The Key to My Heart

Title: The Key to My Heart: Chapter 11
Author: JadeHeart
Archived: Found on gurabiteshiyon.net. If anyone else would like it, please ask me first!
Fandom: Gravitation / Fake
Rating: R
Warnings: Bad language mainly
Timeline: After the anime/manga finishes.
Characters: Yuki, Tohma, Ryo, Dee
Feedback: Feedback is always welcome! If I don’t get feedback, I don’t want to continue!
Summary: Just how far would Yuki go in search of Shuichi?
Author’s Notes: Thank you to everyone reviewing! It really does make me happy to read your comments – you have all been just so nice to me! ‘Fake’ was another manga that I found only about a month ago. With no idea what-so-ever what it was about, I picked it up on impulse to read. (The gorgeous guys on the covers probably helped that decision!) I think it is just a wonderful story! Get past the Americanism in the translation (it’s a little over done, I think), and yes, it is a ‘cop’ story, if you like. However, the development of the two main characters, Dee & Ryo, is just delightful. To me, ‘Fake’ and ‘Gravitation’ are very similar, as it shows such loving relationships developing between the main characters, with all the ups and downs that can ensue.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, they belong to the creators of ‘Gravitation’ and ‘Fake’, nor am I making any profits from this. (Except the character of Jim Harris, who is still mine!)


The Key to My Heart: Chapter 11


Dee opened the door in answer to their knock, a scowl on his face as he saw who it was, but he still waved them in.

Yuki glanced around. Ryo’s apartment was neat and tidy, simply in its décor. It reminded him a little of his own apartment back home. The sound of dishes clattering came from another room.

“Yo, Ryo!” Dee called out, walking back to the couch. “They’re here!”

Ryo walked out, wiping his hands on a towel, a smile of greeting on his face. “Take a seat. We were just about to order some Chinese. There’s a great little place nearby that delivers. Does that suit you?”

“That would be fine, Mr Maclean.” Tohma replied.

“Please, call me Ryo.”

“Very well. Ryo.”

“Great. Have a look through the menu.” and Ryo handed the leaflet over. “We’ve already chosen.”

After they had all made their selection, he picked up the phone to order. “Dee, can you get some drinks?”

Dee humphed, obviously still out of sorts. “What do you fancy? We’ve got plenty of beer.”

“Suits me.” Jim spoke up.

“Eiri and I will have the same.” agreed Tohma.

Dee went to the kitchen and returned in a moment with 5 bottles of beer, handing them to Jim, Yuki and Tohma, placing one on the coffee table obviously for Ryo, before cracking the seal of the one still in his hand and taking a swig. Ryo hung up the phone and wandered back to them.

“It shouldn’t be long.” Ryo said, sitting down on the floor as it was the only place left. He reached out and picked up his beer. “So, why don’t you tell us some more about this case.”

“Well,….” and Jim began.

The next 20 minutes was a succinct summary of their search for Shuichi Shindou. The difficulties of finding the survivors in the first place, the mix-up at the hospital, his amnesia, missing him at the next hospital, trailing him finally to New York and using up their last lead. Jim was calm, concise, and to the point. He presented things factually, unclouded by emotion. Ryo and Dee listened without interrupting.

“Hmm.” Ryo murmured, once Jim had finished. He tipped his head back and drank from his beer. Dee remained silent. “I can see that you’ve got a bit of a problem. It’s not like he has other places that he might go to if he’s not familiar with New York, or for that matter could remember much more.”

“I know. That’s where we’ve got no idea of where to take it from here.”

“Well, the first thing he would have wanted to do is find somewhere to stay.” Dee put in

Jim looked at him and Dee shrugged. “Look, what’s the first thing he would have done after going to that apartment? You said it’s completely derelict. He would hardly stay there. He may have lost his mind, but that doesn’t necessarily make him stupid.”

“That is entirely debatable at times.” Tohma put in with a straight face.

“Huh?” Dee looked over at him, not understanding.

Jim waved Tohma’s comment away. “Never mind him.” He threw a quick frown in Tohma’s direction. “He’s got issues.”

Ryo just looked from one face to another, taking it all in, before his eyes settled on Yuki.

“You obviously know him the best. How would he act?”

