they got louder.
"NO! THAT'S ENOUGH! HE'S HAD ENOUGH!" Nanjiroh bellowed.
Ryoma raised his eyebrows and started toward the house. As he pulled open the back door, the volume increased. Down the hallway, the boy could see his father blocking the front entry, Nanjiroh's back drawn tight with fury.
"HE HAS NOTHING TO SAY TO YOU! NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY, AND DON'T YOU EVER COME BACK!" The normally cheerful, easy-going man slammed the door in their faces and whirled around.
Ryoma remained frozen just inside the back door, staring down the corridor. Nanjiroh stiffened, something unreadable flitting across his expression before it was quickly stifled.
"Dad?" Ryoma questioned, once he'd limped up to Nanjiroh. His expression stated clearly, What was that?
Nanjiroh dismissed the occurrence with a too-nonchalant flip of his hand. "It was nothing."
Ryoma twisted his lips skeptically.
The man couldn't hold his son's gaze. As his own slid away, he spotted the racket in the freshman's hand. A bit desperately, he changed the subject. "Come on, I'll play a game with you." He smiled, winking. "I'll even give you a handicap, if you want." He moved to walk down the hallway.
The boy scoffed. Pushing past his father, he yanked open the door just in time to see a news van pull away from the curb.
Nanjiroh's protests fell silent as the twelve-year-old slowly slid closed the door. "Ryoma?" The boy simply stood there, staring through to the van in his memory. His posture remained unchanged – no despairing slouch, no angry bristling, no inwardly clenching withdrawal. Finally he turned around.
"How long?" he asked neutrally.
Nanjiroh closed his eyes, sincerely regretting that vociferous shredding of his self-control. "They've been coming since Wednesday."
Ryoma tugged at the brim of his cap. "Mm," he hummed noncommittally. Spinning the racket absentmindedly in his hand, he pondered this new information.
He wasn't usually one to mope. He never had been and probably never would. That only made things all the more difficult now when he didn't have the energy, nor, if he was truthful with himself, occasionally the inclination, to stand up and do something about his problems.
What was there really to do, though? As if it wasn't bad enough that it happened in the first place, now people were broadcasting the worst moment of his entire life – with or without his consent. He was surprised only that he hadn't considered it earlier, though. These were reporters, and if he'd learned anything about them from the tennis circuit, they were bloodhounds when they caught the scent of a story. There was no dissuading them.
Well, that was that, then. With a huff, Ryoma looked up. "Okay. Let's play."
After a moment of shock, Nanjiroh's face split wide in a relieved grin.
Santiago stalked into the interrogation room and shut the door behind her with deliberately careful, menacing slowness. The latch clicked loudly into the strike plate, reverberating throughout the derelict little space.
"Sakurafubuki," the Hispanic woman snapped, pressing a file onto the wobbly metal table with splayed fingertips.
The man raised a brow, taking note that she dropped the honorific. "Yes, ma'am?"
She sneered. "Don't give me that. So polite." Bracing both hands on the table now, she leaned in, looming with the force of her anger. "I know what you've done," she hissed into his face.
He raised the other eyebrow, smiling slightly. "Is that so?"
Huffing, she let a dark smirk spread her lips. "And you're going to spend the rest of your days in jail."
Sakurafubuki's thin lips twitched again with self-satisfaction. He met her dark eyes. "You would not be here if that was true."
Straightening, the woman pulled back her chair and settled in it, her posture as erect as ever. From the pocket in her uniform came a tape recorder.
Sakurafubuki looked from the recorder now resting on the file folder to Santiago's face and back. "Must I ask what that is?" he questioned lightly.
Without shifting her gaze from his eyes, she pressed a single, dark-skinned finger against the play button.
A boy's distraught voice began speaking, thick with tears. "And then… then… ." The voice hitched, hesitating.
A man softly encouraged, "It's okay."
"No, it's not!" the boy cried. "It's not at all okay!" There was a sniffle and a shuddering, calming breath, and then he began again. "We… we burst into the room. And… that man was… ."
"Do you know who he was?" the man interrupted, not unkindly. "For the record."
"Hai. It was S-sakurafubuki."
"Thank you. Please continue. I know it's hard."
