Chapter Text
“Would you like this warmed up?” Saki asked, already turning towards the microwave as her regular customer, Fujiwara, nodded his assent.
Predictable as always, he preferred his meals hot even in the humid summer heat, but she still had a hard time dropping the formality of asking.
He normally came in just past midnight, ordering the same pork cutlet bowl with udon. He was such a frequent customer that she made sure it was always stocked on her shifts. She had a fondness for her regulars, Fujiwara included, even though she only knew his name from the one time he forgot to remove his name tag, which appeared to have been a lingering remnant from a work party.
She often wondered what kind of work he did so late that required his schedule to be just as messed up as hers was. From what she could tell, he appeared to be some sort of accountant. He had that mousey hunched look, as if he spent a lot of time at the computer, and though she had made small talk with him occasionally, she never asked what he did for work. Fujiwara seemed plenty harmless; his eyes didn't linger on her like some of the other men who came in late at night, so she risked a smile every now and again.
The shrill beep of the microwave brought her back to the present, and she handed the meal back, savoring the warmth of the plastic tray on her palms as she tucked it into a carrier bag, stuffing in a pair of chopsticks and a towelette.
“Thank you for your patronage,” she smiled.
Fujiwara nodded back, grabbing the chopsticks immediately from the bag and cracking them apart on his way out to his usual spot on the stone half wall that framed the bike rack. Likely he would be out there for another forty minutes or so until his break was over, and then sometimes she could see him walking to the station on his way home in the peaceful hours of the early morning.
Saki didn't mind working the late shift. Her supervisor allowed her to choose her hours and she preferred the times when there were fewer customers. It was quiet on the outskirts of Tokyo and the sparse patrons were usually businessmen who needed a coffee or some alcohol, or occasionally one of the adult magazines they kept in the back corner. None of the customers ever made her feel too uncomfortable. She could tell they didn’t really see her as a person past her Lawson uniform, but she still took precautions anyway, making sure to avoid making too much small talk and waiting until the store was empty before she slipped out to go home. The most she had to fear were perverts taking photos up her skirt on the train or following her home in the dark.
The worst she had ever seen during her shift were a few disheveled drunks, but she made sure to be extra respectful to them, not drawing their attention, just in case.
Today was one of the days Saki worked until early morning. She spent most of the shift planning her grocery list for the week in between customers, thinking about what she could make when she woke up later in the afternoon.
Maybe some nice chicken curry.
When four am rolled around, Saki wrapped up her shift at the store by grabbing an egg salad sandwich for the train ride home and a lemon tea. Takuya was taking over for her next and she met him at the front register to checkout. He was a quiet guy, but unlike her last manager he got his share of the work done and didn't mind if she had to take off to see her family in Osaka every now and again. She was overdue for a visit home, but just hadn’t brought herself to buy the tickets. Money was tight.
“See you tomorrow, Takuya,” she said as she turned to leave the store, noticing a group of four or five people outside wearing black business suits.
Suits were not unusual in the Japanese workforce, but at four in the morning, the shape of the crowd struck her as odd. The more she looked, the more she realized the crowd was formed in a loose circle around the bike racks.
Takuya followed her gaze and leaned over the register to peer out the window.
“What's going on out there?”
“I’m not sure,” Saki said.
She could see the circle of people getting tighter around the object of their focus. Suddenly a pair peeled away from the crowd, slamming against the front window of the conbini, startling her and Takuya both.
“What the—?”
Takuya stared at the two people wrestling on the window as he started blindly reaching for the phone.
The group had quickly followed the pair, facing the store window as they wrestled against the glass. From the front Saki could see the group had rolled sleeves, and bore tattoos on their neck or wrist. Some of them even had the glimmer of piercings, but they all had matching blood red ties. Saki’s stunned brain finally put it together… yakuza. There was a group of yakuza at the store, and they were fighting.
Saki yelped as the blonde haired attacker drove his fist into the smaller man whose back was pressed up against the glass. In the morning light she recognized the haircut of the smaller man even from the back.
It's Fujiwara, she realized. They’re attacking Fujiwara.
They must have caught him walking home after work.
Takuya came around the front of the register, phone in his hand, rapidly speaking into the receiver. “No, I don’t know who it is but they are fighting outside.” He paced behind the register before holding the phone away from his face. “Saki, quick! Lock the door.”
The fight at the window was slowing down already. It seemed like Fujiwara was outmatched easily by his attacker and could do nothing to stop the onslaught. He slid down into the fetal position as the group around him jeered, and a new gang member stepped forward.
