alicenine fanfic Imprisoned part 5

Imprisoned

Warning: yaoi = guy loves another guy, plus lots of NC-17/scary things are gonna happen, don’t like don’t read


Chapter 05: Reminiscence

Sakamoto Takashi worked part-time at a small restaurant nearby his college. This part-time job had been supporting his personal income for months. Even though his parents routinely sent him money for tuition fee, the young man still wanted to help them lessen their burdens. He was an adult now, after all.

It was rush hours on the weekend, and Takashi was overly busy taking and delivering orders from and for his customers. His co-worker, Nao, was pretty much as busy as Takashi was on his own post in the kitchen. Nao was older than he was. He was a kind, wise man who had come offering a job for Takashi when he was searching for one, months ago.

Takashi was working at the main hall of the restaurant as usual. Nearly all of the tables were occupied by customers and more were flowing in. Like all of his co-workers, Takashi was busy moving from one table to another, making sure everyone in his area was enjoying their food.

Finally, the flow of customers slowly began to thin as the rush hours drew near the end. Takashi slowed his pace, as he scanned the restaurant only to find everyone was sitting comfortably around their tables, having their meal. Takashi smiled to himself; there was no more order to be delivered.  

However, just when he was thinking about it, he saw a customer waving at him from across the restaurant.

The brunette hurried towards the customer’s table; now he saw that said customer were sitting with two of his friends around the table.

Getting his smile ready, the brunette waiter began, “How may I help you?”

“Let’s see…” This customer flipped open the menu and examined it before he added, “Just be at ease. Why don’t you stand closer?”

Before Takashi could react, the blond customer had already pulled him by the wrist; Takashi nearly bumped into the table. Those two friends of his watched on, but didn't say anything.

Then, a word of apology came out of the customer’s lips, but it didn’t sound like he meant it at all. In fact, the blond man had a little smirk on his face as he noticed that Takashi was becoming uncomfortable. The brunette was still holding onto his notebook and ballpoint pen when the blonde looked up at him, his left eyebrow rising suggestively.

Now, it became clear that the man was staring right at him. Unlike other customers who mostly stared at their menus, this man seemed to have more interest in him than what were on the menus. It made Takashi uncomfortably self-conscious.

He suddenly remembered when he saw this man, and who he was. It was a third year student from the same faculty of his, Akira Suzuki, who was also known as ‘Reita’. As a matter of fact, the blond man counted as Takashi’s senior, although the younger man didn’t recall actually talking to this senior before.

“I’m Reita,” the older man introduced himself.

For a brief moment, Takashi wondered if Reita had recognised him as a fellow schoolmate, but he soon banished the thought. It wasn't like it mattered that Reita recognised him.

“I’m Sakamoto, nice to meet you.” In order to make his speech looked more business-like and distant, Takashi intentionally used his family name to refer himself. Though it was part of his duty to be polite and responsive towards customers, he was still under no request to be buddy-buddy with all of the customers.

At that moment, he didn’t feel like he should encourage this particular customer to spend even more time chatting with him. He didn’t even know why Reita would bother to introduce himself.

After the greeting, Takashi was all ready to leave and get on with his other duties, but it didn’t end here.

“May I take your order, please?” Although it was obvious Reita was taking his sweet time to fool around instead of ordering food, still Takashi tried to shift the conversation to business at hand.

“I want a hamburger, regular size; a coke and—” then Reita suddenly lowered his voice and leant forward to say his last words, “—how much does it take for you to suck me, huhh?”

The ‘huhh?’ in the end was heavily laced with fake sweetness.

Takashi let out a deep breath, his pen nearly dropped out of his hand. He was outraged by the blond man’s suggestive words but he couldn't yell at the man because after all, he was a customer. The brunette waiter had only heard about waitresses complaining about asshole customers harassing them verbally, but he could never guess it would happen to him.

“You can’t have it,” Takashi spoke his mind with a hiss, before he could stop himself.

"What are you saying? Isn’t it a restaurant? Why can’t I have what I like?” Reita raised his voice in completely faked innocence. Beside him, his two friends started laughing in a disgustingly knowing way.

Takashi stared at the blond man in disbelief. The nerves of this guy! How could he make verbal abuse and humiliation as if it was just some harmless joke?

“Regular hamburger and coke, right?” Takashi forced himself to write down Reita’s order, only skipping the last one, “They will be on the way.”

Then, he took orders from two of Reita’s friends. Thankfully, they only gave normal orders; although their staring at Takashi predatorily as if he was a piece of meat instead of a person, kept the waiter from warming up to them.

~*~

Takashi sighed as he walked back to Reita’s table. He didn't particularly want to go anywhere near the blonde after their previous encounter, but he had his work duty to fulfil.

Soon, he was in front of Reita and his two friends, and saw that they were about to finish their meal.

