Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer

He was pissed at Asami for once again, having to give up a scoop because it was somehow connected to the man. It was the second time that month he had to back off from a major job to protect the peace they had reached by silent agreement of not meddling into each other's affairs when it came to work. However, it still pissed him off when his work lead to the man and he had to give it all up, his wallet was once again empty and there was only a one hundred yen bill and a few coins in his pockets. He was sleeping at Kou's today, drinking away his annoyance regardless of Asami liking it or not.

It was the middle of the night and Takato had just left, they were sitting in Kou's living room dinking beers and catching up on each other's life. At some point the conversation shifted to personal relationships and the blonde wondered briefly why his friend has not dated anyone since high school, before going on a long tirade about how the 'rich lady' he is dating is so controlling and overprotective its driving him insane.

"And on top of that it's even affecting my job!" he shouted in exasperation

His friend gave him all the support expected from a friend and threw the occasional 'maybe you should break up' in the midst of his complaints.

"You should find someone who understands you, cares about you and how you feel, your ideals and your goals but ultimately someone who wants to make you happy." He had said, hoping Akihito would see the light and leave the complicated relationship. "Think about it, you are from such different worlds and you have not even introduced this person to us, if you can't introduce this person to the people you love and care about the most, then that right there should tell you something. I don't think you are ashamed of this person but something is preventing you from making this 'relationship' formal and commit to it. Isn't that a red flag, telling you that perhaps this will not work out and you should move on to someone you at least have stuff in common with?"

Akihito looked at his friend with eyes wide open, he couldn't even imagine his life without Asami. Even though whatever they had between them could not be made public for safety sake and for the sake of Akihito keeping his job, he just couldn't leave the man. Asami Ryuichi had carved his existence not just into Akihito's body, but his heart and soul as well.

He knew Asami doesn't show affection in the way other people did to their significant other, but the man showed he cared in his own way. Though they liked to play cat and mouse and Takaba pretended for the sake of their game not to want the attention the other man gave him, truth be told, he wouldn't have it any other way. He loved the bastard and was almost certain the bastard loved him, even if the words were not said between them. It did not matter that they had to be kept secret from everyone he cared about if it kept them safe, it did not matter he could never bring Asami to meet his parents and introduce him as what he was, the man he loved, all that mattered is that they loved each other. Right?

Kou wouldn't understand the complexities of the situation and to make him understand, he had to explain that he was more then comfortable to end the topic of conversation.

"We may not have much in common, and whatever we have may not be out in the open but I am fine with that. It doesn't bother me." 'It doesn't, it really doesn't. It's not like I wish I could introduce the bastard to people, that is simply preposterous, right?' "Anyway, what about you Kou? When are you getting yourself a girlfriend? You can't always stay single you know."

"Well, I actually have someone I like, have liked for a long time now. It's just hard to find the moment to tell her, and I just don't know what the reaction will be if I confess. We are friends and all and I just don't want to ruin that. I'd rather have her around as a friend than not at all."

"That is so lame dude! Just go with it and throw your heart out there, you're a great guy and that girl would be stupid to let you slip through her fingers. Just go for it and see where it goes, you might be surprised and find that all this time, she's liked you too."

"You think so? I think she might be in a relationship, so I don't know if I should."

"What do you mean 'she might be in a relationship' is she, or is she not?"

"Well, that's the thing, I don't know. She has never called it such or referred to the other person under any label that would indicate anything serious so I'm just confused as to what's going on."

"Then perhaps they're not serious at all, and it's something to pass time and not be lonely, hell I don't now Kou, it could be a million things but you'll never know until you do something."

"I guess you're right then, maybe I'll ask her out."

They continued to drink and converse while playing a videogame, eventually going to bed just before sunrise. The next day, Akihito stayed at Kou's again just for good measure and went home the following one because he received a text indicating a car will be waiting for him outside his friend's apartment in five minutes and he'd better be in it.

That night, after hours of being fucked into every surface of the penthouse, supposedly to make up for two days of neglecting his 'duties', Akihito was engrossed in a text conversation with Feilong. Asami had just left to finish whatever business Kirishima called him about, and the Chinese had conveniently texted when he needed someone to complain about Asami to.

The texts eventually got tiring and Akihito set up a video call so they could have a better conversation. It began as a tirade from the blonde while the Chinese laughed and snickered about his predicament and morphed into a conversation about all kinds of things –from both sides – they talked for hours about things from work to personal life, to those things you only tell your closest friends. At one point Tao got into the conversations when he came to bring Feilong some tea, they exchanged recipes and stories but the child was eventually told to go to bed. Anyone who did not know the circumstances of their meeting would have guessed the blonde Japanese and the long haired Chinese were long time friends.

When the video call ended somewhere around two in the morning, Akihito found it futile to go to bed only to be awakened by Asami's libido in one hour, so he stayed in the living room watching TV. After the golden eyed man arrived home, his hours were filled by rough sex and more rough sex then –finally- sleep.

Asami left early in the morning and Akihito woke up to an empty bed, he had agreed to fill in for a friend at a photo-shoot for a magazine around nine that day and wanted to be there early to acquaintance himself with the environment and the models and set the equipment.

He was exiting the elevator on the lobby when the concierge caught his attention.

"You are Takaba-san right?"

"Um, yes. Is there something you need?"

"No, it's just… this was dropped for you here a few minutes ago, I was told not to deliver unmarked mail or packages to the suite you live at when I first began this job and since it has no note or sender's name, I just kept it down here until I could ask you what to do with it."

"What is it?" asked Takaba getting closer to the front desk.

The concierge gave him a heart shaped box and he opened it to find it filled with all kinds of chocolate.

"It came along with this" said the man as he pushed a bouquet of red roses toward the confused youth. "This one does have a note though it does not say the sender." The poor man was blushing as he handed the card to Akihito, and after reading the card he blushed as well before an expression of worry set on his face. 'Who the hell would send me this? It must be one of Asami's sick jokes… no one else knows I live here.'

'I have loved you from afar, and seeing your smile brightens my days. I have hopes of one day making you mine so I may see you smile just for me every day of my life. Until then I will continue to watch you and love you as a secret admirer.'

He took the chocolates and flowers back to the penthouse and put them in his dark room. Even if it was a joke he had received flowers from Asami, and they were for his enjoyment only. On his way out he told the man not to tell anyone he had received the gifts, he didn't want Asami to know he was hiding them away in his private workroom as if they were a treasure. Akihito went to work and spent the rest of the day smiling happily to himself, he had received roses today and it just showed the bastard cared. There was no way the gifts had come from someone other than Asami and he was oh so happy about it.

Chapter Text

Akihito was at the offices of the Weekly Edition, polishing an article he had been working on before handing it to his boss. He usually did not do the writing as he preferred to convey information through pictures, but because this was important news and he was the one who got the best picture the editor in chief had asked him to write the article as well.

He had been working on the article for three hours and was rushing to finish it so he could meet with his friends for lunch at a mom-and-pop's restaurant not too far away from his job. He could have finished the article earlier if his mind had not been preoccupied with other things; all week he had been getting presents and notes and he was no longer sure they came from Asami. The gifts had started as innocent things, first the chocolate and flowers, and then a mixed CD and LOTS of pocky and a note saying. 'I noticed the amount of pocky wrappings in your garbage and after counting them, I realized you must be out, so here is a package with your favorite kind.' All he could thing at the time was 'What the fuck! This nutjob is going through my garbage!'

Things started escalating after he received an engagement ring –a woman's engagement ring, like he was chick! - Then he got underwear, thinking about how the sender knew his underwear size –something so private –was creeping him out.

Nothing creeped him out as much as the day he got a picture of himself perched on the roof of a building, taking pictures of a deal between a dirty cop and some lowlife gangsters. There was a note written at the back of the picture and the words made his blood run cold.

I had the day off today and decided to spend it with you. You looked so pretty today and watching you work was a great experience. The way your eyes shine with determination is so captivating. This was our best date so far. See you soon.

It was the creepiest thing that had ever happened to him, to know that his every move was being watched for a whole day without him realizing it. Even with Asami's goons he was not creeped out, because even though they tried to keep themselves hidden from him, he always knew they were there. This person however, had managed to not only follow him all day, but take pictures also, and he had not known.

His stomach had begun making embarrassing noises, and Mitarai had made fun of him twice at this point, pulling him out of his thoughts. He promptly finished his spell check and after reading his work one last time, he handed the article to his boss shouting a 'goodbye, see you tomorrow' before living the offices.

He ran like his life depended on it on his way to the restaurant, he had already blown off his friends the day before because of a certain perverted yakuza, who pulled him into the limo and did not let go until his friends were already long gone. The guys had threatened that if he was late he would have to pay the whole bill as punishment, if he dared not show up then they would post some rather embarrassing pictures all over his place of work.

He made it to the meeting place with only one minute to spare and seeing Takato looking at his watch, he waved nervously and tried to catch his breath. Takato turned to Kou and what he said made Akihito go into an outraged tirade, his friends have been betting on whether or not he would show up on time!

"Pay up Kou, you lost."

"Fine, but I still think that one minute is cutting it too close."

"What the hell guys that is just too much, I told you I was going to make it and you go and make bets about it!"

"When it comes to you Aki-chan we make bets about a lot of things, how else do you think we can pass the time waiting for you to grace us with your presence?" said Kou teasingly

"Like what? Wait don't answer that, I don't think I want to know. Anyway I'm starving, can we order already?"

"Aki, I have to give you this before I forget." Said Kou handing a box with an envelope pasted to it to Akihito "I was coming out of my apartment today talking to Takato on the phone about meeting today with you and forgot something so I went back into my place to get it when the weirdest thing happened. When I came out of my apartment again this box was just sitting there by the door. I hadn't ordered anything, so I had no idea why it was there and for a moment I thought maybe the mailman had placed it on the wrong door, but then I saw your name on it and since I was coming to hang with you I decided to bring it with me. I'm confused though, why is a package for you delivered to my door? I guess whoever sent it doesn't know you moved out of my apartment three years ago.

Akihito's quizzical expression was lost to his friends as he gingerly took the box he had not ordered and opened it carefully. He lifted one of the corners slowly to get a peek at the insides and his face went from tomato red after looking at the contents to lifeless white as he read the note.

Today is the anniversary of the day I realized I was in love with you; it has been four years now. Thank you for wearing that tank top with the camouflage prints I like so much, it shows your beautiful shoulders and slender arms while hugging your slim waist and showing off your perfect figure, and those cargo shorts that let me have a peek at your creamy legs. I have a surprise for you in this box; I bet you will enjoy it so much. I know what you like, I know what makes you tremble and I have put them here so you can use them thinking of me.

I wish I could see you using them on yourself, but that is ok if I don't see them now. Soon we will be able to be together and I can take you away from this life. I bet you are not happy living this way, I see you smile but I know you are faking it, because you can't possibly want to live with that person out of your own free will. I will take you away, to a place where he won't find you and it will be just you and I, and I will make sweet love to you every day and every night.

My sweet Akihito, my lovely caged sun, I will rescue you from that man who stole you before I was able to confess my love, so you can shine just for me like you did before he intruded on our relationship. It took me a long time to find out where you were living after he stole you, but now that I know he has been keeping you in his home like you belong to him, I can no longer let things go. You were mine before he came along like you were his to take, and soon you will be mine again.

If he had not been creeped out with this situation before, this would be the moment that got him looking everywhere around him in a bundle of raw nerves. This person sending him "gifts" had known he was meeting with his friends today. Not only had he sent gifts to his home and workplace but also to his friends and even to Mitarai. This person knew where to find him, where he lived and who he hung out with… this person had just sent him a box filled with sex toys and pictures of him and Asami kissing in the limo and other places. He was sure now… this… was not from Asami.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 3

He didn’t want to leave the condo, not by himself anyway, he began to allow Asami’s men to follow him around. This whole situation had a feeling akin to that of Momohara Ai’s stalker, but much worse. All the time he felt eyes looking at him, live worms crawling on his skin, it felt disgusting, and it scared him to know someone was watching his every move. It became that as odd as it seemed, Asami’s men’s presence had become a comforting thing to him.

He wanted to talk to Asami about it, he wanted to ask for help, but he did not want the man to think he was weak. He thought about telling him, and being met with a smug smirk, to be seen as someone who would always need to be taken care of, to be always rescued.

Asami had noticed something was going on, and had someone follow his lover at all times. He had a couple of reports about odd things happening around his lover, of Akihito acting nervous, always looking around him. What preoccupied him the most and made him feel that something very worried was the fact that Akihito had not been trying as hard to lose his men. If things were that bad that Akihito was allowing his men to follow him, why wouldn’t his lover ask for help? Why wouldn’t he tell him what was going on?

Even at the condo Akihito had shown evidence of being nervous and would not even answer the door. He began to find gift wrapping paper in the waste baskets but, where were the gifts? He found out from one of his men that Akihito had been asking the people who did the cleaning of the building to take the garbage out. Obviously they did not say no, knowing who lived in the condo. Normally his young lover would not be one to bother others with things he could do himself.

Several times he came home and detected the faint smell of smoke, two kinds of smoke, the first was the smell of smoke from burning things. The second was the smoke of cigarettes… Akihito had been smoking. His worry grew considerably after the first time he detected the smell of cheap cigarettes, Akihito was not a smoker and had never been one previous to whatever was going on.

Red flags went up all over his mind when Akihito did something he knew the boy was not ready for, Akihito invited his friends to hang out at the penthouse. Of course he had invited them to hang out and stay over when he knew Asami was out of Tokyo for the night, but the matter remained that he had let his friends know where he lived and now they could show up when they felt like it regardless of whether Akihito invited them or not.

All week he kept finding pieces of gift-wrapping paper in the various waste baskets in the penthouse. He still could never find the gifts, he had his men trying to figure out where the gifts were coming from, or how they were being delivered to his home since he had the concierge hold all mail to his home until Kirishima could get to it. Still it appeared like they were being delivered to his lover. Upon further investigation he found out that gifts had been previously delivered to Akihito’s place of work, coworkers, friends, and even family but as soon as his men started to watch out for the gifts they had stopped being delivered in such a way.

****VF****

It was Thursday, Akihito had the day off and did not feel like going out. He was exhausted from all the worrying and trying to figure out what was going on and how to approach Asami about it without sounding like a pansy.

He went to bed early, earlier than he had on a very long time. If he were to think about it he would realize he had not gone to bed at seven pm since he was fifteen. He was just too tired to think about these things though, too tired and to weary not to pass out as soon as he got out of his pants and shirt and his body hit the bed. Takaba Akihito was dead to the world in a deep sleep, so far gone into dreamland in fact that he did not hear the front door open and shut around one in the morning, nor did he hear the bedroom door creak open as a figure made its way into the room.

The bed dipped and Akihito did not even register it. A sweet smell invaded the room as the cap of a small test tube-like container was released with a quiet pop. The test tube was placed under Akihito’s nose and all tension left the slender body as it went further into unconsciousness. Nothing would wake him up for several hours.

The man lying next to him took Akihito into his arms, petted the soft blond hair, and kissed the pale cheeks and the rosy lips. He took in every detail of that tempting body and as if he was an art enthusiast, testing the fine details of the most exquisite sculpture, he touched every nook and cranny of that body. Not a single inch left unexplored, from Takaba’s little birthmark at the base of his spine to the scratch he had on his left ankle, every part of him was discovered and catalogued in the man’s mind.

Slowly, the man took off Akihito’s only piece of clothing, his army print boxers, and basked in the blonde’s nakedness. Again he held the limp body close to his, savoring the warmth of the one he had loved and lusted after for so long. He licked the defined cheek bone, the neck, and the pink nipples. The man made circles around Akihito’s navel with his tongue and smelled the scent of those fine golden hairs on the boy’s pelvis, content to have been right all these years in his assumption that Akihito was a natural blonde.

He wetted one of his fingers and probed slightly at the pink pucker as he licked the tip of the sleeping flesh between Akihito’s legs, and savored its taste like a fine delicacy. However the body was so relaxed from the drug that it remained limp. He did not mind it, he would not take Akihito tonight, he would not take Akihito like this. He would take him soon, but it would be when they were both awake and enjoying the act of consummating their love of so many years.

Taking his finger out and holding the body in a crushing embrace, he delivered sweet confessions of everlasting love right into Takaba’s ear and confessed that soon, all his plans to finally free him from his evil captor so they may be together will be in place.

He spoke softly and endearingly as he commented he missed him terribly because they had not been able to see each other lately, and how it was that evil man’s fault for tightening security around Akihito. The man asked him if he enjoyed his gifts, and promised to send more when he was sure the evil man wouldn’t see him.

He took pictures of Akihito’s naked body pressed to his being, careful not to get his face into them, he planned to send his secret young lover some of the pictures so that the boy could remember the lovely night they spent together, and it simply would not do if Asami found the pictures and prevented him from coming close to Akihito, that would ruin all his plans.

The man knew he had to leave soon or he would be discovered, it was past two in the morning and he had taken their secret love encounter too far. That man would be here soon, so he had to get out if he wanted things to work out in the end, all he had to do is make it out of the elevator in time, make it out of the elevator and to the lobby. Once he made it to the lobby he could make his escape and no one would know.

Reluctantly, he left the bed after putting Akihito’s underwear back on, past the bedroom door, out of the condo and down the elevator. He had twenty minutes until that man came back, his escape was like clockwork in its precision. He was out of the elevator and in the lobby and before he knew it… freedom.  The testing phase was flawlessly executed, next time it would be the real thing and he would take Takaba Akihito away.

****VF****

Asami got to his building at the same time he usually did, no matter what or how many things he had to do or who he had to meet with, Kirishima always found a way to make them all fit in the same timeframe, thus his schedule was pretty much the same every day. That is, of course unless he decided to take extra breaks to play with a certain brat.

As he entered the luxurious lobby the concierge bowed to him respectfully and greeted him as usual. The man was still bent as Asami passed him by, not bothering to pay much attention to the plain individual and rode the elevator with Suoh while Kirishima stayed behind to see to the mail, any suspicious activities or people, as well as enquiring into Akihito’s activities.

The golden eyed man and his trusted bodyguard stepped out of the elevator on the thirty-fifth floor and walked to the penthouse’s door. Asami’s hand stopped as he reached for the doorknob, something felt off. He took his gun out of his holster and slowly opened the door with Suoh closely behind, gun at the ready. Silence and darkness greeted him as he made his way to the master bedroom where Akihito lay in bed, deeply asleep. His mind registered a faint sweet smell he was sure had smelled before, but could not place a finger on it.

They went back to the living room after confirming nothing was out of order and the door opened to reveal Kirishima. The secretary delivered his report announcing there was nothing out of the ordinary, he stopped talking as he took in Asami’s pensive expression and wondered if there was something bothering his boss.

“Asami-sama, is something bothering you?”

“Yes, actually. In the bedroom, just now, there is a sweet scent I am sure I’ve smelt before but I can’t place where. It worries me.”

“Do you mind describing the scent? Perhaps I can help you recall. Is it fruity? Floral? Maybe some kind of perfume?”

After listening to the description of the scent, Kirishima paled visibly and asked Asami to allow him to check it out, seeing the expression on his secretary Asami gave permission to Kirishima to enter his room and accompanied the bespectacled man into the bedroom.

Kirishima broke into a cold sweat and ran toward Akihito’s sleeping form, lightly slapping the blonde’s cheek until Asami’s low growl brought him back to reality and he stepped away from the still sleeping young man.

“Explain yourself Kirishima.”

“I apologize for my actions Asami-sama… but… that smell.” Kirishima did not know how to continue, but his boss’s glare gave him the push he needed.

“That smell, Asami-sama, you’ve smelt it before, when we raided the Shinokawa group’s warehouses. It’s the smell of a sleeping drug, the same drug used by human traffickers and organ robbers to keep their victims subdued until they are no longer needed.”

“Out!” Asami was enraged at the idea that someone may have hurt Akihito in his own home.

“Sir…”

“GET OUT!!”

He needed to make sure that Akihito was ok, that he was intact. As soon as his secretary left the room closing the door behind him, Asami moved to the bed and uncovered Akihito’s body from under the sheets. He was well, his Akihito was alive and intact, he continued to inspect his lover’s body, Akihito had not been taken by another man, but the fact remained that someone had entered his home and no one had noticed it.

Chapter Text

“Akihito,” Asami still held the boy in his arms and coaxed him into full awareness when the blonde began to stir. “Wake up. I need to talk to you.”

“What’s wrong?” Asked the photographer, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“Did you let someone in the condo today?”

“Eh, no. Why?”

He didn’t want to scare Akihito by telling him someone had drugged him with a sleeping drug used by organ and human traffickers. He would protect Akihito and find the person who broke into his home. Right about now, Asami was regretting letting himself be convinced by Akihito’s constant complaining about privacy and removing the camera system from the penthouse. Akihito was his and even without the benefit of the cameras, he would find any threat to what was his and eliminate it permanently.

“Nothing in particular, just curiosity.”

Akihito narrowed his eyes at Asami, searching the man’s face for some clue as to where the question came from. Asami never asked questions just for the sake of talking, the man didn’t waste breath in unnecessary babbling. He found nothing on the man’s face, and decided that whatever it was, must not be important or Asami would tell him, so he snuggled up to Asami’s chest and fell asleep again.

Asami held him tighter against himself and spent hours thinking how someone could bypass his building’s security, the men he had protecting the property and also his door’s security system. This was a worrying situation in many ways, because it indicated a familiarity with the inner workings of his building that he was not comfortable with, did an enemy get a hold of his building’s blueprints?

Slowly the night passed and Asami still didn’t know what to make of the situation.

****VF****

The next morning Takaba served breakfast to Asami and watched the man drink his morning coffee. There was something in the way Kirishima looked at him while he stood to the side waiting for Asami that made the boy suspicious.

Before he left Asami turned toward Akihito and casually spoke to him, Akihito got even more suspicious.

“I am going to work and will be home late tonight. Make sure the door is locked at all times.”

‘Is there some underworld war going on that I’m not aware of?’

“Okay? Have a good day.”

Asami left the penthouse and Akihito stood in the living room for a while. Somehow, he felt uncomfortable, alone in the condo. Everything was fine while Asami was around, he felt safe, but after Asami left, he started to feel very uncomfortable the longer he stayed in the penthouse.

It made no sense, why would he feel uncomfortable in his own home? He had been living there for years and never felt weird there after he got used to life with Asami, so what had changed?

He thought it was just a silly feeling brought by the constant weird gifts from the freak bothering him and decided some cleaning would take his mind off it. After cleaning, he went to get the covers of the master bed to wash them and put clean ones on. The minute he entered the room it felt wrong and he exited the bedroom immediately.

“This is stupid! I was in this room with Asami just this morning and didn’t feel wrong being in here.”

The longer he stayed at home, the weirder it felt to be there, when he looked at the clock and saw he had to go to a photo shoot, he was actually glad about it.

****VF****

Akihito had just finished a rather annoying photo shoot with the most obnoxious of models, Ami-san, the one who had made him miss the fireworks display so long ago. He hated working with her and would have rejected the job if he had known she was the model. It turned out that the actual model for the photo shoot had fallen sick and Ami was contracted as her replacement and the managers had neglected to inform Takaba about it. Whether or not they did it on purpose he wasn’t sure, but after setting up he was not just going to walk away from a job.

After hours of trying to get the woman to do what should have been a simple job and taken no longer than one and a half hours, Akihito was tired and pissed and in need of a decent nap. He was walking out of the agency hoping to get home as soon as possible, playing some videogames on the couch while stuffing himself with junk food after cooking for Asami and calling it an early night.

Akihito was wondering what to make for diner when his thoughts were interrupted by the “wassup” ringtone from Scary Movie, he knew immediately it was Kou calling. He did not bother with a greeting after seeing the time and just went straight to asking the first thing that crossed his mind.

“Kou, this is… unusual. Aren’t you supposed to be at work still?”

“Ah, yes I’m still at work. Haha, I just wanted to let you know I received an envelope this morning with the rest of my work mail but when I opened it there was another envelope addressed to you. It was the strangest of things, who would send you an envelope inside an envelope addressed to me instead of just sending it to you?”

“Oh believe me. I would like to know that too.”

“I’ve been so busy today that I did not see it until now. Since I can’t bring it over to where you are and we have not made planes to meet anytime soon do you mind just coming over and picking it up?”

The last thing Akihito wanted was another present from the freak, but he feared if he did not go pick it up from Kou, his friend would get curious and open the envelope and God only knows what might be in there, it was a safer and less embarrassing thing to go get the damn “present”, whatever it was.

“Sure, I’m actually out right now and not too far from your company so I can be there in about thirty minutes.”

“Great then, I’ll take my twenty minutes break and wait for you at the front desk.”

About thirty five minutes later, Akihito walked into the computer company Kou worked at. His friend was already waiting there and chatting animatedly with the man behind the front desk. It still amazed and confused Akihito every time he watched Kou in his salary man attire after years of knowing his aloof and simple minded friend whom, as fate would have it appeared to be quite skillful with anything electronic and pitiable in most other things.

He walked up to Kou and chatted for a bit after receiving the envelope leaving shortly after. He dreaded opening the envelope and decided to wait until he got home to face the surely unpleasant little gift from his friend the freakzoid.

Akihito was so tired after dealing with Ami-san all afternoon and the beginnings of a migraine announced itself after Kou’s call. He practically dragged his feet all the way home, all he wanted to do was rest and forget about the world. Hell at this point, he was even considering willingly cuddling with Asami as not just a good ideal but a veritable option, that is of course if Asami made it home at a decent hour, which he held no illusions of –Asami was almost never home at a decent hour- because apparently underworld criminals are nocturnal creatures.

So he dragged himself home in a zombie-like trance, barely registering his arrival until he actually entered the building and was greeted by the concierge.

“Good afternoon Takaba-san, did you have a good day? You look tired.”

The new concierge was very nice to him and always called him Takaba-san instead of Asami-san, like the other concierge did when he was on duty. He hated being called Asami-san as if he was Asami’s wife. Despite his tiredness and crankiness he looked at the man and smiled.

“Good afternoon Maeda-san, my day was difficult but okay I guess, one of the models today was very demanding”

“Ah yes those high class women can be quite difficult”

“Tell me about it… I’m exhausted. How was your day?”

“You know, same old thing, my job is pretty cozy if I say so myself. I just sit here and watch people come and go. By the way, what’s all the commotion on your floor today? Some remodeling going on?”

“Remodeling? I have no idea, must be one of Asami’s whims. Ah, I have to go, see you around Maeda-san.”

“You have a good night then Takaba-san, it was a pleasure talking.”

“Thanks, same here.”

He waved at the man and rode the elevator to his floor. He walked down the hallway and noticed the man standing before his door.

“Hello Sanada-san, how come you are here?”

“Hello Takaba-kun. I am in charge of the floor security from now on, the people inside are working on the camera system. Asami-sama decided to have it re-installed. He also wanted a new security system for the door, the new system will have key as well as electronic card with number code. Here are yours, this is the code, Kirishima-san said to memorize it and then burn the card.” He said, passing him a white card with numbers.

It would not be a hard number to memorize, it was the day Akihito had kicked Kirishima and thrown himself off a rooftop, the day he had met Asami. He should have known it would be something like this, for such a hard man Asami could be quite emotional sometimes… not that Akihito would ever comment on that out loud.

“He is having the cameras re-installed? Why?”

“He did not say Takaba-kun, Kirisima-san passed the order for more security and cameras and we just followed.”

“Ah, yes… the good little soldiers you are. Are they going to be long? I’m quite tired and would like to relax without people walking all over the place.”

“They should be done soon.”

“Great, I’ll see you around then. You can come in for dinner if you would like.”

“Thanks Takaba-kun but I’ll be alright. My replacement is due in two hours.”

“Okay then.”

Akihito opened the door and entered the penthouse, there were indeed several people working on installing the camera system, and he did his best to pay no attention to them after some basic form of greeting. Forty five minutes later, he was alone at home trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. He still felt jittery when he was home by himself and had no idea why.

Takaba had waited until all the men were gone to open the envelope and now that he had some privacy, he decided to brave it and open the cursed thing.

****VF****

The blonde opened the envelope and pulled out a handful of pictures, his eyes widened as he examined them and he felt shocked. Shocked at the recognizing of the place they were taken, then as he continued to look at them, he began to feel sick, sick at the way his body had been played with and positioned like a doll for the sick degenerate who did this, as if he was his to play with. His stomach turned all kinds of ways and bile rose up his throat.

Still holding the pictures he ran to the bathroom and threw up in sick denial, all this had to be a lie.

