[FIC] Half Past Four; Shifting Gear – Chapter One - Don't Trust a Ho

Title: Half Past Four; Shifting Gear
Author: seiyoku
Chapter: 1/?
Rating: Hard R
Genre: AU; psychological thriller/action
Warnings: Very graphic violence, drug references, adult themes, excessive swearing and possible character death.
Fandom: J-pop, dorama, J-rock crossover (oh god, here we go...)
Bands: Kat-tun, lynch., the Gazette, girugamesh, Arashi, NEWS, and whoever else I throw in there when I get bored.
Pairings: Akame (Miroku/Kame), Seishiro/Miroku and Hazuki(lynch.)/Aoi(gazette) simply for SHOCK factor
Disclaimers: Hell used to belong to Satan; and then Kat-tun took over and turned it into a disco rave party... in the back of a Rescue Rangers bus!
Dedicated to: zurui_koi and hereticpop as they are probably the only ones who will read this, let alone get a kick out of it.
Authors notes: There is not enough kick-ass fics out there so I am going to go and blow some shit up and hopefully make a splash.

Now, this is going to be pretty damn dark and deals with the ideas of mind control, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and hypnosis. Mixed with bikes, guns, drugs, police and explosions, of course. So it will be a bumpy, non-fluffy ride. Consider yourselves warned.

Summary: A girl glasses a stranger in a bar, then throws herself off a building; a man drives his car into a petrol pump, killing five people.

Completely unrelated incidents in a city as sprawling as Osaka. Or so the police think.

During his high school days in the Yukan Club, Miroku had thought he'd seen and done it all. But six years later, his idea of a peaceful life gets turned upside down when a bar fight transforms his work into a crime scene.

As the body count rises, Miroku finds himself roped further and further into the darker side of Osakan nightlife. In the midst of Shinsaibashi, random murders and suicides mix with party drugs and turf wars, all of which link back to a single phone number. Yet with the only suspect on the run, Miroku is sure that there is more to the story than what meets the eye.

Determined to get to the bottom of the case, he gives chase, leading him through the winding tracks of Japan's biggest drug route; out of Osaka, straight through the bosozoku controlled Nagoya and back to his home city of Tokyo.




Chapter One
(Two years later...)
Don't Trust a Ho

*****

One moment she had been fine, talking and chattering away, her false eyelashes fluttering against her cheeks and her lips pushed into a pout. Then, her phone had rung, a Koda Kumi pop song filling the room, and over the bass of the stereo, she had agreed cheerily and happily to whatever the person on the other end had said.

Then, just like that, she had closed her phone, picked up her glass as if to drink, turned around and slammed it into the side of the closest person's head.

The glass Miroku had been polishing had dropped to the ground, shattering across the bar floor as screams drowned out the steady throb of American rock blasting through the speakers.

Well, that was unexpected.

Blood was everywhere; head wounds always pissed out a lot, especially when a tumbler glass was still embedded in the temple of said head. It sure as hell had a way of causing some serious blood loss. And while Miroku had had his fare share of head wounds, he could honestly say that he had never experienced being stabbed in the temple with a glass half full of bourbon. It wasn't really on his list of things to do either.

They had been Miroku's thoughts when all the shit went down and with the polishing cloth still in hand, Miroku realised that he was starting to turn bitter in his old age.

And now the lights were on, police were everywhere and Miroku's shoe crushed the shattered remains of that very glass even further into the floor. He'd been pacing for the last half an hour. There was no other way to put it; first to one end of the bar where he would stay for a few moments, his hip jutting out and his head to the side and then, he would be restless all over again and would stride his way through the broken glass and stop at the other end. Occasionally, he would tap at the glass of the tank that held their resident turtle, Michael, and the little thing would lift its head and stare at him blankly.

That didn't make him feel any better.

Bored, his eyes would skim the posters on the wall. Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and Dope. Pay Money to my Pain and Maximum the Hormone. He knew them all off by heart, memorised during the boring hours of the early evening and the redundant hours of the early morning while waiting for everyone to stagger off home. The dark shadows, the signatures and the tour dates were all but burnt into his mind.

He didn't want to be in here, that was for damn sure, and something about having all the cops sniffing around the joint had him paranoid. Not that he had anything to hide; it wasn't like the only son of Tokyo's Chief Commissioner was about to be errant down in Osaka, but seeing so many cops all in the one place had a way of reminding Miroku of all those times things had gone wrong back in the days of his youth. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and caused the skin on his arms to break out in goose bumps.

Yet the suits had insisted that he stay and Miroku hated that fact even more. All the rest of the party-goers had been ushered out onto the street where they would be rounded up for questioning, but as the only employee currently in the small bar, Miroku had to stay back and assist. And by assist, they meant mundane, stupid things like pointing out light switches, turning the music down and even making them some coffee.

Miroku was fundamentally their bar bitch while they sniffed around the corpse.

“Just perfect,” Miroku muttered under his breath. He was dying for a cigarette right about now too. That was starting to become a killer. High stress situations mixed with the bar officially being turned into a crime scene was not a nice mix.

“Did you say something?” one of the unimportant uniforms asked, squinty eyes glancing over in Miroku's direction. He was starting to clue in on how these investigation things worked in this part of Japan. You had your top shots, the ones in suits with their matching haircuts and shiny shoes and they were the ones looking at the body. Then, you had all the other little guys and it seemed like you needed at least ten of those to make up one top shot, though what they all did other than drink coffee and ask stupid questions was utterly beside Miroku. He could probably watch these guys all night and not see them lift a single finger, let alone bust out with something even half useful.

It reminded him of home and his old man which wasn't helping his feral mood in the slightest.

“Nothing,” Miroku said with what he hoped was a cheery smile; sarcastic was probably more like it though. The cop just looked at him like he was some rebel punk that needed to be crushed underfoot and then went back to being utterly unhelpful to the others in any way. It was a tough job that – being useless – and silently Miroku gave the guy snaps for being so damn good at it. The man needed a promotion!

Groaning to himself, Miroku pinched the bridge of his nose tightly and tried to stop; stop thinking, stop bitching about the idiots around him and stop craving that damn cigarette. If he could just shut off his mind, then this entire experience would go by so much quicker.