“I may know him, but I never know what he’s going to do.”

“Sounds like someone I know.” Dee muttered under his breath.

Ryo reached out and punched his leg, without turning away from Yuki.

“Ouch!” Dee muttered, pulling the offended limb out of reach.

Ryo continued speaking to Yuki. “Maybe. However, he came to New York, arrived at that address, and found nothing. You say he wouldn’t really have remembered anything about that place? Nothing that would have may be triggered another memory about somewhere else in New York that he would go to?”

Yuki shook his head. “That place….. that is from my past. Not Shuichi’s.”

“Hmmm.” Ryo lapsed back into silence, thinking. “That’s interesting in itself. Why would he remember and go somewhere that actually wasn’t something to do with him at all, but was something to do with you? I wonder.” Ryo’s took another drink, lapsing back into silence.

“Like I was saying, I don’t think we’re looking at it the right way.” Dee spoke up again.

All four faces turned towards him. He looked back at them seriously, all traces of the cocky, in-your-face attitude gone.

“Okay, he’s got no memory. His only one has just gone belly-up, he’s in a strange country, you say he doesn’t know the language well, so what do you think he’s going to do? Try and find somewhere to stay. That’s what we’ve got to focus on.”

“But where would he go? And how would he have decided to go there in the first place?” Tohma asked.

Dee frowned at him, but before he could make any comment, Jim interjected. “Of course!” he said with a slap to the forehead. “I’ve got to be stupid or something.”

“No.” Ryo put in quickly. “I think you just might be a little too close to this at times.”

Jim flashed him a smile of thanks for the support, before continuing. “He wouldn’t have much money. It’s not like he was provided with a blank cheque or anything. We know he’s already used some for the airfare and taxis to get here, so he would know that he’s got a limited amount of funds to do anything with. So the first thing he’ll do is want to find somewhere to call his own, to make his own. He’s got no other memories, so he’s going to be trying to create some new ones, and the first one will always be to provide some sense of security or belonging. So he would look for a place to stay.”

“Exactly!” Dee said, drinking. “But that still leaves us with the question of where?”

“Just how limited is his language skills?” Ryo asked.

“Quite.” Tohma said dryly.

“Yeah.” agreed Yuki. “If he had to ask for the way to the train station, he’d end up being directed to a brothel!”

“That’s a problem then. Does he have enough language skills though to get a taxi to take him somewhere, without having an address to give?”

“Possibly.” Yuki said slowly. He shrugged. “To be honest, I really don’t know. It’s not like I generally converse in English with him.”

“He got to the place downtown though.” Dee put in.

“That’s because he was able to remember that address, and he could write it down. He had only ever seen it written in English, and would have been able to say that.”

“Anywhere else?”

Yuki shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why the hell didn’t the government ship him straight back to Japan?” Dee snapped out in exasperation, glaring at Jim. “It would have saved us a hell of a lot of trouble!”

Jim glared back at him. “Yeah, it would have been nice, if it was all so nice and tidy, but it didn’t happen that way!”

“Actually, I’m curious myself as to why they left him to run loose.” Ryo put in quietly, waylaying the beginnings of the argument.

Jim calmed himself and turned to Ryo. “The best I can find out, is that the government considered it an Embassy issue once they had cleared each of the survivors. I don’t think they actually even thought about the fact that since Shuichi had lost his memory, even though he had been told he was Japanese, that the kid just wouldn’t think to ask for that kind of assistance. It just wouldn’t have meant anything to him. I guess both the government and the hospital just assumed that Shuichi would make his way to the nearest Japanese Embassy, and they would take it from there. If he had, he would have been home in no time. They forgot that the kid wouldn’t have even known how to ask to get to the Embassy in the first place!”

“Bloody, fucking, stupid, morons!” Dee muttered darkly.

“Yeah.” Jim agreed wholeheartedly with Dee for the first time.

“They also weren’t taking into account Shuichi’s mental and emotional state he was in at that time.” Ryo put in. “Not just the fact that he had amnesia, but the fact that the only thing he could remember was that one address. So he would have been clinging to that above all else. Even if he had thought to go to the Embassy, I don’t think he would have until after he had come here to check that address out.”

