The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 21 - Arata (Akihito)

After he had heard Asami rush from the room, he had been alone for the rest of the day, save for the man who had stayed just outside the door. A few times, Arata had to call for him by resorting to the few words of English he felt sure about: He needed to go to the restroom. Though his guard had a gruff face and had not spoken to him, he had been careful when he had put the cuffs back around his ankle and had never hurried him.

Once, he was brought some tea, which he drank when he finally gave in to his craving for the biscuits, which that Alex-man had left earlier on a silver platter. With that platter and the visit from the blonde man, it all had started, in fact. Arata did not know what exactly had happened, but he had noticed the Japanese's rage, even though he had still hidden between the pillows from his view. His heart had started to thumb up through his throat. He had already expected to soon find himself again in some small, gray, hard cell with his body aching from the kicks and blasts of fists ...

But that had not happened. Asami had just left and no one had come to torture or scream at him.

Dinner was brought at nightfall, and the guard had sat on a chair across the room to make sure he would not do anything stupid with the cutlery. Then he had been allowed to step out another time and had been given a bucket in case he needed to relieve himself at night.

Firstly, he had felt disgusted by the idea, yet then he had slowly realized what it meant: This might be a cell and him a prisoner, yet no one hurt him here – apart from himself when he had tried to climb over the gate or to scratch his wrists open with a dull knife.

There were still some band-aids on his arm, but all in all, he had been pretty lucky. And now, while dusk settled outside, he wondered if he still was: Lucky?

It only made him confused, though. He sat for a long while, in the light of a single lamp on the nightstand, listening to the noise of the crickets outside that only stopped after midnight, kneading his hands into the hem of the thick blanket.

He had been in one prison, and it had been dark and hurting and cold. He was in another now that was warm and soft and pretty. From both, he had not been able to run. But why? And why had he not been allowed to leave the apartment in Warsaw, either? Had that been a cell as well?

When he fell asleep, he dreamt about himself hanging off the edge of a building. If he'd fall, he'd be dead. It was too deep! Yet, instead of pulling himself up – if he actually had the strength to do that – he climbed down. Down, away from Asami, fleeing from him, who stared at him from above, smiling.

Once he found the ground, he started running. Running for hours, maybe for days. Just straight ahead. Until there was an ocean across his path. In the black waves, he knew he would not stand a chance. Still, if he wanted to go onwards and not turn back, this was the only way. He prepared to dive in, then a hand caught his, small and strong.

He slept for a while without visions coming to his mind. When they did again, he was running again, now through a burning forest, the smoke so thick it was suffocating him, the flames so hot they burned his skin. But there was a silk thread in his hand, tautly spanning through the woods, like a guiding he could pursue with closed eyes. It was very thin, very fine, and along it, he followed. The surrounding blaze closed in but never reached him, never touched him, for as long as he just held on to the string, so delicate and yet so strong. Even with all his force, he would not be able to rip it in two. Not that he wanted to.

In the end, the forest cleared, and he left the fire behind.

But he kept running and running and running on concrete pavement, then on sand, then on shards of glass, into a building with empty windows in which a thunderstorm raged, yet he was not afraid. He ran up the stairs and up and up towards the man he had run from before.