*** So, Len and Rin's birthday's just the other day. :3 So many songs / videos up for their birthday... It makes me happy. In fact I've never been so happy for someone else's birthday XD ***
Chapter 12: Bound
## ## 1885
05:05 PM
"The flower shop near the entrance is closed early today, so I have nothing to offer here. I'm sorry for that." Kaito stood in front of a grave; there his dad's name was carved in the tombstone. The sun was setting down, not much people were there in the funeral that time of day. The grave yard there was a particularly large land, and as far as Kaito's eyes could see, he was the only living man there.
"I'm sure it's fine since other people came in and gave you flowers. Maybe I'll come earlier tomorrow, I don't like visiting here so early in the day to be honest. A lot of people... Were worried about you all, and I just want some privacy. I can't talk like this in front of other people, heheh." He turned to his mother's tombstone, which was just to the right of his father's. His mother have personally never said she'd want to be buried next to her husband, but Kaito knew his mother would've wanted it that way. "That still doesn't change the fact I owe you all some flowers."
Kaito closed his eyes for a second, the memory of what happened that night was played like a movie on his head. So clear, so vivid. It's situations like that made him regret having such a strong memory. He remembered the ringing sound, the cries; he remembered everyone's faces in complete terror, the smell of smoke with a tint of coal in the air, all so clear he could just taste it.
"...And of course, we were supposed to have dinner together just a few days ago, remember?" Over the past few days just until the burial, ...No, he was sure it could still happen in the future; he kept having nightmares. What hurt him the most weren't the dreams of his parents' faces covered in ashes, fragments of glass, or blood. What hurt him the most were the dreams which ended in happy endings. What could have happened if the explosion didn't happen; they'd be smiling, they'd eat dinner, chat... And it hurt him because it was impossible for that dream to come true.
"No, even if you two did come, that wouldn't be my cooking. Right?" To the left of her father's tombstone was her sister's. He gave a bitter smile and forced out a chuckle. "I'll improve my cooking somehow. The dinner you cooked that night, somehow became a bit mushy after I heated it up the next day. I didn't have much of an appetite anyway."
"Thanks for the food." He slightly bowed. "It'd taste much better if we ate it together though."
"You're..." Kaito heard a voice, a voice he started to hate so much; though in the end he was more startled than curious of the owner of the voice. He thought he was completely alone there. "Talking to a bunch of rocks."
"The candy shop girl?" As he turned around she gave a smile, as if saying she liked the name. "What are you doing here?"
"Ah, I came to visit your grave, but it looks like you're still standing." She took a few steps forward and gave him the biggest grin he'd seen the past few days. He was surrounded by people who had pity and sadness written all over their faces. "I'll save up the suspense and admit it. It was me who planted the explosive near the train. Not exactly though... I asked some people to plant it for me."
Kaito didn't look so surprise hearing that, in fact he didn't give a reaction at all from the outside's point of view. It was hard to read his face; he didn't look like the type of person who had lost everyone dear to him in one day. Kaito didn't want her to see it. What's the point of hiding how he truly felt in front of that girl though? He was talking to rocks earlier after all; that girl must think he'd lost it.
"Do you want to follow them up there?" She took a few steps towards him and crouched down to read the tombstone. "If you commit suicide though, I wonder if you're going where they're headed."
"Not yet. I don't want to follow them just yet." His voice still in monotone, Kaito patted her shoulders. "About that offer... The one you asked me the other day. I'm wondering if the spot is still available. I'll take the spot if there's one for me, and if there isn't, then I'll use other means to make a spot available for myself."
"Well!" Mayu jumped straight up and hugged Kaito's arm. "Why don't we sit down for a drink while we discuss this?"
## ## 1885
05:25 PM
They sat down on an outdoor cafe a bit far from the graveyard, it was Kaito who chose the place. He wasn't looking for a particular menu or restaurant, he just wanted to talk with her with lots of customers around. Who knows, everything might actually be a trap and she could kill him on the spot. Even if he somehow got killed during the next few minutes of their conversation, at least there'd be witnesses watching.
