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toplvl2020-10-10 07:38 pm
make amends
make amends
Remember that terrible shit you did? Time to make it right. Ish.
Top Level with the start of your apology(ies). Public or private. In person or over txt.
Well That Was Awkward ↦ Maybe you’re nervous. Awe struck. Tongue tied. Just a little socially awkward. Whatever. This is going to be bumpy.
Total Catastrophe ↦ You fucked up so hard with this one there might not be any coming back from it.
Not Again ↦ You know this wasn’t the first time. This is kind of your MO.
Sorry Not Sorry ↦ Maybe you’re prideful. Maybe you really aren’t to blame. Either way, this only debatably qualifies as an apology at all.
Wildcard ↦ You know what you did.
Comment to see where their sorry song goes. Maybe it’s an apology you didn’t know you had coming, maybe it’s long overdue, completely unnecessary or anything else. Whether or not you’re feeling forgiving is up to you.
no subject
But he doesn't want to fight Nishiki. How many ambiguously guardian-shaped figures in his life are going to pull this crap, exactly? Okuyasu can't even quite conceptualize it as letting him down because he's not important enough for that kind of sentiment, to be owed anything, but dammit it hurts all the same to see this crumbling in front of his eyes.
Tears keep streaming down his face but Nishiki finally says enough, outlines just enough of a story, that Okuyasu doesn't leap forward. Inside of him, though, The Hand trembles and reaches out and—
Materializes behind and through Okuyasu, moving with him as he hunches in on himself, arms crossed and shoulders rounded, unhappy and staring. ] S-so it was because these were guys who killed someone important. Okay.
...Right? Like...this is it, right? You killed 'em and now you got your revenge, right? [ Okuyasu thinks of Chili Pepper, of Akira's wild and tattooed face smeared with blood. He understands revenge, or at least he thinks he does.
He looks over the room. It's a mess. Nishiki isn't.
The bodies. They're still just laying there. He feels nauseous looking at them but he swallows it down and keeps talking. ] You... You gotta get rid of these bodies, man. Before someone else walks in on you.
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Nishikiyama has enough time to do a few things before the men swing the door open. He holds Okuyasu's gaze in his own in cool, pensive silence. He puts out his smoke in the cheesy crystal ashtray on the table. He stands and takes his crisp, white suit jacket from the back of the couch and slips it over his shoulders. Works the buttons with deft hands, and now, the soak of crystallizing wine-purple hardening his clothing is neatly covered.
He's just in time to be presentable as the door is slammed open for four suited, sunglasses-wearing men to swagger in, laughing amongst themselves until they get a look at the room. A second of silence falls over them.
And then, they see Nishikiyama. Four bowed heads, oyaji muttered out in respectful, stunned voices. He takes in the display before turning back to the table and grabbing the sheathed knife sitting on the table's edge. He tosses it with the bodies. ]
Deal with it.
[ All of it. The knife, the bodies, the room. Deal with it.
That's all they need to hear. The men get to work immediately as Nishikiyama strides to the boy's back. He places a softened hand on his shoulder. ]
Come. [ His tone is softened, just a little, his gaze sliding from him to the path ahead. ] We'll talk elsewhere.
no subject
And that's when he turns back to seek some guidance about what to do about it, and sees that Nishiki looks just as calm as before. Okuyasu turns back and sees nothing but respect from these guys, and they take the news of the dead bodies just as calmly as Nishiki himself has been, so far... In fact, all of this feels like a play they've rehearsed, or something. Like it's an agreement they knew ahead of time.
Okuyasu notices Nishiki's touching him because he sees him and looks down at his hand. His shoulder feels numb. His hands feel numb too. He thinks he's stopped crying, and he takes a mechanical step forward on command. The Hand comes with him, because it's got to, but its form wavers, uncertain now. ]
Dude, you... [ Okuyasu has just enough sense to wait until they leave, until the door shuts behind them and now they're in a hallway with at least a thin layer of wood between them and those strangers. ] Are you— They...they work for you?
