WARNING: SLIGHT GORE
Kai Hiwatari - Years of Turbulence (II)
Part Three: Late Teens (i)
Kai considered himself the type that learned from past mistakes and never committed them again. In all honesty, he never thought he'd make the biggest error any human could ever commit - according to him - twice. And that too, the second time in an even worse manner than the first.
The gun cluttered out of his hand and fell in a puddle in the dark alley with a splash, loud to his ears.
The first few minutes barely registered in his mind. The second time, was perhaps, even harder to come to terms with than the first. After all, committing a grave sin twice is no easy thing to forgive oneself for.
He didn't believe in god or a higher power, but he did believe in right and wrong. That there were certain things a person should never do, should never be forgiven for. And this, taking another person's life, was at the top of that list.
At that time anyway. For him.
'What's wrong with you?'
'He changed all of a sudden.'
'You're the weird one.'
He was never like the other children of his age group. He was always either three steps ahead or three steps behind. He didn't drink or date till a month ago. Most teenagers didn't restrict themselves from having fun the way he did. He saw those things, things of comfort, of pleasure, as things of weakness. He had Boris and his grandfather to thank for those beliefs in his head, but alas, those were his beliefs. Till he ended up doing something a normal teenager would never do.
And then he'd had to take a step back and revaluate his ideals.
All this time he'd been endeavoring to be unlike his grandfather, he had been becoming exactly who Soichiro wanted him to be.
Cold. Ambitious. Brutal.
One of them. The ones at the top who stopped at nothing to get what they wanted. He was a member of that club now. Voltaire had succeeded in making him the perfect successor to his throne.
Except for one thing perhaps. He wasn't unfeeling. He cared enough to freeze in horror after the bullets went through the man's skull.
It wasn't like they showed in movies. Guns didn't make for clean killings. Kai's aim had been off, his hands were trembling too much for him to take a proper shot, and the speed he had to move with, staggering off his knees and whirling around in a frenzy, in a desperate attempt to save his life, caused the shots to fly at an angle.
Fighting with no real risks in a ring or a hallway wasn't the same as fighting someone who wanted you dead.
Cold dread filled him in the same amounts as adrenaline did. And the rational part of his brain stopped working, giving way to much simpler systems. More ancient, primal ones that had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with survival.
So when he pulled that trigger, he hadn't been thinking about right or wrong, about his grandfather, or judgement day, or being a good man. He was a hunted man. And a hunted man couldn't afford the luxury of hesitating before shooting someone.
It wasn't like in the movies. Bullets don't leave clean trails. They leave a small carnage behind. Blood, bone, and brains had exploded, as one went through the man's eye, and the other through his mouth, taking out half his face. Kai had stared at the wreckage that remained there as the man hovered on his feet for a few seconds before collapsing lifelessly to the ground.
Numbness followed. He lowered his arm. The gun dropping from his still, loose fingers.
Necessity
He breathed as the realization dawned on him. There was no justification for cold-blooded murder, but there was justification for this.
If he chose not to linger long enough for his obsessively perfectionist conscience to come up with an argument against that reasoning, he wouldn't crash and burn the way he did the last time.
He had to carry on.
He had a life to live.
Time was ticking and he couldn't waste another minute endlessly questioning the soundness of his decisions.
Kai picked up the gun from the ground. He wasn't a bad man. He wasn't an insane one either. He was simply a man who had committed a crime out of necessity.
Kai glanced at the body. It had been either that guy or him.
He chose himself. And if that made him a selfish monster then he'd live with that knowledge rather than be a scrambled mess of brains in a dirty alley at the age of sixteen.
"Where were you?"
"Are you my mother?" Kai snapped as he stripped out of his clothes. His grandfather wanted to see him in his office and there was blood on his shirt.
He heard the hiss of Tala exhaling a pissed off sigh behind him. "I was just wondering where you could have possibly managed to sneak off to in the middle of a gala and then slink back in with a bucketload of blood on the front of the your shirt. How did none of the hundred people in this house catch that?" he asked, gesturing wildly towards the wet shirt that was stiffening with crusting blood in Kai's fingers as he folded it carefully, but quickly.
"Where are the others?" he asked instead of answering, his voice gruff. He laid the shirt on a low table, the clean area touching glass. He felt more than saw Tala's gaze fall to the gun tucked into the belt at his back.
There was silence.
Kai turned around.
Yuriy twisted the corners of his mouth up and shook his head scornfully. He wasn't going to tell him anything unless he spoke first.
Kai bristled, touched a thumb to the gun at his back. There was no use keeping it a secret from him or any of the boys anyway.
It was safer for them to know so they would be on their guard.
