The 9 Millimeter Kiss - Chapter 62: Chapter 62

Reports of missing people dwindled after the speed chase. The only thing reported for a description was a man with an average stature with a suit that was similar to that of a beekeeper. It was beyond frustrating to know he had gotten away. The pressure placed on those in charge of the investigation was immense, many of them gaining insults and death threats. The people wanted closure for those who have gone missing and turned up dead. They wanted more clues to those who went missing and never resurfaced.
People on the internet argued, analyzed and argued over who it could potentially be. With video footage of the chase being available to the public. There had been hope when footage of the vehicle was able to be tracked through the city via surveillance cameras. However nothing came of it. Just as he had appeared, he had disappeared. Many offered to help, hoping maybe a quirk could assist them. No clues came up. Nothing. Weeks passed and something happened Detectives feared would eventually happen. There was a change in victims.
A pattern had appeared while investigated during the Murder's hiatus. A little before a mass grave was found and made headlines, there had been a sudden increase in the amount of elderly people dying. From there, if looked upon closely, emerged a pattern. One that had finally been linked. A link that was made 5 years too late.
"Get up."
Yuki flinched at the whip snapping against the floor. He tentatively sat up, his ankle pulling along the chain.
"How are you today?" Matsuda asked, walking over to a desk out of Yuki's reach.
Yuki remained quiet, carefully leaning against the wall as he stood onto his feet.
"I'm thinking of getting you a gift." Matsuda happily announced.
Yuki snapped his head up towards the man. Eyes wide with fright.
"Relax." Matsuda chuckled. "It won't be anything serious."
That wasn't enough for Yuki to relax. He'd learned Matsuda had a pretty loose definition of 'serious.'
Matsuda looked through a couple papers before asking, "Pick a number. 1 or 2."
No.
Yuki remained quiet.
There was a list Matsuda went through when he asked for a number. If the cells were empty, the first thing he asked for was essentially 'How many...?'
"One." Yuki barely managed to whisper.
Matsuda looked down at his desk before removing a couple sheets of paper.
"Pick a number. 1, 2 or 3."
Yuki always had a difficult time with the second one. 1 could mean elderly. 2, middle aged. And 3, children. Or the opposite way. Or 2, children. 1, middle aged. Or 3 elderly. Matsuda always found ways to torment Yuki upon his return with the opposite of what the boy might have imagined the next person to look like.
Yuki looked down to his dirty feet. His long hair draped over his face.
"...3" the boy's voice trembled.
A couple papers were removed from the desk and placed onto the stack.
"Pick a color. Black, Pink, or White."
Next was a defining feature or an object they owned. Yuki released a quiet sigh.
"...white."
Matsuda hummed. Finding something amusing.
"Pick a number. 1 through 7."
Next was to set a date.
Yuki's body began to shake. He quickly held onto himself, recalling those who had previously been there and their explanations. Desperate to understand and recall what, when, and how they were brought here. Afterall, they had just been doing their normal everyday routine before waking up to darkness and their last days, if not moments, alive.
"Fo-- Five."
After that, whatever else he asked didn't really matter... at least not until they arrived. Sighing Mataua placed two of the papers back onto the stack, folding the last paper in half and pocketing it.
Another dead...
Yuki had long since gone numb. He no longer felt cold. Nor hungry. He no longer cried for them. Nor bothered talking to them. Only asking for their name and apologizing.
How many times had he apologized...
"It's around the same time you start getting sick."
Yuki flinched, taking a step back from Matsuda. He hadn't realized he'd gotten closer.
A hand grabbed onto the ends of his hair.
"A haircut is also long overdue." Matsuda sighed, twirling the hair strands around his fingers.
"Well, I guess we'll have to do that some other time."
Yuki tensed up as he felt Matsuda pull him in for a hug. He didn't understand why he would hug him. There was no reason for him to give a hug. They were suffocating, cold, and terrifying.
"I'll make sure you get your gift before your birthday." Matsuda mumbled, gently patting him on the back.
His birthday?
"I'm sure it gets lonely when I'm gone for too long."
Yuki remained as still as he could. Even being cautious of how he was breathing.
"NO!" a small voice shrieked.
There was a soft shush of reassurance. "It's alright. It's okay."
Matsuda carefully stood behind the child, slowly placing a knife between the child's hands.
"This is Yuki. You just have to do it two times--"
"NO!" the child shook his head. His red and tear stained face, hands refusing to hold the knife. He looked ahead towards a boy with tattered clothes, laying on the ground nearly lifeless.
"He'll be alright. If you do this," Matsuda held back a laugh, "You can go back to mommy~"
"But I don't want to!" the child cried out.