“Hey, shouldn’t the interpreter have figured all this out? Wouldn’t he have said something to the kid?” Dee asked suddenly, leaning forward a little.

“What interpreter?” Tohma asked, curiously.

“Well, there would have had to have been an interpreter.” Dee said, looking over at Tohma as though he was stupid to not have realised this. “How else would the government have been able to interview him at the hospital, or the hospital staff to get anything out of him? Not everyone speaks Japanese around here, you know? So there would have had to have been a Japanese interpreter present. So why didn’t he sort any of this out?”

His question was directed to Jim, as he was the one with the higher connections to the more political messes at this moment. It was at times like this, that Dee was very glad he was just a simple detective.

“Yeah, there would have been someone who could have spoken Japanese, but you forget, they were just there for one purpose. To find out if Shuichi was a terrorist or not, and what exactly occurred with regards to the crash. I hate to say this, but once they had found that information out, Shuichi would have lost all importance in their eyes pretty rapidly. They would have just assumed that someone else would sort it out from there.”

“So what you’re saying, is that everyone considered the kid someone else’s problem, so he was just left out to dry by them all! That sucks!”

“Big time.” Jim agreed.

“But what about the hospital?” Ryo asked. “Surely they should have realised, better than anyone, what state he was in? Why did they let him discharge himself?”

Tohma answered that one “Physically, Shindou didn’t need to be in hospital any longer, so they had no reason to keep him. He was quite capable of signing the discharge papers, and they knew he had an address to go to, so they probably didn’t think there was a problem. They had also been given no further instructions by your government that he was to be detained. As far as they knew, he had been cleared so he was free to do what he wished.”

“Jesus!” Dee said, slumping back into his seat. “This is crap! It’s just one stuff up after another! How could all this happen to just one kid!?”

“Shindou has a knack for attracting trouble.” Tohma said dryly. “Of all sorts.”

At that moment, the doorbell rang and Ryo stood to answer it. He retuned in a moment with two bags, and began to lay the contents out on the table.

“Dee, go and grab some plates and things, will you?”

Dee disappeared into what Yuki assumed must be the kitchen, and retuned a moment later with the required utensils. They all quickly helped themselves and settled back into their respective seats.

“So, getting back to where do we go from here.” Ryo said, as he swallowed a mouthful. “We’ve established that language is going to be the most difficult point for him, and that he would immediately have been looking for somewhere to stay. That makes sense, but where does that lead us?”

“Lack of English will mean that he’d probably try and head for somewhere that he would find people who he could talk to.” Dee mumbled around a mouthful of food. Ryo frowned up at him for his lack of manners and he hurriedly swallowed to clear his mouth. He began to choke a little in his hurry, and grabbed his beer for a quick drink. Taking a breath, he continued.

“Best place is probably Chinatown.”

Ryo nodded. “I agree.”

“How would he get there?” Tohma asked.

“Oh, I’m sure that he would have found a way. The only thing that concerns me is him getting out of that neighbourhood safely. It’s pretty rough there, with a lot of different ethnic gangs, and it would not be a good thing if he had got spotted by the wrong one.” Ryo glanced quickly at Yuki. “I’m not trying to frighten you, but it’s the truth.”

Yuki shrugged, not saying a word as he continued to eat.

Ryo carried on. “I think the best bet is for us,” and he indicated Dee also. “To check a few things out tomorrow about any activity in that area over the past week. It might give us a lead. We’ll also start making some enquiries in Chinatown. If we find anything, we can let you know, Jim, and you may be able to dig something more up from your end.”

“That at least sounds like a plan of attack.” Jim nodded in agreement.

“It’s probably going to take a bit of time to get anything out of Chinatown though.” Dee warned, making a stabbing motion with his chopsticks. “They tend to close ranks to look after their own, and the cops aren’t usually their favourite people. So it might take a while to turn anything up.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Just thought I would point it out.” Dee said sweetly.

Jim frowned at him, but Ryo spoke up and said. “Dee, go and get us all another beer.”

Dee glanced down at his partner but didn’t argue, standing and trailling into the kitchen. Yuki snorted to himself. It was pretty damn obvious who wore the pants in this relationship! However surprising it might have seemed!

“Wouldn’t you be able to find him through bank accounts and such?” Tohma asked, neatly stacking the used plates and empty cartons into tidy piles on the table.