[ Okuyasu has a bad, but impossible, theory. One that's starting to feel less impossible the more his brain slowly comes back to life enough to think about this. ]
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[ There isn't much point in vagueness now. Nishikiyama can practically hear the gears grinding in the boy's head. If he hadn't put the pieces together already, then they'd click into place in short order.
The prospect shouldn't please him as it does. He shouldn't feel that thrill tingling at the back of his neck as he stands at the cusp of his own unraveling, at the hands of this boy. He shouldn't feel excited by the impending lifting of the curtain, the moment when they would reach some secluded space and he would be forced to start pulling back the curtain to avail him to atrocities and mistakes.
But some pathetic and sad part of him, way down in the bottom of his lonely chest, is reaching out for it. Connection, even one bound to destroy more than it repaired, was connection. Understanding was understanding, and he can't remember when he was last understood.
Nishikiyama cuts an imposing path through the mundane office hallways. Punch-permed men in loud suits carefully pulled themselves back rather than risk crossing their path. Bowed heads ahead of them, oyaji trailing behind them. A man hurriedly claps the button on the elevator before they reach the door, ducking his head as the others did. Nishikiyama takes all of this tribute in silence over the course of their procession.
The elevator hauls them up. The doors slide open once. The man waiting declines to share his boss' elevator. He pays the same tribute as all of the rest, a bowed head and a quickly murmured oyaji, to a silent Nishikiyama.
The doors slide shut, then after another few seconds of rumbling, open to a tiny little chamber. Nishikiyama steps out and proceeds through the next door to a grey, cloudy expanse of early-evening sky and a square little roof.
The tension is plain. So, Nishikiyama walks out first. ]
We won't be disturbed here.
[ He slips his hands into his pockets as he crosses to the guardrail and looks over the city below. Bar windows flooded with the first golden light of the evening, neon signage struggling to be noticed before the daylight was totally gone.
He turns to regard Okuyasu. ]
Ask your questions. I'll answer as many as I can.
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He tries to swallow it down when they finally get to the roof. ]
How come you don't give a shit about what just happened? [ It's a question that's maybe bigger than this specific incident, so maybe that's what pushes it to the front of Okuyasu's brain. He's accusatory and guarded but he still follows Nishiki out onto the roof, angry and not sure where to put all his confrontational energy when he's told ask questions and not to fight him. ]
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[ Nishikiyama makes a disarmingly calm foil to agitated Okuyasu, leaning his elbows against the railing, canting his head and clarifying as lightly and casually as if he'd been asked about the weather.
The bodies, or Okuyasu barging in? His gaze slides back down to the streets, and he chews on it. Okuyasu is barely in a mood to stand still, let alone illuminate his meaning. The former, he could vivisect and display to Okuyasu with debatable success. The latter, though... his eyes narrow, gaze pulling tight and sharp as he scores Kamurocho. ]
You've made up your mind. I won't be able to justify to you what you saw in that room. [ He's probably not winning any favour, speaking as slowly and as carefully as he is. But this is a difficult path to navigate. He has to pick his steps carefully. ] The only thing I can do is apologize for your exposure to it. I know that, and so, I am sorry that you had to see that. I didn't want for you to find out like this.
[ Not that being told as much was likely to stop him, from the heat he could feel prickling his back. Nishikiyama takes a stabilizing breath. ]
But I will say that I have been in this game for a long time. A long time. [ Longer than a modern teenager could likely understand. ] Long enough that my name has power.
[ Let Okuyasu pursue that line of questioning at his own discretion. Let that be as close as he comes to revealing the heights he's climbed to.
He braces his hand against the railing and turns, just enough to face Okuyasu, his expression cool and stony. ]
What I told you earlier was true, but not complete. I'm certain that you can guess the sorts of individuals who fall through the cracks and land on my desk. They're not all like you - they're not all kind.
