Chapter Text
Pain, solution; pain, solution; patients in and out like products on an assembly line, and Kuro, nitrile gloves snapping on, off, clocked in and out of his clinic as he inspected them. It was supposed to be more than that. It was supposed to be about the conversations between the pain and the solution, the patient healed and the doctor satisfied their studies had surpassed the theoretical and settled into the human connection.
It hadn’t felt that way in years. Though the cause wasn’t undiagnosable. It was the complete goddamn opposite.
Kuro came out of the pharmacy stockroom and into the sole exam room, rattling a bottle of pills over to the young girl, but looking at her mom, seated, clutching her chest since she’d come in.
“Tell her it’s twice a day, right after a meal, and that when she’s outta pills, to come back ’n’ see me,” he told the daughter, who addressed her mom in Mandarin, the mom’s relief palpable despite the language difference.
The mom nodded and hummed through happy tears, her age-lined worries softened with her accented Thank you.
He set his jaw and nodded, eyeing the girl. She was in her early twenties, and wasn’t that how old Kiyoko would have been? Hastily, his gaze fell to the floor’s worn tiles. “Don’t tell anyone where ya got your meds from. Other than that, you’re good to go,” he said.
“Thank you, Doctor!” the girl said, helping her mom up and away. The door closed in on him, in this room of metal and stone, little different from a prison.
He turned his head up, making a noise like a laugh and like a scoff and like all of his despair. ‘Doctor.’ Would have been nice, wouldn’t it.
There was not much to disinfect after a patient with the woman’s symptoms. He did anyway, fastidious about the clinic’s cleanliness. Its illegitimacy didn’t mean it had to look the part. Made the patients feel better, too, that they deserved something nice, regardless of the reason that brought them to Kuro, university degree conspicuously absent from the wall. They didn’t ask his credentials; he didn’t ask why they needed him. The method hadn’t failed him in years.
After tidying up, he opened the door, appointments done for today. And there stood a man.
Kuro’s hand flew to the knife strapped to his forearm, concealed by his white coat.
The man didn’t move. Just spoke: “Kiryu Kuro. My name is Hasumi Keito and I want to speak with you about your sister.”
The knife stayed sheathed; Kuro’s heart bled, open.
“I apologize for coming to your clinic on my own,” the man, this Hasumi, continued. “I needed to see you directly. The shopkeeper in the store you use as a front will certainly complain about the measures I had to take to see you, despite the hefty payout I just gave him, but I hope after our conversation, you can see why meeting you was urgent and in both of our best interests.”
There are few reasons why someone would have sought him with a preamble that succinct, and Kuro didn’t like any of them. He scowled. “I ain’t got anythin’ to discuss with ya. Leave.”
“No.”
“Huh? What the hell d’you mean, ‘no’?”
“You’re a doctor; if you know how a wide variety of symptoms present themselves due to a specific disease, you know what ‘no’ means. Although,” Hasumi added, crossing his arms, “you aren’t really a doctor, are you. Because of your sister.”
Kuro saw white. Just white. His ire, present, incandescent; and the hospital lights, glowing long after Kiyoko had breathed her last. “If you wanna talk to me,” he said, voice low, “that’s the wrong fuckin’ way to go about it, Hasumi.”
“Good,” Hasumi said, for some damn reason, nodding. “Your heart hasn’t wavered in its convictions.” He shifted his weight, the fluorescent lights overhead slanting on his glasses. When they had slid off entirely, his gaze was clear, his spine stretched taller, his mouth was thin and sharp as a scalpel. That gaze—it was the gaze of a man who could say someone had never wavered because he, too, had a heart wrought out of steel. “The man who got the liver that should have been your sister’s should not be alive. I do not fault you for having attempted to kill him. In fact… What if,” Hasumi said, tugging at his high collar, the peak of the Crimson Moon triad’s namesake tattooed on his neck, “you had a second chance at it, with my assistance?”
