Samurai Deeper Kyo Fan Fiction ❯ Wicked Ground ❯ Trustworthy? ( Chapter 7 )

  Diary-

I haven’t written in what feels like ages. In fact, it’s been two months and four days since my last entry. I had just won a case that day, you see, and so I wrote in order to tell someone the degrading feeling I had. After all, the man I had been defending was guilty… and I was the reason that he got off the hook.

Anyway, that doesn’t really matter now. What matters is that I am drunk and running out of time. Five days is all I have until Kyo’s trial date. Five days to nurse a hangover and do all of the work that I should have had finished by now.

I decided while standing under the hot spay of my shower, washing away the remnants of my severe lust for Kyo, that tomorrow morning I have to act. I have to go see Kyo and the victim’s bosses. Kyo’s boss owns K/O Auto, where I take my own little imported car to get its oil changed. It should be easy to talk with him. The victim, Mr. Tokugawa, works at a prestigious life-insurance firm that cons most of their clients. His boss may be more of a challenge.

My head has begun to swim with its drunken sleepiness. I have to get up early, anyway, so I must say adieu for the time being. Yuya

…

Yuya glanced through the left side of her closet, pouting at her selection of dressy business fatigues. She settled on a Donna Karan, one of her most classily elegant peaces that held a runway pizzazz that not many stylists could manage. It was composed of a V-necked steel iridescent, molded double-breasted jacket; the neck was conservative enough that she didn’t need an under shirt, but also low enough to slow a line of pale, flawless skin. The matching skirt was pleated and moved with her legs, accenting every curve as she walked. Corset, high-throated black heels finished off her outfit. She added light makeup and mascara, pulling her hair into a sophisticated bun at the back of her head. After surveying herself in the mirror, she nodded in satisfaction. This would certainly do the job.

She made her way into the living room where Kyo lounged on the couch in a pair of black boxers, a stoic frown on his chiseled features. He refused to meet Yuya’s gaze, looking instead at the television set in front of him, watching as a young woman sang in French. Her face was lovely, almost Asian in appearance, and her voice was heart wrenching.

“Kyo, you have to stay here today,” Yuya murmured, trying to keep her eyes on his face so that they wouldn’t rove down to his bared chest. She didn’t want to see the red, raised marks on it that she herself had caused last night. She didn’t want to think about what could have happened. It was a mistake, an honest-to-God mistake that she was hell-bent on not repeating.

Kyo didn’t answer.

Yuya tried again. “Kyo… I have to go talk to your boss and Mr. Tokugawa’s, as well. No one is supposed to know that you’re out of the hospital.” She decided to call it hospital out of kindness. After all, she didn’t think Kyo would respond positively of being reminded where he had been held captive. “So can you stay here and promise not to run off or call out of pizza or something else stupid?”

Kyo looked at her, finally, his blood-red eyes glowing with something miraculously like hatred. “Then how the hell do you suppose I eat? You don’t have anything here, seeing as you starve yourself to the point of dying. I’m not like you, Shiina,” he hissed before looking back at the television. “I’ll order a fucking pizza if I want to.”

Yuya was too shocked to be angry. Instead, she numbly went to the phone and dialed the local pizza parlor, asking for a delivery. Seeing as it was before noon, the food rush hour, and the catering house was merely a block away, the pizza would only take twenty minutes to deliver. Yuya sat down on a barstool, glancing at her watch, hoping twenty minutes passed quickly. She still had to drop by and see Jinji, Kyo’s boss, before her 2-o-clock appointment with Mr. Tokugawa’s employer.

The twenty minutes, though, did not pass quickly. Yuya found herself unnerved after five minutes, irritated after ten, and near a mental breakdown after fifteen. She began strumming her fingernails, covered in clear fingernail paint, against the counter in rapid succession. She hadn’t realized she was doing it until Kyo pointedly turned to look at her over the back of the couch. “Stop.”

Yuya, at that point, stood up and was close to yelling. The antique knocker at the front of her door sounded, though, taking her words clear from within her throat. She went to the door, opened it, to be met with a belligerent-looking little boy with amber eyes and silvery hair holding a pizza box. Sasuke.

Yuya was too shocked to do anything but gape. Sasuke looked equally as surprised. “Yuya, damn! You never told me you moved up here! Nice place,” he said, seeming to have forgotten the pizza box he was holding.

Yuya laughed, amazed, before saying, “What are you doing out delivering pizzas? Does Yukimura know?”

Sasuke glowered. “Of course he knows. He made me get a job. Said it would ‘inspire teamwork and leadership,’ or some such crap.”

Kyo had stiffened at Yukimura’s name, glaring daggers at the t.v. As the child continued to blabber, Kyo stood, walked to the door, and grabbed the pizza. He glared at the child before pushing Yuya out the door. “Go do your job, woman,” he hissed sharply, “and pay the urchin while you’re at it.” With that, he slammed the door in her face, locking her out of her own home.

