A/N: No Beta, so the probability of typos and mistakes higher than in the previous chapters. Sorry about that.

Comments and criticism always welcomed.

It took Ryoma almost an hour to realize he was being an idiot. If he'd just gone home and talked to his parents, there might have been a chance that he would have been able to convince them that the best thing for him wasn't moving out of the country. But now that he'd run away again, they'd never believe him, even if he swore to never do it again.

Ryoma sighed and dug his hands in his pockets, wondering if he had any money. He wasn't very surprised to find nothing in his pockets. He didn't even have his phone. After Kirihara had destroyed it, he hadn't bothered with a new one.

Ryoma looked up when a rain drop fell on his nose. Dark clouds had gathered in the sky and blocked the sun he'd been staring at only an hour ago. It started pouring, and Ryoma ran towards the closest shelter, a doorway of an apartment building. He leaned against the wall, shivering from the cold. He was only wearing his uniform, and didn't even have a coat or a scarf.

Someone stepped into the doorway next to him, but when they didn't just pass him by and go inside, Ryoma looked up to see a familiar face and concerned eyes behind round glasses. "Echizen," Oshitari almost whispered his name. "You… Did you know I live here?"

Ryoma blinked, his eyes darting to the street behind Oshitari. It was still raining hard, and Oshitari was even more drenched than Ryoma. "No, you live here?" Ryoma asked, folding his arms.

Oshitari's smile was thin and his chuckle almost sad. "Yes," he answered, taking a key ring from his pocket. "Would you like to come inside? We can call your parents, and-" Oshitari's hand was on his shoulder before Ryoma could do no more than lift his foot. "Don't leave," Oshitari said, and glanced over his shoulder at the rain. "We don't have to call anyone, but you can't go back out there. You'll get sick."

Ryoma stared up at Oshitari, trying to understand what the man wanted from him. But he couldn't figure anything from Oshitari's face, and he was freezing. "Fine," he finally said, and was taken back by the sudden smile Oshitari flashed him.

"Good." Oshitari smiled and unlocked the door. "I'll make us some tea and you can use the shower. And then we can talk. Alright?" he asked, keeping the door open for Ryoma who was still hesitant. But the rain wasn't showing any signs of stopping, and he was cold. Tea and a warm shower sounded almost too good to be true.

"Yeah," Ryoma muttered and stepped inside.

"You can go on ahead, I still have a few things I have to get from the car. It's the third floor, apartment thirteen," Oshitari said and gave Ryoma his keys. The boy took them and blinked at Oshitari. He didn't get the man. No one in their right mind would offer their keys to someone they hardly knew.

"There are clean towels in the bathroom, and an extra robe in the bedroom closet. Use the green one, the blue's mine," Oshitari waved one more time before he turned and opened the door.

"Why are you doing this?" Ryoma asked before Oshitari could step back in to the rain. "No one does anything without a reason."

Oshitari turned back, his hand still keeping the door open. He looked at Ryoma for a long time without speaking. He opened his mouth once, then closed it and finally smiled his irritating, slow smile. "It's more like I don't have any reason to not help you, Echizen-kun."

Ryoma almost wished Oshitari wouldn't have his glasses, so Ryoma could see his eyes without the light reflecting of their surface. But he still remembered how uncomfortable he'd been under Oshitari's naked gaze, and was grateful for the barrier between them, no matter how artificial it was. "You're lying," Ryoma said, gripping the keys tighter.

"What reason would I have to lie to you?" Oshitari's voice was compassionate and his smile more reassuring. It all seemed so fake to Ryoma. Like Oshitari was trying to play a part in a play, but his own personality was too strong to be hidden behind another, fake one.

"I don't know why, but you are," Ryoma said.

Oshitari's smile faltered, but didn't disappear. He sighed and pulled his glasses of, placing them in his pocket. "You don't have to trust me, or even know my motivations," Oshitari said. "Just accept that I will not do anything that might harm you. Now go up, I'll be there soon."

For the first time since Ryoma had known him, Oshitari actually sounded like a responsible adult, and Ryoma found himself acting on it. He shrugged and got on the elevator.

0

0

Oishi ran inside the station, hoping he'd have thought to bring an umbrella with him, like Inui. But he always closed the TV before the forecast, thinking that if there really was something he needed to know about the weather, Inui would tell him. But apparently Inui didn't think a rain storm was something worth mentioning.

"You could've at least shared it with me," Oishi grumbled, took off his coat and tried to shake the excess water off it. "Inui? Are you listening?" Oishi asked and looked at his partner.

"There wasn't anything on the radio about a bomb threat or a hostage situation, was there?" Inui asked, looking at the station house that looked like it'd been thrown into chaos. Everyone was either running, or yelling at someone on the phone. Those that weren't in the midst of a panic, just sat by their desks and stared at the empty air.

