notes:
chapter tws: kidnapping, torture, graphic descriptions of blood and violence, murder
take care of yourselves!!
knives out ; radiohead
goodbye ; sewerslvt
October 1997
It doesn't take a genius to know that Hirofumi has fucked up. Big time. He wakes up tied to a chair, head throbbing and mouth gagged with a greasy rag. His wrists are tied in a clumsy knot behind his back, the fraying rope rubbing his skin raw. He's sure that it's going to blister to hell and back by the time he gets out of this.
No, it's not the first time this has happened, but he'd certainly hoped the last time that it wouldn't happen again. Clearly, without Denji around, he's gotten careless.
His prison is dark and damp, spots of mold clinging to the peeling drywall. A heavy metallic tang hangs stagnant in the air, the scent sharp and grating on Hirofumi's nerves– he can't tell if it's rust or blood or perhaps a combination of the two. The sound of water dripping down from a crack in the ceiling onto the floor is omnipresent, a steady drip drop that is driving Hirofumi insane. He hasn't even been awake for five minutes and he's already sick of everything to do with this. Can't a kidnapper keep him in a luxury hotel room for once?
Judging by the distant clankings outside the building, Hirofumi is somewhere deep in the industrial district, probably a few blocks from Denji's house where the junkyards– a wasteland filled with semi-demolished buildings and excess waste– are. A far cry from a luxury hotel room, to say the least.
There aren't any windows– the only glimpse outside is through the crack beneath the doorframe on the opposite side of the room. The rest of the place is covered in a combination of drywall and scrappy wallpaper with barren concrete, cracked in more places than not, peeking through just underneath. There are a few empty shelves lying around and a couple of metal bars, presumably for construction, but with his arms tied up like this, they aren't going to be any help.
Hirofumi shifts slightly in his chair to check for injuries– lackeys who do kidnapping jobs are never careful, not unless it's someone important. They handle targets like shipping crates, tossing them around, and dragging them across the floor like objects. It's rare to see a kidnapping where the victim isn't hurt in some way or another.
The kidnapper had knocked him out with a blow to the back of his head. It hurts horribly whenever he thinks about it and the rusty smell in his nose is probably the scent of his own dried blood. It's caked down the back of his neck and into his uniform– he can feel the stiffness of the neckline and, if he strains his eyes while glancing down, he can catch the barest glimpse of muddy brown on off-white. It's likely he's concussed if the aching headache and difficulty focusing is anything to go by.
The back of his shirt is in tatters and his back is scratched as well, probably from where they dragged him across the roof. The joint of his wrist hurts like a little bitch and his face feels swollen and bruised, but his injuries aren't that extensive.
It's okay. Hirofumi can work with this, no doubt, but whether or not he escapes immediately or stays to question the kidnapper is the question.
As he goes through the mental checklist of his vitals (the faint memory of Kishibe drilling the proper kidnapping procedure into him not yet lost), he feels a familiar dig of cold metal on his forearm. His knife.
Those idiots. The dried blood on his face cracks as a genuine grin spreads across his face, as best as it can with a rag stuffed in his mouth. He wiggles his left leg from where it's tied to the leg of the chair. The familiar weight of his handgun against his shin is there as well– small, but comforting nonetheless.
Immediately, he sets to inching the knife down from where it's tied tightly to his forearm, rubbing his sleeve against the wood of the chair he's tied to. It's a long, arduous process, but simple in and of itself. Hirofumi is glad that whoever kidnapped him was incompetent enough to forget to strip him of his weapons. And he's also glad that this level of incompetence narrows down who exactly had done the kidnapping.
Footsteps crunch on gravel from outside, heavy footfalls cracking through the walls of the building. "Yeah, we got the kid," a voice grunts. "Pain in the ass to catch up to. He's slippery. Yeah, yeah. I know, I'll call for backup if I need it." A shuffle of fabric. "Christ, he's a fuckin' high schooler. He's not an issue."
As the person approaches, the sound of metal screeching against concrete grows louder as well, an unpleasant, grating noise, like nails dragging down a chalkboard. From the hollow sound of it when it crashes against obstacles in its path, it sounds like a pipe or a steel bar.
Ah fuck, the bastard's got a weapon. And the knife, while closer to his hand, still feels miles away from where he can crane twist his wrist to catch it without dropping it on the floor.
Scraping metal comes to a stuttering halt in the space behind the door. There's the distinct sound of chains untangling before the room finally floods with light and cool, fresh air. It's dim outside– Hirofumi can't see far enough to tell if it's dawn or evening, only that the sun is barely peeking out from the horizon. He hopes it's still early morning.
His efforts to shimmy the knife down slow as he takes in his kidnapper, a tall, slightly overweight lackey dragging a long metal pipe behind him. He's old and greasy, like a stereotypical yakuza underling, picking up stray jobs for the extra cash. The man doesn't bother to shut the door, leaving it swinging wide open behind him.
This guy is dumb. Just from the looks of him, he's an amateur– everything from the rugged exterior to the corny dragging of the pipe on the floor– which would explain how Hirofumi still has two weapons on him despite having been unconscious for the past who-knows-how-long.