Yuya took a deep breath to calm herself before turning her blue-green eyes onto the shocked boy beside her.

“Who the hell was that?”

Yuya shook her head. “Don’t even ask. Here,” she said, fishing some money out of her wallet, which she had thankfully been holding while she was violently pushed out of the door. “I need to go get a few statements from a client’s boss. I’ll come drop by Yuki’s in a few days, once I’m not so swamped, and you can catch me up, okay?”

Sasuke nodded, taking the money. “Sure.” Hw paused a moment before saying, “If that guy’s your boyfriend, you need to think about getting a new one.” He then sauntered off toward his car, a beat-up white Mitsubishi with the name of his place of work scrawled across in messy kanji.

Yuya sighed to herself. “Yeah, I do.”

…

Jinji was a tall man with a growing beer belly, most probably from the multiple Red Stripe bottles that littered the floor.

“I like the Jamaican beers,” he said, as if answering her thoughts. “Red Stripe –really nice taste. Made with real sugar cane, you know?”

Yuya could imagine. “I’m here on behalf of one of your workers, Kyo Mibu-”

“Good boy, good lad,” Jinji interrupted, musing. “Not really one with the women. Oh, but they would fawn all over him… and he’d just brush them aside. At first, ‘cause he was so quiet, I thought he might be a queer, but you know-”

Yuya tried to suppress the flinch she had wanted to display due to his comment. Because two out of seven of her high school friends had turned out gay, she didn’t like it when people classified them as anything but the politically correct “homosexual.” She changed the subject quickly, tapping her pen on a pad of paper she’d found tucked away in her car. Like a good reporter, lawyers always had paper on them.

“Mr. Dai, was Mr. Mibu a violent person, would you say?” she asked, slipping into her lawyer role, her voice cool and clipped.

Jinji Dai paused for a moment, thinking. “Can’t quite say, Miss Shiina, can’t quite say. He was a quiet boy, real quiet-like. He did his work and then left. But then again, they always say it’s the quiet ones that will snap first, yeah?”

Yuya nodded as she quickly jotted down words in shorthand, which most probably looked like a bunch of squiggles to Jinji. When he stopped speaking, she went on to her next question. “When did Mr. Mibu come to work for you?”

Jinji frowned, looking a bit confused as well as unsure. “Well, it had to be a couple ‘o years ago. He was fresh out of collage and wanted some fast bucks. I guess he just liked this job so much that he stayed on.”

Yuya highly doubted that, but she wrote it down anyway. After all, anything on the mysterious Kyo was better than nothing.

…

After two hours of grilling Jinji for information and looking through personalized records, Yuya glanced at her watch to find it was nearly one-fifteen. She said a quick yet formal good-bye before heading for her car. She drove the thirty minutes to Kytee International, checking her makeup and hair before venturing into the glass-encased monstrosity of a building.

The receptionist sat behind a large desk that seemed to engulf the cute little thing sitting behind it. It was large, cold metal and glass with a state-of-the-art flat screen computer atop it. The woman smiled brilliantly, asking if she had an appointment.

“Yes, my name is Yuya Shiina,” she said, voice still the calm collectedness of a lawyer. “I have an appointment with Gregor Maslow for two-o-clock.”

The receptionist, still all smiles, typed something into her little computer, waiting. She then proclaimed, “Ah, Miss Shiina! Yes, here you are. I’m afraid Mr. Maslow is in the middle of a meeting. You may be a bit delayed. Would you be so kind as to sit in the waiting area?” she asked, motioning to a plush area off to the right, furnished with gray and silver leather that matched the cold steel of the building.

“Of course,” Yuya murmured, turning toward the couches. Yuya knew this game. The head honcho here, an American by the sound of his name, didn’t want to see overly eager to see and appease her. He was probably twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do up in his office, watching the clock. He’d wait until he was fifteen minutes late before accepting Yuya into his office. There, he would be all apologies and false smiles. Yuya had been in this environment long enough to know the schemes.

At exactly fifteen-after-two, the receptionist came over, her big smile still plastered on her angelic, cherub face. “Mr. Maslow will see you now.”

Yuya smiled, but it was a dull imitation of the girl in front of her. She followed the woman to the elevator, where she pressed Floor 45. The elevator rocketed up, lurching to life with a yawn of protest. Yuya saw the girl in the corner of her eye, who was staring pointedly at Yuya as if she was a separate species.

“That’s a lovely suit,” the woman finally said.

Yuya smiled, looking over at her. “Donna Karan. It’s a wonderful brand.”