He washed his face with one hand, still clutching the cursed pictures in the other and rested his back against the bathroom wall to once again take a look, hoping that it was all a lie, that his mind had made up the horrifying images and some sick fuck had not come into his home and had his way with his body on his and Asami’s bed. He should have never asked Asami to get rid of the cameras, if he hadn’t then this degenerate would have been caught by Asami’s men the second he stepped into the penthouse, Akihito regretted his insistence on the removal of the cameras.

Akihito looked at the pictures and quickly switched between them in alarmed frenzy. His hands were trembling and he was fighting for breath, he was freaked out. Takaba Akihito was going into a panic attack, the first panic attack in his short twenty four years of life and he did not know what to do about it.

Takaba felt his heart racing, almost as if it wanted to get out of his chest, his head felt dizzy and a tingling numbness overtook his hands, along with a terrified feeling of impending doom. Sweat ran down his face, even with the chill running over his body, he felt like he was suffocating and completely helpless, like a new born babe in need of protection.

 He let go of the pictures as if they had burned his hand and stumbled onto the floor clutching his chest and heaving. He was so afraid, fear traveled his body like a conscious living thing, like a liquid that its only goal was to reach every part of his being and paralyze him, so predators could consume him. It made him think of hands all over his body, summoning up and expanding upon the images in the pictures until Akihito hallucinated and sunk into a hell of his own making.

Next to him a noise had begun to make a path into his frantic mind, his name, someone was calling his name. Was it friend of foe? He realized then he had his phone in his hand, that’s where the noise came from, somehow at some point he had grabbed his phone from his pocket and speed dialed someone. Slowly, he saw his hand lift the technological contraption to his ear and the voice called his name again.

“Akihito, are you there? What’s going on?”

 That voice, he clung to that voice like a lifeline, and from it began summoning the strength to hold himself together. Still fighting for air but beginning to calm down, he responded the voice’s enquiry with a request.

“A-sa-mi… come… home”

“I’m on my way. Will you be alright ten more minutes?”

Akihito answered by slowly moving his head up and down as if Asami could see the gesture through the phone. Then he realized he had not really answered and let out one small word.

“Yes”

“Good, I’m almost there okay. I will be home soon.”

****VF****

Asami had just gotten out of a boring meeting when he got the call that the new security system and the camera system were installed. He walked into his office to test the camera system from his laptop, it would be nice to see his kitten’s comings and goings, a welcome distraction from his work.

He watched his young lover wait for his men to leave and then with shaking hands open an envelope. He wondered what it contained, and who it was from to have Akihito this flustered.

Shock, that was the expression on the blonde’s face, which, soon gave way to disbelief. Akihito’s face went from white to sickish green in a matter of seconds as he examined the contents of the envelope. He shook his face from side to side as if denying whatever was in front of him and then ran for the bathroom, the only place in the penthouse where there were no cameras.

The yakuza already had his phone in hand and was about to call the youth when his phone went off. It was Akihito and he answered at the first ring.

The sound of panicked breathing came from the phone’s speaker and already leaving his office he began to try to find out what had Akihito in such a state. Kirishima and Suoh stood in the hallway outside their neighboring offices talking over some paperwork. When the pair spotted Asami’s fast walking figure they went into high alert mode instantly.

“Asami-sama, is something wrong?” Suoh was the first to ask as he followed his boss down the hallway and out of Sion.

Asami was still on the phone calling Akihito’s name.

“Yes, I’m not sure what it is yet but I need to get to the penthouse, fast.”

The three practically ran out of the building and into the car, which was something quite strange for the people who encountered them because Asami never speed walked or ran anywhere. He could show up ten hours late for a meeting if he wanted to –even though he never did- and people would just sit there for the ten whole hours just waiting to be graced by his presence and act like it was not a big deal to be kept waiting. They would act like God himself had given them the gift of his presence, it was like that for people as powerful as Asami. That being said, his fast walk out of Sion gave birth to more than a few speculations.

He sat on the back seat of the BMW, still calling Akihito’s name until he finally got a response. Akihito sounded out of breath, like he was fighting to take air in and it made him desperate to reach his lover. He promised to be there in ten minutes and still holding the phone to his ear he spoke to Suoh then began to recite calming words to the frantic boy.

“Step on it damn it, any traffic laws issues can be dealt with later.” He demanded

“Yes, Asami-sama.”

****VF****

It had been quite the adventurous short drive, after running about six or seven red lights and dodging cops and civilian vehicles alike – thanks to Suoh’s driving and drifting skills – they made it to Asami’s building with two minutes to spare. They entered the building and once again ignored the bowing concierge, this time Kirishima did not stay behind and followed Asami into the elevator.

Sanada stood there, right where Akihito had seen him and upon feeling the demonic aura around Asami he wondered if something had happened inside that he had failed to become aware of and because of his lack of awareness, his life may soon be forfeit.

He gulped and waited for the ax to drop, but instead Kirishima just walked ahead of Asami, used his key, swiped his card and entered the code to then hold the door open for his boss. Sanada was sweating buckets in a matter of seconds before catching Suoh’s attention after Asami went in to ask what was going on.

“Suoh san, did something happen to upset Asami-sama? Have I failed him, I have not moved from here like I was ordered and Takaba-kun has not left the room nor have I heard any strange noises.”

“Something happened to Takaba but I am not sure what it is. I’m sure your life is safe for now.”

Suoh and Kirishima entered the condo and waited in the living room for any orders from Asami, letting the man tend to his lover in privacy.

Asami walked into the bathroom to find Akihito sitting on the floor, his face stained by tears and sobbing lightly. The phone now lay in the flood next to him and Asami bent down to pick him bridal style. Akihito circled his Asami’s neck with his arms and held on like his life depended on it, then he registered where Asami was taking him and fought the embrace like a cornered wild beast, the last place he wanted to be in was the master bedroom. Seeing Akihito’s reaction, Asami turned around and took him to the spare room the boy used as his working area and safe heaven. He sat on the bed with Akihito in his lap like a fragile child.

Asami ran his fingers soothingly through the mop of golden hair and offering the comfort of his warmth, when Akihito was completely calm he finally spoke to the boy.

“Tell me what happened.”

The simple demand was met with the extending of Akihito’s arm and his hand offering up a bundle of pictures. Asami’s eyebrow flew up, surely this whole episode was not because of some pictures Akihito had taken and the paper or whoever had rejected.

He took the pictures from the small hands and looked at them. Every time his hands put the picture he was looking at to the back of the bundle to expose a new one, his anger raised another notch and the temperature in the room dropped another degree. Asami recognized the background of the pictures as his own bed and felt disgusted by the hands touching the soft creamy skin that was just for his enjoyment.

As he gazed upon the images showing Akihito pressed to someone else’s body, his small body being caressed in ways only he was supposed to touch it. One of the pictures featured a finger inside his little lover and a low growl left his lips. The more he looked, the more he wanted to go on a rampage and kill every man in the world just to make sure he got this trespassing bastard.

The worst part was the letter attached to the pictures, written at the back of the perverted images as if they were some kind of sick postcard.

My lovely caged sun,

Thank you for the gift of moving our relationship to the physical phase. I have longed to touch your delicate body and felt so happy to be given the chance to explore every inch and discover every secret you have to offer. Your warm body in my arms was like a miracle and your soft blond triangle of curls the place where I want to lose myself and never be found.

Sharing a bed with you and spending such love filled time together was a gift beyond measure, the way you let my finger enter you accepting it completely gave me pleasure the likes of which I have never known. I know now that soon you will accept me completely and rejoice when I fill your very core with my essence. I promise it will go in so deep that it will never come out and no matter where you are, whether or not we are in the same place you will always carry me inside you and will never be alone.

Your taste was the sweetest nectar of the loveliest flower, truly the gods’ ambrosia reserved for the supreme beings of old time and you allowing me to taste such an exquisite flavor filled my heart with joy. As you lay openly for me to explore, taste and smell every part of your delicious body I could tell you loved me as fervently as I have loved you all this time. Soon my precious little love, we will be able to be together forever. I promise as our bodies unite in a passionate embrace for the rest of our lives that your existence with me will be heaven.

I had missed you terribly in these days of not being able to see you, that evil thief has kept you from me and made our love and any encounter a difficulty, but fear not my love. For I am always close to gaze upon your beauty and soon we will be together.

This gift is so you can remember our clandestine night of love, it is our little secret as we laugh behind the man who seeks to keep us apart and chain you to himself. That evil man does not deserve you like I do, I love you truly and have done so for many years now.

He will never separate us or come between our love. Soon, my caged sun, you will shine just for me.

The man who thought Akihito was a willing participant in his sick fantasies, referred to Asami as a thief and an evil man who did not deserve to have Akihito by his side. It all made the crime lord want to torture him slowly for a very, very, long time.

His mind summoned up the memories of the day he smelled that sweet sent in his bedroom while Akihito laid limp in the room in a mindless slumber and knew instantly when these pictures were taken, he swore to all gods between heaven and earth and every devil and demon in hell that he would find by whom and make them pay.

He would kill the sick bastard that dared to touch his Akihito and cause him so much pain, he would make him drown in a pool of his own blood and viscera for daring to come into his home and touch what was his. His rage was a palpable substance in the air and his hands shook with uncontrolled wrath. For the first time in many years Asami Ryuichi was losing his tight hold on his temper.

“Tell me everything, from the beginning.” He said once more holding Akihito tightly to his own body.

The boy did, he told Asami everything, and at this point he was too freaked out to care about stupid pride as things had gotten too real for any kind of comfort.

After this incident, security around Akihito had been tight, for once the boy did not complain about being shadowed everywhere he went and Asami’s men made an effort to give him space. Asami told Kirishima and Suoh about the pictures and everything Akihito had spoken about, leaving out the specific details as to the images in the pictures, the contents of the notes or the contents of the gifts.

Four weeks passed in uncertainty and hard searching. The mystery man had not been found and they still had no clues, because Takaba had burned everything he had gotten from the man. They tried questioning the people who had handed the gifts to Akihito in the different places he got them, only to find out that a random person had been paid to deliver it to the post office or hand it to the person who would in turn, give the so called gifts to Akihito. Since these people were likely just pulled off the streets and offered some quick easy cash, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. All they had were the pictures which Asami did not show anyone, the note written behind them, and Akihito’s recollection of the later gifts and notes.

What astonished them most was the lack of fingerprints, the man must have used gloves and made his oblivious accomplices wear gloves too, so they could not be found and offer up a description, the whole matter spoke of MANY hours of planning and premeditation, which had Asami and the group of people working on finding the degenerate very fidgety as they waited for the man’s next move.

The entire buzz around the building and at Sion over the whole matter had everyone jittery, and even the unassuming concierge who was always nice to Akihito, seemed to be jumpy as of late. With every passing day of no news, Asami seemed to become more prone to shooting someone just because, and people had become weary of being the bearer of bad news, or no news for that matter. All his employees seemed to cower behind Suoh and Kirishima, whom being Asami’s most trusted and the most experienced at dealing Asami, had taken up to being some kind of shield for everyone else.

The underworld was unnaturally quiet, something unheard of, because a little after the second week of no news, Asami had practically made minced meat out of an entire group for a small territory slight and the blood bath had scared the shit out of everyone else.

Kirishima was sure it had something to do with a comment he overheard from Takaba to Asami about the boy feeling dirty and not wanting to be touched. The secretary knew all of Asami’s moods, he could even guess when Asami had gotten laid, and if his calculations were correct at the time of the massacre, Asami had not gotten any for two and a half weeks. Thankfully, the boy had let up by the end of the third week or no one would be able to survive Asami’s deprived self.

****VF****

Akihito refused to sleep in that bed, for a week and a half Asami slept with him in the second spare room, which had a much larger bed than the one Akihito used to do his work. Then, when he finally was able to come back into the master bedroom, it was only when Asami was there as well. On the fourth week after he received the pictures, he was willing to sleep in the master bedroom again, only after the bed was disposed of and a new one was brought in.

The room ended up being repainted and refurnished completely, it looked absolutely different from what is used too, giving it the feeling of not being the same room. Still sometimes Akihito did not feel comfortable sleeping in the room on his own, and instead of coming home to rest a bit before going out to do another job, he stayed at Kou’s and took a nap on his friends couch. He would have gone to Takato’s but his wife and child were there most of the time and hanging out with Minami-san and a six months old baby by himself felt kind of weird. He had keys to Kou’s place anyways and his friend was more than happy to let Akihito crash at his place for a couple hours.

It was during one of those occasions that Akihito lay on Kou’s couch, dreaming about being caught in the rain. His subconscious mind convinced him that perhaps that was why he felt wet, the reality however was another. Akihito did not know that Kou’s apartment was precisely where everything began.

The blonde opened the door to his friend’s place and after some light cleaning as a way of thanks, took a warm shower and went to lay down on the couch wearing a tank top, boxers and socks he kept around in case he ended up staying over after a night of drinking with his friends. He set an alarm on his phone and set it on the table next to the couch before rolling around his face to the couch’s backrest and falling asleep.

Kou’s neighbor happened to have the day off today, he caught a glance of the blond hair through his window and excitement began to fill his body. He ran toward the panel that divided both apartments and pulled the small piece of tape to uncover a small whole and watched the boy walk around doing some cleaning. His pants began to tighten as soon as he had seen the boy but after Akihito came out of the shower wearing just the kind of things he liked and with his hair still wet, the bulge in his pants throbbed painfully.

So, he took his hardened flesh out of his pants and stroked slowly as he watched to boy set an alarm, roll around on the couch and fall asleep. Oh, how he would love to be that couch and have that lovely body on top of him.

Originally his apartment used to be merged to the other one. It was one big apartment, after the previous owner married, the landlord converted the bigger apartment into two 2DKs so he could make more money out of the property. Shortly after he moved in and not too long after that, his neighbor had moved in. At first he had been bothered by their noises every time the boy’s two close friends came over to visit.

The panel between their apartments was ridiculously thin and he could hear practically every conversation they had. He considered complaining about the noise one day, they were particularly rowdy and appeared to be wrestling each other for the last piece of sushi or something along those lines. Suddenly, they crashed onto the panel and ended up in his side of the apartment, one on top of each other in a giggling mess of tangled limbs. The image was at the same time infuriating and comical as they lay on top of the panel.

He meant to complain, he meant to yell at them, but he got distracted by the most beautiful creature he had ever seen as the boy bowed and smiled in apology. He meant to say many things to the dowdy boys… in the end he said nothing, he watched them go and reposition the panel.

They failed miserably at trying to get the thing back into its place next to the other panels that separated the two apartments in between silly giggling. Several nails still lay on the floor and giving up on them fixing it, he offered to do it himself.

He noticed the small hole in the panel and being too lazy to care just covered it with some tape. Time passed and he never spoke to his neighbor or his friends again. Three months later, he still heard them talk but now every time the boy had his friends over, he found himself spying on the blonde angel and following his every move. Two weeks after seeing them pass out in the living room after some hardcore gaming and drinking, he wished to be able to touch the shiny blonde hair. The next day, when they had all left, he pulled the nails out of the panel and secured it in a way that would be easy to remove from his side of the apartment.

The following weekend the boys drank themselves into unconsciousness again, and he removed the panel to touch the blonde boy’s hair. It started with that one touch and soon he was intoxicated by the boy’s smile, feel and voice… he was in love. So he took a token from the object of his affections, something that could be lost easily and not raise suspicions, a sock.

Soon after it was not just a sock he took, he also took used underwear, shirts, and tank tops. Once he even took a shoe. He would spend hours rolling around in his treasure horde, smelling the boys various scents and after he was done, he would carefully fold every item and placed them on the altar he had constructed for his love with his bare hands.

He already had a sock in hand as he stroked himself watching the boy sleep on the couch, but they had crossed the line into the physical and just watching him was not enough anymore. He felt the urge to be close to the boy as he jerked off, so he carefully removed the panel from the thin wall and walked to the other side holding his dick in one socked hand and his pants up with the other.

The man stood before the couch pulling on his weeping cock and occasionally bringing to sock up to his nose to smell it. The boy had turned to lie on his back and he wanted to cum all over the blond. Biting on his bottom lip to keep quiet he did it, he came all over Akihito’s chest. He ran out of the living room, through the opening and into his own apartment as fast as humanly possible, covering the hole with the panel and almost getting caught by an awakening Takaba. He barely made it.

Akihito had been dreaming about being caught in the rain but when he woke up to find himself covered in cum he freaked out and started screaming so loud anyone would have thought that he had gone insane.

“WHAT THE FUCK!!! Why the hell are you doing this to me you sick bastard?! What have I ever done to you to deserve this kind of torture?”

He screamed and he screamed, not feeling safe anywhere and the men positioned outside for his protection kicked the door down and entered the apartment guns in hand.

“Takaba-san, what happened?” Asked one of them, his hand already pulling a phone out to inform Asami of the situation.

“CUM… I AM COVERED IN FUCKING CUM!!!!”

The mens eyes opened wide at the implications and fanned out to search every corner of the 2DK, finding nothing and coming to the conclusion that the man had somehow dodged them and entered through an open window. They felt like a failure and had already begun to mentally prepare for Asami’s punishment for their negligence and lack of efficiency at protecting their boss’ lover. In the following minutes, Akihito had a nervous breakdown and Suoh arrived shortly after a call to collect the boy. The men knew punishment was imminent and in their own minds they thought that maybe they deserved it.

****VF****

The incident at Kou’s had been the last straw, he refused to give this man any more power over his life and to allow him to drive him insane. It had been a long day of perching in an awkward positions on a tree’s branch and he was ready for some relaxation. However, he would not go to someone else’s house today, he would go home take a bath and sleep in his and Asami’s bed, in his and Asami’s bedroom. Akihito went straight home took his bath and froze at the bedroom’s door.

He was angry at his cowardice, this was not him, and the shock of his molestation had already passed. Right now what he needed was to take charge of his life and help in any way he could to find the asshole so Asami could have the shit beaten out of him after he got to deliver a few choice words the like of which even a pirate would be ashamed of, and more than a couple of well directed punches to the bastard’s anatomy, coupled with a few kick in the vicinity of or directly to the freak’s family jewels.

He spoke at loud more to himself than to anyone in particular, seeing as he was alone at home, not even thinking that maybe Asami was watching his every move through the cameras as he stood before the room’s door.

“I want my life back, I’m done being scared and I’m done crying. I refuse to become some sissy that needs Asami to hold his hand like some wuss.” Takaba Akihito was many things, some of them he was not proud of being, but of all the thing, a whimpering coward was not one of them, he nodded to himself as if the ascertain the fact and took the first step in reclaiming his life.

Akihito walked into the room by himself, he laid on the bed and slept the night away, not even registering Asami crawl into the bed at the early morning hours. Asami had indeed seen him through the cameras and he was proud of Akihito, for once again his inner fire and strength could overcome any situation, with a small smirk he pulled Akihito to himself and fell asleep.

****VF****

The next day, Asami called him into his home office and asked him again to relate every gift and incident related to the stalker. He hoped that maybe, now that Akihito had calmed down and made a conscious decision to take control of the situation, the boy could remember something substantial that would give them the breakthrough they needed.

It turned out the much needed breakthrough did not come from Akihito but from Kirishima. Asami had finally allowed the man to see the disturbing pictures and after shuffling around a bit, the secretary’s eyes widened in recognition upon gazing at a small, almost insignificant and easy to miss detail.

He turned around to face his boss and delivered the greatest sentence Asami had heard in what seemed to be a long time.

“Asami-sama, I think I know who he culprit is.”

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 5

He turned around to face his boss and delivered the greatest sentence Asami had heard in what seemed like a long time.

“Asami-sama, I think I know who he culprit is.”

It was that crooked thumb, Kirishima had been there when it happened and had even helped the man by taking him to the doctor.  It happened on a Tuesday three months ago; Kirishima remembered it with great detail because Kirishima had a great memory and always remembered everything.

Kirishima was bringing a box to Asami’s condo, he was crossing the lobby and saw the elevator door closing. The concierge was coming out of the elevator at the moment and the doors were closing behind him, when Kirishima shouted from the middle of the lobby to hold the door.

The man turned around quickly and shoved his hand forward into the closing doors, where his thumb got momentarily pinched by the metal doors before they moved back to reveal the inside of the elevator. Unfortunately for the concierge, the force of the closing doors right on his knuckle was enough to have the man wailing like a banshee.

 Kirishima took the concierge to the doctor and they set the finger back to its place, but the limb ended up slightly crooked, Kirishima knew, he knew because he had asked the man a week later how his thumb was doing and the man had shown it to him. Between one thing and the other Kirishima didn’t have time to ask the man why he was coming out of the elevator, he had thought briefly about it and surmised that the man had just come from delivering something to one of the other tenants.

“Who?” Was all Asami asked - no more words were needed between them.

“Maeda Mitsuo, the new concierge.” Kirishima felt this situation as a failure on his side, he was ashamed that something like this had happened under his nose. Kirishima had always prided himself on knowing everything of importance about everyone and everything surrounding Asami or those his boss cared for.

How had this man gotten past his careful investigating? “I apologize for this Asami-sama, it is entirely my fault. I did a background check on Maeda-san when he was first hired to be the new concierge but somehow I must have missed something. I am prepared to accept the punishment you deem fit for my failure.”

“I know you are thorough in your investigations Kirishima, to have been able to get past your scrutiny this man would have to be planning this for a very long time. Find him, Kei. Find him so I can kill him slowly and painfully with my own hands.” The cold fury in Asami’s voice was noticeable to Kirishima and for the first time the secretary felt fear of his friend and employer. Bigger and stronger than his fear, was the overwhelming feeling of letting Asami down, of failing the man for the first time in years.

“Yes, Asami-sama. I will not fail you again… I swear it on my life.”

The ever faithful secretary pulled his phone out and made the necessary calls to mobilize the men. Suoh sent several groups of men to the several addresses the man had given as references and his address of residence. They tried the phone numbers they had on records and none of them were working.

Suoh had never felt desperation like he was feeling at the moment. He had just kicked down the door to the supposed apartment to Maeda Mitsuo, what he found there was beyond alarming.

The apartment was indeed Maeda Mitsuo’s home; however the man they were looking at, was not Maeda. The real Maeda lay in the bathtub, bled out and wrapped in the clear plastic of what once were the shower curtains.

From the state of decomposition of the corpse, the head of security could tell that the man had been dead for over several months. The man who had been working as the concierge for the past months had killed this man and taken his identity. The sick bastard had even gone as far as making himself looking like the real Maeda to use his references and identifications. On his way out, the blond bodyguard noticed something he had missed on the bottom of the door.

He knelt on the floor before the wooden frame and analyzed the thin black wired that used to be hooked to the door. ‘Fuck! An alarm! Now he knows we are onto him.’

Suoh took out his phone and called Kirishima, he was panicking now, Asami would be pissed about this development.

“Kirishima” Heard from the phone’s speaker.

“Kei, we have a problem.”

“What happened now?”

“There is a dead man here; I think it is the real Maeda. This means all the info we have on the concierge is probably about this man and we lost all way of tracing him. How did this happen, Kei? Who could steal a man’s life and identity so flawlessly that they got past your investigative team?”

“I don’t know Kazumi. The person would have to have someone with pull working with them. Enough to silence the questions of anyone who might have known the real Maeda and decided to enquire about his whereabouts. Are the utilities still working? How about mail? Is he still receiving mail? Maybe we can find something from that? I will look into who has been paying his bills and how for some leads. We have to find this man… this is all my fault, I can’t fail him again Kazumi, I can’t fail him.”

“Don’t worry Kei, we will get this man, and then Asami-sama will make him pay for all he has done to the brat. You know Asami-sama doesn’t like it when others touch his things and things are even worse when others touch Takaba-kun.”

All their efforts seemed to be for nothing, the bills had been paid through an automated online system provided by Maeda’s bank. The money the fake Maeda had continued to use the real Maeda’s bank and had deposited the money he earned working as a concierge in Asami’s building into Maeda’s account but it was impossible to figure out what he looked like. Even if they had gotten a good shot at the man’s face from the banks security cameras – which apparently the man knew the exact placement of and kept his face clear of – there was the matter of the disguise he had used to look like the real Maeda.

The more they look, the more evident it became that the man had covered his tracks pretty well. The carefulness of it all spoke of a long time of premeditation and planning, this was not just something he had done on a whim to be near Akihito, it was something that he had set up slowly and with the careful consideration a man obsessed would use.

This realization made everything seem more dangerous, more distressing. The knowledge that for months, maybe years, this obsessed man had been watching Takaba carefully… had been watching them all… and no one knew. How do you explain something like this to Asami and not expect one or two people to die for it, for their oversight in the boy’s protection. Someone would end up momentarily quenching Asami’s blood thirst, at least until the man was captured.

Suoh entered Sion and headed straight to Kirishima’s office where the bespectacled man leant over a table with an array of assistants and his team of investigators, trying to piece together in some way –any way – the information they had gathered during the course of the day, even if most of it was useless.

They were all on high alert and Kirishima was wound tighter than a drum, he was blaming himself for everything, even though both Suoh and Asami had agreed that the man had had someone powerful helping him and the oversight had been by all of them. Regardless, he kept working tirelessly and ran his subordinates like a slave driver.

Even Takaba had spent the day calling in informants and moving every stone his contacts could turn to gather any kind of information available in the streets. Asami had said that it was not necessary, that he had his own informants in high and low places and Akihito should just let him handle things, but the photographer was adamant that the man’s actions had been against him and he would not be in peace until the man was caught and it would be worse if he did nothing to help.

He watched Kirishima work hard and looking between one report and the other. His friend really was keen on solving this puzzle and fixing what in his eyes, had been his mistake.

“Kei, it’s late already, go home and get some rest. You can tackle this tomorrow with a clear head and hopefully find something useful, besides, your team is tired and they too, need some rest.”   

****VF****

Earlier that day Tanaka Sou sat on his bed, he had a lump of blond hair he had gathered the last few weeks from the garbage in one hand and a small tube of superglue in the other. Before him, lay a blond male blow up doll. He had just taken Akihito’s clothing off it and masturbated with a dirty boxer he had taken from his neighbor’s a long time ago. He remembered his hands trailing over Akihito’s soft body as he pulled his dick and got every second closer to the edge. Closing his eyes he recalled coming all over the boy not too long ago and repeated the act over the doll.

He had been working on the doll for nearly a month; a picture of a blushing Akihito over the dolls face, soft blond hairs he had collected over months, glued to the doll’s head, the same kind of cologne Akihito wears on the doll’s plastic skin, and now as he glued them carefully over the doll’s plastic cock a soft triangle of blond hair. He waited for the fast drying glue to dry and sprayed some of the cologne over the doll’s crutch and leaned down to smell Akihito’s scent on it.

“Akihito…” He moaned before he begun to lick the plastic shaft and taking it into his mouth.

He climbed up the doll’s body and kissed its open mouth, dipping his tongue into it and tasting the pocky he had rubbed on it. He licked its face and smelled the sweet scent on the doll’s neck, smelling Akihito in every bit of its surface.

“I love you Akihito and we will be together soon.”

Sou lubed up his erection and slipped himself into the doll, holding it close and smelling Akihito’s hair products on the doll’s head. Frantically, like a starved man, he fucked it like he hoped it was real and caressed it like a lover speaking sweet sick nothings into its plastic ear. He huffed as he sped up the pace and screamed his release into the dolls cold entrance. Oh, how he wished it was Akihito, Akihito would be warm and soft and welcoming, Akihito would have moaned and held him, he would have blushed and screamed his release together with him.

“My sweet caged sun, my lovely boy… I will have you soon.”

His spooning time with Akihito’s stand in was cut short by the alarm coming from the computer on the dresser in his room.

“Fuck.” He said jumping from the bed and running to the dresser.

The dummy apartment had been compromised, that meant his fake identity had been compromised and his plan had been ruined. He pulled up the surveillance from Maeda’s apartment and watched Asami’s men investigate every inch of the place.

“That damned man! How?! How did he find out? I was so careful, so careful, how did he do it?”

His carefully constructed plan had been ruined. Sou walked around his bedroom, pacing from one side to the other, biting on his thumb’s nail. He needed help; he would have to start from the very beginning once again.

He ran to his discarded pants, panicking and pulled out his cell phone. Quickly, he dialed a number he knew by heart and listened to the ringing, waiting for a voice to answer.

“Hello?”

“Nee-chan, I need help…”

“What did you do now?”

