Wow, the feedback for this has been…. A-maz-ing! Thank you all so much for your comments. I am absolutely blown away.
I am just gonna throw a few more notes in, this fic is mostly going to be based on Suoh and Kirishima's POV, there will be Asami and our Aki boy for sure. But it will mostly be the way it has been.
Also, I am not a writer that is into romance or sop, and most of the time the words 'I love you' will completely wreck a story for me.
That isn't to say I don't like happy endings, but just a warning, not one of my fics will ever have those words in it.
P.s, I do have Midnight Kid planned out, I know lots are waiting for an update on that front, but this one has me by the horns, sorry!
This train is gonna be on a slow, long, and very over dramatized journey. And, if you couldn't tell, I really like cliffhangers, I am afraid you wont keep reading if I don't leave one! Haha.
So like I said, if you don't like angst, then this will make your skin crawl, me on the other hand, I am squealing in delight, because this story is paving itself in my head, my hands are just tools that are on autopilot at this point.
I literally have to force myself to go to bed.
Most of all, thank you everyone for supporting my creative whim, I really am enjoying writing this way. The story will move slowly because of it, but I really don't care. It has more impact this way.
Lastly, thank you to Setsuna24 who gave me the gem and polish I needed for this chapter and Midnight Kids next chapter, readers are in for a treat! Setsuna, you are an absolute doll!
"... There's no helping it then, you will have to stay with me for the time being."
Silence stretched out once more.
"No... Hong Kong."
"What?"
"Take me to Hong Kong."
Once again, Takaba succeeded in surprising the secretary, it was sick in a way, how much Hong Kong made sense, even to Kirishima.
Feilong, the only other person whose life had been utterly destroyed by him, stomped on by those expensive black loafers, the scent of Dunhill invading everything with its possessive tendrils of smoke.
The black smoke engulfed you, left you struggling for clean air, you could fight all you wanted, but that smoke would keep drowning you, flooding into your lungs and life, into everything that you were, until there was no place that smoke hadn't drenched.
All of a sudden though, without realizing, you were addicted to that second hand smoke, and once it was gone, you couldn't live without it. The scent of that Dunhill could trick you, trick you into thinking that you needed it.
Really, it was nauseating how much it made sense. Perfect sense. Feilong was the only person who knew how to treat this disease.
"Takaba-san…. You know I can't do that."
Akihito grunted in acknowledgement before speaking once again in that heartless monotone.
"I figured. You don't need to call me that either, I'm not anything to you anymore…. Not anything to anyone. Drop me off anywhere, it doesn't matter."
Kirishima was trembling at the wheel, looking at the ghost in the rearview mirror. He knew he would be dreaming about those lifeless words for weeks to come. He knew it must hurt, it must be torture, to find out you were suddenly worth nothing.
Worth nothing to the only person that mattered.
Kirishima surmised the boy really was in shock, he would have to find someone to be there for him when it finally sunk in. God knew Kirishima didn't want to be there when it came to pass, he wasn't sure he would be able to take it.
Over two years, Kirishima, Suoh and others on his detail all came to appreciate the light that Akihito brought into their darkness, the single flame precious enough to lay your life down for. It was infectious in a different sense.
Kirishima and Suoh often talked about how powerful Akihito was, he would have made a good boss too.
People were attracted to light, wanted to follow it, radiated around it. It was a general principal of life.
The guards were loyal to Takaba not because they were ordered to be, but because they wanted to be. He had infected them all, infected them all with his homemade bento boxes, his pranks and surprise birthday presents, Kirishima knew he had infected the boss too. He was sure of it.
The car was thrown back into silence as Kirishima directed the limo towards his apartment, granted it was close to Asami's, at least it wasn't in the same building complex like Suoh's was.
As if the thought of the man had summoned him, his phone rung with the ringtone dedicated to his stone faced friend.
Before he could answer, Suoh spoke.
"Tell me, how bad is it Kei? I'm on my way up to the penthouse now."
Ah, he must have seen the morning paper.
"I…. don't know Kazumi."
