Chapter Text
Piano man could appreciate a good sunset, there really was nothing like the thrill of one performance ending and another beginning, especially when such a finale meant the coming of night. After all, the night was when the Port Mafia — the nocturnal aggressors, and defenders of the dark — thrived, ruling over the shadows without mercy.
The setting of the sun was also the cue for normal people to lower their guard. And those that didn’t were usually those whose hearts trembled before them, those unlucky few who'd been foolish enough to stand against the might of the Port Mafia.
Needless to say, the night was when the majority of bloodshed occurred, when the majority of flames would be extinguished with one sharp blow… and that excited Piano Man to no end. Not that killing was his reason for living, he wasn’t an animal nor a beast; and he certainly avoided killing gratuitously or killing without meaning. Such a kill would be... inelegant at best, leaving behind a bitter, harsh taste in the mouth.
But a good vengeance kill, or better yet justice kill—
—yes, Piano Man could appreciate that.
With the rising of the sun, those same screams that filled the night — the cracks of traitorous jaws on concrete, louder than gunshots — would be hastily silenced by the quiet yawns of morning. The ending of dreams.
Dreams.
His promotion to executive had truly been a dream.
And just like a dream, this evening’s sunset just happened to be one of the good ones. Light flooded in through the boss’ floor to ceiling windows from its place above the clouds, towering over the city they simultaneously served and abused — and blasting away the colourless monotony of day.
The boss’ office had always felt like a bit of a contradiction to Piano Man. It was a room of cold black and white tiles, warmed by soft furnishings in various colours, deep and rich, drawing an even starker contrast to the occupier’s pale complexion and lightless eyes. It was open and spacious, yet that wide expanse of space, between the door and the solid oak desk the boss could usually be found behind, was suffocating.
Even moreso when the visit sagged under the burden of bad news. On those occasions the walls had the effect of boxing you in until you were almost nose to nose with a humourless grin. Until suffocating became preferable to that menacing chill, disappointment thinning the air and stretching it out into a tightly compressed gasp, each breath too much and nowhere near enough.
Right now there was a mile between them.
There was safety in space, Piano Man supposed, safety too, or at least some semblance of it, in the flame forming in his stomach. A flame that matched the colour flooding through the window, a heat that would surely overcome the icy bite of the boss’ displeasure.
It was a flame he had no other option but to hide, hidden beneath his jacket like the razor thin coils of high-carbon steel he favoured over a gun.
The boss himself looked tired today; his usually upright, unrelenting posture looked slightly… broken, shoulders sloping downward towards the desk, and scarf retired over the back of his chair. Yet the satisfied smirk, eyes reflecting the sky outside, lit up like a furnace, screamed something entirely different.
Victory.
“Ah, Piano Man — here to put my head on a spike, I see.”
Something in his own eyes must have betrayed him, a flash of the flame perhaps. Either that or the boss had become so attuned to his subordinates’ every emotion, out of sheer paranoia, that he’d have noticed even with his own firmly closed.
”Care to explain what’s on your mind?”
That had been the idea.
Frankly, the arrogance had always nauseated him slightly. Like the man was untouchable, perched upon his blood stained throne, exposed on all sides by windows and human weapons — his own humming softly in the corner, brushing the silky hair of her doll. She was feigning indifference, but Piano Man spotted the quick glances thrown his way from behind delicate bangs.
He allowed himself a small sigh before opening his mouth to speak, it only now occurred to him just how much he didn’t want to be there. Not that it mattered, there was no way he could ignore it all, no way he could carry on like nothing had happened. Like nothing was happening.
”You’ve achieved a spectacular win for the organisation, there’s no denying that.” Piano Man sunk into a reluctant bow, knees hitting the floor. He relished in the sudden ache it brought, before swiftly uprighting himself, half hoping he’d receive a bruise there for his trouble — a temporary memento of what was sure to be a… memorable conversation one way or the other. “I’d be a fool not to applaud your foresight, boss.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Mori’s eyes seemed to comprehend its weight, leaning even further back with a tilt of his head.
”And?”
And.
There were a thousand and one atrocities the boss had committed during his, as yet, relatively short tenure. And for a good portion of it, Piano Man himself had been complicit. He’d be lying if he said it bothered him, because clearly it didn’t. Why else would he have been made an executive?
And yet…
”…was that really the only way?”
The question brought a slight flare to the boss’ nostrils, an almost imperceptible shift in footing beneath his desk.
”You think I’ve been careless?”
The flared nostrils vanished, replaced with dark eyebrows raised in challenge, fingers interlaced in polite curiosity — the man himself indulging in his own contradictions. Piano Man made sure not to move an inch, or risk revealing the unrest below his ribs. He kept his voice measured despite it all. Meeting ease with forced ease.
”Gratuitous, perhaps, and callous. But never careless, no.”
The words, despite their intended bite, felt more like an antidote to the man who uttered them, like sucking out the poison and spitting it back in the direction of the other man’s face. Yet Piano Man had seen for himself the piles of documents, plans and blueprints; maps, strategies and alternatives. A plan for every letter of the alphabet. Mori would never move without a thorough evaluation of the consequences. He was never careless.
He’d meant what he’d said.
“I hadn’t realised compassion was something the Port Mafia was famous for. Forgive me, I am simply mortified by my actions.”
Sarcasm, another red flag. Resorting to such usually meant the boss was in no mood to defend.
Yet the boss wasn’t infallible.
“So tell me, what would you have done differently? As one of my newest and brightest execs, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.”
Piano Man had to hold back a snort. No mood to defend was… obvious, now. But he was in no mood to beat around the bush either, or soften a blow, that had never really been his style.
“You could have used Lippmann,” he said simply.
