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cheemerthelizard · 4 years

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Crusader of Life 2: Chapter 17

Kakyoin dragged his feet along the pavement, keeping his eyes glued to the ground. He kept thinking if he took a walk, then Lily would appear back in their hotel room, asking why he had such a long face. Even after the girl in the ghost alley (Reimi, wasn’t it?) confirmed that she saw his wife ascend up with the same wound that she was cursed with, he couldn’t believe it. I told her I had a bad feeling didn’t I? he thought. I begged her to stay home. She promised me she’d come back alive.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn’t notice Koichi just across the street from him, who couldn’t help but look on with a twinge of pity.

“Mr. Kakyoin,” Koichi said as he crossed the street. “What are you doing? I haven’t seen you for days.”

Kakyoin looked beside him, then sighed. “I guess a part of me is still holding on to the hope that Lily is somehow alive.”

Koichi nodded. “I miss her, too,” he replied, but quickly added, “O-of course, I don’t miss her as much as you, but she still m-meant something to me.”

“I know what you meant,” Kakyoin answered, almost deadpan.

Geez, Koichi thought, losing a loved one really sucks the life out of you.

“You know, the Speedwagon Foundation shouldn’t be forcing you to work after you just lost your wife,” Koichi stated, in attempts to strike a conversation again. Maybe he was being too pushy, though.

“I’m not working,” Kakyoin told him, still emotionless. “They gave me some time off. I’m just walking around town.”

“Oh,” Koichi mumbled. “Sorry.” He started to walk away, until he saw a familiar face walking up the same way him and Kakyoin were.

“Mr. Jotaro!”

Kakyoin turned his head to face his old friend, who looked straight into his eyes with that infamous expression that couldn’t be deciphered.

“I think I’m getting close to finding the man who killed Lily,” Jotaro told him. “It was mere coincidence that I was traveling this way, but I thought you might want to join me.”

Koichi could practically feel the air around him change as Jotaro mentioned Lily. Kakyoin’s expression didn’t change much, but his eyes had a strange spark in them, and his teeth clenched together.

“Alright, I’ll come.”

Jotaro nodded, then continued down the path. Both Kakyoin and Koichi followed suit.

“How do you know you’re close?” Kakyoin asked Jotaro.

“Well, for one, I’ve checked every other clothing repair shop, and this is the last one, so if it’s not here, then there’s not much we can do. But I guarantee our killer will want his jacket button fixed,” Jotaro answered.

Kakyoin accepted that answer, and continued walking in silence. His frown was hiding his gritted teeth, and his pockets were hiding his clenched fists, so tight he could feel his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands.

Breaking the news to Kakyoin wasn’t easy. In fact, Jotaro found it was almost as hard as facing Dio. Three days later, and the scene still played through his head:

He stared at the door, taking deep breaths. Although he volunteered to tell Kakyoin to spare the others, who were still just kids, from having to deal with his close friend’s heartbreak, it didn’t make it any easier on him.

The heavy knock was sure to alert Kakyoin. Hopefully, Emily was asleep. Jotaro could handle telling the man by a small thread, but that man’s two-year-old he absolutely could not.

“Jotaro?” Kakyoin said as the door opened. “This is a surprise. What’s so important you stopped by midday to tell me?”

No, he couldn’t do this. Kakyoin didn’t deserve the crushing weight of death on his shoulders.

But he also deserved to know.

“It’s about Lily,” Jotaro started. Kakyoin gasped.

“Is she hurt?” he asked. “In the hospital? Will she be okay?”

“She… she won’t be okay,” Jotaro tilted his hat down, although it didn’t stop a tear from running down his cheek. “She died.”

It was almost like Jotaro could feel Kakyoin’s heart shatter with that gasp. Looking above the brim of his hat, he could see his best friend trying to remain calm in front of him.

“Lily… she… she can’t be dead!” Kakyoin protested. “Ace of Pentacles can save her!”

“It was sudden,” Jotaro explained. “The enemy killed her instantly. It happened so fast we didn’t have time to see her die.”

Maybe the last parts were a little bit of overkill. He could see it in Kakyoin’s bloodshot eyes as his breathing became short and staggered.

“I’m sorry,” Jotaro murmured. “There was nothing any of us could have done.”

Kakyoin would never forget Jotaro’s sudden somberness, signifying something was wrong the moment their eyes locked. Even now, there was no body to prove Lily was dead, and although he trusted Jotaro’s words with his life, there was nothing to prove that Lily couldn’t come back, limping if she had to, into his arms again. Until then, he would make sure her killer would pay, and pay dearly.

“This is the place,” Jotaro announced. “The only place that repairs jackets that I haven’t checked yet.”

Before Jotaro could lay a hand on the doorknob, Kakyoin ran up and took his place, making sure he was first to enter the store.

“Ah, new customers!” the store owner said as his head perked up from the chime of the bell. “Welcome!”

“We need you to locate the jacket this button fell off of,” Kakyoin ordered. He slammed the button on the desk, and Jotaro gasped. When did Kakyoin take the button from his pocket?

