The blanket and heat of the kotatsu felt amazing after my journey, but I was still on edge, running solely on anxiety and caffeine.

The tearoom sat at the far end of the garden between two Japanese maples, their crimson leaves fluttering in the breeze. It was new and small, only the size of a gazebo. The paper screen walls blocked the wind, but the open doors let in the light and the views of the estate, allowing us to see the kobun stalking around the garden out of earshot.

Ryuzo's demeanor was worrisome. He seemed uneasy, almost to a suspicious level. As we sat across from each other waiting as a woman prepared the matcha. She gracefully made each cup, then after a bow, took small, quick steps out of the room.

Finally, he looked at me. He was there, in those eyes, the flame of the man I loved hiding behind one hell of a shadow. The silence stretched to an uncomfortable length while I tried to find words. 

"Do you want something else?" he asked suddenly.

"What?"

"I remember matcha being your favorite, but you don't seem to want it."

I wanted to laugh. "The last time I was here, my tea was poisoned. I think I need a minute to get over that."

He hummed his understanding, sharing the same tone of distaste for his father's actions as me. "You do not have to worry about that anymore."

His father was gone. I hadn't processed that fully. I wondered if he had either. "So, you're the oyabun now?" I asked him.

". . . Yes."

"That's . . ." I couldn't finish my statement. That was many things. All of which upset me.

I tasted my tea, letting the creamy-smooth liquid scald my throat on its way down. The silence settled between us again, words hanging in the air like fragile possessions we were too afraid to touch.

"I'm glad you are here, Mina," he said finally. His words didn't sit right. My glare fell on the steaming cup rather than at him. "I've missed you. Painfully."

He reached for my hand but I snatched it away, folding both in my lap instead. I asked him again, "Why are you here?"

His eyes dropped again. He held his cup in his hands, staring into it as if it could tell him the right words to say. "I did not think we would see each other again for a long time. If ever," he said. "I hoped you would go on to be happy with someone else without us having this conversation."

"Happy?" The word came out in a half sob. "Do you remember what happened that night? How I found you? Everything I had to do to keep you alive?"

"Yes."

"After everything we went through, the pain and trauma of watching the love of my life bleed in my hands while saying his goodbyes." Tears escaped the way they did after my nightmares. I forced my voice past them. "But you expected me to be happy after that?"

He looked lost for words. "Mina . . ."

My tears were discernibly angry. "You had a chance to get out, but you stayed. Why?"

He looked at me with those melancholy eyes. Silent and stoic.

"Say something!" I yelled.

"What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry? That I did it to protect you? How does that change how I've hurt you?" he asked. "The last thing I wanted was to cause you pain, but trust me when I say the alternative would have been much worse."

"How?!" I shouted louder than I intended. "How could it possibly be worse than losing you?!"

My words seemed to surprise him. beneath his furrowed brow, the heartsick look in his eyes made me realize what I had said. As mad as I wanted to be with him, it was only because I still loved him. And I hated that I did.

"I did not want to leave you, Mina. But there was no other way."

"Why?" I asked with a pinched voice.

He shook his head. "Answer me now. Tell me why you came back."

His question reminded me why I flew here in the first place. Besides my safety, I came to deliver a warning. "My agent tried to get the message to you but found out you had never entered protection. I came to warn you." And to see you, I kept inside. "I found out who tried to kill you that night."

"The Laghari family," he finished my next sentence. "Orion found you."

Hearing Ori's name come from his mouth so casually was a shock. He sipped his tea as if I had said the sky was blue. "How do you know that?"

He set his cup down, staring into it. "We have known each other since we were kids."

I flinched with surprise. "What?"

"Our mothers were very close. We saw each other often when I was in the UK. When my mother was sick, the Lagharis were the first to help," he explained. His next breath left him slowly. "When I could not be with you, I paid him to watch over you and keep you safe."

I blinked, trying to make sense of it all. "But I met him here. You paid him to stalk me for a year?"

"Watch over you, yes."

I scoffed. "Did you pay him to fuck me, too?" 

A cruel question. He looked away as his face twisted into a snarl. His simmering anger was answer enough. Of course he didn't. He was far too territorial to allow someone else to have me, far too protective not to be in control of whoever he placed near me. Ori hadn't said a word, not in all the times we talked, not even when I had him at gunpoint.

The chance meeting at the club, being in the right place when I needed to get the pills for his father, showing up at my job twice — none of that was chance. All of that was Ryuzo's doing. 

"You knew where I was this whole time," I said with scorn. 

"No, not the whole time."

"But you found me and said nothing." Tears pooled in my eyes again. "I thought I couldn't see you again. That you would get killed if I did. And you're telling me I was running from shadows?"

"No, Mina-chan."

"Then what was it all for? Why was I hiding? Why didn't you come for me?"

He looked pained while he contemplated his next words. "When we were together, I promised you I would never lie to you. I will always honor that promise."

"Are you saying you can't tell me the truth right now?"

He shook his head. "I'm giving you the chance to decide if you want the truth, or if you want to remember me as the man you used to know."

My heart pounded in my chest. The rest of me was cold and numb. I was scared, but I needed answers. "Tell me. Everything."