After they ordered their drinks, they sat outside. Kaito was expecting her to talk of something... A bit secretive. The fact that a "mere" girl like her somehow have access to bombs which killed nearly hundreds of passengers, and one hell of an Intel group who were able to figure out who were his parents and which train they were boarding at the station; that mere girl... She was about to explain everything about her, and she didn't seem to mind every other customers there around her.
"I'd like to call the company I'm a head of, an organization. It's made up of different sectors working together, all working for one purpose. Care to take a guess on what that purpose is?" Mayu started off her explanation. To Kaito it seemed like some sort of business interview so he shouldn't just answer randomly; he needed the job.
"Let's see... Since you treat this company like some sort of business..." Kaito took a sip of his hot chocolate, the chilling breeze outside made their hot drinks more appetizing. "Money?"
"Exactly. We take in requests from a lot of people, and we all do it for the money. The request varies, really. You have someone to kill? You can call us, for kidnappings, drugs, murders... That's the simplest way to explain everything about this anonymous organization of mine."
"And you mentioned an open spot for me. You want me to run around killing people by request?" Mayu smiled for the hundredth time and nodded, she seemed glad Kaito could catch up so fast. That, and compared to the day they met before, she didn't look like she was in the mood to talk for so long.
"You can say that. Or if you'd rather stay behind and away from the battle field, you can always be a strategist. Do you know those cases appearing from time to time in the news?"
"I don't read the news that often. My friend's a detective, a soon-to-be-one anyway, and I've seen a few things... Cases related. I guess." Truth be told Kaito wasn't the type of person so interested in that type of news. And it's not like murders happen every day around his area, the only thing causing deaths around is poverty, hunger and sickness, not murder cases.
"Some cases are done by our strategists. That's what they do; they make puzzles, riddles, and cases." Mayu bit her biscuit and noticed it began snowing. They were safe under the table's umbrella of course, though she didn't like being in the cold for long, so it seems. "Any of the position have interest you so far?"
"I'm not the type of person who likes to sit down on his desk and work; I'm a man of action."
"Great! Why don't I ask one of my men to pick you up tomorrow morning? It's not that far from here, you can board the nine o'clock train... I do advice you to move from your current home though; I don't like it when my employees are late for work." Mayu stood up her hand ready for a handshake. "Thank you for joining us!"
"Thank you for having me." He stood up and took her hand. That girl was smart, really smart; he knew she was someone not to be underestimated. Playing and acting all innocent in front of people, taking people by surprise in the end, the element of surprise is a real twist and he should learn from that. How hard could it be to fake a dumb smile 24/7 in front of people?
"Wow, I've never heard anyone said "thank you for having me" from any of my employees!" Of course, it's because she was smart, that she must knew what he was thinking at the exact moment. To the reason why he decided to join, a smart girl like her should know the answer, but she was letting him in anyway. "This business of ours is a bit of a secret though. Once you're in, I don't ever want to see you out. Unless you're ready to take your own life, the choice is all yours."
"In other words, if I want to stop doing my job, I should kill myself?"
"It's something like that." Mayu let go of her brief business handshake with Kaito and gulped down her drink leaving no more drop left in the cup. It's weird, because just a few seconds ago their drinks were hot as hell. "You look real promising, so I don't want you to kill yourself anytime soon, okay?"
Day 9, 12:55 AM
"And... Then what? That's when you joined her?" Kaito gave a slight nod to Len's question. "Why?"
"You can't even take a guess?"
"Maybe it's the effect of the drug or something. I can't keep my mind focused on anything but stress." Len put one hand on his forehead, his head throbbing harder by the minute. "So it wasn't an accident?" By the end of the story, that was more or less the only way Len could comment. He knew Kaito's family died from an explosion, but he always thought that it was an accident, not incident. Kaito looked a bit stressed after that, but he always thought that it's because of the sudden loss of family.
