Haruna couldn’t stand feeling so terrified, so helpless. But this was worse than any other time in recent memory. She knew she had felt this awful at least once before. She couldn’t remember an exact moment, or even a series of events… but all of this was way too familiar.
"I should do her in like I did Wild Dog." Tyler hooted with deranged laughter. ”Whoa—your eyes got really big when I said that, eh, Ryu? Ha! What d’you think? Should I do it so she bleeds slowly? Suki. Daisuki. ōi ōi—what if I send her off with a kiss, first?—I’d do it just for you.”
Haruna shuddered. She shut out the world with her eyes. Please. Get us out of this alive.
Her eyes flung open at the sound of a bang.
Tyler flinched. Thrust from his hold, Haruna staggered back until she slipped and toppled over.
Shoes squeaking. Grunts. A strangled yell.
Haruna cowered, her back against the parlour’s outer walls, hands clamped over her ears. Wet. Dirty. She rocked back and forth. How much time would pass by? Two minutes? Twenty? She whipped around at the sight of a looming shadow. Its owner stooped down beside her.
Ryu.
He half-smiled. “Sorry. I ended up firing it after all.”
Haruna craned her neck, shakily lifting a finger to the bridge of her nose, straightening her glasses. Tyler was down, spread-eagle.
“Is he…?”
“He’s just passed-out. I fired it over his head to distract him first.” Ryu’s smile faded. “We have about a minute before he comes to, so we better get out of here. Mind lending me your scarf?”
Haruna knitted her brows. She lowered her eyes and gasped at the sight of a gash on Ryu’s left palm. In the other was Tyler’s bloodied switchblade. She unravelled the scarf about her neck and carefully took his hand to bandage it. They lifted each other to a stand.
“We can use the car,” Ryu said, stowing the retracted blade into his pocket. He nodded towards the BMW. “I don’t know how far we’ll get, but…”
Haruna was still unable to steady her breathing. No matter how she tried, her limbs were like boulders moving, her body still wrought with tremors. Ryu regarded her strangely.
“Are you having an asthma attack?”
She shook her head. “It’s anxiety. I think.”
Ryu nodded. Next, she heard his whisper in her ear, “Daijoubu. Haru-chan.”
Haru-chan? Haruna tilted her head, gazing at him as he pulled back. That name… where had she heard it before? She didn’t know Japanese at all, but somehow she understood. It’ll be okay. Everything will be okay. The nervousness, the fear faded little by little. She’d never seen his gaze this soft, this kind, but the level of comfort and unfiltered joy she felt at seeing it… she’d felt it before.
“Looks like we’ve found them.”
Ryu stuck out an arm like a railway gate as he positioned himself in front of her. Haruna leaned to the side to get a view. She recognized the woman who had spoken as the guardian for Heaven Home for Boys, Claudia. Haruna did not, however, recognize the person to her side—a man in a mean leather biker jacket, his wavy black hair slicked back, his square jaw set in a scowl, and his broad shoulders tense from huge, muscled arms that formed clenched fists.
Surrounding them were several men in black suits. They parted to make way for an elderly man in a dark wool coat. He frowned, his eyes obscured behind spectacles that reflected the magenta neon lights. He raised his head, his attention set on the parlour’s storefront. He removed a cigarette from thin lips and gave a drawn-out sigh.
His voice was low, rough like sandpaper. “What a mess.”
The large mansion on the west side of town had many rooms, one of them being a stunning chamber of sliding paper doors, low tables, and traditional tatami flooring. If someone had woken up after a long nap, he or she would probably think they’d been teleported to seventeenth-century Edo Japan and maybe that they’d happened upon the home of a particularly wealthy daimyo, a feudal lord.
Except, of course, that someone would be wrong.
A place like this, one would be hard-pressed to come by anywhere, even in modern Japan. But Shin Matsumoto’s home was different. It blended East and West, a tip of a hat to both where he’d been and where he was now, bathed in affluence and spectacle. It stood as a hallmark of what a lot of money could get him no matter how he'd managed to earn it.
Ryu had always been impressed with this house. It had a tranquil feel to it even if it cost a fortune to make it look that way. It was like Matsumoto himself: a man who seemed so modest and respectable. If much of the city knew what he really did for a living, they’d never believe it.
