Beta:EternalAngel
A/N: This chapter doesn't really answer any questions either, but it does keep the plot moving, and that's a good thing… Isn't it?
Comments and criticism appreciated.
Akutsu parked his car a few spaces from where Yagyuu had parked his, and watched as the other man crossed the street and walked into the hotel across the street. It was almost three o' clock in the morning, but the lights in the hotel lobby were still on, and Akutsu knew the bar was still open.
It was an upscale place, not the kind Akutsu normally went to, because the staff in those places seemed to instinctively know that Akutsu didn't belong there, and after a few suspicious looks asked him very politely to leave. Some of the times Akutsu flashed his police ID at them and told them to get lost. Most of the time he just told them to get lost.
And it really wasn't the kind of place he liked to hang out, anyway. He preferred places that didn't have such good lighting, where you could still blow smoke on the bartenders face without someone bitching at you about health regulations.
Akutsu grinned at his reflection in the rear view mirror. He hated it when people underestimated him, but even that had its advantages. Yagyuu had never during the years their desks had been next to each other, wondered why Akutsu always left to get cigarettes after he'd locked something in his drawer.
Akutsu stepped out of his car and crossed the street to the hotel. The receptionist in the brightly lit lobby didn't even bother to glance up when Akutsu passed him and headed for the bar.
It was a nice, clean place with dark wood and red carpeting. On his right, by the windows were four booths, and in one of them Akutsu saw a man fitting Inui's description. Hunching his back, hoping he didn't stick out too much, Akutsu walked over to the booth next to the one the man was sitting in and sat down, his back against a wall he was sure separated him from Yagyuu.
He didn't have to wait for too long until Yagyuu confirmed his suspicions by speaking. "I need confirmation first, before I tell you anything."
"The money will be there by morning," replied a smooth and polished voice that held a strange accent Akutsu could not place. It was unlike any he had heard before. "Providing you have anything that interests me."
"I wouldn't have contacted you otherwise." Yagyuu answered. "You told me to keep an eye on the Echizen case, and I have. They've started looking for you."
"And this is all you know?" There was a small, amused chuckle. "You really must be desperate for cash."
"I thought you wanted to know right away if someone was asking about you." Akutsu could imagine the frown on Yagyuu's forehead, and nearly sneered aloud at the 'oh so genuine' puzzlement in the voice. "Inui-san has also been linking some disappearances together with what happened to the boy."
"What disappearances?" The other man asked, and Akutsu leaned back, the answer interesting him as well.
"Can I take your order, sir?" A waitress appeared next to Akutsu, and he scowled at her.
"The ones in the area Echizen Ryoma was attacked."
Akutsu tried shooing the waitress away, not wanting to speak, because he knew Yagyuu would recognize his voice.
"Still not enough, considering how much I'm paying you," the other man spoke slowly, but his voice picked up a lighter tone as he continued. "But don't worry. I've left something for you in your car that will make this an… honest trade. I trust you know what to do with them."
"I'm sorry sir, I don't understand. What would like to drink?" Akutsu made a few more hand sings, but the waitress was insistent, and there was now a slight frown on her forehead. "If you are not going to order anything sir, I will have to ask you to leave."
"He'll have a beer," someone answered for him, and Akutsu looked at the man that had appeared next to the waitress. The man looked just like any other man in the bar. He was dressed in a standard brown business suite with a blue grey tie, had brown hair and eyes… that he kept closed.
"And you sir?" the waitress asked, smiling pleasantly at the man that had ordered for Akutsu. "What may I bring you?"
"Oh, the same, I think," the man smiled at the girl and then sat opposite Akutsu, who if he'd dared to speak, would have told the man to fuck off. "There's no reason to stay quiet anymore. He's gone now," the man said.
Akutsu glared at the man, then stood up and looked at the booth behind his back, and found it empty. He swore and turned his eyes back on the man that had apparently decided to be his companion for the rest of the evening.
"Why don't you sit down, Akutsu-san," the man suggested, and Akutsu's frown deepened.
"Who the fuck are you, and how the hell do you know my name?" he growled, pissed that he had missed the chance to find out what exactly it was that the other man had left in Yagyuu's car. He was sure it would have been something that would finally land Yagyuu behind bars. And he'd missed his chance - perhaps his only chance - to bring down Yagyuu.