Just that and nothing else. Not about how he had to go around killing people, which could be even more stressful.
And he called Kaito his childhood friend... No wonder Kaito kept secrets from him.
Looking at him now, smiling bitterly made him feel hurt on his chest.
"Sometimes I'd tell people I don't have a sister." Kaito had said enough for the day and he just couldn't fight away his sleep any longer. He stood up and headed for the cell's door. With his back facing Len, he continued. "...Just so I could think less about her being gone."
"To avoid conversations, is that it? I feel sorry for your sister." He ignored Len's comment, and Len knew he was true there. The worst way to treat someone who had passed away is to pretend they never existed in the first place. But of course, they're dead. They would never know, right?
"More or less." Kaito scratched the back of his head. "Just try and sleep. You look dead already with that pale face of yours and... How you're just not thinking straight."
"It's because I'm unable to think things clearly that you need to explain every little things to me in detail." Len blanked out for a second again and rubbed both his eyes. "So tell me the reason why you joined her."
"Fine." He turned around and gave a large sigh. "I'm just waiting for the right moment, that's all."
"To strike?" Kaito gave a slight nod and received a frown from Len as a reply. "You're willing to murder hundreds of people to get revenge on one girl?"
"You're underestimating her too much. Maybe she's just "some" girl to you, but it's not for me." He strengthened the word 'me', something Kaito thought Len should understand after hearing the story. "All in all, I've never said I've never feel guilty for everything I've done."
"That's good." Len nodded his head slightly. "Being guilty doesn't help anyone, but it means you have a heart in there somewhere."
"The only way I could leave this place is if I kill myself. If I leave in secret they'll find me, and then they'll kill me. I've been taking requests for years... Until I went pretty much insane three years after I took the job."
"Define insane." Taking on the job, killing uncountable number of people, Len counted that as insane. Kaito's version of insane might be slightly different than his, more extreme, probably. Kaito just shrugged however, and instead of defining his version of insane, he started telling his story.
"Back in 1888, I was sick on killing so many innocent people... In fact I've always been sick on doing it. I feel sick when I get new requests, I feel sick when I kill those people, I feel sick when I have that feeling of accomplishment when I finish requests that seemed impossible..." He turned around facing Len, thinking his story telling marathon hadn't end just yet. "So I thought... If someone caught me on the act, the police would catch me and the company. The secret organization wouldn't be secret anymore!"
"I can see your plan didn't work so well."
"Wait, I'm getting there. I started leaving traces, do requests during the day, made sure witnesses were around... And Mayu wasn't really happy to see me doing any of that. I'm not alone in here; there are other workers around who were forced to be here against our will. And I heard from one of my friend that Mayu's planning to kill me. Before she could do it though, I faked my own death and I was finally free!" He added a pause there, and sighed. "It's a small price to pay. You've noticed it, right? How I've moved so many times, do so many kinds of work, how many telephone numbers I have... Until she found me just a month ago."
"... Let me get this straight." Len closed his eyes concentrating. "You faked your own death, but somehow got caught a month ago, and you're still alive? What I meant to say is... She wanted to kill you before, now; it's as if nothing ever happened."
"Maybe she knows I hate this job and wants me to suffer instead, by the guilt of killing people. Or maybe she's waiting for a moment to strike as well, I guess I'll never know what she's thinking, and the question 'why hasn't she striked yet.' is really bothering me." Kaito stretched both his arms; he didn't know the long talk would make him feel so tired. "Anyway, it's a good and long talk. You should get some sleep now and rest up while you can. We'll hit shore in three days."
"You know we haven't thought of a lucid plan, or backup plans on what we're going to do later."
"We go in, I get Rin, you try and fight the drug's effect, we leave, you die two days after, then Rin and I'll think of a way to survive all of the assassins and bounty hunters out to get us all sent by Mayu." Kaito sounded so optimistic, it bothered Len a bit, specially with his death being part of the plan. "But of course, we'll live through everything. Somehow. We just need to think positive, right?"
Of course, everything was easier said than done.