Chapter Text
Not for the first time that night you cursed your choice of shoes. They looked good, it was true, but they were a bitch to run in. Casting furtive glances over your shoulder as you awkwardly shimmied across the dance floor, you tried to blend into the crowd while still moving quickly. It was a delicate balance—not too fast to attract attention, but not so slow that Yuusei would catch up with you.
It was supposed to be a night out with the girls. It was supposed to be a fun night with Hitomi and Leila and definitely not Yuusei. But of course, your idiot boyfriend had other ideas.
He would swear up and down that it was a coincidence that he and his friends ended up at the same club, but you knew that was a lie. This was just one of the many ways he tried to keep an iron grip on your life—and it had only gotten worse after you refused to move in with him.
When you finally reach the other side of the dance floor, you cut into the hallway that leads to the bathrooms. There are some people loitering about—and more than a couple are most certainly doing something illegal—but you ignore them as you push open the door to the men’s room.
“I think you have the wrong bathroom,” a man is standing near the sink as he looks you up and down.
You ignore his words and instead march straight up to him.
“I need to borrow you for a second,” you smile as you tug on his sleeve, dragging him towards one of the stalls.
He could probably stop you if he wanted to—he has more than a few centimeters on you, and from the feel of it his arm was solidly corded with muscle—but he doesn’t resist as you push him into the stall and shut the door behind you.
“Just stand here a minute,” you whisper.
He raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
It’s only then that you take a minute to take in his appearance. He’s surprisingly pretty, at least for the type of guy that you usually see in a place like this. He’s well-dressed too, almost comically so, wearing a three-piece suit in a seedy club.
How odd.
“What exactly are we doing here?” He has that same mildly curious expression on his face as he stares at you, seemingly unconcerned with whatever is happening in front of him.
“Just stand here and be quiet,” you plead. “If someone comes looking for me, seeing two sets of feet under the stall door won’t be nearly as suspicious as just seeing a pair of heels.”
His eyebrows rise even higher as he asks, “Who is looking for you?”
Before you can answer though, the bathroom door slams open—banging into the wall with a loud thud. Your blood freezes as you recognize the voice calling out your name. Yuusei having caught up with you at last.
You press your finger to your lips in the universal sign for quiet as you silently plead to any higher power that will listen that your plan will work. The man just stares at you in silence, waiting to see what you do next.
You jump slightly as a fist bangs on the closed door.
“Are you in there?!” Yuusei’s voice is unmistakably angry as he bangs on the door again.
You can feel your heart leap into your throat. Shit, shit, shit. He was going to be even angrier if he caught you with another man—that would be infinitely worse than having just hidden from him.
“Fuck off,” the man in front of you suddenly speaks, making you jump. “I’m getting my dick sucked in here.”
It’s quiet for a moment before the bathroom door slams open again and you hear Yuusei’s angry footsteps march out once more.
“Thank you,” you let out a sigh of relief. “I owe you one.”
The man looks amused at that, a slight smile crossing his lips as he cocks his head to the side, “I’ll keep that in mind.”
You offer him a parting smile as you smooth out your dress and exit the stall. Your boyfriend is probably searching the rest of the club for you, so you take this opportunity to sneak back to the table your friends had been sitting at. You’d let them know you were leaving and then book it for the exit.
At least, that’s what the plan was. You don’t make it three steps onto the dance floor before an iron grip closes around your wrist, yanking you to the side. Trying not to stumble, you brace yourself against the floor as you catch sight of the very person you were trying to avoid.
“There you are,” Yuusei’s smile looks poisonous in the dim light. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
He yanks your arm hard, forcing you to walk behind him as he drags you towards the roped-off VIP section. It’s there that his friends are all seated around a table, smoking and drinking and playing cards without a care in the world.
Yuusei shoves you into a chair and takes a seat next to you, pushing a drink towards you from the center of the table.
“Relax,” he orders.
You down the drink without complaint. If you have to spend time with him, it would be best not to do so while sober—maybe then he would be tolerable. The conversation buzzes around you, but you barely listen to a word anyone is saying. It’s all talk about business, trying to make themselves sound more important than they really are. There are no other women at the table—not even call girls—meaning you had no one interesting to talk to.
This is what your life has been reduced to: hearing your boyfriend brag about dealing while he plies you with those very same drugs. He and his friends pretend they’re hot shit because they are on the bottom rung of a third-rate gang. Listening to the fragile male egos that surround you as they boast and pretend they’re something more than they are.
When someone breaks out a plate with several thin white lines on it, you don’t hesitate to indulge.
The night passes in a blur of drink and drugs and the painful hold Yuusei keeps on your arm. When he finally drags you towards his car and the exit at the end of the night, you can’t even find it in yourself to be relieved. It would probably be another hour or two before he’d get bored of you and you could go home to rest.
He never asks you to stay the night, and you never invite him over in turn. As long as he let you leave before the last train stopped for the night, you’d be fine. Otherwise, the walk back to your apartment was going to be a bitch.
You’re so caught up in your thoughts that you almost fail to notice when three men move to block the doors, trapping you and Yuusei inside. The club is almost empty now, despite the relatively early hour, and as you look around you realize that all of Yuusei’s friends are facing a similar dilemma.
A gunshot cracks through the air making you flinch violently. Someone hits the ground behind you with a dull thump, but you don’t look back.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Yuusei snaps, puffing up with anger like a cat. “You just shot Haruto!”
Another gunshot cracks through the air, and you watch as one of his friends, a man named Aoi, collapses in a spray of blood.
“Yuusei Heiwajima,” a sly voice speaks from behind you. “You’re pretty bold showing your face here tonight with how much money you owe us.”