[ Putting it gently. ]
Some of them ended up in my hands with very good reason. So in my position, Okuyasu, would you let rapists and indiscriminate killers run amok through this city with your name pinned to their chest? Could you stand that?
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And this...hurts. It's not fair. How come Nishiki ended up being yet another bad guy? Okuyasu's staring down at his clenched fists while he listens. It's a tension that never dissipates but which changes a bit as Nishiki keeps talking. He'd already kinda implied that these were bad people that he killed.
Okuyasu basically helped kill a bad person last summer, even if no one he was working with ended up having to dish out the killing blow. Fate or whatever took care of that.
He's scowling so hard his jaw aches. He feels the eyes on him when Nishiki turns around, and he can't resist looking up and returning the stare for long. 'They're not all like you - they're not all kind.' Those words settle in Okuyasu's own throat and ache. ] W-- With your name--
What, so you had...bad people working for you? [ He takes a second to look at all the clues and then spits out, unbalanced, ] Well duh dude, you work for a fucking gang!
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[ You don't even have to look at him to see the smile it comes with, tinged with just enough gentle warmth to tell the shape of the . ]
You're close.
[ He's still cowardly enough that he had been hoping that Okuyasu would piece the whole thing together by himself, despite the struggle he can see him undertaking. But it looks like he'll have to slot the last one in with his own hands - just what he was dreading.
Nishikiyama irons out the smile once he can feel it and takes a careful breath. Ripping off the bandaid, and all of that. ]
I don't simply work for a gang. [ Though that isn't untrue, he supposes. ] I am patriarch of my own family, under a much larger syndicate. The Nishikiyama family is my part of that syndicate. Its name, operations, members - in every sense, I own it.
[
wow what syndicate could it be what a mystery.There. It's out of his hands. He knew.
Nishikiyama spends a pensive moment watching the boy, taking in his pain, the tension pulling him as tight as a drum. It's a strange thing, saying it in such frank and straightforward terms. He's used to dancing around the path he's taken in life - couching it in kinder language when he couldn't avoid the topic altogether. In most other conversations, there might be something scandalous and exhilarating about presenting his vileness like this, all bare and cold and without comfort.
Not here. This marked the beginning of a struggle that he can tell is going to stretch far into the evening, until the streets below them are a sea of flashing lights and reveling tourists. Something he'd said had prompted his shoulders to loosen briefly, let air come to him a little more easily, but Nishikiyama was no fool. This would be a night of screaming and shouting, and if it didn't come to blows, then he would leave it surprised.
His face screws, just slightly, an imperceptible snarl starting in his nose and tightening his eyebrows. He glances away. ]
I had hoped to tell you this on my own terms.
[ But then Kiryu was imprisoned, and then he had his family dropped into his lap, and then Yuko's heart finally gave in, and then he became a monster. ]
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Except for everything about the actual explanation, anyway. ]
You-- you're-- [ Owns a gang. Owns part of a larger gang. The gang. It's gotta be, right? Everyone in there, they looked like fucking business workers. Gangsters like his big bro just wore fucking school uniforms, and street thugs wear their shirts untucked and hands in their pockets and they slouch like Okuyasu himself does, but everyone in there smelled like real money and--
Okuyasu's scowling but he's also got a tremble that's spreading from his hands and up his arms, and it feels like adrenaline but it weighs too much for that. ] Yeah? What, and offer me a fucking job killing people with you?! I don't wanna--
[ That's what does it, and he chokes on his own words for a second. His throat closes over and a few more tears squeeze out while he struggles to speak. ] I'm not doing that shit again! Not for anyone! It doesn't matter if we're like fam--
[ That word, he finally lets choke him for good, and he's silent except for a strangled yell of frustration. ]
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This wasn't the problem he expected to have. He'd never expected that shades of Kazama could be observed in him, and they all crawl up his spine as he watches Okuyasu explode before him, eyes cold and angry.
