InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Goodie goodie gumdrops"

Ikeda Kiriko | 池田妃凛子 (apathyisboring) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-08-24 22:43:00

Entry tags:

kiriko, reizo

Who: Kiriko, Reizo
What: IDEK
When: The day after Kiriko's back in town
Where: Reizo's apartment
Why: Loose ends

For the past ten minutes, Kiriko had been crouched in the hallway outside of his apartment, trying to decide on a direction once and for all. It was rare that she entered any situation without at least a basic idea of what her approach was going to be, but circumstances being what they were, she had yet to figure out what to do with herself. Her determination was fruitless. Try though she might to commit to being angry or sympathetic or supportive or hardassed or candid or coy, she still found herself caught somewhere in the middle of every option she could think of.

It didn't help any that Reizo himself was a bit of an unknown variable. It might even be insulting to treat him like nothing had changed, but here she was on his doorstep with a bag of take-out as if that were the case. With a sigh, she tipped her head back and it fell against the wall with a soft thump. There was nothing she hated more than uncertainty, but camping outside of his door was pretty much the furthest she could get from the kind of decisive action that usually got her through it.

With the thought of how terribly embarassing it would be if he opened the door and caught her slumped outside of it floating through her head, she pulled herself to her feet, adjusted her hair, and stepped up to the plate, knocking on the door. While she waited for it to open, she tried to fix her face with an expression she hoped said you're-an-idiot-and-an-asshole-but-I'm-sorry-about-your-father-and-I-really-hope-everything-works-out-because-that-would-suck-otherwise-but-really-you're-stupid, and held up the food bag with the air of one paying a toll when it finally did.

"Brought you food," she said, as if this wasn't obvious.

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some_other_dog
2010-08-28 12:10 am UTC (link)

Silence stretched thin and tenuous between them after that question, a long minute’s progress marked only by the gentle and private click of clock sat high up on one of the walls. His brow knitted together, as if considering some great problem, and then time picked up again, the crackle of the bag shocking it back into regular flow as he rummaged around inside of it to retrieve the food. After lining it up on the table he leaned back, eyes roaming across the items [can you figure out I don’t know what she brought yet?], but not truly focused on them.

The funeral had been a great deal more work than he’d thought it would be. His mother had refused to arrange anything without him, and once he’d returned to her and she’d kicked his ass thoroughly she’d rode his back until it was totally complete. The funeral itself had been somber, more than any other he’d ever been to, and he knew it wasn’t just because his father had died, but because a powerful and respected leader had and the organization was dead. By name it would carry on, but it would be a completely different beast when the new oyabun was officially recognized.

He shrugged expansively, looking for a moment as drawn and tired as he felt, then shook his head.

“It was a funeral of tough men and woman. Not a dry eye in the house.”

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apathyisboring
2010-08-28 12:46 am UTC (link)

The sarcastic response didn't much bother her - she was not specifically anticipating it, but she knew that she should have been. The problem was less that he hadn't given her a real answer and more that she still didn't know what to say. Kiriko had already offered her sympathies, with the addendum that they were worthless.

They were. And she couldn't imagine he much wanted her pity, either.

She watched him poke absently at the food for a few moments, before her eye strayed back around the room. It drifted to the display case, where about a dozen serviceable-looking firearms, ranged large to small, were sitting in brazen defiance of several different laws. Despite the number and variety of the things, it didn't look like a collection. If it was one, it had been quickly amassed - she'd never seen any of them in his apartment before. She was sure of it, because she would have remembered steadfastly trying to ignore their presence.

"What's with the guns?" she asked, looking back to Reizo midway through her sentence.

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some_other_dog
2010-08-28 12:59 am UTC (link)

He chewed thoughtfully on some fries, turning to look at the case in the corner of the room. It consisted mostly of pistols, but a shotgun and two rifles were mixed in amongst them, and they all looked ready for use. He could remember bringing them home.. Stepping out into the crisp autumn night, the guns all shifting uneasily in the guitar case he was carrying. As a 15 year old boy he might get some thrill out of the things, out of showing them and their power off, but as the next in line for controlling the largest crime group in the city and surrounding area all he could feel for them was a mild professional curiosity. He knew how to work them (point, pull trigger), and was very well-versed in pistols, and through one of his more gunhappy uncles he was learning how to properly use a shotgun and even a rifle.

