jikan_network | video

"We will," he says solemnly, like he's making a promise. At the mention of Tay, Kinn scowls a bit.

"Would if he wasn't avoiding me."

Vegas just ignores it. What else could they really do here? Get normal jobs? How could the when mafia runs in their blood? Even Vegas knows way in the back of his mind that he can't get away from that.

"He practically lives next door. Go visit him."

"When Pete gets home or you get out of the water."

He wasn't leaving Vegas to drown in the tub. He also might avoid Tay for a bit in some childish stink and wander the grounds for a bit, trying to plan his next move.

"I didn't mean right now," Vegas stated flatly. Why were people acting so stupid just because he could barely walk a few days ago? Well, that's probably why.

"So what's your plan for now, if you have one?"

"Estate hunting," Kinn answers. "A place with enough room. And it has to have the ability to be protected."

Despite the fact he doesn't want to be here, he will do what he needs to in order to make certain the people in his care are safe.

Can you hear Vegas rolling his eyes?

"Okay, that's a goal. What's the plan to achieve it?"

"I did find a large sum of money at the wharf," Kinn pointed out, ignoring the near disaster of Vegas losing his eyes in the bath. "The trick now is to find a decent location. Which side of Nippon would be most beneficial to us? Where will our greatest connections be found. There seems to be plenty of opportunity at the docks, no surprise there."

"Luck," he pointed out in turn. "So we've basically got nothing but some cash you stumbled into and an idea. What about a legitimate business to cover up anything else you might want to get your hands in?"

Vegas was right. He had been working on a couple things and hadn't told anyone. "Sounds like you have some input to make, Vegas. What's cooking in that mind of yours?"

There were a dozen things they could do. Hell, they could even do a laundromat business liks in the United States roaring twenties. "Speak easy, perhaps?"

"You're really loving this old-timey shit, aren't you?" Vegas shakes his head silently to himself. "A bar, Kinn. I was thinking of a bar."

"When in Rome, Vegas."

A bar. "Because another bar is what this place needs." No one thought that the area was over-saturated with them. Then again, it was a cover, not an actual business enterprise. "What's the theme?"

"Don't you miss that bar Porsche used to work at?" Something like that would be fine. It didn't have to be some high-end luxury deal.

"IT'S NOT THE BAR I MISS!" Kinn's fist slammed down on the table, scattering some of the supplies and he gripped the edge of the table with both hands. It was a 'normal' conversation, wasn't it? They needed to talk shop in order to keep everyone here safe. But Vegas couldn't have an issue with it, could he? Of course not. He had Pete, his rock. And Kinn needed to keep it together.

"Sorry." He didn't bother turning to look at Vegas. "Go ahead with the bar. Do whatever you want with it. It's yours."

He couldn't handle it. Mentally, he was done.

Yeah, he kind of expected Kinn to explode at some point, but that was pretty tame.

He remembers very clearly how he felt when Pete left him, when he learned Pete went back to the main family, when he met Pete again in the alley behind Yok's. He was 100% willing to let Pete put a bullet into him and end all his suffering right then and there. He gets it: the soul-rending loneliness, the too-still nights, the weight of the morning after losing the one who truly sees you.

Was that a pang of sympathy Vegas felt? Was that even possible?

"Let it out," he said, almost insistent. "Go mope, be sad. You're not the only one here to do all the work." He has Vegas, who given an iota of power will stretch it to the max. He has Pete, probably one of the most competent bodyguards the Theerapanyakul family produced. He has Tay, who's also suffering a loss, but like Kinn, still trying to be useful. "I'm not gonna try to usurp you if you take some time to be a fucking human being."

Edited 2022-10-17 19:18 (UTC)

Two seconds later, and he did lose it. The supplies that stayed on the table were swept away as Kinn raged against the unfairness of it all. Did the fates think he deserved this? Did they think that Porsche deserved peace?

When he came to, he was sitting on the floor, feeling a little damp. The interior of the bathhouse was... okay, it wasn't immaculate, but it wasn't irreparable. He had made a mess of the place and here he was, crying. And his fucking cousin was still in the fucking bath.

If needed, Vegas prepared himself mentally to get up and restrain his cousin. But his tantrum didn't last long. At least not as long as Vegas would have expected. He gets it. He's volatile, too. Probably more than Kinn, but still... Now's not the time to compare who's more unhinged. Vegas merely stays in the tub, alert in case anything came flying his way or his cousin seemed to be on the verge of hurting himself.

