From Blue Sky - Chapter 12/15

[h_itoshi]

Title: From Blue Sky
Status: 12/15
Fandom: Hey! Say! JUMP
Pairing: None. Main characters are Yabu, Hikaru, Yamada and Chinen.
Overall rating: PG-15 for minor character death and depictions of violence
Warnings: AU. I made Chinen 11 years old which is what the plot revolves around.
Wordcount: 3451

Summary: "He's a cute boy, isn't he?" Takaki says, his voice dangerously low as his eyes follow the young boy, probably around ten years old, walking next to his classy mother and seemingly trying to nag her into something. "I think he'd be even cuter lying at my feet with his throat sliced."

Notes: This is inspired by the Mayonaka no Shadow boy PV and a movie which I won't admit to ripping the plot from until someone calls me on it. I love the atmosphere of the PV and wanted to write something similar to it, and I've had this plot lying around for years, so I thought it was finally time. I'm planning on posting twice a week if you want to stick around~

 

It's an old nightclub. Takaki likes things flashy, so of course it would be. Yamada normally feels something positive seeing the entrance, the dark door with the broken neon sign above it, but right now all he feels is a panic he tries to suppress.

“Is it here?” Chinen asks carefully, looking pale but still childishly curious. Yamada's not sure whether he wants to laugh or slap Chinen for not understanding how serious this is, that he might very well die in here. That nobody wants to die and he should be terrified.

“Yes. You shouldn't talk to me now.” Yamada says, forcing his voice into calm. “Remember, don't do anything until Yabu and Hikaru comes, okay? I'll make sure nothing happens before then. No matter what I do, I won't let anything happen to you, okay?”

Chinen bites his lip and looks at the door, expression more serious immediately, like he'd forgotten that this isn't just a fun trip to a run down area by the river.

He looks scared now, which is favourable to the scene they're supposed to be playing.

Yamada takes one last deep breath before walking up to the front door, hand decidedly on Chinen's shoulder, making him walk ahead and keeping him from running away at the same time.

There aren't many people in the room when they step inside, but the silence falls immediately.

Yamada can see Chinen look around, at the dark wardrobe that hasn't been used for anything but storage in years, and the open area with the bar straight in front of them where two men are standing, pausing with glasses in their hands.

The only thing working as it would at a night club is the bar after all, whenever someone feels like trying out bartending, or just drink questionable liquors.

Yamada just glares at them, knowing it will keep them frozen in their place until he walks past because the list of people who are not afraid of him here is very short. His heart is beating hard, pumping adrenaline into his entire body, keeping his senses on full alert.

After the short pause in the hall, he shoves roughly at Chinen's shoulder to make him move forward, securely guiding him into the room and then to the right. He makes sure to walk slowly, steps that know exactly where they're going since image is everything, and Chinen's initial stumbling is perfect.

The main entrance to the old dancefloor is wide with dark drapes covering most of it, and has three steps down since it's lower than the rest of this floor, with a carpet that once was red but now is closer to black.

The first person Yamada sees is Daiki. It's the worst person he could possibly lay his eyes on, and he immediately averts his gaze before Daiki can look away from the guy he's talking to and meet his eyes. He's not sure what Daiki could see that nobody else should be able to see in him, because that one always understood him scarily well.

This room is more crowded as it always is, and the silence rolls like a wave over the room as he brusquely pushes Chinen to walk down the short stairs.

Yamada feels his heart beat in his ears but he doesn't listen to it, wonders if he's ever felt more focused than he is right now, peripherally noticing that there's at least fifteen people here and the people from the hall quietly comes down the stairs behind him to watch this. Perfect.

But as soon as he sees Takaki that's his only focus, knowing he can't look away now or he'll be dead.

He stops just down the stairs, unwilling to walk further in unless he has to, straightening up and making sure he looks like everyone else is beneath him.

It takes Takaki a moment to notice the silence, distracted by a beautiful girl Yamada doesn't recognize but figures she probably comes cheap. At least that's what her clothing intends.

“Yamada.” Takaki finally says, rising from the couch he was sitting on but brings the whiskey glass in his hand. He sounds mildly surprised, even though they both know he was aware of Yamada's arrival. “I'd started to wonder if you were ever showing up.”

“Like I wouldn't.” Yamada rolls his eyes, knowing the exact level of cocky he can get without Takaki disapproving.