A third gunshot and a man named Sosuke hits the ground.
“You come into our club and drink our liquor and snort our cocaine,” the voice continues. “All while, you’ve been skimming off the top each month, taking more for your cut than you deserve.”
Yuusei tries to deny the accusation, but you can tell from the way he stutters that it’s true. This asshole has fucked up big time, and now you were going to face the consequences alongside him. What kind of massive idiot tries to steal from men like these? If you died tonight, you vowed to come back as a vengeful spirit to haunt everyone in this shithole.
When a fourth gunshot rings out, you know the last of Yuusei’s friends is now lying dead on the ground.
“Turn around,” that same sly voice orders.
You and Yuusei pivot on the spot, and your eyes catch on the red staining the carpet at your feet as you do so. It seems likely your own blood would be joining it shortly.
“How are you going to pay us back, Yuusei Heiwajima?”
Three men stand in front of you, each one cutting an imposing figure in the dim light of the club. One of them has a gun trained on Yuusei next to you, and the others are standing at his side in a gesture of support. You blink once as you take in the man on the far right. He looked familiar for some reason…
“Oh!” You clap your hands together in recognition, “It’s the Bathroom Guy!”
The Bathroom Guy smiles slightly and inclines his head to you, “Bathroom Girl.”
The man with the gun trains the firearm on you instead as you cackle, “Fancy meeting you here.”
You know it’s the coke making you reckless—and it was most likely going to get you killed—but you couldn’t help but laugh again. You had been so preoccupied with hiding earlier that you had missed the tattoo on his neck. The tattoo that matches the tattoos of the other two men. He was a member of a gang, and most likely a high-ranking one from the look of it. What were the fucking chances.
“I take it this was who you were hiding from?” Bathroom Guy jerks his head towards Yuusei with an unimpressed stare.
“Yup,” you say with a smile as you obnoxiously pop the p. “Can you blame me?”
Bathroom Guy chuckles, but says nothing. You suppose that’s a small victory, making him smile. Maybe they’d spare you, and you could become their court jester. On most days, you were pretty funny.
Probably.
“Take her to clear my debt,” Yuusei suddenly speaks up, gesturing at you wildly. “A pretty, little thing like her has got to be worth something.”
You blink once. Then a second time. Then a third.
“My god, you are such an asshole,” the words slip out before you can reign them back in, but you can’t find it in yourself to regret them.
Yuusei had done nothing but cause you pain during the duration of your relationship, and now he was throwing you under the bus one final time in an effort to save his own skin. It would be comical if it didn’t mean you were in imminent danger.
“You are such a—” Your tirade is cut off before it can really begin as Yuusei cracks his hand across your jaw. Your mouth tastes like iron as your head spins. The blow should probably hurt more than it does, but all you can feel instead is a hot rage bubbling in your gut. “An asshole,” you finish as you spit blood on the ground.
Your lip is split by the force of the impact, and there is a ringing in your ears, so loud that you don’t hear the three men drawing closer. When Yuusei moves to hit you again, a strong arm blocks the blow before it can land.
“You offer her as payment and then damage the merchandise?” The man with the gun clicks his tongue disapprovingly as he stares down at him.
It should probably be offensive to be called merchandise, but you can only feel relief that he stopped you from being struck once more. It wasn’t unusual for Yuusei to raise his hand to you, but it never got easier weathering his blows.
“She’s a stupid slut,” Yuusei continues to dig his own grave as he wrenches his arm free. “Just take her and let me go.”
The only warning you have is Bathroom Guy tugging you backward by the arm before a fifth and final gunshot cracks through the air; something warm and wet splashes your face.
You stare at Yuusei’s body lying on the ground. His head is almost unrecognizable, but you try to burn the image into your mind. It was satisfying, in a sick sort of way, to see him like this.
“Distasteful,” the man with the gun sighs as he lowers his weapon. He turns to you then and asks, “Are you alright?”
You nod slightly—and at that moment you realize he bears a startling resemblance to Bathroom Guy. They could be cousins, or brothers for that matter. Their hair was even dyed a similar shade to each other.
“You do realize that we can’t just let you go, right?” Bathroom Guy speaks up, not once releasing the grip on your arm. It’s gentler than how Yuusei grabbed you, but was still firm enough to hold you still. “You’ve witnessed no fewer than eight different felonies tonight.”
“I was literally snorting coke off your tables an hour ago,” the words come tumbling out of your mouth before you can stop them. “Do I seem like I really care about felonies?”
It’s silent for a moment—and you’re certain you’ve sealed your fate—until you hear a slight chuckle.
“Why don’t we come to a compromise?” Bathroom Guy, and you really need to stop calling him that, turns your arm slightly, so you’re facing him. “In exchange for letting you go tonight and for forgiving the debts your little boyfriend incurred, you’ll come work for us.”
The deal sounds too good to be true—which means it probably is. Gangs typically didn’t do anything that didn’t benefit their organization, and you fail to see how you could fit into that equation in a favorable light.
“Doing what?”
Their only reply is a shrug.
“Does it really matter?” The third man finally speaks up, looking rather bored with the whole scenario. “You say yes, and you live. You say no, and you die. It doesn’t matter what the work is, does it?”
He has a point, but you’d still like to know what you’re signing up for. Your lip is clenched in between your teeth as you mull over the decision.
“Fine,” you bite out. The high from the coke is wearing off now, and your bravado from earlier is going with it. “I’ll do whatever you want me to. Just let me go.”
The three men look at each other, no doubt having their own silent conversation before Bathroom Guy nods once more.
“We’ll be in touch,” he promises.