definitely-not-samayoi - Tumblr blog

definitely-not-samayoi · 3 months

Text

Overprotected

Chitose Fujinomiya’s thoughts || Chitose/Eiji || Chitose/Ichiban || Infinite Wealth spoilers

Read this on AO3

“Chitose, darling! How are you doing?”

“Fine, mom.”

“Oh, dear, why is it always ‘fine’ with you? Tell me what’s going on, how’s your day been so far…”

“It’s been… fine, mom.”

It hadn’t. The last couple of weeks had been the worst in Chitose Fujinomiya’s life. And the one she had been blaming for this was herself.

“Well, darling, you see,” mom said, and Chitose got the sense that the woman was uncomfortable even talking about this to her daughter. “I’ve been contacted by the dean’s office a few hours ago. They say you haven’t been attending your classes recently. They tried to reach out to you but had no luck. Are you okay, sweetheart? Is there any trouble?”

“No, I’ve just… I’ve been quite sick recently. Decided it was better to stay at home and focus on healing…”

“Oh, gosh! You should definitely see a doctor!..”

“It’s okay, mom. It’s just a bad, bad flu. I’m fine, just need a couple more days.”

Mom’s voice subdued at the end of the line.

“Well, if you say so…”

Chitose was lying. Physically, she was rather fine. However, ever since meeting Ichiban Kasuga, she started viewing the last three years of her life as a fever dream.

It all started with a simple DM. “Hey, Tatara! I've been a huge fan of yours ever since that exposé of the Fujinomiya business. Can we chat?” How easy it would have been to say no! “Do not chat with strangers on the internet,” her mom always said. But Chitose felt lonely. Upset. Invisible to her own family. So she tapped “Respond.” And only now did she realize this had been the biggest mistake of her life.

“Chitose, darling… You can talk to me. You know this, right?”

No, she couldn’t. She had made this mistake enough times in her life to know the true meaning of these words. If she were to let anyone in her family in on the truth, it would backfire instantly. No pocket money, no freedom to move around the city, no sympathy whatsoever. And a ton of accusations. “You’re a grown-up woman, you shouldn’t trust some stranger you barely know!” Yeah, she already knew this pretty damn well.

“Yes, mom… I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you later…”

“You’ve gotta go where?” Mom's voice got louder. “You’re sick, where are you heading?”

“To bed, mom, to bed,” said Chitose rubbing her forehead as her brain felt like splitting in half. “Bye.”

“Hope to see you soon, darling,” a confused voice said from the speaker of a trendy smartphone.

Chitose swiftly pressed the red icon and lowered the hand on top of her knees. She wouldn’t want to see her mom. She wouldn’t want to see anybody.

It was starting out too well. Chitchats after every stream. Praises, and flattery, and all the gaudy understanding a twenty-three-year-old girl may want. In no time, she found herself shivering at every DM beep. Day after day, all she’d been looking forward to was crawling under her blanket and reading what her mysterious follower had to say.

His profile barely had anything. There was a nickname, an edgy picture, and the interest: drama and exposé videos. That was it. Soon Chitose found herself lacking the means to feed her imagination. So she turned to the internet. She entered the nickname into a search engine and dove deep into the abyss of useless info. On page six, she found an account on another social media website. It had the same nickname and profile picture. But that wasn't all. There was also the age (twenty-nine at the time) and more old profile pics. Scrolling through them one after the other, Chitose found one that caught her eye. A dark room, a window lit by the streetlights outside, and a grim silhouette of a man standing sideways. The most striking was that, unlike all the other profile images, this one looked less quality, as if not appropriated from the net but taken on someone’s cheap smartphone.

Can one fall in love with a single grim profile picture? Chitose didn’t know. If only she had a friend to ask! But she was all alone, staring at a dim silhouette of a man on the little phone screen night after night. And it did feel like falling. As if she had lost her footing and was crashing down with no landing in sight. And then… then she got the message.

“Shall we meet?”

Her palms got sweaty in an instant. Her mind, confused between the images of a gleeful meetup and the scolding she’d get for going out without permission, was in a state of utter shock. Without even realizing what she was doing, Chitose typed, “Yes.”