And it wasn't that Miroku was cold or shallow or not at all worked up about the idea of someone getting glassed in front of him – he felt for the guy, he really did and it was a shit way to get taken out – but honestly, Miroku could do a hell of a lot more mourning for the dude if he could just stop staring at the corpse, go home and have a hot shower. And a fucking cigarette.

“Lovers spat?” one of the suits asked the other and Miroku again sighed and wished he could turn the music back on so he didn't have to hear the proof of their idiocy. This was painful and some good old Steppenwolf would make this so much easier to bear.

“Maybe,” the other said, his head nodding away like a buoy on rough waters.

Miroku wanted to smash his head against the bar top in irritation. Wasn't that just the most predictable and ridiculous explanation ever? Lovers spat, so let’s glass someone in the head! Yeah fucking right.

The two suits shared looks that were meant to be all knowing before one of them let their eyes slip to a notebook. “Though most said that they didn't seem to know each other,” he said slowly, forming the words as if they were the pieces of a world-wide conspiracy and Miroku thought his head was about to explode. He was standing right there, for fuck’s sake, and maybe he was the stupid one but if he was in the suits’ shoes, he would at least think of stopping and asking the bartender a few questions. Just a few. Did they walk in together? Did they talk? Did he buy her a drink? Was she angry or irrational during her time in the bar?

It was the first fucking step in police work; ask questions and ask the people who would know.

“He hit on her then,” the idiot continued. He was pacing around, his feet no doubt ruining the crime scene with each step as he apparently ran through some elaborate recreation of the scene in his dense head. “Grabbed at her, maybe, and she reacted. Got a drink in her hand, guy starts feeling her up so she whacks him with it. Accidental and instinctual.”

“Sounds about right,” the other said and Miroku shot a look heavenwards. Idiots! He was cursed to be surrounded by idiots and tonight, apparently, was not going to be the night to break the circle.

“Yeah,” the first agreed with a nod of the head while leaning his elbow on the bar. Miroku silently hoped that he had spilt something sticky there earlier, just to fuck with the man's designer suit. “Seems like the most practical reasoning.”

“But he hadn't said a word to her,” Miroku interjected, not even really aware that his lips were moving. Fuck it. Old habits always died hard and it was with a slight snarl of his lip that he acknowledged to himself that he had been eavesdropping on the conversation. If there was ever a time to give oneself a pep talk, then it was now and in the back of Miroku's head a chant started up. Don't get involved, don't get involved, don't get involved.

The police officers turned to him, their pens paused against their notebooks. One had his eyebrow arched and Miroku tried not to notice the odd coffee colouring to his eyes. The other one asked his name and Miroku let out a sigh, replying with just a simple 'Miroku.' The last thing he really wanted was to go around parading his heritage. Any smart cop would know of Miroku's father by name mention alone and that was one thing that Miroku was pretty damn determined not to do.

“You witnessed it?” the man Miroku decided to refer to as Coffee asked. He seemed shocked at the idea which had Miroku's mind doing crazy little flip-flops in his head. Of course he had witnessed it; he was the bartender for fuck’s sake.

“I'm here aren't I?” It probably wasn't the most helpful of answers but Miroku didn't see the point of justifying a stupid question with anything more than utter sarcasm. Just desserts and all that shit.

Nothing got peoples’ attention like a proverbial bitch slap to the face and Miroku tried not to look displeased as the two cops rounded on him and moved closer to the bar. Holy fuck, maybe they just worked out that they had a witness standing right in front of them. Snaps and points to them for their excellent police work; give them a fucking medal.

“What did you see?” one of them asked and Miroku had to wonder if they had ever gone through training for this sort of shit. Shouldn't they be suave and charming and ask him politely to elaborate on their shot-to-all-shit theory? Where was the small talk and the people skills?

“They didn't know each other,” Miroku said slowly, feeling like he was somehow digging his own grave while shovelling the dirt in on top of him all at the same time. This could only end badly.

“So why him?” Coffee asked and Miroku could only shrug.

“So... you saw the whole thing, but that is all you can tell us? Just a shrug?” the friend asked and Miroku had to swallow back the snappy comment that sprung to mind. Yes, Miroku had excellent powers of deduction and right now they were telling him that this cop was a douchebag.

Signing to stop himself from muttering under his breath, Miroku continued. “They didn't know each other and were in separate groups. She was here with two girls; she's the shortest of the group even though she was wearing heeled boots. Stone washed jeans and a long white dress with a black belt. She had sort of an orange colour to her hair, as if she had bleached it too much while both her friends had black. The tallest had a short, spiky haircut and a black dress while the other had long wavy hair, shorts, leggings and an off the shoulder top. They were all pretty confident and seemed like they were celebrating something. They liked the music but never sung along, personally ‘cause I don't think they knew the lyrics. They were ordering bourbon and coke which is kinda odd for a group of girls of that age – about twenty-two – and were breaking it up with shots of Jager. The one with the short hair had been staring at the food menu for awhile and wasn't drinking as much as the other two. Her long haired friend spoke with an accent. It wasn't Osaka-ben; further south maybe.”

“Slow night, huh?” the friend asked with a smirk. Oh yeah, cause that was the only reason that Miroku noticed all this; he was bored and looking to pick up drunk chicks. Right.

“No, just observant,” was all Miroku could say that wasn't blatantly insulting in one way or another.

“How many bottles on the top shelf?” Coffee asked and fuck it all to hell, but Miroku found himself answering before he even realised the set up.

“Fourteen, but only because we are out of JD.” Almost straight away he drew in a slow breath, his eyes closing slightly even as one hip cocked out and his head dropped to the side. Fuck it. Sure, having something like a photographic memory had its perks, but nine times out of ten it was just plain fucking annoying.

“Good memory, huh?” Coffee's friend asked and Miroku merely rolled his eyes; what was it with this guy and the excessive use of 'huh'? And Coffee had that all knowing look in his rather bland eyes again and Miroku was starting to get the feeling that he was starting to size him up. That or he was cluing onto the fact that Miroku wasn't just an everyday slacker of a bartender after all.

He didn't like that idea one little bit.

“It comes and goes.”

“Sorry, I think we missed your family name...”

“Look,” Miroku said, his hands coming up to splay out in front of him, open and non-confrontational even though the tone to his words was clipped and irritable. “I'm just trying to be helpful and telling you what I saw. That is it. End inquisition.”