He lets him choke himself out. By then, the anger has seethed in him long enough that he might finally give a reaction that registers as human - the whole of him tightens until he trembles, and he enunciates each syllable deliberately; ]
If I had wanted you to work for me, Okuyasu, then you would be.
[ It isn't even like it would have been hard.
He was a boy like himself - like Kiryu. He had fallen through too many cracks. Life had taught him early what the word injustice means, and the lesson had left him brutish and angry. And now, a wealthy benefactor, an emotional rock. A man who could speak his language. An adult who wouldn't leave him behind. With just enough delicate pressure in the right areas, some white lies, a gentle turning of the knob until Okuyasu barely realizes that he's sitting in boiling water, he could have bypassed all of this rage. The family always had places for angry, brutish kids with shit to prove.
Same as it ever was. He feels nauseated just thinking about it. ]
Say what you will about me. [ His voice leaves him in a razor thin rush. ] I'm a grown man. I chose this life. I've been living it for longer than you've been alive. I can take it. But if you think for even a second that my intentions were to--
[ Anger's trembling through him, but one very different from Okuyasu's - a cold, silent rage. He turns his attention back to the streets, tries to soothe himself with the life coursing through them. His fist trembles at his side.
After a time, and coldly; ]
No. I will not ask you to kill anyone. [ It's a concussing realization - that he even has to clarify this to the boy. ] I wouldn't endorse your initiation if you begged me to. Never.
no subject
He would have. He'd joined up in a town-wide search for a 'rapist and indiscriminate killer' and would've dealt the final blow to Kira if he'd had to, if he'd been able to. Fate was all that separated him from that.
If Keicho hadn't died-- Or if this guy had stepped in and tried to trick him into it--
Okuyasu's stewing in the guilty fear of that by the time Nishiki keeps talking. He's silent afterwards. He can feel the stress in the air, the sense that he hit on something really big and important and bruised and managed to deal it a solid blow, even if he's not quite sure yet what it was. Likewise, Okuyasu kinda feels like a piece of struck metal, ringing with a noise he's still trying to parse. ]
Why? 'Cause I'm not tough enough to do what you do? [ It's ludicrous. He just got a huge reassurance - that this man would never do to him what his older brother tried so, so hard to accomplish - but it's confusing. It feels like a slap to the face. This is the only real type of affection Okuyasu's known, and being denied it feels reassuring for just a moment before he feels it for what it would have been from Keicho...
Falling short of expectations. ] Just-- I don't get why--
[ His rage smolders into ash in an instant, and quieter, staring down at the ground in front of himself, he wonders aloud, ] What the hell's wrong with me that I keep fallin' in with people like you?
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Somehow, seeing him crumble like this is even worse. People like you is not met by any challenge - it's clear as day what he means, and he's not foolish enough to try and change his perception. Nishikiyama watches him until he can't anymore, and he casts his gaze back down to the streets below. ]
You would not join my family because I don't want you to.
[ Because he'd be just fine at it. Great, even. An asset. And that's the problem.
And he keeps that to himself, because he knows too well the sort of neglected boy Okuyasu is. He could scream to the high heavens how much he hates him, he could even mean it. But deep down, the implication that Nishikiyama thinks that he would thrive as a family man would leave a fray in his thoughts, one that he would pick and pick until he was choking back sake for whatever family would have him. If he let slip that he thought Okuyasu would be suited for this life - if he gave the impression that some part of him might approve of the leaps and bounds that he could make from the criminal underworld - then his brain would do the rest to allow him to chase that approval. He knew too much about that to risk it now.
Instead, he sighs, and he stares down at the pavement, and he tries again. ]
Listen to me.
[ Not even his gentle is what it used to be - even that is bruising and bitter - but here he is, trying all the same, feeling like a bad joke. ]
I was initiated when I was your age. [ By a rich man who had a life that the two of them could only dream of. His throat had nearly been overpowered by the sake - tender and young as it was - though Kiryu didn't seem to have the same problem. ] You've seen all that this life has given me. So know that I mean what I say when I tell you that I would give it all back in an instant if it meant erasing that decision.