A slight sigh escaped his open lips as he looked at the tapestry on the wall. "'You take one of us,'" his voice reverberated in the room even though it was low. "'We take one of you.' That's what they called and said to me two days ago. They called again, while I was in there," he pointed in the direction of the grand hall, "forty minutes ago, and asked me to meet them."
Yuriy's eyebrows jumped up to his hairline, questioning his intelligence and audacity.
Kai held up a hand to stop him from speaking, let him finish. His fucking grandfather was waiting for him, they could all gather in a room and have that argument to their heart's content at a later time.
"I thought they wanted to talk. I thought they weren't stupid enough to just ask me to go and meet them if they were intending to kill me. So I went to the address. It was Viktor's friend. He was alone, but he had a gun. I'm pretty sure the rest of the gang weren't aware of his intentions. This was a solo act."
He strode towards his closet and picked out a fresh suit as Tala munched on the news.
At the end of a long silence in which he dressed faster than he had ever done before and was fixing his hair, Yuriy asked, without ceremony, "So I take it he's dead?"
Kai nodded, and this time his hands were perfectly still as he said, "He's dead."
Tala cursed. They were all going to have a long night.
"What do you want me to do with the shirt while you go talk to grandaddy?" he asked, in a tone not nearly disgruntled as it should have been.
He checked his shoes for stains, and drew up to his full height upon discovering there was none. His reflection appeared unaffected, sharp and refined. "Burn it."
He did the normal teenager things in a naïve attempt to right his wrongs. Yet it didn't stop him from being who he was. Didn't stop him from doing the same wretched thing again.
But it did teach him how to let go for a few hours, without worrying that he would wake up a weaker person.
That first dose of MDMA had done more than he expected it to do. It hadn't been an escape, but rather a reboot. The dull, looping thoughts in his head had stopped, come to an abrupt halt. His focus sharpened and all of a sudden, he could see five miles ahead than usual.
MDMA helped him plan better while muting out the rest of the ruckus in his skull.
The boys had picked up on the change in his attitude quickly, where he had been morose and listless for days he was suddenly full of spirit and talking like words were practically jumping out of his mouth.
"You're fuckin' high," Tala had said slightly breathlessly, taking in his features as he stood in front of him in the crowded hallway and told him he would be fighting the next day and asked him to arrange for someone twice his size. "Fuck"
Bryan had poured him vodka later that evening as a celebration. "My boy's growing up," he'd cried melodramatically, banging a fist on a table.
"Who the fuck is Julia?" he remembered Yuriy asking questions, irritated, hands full of alcohol as he paced back and forth in the room.
"Why didn't I hear of a Marchioness joining our school? I can't believe my own mother lied to me.", "Why did she give you drugs?", "Why did you accept them? It could have been any impure shit. She could have fucked you up good."
"Thanks for all that faith in me," Kai managed to get in between his ranting. "I am touched."
"Valkov, that's enough," Bryan boomed after a while. "Take a seat."
"Fuck off, Kuznetsov," Tala brushed him off, then: "I'm gonna go meet that bitch." Kai turned just in time to see him marching out the door.
"He needs help," Kai said to Sergei after.
"Mmm, he does."
He remembered how Julia's body had fit against his, remembered discovering a yawning pit of desire inside himself, one that had been lying dormant and neglected all this time.
He remembered her fingers on his cheek, the warmth of her touch, the quickening pulse on her neck under his thumb. So different, so alive, so full of life, unlike the cold numb body of Viktor's corpse on that hill.
Warmth flushed down him when he buried his nose in Julia's hair.
And he'd decided, it wasn't going to be her, he wouldn't give his mother the pleasure of knowing he took her bait. Granted, Julia wasn't the perfect heiress he'd expected. She was flawed and reckless, and uncontained. She was hiding a dark truth about herself, had moved halfway across the globe to leave her past behind. She may have been his mother's choice despite all of that, but Kai didn't want her. For the simple fact that she just wasn't his type.
Truth be told, most of the girls in his school weren't his type.
But there was one who caught his eye whenever their paths crossed. In the library, in the auditorium, during general assemblies. She was a senior. Two grades above him and had a boyfriend, but that didn't stop her from eye fucking him every chance she got.
He hadn't had to do much. He'd simply held her gaze for longer than a minute during a school event and then a subsequent assembly, and she'd approached him.
Behind the school cafeteria a couple days after the assembly, when he'd left the hall early for some fresh air.
Ahmya had jet black hair that fell around her like the rain her name spoke of.
"Does your boyfriend know?" were the first words that left Kai's mouth when she joined him next to the wall.