"Sit down, and I will tell you," the man said, and by the time he had finished speaking the waitress had returned with the beers. "An ashtray, if you would?" the man said to the girl, who just smiled and nodded at the request, when Akutsu was sure he'd seen a no smoking sign on the wall when he'd stepped inside.
"Please, Akutsu-san. I promise it will be worth your time." There was nothing very threatening in the words, or in the man's voice, but Akutsu still felt a sharp flash of danger. His first instinct was to just walk out, but it seemed cowardly to do so, so he sat down. After some time had passed, that they spent in silence, the waitress reappeared with an ashtray, and Akutsu lit up a cigarette, waiting for someone to come and yell at him, but no one even glanced in their direction.
"So, who the fuck are you?" he asked, after blowing the smoke from his lungs.
"My name is Yanagi," the man answered. "And as for who I am…" the man smiled for the first time, and Akutsu did not like the look of it. Something in it made him feel small and vulnerable. He sucked on his cigarette, trying to draw out more nicotine from the cancer stick, but it felt like all he was sucking to his lungs was tar. "That is a question for another time."
"What the fuck do you want with me then?" Akutsu asked, and put out the cigarette when he noticed his hand was shaking. There was no fucking way he would let this man think he'd affected him in any way.
"To help you," Yanagi answered. "The man your colleague was speaking with, his name is Atobe Keigo. He has a room in this hotel, and he shares it with another man called Fuji Syusuke."
"So he's a poof," Akutsu glared. "Don't really interest me." Yanagi smiled indulgently, and Akutsu bristled. He fucking hated people who tried to look down on him.
"You will not find either of their names in any official papers," Yanagi continued to speak. "Atobe holds a great fortune that he has used over the years to ensure that neither he, nor any of the people he considers as part of his circle appear in them. People like your colleague Yagyuu have ensured this. But I can assure you, Atobe Keigo and Fuji Syusuke are involved in most of the disappearances that have occurred in the Kantou region over the past decade."
"The past decade?" Akutsu asked, laughed dryly and dug out another cigarette, finally convinced the man was just some nutter who happened to be lucky enough to get some actual information. If what the man suggested was true, Atobe would have had to be much older, for him to be involved in criminal activity ten years ago. The man hadn't looked much older than twenty. "What are you suggesting? Yakuza kidnappings? A government conspiracy? Either way, not my area. I work in violent crimes, not in organized crime or missing persons. So go find someone who's interested in your fucking conspiracy theories."
He stood up but an order, "Sit down," spoken with an icy tone froze him to the spot. "I will not ask you again." Slowly, Akutsu sat down, with an unfamiliar feeling, fear, crawling around inside him. "Finish your drink," Yanagi said, his tone pleasant again.
Akutsu extended his right hand, unclenched his fist and coiled his fingers around the cool glass, but didn't lift the drink to his mouth. He licked his lips, looked at Yanagi, and felt a hankering need for a cigarette he could twirl between his fingertips and for the smoke to fill his lungs, for the nicotine that would calm his nerves, even though he'd just finished one. But the presence of this man was unnerving and required more than one half assed smoke to be tolerated. And maybe he needed alcohol, or something stronger to act cool around this man.
"In time I will provide you with proficient evidence so that you can link both Atobe and Fuji to the disappearances. But for now, I trust you will be satisfied with putting your colleague Yagyuu Hiroshi behind bars." Yanagi's voice was devoid of any kind of emotion, but it was the clear lack of it, that convinced Akutsu there was much passion behind this. This was revenge, pure and simple. He'd seen enough of them to know.
"What the hell did they ever do to you?" he asked, even if he didn't really expect Yanagi to answer.
Yanagi gave him a slow smile. "Why nothing, Akutsu-san. Nothing at all."
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Yagyuu felt paranoia grip him when he stepped out of the booth. Every face that looked at him hid sinister thoughts, every pair of footsteps he heard were following him, and every single person in the bar had heard what Atobe had just told him.
Something in his car, something he needed to get rid of.
Drugs? Confidential documents? Bodies?
No, couldn't be bodies. Anything else, yes, but a body? Atobe wasn't stupid. He wouldn't give Yagyuu leverage like that. If Yagyuu had a body Atobe wanted to get rid of, he'd have evidence that could send Atobe to jail. Something to hang over his head, to get more money.