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 6

All avenues of investigation lead to nothing. The utilities, mail, and payments, nothing they tried led anywhere useful and Kirishima began to feel like he was standing atop a mountain of ever-growing failures. He felt like a disappointment to Asami. The secretary tried to find some trace to follow in the automated system of Maeda’s bank twice just to come up with nothing each time. Suoh swam through months of security feed from the bank and he too came back empty handed, the whole situation was getting quite irritating and they could not believe that with all their money and influence they could not find one man in their own territory.

During one of their desperate searches they found an empty apartment that supposedly belonged to the real Maeda’s ex-wife. In the apartment they found yet another alarming insight into the careful preparation the unknown and clearly dangerous man had gone through, three pages of information two on Kirishima himself and one on Suoh, obviously belonging to a much larger dossier. The man must have left them behind in his haste to vacate this compromised hideout. No matter how hard they tried following what little information they had, it all amounted to nothing, and eventually the trail went cold. Kirishima Kei had never felt like such a failure in his service to Asami.

Suoh, like a hound from hell sniffed every single possible trail, hunting for information of any kind that could possibly lead to the elusive individual. How someone could get so close to Asami’s price and private life and disappear like mist in the cold morning was beyond unacceptable. The man had lost ten pounds since this mess began and in his gilt and tireless determination to fix the oversight he saw as a personal mistake and wholly his fault, Kirishima had lost even more.

****VF****

Being informed of the state of affairs in Tokyo, and not having heard from Takaba through one of their weekly emails and random text messages for the third week straight, a concerned Liu Feilong decided to cut all middle men out of the equation and inquire directly to the most likely man to know what the hell was going on. He called Asami and immediately the Japanese man hung up after uttering a very harsh “I don’t have time for you right now.”

If he didn’t know better he would have thought that the man was preparing for war, it didn’t help that upon further investigation Takaba had apparently dropped off the radar a week ago. No doubt secreted away to some safe hidey-hole by Asami himself.

Feilong was worried and sent his best hounds to sniff around and figure out what was going on in Japan’s underworld. No doubt if shit hit the fan and he was not prepared, as one of Asia’s underworld rulers, he will end up coverd in it.

****VF****

Suoh had been right and someone, lots of someones actually, had ended up momentarily quenching Asami’s thirst for blood and retribution until the unknown enemy was caught but even that didn’t seem enough to calm the raging storm that was Asami’s ire. A blade resting on a stand on the expansive desk at Asami’s office stood as testament to that. The meticulously sharpened Tanto waited patiently for the day its master would make an example out of the man for the entire underworld to see. Asami had decided the method of punishment he would deliver upon the man who dared commit such crimes against him and what was his already and it was a gruesomely disgusting thing to watch. Suoh could not, in all honesty, say he was not looking forward to it.

 Plans and countermeasures of countermeasures were placed in effect and Asami set up to ‘clean house’ for lack of a better word and got rid of those of dubious loyalty within his territory and organization. Even the moles he allowed to exist to provide his enemies with false information were promptly eradicated. In one single day, by Asami’s order, ninety two individuals met their death throughout Tokyo in carefully orchestrated and synchronized attacks that were reported by the media as incidents separate from each other ranging from regrettable accidents to suicide. Not even the slimy eel Sakazaki was able to escape his untimely demise. Sudou Shuu, whom Asami was not very fond off as of late, was also disposed of. ‘Death by drowning while asleep in the tub after drinking a vast amount of alcohol’ the tabloids reported. Never mind that there were clear signs of breaking and entering, strangulation, resistance, and lack of presence of alcohol anywhere in Sudou’s body; such things were easily taken care of by a push of a button on Kirishima’s phone.

Asami was so angry he was borderline paranoid of everyone he could not be one hundred and twenty percent sure of where their loyalties lie. Tokyo, and subsequently Japan, was now quiet as a tomb and even the man’s enemies were staying away and keeping their toes VERY far away from the line. Everyone knew that at the moment saying the wrong thing would degrade the tension of Japan’s underworld into something volatile and uncontrollable. Such was the state of things that even some of his most proclaimed rivals had tentatively offered their aid to rid of whatever had anger him so, in an effort to save their neck since they were nowhere near ready to face Asami’s wrath and were fearful of it turning their way. They surmised, whatever it was that had Asami going on a murderous spree, 1) had to do with Asami’s much priced pet and 2) had to have been VERY bad. Whoever this fool was to lay hands of what did not belong to them, if they didn’t have the back up to keep head attacked to neck and neck to body, would pay dearly when Asami got his hands on them. Heads would roll, of that they were sure, and they wanted to either be as far away as possible to not be caught in the blood splatter (both literally and figuratively) or right by Asami’s side where it was relatively safe even if temporary.

The police on the other hand were having a field day and taking a sort of unofficial vacation, even petty criminals seemed to be aware of the tension clouding Tokyo like an ominous storm and stayed clear of noticeable activities.

“Make no mistake.” The voices of the underworld would whisper. “Heads will roll. Someone has gone and poked a tiger no one has the power to contain and the first one to move even an inch the wrong way will end up paying the price.”

****VF****

In her home, a classily dressed woman worried her lips with her teeth in clear distress. She knew now she should have gotten rid of him the last time he pulled this shit. Instead she ended up covering the whole mess up and protecting him just because he was her brother and the only remaining member of her family. She had gone to his aid when he came trembling to her after he had ‘accidentally’ strangled that high school girl while brutalizing her body by ‘showing her his love’. He had stalked, kidnapped, raped, and killed that fifteen year old girl all for the simple fact that she showed him kindness by offering a warm cup of vending machine coffee and a warm smile one day she found him drenched out in the rain.

She knew he would do it again too, to some unsuspecting poor soul who offered him kindness, she knew and should have had him killed… but he was her brother and she loved him, so she covered it all up, swept it under the rug and set him loose upon the world to find his next victim. She knew he would do it and she knew that again she would help him. Of all the people in Tokyo, of all the kind and warm people in the world, she did not expect it to be Asami Ryuichi’s pet. She was not happy about this development; people were already dropping like flies.

Tokyo was quiet…

… and that was never a good sign.

****VF****

“Akihito.”

Like an addict in need of his fix he had scratched his arms until his nails drew blood. He needed to see his precious Akihito and to feel again his soft creamy skin. He needed to taste it, all of it again and again until the end of time. He wanted to kiss the soft rosy lips until they bled and lick up the crimson liquid. To lap it up until all of Akihito was inside him as he buried himself into the boy’s soft, warm passage. He wanted with all his might to explore Akihito’s insides with more than just his fingers, if he could, he wanted to crawl up into the boy and live forever in that inviting warm.

“My Akihito… mmm”

He wondered, maybe if he stretched the boy enough he could fit his whole body into Akihito’s insides. The man shuddered with pleasure at the image and another thought came to his mind; he wanted to empty himself inside his love and claim once and for all that Akihito was completely his.

“A-Akihito ahg”

The mere thought brought him again to climax and once more a stain of semen was added to the mattress where he laid, bared of all clothing and stroking his still hard flesh. So many things he wanted to do, all of them he wanted to do to Akihito, but he needed to stay in this room as his sister had instructed when she hid him outside of Tokyo. He needed to stay here where he could wait for things to calm down until he could go and collect his beloved and run away with him to the ends of the earth if necessary.

He needed to stay here.

He needed to stay away.

He needed…

He needed…

He needed…

He needed to tie Akihito and fill him to the brim with his love. To shove as much as he could of himself into him and show him how much he was desired.

He needed to stay.

He needed to stay.

He needed…

He needed…

He needed…

Tanaka Sou needed…to see tears run down Akihito’s cheeks and see his hazel eyes open wide gazing up at him while he showed the boy his love by holding tight to his slim neck as he emptied himself in ultimate pleasure.

He needed to stay put, where it was safe.

But he didn’t.

And neither did Akihito.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer chapter 7

He walked down the streets dressed in clothes he normally would not wear. His shirt was dressy and his pants were not short nor cargos and had no holes on them. He had to buy them on his way here to be able to pass inconspicuously through a city full of eyes looking out for Asami’s interests.

At the store he bought the wig, he also found tan spray and had immediately picked it up. Akihito went into the bathroom at a public library knowing those places had no cameras, and changed his appearance completely even going as far as putting colored contacts over his well-known hazel eyes to make them look brown. His skin was now almost two shades darker and he wore glasses to help make his face look somewhat different. The photographer wore a shoulder length black wig with a low ponytail tied at the back, to help disguise his trademark and noticeable hair. He looked like some kind of bishounen college student.

‘If that disgusting man thought he was a master of disguise and disappearing, he should see me at this moment, not even my mom would recognize me.’ He thought with awe as he placed his old clothing into the bags from the clothing store.

Akihito knew he could not be stupid about this, the situation was very dangerous and he needed to find a safe place to make a plan before he goes off investigating. He had to keep away from places Asami knew as his regular haunts so Kou’s and Takato’s homes were out of the question, so was obasan’s place and his regular bars and ramen restaurants. No, he would not be so obvious. Akihito would go hide at the last place anyone would ever look for him. Stomping on his pride, he would do what is necessary and go seek refuge from his nemesis, the last place on earth anyone would expect him to be hiding and come looking. Mitarai’s crummy apartment.

He kept walking unconcerned. Knowing that with this appearance, there was no way anyone would ever recognize him, and directed himself to the address he had learned the day he had stolen Mitarai’s wallet as a practical joke for being a complete ass. It was a long walk but it was worth it to be able to freely investigate the creep following and hopefully find out where he was. The disguised photographer knocked on the door several times but his annoying counterpart was not answering, even though he knew for a fact that Mitarai had the day off. He continued knocking for over five minutes and by that point, his knocking had morphed into full out pounding… and still no answer. He knew Mitarai had to be there, the unreliable jerk.

By the time he started kicking the door and yelling ‘police open up’, he heard shuffling at the other side of the door and shouts of ‘just a minute’. Two minutes later, Mitarai opened the door wearing only a navy blue bathrobe, there was a dark-haired girl wrapped up on the palm tree printed bed sheets and peeking around the corner. Akihito immediately thought the brilliant-colored sheets were tacky as he pushed his way past a confused Mitarai and into the small living room.

The girl ran back into the small bedroom and dressed up leaving so quickly that Akihito thought she might have never been there and his eyes were playing tricks on him.

“WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?” Shouted his disgruntled nemesis, none too happy about having lost his company for the night.

“Geez, chill out you idiot, it’s just me.”

Mitarai recognized the voice but not the face, squinting his eyes and turning his face one way then the other, he finally asked.

“Takaba?”

“Yes,Takaba Akihito but I’m not at your service. I need to crash here for an undetermined amount of days while I look into some information.”

“Is it a lead on something big? It has to be since you are all disguised. If it is, I want seventy percent for the trouble of letting you stay here and as payment for scaring my lay away.”

“This is not about any leads and has nothing to do with work.” Akihito said flatly.

Mitarai responded with a loud “Bullshit!”

“Listen, this really has nothing to do with our job and the only reason I am here is because no one will look for me in your shitty apartment. Besides, you owe me.”

“The hell I do!”

“I covered for you three times in a month so you could get laid. You owe me and you know it. Now, get me some blankets so I can get some sleep on your couch. I’m exhausted from all the walking I had to do to get here. We’ll talk more when I get up.”

Cursing under his breath, Mitarai went to find the requested blankets all the while thinking that this was in no way over and that he was going to get to the bottom of the situation and hopefully capitalize on it. One would have thought Akihito would have learned not to trust him by now.

***VF***

It was an insatiable thirst that drove him.

It was an unstoppable itch.

A burning sensation that filled him to the brim and spilled into the world; pouring out of his body like rivers of maddening force. He needed to find Akihito or he was going to go insane. As he moved through Tokyo dressed in the standard police uniform he took from that rookie young officer, he could not help but let his eyes wander in all directions looking for his missing love. The rookie hadhis hair dyed blond and a slim body, but he was not Akihito. He was not able to satisfy him and for that sin, he now rested in the stomach of several very hungry dogs at his sister’s safe house. He had not felt like Akihito would, all heavenly and inviting, welcoming. The young officer’s body had rejected him and fought his entrance with its tightness, even after he had used his knife to widen the man to accommodate himself inside him using the flowing blood as lubricant, and he knew then that only Akihito would do.

Akihito was the only one. The only one he loved, the only one he needed, the only one who could calm his want and the beating of his heart along with the voices in his head. The one he wanted to swallow whole, and to make swallow all he had to give until he became like a dry well in the middle of the Sahara and could no longer spill his seed into or onto the boy anymore.

It was a need.

It was a thirst.

And he wanted to drink up all that was Takaba Akihito.

But he could not find him. Still, he was confident that he knew the boy more than Asami Ryuichi did, and so he would find him first. And he would take the price and his love and he would never be heard from again.

Akihito… He wanted him so much, wanted to consume him in his entirety. Remembering how the dogs took into their mouth the flesh of that young officer, he could not help but think that just as the young man was now forever part of the dogs, he wanted Akihito to be forever part of him, to tear his flesh from his bones and swallow him whole. But he wouldn’t do that, not to his precious caged sun, he wanted to keep Akihito with him for the rest of his life somewhere for his eyes only. He did consider briefly the idea as valid though, and didn’t completely take it off the table.

Yes, he wanted to carve a hole into his love’s pale chest and fuck his beating heart. Oh, how he wanted him. He just knew he had to have the boy, gifts were no longer enough. Standing and watching from a distance was no longer acceptable, touching him and tasting him had changed it all, and he wanted more.

‘Akihito’

‘Akihito’

‘AkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihito… touch… fuck… fill… his mouth… his ass… his soul… take every inch of his body. KILL HIM’

The voices in his head would not stop demanding him to find the boy and his thoughts were making it hard in the middle of the sidewalk.

‘Mine.’

‘Minemineminemine…’

‘Take him.  takehimtakehim… love him… lovehimlovehimlovehim… kill him… killhimkillhim…kill… love…. Death… consume… destroy… mine, mine, mine. Posses… fuck… mine, mine,mine. Akihito… Akihito, Akihito, AkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihitoAkihito’

“SHUT UP!” Several people turned their heads to look at him and hurried away. He lowered his face and kept going, searching for Akihito.

***VF***

Asami was beyond pissed and all the people he could kill were already dead. There was no one else he could shoot between the eyes to blow off some steam. Asami was the King of Tokyo and his house was completely clean. It was absolutely infuriating. It did not help that Feilong’s hounds were sniffing about, trying to figure out what was going on. His need to exact revenge on the creep that violated his home had become a sort of compulsion. He somehow kept going back to sharpening his blade; he really was going to enjoy making the man suffer.

In his hand rested a book of historical accounts of early European cultures, he was studying the method he was going to use to exact his revenge. His mind kept going back to his reckless lover and how crazy Akihito drove him sometimes, how he wished he could turn him over his knee and spank some sense into that blond head of his. Suoh had been looking all over Tokyo for Akihito and no one could find anything. He had dozens of men combing the streets and men stationed at Akihito’s friends’ home, the bars and food venues he frequents, his job and his parents’. Any place he could think his lover might go to was being watched, but after hours of search and waiting, there was not a sign of the photographer. He was beginning to feel desperate and a little afraid, feelings he was not entirely familiar with and found absolutely unpleasant.

From time to time, the thought that the disgusting man had already found his lover and spirited him away to impose his kind of ‘love’ on the hazel eyes hellion, it sickened him, but he could not stop himself from having those thoughts until he had Akihito in his arms again. Asami was strongly considering chaining Akihito to his leg, damn what people might think about it, he just wanted his lover safe and within sight.

At this point, the golden-eyed man was not sure what he would do to the young man once he got his hands on him but one thing he was sure of, Akihito was going to learn to stay put when his security was on the line.

Kirishima entered the office after a short knock and stood in front of his boss to deliver the sweetest of words he had received all day.

“We have a lead.”

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 8

Mitarai waited for Akihito to wake up, he waited for Akihito to be done eating breakfast and then kept waiting for his coworker to drop his guard and reveal his reasons for hiding at his place. He waited all day and nothing happened. Later that afternoon though, someone called Akihito on a phone Mitarai was sure was a burner and left the small apartment so fast Mitarai was half convinced that he had dematerialized right in front of him or done some sort of teletransportation; one second Akihito was looking through some loose pages and a couple receipts and the next, he was gone before Mitarai could discern what the hell actually happened.

Akihito had left so fast that by the time the thought of following crossed Mitarai’s mind, it was already too late and he had no hopes of finding the younger man.

******

She paced back and forth on the marble floor of the stone gazebo with marble pillars at the center of her favorite garden. She should have killed him, she was sure of it now, but she had let sentimentality cloud her mind. If only she had done what she was supposed to early on and gotten rid of him, now she would not be suffering from a tension headache and officially entering the state of mind commonly known as ‘freaking out’.

Her high heels produced a fast tapping sound you could almost dance to as she bit her nails in uncertain waiting. Crossing her fingers, she hoped her men would find the idiot before he got caught or his involvement with her got discovered. If someone, anyone, remotely involved with Asami, made the connection between them, she was sure her life and everything she had worked so hard to achieve would be over. Years of sacrifice, humiliation and sleeping with gross men to work herself up the ranks and land a top fish would be thrown into the trash as if they didn’t matter.

It could simply not be allowed to happen, finally she had the life she wanted and he was not going to come between her and the money she would get once her husband’s untimely death came to be.

She had to find her brother before Asami and make sure he could not talk. Dead men tell no tales after all and she knew that if Asami caught her brother, he would torture the bastard until the name of everyone who had aided him in his exploits regarding Asami’s pet was revealed, then hell will rain upon her.

Her brother had to go. Permanently.

The sound of footsteps on the stone path that led to the gazebo alerted her of someone approaching. She turned and walked hastily towards the man as he walked up the steps to the raised floor of the structure.

“Did you find him?” She asked with a mixture of hope and dread in her eyes.

“No, I still have men searching the city but there are no leads as to where he is currently. He killed again, we found remains in the safe house but that’s it. Everything has been made harder because we are not the only ones combing the streets of Tokyo and we have to move carefully.”

“I want him dead!”

“Hush! Your husband will hear and then all our plans will be for nothing. I will find him and get rid of him. Once things calm down again, we can proceed as planned and get rid of the boss.”

“I’m afraid.” She said and threw herself onto his chest holding on tight to the front of his three piece suit. “I’m scared that he’ll ruin all we have worked so hard for.That we will never be able to have all we want and be free, to be together and do as we please. Kill him for me, please.” The man held her for a moment before letting go and looking at all directions to make sure no one had seen them. He stepped back from her a short ‘respectable’ distance.

“I know. I will, I promise. The boss is waiting for me in his office. I have to go or he will get suspicious.You have to be more careful not to hug me in public next time. We can’t take any chances now that we are so close.”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, let’s just be more careful from now on.”

She nodded to him and the man turned around to walk down the stone path and through the tall bushes. The woman sat on a stone bench and looking at nothing in particular, brought a glass of golden liquid to her mouth and drank in one big gulp enjoying the burn as it traveled down her throat.

*****

It seemed to Asami that people around him were actively trying to piss him off. First, Akihito pulls a disappearing act and unlike other times before, Asami’s men were unable to find the unruly brat. Then, there was the matter of the unknown man who broke into his home and violated his lover.They had yet to find a clue as to the man’s whereabouts. To put the icing on the proverbial cake, Feilong had sent his men to snoop about and they were starting to become a nuisance. He briefly thought that maybe it had been a mistake for him to clean house the way he had, after all now he had no one to shoot and let off some of his anger and growing frustration upon. The ringing on the phone stopped and the answering voice at the other side was clearly weary of the reason why Asami might be calling.

“Yes?” He asked.

To which Asami simply responded, “Send someone to pick up your dogs from warehouse fourteen and pull out whichever ones you still have roaming about my city. I have no time for your childish antics, Feilong.” Then he hung up on the other man and tried to focus on reviewing some spreadsheets before him.

There was no way to concentrate as long as the uncertainty of the situation was heavy in the air. Each letter and number morphed before his eyes into murderous promises of painful retribution.

Once he got his hands on Akihito, he was sure to bend the boy over his knee and give him a good thrashing before proceeding to fuck him senseless. Akihito was someone else who also needed to stop with his childish behavior and recklessness.

As the day went by, it appeared as if the world itself was going against him. Every sound, every motion and every report that came with nothing of worth was just another scrape at his sanity. He fired three secretaries that day, merely because they dared to laugh somewhere near his vicinity. Not so secretly, Kirishima had assured the women they should just take a short vacation and come back when he informed them they could do so.The bespectacled man was not going to lose capable aids to Asami’s sulfuric temper, Asami was well aware of it and let the matter be.

His mind kept running through scenarios, each one worse than the one before and it was doing things to his nerves of steel that he had previously thought impossible. At some point during the middle of the afternoon, Asami was plagued by overwhelming fears; fear of losing his lover, of losing the only light in his dark and violent world, of losing what made his cold house into a warm home and lastly, the fear of never seeing Akihito again. His mind presented him with haunting images of Akihito being defiled by foreign hands, subjected to desires not his own, oh, his life’s blood being spilled and his light being snuffed out forever.

His fear gave rise to passionate anger and the impotency of not being able to do anything to prevent such things to happen and the helplessness of not knowing if his lover was safe or in need of him, only made that overwhelming anger flare up faster and in an explosive way. By late afternoon, Asami Ryuichi had officially lost it to anger and despair, his office looked like a tornado had gone through it and almost every one of his priceless breakable decorations lay shattered on the floor.

He sank on the floor, on his knees, holding his head in his hands and cursing as he promised to end all life in the world if he could not live the rest of his with Akihito.

**********

Kirishima was trying his best at damage control; if he was honest with himself, he would have admitted that he too was beginning to lose his composure. The only thing that kept him holding it together was the fact that he was one of the two pillars Asami leaned on when things got out of hand. All through the day he witnessed his friend and boss’ steady decline into what could only be classified as despair-induced madness. When the crashing and breaking sounds reached his ears, he was sure Asami had finally broken. As the loyal friend and right-hand man he was, he gave Asami enough time to somewhat compose himself before he entered the office and tried to help Asami into a more dignified state of being.

He was convinced Akihito had no idea the effect he had on Asami nor how his recklessness was affecting the man. When he had first entered the office that late afternoon after the noise had seized, he was sure something inside him broke at the state of his friend kneeling on the floor with a blank stare on his face. It looked like Asami was seeing things that were not in front of him as his eyes darted from one side to the other, the cracks on his implacable mast so wide you could see the worried man underneath.

They had been counting so much on the lead they had found only for it to come up as another dead end. The suspicious police officer talking to himself and calling ‘Akihito’ on the streets had all but disappeared into thin air, Kirishima was sure this was one of the factors leading Asami down the road to insanity. If with all their money, power and influence could not find this man, then there was a chance that the man could get to Akihito first and once more disappear into mist, taking the photographer with him forever.

*******

Suoh was pretty sure Akihito has been swallowed up by the earth. There was no other way to explain the lack of information regarding the boy’s hiding place. All known locations had been searched several times and a large amount of men swept the streets of Tokyo for any indication of the boss’ lover or the creep they had been hunting.

Somewhere around nine that night, Suoh finally let out a breath of relief. A video had been sent to them by one of the men he had looking into the shopping district. It was a grainy video from an ATM machine showing a young man entering a store at the other side of the street. If he had not been so familiar with the boy’s features, he would have dismissed the barely discernable image as not being the boy at all, but Suoh had made it his business to be familiar with Akihito’s face, body language, and body type long ago.

Under different circumstances, he would have waited for the morning to pay the store a visit and collect the information he required. However, he had received rather disturbing reports about the state of affairs at Sion earlier that day and they only kept getting worse.There was no time to wait, Asami needed a silver lining on his dark clouds and Suoh was more than willing to provide it. Any news that could shine some light into Akihito’s whereabouts was bound to pull Asami from his temporary madness. With urgency, Suoh found out the home address of the store’s manager and dragged him from his pleasant sleep on his queen-sized bed straight to the store where he forced the man to look at the records for the day’s sales and any surveillance for the store and figure out exactly what Akihito bought and what direction he took after leaving the store. Hopefully by mid morning, his people would have gone through the video recording for all cameras on the street around the time Akihito left the store and they could come up with an answer as to where the boy is.

*****

“Where is he?!” A man with a baseball hat and a goatee hissed into the young man’s ear. “I know you know where he is, you’re his friend and he must have told you something.”

He had caught the dark-haired young man on his way out of his job and dragged him to an alley where he slammed the smaller body to the wall and pressing his forearm onto the other’s neck as he questioned him.

“I don’t know who you’re asking about.” The dark-haired young man wheezed as the pressure on his windpipe began to make him dizzy.

“You know, you know, you know. You know where Akihito is and you will tell me or I will break your neck and leave you here like trash on the floor.”

Before the young man could reply, a passerby who happened to look into the alley yelled.

“HEY, YOU! WHAT’S GOING ON IN THERE?! I’M CALLING THE POLICE!”

He could not leave the young man to tell anyone what he had been asking about, that would simply not do. Before he made his way out of the alley by pushing the man threatening to call the cops, he pushed a blade into the young man’s soft stomach as it pierced a dangerous place and the young man slid to the ground bleeding profusely.

Kou was sure he was dying.

********

Takaba Akihito did not come back to Mitarai’s place that night.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 9

Akihito sat in a barely lit corner at the far end of a bar cops frequent. He was waiting for a friend of his whom no one knew he had any connections to. He had been nursing the same beer for over two hours already and his friend had not shown. Right about the time he had decided to just leave and bitch at his friend later, the door to the bar opened, the sound of a small bell signaling the entry of a patron.

The man walked purposely towards the end of the bar where the disguised blond sat. He was tall for a Japanese man, like Akihito he was of mixed heritage; it was one of the things they had bonded over when they met. He walked to the table and sat down before the smaller man.With an apologetic smile, he began to speak.

“Hey there short stuff, what’s up with the image change?”

“I’m hiding from someone, why were you so late? I almost walked out of here.”

“Ah, sorry about that. Everyone is freaking out at the precinct, it seems like something big is going on but no one is talking about it. I looked into what you asked me though, didn’t find much other than the crazy cat lady who lives in the same hallway as Maeda’s ex-wife’s apartment.”

“Why the hell am I hearing about a crazy cat lady? Who cares about that?”

“But you see, that’s exactly why you should care. Because everyone dismisses the crazies and they are the ones who are always watching what goes on.”

“So the crazy cat lady knows something?”

“Better than that, she recalls a suspicious-looking man coming several times around the time the real Maeda is presumed to have died. It seems he was scoping out his soon-to-be hideout. Soon after that, according to her, Maeda’s wife never came back and the strange man moved in, I’m thinking Maeda’s wife is dead and the new tenant is the man you are looking for. Crazy cat lady also said the man looked different every time he left the place.”

“That’s it! That’s the breakthrough I’ve been looking for! I hope she might remember his real face in detail from when she saw him sneaking about that first time? Do you think she can recall exactly what the man looked like? It might be possible to get someone to draw up a sketch of the man from her description. Will she cooperate if I go talk to her?”

“She does remember actually, apparently not much happened in that building so when something strange does happen she pays extra attention to it. It seems she even has all her neighbors’ routines down to a t.”

“So can I bring a sketch artist to her?”

“Already did it, kid. Sadly there’s a problem with it.”

“What problem?”

“You wanted me to do this quietly and keep a low profile about it so I had to get the only sketch artist I know who is not affiliated with any of the precincts in Tokyo to draw the sketch. The problem lies with the fact that he figured out I could not go to anyone else for fear of them running their mouth and is holding the sketch for ransom. The kind of money he is asking for, I just don’t have it and neither do you.”

“Fuck!”

“I know, it’s hard to do things under the table in this city unless you’re some rich snob who can grease the right hands.”

“I know a rich snob.”

“Do you now, would this snob be willing to pay the sketch artist for the drawing?”

“Oh, yeah. He would.”

“Then why are you sitting here talking to a low level cop like me? Go find the walking wallet and make him pay for your shit.”

Akihito was about to say something about the ‘walking wallet’ comment when a voice from the cop’s radio interrupted him.”

“We got a 417A at Tokyo Tech, possible 217.”

“This is Masara, I’m ten minutes away from the scene and will be heading there now.” He said to the voice before putting his radio back on his belt. “Sorry short stuff, someone got stabbed at Tokyo Tech; I gotta go ask witnesses for statements and such. I was getting used to things being quiet around here but I guess Tokyo can’t be crimeless forever. Here is the artist’s name and phone number.” The cop placed a piece of paper on the table and walked away.

A sudden spear of fear pierced Akihito’s chest, something about the stabbing felt really wrong and he was beginning to feel like it may have something to do with him.

‘Tokyo Tech? That’s where Kou works. What are the odds?’