“You've never let me down before.” Takaki says, voice turning silky as he looks Yamada straight in the eyes for a moment before sipping his whiskey. “But you never know, right?”

Yamada doesn't reply, considering the hint below him to acknowledge. Takaki watches him for a long moment, then breathes a laugh, clearly letting Yamada off the hook as his eyes slide over to Chinen, his smirk turning predatory.

It takes all of Yamada's willpower not to react, since that makes him want to use his hand on Chinen's shoulder to draw him back, hide him from Takaki's sadistic eyes.

“Nice to finally meet you. Yuuri-chan.” Takaki draws out the vowels of Chinen's first name, almost like a school girl would to a friend and it's absolutely disgusting.

Chinen takes a small step back and Yamada reluctantly pushes him forward again, hoping nobody considered that step as one towards safety. Anyone would back from Takaki when he's set to kill.

“Not going to greet me back are you?” Takaki asks, tone hardening like steel as he steps forward, making Chinen back almost into Yamada before Takaki gets a grip on his chin, tilting his head up. “That's very rude.”

Yamada's hand automatically moved to Chinen's back when he started stumbling backwards, and he can feel the trembling in his small body as he looks up at Takaki's dangerous expression, but he still won't speak.

“Yamada!” There's suddenly an obnoxious voice calling out from the other end of the room, and Yamada looks up to see Yuma strutting down the ramp that serves as the smaller back entrance to the dancefloor.

Takaki lets go of Chinen's chin to glance over his shoulder at Yuma, seeming like he couldn't care less for this interruption. Not many people are stupid enough to bother Takaki, but Yuma is reckless enough to get away with most things.

“Good to see you.” Yuma stops, leaning his arms over the railing of the ramp while looking around. “Isn't there someone missing here? Where's Blondie and Ivory?”

 

~*~

 

Even Hikaru understands that this is risky, because they're using the main entrance. It doesn't look much like a main entrance, but he assumes it was grand once upon a time. As grand as a shady club can ever be.

Yabu is more tense than Hikaru's ever seen him before, his jaw clenched and eyes shining with focus, flinching at every sound that's not fully expected. Hikaru feels his own heart beat fast, even though he fully trusts Yabu to get them into and out of this place.

He tries not to think about what could go wrong. If he does what Yabu tells him, it will work out, he's sure of it.

The door doesn't creak when it's opened. Neither does it make a sound when Yabu carefully closes it behind them.

Hikaru can hear voices, but they're a bit further away and there's no one in their immediate vision. It's very obviously an old club, a dark wardrobe to their right and a bar right before them across the open space. It looks like it's still in use, glasses hanging in rows from the ceiling and bottles in the shelves behind it, even though there are some stuff on the bar itself that's not entirely hygienic.

Yabu gives him a look and then cocks his head towards the right, and Hikaru notices the slim stairs across the room that Yamada spoke about. It's a staircase that's probably not meant to be walked in drunk, narrow and with a turn halfway up, making the end of it disappear upstairs.

He nods to let Yabu know he's seen it, and Yabu wets his lips before nodding back and starts moving.

It feels very exposing moving in such an open space, Hikaru thinks as Yabu locates the wide, draped entrance they're supposed to be waiting at, seeing all the openings where people could show up out of nowhere, wondering where they all lead to. But Yabu calmly but quietly walks across the room to the bar like he belongs here, then follows the wall to just inside the entrance. Hikaru follows, trying to keep his breathing as quiet as possible as he leans against the cold wall, staring out into the large hall and bar area and tries not to think of that anyone could turn up at any second and see them. They're only hidden from view from the main room after all.

The conversation is not difficult to hear from here. It sounds like a lot of people, and Hikaru's heart jumps when he hears Yamada speak.

“Obviously not here.” He says, voice much colder and harder than Hikaru knows it, almost like he spoke to them in the beginning.

“Did you lose them? Or leave them?” A rich voice asks, one that Hikaru doesn't recognize but makes him want to shift, that sounds like razors under a velvet cover and it's creepy.

Yabu glances at Hikaru, holding his newly received gun tight in his hand. Hikaru watched him before when he went through it quickly, adjusting to it and if he hadn't understood Yabu had a history with these things before, that would have done it.

He's just happy he doesn't have to handle a weapon himself.

“What do you think?” Yamada's voice is almost ironic, then another voice interrupts, coming off loud even though it sounds further away, speaking with a dialect.

