Chapter Text
Almost like friendship
Disclaimer: I don’t own Kaiji or anything else.
It was probably a trap. That hellish night, Kaiji and Kazuya spent hours reading each other, and this letter could be the finishing blow in their psychological war. After all, the very circumstances that Chang received the envelope was well… alarming to say the least.
While in the taxi, as he floundered around on the way back to the abandoned house, the driver paused before the dark haired man handed him the next address. “Some guy in a black suit gave this to me, he said it’s for you.”
The driver raised an eyebrow, but nonetheless handed his passenger the little envelope with Kaiji’s name on it in big sloppy letters.
It couldn’t be anything but a threat, maybe a ransom on Kaiji’s family or a notice to give the money back and so they can act like nothing happened. Or even worse, a gloat that their base had been found out.
But, in the end Chang feels that the man himself should be the one to make the judgement call. Kaiji notices how quickly Chang’s face drops upon his return. His companion can’t withhold the letter any longer.
The words seem to shake on the page as he reads it in the silence of night under clips of street light as the yellow car glides through the neighborhood. He was swallowing the looming sinking feeling that it was going to inform them all their efforts in escaping had gone to hell.
Kaiji,
I’ve been doing a lotta thinking lately. I saw your truth, and your true colors and it made me think.
I wanna talk to you again. I have a proposal for you: to be friends. Meet me at this address tomorrow afternoon at 12.
Kazuya
Kaiji reads it over again. “Friends?” Was he fucking crazy? It had to be some kind of joke. A trick of some kind, to lure him out. The letter in some ways, seemed out of character.
Yet, he pauses for a second. His tightened stomach flutters. The one part of him, the stupidest goddamn part of him says Maybe.
Just maybe , it was sincere. He stares out the window at the dusky scenery, a frown tugging at his lips, his eyebrows knit together.
By now, that villain knew their de facto leader’s good nature and was taking advantage of it, and that’s why Chang had almost decided not to give the letter to Kaiji. “Are you going to go?”
Kaiji is silent for a stretched moment,darkness obscures his face
“Yeah.” His head turns toward the other man as he was snaps out of his thoughts. “I want to see what he really wants.”
The next afternoon, Kaiji set off from a cheap business hotel they had rented for the night. He leans close to Chang and Mario. “If I don’t come back by 12 tonight, then assume something happened to me. “
“Be careful.” Chang put a hand on Kaiji’s shoulder before he left.
“I will.” Kaiji nods. With that, he was off.
He pulls his jacket closer to him as if that would protect him somehow. The way the pristine marble restaurant dwarfs everything around it gives off the air that it was going to be the setting for some kind of showdown. It was as if he were boarding the Espoir again.
12 o’clock. He better go in.
One step in on the red carpet, and he feels like an extra, not the movie star. Everyone is in a suit, and he gained stares being in a ratty black jacket. Eyes bore into him, judgement, whispers. In short, the restaurant is too ritzy for him, he feels like he should have been just passing by not actually be dining here.
At the very least, it was normal. There isn’t some hidden torture chamber in the middle of the room or some weird shit like that. He doesn’t notice the hostess right in front of him. “Excuse me, do you have a reservation here?”
“No.’ Kaiji begins. Out the corner of his eye, there’s some very large security guards approaching him.
Kazuya takes notice and the weight of the Hyoudou family footsteps shake the hostess and the staff. “His reservation is with me.” He flashes the woman and guards a dirty look making her shrink back. “R-right this way sir.”The woman murmurs apologetically and leads them to a table.
Kaiji pulls out the satin chair, gaze trains on Kazuya, and sits without bothering to pull it in. He leans back, arms behind his head. His brown eyes shift around the restaurant. Kazuya’s blacksuits are outside. Plenty of wealthy socialites chattering away in front a gold gilded fountain in a room of white marble.
And good, they sat relatively close to the door.
Kazuya on the other hand has his elbows on the table casually leaning forward, that snake grin slapped on his face . He half expected his guest not to show up.
The air possesses a certain electricity that points to a strange bond between them .
Still opposition, but not enemies anymore or at least the dark haired man thinks so. Kaiji won’t call it friendship because you’d actually have to like the other person for that.
Despite that, a little smile curls at the side of his face. Kazuya is doing well, even after his near death experience.