She pulled out a packet of cigarettes from her skirt, drew out a Camel and tucked it between her lips before answering his question with a shake of her head. She was a dancer. Every tiny movement of hers was graceful.
"Want one?" Ahmya asked, offering the pack to him.
He shook his head.
She shrugged. Took out a lighter and held the flame to the end of hers.
His gaze was drawn to her mouth, the shape and colour as her lips held the cigarette.
Ahmya exhaled into the tense, slightly uncomfortable silence between them, and asked, "Have you ever touched a girl before?"
Kai turned his head just enough to meet both her eyes, and hold them. Hers were black. Pure black irises that glinted invariably.
"Don't worry," she breathed, her words barely a whisper. "Something tells me you'd be good at it."
He found pleasure in the way her breath hitched when he touched her in places. The sighs and moaned expletives that tumbled out of her quivering mouth when his fingers wandered.
"Right there, right- oh fuck!" Dark hair flared on the white pillows, her lean long limbs restless on the sheets.
Was this the high Yuriy had spoken of?
It felt like power, it felt like a heady rush of adrenaline. It stirred something deep inside of him, woke parts of himself whose existence he hadn't been aware of.
He kissed and caressed and found his hands could be gentler than a feather, bring boundless hours of pleasure to another human. If the life he'd taken had left him feeling dirty, corrupt and inhuman, sex made him feel pure again.
Human and alive.
It wasn't an entirely physical activity, bereft of a genuine connection, for there was one. The people that were involved in it shared something very real and palpable and visceral for the duration of it.
Amhya held onto him, closely, tightly, her entire being vulnerable as relief crashed over him, over her, as his hand cupped the curve of her slim upper arm and his lips found her ear and his hips dug into hers and a rush similar to the one Molly had given him took over.
Except this time, his mind went completely blank.
When Kai headed to class the next day, the school was buzzing with something. Students threw him looks as he passed when they normally didn't pay as much attention to him. He wondered what was up, but didn't have to stay in the dark for long as Bryan careened into the seat next to him and asked loudly, "Why didn't you tell me you knew how to eat pussy?"
If his popularity had been flying high till that moment, after Bryan's booming question, it soared.
"Why'd you tell people?" he asked Amhya when they met up later that day.
"Why wouldn't I?" She patted his chest. "I did you a favor, Casanova." Kai cringed internally. "Now all the girls in your grade will want to hook up with you."
"I'm pretty sure they have more important things in mind," he said as Amhya loosened the tie around his neck and lifted it from his shoulders.
"Wanna bet on it?"
He wasn't stupid enough to bet on it, because teenage girls were still teenage girls, and now that he'd gotten a taste of it, he knew why sex was most of his peers' drug of choice.
"No"
Bizarrely, at that moment, the kids from the orphanage flashed in front of his eyes. A faint smell of vomit reaching his nose.
Amhya's smile dissolved at his sudden change of expression. "What's wrong?"
Kai steeled his jaw, wanting to shut his brain out. "I'm throwing a party tonight. Would you like to come?"
"I would love to." She tugged him into a kiss.
'You take one of us. We take one of you.'
Kai bent over a line of coke with a silver sniffer. The powder hit him hard, sharp, making his eyes water momentarily. He rose back up and cleared his throat, picked up a crystal glass of half-finished vodka and threw it back down his throat.
The burn of the spirit numbed out the sear of the shit he'd snorted.
Euphoria flooded his system.
"I wonder which one of us they're going to come for," he caught Tala saying to Bryan as he stopped at their couches on his way to the dancefloor. "I'd like to see those cunts try and get us."
"I'll stick a hot skewer up his ass," said Bryan, turning a barbecue tool in his fingers. "Ozuma. Even his name sounds like a pussy."
Kai picked up a newly opened bottle of beer from the messy table they were resting their feet on and met Tala's watchful gaze. "Get up. Come dance," he called.
"Hard pass"
He inclined his head in welcome. "You can either sit here, all night, and worry like a bunch of grandmas or you can choose not to give a fuck about those assholes and enjoy your night." He held out his arms. "Make your choice."
They made him stand there without answering him for a minute and then Yuriy said, "I choose not to drink myself into oblivion." His hands stretched on the back of the couch, spread far away from each other.
Kai stuck a tongue in his cheek, reading the meaning behind his words. He snorted, his mouth twisting in a sneer and he left, beer bottle in his grip.
"He took my beer," Bryan lamented. "Fucker."
"Is he alright?" Sergei leaned forward to ask, finally off his phone.
Tala glanced at him, then over his shoulder at Kai who was merging fluidly with the people on the dancefloor. "Seems so. He's definitely dealing with it better than the last time."
"What did we do with the body?"