“You guys want anything else?” Takashi asked as cheerfully as he could.

Those two other guys gave Takashi a faint nod but Reita had chosen to ignore his question entirely, “When will your shift end?”

Beside him, Reita’s friends burst into another fit of laughter.

Takashi could almost feel his cheeks heat up. Some of the costumers were jerks. His fellow waitresses had warned at some point, those jerks always thought waitresses were easy targets, thinking they were all stupid and loosed creatures because they were paid minimum wage and had to parade around the restaurant in tight skirts when they worked. Now the brunette began to think Reita was one of those jerks, and the blonde had, for his twisted reasons, decided to mess with him.

He recalled Reita acted all nice and friendly towards his peers in college, but now when he was facing a waiter whom he thought was beneath him, the blond man showed his true colour. What would their schoolmates have to say if they knew Reita was like this in his private time?

Once again, Takashi forced himself not to react to Reita’s remark, “So you guys don’t need anything?”

“Perhaps your phone number?”

Some girls would probably be flattered by a pickup line like this, but Takashi was starting to feel annoyed. He still remembered what Reita had whispered to him when he gave his order; the brunette had no desire to give his personal information to a guy who suggested him to give blowjob the first time they chatted.

“Maybe later,” Takashi forced himself to smile, and then turned around and left before Reita and his friends could response.

~*~

One hour later, Takashi’s shift finally came to an end and he was ready to leave work. He changed out of his uniform, said goodbye to Nao and then exited from the restaurant’s back door. After working hard and dealing with jackass customers, the brunette wanted nothing but getting back to the comfort of home as soon as he could.

He was walking down a sidewalk, on his way to catch his train, when he looked upward only to find his way being blocked by a tall figure. The sidewalk was so dimly lit that it took Takashi a moment to realise who was there in front of him, just about five or six feet away.

Reita.

Takashi’s breath caught in his throat, he really didn’t expect to see Reita there, why was he here? Shouldn’t he have left more than an hour ago with his friends? The blond man wasn’t supposed to be here! It looked like the other man had purposefully been waiting for him here, waiting for his shift to end.

Swallowing hard, the brunette was starting to feel uneasy. His own thought was creeping him out even before anything actually happened.

Yes, he felt as though something was going to happen. He didn’t know why Reita was here, but it just couldn’t be good.

“Hey, Sakamoto-san,” Reita smirked at him, “Or should I call you ‘Takashi’ now that you’re off work?”

He must have seen the nametag he wore when he was at work. Takashi told himself.

“What do you want?”
“Hey, don’t be a stranger!” The taller man pouted, “We had a nice chat in the restaurant right? And you said to we can chat later.”

The guy was shamelessly twisting his words to make it sound like he had invited Reita to wait for him when in fact he didn’t. Most people would have picked up the hint when Takashi turned away without a backward glance but clearly, it wasn’t the case with the blond man. Takashi sighed again, the wheels in his mind turning fast to think of a way out of this situation.

“You’ve mistaken,” that was the only thing Takashi could think of saying, “Now would you please let me pass, I have nothing—”

He tried to shoulder pass the taller man and slipped off but he couldn’t predict Reita would grip his wrist instead.

Takashi writhed, trying to free himself but the other man’s grasp kept him in place. Panic started to rise as he was roughly pushed against a nearby wall, with Reita physically blocked his escape with his larger body.

“Let go of me!” Takashi cried out in alarm, he could barely keep the dread out of his voice. His back was aching due to the impact of being thrown against the brick wall behind him; the brunette feared something even worse was on its way.

“Hey, don’t be shy,” the blond-haired man replied with a casual tone, as though there wasn’t anything wrong with what he was doing.

“I said let go!” Takashi yelled again but his breath caught in his throat as he saw Reita leant in even closer, trying to kiss him. In the end, he had to duck his head whilst using his arms to block the attack.

Thankfully, Reita did stop; he pulled back a bit, looking down at Takashi, who was trembling.

“What’s wrong? I just want to have some fun.”

Everything is wrong!Takashi protested in his mind. He hated the way Reita was treating him. He felt he was being treated like something less than human. This kind of...fun was not for him.

“No,” Takashi shook his head, “I don’t want it.”
“Come on~” Reita whispered as he pressed his body against his prey, his hands slipping downward to snake down beneath the younger man’s shirt, “You don’t have to act so uptight when no one else was here.”

Takashi could feel Reita’s hands grasping at the flesh around his waist roughly. Those hands were now working around his waistband, trying to push it down.

“No! Stop! I’m not like this!” He was protesting loudly, but he didn’t know who he wanted to convince the most, Reita or himself.

He was really struggling now, and there was no way for Reita to mistake his reaction as a ‘come-on’. Still, the blond man refused to listen and stop.

