Falling

Bonus 3 - Grudge; Part 2

"What happened to him?! Why is there so much blood?!"

"S-sir, we're sorry, but... but we couldn't do anything. The collar activates on its own-"

"What collar?"

"The... the one around his neck. He's been wearing it from the beginning. Boss gave him-"

"What?!"

The man visibly gulped, taking a step back like it would save him from his superior's murderous gaze. The only thing he wished more was to just shrink down in a ball and vanish, just to not meet those eyes again, even though he knew they weren't like that because of his deeds.

"..."

Swiveling around the circle of men, Chuuya could only find faces that corroborated the precedent assertion. Taking a deep, wrathful breath, he marched down to Atsushi and two people who had managed to partially stop the bleeding on his neck and were trying to wipe it off.

Without a word, he kneeled down and as calmly as his swirling emotions allowed him to, moved two men aside and took Atsushi's shoulders.

"Can you speak?"

Atsushi shook his head; shivering out of fear or coldness of the evening, Chuuya wouldn't like to guess.

So he picked him up in his arms, but not before one man assisted him with wrapping a cloth around the boy's neck. Atsushi rested his head on Chuuya's gaunt shoulder, grunting as his head accidentally slipped down, affecting sensitive muscles and nerves.

Cold, light-deprived eyes scanned all the men before him, warning them to take his next words as a sanctity.

"Nobody a word about this. Especially not to the Boss."

The men nodded seriously, loyalty to Nakahara Chuuya obliging them to obey. If Boss wants the particular details of this, he would have to torture them.

Satisfied, Chuuya launched himself and Atsushi in the air. Atsushi shrieked despite the burning in his throat and clenched Chuuya's arm.

"Don't worry," Chuuya feigned an amused chuckle, like it was not even in question that Atsushi might die of blood loss. If nothing, he could pretend until they reach the doctor.

Little fist relaxed, but it still held onto his jacket. Out of fatigue or trepidation, Atsushi's eyes remained shut.

Chuuya clenched his jaw, glaring at the set of black buildings he was approaching.

***

Doctor Hashimoto Fudo didn't have much to do. In fact, he had no patients that day and the day before, which was quite odd. Normally, those halls had at least two or three badly hurt men with types of injuries encompassing his field of medicine. On extensible work days, more than ten.

For this time though, he could thank a brilliant strategy and organization of the Boss and his underdogs. For if they weren't that way, more injured people would accompany him in his ordination.

Clicking his tongue at nothing visible in particular, he knocked the back of a pen against his forehead. Short black hair, that perfectly rimmed his youthful face, trickled his cheek when he tilted his head, eyes seemingly unfocused.

Less injured than before and yet less are content as well.

A memory of deliberate eyes and face, a wicked and cheerful grin of a child the Boss once was, made him inexplicably wistful. It was such a pity, that even that little of a spirit was smothered just like that. Inexplicably.

Where did that boy who couldn't eat nor sleep because of a friend disappeared? Where was the boy who hugged him tightly after he had found him curled alone in the corner of an empty storage, shaking and not knowing how to deal with emotions he had bottled up? Where vanished the boy who cracked dark humor jokes he always had an adequate answer for and whom he always patched after every mission?