After all, blackmail wasn't that big of a stretch for a dirty cop. If you were willing to make some evidence disappear or leak some information for a price, what was so different about asking money to not leak information?
Yagyuu hurried out of the hotel and across the street to his car. His hands were trembling when he dug out the car keys and tried to look through the windows, to see if there was anything in the front or backseat, but saw nothing. Maybe it was hidden under the seat, in his glove compartment?
And how had Atobe gotten inside his car? And when? The man had been sitting at the bar when Yagyuu had arrived, and he'd gone straight in after he'd parked.
It didn't matter, Yagyuu decided, when he was finally sitting in the driver's seat. He wouldn't start searching his car, for whatever insane surprise Atobe had planned for him, until he got into a more secluded place.
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Atobe was insane, was the first thought that crossed Yagyuu's mind when he opened his trunk. The second one included a prison cell with him in it.
But that would only happen if he got careless and screwed up. All he had to do was get rid of the bodies. The possibility of blackmail had fled his mind the moment he'd seen the marks of torture on the other body. If Atobe had done this, there was no telling what he would do to someone that tried to blackmail him.
But how do you get rid of bodies? Yagyuu had seen his fair share of body dumps, but the problem with all of them was that none had remained secret. He had no idea how to dump bodies so they wouldn't be found.
And these bodies he could not afford to get found. They had been in his trunk for at least an hour, and Yagyuu did not remember the last time he had cleaned his trunk. He kept his gym clothes there, his luggage, groceries, his briefcase. There was no telling what had stuck to the bodies, if one of them had a piece of his hair with DNA in it, stuck somewhere in the clothes or the skin.
Yagyuu took out his phone and stared at it. He could call Atobe and admit he knew nothing about disposing bodies. And lose the money. Atobe would not pay much for just the information – that he had made clear.
And it was not even certain that Atobe would answer. He had never waited long enough to see if he would, before he hung up.
Yagyuu made his decision, pressed a few buttons and waited. The wait for someone to answer seemed long, too long and Yagyuu grew anxious. Finally he heard a familiar voice answer, and could easily imagine the wide smirk on the other's face.
"Hello Niou-kun," Yagyuu said. "I need your help."
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He had met Niou years ago at a scene of a murder.
The victim had been beaten to death. There hadn't been much left of his face to make a positive identification, and he'd been robbed. There were no witnesses, though the street was far from deserted. It wasn't unusual. People were afraid in this part of town, and knew when not to see anything.
Yagyuu had still asked around, and had finally come across a man with bleached hair, and a long rat-tail at the nape of his neck, a cocky grin and something you could call a beauty mark on his chin. "Did you see anything?" Yagyuu had asked, expecting the answer to be the same it had been dozen's of times before.
"Not a thing," the man had answered, just as Yagyuu had expected. "But tell you what. You ask around there," he'd pointed at a bar a few doors down the street. "And you might find someone who's seen something."
Yagyuu had looked at the bar the man had pointed at and frowned. The neon sign hanging in its barred up window that promoted some beer brand was crooked, and it was missing a letter. There wasn't any music or voices coming from inside and he would have thought it closed, if someone hadn't just then staggered inside.
"Thank you," Yagyuu had told the man, and had received grin for an answer.
"Niou," the man had said and when Yagyuu'd just stared, he'd grinned again. "Usually this is the part where people tell me their name."
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you were introducing yourself," Yagyuu answered truthfully. He'd thought the man had spoken the bar's name, or given some other clue. "Yagyuu Hiroshi."
Niou had chuckled at that and left, and Yagyuu had waved one of the other officers to follow him to the bar.
The bar had been dim because of bad lighting and cigarette smoke, but it was enough for them to spot out a man with bruised knuckles and blood on his shirt. They got a drunken confession filled with bravado, and the next morning the man's shirt had disappeared along with the stolen wallet they'd found on him.
He was out by nightfall. It turned out the man's father was a wealthy business man that could afford an expensive lawyer.
The following week was Yagyuu's mother's birthday and he bought her a new wide screen TV. She loved it, like all the other gifts Yagyuu bought her.