Coffee and his fucktard buddy exchanged a look and Miroku absent-mindedly brushed his fingers through his heavy fringe, rolling his eyes in the process. This was going to take a long time. Best to hurry things the fuck up and get it over and done with.

“They didn't even speak to each other. Not a word. Hell, he didn't even look at her once; he was too busy with his friends, so there were no cat calls or stupid drunken comments. She ordered a drink and her friends joined her next to the bar. They chatted for a bit until her phone rang. It was Koda Kumi, Can we go Back. She answered, all happy and cheerful and spoke for maybe thirty seconds. Then she hung up, smiled, picked up her drink, turned around and shoved it into the guys temple. In the panic that followed, she somehow managed to slip out and even I didn't see how. Maybe the fire escape to the left of the elevator. End of story.” He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“And now that I have done your work for you, I have my own to do.” Miroku muttered. “So, if you need anything else, I'll be out the back.” It might have sounded rather cold considering someone had just been murdered in his bar, but the fridges weren't going to stock themselves and the empty bottles sure as hell weren't going to grow legs and walk themselves out the back to the bins. Besides, fuck this investigation shit. That wasn't Miroku anymore and these cops, while not overly intelligent, seemed much more capable than his old man so they really shouldn't need his help.

Yes, the fridges needed refilling and the bottles had to be taken out and yet the first thing that Miroku did was go to the bathroom. Trudging through the glass on the floor, Miroku ducked through the curtains at the end of the bar and into the staff area. He bypassed the shelves of crap that they seemed to hoard and pushed open the door to the club. It was painted black, just like the rest of the place. He moved past the glass cabinet filled with signed drumsticks and Polaroids of bands that had visited their little corner of Amerikamura and passed the small corridor to the front entrance and elevator.

That left him with only one other choice and that was the bathroom door.

Pushing it open, he staggered into the bright lights of the washroom, yet instead of heading to either of the cubicles, he b-lined for the sink.

The unisex bathroom was something to be desired but he'd quickly gotten used to it. Painted black like the rest of the club, it was full of graffiti and drunken messages on the wall, scribbled mostly in English, telling about foreigners travels and experiences. Miroku was the only one there who could understand it all and that always made him smile. Not that he made a point of hanging out in the bathroom or anything, but it was always a hoot and a half to find something new written on the wall.

'Had a great time, Miroku was awesome.'

'Best music in town; even better that the bartender speaks English. Thanks for a great night!'

Yet tonight, he couldn't care less about those messages. Besides, it was still too early and no one had had enough Jager shots to really be adding anything new to the walls. And if they did, what would they say? 'Awesome time watching someone get glassed in the head! Thanks guys!'

Miroku didn't want to know.

The idea of being selfish came to mind as he acknowledged that he was worried. Someone just died in the bar, and not just died, but was killed. Crime scene, police everywhere. That was going to do wonders for their street credit and reputation and, horrible as that all sounded, where did that leave him?

Shit creek, that was where.

The bartender that let it happen. The bartender who didn't stop it.

He should have been the first one in there, preventing the unforeseeable. Wasn't that just a spin on what he used to do? Making the impossible possible. It was exactly what he had once stood for. Yet here he was in a hole in the middle of nowhere, away from everyone he really knew and someone had just been killed right in front of him and he had been beyond powerless to stop it.

Then again, it wasn't like anyone could have seen that coming.

It was a cold comfort, but it was the only thing that stood any chance in hell of working to still the raging thoughts in his head.

Useless. That was all he felt and while he was more than fine with the idea of running away from his crime solving Yukan Club days, he didn't particularity like this feeling of being dis-empowered.

He'd never seen anyone die before. Most people hadn't, especially not at the ripe old age of just twenty-four. For all the things he'd done and seen, death was not one of them and he wasn't too sure how he should be feeling. Scared? Lost? Depressed? Or hell, maybe even angry; Miroku didn't know and what scared him more was the fact that really, he wasn't feeling much of anything right about now.

Maybe he was desensitised. Having guns shoved in your face while you were still eighteen had a way of making life and death seem like a bit of a game. He remembered the time when they all thought Karen had been shot, but even that had no real impact on Miroku. He'd been scared during the lead up. He remembered taking off his hat and yelling and then all he could feel was pain as she fell. Maybe he was too quick or too intelligent, but he knew that she hadn't been hurt and that the burning in his chest was not a good sign.

Sure, he hadn't even bled, but that bullet had left one mighty big fucking bruise across his chest which he felt each and every time he breathed for days to come. Bulletproof vests were amazing, but they didn't stop the crushing shock of the impact.

He could also remember the terror that had switched his mind to a blank when he'd watched a gangster shoot the photos of his friends. That had hurt. It felt like a tonne of bricks falling on him, crushing and pushing until there was nothing of him left. Flinching each and every time the trigger was pulled as his mind imagined those bullets ripping into more than just photo paper.

And then that same gangster had pulled the gun on him, twice, and Miroku had been sure that he was about to die. The first time, with a bleeding lip and screaming ribs, the chamber had clicked empty when the trigger was pulled. At the time, Miroku had questioned where the sixth bullet had gone. Five into the pictures of his friends and yet what had happened to the first. Who had suffered so that he could live? Even as the man had grabbed him by the front of his jacket, yanking him off the floor and into his face as he hissed out his threats, Miroku's mind could only focus in on the notion that there were only five rounds in a six round mag.

The second time he had been caught in their lair, hacking their computer and stealing information. That had been even worse to an extent, and in a strange way he could pin point all his future choices on that collection of moments.

He'd thought he was untouchable. Young and smart, strong and brave, he had walked into the very core of evil and just assumed that he would be fine. But no, he was nothing more than a fucking kid with a hero complex and he could still remember the feeling of being held against a column and beaten. The weightless feeling of being thrown from wall to wall while gasping for air and struggling to get his terrified brain to kick into gear. Of the cold press of a silencer being shoved against his head, forcing him down the wall in to a slumped position. The feel of warm blood trickling down the side of his head couldn't be forgotten and somehow became like a phantom pain, coming and going at random times, even now.

And then he had passed out, beaten and bloodied with a concussion and with a man hell bent on killing him pressing a gun into his face.

His friends had saved him though. A miracle if he ever knew one and yet there was a part of him that hated it. Once again, they were putting their life on the line and this shit, with guns and threats and political intrigue, wasn't a game. It was for real and their luck could have just as easily turned sour and that thug could have been shooting through more than just photo paper the next time.

