Challenge Revised!-One eye on a broken heart~

The early morning sun pierced through the bedroom window and expensive curtains. It’s bright rays cut deep into the pitch black darkness that consumed the room. The warm rays slowly climbed up the soft sheets, each passing moment letting it ascend like molasses until it finally lay across the pale face of the figure who lay in bed. The person rested softly, undisturbed by the strange warmth of the sun. The fatigued body was finally getting some needed sleep after staying up for hours on end the previous day.

Drake Fond was not a nice man, but he slept like everyone else. His bedroom had a nice view of the town that surrounded his tall apartment building, but he often kept the curtains closed. The soft sheets and blankets wrapped the man up in a warm cocoon, keeping his mind in total stasis as his body rolled around his large bed. The mans dreams seemed to be pleasant, perhaps filled with the love and companionship he had never truly known…or the cruel joy of controlling others to do his will.

Either way, it would not last very long at all. The door to his apartment began to rattle and quake as something began to impact against it. The violent explosions against his doorframe quickly rattled the man from his slumber, his hand extinctual reaching for a baseball bat that rested by his bed.

“Drraaaaaaaaaake! Why is the…why won’t the thingy do the thing…Draaake…make it do the thing.”

The moment Drake heard the voice behind the door, his eye narrowed, and the bat in his hand was lowered.  Grabbing his patch and quickly slipping it on, the man rolled out of bed. He made sure to stomp to let the person outside his door know he was coming. He didn’t bother changing out of his long-sleeved white shirt that looked too big on him, nor the lazy blue pants he wore to bed the night previously.

“Alright, I’m coming.” Drake shouted, irritated that he had been woken up as early as six in the morning. When he opened the door, he wasn’t surprised to find a large, powerful looking woman at his door. “Hello Akane.”

“Drake…I hate you.”

The insult didn’t even faze Drake. Akane and Drake went back, knowing each other since they were teenagers. She always talked to him like that, and he had learned that while brutal, she usually didn’t mean what she said to him. Besides, she appeared intoxicated, a strange site considering she was not at the party Drake and the other gang members had set up the night prior. In fact, they were all supposed to head over to Akane’s apartment today to continue that party…what was she doing here?

Drake was sure he would find out.

“A pleasure to see you again, Akane. Now do you need something, or did you come all this way just to hurl insults at me? If so, you could have waited until I came over tonight.”

Akane looked absolutely whooped. She had some weird rock band shirt on, paired with a jacket and ripped up jeans. They looked like they had been slept in, and judging by how drunk Akane was, that was probably the case. Something must have happened.

“Me and Mako…broke up.”

Drake didn’t have any reaction. He had heard about Mako just a little bit…but not much else. He didn’t care to look into her; so long as she didn’t interfere with Drake and Akane, Drake didn’t care who his ex-boss hung around with. From what he knew, she was some tension fighter with a penchant for getting herself into either bloody fights or sex fights. Drake could never understand how a person could be into anyone like that, but his tastes tended to lean more towards cutesy girls that acted like…well, girls.

“Okay…So?”

Akane walked into Drake’s spacious apartment, not waiting to be invited in by her second. He didn’t protest, simply closing the door behind her and mentally preparing for the onslaught of weird emotions he would doubtlessly have to deal with in the next few hours. Why Akane came to Drake was anyone’s guess, but at the end of the day, here she was.

“We met at the park…and we started to fight. She made me a map, and I got mad, and-and-“ The drunk waterworks were already beginning to flow as Akane began to sob into Drake’s couch. The cool image of a rough and tough gang leader was tossed completely out of the room, no Drake was dealing with a broken hearted drunk that had no one else to talk to.

“A-Ad den I called her a slut! A-ad then I told her she pissed me off, but she didn’t! I was jud havin a hard time findin it! Ad she looked sad but I-“

“Hold on…I can’t understand anything your saying. Blow your nose already.”

