Adult-FanFiction.org : Celebrity

Miwaku no Zakuro	By : Tcharlatan Category: > Kyo/Kaoru Views: 2861 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work of pure fiction. I do not personally know any of the members of Dir en grey, X Japan, or KISAKI, and do not profit from this work.

Chapter List
- 27
- 28
- 29
‘Alright, is everything accounted for?’
‘Burdock root, lotus root, shiitake: check, check, check.’
‘Shrimp, dried sardines, herring roe: check, check, check.’
‘Sweet potato and chestnuts, carrots and daikon: check and check.’
‘Fish cakes, sweet fish omelettes, black soybeans: check, check, check.’
‘Rice cake soup: check.’
‘Juubako: …’
‘...Oh hell… where are the boxes?!’
Kyo scowled to himself and cast about the mess of the kitchen for the errant boxes. It was the first time he’d ever had to prepare a traditional osechi meal for New Years, since he normally just bought his at the grocery store, and he was now fully convinced that that had been the better idea. The foods were simple enough, but time consuming, and with five grown men to feed, there was a lot of it; he had poured every last bit of himself into the preparation, and he would be happy to never set foot in a kitchen again. But Kaoru had oh-so-casually mentioned his desire for homemade holiday fare, so here he was, and he would be damned if he woke up at the crack of dawn and spent his entire day getting all the food ready only to fall short when it came to presentation. Happily, he found the boxes stacked neatly in the back of a cabinet before his temper boiled over, and he set them out on the counter to await their bounty.
Although, perhaps it was for the best that he’d spent the day in the kitchen, hovering over slow-cooking food that required constant attention but no real focus. He wouldn’t have been able to concentrate properly on Kaoru with how his thoughts were wandering. At least this way, he had an excuse to neglect his master a little.
The day before, Toshiya had teased Kyo about having spent the last week sulking, so Kyo had somewhat sheepishly recounted the incident with Shinya in the kitchen. Shinya had come back the morning after the encounter and – much to Kyo’s relief – offered a weary but sincere smile when the blonde tentatively offered him breakfast. Though things remained a touch strained between them, he apparently held no grudge, and had let the issue drop without any further discussion. Kyo had explained to Toshiya that he had just been feeling a little lingering guilt over the whole thing, but it was something that would fade in time now that he had the Shinya’s forgiveness.
Except that Toshiya hadn’t seen it that way. The blue-haired man had blanched and dragged Kyo into Kaoru’s study, shutting the door behind them to scold the blonde in hushed tones. He’d urged Kyo, again and again, not to mention that kind of thing to Shinya, not to ask him questions about his past, and – most emphatically – not to let Kaoru find out that Kyo had upset him. Kyo had argued that he couldn’t avoid questions he didn’t know would lead to uncomfortable answers; that being left in the dark would inevitably lead to him stumbling into dangerous territory. From there, it had taken very little prodding to get the full story out of Toshiya. Though Kyo wound up learning just as much about Kaoru as he did about Shinya.
To understand Shinya, one first had to understand the previous master of the household, Osamu Niikura. Osamu – two years Kaoru’s senior – had taken his brother with him down the early path of deviance. Bitter, disenchanted sons of an abusive, unemployed alcoholic who blamed them for all of her strife, petty theft to keep themselves fed grew too quickly into more destructive crimes, fueled by anger and resentment for a society they felt had cheated them. By the time Kaoru was coming out of his first stint in juvenile detention, Osamu had begun doing odd jobs for the local mafia, and shortly after they rejoined – now with Die in tow – one of the jobs that had trickled down to them was a hit on a rival loan shark. They had taken it without hesitation.
Within a year of that first hit, the brothers had made names for themselves in the organization, performing assassinations with unprecedented skill and efficiency, particularly considering their unconventional choice of weapons. Kaoru gained notoriety with his use of poisons, while Osamu favored killing with his bare hands, and their talents had earned them a place in the syndicate. Kaoru had learned to drown his anger and grief in alcohol, more than happy among the rank and file of his newfound family, and for a while, things were good.
