Chapter Three: Cinnamon
When Fai, Ashura, Subaru, and Seishiro returned to the base building, Kamui was already clothed and seated on one of the armchairs in the lobby, looking determinedly straight ahead, and not at Fuuma, who was standing behind him, seeming quite amused by this all, and quite sated. Doumeki, on the other hand, is seated beside Kamui, counting the green bills in his hand with utmost concentration, before rounding the hefty load up with a rubber band and tucking it into the recesses of his suit jacket.
Fai eyed Ashura and then eyed Doumeki, and after both men had headed for the door to round up the cars—the signal meaning that it was time to begin the trip back to Kyoringo—he slid into what'd just been Doumeki's seat, right beside Kamui. "So," Fai began, tipping his head all the way back to smile at Fuuma. "How was it?"
Kamui didn't move—didn't twitch or show any sign.
Fuuma grinned. "Excellent, thank you very much."
Fai laughed, and tugged Kamui's Gatsby over his eyes. "I'm immensely glad to hear that. Kamui's never failed, so I was a little worried when I heard from Seishiro about how adamant you were."
"I just needed some convincing." Fuuma shrugged, still grinning. "That's all."
Kamui wasn't listening to any of this. He was still reliving the horror that had grabbed within his chest when, post-coital and still regaining their breath (and in Kamui's case, the ability to walk), Fuuma had asked him with those six dreaded, awful words.
When can I see you again?
And even after the next hour or so, Fuuma still hadn't seem to be able to comprehend that he wasn't going to see Kamui again. Ever. Not in the way he wanted to, at least. Kamui didn't understand how Fuuma hadn't been able to understand that even though he was a beautiful one and a male one and not a common street one, he was still, very much, a whore, when all pretty words were aside.
Therefore, using that branch of logic, Fuuma couldn't sleep with him again—or be with him again—because the next time Kamui came to Kazeshi, it would be to sleep with the next new subordinate.
And really, Kamui didn't see anything in the near or far future—or ever—that indicated any reason why Fuuma would want to repetitively be with a whore who'd slept with enough men to build an army. Possibly a navy alongside.
"Well, considering Kamui's apparent preference to remain sitting rather than stand so we can get home before sunrise, I would think that he convinced you fairly well," Fai said, eyeing his friend. The comment snapped Kamui out of his thoughts and earned Fai a well-deserved glare. Fai simply tugged the Gatsby playfully lower over Kamui's eyes, and Shirokamen watched amusedly as Fuuma's eyes sparked as he looked on.
In a way that was far from positive.
Fai sighed a sigh of deceiving happiness and stood up, keeping one hand on Kamui's shoulder, fingers digging below the left suspender. He nudged his head toward Yukito, who'd reappeared near the side of the elevator. "Will he be returning with us again, Seishiro?"
The Kazeshi leader shrugged. "No." Then he smiled. "Unless you need him?"
Fai shot the smile back. "We're fine. But in the case of our next meeting, and in lieu of the recent rumors surrounding the district's immensely…ah…uncooperative police force, I believe it would be best if we take someone new with us who can be a back-and-forth. Someone that the police doesn't know the face of, if you catch me?"
"Sir," Yukito cut in.
Subaru threw him a look, and adjusted the lapel of his suit enough so that his gun clinked. Yukito fell silent.
"If you wanted to take Fuuma, you could have just asked," Seishiro said lazily, once again, allowing one of his hands to trail up and down Subaru's side. Fai might've even caught his hand going up the back of Subaru's suit. "He's new, so do not blame me if you get thrown behind bars because of him."
Fuuma remained silently grinning. Kamui did not.
Fai, however, simply looked from the new subordinate that he'd just promised to take under his wing, and to his friend, who he'd been to hell with and back. And all he did was smile angelically as he pulled his mask over his face.
There were a number of ways to reach Kazeshi from Kyoringo without having to take a train. But out of all those ways, if one was a local, then one would know that there were, more specifically, two easiest ways to reach the destination of the windy city without having to pay the expensive fare of a train ticket.
And whereas the first way involved monotonously long driving over a rather flat plain of nothingness, the second way was quick, slightly bumpy, but nevertheless far better and less boring and painful than the drive of monotony that was so infamously monotonous, it was rumored that the monotony was enough to drive even a scholar insane.
But although most locals only knew those two ways—and almost always chose the second, if they valued their sanity—some locals, some underworld locals, knew of a third way.