He'd been bandaged up for days with a splitting headache, a fractured wrist and a vague, fuzzy feeling of his life having almost been over. Sure, they succeeded in the long run, but it had left Miroku wondering if that was what life was all about. Was that it? What happened when they actually went up against someone that they couldn't beat? What then?

What the fuck did it feel like to actually live?

So, the first step was a holiday. His dad had wanted him to go to college and continue his education and become some suit wearing salary-man. And while that seemed wholly unappealing in any way other than safety, Miroku had rebelled.

America, he had said, and his old man, for all his faults had seen the potential. Two and a half years over there had Miroku speaking English with an American accent and with a fast forwarded degree in mechanics. Nice, but it meant nothing over here; the mechanics, that was. English was everything.

After that, it had only taken another five weeks at home before he realised that he still just had to get the hell out and actually do something with his life. He wasn't looking for a career yet, but he didn't want to be sitting around living the privileged life of a rich kid either. Higher education in Japan held no appeal and yet he wasn't really ready to trade in everything he knew for more time overseas.

Not to mention that everything had changed in his absence. Seishiro was well and truly on his way to dominating the medical scene while Bido was getting rather serious with an Australian model. Apparently, he was dating just her and that was saying a lot considering his track record. Karen was still on the war path to find a rich man and it was taking her and her mother across Japan as they dealt with the family business. Yuri was eating as much as usual and yet knuckling down to her father’s way of things and looking into the running of his company; apparently, they had all given up on the idea of her finding a suitable husband who could take over the business at such an early age. Noriko was the same as always and studying art at one of Tokyo's most prestigious academies.

And then there was Miroku.

Sure, he could speak English better than any of them, but that still left him as the odd one out. He liked engines and bikes and motors and electronics in a way that wasn't nerdy and he could fight and had some less than reputable friends. Where did all that fit into the grand scheme of things? Unless he had dreams of running off and becoming a Private Investigator, his skills really didn't lead him to anywhere important.

It marked him as a jack of all trades and it was with a hollowing feeling that he realised that he really didn't fit in any more. They would all always be friends – they'd been through too much together to cut all ties – but they weren't as close as they used to be. They weren't the Yukan Club anymore; the world had forgotten them and their perspectives on life had all changed.

Back then, it was easier. They all had common traits in the form of high school, being well off and being bored. That was what bound them together and if it hadn't been for that then Miroku would be the first to admit that he wouldn't have associated with them otherwise. It pulled them together but six years later, with two of those three things gone from their lives – high school and boredom – being well off was not enough to glue them together. Now, they had history and sometimes they would laugh about it over a glass or two of wine, but that was it. Who really wanted to remember Bido in a bath, being terrified of being electrocuted or the feeling of being pinned to the wall by medieval weapons controlled by an angry ghost embodied in a doll. Seriously, that shit was whacked.

And that was how he had found his way here.

Yet now, in the dark and dingy bathroom of a rock bar in Osaka, he didn't really feel anything even though someone had just been murdered right in front of his eyes.

Was it because he didn't know the man? Or because it hadn't really sunk in yet? Maybe it had something to do with the dim lights and the way that life seemed to reflect art down here even more than in Tokyo. Was he seeing it all like some strange dream or the dramatic plot of a tv show?

Or was he really just that fucked up when it came to the lines between life and death and games and reality that it didn't really matter?

Groaning to himself, he flexed the kinks out of his neck and leant his palms against the hand basin. His eyes automatically flicked up to the big, streak covered mirror on the wall. His reflection stared back at him, almost alien in the fluorescent glow. Something about the whole scene had had him remembering high school and the crazy stunts they use to pull and that had a part of his mind trying to register his appearance as it had been back then.

The person staring back at him was so far gone from that age that it almost made Miroku shudder.

School uniform was traded in for a white t-shirt, a leather rider’s jacket and dark jeans. Light brown hair was darker, currently pulled into a tangled mess of braids, white extensions and strips of cloth, all with a heavy fringe. His eyes had managed to grow darker over the years and working nights had turned his skin lighter. He balanced the changes out with a smudge of eyeliner and hours at the gym every week to keep in shape and prevent himself from looking like a washed out, cosplaying otaku.

They had all been necessary changes. Well, maybe not the hair, but it was funky and had a wild edge to it that Miroku loved. But the rest was the final part of his transformation out of adolescence into adulthood. Away from the games they used to play and into the real world, harsh and hard-hitting as it was.

Shaking his head, he turned the tap on and shoved his hands under the cold flow of water. Splashing some up onto his face, he shivered as it hit his flushed skin and dampened his fringe. It was like a slap in the face with a dead fish. Harsh reality and all those feelings that came with it; shock and overwhelming lethargy.

The water felt nice, washing away the lingering effects of the Jager shots he'd had as toasts to customers during the night.

Smoothing down his eyebrows and rearranging his damp fringe, Miroku turned off the tap and flicked his hands dry.

Now for that smoke.

He left the bathroom and pushed his way back through the black door. Ignoring the cops that crammed into the small bar, Miroku busied himself with collecting the rest of the empty bottles, piling them into a crate. It took two to have the bar cleaned and with one crate stacked on top of the other, he hefted both and made his way slowly out the back. Passing Michael, he clicked his tongue at the little turtle, receiving no response.

“Anti-social little prick,” he muttered with a smile while kicking the back door open and catching it with his hip before it swung closed in his face. He took the stairs one at a time, weaving his way down the spiral staircase from the third floor and pushed open the heavy door to the outside world.

Dumping the crates of empty bottles next to the door, Miroku inhaled a deep breath and tried to push the negative thoughts out of his head. He was never one to really dwell on things that couldn't be changed, but something about tonight was humbling him in a way that he just couldn't ignore. Too much reflection on years long gone and it was making him feel weighed down and heavy.

The alleyway out the back was hardly even an alleyway. Not in the strictest sense of the word at least. Passageway. Outside corridor. Gap between two slanting buildings. That was more like it. No car could fit down there and even Miroku's bike could only park in the very mouth of it else risk the side mirrors getting ripped off on the brickwork. But still, it was the resident hangout for the staff and their friends where they were able to have a moment to themselves, puff back a cigarette and take in the wonderful smells of rotting seafood and piss that Osaka called its fresh air. It didn't take long to get used to that smell and before long anyone would be forgiven for forgetting what actual clean air smelt like.