“Well, this is a peculiar request,” the owner mumbled to himself.

“It’s urgent,” Kakyoin added.

As the owner observed the button, he quietly hummed. “It does look similar to the buttons on this jacket,” he replied as he pointed over to a light purple suit.

Bingo! “What’s the name of the one who brought it in?”

“He might not remember that, Kakyoin,” Jotaro said.

“Are you saying I don’t remember my customer’s names?” the store owner remarked. “I remember the name of everyone who’s ever come here!”

“Then what’s his name?” Kakyoin asked.

“It’s…” the owner paused. “His name is… don’t think I don’t remember that man’s name,” he said. “It’s just easier to check.” He walked over to the jacket, reading the name. “Ah, yes. His name is…”

Before he finished, a small, teal tank with a skull on the front crawled up on his shoulder.

“Look over here,” it said.

To no one’s surprise, the owner didn’t hear it. Non-Stand users can’t hear Stands. However, he did feel the tank rolling on his shoulder. His head turned, and the tank jumped into his mouth.

Behind the door, Kira smiled to himself. Hopefully, everything would go as planned.

“This wasn’t anything like the way Lily died, was it?” Kakyoin asked.

“Not a chance,” Jotaro answered. “When we looked back, there was nothing.”

“Mr. Jotaro, Mr. Kakyoin, look!” Koichi exclaimed. While the two men were talking, a hand from behind the door was pulling on the jacket of their killer.

“That must be him,” Kakyoin muttered. His teeth gritted harder than ever. However, unlike Koichi, who ran towards the man behind the door before Jotaro stopped him, Kakyoin knew that this was most likely a trap.

Kira hmphed to himself. Looks like he’ll need a little extra boost to run over Sheer Heart Attack, he thought to himself. Sighing, he dug through his pocket, then tossed the hand in there to the floor, just enough to be seen, but close enough that he could bend down to get it.

That did it. Kakyoin’s fury reached its limit. As soon as he laid eyes on Lily’s severed hand, nothing else mattered. His entire train of thought was clouded with one thought: The murderer had Lily’s hand.

“Kakyoin, it’s a trap!” Jotaro shouted.

“I don’t care if it’s a trap!” Kakyoin snapped. “He’ll pay in Hell for what he’s done!”

Before Jotaro could stop him, Kakyoin started running. Behind the door, Kira smirked. And now, I’ve got you where I want you, he thought to himself.

As Kakyoin ran over the strange, tank-looking thing, it suddenly exploded, right underneath him. The explosion practically blew his legs off, shattered his eardrums, and made him dive headfirst into the wall. When Jotaro and Koichi looked back, he was limply laying on the floor.

“M-Mr. Kakyoin?” Koichi asked. “Mr. Kakyoin! Wake up!”

“We don’t have time to focus on him, Koichi,” Jotaro said.

“He’s your friend!” Koichi exclaimed. “Why wouldn’t you help your friend?”

“He is my friend, but the enemy isn’t attacking him right now!” Jotaro replied. “Right now, that Stand is attacking you!”

***

Kakyoin awoke in a meadow, laying on the grass. Why he was here, only God knew. He slowly rose up to stand, careful not to squash any of the beautiful flowers around him. The birds all across the sky seemed to be flying one way, not in fear of anything, but in admiration of what was ahead. Curious, Kakyoin followed, sensing a presence of something calming as he approached. He saw the glowing aura before he saw the actual presence, but he knew instantly who it was. Standing on the top of a hill, with wings of an angel, was the comforting face of his wife.

“Lily?” Kakyoin asked. The wings fluttered a bit as the angel turned around.

“Noriaki?” Lily asked back. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same question,” Kakyoin replied, his mouth forming into a smile.

“This is the gate to Heaven,” Lily answered. “And I’m here to cast judgement on those who’ve died that have been close to me.”

It took a while, but when Kakyoin connected the dots with Lily’s words, he gasped. “I’m dead?”

“It seems to be that way,” Lily nodded. “So, since I’m the closest one to you, I’m here to pass judgement to see if you reach Heaven or Hell.”

Kakyoin nodded in acknowledgement. For some reason, he was very calm at the moment, despite the fact that this judgement would decide his eternal resting place. That, and he had to leave everyone on earth behind, no matter what, including his daughter.

“Now then,” Lily lifted up a piece of paper to her eyes. “Well, what do you know? There’s only one question! Did you give the ones closest to you all love you could?”

Kakyoin almost scoffed at this question, but decided that wouldn’t be very helpful in his judgement. “Yes, of course!” he answered, confidently and honestly.

“You gave Emily all the love you could?”

“Especially her.”

“You gave me all the love you could?”

“I gave you the most out of anyone else!” Kakyoin almost started to cry, from Lily’s disbelief in him or the fact that her face was tangible again, he wasn’t sure.

“Then why didn’t you save me?”

Kakyoin froze. Why didn’t he save her? There was nothing he could do! At least, that’s what he was told by everyone. His inner thoughts said otherwise, but he blocked those out as best as he could.

“Why didn’t you save me, Kakyoin?”

