A/N: Hello there, thank you for your reviews. They made me write this chapter instead of doing my work, so now you are guilty of me living on instant Chinese soups. Just kidding. I'm not that altruistic; I really enjoy writing this story. But reviews still mean a lot to me.

For those who want more L/Raito – it will get there, don't be afraid. But I don't like to think about this story as of a pairing fic. Yes, it's centered on the relationship between the three main characters, but I'm trying to make it something more. See it for yourself if I succeed or not. Well, enjoy your reading!

Chapter IV - The Sound of Fury

The passage led him through a wood that wasn't too thick, it was actually just a tree here and there, but the falling dusk made it appear denser and more compact, almost oppressing. Teru was glad he finally reached the open air. He found himself on a riverbank, which was made of concrete, but the gray mass was disrupted by many cracks that nobody cared to repair, and fresh spring grass pushed up from them.

Teru sat down on the bank, stretching his legs. He had a little time left before he had to leave for the train station and wanted to spend it here. He liked this place because it was connected with one of the only two memories he had of his father.

In this one they were standing here on the bank, his father looking down on him from an incredible height – Teru had been wondering for years if his father was that tall or he himself that small, and was now inclining towards the second opinion – with a kind smile, talking about something in a grave yet gentle voice, which people don't usually use when addressing a child of three. Teru could never remember the actual words, only the tone of that voice.

When he was growing up and was forced to face many hardships from his peers, because he just didn't fit in, always speaking up when the others chose to be silent, he tried to remember those words. Lying in his bed with the blanket drawn up to his chin – their apartment always grew cold at night – he had imagined them to be a kind of important message, something like he wasn't going to be like other people – which actually did prove to be the case in some respects – that he was going to do something valuable for the others and they would respect him for that.

His father died of cancer at the age of 52, leaving his much younger wife the duty to remember him to their son, who was four years old. And that she did. She never married again and Matsuhito Mikami stayed the only man of her life, one who was always in her heart - and on her mind as well.

She took Teru to his father's grave every week, talking about what had happened to them from their last visit. Teru used to do that, too, but the memory of his father was growing dim and soon this was more a ritual of a sort than anything else. One day his mother's younger sister came with them and when she saw this, she broke into tears and wouldn't stop. "Keiko, Keiko," she would only say between her sobs – that was Teru´s mother's first name – and nothing could sooth her, until they finally left.

This incident had happened just before Teru first went to school. Soon after that he stopped talking to his father, because he became aware of the people staring at them. But his mother didn't. On the contrary it now seemed as though she wished to make up for her son's silence, talking longer and louder. Every time Teru felt someone's eyes on them he was praying passionately that they would think she talked to him. At the same time he knew that he hoped in vain, considering the way she was doing that – kneeling before the grave and always fixing it with her stare, not even once looking at her son who stood by her side. He felt his cheeks flare up in humiliation and wished that she stopped, but he couldn't tell her to, because it would break her heart.

But he never wanted to stop her when she talked about his father at home.

"He was a great man," she often said and Teru readily agreed with her.

Matsuhito Mikami was a journalist who lost his job due to numerous conflicts with his superiors. From his mother Teru learnt that his father's livelong pursuit was the Minamata disaster, a case that horrified Japan in the 1950s. Chemical factory had been poisoning the fishing waters of Minamata Bay for more then twenty years and all that time people of local fisherman community had been dying of an unknown yet very painful disease, until finally it was recognized as mercury poisoning.

Matsuhito, whose career had then just started, was there and he was shocked by the attitude of that factory; not only did they refuse to take any responsibility for the suffering of those people, but they didn't even stopped the poisoning. They just transferred the dumping of their lethal waste from Minamata Bay to Minamata River, causing more people die. It took another ten years before the government made the end of it.

Matsuhito was forced to move to other cases, but the Minamata disaster remained his obsession. When Teru was three, his father discovered new facts about bribed politicians who made it all possible, letting people die in a horrid way just to get more money and power, but the editor wouldn't publish it because that particular political party sponsored their newspaper. This lead to the series of arguments between the journalist and the editor that ended by Matsuhito being forced to leave his job.

"He was fired because he wanted to write the truth," his mother explained, "even when no one else wanted to know it."