But Osamu hadn’t been content to be a lackey. With a degree of ruthless cunning no one had expected from a teenage street rat, he’d clawed his way up through the ranks, leaving a trail of bodies and spent favors behind him. By the time he was twenty, he’d taken out the former head of the family and was fully in charge of the organization. It was then that the brothers’ paths began to truly diverge. Osamu had used his newfound power to collect companions to subjugate and abuse, increasingly finding his solace in the suffering of others. Toshiya speculated that it had been Die’s influence, and later his own, that kept Kaoru from becoming the sadist that Osamu became.
This was where Shinya had come in. Fourteen at the time, he had been one of the first to arrive in Osamu’s collection, taken by force from his parents to settle a monumental debt. The boy had shared his duties and his cell – the same room Kyo occupied now, though the walls and floor had been stone then – with up to six other young men and women at a time, though few stayed long. Coltish, fragile, and unbearably innocent, from a poor but loving home, Shinya had represented everything Osamu couldn’t be, and the man had kept him around for far longer than any of the others.
Toshiya didn’t know the specifics of what had gone on behind the closed doors of the master suite – no one but Shinya did anymore – but he knew a bit from Die and his own infrequent visits to the mansion to see Kaoru. He knew that no one – not the courtesans or the mansion staff or even the security guards – had wanted to even pass by the door to the master suite some nights, cowed by the horrible sounds that spilled forth once or twice a month. He knew that whenever Shinya had been taken into public, shown off as Osamu’s current favorite plaything, the boy had been dressed and made up as a female, a skittish fawn with dead eyes moving slowly as if in great pain.
He knew that whenever Osamu’s close friend Takashi Soejima had come over to visit, everyone steered clear of the top floor of the mansion for fear of being caught and dragged into the master suite to be used in the men’s games. No one was safe on those nights. And he knew that more than once, when Osamu got into a particularly bad mood, bloody heaps of what had once been human beings had been dumped out into the hallway for housekeeping to deal with. If Kaoru embodied the Sin of Pride, Osamu was undoubtedly the Sin of Wrath.
But Osamu wasn’t just cruel with his pets; it extended out into every aspect of his life. He threw his people callously into situations he knew were dangerous or fatal, over issues that weren’t commensurate with the loss, without regard for the impact it would have on the family. He killed over the most minor slights and offenses – civilians, rivals, employees, and allies alike – and it garnered him as much contempt as it did fear. It was said that he had cared for only one other person in his life, and that person was his younger brother.
Upon taking over the family, Osamu had immediately ordered forged the necessary documents to get Kaoru into college for a biochemistry degree. Kaoru had lived in the mansion, but between his schoolwork, budding alcoholism, and keeping up his duties as a hitman for the family – at which he only became more proficient as time went on, designing newer and better poisons as he gained a deeper knowledge of chemistry and the human body – he’d paid little attention to his brother’s sadistic hobbies. It wasn’t until he’d earned his degree and started spending more time at home that he realized the depths of Osamu’s depravity, and how far it stretched into the man’s dealings with the family.
Toshiya said that at the time, Kaoru had been horrified by what his brother had become, and dismayed that it had been going on for so long without him noticing. Months went by as Kaoru begged Osamu to change his ways, tried to reason with him, argued with him, even full-on fought him a couple of times, becoming furious at what his brother was doing to the family.
The situation had only gotten tenser as time went on, reaching its peak five years ago, but the details of that night had never been shared by those involved. All anyone knew was that Osamu had been in a particularly bad mood, Takashi had been visiting, and that Kaoru had broken down the door to the master suite after seeing an unconscious Die get dragged inside. By the end of the night, Osamu was dead, Takashi had one eye, and Kaoru had a massive burn scar on his chest from where one of his own needles had scratched him. Rumors whispered up from the medical staff that if that needle had pierced even a millimeter deeper, he would have died.
Toshiya – in tears by this point – had explained that upon being freed, Osamu’s other three pets had scattered into the winds, but Shinya had stayed behind. After living as Osamu’s pet for half a decade, he simply hadn’t been able to grasp the concept of life outside the mansion. He was mute, completely incapable of independent action, and seemed convinced that he was to serve Kaoru the same way he had his previous master. For six months after Kaoru took over the family, in spite of the older man’s efforts to dissuade him, Shinya had continued to live in his cell, cleaning Kaoru’s quarters and cooking his meals with almost mechanical diligence. For the first month, Kaoru had also had to fend off – in the gentlest way he possibly could – Shinya’s attempts to serve him sexually.
