Chapter Text
He doesn’t remember where he is, or why he’s here. Everything before this seemed to lead to one big blank as his mind churned for an answer.
Even though his brain isn’t remembering, his gut leaves him with one feeling: Wherever he is, it’s not good.
Panic bubbles from deep in his stomach when he realizes his eyes are open but he can’t see shit. Utter darkness. It drowns out sight, sound, and a sense of self.
Kaiji starves for light with the deep pit of anxiety in his stomach. A slight dampness in the air pricks at his nose and spreads over his body creating a shiver. However, the violent movement just serves to reactivate a shooting ache from the back of head as if someone is shoving a knife straight into his brain.
The longer he’s awake the more new aches begin to remind him they are there.
His stomach lurches forward and he holds back the urge to vomit. The dull pain indicates he’d been kicked there, like the time Ichijou nailed him in the gut when he had run out of pachinko money. And the rest of his body aches the more he moves around, in particular his left cheek where he guesses a fist might have kissed him good. To top it all he notices the smell of moth balls and wet copper. All sensations together make him a little lightheaded.
He attempts to grab his pulsing head to stop at least one of his pains, but he soon finds he can’t. He jerks his hands which he soon found are bound tightly behind his back, creating friction against hard rope.
He wiggles his legs finding them in the same situation. A cold wet stream runs down the side of his face. It tastes thicker than sweat: blood.
“What the fuck?” He whispers raspily, but it comes out muffled. Some kind of cloth is covering his mouth too.
His only saving grace is being able to feel the ground hard ground underneath his body.
He comes to a very obvious conclusion: he’d been kidnapped.
Although for someone with his luck, it wasn’t the first time.
His first instinct was Teiai, and thoughts jumped to Chang and Mario. Had they been found out? Did Teiai get them too and they were just awaiting some kind of punishment? Well, Kaiji isn’t giving up as long as he’s still alive.
Blinking miserably, he begins wiggling around uselessly, groping around for some negligent box cutter, clothes hanger, knife, a door knob along what he could imagine was a closed door. Nothing. Fuck. Sinking despair dropped in his achy ribs. There has to be something he can do.
He pauses when he registers a low murmur from the other side of the door. He leans his head against thick freezing metal and carefully strains for the conversation.
“Wouldn’t you think that if they find us, we’ll wind up dead?” A high whiny voice argues back against some kind of plan.
“Not if we already have the kid.” A rough gravelly baritone replies. “One wrong move and I’ll blow this fucker’s brains out, and I know lover boy wouldn’t want that.”
There’s a pause. Blow his brains out? He feels sweat forming at his brow.
Then the familiar ‘ka chunk’ of a lighter. “Or maybe I should. After what lover boy did to Aniki.”
Both voices hold an air of familiarity, but where he heard them before he was trying to recall.
The squeaky voice asks in solemn hushed tones. “Who was the guy... who killed our brother?”
The lower voice growls, venom dripping off his words. “Kazuya Hyoudou. Teiai’s second prince.”
Kaiji almost fell back. Kazuya? That’s the reason he was in this mess? …..
But would also mean “lover boy” is- That thought was enough to send a sweeping wave of discomfort down his back. But … Teiai wasn’t responsible. He kept listening on.
“I was there, when Aniki died. The bastard didn’t seem to mind that I was there, I just had to stay away from the table. I couldn’t tell what they were doing but the next thing I saw was Aniki’s chair go upside down and … H-he...he..” The gruff voice struggled to continue, choking back tears.
“Yeah, you don’t have to keep going.” The other voice became soft and comforting. There’s a sigh.
“After that, I paid a guy inside Teiai to go find Kazuya’s weakness. I just want to get back at him, but I know that ordering a hit on him would never work especially with Hyoudou Kazutaka’s influence.” The gravelly voice coughs after a short drag of the cigarette. “He’s kind of obsessed with this guy, all he talks about really. He gets excited at the mention of him. It’s kinda weird how a demon like that can show love. We’ll see how strong that love is if he actually comes for this Kaiji guy.”
Kaiji’s face scrunches again at that, a shudder pricks his back. Kazuya in Love. It’s ironic considering when he read the young man’s shitty book.
“And you’re sure that’s him right? Itou Kaiji?” The whiny sounding man insists.
“He made it easy enough when he showed us the scars himself.” His partner scoffs.
At that moment, some of those words started to ring a bell.
Kaiji shot up in a cold sweat for the third time that night.
