Work Text:
In a bar, somewhere around downtown Tokyo... at night...
"Come on, pour it more, mooorreeee..."
"You're drunk Kota," said Hikaru as he calmly poured the tequila into a shot glass in front of him.
Another flash attacked Daiki's mind. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the image that appeared so suddenly before his mind's eye. It was the same as before; the same empty room, the same frightened face.
"What is it? Do you have a headache or something?" asked Hikaru before pushing the shot glass with tequila towards Daiki.
"It comes again ... these flashes. It's always the same as before," he muttered.
"Maybe you've worked too hard that your mind is playing tricks on you," said Hikaru. "Anyway, do you know where Takaki and Inoo went?"
Daiki gestured towards the crowded dance floor. "Last time I checked they were having fun on the dance floor."
"Hikaru, let's dance!" screamed Yabu Kota in Hikaru's ear.
"You said you're not gonna dance this time, remember?"
"I changed my mind. Let's go!" Yabu pulled on Hikaru's arm towards the dance floor.
Daiki watched them go before reaching for the shot glass, downing the content in one go. He closed his eyes again and rubbed his face with both hands. It's not that these flashes were bothering him by giving him a headache every time it happened but it was more like it dulled his senses. As if for a few seconds that it happened, he was being transported into this other place.
***
"You're too gloomy tonight Dai-chan," commented Yabu as he slung his arm around Daiki's shoulders.
"Yeah, you didn't dance at all and only drank a few. I've seen you covering your face several times. Is there something wrong? Are those flashes returning?" asked Inoo Kei, one of Daiki's best friends. Takaki Yuya's arm was around his shoulders as they led the way towards the exit of the club.
"Yeah, it was more persistent and it feels like I was being sucked into that place," admitted Daiki.
"Where?" asked Yuya.
"I don't know," said Daiki with a sigh.
Yabu squeezed his shoulder. "Relax, Dai-chan. It's the weekend and the night is young. There is more booze to drink and clubs to visit."
"Kota is right. Just relax and forget about your job assignment. At least for tonight. I'm sure it's just stress," said Hikaru from behind him.
They were out of the club and walking towards Yuya's car when Daiki saw something plastered on the rolling door of one of the closed stores near the club. It was a missing person flyer and the face that stared at him from that piece of paper looked very familiar.
"It's him...," Daiki whispered. Shrugging off Yabu's arm from around his shoulder, he stepped closer towards the flyer. The dim light from the street lamp provided him with just enough light to read the name stated on that flyer.
"Him who?" asked Hikaru as the rest of them stepped closer to Daiki.
"The guy from my flashes," muttered Daiki. He reached out a finger to trace the name printed there before spelling it out loud. "Yamada Ryosuke."
***
"Are you sure you wanna do this?" asked Inoo.
Both Daiki and he were in a restaurant near Inoo's workplace during lunch break to meet with a certain someone that Daiki had contacted the day before.
After finding the flyer the other day, Daiki decided to give the number printed on it a call. His friends were against him at first, especially Hikaru and Yuya. They told him to just leave it to the police but Daiki couldn't get that face out of his mind. If this Yamada Ryosuke person who was missing was really the guy from his flashes then maybe he could be of help to find him.
***
"If it's a real missing person then they surely need help," argued Daiki.
"If the police still can't find him then I don't think you can," retorted Yuya.
"I'm not gonna look for him alone. I just wanna help! And ... and maybe... if I help them ... these flashes will go away. It's tiring me out, you know... seeing someone you don't know in that empty dark space, scared and alone. It feels like I was there but I couldn't do anything!"
Daiki screamed and kicked the rolling door where the flier was glued to resounding in a loud bang.
***
"I didn't tell Yuya that I agree to go with you to meet them today," informed Inoo.
"I think it's better if you don't tell him. He thinks I'm stupid for doing this anyway," grumbled Daiki.
Inoo laughed. "No, he didn't think that. He's just worried. Yuya can't express his worry and affection well and he's often misunderstood because of that. Believe me, he's worried about you because he thinks you're willingly involving yourself in danger."
"Well, it's the only thing I can think of to make these flashes stop."
"Oh, here they are!"
Two young men entered the restaurant. The taller of the two quickly approached a waiter and after a while, the waiter led them towards Daiki and Inoo's booth.
"Hello! My name is Nakajima Yuto and this is my friend Chinen Yuri," said the taller guy introducing himself and his shorter-than-average friend.