The ground underneath started to rumble. “Why did you call me by my last name?” Kakyoin asked.

“Because you’re so covered in sin I don’t even want to be associated with you. Why am I here, dead, when I had a child to take care of, and more Speedwagon Foundation cases to solve, when you could have saved my life by forcing me not to go out that day and stay with Emily?”

“I didn’t want you to think that I wanted to rule this family with an iron fist!” Kakyoin protested as a crack formed underneath his feet. “It’s not fair to you to force you to do anything!”

“It was a test!” Lily’s voice suddenly became harsh and angry. “If you had really loved me enough, you would have forced me to stay inside and not walk into my impending doom!”

“Lily, please!” Kakyoin cried. He was holding on to the edge of the grass with his fingers on just his left hand. “Just give me a second chance, and I’ll prove I can change it with Emily!”

Lily walked up to her struggling husband, giving him a glare he’d only seen her give to Dio.

“Enjoy your stay in Hell, Kakyoin.”

Lily stomped on Kakyoin’s fingers, forcing him to let go of the ground and fall into the fiery abyss below. The whole way down, she offered not even the slightest ounce of remorse for him.

And, as he was falling down, Kakyoin suddenly jerked up from bed, breathing quickly. He was back in bed, in a dark room. His room. Not the hotel bedroom in Morioh, but the room in his and Lily’s house. Was Morioh all just a dream?

“Bad dream, Noriaki?” Lily asked groggily. It took everything in Kakyoin not to hold her tightly in his arms, tight enough that it was sure to suffocate her.

“I’ll say,” he answered instead. “It was extremely vivid, and it featured another Joestar, an illegitimate child of Joseph. I’ll tell you all the details later, but the important part is that you had died.”

“That does sound like a bad dream,” Lily got up from her pillow, turning to the man beside her.

Something was terribly wrong.

Lily’s corpse was talking to Kakyoin, with dry, sickly grey skin. She didn’t have any eyes or teeth, leaving a void where the missing parts were. She lifted up her hand, her bony, skinny hand, and placed it on Kakyoin’s shoulder. It was ice cold. “It’s a good thing that none of it is real, right?”

The sight was too scary to look away from. Kakyoin was frozen, unable to scream or even breathe.

“What’s wrong, Noriaki?” Lily’s corpse asked. “It’s me. I’m here.” The jaw fell off of her face and onto the floor.

Suddenly, a scream came from Emily’s room. A scream that she never used unless she was in severe pain, like the time she fell off her bike while it was speeding down a hill. The worry for his daughter overtook Kakyoin’s terror at the sight of his wife as he ran to her room to see what was the matter. As soon as he burst open the door, he saw a familiar figure in the corner of the room, standing over Emily as blood poured out of her skull.

“Too late,” Dio chuckled.

Before Kakyoin could scream, Emily slowly rose from the ground. Her teeth were like icicles, her now glowing red eyes piercing through her father’s gaze.

“Daddy, I’m hungry,” she whined, although this whine was off. It didn’t sound petty, it sounded sinister. “Can you get me a snack?”

The moment Kakyoin moved his legs to run, Emily leaped at him, knocking him to the ground. Her little fingernails sunk into his skin, and he could feel his blood being sucked away.

“Thank you, Daddy,” Emily smiled, her fangs offering no comfort. “Now you can be just like Mommy!”

He wanted to fight back. Kakyoin wanted to throw this little demon taking his blood onto the wall, and kick it until it didn’t move any more. But it was really hard to do that when the demon held his daughter’s face. As he struggled for his last glimpse at the scene around him, the fuzzy shapes that somewhat resembled the ones he knew, he noticed another light forming. It grew, slowly, until his eyes were completely open again.

He was back at that shoe shop, lying face up, looking at the ceiling.

Kakyoin rose from his unconscious position, sitting upright. He didn’t remember exactly what happened before passing out, because it all happened so quickly. One moment, he was seeing red, screaming in rage, running after the man who killed Lily, and the next, he was flying towards a wall, headfirst, upside down.

Taking a look at his surroundings, it was clear that an explosion had happened here. Multiple explosions, actually. And judging from the charred wood coming from the back hallway, an even bigger explosion happened back there. Was it an explosion that sent Kakyoin into the wall?

So maybe it was that tank that made Lily practically disappear, he thought to himself. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t move an inch. Looking down at them, they were still somewhat intact, but the knees had been blown clean off. No big deal, of course, Hierophant could act as his legs. However, one look at the Stand, and its legs were unusable, too.

Kakyoin could hear some muffled talking coming from outside. Surely that was their Stand user. Listening closer, he could hear the voice of Koichi, too. He had to get out there and help, or he’d never forgive himself. If worse came to worst, he could always drag himself with his hands.

However, it wouldn’t have to come to that, because Kakyoin thought of something. Hierophant Green was able to unfold into nothing but strings. Could those strings rope together and act as a brace? It was worth a try. Kakyoin decided to use the strength of his arms, which were the least damaged parts of him. He lifted himself to his feet, and although he could really feel the burn in his arms, it worked. Slowly but surely, Kakyoin worked his way to the back door, grabbing onto the walls when he could. When he finally reached the door, he heard Koichi again, but this time, he could hear the words.