She remembered entering the café they chose together. There were five tables, and all of them were occupied by different men. But for Chitose one glance was enough to send shivers down her spine. She knew it was him. It was the same old silhouette she was used to seeing on her screen. Disheveled hair, an oversized T-shirt, scruffy stubble and a cheeky smile on his handsome face. Barely feeling her toes, Chitose made a few steps towards the table. And was met with a blank stare of these deep brown eyes.

”Can I help you?” the man of her dreams asked quietly.

“Yeah…” she uttered in confusion. “I’m… Tatara Hisoka. We’ve agreed to meet here…”

She noticed a spark of curiosity in his eyes. He scanned her appearance in one thorough gaze, skimming her look from the short black hair to the sweatshirt and baggy jeans, vaguely smiled, and said to her face:

”I didn't expect you being this… It’s nice finally meeting you, Tatara-chan!”

Only recently had she remembered this first phrase. For years, she had been suppressing this moment in her memory. Trying to forget she was never what he wanted. And almost succeeding.

He introduced himself almost instantly. Eiji Mitamura. In person, he had no intention to hide his face or his name. This was what got her hooked on. For the first time, she had someone totally honest with her. And she felt that she could be honest with him. What a mistake…

It became their secret. Meetings in tiny cafés. Them sharing channel design and content ideas. Innocent chat at first, it swiftly turned into actual videos. Chitose was grateful for Eiji’s input. His ideas were bringing in hundreds and thousands of viewers. Numbers she couldn’t even dream of just recently. And, naturally, she was too excited to notice what actually mattered.

Eiji liked it hot. The new character design he brought for Tatara was a lot more revealing than her original drawings. He always had a quip on Chitose’s looks. Her hair being short was too boyish, her sweatshirts being huge were too ugly, her coy attitude wasn’t steamy enough. She was never enough. And that was what changed her.

She was used to thinking it was for the good. She was becoming a better person. Less repressed, more open-minded. Thinking critically. Turning into a woman she would admire. A strong one, the one to never be manipulated, never be pushed over by anyone, including her family. Funny… Isn’t this exactly who she became to him? Just a pushover, a puppet he would ventriloquize from?

But she didn’t notice. She was in love. With the dim image on the avatar, with the silhouette at the café table, with the quiet laughter and loud anger. And she hid it as well as she could. Meaning… it was painfully obvious. Her trying to seize his attention. Her grasping at straws to make him like her. For months, she would be giving herself up, little by little, thinking that she was being smart, and strategic, and doing everything to win him over. Little did she realize: it was his plan all along. To tease her, to make her betray herself, to make her easy to string along. And that first kiss in the dark alleyway at midnight… it wasn’t her winning. It was him accepting her as his voluntary slave.

It had always been bittersweet. Those sacred kisses no one would see. Those careless words that would make her shiver. That night she called her mom lying that she was staying for a sleepover at a friend’s house while half-naked on the floor in Eiji’s apartment with him running his fingers down her chest. It felt off, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. So she decided to focus on what felt sweet and ignore the bitter.

Chitose didn’t expect what would come next. One day, she spent almost eight hours DMing Eiji with no response. On the verge of tears, she finally saw a new message: “I’m sorry, baby, I’m in Hawaii. Don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t miss me too much!” Soon, she realized that she did. She could almost sense his absence. The emptiness where he used to be. Chitose was quite used to her life feeling empty. But for the first time, no amount of online videos was able to cover it.

Eiji would fly in and out of Japan every now and then, leaving Chitose feeling like she herself was switching between two different countries: one with him in it and one without. And, little by little, the second one started to consume the other. Even when Eiji was in town, he had no time to see her. No time for chatting. No time to answer her DMs. No time to even open them sometimes. Chitose tried asking her mom of what this might even mean, but the suspicion in her eyes made Chitose stop questioning. She didn’t want mom to find out. Or, maybe, she didn’t want to know how deeply off these relationships actually were.

Chitose never cared much for her studies, to be honest. There was never a purpose to it. Just… having a degree would be nice for a promising young lady. She was attending classes and passing exams in order to simply be busy. Only when Eiji once again left for Hawaii she found a motive to get better at studying. No, it wasn’t an unexpected urge for knowledge. It was an exchange program she found in one of the many leaflets passed around the campus.