The boy must have nodded in the silence. "Sakurafubuki was… was…," a thick swallow, "raping E-echizen."
Sakurafubuki's cavernous black eyes bored into Santiago's. She stopped the tape. Neither spoke for a long minute; the fluorescent ceiling panel flickered once.
"That was Shuichiro Oishi." The officer waited. "Don't you have anything to say?"
He shrugged, stating lightly, "Witnesses are often manipulated by the questioners, who only hear what they wish to hear." He watched with amusement as her eyes grew wider. "This is particularly the case when those witnesses are impressionable children."
"You think you can brush this off?" Santiago exclaimed. "Three witnesses' and a victim's testimony are hardly weak evidence!"
"Four children pose little threat."
She let out a disbelieving chuckle. "You are one spectacularly arrogant prick."
"You may think so, but my confidence is founded in truth," he sneered.
Suspicion narrowed her eyes. Looking him up and down, she remarked, "You are quite confident today. Much more so than last time." Frowning, the woman demanded, "What happened since then?"
The infuriating man only shrugged.
"Do you realize that with these boys' testimony, we can lock you away for the rest of your life? You're looking at nine counts of kidnapping and one of an indecent act with a child! This doesn't concern you?" Her hands clenched.
"Of course it is of concern to me. However, I have an excellent lawyer, among other things." His dark eyes flashed a silver cunning.
"Your lawyer," Santiago spat, "can't get you out of the hole you've dug, no matter how much you pay him. There isn't enough money in the world for that." Gathering up her things, she stormed out of the room, nearly running into her young partner.
Ogata instinctively grasped her upper arms to stop them both from toppling, then stepped back, dropping his hands. "Sorry."
Santiago shook her head, straightening the papers that had nearly been jostled out of the folder and onto the hallway floor. "No, I'm the one who's sorry." Shooting a glare over her shoulder at the closed door, she admitted, "He just… unnerves me."
Ogata cocked his head, looking blank. "Really? He actually seems weirdly normal to me. Which could be a bit unnerving, I guess."
She shot him a strange look. "Yeah." Shaking her head, she propped her back against the closest wall. Her tan face aged in utter exhaustion. "I just… this country!" she growled, brandishing a fist. "It defines rape as being forced intercourse between a male and a female." She closed her eyes and dropped her hand. "That poor boy… ." Forcing herself to stand upright, she met her partner's naïve gaze with her own world-weary one. "There's no proper justice to be had. The closest we've got is an act of indecency."
Ogata's face darkened at last in understanding. "Oh."
"Yes, oh," she mocked. Then, "Sorry." Santiago scrubbed at her eyes. "Come on. I don't want to stand near that pig any longer than I have to."
He lifted a reluctant finger. "Actually, that's what I was here for. I have a letter from his lawyer and… now is as good a time as any."
Her face hardened. "Fine. I'll be at my desk."
Once she strode off, Ogata pushed open the door to the interrogation room. "Sakurafubuki-san," he greeted.
The man looked up, a genuine smile curling his thin lips. "Ogata-kun."
The ever-present eagerness so like that of a clumsy puppy melted off the officer's face, leaving in its wake an uncanny craftiness. "The recording devices are off, so we may speak freely."
The older man visibly relaxed for the first time. With camaraderie born of long acquaintance, he asked, "What do you have for me?"
"A reply," came the bland answer. Ogata pulled an unmarked envelope out of a pocket and passed it over. "Don't read it here. It's not safe enough. And remember – destroy it afterward."
"Of course." Sakurafubuki awkwardly hid the envelope up the sleeve of his orange jumpsuit with his cuffed hands.
"The caution may be unwarranted, but we are trying to keep down the media coverage. If they ever caught wind of this…" He gave a light shrug. "That said," Ogata added with a hint of a scowl, "you do need to be more careful. My partner seems to be suspicious."
Sakurafubuki mulled it over, then nodded. "She is an intelligent woman. I will keep that in mind."
When two cops arrived at Kaidoh's house looking stern and asking him to give a statement, he knew exactly what had happened. "Oishi-senpai," he muttered.
A/N 2: That bit about the legal definition of rape is true, sad to say. It's in Japan's Penal Code.
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