“Don’t be silly,” Reita hissed between his harsh, heavy breath; his hands still busy groping Takashi’s flesh, "I know you like it. You want guys to take you, be rough to yo—”

His sentence was cut off when Takashi delivered a really hard kick at his nuts. Reita doubled over in shock and utter pain, giving Takashi enough time to free himself.

Takashi ran to draw a short distance between him and the blond man, and then he took a moment to look back behind himself, afraid that Reita would be after him at any moment.

To his relief, Reita was still doubled over; his hands went to cover his groin as he groaned in pain.

Nevertheless, at the next second, Reita looked up and his gaze fixed right up at Takashi’s. Now those eyes were filled with anger and hatred, “What’s wrong</> with you!?”

Wordlessly, Takashi shook his head and slowly backed away. With tears burning his eyes, he broke into a run, didn’t dare to look back again because he could hear footsteps chasing after him.

“If I were you, I would be very careful with who you’re talking to! No one mess with </i>me!”

He could hear Reita yell from behind him.

“It’s not over! You little punk!”

Those threats only made him run even faster. Eventually, he had escaped to the open street; he didn’t dare to stop.

On the street, bystanders were staring at Takashi curiously, as he hurried past them. The brunette felt his face flushing; his heart was hammering against his rib-cage. Although he tried to remind himself Reita was the one being rough and immature, still he felt guilty, as though he had also done something wrong.

If men were all like Reita......if gay men were all like him, then Takashi didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

***

Takashi woke up at once in total darkness. At the back of his mind, the brunette had a strange, dreadful feeling that he should have known darkness would be what awaited him once he woke up, but when he opened his eyes and realised what he feared was in fact his reality, he was still caught off guard.

He had had dreams, but he had difficulty trying to remember what his dreams were about. The lack of strength made it difficult to concentrate on his own thoughts.

In his dreams, he had seen someone he knew. It seemed to be about someone he had met before...someone who had tried to help him.

Someone who said that he wanted to help him. His doctor...

Dr. Camui?

Now, a piece of memory floated back to the surface of his consciousness. He recalled meeting with his psychiatrist during one of their appointments. Dr. Camui had suggested him to do something…but what was it?

Although Takashi had no idea exactly what the doctor suggested in the past, no matter how hard he tried to remember. It had to be about a year ago, when he first started meeting with Dr. Camui. Back then, the doctor used to give him simple assignments and practices whenever they met.

Sighing, Takashi tried to move his arms, only to confirm his wrists were still bound together behind him. The ropes showed no sign of loosening despite his entire painful struggle. Nothing had been changed about his awful situation.

Once the realisation of his imprisonment seeped in, he began to feel very much like crying. The half-recalled memory of his meeting with Dr. Camui and the outside world created some sort of escape from his current situation, but it couldn’t last long; especially not when his empty stomach insisted on making itself be known.

He had long lost all trace of time, there was no way to tell day from night.

It felt as though he had been sleeping all the time; but at the same time his slumber seemed to be cut off too frequently by the randomly switched on strong light, keeping his mind and body from resting fully.

He didn’t remember for how many times he had cried after waking up in this hellhole. He didn’t care about self-image anymore; no one could see him crying like a baby anyway. He felt more and more out of balance.

He also remembered…...Retia and their brief encounter in the restaurant.

He hadn’t seen Reita again after their ill-fated encounter, nor did he wanted to have anything to do with the senior. So why had he dreamt about the older man now? Reita was a bastard, he didn’t want to remember what had happened between them, and he didn’t want another bad memory to haunt his tired mind, as though his current situation wasn’t horrible enough. Why couldn’t he be dreaming about happier events? Why couldn’t he be seeing his family when he slept?

His parents...could he see them again?

Back then, he didn’t have a perfect relationship with his parents, but it wasn’t as if they couldn’t get along with each other. It was just...they had become distant since the last five or so years. It wasn’t as if anyone was there, or cared.

The thought nearly shattered him to pieces. He was left here to rot, still no one cared. If any of them cared, they would have come to his rescue already.

He tried to figure out why he always felt so tired; his exhaustion seemed to be caused by more than just lack of food and water. It couldn’t be normal, when even thinking seemed to exhaust him.

Was he drugged?

This would explain the dizziness and the weight on his limbs. The thought shook him, but before he could think more clearly, sleepiness claimed him. The dark figure hovering above him, he had thought it was just a bad dream.

Maybe it wasn’t a dream after all. Someone else had been here within these four walls of his cell; someone had been actually here with him.

He could barely keep his eyes open. It couldn’t be normal. The tiredness made it difficult even to think. Within seconds, he tried to keep himself awake, but his eyelids drifted shut.

***

Almost two weeks later, Tora was back to the hospital to finish his assignment. He had taken Dr. Camui’s suggestion and added a questionnaire as part of his research. Once the fieldwork was done, he would have to go back to the university. Still, the raven-haired student knew he would miss this place. Spending time doing fieldwork and spending time to help with the patients had taught him so much.