The elevator door slide open smoothly and the receptionist led her toward large, oak doors. She knocked before opening it slightly. “Mr. Maslow? Miss Shiina is here.”

The door was widened and a smiling, curly haired man stood before Yuya. He wore a pinstriped suit of the most putrid green Yuya had ever seen. The color accented his brown eyes, though, bringing them into definition against his floppy brown curls. “Miss Shiina! Oh, aren’t you the lovely one! When I heard it was a lawyer, I was expecting someone a bit more… oh, I’ll just say it. A bit more mature, older…”

Yuya checked her temper, only smiling icily. “Oh, I believe I am old enough to live up to my reputation. You have heard of me, at least. Which is more than I can say for you.” This, of course, was a lie. Almost everyone had heard of Maslow.

Maslow, Yuya soon found, was not easy to anger. He only smiled back at her, expression empty, before waving her in and saying, “Fala, bring us some tea, please. And those delightful snacks you had me try yesterday.”

Fala, the receptionist, bowed with a large smile before exiting and closing the door behind her. Now Yuya was left to her own devices against the beast.

On Maslow’s instruction, she made herself comfortable in one of the plush, black cushioned seats opposite of his desk. She began with a simple, “I am sure you know why I am here, Mr. Maslow-”

“Please, please, just Gregor,” he interrupted with a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “And yes, I know why you are here, Miss Shiina. As I have told the press, I do believe that my employee had nothing to do with your client’s aggressiveness. Besides, your client has a history of mental disorder, does he not? He belongs where he is.”

Yuya tried not to show her anger and only murmured, “I’m not here to discuss this with you. I am here to ask questions and you will answer them. Understood?”

“Completely,” Gregor murmured between gritted teeth.

“Good,” Yuya said with a faux-pleasant grin. Before she could continue, Fala entered, carrying a platter of silver. There was tea, which she poured for Yuya, and a tray of pocky. Yuya nearly laughed aloud when she saw the stick-like, cookie snack that was sold everywhere. Was this the ‘delightful snacks?’ Once Fala left, she flipped on her tape recorder from where it was hidden, neatly tucked under her jacket. “Now, let us begin. How long has Mr. Tokugawa worked for you?”

“Close to five years,” Gregor answered promptly. “Kada is an excellent worker and suave business man. I could never ask for more.”

Yuya raised an eyebrow. “Kada? You mean Mr. Tokugawa? Do you know him well enough to call him by first name?” She wasn’t sure if it had been a slip up on his part, or it Americans normally called their workers by first names. In Japan, such informality was rare.

Gregor seemed to stiffen for a few seconds before laughing. “Yes, I suppose so. We’ve gone out for a few drinks.”

“Where do you go? For these drinks,” Yuya asked, scribbling away. She had a sneaking suspicion that Gregor’s arrogance was about to shove him into a corner.

“Here and there,” Gregor said, waving his hand vaguely. “Mostly small, hole-in-the-wall places. Iridescent, I think the place is called. We frequent that a bit.”

Yuya nodded. That was the bar Kyo had been at the night of the fight. “Is that all, only drinks? How is Mr. Tokugawa’s behavior during these times? Does he ever get drunk?”

Gregor laughed again, but he sounded a bit uncomfortable. “Well, I must admit, Miss Shiina, Kada is one who enjoys his women and his liquor. Maybe a bit too much. He would get drunk, sure, but can you honestly hold that against him?”

Yuya only raised an eyebrow, murmuring, “It all depends on how you look at it, Mr. Maslow.”

“Gregor,” he corrected.

Yuya didn’t correct herself. Instead she smiled at him, charmingly, giving him a false sense of security. Then she asked it. “You said he enjoyed his women, maybe a bit too much. Would you say that he was the type who would come over to a pretty young woman and flirt shamelessly, even if she was already occupied?”

Gregor seemed to bristle at this. “You don’t seem to understand, Miss Shiina. After all, you are a girl; hardly a man of his stature. He liked women, but he did not harass them. If this was part of your client’s fables, I would disregard it.”

“As his lawyer, I am unable to disregard anything he says, Mr. Maslow.” She said his last name only to further irritate him. “And besides, he has no reason to lie.”

“He has every reason to lie! He is facing jail time for attempt murder, Miss Shiina, you cannot tell me that he wants that!”

Yuya only smiled, standing. She had all she needed from Mr. Maslow. She was assured that he was a slick con, but he had his weaknesses. He wasn’t able to hold his own in an argument without getting defensive. He didn’t think before he spoke, letting vital information slip out. And, most of all, he was a liar. The day was looking up.

Yuya grabbed a pocky, munching at the tip of the stick-cookie dipped in chocolate, before saying, “It was nice meeting you, Mr. Maslow, but I must go see my client now. Adieu.” She stood and, very impolitely, let herself out of the room.