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“Tachihara, this is all your fault,” Higuchi grumbled.
Gin nodded in agreement.
Currently, the three of them were tied up in the back of a car—Tachihara on the right, Higuchi on the left, and Gin, unfortunately, being stuck in the middle. It had to be a pretty expensive one, seeing as there was a divider between the front and back seats.
“Hey, that’s not fair!” Tachihara bemoaned. He struggled against his restraints for the umpteenth time. “How was I supposed to know some random person was gonna jump out and kidnap us?”
“Uh, maybe because you took us exploring in a dark, abandoned alleyway at night?”
He groaned. “Whatever. How long do you think we’re gonna be kept back here?”
Gin shrugged, huffing in frustration. Her hands being tied behind her back made it very difficult to sign. Oh well. But then, they felt something in their back pocket. It was a knife. Under her mask, she grinned. Even though they could get everyone out in mere seconds, they decided to see what the kidnappers were gonna do first.
While Tachihara and Higuchi began bickering, rapt knocking on the divider made them freeze.
“Hey, you three,” a high-pitched voice on the other side said, “shut up.”
Off of the voice, the three assumed that their kidnapper was a woman—late thirties maybe?
“Hey, it’s you two. Gin isn’t talking,” Tachihara shouted back. Under his breath, he whispered, “Asshole.”
It seems like he didn’t say it quiet enough, because the voice boomed back, “What was that?”
Higuchi had to bite her lip to hold in her giggles. Tachihara smartly stayed silent.
Not wanting to anger the voice again, the three took their time to watch out the window and make a mental path of where they were going. They had been driving for hours, well outside the kingdom outskirts, when the car abruptly stopped. By now, the sun was shining high in the sky.
The doors on the right side opened up, and a hand reached in to grab Tachihara. Once he was pulled out, the hand reached back in and pulled out the rest of them.
Their harsh grab made Gin fall onto the floor. Much to her surprise, the kidnapper turned out to be a big burly man. He even had a beard! They sucked in a breath through their nose, attempting to hold in their laugh.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Tachihara and Higuchi noticed, and they were not as great as holding back laughter. Within seconds they were both rolling on the ground, laughing.
“Hey, what are you laughing at?” the man yelled. His squeaky voice did nothing to calm them, only adding fuel to the fire.
Gin sighed at her best friend and boyfriend. If they were the only one alive by the end of this, they would know why. She tried to poke the two with her feet, but the laughter didn’t die down.
A sudden kick to Higuchi’s ribs shut them up. She was left coughing and gasping for breath. The sight made Gin’s eye twitch, but they still kept the knife in their pocket. The Black Lizard taught her to never give up an opportunity for information unless you absolutely had to. And—they hated to admit—Higuchi had definitely gone through worse. So she’d be fine.
Their kidnapper roughly dragged the trio to some abandoned warehouse in the middle of nowhere. In the house, there was another person waiting for them. This person was a bit taller than Squeaky and had a deeper voice. The outfit they had on reminded Gin of a mime. But more threatening.
“Listen hear you shits,” Squeaky said. Exasperatedly, Gin saw the other two still holding in snickers. Thankfully, Squeaky didn’t notice. “I know you three are close with the Prymaris queen and prince, and I’ve got a bone to pick with them. They robbed my family of everything! Our business, our house, our money, our—“
Mime cut him off. “Chill out Tsuyoshi, they don’t need your whole backstory. Just tell them what we want.”
“Ah, right,” Squeaky, or Tsuyoshi, sighed. “Apologies, Shou. Anyway, where was I?”
“We hate the Prymaris queen and prince…” Shou started.
Tsuyoshi nodded. “Right. You three are close to them and they would do anything to save you, right?”
They nodded.
“Like, for example, giving us ¥150,000,000?”
Gin had to repress their eye roll. Of course they were asking for ransom. To be honest, she should just pull out her knife already. But they wanted to know a bit more. Last names or relatives maybe?
Tachihara seemed to share the same thought, because he asked Tsuyoshi, “And who would they be sending the money to?”
“Tsuyoshi and Shou Taira.”
Shou slapped their brother on the back of his head. “Idiot! Now they know our full names! If they were to get out, we’d be arrested instantly!”
“Oh…”
They pinched the bridge of their nose, then walked up to Tachihara. Since the hostages were all sitting down on the floor, it made it easy for Shou to look down at him.
