Disclaimer: Minekura, the god of all manga-ka, owns all that is Wild Adapter. Unfortunately for me.
Chapter 2
It came as no surprise to him when two days later while they were munching on strawberry crepes, Toru told him that his brother wanted him to come over. Tokitou stalled as best he could.
Things were getting messy and Kubota was being no help.
Lately he's been acting strange, Tokitou thought; always asking where he'd been or where he was going, and whenever he mentioned Ikemi he'd notice Kubota's expression darken.
In fact, bit by bit, without ever changing his monotone drawl or cryptic smile, in a subtle, very Kubota-ish way, his behaviour came to resemble that of a jealous lover.
Finally, he couldn't put it off any longer.
It was a cloudy, humid day that Tokitou agreed to make the big trip to Toru's house. As they were exiting the arcade, Toru casually mentioned that he lived nearby, and maybe they should head over there before it started raining.
"...Unless you want to go back to your place?" Toru put it in with a sly smile, knowing the other boy would never agree to it.
Tokitou fought for a moment between his fear of going to another person, a new person's house, especially one with a yakuza for a big brother, and bringing the boy back to Kubota. Judging by Kubota's recent behaviour and the fact that they had a gun in their mansion, that wasn't really a good idea.
After a few moments of hard thinking Tokitou's mouth opened and close a few times, which Toru took as a "yes" and immediately started pulling the other boy down the street. A knot started growing in his stomach as he got further and further away from his familiar surroundings.
Despite the knot in his stomach and the tingling at the back of his neck, the Ikemi residence gave off no evil aura or obvious signs of danger. The house was a small, western style home in the area of downtown closest to the suburbs, painted white and surrounded by a healthy and colorful garden.
"You're probably hungry, right? I'm not much of a cook, but I can fix us some ramen."
Tokitou immediately thought of the three day old curry he'd had last night and a new wave of homesickness washed over him. His stomach growled in response and he slapped himself mentally. He was probably only 15 minutes from the mansion, why was he being such a baby?
Toru laughed, "I guess that's a yes."
Toru disappeared into the depths of the house as the other bend over to pull off his shoes. Soon he could hear the bubbling of water and the clatter of stiff noodles being poured into a pot. His stomach growled again.
The inside of the house was just as spotless as the outside. The walls were all whitewashed, with gleaming wooden floors. Toru's blue and red sneakers were lined up neatly against the entrance, so, feeling intimidated by the tidy, well kept house, he took extra care to line his own dirty sneakers up just as neatly.
He froze in place when he heard the front door open behind him and a raspy, "I'm back."
"Welcome home! Is that you, brother?" Toru called from the kitchen.
Slowly, he turned around to face the man, knowing without looking who it would be. His eyes darted, searching wildly for an escape. He could hear Toru humming in the kitchen.
"Ah, I see Toru finally convinced you to come over. Here I thought you were avoiding me."
"Hey! Brother! Tokitou-kun! What's taking you so long? The ramen's almost ready!"
Toru's voice sounded further off then it should have, like it was a movie playing on the television with the volume turned way down.
The man approached him, pulling off his shoes without bending over or looking down. His dark eyes were fixed on Tokitou, a smile that was nearly a snarl creeping across his face.
"We'll be there in a minute, I just need to talk to your friend."
Tokitou felt like his insides were on fire. The smug looking gangster was leaning closer, closer. He wanted to punch him, to push him away and run, but that wasn't an option. He was trapped in the entrance way, the only way out was behind the yakuza and his chances of getting through were less then zero.
Suddenly, long cool fingers were squeezing gently around his throat.
"You," he said in a voice hoarse from too many cigarettes. Kubota's voice would probably be like that one day too, if they managed to live long enough.
The spidery fingers pressed harder and Tokitou fought to remain focused on what the man was saying, even as black splotches covered his eyes.
"I could snap your precious little neck right now, but as much as I'd like to, that wouldn't do us any good, now would it?"
Just as Tokitou brought up his fist, his gloved, furry, insanely strong fist, the powerful pressure unwound from his throat and air flooded back into his starved lungs. A hand pressed into his stomach and left behind a small scrap of paper.
"Bring your darling Kubota to the address on that paper, unless you want things to get messier," the man hissed and walked past him into the kitchen.
As soon as the last blonde strand of hair disappeared around the corner, Tokitou grabbed his shoes and bolted out the door. He ran all the way back to the arcade in his sock feet before he finally stopped to catch his breath. Still crumpled in his gloved hand was the scrap of paper with a time and an address.
Slowly, Tokitou started moving forward on shaky knees, back to the mansion.
A/N: Woah. Okay, sorry for the ridiculously long amount of time it took me to get this next chapter up. I'd almost lost interest in finishing this, when I noticed that no one's put up anything in the EC/Wild Adapter category lately. So here it is, for your enjoyment. The next chapter will probably be the last one. Also, I just realised, "oh crap, I wrote OCs."
reviews are like oil for the OFUDAMOBILE!
Trinity Morgan: Ahh...thank you for continuing to read this little fic of mine. It really means a lot to me. I hope you like the new chapter. I hope I kept Tokitou in character here too. Kubota's a little non-existant, mostly because he's hard to write.
Chicken Nuggets: My second reviewer. Thank you so much! Sorry for the long wait, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.