A woman.
Lean and muscular with a short, summer haircut that had made it hard to discern her right away. Her suit jacket hung from her shoulders, and when she moved with the swagger that matched the rest of the group, Saki could see flashes of her red undershirt. She advanced on Fujiwara and grabbed him by the hair.
Saki didn’t want to see what happened next.
She dropped her belongings next to the counter and rushed over to the door to lock it, cursing it as it automatically opened. Her shaking hands slapped at the button near the top of the door frame to turn off the power so she could manually slide them closed. She stood in the middle of the welcome mat and hooked her fingers into the small cutouts that worked as emergency handles and pulled them together just as a large, calloused hand slipped through, blocking the door from closing.
She froze, slowly looking upwards through the glass into the broad chest of a man, up to the tattoo of a snake crawling up his neck and behind his ear. She met his gaze in a moment of eye contact that felt like a lifetime. His brown eyes were full of malice, the rough shadow of stubble on his chin making his sinister smile seem even darker. An ice-cold spike of adrenaline stabbed through her veins.
He grinned at her as she redoubled her efforts and pressed her palms flat against the door, seeking traction. If she could just close the doors enough to make him pull his hand back through—
but he wasn’t even flinching—
Please, please, please, she silently begged the door. Close!
Movement to her right caught her attention. She watched, stunned, as a blade appeared through Fujiwara’s back, hitting the glass panel next to the door with a muffled tink. His murderer, the woman, looked over his shoulder through the glass and straight into Saki’s eyes.
She barely had time to think about it before she noticed the man in front of her, reaching with his other hand and bringing the blade of a sword to the gap.
Are they going to kill me, too?
He slipped the tip of the blade above his wedged fingers so that if pressed through, it would stab her right between the eyes. His arm flexed and he pressed the sword forward, just thin enough to fit, the metal glint of steel moving straight for her face— She ran.
Giving up on the door, she stumbled backwards away from the blade, away from the man, barely feeling when she bashing her hip against the first endcap of the aisle, sending a few packets of gummies to the floor. Without her at the entrance, the man slid the door open easily and a few more members of the gang entered the store with the tell-tale ding-dong of the motion sensor. She hurried towards the back door as Takuya watched her in confusion.
Her chest tightened with panic but she quickly forced herself up off the hard angle of the shelf and towards the back door. She stumbled, nearly slipping on a packet of something. The look in that gang member’s eyes had sparked some primal instinct to run.
She heard Takuya shout something as she turned into the hall with the customer bathrooms, slamming into the emergency exit door at the end of the hall and bounced off of it. Locked.
No no no no no.
She ducked into the nearest bathroom, feeling her pulse pounding in her neck. She clicked the lock into place and looked around for something to use. Nothing. The toilet was immaculate, just as Takuya liked to keep it during his shift, but that meant there was nothing for her to grab or use as a weapon. Just the stalls, some toilet paper, and the sinks. The cleaning supplies were kept in the store room behind the register, including the mop and some chemicals that she probably could have used to defend herself.
Why hadn’t she just gone there?
She climbed up on the toilet and pulled the stall door shut. Maybe she shouldn’t have locked the door, now they would know which bathroom she’s in. She felt like an idiot. She was doing everything wrong. She prayed to whatever god was out there that the door was sturdy enough to survive if someone tried to beat it down. Please let the police arrive soon.
Takuya had already called them… right? She wished she had her phone but it was still inside her bag near the register.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the doorbell chime of the front door as people walked across the threshold. Maybe the gang had just left. Maybe the police had just arrived.
She waited a few minutes in tense silence, clamping a hand over her mouth just in case. The door handle suddenly twisted and she jerked in fear.
The handle rattled again with more force. Surprisingly, she heard Takuya’s voice filter through the door.
“Uh, Saki.” He sounded as flustered as she felt. “The cops are here. It’s safe.”
She dropped down off the toilet and held her breath behind the door, hesitating.
“Saki...? Are you okay in there?” Takuya pried. “I just want to know you’re alright.”
“I’m okay,” she said.
Her hand shifted to the lock and she cracked the door open to Takuya’s worried face. “What happened?”
He swallowed noisily, and sweat dripped down his forehead. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever looked this nervous. “They got in.”
She opened the door a little wider. “Where’s the police?”
Suddenly the door was ripped out of her grasp, flinging open, and the man with the snake tattoo was standing there behind Takuya.
“Hello again, little Saki,” snake-neck said.