Leaning his shoulder back against the peeling posters that covered the building, Miroku fished through his pockets until he pulled out his somewhat crumpled pack of Mild Seven cigarettes. One day, someone in the Japanese tobacco industry would think that it would be a smart idea to start selling them in hard packs and Miroku, as well as many other people, he was sure, would throw a damn fucking party when that shit hit the street. These paper packs were a pain in the ass. All it took was one move in a pair of slightly too tight jeans and they were crushed to all shit and almost unsmokeable. Lucky they were so damn cheap.

It took a moment to find one of the least crushed cancer sticks and then a few more for Miroku to find his lighter. It was a fancy zippo, a gift to himself with his first pay packet, and had the Harley Davidson logo stretched across the front. Lighters were as good as name cards after all; they made a damn statement.

A flick of the wrist, an audible click and there was flame. Miroku pushed the tip of his cigarette into the fire and sucked in a breath, holding still until the tip glowed red.

It was a logical step really. Lollipops to cigarettes. Both gave you a high and both rotted teeth, just one was much more suited for the adult life.

That was what this was all about, after all. Something out of the norm, a change in pace and a way to grow the fuck up. Not that Miroku had even been immature, but after high school he'd noted the need for a change. A rut. That was what it was. This nice, cushioned little rut of a life that seemed to fit right in between his friends and his father.

Quite quickly, he realised that for all his smarts and crazy Yukan Club experiences, he needed to get the hell out and actually deal with the world as other people saw it. Intelligence was nothing if you didn't have life experience and that, oddly enough, was what he was lacking. Maybe it was an after effect of being born with a silver spoon in his mouth; large western style house, private schools, special treatment and bike parts even if the old were still usable.

But that wasn't how the world worked and sure as hell wasn't how the everyday person survived. Miroku very well may have been crazy – that was what Bido said when Miroku had broken the news that he was moving away for the second time – but he wanted to experience all that for himself.

Osaka had been the perfect choice. It had made his old man get an eye twitch – even more so when Miroku had said he wanted to go it alone with no financial support – but the glow of Dotonbori and the hip-hop inspired streets of Amerikamura had called to Miroku like a siren to seaman.

Taking flight and moving out of the nest was what people liked to call it. To Miroku it was just growing up and getting a taste of his own freedom. He had never been babied or heavily parented, but home was too familiar and too safe; bland in a way that felt suffocating and heavy. Even after the attempts on his life by a bunch of arms peddling gangsters the whole place just screamed of boring safety.

Not that he was down here to get himself into trouble. It couldn't be further from the truth. Living the grown up life, making money on his own, going to work and paying bills. That was his goal. No longer written off as the son of the Police Commissioner or the Vice President of St President Academy's Yukan Club, he was just an everyday person trying to make ends meet.

It had a nice ring to it. A sense of detachment and a way to ground his mind back with reality. No more hostage situations, no more possessed dolls and friends. No arms runners with their guns and their all too real threats. Split lips and throbbing ribs were things of the past and now all Miroku had to worry about was making a good impression at work and not spilling the gossip of his childhood with his new friends. They probably wouldn't take too well to the idea of him actually being some snobby, stuck up rich kid who was slumming it just for shits and giggles.

Not that that was what he was about at all, but he could see how anyone could jump to that sort of conclusion.

Besides, it wasn't like he was completely out of the loop down here. He still had his rag tag little team of contacts and informants and those that he trusted with his life. They were all back in Tokyo though, of course, and it was taking some time to get his network set up down here. Frustrating, yes, but again, that was not the point of this little chunk of his life. He was here to get away from all that. But, as he told himself, if he happened to find someone with their ear to the ground like the morning shift worker at Room19 or that crazy French guy in Bamboo then Miroku would be stupid to ignore them. One never knew when having such contacts would come in handy.

With his mind wandering, it wasn't until the fourth puff of his cigarette that Miroku really started to feel alive again. And that brought with it the unsettling feeling of being watched. He had expected more of a crowd outside considering the events of the night, but he gathered that the police had either finished with the questioning of those outside or pulled them all off down to the station to better get a grip of what had happened. Then again, his little smoking area was right out of the way of the main two streets that the Atrium Building stood on the corner of so maybe they were still out there, stunned into silence in the relativity dead night.

Frowning to himself, he tried not to outwardly show his sudden unease and instead tried to focus more on his surroundings. A stretch of the neck from side to side told him that there was no one within sight, but that didn't change the fact that there were eyes on him.

Hiding.

That was all it could mean and that made the hairs of the back of Miroku's neck stand up on end.

There were too many places in the pathetic excuse of an alley for someone to hide; the sunken doorways to the other small bars; the stairs leading to the back of the basement clothing store, specialising in rock, punk and bondage gear; behind dumpsters; hidden among bottle filled crates. Little nooks and crannies all over the place that could conceal a body, but it didn't take Miroku long to skim his eyes over his surrounds and to pick out a dark shadow couched behind a stack of bottle filled milk crates. Dark and small, obviously wearing black and curled in on themselves. Miroku frowned and against his better judgement, his feet shuffled against the grimy cement, edging slightly closer.

“Hey,” he called out. Maybe it wasn't smart. Maybe he should have continued to ignore the stranger or headed straight back inside, especially considering the night he had had, but something about the way the person was huddled in such a small little ball had the tiniest pangs of worry edging into Miroku's consciousness. “You alright?”

Miroku wasn't too sure what he had been expecting with such a question. It would have been odd if the figure sung out a reply that he was fine and it would have been odd if they didn't move at all. Then again, it was even odder that said figure, after having been so easily found, simply stood up, unfolding their limbs and revealing their height before stepping out from their dark little corner. They didn't come into the light, but it was never really dark in Osaka anyway. Too many neon lights and open shops letting the glow of fluorescent bulbs shine through windows.

The man had to either be his age or a few years younger. Certainly not older and he wasn't as tall or muscular. Slender and lanky was the only way to describe him and his choppy dark hair made the angles of his face even more extreme. High cheekbones, pointy jaw and a nose that looked as if it had once been broken and never reset. Dark, pointy and overly arched eyebrows gave the man even more of a sinister yet cunning look.