"Hello, my name is Inoo Kei and this is Arioka Daiki."
"I'm Arioka Daiki. I'm the one who called you yesterday," said Daiki. "Please have a seat!"
"Thank you. Uhm... I'm sorry for getting to the point but you said that you know where our friend Yamada is?" asked Yuto.
"Oh, uh... I-I didn't say that I know where he is right now. I've just sort of seen him..."
"Where?" This time Chinen Yuri asked.
"Dai-chan saw your friend in his dream," said Inoo out of the blue.
"Chan!"
"What? It's true! You did see him in your dream, right? Sometimes when you're awake but you still see him in your mind."
"Wait a minute. Is this some kind of a joke?" asked Yuto with a frown on his face. "Are you two pranksters or something? Are you recording this for your Youtube content?"
"Let's go Yuto," said Chinen with a scowl. He was ready to leave and pulled Yuto out of his chair.
"No, no, no, please wait! I can explain! Please.... please... don't leave yet..." begged Daiki. When his plea fell on deaf ears, he turned his pleading eyes towards Inoo.
Inoo let out a sigh before reaching into his pocket to take out a pristine white business card.
"Before you go, please have a look at this. This is my business card. If you need help, maybe my office can offer you some assistance," said Inoo offering them his business card.
"Come on, Yuto. We're wasting our time here," Chinen insisted but Yuto was interested. He took the offered business card from Inoo's hand and gasped in surprise.
"Wait a minute. Are you really from that detective agency?!" exclaimed Yuto.
Inoo smiled his winning smile. One that Daiki saw very often Inoo used to win a client's approval.
"Okamoto and Associates at your service!" Inoo said bowing low.
"Wow! Are you Okamoto... wait, you said your name is Inoo, right?"
"That's right! Okamoto-san is my boss. I'm one of his employees."
"Are you a detective too? Can you help us find our friend?" asked Chinen. His previous scowl was gone and was replaced by an earnest look.
"Well, I'm just a detective assistant but if you want to hire our service we have many capable detectives at our disposal."
"Hiring means you need money to do it, right?" Both Yuto and Chinen looked at each other. "We're just graduated from our University. We haven't got a job yet."
"We should be doing job hunting this month but with Yamada missing we just couldn't do it," told Yuto in a subdued manner.
"Haven't you told his parents? Your friends' parents I mean, the Yamadas?" asked Daiki.
"The police didn't take us seriously when we first reported this. Even now, they don't seem to lift a finger on this case which was why I made that flyer. They thought Yama-chan was just drunk somewhere and forgot to go home or was on a vacation to celebrate his graduation but it's been five days and we haven't heard from him since," explained Yuto.
"We didn't dare to tell his parents yet," added Chinen sadly.
"Chan, we need to help them," pleaded Daiki again.
Inoo rolled his eyes. "Fine. I'll ask my superior if they can lend us some of the resources. But after we find your friend you have to tell his parents so that they can pay me. I'm not doing charity work, you know? I have a family to feed."
"You mean your cats?" asked Daiki in a deadpanned tone.
"Hey, they eat a lot and cat food is expensive!" Inoo quipped in a mock outraged.
Both Yuto and Chinen looked very grateful. They bowed at them and screamed their thanks over and over until Inoo had enough and just told them to sit down and recount the incident before their friend Yamada was missing. Daiki grinned at his best friend. Inoo might look stern but he had a kind heart. They had been friends since the first year of college and were very close.
***
"Please tell me why we're here again," said Hikaru from his crouching position near the dumpster.
"My office refuses to lend me manpower since this is charity work. They said that I won't be able to pay for their overtime anyway," answered Inoo while rolling his eyes in exasperation. "But they give me free rein at their database and other resources. So, you guys are the manpower. You work for me."
"Do we get paid?" asked Yabu, who was crouching near Hikaru.
"Nope. You get a one-time meal and a discount coupon though."
"Works for me," said Yabu.
"You're too easy, you know?" scolded Hikaru.
"This is for Dai-chan too. I do this for him. I don't care what Inoo does. He's always been weird."
"Gee, thanks Yabu-chan," Inoo sneered. The phone in his hand vibrated and Inoo's attention immediately pulled towards his phone. "Dai-chan emailed me. He's seen another flash and the kidnapper is in the room."
"They could still be inside. What should we do?" asked Yabu.
"Should we call the police right now? Dai-chan has confirmed that the kidnapper's inside," suggested Hikaru.