His friend had left the bar already and Akihito suddenly felt an overwhelming need to know if Kou was alright. He took his burner phone and called the number for the receptionist at Kou’s floor. The phone rang several times before someone answered.

“Tokyo Technological Industries, how may I help you?” The woman said.

“Hello, this is Takaba Akihito. Could you connect me to Yomura Kou?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to inform you but Mr. Yomura has just been taken to Itō Hospital, someone attacked him outside and nearly killed him. He lost a lot of blood from what it seemed, we are all hoping he’ll make it.”

Akihito couldn’t hear more. He hung up the phone and left for the hospital as fast as he could.

****

“Asami-sama, I think it is best if you head home for the night. You can’t even think straight in this condition much less concentrate in paperwork.”

“Are you calling me incompetent, Kirishima?” Asked an irritated Asami.

“Not at all, Sir. it’s just that you’re tired and haven’t heard from Akihito in close to three days now. With how the state of affairs is right now, it’s best if you rest your mind and renew your energies before you dive into this mess again.”

Asami did not like it at all but Kirishima was right, it would be best if he had a clear head on his shoulders while he addressed the problem at hand.

“Tell Suoh to bring the limo around. You will stay here and get this mess sorted, I will look at this paperwork tomorrow.”

Kirishima took out his phone and made the necessary calls, first to Suoh and then to a cleaning service and a decorator.

Asami left the office with preoccupied thoughts of his missing lover. Perhaps a long shower once he reaches home will serve to calm him down a bit. But first, he would stop by Yoh’s hotel room and ‘ask politely’ for the man to get the hell out of his city.

****

Akihito arrived at the hospital in record speed and found Takato was already in the waiting room, his friend looked ashen and nervous as he paced from one side of the room to the other. When he spotted Akihito, still in his disguise, Takato stopped on his tracks and stared down the intruder. Letting out his anger at the situation on the unsuspecting man.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Takato, it’s me.”

“Aki? Why are you dressed like that?”

“It’s for a scoop in investigating.” He said, hoping Takato would buy his lie.

All of a sudden, Takato was in front of him, his face looked worried and his hands were holding each other so tight his knuckles were white. Takato looked Akihito in the eyes as he delivered to his friend the information he knew.

“A man called the cops, he probably saved Kou’s life, he was being mugged in the alley near his building. They rushed him to surgery right away but the nurse said he had lost a lot of blood; thankfully the knife didn’t hit any major organs though it was a hair’s width from doing so.”

Akihito led Takato to the chairs in the room and they both sat there to wait on news about their friend. Hours later, a nurse came to tell them Kou made it alright and was currently being placed in a room to recover.

“He should be awake in an hour if you want to see him tonight while visiting hours are still going, otherwise you can come back tomorrow and see him when he is less tired from his ordeal.”

“We’ll wait.” They both said at the same time, though it was Takato who asked if they could wait in Kou’s room.

The nurse took pity on their semblances and led them to the room. Normally, she would only let one person wait in the room but tonight she felt like looking the other way and let the two young men keep vigil over their friend.

The way he was feeling because one of his best friends had almost died was nothing compared to the way Akihito felt when a tired looking Kou told him in an almost whisper that the man who assaulted him had been asking for Akihito. The kind of guilt he felt at that moment almost tore him apart and it was enough to send him teary eyed to Asami. This was too big for him to do alone and people he cared for that had nothing to do with it were in danger because of his hubris.

He looked at his watch, barely able to make up the numbers through the sheen of unshed tears in his eyes. Asami should still be at Sion so he would head there.

******

It turned out Asami had not been at Sion. Kirishima explained something had happened, he didn’t actually say what, and Suoh had taken Asami back home. The secretary decided he would escort Akihito to the condo to make sure the young man did not pull one of his stunts and went AWOL again. It was safest if Akihito kept his disguise on just in case so the bespectacled man and what could pass as a bishounen rode the BMW to Asami’s home. The blond could discard his new identity in the safety of Asami’s home.

Once there,Akihito sat on the living room couch, waiting for Asami to leave the shower. His face was dejected and his shoulders slumped down as if the weight of the world rested on them. Kirishima was tempted to ask what had happened but he figured the blond would not tell him.Asami would get it out of him in no time anyways so he did not feel too inclined to ask. Instead, he went to stand in front of the door to prevent the blond man from escaping.

When the sounds of running water stopped, they waited for a few minutes until Asami came out in lounging clothes to look for a glass of Scotch. Somehow, Kirishima had already served him one but the golden-eyed man ignored the drink sitting on the low table, instead he walked hastily to the couch and pulled his lover into his arms, holding him in a constricting embrace.

“You’re alive.” Was all he said, it broke whatever defenses Akihito had left and the young man began to sob into Asami’s chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Asami. He… he went after Kou and almost killed him. It’s all my fault. How am I supposed to look at my friend without guilt ever again? He almost died Asami, he almost died.” The words jumbled into something incoherent as Asami held Akihito closer. Right now was not the time to berate his wayward lover for running away, he was facing enough guilt as it was.

Asami sat on the couch pulling Akihito onto his lap and held the smaller man tightly as he inhaled the scent that he had come to identify as Akihito’s while his mind processed the fact that he had not lost his lover. At the same time, he was making plans to never leave Akihito alone under any circumstances; his mind could not take another scare like the one he had just gone through.

The sobs had continued for a long time until at some point, they suddenly stopped. Asami was beginning to thing Akihito had fallen asleep when the blond spoke.

“The crazy cat lady.”

Asami was confused.

“What crazy cat lady?”

“The one no one bothered to talk to.”

Asami waited for Akihito to continue talking, he had no idea where this conversation was going.

“She saw him, Asami. She saw him without his disguise before he killed Maeda’s wife and took her apartment.”

Asami’s eyes lifted and connected to Kirishima’s in a meaningful way. Kirishima was on his phone within seconds. He turned his lover around on his lap so their faces could meet, Akihito’s eyes were red and his face had tear-stained tracks on it. He spoke in a low soothing voice; he wanted Akihito to cooperate but didn’t want to push too hard at this moment given the photographer’s current emotional state.

“How do you know this?”

“A friend of mine went to investigate it for me. He had a sketch artist come and make a sketch of the man.”

“Does your friend have the sketch?”

Akihito shook his head.

“Who is the artist?”

Kirishima was waiting with the phone by his ear to relate the information and have someone procure the sketch.

“I wanted to keep things quiet because I thought you would find out I was doing my own investigating and get him my way so my friend had to go to someone unrelated to any police station. The artist… he won’t give us the sketch unless we pay him.”

“Do you have the name or address of this person?” he pressed, this could be the breakthrough they needed and Asami could not let it pass.

Akihito didn’t answer; he just shoved his hand into his pocket and retrieved the piece of paper his cop friend had given him. With a shaky hand, he passed it to Asami who in turn gave it to Kirishima.

“Have Suoh pay this man a visit and retrieve the sketch.” He ordered.

Kirishima left the room speaking rapidly into his phone.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 10 –I Know You Well

‘Damn kid. How dare he hide my Akihito from me? Why wouldn’t he just tell me where to find him. If he had then my beautiful caged sun would be in my arms now. Stupid kid, doesn’t he know that what’s best for Akihito is to be with me and feel how much I love him? He should have just told me where my little love was instead of hiding him from me. He knows, I know he knows. It’s his fault for not telling me. Stupid, stupid kid doesn’t even have the decency to die when I want him to.’

He paced in the darkness, watching from afar as the police interviewed the man who made the call and the EMTs loaded Kou into the ambulance.

‘He has to die.The kid has to die because he did not give me what I wanted. He didn’t tell me where my lovely bird was.’

The ambulance’s doors were closed and it was preparing to drive off and head to the hospital. A very happy grin, which was so wide it showed all the psychotically disgusting thoughts that floated on the man’s head, spread slowly on his face.

‘Kou is hurt, he might even die still… Akihito is so good;he’s such a good boy and such a good friend. Akihito will come. His lovely little sun will come to bring his shining light to his friend in need. He’s so loyal and so caring, Akihito is so loving. He will come. He will come to see Kou and when he does, I will be there to sweep him off his feet and take him away to a place where no one else will ever intrude our love.’

His mind was made up and his conviction solidified in his chest like a wave of clear purpose filled him and pushed him forward. He turned on the ignition of the car he had stolen earlier that night and followed the ambulance to its hospital. From the trunk of the car, he could barely hear the sounds of the struggling teenagers he had taken the car from. A brother and sister coming back from visiting their grandparents.

‘Maybe I will make them fuck each other later. If the girl is still alive by then, it would be good entertainment.’ He thought. ‘Akihito might like that, seeing them do each other. It will be cute. Akihito likes cute things, he will be so happy. I really hope she’s still alive. She had such pretty skin and it would be such a shame if I can’t hear her scream while I make her brother peal it all off. Ah, so many presents I have planned for my love, he will be so happy.’

The ambulance speed through the crowded streets of Tokyo, its siren warning passerbys and vehicles alike to clear the way and let it though. He followed it several cars behind not letting it leave his sight. He ran over a pedestrian in his haste to follow the speeding ambulance and didn’t even think about whether that unfortunate person had or would survive the encounter with the fast moving vehicle. All he cared about was following the bleeding young man who would lead him to Akihito.

Once they arrived at the hospital, he followed at a short distance until he saw the young man being taken into surgery and could not follow further. Knowing that the procedure would take some time, he proceeded to find something to put on which would allow him to loiter about unquestioned. In a consulting office, he found a white gown and a clipboard, he also stole some formal pants and a nice looking shirt from the on-call room. Dressed as a doctor, he moved about pretending to write on his clipboard, all the while keeping close to the waiting room near the entrance that lead to where the operating theaters are.

In a smaller waiting room to the side, Takato waited. He would have missed his love’s other friend had he not left the small waiting area to look for better phone signal and make a call. He hoped Takato was calling Akihito at the moment. Soon, his caged bird would be here and he would be able to collect his prize before Asami even got wind of Akihito’s presence at the hospital.

Close to one hour after Kou had gone into surgery, Akihito had not shown and he was beginning to get angry. His heart jumped in excitement as he saw a figure rush to the small waiting room where a nurse had pointed him to. He was disappointed when he saw the young man was not the one he was waiting for. As the figure ran towards the waiting room, he noticed the long slim legs, the roundness of his ass and the set of his shoulders. He took in the way that body moved, a body he had spent years worshiping and coveting from afar. Those lips he wanted to kiss again were still the same and gave away the young man’s true identity.

Even under disguise, he would have recognized his Akihito anywhere. A smirk cruelly split his face in two as he approached the waiting room and cracked open the door just enough to peek in and listen to what they said.

It was him. Akihito had come, now it was just a matter of waiting for the right chance and taking him.

But the chance never came. Akihito had listened to Takato then waited for news on their friend. Then they waited in Kou’s room for the young man to wake up and a short time after speaking with Kou, he bolted out of the room like a bat out of hell. He could barely keep up with the speeding Vespa as it weaved between vehicles on the street, the kind of anger he felt when he realized where Akihito was going couldn’t be expressed in words.

Akihito had run to that man. How dare he turn to that disgusting man who kept him caged when there was someone who loved him so much and was willing to soothe his hurts? When he finally got Akihito in his grasps, he was going to have to teach him a lesson in loyalty and maybe he would cut his tongue out and keep it in a jar. He would take it out every time he wanted to make out and put it in his own mouth, he would make sure he was forever the only one to get to taste that sweet pink muscle. For a second, he wondered if he should also sow those plump rosy lips together so no one else would ever kiss them but the thought of ruining such a lovely face convinced him otherwise.

He watched Akihito enter Sion and minutes later, followed him and Kirishima to the condo. Akihito was back with that demon Asami, he was not happy about it but at least now he knew where his boy was and could keep track of him.

In the car’s trunk either the brother or the sister shifted, he didn’t know which one but the noise reached his ears, interrupting his train of thoughts. Angered from his failed attempt at getting Akihito, he exited the car and opened the trunk. The girl was dead, such a waste. He took a knife from his calf holster and drove it through the boy’s neck severing his jugular. He abandoned the car then, after a quick wipe to get rid of evidence and left it right in front of Asami’s building.

It was time to change how he looked again anyways, and he had been riding this car all day so it was time to ditch it too.

********VF*********

In a different part of Tokyo, Suoh entered a cheap apartment complex. The place almost made Akihito’s previous place of residence before moving in with Asami seem like a luxurious five star resort. How anyone could live in such disgusting conditions was beyond him but he guessed it was to be expected that some people lived in such filth. After all, not everyone was provided by their boss with a lavish condo in one of the best and most exclusive buildings in the best residential area of Shinjuku.

He knocked on the door of apartment 9B, all his research into the name and phone number he had received from Kirishima indicated that the sketchy sketch artist lived there. He waited thirty seconds and then knocked again. A man in his late thirties or early forties opened the door. He looked to have been asleep already going by his disheveled state and the full body, bright yellow, stained pajamas he was wearing as well as his ruffled hair.

“What’d’ya wan’?” He mumbled, apparently still too sleepy to use proper Japanese and complete his words.

Stone faced and to the point, Suoh answered the man.

“I’m here for the sketch you drew this morning about the man living at a woman’s apartment.”

That statement seemed to have instantly woke the man up. In less than a second, his eyes were alert and assessing. He invited Suoh into his filthy apartment in order to conduct what he thought would be negotiations.

“Well, are you a spiffy-looking fellow all suited up and with your hair all shiny?” The man said, once Suoh entered the place and the door was closed behind the tall bodyguard. “I knew that holding onto this thing would set me up with a nice chunk of change.”

Suoh just watched him as the man talked, somehow the man reminded him of the cockroaches that undoubtedly also inhabited this place. The man was also clearly a seedy bottom feeder.

“Where is the sketch?” He asked in a clipped tone, he had no time to deal with this man and the smell of old dirty socks was starting to give him a headache.

“You think I’m stupid? I’m not giving it to you unless you give me the money I asked for. Hell, I’m not even showing it to you unless I have the money on hand, after all I don’t know if you are one of those photographic memory people and can remember every detail and then just go to another sketch artist and have a new sketch drawn up. No Sir, it ain’tgonna happen. Not unless you happen to have one hundred thousand yen in cash with you right now.”

Suoh almost scoffed at the price.

“Then again,” The man continued. “maybe if you make a good case, I might be persuaded to lower the price a bit.”

The man really thought Suoh had come to negotiate about it.

“Let me enlighten you about how this transaction is going to be conducted. You give me the sketch and you get to keep all your limbs and your face, intact.”

With false bravado, the man set out to try to intimidate Suoh by saying he would call the police on the bodyguard and hand the drawing to whomever paid more for the information he had heard while the cop interviewed the old lady.

He tried to put a tough act and acted like he had any leverage.

Eleven broken fingers, one arm, one leg, and a smashed face later, Suoh walked out with the sketch. He had to give the man credit; he lasted a long time before he gave up and told the blond man where the sketch was hidden.

The bodyguard and chief of security drove the BMW to Asami’s condo knowing the sketch artist would not talk, he would not be able to even if he wanted and he certainly would not be drawing ever again.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 11 – The Small Parts of the Big Picture

Akihito was lying on the bed, limp and dead to the world. After he had given Asami all the information he had about the old lady, the stranger at Maeda’s ex’s apartment and the sketch artist, he had remained quiet and his eyes seemed lost. Asami was sure he was replaying the last three days and trying to figure out exactly which part of what he had done was responsible for Kou getting involved and hurt.

As much as Akihito would like to come up with an excuse, Asami knew he had already realized it was entirely his fault for disappearing as he did and forcing that disgusting man to go after the ones he cared for, in hopes to find some information on Akihito’s whereabouts. Asami wanted to say something about that, maybe something along the lines of ‘your actions have consequences’ and ‘what did you think would happen?’ Most of all, he wanted to yell and scream at the blond about how worried and scared he was. He would not say any of those things, at least not at this moment or in those specific words.

Asami knew he was a bastard, Akihito was fond of telling him so at every chance he got, but even he was not such a cold-hearted man that he would rub salt on his lover’s wounds when he was so emotionally fragile about how things had turned out.

After Akihito had softly told him where he had been and what he had been doing, Asami had to give him a pill to calm down after he got to the part about finding out that Kou had been stabbed and the time at the hospital. Slowly, the pill had made Akihito drowsy and eventually made him fall asleep on Asami’s lap. Asami had held him for close to five minutes before deciding to clean him up and settling him on the bed.

He was still mad at Akihito for running away and worrying him so much. He had been sure he was near the side of losing it completely. His episode at the office did not count so far as he was concerned that it was just a momentary lapse in judgment and he supposed he had lost a bit of a hold on his control over his emotions, but he could not muster the drive to berate him while he was so tired and weary. The relief he was feeling from having Akihito at his side again was somehow enough to temporarily placate him. He pulled out his phone and dialed Kirishima who had gone to his own condo one floor below to get some paperwork done.

The secretary answered on the second ring and Asami cut to the order as soon as he heard the other man breathing at the other side of the line.

“Kirishima, have three of our men stationed at the hospital to keep an eye on Kou. Have someone follow Takato and his wife as well as Akihito’s family.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Run a background check on Akihito’s coworker, Mitarai, and have it in my home office in one hour.”

“Of course, Asami-sama.”

“Where is Suoh with the sketch?”

“He is about six minutes from here. A facial recognition software is already working on linking the sketch with any known organizations who are less than happy with you and any known enemies. We hope to have something concrete by mid morning tomorrow.”

“Hn.”

Asami hung up and left the bedroom to see to some important documents in his office while he waited for Suoh to arrive with the likeness of the man he was going to take extreme pleasure in dismembering and making suffer.

His mind kept drifting between new security measures to kept Akihito safe and ways to torture the man once he got his hands on that dangerous creep.

He didn’t get anything worthwhile done and eventually gave up, with a tumbler of whiskey he decided to just wait for Suoh to arrive and update him on the search.

*******VF********

Suoh was an intelligent man. He was aware that he did not look like it but that didn’t take away from the fact that he had graduated with perfect marks from Todai. The reality that he looked like a wall of brainless muscle did not take away from him that despite what people might think, Kirishima was not the only one from Asami’s trusty duo to attend Tokyo University’s Information Science and Technology Graduate School.

As he drove from his last assignment back to Asami’s condo with the sketch safely by his side, he began to plan security measures to present to Asami upon finishing his report. Hopefully the things he came up with would serve to keep the brat safe and out of the way while they solved the stalker/home invader problem.

He thought about installing a new security system including more cameras and a code pad on the door. While he ran the long list of available security implements through his mind, the thought that someone had actually managed to break into Asami’s home kept ramming itself into the front of his mind. That man had even dared to drug the boss’ lover and touched him in a way only Asami had a right to do.

His thoughts kept going back to the young man being drugged in Asami’s own home. Again and again, his mind kept supplementing him with the details he knew about the event, as if his subconscious mind was trying to tell his consciousness something… and when it finally slapped him on the face like a cheap whore, he could have killed himself as he sped even faster down the crowded streets as he considered something they had all missed.

Suoh could not believe they had all gotten so secure and complacent in their certainty that they couldn’t be trifled with that they were making such careless and amateur mistakes such as ignoring possible clues that had been right in their faces the whole time.

*******VF*******

Suoh arrived and presented the sketch as well as his findings from the sketch artist’s account of what the old woman had said. Early in the morning, one of his men would pay a visit to the old lady and collect a firsthand retelling of the information regarding the man living at Maeda’s ex’s apartment.

He shared the ideas he had regarding Akihito’s security and general tightening of their security measures.

His hand was in pain but he refused to get it checked out until he had given Asami all the information he had and listened to new orders. At some point, Asami had noticed his hand and with a lifted eyebrow enquired.

“Something wrong with your hand?”

“Nothing major, Asami-sama.” He answered. “The sketch artist needed a bit of ‘gentle’ coaxing to let go of the sketch and while I was doing so, he moved his head suddenly and my hand ended up connecting with the wall. I will have it checked out as soon as I leave.”

“See to it that you do, the last thing I need is things going south because you’re suffering a broken finger.”

“Yes, sir.” He answered.

Asami had expected Suoh to leave after that but the man lingered for a few seconds as if wondering how to say something in a delicate way. Asami lifted his eyes from the sketch and looked at his head of security. Suoh was not a hesitant man so the fact that he was slightly shuffling before bringing something up to Asami made the golden-eyed man more than a bit worried.

“What is it?” Asami finally said and Suoh launched into his tale of the one thing they had disregarded. Asami’s eyes widened in shock, it was a rookie mistake.

******VF*******

There was a lead they had ignored, something they had not considered until the very moment a pensive Suoh brought the subject up.  It was unbelievable to Kirishima that their minds had been so focused on the big picture that they had missed something as small yet important as this.

Even Asami himself had been shocked to realize something had gotten pass him and his eyes had momentarily widened in astonishment. Asami knew that sometimes the small and seemingly unimportant details where the ones that gave you the edge you needed. This was not necessarily a small detail and yet, they had missed looking into it.

Of all the things Asami didn’t want to do, calling the person he had to, to get the meeting he needed with a certain person to shine some light on where the drug came from, was a top one. It was literally the very top on the list of people he did not want to talk to right now, not because he hated the person he had to call but because their conversations were always awkward and left him feeling like a naughty eight year old getting scolded.

With a sigh, he picked up his phone and dialed the number he knew by heart but could not make himself save in his contacts list.

The phone rang for close to three minutes before someone answered. He had been about to hang up in frustration but kept himself on the line because he really needed that person’s connections.

“Hello?” The old voice said.

“It’s me. I need a favor from you.”

“Well, look who decided to give me a call? How long has it been, eight months? No, nine, it has been nine months since you last called. That’s as long as a baby takes to be done cooking, Ryuichi. You haven’t called me in the entirety of a child’s gestation.”

“This is precisely why I don’t call, because every time I do, you come up with statements such as this.”

“I’m just saying it’s getting to be about damn time you…”

“I know what you mean; there’s no need to make it clearer than you already have.” He interrupted with a hiss and not just mild annoyance invading his voice. He was too tired for this conversation and in any case he had it too many times to care for hearing it again.

“Hmph.” She said after clicking her tongue in discontent on the other side of the line. “How you became so rude is still a wonder to me. I have half a mind to bend you over the knee and show you some respect.”

Asami almost chuckled at that because there was no way that would ever happen, still the image it conjured in his mind was mildly amusing and pulled at the corner of his mouth which was probably what she had wanted to begin with. There must have been something in his voice that she had picked up on, some signal of distress.

“Woman, you would break all your bones attempting such a feat.”

“It could still happen, you know?”

“It could, if I allowed it to, which I won’t.”

“So, then, what do you need from me?”

“Information.”

“And pray tell, Ryuichi, what will you give me in exchange for whatever information you need? I could only think of one thing I really want from you.”

“Grandmother, I have no time for your games of your obsession with greatgrandchildren.We will simply have to revisit that topic some other time when less pressing matters demand my attention.”

“Fine, fine. What kind of information is it that you want?” She asked with a sigh, she was too tired and it was too late at night to engage in a verbal combat with him, which was exactly why he waited until so late at night to call.

“The Shinokawa group, who provides them with merchandise?”

“Of all things! Why do you want to know that? You don’t involve yourself with that kind of trade or have you changed your mind and decided to expand into such unsavory things?”

“No, I will not involve myself with that sort of thing, I have standards.”

“Then, why?”

“Do you have the information I need or not?” The woman was so infuriating, he wanted to yell at her to get on with it and just tell him but he knew if he pushed too far, he would get nowhere.

“Of course I do! What do you take me for?”

The answers he could give to that question… Asami almost had to bite his tongue to prevent something that would anger her from leaving his mouth. Instead, he went for the diplomatic route and said the one word that he almost never uttered to anyone but that always got him what he wanted from her.

“Please.”

“There you go taking advantage of me again, one of these days that’s not going to work anymore and then what will you do?”

“Grandmother, the provider?”

“Ah, yes. Pharmaceuticals, equipment, or cattle?” She asked because she needed specifics to narrow down the name she would share.

Asami knew exactly what she was asking. It was a sort of code she had come up with many years ago because she was as paranoid as paranoids could get and then, constantly reminding him that you never knew who was listening and as long as they don’t catch you saying exactly what things were, they can’t prove you were involved in something shady. As it stood, Asami had taken that advice to heart and never outright said what was being traded when speaking on the phone or in unsecured places. It was simple really, the major trading items in the underworld could be summed in three big categories; pharmaceuticals were drugs obviously, equipment was guns, and cattle were human and organ traffic. Each category intercepted somewhere and had subcategories of its own, as it was, Asami was interested in a very specific subcategory.

“Pharmaceuticals used for keeping cattle manageable until they reach the slaughterhouse.”

At the other side of the line, the old woman’s eyebrows rose up to her hairline. All sleep had left her in one single second.

“Why the hell are you interested in that?”

“Just give me the information and forget that I ever asked.”

She paused… because in her head there was no reason Asami would want to know about who moved the drugs for trafficking humans and organs and supplied them to Shinokawa when he was not interested in human trafficking himself. Unless he had a bone to pick with Shinokawa group even after the mess he had made of them months prior. Whatever it was that prompted such line of enquiry, she was sure someone would end up with blood up to his knees and it would probably be Ryuichi, standing like the proverbial Angel of Death in the blood of his enemies.

That grandson of hers was going to be the death of her, she was sure.

“Morina moves the pharmaceuticals for that sort of thing.” She said. “Do you need a meeting?”

“Yes.” Was his answer.

“When?”

“Tomorrow at eight o’clock.” Asami had no time to waste waiting for openings in schedule. Besides, he was not a person used to be made to wait for others to accommodate him into their timeframe. He chose the time and people made the room to fit him in it regardless of whether they had something else planned for that time.

“I’ll set it up and call you in the morning with the confirmation.”

“Hn.” He said and heard her mutter something along the lines of “This rude child.” Before she hung up on him.

He went back to bed and pulled Akihito’s still sleeping body into the safety of his arms.

Shinokawa group was no more; Asami knew someone else would have taken their market and added their clients to their own. All he had to do was find out who had taken a cut of that client list from their supplier, Morina, and narrow down who from those people would have the balls to use the drugs they purchased to fondle his lover. At the very least, he would get a lead into whether or not the creep stalking Akihito belonged to any of those groups.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 12 – Nightmares and Dreamscapes

He lay prone upon the floor. His arms and legs shackled to the smooth surface as they spread him like a lamb ready for sacrifice, ready to be consumed. His body heated and sweating profusely regardless of the chilling cold rising from the floor and seeping into his body, freezing him to the marrow within his bones.

A trembling of sorts begun in his fingers and rose through his body until he shook violently in fear and apprehension of what was to come. Eyes watched him, glinting possessively from within the darkness, and a maniacal smile spread upon a face shrouded in shades of inky terror.

He could not move, save from his violent shaking, and the shadows formed long-fingered hands all around him. Some with knife-like nails, glinting with some non-existent light, but from where? He doesn’t even know where and is in no position to try and figure it out.

Other hands held actual knives on their grasps; those too, glinted with that strange light. The shackles separated his limbs more, spreading him more open than he had ever been and making him feel more exposed, vulnerable, and scared.

Blood dripped slowly from somewhere above him, it fell in slow drops onto his chest with a marked tick, tick, tick that was slowly driving him mad. The worse was that somehow, at the back of his mind, he registered that the blood was still warm and smelled faintly of Kou’s cologne.

Those eyes took him in, drank his visage like a dehydrated man would look upon a fount of clear flowing water. An impossibly long tongue sneaked out of the wide mouth, he swore it was forked like the depictions of the Western’s idea of the devil, and it licked the thin white lips as if savoring his taste upon them before diving to the main dish and sinking pointed teeth upon his flesh. The room was so cold it allowed the pants to form puffs of fog before the forked tongue and it reminded him of long hours of passionate embraces with Asami in the limo during cold nights, how the glass would fog up and he could see his own needy breaths form a cloud between them. It soiled the memories of those moments and he was sure if he ever made it out of this place, he would never want to see those puffs again.

As it was, the face closed in more and more and he was quickly losing hope of ever escaping. Intangible walls were also closing in, bringing the inky darkness surrounding him closer and further trapping him in his prone state. There was no escape, no way out; this disgustingly frightening man-creature was going to exert his will upon his unwilling body. For the first time in his short life, he wished for death’s embrace if only to save himself from what this… thing… might do to him for gods only know how long before he granted him the mercy of breathing his last breath.