How proud of herself she was when she got accepted! It was as if all the hard work she put into it was paying off. Chitose imagined herself arriving at the Honolulu airport, calling Eiji’s number…

He didn’t pick up. Didn’t read her message. Utterly confused, she arrived at her dorm with other exchange students. She didn’t feel victorious. It was as if the finish line she was running towards and almost reached was getting further and further away.

Chitose raised her head, put the phone on the nightstand, and went to the bathroom. A tiny room with a shower, a toilet, a sink and a mirror above it. It was the latter that caught her attention. Or was it the image of a confused girl reflected there?

A glance in the mirror reminded Chitose of how she started to realize how wrong this whole thing was. She was standing right there with a phone pressed to her ear, listening to Eiji’s voice begging her to fetch something from the house of some old lady. “Please, I have no time to explain, just do what I’m asking you.” It was off. Eiji never needed her help. He was never asking her for anything. Especially anything illegal. And this venture seemed totally against the law. But the suspicion wasn’t enough for Chitose to refuse. She nodded, put the phone down, and ran off looking for a taxi.

Everything was going fine. She sneaked into the house, started flipping through stuff, trying to find anything that resembled the necklace Eiji described… and then she heard a door knock. There was someone outside. Someone out there to catch her. Panic went up Chitose’s throat. She couldn’t even breathe. She knew – now she was going to jail. What a fitting end to her stupidity…

She had to calm down. She forced herself to inhale, slowly filling her lungs with air. Then, she briefly exhaled and ran downstairs. Whoever was there, she was going to find her way out of this. After all, she was actually smart. And witty. And quite hot, if this comes in handy.

When she entered the hallway, she almost froze in fear. The uninvited guest… she recalled his image immediately. A yakuza. A former yakuza, to be completely frank. But still… When Eiji brought her that expose, she wasn’t actually betting on it doing well. But the video went viral in just a couple of hours. Chitose was over the moon when she saw the viewer count. She never expected the man in question to show up on her doorstep. Well, it wasn’t her doorstep, but nevertheless… It took her courage to smile at him, and nod, and keep talking as if everything was normal. Inside, Chitose was full of fear and panic.

When the man went to the bathroom, she instantly grabbed her phone and called the number on the speed dial. A familiar voice responded:

“How’s it going? Have you found it?”

“No!” Chitose whispered hastily. “I don’t know what happened… That yakuza from the video last month – he’s here somehow! I don’t know what to do!..”

“It’s okay,” Eiji didn’t sound troubled at all. “Do something to him. You’re good at martial arts, aren’t you? Just knock him out!”

“This musclehead?” Chitose’s eyes went wide. “There’s no way, he’s… huge!”

“Oh, come on!” The man was clearly annoyed. “Check the kitchen out. The old hag must have sleeping pills somewhere. Just drug him! And then drop him off somewhere…”

“Eiji… can’t you just come and help me? I don’t know how I would drug him…”

“I can’t,” he sounded dead-set on this. “Too busy.”

“Eiji, please!” Chitose started begging. “I‘ve never wanted this! Please, you have to help me!”

“Fine,” said Eiji reluctantly. “I’ll be there in two hours. Knock him out.”

“Eiji…”

But he had already hung up. Chitose sighed in frustration and ran to the kitchen.

Drugging Ichiban was much easier than she expected. He had no suspicion whatsoever. On the opposite: he was very open, and lively, and funny… It took strength for Chitose to not get charmed instantly. And, when he finally collapsed from all the pills and alcohol, she could rest easy and think.

This felt off. Digging through stuff in some else’s house. Lying her way out of being discovered doing this. Feeding sleeping pills to a stranger. She never wanted any part in this. Her only hope was Eiji arriving in time. So when the front door screeched again, Chitose ran to it as if her life depended on it.

“Is he unconscious?”

“Yes…”

“Good.”

Eiji didn’t seem okay. He could barely move his feet, pressing his shoulder against the wall and slowly making one step at a time. Chitose’s heart went out to him. If only she knew he was so unwell, she wouldn’t have called him.

“I’m sorry I made you come all the way here. Are you alright? Is there anything…”

“I’m fine,” responded Eiji with annoyance. “Where is he? We need to get rid of the guy.”

“He’s… in the backyard…”

Swearing through his teeth and stumbling, Eiji headed across the room. Chitose followed him, trying to decide if she could offer him her shoulder to lean on. The man was coping pretty well. It even seemed that every next step was getting less shaky than the previous one.