His intense gaze locked on me. The ember in them had died. "I was born into this life. There was never any escape for me except death, and I had accepted that. But you . . . changed things. I never thought I could find happiness in this life, a true reason to live," he said. The pounding of my heart slowed, an ache settling in its calm. "When they pulled you in — I let them pull you in — I didn't care if I died, because if I didn't get you out, I would not have been able to live with myself anyway."

Something about his words made my skin go cold. "Wait . . ." I stared at his sad, yet calm expression. "What do you mean if you didn't get me out?"

He stared at me, saying nothing.

"Ryuzo, what did you do?"

"I protected you in the only way I knew how."

"What did you do?" I asked him again.

His gaze was hollow but intent. He was telling me I already knew.

"You . . ." I took a shaky breath as I tried to say the words. "You did this? You had everyone killed?"

His hand gripped into a fist. He rubbed his thumb over his knuckles to calm it. "You were the one who told me we cannot choose the reality we were born into. That we either accept our place in it, or we fight from within to make it better for those who come next. All I've ever done well in my life is fight, so that is what I did."

My eyes widened. The nuance of what he remembered, the specific words he held onto in his mind. I had told him that, and I had meant it, just not in this grave context. "That was your father. Your family. How could you?"

"My father was a traitor. Every day that passed, he pushed us further into the drug trade against the family's wishes, using Orion's family as a gateway," he explained. "Working with them wasn't enough for my father. He was ready to claim part of their territory as our own, not caring about the consequences. I went to them as a friend, hoping to keep the relationship intact, but . . . my father had just found out about you. He used you to get me to turn against them like he wanted. To protect you, he forced me to . . ." He didn't need to finish his sentence for me to know what happened.

I remembered the night I first saw the masks, Ryuzo told me he had made an agreement with his father, then came back that night with blood on his hands and that haunted look in his eyes. "He made you kill someone," I filled in his blank. His lack of response was answer enough.

I thought back to that time. The way everything shifted so suddenly once his father returned to Tokyo, the power he had over Ryuzo, and how effortlessly he threatened him with it. Worse than all that was the way his father bragged about his son being a killer, as if he wasn't the one who made him that way in the first place. It was all a fucked up game, just as Ryuzo had warned me.

"The night after the party. That is what you agreed to do so your father would leave me alone?" I asked. He confirmed with a nod. "So, Ori's family was there that night. The masks . . ."

"The komainu. A gift from us. A sign of partnership that we broke the same night." He looked away with shame. "My father wanted to start a war, create a name for himself. I did everything I could to keep showing them it would end there, to convince them not to retaliate. After my father broke his word and hurt you again . . . I told them to do what they felt was right."

My dismay was too deep to think straight. "You knew what would happen that night?"

"They hired mercenaries and gave them the masks to send a message, but you and I are the last ones alive who know."

The pieces came together in my mind the more he spoke. Ori wasn't there that night, he just knew someone was. Worse still, I hadn't lucked out when the assassin walked away rather than killing me. Ryuzo protected me yet again, but for some reason, he didn't protect himself.

"But why? Why do any of this when you could have just left with me?"

He stared at me for a moment. "I never planned to leave, Mina-chan. You were not supposed to save me that night."

His words rocked me more than his previous ones had. My nightmares weren't a depiction of my fears, they were showing me what was meant to happen. "You wanted to die?" I cried.

"I closed the circle, I fulfilled my father's broken promise to an ally, an old friend, and to the family who tried to save my mother. I fought to create a better, more honorable future for the Fujiwara. But I traded my soul to do it."

My jaw hung open, my tears spilling from my eyes. "You did all that . . . because of what I said?"

He looked me in the eye and nodded.

I shook my head in disbelief, trying to find my breath while my tears fell in silence. "This is so fucked."

"I intended to die with my family and my shame, but you saved me for the second time. I couldn't . . . I couldn't betray you by ending my life before you had the chance to know," he said. "Now that you do, my life belongs to you, Mina. If you want to expose what I did, if that is what you feel is just, I will accept what comes of it."

I shook my head without intending to. Not even a subconscious desire to hurt him existed in my mind. "You know me better than that."

His lips attempted a grin. "I suppose I do."

The weight of his information was too much for me to carry. The days of anxiety and lack of sleep wouldn't allow me to think straight. "I need to go. I can't do this right now."

I attempted to stand, but I stumbled on my tired legs. Ryuzo came to me in a rush, helping me to my feet. I didn't want to admit that his touch brought me comfort.

"Are you okay?"

"How could I possibly be okay?" I snipped.

He took my face in his hands, making me look toward him, but I refused to raise my eyes to his. My defiance caused another tear to fall, betraying my resolve. "I am sorry. For everything," he said just above a whisper. His thumbs wiped the tears from my cheeks.

"I haven't slept in days, and now this . . . It's a lot and I just can't right now." I pulled his hands away, knowing I wouldn't be able to leave as long as he was touching me. "I want to leave. Please let me leave."

"Will you come back?" he asked, his voice still timid.

I stopped to think, but found I didn't have an answer. Turning again, I walked away before I let him see my confliction, but as the emotion and exhaustion caught up to me, I didn't make it far. 

I collapsed onto the grass, leaving consciousness behind. The last thing I remembered was Ryuzo calling my name, begging me to wake up. 

I felt relieved, finally being the one fading away in his arms rather than the other way around.

___

A/N:  You have feelings. Tell me what they are.

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