“Your name… is Yoshikage Kira…” he said as he winced in pain.

“H-how did you figure that out?” the other man, most likely the killer, exclaimed.

His name is Yoshikage Kira, Kakyoin thought to himself. He listened to the rest of their conversation, but it was barely important. All that mattered was Koichi was losing, and he would need backup fast. Jotaro was already out, so it would be up to Kakyoin. Slowly and quietly, he opened the door.

“All I need to do now is turn Koichi’s student badge into a bomb with Killer Queen, and he’ll be out of my skin,” Kira said to himself. He summoned his Stand, a catlike creature, and it started to place its finger near Koichi. If he was going to intervene, Kakyoin would have to do it now. There was no time to think about how this man seemingly had two Stands.

“You did well, Koichi,” Kakyoin muttered. “You won against Kira mentally.”

Kira gasped. He had Killer Queen deflect Hierophant’s emeralds before he was hit by them.

“Well, this is a surprise,” Kira chuckled. “I thought you would have died from the explosion.”

“It’ll take more than an explosion to kill me,” Kakyoin replied. He gave Kira a sideways glance.

“So you’ve decided to fight me, in your pathetic state,” Kira observed. “Are you doing it just to stall for time so Koichi doesn’t die? Perhaps it’s because you want to be a hero, even to your death. Or maybe you’re still holding on to the hope that your wife is still alive?”

Kakyoin wasn’t expecting that question. He froze.

“Lots of people do,” Kira continued. “I’ve seen some of the families of my victims beg the police to keep searching, saying that there’s no body to prove that they’re dead. And for Lily, she can make a copy of herself before she dies, so she has to be alive somewhere, right?”

Despite knowing that Kira had seen this same situation before, Kakyoin was still surprised that he knew his exact thoughts.

“Let me tell you something,” Kira said. “Lily is dead! I saw her body explode right before my eyes. You’ll never see her again.” He knew that the one thing keeping Kakyoin in the fight was hope. If he could eliminate it completely, then he would be a much easier opponent to face. And he was right. He could see the little flame of hope fade from Kakyoin’s eyes as he fought tears back to keep his composure.

“So, she’s really gone…” he muttered.

Kira nodded, smiling lightly.

“Well, then,” Kakyoin continued. A couple of Hierophant’s strings shot towards Kira and gripped his neck as tight as possible. Kakyoin looked up, and a new spark was in his eyes. “It’s all the easier for me to finish you off!”

Kira squeezed his eyes shut, expecting the worst. However, when it took a while for him to stop breathing, he slowly opened them. Sure enough, Hierophant Green was wrapped around his throat, but it was so wimpy he couldn’t feel a thing. It must have taken a lot of energy just for Kakyoin to stand up, and it showed through Hierophant.

“Your Stand is weak,” Kira smirked. “It barely has a hold on me.” He summoned Killer Queen, and chopped Hierophant’s strings. There was a snap, and Kakyoin’s right leg bent where it shouldn’t have, forcing him to kneel to the ground while an agonizing scream left his lungs.

“I’d love to chat more, but I don’t have time,” Kira continued. “Josuke will be here any minute now, and I have to get away before that. Unfortunately, this is where your story ends.”

“I wouldn’t move from that spot, if I were you,” Kakyoin warned, gritting his teeth as he sat down, careful to keep his broken leg away from as much pain as possible. The place where the bone snapped was poking out of his skin.

Kira chuckled a little, but it soon turned into a full on laugh. “Are you trying to intimidate me?” he asked. “You, sitting down with a snapped bone in your leg, knees shattered, having to use your Stand as a brace, trying to do something against me?” As he talked, he walked forward. “What could you possibly-”

Kira was cut off by a dozen emeralds shooting forward at him. He backed away in time, but then a dozen more shot at him from behind. Killer Queen blocked them, but he backed up again, having more shoot out from some unknown source. No matter where he stepped, emeralds kept attacking him. Soon, however, Kira had figured it out. While he was busy laughing to himself at the man’s desperate attempts to choke him to death, Hierophant Green was making itself like a tripwire around the whole place.

“You’re trapped,” Kakyoin smiled weakly. “Like you said before, Josuke will be here any minute. If I just stay awake long enough, you’ll be found out. But that isn’t enough to compensate for what you did to Lily.”

Kira gulped.

“An old tactic I used on another enemy of mine, ten years ago,” Kakyoin continued. “Take this, Yoshikage Kira! 20 meter radius Emerald Splash!”

Kira was bombarded with hundreds of those shiny green gems, some barely scraping his skin, others making a small hole straight through his body. By the time Kakyoin was done, Kira was completely out, laying on the floor.

“Koichi,” Kakyoin heaved, “if it weren’t for you, none of this would have been possible. Thank you. You’ve grown over these few weeks, and I can tell. This may be the last time I can talk to you, so farewell.”

And so, as his vision blurred, Kakyoin allowed himself to faint.