"Yo kid," The guy calls from across the room, waving a hand mockingly. His steps are steady and slow– he's taking his time, dragging out the encounter, almost like he's enjoying having a high school boy at his mercy. Fucking creep. "Have a nice nap?"
Hirofumi contorts his face into that of exaggerated fear, widening his eyes and frantically attempting to shut his mouth against the rag.
The man laughs, clapping a large hand on Hirofumi's shoulder when he finally gets close enough. "Listen, I don't like to beat up high schoolers like you. So let's negotiate, okay? Talk this out, man to man."
Hirofumi nods as best he can, straining against his constraints. The knife is so so close to his wrist. Just one more tug–
"Good boy," the guy grins, glee seeping into the edges of his consonants. "You're makin' things easy for me. How's this: I free up your mouth, you tell me where Chainsaw is, and I let you go. Easy peasy as that."
Rough hands card through his hair as the man leans in unnecessarily close to untie the remove the gag from his mouth, untying it from the back. His breath smells like stale cigarettes– it's the brand Kishibe used to smoke.
Hirofumi presses his chapped lips shut, grimacing at the feeling of a sore jaw. The rag left an unpleasant taste in his mouth, dry and metallic, and his lips were cracked from being forced open for so long. If he runs his tongue over his lips, he can taste blood, although whether it's from his extensive head injuries or just the cuts on his mouth, he doesn't know.
"Talk, pretty boy," the man orders, spinning the dirty rag around his finger before tossing it into the distance. He wipes his fingers on his pants. Gross.
"I don't know anything, please," Hirofumi begs. His voice trembles under the kidnapper's heavy gaze as the knife finally drops into his hand behind his back.
"Don't play dumb with me, kid." He grunts, leaning forward to grab Hirofumi's face by the chin, fingers digging into the flesh of his cheeks. "You work for Famine, don't you."
It's not a question. Hirofumi twists his body in a mockery of trying to jerk his chin out of the other man's hold, while in reality, he's trying to create enough friction between the blade and the rope behind his back. "I promise you," he grits out between clenched teeth, trying to speak through the tightening hold on his cheeks, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"What were you doin' on the roof of that building last night, then? You've been going there a lot."
So they'd been watching him. Hirofumi had been too focused on Denji to notice and the realization that if whoever he's dealing with had been any smarter, he would have given himself, Denji, and all of the Horsemen away twists in his gut. Fuck, he's gotten careless. Still, Hirofumi keeps his mouth downturned in the textbook expression of fear. "I live there–"
"No you fucking don't," the other guy hisses, eyes flashing like he's found a gold mine. Which, Hirofumi supposes, he has, if he's a sadist interested particularly in torturing high school boys.
It happens fast– he jerks the pipe up where it's been resting idly on the ground and swings down low, slamming it into Hirofumi's left shin. There's a delay between the moment of impact and when Hirofumi finally registers it, a stagger for Hirofumi's nerves to fire, but when it hurts, it hurts, exploding in white-hot pain that travels like lightning up his leg. He has to clamp his jaw shut to keep from shouting out and he can feel hot tears spring to the corners of his eyes, but he will himself to keep quiet.
He'd long since trained the pain at bay.
"You'd better not lie, Octopus, " the man growls, stepping forward to kick his shins again in the same spot. "I'm not stupid."
Octopus. That name sends a shiver down Hirofumi's spine. Because the fact that this guy– a lackey– new his code name means that whoever he's up against knows a lot more about Hirofumi than he'd initially thought. And it changes everything – the intention, the motive, the tactics they've told the kidnapper to use... If this guy has been reporting everything back to his organization, it means that Octopus' identity is out in the open.
Hirofumi squirms in his chair, trying desperately to break free. The rope around his right wrist is wearing thin; just a few more shifts, and it'll snap. "I don't know who Octopus is either! Please, just let me go!" Hirofumi sobs.
The rope slips loose.
"Liar, liar, pants on fire," the guy singsongs, punctuating each of his words with another brutal kick to Hirofumi's shin. He's enjoying this too much, Hirofumi thinks. He's definitely some sort of fucked up sadist. But–
Hirofumi springs into action first, jerking his legs free from the ropes around his ankles (wincing at the throbbing pain in his shin) and ducking when the other man automatically swings his pole at his head. He has the element of surprise on his side, at least, and takes the momentary bewilderment to plan out his next move. The guy is standing between Hirofumi and the open door, and the room is too narrow to try and squeeze past without getting injured by the stupid metal pipe. Before the kidnapper can gather his wits, Hirofumi flips over the chair and darts as quickly as he can to the other side of the room, yanking his gun out of its holster along the way.
The guy charges forward with a guttural shout, swinging his pole at Hirofumi, and it's already too late by the time Hirofumi realizes that his gun is out of ammo. Wow, he's out of practice. He blames Denji. Still, he dodges aside, letting the lackey's momentum propel him forward and out of balance before jamming the butt of his handgun into the base of the other guy's skull.