This third way involved using the dead of night, backtracking every four miles, and driving at a heady angle through numerous illegal tunnels, but if it was done right and done enough times, it would be as easy as driving straight ahead in bright sunshine. And although completely illegitimate and dangerous and almost nearly fully unknown, by sheer chance of fate, Kurogane had found out about this third way, and he knew that after staking out the second way for more months than he could count, this third way was surefire of catching Shirokamen and his group.
And after that, taking down Kazeshi would be simple.
Which meant that at the moment, Kurogane was presently encumbered in what he hoped was an inconspicuous cargo truck parked against the left wall of the tunnel, waiting until Shirokamen came through so they could intercept the vehicles and put silver cuffs around the criminals' deserving wrists. And if they were lucky, Kurogane could use his much-abandoned gun, which hadn't gotten shoot anything in over half a year besides the occasionally oversized beetle that managed to crawl into his office during a summer heat wave.
He glanced to his right and upon finding that Touya might or might not have fallen asleep, took the barrel of his gun and brought it down hard over his coworker's head.
"DAMN!" Touya whipped around and brought up his hands incredulously, as if asking what could possibly be the matter with Kurogane's sanity and consideration of others' physical wellbeing or lack thereof.
"Did you fall asleep?" Kurogane said.
Touya peered at him oddly through the darkness. "No!"
"Oh. All right." Kurogane tucked the gun back in. "Make sure you don't fall asleep any more. They got to be coming soon."
"I was not asleep in the first place!" Touya threw his hands up.
Kurogane simply shrugged, and they both turned back to watch out of their respective windows.
On the way back, Fuuma drove one of the rear cars—which Kamui was more or less stuffed unceremoniously into—and Doumeki drove the other, while Ashura went on to once again drive the leading vehicle, with Fai in the passenger seat. The trucks were driven and loaded with the same men that they'd used on the way there, and although they usually rested along the way and back—making it a total of three days, rather than one—Doumeki expressively expressed that he had a crap game to float on extremely soon. And when Doumeki expressed anything, it had to be a grave matter of even graver importance.
Fai found the heart to make an exception and bypass every hotel, even though he would much rather sleep the night off, rather than spending it driving back, and that there were certain risks with making this fast of a journey. And there were only two things that reassured him whenever there were risks involved: first, the fact that he was Shirokamen, and second, the fact that he had a gun snugly tucked into the inside of his breast pocket.
And even that didn't guarantee the fact that the others would come out alive—and not imprisoned—but Fai had long since learned that losing one or two of your men was merely something that went with the money and explicit nightlife. It was just a matter of which men you didn't care to lose and which men you absolutely couldn't stand losing. Rather than worrying about all of them and assuring all of them came out with their lives and without arrest, worry about the only ones completely necessary to you.
It would save your life and theirs.
Fai extricated his gun and appraised it. It was the most recent and modern version of the automatic revolver. On the market for less than two decades. He'd asked for ten to be specially commissioned for him and his mob. The extras were given as gifts to Seishiro and whomever he'd deemed fit to have one.
Still, the gun and all of Fai's own philosophies and mantras that he'd ingrained to himself since that one fateful day five years ago did little to ease the blossom of fear at the back of his mind that never really seemed to dissipate. No matter how hard he tried through all of these years—five years seemed like twenty—it never went away. The small nagging feeling that anything, something, somehow would go wrong despite all his planning.
He moved the cinnamon stick in his mouth from right to left.
It terrified him more that he still had too much life left to live. Most of him simply wanted to die sooner or later—mostly just sooner—so he wouldn't have to live with that constant little pest gnawing at his mind for the next seventy years or so. He'd rather die while he was young. At the least, his corpse would be beautiful, and he would die happy, rather than old and wrinkled and slightly disgusting.
"Ashura," Fai said quietly, his eyes narrowing at the dark road ahead.
"Yes?"
"Could you pause at the side for a bit?"
Ashura looked at him oddly. He swerved the car to the side of the road and softly landed into a stop. They waited for the others behind them to catch up and follow at their lead. Fai leaned back and glanced out the window, waiting until every car and truck was accounted for behind them in line. It was the best possible place to convene—directly before the start of the lengthy tunnel. The tunnel was always a source of thrill and dread for Fai as it took slight of hand and swift of mind to navigate through it alive—and with one's vehicles whole.
Both men removed themselves from the car, stepping out. Doumeki, Kamui, and Fuuma were fast approaching them, as were a few other underlings from the trucks. Fai left his mask—and his, by now, much worn cinnamon stick—in the car. The night was dark to cover his face—there was no moon tonight and the city lights were still close enough to shed the stars. "What is it?" Fuuma asked.