But it was his eyes that got Miroku. They gave the impression that his mind wasn't there; no one was home upstairs and all those sort of hollow ways to describe crazy people. Yet this man wasn't crazy – well, that was yet to be decided – but there was an intelligence in those odd eyes that had Miroku frozen in place. They were cold and hard, like steel and ice and mixed with such a sense of hatred that Miroku found himself trying to work out if he had ever wronged the guy in the past.

It was a pretty fucked up person who went around death glaring random strangers in dark alleys.

His face wasn't familiar though – Miroku was sure that he would remember such defining features – which didn't explain why the guy was glaring at him like he was his arch enemy.

“You ok?” Miroku continued simply to break the odd silence and try and hide the weird feeling he got when the man just kept on glaring.

“Interesting night, huh?” the man asked and the sound of his voice almost had Miroku jumping out of his skin. It was so calm and flat; serious in a way that reflected the stranger’s eyes.

Miroku's eye twitched. He didn't remember the man from in the bar and that was saying a lot. He never forgot a face. Ever. So, what the hell was he talking about? Had news of the murder already spread that far and wide that some random guy with a love for hanging out on the floor of dirty alleyways had already heard?

“Maybe,” Miroku said slowly, not too sure how to reply to the question. Or statement.

“Well, it is about to get even more interesting,” the other continued and then pure fucking luck had Miroku ducking as a beer bottle shattered against the wall near his head. Glass rained down, sticking in his hair and itching at the edges of his clothes and Miroku was lost somewhere between yelling out and just running for cover.

The fucking crazy shit was throwing bottles at his head! Beer bottles nonetheless. Miroku almost dropped his cigarette in shock.

With his eyebrows moving up towards his hairline, Miroku turned his shocked expression back to the mostly hidden man just in time to see the stranger shoot him a pointed, warning glare – with bared teeth, snarled back lips and all – before pushing himself into action. For an instant, Miroku expected another bout of glass to rain down on him, but instead, and just like that, the man was on the run, his back turned and his legs propelling him down the road.

Don't get involved. Don't get involved. Fucking hell, don't get involved!

“I'm going to have to run,” Miroku said flatly, completely ignoring the scream of rationality in his head. He took a moment to regard the smoke held between his fingers, his eyebrows crinkling together in a show of pure annoyance. The tip burnt away, the red glow eating up the white paper steadily as tendrils of smoke disappeared above his head. Not even half way down; no more than four puffs. The world was officially against him tonight.

“Fuck it,” he muttered while taking one last deep breath before flicking it away. It hit the wall with a shower of sparks, the embers glowing on the dirty pavement and making the brown beer bottles glow orange.

Miroku didn't bother sticking around to make sure nothing caught on fire. That would be the perfect end to this night, really. First, a glassing, then a random guy pegging bottles at his head and then, it would all finish up with his accidentally setting his work place on fire. Just perfect. Imagine the newspaper report.

With a sigh and a flick of his fringe, Miroku took off after the guy. The stranger sure as hell could move fast, his long legs eating up the pavement meters out in front of Miroku. Struggling to catch up, Miroku watched as the man hefted himself easily over the back fence, his mind clear enough to note his appreciation for the others athleticism. The stranger made it look so easy. Not that Miroku struggled to follow and maybe it was just rather vain of him, but Miroku was under the impression that not just anyone could move and fight the way he could.

By the time he was scaling over the top of the fence, the strange man was nowhere to be seen.

Jumping down to the other side, Miroku took that last step in switching his mind off. He wasn't the thinker – never had been – and when in a situation like this, he always operated better if he just let his instincts take over. Seishiro had always been the one to formulate the long plans while Miroku concentrated more on thinking on his feet, making things up as he went along and generally being the brawn of the group.

So, with his feet on the pavement and the high wall at his back, Miroku didn't look for the stranger. Instead, he listened. His head turned to the side, his eyes closed as he searched the streets. He could smell garbage and stale alcohol, smoke and exhaust from a nearby kitchen. In the distance, he could hear the sound of party-goers staggering down the street and the soft echo of music being played in the Lawson’s that was just around the corner.

And then, the clatter of running steps off to the left.

Miroku didn't wait a moment longer. Twisting his body, he bolted in the direction of the steps, once again following. Down one street, around a corner – again the direction picked on impulse – and across the main road near Deal Design. Once he hit the park out the front of Big Cat, Miroku could see the man's dark head and the shine of the chain that hung off his belt.

He was getting closer and fuck, Miroku needed to quit smoking cause breathing was becoming somewhat of a pain in the ass to deal with.

They crossed over Mido-Suji, the main road deserted at the late hour and Miroku cut a corner through the intersection, trying to gain speed as the stranger bolted past the Dolce&Gabbana shop on the corner. The stranger turned a hard left, ducking down one of the roads that criss-crossed Shinsaibashi Shopping Arcade and Miroku snarled, put his head down and pushed himself just that little bit faster.

He could already feel the burn in his lungs from the effort, the tar blackened sections starting to protest. His legs burnt, his calf muscles sending fire straight down to his feet and his eyes stung from the rush of cold night air hitting his face.

But fucked if he was going to give up. Again, he was reminded that old habits die hard and this sort of shit was the very definition of the dumb stunts that he would have pulled during high school.

Yet there was something that his mind couldn't let go of. Somehow, he was sure this man either knew about, or had something to do with the fact that Miroku's nice little working haven was crawling with cops and stinking like dried blood and vomit. Yukan Club days be damned cause Miroku just wanted answers.

They hit the seedier side of Shinsaibashi like a tidal wave, the streets getting narrower and more crowded. People gave them startled looks, girls squealing and jumping backwards in a flurry of hair, fur pelts and handbags, their thin heels turning against the cracks of the pavement as they clung to each other in shock. The tobacconist on the corner gave them an odd look and a bunch of thugs in loud shirts and mismatched ties looked like they were about to give chase. Miroku glared at them as he bolted past, hissing slightly and that seemed to put a stop to any ideas they had of joining in on the fight.

Another corner, another bend, a harsh left then an even faster right and Miroku was inwardly swearing abuse at himself for not being able to catch the fucker. Smokers lungs or not, he had always been fast on his feet, but this guy was good. Like a fucking pro runner or something just as odd.

Street after street passed, corner after break neck corner until Miroku followed the man into a hard left and his eyes caught sight of the stranger clambering his way up a fire escape ladder.

“Fuck it,” Miroku spat while sprinting down the narrow alleyway. Not only did he have to run, but now he had to climb; he needed a damn cigarette to deal with this shit.