The second memory started with clicking of the keys of a typewriter. In these times already personal computers were getting common, especially the famous wāpuro was gaining quick popularity, but Mutsuhito's generation often looked skeptic on these technological advances and clang to their typewriters.

Teru's father was bitter, hating the position he had gotten his family into. His wife didn't return to work after maternity leave because of her weak health; they were soon running low of money and had to depend on the help of Keiko's parents.

Matsuhito spent his days writing job applicant letters and reading responses that were all polite and vaguely encouraging – which in Japan means they were negative.

One evening, when Teru was slowly falling to sleep, soothed by the clicking sound of typewriter keys, this sound suddenly stopped. Then he was abruptly roused from his slumber by a horrible yell of rage and a loud crash, followed by other noises.

Teru hid his head under his blanket, scared to death. He was sure that one of the demons from his fairy tale book had broken into their house, and he was praying that the demon would just get over it and eat him so the terrible noise would cease.

That was where his memory ended.

Some years later he decided to ask his mother about that.

"Oh, that was the ferrets," she answered.

"Ferrets?" Teru repeated, puzzled, "I don't remember that we had any pets."

His mother laughed slightly.

"No, let me explain," she said.

"It was when your father was trying to find a new job. One paper had finally agreed to employ him on the condition that he would be in the entertainment section. His first article was something about ferrets, because they had been popular as pets at that time. He was disgusted, of course, but accepted it for our sake. But when he almost finished his article, he was so furious with himself – seeing how low he had sunk from his purpose, from things like the Minamata disaster – that he ripped the article to pieces and then smashed his typewriter. He yelled that he was never going to write anything again and that he would rather become a dockworker," his mother said with a small smile playing at her lips.

"Anyway, when he got sober in the morning – yes, there was some liquor involved the night before – he found the pieces of the article and rewrote them by hand, because the poor typewriter was done for, and sent them to that paper. They were very pleased with him, and later they resent him some letters from people who complimented on his article, saying it was the best thing on ferrets they had ever read. It amused him a lot."

She paused for a while and then said:

"I think he made you a paper ferret from one of those letters, don't you remember?"

Teru shook his head in negation.

That was how he learned that great men could have their faults that made them even greater.

Teru rose from the riverbank, slightly dissatisfied. Sometimes the stars were beautiful from here, floating gently on the river surface and making him want to immerse in the dark water. But today was not on of those days; stars were all hidden by clouds. He glanced at his watch. It was time to leave now.

He returned to the weekend-house to change.

It was a small, simple building that his father bought some time before his son was born, planning on making it a place that would symbolize the unity of their small family, a place of which they would have the best memories.

They continued to go there after Matsuhito's death, but it was somehow painful for his mother – this place was a reminder of unfulfilled dreams of her short marriage, of a future together that never came.

Teru was worried by his mother's wistful eyes, but couldn't help feeling happy and free when he played in the garden and in the wood, where he sometimes met children from other weekend-houses in the area, but most of the times he was alone, which he didn't mind at all. There was no one to bully him and no one he would feel the urge to protect; he was truly free to wander by himself, pretending to be whichever hero it was he admired at the time.

He was happiest when they came with his mother's younger sister, that one that cried at his father's grave. His mother would cheer up a little, letting her talk about her studies at the university and for her part she boasted with Teru's achievements, which she made habit of doing since he entered the first grade.

That always made him feel pleased and ashamed at the same time.

When it was getting dark and he couldn't play outside anymore, he came to the house and they would gather around the small kitchen table, eat dinner and then play card and board games together. His aunt always laughed very loud and teased him when he lost and he teased her back, and his mother looked at them with bright eyes that were almost happy.

He buttoned his jacket and his eyes trailed to an old wardrobe. The games were still there, piled on the top of it.

For your children, one day, they might like it, his mother argued when they were cleaning here last summer and he contemplated throwing them away. Teru winced at the memory.

He finally left the house. The air grew humid and unpleasant and he was glad he reached the railway station, not enjoying his short walk as he usually did.

The same applied for the train ride. Usually he liked to sit down for those two hours, with his limbs slightly sore from the strain of work, take out some office work and gradually, without doing himself much harm, his weekend moral transformed into the workday one. Before he arrived at the city, he was alert and ready to face whatever next week had in store for him.