"There are tracks in the road," Fai said, his eyes glowing. "Tracks that are left when someone inexperienced with the tunnel leaves. Normally, if you skid properly, no tracks are left, because the wind that blows at an angle never fails to cover them. And it's part of ever member's—Kazeshi or Kyoringo—initiation to learn how to drive through the tunnel."
"It's the police, then?" Doumeki muttered.
Kamui brought his eyes up wide until his thick eyelashes were colliding against his eyebrows.
"What difference do we do even if it is?" Ashura said this, looking down at Fai with a smile. "We out chase them—is that all there is?"
Fai looked out at the faces of his underlings—all nervously shifting from foot to foot, the emotion out of place with their confident suits and fedoras. Then, he glanced back at his men. "No. Tonight, let's engage them. Besides, there's no other reason for them to be here than as a stake out. They intend to bring all of us cuffed and chained to justice by dawn."
None of his men or his subordinates laughed at this. None of them even smiled.
Apparently, they failed to see the obvious humor that was causing Fai to brightly grin. And they clearly couldn't see any bit of the excitement that caused Fai to laugh and throw back his head. "There hasn't been any fun in so long," he explained, reaching out to grasp his hands around Kamui's wrist, tugging the prostitute in for a kiss that tasted like wind and cinnamon. "Tonight. We let them chase us."
Kurogane elbowed Touya in the ribs. The vice-chief jerked to life indignantly. "What the hell…?" He looked to his colleague, annoyed. "What is it now? I do not see why you constantly have to harass me—"
"Be quiet," Kurogane growled, his red eyes alight. "And start up the car. The boys'll follow—they've been told the orders, yeah? Look at that up ahead—we're following that right there, all things be damned." He elbowed Touya again for good measure and began jabbing his finger at the lone vehicle speeding ahead past them on the tunnel, drifting and skidding and sliding all ways.
Touya stomped on the pedal and swung the steering wheel around and followed the car. He'd only learned the way to drive through this tunnel hours ago and he was terrified to death—it was a tunnel filled with the devil's laughter, he swore. He didn't know why Kurogane couldn't do this instead—he was more manic than Touya and the rest of the team put together.
They sped down through the tunnel, eyes intently on the road and even far more intently on the little black spot ahead of them in the night—speeding down faster than it should be possible to maneuver in this type of surrounding. Touya could feel his heart punching and kicking against his chest and the silence suffocating them was so thin that he could've sworn he could even hear Kurogane's heart trying to break through.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Again, Kurogane's accent had approached such ferocity that even Touya—Kyoringo, born and bred—nearly couldn't understand him. "This stupid, damned car can drive faster than this, you idiot! For the life of you, you'd better drive faster, we're losing them!"
"How do you intend to make them pull over?" Touya muttered back, turning side ways and attempting not to get them flattened against the tunnel's walls. "Your gun cannot possibly hit that far. You might hit one of them even if we do get close enough!" He knew his arguments weren't coming out in the most intellectual way, but it took all of his concentration just to keep them intact and whole, much less string together pretty, fanciful words.
Kurogane grinned. And the moment Touya had enough time to chance a quick look at his leader, he felt his stomach drop to his ankles. It was the grin that everyone on the district's damned police hated. That feral grin that meant more than anything that Kurogane couldn't any more care about what was really the object of the mission. He just wanted to use his gun now.
"Just get close enough," Kurogane said with that stupid, damned grin.
But orders were damned orders and Touya swerved the car as much as his terrified common sense would permit him—they could hear the sirens and shouts behind them now, and apparently there was more than just this one car—now the criminals were following them, trapping them.
There were only three other cars filled with policeman other than this. Kurogane had told Touya to order them to move only when there was a sign that Touya and Kurogane might need help. They hadn't thought that there would've been more than two mobster vehicles. Any more and they thought that some civilian would've noticed—as gangsters weren't known for their subtlety nor for their modesty.
Touya closed his eyes and jammed the steering wheel to the farthest right it would go, slamming into the car that they were now neck-in-neck with. Kurogane hit the car door on his side, punching his gun through the glass of the window and sliding himself out, the air whipping through his hair. "You're damned hell insane!" Touya roared, loud enough so that the bastard could hear him from the wind that came automatically with this speed of motion.
Kurogane just saluted him, grinned, and swung himself fully out of the car, completely deaf to tall of Touya's curses.