Matsuda continued to hold his hands over the boy's.
"Shhh, it'll be alright." he sweetly reassured. "You want to see mommy again, right~"
There was a cough from Yuki. His chains around his ankles shifting as he aguishly pushed himself off the floor.
"See!" Matsuda softly cheered. "He's fine. If you do this, I promise to take you back to mommy." there was a bit of grit to his tone.
The child was about to protest once again.
"It's okay..." Yuki's voice croaked. He could see Matsuda's patience dwindling. It was best to get things over with as quickly as possible.
Matsuda only smiled back at Yuki.
"N-no..." the child shook his head. He attempted to back away but with Matsuda behind him and hands tightly held, he couldn't.
"I'll be okay." Yuki tried again, this time with a small smile. And painfully he held open his arms as though to give the child a hug, "..e."
Since when had he longed for it to end this way...
Yuki watched as Matsuda backed away from the child. Now accepting the hold on the knife.
Since when had he welcomed such pain with open arms...
Yuki continued to smile as the child ran towards him. The tear stained face forever imprinted into his memory along with many others. If there weren't any sounds he would have never guessed he'd been stabbed.
He held onto the child's shoulders, pushing him away enough to remove the knife before pulling him back in and holding tightly onto the crying boy.
"I-it's alright." Yuki whispered. Matsuda's boots echoed as he walked over to them.
"You'll be okay now." Yuki tenderly soothed him thought a strained voice.
The wailing never slowly subsided.
Only ending, abruptly.
"Tell me Detective Fujimoto," a man stood looking over the city through a window. "How many lives will we continue to lose and find them dead in pieces!"
The Detective lowered his head, "I'm afraid we are unable to find anything more clu--"
"TEN! Fujimoto-san. TEN CHILDREN FROM MUSTAFA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HAVE GONE MISSING!"
A vase crashed just feet away from the Detective. He didn't falter but remained quiet.
"Rest assured we're following--"
"It's not me who needs to be reassured, Fujimoto!" the man screamed. "There are children going missing! NOW more than BEFORE!"
The Detective pursed his lips. "I understand."
"DO YOU?!"
Fujimoto clenched his hands into a fist.
"I don't want to see another missing report, Detective. This needs to come to an end. And soon."
"Yes, sir."
At the clicks of the locks Yuki snapped his eyes wide open. He sprung up only to hold back a scream. His torso wrapped in bandages with a couple blotches of red. Voice caught in his throat.
"Oh good!" Matsuda's voice echoed. "You woke up just on time."
Yuki slowly laid back down. His breathing steadily increased as Matsuda walked over. There was a slight bounce to it this time.
"I have your gift." Matsuda kneeled down a little ways away from Yuki before placing a large bundled up blanket beside him.
"I probably won't be here for a couple days. Things have gotten more intense. So if you get sick," Yuki glanced over to Matsuda who gave him a smile. "Don't die."
Matsuda had only dropped off his 'gift' along with food and more bandages before leaving.
He had no sense of how long 1 day was, so for Matsuda to not be here for a couple days would feel like a short forever. Yuki had gone back to sleep, his body exhausted and finally able to feel a bit relaxed. Of course, it seemed as soon as Yuki finally was able to stop worrying about one thing, another happened to be in front of him.
He was awoken via a poke to the cheek.
Yuki couldn't move as quickly as he wanted so kept his eyes closed until he'd properly assessed what it was that was beside him.
Another poke.
Slowly opening his eyes, he waited for them to adjust to the dark. He felt as though he was about to throw up at what he saw.
Beside him was a kid. The only thing Yuki was able to make out of him was their white hair.
Carefully sitting up, the kid moved away from him. The scrapping of his chains scaring the white haired boy more.
"Can...can I go back now?" the little boy whimpered.
Yuki slowly leaned back onto the wall, placing a hand over his injuries.
"What's your name?" he gasped.
"My name?"
"Yeah..."
"What's yours?" he asked back.
"Yuki. My name is Yuki."
The little boy remained quiet.
"Are you going to tell me your name?" Yuki jokingly asked. At this point, he probably had too many names memorized.
"Hiroki... Azuma Hiroki." he mumbled.
"Hiroki..." Yuki smiled sadly, closing his eyes. "How old are you, Hiroki?"
"I'm turning 6."
Yuki felt his breath hitch. "Are you scared?"
A small whimper left the child.
"Come here." Yuki gently whispered. The dark can be scary, not so much when there's someone there to comfort you.
A couple things stood out as the boy got closer. One, this boy had short, straight white hair. Two, he was wearing a jacket. Three, there were gloves attached to it. And four, he was wearing snow boots.