After about three boxes of tissues and Drake warming a pot of coffee, Akane finally calmed down just enough for her cycloptic ally to understand her, though she kept sniffling and tears continued to stream down her face. She explained what had happened in ear aching detail, from what was said, to Mako’s pained reaction to the verbal lashing. Drake kept a blank face the entire time, as if he was used to this sort of thing. He wasn’t of course, but he learned long ago how wild Akane’s mood could get. It was probably why he was a good sub commander. He knew what Akane wanted despite how she acted, and made it happen.

“So you said some things. Big deal. Why don’t you just go over to her place and apologize. From what I hear, you just have to strip and that woman will snatch you up like her namesake-“

The sudden grip on his shirt collar silenced him as Akane tugged Drake so that he was forced to look in his boss’s teary eyes. Lord she was drunk, acting like a spoiled baby as she violently started shaking drake around while bawling again.

“I Caaaannnn’t! Weren’t you listening?! She hates me now! I know she does! The second I get near her she will probably yell at me!”

Even as she cried, she still violently thrashed Drake around like a stress toy, stretching his already baggy shirt and annoying him even further. The only way this could get worse was if his business partner, Stella decided to pay him a surprise visit as well. Knowing how much of a snake she was and judging by how his morning was going so far, he wouldn’t rule that out.

“And her security team will probably throw me out if they saw me coming near her house! I’ll never see her again!”

“……Okay. I guess you lost her then. You’ll find someone else.”

“I don’t wanna find someone else! I just…I didn’t mean to get mad. I just wanted Mako to take me out…”

“Hmm? Why? Seems like someone like her could only take you some place scuzzy…like a strip bar or something. Heh, if you were lucky, she might actually rent a hotel with more than two stars before trying to slip into your pants.”

“Drake!”

The red and gold iris o the conniving man flicked towards Akane. Those fiery eyes that always seemed to burn an inferno of confidence and rage had shriveled down to little more then sad embers of sorrow.

“Don’t talk about her like that…I like her…”

Drake suddenly scoffed, as if he had just been insulted, “Yeah, you and half the entire Tension roster! She’s an easy lay! I never go into the men’s locker room, but ask any guy in tension and they’ll tell you: if you got a match with the shark, there’s either going to be blood on the floor, or sticky, white cu-“

Once again, Drake was seized, but this time he was lifted straight of the couch, Akane’s smoldering embers growing in fury as she glared down at Drake, who seemed more inconvenienced then scared.

“Isn’t this how you lost her in the first place?”

After a very tense moment, the brawler dropped the one-eyed man, who adjusted his shirt collar while rubbing his neck.

“Look, you probably came here because you need help reaching out to Mako, right? You know I have all sorts of tricks that can get someone out in the open, and you figured I could help, right?”

Akane didn’t say a word, only glaring at Drake like a statue. A good enough confirmation.

“Fine.” Drake said, a fake smile spreading across his face, “I’ll help you get your little friend back…But I want something in return, same as always. You know how we are, after all.”

After a quiet minute past, Akane final gathered the courage to ask that fabled question, “What?”

“When we go to that little reunion tonight, and we are going…you are going to relax, pretend like you are having a good time, and convince a few of them to come work for me~ A simple task for you, I’m sure. Everyone in our old crew seems to adore their aspiring leader of old. A few words from you, and I’ll have a fresh batch of able body recruits to work with. Poetic, if you think about it. We are both helping each other gain friends…”

The wicked smile and deceitful glare seemed right at home on Drakes face. He loved having people work under him, and he would snatch up any chance t power he could. Getting him lackeys…well that was far from a good idea. The man was dangerous enough with his high-level contacts and powerful influence, but give him a couple of goons and he could be a real threat.

Still…Akane really did want to see Mako again.

“Fine. I’ll talk to them, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Well, make sure to do your best. If one of them doesn’t sign on my payroll by the end of the night, then a new arrangement will have to be made.”

“Shut up, Drake. Just do what I asked.”

That last biting sentence had a bit of the old gang leader Drake was used to hearing. Akane was sobering up, and he knew better then to tease her at that point.

“I’ll begin the preparations…I’ll call you when everything is in place.”

To be continued?