Eventually, Shinya slowly began to grasp the idea that he wasn’t a pet anymore, and Kaoru managed to coax him into living in the smaller suite of rooms neighboring his own. With Toshiya and Die’s unwavering support, he got Shinya speaking again after about a year, and even convinced him to accept schooling from a handful of tutors. It was at this point that Kaoru realized the startling depths of the boy’s knowledge of the family’s inner workings; after five years at Osamu’s side, Shinya knew more about the organization and how to run it than Kaoru did. So Kaoru had offered him a choice; either he could venture forth on his own, and the family would give him all of the financial support he needed, such that he would never need to work a day in his life… or he could stay on as Kaoru’s advisor.
Kyo had a lot of conflicting thoughts on the story, which was why a day spent over tedious food preparation had come in quite handy. On the one hand, he was surprised to learn that Kaoru had never really wanted to run the family in the first place, given how naturally he seemed to take to his role. On the other, his master’s apparent alcoholism suddenly made a lot more sense, as did his devotion to Toshiya, Die, and Shinya. It also explained why the others treated Shinya the way they did; the way they so rarely made eye contact with him or really touched him, how they never really argued with him or corrected him, the great lengths they went to just to get him to smile. Just under the forced veil of normalcy, they handled Shinya like he was a broken porcelain doll who had been painstakingly pieced back together, but no one was sure if the glue was dried yet.
Oddly enough, Shinya himself still baffled Kyo. He remembered one of the first things he’d ever heard the man say, the first clue he’d gotten to his past. Die had been laughing, explaining that everyone wanted to be Kaoru’s companion because he spoiled them. Shinya had muttered that it was unlike the previous master of the family, and Toshiya and Die had gone dead silent, guilt and pity weighing heavily in the air. Kyo hadn’t really noticed it at the time – being rather absorbed with his own issues – but he seemed to remember Shinya being almost… irritated for a split second afterwards. It, like many of the half-formed emotions Kyo had seen surface on the man’s lovely face, was quickly tamped down and replaced by a resigned, almost despondent sort of stare.
‘Now that I think of it…’
‘That night I called him out in the kitchen, he didn’t seem traumatized, really.’
‘He looked more pissed than anything.’
‘But… how can that be, if he’s as frail as Toshiya says?’
‘It just doesn’t fit…’
Footsteps padding softly on the tile pulled him out of his thoughts and he rolled his eyes a bit at his pots and pans. “It’s still not ready, Die. If you’re hungry, I can make you a sandwich or something?”
There was a soft chuckle in response. “Die is rather absorbed in his new video game, I doubt he’d eat it.”
Kyo twisted his head over one shoulder, blinking.
‘Speak of the devil… or think of him, anyways.’
“Oh, sorry Shinya… did you need something?”
The auburn-haired man peered over the array of dishes that Kyo was standing watch over, offering a somewhat wry smile. “I thought I’d come see if you needed any help, but it looks like I might be too late…?”
Kyo nodded, eyeing Shinya closely. “Aa, everything just needs to finish cooking. It should be ready to dish up in about half an hour or so, if you want to help with that.”
Shinya bobbed his head and leaned against a counter, seeming reluctant to go back into the living room. Kyo shifted his feet, forming a different theory about the man in the back of his mind. It seemed to fit his own observations, but contradicted Toshiya’s badly.
'Doesn't Toshiya know him better than I do, though?'
'Unless he hasn't looked closely enough to see a change...'
“Something the matter?” he asked carefully.
There was a pause for consideration, then Shinya shrugged. “Toshiya’s being weird today. He’s a dear friend, but sometimes his fussing can just be… too much. I don’t know what got him in such a mood.”
‘Fussing, huh?’
‘Maybe I’m right…’
‘I wonder…’
“It might be my fault. I, um… I told him about the other night. You know… when you and I were cleaning up after Christmas.”
Shinya barely held back a grimace. “Oh?”
“Mmhmm. He got kind of upset about the whole thing and told me to be more careful… told me all about… well, you know. What you used to be.”
And there it was again, that brief flicker of irritation, swallowed quickly by bitter acquiescence. Sober, Shinya had much better control over himself than he had the last time Kyo had brought the subject up, but Kyo had seen what he needed to see.