But this evening found him fruitlessly leafing through his papers, not really perceiving their content. It fortunately wasn't anything urgent. He finally shut up the file and let his eyes wander out of the window.

This was one of the older trains, not one of those fast ones. He could see houses with their yellow gleaming windows and bluish white light of the streetlamps without it being merged into a single bright smudge that made the existence of human beings behind it appear surreal.

No, he could see those inviting pools of light quite clearly and he felt attracted to them, realizing with sudden clarity that his own home would be dark, until he himself pressed the switch. For Raito rarely returned before midnight these days, and more often than not he was intoxicated and angry for some reason Teru couldn't tell, or was afraid to do so.

He tore his eyes off the evening scenery, scanning now the faces of his fellow passengers. There were businessmen sleeping or tiredly hunching over their laptops, looking as though they were forced to work even on weekends - which they probably were, Mikami thought – but they were outnumbered by families returning from trips. Husbands looked relaxed and complacent, reading their newspapers or talking to their wives, who occasionally let out a trill of laughter, and many of the children quickly made friends with each other, forgetting themselves in play that sometimes had to be interrupted by their parents when it got too wild. True image of Sunday evening joy.

But the strange anxiety that got hold of Mikami made all of this happiness appear false, like everyone was wearing a clown mask on a sad or furious face. That was why he generally disliked parties and other social events; the wilder it got, the more forced it all seemed, smiles were just morbid convulsions of facial muscles and laughter rattling of dry bones…

He shook his head. Such gloomy thoughts weren't like him; he didn't know what possessed him. He watched a girl of six or so showing her mother a picture in her book, prattling away cheerfully, and he couldn't find any pretense in that.

A voice announced the name of the station they approached. Teru remembered that there was a disaster three weeks prior in this area, when a bridge fell on a passing train and killed twelve people. They were people just like them, returning from their weekend… The faces of his fellow passengers suddenly looked distorted again, mocking him with their cheerfulness.

He shook his head again and closed his eyes.

What is it with me today? That must be the weather, he thought when the train finally arrived at their destination and he felt a sharp wind biting his face. It looked like a storm was coming.

When he got home, it was as dark and empty as he expected. Only a few dirty dishes left on the table betrayed that Raito had been here today.

He put them in the dishwasher and thought about the dinner. Usually he returned absolutely starving after having spent the day in the open air, but again, today he almost wasn't hungry at all. His stomach felt tight, constricted by the anxiety that wouldn't go away.

He just took some bread with salami and said to himself that Raito wouldn't mind having that as well, if he wanted to eat after his return. He really didn't care much about what he ate, or even if he ate at all, especially when he was immersed in his writing. Teru sometimes thought that Raito would simply starve to death if he didn't provide him with victuals in regular intervals.

Then he took out a book in a simple blue hard cover. It was his home economy book. He spread a bunch of bills on the table desk and meticulously copied all their expenses to the allocated columns.

Raito didn't have much understanding for that. He was genuinely surprised that Mikami insisted on sharing the expenses half to half, because even now his monetary means were inferior to Raito's, who not only came from a well-off family, but also made quite a fortune by his books, especially when a couple of them was made a movie.

Teru, for his part, although he didn't say it aloud, thought of it as of a way of maintaining equality between them. Or at least an illusion of it, said a little mocking voice in the back of his head that he didn't know how to put to silence any more, illusion of equality in an illusion of relationship, how fitting.

He laid down his pen, tired. His eyes fell on a different book. It was Light in the Leaves, lying at the other end of the table. He reached for it and gave its black cover a hard look. There was a picture of an illuminated alleyway on the front. It didn't arouse any sentiments in him except for the anxiety that was already there.

He didn't understand poetry but felt obliged to try to read this anyway, since it was so important for Raito. But he couldn't make himself do so; when he opened it and read a few words, he closed it again. The pale maggot of the moon ate my face. That kind of thing just wasn't made for him.

But although the words failed to affect him, the book itself, a handful of printed papers bound together in a black shiny cover, seemed to him somehow alive, substituting the presence of its author, the man about whom Teru heard so much.

First he was just amazed that Raito was visiting a sick person, because it wasn't like him at all. While his own father was hospitalized for three months, Raito visited him only twice, because he was then finishing a book that was important for him.