Yagyuu saw Niou many times after that, and sometimes the meetings ended with Yagyuu's mother receiving another gift from her son.
Friends were not something Yagyuu had a multitude of, and Niou was different from anyone else he'd named as such. He didn't go for a drink with Niou, or play golf with him, and he never lied to Niou. He'd sometimes wondered if he was even capable of lying to Niou. He'd never tried, but neither had he experimented with the truth. He didn't feel the need to bare his soul and confess his sins to Niou, and somehow he got the feeling it would be pointless anyway.
Niou wasn't naïve or stupid. He knew that not every criminal he told Yagyuu about ended up behind bars, especially not when they had money or influence. But Niou didn't stop feeding him information, and never asked for his share.
And Yagyuu never asked him for anything. Never until now.
And that made him nervous.
Niou's voluntary help might have been free, but what would be the price when Yagyuu asked for it?
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Yagyuu killed his car engine and stepped out, looking at the vacant parking lot he'd driven to. Tall buildings surrounded the area and it was so packed with cars, he had trouble finding a place to park his own, but he finally found an empty spot after driving around for ten minutes. Ten long minutes of agony, sweating with the knowledge that he had two dead bodies in the trunk of his car.
Forcing the panic to subside Yagyuu got out of his car, and walked around it, hoping to clear his head. When he returned to the front, Niou was lying on the hood of the car, arms behind his head, one knee bent, chewing on a red plastic straw. He was dressed in a dark grey suit, white shirt and a loose, grey-blue tie was hanging from his neck. He had black dress shoes on his feet and a black leather belt to match them. He looked like a school boy that was skipping school.
He'd known Niou for years, but the other man never changed in appearance. He must have been as old as Yagyuu by now, almost in his thirties, but he still looked as young as he had when they first met.
Niou had his eyes closed, but he opened one eye, when Yagyuu stopped to stand next to him.
"You know I ain't gonna do this for free," Niou told him, speaking slowly, not bothering to sit up.
"You don't even know what I'm asking of you," Yagyuu said.
"I know what's in the trunk," Niou said, shocking Yagyuu. "You wanna know the price for it?"
"No," Yagyuu said. "Whatever it is, you'll have it, but just… get rid of them."
Niou sat up and grinned in a disturbing way that hinted of violence and hunger, lust that he had only glimpsed of before this. Something dark that made Yagyuu's pulse speed up and his hands sweat. Worry, that this was not such good idea began to seep to his mind, fear of what Niou might ask.
"That's stupid, Yagyuu. You don't know what I'm gonna ask for," Niou said when he slid down from the car and stepped closer, still grinning. He reached Yagyuu and stopped beside him so their bodies were aligned, and Yagyuu could for the first time that night truly see Niou's eyes. He was held captive by the strange, translucent quality of them. Almost like water, reflecting in them any colour that surrounded them. One minute green, the next blue and then black with streaks of red and silver.
"Since you're being stupid, and not at all like yourself, Yagyuu, I'm gonna be smart for the both of us, and tell you what I want, before I let you agree to this." Niou tilted his head back, so his face was fully in Yagyuu's field of vision. "And what I want is very simple. It's just an answer to a question." He leant closer, and when he spoke again, his breath ghosted against the side of Yagyuu's face." An honest answer."
"What is the question?" Yagyuu asked, the closeness of their bodies not bothering him. It had, in the beginning, when he had not grown accustomed to Niou's odd need to be so close, and invade his personal space. Yagyuu did not embrace even his mother spontaneously, but like in so many other ways, Niou was an exception to his rules.
Niou grinned. "Don't be so hasty," he warned, a playful glint in his now grey eyes. "Listen to it all, before you agree."
Niou waited for Yagyuu's nod before he continued. "If you lie, this little," Niou waved his hand between the two of them "Deal between us, is over. I'll quit stopping by, won't answer if you call me, stop helping you, giving you all those tasty little tips that have helped increase your mother's jewellery collection. You'll never see me again and I bet it won't be long before you start missing the extra cash I make for you."
Yagyuu blinked, and stepped back. He had not expected that Niou would be this adamant, that he would be willing to cut all ties between them, if Yagyuu would not comply.
But all Niou wanted was an honest answer to one question. How bad could it be?
"Alright, what is the question?" Yagyuu asked, and Niou's grin disappeared.