Scaling up the fire escape, Miroku's boots scuffed against the metal stairs. His heart beat faster and faster, threatening to break straight out of his chest and as he neared the top, it was all he could to do slow his pace and actually look at the situation rationally. If he was going to corner someone, it would be while they were distracted and scrambling over the edge of the building.

With a deep breath, he took a moment to glance above him and just listened. Nothing. No heavy breathing, no lurking shadow.

Consistently on his guard, he took the last two steps at a rush, his hands never letting go of the handrails – just in case someone wanted to try and push him – until he was over, on both feet and steady. He stopped, poised in a crouch to make himself a small target and took another moment to listen and take in his surroundings.

Nothing. The man was nowhere to be seen. Not a trace, a shoe scuff or even the sound of breathing. It was like he had disappeared into thin air and Miroku felt a chill run down his spine at the very thought of ghosts and illusions.

Then, there was a feminine sob and Miroku's mind instantly switched into hostage mode. Head whipping to the side, Miroku tracked the sound with his eyes, his body tense and ready to duck and roll if needed. Where the fuck had the dark haired man pulled a hostage from up here anyway?

Yet as he finally pinpointed the sound, instead of the man he had been chasing with some terrified girl at knife point, Miroku was met with an even stranger scene. Balancing right on the edge of the building, arms out and hair floating in the breeze, was the woman responsible for the murder in the bar.

Again, Miroku couldn't help but give into the chill in his spine. How the hell had she gotten up here and why the hell had the stranger Miroku had been chasing lead him here? Was it some sort of set up? Or just the strangest of all strange coincidences.

Either way, Miroku couldn't very well leave the woman there, her body leaning ever so slightly over the ledge.

“Hey,” Miroku said quietly. He didn't want to shock her into stumbling or come across like too much of an ass. She didn't respond though. Her head didn't turn, her shoulders didn't tense; not a single involuntary reaction to the shock of another person’s presence. “Hey, this is a bad idea.”

Nothing, not even a slight falter of her outstretched arms.

Not knowing what else to do, Miroku sucked in a deep breath and tried to stop his eyebrows from creasing into his forehead. Taking a slow step closer, he nibbled at his bottom lip and tried to think like Seishiro; what would he do? What would he say? How would he resolve a delicate situation like this? Subtleties and fragile matters had never been Miroku's strong point.

“Come on,” Miroku coaxed, his hand stretched out in front of him. “This isn't a good way to end it.”

“But the lights...” the woman muttered, the words nothing more than quickly pushed out air. Breathless and desperate, she sounded like Miroku was threatening to shove her more so than someone driven to the point of jumping.

“The lights?”

“Always there,” the whispered words continued and Miroku felt his head tipping unknowingly to the side as he struggled to make sense of them. “Always there, always talking. Always telling me...” The woman trailed off, her head dropping so her chin was against her chest. Those eyes were still closed, the long lashes curling up from the highs of her cheekbones. She almost looked peaceful and something about the scene, the wind blowing her hair and her slender form backlit by the lights of the city, was beautiful. It was like some heroine of a video game, standing atop a building and looking down over her city; the place she protected.

Yet this was somehow more real and Miroku was well and truly past the idea of those sort of games being fun. Maybe it made him old or marked him as boring and odd, especially in a society where it was perfectly fine to lose yourself in virtual world even when forty, but to Miroku it was all just varying forms of idiocy. And god knew that he had had enough of that when he was a kid.

“Telling you?” Miroku pressed, trying to be as calm and detached as possible. He was getting the feeling that she wasn't actually talking to him at all and that whatever was going on up in her head was telling her she was alone and that it was fine to babble to herself. She still hadn't even opened her eyes and other than her hair and clothes, she was still as a statue.

“What are they telling you?” The woman's eyes squeezed closed tightly at the gentle prod, her head finally moving.

“To do things. Like... the man. In the bar. It was the lights.”

There was nothing else to it. She was fucking bat shit crazy and Miroku wasn't too sure if actually inching closer to her was really the smartest thing to be doing. He sort of made it a personal rule to stay the fuck away from loonies; he didn't like the unpredictability of them at all.

“Who are you?” she finally asked and all things considered, Miroku thought that was a pretty good question. Who the hell was he to be up on a rooftop, the only one there trying to save a crazy murderer from jumping to their death? Who the hell was he anyway?

So he said the only thing he really could. “Someone who can help you.” Maybe it was true or maybe it was a lie, but either way, it seemed to do the trick. Even though her eyes still weren't open, Miroku took a slow, pointedly loud step forward, his arm stretching out a little further.

“Just... give me your hand,” Miroku encouraged and the woman blinked finally. “Give me your hand and we'll get you down, alright.”

She wasn't moving. Nothing but her eyes and even opening them was slow going. Miroku was sure that he would end up old and grey before she finally got down off the friggin’ ledge and that impulsive part of him was toying with the idea of just crash tackling the bitch and getting it over and done with.

Don't get involved, his mind kept chanting and he was hard pressed not to end up with a snarl on his face as he attempted to tell himself to shut up. He was involved now, at least in this, and short of just turning and walking away, there was jack shit all that he could do to keep himself out of it. Then again, turning around and walking away was starting to sound like a seriously smart idea all things considered. She was, after all, fundamentally a murderer and he was, in the strictest sense of the word, a witness to said crime. And yet here they were all cosy and alone on top of a building in the middle of fucking nowhere while she ranted about lights telling her to do stuff.

Yeah, this really wasn't staying out of things and keeping a low profile.

All he wanted – the only thing in the whole world – was for this night to be over and for him to be home; clean and no longer smelling of spilt alcohol and smoke machines and with all the damn lights out so he could try and get over this headache. That and half a packet of smokes puffed away out on the tiny little balcony that he liked to consider more of his home then the actual apartment itself.

But her eyes opened and she looked in his direction, dazed and confused and never actually focusing on his face and Miroku knew that his wants didn't really matter right now.

“Green...” she breathed, her face going pale and her eyes widening. “Green, green, green...”

Miroku took another step forward, his head moving to try and get in her line of sight as she started to rant. “What is green?” Miroku asked, trying not to protest at the idea of him possibly being green.

“Green, lights of green...”

And with that she turned, took one step forward and jumped.