"And what proof do we have? A weird psychic connection with the victim? Try telling that to the police and see if they believe you," Inoo retorted.
Yabu squeezed Hikaru's shoulder. "There are five of us and only one of them, hopefully. We can do this Hika," said Yabu with an encouraging smile.
"Alright, Yuya's back. We're going in now. Come on!"
At Inoo's mark, the three of them ran towards the front of an empty store and huddled around the locked door. Daiki and Yuya followed from their own hiding spot. Yabu reached for the door handle and found it locked.
"It's locked. Now, what?" asked Yabu.
"I'll have my man handles it," said Inoo with a grin while Yuya stepped forward wearing a pair of google and a blowtorch in his hand. "Step back everyone."
Yuya lit the blowtorch and promptly cut the lock with the fire.
"So this is why you asked us to wait behind that dumpster," muttered Hikaru.
"Damn you're so sexy holding that blowtorch," Inoo sighed.
"Later babe," Yuya smirked. "First thing's first..." The lock fell apart and Yuya kicked down the door.
Hikaru turned his attention from Yuya to Daiki. "Are you sure this is the place?" Hikaru asked Daiki.
"Un! The last flashes that I saw give me a clear look at the kidnaper's face and I can hear voices too," revealed Daiki as he led the group inside the empty store.
"At first, the words that Dai-chan heard were nonsense but once I looked it up further the bits and pieces that he heard combined with the sketch of the kidnapper's face led me to this place."
"Inoo-chan has done a good job," praised Daiki.
"I am," said Inoo smugly. "I need to ask Okamoto-san for a raise or maybe a promotion."
As they entered the store further, they found more broken things scattered here and there. Looked like it used to be a pet store since there were lots of broken aquariums and empty cages pushed at the far back of the back storage room. There was another locked door in that storage room. Inoo gestured at the door and Daiki nodded, confirming that it was the door where the kidnapper held Ryosuke.
"Careful, there may be accomplices that we don't know," warned Yuya. "Everyone, find something that can be used as a weapon."
They looked around and grabbed anything that looked useful like iron bars and broken wood planks while Inoo held out a taser. Yuya fired up his blowtorch again and kicked the door open once the key was unlocked. Suddenly, there was a scream from inside and Yuya was pushed down while his blowtorch was thrown away.
"Yuya!!"
"Attaaaaack!!"
***
It took them three broken ribs (Inoo, Daiki, Yabu) and a splintered ankle (Yuya) to finally apprehend the kidnapper. In the end, Hikaru managed to call the police and ambulance after tying down the kidnapper.
"Uuuugh, broken ribs sucks!" cursed Inoo from his hospital bed. "The Yamadas owed me a lot for this."
"Stop complaining! You get lots of compensation from them already and I heard your office is considering a promotion for you," Hikaru reprimanded Inoo.
"I changed my mind. I don't want a promotion. I want a vacation!"
"There, there... we'll go to the beach once you're discharged from here," promised Yuya who sat next to Inoo's bed.
"Yaay!!"
"Where's Dai-chan?" asked Yabu, looking around the room. "Are his ribs healed already?"
"I think he went to visit the victim, Yamada Ryosuke in his hospital room," told Hikaru.
***
"Arigatou gozaimasu!!" Both Yuto and Chinen bowed at Daiki, expressing their gratitude.
"Please, it's not only my doing. My friends help a lot," said Daiki.
"We're going to visit your friends next!" said an excited Yuto.
"Yes, you guys have done a lot and are injured because of it. It makes me feel bad," added Chinen.
"Don't worry, they'll recover soon. We're happy to be able to help your friend," said Daiki.
"Okay, then see ya!"
After Yuto and Chinen left to visit Daiki's friend in the other hospital room, Daiki waited outside of Yamada's hospital room. After a while, his family went out and told Daiki to come in because their son wanted to see him.
"Hi..."
"Hi..."
An awkward silence ensued.
"Well, this is awkward," Daiki chuckled, which prompted Yamada Ryosuke to laugh.
"Yes. Eettoo ... I don't know who you are but my friends said that you and your friends have saved me. Thank you!" said Ryosuke.
Daiki smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his head. "It's nothing. We did it because we just happened to know your whereabouts."
"If I may ask. How did you guys find me?" asked Ryosuke again.
"Well, here's the thing. There's a weird phenomenon that happened to me lately and actually, I wanna ask you about that."
"Eh? What is it?"
"Why are you in my head?"
Fin