The floor he laid upon shifted in consistency yet still remained somewhat solid and retained its icy chill. He turned his face to the side and was horrified to realize he was laying upon a bed of worms, maggots… and most disturbingly, semen. He felt the need to throw up as his stomach clenched painfully. His abdominal muscles began to spasm with dry heaves and his body shook with even more violence yet the acrid-bitter taste that rose from his bowels never went pass his mouth. It centered there, in his mouth all the way down his throat, that bitter taste filled him with disgust and cemented his loathing for the figure before him even more firmly.

Hands larger than the ones made out of the darkness surrounding him, shot forward without warning from somewhere near the face. They were larger than any hands he had ever seen before and colder than the coldest winter night. They gripped him without a care for his fragile flesh as they groped his body. Until this point, he had not questioned why he had yet to scream at the horror he found himself in.

He let it out, his mouth open so far it hurt his jaw, the scream tore out of him, taking all the air in his lungs with it and he thrashed like a fish in a net within his confines. Wildly trying one last time to break free.

He screamed.

Still, strong hands held him down and yet he continued to fight.

A voice in the distance called his name again and again, it was almost masked by the crazed laughter loud in his ears, but slowly, it made itself more discernable.

Asami was calling his name and with the knowledge of not being alone, that Asami would always be there to keep him safe, he opened his eyes.

‘It was a dream.’ He told himself.

Akihito’s body was sweaty and clammy as Asami held him tight to his chest in their bedroom where he had been asleep on their bed, plagued by nightmares he would not forget for a long time.

******VF*****

After laying down with his lover for a few minutes, he got up to take a much needed hot shower, hoping it would help him release some of the tension and stress his body was currently on. Even with the tightened security, he didn’t feel like leaving his gun too far from reaching distance, so after a short moment of hesitation, he took it into the bathroom and hid it under a hand towel next to the sink. Asami was convinced Akihito’s recently fragile state of mind and emotional stability was soon reaching its breaking point. His lover was tethering at the very sharp edge of mental breakdown and he had no idea how to keep him from going into a meltdown. He rinsed the soap off his body as his mind went through possible ways to help Akihito feel better, any good the scalding water had done for his body and mind was completely undone by Akihito’s screaming.

When he had heard the very loud and haunting scream, he ran, gun in hand, to his distressed lover’s aid. That scream, he was sure he would hear that terror-filled scream every time he closed his eyes for the rest of his life. If he had not been sure before, he was now, nothing was more important than securing Akihito’s wellbeing, in all senses of the word. That man had to go, preferably in a painfully long and slow bloody way.

He hoped that his meeting the following morning yielded some favorable results or he was going to tear Tokyo apart again if he had to, in order to find that man. Asami did not know how much longer Akihito’s mind could take this situation before the boy snapped.

********VF********

He was waiting, through the binoculars as he watched from a building across the street from Asami’s. It was a smaller building compared to the impressive thirty floors of height Asami’s building possessed, but it was still a high-end building of twenty-floor height. The building had been easier to break into than he thought, people tend to open their doors to receive packages easily enough, and it was far enough from Asami’s building for the man not to suspect being watched yet close enough that his high-end binoculars afforded a good look into the balcony and the windows on that side. He only wished the curtains would be open more often, so he could see into the condo. Sadly, he had learned early enough that Asami Ryuichi was a man who valued his privacy.

The maid and her boss trembled, tied to the chairs in front of the round table. Dinner was set before them and he watched as the lights went off in Asami’s condo. They would not be up until six the following morning, so he supposed he could take a small break and dine with the ladies. After all, he should start practicing having a formal meal with someone. That way when Akihito was able to finally come with him, they could have lovely meals together. Having three people on the table made him think of having a family with Akihito, he was so beautiful he would bear the loveliest children. He was convinced, would swear on it even, that his love for Akihito was so great the gods themselves would see fit to bend the rules of nature and allow him to have children. Briefly, he wondered if he would have to construct the appropriate openings for such a feat on the boy, he could get some surgical equipment and give it a try regardless of his very limited knowledge of surgery.

He would figure that out once he was safely away with his love and if it did not work, he could always take a child that looked enough like his lover to make it work. There were plenty of women out there and if there was not one with a child close enough to his Akihito’s looks he would just manually take the necessary ‘ingredients’ from Akihito and put them inside a suitable woman to serve as a breeder for his purposes.

After those thoughts, he turned his attention to the food, serving himself and then the women before beginning to eat, not caring that he had not untied the women enough to allow them to eat.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 13 - Spiders

Mitarai was still in bed when the pounding on his door begun. Groggily, he got off his small bed and wobbled his way to the door.

"If this is Takaba again, I'm gonna kick him in the balls for waking me up on my day off." He mumbled annoyed then shouted, "Hold your damn horses, I'm coming already!"

The pounding did not stop.

This was one of those moments when he wished his cheap ass apartment had a peephole on its door. As soon as the door opened enough for him to take a look into the hallway, a foot collided with the door and two large men pushed themselves in.

"Hey! What the fuck, man? Who the hell are you? I haven't done anything and know nothing about anyone." He said, trying to cover his bases, he was after all, a professional snooper and made money out of knowing things about others and taking pictures of them.

They led him to a chair and forced him to sit on wasn't Mitarai's first rodeo so he was not too concerned at the moment. He would play it cool and as long as guns didn't come out, he would be fine. He would listen to their demands and claim he didn't have whatever it was they were looking for, thinking it might be pictures of some kind, and swear he would keep his nose away from whoever's business it was he was apparently intruding on.

The photographer stayed quiet. It wouldn't do to start babbling now without knowing what these men wanted. He waited for them to speak.

"What is your relationship with Takaba Akihito?"

That was not what he expected to be asked, it was nowhere near what he thought he would hear and very different from the customary 'Where are the pictures?' question goons usually opened with.

"What?" He asked confused.

"Takaba Akihito, what is your relationship with him?" The man repeated looking stern and moved his hand slightly towards his gun in a clearly threatening way. Mitarai got the message; lie and I'll shoot you.

'What the hell is this kid involved in now?!'

"We just work for the same paper, sometimes on the same lead, but that's it."

"That's it? Are you sure?" He asked, hand gripping the gun in the holster. Mitarai was beginning to worry they were going to ask where Takaba was and kill him when he said he didn't know.

"That's it, man. I swear! We are actually kind of rivals and he hates my guts because I always steal his jobs and take a big chunk of the pay for joint jobs. I swear there isn't more."

"Why did he come here to hide?" The men already had a guess as to why, but wanted to make sure, not covering their bases could get them into trouble with the boss.

"Why else? He hates me and I constantly mess with him, it would be the last place anyone would think he would go for help." He answered honestly.

The men looked at each other and the one who had remained quiet nodded. Mitarai hoped this did not mean they were going to kill him now.

The larger man, the one doing the interrogating, grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up. He looked Mitarai directly into the eyes and spoke in a low threatening tone.

"Make sure not to get too close to Takaba-san, keep your hands off if you know what I mean, and if he ever comes to you looking for a place to hide, you will contact us immediately. If you don't, we will know, and we will pay you a visit to take you out for a ride in six different bags."

To Mitarai, it sounded like the men did not mean ill to Takaba and were trying to ensure he was not touched by him. Why? He had no idea and this was not the time to wonder or enquire about was the time to agree with the huge armed man holding him by the hair. He tried to nod, but only managed to contribute on his hair being a croaky "I will", he gave his answer to the men's demand.

The man let go of him and he fell to the floor in a heap. The quiet one placed a card, blank except for one phone number at its center, and they left the apartment leaving the door hanging on its hinges.

"What the fuck, Takaba!" He screamed as he kicked his couch.

****VF****

Kirishima opened the door for Asami and the golden-eyed man got out of the limo. Suoh joined the two and the faithful men flanked their boss on the paved way leading to the large traditional styled house.

They were greeted by a bespectacled man in his early thirties; he was Kobo Morina's assistant and right hand man, Kobo's own version of Kirishima. The young man bowed in respect and introduced himself.

"Welcome Asami-san, my name is Usue Miko, this way please."

The man completely ignored Kirishima and Suoh, it was normal. He led them through a series of hallways to a room where Kobo was waiting sitting seiza-style before a low table. Kobo gestured for Asami to sit before him at the other side of the table and Asami complied. Suoh and Kirishima stood behind him at Asami's left and right and Usue took his place at Kobo's side.

"What can I do for you, Asami-san? This meeting was very sudden and highly unexpected." The old man said.

Asami looked at Usue for a fraction of a second, Kobe was no idiot. He had been in this business for a very long time and understood what Asami wanted. Whatever Asami had come to talk to him about he wanted to say it in private. Asami and him had never dealt business together before, and had no animosity toward each other, so he felt no threat in complying with the simple request. Besides, this was a favor for a friend and he did not want to offend such a hard-headed woman.

"Usue, leave us for a moment, will you? I will call you when I need you."

The assistant nodded and left the room closing the traditional sliding door behind him. Kobe served Asami tea from a silver tea set, which had been on the table ready for the guests, it was a show of no ill intent as the silver would tarnish in the presence of most poisons. Asami gave a nod as thanks and took the silver teacup into his hands; they drank a small sip and then got down to business.

****VF****

Akihito was still lying on the bed. He was resting, after his middle of the night episode, it had been hard to go back to sleep and he was tired. Hours before Asami left, he had led his distressed lover into a drug-induced haze, so mellowed that he could hardly move and begun to fall asleep.

His mind was filled with nothing, a great expanse of silence, and white extended before his consciousness as his body gained much deserved rest. Time was inconsequential to his unaware mind, but those watching over him under Asami's orders knew it had been one hour since the boss had left.

Jun was coming back from picking up some food in preparation for Akihito's awakening. His charge had been asleep for less than five hours and he had a feeling he would not sleep much longer without some food and another dose of sleeping meds. He had every ingredient to prepare a filling traditional breakfast before sending the blonde back to the world of restful nothingness. The elevator rose silently to the top floor and its shiny silvery door opened into the hallway. He was about to open the door when the explosion went off. It was so powerful it rocked the foundations of the building the way an earthquake would. The young bodyguard threw aside the groceries, entered the key codes, and scanned his card before using the regular key for the door.

Immediately, he used his radio to ask what was going on. The other side of the line was pure chaos, it sounded like a warzone.

"Yoshitaka, what the fuck is going on?!"

"They came out of nowhere; we were not prepared for such a large group of people. There was an empty school bus, it just stopped in front of the building, and we didn't think anything of it. The bus was not empty; they must have been crouching inside."

"Have they gotten past the lobby?"

"Yes sir, they have gotten as far as the tenth floor already. I think they are looking for something or someone, a small group of them stayed behind to keep cover and a few are breaking into the condos as they gain ground."

"Did you call from reinforcements?"

"Yes, ETA is 7 minutes. I don't know if we can hold them that long, they are using powerful weapons and we lost many men to their surprise attack."

"What about the basement level, Yoshitaka? Is it clear to take Takaba out?"

"We blew up the stairs to buy you time. The metal doors are closed and we managed to kill the ones that broke into it, there is a small team waiting for you to cover your exit, but you have to get out now, there is no time. "

"Hold them back as long as you can."

"Sumewari-san, tell Asami-sama I…" There was another explosion and the radio was only transmitting screams and weapons firing. He was sure Yoshitaka was dead, but at least some of his team seemed to have managed to escape death and were still fighting. If only they had more time to prepare, to finish implementing Suoh's new security measures.

He ran towards the sleeping blond and began to frantically shake him awake. His mission, his only concern even above the preservation of his own life, was to get Akihito out of the building and into a secure place. Keep him safe at all costs, that was his order and it had come directly from Asami himself.

Akihito awoke to the sound of explosions, guns firing, and Jun's desperate words.

"Wake up! We have to go, now!"

"What's going on?" He asked desperately

"I don't know, there was an explosion, the enemy is making its way up, so we need to move."

"Jun, where will we go, Sion?"

"No, a safe-house." He said as he tossed Akihito some clothes and a bullet proof vest. "Put this on."

The building rocked again and the fire alarm went off. Jun led Akihito by the arm to the secret room. They would use the escape tunnel to get to the basement level and hopefully get out safely.

****VF****

Kobe was being very cooperative which Asami was grateful for but the information he gained while it did fill in the gaps of what happened to the remains of Shinokawa group did not yield the answers he was seeking. There were other points he wanted to address, questions he wanted to ask, but before he got to them, Kirishima's phone vibrated. The secretary looked at the phone's screen and his posture tensed slightly, he took two steps towards Asami and kneeling on the floor while speaking rushed words in a whisper to his boss' ear.

"Is something the matter, Asami-san?" Kobe asked, sensing that something had gone wrong with Asami's business.

"I'm afraid we will have to cut this meeting short Kobe-san, if possible I would like to reschedule so we can finish our conversation."

Kobe nodded to the younger man.

"Yes, do so, have your assistant call Usue to reschedule. Perhaps over dinner? I am partial to red meat."

"Hn." Asami answered and got up, promptly leaving the room with his men behind.

They passed Usue on their way out, the assistant was looking at his phone with an annoyed face before he made a called to someone.

****VF****

In the dark tunnel, Akihito walked behind Jun as the other led the way with a gun in hand. The darkness seemed to stretch on forever and Akihito felt as if the walls were closing in on him. The nightmare from the previous night was still too fresh in his mind; he began to hear things and hyperventilate. His body was shaking and sweat poured from his brow, he needed light, and to be out of this encompassing darkness. To feel safe.

He needed Asami and his steadying presence.

"Fuck!" Jun said in a quiet whisper, Akihito did not hear him.

"I can't…" Said Akihito as he leaned on the wall. As much as he wanted to get out of the tunnel, his hyperventilating was making him dizzy and his fear was consuming his mind. Akihito could feel things crawling on his skin, he was not sure if they were real or made up by his mind feeding on his nightmare, and it was making him sick.

"Don't give up now Aki, we're almost there. Just keep going, just a bit more, and we'll make it out."

"Jun… help…" He gasped out.

Jun placed one arm around Akihito and supported him as he led his charge to the end of the tunnel. He found the switch after short desperate seconds of searching and the faux wall opened to allow them entrance to the garage. They ran to hide behind one of the cars and Jun peeked out to assess the place for danger. In the lights of the garage, Akihito seemed to be gaining some composure and his breathing was becoming normal.

One of the men guarding the lower level had heard the faux wall door closing; carefully, he was making his way near it, stayingin between the cars for protection. In a quiet voice, he called out.

"Sumewari-san, Takaba-san, this way."

Jun made sure the man calling out to them was also one of Asami's men before he led Akihito in the direction the man was calling from and even then, he kept his gun ready and Akihito behind him in order to shield him from danger. They made it to the man, it was Umohisa Somo. Jun had worked with him before and knew him to be loyal to Asami.

"What's the situation here?"

"We managed to hold off their entrance and sealed off all the doors. We placed the larger vehicles before them to buy extra time and secured a small side door for your escape, you will have to use your bike to make it through, no other vehicle will fit through, and there might be enemy men outside, but they will be considerably less than the ones trying to break in. We will cover you until you are away and retreat to wait for reinforcements once you are gone."

"Reinforcement's ETA?"

"Three minutes, sir."

With a nod, he directed Akihito to his bike, thanking the gods he had ridden it to the condo instead of a car because it might possibly be what saves their lives today. He threw his leather jacket and helmet on Akihito for added protection, glad he had left it with the bike and got on the bike, pulling Akihito to sit behind him. Jun felt Akihito hold on tight, five of the six men on the basement level got ready while the last one prepared to open the door to let the bike out. The engine started, Jun leaned forward.

The door opened and they sped out.

In a hurricane of bullets, they made their run for freedom and safety, miraculously not getting hit.

*****VF*****

As Asami and his men rushed out through the winding path, they saw Kobo-san's wife coming their way. She was obviously coming back from one of her legendary shopping trips, judging by the amount of bags that followed her on the hands of six of the servants. She was speaking rapidly into her phone in an urgent way, no doubt trying to get something she wanted.

The woman was stunning in her designer clothes and perfectly manicured everything; it was what made her a menace of high society, a man-eater, a gold digger, and a veritable black widow if the rumors are to be believed. Mrs. Kobo was number one on Kirishima's 'stay the hell away from' list, which he had begun comprising shortly after their rise to the top of the food chain, and she had earned that position by trying to cozy up to him in order to get close to Asami. She had almost poisoned Kirishima once, Asami suspected in an effort to convince him they should 'deal with the grief of his most trusted man and her lover together' and ended up in bed where she would swallow him whole and spit him out only once she had sucked him dry. Back then, they didn't have the resources they now did and this claim could not be proved.

They had to let her go, back into Tokyo, back to the hunt for some poor idiot she would suck dry to the marrow. This particular woman was one of those who would even lower themselves to practically being a grave robber, her current marriage to Kobe was a testament to the fact that she didn't mind being with a man on the last leg of the journey if she could get something out of it, the man was in his late eighties after all and by no means a spring chicken.

Kirishima, who most of the time was just indifferent about people and didn't particularly care enoughto feel one way or another about them, hated that woman. With good reason, Asami admitted.

She had not seen them yet, too engrossed in her conversation and getting something out of her purse, and the way Kirishima sped his steps onto an adjacent path to the spot the limo was already waiting at clued to Asami into his very real desire not to be approach after being seen by her.

"I DON'T CARE! THIS HAD TO BE DONE!" She shouted into her phone before snapping it closed and shoving it into her bag where she pulled a small mirror from.

Then, she saw them on the adjacent path and called out to them.

"Asami-san! Kirishima-san! How lovely of you to visit, must you leave right now or can you stay to chat with me? Asami-san! Asami-san."

They ignored her, pretending they could not hear her and got to the limo where Kirishima opened the door to let Asami in, and followed into it.

They had to get to the condo and sort out the mess in there, Kirishima and Suoh would take care of it while Asami took care of a frantic Akihito. He was very worried that someone had sent a strike team into his building, what were they looking for? Was it that man, trying to get to Akihito? This development worried him.

Whatever it was, it made him angry to the point of seeing red. He couldn't help but think that the break in had something to do with that man.

Perhaps he was getting close and the man had panicked?

Kirishima got a call, from the seat in front of Asami's in the limo he looked at his boss. A sigh of relief left him before he delivered his news.

"He made it out, sir. Sumewari-kun is at safe-house 11."

A knot in the pit of Asami's stomach loosened, he had a feeling that knot would not entirely go away until the mess at his building and the stalker were dealt with.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 14 – SNAP-Shatter

The certainty that his life could not be anymore fucked up was clear and loud as an opera singer so far as Akihito was concerned. One night, he couldn’t even have one night without the world going to shit around him, the notion pissed him about as much as it scared him, and he was scared to the end of his wits. He was hungry, he was tired, and most of all, he was sure he was going to lose it if he didn’t see Asami sometime within the next five seconds. It was like his whole existence had shifted to become someone’s idea of a horror movie.

He sat on the dining room table of a condo he had never been in before and wondered how many of this kind of places Asami owned, and if he would ever get to see them all. He hoped not, since it would mean someone had found the one he was at and they would have to high-tail it out of there. Just like they had done not even ten minutes ago from the place he had come to think of as home for so long now.

Home, he didn’t want to go back home ever again. The place had now one too many bad experiences associated to it for him to be able to live in that condo again. He would never be able to sleep there, would never feel safe in the place he had poured a part of himself into to make it a home for him and Asami, and not just the place Asami slept at. That place would forever scare him even of his own reflection. He would tell Asami he’d rather move into the safe-house or any other numerous places he was sure Asami secretly owned.

Jun came out of the hallway, which led to the bedrooms, he was holding a phone to his ear and speaking so fast and so low, Akihito entertained no hopes of hearing what was going on. He must be briefing Kirishima, something in his posture and the inflection of his voice made Akihito sure of it, the thought made him want to ask when Asami would come.

A steaming plate of food sat on the table in front of him and despite how hungry he was, he couldn’t muster the energy to lift the chopsticks and eat. Akihito sat there somewhere between catatonic and faint awareness of his surroundings. The shock would wear off eventually and then, the pacing and worrying would start, he was sure. For now though, he would give in to the frozen state he was in and continue to sit quietly, and out of the way.

Sumewari stopped mid sentence when he had fully entered the dining room and looked quickly from the still steaming plate to its intended eater. He said something into the phone and nodded as if the recipient of such action could see his response. He looked worriedly at the empty-eyed young man sitting still on the chair and said something else.

“Akihito.” He called softly.

His voice sounded as if Jun had spoken from far away and under water, distorted, and strange.

Those empty hazel eyes continued to stare forward, making it feel like he was looking somewhere past him. Akihito was sure Jun was calling him, but he felt so far away from his body that he found himself unable to answer. It was like he was there and not there at the same time, completely disconcerting, yet also sort of soothing. Like a nothingness that gave him nothing but calm, while allowing him to look into the world without having to participate in its activity.

“Akihito?” Jun called again and received no response. He turned around and spoke into the phone once more before coming to gather the blond young man, and leading him to the master bedroom to deposit him on the bed.

Akihito curled up on the bed and felt the comforter being placed over him, and buried himself under it.

Jun walked towards the door and as he lowered the lights to just faint illumination, Akihito vaguely heard him say, “I am worried for his mental state, Asami-sama.”  Through the cloud in his head and the feeling of floating under water, he recognized that at some point, Kirishima had handed the phone to Asami. At this point, he could not care one way or another; he just wanted it all to end.

The door closed softly and under the darkness of the comforter, Akihito begun to tremble. There was too much quiet, too much cold, too much darkness. Under the heavy comforter, he felt trapped and constricted, as if the thing was trying to squeeze the life out of him.

****VF****

Jun was putting the food away, no sense in wasting it when Akihito could probably still eat it later, when Asami arrived and the boy left his catatonic state.

It was half an hour after he had laid down the boy that Asami came back. He was royally pissed, judging by the cold chill following him around and clinging to him like a second skin. Kirishima walked in shortly after the man, looking like he had sucked a very sour lemon and wanted to step on the balls of whoever gave it to him.  Suoh was not there, the man was most likely sorting out the mess at Asami’s building, Jun didn’t envy him one bit. That mess had to be the Gordian Knot of messes and sorting it out would likely take forever.

“Where is Akihito?” Straight to the point, Akihito was the most important thing and Asami wanted to know if he was okay.

“In the bedroom sir, he is in bed right now, probably asleep. He has gone through a lot of intense experiences in a short amount of time and I think they’ve taken a great toll on his mind. I am very concerned he will snap soon if it’s not addressed, he looks like some kind of zombie, like he is not even there behind those eyes.”

“Hn. Kirishima, see to it.” He said before turning his eyes once more to Jun. If Akihito was asleep, Asami would let him rest some more before he went into the bedroom to talk to him. His lover deserved some peace and quiet.

****VF****

Time had no meaning, he didn’t know how long he had laid there, alone in the darkness.

“Make it end.” He whispered to no one.

“Please.” He begged softly, too soft to be heard. It sounded so loud to him in the deafening quiet of the bedroom.

“I’m scared.”

His mind sank into a defeated litany.

‘I don’t want to be scared anymore, I don’t want to be alone. I want to be free, free of strange men following me and hurting those I care about. Free of bombs and people breaking in. Free of this fear for my life at every moment. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t take it.”

The images of his nightmare and the feelings he experienced while in the tunnel, the fear he felt when Jun woke him, and the panic of hearing the gunfire and explosions. They all invaded his mind at once and it became a cacophony of chaos in his head.

‘Loud. So loud. Make it stop. Asami… Asami… Asami. Help me, I need you. Make it stop. I can’t do this anymore.’

For the second time in as many days a dark thought came to him. For the second time Akihito wished to die, to escape this mess his life had become, to a place where he would not have to suffer anymore, a place where he would not spend day in and day out fearing for his life. A quiet place; a place of blissful nothingness.

Nothingness… it sounded beautiful already. In his despair and desperation, he did not think of Asami, he only thought of releasing himself from this pain and horror.

In a daze, he sat up on the bed, the comforter over his lap as it had fallen from over his head. A slender leg slid smoothly over the edge of the bed until it touched the hardwood floor and soon, a second one followed it. He watched from far away as a boy looking very much like him moved slowly towards the adjacent bathroom and opened the drawers just as slowly. It was like looking in a distorted mirror, he was there and he was not there, he was the boy and he was not part of him, it was his body and at the same time, it was a foreign being because all Akihito wanted was to release himself from it.

He felt nothing for the boy not even a single feeling of care. All he wanted was for the voices to stop, the images to stop their tormenting pouring into his mind, he wanted for the nothingness to consume him and save him from his fear. The boy would do that for him, so he let him.

A small hand reached into one of the drawers having found what he was looking for, and pulled out an old fashion shaving kit, the kind Asami preferred. He undressed, took the blade from the kit, and went to sit inside the bathtub. Even in his numbed state, Akihito didn’t want to make someone else clean up his mess.

Water begun filling the tub and that small hand held the shining blade and lifted it upon his creamy white thighs. The blade went down and kissed his soft skin on the inside of his right thigh, moving diagonally and upwards. The richest crimson he had ever seen flowed freely from the line the blade had created, and it reminded him faintly of really expensive red wine. His hand dropped the blade into the reddening water and he laid back to enjoy the fast approaching blankness.

His eyelids slid closed over those hazel eyes and he released a sigh into the warm air of the bathroom.

‘Finally, peace.’ He thought, before he no longer could think at all.

****VF****

“Tell me everything you know, from the beginning and down to the smallest detail.” Asami asked as Kirishima handed him a glass of liquor. “Fill it up Kirishima, I’m going to need more than two fingers.” He ordered and reluctantly, the secretary obliged. “Feel free to have some.” He said, but Kirishima did not move from his spot. He wanted to be in all his faculties, in case something went sideways. The bespectacled man moved to the side to speak on his phone, presumably to have someone brought over to assess Akihito’s state of mind.

Jun began his retelling of the events right from the moment Asami left the condo to the very second Asami came into the safe-house. Asami listened, his mouth in a thin line of clear displeasure. The man was vexed with rightful wrath and indignation.

As Kirishima gave orders and Asami contemplated his next move, a faint noise began to sound from the general direction of the master bedroom. It was the sound of the tub filling and it made Asami release a sigh of relief. If Akihito had woken up and decided to take a bath, then perhaps things were not as bad as Jun thought, he would let Akihito enjoy a few more moments of privacy before joining him in the tub. He had a growing need to thoroughly wash his lover’s body and make him filled cared for, and safe.

While he made plans to make Akihito feel protected, to take away his boy’s mind from the resent events, Asami was unaware that in the master bathroom, his lover laid dying.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 15 – Rabid Dog

“NO!!!!!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. “NONONONONONO!!!!! This can’t be happening. I refuse to believe this is happening.”

He pulled his hair and paced about like a mad man cursing, swearing, screaming, and kicking things. It was a nightmare, it had to be. It could not possibly be real that just when he had Akihito within his grasp, something like this happened.

The crystal flower vase which sat on a low table to the side of the living room, made its way into his hand at some point during his angry tirade and now flew through the air at impossible speeds to make an abrupt stop at a nearby wall. The women huddled behind the couch to escape the shower of sharp glass, their bruised and swollen faces tear-stained and contorted in fear.

“This is all his fault! It’s his fault for being who he is and taking my Akihito into that den of depravity! Now my lovely sun is trapped there, with all those people breaking in, surely looking for that evil man. They will kill him when they see him, because he is too pretty for them to leave alone and to hurt that man.”

He paced more and threw every breakable object in the room to the wall before going back to using his binoculars to look out the window and towards Asami’s building.

“FUCK!” He yelled when the second explosion rocked the building. “I can’t let this happen! Not to my Akihito, this will be my chance to show him my love. I will show him that I’m his knight in shining armor! I am his prince and he is my princess to save. Not Asami’s, never Asami’s, mine! And when I save him, he will love me like I love him and we will use the chaos to disappear.” He dropped the binoculars and grabbed a black duffle bag containing his knives and guns.

He made his way through the small park and the streets that separated Asami’s building from his latest hideout. He came to an abrupt stop upon seeing the building up close and realizing it was beginning to burn. Several of the lower floors where already on fire. He noticed with relief that the top floor seemed to remain untouched. The man made his way around the building, hiding behind every available thing, looking for a way into it so he could use the distraction of Asami’s men fighting the people invading the place to look for Akihito.

As he was about to turn around to look at the doors for the underground garage, he saw the men trying to break into it. He cursed lowly and thought of the small side door, it too had men trying to get in albeit a lot less in number than the ones trying to ram open the main metal gates. He lowered his duffle bag slowly, preparing to take a gun out and fire at the men to clear the way for him to attempt to break in, but as he took the gun out, the door suddenly opened and out of a pandemonium of bullets and noise came a motorcycle. He recognized it as the one Akihito’s keeper driver and behind that man, holding on for dear life, was his beloved Akihito.