Time seemed to slow. The girl's hair floated behind her, caught on the wind and for a moment Miroku thought that he had imagined the whole thing. Maybe he was going crazy and she really was still standing there or hell, maybe he had imagined the entire thing. He couldn't move, couldn't breathe; all he could do was stare at the spot on the roof edge where she had been.

And then he bolted. His feet carried him forward, his hands slapping against the railing and his body tipping over the edge as his eyes flicked below.

She was there, on the pavement and unmoving.

In an instant, Miroku felt like he was going to be sick. Vertigo in its extreme as he stared down at the morbid sight. His stomach twisted, churning in a way that effected his head. Dizziness. Weak limbs. Shaking hands. Unfocused eyes. Sweaty palms. He blinked, trying to rid his mind of the view. Yet he could see her below. Sprawled out across the concrete, unmoving and crowned with red. Split head. Twisted limbs. Hair everywhere.

It was a mess.

Staggering backward, Miroku swayed on his feet, his hands going to his stomach as he automatically started to retch. Two in one night. That was all his mind could concentrate on. Two in one night and he was starting to feel giddy and light headed.

He didn't even realise when he pulled himself together and allowed autopilot to take over. He had to check the body. What if she was just wounded? There was a chance. It wouldn't be good for her in the long run, but people survived falls and accidents all the time. Maybe she wasn't dead.

The climb down the fire escape seemed to take forever and with each step, Miroku just waited for a shout, for someone to see the body, to see him climbing down and to put two and two together in the worst way possible. Even when his feet hit the pavement and he found himself staggering towards her, he couldn't believe that no one had paid witness to the occurrence. Once there, he half fell, half sunk to his knees. She wasn't moving and face down, he couldn't tell if her shoulders were raising with breath or not. With a shaky hand, he brushed away her long hair and pressed his fingers against her throat, feeling for a pulse.

Nothing.

Dead.

Miroku's stomach twisted again, his gag reflexes working as he snapped his hand away. Dead. It didn't seem real. Pressing his hands in on the bridge of his nose, rubbing slightly at the corner of his darkly shadowed eyes, Miroku dragged in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had to think, had to get his mind to work past the shock and properly assess the situation at hand.

And then it occurred to him.

Maybe it was thinking about his past and the wild times in high school, but a part of his mind seemed to just click and take over. She was dead. He was kneeling on the floor next to her, no doubt leaving DNA all over the fucking place, but she was dead and no one was around to witness it.

No one would ever know what Miroku did.

It wasn't really illegal, was it?

Biting at his bottom lip and pinching the bridge of his nose, Miroku weighed up the options; the pros and cons, and promptly decided on pro. Then, he wanted to kick himself for his weaknesses. None of this was following the ideas of keeping his head down and not getting involved.

Mind made up, he reached forward, his hand once again brushing at the woman's throat, just to double check that there was no pulse. Definitely dead. No one would know. He moved his hands down further, patting down her sides and over her hips. Sickness welled up inside his stomach again yet he kept going, his fingers pushing in under her to feel the front of her midsection.

Then he felt it, hard and square and Miroku pushed his hands in between the folds of her pants.

A hot pink docomo slipped out of her pocket, a series of phone charms dangling off the end and the deco work of roses and crystals looking like a professional job. Miroku held it between his thumb and index finger like one would something dirty and evil that they had no other choice but to touch.

There was no doubt that it was the phone the woman had answered in the club, right before she snapped and something about it felt like holding a murder weapon. It had Miroku on edge.

For a moment, he contemplated taking it and legging it, looking into it later and allowing him time to snoop through the contents. Yet part of his mind – the part that was still the only son of a cop – pointed out that theft from a dead body probably wasn't the best of ideas.

With no other option, Miroku turned his back to the body and pulled his own phone out of his jeans pocket. Flicking it open, he let it sit on his bent knee while he wrapped his right hand up in the material of his shirt. Don't leave prints. That was another thing that his mind was telling him. Through his shirt, he opened up the woman's phone and started pressing buttons, navigating to her call log. It didn't take long – he'd had the same phone in black for awhile before he'd accidentally dropped it off his moving bike – and the last call was dated just over an hour ago. The math quickly floated through his mind and Miroku knew that was the one.

Pressing the view button, he quickly punched in the incoming number into his own phone and saved it under the name 'Question'. He didn't know why he did it, couldn't work that out even in his own head, yet something about it felt important, like life as he knew it depended on that single number. It was an unsettling feeling that sat heavily in his stomach.

With the number safely in his phone, he tucked it back into his jeans pocket and then went about the morbid task of wiping his prints off the pink docomo and returning it to where he had found it. Was it just his imagination or was she feeling cold and stiff already. Shuddering, his throat tensing as another wave of nausea took over, Miroku pushed himself backwards, crawling on his hands and feet for a few paces before scrambling to his feet.

He had to start thinking clearly. What would he have done if he was back in the Yukan Club with a team of friends to support him. Call in the death. God only knew how long it would take someone to stumble across the body in the dingy back alley and murderer or not, she didn't deserve to rot undiscovered. A pay phone. He needed to find a pay phone. He had to call it in, but even his jumbled mind was focused enough to know that he shouldn't do it from his own mobile.

Walking backwards, it took a good two meters to be able to drag his eyes off of the body. Turning on his heels, Miroku resisted the urge to run. Nothing would look more suspicious than bolting out of a dark street and cold and heartless as it was, he didn't want anyone knowing that he was there to witness the whole ordeal.

He had to play it cool. Call it in, keep his name out of it and hope to god that this bad night would just be over.



Chapter Two Preview

“I'm looking for somewhere...” Without thought, Kame swiped his free left hand between them, letting it flit into the insides of the man's suit jacket where his fingers closed around a leather wallet. Pulling it free, he nodded to the man and made a show of squinting off into the distance, keeping the man's attention focused away as Kame pocketed the wallet.

That was the trick to all this. Sure, you needed fast hands and even faster feet on the occasion that you got caught, but before that, you needed to be confident. Misdirection. That was the basic thing that every pickpocket and thief had to know. You want something from a person's left, then distract them to their right and keep their attention there. The best way to do that was with pretty words and a charming demeanour and lucky for Kame, he seemed to have the whole package.



Authors Notes:

So, longer chapter this time. Woot.

Anyway, as always, hope you enjoyed and comments, thoughts or questions will be used to keep my muses happy.