The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 32 - Asami

When they had been children, Maxim had sneaked into his bedroom like this, climbing across the broad stone balustrades of their little balcony's and jumping across the gap in between. Back then it had already seemed safer to dare the physically dangerous way instead of the mentally hazardous, which had been to just step across the hallway though they had been confined to their rooms.

In the past, a tiny, quiet tapping rhythm on the window had alerted small Ryuichi of the brother outside, hiding behind the railing so none of the guards patrolling the grounds would spot him ... though probably many of them would never have told anybody if they had indeed spotted the boy up there. Each and every of them had been a child at some point, and as long as they could pretend not to have noticed anything, what harm was there?

Now Asami pulled open the window, sinking to the floor next to it. There he had sat as a child, too, had allowed his brother to crawl through the opening and had pushed the glass-door shut again behind him.

And so, he did today, only that Maxim was not as quickly and good at crawling anymore. He grimaced for a moment, while the window was pushed shut, and winced a sharp breath out through his nose.

Because of his injury, he had had to stop taking the climb and the leap. Because of his broken back, he had as a matter of fact had to stop many things. And Asami had lain in his bed in the weeks and months after the accident, and had craved for that quiet, tiny tap on the window, knowing that it would not come. Not ever again.

Yet here it was! And while he watched his older brother overcome the hurt that still today tormented him, he closed his eyes, cursing the stallion he had jumped onto out of his own mulishness, egoism and recklessness ... No ... he stopped that right away, then cursed himself. For his mistakes, always, only others had paid the price. For his arrogance and his belief in his own infallibility and invulnerability, he had never really suffered himself. Always others had, instead: Maxim, Fei Long, Akihito.

He smashed his head backwards against the wall.

"That's not going to help", Maxim spoke quietly. He seemed tired and exhausted, his blue eyes dull and heavy – but still, there was some spark in them, that looked kind of out of place with his brother.

Asami stared at the other man for a moment, then felt himself frown. "Why have you come?", he asked, almost guessing what the other might answer. Still, he had to hear it from him directly, with his own words, to believe it to be true.

"We need to do something", Maxim replied. He leaned backwards against the side of the bed and breathed very slowly and controlled, as if he was still fighting against some pain.

'But what?', Asami wanted to ask, yet didn't. Of course, it was the truth! The time of sitting and waiting and hoping was over. Because with his father, there had never been much hope in the first place. Not once before had Asami felt his own life slip through his fingers like this, like now: All the chances, all the hopes – they were thin and liquid as water, and he did not know how to preserve them, no matter how fiercely his heart thumbed in his chest.

Yes! He needed to act. He had decided upon this, had known it to be the only way of even trying to go on. He could not just settle down and let it all rush past him, knowing that he would make it out alive because whatever would be left of him on the other side of his father's endgame, would not be worth a single breath.

In the warehouse, they had almost died together, Akihito and him. He would have given his life back then if only he had been able to protect the other. He would have been fine with finding his own end there. It might have been the only decent thing he had ever been capable of.