The Crime of Loving You

14: Cat and Mouse

"Listen bud, I'm not looking for a fight," Shinya says, bringing his hands up, the goth looks unconvinced, his hand reaching into his pocket, "hey- no, we can talk this out, like men."

"Hey, I know that symbol," the goth squints, "that's the Hiiragi pendant." He whips out a switchblade.

Shinya actually contemplates playing dumb, but that wouldn't get him far. While the Imperial Demon's logo was widely known to other gangs, and even civilians, the Hiiragi's brand was far more exclusive, only for the highest of ranks, only to be seen by important gangs and their leaders. The Hiiragi logo was also used for their cover-up businesses, the only difference being the moon. Typically, for non-criminal activities, it was a sun.

So the fact that this man, someone who Shinya has never even heard of, recognized the symbol, was concerning.

"You have a sharp eye," Shinya muses, "surely you know better than to mess with us, if I were you, I'd stop right now while you're ahead and let me go peacefully."

The man scowls, "for Hiiragi, you sure are docile."

Shinya barks out a laugh, swallowing down the bubbling nervous lump in his throat. He was caught at a tricky spot, no weapons -no gun, no knife, not even a set of brass knuckles- and with a wounded arm, he was in no position to fight with an armed, opposing gang member, no less a gang member from the Progenitors. The Progenitors were a big name mob for a reason, their strength and speed was a force to be reckoned with.

"Look, I would just prefer calling today a day and go to bed," Shinya says, "so?"

The goth smirks, and lunges forward.

Thankfully, all his years of living with Kureto and Seishiro are starting to prove useful, he catches the man's wrist as he pushes his knife forward, catching it before it can pierce through anything other than the cool breeze of wind that whirls past them, however, in doing so, he drops his phone.

"No way in hell am I going to let Hiiragi rat slip past me-," he huffs, bringing his knee up quickly, making contact with Shinya's stomach, causing him to release his hold and stumble backwards, clutching his at his abdomen, "-especially not after I catch you by my fucking car- taking pictures no less!" He growls, he stomps on Shinya's phone, cracking the screen before swinging with his knife again.

Shinya manages to side step out of the way of the blade, he sucks up his pain, readying himself to roundhouse kick this son of a bitch because Shinya feels like puking, and Shinya hates feeling the need to puke. His boot makes contact with the dude's back, pushing him down. He pushes more weight on to him, causing him to collapse, Shinya pinning him down with his foot. He kneels down on him, light enough to not suffocate him, but adding enough weight to keep him down. He twists the knife out of his hand while he's still recovering from shock, proceeding to hit him on the back of the neck with the hilt, effectively putting him into a state of comatose. He gets off of the man, taking in a deep breath as he does.

He stops to think about whether he should leave the guy there, or take him back to Reimaiki's to tie him up for interrogation.

"Rene! Where the hell did you go?! Chess is going to be here any minute!" A voice calls from the direction of the club.

Without another thought, he throws the goth over his shoulder and runs off to his car, the voice shouts and footsteps run after him, but he keeps on going, throwing himself and the goth into his car as soon as he can and speeding off as fast as he can.

.

"Have you heard from Shinya?" Reimaiki asks.

Guren tilts his head, eyebrows knit close, "no?"

She huffs, "he sent me a couple of photos of a car with the Progenitors signature on the windows, he hasn't responded to any of my calls or texts, and according to one of the Hiiragi staff members, he hasn't been seen all morning."

"He could be asleep," Guren says pointedly, "he did have a stake out yesterday, he could just be exhausted."

Reimaiki sighs, "that's not how Shinya works. There's no way he wouldn't have responded to me ASAP. And that bastard never sleeps, it's so unlike him."

Guren purses his lips, "you can track him, can't you?"

"I tried tracking his phone, but it's probably been powered off." She explains.

"Then there's your answer, he turned it off," Guren replies, taking a sip of his coffee, "are we done here now? I have to go pick up my twerps from judo."

Sayuri, who had walked over to them moments ago with freshly baked brownies, says, "I can pick them up today, Shigure and I weren't planning on going out until sunset anyway."

Guren raises an eyebrow at her, "yesterday you were complaining how I always made you guys pick them up, what's with the sudden change of heart?"

Her expression turns grim, "I don't have a good feeling about Shinya being missing. He doesn't strike me as the type who would ever turn off their phone."

Reimaiki nods, "that's because he's not, he gets in trouble for having it on in meetings constantly."

Guren pouts, he takes a long sip from his coffee again.

"You know better than to go against my gut feeling, Guren." Sayuri says plainly.

He huffs in response, but nods, "what can I do to help then?"

Reimaiki grins, "c'mon, I can probably track his car down, but I'll need help with looking through security cameras."

.

He's been driving ever since he got in his car. It's far into the morning and he's still being followed by a red SUV that began trailing him over two hours ago. He's only glad to have realized the car was trailing him before he had actually ended up making it to Reimaiki's apartment.

He's uncomfortable and bored, and tired- oh my god is he tired. He had realized a couple of hours ago that his phone had gotten lost at some point through the night, which only added to his annoyance.

He's only glad that he stopped for gas after that small time frame where no one was following him. He just had to wait to tire out all the gas in that SUV, then he could speed off to one of the Hiiragi's cabins or something for the time being.

Rene -or whatever the fuck's his name is, Shinya is just assuming it is because of the shouting that led to his chase- is still unconscious in the seat next to him. He had managed to tie his hands together in the short time he had for a break from being hunted.

And admittedly, he has no idea where the fuck he's going, he's just sticking by populated areas of the city so no fight could break out between him and whoever's driving that SUV. He does, however, recognize the area, well, not really, but he remembers seeing a shop or two around the area, and if his memory serves him well, there's a cozy ranch-like house under the Hiiragi name a couple of miles east from this area of the city, so he should be fine as soon as he manages to shake this bastard off his trail.

If he can.

. A/n .

Hi I suddenly got inspo to write the next part and I haven't slept yet so idk how shit this is, but thank you for supporting this fic, it's an overdue thank you, but I still wanted to make one hrfsdjghadbsj