"We didn't do anything. They deliberately picked a place that were under their territory so the police won't come looking. And he took the gun with him."
"He kept the gun?" Bryan asked, astonished. "I thought you said he returned it."
"To whom?" Tala wrinkled his nose. "To Ozuma? Oh that would go over well. 'Hey, Ozuma, I accidentally killed your guy and took his gun. Whoops, sorry. Here you go.'"
"What the fuck-"
"Exactly, you dimwit." Tala rubbed his face with his hands in frustration. "I'm sweating. Where the fuck did Ian go with my drink?" He craned his neck in the direction of the bar.
They didn't hold parties in the dorm anymore. They sneaked out to hotels.
"Come fight for us," Ozuma sat in the shadows, a black fedora tipped low over his face to hide his features. "You took our victor! We have no one fit enough to fill his shoes," his 's's were long and enunciated with a hiss, like a snake, "Except you," he said, pointing at him with one long-nailed index with an engraved, silver ring on it.
Kai considered him silently, an untouched glass of wine in front of him, a couple guard dogs flanking him on either side. Ozuma's men. Ready to cut his throat the moment he gave a signal. Or so he wanted Kai to think.
A miniscule shake of his head, the word 'no' blooming on the tip of his tongue.
"We'll pay you in millions," Ozuma promised. The red satin of the armchair he was sitting on a shade of crimson so dark it could have been blood. "You and your entire little Scooby-Doo gang. You would all be millionaires before you can legally drink."
"And you would be my boss," added Kai.
Ozuma lifted a nonchalant shoulder. "Would that be so bad?"
Kai barked a laugh. Because he had to. "I'm sorry," he leaned forward, pushing the glass of alcohol away from him, "But that's my deal-breaker. I don't work for anybody."
Ozuma reclined back in his chair, retreating further into the darkness. The silver of his ring glinting through the surrounding shadows like a threat.
"You started this," Kai continued when he remained silent. "Our agreement was a single fight. You set your rabid pet loose on me when it didn't go your way. I simply showed you what happens when you break promises."
"Viktor came after you all by himself," Ozuma interrupted, raising his voice a notch. "We had no clue."
"What about his friend? Were you clueless about him too?"
The mob boss splayed his fingers in response. "You killed them. You're at fault."
"You couldn't keep your men in check. You're an incompetent leader."
"Enough!" Ozuma slammed a hand on the table between them, rattling the glasses, and the men on either side, scrambling for their guns. One pressed the barrel of his gun against Kai's head. Kai barely blinked in reaction. "You will step in for Viktor or I will kill you."
"Oh?"
Kai gave a slight shake of his head, careful not to jostle the gun too much. "Go ahead. Kill me."
Ozuma breathed hard, on his feet, indignation pouring off of him in waves. Kai narrowed his eyes, sizing him up. He was a short guy. No wonder he preferred to have a seated negotiation.
"Friday!" he jabbed a finger in his direction. "Ten thirty p.m. The Ozone. You will be there. You will fight. And if you win...you get to walk away with a million dollars. If you lose, you die. Reject it, you die."
"I'm sitting here unarmed. If you were going to kill me, you would have done it already. I'm not the one at a disadvantage here. May be you should get on your knees-"
It happened fast. Ozuma moving quick as a bird. In one smooth motion, he had his gun drawn, his boot up on the table as he leaped forward and shoved his weapon up Kai's mouth.
"There" he panted against his face, the tip of his hat brushing Kai's forehead, "is very little keeping me from pulling this trigger and blowing your brains out."
The metal dug almost painfully into the roof of his mouth. Cold grime on his lips. Ozuma smelled of cheap pizza. He was broke. He owed money to a lot of people. Viktor's winnings used to pay off most of his debt. But there was one person in particular Ozuma was dead scared of, and he'd arranged a knock out fight between their champion and Viktor - a no holds barred fight to death match to clear his dues. There was a lot of money riding on it. Ozuma couldn't afford a loss. He needed a champion to save his ass.
If he pulled that trigger, he might as well have pulled his own.
"You will fight." Ozuma whispered, panicked eyes darting frantically between Kai's. "You will or I will kill off one of your brothers."
Kai made no sound of assent. He held his gaze tauntingly till Ozuma drew the gun out of his mouth and he was free to run a tongue over the inside.
The threat towards the other boys' lives was an effective one. It was why he was here alone in the first place. They were his brothers, not by blood, but in every other way that mattered. He knew without a doubt they weren't helpless but they meant more to him than anything else in the world and the thought of them being in danger because of him didn't sit quite right with him.
"Five million and we have a deal."
