Chapter Text
Crack.
The diminishing blur of her shape burned into the back of his eyelids. Rose-tinted glasses ripped off his face. The want and desire alit in his heart doused within just one night. His hands, empty.
"Aniki," the voice breaks him out of his bitter reprieve. His junior stands away, hands tucked behind. Proper, a word he hated.
"Aniki," word repeated, urgently enough for Gojo to shift in his seat. Not important enough for him to open his eyes.
"He's ready to talk."
Crack.
Gojo's eyes open, but only just. Through the smidge, he could see the sunlight dance across his face through the awning. It was a hot afternoon, summer was at its peak working overtime all over Tokyo.
"Aniki," the man exasperated finally. "Any more beating and the guy would be dead."
Crack. Another followed by a guttural groan. Gojo didn't need to ask who, doesn't need to know what exactly either. It's been the same every damn time: desperation, fear, a broken man. The kind of man who hadn't seen daylight for weeks.
This time, Gojo opens his eyes to the light, and lets out a sigh. Slow and measured. The sound of another crack echoes faintly down the hallway — bone, wood, spirit, who knows. They all break the same.
“Dead men don’t talk,” he mutters, lifting a hand to rub the heel of his palm against his eye. “Say, he’s breathin', yeah?”
"Barely," his junior answered.
Gojo rubbed his hand over his face and exhaled. A quiet tsk leaves him, somehow silencing the cicadas outside. He stands up and stretches, fingers joints snapping against his palm.
"Don't see much of an issue, then. Tell the boys to quit havin' fun. I'm on my way,"
"Yes, aniki,"
He patted around the front of his pants, feeling the metal inside his pocket bite into his skin. Naps always made him wake up feeling like his skull had been stuffed with hay. He took his revolver out, letting his hands reorient themselves with the feel of smooth wood. Once he had his hands feeling like home, he moved towards the door, making his way back.
The hallway to the interrogation room was dim, lit by a single overhead bulb that flickered every few seconds like it’s afraid to stay alive. Gojo’s steps were unhurried, each one measured, each one steeped in a quiet authority that his men learned never to question.
The door to the room was ajar. From inside, a strangled cough, wet and weak.
"Mornin'," He greeted, even though it was way past noon.
He doesn't even spare the groaning man in the room a glance. His hands were busy fiddling with the gun in his hands, rolling the cylinder between his fingers. When the room continued to stay as still as death, Gojo meets the man's eyes.
"What?" He barked out a laugh. "No greeting?" The man slumped in the chair looked up. One eye swollen shut, lower lip split, breaths shallow. Cuticles pulled off his fingers. Broken glass shards on his chin. Sweat and blood mix at his collarbone. He’s holding on to consciousness out of sheer pride—The word brought back memories and ill sentiments. In the business he was in, everyone bears some amount of pride. But pride rarely holds.
Gojo stepped closer, stopping just in front of him. The sunlight from the hallway framed him, sharp at the edges, soft in the middle, like he’s being carved out of the heat itself. The moment he saw Gojo, something shifted in his expression. Not recognition—they’ve never met. But understanding.
This is the last man he wanted to see.
"Oh, bud. You sure look parched, don't cha?" He gripped his chin while the man whimpered, forcing him to meet his gaze. Gojo gave out a low whistle, twisting his face left and right, taking note of his bruises. "Did my men do all this to ya'? Boy, oh, this is bad. Hey! You boys did all this to him?"
"Tis what you ordered us to," another man in the back spoke around his cigarette.
"You make me sound like I'm the bad guy here. Look at this poor fella'. He looks like he's 'bout to die any moment now. Say, would you like some water?"
The man wheezed something like a laugh. Or maybe a sob. Or maybe both. Hysteria, they called it. Blood fell from his lips as Gojo pressed his cheeks harder. "Hmm…sounds like a yes. Get the man some water, will ya'?"
"Till my men bring you a glass of water," Gojo grunted as he crouched, levelling their eyes.
“I’m going to ask you one question,” he says, voice so calm it borders on indifferent. “And you’re going to answer it.”
The man glances at Gojo’s hands — clean. No blood on them. That’s somehow worse.
"Oh, don't be scared. All the ghastly work's over now. I never get my hands dirty with all this stuff, ya' know." He pointed at the pairs of tools that lay haphazardly a foot away. "Now, you're…Hiroyuki…Shu. From—ohhh, he's from Osaka! My aunt lives there. Have ya' seen her?" Gojo asked jovially, passport in hand.
"A lil' bit on the plump side, fair, short-haired, stingy old bat with a dog? No?"
He chuckled and patted the man's back, putting his passport back inside his front pocket. "No worries. Osaka's big. Pretty sure there's a buncha old hags there. Hey, Shu, have ya ever been married? Nah?"
When the man's face betrayed no emotions, Gojo shrugged and moved on. "I was gonna get married once. Long time. Had this girl," He exhaled, leaning back with one elbow hooked over his knee. The hand on his gun stayed dead still. "We had plans to run away, ya' know. Her parents couldn't stand the kinda guy I was, and we were really fucking poor. But she still wanted me. Even when I didn’t have two yen to rub together, even when there was days I wouldn’t be able to put food on her plate. Coin was thin and of course, my work was damn dirty. Blood, filthy." He slapped the man's cheek lightly to get his point across.
