Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7324591.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Finder_no_Hyouteki_|_Finder_Series
  Relationship:
      Asami_Ryuichi/Takaba_Akihito
  Character:
      Asami_Ryuichi, Takaba_Akihito
  Additional Tags:
      DARK!Asami, Implied/Referenced_Underage_Sex, Past_Underage_Sex, Past
      Sexual_Abuse, Stockholm_Syndrome
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-06-28 Words: 1514
****** Inescapable ******
by Amelita
Summary
     If a child was thrown into a deep pit before he was old enough to
     understand the light, he would come to believe the darkness was
     normal. It wouldn't matter if he was rescued later, the sunlight
     would forever burn his tender eyes. A part of him would always remain
     behind in the pit... and long to return.
     Inspired by Faded
Akihito paced back and forth, back and forth, wearing a rut in the already
threadbare carpet. He had bit his nails down to the quick and was now worrying
the torn skin with his teeth. His pointer finger was bleeding a bit, but he
hardly noticed the pain.
The dark television screen stared at him from across the room. He watched
himself move, reflected on the screen. He looked pale and thin as a ghost.
Akihito couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. It had gotten very hard
to keep anything down over the last months. His anxiety kept his stomach
twisted in knots and his nerves made everything he swallowed feel like sand in
his throat.
The young man swallowed hard, trying to force the cold knot of fear back down
to his belly where it belonged and then sat on the bed. His entire body
shivered and quaked and he tried to anchor himself by clutching at his knees.
His lips were bloodless and his knuckles went white as he stared forward at the
blank television.
He reached for it, once and then twice, jerking his hand back as if the TV was
a poisonous snake that might bite him. When he finally did manage to turn it
on, it was more of an accident of his trembling fingers than by intention.
The voices that blared from the speakers seemed to be shouting at him and the
timid young man recoiled from them. The bones of his back pressed into the wall
as he shrank back into the corner and pulled his knees into his chest. His
breath rattled in his lungs.
It was a brown-haired man and a bleached blonde woman with a bouffant hair-do.
They were talking animatedly about a case from four years ago.
“Do I remember it? Well of course I remember it. I think everybody does. It was
one of those stories you just can’t forget, no matter how hard you try.”
“It kept me up at night for weeks,” the blonde said, fanning herself idly.
“I think it kept every mother in Rochester up for at least a few sleepless
nights,” the newsman turned and addressed the audience, “To the few of you that
just tuned in, we are discussing the infamous ‘Bomb Shelter Kidnapping’, where
the heir of the Asami empire, Asami Ryuichi, at just fourteen years of age,
kidnapped Takaba Akihito, the eleven year old son of a servant and kept him in
an underground bomb shelter for a no less than three years. No one really knows
what happened between them, but when the younger boy was finally found, he was
traumatized, nearly incapable of speech and obsessed with being returned to his
captor.”
The anchorwoman nodded, “Yes, the psychiatrists assigned to it said it was the
worst case of Stockholm Syndrome they had ever seen. We don’t know how that
young boy is doing today, for obvious reasons, he changed his name and
disappeared from the public eye. We can only wish him well. He would be
eighteen-years old now, on this, the four year anniversary of the date from
which he was rescued from his underground prison.”
“Yes, and this is also the day which the kidnapper, twenty-two Asami Ryuichi is
to be released from the juvenile detention center where he has spent the last
four years being ‘rehabilitated’. Though he was technically underage when he
kidnapped the Takaba boy and for the entire time he held him prisoner, the
public was appalled by what many felt was a slap on the wrist for such a
heinous crime and we have several commentators, including a former prosecutor,
psychologist and a juvenile defender who will weigh in on the issue; can a
former sociopath ever truly be rehabilitated?”
The blond interrupted excitedly, “But first, we will take you now, live to the
retention facility where Asami Ryuichi has purportedly been sighted making his
exit.”
The camera suddenly cut from the anchors to a scene in front of the youth
prison. There was a crowd of reporters and cameras there, not to mention a
large group of protesters holding ‘Justice for Takaba’ signs.
His heart beat erratically in his chest and he felt he could hardly breathe as
he leaned forward and waited for a glimpse of the man who had haunted his
dreams, it seemed for his entire life. Though he had not laid eyes on him in
four years, Akihito still saw him every night, in his nightmares. Even now, he
still woke, covered in sweat and smothered under the weight of Asami’s phantom
body and obsessive love.
Pressed back by an entourage of security personnel, the crowd parted.
Akihito’s lips parted and a low keening wail slipped from his throat as he saw
him for the first time since the SWAT team had dragged him, kicking and
screaming, from Asami’s arms and out of the ground.
Asami stood taller than any of the men around him, he was at least six foot
five, maybe more. His shoulders were impossibly broad and he cut a dashing
figure in a tailored three-piece suit. To Akihito’s frightened eyes, he looked
larger than life. As a teen he had shown the potential to grow into a towering
man, and it seemed he had lived up to the promise.
The reporters rushed him, all shouting and asking questions at the same time so
that none could be heard. Asami held up his hands palm forward and lowered
them. Almost as if by magic, the crowd quieted. Akihito well remembered his
incredible magnetism, and commanding aura. Whether you wanted to or not, it was
almost impossible to disobey him. It seemed time had hardly diminished that,
and if anything, it was more. Everything about Asami was MORE. He was bigger,
stronger, older…
His voice was just as Akihito remembered it. The deep, husky timbre made every
hair on his arms and neck stand on end in recognition and he fought the urge to
fall to his knees.
“There are no words to express the remorse I feel for my actions and the deep
regret for the harm I caused, to Takaba Akihito most of all, but also to his
family and his community. According to the law, justice has been served, but I
do not feel that way, and I know that many of you feel the same. I cannot give
Takaba back his childhood, nor his innocence, nor the years he lost to my
mental illness. But I can assure you, the public and him, wherever he might be,
that I have been cured and fully rehabilitated and no longer pose any kind of
threat to him or to society. First Corinthians says, 'When I was a child, I
spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I
became a man, I put away childish things.' I am no longer a child, and as an
adult I claim full responsibility for my actions. I will spend the rest of my
living seeking to atone for them, and to provide restitution to Takaba Akihito
and his family. Thank you.”
With that he gave a clipped nod of his head, and his security team flanked him
as he moved forward. With a few long steps, his dark head disappeared into a
black limousine. The camera panned out as it pulled away and then cut back to
the anchors.
“Well a very moving statement from Asami Ryuichi, but is he sincere? Only time
will tell. What do-”
Their voices faded out as the buzzing in Akihito’s head grew louder and louder.
The air felt thin around him, as if he had climbed a summit and now stood atop
it gasping for breath and finding none.
He hardly remembered Asami’s words. Akihito paid little attention to what Asami
said. He knew Asami Ryuichi better than anyone, and he knew how well he could
speak, the show he could put on. He was like a magician, capable of making
anyone watching, see what he wanted them to see and like a television pastor,
make them believe what he wanted them to believe. It was all slight of hand,
unless you knew where to look. And Akihito did.
While Asami’s face and body, mouth and words told whatever story he wished them
to, his eyes always told the truth.
His amber tiger eyes.
Akihito saw them every night, in the darkness at the foot of his bed, the
shadows at the end of a dark hallway and behind every closed door.
In his dreams, they glowed with the madness of obsession and from the
television, they had glowed the same. The madness was undimmed and the
obsession burned just as bright now as it had when they were children.
When he was a boy, Asami said he would never let him go and that he would
always find him. No matter how far he ran, Asami promised he would always come
for him.
Akihito knew it was only a matter of time.
-
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