Hiroki cautiously crawled towards Yuki. "Are you hurt?" he'd ask, feeling the bandages as Yuki brought him in closer.
"A little." Yuki admitted. "Is it snowing outside?"
"Yeah."
Yuki only nodded, pulling the boy's hood over his head. "You should sleep."
"When can I go back?" Hiroki mumbled.
Yuki didn't reply. Only slipping on the boy's mittens onto him.
"It might get a little cold, so keep them on for now." he told Hiroki.
Hiroki laid his head onto Yuki's shoulder. "Am I... going back?"
Yuki dared not to look him in the eye. An overwhelming wave of grief floods throughout him. His weak, bandaged arms shakingly wrapping around Hiroki into a hug.
"I'm so sorry." he sobbed onto the boy's jacket.
Hiroki said nothing. He didn't know what was going to happen, he just knew he might be able to see his mom or dad for a while.
So he, too, cried.
"A 6 year old boy, Azuma Hiroki and his mother, 28 year old Azuma Haruka were reported missing after her husband received a call from Mustafa Elementary School about his absence. Having there been multiple missing people, he immediately reported them to the police. Detectives were able to trace down the family car to a car junkyard which led to discoveries of cars from missing people. The junkyard is now undergoing further investigation and 3 people have been arrested under suspicion."
"Police are advising everyone to use the buddy system and children younger than 10 to be picked up by their parents at the school's front gates."
"With the continuation of mass missing people reports, Child Protection Alarm buzzers have been skyrocketing with adults buying them for themselves. The Head of the Investigation, Detective Fujimoto, is advising the buzzers to only be used for children--"
The television was turned off. Control tossed to the side.
Fujimoto was at his limit. Having only taken on the case when small amounts of disappearances were happening, he believed the entire thing would be solved in a matter of weeks. And now here he was four years later with evidence all of this had been going on for more than five years.
He took a swing out of the scotch bottle. Welcoming the burning in the back of his throat and slowly coming to the realization there wasn't anything else he could do.
Matsuda was in a bad mood.
Yuki made sure to block the man's view of Hiroki, telling the boy to never, under any circumstance, look at Matsuda. Hiroki was curled up against the corner, his jacket and Yuki's thin sheet over him to provide more coverage.
"USELESS BASTARDS!!" the snap of the whip echoed, making Hiroki flinch.
Yuki continued to grit his teeth. He had to hold it in, there was no way he would allow Hiroki to hear what he's heard for so long.
"I specifically told them to get rid of them!" Matsuda snapped the whip again, light traces of blood following. "I. Even. Paid. DOUBLE!"
Yuki grunted at every pause, gripping onto the chain. Sweat drenching his face. Blood trailing down his back.
Matsuda had barged into the place with a raging anger. He'd swept off all papers off his desk and flung knives at the walls and flipped over the metal tables before he'd released Yuki from his ankle chains, dragged him to the other side, and forced him to hold onto another chain as he'd taken out more of his anger on the boy.
At the drop of the whip, Yuki cautiously let the chain go before he dropped onto his knees. He threw a quick glance towards Hiroki. He was still covered. Good.
"Look at you." Matsuda sneered at the messy sight of Yuki. Walking over to a cabinet he reached up and grabbed a clean towel and a white box before tossing it over to Yuki's direction.
"Get yourself cleaned up. I'll be back before midnight." Matsuda told him, removing his wrist watch and also tossing it over to the boy. "We'll be leaving this place soon, make sure you're ready by then."
Yuki trembled as he reached for the towel. "Yes, sir." And with that Matsuda was gone again.
"Hiroki?" Yuki called out after Matsuda's footsteps were gone.
"Y-yeah?" the boy's voice trembled.
"You can come out now..." Yuki winced, attempting to gently pat off as much blood as he could reach.
Hiroki peeked through the jacket and sheet before appearing. Matsuda had left on one light, but it was better than none. The mess his rage had caused was intimidating as he scanned the mess of the place. When he finally laid eyes on Yuki, chills ran rampant throughout his body.
"Y-yuki-nii..."
"It's 10:38." Yuki told him, opening a bottle of disinfectant. "He'll be back before 11:45."
Yuki proceeded to pour the bottle's contents onto his back. Hiroki watched as Yuki took deep breaths, flinching. His grunts and small cries of pain barely echoing.
"Where are we going?" Hiroki asked, tears blurring his eyesight.
"He didn't lock all of them..." Yuki hissed, beginning to wrap his torso with bandages. Hiroki glanced over to the door. There were 10 locks on the door. Blinded with rage, Matsuda must have not had the patience to lock them all on his way out.
"Get dressed," Yuki painfully grunted, staggering up onto his feet.
"We're going to run away."