"Oyaji had taken a liking to me but. Old man saw somethin’ in me, dragged me into this life. Oyaji, when he came to know—oh boy, he wasn't happy. Knew this was gonna end messed up. But I didn't listen to him, didn't I?" Gojo let out a theatrical sigh. His gaze had long since left the man's face, eyes drifting off somewhere far past the man in front of him.
"We went ahead with the wedding anyway, and the kumicho gave us his blessin'. She was soon gonna be a part of our very big family but," he paused, his jaw tightening just a hair. "But then… she pulled somethin’ I never in a hundred damn years would’a seen comin'."
Gojo set the man's face free from his hands, letting his head loll onto his shoulder. "Wanna know the rest of the story? Here, let's make a deal. You answer my question, and I'll tell ya what happened next. Sounds right?"
"What…" The man's voice came out in a wheeze, like rock was stuck in his throat, trapping the air inside. "…does this have to do with me?"
"Oh, gods, it has everything to do with you. You know that girl." He whipped out his wallet from his back pocket, fingers pulling out a worn-out, old picture. When his eyes fell onto the photograph, the man's eyes widened, a strange mix of recognition and the one emotion Gojo was too familiar with—fear. A panic flaring, too bright to hide.
Gojo smiled, but it never touched his eyes.
“See?” he murmurs, a voice so quiet it sounded suffocating in the silence. “You already know who I mean.”
The man trembles.
"Where is she, Shu?"
"I don't know!" the man's tattered voice screamed, whithering in fright. "I swear I don't know! She—she, I-I met her last month in a bar and I took her home but she robbed me! W-woke up in the morning and she was gone! I haven't, I haven't seen, I can't—"
Gojo laughed, still as free-spirited as before. "Did ya? Get robbed? Yer telling me that this—" He pointed to the picture in his hand, "this little thing robbed you?"
"I don't—I swear! S-she just took everything in my house, my wallet, my money, all the valuables—"
He clicked his tongue and stood up, lingering traces of humour coating his voice. "So she did. Nasty bitch, she sure is one. Always too smart for her own good." He smiled down at the picture, some sort of pride and twisted amusement shining in his eyes. He carefully kept the photograph back in his wallet, folding it close. "So she's left Osaka, it seems."
"Do we take our men back from there? Komon-san wasn't happy when you…"
"Hmm, yeah." Gojo turned towards his juniors. "Ask them to come back. You see, this is why I don't like you Osaka folks, Shu. I am kinda a wanted man there."
"P-please," the man started again, "I-I haven't done anything wrong. I don't even know who she is. P-please, let me go—"
"Huh? Don't cha wanna hear the rest of my sob story? I didn't know ya Osaka men could be so rude. That's not how you treat your hosts. And we've been wonderful hosts, haven't we?"
Outside, the cicadas scream. Inside, it's far too quiet.
"Ya see, the girl you warmed your sheets with last month, she used to wear my ring. She and I? We were inseparable." Gojo leaned in just slightly, voice soft enough to be mistaken for tender. "But then she pulled the stupidest stunt of her life. She didn't show up that one day—our day. Left me standing there in my suit, waiting at the altar."
A nerve popped up on his temple. His hands were a jittery mess. His rage was about to consume him, mind, body, soul.
"Funny. How ownership works. It is transient, flimsy. One minute, you holdin' something like it's yours, and the next day it's in somebody else's hand."
"You had her for how long? One night? I had her every single night 'til she left. Which is why it stings. It stings every time I hunt down a fuckin' punk like you who's had their filthy hands all over her like some rabid dog starvin' for a taste. But not for long Shu," He broke out in a grin, hands curling in his hair. "You're the last fucker I will ever have to track down, drop and bury. 'Cause the next one I'm hunting down is her."
"Y-you're…you're insane. Insane! You're a madman! O-once I call the police t-they, they will—"
"Let us play lil' a game." Gojo declared, fiddling with the revolver in hand. "Ya see this, Shu? This gun in my hand? This has six chambers and one bullet in it. Just one. Now watch close. We nudge the cylinder like so." The gun cartridge rolled when given a lazy push by his thumb. The metal gave a series of soft, metallic snicks in the air as it spun around and came to an abrupt stop. "Now you don't know where the bullet's at and hell, I don't know where the bullet's at." The muzzle is pressed to his forehead, skin flushed, body trembling lightly as death looked him straight in the eye.
"Your fate depends on your luck."
Shu whimpered and cried with the barrel pressed to his head, pathetic. "We'll go five rounds. Let's see if that woman really loved me like she said she did, hmm?"
Gojo arranged his finger on the trigger. "She loves me. She loves me not."
Click.
"She loves me."
Click.
"She loves me not."
Click.
"She loves me."
Click.
"She loves me not. Huh." Gojo shrugged at the gun in hand. "That was over quite quick."
"You're done? Y-you said you'd let me g-go after five. Y-you said—"
"I'd never said I'd let ya' go after our game's over. I like it when the game goes my way."
"No! Please!" the man screamed and flailed, the last of humane terror seizing control over his body. "Please, please, I beg you—"
His finger wrapped around the cold metallic trigger. A man's life was in his hands; he pulled it out of his body. The man's head hit the floor with a resounding smack, body going limp. Blood made a river on the hardwood flooring.
Gojo opened the cartridge, pushed in the new set of bullets, and clicked it shut. His smile was careful, endearing, worshipping.
"She loves me."