‘I am right, then…’
‘Oh Shinya… what you’ve resigned yourself to…’
‘Do you really think that I would…?’
‘No. After everything he’s done for me…’
‘I can’t let him think that way.’
“I don’t feel sorry for you,” Kyo found himself saying.
Shinya’s head came up a bit, blinking. “…Excuse me?”
Kyo turned around to face the man fully. “I said, I don’t feel sorry for you.”
There was a flash of confusion, then a forced, unsure smile. “Well… why would you? I mean… I was what you are now, so why-”
‘I’m sorry, Shinya… please don’t hate me for this.’
Kyo held up a hand. “Not even close. Kaoru is, if nothing else, a very fair master; I’ve earned every punishment I’ve gotten. Your scars are all on your back; you didn’t get them fighting against your master, you were abused. But I don’t feel sorry for you.”
There, a brief scowl. “Well, I-”
Kyo took a step forward, moving into Shinya’s space and meeting his eyes aggressively. “Don’t you get it? Toshiya told me everything he knew, and I’ve figured out more of it besides just from watching you. Osamu humiliated you.” Another step. “Broke you.” And another. “Ruined you as a child. But I don’t feel sorry for you.”
Shinya started to bristle defensively, his voice rising. “Kyo, I don’t want to talk about it, just-”
“He was your first, wasn’t he? First and last, I bet.”
Shinya turned to leave, but Kyo caught his arm before he could take so much as a single step, holding him in place. The older man’s eyes flashed dangerously, but he was fighting to keep himself contained.
“Let go.”
“I was right before, too, wasn’t I? Kaoru looks like His brother… I bet you see Osamu every time you look at Him.”
“I said let go.”
‘Forgive me, Shinya.’
“Toshiya said I need to be gentle with you. To never ask you questions about your past, to never bring it up at all because you're just too damn fragile to handle it. But I have to tell you the truth, princess-”
Shinya snarled, “Excuse me?!”
“-I don’t feel sorry for you!”
A lot of things happened at once. Kaoru, Die, and Toshiya appeared in the doorway, drawn by the sounds of a tense conversation. Toshiya gasped at the aggressive stance Kyo had taken, pulling on Shinya’s arm. Die swore under his breath and started towards them to separate them, and Kaoru got halfway through demanding an explanation. Kyo barely had time to register his master’s presence before he was slammed back against the counter, knocking more than a few plates and bowls off to shatter across the floor. He was bent backwards with Shinya looming over him, absolutely livid, Kyo’s collar fisted in one hand, the other holding what felt like an impossibly sharp knife tight against the blonde’s throat. Everyone else went silent and still in shock.
‘Ohshitohshitohshit!’
‘No one told me he carries knives!’
‘At least none of the food was knocked ov-’
‘THAT’S NOT REALLY A PRIORITY RIGHT NOW!’
‘Maybe this wasn’t the right way to open him up!’
“WHY NOT?!” Shinya demanded, seething. “WHY NOT, IF HE TOLD YOU EVERYTHING?! Everybody else does! They saw me, in goddamn women’s clothes, limping around the mansion after being fucked by that madman! They heard me screaming at night, they’ve seen my scars! They whisper about me constantly, treat me like I’m made of glass, like damaged fucking goods! Why don’t you pity me, when you know that your master is fair and mine was a psychopath?! Why don’t you pity poor, broken Shinya like everyone else?!”
Kyo held Shinya’s gaze as he forced down his panic, speaking back just as harshly. “I don’t feel sorry for you because none of that matters. Whatever happened before, whatever you used to be, that’s not your life anymore.”
Shinya stared at him, some of his anger fading slightly to confusion at his own words from before being spoken back to him. “…W-… what?”
“Maybe if I’d known you then, I would have pitied you, but that’s not who you are anymore. You’re a grown-ass man, Shinya! You’re strong enough to carry Die up two flights of stairs when he’s too drunk to walk, clever enough to steal the remote to my collar from Kaoru when He’s already pissed, and brave enough to stand up to Takashi Soejima knowing he might recognize you from back then.”
“…”
The pressure on the knife let up, and Shinya backed off just a bit, allowing Kyo to straighten partway. He looked taken aback, stunned by the force in the blonde’s voice.