It comes back stained red with blood– must have broken skin– but Hirofumi isn't paying attention to that, too busy racing to the other side of the room to shut the door. He can beat this guy in a fight, easy, but he can't guarantee that his target doesn't escape, not if the door is open.
Hirofumi is in the middle of shifting backward and kicking the door shut when a familiar movement catches the corner of his eye.
The other guy reaches for his pocket. A flash of a tiny glass bottle, clear liquid just a little thicker than water sloshing around inside slips out of the fabric, and Hirofumi panics. That's the drug that Control–
Hirofumi's knife is flying through the air before he can even think, stabbing through the flesh of the guy's hand with a wet squelch. I can't let him drink it. The bottle drops to the floor with a crash, glass splintering and clear liquid spilling into a puddle on the floor, mingling with the steady drip of blood easing from the guy's hand.
"Fuck!" The guy yells, falling back onto his hands and knees, desperately gathering the glass pieces into his hand. The glass shards cut and scrape at his hands as he scoops a handful up, attempting to fit them back together.
Suddenly, oily greying hair is a soft dirty blonde.
"Shit shit shit shit shit," Denji hisses under his breath, scooping the remaining pieces of the bottle into his hands. Blood streams from the cuts on his palms, but he's already so high Hirofumi's sure he can't feel it anymore. "Dude, Miss Makima's gonna kill me."
"Denji, we have to get out before the police get here, c'mon!"
"I dropped it, Hiro, I fucking—"
"You're bleeding," Hirofumi huffs under his breath. Keeping his eyes averted from the dead body a few feet away, he crouches down, cupping Denji's hand with his own. There have got to be a hundred tiny little cuts, slivers of broken glass embedded deep in skin. The metallic scent of blood hangs heavy in the air as Hirofumi pokes slightly at the tender flesh of Denji's palm. "Can you feel this?"
Denji shakes his head, pushing Hirofumi's hand away. "I have to–" He reaches forward to scrape the shattered remains of the bottle back into his palms, but Hirofumi yanks him away.
"Snap out of it! We have to–"
"Get away from me!" The man yells when Hirofumi sends him staggering backward, flailing as he lands with a heavy thud on his back.
Predator turned to prey, his eyes widening in fear at the high schooler kneeling on top of his chest, digging into the unyielding bone of his ribs. It's an uncharacteristic look for an old man like him.
"So," Hirofumi muses, leaning down to press the barrel of his gun against the man's temple. He's shaking, a sheen of sweat breaking out across his forehead. "Why don't you tell me where you got that bottle."
Denji wakes up to someone banging on his apartment door at two in the morning. Only one of the dogs has woken up, blearily blinking up at Denji with big black eyes that glitter in the dim room. Nayuta is still sound asleep, a limp hand flung over Denji's chest.
Scrubbing a hand over his eyes to rub the sleep out, Denji stumbles out of his room, scratching at an itch under his shirt. He's halfway done unlocking the door when he realizes that maybe he should check who it is before he lets whoever's outside in.
"Who is it?" He shouts through the door.
A muffled thump. "Denji, it's Hiro." It's that smooth voice again, familiar and safe, even if it's punctured by labored breathing and shaking gasps. Yoshida Hirofumi is at his door.
Denij almost doesn't let him in. Key word: almost. Denji needs to work on his safety skills.
The door opens with a loud creak when Denji finally pulls it open and Yoshida staggers through the frame, clutching at his slide. His shirt is sopping wet, dripping an unidentified liquid all over the floor of Denji's apartment. For once, Denji is glad he can't afford a rug like all the apartments he sees on TV, because if he had a rug, it would be a bitch to clean up.
"Shit," Yoshida huffs, eyelids fluttering. He looks... out of it. And then he leans forward with a loud exhale, resting his head on Denji's shoulder. And then he looks up, pupils blown wide, and whispers, "Help me, Denji."
Denji stumbles backward to accommodate the extra weight. Yoshida smells like metal and dirt and mud and... gunpowder. Denji isn't sure how he knows how exactly he recognizes the scent, but it's distinct and unmistakeable. "Hey. Hey! Yoshida!" He grabs desperately at the other boy's shoulders, attempting to push him away, but Yoshida's like a fucking Octopus, long limbs already tangled around Denji's own.
Yeah, Denji knows that his stupid stalker is up to something fishy, knows that Yoshida is somehow involved with the Horsemen or whatever, but it's something else to see weird shit. In real life. Not like those American crime shows.
He yelps loudly, voice cracking at the top, when the hallway light turns on unexpectedly. Yoshida chuckles slightly, muffling the sound in Denji's collar, but it's all too clear what he's laughing at. The dim lights of the kitchen illuminate the aforementioned unidentified liquid– a crimson puddle of fucking blood dripping steadily from Yoshida's torso onto the hardwood floor of the entryway.
Denji would hit him, but there's a greater issue right now.
"Denji?" Nayuta's small voice echoes down the hallway. "Someone's here."
"It's okay," Denji calls back, still awkwardly trying to detangle himself from Yoshida.
"Smells like blood." Her tone is accusatory, even riddled with the aftereffects of sleep. "Smells like Hiro."