“Make yourself comfy.” Kazuya said at his guest’s discomfort.
Kaiji is still scanning around for anything out of place. His nerves are crackling, and he plucks a cigarette out of his jacket and light it. The smoke at least, put some distance between them. Somewhat absentmindedly he begins. “So, what have you been doing lately?”
“I was waitin’ for you ta ask!” Kazuya’s eyes grow wide, and hastily brings out something onto the table. “It’s the manuscript for my newest book. It’s still in the beginning stages. I just started writin’ it a couple of days ago.”
It’s called The Prince versus the Pauper .
Kaiji reluctantly takes it and pages through the aggrandized version of their near fatal game of One Poker.
Well, Kazuya did have a way of making the event sound elegant when the book should have been called, “How I almost died playing Poker against some trash on the street.” Every so often, he’d peers up to see Kazuya’s eager expression.
The other man lets out an airy laugh as he watches Kaiji close the volume. “Khahaha! Great isn’t it?”
“Sure.” Kaiji hands the book back to him, still tense.
Hyoudou jr’s gaudy floral printed suit looks like the cologne he was wearing, overwhelming and trying too hard to impress. Kind of disgusting to be honest.
The crime lord’s son still oozes with that smug mocking aura, but it doesn’t seem to be for his former opponent anymore at least.
But, the one thing Kaiji did note favorably are the new glasses.
Simple white frames and see through lenses let him he feel as though he were looking at a person and not just shiny expensive plastic. He half listens to his enemy’s son prattle on about how they were just spares, and he’s waiting on the old ones to get fixed.
The food comes, and there’s just tiptoeing around the real subject at hand. Kaiji is keen on that. “What’s up with you, Kaiji?”
“I might be coming down with a cold.” If eating with Kazuya didn’t make him sick first.
The air still stagnant, moves just a little between them. Kazuya talks about school, Kaiji about the weather, Kazuya about some good food he’d eaten the other day. Meaningless tiptoeing.
Halfway through some pasta, Kaiji grits his teeth and decides to put a foot down. “But all this small talk, that’s not really what you wanted to bring me out here for was it?”
“Pheheheh. Right to the point, huh? “And with the transparency of his new glasses, Kazuya begins. “Well anyway, enough ‘a that. I invited ya here because I saw your idiotic pretentious truth. All your talk about friendships and love is human drama bullshit.”
“So what do you want?” Kaiji stiffens listening to his meandering speech, but not enough for Kazuya to notice though. What kind of challenge did this demon have up his sleeve this time? He avoids making eye contact as he waits for the lecture to be over.
Kazuya says with flourish, taking a bold, brazen, stupid leap. .”It feels like nonsense but, I think I want to try out friendship. Real genuine friendship.” It was an almost innocent proposal, the kind of thing that belongs on a schoolyard.
“Are you fucking serious?” The words fly out of Kaiji’s mouth, almost falling over in his chair incredulous.No malice, just disbelief. Double disbelief with where he thought that stupid speech was going.
The brunette leans forwards, and pleads like a little kid. “C’moooooon Kaiji! Don’t be like that! At least we should start over!” He says extending his hand to him. The long haired man on the other side hesitated, eyes were observant, steady, skittish.
The offer is jarring, like a hunter trying to hand feed a fox he had pointed his rifle at not two seconds earlier. Lucky for the younger Hyoudou, Kaiji was never the kind of bear a grudge.
In all actuality, isn’t this what he wanted? Kazuya had tried to kill him maybe, but he felt it was best to acknowledge what happened and move on if Kazuya was willing to change. Or at least it sounded like he was willing to change.
Inexplicably, this situation filled him with something almost like hope.
The voices around them seem to go silent, as Kaiji lets out a sigh.
He is taking dangerous trust fall, like a gamble.
Kaiji sends him a smirk that creeps onto his face. “My name is Kaiji Itou, nice to meet you.”He takes Kazuya’s outstretched hand.
Kazuya seemed taken aback for a moment, then burst out in a messy cackle that dissolved throughout the restaurant. “Phahaha! Now you’re just fuckin’ with me!”
And for the first time, Kaiji snorts that breaks into a chuckle, letting go of a breath he doesn’t know he was holding. “You’re the one who wanted to start over!”