Another nightmare about the black suits.Hands all over, restraining him, thrown back down into that dirty messy, hot hell.
He got up again, and did another round in the camper. It was too small, too cramped.
He was like a tiger pacing about its cage. The anticipation of their next move was driving him more than a little crazy.
As he continued to pace around the camper for the umpteenth time, Mario started to stir. Kaiji guessed it would help him to get some fresh air (And some cigarettes and maybe a beer) and quietly closes the door behind him.
The night is young and Kaiji saunters past giggling girls going out for a night on the town and drunk co workers hitting up the next bar. He likes the hustle and bustle of the city, the lights, the anonymity. The crisp spring air was cooling off the systems in his overheating brain. The wind carrying a weight off him.
Taking an absent minded turn into an alleyway, he imagines what it might be like to be completely free of all this. To just have his money and be in peace, when his fantasy is rudely interrupted.
“Hey kid. Hold up.” A low voice rumbles. Kaiji turned to see a tall man like a built tree bending to meet his face, rugged and intimidating looking with short cropped hair. “You sure got a lot of money on you...”
Shit. At least Kaiji knew how to deal with these types. He lets loose a sinister chuckle. “You might want to back off while you can, when my buddies realize I’m gone. They’ll chop your fingers right off.” He brought his left hand up to the man. “ Like this.”
And the lean stick of a man leaned in completely unfazed, a box cutter swinging playfully right under Kaiji’s chin, echoed an eerily familiar phrase he’d heard months before. “Real yakuza wouldn’t bother to sew them back on.”
A crackling shot of electricity ran through him. The real deal huh? “So you’re Itou Kaiji.”
Having been exposed, Kaiji shot back with as confidence as he could despite the sweat started to form on his brow. “Why would you want to know? Part of Teiai?”
“No! I’m not!” The man drew back with the frustration as if Kaiji had insulted his whole family. “I’m not. But, you’re coming with me.” The big man put a rough hand on his shoulder, producing a rag. Kaiji followed the familiar movement of his arm and swatted it away. Kaiji’s supposed kidnapper was left in shock when his quick movement was countered.
Hard metal was shoved against the young man’s chest chest. The barrel of a gun. Kaiji’s nerves screamed with panic, and he begun to raise his hands in surrender.
However, as soon as his arms were level with the barrel he grabbed it, throwing its aim off of him and wrenching it from his assailant’s grasp. Kaiji kicked it away before the guy could reach it.
The third attempt was when the white suit chose instead to clamp his arm around his target’’s neck, producing the sharp edge of a blade close to Kaiji’s neck to which the young man responded to biting the arm that held him making him yelp in pain and release the box cutter which was quickly retrieved by the long haired man.
Finally on the offensive, Kaiji kneed the man in the side and extended his leg with force throwing him against the wall. He follows up with a punch in the face as soon as the stranger started to struggle up to his feet. The punch drew blood that dripped onto the pavement.
His opponent may seem like intimidating but he had no bite to back him up without his toys.
Kaiji shoves the man up against the wall earning a grunt from him. Then he pins up by the lapels of his suit. Reaching into his pocket he draws out a sharp glinting object. The stolen box cutter’s blade comes close to the tall man’s neck.
Of course he’d never actually use the sharp object, but relief comes when the man’s eyes widen taking in his bluff.
But just before he can land another punch, a sharp blow comes to the back of his head from out of nowhere.
The world falling away for a second, his disoriented form is caught in a hold and a fist flies into his cheek. Kaiji is on the ground before he looks up and sees the white suit he had fought towering over him, held up by the coward who had got him from behind, a brown haired man with a gentle looking face who was shorter than his buddy.
Brushing himself the bigger one marched over and spat through his grit teeth.
“Fucking kid.” A leg flies into his downed opponent’s stomach like a comet. The air is pushed out like stepping on a closed ziplock and Kaiji feels like his head is going to explode. He was left hacking and sipping in crisp air that was pleasant not too long ago, but now felt like shards of glass flowing through him.
The tall man lands another devastating kick when the shorter man turns to him with wide eyes. “Stop! You’re killing him! Alive! We need him alive remember?”
“Tch.” The violent one scoffed. And by then Kaiji lost consciousness in a forming pool of his own blood.
The freezing air bites down into him again, throwing needles and pins into his wounds. He squeezes away involuntary tears and rests against a cold unseen wall, folding his body in as much as he could and his consciousness dizzily melds back into the dark breathing the damp smell of the closet. Would Kazuya really come for him? In this situation, that was the only thing he could hope for.