Yeah, 'cos he's stupid and leaking plasma-piss all over my floor, Denji wants to answer, but he doesn't know how Nayuta would react to some random stranger lying in a puddle of blood. Denji is pretty sure nine-year-olds aren't supposed to see that stuff. "Everything's fine," he says instead, shooting Nayuta a shaky grin. "The dogs are gonna wake up if you don't go back."
"Kay," Nayuta responds, mouth opening wide for a yawn. Denji waits for the small click of the bedroom door shutting before he directs his attention back to Yoshida.
Yoshida. His eyes are shut now and his skin is cold and clammy to the touch, like he's dead or something. Every once in a while, he'll shift in Denji's hold, mumbling something unintelligible into Denji's t-shirt.
Denji has zero experience with this. And he's covered in blood. Quickly, he crouches down and deposits a Yoshida that is more sentient-Yoshida-shaped-lump than actual-human-Yoshida onto the floor.
"Um," he says, stupidly.
Without opening his eyes, Yoshida laughs. Sure, it might be because the other boy is loopy from blood loss and barely lucid, but it's a laugh all the same, and it makes Denji's stomach turn inside out, like Yoshida's genuine laughs always do. He laughs along, unsure of what to do other than laugh until Yoshida cuts off with a low, bad-sounding, google of blood. A thing stream of blood starts to drip out of the other boy's nose, joining the ever growing puddle on the floor.
"Hey, wake up," Denji mutters, slapping at the other boy's face until bleary eyes slowly blink open.
It takes moment for Yoshida to focus before his face cracks into a dopey grin. "Hey, Denji."
"I don't know what to fucking do," Denji hisses. He lifts Yoshida's shirt to take a peek at the damage, pinching wet fabric between two fingers to peel cotton off skin.
Oh. Oh, that's fucking gross. He lets the shirt drop and hastily wipes his fingers on his bare leg. It leaves two long, wet trails of Yoshida's stupid shitgore on his thigh.
"Just... I don't know, sew me together or something, I dunno," Yoshida slurs. "You do this all the time, Denji, I believe in you. Don't tell me Chainsaw Man gets queasy at the sight of a little blood."
"What the fuck," Denji grumbles under his breath. This guy is teasing him when he is literally bleeding out in the middle of Denji's flat! "I'm not Chainsaw man, bro."
"Okay," Yoshida nods. "Okay Denji."
"Yeah."
Silence.
"You're bleeding." He pokes at Hirofumi's wound through his shirt to prove a point, swallowing his nausea at the spongey-squishy feeling.
Yoshida winces. "Right. Okay. Getting me to the bathroom would be good, oh Great Chainsaw Man."
"I'm not Chainsaw man." Still, Denji humors him.
Yoshida, it turns out, is a lot heavier than he looks. He's lean looking, despite looking quite tall, and at first, Denji had tried to haul the other boy back onto his feet, but with all his usual poise and grace, he was practically dead weight. When even the manliest of men (Denji) couldn't get Yoshida in a position even close to standing, he resorted to dragging the other boy across the floor.
With each tug, Yoshida winces, eyes squeezed tightly closed and eyebrows knitted together in a trademark expression of pain. Still, he remains complacent and silent until Denji finally squeezes them into the bathroom.
A long, bloody trail follows the two from the front door to the bathroom. Like a murder scene.
Denji heaves Yoshida into the bathtub with a slight sense of satisfaction at Yoshida's grimace when he hits the cold ceramic of the bathtub. Serves him right for forcing Denji to exert this much energy at two in the morning.
"Thanks, Chainsaw Man," Yoshida hums, smiling benignly at Denji.
And... now he feels bad for purposefully dumping Yoshida extra hard into the bathtub. Because he's bleeding everywhere and it feels really wrong to be mean to someone who's bleeding everywhere. And what makes everything worse-r is that Denji knows that he couldn't be mad at Yoshida even if he wasn't bleeding everywhere, not with that stupid smile of his.
"I said I'm not Chainsaw man." He averts his gaze from Yoshida to grab an old towel off the rack, running it under the faucet.
"Okay," Yoshida agrees. Denji can feel the other boy's gaze on his back.
"You gotta get your shirt off," Denji orders, spinning on his heel to face Yoshida again, damp towel in hand. "I'm gonna wipe the blood off."
"Okay." Yoshida makes zero movement to do anything.
Grumbling under his breath, Denji reaches into the tub to yank Yoshida's bloodstained shirt off, fumbling with the bloodstained fabric. The neckline gets caught around Yoshida's massive head, so Denji gives it an extra hard and hopefully painful tug to wrench it off, just for good measure. Yoshida's head thuds against the tile wall of the bathroom and Denji resists the urge to wince in sympathy because dammit, he's proving a point here. Fuck Yoshida!
Yeah, Right. "Sorry," he mumbles sheepishly, clumsily patting the other boy's head wher eit had hit the wall.
"S' fine," Yoshida slurs, leaning back into Denji's touch. "Pants, too."