"Who told you to get rid of the bodies?"
Yagyuu felt the blood drain from his face and his fingers grew cold. Why would Niou ask that? Out of everything he could have asked, anything he might have demanded from Yagyuu he wanted to know this? Telling the truth, telling Niou who it had been was dangerous. If Atobe ever found out, he'd be dead.
He could still lie, tell Niou some other name besides Atobe. But something in Niou's face when he's asked the question, in the way he'd laid out the rules for this exchange, told Yagyuu he already knew the answer. And why would Niou ask if he already knew?
"Pick another question," Yagyuu told him.
"That's not how the game is played," Niou said, not even a hint of the grin left on his face, and it seemed wrong. Niou should have been grinning. Had he been grinning, this would not have been so serious. "You agreed," Niou continued when Yagyuu did not speak. "Not answering is the same as lying."
"You already know," Yagyuu said, certain of it now. "Why ask, if you already know?"
Now the grin returned to Niou's face and there was something like pride in it. The bastard was proud of Yagyuu for figuring it out.
And it suddenly made sense why Niou would ask that, even though he knew the answer. His voice remained calm, but he was furious when he asked, "You want to know if I trust you with my life? Is that it?"
Niou didn't answer, but neither did he deny it, and that was enough for Yagyuu.
It should have been an easy choice to make. It would be beyond idiotic to risk his life because Niou wanted a proclamation of trust, some kind of proof that Yagyuu cared for him.
Would it really be so difficult to not see Niou again? To lose the one person who really knew who he was and still accepted him? Liked him despite, or maybe because of what he was.
"So what's it gonna be, Yagyuu?" Niou asked, something making his ever present grin waver. Hesitance, worry, fear? "We can't still be here when the sun comes up. We both got places to be."
"Atobe Keigo," Yagyuu spoke the name with no warning, and received some satisfaction from the shock on Niou's face.
"You actually fucking answered," Niou whispered and shook his head. "You…" Niou looked away and muttered "Idiot," under his breath. There was not much of a sting in the word, and Yagyuu thought it sounded almost affectionate.
Yagyuu heard Niou take in a deep breath and then speak with his back still turned. "Alright, you can get the hell out of here now, go home and get some sleep."
"But what about the-"
"Not your problem anymore," Niou answered and his words were followed by a sound that came from someone slamming shut the trunk lid. "So go home and sleep. I'll take care of it."
Yagyuu remained where he was, his gaze fixed on the back of Niou's head and his rigid back. "What's wrong Niou-kun? You're acting like you hadn't wanted me to answer." Yagyuu asked, his voice laced with laughter. Amused that Niou acted like this he stepped forward and placed his hand on Niou's shoulder and tugged, but the other man did not turn.
"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to hear the answer," Niou said, and when Yagyuu's grip tightened he tensed.
Eventually Yagyuu took his hand from Niou's shoulder and returned to his car. When he sat in the driving seat and looked back, Niou was gone.
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Niou slid open the side door of a silver van, stepped inside and pulled the door closed behind him. There was enough room in the back for the two bodies on the floor, and him, and enough room still left that they could have fitted three more people comfortably.
"What do you want to do now?" the driver, a kid with caramel red hair asked. "We burn those?" he pointed at the bodies and chewed on his bubblegum.
Niou kneeled down and reached out to turn the closest body on its back. He stared at the vacant, dead eyes and reached out to close the lids, but hesitated with his hand hovering over the face. Finally he fisted his hand and pulled it away. "No," he answered.
"Then what? Dump them somewhere? I thought the point was that no one would find them."
Niou reached over to his jacket pocket and took out something he had wrapped in a handkerchief. He pulled back some of the fabric and revealed the tip of a silver pen.
"Where'd you get that?" the driver asked.
"From Yagyuu," Niou answered, and without looking up, struck the pen violently in the neck of the body, pulled it back and struck the pen down again, making sure to eradicate the bite marks on the neck, and finally leaving it on the neck, sticking out like an antenna. "Get this van moving, and take us to some alley where we can dump these."
"You're a real asshole, Niou, you know that?" the kid asked, and started the car.
Niou shrugged, placed the handkerchief back in his pocket, and climbed up front to sit next to the kid. "Just drive, Marui."