#diu #Diamond is Unbreakable #Kakyoin x oc #oc #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure

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woofools · 5 years

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Years ago I had a creative writing assignment while I was neck-deep in a Yin Yang Yo! hyperfixation, so I basically lifted a bunch of characters from the show, put them in a human AU setting, and changed their names.

BUT, I was talking with @yuckisalesbian, who was like “hey I’d read that!” This one’s for you, pal.

So here it is! A (sort of, very very loose) human/modern day AU! (Names changed back for clarity.)

Please be merciful this was written a while ago, as I’ve said. Beware of swears.

There was a series of crashes and the sound of glass breaking, then a muffled glugging noise. A pause, then, in unison,

“We’re so dead.”

Yo didn’t move from his spot in bed. He wasn’t sure of the exact time (checking it would require moving), but he was sure that it was too early for this shit. He entertained the thought of ignoring the sounds of rising calamity and just dropping back off to sleep, but then the smoke alarm went off. Regretfully, he had to let the fantasy of further sleep drop back to the hopeful abyss it’d sprung from. The noise, if nothing else, would keep him awake.

He still didn’t move, though.

There was the sound of feet approaching at a semi-frantic clip, and then he heard his door being thrown open.

“Heeeeeyyy, Yo, buddy, you awake?”

It was Yang. Yo grunted.

“Cool, that’s cool, so um, hey! Quick, completely random question that has absolutely nothing to do with our current situation: where do we keep the fire extinguisher?”

Yo heard Yin frantically yelling for her brother from the kitchen, and grumbled, “Back of the closet.”

“YANG!!”

“’KaycoolthanksYobye!”

And with that, his door slammed shut.

Yo stayed where he was for another thirty seconds, this time trying to convince himself that two twelve-year-olds could absolutely handle a fire on their own. Absolutely. In no way did they require his help. None at all.

Yang was distantly yelling, “How do you work this thing?!” as Yin screamed, “Squeeze it! Squeeze it!”

Yo groaned into his pillow, and pushed himself upright.

*****

An hour later, after the fire had been put out, the shards of dishware had been disposed of, and the half-gallon of milk had been mopped off the floor, the three of them sat on the sofa eating cereal out of pans (all the other bowl-like instruments were either broken or dirty). The twins kept glancing at each other. Yo braced himself.

Sure enough, after a minute or so of mental-twin-communication – or whatever the hell he was witnessing – Yang began, “So hey, Yo—”

“No,” he said through a mouthful of cereal.

Yin sputtered. “We haven’t even asked you anything yet!”

“Still no.”

Yang stuck his lip out. “Why not?”

Yo gave him an unimpressed, annoyed look. “Because I have to buy a new microwave.”

Both twins deflated.

“We were trying to make you breakfast,” Yin offered meekly.

“So you could butter me up for whatever you’re trying to ask for? Stick to something noncombustible next time.”

He watched the pair deflate further, staring dolefully into the last dregs of their cereal. Ah, and there was the guilt, right on schedule. Which he felt was (mostly) unfounded; he was fairly certain they weren’t as broken up as they were pretending to be, anyway.

And yet, here he was, falling for it.

“What were you gonna ask me?” he half-groaned.

The fact that they both instantly perked up only added to his “they’re just putting it on” –theory.

Yin began, “So our school’s hosting this thing—”

“—it’s kind of like a talent show—” Yang threw in.

“—and we signed up for it—”

“—because who’s more talented than us?—”

“And families and stuff can come to watch—”

“Yo, you have to come watch us!”

“Come see us do our bit pleasepleaseplease!”

They said all this very fast, and at roughly the same time. Yo reeled.

“…Lemme get this straight,” he said slowly. “You two were planning to bribe me into coming to see your school thing?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty much.”

“Which won’t actually cost me anything other than my time?” Yo went on.

“Uh… yes?”

“Is that a trick question?”

Yo wasn’t sure what to make of the outrageously hopeful faces boring into his soul. “That’s… that’s not something that needs bribing…”

“That mean you’ll come?” they asked in unison.

“I– yeah, knuckleheads, that means I’ll come.”

He rode out the mini-explosion of joy and excitement by grumbling that this was probably the stupidest reason they’d had to date for inadvertently destroying his kitchen.

*****

The twins left for a nearby park shortly after finishing their cereal, claiming they needed to go practice their act. They refused to tell him what the act was exactly, because for some reason kids relished the idea of surprises. Yo, who was old, took surprises with a mixture of apprehension and distaste. But it was making them happier than he’d seen thus far, so alright, fine, whatever. “Surprise” it was.

Yo was grudgingly heading out to Sears to pick up a new microwave. Microwavable meals had been the majority of what they’d been living on, so not having a usable one around the apartment would only make life that much more difficult. As the “adult” it was his sad duty to put aside his plans for the day to go get one. As compensation, he decided that this meant that there were two kids who wouldn’t be getting an allowance for the next three months. He hadn’t bothered to mention that to them yet. That should be a fun conversation.

