A bet gone wrong before she had the relative safety of Ranma's muscle to hide behind. Jones was not a cruel man, Nabiki thought, as much as a man who simply had no compassion. He'd dislocated her arm, and told her the next time she thought to stand the Yakuza up on a bet, that it would be broken.
It had been the first time she'd seen Tofu in several months, which happened to be an unfortunate intersection of time. Akane arrived a moment later; her ankle had been twisted, and she wanted to see the good doctor. Nabiki was first, so got her shoulder fixed, and then, on her way out the door, as Tofu was grabbing Akane's ankle, Kasumi walked in.
Nabiki had walked out faster, but Jones's impression remained. The big question in Nabiki's mind was ... what did Jones want with Kasumi? Jones was a pimp, mainly, and tried to attract girls to his stable by offering loans -- a trap Nabiki had nearly fallen into. But surely the Tendo finances weren't so bad ... that ... Kasumi would....
Oh no, Nabiki thought distantly.
"Kasumi ... your tab has crossed the ten million yen mark," Jones murmured, so quietly that only Nabiki and Kasumi could hear it. "I think it's time for that spa vacation we've been offering you."
Kasumi was trembling, and her facade was cracking. Nabiki knew she had to act fast, but she wasn't certain how to act. She'd been, she realized with no small amount of anger at herself, a huge part of the problem. If only she had turned her scheming to support her sister before this late, critical juncture.
Nabiki carelessly spilled her coffee Jones. The Yakuza thug gracefully slid out of the way of the arcing brown liquid, and Kasumi reflexively knelt on the floor to mop it up. Nabiki joined her sister, and whispered as quietly as she could, "I've got a plan, Kasumi. Order something else, let him think you're going to go along with him for a minute." She did have a plan, though it was, unfortunately, very simple. "Once our distraction shows up, run ... like ... hell."
She wasn't certain if Kasumi had heard her -- the next thing she knew, she was being hauled up to eye-level by Jones himself. He had clamped one arm on her shoulder -- the same one he had dislocated, once -- and she found herself biting her lip to hold in a whimper as he dug his thumb into a nerve cluster there. "You behave yourself," he said. "Unless you'd like to go in your sister's place?"
Kasumi looked up, eyes widening for a moment with what Nabiki was sure was concern for her. That clinched it, in Nabiki's mind, as she glanced over her shoulder, and realized that Akane, Soun, and Genma hadn't even noticed Kasumi and Nabiki's predicament. "N...no," she gasped, before squeezing her eyes shut.
"Jones-san," Kasumi pleaded, "let my sister go. She doesn't deserve--"
"Oh, she does," he said, releasing Nabiki. "But I'm a patient man. I can wait for this forbidden fruit to ripen, much like you yourself have," he drawled. "Enjoy your meals and ... Nabiki-chan? Don't try that again. Bad girls get punishment." Then he smiled, and Nabiki found herself shivering as he began to ... flow towards the door.
Tatewaki was still there, watching covertly, though if Nabiki could read his expression, it spelled out, "Who the hell was that, and what just happened?"
Sinking to the floor, out of sight beneath the table of the rest of her family, Nabiki tried to awkwardly put one arm around Kasumi, though the eldest Tendo daughter was absorbed in trying to wipe up Nabiki's spilled coffee. "Are you okay?" she asked her older sister very quietly.
Kasumi merely shook her head faintly.
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(Posted Thu, 21 Jul 2005 18:36)
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