“I’m next,” he said, simply, and let it float there in between them, two heavy and simple words that spotlighted the severity of his new position.

The wrapper of his burger crinkled as he opened it, and he lifted the top bun, inspected the toppings, and frowned at her.

“No cheese?”

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apathyisboring
2010-08-28 01:11 am UTC (link)

She was incredulous, not only at the large case of guns and his provided reason for it, but at his utter nonchalance. No cheese? Really? That's what he was taking the time to be concerned about? Were circumstances different, she would have yelled at him, called him stupid, and whipped a pillow at his head. As it was, she was goggling at the display case to avoid goggling at him.

He couldn't be serious. It was downright absurd. And yet, he was, wasn't he? The shiny black metal gleaming under the glass certainly looked serious, very serious indeed. Kiriko couldn't seem to process it, but enough was getting through that a terrible gnawing sensation had started in the pit of her stomach and was growing persistently stronger. In his Paradise, he spoke about being the heir, but...

She bit her lip.

"You're fifteen," she said quietly, a strange and pleading tone having crept into her voice when she wasn't looking, "Not even out of high school. Do they really expect you to...?"

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some_other_dog
2010-08-28 01:18 am UTC (link)

Reizo regarded his burger with distaste, and set it down, muttering about the lack of cheese and presence of pickles. He opened up another one to check, and was happy to discover the precious missing ingredient on this one. He bit into it promptly, ignoring the way she was carefully staring at the guns and not him, and took another bite just as she started talking. A few moments passed before he swallowed and sit the burger back down in its wrapper, and looked over at the case again.

He shrugged, gently, and turned back to her.

“I don’t know,” he said, staring her candidly in the face, smiling bitterly. “I’m heading to jail, even if it is for a little while, and that’s my last real step. Will they let a fifteen or sixteen year old take the head, officially? No. One of my uncles will take it up, most likely, but in name alone. I’ll be groomed quicker and harder than I ever have before, and I’ll probably be sitting on top right out of school.”

He slumped back in his seat, lips pursed around the straw of his drink. He sipped it slowly, and chewed at the tip of the straw when he wasn’t. “Quitting school is an option, too.”

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apathyisboring
2010-08-28 01:36 am UTC (link)

Somehow, Paradise had been easier. The image of Seiko carrying her own head was downright horrifying, to be sure, and burned into her memory - but Kiriko could close her eyes and move forward and sure enough, it would be gone, like some terrible nightmare or a horror movie with particularly excellent special effects. Danger and death felt real there only in the moment. With distance, it was a dream, too incredible for her mind to qualify as reality.

Shouting at him as he sat on a gargantuan stone throne with those terrible chains rattling had been intense and dramatic and heated, but sitting in his almost immaculate living room sharing quiet, tense words was so much more real. There was no monster left to kill; a powerful spirit couldn't pop out of her phone and make it all better; and for all the power and control she had gained over her own life, there didn't look to be anything she could do about his.

She swallowed the small lump in her throat and forced her teeth out of her lip.

"Don't you have any say at all?" She was leaning forward in her seat slightly, hands clasped together in her lap rather than loosely folded. "I know you feel you have to go back, but why does it have to be right away?"

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some_other_dog
2010-08-29 10:35 pm UTC (link)

He watched her sidelong out of the corner of his eye, chewing wordlessly on the tip of his drink’s straw. There was a slump to his shoulder and lethargy in his voice that marked him more as subdued than tired, but it was easy to miss. He stretched his legs out in front of him, the food forgotten for the moment while he mulled over her last response.

“Two years is a pretty good deal, isn’t it? Two years left to work out my immature fancies. I’ll never have to sit around worrying about when I’m not a kid anymore. Two years, and that chapter of my life closes forever. I’ll just have to make the most of it.”