The only thing Kuro regretted about assaulting the bastard was that he had not succeeded. His university, ashamed of his behavior, fearful of who he had tried to kill, had expelled him; his estrangement with his absent shitty excuse of a father had changed nothing in their relationship after Kiyoko’s death. No sister, no degree, no vengeance. Just a corpse of a man going through the motions of what he thought he should do with the little he could do.
This triad member’s words, his Crimson Moon colored by the blood he and his sworn brothers have spilled, flashed a fire in Kuro he’d thought extinguished.
Kuro dragged Hasumi into the exam room by his arm, thin enough to snap, the door instead bearing the brunt of his fears solidified into its slamming close. Hasumi extricated himself, huffing and kneading his arm.
“I certainly hope you don’t treat your patients like that,” he said.
Kuro crossed his arms tightly, blood circulation half-choked. “The yakuza bastard with my sister’s liver. He ain’t in the Crimson Moon. Hell, he ain’t even Chinese. So what’s a Yokohama triad member doin’ in Tokyo, askin’ me to kill someone? He an ally of your triad and you don’t want blood on your pretty li’l hands, so you’re lookin’ to throw the blame on someone disposable?”
“You’re living up to my expectations, Kiryu,” Hasumi said, the very corner of his mouth rising.
“What the hell?”
“You’re correct. Crimson Moon is officially allied with his group. I can’t touch him.” He peeked at Kuro over the rim of his glasses. “I can’t.”
“So you got the cops in the Crimson Moon’s pockets to look into me, came to make your case, and then ya pay me to do your dirty work.”
“No. I investigated you myself. For a request of this magnitude, I trusted only myself.” He walked slowly around the exam bed, a hand trailing it. “I need someone far removed from Crimson Moon’s politics so they won’t be suspected. At the same time, I need someone motivated to do what I ask. Any yakuza or triad member, then, becomes impossible an ally. Neither do I want the death to seem unnatural. That was when I remembered your ‘yakuza bastard’ had had a liver transplant that had surprised very few—he’s been a drunkard since his youth. What was surprising,” he said, looking up, having rounded the exam bed, “was how soon the surgery occurred after he’d been told he needed a new liver. But you know that.”
Did he ever.
“This man wronged you,” Hasumi continued. “For reasons that don’t concern you, he’s wronged me, too. I need him gone and you want him gone.” He had fully made his way over to Kuro and stood in front of him, tobacco-fragrant, seemingly of an age with Kuro, but a worldly purpose glinting in his eyes. “Together, we can make it happen.”
Kuro looked away. “Anyone ever tell ya you talk too much?”
“Constantly. I don’t care. I will talk uninterrupted for hours if I need to to convince you working with me will be beneficial.” He put a hand on his chest. “I can get all the information about him you’ll need. And you, Kiryu,” he said, putting a single finger to Kuro’s chest, “have the medical expertise and motivation to make his death happen.”
“What, you want me to grab a scalpel and chase after the fucker? Again?” He grabbed Hasumi’s finger. “Why me?”
“They say that the dose makes the poison, don’t they? Who better acquainted with the fine line between life and death than someone who has studied it, and who better to keep a secret than someone whose entire existence is one? Thanks to the liver transplant, he’s on immunosuppressants for the rest of his life. You supply your clinic with drugs despite being unlicensed, so someone you know possesses one yet chooses to do this side-job. Having contacts like that, it couldn’t be too difficult to arrange him receiving the wrong, fatal medication.”
“How do I know this ain’t a trick?” He dropped Hasumi’s finger and made a fist, the madness of his pulse thumping into his palm. “How’d ya even find out about me?”
“You treat those who, for whatever reason, can’t go to a licensed clinic. They may not exist in the government’s eyes, but they exist in the world, and they enjoy doing what anyone does. They eat out. Go out for drinks.” Hasumi tipped his head to the side, his bangs fluttering. “Be entertained. Talk.”