This brown-haired man again. It had to be the same person. Tora was certain.

The young man was walking out of Dr. Camui’s office.


“Dr. Camui?”
“What brings you here today, Amano san?”
“I was doing a questionnaire with the patients as part of my assignment, and chatting with the patients,” the student explained.
“Do you want me to discuss about your progress?”
“Yes, I would love to,” the raven-haired man nodded, grateful of the older man’s offer.

Then, he sat down and discussed with the psychiatrist about the progress of his assignment. He mentioned a few of recent finding after spending time to get familiar with the patients. In turn, Dr Camui listened to Tora’s report, and then gave the younger man a few suggestions; pointing out a few more things the younger man should pay attention to in the future, when he furthered his study.

“I saw someone out there.”

Tora didn’t know what had possessed him to bring this up in front of Dr. Camui, but once he spoke, there was no holding back. He suspected he didn’t really want to hold back, either. As a matter of fact, he realised that he actually wanted to bring up the topic of the brown-haired youth he had seen today. Dr. Camui raised a fine eyebrow, but he waited for the younger man to continue.

“It’s a young man,” Tora explained, “Brown hair, thin, pale skinned, good looking. I saw him sitting in the garden, right outside of the psychiatric ward. Does it ring a bell?”

Tora didn’t expect the doctor to come up with any proper answer. He didn’t know how many brown-haired young men would pass through the hospital in any given day, but his guessing was, there were too many for Dr. Camui to remember them one by one.

“Perhaps it’s one of my patients, who were from a college nearby,” surprisingly, Dr. Camui replied, “I have just ended my section with a young patient, whom just happens to match your description. Do you mind to tell me why you are asking about him?”

So it’s possible that this guy is also from same university as mine...

Tora took a mental note to himself. His university, Tokai University, was only about 30 minutes away from Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital. It was also the closest university from the hospital. There was a fat chance that a fellow student had come to Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital for treatment.

However, the young man quickly shifted his attention back to Dr. Camui’s question, “I’m just thinking...this guy doesn’t look like the other patients. He doesn’t seem the type,” Tora explained, “Plus, shouldn’t there be counsellors in campus if a student wanted to get help?”

Instead of answering immediately, Dr. Camui gave the younger man a strange look. The look instantly made Tora realise how stupid he had just made himself seem in front of the good doctor. The most basic principles of psychology being: you could never, never judge a person’s mental state and his or her mental health by their appearance.

“I myself don’t find this patient to be so different from the others. As you and I both know, many people do tend to become mentally unstable when they reach teenage or early adulthood.”

Dr. Camui’s kind reminder only made Tora blush. He was really embarrassed to be careless and forgetting all those basic knowledge, even for a moment.

“As to your question about counsellors, let’s say not everyone feels comfortable about meeting with councillors in campus, in which other students might easily notice the fact they are seeking professional help. Many of my patients tend to seek help from places far away from their schools or workplaces,” Dr. Camui replied carefully.

Tora nodded. He understood even amongst the educated circles, people were still always reluctant to admit they were in need of mental support. Many of them were still afraid that the fact that they needed to seek professional help at the first place would make them look inferior to their peers and employers.

“It shouldn’t be that way,” the younger man commented with a slight frown between his eyebrows, “People shouldn’t be ashamed for the fact that they need to get help.”

“Public’s opinion is difficult to change, but we should all do our parts,” Dr. Camui nodded, “Professional concerns aside, I do care about this young man, he has become a regular recently.”

“I’m glad for him to have you to be in charge of him,” added Tora.

As long as he could recall, every single patient of Dr. Camui liked the doctor. The psychiatrist was always so patient, always talking to everyone with such a smooth, calming voice. He also possessed an air of confidence, and this confidence was backed up by his years of experience. It was no wonder that most of the patients found the doctor trustworthy.

~*~

“Tora, you’re surprisingly quiet today.”

The raven head snapped out of his short reverie and turned his head to the voice. It was one of his college mates who spoke to him just now.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I kind of have lots of stuff to think about. If you’ll excuse me,” replied Tora as he then rose from his chair, grabbed his bag and left the library.

As he strutted along the corridor, his mind was still racing. Earlier in the library, the memory of his conversation with a psychiatrist from the hospital where he used to spend his internship days came back to him all of a sudden. He hadn’t seen him again for months. Even when Tora paid his former patients a visit, the psychiatrist was either busy or out of his office.

However, now might be the right moment for the raven head to specially meet the psychiatrist. Tora fished out his iPhone and checked his schedule. He sighed as he found out that he would be busy for the next couple of days. He would need to spare some time for another visit to Tokyo Metropolitan Matsuzawa Hospital later.

to be continued.