Teru looked again at the picture on the cover, and thought that the poet looked as though he was on the verge of dying. Of course it was because he was so unnaturally pale and thin, but it wasn't only that. After all, Teru knew pale and skinny people who didn't give him this impression.

"It's the nose," his mother's sister once said, after she had started to work in a hospital, "you can see that somebody is dying on his nose. It gets pointy."

Teru didn't know if she was right in saying that, but there was just something in that face - some kind of shade creeping over it, certain hollowness in the eyes – something that made him think of death.

He laid down the book, shivering at the thought that it was to this ghost-like person that Raito devoted so much of his time.

"No, it is the right thing to do," he told himself, it was noble of Raito to visit someone who was so sick and lonely – as Raito told him – and to discuss poetry and all the other things that interested them and Teru knew nothing about. Yet he felt a coldness seizing his heart at that thought, at the memory of how Raito's eyes lit up when he talked about him. There was another thing Teru marveled at – that Raito showed such respect for that man. He remembered many occasions when they attended a dinner or reception together and Raito seemed perfectly humble and polite with everyone, and then talked about those people in the most disrespectful manner after they returned home.

He's brilliant, Raito would say now, sometimes I feel as though he could read my mind. Deep down Teru thought that if Raito just picked someone at the bar and slept with him and then came home, it would be easier to bear than this.

He reached for the TV remote controller in a desperate need of some distraction. But there was nothing particularly interesting on; soon he found himself swapping the channels at random after every five seconds or so. Eventually he stumbled upon some old French movie. He thought of dusting off some of his high school French, but found that he understood too little to enjoy it.

"J'ai besoin de toi," said a woman with long black eyelashes.

"Pas moi, I'll pass," Teru replied, turning the TV off.

Just in that moment the storm came, with blue flashes of lightening splitting up the sky. He stood at the window and watched it for a moment, although it didn't bring him much enjoyment. He actually disliked storms. They were overly dramatic for his taste.

There was a loud crack of thunderclap,

just when they reached the recreational area and hid under the overlapping roof of one of the cottages.

"God's sound", Raito said and then added, when he saw Mikami giving him a puzzled look, "That's the original meaning of kaminari –a thunderclap."

"The sound of God's fury, it seems to me," Teru mumbled and Raito laughed, with flashes of lightening reflecting in his eyes.

The dark silhouettes of the trees swayed in the raging wind and the heavy rain fell on the land with the same cruelty a whip would fall on the back of the punished. God's fury was still on Teru's mind and Raito laughed and laughed with sheer abandon.

Thunder roared again and Teru unconsciously pressed his back to the wall, feeling its rough surface under the thin material of his shirt. Raito finally stopped laughing and moved closer to him. He gave him a kiss, wet and hard. Another flash ran behind Teru's tightly shut eyelids, and

the door closed with a heavy thud. Raito entered, unceremoniously knocked off his wet, dirty shoes and stumbled forward to an armchair, sagging into it.

"Gimme something to drink," he commanded without even bothering to say hello.

"I said give me something to drink! NOW!" he yelled when Teru didn't move from his place and stared at him with his eyes opened wide.

His body finally moved on its own accord and he poured Raito a glass of water. When he handed it to him, Raito angrily smashed it to the ground.

"That's not what I meant and you know it!"

Teru finally got over his initial shock and tried to calmly asses the situation. This had happened before, but it was never so bad. Refusing now wouldn't get him anywhere; but he just couldn't give him more alcohol! He settled with making Raito a vodka with juice, using lot of juice and little vodka.

This time Raito accepted the glass and took a sip. Then he gave Mikami an ugly grimace.

"Trying to trick me, are you?"

Teru stayed silent and fetched a short-handled brush and shovel, sweeping the shreds of the glass Raito had broken off the parquet floor.

He desperately wished that Raito would just fall asleep where he was, but a furtive look he sent in that direction dispelled his hope, because the writer looked awake and alert, his eyes flashing with dim, malicious light and his fingers tapping in a rhythm that disturbingly varied from the beat of the rain.

Teru couldn't stand to watch him; when the glass shreds were safely disposed of, he started to frantically scrubbing a kitchen counter.