“Probably not going to happen.” Dee’s voice answered him from the kitchen doorway, as he returned with the required refreshment. “He wouldn’t be registered with a social security number, and until he starts earning some money he’s not going to have a bank account.”

“And there’s every chance,” Ryo added. “That even if he did get a job, that he still wouldn’t have a bank account. There are plenty of jobs that only pay cash because they use illegal immigrants, or things are a bit on the shady side. It’s pretty easy actually to be an invisible person in a city this size. Circumstances just have to be right.”

“Which means it makes it a lot harder to track Shuichi’s movements, and find him.” Jim summed up for them all.

“Absolutely.” Dee said, sitting back and lighting up a cigarette.

“However,” Ryo spoke up quietly, looking from face to face with a soft smile. “That doesn’t mean that we give up now. We haven’t even started yet, and we only need to get one lucky break. So until we do, we’ll keep searching. You’ve come this far, there wouldn’t be much point giving up now, just because it got a little harder, would it?” His eyes moved back to Yuki, sitting there smoking also.

Yuki stared back. Something about Ryo made him want to believe, made him want to truly believe that they had a chance to find Shuichi. Through the course of the evening, he had found himself becoming more and more morose, the task seeming to become insurmountable. How could he even think he had a hope in hell of finding Shuichi in a place this size?! It was ludicrous, stupid! He was being as moronic as Shuichi! He knew better. He was smarter than that!

But his heart still refused to give up, and looking into Ryo’s warm dark eyes, Yuki couldn’t help but still believe.

“No.” he answered. Ryo’s smile deepened, as though reading so much more in Yuki’s one simple word.

“Then get some sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow sometime. It might not be till evening, but we’ll try and get together again soon.”

It was a subtle way of indicating an end to the evening, and they all stood.

Jim shook Ryo’s hand. “Thanks for this. I really appreciate it. Di was right about you two.”

Ryo smiled warmly back. “Give her our best when next you speak to her.”

“I will.”

“My thanks also.” Tohma said, with a small inclination of his head.

Ryo brushed it aside. “We haven’t done anything yet.” he pointed out.

“The fact that you are even going to try for us, is something to be grateful for. Goodnight to you both.” and Tohma turned to follow Jim.

Yuki put his hand out to Ryo, not smiling. “Let us know what you find.” he said brusquely, and turned away.

Ryo watched as their guests walked to the elevator, his eyes on Yuki’s back.

“So, do you fancy him then?” He heard Dee’s soft voice from behind. He jumped a little, startled out of his thoughts, and blushed.

He turned his head to look at Dee over his shoulder and smiled. “You know I only go for brunettes.” He was pleased to see that comment make Dee’s luscious lips curve in a smile of pleasure.

Ryo stepped back through the door, closing it as Dee entered after him. He remained silent as he made his way to their bedroom, slipping off his shirt and folding it neatly on the chair.

“Still thinking about that kid, aren’t you?”

Ryo looked over at Dee. “Yes, I am. It’s going to be hard. I don’t even know if we’ll be able to find him.”

Dee walked over and wrapped his arms around Ryo’s waist from behind, holding him against his body. “All we can do is try our best. There’s not much else.”

“I know.” Ryo acknowledged, leaning back into Dee’s embrace. “But I can’t help thinking, what is Yuki going through?”

“He’s a cool customer, that’s for sure.”

“Maybe. But his eyes tell a whole different story.” Ryo said. “He’s desperate.”

“You think so?”

Ryo turned his head to look back at Dee. “Yes.” he said firmly. “And I think I know a little of how he feels.”

“How come?”

Ryo gazed deeply into Dee’s green eyes. “Because I know how frantic I would be if I couldn’t find you.”

Ryo saw Dee’s eyes darken with pleasure at his words. With pleasure, and a burst of passion. Dee leant forward and brushed a kiss along the side of Ryo’s face, before trailing out to his ear. Ryo sighed and closed his eyes, melting into the touch.

“So,” Dee whispered in a husky tone in Ryo’s ear, his warm breath caressing the skin and bringing a flood of heat over Ryo’s body. “How do you say ‘Let’s fuck’ in Japanese?”