“This plan has been in motion for two years, before Lippmann had shown even a hint of recovery.” The boss’ reply came as swiftly and as confidently as if he’d already predicted his suggestion.
Try again.
“And I understand that, but—”
Mori silenced him with a flick of his hand, one white glove stained pink in the late evening glow.
“Do you really think it would have been as simple as that? We work in the shadows, not the spotlight. Or have you forgotten?” Even as he said it, his profile, despite being half-buried in shadow, seemed to glitter in the sun’s dying rays. Piano Man couldn’t help but appreciate the irony.
Shadows, not spotlight.
“You don’t think he would have had the exact combination of skills and connections needed to pull it off without… this? What’s the point in having such an asset on our side if we can’t use him for exactly that?”
Mori let the words hang there, his fingers still intertwined, expression curious like they were discussing the strategy for some petty mission. Until his eyes suddenly dulled, black and lifeless, lifted by the most serene of smiles.
“What indeed?”
Piano Man felt his expression fall in response, eyes widening as he fought to suppress the sudden roar in his chest, his fists curling in on themselves until his fingernails broke the skin on his palms. Mori never made outright threats, that was what made him so deadly. A spider in a web is silent, patient, she allows her victims to come to her, watching the trapped victims struggle with masked indifference, a master of her hunger.
“You seem to be under the impression that nobody is indispensable when weighed against the organisation.”
He’d heard those words before, had considered them with as much objectivity as he could but, in the end, had always viewed the organisation as something more than just a set of scales and outcomes. He’d also considered the fact that he had maybe misunderstood the boss then, and that really they were, for the most part, singing from the same hymn sheet. If he was in his position, would he not approach things in much the same way? And besides, he didn’t always agree with the boss’ decisions, he simply respected them.
But this…
”We’ve discussed this before, have we not? My stance hasn’t changed. Our job as leaders of this organisation is to think of the whole, we cannot allow bias into our decision making.”
That’s not— why wasn’t he getting it?
“And right now, we have a member of the organisation working through his grief with blood and vengeance. By the end of today, not only will we have procured the Skilled Business Permit, a carte blanche to do whatever illicit activities we see fit - but one of our own will have eliminated a troublesome, violent group. ”
He slid a piece of paper towards himself before holding it up with a pinched grasp for Piano Man to behold, taking care not to crumple the edges. Piano Man had never seen the boss handle something so delicately. Satisfied, he turned to lay the paper carefully inside the safe on the shelf behind him. Piano Man knew it wasn’t the real thing, but a promise of it, the real permit would come after the deed had been done and the agreement fulfilled on both sides. Still, the lengths he would go to protect just a promise of the future he sought...
“The city will once more be in our debt. It's a win-win, would you not agree?”
”You say that like we couldn’t have settled it any other way, but we both know that’s bullshit. Even if it had to be Mimic, why did it have to be Oda-san? We have other units who’d have been more than capable—”
“Like I said. Organisation as a whole. Why send a unit when we have one, perfectly matched candidate? All he needed was the right motivation.”
“Motivation?” Piano Man took a step backward, a hand over his heart, frown finally evident. Uncaged. He had trouble hiding his disbelief now, his complexion draining with sick realisation. “Motivation?” He repeated. “They were kids.”
Mori’s gaze slid to the corner, to the girl now braiding her doll’s hair, before shrugging. His silence, an answer to an unspoken question, seemed to stretch beyond all physical possibility, until it was ready to snap. The only sound to be heard in the vast room, filled by the evening’s final, desperate rays, was the girl’s sweet humming.
The hums became a gentle march, past graves they’d marked themselves; face after face flicked through his mind’s eye like small squares of film, lit up by the dim light of the Old World. Each one of them — a smile without form or definition, without hope of receiving an apology — appeared before him, blocking out a man who’d kept them at arm’s length, a man who would never have mourned them.
Kids.
Fallen Flags that hadn’t even lasted a year.
The boss had made it clear before that he held no qualms about using kids as pawns, or as direct bait. Piano Man had disliked it, of course, but then he’d assumed it wasn’t Mori’s first choice either. His loyalty then, regardless of preference, would have been correctly interpreted as complicity. And it was only now that Piano Man was finally beginning to see it.
The organisation acted in its own interests, of course, but didn’t it also seek to protect the city? Protect its future? And who else were more deserving of their protection than the strays who called it “home”, despite the majority going their whole lives without one. Weren’t the Flags meant to be a shining example of that philosophy?
When had he forgotten that?
The thought bit at his skin, tugging at the corners of his lips until his expression was one of pure disgust.
He’d failed them...
... he'd failed them all.
Every. Single. One.
Except…
The one who’d survived. The one who’d endured.
The one who’d stayed by their sides during recovery, and all that had happened after. The one who’d once scoffed at the idea of them being friends, but had proven time and again what a privilege it was to not have to qualify that fact with words.
The Port Mafia had owed its continued existence… Yokohama had owed its continued existence, thanks to that one kid.
Kids were more valuable than Mori could ever dream of, and not for the reasons he thought. The past will influence the pen, but it can’t write the future. And so it was now, the kids of today would be the next executives, the next leaders — not lambs, raised for the sole purpose of slaughter. Not pawns.
The girl in the corner was wearing a new bow, Piano Man noticed, and he suddenly fought the urge to vomit.
He’d been complicit.
“They were fair game.”
.
.
.
It was over in a flash of silver.
Over in two staggered thuds, one after the other.
Over when a doll, with neatly braided hair, dropped unceremoniously to the floor.
The sunset spilled, thick and red, through windows that stretched to the heavens. And for one brief moment, it met the red of mafia black— as the old king’s head rolled.
Piano Man removed his gloves with steady hands, turning his gaze to meet the new moon as it rose above the city. With a thin smile, he surveyed his kingdom.