Eiji left the house and approached the guy lying face down on the porch. Barely maintaining the balance, he kicked the man on the ribs. The ex-yakuza was unresponsive.

“You fucking moron,” she heard Eiji’s voice. “Your rush to get here just ruined everything for me.”

“What do we do now?” Chitose asked nervously.

“Help me over here…”

Eiji sat down and tried to lift Ichiban from the floor. But the guy was way too big for him to handle, especially considering the tremble in Eiji’s legs. Chitose dashed towards him and grabbed Ichiban under the other shoulder. Together, they managed to lift the man from the ground. Still swaying, Eiji made a couple of steps towards the ocean…

“Where are we taking him?” Chitose asked, hoping her partner had a plan.

“We’ll drop him into the water,” Eiji replied, barely standing. “In this state, we won’t even wake up before his lungs fill up…”

Chitose froze at her spot. No way. Yeah, this Ichiban was a yakuza with a terrifyingly huge build, he was a dangerous man to be around. But just the few minutes they spent together were enough for Chitose to truly believe: he hadn’t deserved such a cruel fate.

“What’s wrong, Chitose?” Eiji turned his head and graced her with an annoyed glance.

“I can’t,” she said, unable to make a single step towards the water.

Eiji turned his body towards her, almost dropping Ichiban back to the ground. His angry stare made Chitose wish she had never picked up her phone that day.

“And what’s your suggestion, Miss Help-me-Eiji-I-don’t-know-what-to-do?”

Indeed. Wasn’t it her who begged for him to come and solve this? Now things were different. She wasn’t ready for every solution Eiji could come up with. So she had to make her own choice.

In the end, she actually convinced him to help her undress the man and drop him out on a public beach, hoping for him to get arrested and sent to jail. It took Eiji quite some time to consider this alternative, but he agreed, finding it much more promising.

“This idiot is lucky. If we keep an eye on him, we may even find what we’re looking for.”

Chitose was happy to agree. She never wanted blood on her hands. Especially the blood of a relatively nice guy who had done nothing to hurt her.

This was almost two weeks ago. It was then that she started to get the sense that something was wrong. And now… she knew exactly what.

But back then, she didn’t have all the intel. She only had what Eiji was willing to share. For the first time in their relationship, he seemed to be truly interested in her help. His instructions to Chitose were extremely hard to follow. She had to infiltrate Barracudas’ main office and get as much info on this Akane lady as possible. At first, Chitose thought that he was joking. It wasn’t an easy fit to sneak into a place guarded by one of the most fearsome mafia groups on the island. But when Eiji leaned towards her from the driver’s seat of his car and graced her cheek with his warm breath, Chitose felt her knees trembling.

“Please, Tatara-chan. Be a nice girl for me.”

A single kiss on the cheek sealed the deal. Now she was ready to die just to get a speck of his approval. Stupid, stupid girl… At least now she understood this.

She made it. She actually got into the heart of Barracudas’ operations. She would never share with anyone what she had to go through. There was no minute she felt safe. Not with Barracuda officers, not with Dwight, not even alone in the room he gave her. Scooping through the headquarters, she was finding more information about the situation with Akane. But nothing she saw there was as surprising as the appearance of Ichiban Kasuga.

His personality deeply shook her. At first, she naturally expected him to get furious, to harm her or let his two buddies do it for him. But he was… calm. Good-willing. Even stopped this Tomizawa guy from getting at her with his nosy questions. He offered his help in getting out, with just a simple expectation of guiding them through the building. Chitose had every doubt in his sincerity at first. But soon… soon she saw something she couldn’t forget or ignore. She saw the real Kasuga.

He was kind to everyone. Generous. He always tried to understand, not judge. It was as if, for him, there were no bad people in the world – there were just those he wasn’t on the same page with yet. This criminal named Ichiban Kasuga was everything the good guy Eiji never was. For her or for anyone.

Chitose fell hard. Once again, she found herself in love with her own perceived image of a human. But this time, this image wasn’t an avatar, it was real. A real, breathing human being she barely knew anything about. Every flaw she saw in him was turning into a hidden gem. He wasn’t stupid, he was honest. He wasn’t immature, he was energetic. The height and build she once found terrifying were now the reasons she found it hard to fall asleep at night. Just a thought of these big, strong arms holding her tight and pressing closer to this sculpted chest was enough for Chitose to elicit a barely audible moan. “Chi-chan,” said his imaginary voice in her head. No one ever called her that. It was weird at first, but soon she couldn’t get enough.