She backed up, nearly falling on her ass, but he snatched her by the front of her shirt. A large ring with a serpent wrapped around a ruby red gem glinted right in front of her face.
“Get off me!” she said, using both hands to try to pry the man’s fingers open.
Her puny efforts did nothing, and his calloused fist remained tightly twisted in the front of her blouse.
“Takuya!” she screamed.
She caught sight of him being dragged around the corner and outside the store by more of the thugs. How many were there?
“Come along, little thing,” the man with the red ring said as he pulled her out into the hall by her shirt. “We gotta go.”
“No, no, please, I didn’t see anything,” she begged, clutching the hand fisted in her shirt. “I don’t even know who you are— any of you!”
She tried to grab the door frame as they passed into the main room of the store, but the corner was smooth with no edge to grab, her fingers only scrabbled against bare white walls.
“It’s ok, don’t worry Saki-chan,” he mocked, exchanging his grip on her shirt to twist his hand through her hair, “you come with us and we’ll take good care of you.”
She cried out, immediately grabbing at his hand again as he pushed her head down, effectively bending her in half, and walked her out the store. It was all happening so fast. She couldn't think— she couldn't do anything. Her mind scrambled for some way to break his hold, some way to resist, but she was too panicked to form a single coherent plan.
The Lawson welcome mat passed under their feet, and the door’s familiar chime dinged obliviously as they crossed the threshold. Her body followed his grip on her head out the door and straight into the backseat of a police car.
The door slammed behind her and she turned, searching for the lock, the door handle. Nothing.
She heard Takuya take a deep breath behind her. A quick glance over her shoulder let her know he seemed mostly unharmed. He held his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry, Saki,” he moaned, “they just— I couldn’t—”
There weren’t words for how she was feeling about him right now, so she ignored him. She would tell him off after they escaped.
Through the tinted glass she could see cops cordoning off the front of the store.
“Help! Help us! We’ve been kidnapped!” She banged on the glass but nobody turned. Nobody looked.
Mr. Ring walked around to the passenger side of the car and slipped into the seat just as another man in a cop uniform got in the driver’s side. She couldn't tell if he was actually a corrupt cop or another gang member in disguise, but she instantly knew by the way he avoided looking at her in the backseat that he wouldn’t be helping them.
“Please just let us go, I won’t tell anyone,” she tried again, slipping her fingers through the mesh that divided the front and back seat.
Mr. Ring turned and smiled at her before he slammed his hand into the mesh, startling her back into the seat. “Be quiet. If I have to stop before we reach our destination, you’re going to regret it.”
She believed him. Instead she turned her body towards the window as the car began to move, trying to remember the twists and turns they were taking through the city, but it appeared they were heading into the suburbs. Then, into the countryside with rice fields like stairs up the mountain. Mr. Ring spent most of the ride texting on his phone, and the fake cop clicked on the radio once they left the city and a steady stream of classic rock filled the car the rest of the journey. Takuya had been still the whole ride, gripping his head in his hands and moaning pitifully.
By the time they arrived she had resolved to run the first chance she got. The moment they opened the door she was going to bolt. She knew the further they took her from home, the harder it was going to be to get back.
She pretended to be scared, even more scared than she actually was, when Mr. Ring peered over his shoulder to check on them. Now that she had a plan she couldn't tell what she was feeling anymore over the adrenaline. The countryside mansion they pulled in front of was traditionally extravagant, several buildings connected by professionally tended gardens and walkways.
She tensed her muscles, ready to leap out as soon as the door opened. As soon as there was a small gap she leaned forwards, stopping suddenly when a hand gripped her around the throat and slowly, forcefully, pressed her back against the seat.
“Not so fast,” Mr. Ring smiled. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
And she did, if only to get the feeling of his clawed grip off the pulse in her neck. She turned stiffly, grateful that he couldn't see her expression while her back was to him. Couldn’t see her gritted teeth or the tears welling up in her eyes as metal cuffs clicked into place around her wrists at the small of her back.
When she got out she noticed they did the same to Takuya, and they both were marched inside the main entryway, pausing only to remove their shoes at the entrance. Saki jumped as a bag was pulled over her head, the dark fabric brushing against her eyelashes and getting caught in her mouth when she tried to breathe.
The deeper they walked into the compound, the faster her heart began to beat.
She wasn’t getting out of here. She didn’t know what was happening. They hadn’t listened to her.
She was going to die.
Her legs gave out under her and she felt two sets of hands hoist her back up by her armpits and drag her limp body down the hall.