The Crimson Moon monopolized Yokohama’s Chinatown gambling. Kuro had never been far out of Tokyo, but he did drink from time to time. Every bar was the same: drunks were drunks, rambling about things best kept hoarded until death. Any gambling parlor worth a damn served booze; and with the high of gambling in the mix, people would talk. People who had no choice but to hop on the train to Tokyo and meander through Shinjuku’s streets, searching for the front of an unsearchable clinic in an act of desperation.
Kuro rubbed his forehead. “I need to think about it… You’re askin’ somethin’ goddamn crazy. I don’t even know ya.”
“Fair enough.” Hasumi stepped back. “But know you won’t just exact your revenge. If there is one thing I have plenty of, it’s money. And I’m a fair man.” He removed an envelope from inside his jacket and offered it to Kuro. “Just for listening to me.”
Warily, Kuro opened it. His mouth went slack counting the number of banknotes; he blinked up at Hasumi, whose satisfaction slid off him like oil.
“I can’t stay any longer,” he said, heading for the door. “This plot falls apart if anyone finds out I sought you. If I don’t hear from you in one week, I’ll have to consider allying myself with someone else, and this conversation never happened.”
“How am I s’posed to find ya if our meeting’s meant to be under wraps? Can’t exactly ask around in Chinatown if anyone’s seen the big boss.”
“I’m not the ‘big boss,’’” Hasumi said, quickly spinning on his heel. “Not yet, anyway. I do own a restaurant in Chinatown, ‘The Lotus.’ Go have lunch there next Thursday. The food is excellent; don’t hurry while eating. I’ll be out to meet you and we can discuss the details.”
“So damn complicated,” Kuro grumbled, stuffing the envelope inside his coat.
“If you can do that much and not raise suspicions, Kiryu,” Hasumi said, opening the door, throwing a half-smile over his shoulder, “then you can get away with murder.”
Yokohama was open. Not in its people, no less busy than Tokyoites. In its very structure. No constant, claustrophobic clusters of skyscrapers blocked out what you could remember of the sky. The sea breeze and salt crept further inland than they could back home, obstructed by buildings first and the sheer number of people second. Open as a wound, it was. What you saw of the city was what you got.
It was as exposing as having been flayed. Didn’t help that Kuro’s reason for being in Yokohama was no good. He’d thrown on something nondescript, as Hasumi Keito had in going to Tokyo to solicit him; and he had his phone stuffed in his pocket as to not peek at it and make it obvious he wasn’t local. He had read the map to Hasumi’s restaurant and mumbled the directions to himself until there was no other thought in his mind, no other word on his lips, stumbling even over his response to the host’s cheery welcome when he entered the damn place.
He was seated in a booth close to the kitchen. The sizzling of meat, the frying of vegetables, the rhythm of an expert’s knife on a cutting board, the staff’s shouted mix of Mandarin and Japanese—a conversation would be impossible.
He picked up the menu and briefly smiled behind it.
The food, as Hasumi had said, was excellent. No sign of the boss himself, though. There was a door tucked at the end of a hall, just past the tiny single-stall restroom, that was neither labeled nor opened. Lamplight bled through the space between its bottom and the floor: someone was in there. Probably a someone who was supposed to be out here, telling Kuro what to do already to have Kiyoko’s revenge.
And then that very someone was who stepped out from the room, resplendent in a changshan, an intricate, unlit pipe in his hand while his other was bunched at his side. He walked briskly, staring firmly ahead at nothing; he passed Kuro’s booth, something drifting down just as he left.
Kuro snatched up a scrap piece of paper and read: Outside. Don’t take long.
He didn’t.
Hasumi was waiting in the depths of the restaurant’s alley, standing straight-backed against a wall. His pipe glowed, the smell of tobacco heady, its smoke wreathing like a snake around him with his every exhalation. It quivered as he acknowledged Kuro with a slight nod and a slighter smile.
“So,” he said, “you’ve made your decision.”
Kuro leaned on the wall beside him. “How’re ya gonna want it done?”
“Before I answer that, I need to hear for certain you’ll help me.”
“I just asked you how you want a guy offed. How much clearer can I get?”
