The plot in this chapter and the next will either make it or break it for most of you, so feedback is much appreciated on that front.
Also those of you asking the question about what the photo was about, it doesn't matter what it was about. The pair were embracing, that's all that matters.
The entire journalism world knows what Asami is under the surface, and the fact that one of their own is in bed with him is betrayal, they will chew him up and spit him out because of it.
A criminal photographer in bed with the biggest fish of all is huge. They may not paint Asami that way in the articles because they can't because of his connections, he has too much power with the police and papers, but they will still alienate Akihito because they know the truth. Takaba's dad knows the truth too.
Just thought I'd spell those things out, if you have any questions feel free to message me.
Thanks all for the reviews, keep them coming! Seriously.
The secretary walked into the private office of the police department to find the ghost he was looking for.
The ghost that was covered in dirt, cuts and bruises. His cheek was swollen and purple, his split lip angry and red, dirt was smeared in his blonde locks and his clothes torn beyond repair. It was the look of despair made physical, the despair that left you ragged and helpless.
The filthy youth sitting in front of the desk looked exactly that. He looked alone and helpless.
"Speak up Takaba, what were you thinking? I told you to stay away from that man at the beginning." Officer Yamazaki said, not bothering to hide his disappointment.
Kirishima stood and watched the conversation from the doorway.
"I wasn't thinking, I was dreaming." Came the simple answer. The answer that made the hairs on Kirishima's neck stand on end.
Yamazaki sighed in response, he could see the boy wasn't himself.
"Dreaming to think it was all real. A waking nightmare, who would have thought huh. It was bound to happen, sooner or later." Akihito barked a heartless laugh as he came to his own realization.
Not wanting to hear any more of those gut wrenching words, Kirishima stepped into the office and took Akihito after a few quiet words with Yamazaki.
They had to fight their way out of the station back to the car, reporters had gotten the tip that Akihito was at the station, and they stalked outside like hyenas waiting for the weakened prey to come out of hiding.
The flash of cameras was blinding and the questions deafening, walking the path of madness, the short distance from the front door to the side of the limo. The hyena's whooped and taunted in their frenzy, stinging words like black-market whore and yakuza's bedwarmer were lashed at Akihito, whipping him with their goading tongues. Words and comments that would have hurt much deeper then any knife could ever reach. This was the real fight.
Kirishima was once again surprised about how Akihito revealed nothing with that blank face, they hovered around him like crows to a carcass, wanting to strip every bit of flesh off the fallen.
Strip it all until there were only bones, bones to be bleached by the camera flash, his damnation preserved for all time in black and white images.
He thought the young man might shrink away, try to cover his face, swat the pests, but his jaw was set in stone, his features cold, his lifeless eyes bore into them, and they kept their distance.
It seemed he still had brain enough to know how to defend himself against his own.
Before Akihito could step into the limo, his wrist was caught, Kirishima turned, ready to deck who ever it was when he recognized the reporter that he knew Akihito worked often with. Mitarai. That was his name.
"Akihito, is it really true?" was all the other man questioned.
This would be the moment that Kirishima's heart nearly stopped.
"No.. I guess it isn't… It never was."
'It never was.'
Kirishima's sanity took a turn for the worst at those words. Of course it would, part of him went mad at the thought of such betrayal, he couldn't comprehend it. Couldn't comprehend that your own oxygen would smother you, he couldn't grasp the fact that the sun wouldn't rise to warm those cheeks again.
The worst part of it all though, was that Akihito sounded like he believed it. He really thought that everything that happened was a lie.
How could you not at this point? The ship had been cut from its mooring, sucked out by the ruthless tide of papers, and left to drift in the depths of it's own mind.
He looked at the battered shell through the rearview mirror once again, he took in those glazed eyes with bags underneath, the gaunt cheeks and the dirty hair. How could someone lose that much weight in the space of a week?
"Takaba san, why did you go out?"
"Fresh air, I don't know." Came the shrugged response.
"In the most dangerous part of town, come on Akihito." Kirishima used his first name to soften his words, never used to talking to Takaba in such a way.
The boy had gone to a place crawling with thugs and lunatics jacked up on drugs. Lucky there was a police bust at the same time, or he would have been dead within a day.
Kirishima tensed and his breath caught, was that what Akihito wanted? Had he fallen to the depths this quickly?
"… I thought maybe if I was in danger. I thought he might.…"
There was no need to finish that sentence, Kirishima didn't want him to finish it.
Once again, words better left unsaid. So many words better left unsaid.
Asami wouldn't be coming to his rescue anymore. Takaba Akihito had been testing to see if the sun would rise again, and it hadn't.
He gripped the steering wheel tight all the way home, too afraid of the shakes that would take him if his hands weren't anchored down to something.
He couldn't help but think his white knuckles looked disgusting against the black of the steering wheel.
Two colors that should never be mixed together.
Once the black touched that white, that crisp brilliant white, it would forever be stained, it could never go back to the pure color it once was.
Black tainted everything.
Kirishima decided he would call Feilong this week.
Everyone should have seen it in the Sion office that morning. Should have seen the small signs that told them chaos was coming.
The abyss was about to swallow them all.
They should have seen the morning after Kirishima picked Akihito up from the police station, that something was… off.
But no one did, no one saw anything.
No one saw that his tie wasn't tied as tight, no one noticed that his suit didn't fit as perfect, no one noted the few strands of raven black hair out of place on his head.
No one saw the pitch-black sky before the storm.
Instead, they all heard the first lightning strike, thunder in the form of the dead body hitting the floor, the rain of blood staining the carpet.
Kirishima ran into the office with his gun drawn after hearing the single gun shot.
Only to find the secretary that worked under him face down on the floor in front of Asami's desk.
A steady flow of red was pooling around her body from the solitary shot to the back of her head.
Kirishima had no idea what she could have done to warrant a death sentence from the boss.
"Boss?"
The only response he got was Asami picking up the newspaper on his desk with those slender fingers and sending its pages flying across the room to settle on top of the lifeless office assistant.
Kirishima looked at the fluttering pages and back to his boss.
He noticed it all then, the tie, the suit and the hair, he noticed the clenched jaw and the white knuckles.
He noticed the front page of the day's paper with Akihito's face on it from the night before.
Akihito's face with its split slip and dirty hair, with his swollen cheek and troubling eyes. A face that would haunt even Asami's dreams.
He watched as the front page landed on the pool of blood, he watched as Akihito's paper face absorbed the red liquid on the office floor.
He watched as yet another color tainted the once pure white.
Asami lay in the cold bed that very night, the bed which was always cold now.
He lay in the sheets, sheets stained with memories of soft touches and tender kisses, of burning passion and morning antics.
He bathed in the sheets stained with memories, for that was all he had now. It was all he needed, anything to prevent that dream from coming true.
He knew this morning would bring up that dream again, the dream that made him afraid to sleep, which was ridiculous.
Asami was the glowing eyes in the dark. He was that bump in the night. He was the monster under the bed.
The one that induces nightmares shouldn't be afraid them himself. But he was. Any waking nightmare was better then that dream.
He slept, and he dreamt.