He stood waiting for the elevator, absently swinging his keys, when a voice down the hall suddenly decided to take a metaphorical cheese grater to his eardrums:

“Yo? That you down there? Oooh how’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

He heard the woman shuffling down the hall towards him, and weighed the merits of pretending to have a heart attack and die. She linked arms with him before he could make up his mind.

“Hello Edna,” he said stiffly instead.

“Oh, Yo, it’s so good to see you, I was getting so worried! I never see you out and about lately, and whenever I go to check on you, you aren’t home!”

“Really? Huh. What a strange and completely unintentional happenstance.”

“I told my Herman— I said, ‘Herman, if poor Yo doesn’t show up soon, I’m going to need you to do something Herman!’ And d’y’know what he said? He said, ‘Yes Mother!’ He’s such a good boy, my Herman, he was worried about you too—”

“Interesting,” Yo grumbled, internally demanding God tell him why the elevator was taking so long.

“So you gonna to tell me where you been? Where you going now?”

Not seeing a way out, Yo said, “I have to go get a new microwave.”

“Really?! Why’s that?”

The elevator doors finally opened, but just as Yo was about to (happily) excuse himself, he realized what had taken it so long in the first place: a couple of guys were trying to move a couch. How they’d managed to cram the thing in there was a mystery to Yo, but now it seemed to be his unhappy privilege to get to watch them try to wriggle it out.

Despondently, he replied, “Kids blew up the old one.”

“Oh yeah, you’ve got those kids living with you now…” Edna’s grip on his arm suddenly got a little tighter. “So, what are they anyway? Niece and nephew? Second cousins?”

“Uh… no? They’re… y’know, mine.”

“Really.” Unless he was imagining things, her tone had iced over just a touch. “Adopted?”

“…Yes and no…”

“What?”

This was undeniably the last thing Yo wanted to be talking about right now. But then, talking to Edna was undeniably the last thing he wanted to be doing period, so in a way it kind of fit. “They’re my real kids – biologically, I mean – but I’ve only really been their ‘parent’ since last year.”

“Ah. And the mother?”

“Gone.” And fuck you Edna, because that was all he was saying on the matter.

But apparently that was good enough for her, because all she said was “I see,” and then resumed snuggling into his arm, warm and bubbly as ever. “I’ll bet she just took the kids and ran, didn’t she? How horrible for you! Well, I guess she got her just desserts, isn’t that right Yo? And now you have your precious little babies back!”

Yo didn’t say anything this time. He was too busy trying to convince himself that it was indeed a real person hanging off him, not some cartoon escaped from a kids’ show.

“But you said they blew up your microwave? That must be something they picked up from their mother’s side, I’ll bet you any money— Y’know Yo, if you want, I could send Herman over to talk to them for you— OOH! We could have a family dinner together! The three of you could come by tonight, I’ll make my famous creamed pork just for the occasion—”

The guys had finally freed the couch, thank Jesus. Swiftly untangling himself, Yo said, “Sorry, I’ve got plans,” and practically leapt into the elevator. The last thing he saw as the doors closed was Edna looking as though she’d just had her favorite treat snatched out from under her nose. Sighing in relief, he slumped against the back wall of the elevator.

He’d made a solemn promise to himself that the only way he’d ever have dinner with Edna Laskey was if someone’s life hung in the balance. He had no intention of breaking that promise today.

*****

Yang stuck the landing from his jump off the monkey bars, then spun around to face his sister, arms outstretched in showmanship. Yin nodded, smiling.

“Nice. I still think we should have some streamers though…”

Yang made a face. “We don’t need any stupid streamers, Yin. The act’s fine the way it is.”

“Says the guy who wanted to use rocket packs…”

“It would’ve been cool!”

“Uh-huh. Tell me again, where did you think we were going to get the rocket packs?” Yin asked, head tilted challengingly.

Yang pouted, and didn’t answer.

“I rest my case.”

“…still would’ve been cool…”

“Still would’ve been completely impossible, meathead.”

Yang stuck out his tongue, and his sister returned the gesture. Then his face lit up.

“Okay wait hold on… If we did use streamers—” (Yin squealed,) “—Lemme finish. If we used streamers, then could we also add some fight moves?”

Yin suddenly looked much less enthused. “‘Fight moves’?”

“Yeah, like karate kicks and stuff. We could throw ‘em in at the end.” Yang took the opportunity to display his karate-kicking prowess, with copious amounts of “hi-yah!”s and “chee-hoo-wah!”s for good measure. With a final, vicious kick, his sneaker went flying off.

“Nice going, dork-butt,” Yin said dully as she watched the shoe fly through the air.

The park they were in was, unfortunately, at the top of a high hill. At the bottom, there was a Walgreens and an attached parking lot. The twins watched the shoe plummet from the sky before rolling down the hill, right underneath the maroon Impala parked at the edge of the lot.

“Aw crud,” Yang groaned, stalking down the hill. His sister hopped up from where she sat and trailed after him, snickering.

Upon reaching the car, Yang ducked down and stretched his arm as far as he could. Which, since he was a twelve-year-old, wasn’t very far at all.

“I can’t get it,” he grunted. “Can you reach it from the other side?”