"No," Oishi answered and stepped inside their department. "Maybe it's something so big no one wanted to risk rumours of it spreading outside."

"There's Akutsu, come on," Inui said, pointing at the man that did not seem distressed or troubled. "He looks far too content to not know anything."

Oishi thought that calling Akutsu content was an understatement. Akutsu was beaming like it was Christmas morning and he'd just gotten a bazooka. It worried Oishi sometimes that a man so violent and short-tempered was working as a police officer.

"Akutsu," Inui greeted the man when they reached him. "What is going on here?"

"Justice," Akutsu answered, grinning and laughed with his head thrown back.

"That doesn't really tell me anything," Inui replied, sounding almost bored and unfazed by the sheer maliciousness in Akutsu's laughter.

"Yagyuu got caught with his hand in the cookie jar," Akutsu snickered, leaving them both even more puzzled. "They found his pen in a murder victim's neck, and his DNA is all over both bodies."

"Both?" Inui asked.

"Yagyuu?" Oishi gasped. "That can't be true."

Akutsu snorted. "Believe it. I also found the man you were looking for, Inui. His name's Atobe Keigo and he's been paying Yagyuu to keep him informed on your doings."

"What man, Inui?" Oishi asked.

"Anything else?"

"I found the hotel he's staying at and found out that he's staying there with a man called Fuji Syusuke."

"Inui!" Oishi yelled, causing both men, and some of the others in the room to turn and stare at him. "What is he talking about, what man, and what does he know about Fuji-san?"

Akutsu chuckled and pulled out a cigarette from his pocket. "Troubles with the missis, Inui?"

"I meant to tell you earlier, Oishi," Inui said, coughing and trying not to look or sound very defensive. "Yesterday, I saw the man we saw with Echizen in front of the movie theatre. He was following us, and I asked Akutsu to search for him."

"And you didn't think it was something I should know?" Oishi fumed.

"You were troubled, and I did not want to worry you," Inui almost muttered.

"I'm a grown man, Inui, you can't treat me like a child. I can take care of myself," Oishi said, sounding frustrated. "I don't want to work with anyone else, but I can't work with you if you start treating me like someone you have to take care of."

"I am sorry, Oishi, I did not think… I will try not to," Inui finally promised.

"Great," Akutsu grunted, padding his pockets in a fervent search for a lighter. "Family therapy over now? Crisis averted and the happy couple is reunited again?"

"Inui, Oishi, good you're here," Tachibana said, coming over to them. "I need you to come with me."

"To where?" Inui asked.

"If you're going to arrest Yagyuu, I'm coming too," Akutsu said, glaring at his lighter that only sparked, giving him no flame. "Anyone got matches?" he yelled.

Tachibana frowned at Akutsu. "I'm not sure that's a good idea, considering your history with him."

"What fucking history? I'm the only one who's known from the start that he's rotten, and I deserve to be there," Akutsu said, the cigarette still dangling from his mouth. "I need a fucking light," he muttered, and dropped the malfunctioning lighter on his desk.

"We're not going to arrest him, yet. We just want to talk to him." Tachibana glanced at the desk next to Akutsu's and frowned at the scattered papers on it. They'd gone over them all, but Yagyuu had been careful not to leave anything incriminating. As it was they didn't have much evidence, just a few odd coincidences on the cases Yagyuu had worked in.

"Is there really no chance that it's a mistake? Or that he was framed?" Oishi asked. "If the pen is really all there is, then maybe…" he stopped, still hopeful despite the way Tachibana shook his head sadly.

"You remember the robbery we worked on about a month back?" he asked. "The jewellery store robbery where two security guards were killed?"

"Of course I do," Oishi answered. He could never forget the grieving family members, or the co-workers shock that someone they talked to every day had been killed right in front of their eyes. "We would've had the culprits too, if …" Oishi swallowed. "If someone hadn't torched the van when we went to arrest them."

"You're not saying Yagyuu did it?" Inui asked.

"If you remember it's not the only thing that went wrong with that case," Tachibana said. "The forensic evidence got tampered with, and there was that one report about the bullets. Yagyuu could have easily replaced them, he had access."

"That doesn't prove anything," Inui said. "Anyone could have done that, even someone working at the morgue."

"No, but it does raise questions," Tachibana answered and looked at his watch. "They should be done with the bodies by now. I'll call and ask if they've found anything else. After that we're leaving to Yagyuu's."

0

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Ryoma jiggled the keys, trying to find the right one that would fit the lock on the apartment door. He figured it was probably the same one Oshitari had used to open the building door, but he hadn't been paying attention then, and there were at least three keys in the key ring that could have gone into the lock.