Ashura's head whipped around to glance at Fai, and Fai's head whipped upward as a heavy weight thumped down on the roof of the car. Fai slid his gaze smilingly to Ashura, and Ashura raised an eyebrow as he drifted the car back and forth, the ground groaning beneath the tires. "Go ahead," Ashura said softly, his eyes checking the mirrors and grinning at the wavering car pursuing them. "And have fun."
Fai pulled on his mask, his gloves, and tipped his hat. And he said, "Will do," with a tone full or smirk and a hand full of cocked gun. Ashura watched as he kicked through the window's glass and swung himself out.
"Doumeki will not be happy about that," he said to himself with a smile as he slowed down just enough for the poor driver in the car behind them to catch up. After all, there was always the mercy rule, and if one giving chase was too far ahead, than it wouldn't be any fun, now would it?
Kurogane steadied himself on the roof of the car, the walls of the dark tunnel passing by him as sickening blurs. He didn't quite know what possessed him to do this, but he had a feeling, as he watched the slender figure—dressed so impeccably in a suit and a white mask—slip out from the window beneath and steady his own self on the roof, standing a ways from Kurogane, gun at the ready, blue beautiful eyes glowing.
"How are you doing?" he grinned, his gun aimed at the white mask.
Shirokamen's blue eyes eased. "Good evening."
"You do not have the Kyoringo. Nor the Kazeshi." Kurogane nodded his head at the unaccented voice. "Not from around here, huh?"
The white mask seemed to glow amongst the night and the dark, gray blurs of the tunnel. But the blue eyes glowed far more. The wind and sounds of the chase behind them whistled past their ears. Shirokamen, Kurogane swore, was laughing at him.
And the peal of light laughter that came seconds after that thought was merely proof. Kurogane only aimed his gun firmer. It'd be shameful if he heard that laughter any more—the most perfect, ringing laugh. He didn't want to have it haunting his mind—the way it was already starting to imprint itself scarily in his ears. This…this was Shirokamen, right? It wasn't Aiyoku?
Yes.
It reaffirmed itself, Shirokamen did, when Kurogane found himself held fast with his stomach and face against the roof of the car, his own gun clinking against the side of his forehead. Shirokamen's gun was digging into his chest. And Shirokamen, the damned bastard himself, was peering his sinfully blue eyes right at Kurogane's red ones. At that distance, Kurogane could see every bluish vein embedded into the pale eyelids.
"A penny for your thoughts, dear chief?" The eyes smiled.
This wasn't Aiyoku, certainly. Aiyoku was lust, and so was this man. But this man wasn't just lust. This man was lust and death.
With a kick and a twist, Kurogane had regained his gun and sent Shirokamen rolling to the edge of the car, nearly falling to a speedy, painful, gravelly death. But the blue eyes sparked and he was soon up on his feet, gun once again aimed between Kurogane's eyes. The only difference now was that Kurogane at least had proved his competence and his gun was re-aimed over Shirokamen's heart.
"Look at that," Shirokamen whistled mockingly—it couldn't be sincere; it was the worst whistle Kurogane had ever heard—less of a whistle and more of just blowing air. "We're even now, I suppose. Aren't we, chief?"
And then, Shirokamen began to do something that made Kurogane's breath catch.
The bastard walked toward him. Toward him.
Step by step. Slowly, with his gun dropped to his side.
"What the hell are you…" Kurogane breathed, as a gloved hand reached out to him. Kurogane cocked the gun and thrust it between them—as if trying to prevent the white mask from touching him.
But he was frozen. This was the first time a criminal had tried this.
Shirokamen's white-gloved hand held true against Kurogane's cheek. The blue eyes alive and aglow, right at Kurogane's face. They were so close Kurogane could smell his breath through the thin cloth of the mask. Everywhere, the air between them was filled with cinnamon. "Chief," Shirokamen whispered.
With that, Kurogane's gun rolled from his hand and into Shirokamen's. "OY!"
But the flash of white had already pushed him overboard, and Kurogane felt himself grasp onto the ledge of the car, his fingers gripping onto life and his feet dangling and swinging right over the blurring road. The white mask appeared over his face and the blue eyes were almost demonically lighted. "You have nice eyes," he laughed, right in Kurogane's face. "I think they're lovely."
And he stomped on Kurogane's fingers.
Kurogane fell.
To say the least, Kurogane lived. He lived, and no more happened to him than scratches, bruises, and the gashed—slightly skinned—arm. The doctors told him he was luckier than some of his men. Most of who had received gunshots, and some who were scarred mightily. But to say that Kurogane was content with his mostly unharmed self was downright lying.
For one thing, Touya was furious at him.