"That's gay," Denji blurts, then slaps a hand over his mouth. Which has blood on it! Fuck! He smears his hand on his thigh again, adding a second stain to the first, and reslaps his hand over his mouth. "Um! Take it off yourself!"
"Please," Yoshida whines, batting his eyes dazedly at a point over Denji's right ear.
"No," Denji growls, but reaches for Yoshida's waistline all the same, stubbornly looking at the other boy's shins all the while, because even if he grew up in the slums, he's not gay, and he has decorum, for God's sake.
Denji tugs Yoshida's pants off in relative silence, saved for the low sound of fabric rustling and the apology when he accidentally jams Yoshida's knee into the side of the tub.
By now, Yoshida's lost so much blood that his already pale skin looks ghostly white, nearly translucent in the artificial light of the bathroom. He's still bleeding though, which is... good? It means he isn't dead, at least. The other boy is basically unresponsive now, though, moving only when Denji gives him a particularly good slap on the face.
And the wound looks bad. Well, all wounds look bad, Denji supposes, but this one in particular looks extra bad, a gaping bloody gash against his side. It runs from where the bone of his rib juts out diagonally to the base of his pelvis. Hastily, Denji grabs the towel from where he'd left it resting over the edge of the tub and begins to clean Yoshida's wound the best he can, skirting around the mottled bruises blooming over the surround areas, and whispering apologies whenever he presses hard enough to make the other boy let out a muffled grunt of pain.
By the time it's all cleaned up to the best of Denji's extremely limited medical ability, Yoshida is pasty white and shivering. Denji turns the water on, running it until it's hot to the touch. Yoshida's breathing is slowing, barely a rise to his chest as he inhales, so Denji pats at his cheek until Yoshida's eyes blink open again. He's watched enough movies to know that it's bad to fall asleep when you're spouting blood all over the place.
Black pupils search, glancing around before finally landing on Denji's face. "Thanks," Yoshida murmurs. "Can you keep the towel pressed to the cut?"
Denji obliges. "It's more than a cut, stupid."
A low laugh. "Okay." Denji glances over at Yoshida's face, looking closely at the steadily purpling bruise over his left eye. Which is, incidentally, a bad, bad, bad idea, because now Yoshida is looking back at him with an expression on his face, and Denji doesn't know how to describe it. Like, squinty, but not in a bad way. Like how that red-haired lady looks at him in his dreams.
Except when Yoshida is doing it, it warms Denji right down the tips of his soaked, bloodstained socks, even with the horrific swelling of his eye. With the lady, all Denji feels is the cold.
"I'm washing you," he states.
Yoshida nods, silently, without a quip. He keeps his eyes open, this time, staring up at the ceiling. Even if he's still totally out of it, it calms Denji a bit to know that the other boy is alive, at least. Even if he is a crazy stalker dude, he is Denji's crazy stalker dude. He can't die, not yet.
Denji takes the opportunity to assess the rest of Yoshida's injuries. Aside from the glaringly obvious wound that it's already bleeding through the second towel, he's covered in an assortment of injuries all over, ranging from rope marks around his neck to a rapidly discoloring bruise on his left shin. And underneath all that– scars.
Suddenly, it makes so much sense why Yoshida refuses to wear short sleeves at school, even in the hotter first exchange semester. There isn't an inch of his body that isnt' covered with thin lines of raised skin, once broken and bleeding like the gash on his side.
Denji isn't any newbie to scars– he has a fair amount of scars himself (most of which he doesn't remember getting) and sometimes, he'll stand in front of the mirror and dig his nails into them with some sort of morbid curiosity, revelling in the rush of phantom pain that roars through his body. Sometimes, he'll scratch them open again, just to see if the memories of getting them will come rushing back, like reopening old wounds will somehow cure him of his stupid memory loss disease thingy.
But Yoshida's scars are extensive. Denji doesn't need to scratch them into his own body to know that they hurt– it hurts just to look at the mangled skin across his collarbone, or the messily stitched together wound on his left thigh.
He's intruding, he realizes belatedly as he's running a finger down a particularly long line of raised skin on Yoshida's forearm. And he feels guilty.
Denji lets the water run and drain a couple more times until Yoshida's skin turns pruny and the water sloshing down the drain is more clear-like than pinkish.
He doesn't think about Yoshida's scars again until he's tucked into the blankets, on the floor beside Nayuta, staring up at the stupid lumpy ceiling. And he feels so, so, so, so unbelievably guilty that he's still thinking about Yoshida's scars when the other boy is sound asleep in the bed Denji doesn't sleep in, just a few feet away.
It feels like he's a stalker.
That night, or morning, he supposes, Denji dreams about Yoshida, tugging him close, warm breath hot in his ear, and smiling in the way he had in the tub, barely lucid.
In his dreams, Denji calls Yoshida another name.
Hiro.
September 1995
Octopus.
The name falls from his lips like a prayer.
Strands of red hair tangle in his fingers, slipping through the spaces between, bleeding into a pool of red beneath his feet. Denji's sneakers are bloodsoaked, squelching with each heavy step he heaves forward, stepping through a rising current of bodies.