A door behind him opened and Ryoma turned to see a man around Oshitari's age with hair dyed red, almost pink, step in to the hallway and say, "Yuushi, why are you back so late, I thought we were going to the-" Ryoma never found out what the man was going to do with this Yuushi person, because when he saw Ryoma, the man screamed. "Who the hell are you and why are you standing in front of Yuushi's apartment!" Then he noticed the keys in Ryoma's hand and his eyes widened. "Why do you have Yuushi's keys?! Did you rob him?!"

Ryoma concluded that Oshitari was Yuushi. And now his friend thought he'd robbed him, and was going to call the police and they'd call his parents, and he'd be sent to the States. "I didn't rob him, he gave them to me!" Ryoma yelled, almost panicking.

"Yuushi wouldn't give his keys to a stranger!" the man yelled and then gasped, pressing his hands on his chest, eyes round, mouth open. "He's cheating on me! The bastard is cheating on me with a child prostitute!"

"What? Fuck you man!" Ryoma screamed back, ears burning. He turned back to the keys and stuck the first one into the lock. It didn't fit. "Shit."

"Just tell me how long it's been going on," the man stepped next to him, and Ryoma, with his face still burning turned to look at him. "I have a right to know!"

Ryoma stared at the red head, trying to figure out if this was a joke. Maybe the redhead thought this was funny, and he did it to everyone he met for the first time. And maybe someone had actually thought it was funny at some point and told him so, so he never stopped even when people gave him weird looks, or tried to have him committed.

Fortunately Ryoma didn't have to say anything, because the elevator doors opened and Oshitari stepped out, his arms filled with groceries in wet paperbacks. "Yuushi!" the redhead yelled and Oshitari looked up, his eyes widening behind the glasses he'd placed back on his nose. "Who is he? And why does he have your keys?"

"Gakuto? Why are you…?" Oshitari shook his head, recovered from the shock and flashed the man a smile. "I thought you were going without me. Didn't we agree to meet there?"

"We didn't agree anything," the man called Gakuto said, crossing his arms. "You just left a message for me at work to tell me that you'd be late and to go without you."

"And you chose to ignore it," Oshitari muttered from behind his bags.

"Of course I did!" Gakuto shouted, and Ryoma wondered why no one had appeared in the hallway to see what was going on. But maybe they were used to the screaming. "And I'm glad I did! If I'd gone, I never would've found out that you're cheating one me!" he screamed, face almost as red as his hair, pointing at Ryoma.

"Gakuto, he's one of my students," Oshitari said in a calm voice.

"Your student!" Gakuto screamed and then whispered, "How could you?" clutching the front of his shirt in a desperate grip.

"I didn't!" Oshitari shouted, shoved the groceries to Ryoma and took back his keys. "Take these inside, would you Echizen-kun? Use the shower if you want."

"The shower!" Gakuto screamed while Oshitari opened the door to Ryoma and almost shoved him inside.

"Gakkun, honey," Ryoma heard Oshitari say before the door was closed behind him and he was left in a dim hallway, hands full of soggy paper bags that smelled of fish.

0

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Yagyuu had come home as soon as he could, after the bodies had been taken and the crime scene processed. He'd stared after the car that had taken the bodies, knowing that once it reached the morgue, and the coroner took out the pen, it would be the end for him. He could try to fight it, claim that he'd been framed, but it would be futile to think he could get past this somehow. With the pen, and other possible evidence from the bodies, they'd have a reason to look deeper into his doings, and they would find more reasons to be suspicious.

The apartment he called home was bare. The only furniture in the living room was a small table and a two-seater couch. He didn't even own a television. He had a laptop he kept on his desk in his bedroom that was mostly occupied by a large king-sized bed. The only indulgences he'd allowed himself to have.

He'd been so careful to not let anything in his apartment, or on his person to show how much money he really had. But that didn't matter now, and probably never would have. He'd never invited anyone to his apartment, because he'd been scared of them finding something he'd overlooked.

His phone, that he'd set down on the living room table, rang, and Yagyuu looked at the name. One of his colleagues, calling to warn him, wanting to know if it was true he had something to do with the murders, maybe even hoping he'd been framed.

He could so easily imagine it in his mind, how it would go. It would start with disbelief.

No one wanted to believe the man they'd worked with for years, who they'd trusted could be a criminal. But then the facts would come out, the hard evidence, the pen, maybe something more, a strand of his hair on the bodies, and slowly they would start to accept. Then they would remember little things that had seemed like nothing at the time, but now told them of his guilt. And then someone would mutter they'd always known there was something fishy about Yagyuu, that they'd never really trusted him.

But when they'd come, they wouldn't come to arrest him. No, they would want to talk first. One final attempt to deny the truth. They wanted him to say he hadn't done it, that he'd been framed. Even with overwhelming evidence they would still hold on to the small hope that no cop they'd trusted could betray his fellow officers just for money.