[ The neon glow is just starting to dust the two of them, rising from the streets. Nishikiyama glances at him, tentatively, and then quickly away. ]
That's why. Do you understand?
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Does he understand? Okuyasu sucks in a slow breath and looks over those words again for any sign that he is what's been found lacking.
He keeps not finding one. He shifts, uneasy and uncomfortable and increasingly not sure where exactly he's supposed to get the energy and determination to turn that all into anger, instead. ]
Do you mean you don't... You don't like what you do, either?
[ Initiated when he was his age. How old was he when he saw Keicho kill someone the first time? It was actually pretty recent, and a harrowing escalation of the violence Okuyasu had been raised by his whole life anyway. He'd sort of assumed he'd seen it all, but he'd been so, so wrong.
What else has Nishiki seen, if he's been doing this for longer than Okuyasu's been alive? ]
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[ What rushes out on the heels of that sighed phrase, just barely touched by a smile, brushing against amusement, is if only it were. If only it were as simple as a clumsy career choice that didn't agree with him. If only he were an office drone with a quick mind and quicker fingers, sighing about how he should have pursued music instead of consigning himself and his genius to a dim little cubicle for the remainder of his years. If only.
But the vile truth of it sits in Nishikiyama's throat like a white-hot coal. He doesn't dislike what he does. He doesn't dislike it at all. He's held himself under his own knife and excised all of the things which didn't fit this mold he's slotted himself into until he fit perfectly. There was no place in society that would accommodate him so readily as this, and he didn't think he even wanted to find it. He's sharpened his mind until he could navigate the serpentine underworld politicking with ease. His forked tongue and the second mouth he's cut for himself has served him well in getting signatures and cutting deals. He's hardened himself until he can no longer feel any human touch. Nothing exhilarates him now like rising numbers and a cooling corpse. A monster always had his place, and his is here. Nothing could change what he's done to himself.
But he finds shreds of his old heart still beating in him every day - pesky things that they are. Some neglected corner of him is still holding out hope for something resembling an amicable parting between himself and Okuyasu - loud, stupid, strange boy that he'd loved like his own flesh and blood. He could keep his forked tongue behind his teeth for a little while longer, if it let him believe that a clean severing was possible.
He takes an uncertain breath, and he tries to pair up his words. ]
For everything that this life has given me, it has taken something immeasurable in value. [ Would Nishikiyama tell him how his green incompetence and soft heart had killed his own sister? Would he reveal the depths of his own treachery? Would he shine a light on the deepest and most secret regrets? ] It killed Yuko. My oath brother is gone. I lose something that I never thought I could every day to the choices I made when I was a boy.
[ Yumi, Yuko, Kiryu - and the losses that he didn't dare to manifest with his voice, himself and Okuyasu. A road lined with casualties. ]
Okuyasu. Believe what you will of me. [ His voice is the rasp of a snake. ] I came from nothing, just the same as you have. I thought there was nothing in my life worth losing. I was wrong. I will be wrong yet, I'm sure. Even as I am now, if the decision is mine, you won't be permitted to follow in my footsteps.
no subject
Right now, Okuyasu is angry, sure, but that's cooling and congealing into something a lot less defensive and appealing. He's mostly scared and hurt and he's so used to letting those scab over into rage that he almost can't recognize his own emotions for what they are anymore, either. Most of his life has been being encouraged to stay blind, and now even when he tries to open his eyes, it's hard to see.
He clings to each of Nishiki's words and he can tell they're veiling something else behind them, can see the shape, but can't make out much more than that. It's embarrassing, frustrating, a little frightening.