He fights the current, treading away from the shore, reaching something– someone– too far away. Flashes of red, a long robe. She– it's a she– beckons down upon him, face blurred between splashes of scarlet sea foam and rapidly vignetting vision. Sunlight beams just behind her, a silver lining in the clouds, just a little closer. A little closer.
A hand closes around his ankle, clammy cold hands clutching tight to his skin like a lifeline. He tries to look down, to peer through the frothing waves and kick it away, but it grasps tightly and insistently at his foot.
He continues.
Hands scrabble at his legs, scratching long lines of pooling blood down his shins. Fingernails dig into his thighs as the tide rises. Denji is waist deep now, slipping on the jagged terrain underwater and too far away from the shore to turn around.
He continues.
He is almost there. He still can't see her face, but her form is clear, elegant and delicate and beautiful. She is his savior, the light at the end of the tunnel. A hand reaches for him and he reaches back, as far as he can, ignoring the hands clinging to his back, his shoulders, his sides, wrapping him tightly in their claws like a snare; they can wait.
Cherry lips part, and he pauses, breath bated, waiting for her words. His hand is still stretched out, frozen in midair, a mockery of Adam as he strains for her figure.
She smiles. The tide rises, in one final crash, and Denji is enveloped in a warm embrace, swirling crimson liquid rising higher and higher until he is fully submerged. Bubbles escapes his mouth as he gasps for oxygen that is no longer there, lungs filling with the consequences of his deeds.
When he forces his eyes to open, he meets the gaze of his captor.
Octopus.
The name falls from his lips like a prayer.
"Clean yourself up, kid. Control's waiting."
Hirofumi nods, eyes unseeing. He takes the change of clothes that the driver shoves into his arms without much thought– his arms feel numb, detached even. None of his limbs feel like his own and he only has enough conscience to keep the clean suit away from his body, still covered in a sticky mess of blood. Some of it is Denji's. Most of it isn't.
The door to the locker room slams, banging against the wall, as Hirofumi less-than-gracefully shoves it open with a shoulder. The clothes drop to the ground, forgotten, as he stumbles to the sink.
He feels disgusting .
Before he knows it, bile is rising in his throat, the contents of his stomach filling his mouth in an acidic sludge. He gags, tears jumping to his eyes– his throat feels like it's on fire and his guts feel like they're wringing themselves out.
The subsequent wave of nausea hits him like a punch to the gut and he has to brace himself on the off-white procelain of the sink to keep himself from keeling over then and there. He watches his reflection in the mirror as he dry-heaves, sweat sticking bangs to his forehead.
He looks disgusting.
There is a splash of dried blood on his face, a mess of murky brown that cracks along the lines of his skin when he opens his mouth to retch into the sink again. His entire uniform is covered in guts and gore from Denji's little escapade, stiff and cold, sticking to skin in all the wrong places.
Fuck. He squeezes his eyes shut– he was so useless out there. He should have done something, anything, to do... He doesn't know what he should have done. But the memory of the guy next to him getting shot plays on repeat behind closed lids.
One moment, he stands facing forward, stoic. He'd been one of the better behaved newbies, even if he couldn't stop fidgeting with the hem of his suit jacket.
The next, blood is pouring from the wound in his forehead, first a slow trickle, then a mockery of a miniature waterfall.
Stop. Rewind. Repeat.
He can't help but gag at the memory, the back of his throat closing, then forced open by another wave of vomit. He chokes, the acrid taste of sick insistent in his mouth, even after he's purged everything from his stomach. And when he looks down at the liquid trickling down the drain, it is the color of the man's blood, ruby red and sour-smelling, a metallic tint permeating the air of the locker room.
His grip on the edge of the sink tightens to the point where it feels like the bones of his hand are going to crack.
He had stood still for a moment before he fell, and Hirofumi swears he can see the fear seeping into the man's eyes before the life had drained out. Blood, so much of it, as he had fallen into Hirofumi's arms, the too-thick liquid seeping into the sleeves of his jacket.
Stop. Rewind. Repeat.
Hirofumi wretches the faucet on, fingers slipping on the stainless steel handles, a product of the sweat . The water rushes out and the sound is like white noise in Hirofumi's ears.
It's not enough. He yanks his jacket off, kicks his shoes and pants off, and by the time he realizes his dress shirt is still on, he's already under the showerhead. The water that swirls down the drain underfoot runs pink for the first few minutes, but after a while, it's clear.
He peels his shirt off, throwing it somewhere into the distance, steam clouding his vision. It's so humid in the tiny stall that it's getting hard to breathe and it is only when he feels like he's suffocating that he finally relaxes, letting his head drop with a muffled thump against the tile wall.
Water pounds down overhead, heavy on his shoulders.
His eyes were wide open. If it weren't for the mess of blood running down his face or the pallor of his skin, he might have been alive. If it weren't for the stiffness of his limbs or the torso punctured with shots gone rogue, he might have been alive. Hirofumi's grip on him slips as sirens sound, and the body falls limply to the floor with a sort of heavy finality.
Stop. Rewind. Repeat.