Even with Ryu in the centre of the tatami room—on his knees, back straight, assuming the seiza position—even then Ryu was in awe of this house and of this man. Because Matsumoto was a difficult man to truly understand, and Ryu couldn't help but wonder one simple thing.
Why leave a trained assassin untied?
The question had lingered on Ryu’s mind for a while, ever since he’d been forced into one of several black sedans at gunpoint and driven away from the Main Street parlour to this place. Ryu was no longer armed, and neither was Tyler. Matsumoto's men had confiscated their weapons, but the boys knew how to fight, even without them. So why not tie them up? Logic would suggest he would subdue the threat first. Restrain his hostage, second.
But none of this had happened.
Maybe Matsumoto still counted on Ryu and Tyler’s unbridled loyalty and obedience. Maybe he knew Haruna would be too scared to run away, or at least wise enough not to take the chance. Or maybe the fact that they were outnumbered—three teenagers under the watchful eye of the older, bigger, more skilful White Flowers. Maybe that was reassurance enough.
Ryu peered around the room. Katsuo stood surly-faced. His murderous eyes had been trained on Ryu from the minute he’d entered the room. On Katsuo’s right, Claudia, her arms crossed and a smirk on her face in classic onibaba fashion. At the very front, barring the door, a row of mean-mugging enforcers. Haruna gaped, frightened and restrained by two of them. They hadn’t tied her up either. They just held her back. In the centre, to Ryu’s side: Tyler. Tyler sat stiff, straight, his elbows faced out, his hands on his lap. He wouldn’t turn his head once to look at anyone, keeping his head bowed. False humility. Tyler didn’t know the meaning of shame, but he had been markedly quiet since regaining consciousness back at the parlour. He’d come to just in time to hear Matsumoto’s profanity-filled rant.
After standing around for what felt like ages, Matsumoto disclosed he'd gotten the memo that several syndicate members had been targeted. It didn’t help that Katsuo had made a major blunder with Tyler who didn’t know about the hit being called off when he’d taken up the task for himself. To top it off, Matsumoto received more bad news: the massage parlour had been evacuated.
An empty parlour meant an empty register. And Matsumoto? Matsumoto hated an empty register.
The jarring but nostalgic stench of tobacco stole Ryu’s focus. His eyes darted to Matsumoto, who leered down at both him and Tyler, arms crossed, a pack of menthols tucked in his breast pocket. The oyabun ambled over to a tray rested on the table and put out the one he'd been smoking. Ryu’s raging senses, the echo of Haruna’s distant coughs, these things pulled him back to the presentness of their situation like nothing else. The imperative to get out was all-or-nothing.
And the oyabun’s stony silence was telling.
Ryu wasn’t sure who had irritated the man more—Tyler, who had pulled a knife on the parlour’s employees like some high-rank big-shot. Or Ryu, who had threatened to retaliate against the Syndicate by so much as thinking to question his superior, Katsuo. Ryu supposed it was a good thing Matsumoto didn’t know about the way Ryu had totalled the Mazda. Yet. But it didn’t matter. They were the last of the old-waves, the boys whose fathers went out like soldiers. Both boys had gone rogue. Both of them would be going the way of their fathers soon enough.
<
br /> However, Ryu had made one huge gamble… one he hoped would come through sooner rather than later.
“Takehiko-kun…”
Matsumoto’s eyes were trained on Tyler. It was his Japanese name. It had been a long time since Ryu had heard Tyler referred to by it. Ryu lifted a brow. Silence. Tyler did not respond immediately as would have been the norm. Or as it would have been wise to do.
“Takehiko-kun…” Matsumoto repeated, this time inching a step closer.
“Tyler desu.”
Ryu near choked on his own breath. Correcting the oyabun? Was Tyler that much of a brash, egocentric idiot?
Matsumoto seemed to share a similar sentiment.
“Nandesu ka?” he bellowed. “Omae nanisama?”
Tyler dipped his head until it levelled with his own chest, his eyes shut tightly as though only just realising his mistake. “Sumimasen.”