He tipped his head back, letting it fall against the back of his couch, and sighed.

“Right now I have about a week or two to enjoy myself too. That’s a little more pressing, I’d say.”

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apathyisboring
2010-08-30 12:27 am UTC (link)

It was the second time this year that she was realizing how unlike her a friend was, despite superficial similarities in their situations. Three years, she used to think to herself - three years, maybe a little more. Never once had she thought to herself about the upsides of knowing when. Never once had she considered a pretty good deal. Reizo was different from Kozue, too - acceptance of something you did not want to do was not quite the same thing as throwing your life away because you couldn't stand not knowing what to do with it. She had come to understand some of Kozue's feelings, in time. Maybe somewhere in those two years, his would make more sense to her. He wanted to put off worrying about it. Up until a week ago, she had, too.

"It's your life," she said finally, after a long pause. "You can do what you want with it. And if this is what you say you want to do..." She stared not at the guns but at him now, her gaze assertive and bordering confrontational, driving both points home as she spoke. Settled back against the couch, she looked down to her hands and forced them unclenched.

"You're not like me," she said before more quiet had a chance to take hold. "But watching you makes me want to fight even harder."

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some_other_dog
2010-08-31 03:23 am UTC (link)

Reizo stared back at her, head tilted to one side, straw drawn out of the drink’s container now, jutting out of a corner of his mouth while he gnawed at it and considered her. Both eyebrows lifted in surprise when she backed down and slumped into the couch,, and he frowned gently around his straw when told she wasn’t anything like him. Who’d ever expected her to be? He was brought up to be a leader of a bunch of hard-assed criminals, and she’d been brought up as an object. At least with his there was a hope that he could do his own thing when the time came around.

“Of course you’re not like me,” he said, angling his head down and his drink up to work the straw back into it as he spoke, “you don’t have any family pride to consider. I’ve always known what I was, and what I was going to be, or at least I have since the day I got this beauty mark. I resented my choice being made for me, but it’s my family and I could never turn my back on them. I don’t hate it. I just wish I had a little more time for me.”

He stretched, poorly stifling a yawn, and when his arms came back down one was draped across the back of her shoulders.

“But right now, maybe we can work in some time for us?”

It was only a little surprising how easily he could ooze out of a mildly depressive frown into a vaguely suggestive smirk, and how the distance between them seemed to have closed without much actual movement going on.

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apathyisboring
2010-08-31 05:05 am UTC (link)

"You don't think I haven't?" She didn't snap, but she spoke a bit bitterly. There was far less drama to her story, and no single, bloody moment of knowing, but being groomed was being groomed. "My family... Well. I guess you're just a better child than me. Or maybe that's the upshoot of never seeing my parents. My blood's only as thick as I want it to be."

He seemed oblivious to the similarities between them, which on some level was completely fine with her. She would rather not be under scrutiny, especially not now that she was finally moving past it. It would do no good to dwell on the past, but hearing him wish aloud for more time was bringing back memories, however distant.

His arm came down around her shoulders and jerked her from her thoughts. When she looked up from her lap he was smirking at her sidelong, looking deviously interested in a way that would be familiar and comfortable if it weren't for more niggling little memories gnawing at the back of her brain. She remained still in the face of his advance, careful not to move forward or shy away, her hands remaining folded in her lap. Her face hardened and softened in succession as she peered at him searchingly. The question had been rolling around her mind since she was outside in the hallway, but it still took her a moment to ask.

"What you said. Do you really think that's why I've been...?"

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some_other_dog
2010-08-31 05:54 am UTC (link)

The smirk stayed on, careful and only slightly diminished. His hand slid cautiously down her side to the swell of her hips and rested there, the grip of his fingers loose, the heads of them barely pressing into her as he listened to and watched her, head tilted at that angle that lent itself to curiosity and attentiveness.