He had missed his chance and now he could not be Akihito’s hero. With all his might, he ran as fast as he could, trying to get to a vehicle he could use to follow them, but soon, the bike turned a sharp corner and left his line of sight. He had no idea where Akihito was being taken, his best guess was Sion, and he hoped he was right.

‘Damn boy and his motorcycle.’

‘Damn people breaking into buildings and ruining everything.’

‘Damn Asami.’

In that moment, he made a decision. It was time to stop trying to play it safe and waiting for an opportunity. It was time to make his own opportunities and take a stand to Asami Ryuichi.

If he wants to keep Akihito for himself, to save him from the sad life he was living in the clutches of that man…

Asami Ryuichi had to pay.

Asami has to die.

****VF****

Suoh had arrived to Asami’s building, it was a mess. The firefighters were already there and had managed to put of the flames, which had madeit all the way up to the twenty-third floor. The few residents who had been in the building had been evacuated as soon as reinforcements had arrived, to take care of the men who had broken in and the few of those men who had been captured alive had been immediately transported to warehouse seven, where they awaited to be interrogated.

His men were collecting as much evidence as they could while those who had been injured protecting Akihito and securing the building had already been taken to the hospital, and a team was packing away all of Asami’s and Akihito’s belongings. Two other teams were doing the same for his and Kirishima’s possessions on the floor below, as much as he hated to part with his home of many years, he understood this place had been severely compromised and they had to leave for a secure location.

It angered him that these people, whoever they were, had managed not only to find the location of Asami’s home, but had the balls to break in. From what he could gather, the people who made a mess out of the place did not have Takaba as their main target or Asami for that matter, which at least was a source of comfort. But still, it left the question of who they were looking for unanswered. He had a suspicion that they were somehow connected to the stalker and if it was proven right, Asami would have a fit.

He directed his men to retrieve all video and audio feeds from the security system and take it to Sion for analysis; the last thing they wanted was to miss something when too many mistakes had already been made. A group of men were combing out the surrounding area to gather any useful information about the event; he was not about to let some small detail escape him this time.

Suoh looked one last time at his long time home before turning around and making his way to Sion, where he would prepare a report on the damages, casualties, and intel gathered for the moment Asami arrives after checking up on Takaba’s well-being.

As he rode the car to Sion, he could not help but picture all the ways he was going to torture the people responsible for this fiasco. He entertained no ideas about the stalker, knowing that man’s pain belonged solely to Asami, even if he wanted very badly to have a go at him. But these people, these monsters that had made an already delicate time in his boss’ and boss’ lover’s life worse would know pain by his own hands.

He would save every drop of anger the last few months created behind strong walls inside himself, and then, he would pour them like a river on top of the culprits.

****VF****

Asami was a man of little to no patience when it came to his lover. Something about Akihito made him want to be all over the boy when they were in the same location, and sometimes, even when they were apart.

In a matter of seconds, he made the impromptu decision that Akihito had already enjoyed enough privacy and it was now time to ascertain his lover of their bond. He left Kirishima, still dealing with the situation over the phone and knowing he would get a report of the events at his home building after he arrived at Sion; he went in the direction of the bedroom focused on ways to soothe his lover.

As he entered the room and begun to take off his tie, he called Akihito’s name, it was strange that he got no answer, but he assumed the sound of the water falling into the tub had prevented him from being heard. Again, he tried calling Akihito, this time as he took the cufflinks off, there was still no answer.

Something made him pause, something made his breath jagged and panicked… something felt very, very, wrong.

Cautiously, he approached the bathroom door, what he saw inside not only froze him momentarily on the spot, but broke his heart at the same time. Horror painted its visage upon his facial features and a strange strangled sound he had never before uttered left his mouth in a sort of gasp scream he could never begin to explain. Asami ran towards the bathtub and knelt upon the tinted water, which had begun to overflow onto the floor.

Never before had he been so scared.

Desperately, he gathered his lover’s body onto his arms and searched for a pulse, it was still there although very weak. He ripped the left arm out of his long sleeve shirt and used it along with a toothbrush as a makeshift tourniquet to stop the blood from pouring out.

During the ordeal, he had been alternating between calling Kirishima and Akihito. Kirishima, who had heard his boss’ frantic call, had run towards the bathroom with his gun in hand, closely followed by Jun, who had been fixing himself the spare room in order to stay close to Akihito while Asami went back to Sion. As Asami stood up from the drenched floor with his lover in hand, Jun had ran out of the condo to get the car, and Kirishima was calling Asami’s private doctor telling him to be ready to take care of Takaba the moment the stepped into the hospital.

Asami’s face was ashen with fear, his strides impossibly long as he tried to make the trek to the waiting car even shorter than normal, his heart was hammering so loud he could barely hear the voices around him over the pumping of his blood. Throwing away all dignity, he begun to run with Akihito’s limp body held tightly against his chest, there was no time to waste.

As soon as he slid into the back seat, Kirishima closed the door behind Asami and slid into the passenger seat of the car, he was sure they had broken every possible traffic law on their way to the hospital, none of it mattered one bit to the suit-clad men.

There was a stretcher already waiting for them at the hospital’s entrance. The place was utter anarchy as other people were rushed in, Kirishima noted the bodies being unloaded from the ambulances were Asami’s men and some of the injured tenants from the building, and he wondered how many casualties this day had created. He had no more time for contemplation, he had almost lost track of Asami in his momentary lapse of attention. He followed his boss, who in turn followed the doctor and nurses pushing Akihito’s stretcher, and already hooking up the blond to an IV filled with what he knew to be blood.

The doctor and nurses disappeared with the boy into a set of double door through which he knew they could not pass, so they remained waiting for someone to come out and tell them how Akihito was doing. The faithful secretary stood by his boss not knowing what to say or what to do.

The onetime Asami thought he was being considerate, the one time he decided to give Akihito some space before taking over, that was the time Akihito had apparently needed him most. Asami could not help but realize how lacking he was when it came to undemanding how to be a good lover, how to care for someone, how to protect them not only from what was out there, but from themselves.

It all left him feeling deficient and afraid; these were not feelings he had much experience with which made it all the worse to deal with.

Inadequacy had never been something he equated with himself before this very moment.

****VF****

When the man had run out of the condo and in his hastehad forgotten all about the women and left the door open, the women had waited several minutes before they too, ran out of the condo.They were still wearing the manacles that chained to each other and the blond wigs covering their naturally dark hair. In their torn clothing and with their bare steps,they left a trail of bloody footprints all the way to the lobby and out the door. They ran until they came upon a cop who took them to the hospital and there, when they were finally safe, one broke into hysterics and the other passed out.

By the time he made it back to his hideout, the door was still open and the women where long gone. Anger took over, he knew he should have killed them as soon as he was done with them, but he had been kind enough to let them live and now they were witnesses who had seen his real face. If Asami got to them, the man would know who he is and try to find him.

He was sure Asami would find his real home now and if that was the case, he might as well leave him a little present to keep him occupied.

It did not matter to him at this point if Asami found out who he was; he was done with trying to do things from the shadows. He was now going to bring the fight to Asami.

The man went to his home to the place where he had met Akihito all those years ago, the place where all his treasures resided, and set things up for Asami’s eventual visit. He cared not for his treasures anymore, after all, once he had Akihito, all those things would become meaningless and dull compared to the real thing.

With a grin, he left the place, wishing he could see Asami’s face once his little surprise came to play.

****VF****

It seemed forever had passed by the time the doctor came to talk to him, Asami had not said a single word and his face was stony with barely contained worry, he was trying so hard to hide what he felt inside, but he did not know if he could take one more second of not knowing.

“Asami-sama,” Begun Dr. Oshida. “He will be fine. We managed to stop the bleeding and he is receiving another transfusion at the moment. He is asleep and has been moved to a private room in the VIP section;he might not wake up for several hours and will feel weak and tired when he does so, he might not be in the mood to talk. I recommend you seek immediate psychological help to prevent another episode like this from happening, this was a very close call and he barely made it. Nanami-chan will lead you to the right room; I have to see other patients now.”

At his sides, both Jun and Kirishima let out sighs they had been holding since they had seen the bloodied boy in Asami’s arms in the bathroom. They followed the young nurse towards Akihito’s room and stopped in their tracks as they looked into it, Akihito was so pale he looked like all color had been washed off of him.

Jun and Kirishima stayed outside the room, giving their boss some private time with Takaba.

Asami sat holding the smaller hand on his own. Knowing that Akihito would be fine, at least in the physical sense, he decided to push away all other emotions and concentrate on three specific ones, anger, loathing, and desire for revenge. Once he had reassured his lover and seen him fall back asleep, he would put an end to the mess his life had become. It was time for Asami to put all his cards on the table and aggressively hunt down his enemy.

It was lucky for him that at that very moment, an ally called.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 16 – Friends and Enemies

The woman entered her home and as soon as he was alone in her private room, the one she retired to when she could not stand the sight of her decrepit old husband, the door closed, opened and closed behind her lover.

He looked positively pissed and she was filled with self righteous indignation that his anger seemed to be directed to her.

“You stupid woman.” He hissed in low tones. “Why the hell did you do something so dangerous?! Of all things… sending my men to Asami’s home! What the hell were you thinking?”

“I told you already, it had to be done. He was there, I’m certain of it, he would have stayed close to that boy to keep an eye on him and snatch him as soon as he had the chance. So I sent the men in to find him and drag him out where we could deal with him. It was unfortunate he escaped somehow and I admit it might cause Asami to raise a fit because we sent men into his home, but I don’t care. My psychopath of a brother was in there somewhere and I wanted him taken out of Asami’s radar before it came to bite us in the ass.”

“You really think you did something smart, didn’t you? You stupid cunt! Now Asami will be on high alert and if he finds out we had anything to do with the disaster at his home, we are dead. He will hunt us down like dogs until he kills us.”

“Bah! What can Asami do?” She said condescendingly. “He is just a businessman, albeit an exceedingly wealthy one, but we have the resources of a criminal organization. We have men who are willing to do anything, even killing, if we order them to. What does Asami have? A bunch of salary men in business suits and a handful of bouncers and bodyguards.”

He looked at her up and down, as if seeing her for the very first time, and at his sides, his hands turned into tight fists until his knuckles went white.

“Are you really this blind and ignorant, or are you just trying to make yourself seem so?”

“What can you possibly mean with that statement? I don’t like the way you are talking to me right now.”

He released a bark of laughter, though it contained not even a hint of amusement, and threw his arms up in the air as if giving up on her mental faculties. With a menacing tone which would leave no room for doubt as of the seriousness of the situation, he delivered his words.

“Let me enlighten you the way things are in not only Tokyo, but Japan and most of this side of Asia. Asami may seem like a businessman, he might appear the wealthy benefactor of gods only know how many charities, and his praises might be sung in the newspapers every time the man takes a breath of air in the right direction. But the truth is that Asami is the largest fish in this very dangerous criminal pond we call “Asia”. Those salary men, bouncers, and bodyguards are highly trained killing machines and now, you have put a rather large target on our backs with your careless actions. We are not ready to take on such an organization! You sent our men in without even knowing the dragon you have just waken and they got decimated. I received a call just before Asami left and none of our men made it out, not a single one made it pass the reinforcements Asami sent in after our men broke into the building. That was a large number of our forces and you have set back our plan indefinitely if not completely ruined it. I only hope they are all dead so they can’t point Asami in our direction.”

“Are you saying it’s my entire fault? You should’ve told me Asami was this dangerous, if I had known, I would not have sent the men to look for my brother in there, I would have acted differently.”

“Do not try to put the blame on me. You shouldn’t have acted on your own and without thinking!”

“Surely we can still kill my husband and take over; this should not have any bearings on our previous plans.” She said trying to placate his anger.

“No, we can do nothing now; we don’t have the men to take over even if we kill the old fool. I am not the first choice to lead the organization and now have no backup to force his son into a corner and take control. You have ruined everything.”

She tried to say something to calm him down, but he just turned around to leave the room. She knew she needed him and that she could not let him leave angry with her. So before he made it to the door, she threw her body at his and held his arm, trying to pull him towards the bed.

In his anger, he pushed her away until she landed on the floor. He turned around to leave once more, but she stood up quickly to try to prevent him from doing so and only gained a slap on the face from it.

“Do not touch me.” He said in a dangerous tone.

In her stupidity, she spoke words which made things worse for her.

“How about you let me make you feel good? I bet you will find a way to make things better after some fun time between my thighs.”

“Perhaps you’re right.” He said, his voice venomous.

His expression darkened as he stepped forward and for the first time, she felt fear when looking at him.

He grabbed her by the hair and threw her on the bed, ripping her clothes and tying her hands above her head. Hastily, he pulled at his belt and undid his pants, pulling his manhood out. He separated her legs with his knees as she tried to fight his violent advances. He dove into her, piercing her tender flesh without preparation or any kind of lubricant to ease his way in and cause less pain. He wanted her to feel his displeasure, so he cared not for her pleasure or well-being.

She cried, tears running down her face as one of his hands covered her mouth to keep her quiet. It would not do to have her screaming and be caught raping the boss’ woman.

His business done, he put himself away and fixed his clothing before untying her and leaving her sobbing on the bed.

The man walked out of the room as if nothing had happened, he had to make sure he survived this mess; even if he had to cut his losses and high tail it out of Japan. He would see how things progress before he made that decision.

****VF****

“Asami.” Asami said into the phone, not expecting the voice coming from the other side.

“Asami, what the fuck is going on in Tokyo? I just heard someone blew up your home! How did they even figure out where you live to begin with?” The voice at the other end of the line asked in concern.

“I have no time for this.” Asami answered, his voice cold and irritated.

“I just want to know, is he okay?” The honest concern from the voice made Asami calm down a bit and sit back on the chair next to the hospital bed, once more taking that smaller hand into his own.

“No.” He said “He is in the hospital, Akihito, he… he tried to take his life today.” His voice, as the words left his mouth, sounded defeated even to himself.

Anger rose in the man speaking to Asami, indignation and the need to avenge his young friend and rid the world of those who had driven him so far into desperation overtook his mind, and so he offered the only thing he could at the moment.

“Do you need help? I’m in Kyoto right now and can be in Tokyo tonight. I have men there already to add to your forces and drive the cockroaches who have done this to him out of their hiding place. Together we can end them quicker than you acting on your own.”

“I don’t want your help, this is my business, he is mine to care for and I will be the one to bring an end to this hell.”

“Ryuichi,” The voice began, and Asami realized it was the first time this man had called him by his given name. “Please, he is my friend. Despite how we met and what I did to him, he is my friend and despite everything that happened between us, so are you. Please, let me help you, let me help Akihito. Asami, it’s time to put our differences aside and work together to keep the person, we both care deeply about, safe. We can create a strong united front which no one can stand against. I know that there is bad blood between us, but that changed when he came into our lives and made a mess out of them which somehow, ended up making things better. I want to look out for you, and him, in the same way you looked out for me when I needed someone the most. I was young and angry Asami, I needed someone to blame for my father’s death and everything that went along with it. I knew those ten years of hating you were just an excuse, he made me see all of that, he has made me see so much and I could not forgive myself if I did not help you both now.”

With a tired sigh, Asami took in those words and understood them as what they were, an olive branch in a time of need, and he took it with both hands.

“I will see you tonight to coordinate our forces.”

The relief in the voice was palpable.

“I will have my jet prepared soon and make my way there. Yoh is already there with my men and will contact Kirishima in a few minutes.”

A short grunt of agreement let him know Asami approved of this. Before Asami hung up on him, there was something else he wanted to say.

“Asami.”

Silence greeted him, but he knew the man was listening so he continued to speak.

“Thank you.”

The line went dead and Liu Feilong knew that, as usual, Asami had hung up on him.

****VF****

Akihito’s eyes slowly opened. He was disoriented and the bright light in the white room he did not recognize was giving him a headache.

He felt numb yet oddly, he felt in pain at the same time, the dichotomy of such things was highly confusing.

His unfocused eyes took in the room around him. He felt a comforting pressure on his hand and as his head turned to the right to take in the cause of it, he noticed someone was holding his hand. Akihito followed the hand, his eyes traveled all the way up the arm and landed on the golden eyes watching him as if he was the center of the world.

Asami did not say anything; he just watched him and tightened his hold on Akihito’s hand, as if telling him he was there and that he was not alone.

Hazel eyes pooled rapidly with surfacing tears and a strangled sob escaped his tightening throat. Asami got up from his chair, still holding onto Akihito’s hand, and kissed the blonde’s forehead before kissing his lips and pulling him towards himself into a crushing hug which conveyed all the bottled up feelings he had never expressed before.

The larger man carefully sat on the bed next to him and carefully pulled him into his lap as he rocked him back and forth like he would fall apart if he didn’t. Akihito thought it might as well be true, so he laid his head on Asami’s shoulder and cried until he could no longer sob.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered next to Asami’s neck.

Asami put a finger under his chin and lifted it up so their eyes would meet.

“I don’t blame you for what you did Akihito, I understand why you did even if I don’t condone it. But I want you to know, I will do everything in my power, so you never have to feel like that is the only option ever again.”

“I need help.” He said to Asami in a small voice.

“I know, Kirishima contacted someone already and I will be attending all sessions with you, so you never have to feel alone.”

“Thank you.”

Asami pulled him closer and kissed him tenderly before hugging him tightly.

Several minutes later, a nurse came in to get Akihito some pills to help him sleep. After Akihito had laid in bed and his eyes closed, Asami left for Sion, leaving six men behind along with Jun. He would take care of some business and hear Suoh’s reports, then he would come back before Akihito wakes up, and he would take his lover to a safe place where he could help him heal.

****VF****

Feilong sat in a comfortable chair next to a small table in his hotel room. Kyoto was beautiful at night and he could see lights in the distance from his position before the sliding glass doors which lead to the balcony.

A sigh escaped him as the things he had just said to Asami sunk in. He had done it; he had finally said to Asami some of the things he had been holding inside for years. He really had not planned for things to come out the way they did.To be honest, he had not planned to address the subject at all. His relationship with Asami was one very messed up tangle inside a maze of fucked up inside all kinds of awkward and resentment.

But he had panicked. Akihito had not contacted him for a long time despite the fact that they became friends and emailed each other regularly. When suddenly Akihito was not contacting him at all, he was worried, but then the reports from Tokyo were troubling to say the least, he knew something big was going on and had assumed Asami had hidden Akihito away. When the report came that Asami’s building, Asami’s home and most private of places, had been invaded and bombed, he panicked in a way he had not in very long time. Liu Feilong was scared.

The things going on with Asami and whoever was attacking them made him see that even someone as powerful as Asami could get someone pass his defenses and have his most important person attacked.

It made him think of Tao, his innocent son, despite not really being his, he cared for that child like he was actually his own flesh and blood. When he thought that someone might ever do something to Tao like they had to Akihito, driven him to want death over suffering such things, he could not fathom what he would say or do to make it go away. He had no idea of the particular details of what Akihito had gone through, but he knew that for it to drive him to such lengths, it must have been horrifying. If someone targeted his boy the way they did to Akihito, he would lose it. He wanted to make sure that if someone ever got the idea to do such a thing, the threat of retaliation would come from not only him, but Asami too, as a combined front would be enough to keep both Tao and Akihito safe.

He cared for Akihito, the boy was one of his very few friends, and he wanted him to be safe. Therefore, reaching out to Asami in spite ofthe sour feeling between them was of great necessity.

When he had contacted Asami earlier in this debacle,he had hoped that Asami would accept his aid without actually having to say the things he felt. Akihito had spent a long time trying to convince him that he needed to clear things up with Asami and fix their messed up relationship, and he guessed he had been somewhat vulnerable in his panic and things had just spewed out of him that he was not sure he was ready to say.

Akihito had wanted to be a bridge between them and once Feilong had admitted that, he had blamed Asami about what happened to his father mainly because he wanted to be angry at someone and Yantzu was not around to be angry at, that he had refused to admit he was wrong and to reach out to Asami and make things right, he had been fearing the day he would have to admit such things to the man himself. He had been afraid to face it all.

Now he wanted to help protect the person who had helped him and been his friend when he thought he could trust no one. Regardless of how things had ended up, Asami had been his friend when he was at his most vulnerable and Akihito had become one through their constant emailing each other. He wanted to be the same for them.

He knew Asami had wanted nothing more than to be a friend to him back then, and that his want for more and subsequent lashing out, and refusal to admit Asami had not betrayed him had ruined all his chances at such friendship.

He would make sure he got it right this time. Asami had been willing to take on his help and he will make sure he came through for the man and fixed things once and for all. Once this was over, he would see about forming a permanent alliance with Asami and do all they could to keep their most precious possessions safe.

No one will ever threaten Akihito again and he would make sure the thought of their combined retaliation would be enough to keep others from doing the same for targeting Tao.

He took a sip of his cold drink and looked tiredly at the sky beyond the glass door. After he finished it, his phone went off alerting him that the jet was ready.

Feilong got up from his seat and walked out of the room. He was heading to Tokyo, to be there for the friend he had failed so long ago and the one who had put him together and nagged him into admitting his faults so he could move pass them.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 17 – My Pain on Your Skin

It was raining. A storm was raging over Tokyo. It had Sion as its epicenter as it seemed to follow the golden-eyed man towards the building and its violent winds carried the dread of impending disaster.

His shoulders carried the weight of the world on them, or at least it felt that way, yet he still stood tall. He was the image of power and surety, not a single misstep or anything which could be considered a sign of weakness in the man’s purposeful steps or his visage. Asami walked from the limo towards the doors of his domain’s castle and each step seemed to make the violent winds frenzy with excitement at the prospect of imminent destruction.

Asami entered the building and still the sounds of wind like crashing waves followed, as if he carried them on his person instead of leaving them outside.It had everyone who crossed his path on edge, waiting for the moment where everything will fall apart. A secretary commented that the storm seemed to reflect the ire of the seemingly emotionless man.The security specialist she had made the comment to wholeheartedlyagree with her assessment.

When he made it to his office on the very top floor, Suoh was already waiting by the door along with two other men and a stack of paperwork. Kirishima had rushed to Sion before him to collect anything necessary to run Asami’s empire and take care of it, as well as put together and prepare the documents for signing that needed the boss’ immediate attention, so it could be put out of the way and they could focus on the more pressing issue.

As Asami entered his office and sat behind his large mahogany desk, Kirishima exited his own office and rushed toward Asami’s with his own stack of paperwork.

“Let’s first take care of the domestics.” Asami said, as soon as all four men had joined him in the office.

“Of course.” Answered his right-hand man. He adjusted his glasses and stepped forward to hand Asami the documents that needed to be signed as he sped through the necessary and important points about them.

Asami read through the documents with the speed of someone used to doing such things on a daily basis, and signed the appropriate ones while vetoing two unfavorable deals for later consideration after he had time to adjust, probably forcibly, the other parties involved on ideas of a favorable deal with Asami Ryuichi.

The domestics of his domain and business being taken care of, he handed the documents to Kirishima who stepped back to allow Suoh to take his place at the front of the large desk.

As soon as the golden eyes had locked on his own dark ones, Suoh began his reports on the security measures taken for eachof Sion Corporation’s business location, both legal and illegal. It was not what Asami was most interested about at the moment, but the Head of Security and Operations Leader had to get the domestics out of the way before he proceeded to make reports about the incident at the building, and all things related to the stalker.

“There was damage from the fire up to the twenty-fourth floor.” He said when he finally got tothe report about the damage in Asami’s home of many years. “The stairs are completely destroyed and the elevator has so many bullet holes on it you could use it to grind cheese. The place is a disaster and we lost fifteen out of the twenty-seven men stationed in the building as well as the custodian, the cleaning staff and the concierge. Many of our men stationed at the building are injured and were rushed to the hospital; they are being treated by the doctors on our payroll.” He took a moment to check the pages making absolutely sure he got his facts straight even though he had already memorized every bit of information on the many pages of the reports. Then, he continued to inform Asami of the content of the pages. “Ten of the lower floor residents were injured, three of them severely, and seven died, two of them were children. Most of the residents of the lower floors affected were women and children since they are all families of our top men. They were on their shifts, some of them here and most at one of our other locations.” He momentarily deviated from the report to present his boss with one of his top men’s family plight.“Yoshitaka’s wife was one of the casualties and his children are asking where their parents are.”

“Have them taken care of and a therapist available to aid them through these difficult times. They should lack nothing in this life, have everything provided and arranged for them. See if any of the men was close with Yoshitaka and his family and willing to take the children in.”

Suoh made a note in one of the pages of his notepad and continued his reports.

“Some of the vehicles on the basement will need to be sent to a shop for repairs and others will need to be replaced. We are looking at a great expenditure in repairing both the building and the vehicles as well as taking care of the residents and our men’s medical expenses.”

“What about the strike team?” Asami finally asked.

“The first wave seemed to come from a school bus parked right in front of the building’s door, Sumewari corroborates this from Yoshitaka’s report. The second wave seemed to arrive in several SUVs.We tracked down the owners and found that they were all purchased under the same ID belonging to a fake identity. Likely belonging to the person they work for.”

“How many?”

“Close to one hundred men, we are still counting the bodies. We killed all but four and have them in warehouse 15 ready for interrogation.”

“Move them to warehouse 7.” The golden-eyed man said, and all eyes in the room focused on him and gulped at the same time. A chill ran down their backs and Suoh nodded as he sent the order to have the men drugged and moved in a quick text. Asami took the moment to read the detailed information on the reports Suoh had just covered.

“In our wide search of the perimeter to find any information which might help in discovering the one responsible for the strike team, we found a car parked near the building. We noticed the parking tickets dated for a couple of days and looked into it. Here is the exact location.” He said, handing Asami a map of the area surrounding the building with two spots marked on it. He pointed to the one where the car was found and continued explaining. “In the car’s trunk were the bodies of two young people, one male and one female. They have been identified as a brother and sister who had gone missing several days earlier. Here is the missing person’s report and the preliminary autopsy performed by one of our own.” Suoh passed those documents as well. “The boy bled out from a severed jugular, and the girl had massive internal bleeding due to a punctured lung and several organs being compromised by strong hits to the abdomen. Her face was smashed in and barely recognizable.”

“What is this second location?” Asked Asami; pointing at the marked spot on the map which had a straight line connecting the marked location to the building which used to house his home with Akihito.

“It’s one of the neighboring condos.” He said. “It had come to my attention through one of our men in the police department that around the same time your building was being attacked, two women living in this building were encountered by a young police office. The young man took them to the same hospital our men are being treated at, and managed to get out of them that they had been kept captive in their home, beaten, and sexually assaulted by a man who kept spying on your building, sir. If you follow the line traced from the location, their condo is to your building and you will see the field of vision puts them right towards your condo. It was confirmed the man spying used binoculars to do so, but as one of the women is going through a hysterical episode and the other is unconscious, no more information has been able to be gathered from them as to the specifics of the events which took place in their home or what that man may have said. A team of analysts has been deployed in order to gather any useful information to determine if this incident has anything to do with the stalker or the attack on your home. As of right now, I am fairly certain the man might have been the stalker, but cannot confirm for certain until one of the women is in capacity of talking and recounting the events of their captivity. If I am correct and it was indeed the man we are looking for, I believe that as he was probably going to kill them soon and he might not have bothered with a disguise and they may be able to provide with a description of the man which a sketch artist can use to give us the means to ascertain his identity.”

“Have someone by the women at all times in case either of them is able to talk and have a sketch artist on hand as soon as they do.”

Suoh took another minute to send a quick text while Asami took in the new information and the possibility of ending this mess once and for all.

“Is that all?” Asami asked.

“Yes, sir.” Suoh replied before stepping back and allowing Yoh to take his place at the front.

“Asami-sama, Feilong-sama has put me and my men at your disposition. What do you require of us?” The man asked, and Asami began to dictate orders for the man to relay to his underlings.

The last man, District Attorney, Kuroda Shinji, relayed to Asami all information traveling the upper class as well as the law enforcement grapevines of Tokyo.

Together the four plotted the next course of actions as they were joined by Feilong via video-call. They would make sure to completely clean out the vermin threatening Asami’s domain.

Shortly after their conferring was over, Asami and his two most trusted men left for warehouse 7.

****VF****

Suoh was sure that after the latest developments, Asami would not want to waste time in the more traditional ways of torture to gather the information he needed. This was the reason why the four captured men from the strike team were now held captive in the hardly used warehouse 7, instead of any of the many other warehouses under Asami’s hold.

The thing about warehouse 7, what made it different from all others, and the reason it was hardly used was that it wasn’t an actual warehouse. Previously, it had served as a meat processing plant which dealt mainly with beef and pork.

