Chapter Text
“Do you think he’s gonna be okay?”
A sigh. “…I dunno, Maddie. They said it was a really bad shot to the face; it’s a miracle he survived.”
She rubs her arms at the thought, looking down at the tiled flooring in the hospital room. The beeping of the heart monitor is faint, and he knows he is fading back out of consciousness with breathing slowing once again. The woman’s voice is soft. “Do you think…?”
And he fades out once again before he can hear the question.
-
The thought nauseates him as he stands at the window with hands on the sill, the growl ringing in his ears. He winces, dropping his head and fighting to swallow. He cannot deal with the idea of going home again, not like this.
No one is out that night, thank god. It is peaceful enough that he can just—
“There he is!”
Oh.
“Hey Masters! Need a bag over your head?”
His fists clench tightly, and before he can bite out a retort into the wind, someone else laughs.
“Why bother? Won’t cover up the fact he can’t get a date!”
The window slams shut, rattling the glass. If it had broken, it would have been for the sixth time that semester.
-
Money cannot buy happiness.
It is a mantra he has heard time and time again, but it’s one that he knows is true (and false).
It cannot buy her love. It cannot buy her attention.
It can bring a company back from the brink and make it seem like a shot in the dark that was so far out of reach, the purchase should have been dead in the water. And yet, he revived it and turned so much of a profit, it made him one of the richest men on the planet.
(it cannot buy back the childhood he never got)
It can jumpstart an ambitious project and turn it into something that he never dreamed of.
(it cannot buy back lost time)
It can buy someone out of prison and his research notes.
(it cannot buy back the life he took)
Akira Konoe sat in his cell with eyes closed, leaning back against the wall with hands on his legs. It was afternoon, well past the time for getting a chance to do anything outside that day. Not that it mattered really- he never took those chances as it stood. Something told him deep down that he did not deserve such a chance to embrace the sunlight again.
What he had done was ruthless, cruel, even unforgivable. He could still see the man’s eyes glaring at him from months ago, and he had to take a deep breath to push the image away once more.
Every day, it was the same thing- the same cold set that made him drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness. It was the same voice that told him that he could still do some good in the world, scathingly asking him that such a deed was exactly what he wanted to do in the end. Of course, the man had not been wrong; what he had done was… well.
Konoe winced, clenching a fist unconsciously.
Using a girl for his own selfish plans to make the world a better place to a point where it got so twisted and warped- what kind of savior had he really thought of himself to be?
Savior seemed like such a heavy term for what he tried to do.
Someone hit on his cell door, and Konoe opened one eye. “What?”
“Get up.”
He let out a sigh, shaking his head and getting to his feet. “I haven’t even done anything. What now?”
The guard gave him a dirty look. “You have a visitor, prisoner.” He unlocked the cell door and jerked his head to the side. “Move it.”
Konoe frowned softly at this. Visitor?
The push on his shoulder was rough, and he nearly let out a protest before he turned his head and saw the same stare from the guard as he did in those thoughts. He exhaled quietly before he turned back around and walked down the hallway to the door. The guard flashed his card, and the metal bars opened slowly; he took point and led Konoe to a room ten meters to the left.
He pulled open the door for Konoe and pointed inside. “Let’s go.”
Konoe did not speak, glancing inside the room before cautiously entering and narrowing his eyes.
The other person in the room was sitting at the interrogation table with hands steepled in front of his face and eyes boring into the former CEO’s own. His expression was unreadable, hair yanked back into a half-up ponytail that contrasted drastically with his pressed suit. The door slammed shut with Konoe whirling around, narrowed eyes now furrowed into a full-blown scowl. “…tch. Some real hospitality right there.”
“Surely you didn’t expect such things here in prison,” came a dry response.
Konoe snorted before turning back to the other person in the room, approaching the table guardedly. “I’ve had worse, I’m pretty sure.”
His companion merely quirked a brow at this and pursed his lips. “Is that right, Konoe-san.”
The ice was clear, and the man almost flinched. He gripped the metal chair instead, pulling it out slowly and taking a seat across the way from the other man. His hands were on the table, matching the quiet intensity of the visitor. “I don’t even know you.”
“I do,” said visitor replied. “I remember you. Madicce. Your application gone rogue. That precious research.” He pulled out a small book from his jacket pocket, tossing it on the table and letting some of the loose paper spill from it. “…even the change of heart they did on you.”
Konoe felt his blood run cold, his hands now tightening into fists. He inhaled slowly, leaning forward and forcibly unclenching said fists, folding them and staring at the man across the table. His ears were ringing, mind numb at the words that were coming from this stranger’s mouth. “You claim you know, but I highly doubt looking up some information that can be found on the internet is worth—”
“You want to hurt those that don’t understand. And all you can do is rot in a cell, wasting away your life and your genius mind because of what? A murder that was over twenty years ago?” The hands lowered from his companion’s face, allowing himself a small smile. “…I can’t have that.”
The former CEO’s glare softened, sitting back in his chair. Now he remembered him. Now he recognized who the man was.
His visitor licked the corner of his lip. “What say we- get you out of here, Mister Konoe?”
Konoe’s throat tightened, gritting his teeth. “…explain. Now.”
“I’m just saying you owe me for paying your way out of a cell now, old friend,” the man murmured. “Daddy’s little hero wants to become a part of society again, does he not?”
Maybe Akira Konoe did some day. …but it was not supposed to be like this.
Not at all like this.
-
“So, what say you?”
Konoe’s stare never wavered, steely as ever. “As much as your offer is a generous one, Masters, I’m going to have to decline. Madicce is a part of me that I won’t give up so easily- even if it is a substantial amount as such.” He raised his head slightly. “I’d like to think my research is worth a bit more than… six hundred million dollars.”
Masters’s smile never faded, but there was a hint of poison in it now. “Is that right?”
“If that was all you wanted, then please. Feel free to escort yourself off the premises.”
The billionaire shook his head before walking past the young CEO and pausing at the door. His hand gripped the doorknob, eyes flickering for a moment.
Blood red.
“Your father would have taken it.”
Konoe closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to snarl. “You go ahead and tell yourself that.”