Ryu glanced to see if Matsumoto was at all moved by the apology. Tyler was a phenomenal actor. Matsumoto’s lips pursed, but he remained pensive. Ryu looked to where Haruna was, registering the lost, deeply disturbed look on her face. Oh, right. Haruna wouldn't have a clue what was being said or what was going on. But how odd. Ryu knew what was being said, though he didn’t understand what was going on either.
Tyler spoke at last, as though answering to Matsumoto's silence. “Please. Don’t call me by that name.”
“‘Warrior Prince.’ It’s a fine name,” Matsumoto said, his tone hushed. “Why deny it? Your father had that name. He gave it to you.”
“He’s not my father! He’s a loser!” Tyler snapped. “He gambled away everything he got and killed himself! What an embarrassment. Only a loser loses everything!”
Matsumoto’s tone shifted. Less calm. Louder. More grating.
“Then you have inherited your father’s misfortune. Have you no shame? Arguing back? Disrespecting your elders? Doing as you wish? Taking matters into your own hands? You are selfish. You are a fool—baka. And I will call you as I wish. Bakahiko.”
Ryu's face fell. Tyler never spoke of his parents, and though Ryu knew Tyler hated his father, he never knew why. Until now. And now it made sense. Tyler had run from the name to run from a legacy that humiliated him. For Matsumoto to call Tyler a fool outright… it meant Tyler had continued that legacy in his eyes. Ryu gulped, poker face on as Matsumoto stepped from Tyler to leer down at him.
Now it was his turn.
“Ryu-kun…”
“Hai!” Ryu answered, prompt, more out of habit than genuine respect.
Matsumoto grinned, his gold tooth gleaming. “Are you worried about this girl?”
Ryu forced himself to remain still, facing ahead with hands rigid on his lap, instead of following where Matsumoto had pointed, towards Haruna. Ryu didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to.
“Not to worry, Ryu-kun. No one is going to harm her. But I do wonder what I should do since it has now come to this?”
Chills gripped Ryu by the spine at the sound of Claudia’s laughter.
“Father, why not send him away too? The media will say they ran away together. Or say they went out Romeo and Juliet-style. It’ll be cute.”
“URASAI!” Matsumoto roared, silencing her—everyone. Ryu felt himself near flip out of his skin, the man’s voice smashing through his ear drums. “GET UP!”
Ryu launched to his feet. He fought to keep his head down, acting the part of a soldier obeying command.
Matsumoto’s footsteps inched closer. Heart thrashing, Ryu watched as the oyabun slipped a hand under his coat, into the inner pockets to retrieve a pistol. Ryu winced as Matsumoto gripped Ryu’s palm and placed the gun firmly into it. Ryu gawked. Matsumoto’s eyes scorched.
“Kill him.”
Ryu forgot to blink, following the oyabun’s line of sights as they guided his own towards Tyler. Tyler remained on the floor, crouched over and completely still. Ryu felt the queasiness return, not at all aided by the faint spell of tobacco in the room. His eyes darted over to Haruna. Kill Tyler? The one who might have very well done Haruna in “the way he did Wild Dog”? The same Tyler who had nearly gotten Ryu killed by Szeto’s gang on purpose? Tyler, whose rabid jealousy made nothing about living at Tengoku House like heaven? Maybe a small part of Ryu wanted nothing more than to plant one into Tyler. But little by little, that part of Ryu was fading away. That look in Haruna’s eyes confirmed it.
Ryu lowered to a stoop. He placed the gun at Matsumoto’s feet.
“I can’t. And I don’t want to use one of these. Never again.”
Once up again, Ryu caught Matsumoto’s grimace. Matsumoto shook his head with a disbelieving snort. “Disappointing. I thought I’d look past all you’ve done, Ryu-kun, if you only obeyed. And you refuse? Your father would have done it.”
Ryu narrowed his eyes. “Liar! My father didn’t want any of this!”
SMACK.
Ryu's eyes squeezed shut, his jaw slack. He was slow to reface the man, his skin on fire and head spinning from the power of the slap.
“What do you know about Akuma?” Matsumoto spat.
“I know you ordered the hit that killed him,” Ryu retorted. Fearlessly. Foolishly.
It returned. Matsumoto’s grin. This time, with mock-surprise.
“Oh?” He laughed, then turned to Katsuo with wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. “But that’s only half the story, right Katsuo-kun?”
Katsuo was statue-still, stone-faced.