And for another, the only welcome note he received when he was well enough to return to work (in other words, when the damned doctors snootily deemed him well enough), was a memo from his cousin telling him that he missed her birthday and her clothing store opening just to stake out a few gangsters and get himself all beaten up.
To say the least, Kurogane was absolutely murderous. And more so, he was sent—by none other than his bespectacled upstart of a subordinate—to buy flowers as an apology for missing his adorable, female cousin's birthday and clothing store opening.
He really wasn't in the mood for this sort of nonsense. Nor did he possess the mental capacity at this point to go about town with his bandages and act civil to anyone who posed the question if he was quite all right or not. In fact, the last time someone dared ask, Kurogane's eye twitched, and that aforementioned someone was admitted to the hospital for third degree burns and a neck fracture.
Policeman, although they captured criminals, apparently weren't supposed to behave like the criminals they arrested, and so, Kurogane now had to buy two sets of flowers—one for this dear, dear, dear, darling cousin, and another for the pure sop he'd injured in a fit of rage.
He sighed heavily and set himself a good scowl as he stomped through the flower shop and rang the bell, glaring at all of the arrangement surrounding him for good measure. Maybe the damned plants would wilt if he glared hard enough.
The shop owner took about five hours to show up, and by the time he did, Kurogane had started to wonder if he could get away with stealing the bouquets instead of wasting his paycheck for them. He glanced up and readied himself for the usual bombardments of "Oh my goodness, Mr. Chief, what mess did you get your poor self into this time?" as soon as the owner took a sight at his face.
Kurogane stared.
The shop owner stared back.
Kurogane blinked.
The shop owner smiled. "Good morning. Lovely day, isn't it?"
Kurogane could've sworn that some worn-out old cow of a maid owned his flower shop. Not some…some…some…guy like this. For a minute, he'd considered to begin flirting with this guy, before Kurogane realized that he was…well…a guy. Just…a really pretty guy. As in, really pretty. As in…girly pretty.
Well, he ran a flower shop. Not really surprising.
Still, Kurogane's eyes bulged as they traced ever wave of the young shopkeeper's pale blond hair—following the way the strands caressed the even whiter face, and fell into perfectly round, blue eyes. A smile touched its way over the man's fully slender lips. "What might I do for you, sir? It seems to me as if you should be the one in a hospital receiving flowers, rather than the other way around."
"Yeah," Kurogane muttered. "Well."
The owner chuckled. "All right. So then, what is it that I might put together for you? I'm afraid that since it's nearing autumn, there aren't many new comings, but we'll see what we have, if that's fine."
"Fine, yeah," the policeman mumbled. He coughed. "Yeah, so, um, I need two sets. One of them's an apology and the other one is an apology and for someone in the hospital."
"In other words," the young man clarified, "An apology, and another apology, but the second one is also a 'get well'?"
"Yeah. That."
"Excellent. Then, just wait for a moment." Kurogane watched the young man walk back through the curtains, toward the back base of the shop. He waited.
It was barely ten minutes. The shopkeeper returned with two bouquets in his thin arms. He placed them gently on the counter before Kurogane and smiled over the arrangements. "White tulips for forgiveness, and white tulips, yarrows, and peonies for forgiveness, good health, and healing. How does that sound?"
"Uh, yeah. Good. How much?"
The young man considered Kurogane's expression and laughed again. Leaning in close—swift enough so that Kurogane didn't have time to twitch away—the man said softly, "It's on the house. I heard that the chief of this district is having some bad luck, so here's to good luck, all right?" He drew away and smiled. "And here," he took Kurogane's hand and placed another tulip in it—a tulip colored red and orange and yellow all at once. "It's called a variegated tulip."
Kurogane stared at it expectantly. Too shocked to go by his manly code of honor and realize that a manly policeman should be stomping on the overly feminine flower.
"It means 'beautiful eyes'," the young man said, as Kurogane dumbfounded walked of the store, reeling from blue eyes, blond hair, pale skin, damned flowers, midnight car chases, and the scent of cinnamon.
A/N: ...That was long. So you'd better review. Even though the last parts were utter crap, in my opinion. I'm doing this at one in the morning, so don't pitchfork me, all right? Still, it turned out like crap, but not really bad crap. Kind of nice crap, I think. I was sort of brain dead, so Kurogane came out sort of brain dead, too. It's not that he couldn't fight with a gun and stuff, it's just that when you get a faceful of Fai, mask or not, there's not really much you can do at first except stare. And pay attention, the cinnamon is a plot point.