She felt that she needed to calm herself down. A relationship between an heiress of a wealthy family and an ex-yakuza was destined to head nowhere. With Eiji there was at least an illusion of a happily ever-after. With Ichiban there was nothing. He was old enough to be her dad, for god’s sake! Chitose had heard of the term “daddy issues” before, but only after watching Ichiban dive headlong into the ocean waves was she ready to admit she had some of her own.

Ichiban gave her everything she would never get from Eiji. Honesty. Acceptance. Approval. Sympathy. Wisdom, if one could call it this way. And what did she give him in return? Chitose sighed, looking pitifully at her image in the mirror.

Happiness just couldn’t last forever. Chitose realized this when she looked at the video platform profile she created for the clip of Ichiban. There were views, and likes, and comments. And a DM. Just one DM with a familiar avatar.

“Missed me much, Chitose?”

Of course, it was Eiji. He had been keeping an eye on them and now decided to join in. A humble smile, a clean look, a wheelchair… He looked so different from what Chitose was used to. But the core was the same. And she started seeing it as clear as day.

This was the moment Chitose finally realized what she’d lost because of Eiji. He gave her confidence, just to take it back whenever he needed to. He gave her strength, but only for it to be used in his interest. But what he’d taken altogether was the innocence and the faith in humankind. He even took Tatara, her alter-ego, and made it his puppet. She didn’t know this world was so cruel until she met Eiji. And she might have never known without him. But now it was too late to change a thing.

She betrayed Kasuga. She should have exposed Eiji from the very beginning, but she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. Recalling the list of consequences he promised her for treason, Chitose felt trapped. Her heart was ripping in half every second she was in the same room with Eiji. And when she finally shook the feeling off, it was too late to make things right.

“Ei-chan…” Kasuga said, looking at Eiji in confusion. In an instant, Chitose found herself barely seeing anything through a thick layer of tears.

Ei-chan… Even when the man betrayed him, putting his mother in danger, Kasuga couldn’t bring himself to hate the bastard. He looked confused, not saddened or furious. And for Chitose this was the last straw.

She would never be able to look Ichiban Kasuga in the eye. Knowing what she did to him. Again, and again, and again… She felt like the worst kind of person ever existing. A traitor to everything she believed to be good and admirable. A foolish girl played by someone bigger and better at the game. So, so much better…

Chitose lowered her gaze, so hard it was to keep staring at what she’d become. She used to be so different from this version of herself. She valued honesty over the facade, comfort over looks. She used to wear clothes because she liked them and not because they made her waist look unrealistically thin. She used to be so comfortable with short hair instead of these annoying braids…

The last thought truly caught her attention. She remembered that first meeting with Eiji, that first look of his, and those first words:

”I didn't expect you being this…”

Now she knew what they meant. These were the words that made her change herself. Her image, her life, everything around her. Including these long braided strands, she couldn’t keep her eyes off.

Chitose’s fingers combed through her hair almost intuitively. A second – and she dug the very tips into the intricate braiding on the side. She freed her hair and combed through it once again. And then her hand reached out to the scissors on the shelf. Strand after strand, the long pitch-black hair started falling into the sink, taking away the persona Eiji had been imposing over her own for so long…

When Chitose was done, the girl in the mirror truly seemed like a different person. A grown-up woman, but with a soft flair of the innocence she used to possess. Her eyes were glistening with tears of grief and happiness. She was finally free. Her mind was free of the ideas Eiji had installed. Her image in the mirror was free from his influence. It was Chitose’s turn, and she would be the one to show: she was no longer afraid of Eiji. That time was gone. Now she was stronger and wiser. And not for Eiji’s benefit.

“I’m sorry, mom,” Chitose said out loud. “I will tell you everything one day. But let me have just one more chance to become myself. I will be wiser this time. I promise.”

#everyone go read this rn!!!#yakuza #like a dragon #infinite wealth #chitose fujinomiya #Fujinomiya Chitose #eiji mitamura #mitamura eiji #ichiban kasuga #kasuga ichiban #infinite wealth spoilers

12 notes · View notes