Matsumoto continued, posing the questions like riddles, without expectation of an answer.
“What do you think? Should I tell them how Takehiko really died? Akuma as well?”
Again, Katsuo wouldn’t speak.
Ryu’s eyes flashed between them.
Matsumoto placed his arms behind his back and began to pace the room like a wildcat guarding a prized catch.
“I only ordered the hit on Akuma. Kill Akuma, take the boy. It was a simple task, but Katsuo failed to carry out the first part. It was Takehiko who took the gun, decided all on his own to do it in Katsuo’s place.” Matsumoto looked to the ceiling as he reminisced. “Takehiko took them first. He really loved to watch people suffer, that one. He wanted to make Akuma suffer. I think he thought it would impress me. But Katsuo is different. He couldn't kill women and children. Couldn't kill his dearest friend.”
Ryu stared. Dumbstruck.
Takehiko… Tyler’s father? He had been the one to pull the trigger?
“Ah, yes it was a real problem. Didn’t make me look good at all, burning down a house, firing on gaijin and a priest,” Matsumoto continued.
A priest?
Ryu glanced over at Haruna, watching her ever-bewildered face. Her father, Seijin Mitsukai, was a priest? Did she know?
“And what did I say? Something like… no pinkies left, Takehiko. If you want to save face, I guess there’s only one option.” Then Matsumoto laughed. Even his laugh, like his voice, was rough and husky from decades of smoking.
So Ryu had had it all wrong. So horribly, terribly wrong.
Takehiko had done the job assigned to Katsuo, and for doing as he pleased, he’d either been whacked or took his own life to “save face.” Katsuo might have led the mob to the house, but Takehiko had been the killer. Takehiko—not Katsuo—was the man in the brown snakeskins, the man from Ryu’s reoccurring dreams. Yet Katsuo never bothered to dispel Ryu’s assumptions. Ryu’s eyes flitted to Katsuo, who remained still and expressionless. Why didn’t Katsuo tell him the whole truth?
Matsumoto let out a deep sigh. He stopped pacing and came to an ominous pause in front of Ryu and Tyler. “So what do I say to you two? Boys with no shame? Boys with no desire to be honourable?”
Ryu scowled. “Nothing honourable about any of this.”
Matsumoto scoffed. “You think you’re above the Syndicate? Why? I gave you a life. I gave your father a life. Without me, you’re nothing, understand?”
Without the oyabun? Without him,
Ryu’s father would be…
Finally, Ryu clued in. This wasn't a threat, but a negotiation. With every line it only became clearer: Matsumoto wasn't going to kill him and had no intention of doing so. At least, he was avoiding it, holding back. It was one of the reasons Ryu hadn’t been tied up. For some reason, Matsumoto still had faith in him. Or faith in an ability to control him. There was a hint of something in Matsumoto’s tone. Ryu needed to tap into that something. As Ryu did with so many others… he could, he must get into the oyabun’s head. Then, he must get under his skin.
Ryu smirked. “From what I understand, my father thought different. Clearly he mattered more to you than you did to him.”
That was it. The line had done the trick.
“Your father was a reject! A pitiful orphan on the streets until I took him in!” the oyabun snarled. “I treated him like a son, and I was the one who saw his potential! I was the one who allowed him to become the best!”
“The best? At what? Being a thief? Is that really something to be proud of?”
“You think he could have done better? You think that place has use for parentless, selfish brats? Your father never fit in and never could. He didn’t stand a chance and neither did you.”
Ryu’s smirk faded.
Matsumoto jeered, “Yes, now you understand? A criminal father. A gaijin mother. A half-breed like you. You think you could have ever belonged?”
“SHUT UP!”
The shrillness of Haruna’s scream cut across the room. Ryu whipped his head towards her. She was glaring, practically fuming.
“Excuse me?” Matsumoto growled.
“How can you say that? How can you talk like everyone’s as judgemental as you are—you—!”
Immediately hands clapped over her mouth to shut her up.
Ryu was taken back. She understood? Then was when it dawned on him that at some point Matsumoto had switched to English. Ryu hadn’t been focused enough to notice. Maybe Matsumoto wanted to make sure they all understood clearly. But what was Haruna thinking? He stared round-eyed at Matsumoto, expecting retaliation.
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