When his five minutes are up, the water shuts off abruptly, and he is left in the silence of the empty locker room, alone, naked, and freezing. Water drips off the ends of his hair and land in wet plops on the tile underfoot.
He doesn't have a towel. Perhaps he deserves the cold.
His thoughts are interrupted by a harsh rap on the door of the locker room. "After you're done puking your guts out, hurry the fuck up. Control's waiting for you," someone calls through the door.
Hirofumi tugs the clean uniform on without drying off, grimacing at the feeling of semi-wet fabric sticking to his skin. It takes far longer than usual to change, but Hirofumi takes his time.
He knows what Control needs him for.
The guard takes him past the elevator and down a narrow staircase near the back of the building. Hirofumi had been dreading this all day, but the imminent feeling of despair is replaced instead by resolute acceptance. He's seen enough for one day– he can only hope that Control spares him this final bit of ignorance.
Hirofumi isn't familiar with the layout of the basement. He's scoped out the rest of the company building– even the restricted areas– but something about the basement unsettles him. Maybe it's because it's where Control does most of the killing she is known for; it's where Control conducts most of her... dirty work. Hirofumi, while a part of the Horsemen, is anything but.
The last time he'd been in the basements, it had been because of a surgery. A shot in the leg and two broken ribs when he was thirteen, a product of a messy recon job the night before.
It looks exactly the same as it had two years ago. Still dimly lit with buzzing fluorescent lights overhead, walls bared with an unapproachable layer of concrete. Still filled with a sense of cold that seems to permeate through Hirofumi's body, settling like lead under his skin. Still despairingly empty, nothing but hallways after hallways after hallways, lined with room after room after room of torture chambers and solitary confinement cells.
Control is not known for her altruistic nature– no, she prefers work of the cruel quality, the kind that leaves those she gets her hands on with nightmares for the rest of their lives.
The guard swipes a card at a door on the end of the third hallway they turn down. The door opens soundlessly and the guard does nothing but wait for Hirofumi to step inside before shutting the door behind him and turning the lock from the outside.
Kishibe waits for him, arms and feet bound tightly with thick rope, facing the concrete wall behind him. He's been stripped of most of his uniform, clad in nothing but a thin undershirt and his dress pants, barefoot on the cold floor beneath.
"Kishi–" he starts, but the older man cuts him off with a sharp jerk of a head, and he bites his tongue and squeezes his eyes shut, and suddenly he is back in the shower again, porcelain tile cold against his cheek as heavy water rains down on his head, a futile attempt to wash away the guilt that stains like blood on his skin.
Cold, unseeing eyes stare up at his face. Hirofumi wants to reach out and recoil at the same time. Did he have a family? Did he ever find someone he loved?
Stop. Rewind. Repeat.
It's not your fault.
Control steps out of the shadows.
"Octopus," she says, practically purring. "I hear it was a successful mission."
"Yes ma'am."
His hands are trembling, shaking at his sides, whether from the cold or from fear, he does not know. He opts to shove them into his pockets where he clenches and unclenches them until they are so sore and numb that he can no longer feel them.
"I suppose you know why you're here."
"Yes ma'am."
Hirofumi sneaks another glance at Kishibe, relaxed where he stands against the wall. If he weren't upright on his own, Hirofumi would have guessed that he were already dead; under the artificial light of the room, his skin is chalk white and unnatural looking, slumped over as he is.
"A reward is in order," Control hums, clicking closer to him.
"Does Claw know?"
"I'm not sure, ma'am."
"Let me tell you a little secret, Octopus," Control smiles sweetly, leaning in close. Her chest brushes Hirofumi's arm, and he snaps it back, recoiling. She lowers her voice to barely a whisper, but it still seems to echo throughout the room. " He doesn't. "
His heart drops from his chest to his stomach, thudding wildly. Another wave of nausea washes over him, the back of his throat closing in on itself, but he's already purged every bit of his stomach into the sink.
Control doesn't seem to notice his discomfort at all, although Hirofumi is almost certain she's revelling in his humiliation, playing him like a cat with a mouse. "Why don't you tell him how I found out, hmm?"
"Octopus," Kishibe croaks from across the room, voice just as deep and calm as it always is. But there's an undertone of desperation there, one that Hirofumi would not recognize had he not been a pseudo-second child to the man for the past fourteen years.
Control's gunshot leaves a crumble of concrete and a gaping hole in the wall just beside Kishibe's head.
He does not flinch, merely stands very, very still. Blood trickles out of his left ear and drips to the ground beside his feet.
The gunshot seems to ring in his ears long after it happens, the sound burnt into his eardrums. The last sound this man had heard before he was shot was– was what? Did he hear the shot when it entered his skull, cracked through his cranium. Or had he died before then?
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
Hirofumi doesn't even notice that he's squeezed his eyes shut until he forces his eyelids open again. He's curled in on himself, retreating to the far corner of the room. He's weak, he realizes, and an uncharacteristic flare of anger shoots in his chest at the man who had the audacity to die in front of him. He can't be weak. Especially not now.