“You think you’re so smart for figuring out our names don’t you, Tachihara Michizou?” They sneered. He flinched when hearing his full name.
Instead of saying anything else, they gave Tachihara the same bruising kick that Higuchi had received minutes ago. Gin could feel her blood boiling. Although they were fast, Shou seemed smart, and in this small room, they could probably catch them easily. So she decided to wait for the siblings to leave.
Then Tsuyoshi started poking Gin with his foot. Just their luck.
“Why is this one so quiet?”
“I don’t know,” Shou responded.
Suddenly, a loud grumble filled the room. Tsuyoshi looked sheepishly at his stomach. “I guess I’m a bit hungry. Come on, Shou, let’s get out of here and go eat!”
With that, he pulled his sibling out of the room. Gin waited until she heard them leave the house before letting out a relieved sigh.
“Goddam their kicks hurt!” Tachihara moaned.
Higuchi laughed at him, before groaning in pain. “Ugh, I know.”
When they turned to see Gin grinning, they were puzzled. Until they saw her knife.
“Have you had that the whole time?” the ginger whined. “You could have gotten us out of here ages ago!”
Gin shrugged. They rubbed their wrists, glad to be able to move their hands now. “I wanted more information. Plus, I kind of just wanted to see what you guys would do,” she signed.
“How could you, Gin! My ribs hurt so bad now,” the blonde woman sighed.
Once they were all untied, they walked out of the warehouse. Thankfully, it seemed that Tsuyoshi and Shou really did leave. The bad news was that they took the car, and no other one was in sight.
“Great, what now?” Tachihara asked, gesturing to the dirt all around them. “We’re in the middle of nowhere! How are we supposed to get back to Lupin?”
“Do you guys have your phones?” Gin signed, then patted down her pockets. Low and behold, they did have their phone. Tachihara and Higuchi did as well.
“Should we call, Hirotsu-san?” Higuchi asked. The other two nodded. However when she dialed the number, it went straight to voicemail.
Tachihara cursed. “Fuck, I never should have taught Gramps how to turn off his notifications.”
They all tried dialing everyone in their contacts, yielding the same results.
“What could be so important right now that everyone has their phones off?” Higuchi whined, after her twentieth call that went straight to voicemail.
“Can’t we just send someone a text and wait for them to see it?” Tachihara suggested.
Gin shook their head. “It might take too long. We don’t know when Tsuyoshi and Shou will come back.”
Next to her, the blonde woman suddenly shot up. “That’s it! We should wait for them to come back. It’ll be three on two—I’m sure we could take them. Then we’ll steal their car!”
“That’s…actually not that bad of a plan,” Tachihara realized. “Okay, let’s do that!”
The three of them ran back into the warehouse. Not a moment too soon or too late, they heard their kidnappers coming back inside. Tsuyoshi was praising the restaurant for their “exquisite taste of food”.
As soon as Shou and their brother walked into the room, they were tackled to the ground.
“Agh, what the hell?” Shou yelled. Tachihara grinned wildly from on top of them.
Tsuyoshi’s voice was muffled, seeing as he was face forward on the ground while Higuchi pulled his arms back and pressed his face into the floor with her shoe. “Get off!”
Gin brandished her knife, making their abductors gulp.
“See, you just kidnapped very important people of Prymaris,” Higuchi explained, pressing her foot down harder. She relished in the sound of the pop. “And we can’t exactly let that go unpunished, can we?” Higuchi looked over to Tachihara, despite knowing the answer.
“Afraid not,” the ginger laughed.
By the time they were done with Shou and Tsuyoshi, the sky was beginning to darken. Tachihara shoved both bodies (they were alive bodies) into the trunk.
Higuchi checked the time. “Shit, we have to hurry back. I told Hirotsu-san we would come in for tea at eight. It’s five right now and we have no idea where we are.”
“It’s fine, I have a GPS. Can you put our destination in for me Gin?” Tachihara asked.
They grabbed the phone and typed in the address of the castle. What she saw made her jaw drop.
“It’s at least a five hour drive,” they signed.
“What the hell?” He grabbed his phone back and saw that she was right.
“Well,” Higuchi said, already hopping into the driver’s seat. “I guess I just have to floor it.”
(While she did get them back home in time, Tachihara and Gin both agreed that they would only let her drive again in an emergency.)