Asami only used it when he really had no time to take things slow and wanted to make a strong impression which would ensure the captured person to confess quickly. The process of interrogating someone in warehouse 7 was highly gruesome and lacked the finesse of the careful intimidation of a regular interrogation. Sure, cutting fingers, hitting with metal pipes, intimidation, blackmailing, burning, the occasional bullet in the knee, and other such methods of torture or interrogation were not exactly pretty or delicate. But with those methods, Asami liked to take his time to get into the enemy’s head and ensure truthful information. But when there was no time to dally, when he wanted to truly strike fear in the captive's mind in a terrifying way, warehouse 7 was the way to go.The other methods were a kind of dance of dominance and intimidation which made them feel like predators circling their prey, this however, was sheer pain and terror being served to the powerless men in the cruelest of manners.

The fact was, now was one of such moments in which the devil residing inside Asami came out to play and pain was dished out in such amounts that whoever was subjected to it would sing like a canary within seconds of beginning.

The four men captured from the strike team that invaded Asami’s home would be the first in several years to taste the true cruelty a man such as Asami possessed.

Suoh was looking forward to it, more so because Asami had allowed him to be the one to deliver their comeuppance to them for their slight against their home and honor.

The ways he would make them suffer would be worse than every pain inflicted in hell.

As they traveled from Sion to the warehouse, a call came through informing Kirishima that the background checks of several of the men from the strike team identified as team leaders had been connected to Shinokawa group, and since many of the people belonging to the former Shinokawa had been absorbed by other groups after Asami had disbanded Shinokawa, it implicated those groups as possible suspects.

Kirishima pointed out that new information indicated the vast majority of those men had been taken in by a small branch of Kobe’s organization. Also, there was the fact that several of the lower members, those of grunt status, had been identified as ex-employees of Kobe Morina’s, who somehow still managed to be in the payroll even if it was routed through about five different means of concealment. One of the team leaders especially, had received large amounts of money from a phantom company which apparently did business with Morina. Kirishima’s men were able to dig out that this phantom pharmaceutical company was used to laundry the money gained from drugs to move ‘cattle’.

The implications of that particular finding were not lost on any of them, yet Asami wanted to get a confirmation out of his prisoners before he sent his men to tear down the older man and all he held dear. He owned that much at least, not to Kobe as they had just begun their acquaintance, but to his grandmother, who had been the man’s friend since before his grandfather ran the ‘family business’ and had done Asami the kindness of making an introduction and setting up the first meeting.

Suoh and Kirishima had agreed, mainly because warehouse 7 was known to be able to literally scare the shit out of people, and they were sure the one they were actually targeting out of their four captives would be able to either confirm or deny their suspicions rather quickly.

As they entered warehouse 7, Suoh noted the strange sound of violent winds that seemed to still follow their boss. It was eerie to say the least and more than a bit frightening. He made the silent comment to Kirishima that said ‘winds’ did not bring good tidings to those who opposed them, Kirishima agreed, quietly stating that the fierce tempest of Asami’s anger would tear his enemies apart.

In the area where the men were being held, one sat on a high backed iron chair tied to it with zip ties by the wrists and ankles, his head held in such way that he could not move his gaze from the machine in front of him. Two of the men were lying on the floor and also held securely with zip ties, their hands tied behind their backs and their ankles tied together. The fourth one was lying on top of the belt which was part of the machine, muscle relaxants would make sure he would be unable to move. All the men were currently still under the effects of the drugs which kept them unconscious.In the next five minutes, they would begin to wake up.

Asami sat slightly to the side of the men on the floor and chair, halfway between them and the machine, he took a cigarette out and Kirishima lighted it for him as they waited for the men to wake up. He leaned slightly back on his chair and was engulfed in darkness. The red glow of his cigarette and the faint light illuminated his golden eyes making it feel as if a demon was gazing upon the ones present in the room from the darkness of his current position.

Asami nor his two most trusty men, or the others in the warehouse at the moment paid any attention to the meat hooks hanging ominously close to the men lying on the floor and the one tied to the chair.

Slowly the four men from the strike team began to awaken.

They began to panic in feeble attempts to escape their bindings. The one lying on the belt looked frantically all over the room as he tried to scream through the gag in his mouth, upon realizing he was unable to move from his position of what was decidedly the business end of an industrial grade meat grinder.

Asami moved forward and his face left the shadows to address the frightened men. His voice chilled the very air around them.

“I will ask this question once and if you withhold the answer or give me something useless,Suoh will make you scream until he decides you might have developed a brain and decided to answer. If you do answer, we can move on to other questions without causing you further pain.However, if you continue to withhold the answers, you will wish you had never crossed my path. Now, who sent you to invade the sanctity of my home?”

The men were all gagged, mumbling behind the objects in their mouths possibly asking for mercy. Asami was not interested in hearing their pleas; he knew only the man on the chair, one of the team leaders, was likely to have the kind of information he needed. There was a specific method to this particular interrogation which would ensure said man delivered the information, that’s why Suoh brought four of them instead of just the team leader. He would make the three less important lower ranked men suffer before the strike team leader. He would be scared shitless and speak as soon as the gag comes off.

*************TORTURE AHEAD: YOU MAY SKIP THIS SECTION**************

“Have this one ready in case the first one doesn’t know anything.” Asami said, as he pointed to one of the men on the floor.

These men will taste his cruelty.

Suoh nodded before he pulled the man from the floor and using his strength drive one of the hooks through the man’s shoulder and using a button to lift him three feet off the floor. Behind his gag, the man screamed in utter agony, the fact that the screams did not fill the room did not make them any less noticeable.

“Start.” Asami said, and Suoh went back to the man lying feet first on the belt of the meat grinder. The large man took the control box for the grinder into his hand and removed the gag from the man on the belt.

“You won’t do it, you don’t scare me. You think that just because you put on this show, I will talk?” The man on the belt said, trying to convince himself that it was all just fake, an attempt to freak them into talking.

Suoh pressed the button for twenty seconds, allowing the belt to move forward and the man’s bare feet to be grinded by the many blades of the machine.

Somehow, the buzzing of machinery could not disguise the sound of flesh being torn apart, of bone being grinded and of blood dripping, all these things together falling in the metal container attached to the other side of the grinder.

The horrifying screams of sheer agony filling the room were the stuff of nightmares. Asami’s men, who were less experienced, grew green at the sight and sounds.Two of them turned around to throw up in the nearest corner.

Once the twenty seconds were over, the man’s legs had been consumed all the way to mid calf.

“Answer.” Suoh said, but the man would not stop screaming. It did not matter, the man was expendable, a means to scare the man on the chair into talking. Suoh let him have another thirty seconds in the grinder.When he stopped, the man was all the way down to his knees.

“Answer.” He repeated, but the man continued to sob and scream incoherently.

“Kill him.” Asami finally said, and Suoh let the man go through the grinder without any remorse. The horror in the faces of the other three men as they watched their comrade quickly being torn to pieces and grinded into minced meat told Asami he would have his answers soon.

One of Asami’s men took the metal bucket from the grinder and placed it with its gory contents on the lap of the man on the chair. The man as sickened by literally having his underling’s minced flesh and blood on his lap. He tried very hard not to move to avoid wearing the contents of the bucket.

Suoh took the second man from the hook and dropped him unceremoniously on the belt. At the same time, one of Asami’s men was placing the second man from the floor on the meat hook. As soon as the gag was taken out, the man on the belt began screaming the only thing he knew at Asami.

“It was a woman!”

“Who is she?” Suoh demanded.

“I don’t know… I don’t know! It was a woman and that’s all I know, I swear.”

Suoh looked at Asami for instructions. Asami lighted another cigarette, took a few puffs, and released a cloud of smoke into the air before answering the unvoiced question.

His golden eyes glowed with retribution as he said, “He’s useless, kill him.”

Suoh pressed the button and let the screaming man go through the grinder. His screams louder and louder the higher the machine went until he had lost so many organs and so much blood he died with his mouth and eyes open in the visage of screaming terror and pain.

Another bucket was now filled with minced human, this time it was placed to the left of the man on the chair by his foot. His leg was freed and his bared foot was placed in the bucket before his leg was secured once more, and the first bucket was placed back on his lap.

The man from the hook was pulled out and thrown on top of the belt, he was trying to scream and wiggle his way off the belt. The man would not settle down enough for Suoh to take the gag off, trying to get him to talk was a lost cause. Suoh looked at Asami and the golden-eyed man nodded once.

Suoh let him go through the grinder.

Another man, another bucket, and the man on the chair felt his right foot placed inside it before once more his leg was secured to the chair.

Suoh seemed to think for a second, debating on whether to do what had come to his mind or not. Then, without preamble, he took the bucket from the man’s lap and bumped its contents on top of him.

He was terrified and disgusted at the same time.

Asami could see the man was so desperate and scared enough that he may even give up his own mother to save his skin, now was the time to let the man talk. He gave a subtle nod to Suoh who came forward and released the gag.

**************************************OVER**********************************

By this point, the man on the chair was sobbing like a little girl, tears marking twin tracks down his face and snot beginning to flow out of his nose. The man was positively scared.

Suoh walked with a deadly purpose towards the man on the chair and standing in front of him, looking him in the eyes, he asked, “How about you? Do you know what we want to know?”

The man nodded vigorously, or at least attempted to do so with his head tied to the back of the chair.

Asami smirked triumphantly, knowing that he would get his answer as Suoh removed the gag. The man would sing all the tunes Asami wanted to hear and then, after he was no longer useful, Asami would have him killed.

No one who had gone against him survived his purge of Tokyo.

****VF****

On their way back to the hospital, another call came to Kirishima’s phone. The woman at the hospital had just woken up and the man stationed at her door thought Kirishima might want to hear firsthand what she had to say. It was very lucky that they were already headed that way since Asami too, wanted to hear the account and be there when the sketch was made. As much as he wanted to be there, he would much rather be with Akihito, who needed him the most at this moment, his lover would be waking up in less than an hour and Asami wanted to be there when he did.

Ten minutes later, while Asami waited for Akihito to wake up, Kirishima had determined the stalker and the man who held the women captive were in fact the same person. The secretary was recording everything the woman said so as not to miss a single fact. At the same time, the sketch artist, who had been waiting in the hospital to be of service to Asami, was making a sketch of the man who had intruded upon her home.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 18 – There, The Enemy Revealed

The woman in the hospital woke up and asked for her companion, she was saddened to learn that the other person to go through the same traumatic experience as she did in the condo had yet to come out of her hysterical state and had to be sedated. It was uncertain if she would ever come out of her state at this point, her psyche had been greatly distressed and she found no way of coping it seemed.

Between the team of analysts and the woman’s very detailed account, Kirishima had been able to say for certain that their assailant was indeed the stalker. The things they learned from the woman’s recounting of events and what they found in the condo were sickening and made the secretary’s stomach churn with thinly veiled disgust. The things he did to then while calling them Akihito… they were abhorrent.

Soon after she was done giving every detail of her experience to one of Suoh’s men, a sketch artist came in. They were very hopeful of finally seeing the true face of such elusive enemy and finding a way to recognize him or any lead to his whereabouts.

She was sure his face would forever be ingrained in her mind and will haunt her whenever she closed her eyes so the woman was able to give a very apt description. Kirishima left the hospital room with his chest puffed in satisfaction and a smirk of hopeful retribution upon his lips. He went to Akihito’s room in the same hospital and presented the sketch and descriptions along with the recounting of events and presented it all to Asami as if he was handing the man the most precious jewel in the world. To them this information was so important it might as well have been a rare treasure.

Asami looked at them with analyzing eyes, his mind forming quick connections and taking everything in as he listened to the recording of the woman’s account.

He looked at the pictures of the women’s condo and the implications of every single detail, he would greatly enjoy making the one responsible suffer.

At the end of his time scrutinizing the information presented to him, Asami looked up from the papers into Kirishima’s eyes.

Asami was feeling like Christmas might have come early this year, they had a solid lead now. He finally had a light to follow at the end of the tunnel, which would lead him to the man he wanted to kill like he has never wanted anything before.

“Kirishima,” He said. “set up that meeting with Kobe. Have my private table ready and the chef prepare Kobe’s favorites.”

“When would like the meeting to be set up for?”

“Make it a late lunch, three o’clock should be fine. I want to stay here when Akihito wakes up again. Did you contact the psychiatrist?”

“Yes sir, he is waiting outside for Akihito to wake up so they can conduct their first session. Will you be staying for it sir.”

“Yes, I need you to look into a preliminary search into this man’s possible identity. I have a hunch he has something to do with Kobe somehow but I will have to talk to him to be sure.”

****VF****

Asami sat with Akihito through the meeting with the psychiatrist. The session began with the golden eyed man sitting on a chair next to the hospital bed and ended with him sitting on the bed next to his fragile lover. At some point between sitting on the chair and sitting on the bed Asami had found himself holding the smaller hand in his and had been making circles with his thumb on the back of Akihito’s hand.

He had no idea when it happened, but unconsciously his body had been providing the proximity and support Akihito needed.

He was aware of the things the psychiatrist said, of the things Akihito said, of the things he said and of everyone’s reaction to everything said and done in the room. Yet, when he noticed his lover had practically crawled on his lap, it had been like his body reacted of its own knowing that Akihito needed the closeness and he gathered his lover in his arms and set him comfortably on his lap uncaring of the blatant show of emotion and caring in front of a stranger.

His stoic façade had fallen, even if just a bit, in front of someone not Akihito or his inner circle. He needed to have this situation resolved before he lost the carefully created walls he had spent numerous years on. Akihito cried like his very soul had been shattered and it reminded Asami of a wounded animal in terrible need of help and caring. By the end of the meeting, when the nightmares and feelings had come into the open, Asami felt his chest and heart the heaviest he had ever felt before.

Akihito was emotionally exhausted after the trying events and the talk with the psychiatrist, a nurse had come back to get him to sleep some more and Asami took the time to go get ready at one of his hotels before going to his meeting with Morina.

****VF****

The restaurant had been closed for the meeting, only one man in the premises aside from minimal staff to guarantee privacy in case things went sideways.

Asami was already sitting on a chair at his table, two fingers of scotch on a glass, its aroma rising from its crystalline container and to his nostrils and somehow clearing his mind from his anger, giving him the clear-headedness necessary to take everything Morina said and dissect it for any signs of hidden knowledge or culpability.

He had gotten to the restaurant five minutes earlier than the time agreed so he now waited for Morina to arrive and as he contemplated the new information on his enemy and any possible connections, he watched his surroundings like a hawk even if he seemed aloof and relaxed to others.

Two minutes before the agreed time Kobe Morina walks in with his ever present shadow, it’s only fair, Kirishima rarely leaves Asami’s side and is in fact standing next to him at the moment talking on the phone.

Asami watched every single movement of the bodies as they approached analyzing it all.

The old man sat in front of him and Usue did not sit until Kirishima did, it says nothing about him or the bosses for it to be so, after all protocol must be followed in all things and they know it. Their late lunch started well enough, there was no need to not be courteous and ruin a perfectly good meal, besides, it would throw Morina off balance to be presented with the inquiries Asami has and Asami wants to wait for the perfect moment to bring the subject up. Asami is a patient man… when it suits his purposes.

Halfway through the meal Asami looks at Morina in a meaningful way then discretely takes his gun out of his holster resting his hand with the gun on his knee just in case. He glances at Usue because he wants to make sure he knows where the man is. There is something about the man Asami just doesn’t like but he can’t quite put his finger on it. A kind of vibe, he would call it, something about the air he carried himself his.

The throws the punch line just to see their reactions and points the gun at Morina under the table to make sure he can put the man down right away if need be. At his side Kirishima also takes his gun and points it under the table at Usue, the men at the other side of the table don’t even notice it, they are not as good as Asami or one of his men.

“You have a leach in your organization.” He says and silverware is set down on the table as Morina gives Asami all his attention in an offended stupor.

“I beg your pardon?” The man asks as if he wants to make sure that he heard right.

“Someone in your organization is making away with your resources, my guess is they are using you to break on their own and making it so that you take the fall if something happens. Possibly trying to overthrow you and take over.”

Morina is enraged, he doesn’t want to believe it, surely his men are loyal to him and those of dubious loyalty have been rid of.

“You must be mistaken.” He says but somehow it feels like he is trying to convince himself more than he is trying to convince Asami. Still, he hits the table with his fist in a last effort to prove he is right. Under the table two index fingers ready to pull the trigger at any moment.

Asami glances at Usue then looks at Kobe, Kobe gets it, Asami is a man of little trust when it concerns to others and they barely know each other enough for the man to trust that his men know how to keep their mouths shut.

Kobe wants to know what makes Asami so certain of his assumptions but knows Asami won’t talk unless it’s only them and Asami’s right hand man.

“Usue-kun, start an investigation within our ranks into this matter. If what Asami says is true I want to know right away and remedy the matter.”

“Yes sir.”

“I want everyone investigated and the rogue found. Go, now.”

Usue looked uncertain for a minute but followed the order. He left the restaurant in a hurry.

Inside, Asami glanced at Kirishima and the secretary proceeded to send a text to the man who would be following Usue, Kobe too would be followed by a man after he left, it was a precaution in case Asami needed to know where they were.

“Usue will handle it. Now, tell me Asami, I want to know.” Kobe said as soon as Usue was gone.

Asami explained to Kobe what he learned about the men who broke into his home, about the money trails that led to Kobe and his organization and about his apparent pay under the table to men he had supposedly had killed or sent away from his organization. The golden eyed man almost felt pity for the old man, Kobe was almost hyperventilating as his expression switched back and forth between angry and horrified by what Asami was telling him. At some point he had to take a small jar from his coat pocket, it contained small white pills probably for blood pressure, and Kobe took two at a time.

The poor man could not believe that he had someone within his own organization had been taking over his people and resources and he had not known. His mind kept asking ‘How did this happen?’ and he could not find an easy answer.

The conversation got to the revelation that a woman was somehow involved in sending the men to Asami’s building, men who were supposedly working for Kobe but which Kobe vehemently denied involvement with. From there it moved to the last man’s revelation that someone from the top or the organization’s hierarchy was the one who ran things and had slowly been moving to take over. They still had not pinpointed exactly who the man was because he took precautions to keep himself from being found but Asami had been able to figure out it was one of Kobe’s top five men, unknown to Kobe, all these men were being followed.

Asami wanted to know, he needed to confirm, that the stalker was somehow connected with the people who sent the strike team.

“I need you to look at a sketch and tell me if you recognize the man in it.” He said.

Kobe nodded. He wanted to cooperate with Asami and find the person or persons who had cause them both so much damage, preferably without pissing Asami off and causing him to retaliate. His organization was not strong enough and apparently not loyal enough to him to take on someone like Asami.

“Of course, Asami-san, I will tell you everything I know about the man if I do recognize him. If I don’t I will still have Usue look into our members to see if he is one of the lower rank men.

Asami could already hear Kirishima opening the briefcase, a manila folder was passed to him and Asami gave it one last look before he slid it on the table toward Kobe. The wrinkled old hands pulled the folder the rest of the way and opened it slowly.

If Kobe Morina had looked horrified before, now, he was in total shock morphing steadily into sickened terror.

“T-this… he’s my wife’s brother.” The man said lowly as he looked slowly up from the sketch to the golden eyed man sitting before him.

“Are you sure?” Asami asked, the trill in his body not preventing him from making certain that they made no mistakes.

“Yes, I’m sure. But I have not seen him in over three years. He used to work for me, a ‘cleaner’ of sorts and sometimes as enforcer, it was as a favor for my wife once he was kicked out of the military and needed a job. He was too unstable, he would not follow orders and would make a mess out of things, in our line it is fine to be a sadist when the occasion necessitates it but this man; he disgusted even me. I had nothing to do with whatever he did to you Asami-san, I swear it on my family’s name.”

“What about your wife?” Asked Kirishima, he did not trust the black widow not to be involved in this mess.

“OF COURSE NOT! The very idea…” Kobe shouted standing up.

“Could you swear that one on your family’s name as well?” asked Asami.

Kobe sat down, the weight the world in his shoulder. The truth was he couldn’t, he knew his wife was not as innocent as she liked to pretend.

‘I thought so.’ Crossed Kirishima’s mind.

“I will look into it personally.” Kobe said after moments of heavy silence.

Kobe left the restaurant a troubled man. When he got home he found out Usue had not shown up after leaving the restaurant, he had been expecting a preliminary report on the steps taken to investigate the men in his organization. He called Usue’s phone and got no response so he called several other numbers and could not find his right hand man anywhere.

Usue had disappeared and it all smelled like shit was about to hit the fan, Morina was certain he would end up covered in it.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 19: And She Falls Now

Usue was gone. No one could find hide nor hair of the man and the person who was most concerned about this development was the one person who had the most to lose from his disappearance. Morina was deploying men left and right to try and find out where his right-hand man had disappeared to and in his home, his wife was not so secretly freaking out.

When Morina had gotten home from the meeting with Asami and began making inquiries with his lieutenants as to Usue’s activities as of recent, she knew everything was about to blow up. She had the first panic attack of the day, it had been three hours already and she was at the edge of the second.

An idea struck her.

Perhaps there was still a way to save herself from impending doom. If she played her cards right, she could throw Usue under the metaphorical bus and come out unscathed. After all, she is a survivor, a woman of great cunning and this should not be too difficult to achieve since Usue is not around to defend himself and contradict her claims. This idea was what led the woman to seek out her husband and spin the most unbelievable stretch of yarn in history, lies intertwined with half-truths to make them believable.

“If you ask my honest opinion, with the way he has been acting all shifty lately, he is the one stealing from you. The fact that he just up and disappeared just confirms it to me. I suggest if you find him, don’t bother looking into what you’re already certain of and just shoot him where he stands. He doesn’t even deserve the benefit or chance of explaining himself.”

The problem was, she had forgotten her husband was by no means born yesterday and his way of life combined to his heightened state of alert made for just the right amount of suspicion to not believe her tale at face value. It all smelled so fishy. Besides, he knew by a fact that those two were fucking. It was the reason he never drank or ate anything she gave him and in all honesty, he did not much care so long as he got to fuck her too. He was an old man… she was a fine piece of ass… and he liked being able to say he had tamed Tokyo’s most notorious black widow, it was good for boasting around the poker table and at his age, he didn’t care for much else 

He had to give it to her though, she was almost convincing when she tried to get him to just outright kill Usue without questioning him. It would have been the only loose end connecting her to this whole mess within his organization. The cunning bitch sure was good, he only wished he had managed to knock her up at some point, so his heir would hopefully inherit that talent, a child of his with only half her cunning and deviousness would get really far indeed in his world. Sadly, he suspected the one time he managed to get her pregnant she killed the fetus. It doesn’t matter anymore; he will find someone else to warm his bed, preferably someone more willing and less of the backstabbing/murdering persuasion.

Still, he will look into what she might be hiding.

****VF****

Akihito had been moved to a different safe house, Asami didn’t want him to be further distressed by thoughts of his attempted suicide at the previous one. Asami doesn’t want to think about what he had done if only for a short amount of time, having him return to that place would have been too much, he was even thinking of having Kirishima put the place on sale. 

The boy had been unconscious through the whole ride and currently laid on the bed. Asami had come back after the meeting with Morina to pick him up and bring him home and now he sat next to him on the bed and petting the soft blond hair of his exhausted lover. Hazel eyes opened slowly and gazed at him tiredly.

“Hey.” Asami said.

“Hi.” Akihito croaked, his throat still a bit scratchy from all his crying during the meeting with the psychiatrist. 

Asami had not expected it but Akihito, surprisingly wanted to talk about why things happened, about his feelings before it all went numb.

Akihito explained in more details than he did to the doctor about what he felt like and Asami assured him once more that he will always be there to protect him, to hold him when he needs it and to pick him up when he falls. He held Akihito’s hand and looking him in the eyes, he told his broken lover that he is never alone even if there is no one in the room, that he is important to him.

Asami Ryuichi confessed for the first time in his life to himself and his lover that he cannot live without the light Akihito shines in his dark life.

Akihito cried in his arms once more and held onto Asami, his hands clutching at the man’s shoulders. He felt that there was a light at the end of the tunnel, a sliver of silver in his very dark cloud, and that silver lining came in the form of Asami. He would be okay, everything will be okay, and Asami will help him overcome. Asami has promised to be there for him and he has acknowledged that he does need someone to lean on, he can become strong again and even then, he wants to make the effort to continue to lean on Asami.

He couldn’t do this alone… and he was glad he didn’t have to.

****VF**** 

Usue walked the long and cold hallway, his pace was brisk and he spoke rather loudly onto the phone. At the other side of the line, someone is speaking in hushed tones and asking for direction on the actions that must be taken next.

“Get rid of her. Do it now and then get out. I’ve left you the money at the usual place. Do not try to contact me, I will be going into hiding until I can find a way out of this mess.”

“Yes, sir.” The voice answered and Usue hung up.

The previous right-hand man shoved the phone into his pocket and adjusted the heavy bags of money and documents hanging from his shoulders. 

He really wished he could find a way to spin this one to his advantage.

****VF****

Morina’s wife was in her room again, she was pacing about trying to decide if she should start packing and disappear… Bali is nice this time of year.

She sat on the bed to weigh her options and was deep in thought when the soft knock alerted her of someone at the door. After a short ‘enter’, one of the maids came in with a tray of tea and some sandwiches.

 The woman motioned for the snack to be placed on a low table and made the decision to pack her money and any items of value she had in the house and get the hell out of there before she got implicated. Later on, she would find a way to get revenge on Usue for deserting her and leaving her to the wolves. She got up and turned to look for a suitcase in her closet as the maid set up the table. As soon as she had turned her back to the maid, the younger woman pulled a small syringe from the pocket of her apron. Her hand went up towards the exposed neck and the tip of the needle gleamed in the afternoon sunlight just as Mrs. Kobo was turning around to ask the maid to bring her another suitcase.

Mrs. Kobo’s eyes widened in fear and a struggle to survival ensued. She wrestles the maid and they both fall to the floor in a heap as they pulled each other’s hairs.

In their struggle, the syringe rolls just out of reach of them both, but still they continue to try to reach for it. Morina’s wife managed to untangle from their heap and tried to run for it, but just two feet short of the door the maid, who was still on the floor, pulls her by the ankle and drags her down. Thankfully for Mrs. Kobo, she managed to grab the heavy lamp on the table by the door and she promptly turn around to bash the maid on the head with it.

The maid got a three-inch piece of glass from the lamp into her temple out which incapacitated her immediately; she would not be getting up anytime soon… or ever. Mrs. Kobo made a run for it. Sadly, that was where her luck ended, she ran straight into Morina who demanded she explain what the ruckus was about. Her lack of luck was very lucky for Morina as she tried to spin another one of her yarns and this one had many inconsistencies to the one she had spun before. The stupid woman even admitted to sleeping with Usue, not that she was aware that she had let that slip since it was in a very vague and roundabout sort of way, but Morina could read between the lines just fine.

“He was the one who stole the money, I swear, I had nothing to do with it. It was all him and now he is trying to kill me. You have to help me!”

“You are saying all of this, the money and the stuff with my organization, it was him alone?”

“Yes!”

“What about Asami-san’s home?”

He saw the panic in her eyes and knew the truth before she even had an answer. She still tried to lie about it.

“What about Asami’s home? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He exploded in anger, the last thing he needed was to have Asami come after him and he was almost sure she had something to do with the men sent to Asami’s home by this point. So he grabbed her by the throat and demanded she come clean lest he acquires what he needs out of her in much less pleasant and far bloodier ways.

Morina drags her by the hair to his home office and practically throws her on a chair as he screams at her question after question, all of them punctuated with a sharp slap on the face.

“Who sent the team to Asami’s building?! Who ordered the strike?! Who were they after?! Were you the woman who sent my men in there?!”

She is frightened beyond belief by this point and in a last attempt to save herself she screams “Usue made me do it! He forced me to make the call, told me he would kill me if I didn’t. It wasn’t my fault, it was all him. He did it so you would blame me, just like you are doing now!”

“Do not lie to me!” he said as he slapped her again, this time so hard one of her teeth flew out of her mouth and onto the floor. 

“Please.” She begs “Please.” Morina doesn’t know what she is begging for at this point and doesn’t actually care. All he wants is to know the truth and he wants to hear it from her mouth.

“Tell me everything; I want to hear even the smallest detail.” His voice was low and menacing; the cold it was seeped in could chill a room and everyone in it to the marrow of their bones.

“If I tell you, promise you won’t kill me. Promise you will let me go.”

