The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 34 - Arata (Akihito)

The crickets had stopped their song like they always did at some time around midnight. Just as if one of them gave a signal to all the others, and thus they fell silent the next moment.

Thereafter, the night was suddenly much thicker.

His foot was not chained to the bedpost anymore, and he was allowed to move about the room. Freedom ... in a way. It meant he could stand in front of the window and stare outside for hours if he wanted to.

Right now, he indeed felt like it. He couldn't sleep. Probably because he had just lain there too long.

For days, he had craved to rush over to the window, open it and climb outside. He had, in fact, tried once. At this moment, however, he only dragged his fingers slowly along the lower frame.

He wanted to get out still, of course. But he was so confused ...

'Five months it had been', that they had told him. Five months since he had been taken from a hospital in Hong Kong. No, ... not taken. Kidnapped! Or ... wasn't he?

Asami said they had been lovers. He had told him that he had marched into some warehouse to protect the other, that they had both been hurt and had hardly survived. But how could he tell if there was any truth in this?

The man had locked him into a walk-in-closet, then into this room. He had tied him to the bed, and his father had made him strip and ... and show ...

He shuddered from the thought.

Others had tossed him into a cell as well, but one much darker, much colder, much grimmer. He had hurt for so many days that time had become meaningless altogether. Had that only been a few months? Had it really been so long? He did not even know how to think about time anymore.

Aaron had taken him out of there. Out of the hard, gray cell. He had brought him to the apartment in Warsaw, but that one he had not been allowed to leave, either. Aaron had said that they had once worked together to bring down Asami Ryuichi, but that he had been caught and brainwashed and raped, until Arata had believed that his name Akihito.

Yet, that name felt so real right now. When he whispered it, when he had heard it spoken out load at first, he had felt like it was a curse. Some dangerous incantation to be afraid of. The tiny hairs all over his body had stood on end right away, his breathing had become shallow, his stomach tingling. But by now that did not happen anymore.

Today he could speak both names 'Arata', 'Akihito', and they both felt real. And they both felt like a lie.

He just could not tell.

Pushing his hands onto the windowsill, he leaned forward until his forehead touched the cold glass. His shoulders started to tremble, when the tears rushed up into his eyes. He could not keep them inside. If only they could rinse away the lies so that he could finally see the truth. He did not even demand to remember it all. He simply – only – wished for the knowledge of what was verity, and what was not because the worst of all cells he had ever been in was that of ignorance and doubt.

All he wanted was to know who was telling the truth. Whom he could really trust, so he could finally stop feeling so lost. It was like he was still lying on the cold concrete floor in his gray cell, wondering if he had been forgotten. Wondering if beyond the steel door anything still existed.

He jumped, when there was a heavy thud on the door. Holding his breath, he listened. There were some muffled sounds outsides. It sounded like somebody rubbed against the wood or the wall – something bigger than a cat. Then there were steps, vanishing first, coming back a moment later. The door was unlocked, somebody stepped inside, hidden from Arata who had not switched on the light, as that would have turned the nightly garden behind the window almost invisible.