“I think you left them on purpose.” It says, and Hikaru doesn't like this voice either. “It's a shame, Blondie looked like he could have been a crier.”

Hikaru doesn't understand that it's talking about him until he notices Yabu's hand tighten on his gun, and he bites his lip, the realization hitting him so hard he feels a shiver go through his entire body.

“Why don't you tell us, Yamada?” The rich voice goes on, calm and superior and Hikaru wants to somehow save Yamada from it. “How did you get rid of an Ivory? We have time, don't leave out details.”

“I can play with the kid.” The dialect voice offers, but the tone is clear about the intentions behind the words and Hikaru looks at Yabu, wondering when they should interrupt because Chinen shall not be anywhere near the owner of that voice. “I'll leave him alive for you, I promise.”

“Yuma get lost.” Yamada says clearly, sounding annoyed but cuttingly harsh at the same time, the message obvious.

“Boys, boys, don't fight. I like you both.” The rich voice says, sounding like it's having fun and it's somehow even scarier that way. There's laughter in the room, and the voice obviously turns to Yamada. “Let Yuma babysit while you tell us a story, hm?”

Hikaru stares at Yabu now, at his focused face looking at nothing, because they have to do something, they have to do it now, but he doesn't dare disturb whatever Yabu's planning with physical contact.

“Come on baby boy~” The dialect, Yuma, sings in a disturbingly sweet tone, and Hikaru hears steps in the room.

Then Yabu's lips move, almost soundlessly mouthing “Run.”

Yabu moves so quickly Hikaru jumps because he doesn't expect it, whirling around the corner, smoothly pushing the curtain aside and steadily firing off a shot that's deafening within a second. The sound is followed by a female scream, several shocked noises, clothes rustling, chairs scraping the floor and metal clicking, and the unmistakable sound of something heavy falling to the floor.

There are people moving, the sound level rising immediately and Hikaru can hardly make out any voices, still feeling a little deaf from the gunshot.

The following few seconds feel like minutes, but it all goes so fast he barely registers what's happening. Yabu takes a step aside to let a small form stumble past him and Hikaru has enough mind to grab Chinen's arm and tug him along towards the stairs, not even stopping to see if he's unharmed.

 

~*~

 

The relief in Yabu's chest when Yamada half throws Chinen his direction and he stumbles away is indescribable, a feeling he had no idea how much he needed. He spares a glance at the dead body leaking blood on the floor, feeling even more disgusted when he recognizes the face. The man that bumped into them earlier today, and suddenly he knows why Yamada made the decisions he did.

He sees in his peripheral vision how a tall, dark haired man throws himself towards a ramp that seems to lead out of the room and disappears, and Yabu knows where he's going before he's processed the thought.

He tries to turn back and run after Hikaru and Chinen, but finds a gun pointed at his face from too close of a distance suddenly. He looks up at the man holding the weapon, looks at his deceivingly sweet face with ferocious eyes and feels a faint recognition. Like he's seen him before.

“Well, well. I guess there is no getting rid of an Ivory after all.” Takaki's voice comes across the room, and Yabu tries to push away the thought of Hikaru and Chinen, knowing he has to survive this situation to help them.

He's still pointing his own gun Takaki's direction, but he finds about ten others aimed at himself, the remaining ones aimed at Yamada standing just a few metres from him.

Yabu slowly looks up to meet Takaki's eyes, taking in his face properly for the first time. He looks different than Yabu remembers him, his hair longer and face older, but still as flashy and careless, except the expression on his features now is dangerous amusement.

“Welcome Yabu Kota.” Takaki goes on, but Yabu doesn't move a face, keeps watching as Takaki slowly reaches into is clothes and picks out a gun of his own. Ironically it's the exact same model as Yabu's holding in his hands right now, and he realizes that this gun was never Yamada's to begin with. “I see you have something that belongs to me.”

Takaki takes his time raising the gun to point at Yamada while still watching Yabu, then glances around at the men standing closest to him, voice changing from amused to hard as he speaks. “Go find the kid.”

A couple men lowers their guns and hurries towards the ramp, but apparently Takaki doesn't find it enough, adding “All of you!” and the remaining ones hurry to get out too.

Yabu sees his chance at the lapse of focus and dodges out of the immediate aim of the gun pointed at him, and gets past the drapes and just around the corner before the man with the sweet face has followed him, a hard grip around his upper arm and cold against his jaw.