Control has stepped close to Kishibe, trailing long fingers down his sides until she reaches into his the pocket of his pants and pull out his lighter. Dirty chrome plating no longer shines in the same way it used too, but Hirofumi recognizes it by the faded American brand name printed on the side. She digs into her own pocket and emerges triumphantly with a single cigarette, slightly crumpled.
She places it in her mouth and lights it delicately, far too foreign a motion to be familiar. Before she inhales, she plucks it out of her mouth and thumbs Kishibe's mouth open.
His hands are still tied behind his back, and every few seconds, she'll reach over to let him exhale, smoke billowing out of his mouth into a faded cloud, disappearing when it reaches the lights overhead. Hirofumi can't see his expression, not with his back turned, but he can catch the glowing embers at the end of the cigarette poking out from Kishibe's profile.
Hazel eyes turn expectantly to Hirofumi. She wants him to talk.
So he talks, like a weakling.
"I saw you that day, at the bar. With Bow."
Kishibe stiffens.
"I–" A pause. "I heard everything."
He chokes up, words a scramble in his mind. His head throbs and Hirofumi wishes for something– anything– to take him away.
"What did you hear?" Control coaxes. The cigarette has been in Kishibe's mouth for far too long now, and he's shaking with muffled coughs. Control has one hand buried in Kishibe's hair, digging into his scalp, the other pinching his nose. Bitch. Still, his lips remain tightly closed around the end, refusing to let it drop. His eyes water with the effort, but he keeps them open, pupils boring in Control's own like a challenge.
Look at me, Hirofumi wants to yell. Stop looking at her. Look at me.
But Kishibe avoids his gaze.
"You wanted to kill Control." The words tumble out of his mouth, damning, irrefutable.
Control turns away, satisfied, and lets Kishibe breathe, stubbing the cigarette out on his shoulder. It gives way ash-black and powdery, red underneath.
"Stay, Octopus," she orders. And then she leaves, tossing the discarded cigarette on the floor beside Kishibe's feet on the way. The guards by the door shove against Hirofumi's shoulder as they follow her out, sending him stumbling backward.
He might have been mad, before– not angry enough to give chase, never angry enough to chase– but today the anger drains out of him before it even has a chance to take hold. No, his attention is fixed to the man in front of him, the one swaying on his feet, still facing the wall.
Hirofumi rushes to Kishibe as soon as the door clicks shut again. "Kishibe, Kishibe, I'm sorry, I'm–"
"Hold it, kid," Kishibe grunts lowly, voice gravelly and seemingly exhausted. Up close, his pupils are clouded over, the whites around them less white than tinged pink. He's fucking high, the asshole. "It's not your fault."
It is, Hirofumi wants to cry, wants to punch Kishibe until he comes back to his senses, because he couldn't even be lucid on his dying day. Instead, steps away, pushing the line of his lips into what he hopes is a smile. "Thank you. Old man."
Kishibe laughs, a ragged rasp. "Don't get used to it."
When Hirofumi looks into his eyes, he can tell that Kishibe is dead already. He's accepted it– the resolute calm loud and tense in the air around.
Tears well in his eyes before he can stop them, and he sobs, loud and guttural. It tears through him like a jacknife and he loses it before he realizes what's happening.
Blood.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
He throws his arms around the other man, wailing into his shoulder. It hurts. Kishibe stumbles backwards, rotating himself so he slumps against the wall, looking resolutely away from the boy clutching onto him at the gunshot in the concrete. The burn on his shoulder blisters and bubbles, a perfectly circular mark printed into skin.
The door clicks open again.
"Step away from him, Octopus," Control says, quietly. When he doesn't respond, rough hands grab at Hirofumi's arms and drag him away. He tears desperately at Kishibe's shirt, grabbing at air, but he's hauled across the room nonetheless.
He doesn't stop thrashing in the guards' hold until the gunshots sound, screaming and crying for them to stop. It's your fault. It's all your fault.
Kishibe slumps into the wall in front of him, and slowly collapses, sliding down the concrete. He collapses face down in a pool of his own blood and stops moving, save for the slight twitching of a few muscles.
Hirofumi squeezes his eyes shut and wills it to go away.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
Blood pools, hot and steady, its copper scent filling the air. Kishibe's blood.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
"Don't get used to it." His last words.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
He hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from Kishibe, even when his vision was blurred by tears and his arms were sore from wretchedly attempting to tear his arms out of his captor's holds. Not even when he watched the revolver fire once, twice, three times in succession. Not even when he watched the bullets puncture Kishibe's body and embed themselves in the concrete behind him.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
Perhaps he is still alive. Maybe all three bullets were through and throughs. Maybe they had just missed his vitals. Maybe– just maybe–
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
Kishibe's face is plastered to the head of the dead man in Hirofumi's arms, scarred face bared in a disfigured smile. Blood pools out of the shot to his forehead and he reaches up and out, a weak arm grasping at nothing. Hirofumi lets him drop and runs for Denji instead.
Stop. Repeat. Rewind.
Hirofumi loses consciousness.
notes:
thank you all for reading!! as always, please let me know if you spot any grammar errors!!! i hope you enjoyed and i'd love to read your comments :)))
crossposted on ao3 and quotev