No one's going to hear about this. Vegas might be a snoop, but this was something he wasn't even going to try to leverage to his benefit. Kinn's always been more human than him, anyway. But Kinn's also been hurt before and built stronger walls against it. How can he not feel empty after letting someone through those walls only to lose them?

Awkwardly, Vegas reached out a hand to his cousin.

The bathhouse... Fuck. He's going to have to make some repairs. And a moment later, he felt something in his hair. There's a half-hearted reflex to bat the thing away and then he realizes those are fingers. Vegas' fingers.

His fingers curl around them and he chokes again, holding on for dear life. He hated this. Hated being weak, hated knowing that he was weak, that he needed Porsche and he wasn't here and it felt like his life was falling apart and yet, he couldn't because there were people were counting on him.

And he still couldn't wrap his head around the fact that his cousin was here, helping him through with it.

"I'm supposed to be the one holding your hand."

"I know how you feel," he replied softly, still pointedly not looking at Kinn. It was in part to give his cousin an iota of privacy, but also because he himself was opening up and that was just fucking weird.

"When Pete left me, I was ready to die." He's sure Pete hasn't told anyone what happened. Porsche made it a point of telling him so behind Yok's. So Kinn probably didn't know the details. Or that Vegas made a deal with Porsche to get Pete there to see him again. Hahah woops.

"I met up with him outside Yok's and when he pulled his gun on me, I would've let him shoot me. I was ready for it."

This was new information he hadn't heard before, not even in that six month limbo time. He doesn't say anything about it, made no demands why he hadn't heard about it before. "There were a few times Porsche looked ready to shoot me." He had stared down the barrel of the man's gun. "If he had, I knew that I deserved it. When he finally said he didn't side with the main family or the minor family, but he sided with me, I knew then."

Kinn let the thought fade, though. "I knew then I had a partner for life." It was just hell that he wasn't here.

"He could still show up." Which is as close as Vegas will say to 'don't give up hope.' It was just weird and uncomfortable seeing Kinn like this, with all his carefully crafted walls crumbling. Better here, in front of him, than in the seedier parts of town in front of someone who might take dangerous advantage of it.

Vegas meant it when he said he was done with their rivalry. Here, they were equals. There was nothing Kinn had that Vegas could want. Here they could actually build something together. It was actually kind of a nice thought.

Kinn would never have a breakdown outside the walls he considered safe. Never. "I don't know if I want him to. I'd be subjecting him to this special level of hell."

It was weird sitting there, his fingers threaded with Vegas, using it as a tether to sanity. And it was a little hysterical, relying on Vegas of all people, for sanity. This world was fucking backwards.

That's true. Vegas really isn't the sort of person anyone should rely on for stability. But in short, measured bursts, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing. At least Kinn isn't all alone.

Vegas squeezed his hand. Kinn's definitely a less selfish person he.

"You think he's not already in hell without you? Dumbass. Even I know he'd rather be with you than without you, no matter where."

"Do you think they even know?" That was probably the biggest worry he had. Did the others know they were missing? Did they even care? Of course, Father would be worried. And Kim, which meant he was next in line, whether he liked it or not. But the rest of his friends? Porsche? Would it be less stressful if they didn't know?

"This place is ten ways of fucked up," he sighed, finally giving up on trying to puzzle it all out. There was no use pondering the what-ifs. What mattered was the present and what they had to deal with in the now.

"I dunno," he answered. He didn't have the answers. This place was weird and fucked up and who knows if time even moved the same. He'd read stories about that experience of time slowing down and lives flashing before eyes in dangerous situations. Maybe he was actually dying and this was some fevered dream before the end. Maybe they'd been here days, weeks, months and only seconds passed at home. Who knows?

It had to be something. If Kinn's from some point in Vegas' future, wouldn't he have noticed that Vegas was gone all that time? He doesn't have the answers and he really doesn't have the energy to think too deeply about it.

"I dunno," he repeated, rubbing his thumb along Kinn's hand.

He couldn't delve into it too deeply. Kinn was already on the edge and while this was... comforting, in a sense, his mind was all too aware that it was still Vegas and Khun would be having kittens at this point.

"Are you a prune, yet?" As much as he would rather have Vegas soak for as long as he needed to, it was probably a good idea to start moving past the depression. Kinn's depression, that is. He doubted Vegas had much of that, currently.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject