Where Will You Go
Author's Notes: And now for something completely different. This is a Muraki/Oriya fic. There are no other pairings. Odds are pretty good that the Shinigami won't show up at all. Why? Because I can't get this bloody idea out of my head. No pun intended.
Warnings: Yaoi. NCS, murder, death, blood, betrayal, angst, blood, torture, NCS, and all those other lovely things that go along with Muraki. Also a bunch of OCs... since I'm presuming Oriya has at least a few people that work at the Ko Kaku Rou. Also, because of the lack of general information about Oriya, Muraki, and their collective past, I'm taking a lot of liberties and making a lot of stuff up.
Disclaimer: This probably isn't what Matsushita-sama intended for Muraki and Oriya at all, but damn am I ever having fun with it. Also, no, Evanescence hasn't returned my brain yet. Why do you ask?
Disclaimer #2: Yes, I know I should be working on Valley. Biiiiiida. =P
"You're too important for anyone
There's something wrong with everything you see
But I -- I know who you really are
You're the one who cries when you're alone...
But where will you go
With no one left to save you from yourself?"
-- Evanescence, "Where Will You Go"
Prologue
It was raining at the Ko Kaku Rou, and Mibu Oriya had finally lost his temper.
It wasn't the kind of explosion that most of his employees would have expected, having witnessed his famous 'Oriya Kick' administered to Muraki's head a great many times. Nor was it the kind Muraki himself would have expected. Of course, Muraki wasn't there to see it. Not precisely.
He was there, but he had yet to wake up.
It had been one week previous that he had showed up on the back doorstep. Oriya had finally fallen asleep to the noise of the wind chimes, but the loud thud that Muraki made as he hit the floor woke him instantly. He had dragged Muraki inside and given him a critical look.
Questions were asked, and answered. It took Oriya a full minute to realize that Muraki was bleeding to death.
One long week since then. Oriya had known better to take him to a hospital. That would raise too many questions. The wound in his stomach was deep, but so far, it hadn't gotten infected. Oriya had spent the entire week sitting by his side, keeping his fever down, pouring tea and medicine down his throat.
He could vividly remember Muraki's last words before leaving.
"Once it's all over . . . I will disappear. It's all right . . . I won't cause you any further trouble."
Oriya's fist clenched down on his cigarette holder. It snapped in half.
"Stupid, stupid, stupid," he said to Muraki's unconscious form. Muraki had always been stupid. Since the moment they'd met. It was no big secret to him, but it seemed like no one else on the planet knew it.
Muraki was an idiot. An idiot to think that Oriya viewed him as trouble, an idiot to walk away from him, an idiot --
"To go and get yourself run through by your purple-eyed pet," Oriya said, annoyed. Muraki didn't twitch, and somehow, that just enraged him further. After a week, he was sick at looking at Muraki's pale, unmoving face. Sick of taking care of him. Sick of a great many things.
"Oriya-san?" a timid voice asked, and he turned from where he was sitting to see Chisa, one of his younger employees. She was only seventeen. Oriya had found her hooking on the streets of Tokyo on one of his visits. He supposed that most people would have viewed it as immoral, that he had picked her up and taken her here.
But how was it immoral? He kept her feed and clothed properly. He put a roof over her head. He kept her from the rough or violent customers and made sure that she wouldn't catch any diseases.
Personally, Oriya didn't think there was anything wrong at all with having sex for money.
"Aa?" he asked, looking over at her, then at the cigarette holder in his hands.
She studied her hands. She was shy and nervous constantly; a result of the abusive family she had grown up with and the treatment she'd received on the streets. After a year, Oriya had finally drilled it into her head that he wouldn't mistreat her or turn her out for the least offense, but that didn't stop her from being nervous. "Himiko-san sent me up to tell you that dinner is ready."
Oriya nodded. "I'll be down soon. Thank you." Himiko was his housekeeper. She had been with the family since before he was born, at first working at the brothel, and then becoming cook and maid once she was too old for that work. Since Oriya's mother had died when he had been four, he looked more upon Himiko as his mother than anyone else.
He didn't particularly want dinner, but he certainly wasn't about to risk Himiko's wrath. She was just as tall as him and could handle herself in a fight. Since she'd raised him, she had no qualms about grabbing him by the ear and dragging him into the kitchen -- which was exactly what she'd done on Muraki's third night there, after Oriya had spent two days not eating.
Oriya smiled slightly. Ko Kaku Rou might have been immoral, but at least they were a family of sorts.
He walked down the hallway, leaving Muraki still unconscious, and stumbled upon two of the girls having a fierce argument.
"He isn't!" Suzumi hissed in a low voice.
"I'm telling you, he is!" Yoshie objected. "I saw the way that they looked at each other! I'm a whore, I know it when I see it!"
"Girls," Oriya said mildly. "You're not whores. You're geisha."
"Big difference," Yoshie muttered, but she knew better than to say it out loud. Oriya was very particular about the words the girls used to describe themselves. God only knew that their self-esteem was low enough as it was.
"What were you arguing about?" he asked.
Yoshie blushed fiercely, but Suzumi, apparently anxious to be proven right, jumped right in. "She says that Muraki-san is your lover and I said you're not like that but she's acting all high and mighty! Tell her that she's wrong!"
Oriya coughed into his hand. Suzumi was eighteen to Yoshie's twenty-four, and Yoshie had a tendency to be arrogant and bitchy and pretend she knew everything about what happened at the Ko Kaku Rou. He had written most of it off as just that -- arrogance. It somewhat disturbed him to see that Yoshie was really that perceptive.
"Oh my God," Suzumi said.
Oriya rolled his eyes.
"Told you," Yoshie said haughtily.
"For your information," Oriya said, deciding it would probably be best to set the record straight before this got out of hand, "Muraki and I were lovers in high school. We're not anymore. So take heart; you're both right." That was a bit of a stretch of the truth, but nominally -- well, they had been lovers in high school, and Muraki was upstairs dying, so they couldn't really be called lovers now, could they? He just wouldn't mention the fact that they had also been lovers in all the years in between.
Besides, he didn't want Suzumi and Yoshie telling everyone. Not that the girls would care, but if the customers found out, that could affect business.
"You understand why you shouldn't tell anyone this?" he asked mildly.
Suzumi and Yoshie both lowered their eyes to the floor and nodded obediently. "Hai," they said in unison, and trudged off.
Oriya sighed and went to get himself some dinner. Himiko was waiting for him in the kitchen. "How's Muraki?" she asked, in the same matter-of-fact tone that she always used, whether it was discussing what would be for dinner or the girl who had gotten beaten half to death by a customer. She had known Muraki nearly as long as Oriya had, and although she would never betray it, his condition distressed her as much as it did Oriya. Of course, Himiko didn't know quite as much about the private portion of Muraki's life.
Oriya shrugged. "Same as usual," he said.
Himiko waited until he had sat down at the rough wood table that they all ate at. The girls ate an hour before the dinner hour began; Oriya only a half hour. It was important, Himiko maintained, to not have a full stomach when serving customers. Oriya wasn't sure if that was because of nerves or something to do with shapeliness. Himiko put a bowl of beef stew down in front of him and he ate it methodically.
"You need a vacation," Himiko said, giving him the same measuring look she gave each new geisha.
"I need a lot more than that," Oriya said dryly.
Himiko snorted. The bell rang, signalling the first customer of the night, and Oriya hurried to attend them. The Ko Kaku Rou was a business that had been in their family for several generations. When Oriya had been young, there had never been any question as to what he was going to do with his life. He was going to run the business after his father departed from this life. And so he did. He never regretted the lost opportunities, not precisely, but sometimes he did wonder.
It was Saturday, so the restaurant was fairly busy. Over the years, Oriya had gotten very good at delegating his girls to certain clients. Polite, young men got Chisa or Asawe, who was similar in temperment. The louder men, who were often drunk when they came in, were served by Yoshie or Mitsu. They had been there the longest and were the most experienced.
After a while, he grew used to the customers and had a mental catalogue. There were a few violent ones that he generally couldn't turn away because they paid too well. He usually gave them Itsuko. She had grown up on the streets and could definitely take care of herself.
After the customers were seated with the geisha of their choice, he sat down and leaned against the wall on the back porch. The rain was coming down hard, and it fit his mood perfectly. As he watched, lightning flickered briefly and he heard the rumble of thunder.
With a sigh, Oriya stood and went inside, getting a mug of tea and the medicine he had been giving Muraki. His assistant manager and bouncer, Kentarou, was standing by the front desk. "You okay for the night?" he asked. Kentarou had been working a lot of overtime since Muraki had shown up, and Oriya made a mental note to give him some time off soon.
"I'm all set," Kentarou drawled, taking a drag on his cigarette.
"Call me if you need anything," Oriya said, and went upstairs. Muraki hadn't moved an inch since he had left the room four hours earlier. Oriya let out a heavy sigh and checked his wound. It seemed to still be healing all right. He propped Muraki's head up on some pillows, mixed the medicine into the tea, and poured it all down the doctor's throat.
"Damn you," he said softly, taking the pillows away so Muraki was lying down again. "Damn you, damn you, damn you."
It came all at once; the storm that had been building ever since Muraki had first arrived.
He did not cry, or yell, or break anything. He simply looked Muraki once up and down, then stood up. "I won't wait for you, you selfish bastard," he said, his voice rough. "You either wake up or don't. You've never really given a damn about me, have you. Fine. Waste away in your stupid coma. Just don't expect me to cry for you."
Oriya turned and walked out of the room. Kentarou looked surprised to see him walk by, given that he'd only gone upstairs fifteen minutes previous. "Everything okay?" he asked, suddenly possessed by the wordless fear that Muraki had died. Everyone in Ko Kaku Rou knew that Oriya would not be happy if that happened.
"Everything's fine."
Oriya opened a window. The rain had stopped. He took a deep breath of the fresh air, enjoying the clean smell that a storm left.
"For the first time in forever, everything's just fine."
Naturally, Muraki woke up the next day.
~~~~
Um.... yeah. Feedback me?