Hasumi took a long drag from his pipe and cast his face aside, the smoke drifting into the alley’s gray. “For formality’s sake,” he said, turning to Kuro, a sternness to his face that did not come from an easy life, “I need to hear, word-for-word, that you will help me, Kiryu Kuro.”
Their gazes held: Hasumi’s expectant, anxiety at its edges; Kuro’s slowly dawning. Hasumi needed his fealty in words, as-is, so that if he broke it, Hasumi would have no remorse in a new bout of revenge.
Kuro’s hands drew in on themselves, nails biting sharply into his palms putting him in the moment, putting a physicality into it. In ever thinking of today, the pain would come first. It was bright—fourfold for each finger, twice for each hand; it was real—this was him, these were his fists, this was his resolve; and it had never felt more righteous to be alive and in pain than in saying, “Hasumi Keito, I’ll kill that man for you.”
Hasumi’s anxiety dwindled to nothing, and with the confident smile that once more flitted across his face, it might never have existed. He stuck out his free hand.
Kuro shook it exactly once. Hasumi’s hand was smaller and thinner than his, yet far more were dead by it than by his. Kuro suppressed an unsteady exhale and an impulsive comment, brought on by a twinge in his gut, that he had irrevocably altered the course of his life. He asked instead, “Can I bum a drag?”
Hasumi offered him his pipe, holding it reverently, two-handed. “Just be careful. It was my mother’s, and her mother’s before her.”
Kuro inhaled and coughed it right out. “What the hell?” he grumbled. “Ya sure that’s tobacco?”
“It’s a special Chinese blend!” Hasumi frowned, taking it back. He put his lips where Kuro’s had been, not even wiping the mouthpiece, and drew in smoke without a flinch—but also without narrow-eyed pleasure. Just autonomic, no more conscious or beloved as the beating of his heart. “Now, to answer your earlier question. My knowledge of… pharmaceuticals… is essentially nonexistent. I’ll leave it to your discretion to choose something either undetectable by autopsy, or plausible enough to be digested that it won’t be cause for alarm. Again, money is no object.”
“I’ll need to know if he’s on other meds.”
Hasumi’s pipe was still between his lips; his eyes were sliding to Kuro. “That’s probably doable.”
“Just ‘probably’?”
“My strengths aren’t yours and vice versa. I can’t probe too deeply into certain things or else it’ll be suspicious. But I will do what I can.”
Kuro bit the inside of his cheek, pensive, the names of chemicals, their textbook black-font structures, swirling in the back of his thoughts. “It’ll help to know what he likes to eat and drink, too.”
“That won’t be difficult to find out. I can name a few things right now.”
“And how are you gonna pass the rest of the info on to me? You don’t expect me to make the trip every time, do ya?”
There was a hiss, like a sharp intake of breath in response to something ill spoken. It was only Hasumi’s changshan scuffing as he stepped off from the wall, slipping his free hand inside it and going in front of Kuro. He pushed an envelope to his chest.
“For your trip fare. You should have plenty to spare,” he said.
Kuro laughed. Who wouldn’t? Who the hell was this guy? “Damn, you had that ready to go.”
Hasumi stepped back, wearing a suggestion of a smile. “I told you when we met: I had expectations of you. I figured more-or-less how our conversation would go.” He took a drag from the pipe and tipped his head up, the changshan’s collar making another noise—soft, now, when it was against skin. And up the smoke went, indistinguishable in the alley’s grime, in its shadows. “We will only be briefly allied. You have no need for my number, nor I yours.”
Fair enough. So long as there was money, so long as there was a corpse in the end, nothing else mattered.
Kuro laughed. Really, who wouldn’t. “Hey,” he said, “let me try the tobacco one more time.”
Even the notion of being caught for the crime, once it transpired—because it would; he knew with bone-deep certainty—elicited nothing in Kuro. Could have been a comment on the weather. The conversation, too. Here he was, a bereaved brother with nothing to lose; here they were, an illicit would-have-been doctor and a want-to-rise gang boss. How easy it was to plot someone’s death in the same breath as the one to complement the smoke he let out, out, out.