"That's all you can do, stupid cleaning?" Raito snapped, "You're wasting yourself on fucking slavery like cleaning and gardening. What good does it to anyone?"

It was obvious that Raito wanted him to fight back. Mikami bit his lower lip, telling himself that he wouldn't be provoked.

"It must be done," he replied stiffly with his back still turned to Raito.

Raito snorted.

"Yes, but not by you. We should pay someone to do it."

"I don't want any stranger coming to our apartment. She would look at us in a strange way-"

"She wouldn't if we pay her enough," Raito interrupted him.

"Well, then she would think to herself that-"

"Why would you care what a goddamn cleaning woman thinks? She can think that we are a pair of giant mutant carrots for all I care, as long as she is doing her work."

The lawyer finally turned to face him, exasperated.

"Is it enough to say that it would bother me? I'd rather take care of it myself."

Raito rose from the armchair and approached him.

"That's your problem, Mikami. You don't have a vision," he said cruelly, "you can only do tasks that don't require any imagination – at your job as well as at home, because there is nothing better you can think of. Just look at yourself."

Teru realized he was clutching a sponge and let go of it, feeling absurdly ashamed. He is drunk and what's more important, absolutely wrong, he thought, but it didn't bring him any solace.

Raito came very close to him and the unpleasant smell of alcohol invaded Teru's nostrils. He wanted to back away, but almost immediately hit the counter. Raito got hold of his arms, digging his nails painfully into his flesh.

"That's what it is all about with you," Raito continued mercilessly, "tasks and regularity, things that must be done at eight and things that can't be done after twelve. I wonder what Lawliett would think of you – if he would stop to think about you at all. Because Lawliett is…Lawliett is… "

Raito let off his hands and his eyes acquired a softer, distant look.

"He reminds me of an angel, you know," Raito said, "yes, an angel with an aureole of light. I wish I knew how to paint. If I could paint, I would try to capture that light."

So this is what he calls a vision, Teru thought bitterly, drunken gibberish.

"He's so high above me he should scorn me because I am unworthy, but he is so high that even scorning someone would be beneath him. And you know what?" Raito suddenly let out wry, distorted laugh, "back then, he was a fucking junkie. Angel of light was sticking dirty needles into his alabaster arms. "

"You mean that he was addicted to drugs?" Mikami asked, appalled by the idea of the company Raito sought out.

"You mean that he was addicted to drugs?" Raito repeated mockingly, "hell, yes, that's what I just said in case you didn't notice."

Teru ignored that remark.

"Has he really quitted?"

"Are you stupid or what?" Raito said with a sneer, "Of course that he quitted, otherwise they wouldn't let him in the Linden Hills. But you know, I think he was doing it to himself 'cause he was searching for something- I feel I can understand that- but you can't, can you? Oh no, you know nothing about it, you never felt this despair…"

This finally served to break Teru's composure.

"Of course I know nothing and I feel nothing, how could it be otherwise," he snapped bitterly, "It's only you and him who are entitled to these privileges. Because you have your visions as you call them. I'm sorry, but I would think twice to ruin my health just because… " He paused to draw a sharp intake of breath a threw his hand in the direction of the book on the table, "Just because I wanted to see the moon as some maggot. "

Raito's right hand swung on its own accord, hitting Teru in the face. The strength of the blow knocked the lawyer to the ground and for the moment he just sat there with one hand covering his eye. Raito towered over him and in his face there was a mix of anger and hurt, as if it had been himself who had been hit.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean that," Teru heard himself babble and felt nauseous, what am I apologizing for, it should be him, but he looks so miserable-what should I do, I just don't know…

Raito's eyes suddenly grew distant again and he slowly retreated to the back of the room. His lips were moving soundlessly as he opened his laptop and started to write.

Teru said something to Raito – he didn't even know what – called at him, even begged him to talk to him, but he didn't pay him any attention, fully absorbed in his writing.

Finally Teru staggered to the bedroom and undressed. He hid his hot bruised face under a pillow and listened to the thunderclaps, thinking of how his father smashed his typewriter.

TBC

A/N: Before I forget – wāpuro is the Japanese word for word-processor, which is something like a laptop but can be used for writing only. It was very popular throughout 80s and early 90s, before it was replaced by real laptops. Oh, and J´ai besoin de toi means I need you in French.