"Anyone else but you would have already left town," Niou's voice came from behind him, and Yagyuu turned to look at the man that had destroyed him. "This is where they'll look first."

He didn't bother with questions or accusations, there wasn't anything Niou could say that would make it alright. Yagyuu pulled out his gun and shot Niou right between the eyes. If he was going down for murder, he might as well commit one.

Niou's body fell down, almost gracefully. There was less blood than Yagyuu had expected. It was almost disappointing, that Niou's death was so… clean, and over so quickly.

"I deserved that, but it still hurts like hell."

Yagyuu's hand that still held the gun, pointed at where Niou's body had lain only a second ago, twitched. He turned around and shot in the direction he'd heard the voice. The bullets hit Niou in the chest and stomach, and he hunched over and staggered back by the force of the impact, but did not fall.

Forcing the fear, caused by the impossible happening before his very eyes, to the back of his mind, Yagyuu stepped closer, pressed the gun against Niou's forehead, and stared at the man who should have been dead.

Niou's grin was crooked, like most of the time, arrogant, but twisted with pain. "Can we talk before you bury another bullet in me? It won't kill me."

"Then what will?" Yagyuu asked and fisted his hand on Niou's collar and pushed the man back against his couch, pressing Niou against the backrest. He wanted to shoot Niou again, turn his face unrecognizable with bullets. Maybe then he would stay down.

"Now why would I tell you that, when you're trying to kill me?" Niou asked, that same arrogant grin on his face.

"So I can't kill you," Yagyuu said, breathing hard like he'd ran a marathon, not even trying to control the panic that made his heart race. He took the gun from Niou's forehead, pressed its barrel against the white haired man's stomach and pulled the trigger. He smiled for the first time when Niou's smirk was wiped out by a mask of agony as the bullet ripped through his gut. "But it seems I can cause pain."

"You're gonna run out of bullets eventually," Niou hissed between his clenched teeth, and opened his eyes that had now taken the colour of Yagyuu's grey couch. "Let me explain."

"What is there to explain?" Yagyuu asked, trying to take control of his shaky voice. "I do not need to know your reasons. You were probably paid to do it, and you've already been watching me for years. By whom? I couldn't really care. And it doesn't even matter, because I'll be dead before the night ends." Yagyuu pulled back and looked down at Niou's chest. The white shirt was covered in blood but Niou didn't seem to be in pain anymore. Yagyuu pulled the shirt up and found blood, lots of it, covering smooth skin with out even a single scar. "And that begs the question, why you're not? What are you?"

"I'm a vampire," Niou answered, grinning more widely so Yagyuu could see the sharp fangs in his mouth. "It's hard to kill something that's already dead."

When Yagyuu didn't react, Niou frowned and leaned up. "You're not surprised?" he asked, confused and his grin dropped. He looked almost disappointed.

And perhaps he was. Yagyuu didn't think Niou had many opportunities to reveal something like that about himself. "Of course I am," Yagyuu said and pushed himself up, away from Niou and off the couch.

He should be horrified, Yagyuu knew, but the shock still hadn't passed, and his mind acted like it was on auto drive. It was asking questions, and his mouth voiced them. "But I'm more curious, than surprised. If you really are a vampire, then why are you doing this to me? Why do you care about money?"

"It isn't about money," Niou answered. "This isn't even about you."

"Atobe then?" Yagyuu guessed. "Someone wants me to rat on him?" he laughed. "That is never going to happen. He's going to get me killed before I have the chance. And even if he doesn't, he's not the only one I've done favours for. Once they hear I've been caught, it'll be a race to get me killed. I won't live through the night."

"That was their plan," Niou said.

"Whose?"

Niou shook his head. "You don't want to know, trust me."

Yagyuu laughed. "I did!" he yelled, waving his hands, still holding the gun. "It's because I trusted you I'm in this mess! So you are going to tell me why!"

"I can't!" Niou yelled back. "At least, not everything," he amended and looked away.

Yagyuu took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. Right now he wanted nothing more than for Niou to go and leave him alone.

"I didn't want to do it," Niou was closer again. One more step and they would be pressed together. Even now he could smell the blood and gunpowder that covered Niou, almost taste it in his mouth. "But I didn't have a choice. He would've found someone else, and I wouldn't be able to help you."

"Help me?" Yagyuu asked, not able to stop the desperate laugh that followed. "You think you can help me?"

"It's very simple," Niou answered, tilting his head back, so Yagyuu's gaze was drawn to the sharp fangs that his arrogant grin exposed. "Didn't I already tell you that it's hard to kill something that's already dead?"

Yagyuu staggered back, his finger trembling on the trigger. He knew he wouldn't be fast enough, that the bullets wouldn't kill Niou, but when the other man stepped closer he still fired his gun.