Feel My Heart Beat

Indecision

Akihito pulled up on his scooter outside the newspaper office that he freelanced for. He was ready to drop in the photos he had taken the night before to his editor. If he was honest, he wasn't entirely sure that the photos and article would make it to print. Generally politicians would bribe the paper to stop the press from running the article. There wasn't enough evidence to take into the police to actually make charges so the only thing the paper could do was slander against the name and reputation of the person caught in the photos. It irked Akihito no end that taking the bribes was considered a legitimate source of income for the paper. It felt as shady as the people that he caught in his viewfinder but he couldn't do anything until he had more concrete proof of misdeeds and corruption.

He had dithered over which photos to hand in for a good part of the night before finally giving in and calling Asami. It dug at his conscience, he was a journalist, he shouldn't worry over who was caught in his viewfinder. If someone was doing something shady and happened to get caught, they deserved what was coming to them. But now Asami was in the picture. He had his soulmate to consider and he didn't want to cause the man any trouble. It was tearing him apart with what to do. He had many photos clearly showing the manager of Dracaena and a number where his face wasn't shown but everyone else was. Which did he hand in? His decision was made when Asami was more than happy to throw the man under the bus.

"He was stupid enough to dabble in underground dealings and get caught. He can take what's coming to him, it matters nothing to me. I can get a replacement for him any time. Even if it doesn't go to print like you think might happen, I've already got an investigation underway into his activities. I do not appreciate my staff moving in circles with human traffickers and potentially tarnishing the reputation of my clubs. And if he has stooped low enough as to betray me and sell information on Sion then he has far more to fear than ending up on the front page of some newspaper."

The dark tone of Asami's voice had sent shivers down Akihito's spine. It was clear that betrayal was something Asami took very seriously and by the sounds of it, personally. So it was with no regret that Akihito took all the photos into his editor along with a small article on who the people were. He had learned that the self important looking man with all the cash was Ichikawa Kinmochi, a small time politician who had been rumoured to take bribes but had never had any darker gossip against his name before now. Akihito hadn't known for sure that he was involved in the trafficking circuit until Asami had mentioned it but between that comment and the intel involving people potentially moving in on the remains of Kikkawa's network, it was clear that Ichikawa was trying to move in on the space left after the arrests and make himself some dirty money. Looks like this was another person to add to his list to try and bring down permanently.

Akihito made his way into the busy building that housed all the permanent newspaper staff and quickly made his way to his editors office. It was almost nice to not be followed by his guards into the building. Not that they were bad people by any means but sometimes it really felt like they were babysitting him. He only had time to wonder if they were discreet enough to not get noticed loitering around outside before he was knocking on a familiar door. There was a muffled yell to enter almost immediately and Akihito let himself in.

The office was hazy with smoke and papers and folders were strewn across the wooden desk and filling cabinets that took up most of the room. The editor himself sat in a large office chair that had seen better days and looked up at Akihito's entry. He grinned, large and greedy and sat back in his chair, ignoring what he had been working on to give his full attention to the photographer. The man was large, belly straining the buttons on his shirt and what was left of his hair was in disarray. A half smoked cigarette hung from his thin lips and an over flowing ash tray sat at his elbow. It must have been a busy morning if the editor was chain smoking again.