In a split second,Yabu sees the men sent to look for Chinen approach from his left, and he notices the other entrance to the room where they come out, but then things happen so quickly he can't even think. One of the approaching men draws a gun at him and fires, missing him but grazing the arm of the man that just followed Yabu, making him growl and drop his weapon. Yabu barely gets a glance at their faces of panic and figures this man has a lot higher ranking than they do, but instead uses his seconds to rush for the staircase and up, praying that there's something upstairs that can be used to block it as he hears a shot go off behind him.

 

~*~

 

“Yamada...” Takaki sighs when they're left alone, sounding like he's reprimanding a very disobedient dog.

Yamada's heart rate is faster than it's ever been, and he tries to keep his mind from replaying how Yuto rushed out of the room the second after Chinen. Yuto can find them, he knows Yuto can. He just prays that it for some reason doesn't happen.

He also doesn't want to know how the fight between Daiki and Yabu could turn out, only heard gunshots and screams and crashing sounds after they left the room.

“You were always difficult, weren't you?” Takaki goes on, still sounding as calm and dangerous, as if this whole scene was something he had expected. “Always so eager to be the best.”

Yamada doesn't speak, just keeps his gun aimed at Takaki just as Takaki's is aimed at him. He glances at Yuma's lifeless body on the floor and he doesn't feel a tiny bit sorry for him. He never liked Yuma. Too sadistic and tasteless and when he said he wanted to play with the child, Yamada felt like shooting him himself.

“What went wrong here?” Takaki asks, drawing Yamada's attention back as he starts slowly approaching. “Wasn't I good to you? Tell me.”

“... There's nothing to tell.” Yamada says, starting to move as well because he doesn't want Takaki closer, knows he can beat Yamada down in close combat.

“They'll get the kid for me you know.” Takaki raises an eyebrow and keeps walking with Yamada, keeping their distance constant as they circle each other. “And your friends.”

“Do you really think those losers are good enough for that?” Yamada asks, even though at the back of his mind he thinks of Yuto and Daiki, thinks that there's no work they haven't managed for Takaki before.

“I'll have you watch as I break the child.” Takaki smirks now, and it's the first moment that his fury with Yamada comes out in his eyes, almost bordering on hysteria as he goes on. “And as I kill your little friends. Or I might make you do it yourself before I kill you too. Isn't that a nice idea?”

“You would think that.” Yamada says, trying to keep from visualizing what Takaki says, tries to keep his mind from the storage rooms in the basement that hold items so nasty Yamada would never touch them.

“An Ivory, huh?” Takaki goes on like Yamada didn't speak. “Never thought you could forget what they did to us those years ago.”

“I haven't.” Yamada says, slowly stepping behind the couch and table, strategically putting the furniture between them.

Takaki's glance shows him that he's very aware of what Yamada's trying to do, but he keeps talking. “Good. We don't forget, right? Just as I won't forget this.”

Yamada expects the first shot, throwing himself out of the way and aimlessly fires back, his focus set on trying to get out of this room alive. Takaki easily avoids his retaliation, but the extra second Yamada gets allows him to run closer to the entrance, pausing when there's another group of furniture in between them.

“This isn't very classy.” Takaki says, his calm out of place as Yamada's preparing for whatever might come next. “Shooting at each other from this distance.”

“I suppose not.” Yamada agrees, but still they're aiming straight at each other.

“Why don't we settle this like gentlemen?” Takaki suggests, and Yamada has no intention to agree, knowing Takaki can beat him without any weapon, but keeps slowly walking like he's considering it.

“... We could.” Yamada agrees, reminding himself that talking is a good way of stalling for time.

“Then let's.” But he sees through Takaki's suggestion the same millisecond as the smirk spreads on his face, hears the shot fly right past his ear as he manages to dodge it, but there's nowhere to hide. He stumbles as he moves out of the way, stumbles over Yuma's body on the floor and falls backwards, tries to get a shot in at Takaki but hears the bang before he can fire his own gun.

He screams at the searing pain in his leg, his vision going fuzzy at the edges as he collapses and drops his gun, can't hold anything, not even himself as he feels like his thigh was just ripped from his body.

He hears Takaki approach more than he can see it, but forces himself to look up through the tears of pain just in time to see Takaki's satisfied grin and raised gun.

 

~*~

 

Chapter 11

Chapter 13