“You know why he doesn’t? Because you’re not that person anymore. You’re not weak. You’re not broken. I don’t pity you because there’s nothing about you to pity. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever known, to come through what you did, and no matter how fragile anyone else thinks you are, no matter how easy they think you are to break, nothing will ever make me think any less of you. You don’t have to hide from me.”
For a long time, Kyo and Shinya just stared at one another. The air between them was crackling with electric tension, thick and suffocating under the weight of so many heavy words. Kaoru, Die, and Toshiya stood in the doorway, too stunned to move, and remained in their shocked silence as Shinya’s knife clattered to the floor. He looped his arms loosely around Kyo’s neck and butted his forehead gently against the younger blonde’s with a smile that finally, finally reached his eyes. It lacked the crushing ferocity of Toshiya’s hug the day Kyo discovered his infatuation with Die, but held the same emotional weight, and the blonde understood the sentiment behind the unimposing gesture.
“Kyo, I-… you-…” Shinya breathed. “I don’t know what to-… thank you. Just… thank you. You have no idea what that means…”
‘…It worked?’
‘It worked!’
‘Oh gods, I can’t believe it worked…’
‘Hotei, Juroujin, Fukurokuju, Bishamon, Benten, Daikoku, Ebisu, whoever let this not completely blow up in my face, thank you.’
Kyo deflated with relief, hooking his hands over Shinya's upper arms. “Any time, Shinya. Sorry I had to be a dick about it.”
Shinya gave a soft, shaky laugh. “I’m not. I… I didn’t even think I could get angry like that… it felt really good.”
Kyo cracked a wry smile. “Like I said, you’re not broken. Next time, I’ll try to keep in mind that you carry throwing knives around.”
Shinya looked a little worried, drawing back to look at the blonde’s neck. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
Kyo grinned a bit recklessly. “No, but I’m not convinced my legs are working properly. You’re scary when you’re pissed.”
“No shit.”
Die’s emphatic whisper reminded the two men of their audience, and they pulled apart to face the three older men. Kaoru was watching the whole scene with an expression caught somewhere between over-protectiveness and confusion. Toshiya looked to be on the verge of tears, hands clasped anxiously in front of his chest, and Shinya sighed with fond exasperation. He crossed the kitchen and opened his arms, letting the blue-haired man pull him into a desperate hug, while Die ruffled his hair with a repentant grin. Muffled apologies could be heard from the crook of Shinya’s shoulder, but he just chuckled softly and shook his head. Kaoru turned a questioning frown on Kyo, and his pet ducked his head with a pleading, apologetic glance.
‘Don’t be mad?’
‘I just… after everything he’s done for me…’
‘I couldn’t let him think I pitied him…’
But Kaoru’s face softened into a smile that was almost… appreciative, somehow, and Kyo felt a rush of accomplishment.
From there, New Year’s Eve passed with ubiquitous high spirits. As night fell, everyone bundled up and moved the celebration out to the patio overlooking the gardens, music blasting out of a boom box as they indulged in games to pass the time. There were a few rather boisterous rounds of fukuwarai, Toshiya and Die tried to play table tennis on the patio table, and – after learning that Kyo had never played the game – Kaoru acted as dealer for everyone to play oichokabu. The osechi meal maybe wasn’t the prettiest, but everything came out tasting great, and all the food disappeared quickly, supplemented by a box of mochi treats.
When it started getting late, the music was shut off and everyone went quiet. At midnight, a temple in the hills far beyond the edge of the property’s surrounding walls rang its bells, the echoing tolls sending the dogs patrolling the yards into a cacophony of answering howls. Toshiya threw his head back into the First Laugh of the New Year. Die very formally offered Kaoru a postcard for the First Letter. Shinya set out the dishes for the First Tea Ceremony. Kyo’s First Kiss of the year was from Kaoru, leaving him breathless not only because of its intensity, but because it was the first time his master had ever kissed him on the mouth. And in the early hours, as they sat up to watch the First Sunrise, Shinya leaned over to whisper in Kyo’s ear so no one else could hear.
“I stayed because I love them. They are the only family I have, my brothers, and I know that they need me just as much as I need them. Kaoru destroys every life he touches, but if you can make it past the initial shock… if you can look past the darkness, he replaces it with something so much better… something wonderful.”
- 27
- 28
- 29
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Miwaku no Zakuro