He tries anyway, heart thundering away still, hands going from fists to loose at his sides, more antsy than furious by now. ] I know that, like...hurting people feels good. Like, people wouldn't do it if it didn't get shit done, right? Dead people can't hurt you the same way anymore once they're dead. [ They can still hurt, though. It's just different once it's not their literal voice doing the hurting. ]
I got complicated feelings on that shit too, but like... You sound like you get that it's wrong, right? And that it's hurting you, too? Why don't you run away? Maybe we-- you-- maybe you could go somewhere they can't find you. [ And here, Okuyasu is aware he must start sounding stupid, if he hadn't already. He gets what he thinks is being said - that being in a gang, killing dangerous people, probably kinda feels good even while it's a bad thing - but then his heart can't help but shove him towards...
This. Just get rid of the problem. Just run. Underneath his skin, The Hand aches, ready to rip things right out of reality itself just so Okuyasu doesn't have to deal with that shit anymore. He could get back in that elevator and shove every single person in that building into wherever it is The Hand throws things, assuming no one shot at him faster than The Hand could absorb it...
And all of those thoughts are just because Okuyasu's starting to feel the chill of the outside and the exhaustion of a late night, and he's scared of losing what he thought he'd had with the first father figure he's ever found who's never laid a hand on him. ]
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He can still hear him simmering under the surface, yes. That was something that probably wouldn't go away for some time yet. He wouldn't be surprised if the bitter poison this encounter would leave weren't entirely bled from him in a day, a week, a month, years from now. He wouldn't be surprised if the betrayal still hangs around him like miasma well into adulthood. One more adult who shouldn't have been trusted. The thought hardens to stone in his chest.
But Okuyasu isn't all piss and vinegar, as he had been when he'd first emerged trembling in rage to the open sky and the streets below. This wasn't just anger and bitterness, no cutting edge to his tongue, no rebuke.
Instead, something conciliatory and perplexing. Bargaining. A child trying to reason with death. Trying to convince a monster to cut his claws and file down his fangs. Clemency which Nishikiyama, of course, doesn't deserve.
His shoulders fall with a quiet, deep exhale. He keeps his eyes on the moving streets below, and swallows. ]
Do you think it's so simple?
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Okuyasu thinks about being trapped in a house with Keicho and his dad. He thinks about the way Keicho always talked about it - being caught, kept a prisoner until he could figure out a way to cut their ties from each other. Keicho's search for something to sever his remaining tie to their father had been enough to sever his remaining ties with Okuyasu himself, in the end.
'Do you think it's so simple?' ]
I know it's not supposed to be. [ His voice isn't steady, but he isn't shouting anymore, either. He feels like he just hit a wall while running, like even his adrenaline can't quite get him over the next hill. ] But why shouldn't it be, if you ignore everyone yelling at you that it's a bad idea.
[ The city below them keeps making its usual background noise - traffic, occasional shouts. It keeps the silence from really taking root, but it still knots anxiety further into Okuyasu's chest. ] What the hell's the point of being around at all if we're always trapped, right? [ He scratches the back of his neck, wants to close the gap between them but isn't sure how. Instead he just keeps lingering a few feet away, edges towards the ledge where Nishiki still stands. ]
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He's not sure he should be relieved. The anger is easier to deal with than what Nishikiyama's inviting upon himself by continuing this line of questioning, this bartering with the nature of what's happened to him. The appeal for something impossible, bartering against a rot that's extended its hold far too deep to be argued with or cut out.
Overpoweringly puerile, from anybody else. If it were Kiryu standing before him, arguing for whatever human piece was left of his heart, he'd shut his ears and terminate the conversation here. Kiryu's words on the matter wouldn't be worth hearing. Why are this boy's?
Nishikiyama falls still as he listens, tries to find rejuvenation in his childish idealism. Had the world ever been so simple for him? Had ignoring the cage he stepped into as a boy ever been an option?
His hand slips into his breast pocket, and returns with a cigarette case. He takes a smoke and retrieves his lighter - a strange thing nowadays. He can't remember the last time someone else wasn't ready with one for him. ]
And if you were me, Okuyasu, [ He sparks his lighter and sucks the flame through his cigarette, then snaps it shut. ] how would you manage this escape?
[ He could indulge in this childish fantasy just a little while longer. He has time. ]