"That's not good. What is he, red, brown or navy?"
Kirishima would have laughed at the question any other time, what started off as a joke had actually become extremely useful the more successful their long time friend had gotten. They had applied colors to Asami's different emotions, it took their trained eye to tell the difference between a red face and a blue one, but uttering a color to one another and subordinates alike as a warning over the years had saved their asses a hundred times over.
It was easier just to tell the next person on duty that today Asami was red, or orange or whatever he was that day.
Red was angry, meaning he could snap and shoot any minute. Red was a scary color. The color of rage, the color of Hong Kong.
Brown was impatient, when Asami wanted a job done, you got it done fast. Never let Asami show his brown face.
Then there was blue, meaning he was serious and didn't want to be disturbed. Blue could easily turn into red.
They had a whole list of colors associated with their boss. It was a simple and effective system, easy to learn and hard to forget.
They hadn't talked about Asami as a color in ages though, they hadn't needed to with Akihito around.
Akihito had turned the whole company and Asami gold, the color of success and prestige, Asami had done it all to become gold, wiped out all threats and enemies to protect Akihito, and business legal and illegal had thrived as a result. Everyone knew not to touch Akihito, especially after the Sudou Shuu incident, everyone knew, except the media.
"Kei?..."
"He's black Kazumi."
Black was the worst of all, because it wasn't a color. Black was unknown territory, where you couldn't tell what the boss was thinking at all. It was the color of mystery and uncertainty, but also the color of power and authority. Black was not having a clue what Asami was going to do next, and an unreadable Asami was the most dangerous Asami of all. He wasn't even black in Hong Kong, he was red back then. Black was the face Asami showed to the head of the mafia or the Triads, it wasn't the face of their childhood friend Ryuichi. It was the face of a stranger.
"Oh fuck… What about the brat?"
There was a long silence as Kirishima looked in the rear view mirror again, to see Akihito gazing out the car window, his jaw set firm with his eyes fixated on something outside.
"He's… black too."
"…. Is that a joke? Cos you know you could never get the punch line right."
"I wish it was."
"He must be in shock…. What's happening now then?" Trust Suoh to tackle the situation head on.
Kirishima, in secretary mode, quickly told him everything that happened that morning, the order to take him away, take him anywhere, the reporters outside the old apartment, how he was taking him to stay at Kirishima's, which Suoh concluded was probably the best idea. His friends and family would be inundated with reporters if Akihito were to stay with them.
Neither of them had any idea about the call Akihito received from his dad in the penthouse bedroom.
Before he could get to the part about Feilong, Suoh had to go, he had arrived at the penthouse and was going in, to assess the damage for himself.
"We'll fix it Kei, we owe Asami our lives, but we also owe Akihito too. We will fix it." Suoh sounded so sure of himself, but he hadn't been there, he hadn't seen Asami's face, hadn't listened to that fucking clock for over 10 minutes, he hadn't felt the cold skin of Akihito's limp wrist as Kirishima led him out of the penthouse, he didn't hear they way Akihito spoke as if it was all worthless. As if he was worthless.
He pulled into his complex and then showed the hollow body around his apartment, his stuff went in the guest room, Kirishima showed him the kitchen and told him to help himself before finally setting the boy on couch with the TV remote next to him. Then he left for work again, turning around to see Akihito still motionless on the couch. Catatonic once more.
That boy's back looked so lonely and small against the large frame of the couch, the back of one condemned to a fate worse then death.
It was the back of someone sentenced to be ostracized and ridiculed, to be ousted by society and colleagues, slowly stoned to death in the form of headlines and hot topics.
Well, it all depended really, it all depended on what the other half of the news article did about that photo.
Kirishima didn't understand, the photo didn't lie, to deny it now would be akin to denying that the sky was blue and that grass was green. As much power as Asami Ryuichi had, he couldn't change the color of the sky, he couldn't buy out nature itself and negotiate the terms of the grass's color.
If it were any other photo, they may have stood a chance.
But, photo was just too perfect.
So why send him away when it was already too late?