Yin circled around the car and imitated her brother’s actions, with similar results. “Nope,” she called back. “Try crawling under on your stomach.”

Yang grumbled irritably to himself, but nonetheless dropped to his stomach and began trying to worm his way under the car. Yin straightened up, using the door handle as leverage.

The door opened.

Yin stumbled, landing hard on her rear. A chunky Manilla envelope fell from the car and landed in her lap.

“What’re you doing?” Yang asked from under the car.

“The– the door opened.”

She heard rapid shuffling from under the car. Seconds later her brother came from around the front, hopping on one foot as he tried to tug his sneaker back on. By that point she’d already gotten to her feet, and was just about to toss the envelope back into the car and slam the door.

“What’s this?” Yang asked, plucking the envelope from her hand.

“It fell out of the car,” she said, trying to snatch it back. Yang dodged her hand and retreated several paces.

“Whatcha think’s in here?” he asked, holding it up to the light as if trying to see through it.

“It doesn’t matter dorkasaurus, it’s not ours! Give it back!”

“Lighten up dorkasaurus-rex,” he said, lifting the metal tab, “I’m not gonna hurt it.”

“Yang, don’t—!” but he’d already lifted the flap.

“Holy—”

Yin moved to her brother’s side and peeked into the envelope he was holding. Her jaw went slack.

The envelope was filled with thick rolls of hundred dollar bills.

“Put it back, Yang,” Yin begged. “If the owner comes back and catches us holding this—”

Yang hastily resealed the envelope and lobbed it back into the car. It landed in the center of the bench seat in the back, on top of a pile of blankets that had been heaped there. Yin could also see what looked like a champagne glass full of water (??) in the cup holder, and several journals strewn about the floor. As she wondered what any of these things were doing in the back of an Impala, she noticed, through a crack in the blankets—

She screamed and grabbed her brother’s wrist, dragging him back up the hill as fast as she could manage and ignoring his alarmed questions.

As she’d looked at the pile of blankets, she’d seen an eye looking back.

*****

Yo didn’t know up from down when it came to appliances, so after thirty minutes of futilely trying to compare microwaves against each other, he broke down and just bought the cheapest one they offered. As he exited the store with the box under his arm, he felt his cell buzz insistently in his pocket. The ID read “yin.”

“Y’ello?”

Of all the things he could have possibly expected to hear on the other end of the line, frantic, hysterical sobbing wasn’t on the list.

“Yin?”

She was saying something, repeating it over and over, but he’d be damned if he could pull a single legible word from the mess.

“Yin? Yin, you gotta calm down, what happened? Yin—?”

Yin gave a sudden loud exclamation, there was a sharp sound he couldn’t quite place, then silence.

“Yin…?”

For a horrible second, Yo thought the call had gotten dropped. But there was what sounded like shuffling from the other end; was that someone messing with the phone, or some kind of weird feedback? Then, a distant, very male, very adult voice said,

“That just won’t do, now will it?”

The line went dead.

*****

The cop had a bristly blonde mustache that hovered over the stubble covering the rest of his chin. His paunch threatened the integrity of his shirt’s buttons, and he had sweat stains under his arms. He paced absently in front of Yo while his partner sat off to the side behind a table, watching them. After another moment of silence, the mustached cop said, “Tell me what happened one more time.”

Yo’s fists clenched involuntarily, but he steadied himself with a deep breath. “I woke up this morning to a lot of noise because my kids had accidentally blown up the microwave—”

“No,” interrupted the cop, “from the beginning.”

Yo faltered. “That– That is the—”

“Where’d you get the kids in the first place?” the cop’s partner specified, the fluorescent lights creating a shining spot on his balding head.

“From… Their Mom went missing a year ago—”

“And what was your relationship to her?” asked the first cop, who was now standing directly in front of Yo, staring down at him.

Yo shifted a bit in his uncomfortable plastic seat. “Is there a professional way to say ‘one-night stand’?”

“Did you know your ‘one-night stand’ had gotten pregnant as a result of that night?” Mustache asked.

“…yeah. She told me.”

“But you didn’t want kids, did you?” asked Mustache, sneering.

Taken aback by the cop’s sudden hostility, Yo blurted, “What does this have to do with—?”

“Answer the question,” Baldy interjected.

Yo was quiet for a second, feeling suddenly disoriented. Eventually, he managed to grind out the half-lie, “No. Not at the time.”

Mustachio looked grimly triumphant. The queasy feeling Yo had gotten when he’d first heard Yin sobbing over the phone now had company: a twitching, pulsating kind of foreboding. He was having a harder time working out the origin of this new feeling, though.

“Keep going,” Mustache pressed (though Yo was starting to realize he most likely knew all this already). “How did you end up taking care of the kids you’d previously abandoned?”

“Their Mom had gone missing, and there was no one else to look after them,” Yo said, feeling like a child being grilled by a particularly sadistic teacher.

“So she did,” said Mustache, now falling heavily into the seat in front of Yo. “We had a look at the file before we brought you in, didn’t we Brian?”

Baldy nodded, producing a folder from somewhere underneath the desk and handing it to his partner. Mustache casually flipped through the papers inside.