“Yakuza family is different from civilian family,” he said, only mildly defensive. “When I say family I don’t mean just my mom and dad, I mean the gumi as a whole. They raised me, knowing what I was, and they guided my hand and then pat my head when I did good by them. My dad was going to step down one day, and maybe I’d still be wearing the collar, but at least I’d be able to go where I wanted to with it.”

He didn’t want to talk about this, not really, and it showed in the lethargy returning to his voice, and the smirk disappearing inch by inch. He’d been waiting for the next bit, eventually, but he’d hoped it would come when she was tucked into the crook of one arm, naked and easy to soothe. He drew back from her a little, just until he was resting his shoulders square against the couch again, but kept his arm around her.

“It was a doubt in my head, sometimes, when I was down deep in one of my moods..” He muttered, dejectedly, and turned his head to look at her again. He was still for a moment, thinking, and then with one quick movement she was on her back on the couch and he was over top her, his shadow falling across her.

“But when I really think about it, you probably just like bad boys in leather jackets, and wanted to see if all the rumors were true.”

He was smirking again.

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apathyisboring
2010-08-31 06:50 am UTC (link)

Again, she was still. She held his eye with an almost appraising look in her own, now trapped between the four pillars of his limbs with her hair splayed out behind her. He'd given her an answer in the negative - not the best she could have hoped for, but not bad. Considering their current position, whatever his misgivings about the situation were, he apparently didn't think enough of them to stop. Her eyes dropped, flicking over him, before they returned to his face. He was smirking again. It was an expression she'd normally welcome, but...

"That's not it, either," she mumbled, eyes darting away from his and fixating on something innocuous somewhere around his elbow. Her brow knitted as she thought, and she kept her shoulders pinned to the couch and her hands locked to her sides, forcing herself not to fidget. Her own hesitance was annoying her, and she was taking a moment to figure out the cause of it.

It might have been him, with his blithe obliviousness to her actual reasoning. It wasn't, though. Between them, him ignoring the most obvious explanation was basically equivalent to giving her the benefit of the doubt. In a strange, backwards way, it was almost a compliment that he hadn't even suggested it. She hated to think of herself as obvious.

With that ruled out, she concluded that her hesitation was self-inflicted, and the conclusion annoyed her even further. She should say something, she decided. But what? Most things were still too difficult and too dangerous to say. It took her another moment, but she thought of something that seemed appropriate. Still staring at nothing rather than him, she began.

"I was never worried about having blood on my hands. If you did something stupid, it wouldn't have had anything to do with me. But..."

Her eyes flicked back up to his and her stomach jumped. Her voice was firm, her expression almost stern when she continued.

"I just didn't want you to die."

It had been incredibly difficult to choke out, which was completely and utterly absurd. The statement wasn't big or emotional or intimate or even particularly elaborate, which made her difficulty with it all the more ridiculous. She could bed Reizo, sleep against him through the night, and fight through the darkest reaches of his mind to ensure his safety, but it made her slightly queasy to have to tell him that she didn't want him to kill himself? She almost laughed. Almost.

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some_other_dog
2010-08-31 07:16 am UTC (link)

He loomed overtop her, head kept tilted, eyes half-lidded and hopeful, fingers splayed out on the couch and flanking her head, watching her as she spoke and thought and considered. It was almost a treat to watch her think, the way her eyebrows lifted and eyes crinkled some, even as she fought to keep still and blasé beneath him. He swayed gently over top her, canting his head in the direction of her eyes to try to make her quit avoiding looking at him. It’d been like this after their first little party, if memory served correct. It was funny how intimacy cowed her.

“You know, you keep saying things like that and I might think you got a crush on me.” He murmured, voice dropping to chesty and amorous.

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apathyisboring
2010-08-31 07:27 am UTC (link)

With a loud, dismissive scoff, she found her smile again. It felt like she was sinking deeper into the couch as she let her body relax, head canting to one side to fix him with a mildly incredulous look.

"Cocky," she muttered, sounding vaguely amused. Her hands moved from her side, finally. A moment later, one of them was curled in his hair, the other against the small of his back and drawing him closer to her while she craned her neck to meet his lips with a kiss.

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