"You know the fight isn't over till one of you dies," Sergei leaned against the cupboard where they stored their good shit. They never touched that door unless they wanted to get so high and drunk they forgot about the entire night the next morning. "It's stupid, Kai. You could die."
"Or worse, you could end up losing a limb or some shit," Bryan chimed in helpfully from where he was sprawled on the floor at the foot of the bed, a drink balanced on his knee. "I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just giving you a heads up." He burped.
"There are no rules. The other guy could bring anything. A knife, a gun, a fucking chainsaw. That's why there's so much money in it. It's going to get fucking bloody. It could become a whole goddamn nightmare," Sergei said, saw his words fell on deaf ears. He huffed in disbelief, and turned to Yuriy. "You don't seriously support this?"
Yuriy was on the couch, his body disappearing into the fluffy cushions. He had a boot caught on the edge of a coffee table and a strange look in his eyes. "Five million dollars. A million for each of us. It would be stupid to turn it down."
"He's after us," Bryan drawled.
"What do you think would happen if Kai gets killed?" asked Sergei. "Hm? You think that small peen is going to let us go?"
"Small peen will be dead. Constantine or whatever will take his head."
"There's no way out of this. Why don't any of you get that? I told you, Kai. You should have never said yes to that match. We never should have gotten involved in this in the first place."
His words suddenly dried up when Kai asked in a low whisper. "Are you scared?" He lifted his head from where he'd been staring contemplatively at his feet for a while, red eyes gleaming in the muted lighting of the room as they focused on Sergei.
For a minute there was a silence so quiet it raised the hairs on Ian's arms. He rubbed at them. Tala's quiet chuckles penetrated the air.
He was leaning against the door, arms folded across his chest. "No one will come after you once I'm done with that fight. No one. Five million is enough to set us up for Vegas, then we won't have to lick anyone's boots anymore, Sergei. We'll never have to."
"Vegas?" Sergei breathed, shocked.
"Vegas!" Tala grinned, raising his cigarette up in the air like a toast for a moment.
Sergei looked to Bryan. "Did all of you know about this?"
"You were on your phone, sexting your girlfriend."
"You should pay more attention, man," Ian piped.
Sergei shifted against the cupboard, processing the news.
"Do you trust me?" asked Kai.
Sergei hesitated.
"I trust you," drawled Yuriy, stretching his arms along the back of the couch and flashing a smile.
"Are you high?" Sergei asked him. "You trust him with what? To not die?"
"Or get seriously maimed."
"You lost your mind when the Marchioness slipped him some Molly. How are you okay with this?"
"That was different. I didn't want anything messing with his mind." Tala tapped his temple.
"Again" Kai's cool voice interrupted their argument. "Are you scared?" he posed to Sergei, who gulped, then said,
"Yes. I'm scared. For you. For us."
"I'm saving you."
Sergei paused, considering him.
"I got you into this," Kai continued. "I'm getting you out."
"You're treading dangerous waters. You have a taste for it. You get us out of one thing and into something even worse."
Bryan sat up in attention, wondering where he was going with this. Tala and Ian exchanged glances. Kai relaxed against the door, a cryptic smile on his face.
"You can leave if you want, Sergei," he said. "No one's stopping you."
The atmosphere in the room grew tense.
Sergei tutted. "That's not what I'm saying. I don't want any of us in danger. Please, don't fight."
Kai shook his head, slow, calculating. "Either you trust me or you don't. The door's not locked."
What simmered in Sergei's eyes that night was indignation and betrayal. Betrayed that Kai would make him choose between his head and his heart. Between rationality and loyalty. Kai was stubbornly, infinitely cruel for asking him to leave as if the last sixteen years did not matter all of a sudden.
Yet Kai wanted to know. He wanted to be sure that his brothers trusted him. If they didn't they had to leave. Go separate ways, pursue different paths, lead different lives, because this wasn't child's play anymore. He wasn't going to be playing safe. The road he'd mapped out for them was full of landmines and vipers and along that road he'd require one thing from them time and time again. Their unwavering trust.
"Come on, Sergei," Tala nudged quietly. "You don't want to be a lawyer."
Kai watched him wordlessly.
Sergei balled his fist. "I don't want any of you to die," he spat. "I don't want Kai to become a murderer either. We all know what that does to him."
Yuriy sat up. "He's not going to kill anybody and we are not going to fucking die."
"How are you so fucking sure, Valkov?" he demanded, losing his patience.
"Because he's never failed us," Tala bit.
Sergei shut up. His argument dying on his tongue. He'd been with them all along after all. And Kai had never, not once, failed to do exactly what he said he would do.
"Sergei" Kai called his name softly. "Do you trust me?"