“Mom was supposed to pick the kids up from school. Never showed. They had to walk home. Called the police four days later when she still didn’t show up. Kids didn’t have anyone else to stay with, so they briefly went into foster care. You, Mr. Yo,” the cop’s eyes darted up to observe Yo briefly, “were on their birth certificates as their biological father, so you were contacted. You showed up, the situation was explained, and after all the legal issues were ironed out, the kids were packed off to live with you. That sound about right?”

The cop’s steadfast refusal to focus on the fact that two children had just been abducted in favor of rehashing a year-old case made Yo’s frustration (and phantom sense of dread) increase by a factor of five. He nodded stiffly and hoped he would get to the point.

Mustache carelessly tossed the folder back onto the desk and pushed himself out of his chair. “Kind of suspicious that both your kids and their mom would inexplicably go missing, don’t you think? Especially only about a year apart from each other…”

He resumed his pacing, speaking almost thoughtfully. “Here’s what I think happened: I don’t think you planned on so much as calling this woman after you were done with her, so when she calls you saying she’s pregnant, you panic and hit the bricks. Years down the road, she tracks you down. Maybe she’s in desperate need of money. Maybe she just wants you to finally do right by your kids. Doesn’t really matter the reason; you want nothing to do with it. Angry accident or preplanned move, one way or another that girl ends up dead.

“I don’t know how or where you got rid of the body; that’s an issue for another day. Bottom line is you thought that was the end of things. But then you get the call. They tracked you down. There’s no one else to pawn the kids off on. And you don’t like that.

“Now the story as I see it can go one of two ways at this point: either you’d decided before they’d even moved in that they wouldn’t be staying with you for long, or you’d tolerated them until they made your microwave go bang, and then that set you off. Either way, you decided to do exactly what you did the last time you had a problem you couldn’t get rid of. Isn’t that right?”

The cop was staring at him with savage triumph, every inch the person who thought they’d seen through and dismantled a cunning ruse. Yo stared back in dumbstruck silence. He understood the foreboding he felt now, and understanding only made it stronger.

The police thought he was responsible for the disappearance of his children.

They weren’t going to help him.

*****

It was 2:00 am before the police finally let him leave. They didn’t have enough evidence to hold him, so when hours of trying to bully a confession out of him didn’t work, they let him go with a warning not to leave town and the promise/threat that they’d be in touch. By the time Yo got back to his darkened apartment, he was so numb that a faraway part of his consciousness questioned if he was still even a real person at all.

He closed the apartment door behind him, but paused as he went to lock it. Slowly, he removed his hand from the latch. He went to walk away, but stopped as he got to the corner of the hallway leading to the bedrooms, looking back at the door.

Sliding against the wall, he sat down on the floor and stared at the door.

He sat there for hours trying to convince himself they wouldn’t be coming back through it. He didn’t listen.

*****

Yin was sitting on the couch, trying to read a book. Yang was also sitting on the couch, trying to annoy her by imitating various bodily functions. Usually the twins’ squabbling set him on edge, but right at that moment Yo couldn’t have cared less. They were home, bickering like they always did, unhurt and whole. They both went silent when he hugged them, but then Yo wasn’t normally a hugger, so their surprise was justified. He suspected he’d be doing a lot more of it from this point on though, if he ever let go of them to begin with—

The phone rang.

Yo jolted slightly, and looked around, disoriented and groggy. He was on the floor, slumped against the wall facing the door of the apartment. Where had the twins gone? They’d been here, he’d felt the weight of them in his arms, heard their voices, they’d been here—

He stood up, head sent spinning, and stumbled down the hall. They’d gone to their room. They were just in their room. He ignored the phone.

Yin’s bed was neatly made, while Yang’s merely had its blankets haphazardly thrown back up over the bed. But they weren’t there.

Reality came smashing back down on his head. They weren’t there. They hadn’t been there all night. He didn’t know where they were.

The phone rang and rang in the background. Yo made no move to answer it. Eventually, it went silent. They weren’t there.

Haltingly, he pried himself away from the doorway. He wondered, dully, distantly, what he should do with himself now. The question was met with an agonizing barrage of white noise.

The phone rang again.

Yo stared at it for a couple of seconds before slowly reaching over and lifting the phone from the charger. He answered it with nothing more than a small “hm?”

“Took you long enough,” snapped the person on the other end. For a moment the white noise returned to completely consume the scope of Yo’s thoughts, and then he was white-knuckling the phone as he held it to his ear, eyes wide. The voice on the other end of the phone was the same one he’d heard when Yin and Yang had gone missing.

“You’ve misplaced a pair of things, correct? Did you know to find things you’ve lost, sometimes it helps to retrace your steps back from the place you lost them?” The voice paused. “In case you happen to be a complete imbecile, be at the park in twenty minutes. If you’re late or bring anyone with you, we won’t be speaking.”

They hung up before Yo could get a word in.

#I speak #Yin Yang Yo #yin #yang #master yo #I remember being proud of this #I actually managed to make my teacher go ''what do you mean that's all there is??'' at any rate

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