He looked at her sobbing face for a minute before answering, it didn’t take him long at all to come up with a decision and he had no problems with not killing her, he could let her go.

“I promise I won’t kill you, you will leave my side and I will never see you again, but I won’t kill you if you tell me the truth.”

A relieved sob escaped her and she looked upon him with grateful eyes.

“Oh, thank you, thank you. I’ll tell you everything. I will.” 

And so, for the very first time in years, Tokyo’s most notorious black widow told nothing but the truth while tied to the chair. When she finished her tale of lovers, brothers, and greed, Morina gagged her and called Asami.

The phone rang and as soon as he heard Asami’s baritone on the other side of the line he stated his business. 

“I have what you need. I will give you the one responsible for the disaster at your home if you promise to find Usue and his men for me and recover the money he stole along with some very sensitive documents.”

“Why?” Asami asked, after all, Morina had his own men to get it done and Asami wanted to make sure he truly understood that he needed Asami’s help, it would be good for business later on to have a debt owed to him by Morina, regardless of any trade made.

“You have bigger recourses and will get it done promptly while I have to clean the house before I engage in any big operations.”

“What do you want me to do with them once they are found?”

“Give them all permanent address relocation by the sea.” Asami was pleased Morina did not outright say ‘kill them all and throw them in Tokyo Bay’ over the phone, it spoke of caution lacking on many in their line of work these days.

“This person, the one responsible for the going-ons at my condo, did they say why they made such a move against me?”

Asami really wanted to know if this person was the man stalking Akihito. It would be so perfect if this was the end of it, so easy if the man was just handed to him in a silver platter. But life is not so easy and it’s not so perfect.

“It is something to do with someone they know, a matter regarding a boy you keep around.”

Then again, life sometimes does make things as close to perfect as it can, at least for Asami. It was not the man himself, but this information could lead them a step closer to catching him.

“I will be at your home shortly.” Asami hung up without waiting for a reply and went to get Kirishima.

Morina’s conversation with Asami had taken place on speaker right in front of his gagged wife and through it all, she tried to plead and scream at him. When he pulls the cloth he had silenced with out of her mouth she screams that he swore he was not going to kill her, that he said he would let her go.

“But I am not going to kill you, Asami-san is, and I am going to let you go. I am going to let you go with him, so that you get what’s coming to you for your actions. You will pay for what you have done, but I won’t be the one collecting, so you see, I am keeping my promise.”

He had a cruel gleam in his eyes as he spoke and she broke into uncontrollable wails.

By the time Asami arrive at Morina’s house, Mrs. Kobo was even more bloodied and bruised than before. Not that he had any idea of her condition before he arrived, but he was fairly sure Morina had been getting his share of retribution out of her.

A broken, screaming and kicking - spitting and hissing like an irate cat - woman was handed to Asami’s men who promptly took her away to be interrogated and disposed of after she had served her purpose.

Surprisingly, it doesn’t take much to make her talk and Asami learned the man stalking Akihito is actually her brother and he feels a world closer to being done with this aggravating situation.

The most valuable piece of information her interrogation gave Asami, however, was the location of her brother’s real home. A team was being gathered by Suoh already to investigate and hopefully apprehend the slimy bastard.

Asami decided to leave the punishing and disposing of Mrs. Kobo to Jun, knowing the young man had a score to settle and would make sure the woman suffered before she met her untimely end.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 20: The Big Bang and White Snakes Hunting

The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place and Suoh could feel the knot of anxiety in his chest beginning to loosen. Still, something didn’t feel right to him and he was loath to forgo his survival instincts in lieu of performing his duty. Something felt off to him, but he still went to the location Mrs. Morina had indicated as her brother’s home, all he could do to counteract whatever was giving him this bad feeling was go there as prepared as he could and hope it all went well.

He would do his job and he would personally lead the team, for Asami… for Akihito.

Three unmarked bans left the location chosen to serve as a meeting point for the team being gathered. The team consisted of fifteen men plus Suoh and they were all quiet with the seriousness of the occasion. If they succeeded, Asami would be very pleased.

 The advance team consisting of five men in civilian clothes moved slowly through the neighborhood, nothing seemed out of the ordinary as they made their way to their target location.

Once they cleared the first floor of the low-rent apartment complex and secured the way up to the second floor, the advance team signaled for the assault team to move in.

The team caught up and once more, the advance team moved on to secure the way to the third floor’s fourth door, where one Tadame Mamoru was in residence since he became dependant on his sister.

Infrared scans indicated that the place was empty of human life. A manual drill was used to make a small hole into the door and a slender camera wire which connected to a small screen was slid through the hole, it revealed no traps around the door, so once it was deemed safe, the lock was picked and the advance team waited for the assault team to enter the apartment first. It was clear the man had not been here for quite some time and Suoh doubted he would be coming back; still, they would look into everything here and hope to get something useful. The place looked much like the one they had discovered earlier, save for more pictures of Akihito in various states of dress and undress adorning the walls.

A general feeling of disgust filled the private thoughts of the men in the team. Suoh saw things he could barely keep his stomach from revolting about.

****VF****

“Let me do this for you.” Feilong said, as he sat before Asami on the limo. He had gone along to Morina’s house with the golden-eyed, man but had stayed waiting in the limo to receive a report from his men while Asami and Morina spoke.

“Morina wants them all dead.”

“I will get it done, fast and clean.” He pressed, “Let me do this for you, so you can concentrate your efforts on Tadame. At this point, securing Akihito’s safety is your biggest concern; I will take care of Usue. Just focus your forces on Tadame and end his threat.”

Asami thought about it for a couple seconds before seeing the wisdom in allowing Feilong to take Morina’s request from his hands. Feilong was reliable and would come through for him. Asami agreed and gave Feilong the go-ahead to pursue Usue and his men and recover Morina’s documents and money.

They managed to find a lead to Usue’s possible location from one of Feilong’s men working the streets for information combined from what little Mrs. Kobo was able to provide about possible hideouts. The man apparently had her on a need-to-know basis and it seems like she didn’t need to know much… or he was planning on using her and throwing her away from the beginning.

When they entered the building, Feilong found Usue had already left, taking most of his men with him and in essence, the location they had arrived at was nothing, but a dummy to throw them off Usue’s trail.

They killed everyone there, but found no new information, from them nor in the building, leading to the runaway right-hand.

****VF****

After a very painful interrogation, Mrs. Kobo was handed to Jun. He looked down to the battered woman laying on the floor with the same regard one looks at a worm you accidentally stepped on with brand new expensive shoes and which refused to come off your sole.

The kind of anger he felt at what Akihito had suffered in the tunnel and after effects of it because of this woman’s actions was so great, he had no idea how to begin to work it out.

This woman was filth of the lowest caliber and a waste of space and air.

Not even worth the oxygen Akihito breathes.

How can one deal with this kind of person? What can you do to make sure they suffer to the very last of their breath in such a terrifying way that even their souls will feel the pain of their punishment? He had no clue, but maybe he will seek advice from a more experienced and knowledgeable source.

He left the woman in the interrogation room and went to search out Kirishima.

It turned out to be the best idea he’d had all day. Kirishima, ever the numbers cruncher, figured out a way to not only deal great pain, but also gain some money while at it. Mrs. Kobo’s very literal pound of flesh would go towards paying some of the repairs of the disaster she caused at Asami’s condo.

Using Feilong’s contacts in human and organ trafficking, they soon had a ‘butcher’ ready to collect Mrs. Kobo’s organs.

************This Section Is A Bit Graphic***********

They kept her awake during the procedure, sometimes even resorting to injecting her with adrenaline to wake her up when the pain had caused her to pass out.

The ‘butcher’ had her strapped to a surgical bed, her torso open as he extracted her organs from her body with careful hands. As the organs were taken out, she was connected to a machine to sustain her body and keep it alive longer in order to keep the organs still in the body as fresh as possible. The last to be removed was her heart after which she died; her eyes still open and wet, her cheeks tearstained and her mouth opened in a silent scream.

Jun thought it was only fair that selling her off in pieces would go towards paying the repairs.

****************Gore Ends Here**************

There was a giant smirk plastered on Jun’s face as he left the room where the ‘butcher’ and his assistant had been taking Mrs. Kobo apart. Before she had been subjected to her punishment, right when she realized what her fate would be, she had tried to bargain with Jun with information in order to try to save herself.

Jun had secured the information and still allowed her to be punished. Now, he made his way to report his findings to Kirishima.

“Kirishima-sama, Usue has a gold watch with encrusted diamonds which used to belong to his father. His father gave to him when he retired from being Kobo’s assistant and gave Usue the position. According to Mrs. Kobo, Usue didn’t want to serve. He wanted to lead. His father was the only person who ever said he could rise to the top if he worked hard and as such, Usue loved and respected him greatly. He carries the watch wherever he goes. Mrs. Kobo confessed she drugged him with sleeping meds once when she thought he was cheating on her because she wanted to make sure she had him in her grasp and placed a tracking device on the watch that he doesn’t know about. The code to the tracking program is in the back of a gold bracelet which I recovered from her wrist and the program is in a computer hidden in her private rooms at the Kobo estate.”

Kirishima almost felt like Christmas had come early and in less than a minute, he was calling men to have the computer collected.

****VF****

At the same time, Suoh’s team was already entering the stalker’s small apartment.

It was a careful and slow process as they moved quietly through the place, searching for traps and information that might lead to the man’s current whereabouts. Pictures were taken of the place’s arrangement in order to have analyst provide a psychological profile of the stalker and anything which could be remotely considered as evidence of anything was also gathered. There was a team of behavioral analyst on stand-by awaiting the information recovered.

One of the men gathering physical evidence from around the bedroom, stood still as he considered whether or not to take the air out of the sex doll on the bed before bagging it for processing. He decided that it would be best to collect the doll as it was instead of chancing his tampering to ruining some prints or such.

The man walked towards the bed where the doll rested and his hand stretched to lift it. Having seen the doll from the previous location he thought nothing as he pulled it off the bed by one of its arms.

Suoh saw the wire first.

It was connected to the back of the doll somewhere in the middle of its back and lead into a small hole going through the bed. The wire was thin and barely visible, but the light from the window hit it just right that it gleamed in the sunlight catching the chief of operation’s attention. His mind worked through the likely meaning and in fractions of a second, Suoh knew there was a bomb inside the mattress and the man pulling at the doll had just engaged it.

“RUN!” Suoh yelled at the men in the apartment, only the ones near the door made it out in time to prevent injury. Only three of them.

The man who had engaged the bomb took the brunt of it as he threw himself on the bed to try to protect Suoh using his own body as a shield for the blast.

It was not enough.

The blast was significant enough that it destroyed the place taking down most of Asami’s men.

Outside, glass rained down from the apartment windows which had been destroyed by the force of the explosion.

Suoh had flown out the window along with the glass due to the blast and now lay broken and bleeding on the ground outside the building. There were large pieces of glass protruding from his body in several places and he was coughing up blood before falling unconscious.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 21: Hide and Seek, Hounds at Your Heel

Usue was sitting in his private jet, though no one would ever imagine that it was actually his since it was bought through one of the many dummy companies he was able to set up using Morina’s money and influence. The company had been “sold” nearly five years ago to one Tanaka Ren, who in turn sold it two months later to Yume Hitori, who sold it soon after. There was a mile long list of people who had bought the supposed company and had turned it into one thing or another and in the complicated mess, the ownership of the company became halfway through that one could lose track of what the thing actually was, where it was supposedly located or who it currently belonged to.

The truth of it all was that A) the company never existed to begin with, and B) the company still belonged to Usue, but that was not something he was going to go about sharing anytime soon, and anyone who tries to figure out that mess is either exceedingly dedicated or really liked the idea of causing themselves a considerable headache. Taking into consideration that the phantom company’s history would have one’s head spinning in circles for probably the larger part of a year, at the very least.

While Usue sat in the comfortable Italian leather chair drinking champagne in early celebration of what he thought was victory, since by now, he was quite convinced he was going to get away with it all. The men he had taken with him were loading his most prized possessions into the plane and getting it ready for takeoff. He would make his way to a sizable villa at the coast of Greece, that he had bought about eight years ago, and wait for it all to blow over before making a quiet return to Japan at a later date and secretly continue his plans to take over.

Yes, he was sure a nice vacation in Greece until danger passed is just what he needed.

The men outside worked on their tasks and he stretched himself more comfortably on his chair secured in his knowledge that he had practically, and probably literally, dodged a bullet. That is until very literal bullets started raining outside and he nearly fell off his very comfortable chair with the all-hell-breaking-loose situation rapidly growing outside.

The enemy did not look like Morina’s men, nor did they look like Asami’s. So who the hell are they? And why the hell are they attacking?

Regardless of whom they were and why they were here, Usue knew one thing; he needed to get the fuck out before he was found.

He thanked the gods for hand grenades because they made just the perfect distraction to make it from the plane to a jeep and to probable freedom.

If his men got caught in the crossfire too, well, that is not really his problem. He still had more men in other locations. At this point, all that mattered was his own life and the very valuable information he had with him. Thankfully, he was able to grab the briefcase before making a run for it, it was a shame about all the money though, he was hoping to further his own agenda with it at a faster rate. It was not a big deal though; he is a smart man and would find a way sooner or later.

Usue sped through the streets like a veritable bat out of hell, so sure that soon he would be away from the situation happening at the plane’s location and whoever was after him.

He failed to realize the unmarked vehicles following him at a safe distance and the conveniently placed men reading a newspaper at almost every turn he took.

Feilong had placed men all over the city in order not to lose the man and get the job done once and for all. He was confident Usue would not make it to the end of the day.

***********SA***********
Suoh was dying.

People said that in the moments before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Though his life was rather eventful, none of those very big and recognizable moments passed his receding awareness.

He saw nothing, just white, as far as the eye could see. Occasionally, a brilliant light and sound-like whispers faraway and under water that made no sense to him whatsoever. Suoh felt strangely comfortable and warm, and there was no pain.

Death, he found, wasn’t really that bad.

“CLEAR!” one of the faraway whispery voices said.

He supposed so, it was clear of any loud noises, clear of fear, clear of pain and discomfort.

But he had things he needed to do, things to accomplish. He had Asami to protect and the infuriating brat to keep safe for his boss’ and friend’s continual happiness.

As painless and comforting as death was, he knew he could not stay there. He was a busy man and had things to do.

“We got him!” the voice said and he thought, ‘You got me yes, but I am not staying here.’ He heard once that to a man with enough conviction. Sometimes, even death is just temporary.

***********SA***********Skip this section if disturbing imagery is not your thing. Contains vore/gore.

Akihito found himself in complete darkness.

His body was unresponsive, frozen somehow, and refused to move despite how much he tried.

Something was preventing him from calling for help, his throat felt like it had something lodged into it.

It was cold and there was a constant dripping sound nearby.

He was naked and trembling.

Large red eyes accompanied by grotesque pointed teeth were the only things he could see in the thick darkness. Teeth, teeth everywhere, yellow and bloodstained as blood red lips stretched into a frighteningly lewd smile.

Hands, twice as large as his head, came forth from within the darkness and held him by the arms, suspending him spread-eagled in the air. Two more hands came out, even more frightening than the first, with long gleaming nails that shone with inexistent light as they approached the tender skin of his stomach.

The nails dug into his soft flesh and opened a wide bleeding gash into it, his intestines spilled onto cold stone floor. He had no idea how he was still alive when those sharp nailed hands began to pull all his organs onto the floor as if they were carving up some fucked up mockery of a Halloween pumpkin.

It was not just the organs at the area of the stomach. The wicked-looking hands cracked his ribs and sternum to get at the organs housed behind. His chest too, now laid open for them to empty it out.

His heart, his lungs, liver… Pain, pain, so much pain, and he had no idea how he was still awake feeling it.

Then it was like some hollowed out carcass at the butcher shop and not Akihito that hung mid air in the unending cold darkness. Hands were no longer supporting him; instead, hooks pierced his hands, elbows, shoulders, and neck.
He tried to scream, but the hook in his neck pierced his trachea and voice box and all he could do was gargle his own blood as he tried to make some kind of noise.

The grotesque mouth opened wide and the hands that had been previously supporting him shoved his organs into the hungry mouth as if the monster before him had been starving for years and could not manage to slow down to enjoy the taste of his meal. While this went on, the sharp nails tore into his muscles from the inside and that too, was dumped on the floor for the red-eyed monster to consume.

He could feel every bite of those too sharped teeth as well as the wet slide of his flesh and organs down its throat.

His hunger satisfied once Akihito was nothing, but hollow skin and bones, the… thing… stepped forward. Its body was rotten in places and others nothing could be seen, but the immense amount of maggots and spiders that crawled the surface of the beast’s limbs.

A cock, longer than Akihito’s arm stood proud and swollen from between skeletal-looking legs which had melting flesh hanging off them. It was black and red, and so very think and oozed a brown sort of fluid that smelled of sickness and decay.

It… Him… pointed his cock at Akihito’s emptied out body and proceeded to jerk itself off until it filled the gaping cavity with its acid-like and fowl smelling cum.

Then, it decided that it would crawl in, his large clawed feet were festering like open wounds left in the sun for carrion birds to peck at and bugs to lay their eggs on. It was the height of disgusting and made him gag with the smell of it all as one of the feet rose in the air to place itself into the gaping hole that was Akihito’s center… For the first time since he found himself in the dark place, Akihito managed to struggle and scream.

***
He woke up.

Panicking and screaming his lungs out, and had to be sedated to be brought down into a manageable state.

These nightmares… They will drive him crazy.

***********SA***********

The first van followed Usue for close to five blocks, then turned left and drove away when the second one pulled out of a parking space at the side of the street and took over following Usue’s jeep for the next seven blocks. The same process continued the longer Usue drove, effectively preventing him from noticing that he was leading the enemy to his next hideaway. At this point, following him via vehicle was more of a “just in case” sort of situation than their only means of knowing were the man would make his final stop, the rest of Feilong’s team and the man himself, followed a couple miles behind the pursuing van.

Unaware of being followed and without thought that someone might have gotten the best of him, Usue made his way into a seemingly abandoned and rather dilapidated old factory about sixty miles south of where his jet was being prepped.

He walked into the quiet building and took a set of stairs which led him to a lower level of the factory. The empty visage that was presented by the first floor was of great contrast to the hassle and bustle going on in the basement level. Here, the place was as alive with movement and noise as the inside of a well populated beehive.

The heavy iron door at the base of the stairs closed behind him once he had made his way fully into the main lower level. Immediately, men geared up as if preparing to fight World War III – Or at the very least, preparing to invade a small country – moved about in between rows of men and women wearing Hazmat suits and dealing with various chemicals at different stages of matter from solid all the way to gaseous. To one side, large piles of neatly packaged white powder amongst other things waited patiently to be collected and delivered to their respective destinations.

This building was one of Usue’s most guarded secrets, a place where he produced and stored the sizable bulk of his production of drugs and other substances before they were moved to several handling facilities which in turn would send them to distributors, who will send them to the big clients as well as set pick up locations for those small time dealers selling on the streets.

Ninety-five of Usue’s business came out of this factory… and he had unknowingly led Feilong straight to it. Even if he had not been followed by vehicle during his escape, the tracking device in his watch would have still led Feilong to his current location.

Usue walked briskly through the row of long metal tables and crossed the large room until he reached the comfortably furnished office at the back left corner. Once there, he sat on the large chair, put his face in his hands and breathed in a deep breath. Then, he proceeded to laugh heartily and his gleeful cackle could almost be heard outside of the office.

He was so glad luck seemed to be on his side, despite the loss of the money he seemed to be coming up on to every time.

The gods were sure being generous to him today.

It was just as he was in the middle of a phone call to set up another getaway plane when the lad under his feet decided to shake like it was wet dog trying to rid itself of water.

Every few seconds, the world around him shook accompanied with the BOOM of explosions.

Then, the metal door that led to this particular area of the factory blew into the room with such force that it took everyone near it and once it met a wall, crushed those unfortunate enough to be on its way into some kind of bizarre bloody blob.

Bullets began to rain and bounce off metal surfaces when fully decked out men poured in shooting at everyone in sight. The flying door has effectively made Usue’s men panic in their effort to get out of the way and the attackers had used the distraction to catch them with their metaphorical pants down.

He did not wait to see the outcome of the bloodbath taking place outside the office, instead he used the little time he had to do the one thing every good coward would do. In the process of saving his ass, he forgot the briefcase with Kobo’s documents on the office desk where the invaders would see them as soon as they entered the room.

Usue opened a small safe-like panic room behind one of the file cabinets in the office and promptly locked himself in it, hoping that whoever was attacking would not look too closely and believing he was not there would move on.

He was a patient man, he could wait it all out and make his way to a safe house once he believe the place to be empty of threat and hostile visitors.

Except, not even five minutes after he locked himself in, someone had overridden the access code to open the panic room’s door. He kneeled there, in the almost too small place while a long-haired man in Chinese clothing as well as several suit cladded men pointed their guns at him.

For some reason, he felt like a child whose parents had found him under the bed after he had run off with the whole cookie jar.

But that in no way meant he was going to get out of his safe place of his own volition, these people wanted something from him – that much was obvious – therefore, they would likely to not kill him. That being the case, he pointed his gun at them and stubbornly sat himself more comfortably in his small hole. There was just no way in hell he was coming out until some kind of deal was made.

That is, of course, until the man dressed in Chinese clothing signaled to someone to the side and a man with what appeared to be some kind of small flamethrower stepped to the front of his hidey-hole.

A flamethrower.

A fucking flamethrower.

Well… That was that then…

The man dressed in Chinese clothing jerked his gun in a “move it” sort of motion and with a very morose sort of attitude, and Usue made his way out to stand in the middle of a circle of guns and muscle.

And he still did not know who the fuck this people were.

He was handcuffed and led through what was left of his underground facility, there was blood everywhere and those of his men who had survived were lined up on their knees facing one of the more intact walls with their hands tied behind their back.

They were being promptly and systematically put down with a very efficient bullet to the head. He was sure whoever these people were had done the same to his other men at the plane location… and probably any other locations of his they had managed to unearth.

He opened his mouth to try to bargain with the Chinese man, the obvious leader of these men, when he was rudely shoved onto his knees.

Before he even managed to croak some kind of plea or remark, a very sharp blade had flown through the air and effectively cut his head off.

The head fell to the floor and rolled several feet before coming to a complete stop before one of the heavily armed men. Behind the still kneeling body, Liu Feilong used a white cloth to clean his favorite blade before putting it in its sheath and handing it to one of his men. A mahogany, intricately carved and decorated box, cushioned with red velvet and satin was passed to Feilong and he held it open while the man holding the head placed it inside.

Usue’s face was to be forever frozen in its last expression of wide-eyed fear and surprise, his mouth still open in its last attempt to say something that would hopefully get him out of the mess he had gotten himself in.

Kobo would be satisfied as would Asami.

Chapter Text

Secret Admirer Chapter 22: A Single Step

As far as Akihito was concerned, Lao Tzu was absolutely right. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and even the longest and most difficult ventures have a starting point. He knew this like he knew that his venture to somehow unfuck himself, and his head was indeed going to be long and difficult. But fuck, if he was not going to take that first step and keep on walking until the end of the long road because the other option was to lie down and take it. To let all this fucked up shit consume him and go fucking nuts from it all… that simply wouldn’t do, he was going postal already and it did not feel good at all.

Three days ago, Asami and Feilong had spoken, and Feilong was granted leave to take care of Usue. He wondered why Feilong had not acted immediately if he had a way of tracking the man, but Jun had taken the time to explain that Feilong had managed to buy one of Usue's men and knew they had time to plan before the man tried to make a run for it. So Feilong took a day to plan his strike team because he didn't want to go all half-assed. On the morning of the second day, they sent Akihito to Feilong's Kyoto house. The afternoon of the second day, Feilong began his attack knowing it was the day Usue intended to escape. That same night, Akihito had been plagued by his worst nightmare yet.

It was ten in the morning of the third day.

He was getting scared of his own shadow, jumping at any sudden noise and his nightmares were getting worse. When he tried to end it all, to escape the fear and the pain, Asami had promised to make things so that he would never have to feel like ending his life was the only option he had. Asami had promised, Asami, who doesn’t make promises lightly, had in essence, sworn to look out for his wellbeing. But Akihito knew that if he too didn’t put in the upmost effort, if he didn’t begin that thousand miles journey, he was never going to get anywhere. He had to take that step and then take every single following one after it no matter how rocky the road is.

And what a tenuous and rocky road that was, how weak he felt this very moment. So far from the person he had been before one thing began to pile on top of the other, to the point that the collective weight was so heavy he could no longer stand on his own under it.

But was he on his own?

He wasn’t truly alone, was he?

Asami had promised, and he trusted Asami. God knew the smug bastard always got his way and made things go the way he wanted them to in the end. There was his friends and in an odd way, Suoh and Kirishima too, only because it would be something Asami would expect of them.

Feilong was there too. It should not have been as surprising as it turned out to be, to hear the man had offered Asami the proverbial olive branch and proposed to let bygones be bygones… water under the bridge and all that… It wasn’t surprising that they had now entered some sort of unofficial partnership, though how long that will last was anyone’s guess. If he were in any mood for such things at the moment, he would have started a betting pool for it. The sort one started when famous people and movie actors got married.

No, it should not have been surprising, but somehow to Akihito, it was. For some reason, he could not understand because really, it was so very logical. Feilong and him had become friends years ago and it made sense that eventually, he would be the catalyst that would bring those two stubborn bastards together in some sort of amicable relationship.

It was surprising… and it made him feel so very relieved, so… warm? It was good for both of them to let go already.

Now it was time for him to find a way to, if not let go, find a way to deal with all the events in his life that he had been pushing to the side for so long. All those things he had always just “bounced back” from shortly after they had happened, but that in reality, he was just putting them in a little box inside him that he refused to look at until it was completely filled and started spilling over its poisonous contents.

The box was now open, its contents spilled, he had broken and fallen as low as one could possibly go.

Akihito knew he had shattered and he did not want to remain so. The most appealing option now that he was, but a broken shade of himself was to pick up the pieces and remake himself.

Hopefully better.

Hopefully stronger.

It was so hard, the weight still so heavy, but he hoped the strength he used to posses came back to him with every step until his journey was over, and he stand complete once more at the end of the arduous road.

He knew he needed help, had admitted so to Asami when he woke up in the hospital. He accepted that he needed help now, and he would use any psychological aid provided to him by whoever had the best chance of helping him put his broken pieces back together. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery he had once heard, and now that he had openly admitted as such, he would not let stubbornness and pride get in his way to deal with all the things that had beat him down to such a pathetic state.

Asami had promised to attend all his therapy sessions with him. This session, he wanted to do it alone. It was why he had called his therapist so suddenly, and asked that Asami not to be informed of it. After all, it wasn’t like Asami could suddenly make the trip all the way to Feilong’s Kyoto house just to sit through and watch him pour his hurts and fears out when the man had more pressing matters to deal with in Tokyo. No, this session was solely for Akihito. He had to do this one alone if he wanted to ever again feel like his own man. Later on, he could take strength from Asami’s comforting presence during his following sessions. He wanted to prove to himself that he still had it in him after all that has happened. Akihito had promised himself that he would lean on Asami more when things has gotten too much, but as he thought about the things he wanted to discuss today, he thought that it was truly for the best for Asami not to be here for it.

Akihito did not want Asami to feel guilt for what he had done to Akihito in the past. Yes, he wanted Asami to apologize in some way because to be honest, their meeting was not anywhere near orthodox and the things Asami had said and done had hurt deeply and had humiliated him greatly. But he did not want a forced apology out of quilt of past offences brought into the light of shame. No, he wanted an apology because Asami himself had realized that their relationship had a very fucked up start, that he had hurt Akihito and treated him terribly, and because he had realized that he was wrong in doing to him the things he did, and wanted to make amends for them genuinely without cohesion from outside interference. It wasn’t that Akihito had completely forgiven and forgotten those first long months together, it wasn’t that he held some secret grudge either. It was just that, the more time he spent with the man and got to know him, the more he hoped and desired that one day Asami would develop some ability for normal human interaction and fucking apologized, so they could start with a more clean if somewhat smudged slate.

He had decided to be patient, because Asami was Asami, and he was fucking worth it.

Akihito hoped it did not take Asami too long to figure it out though because in his current state, he did not know how long he could hold onto the hope of ever hearing a simple “I’m sorry” from the man, because to be honest, this all started when he met Asami and they both knew it.

The warm breeze of the Kyoto afternoon was so liberating in a way. As he stood before the opened glass doors to his room’s balcony, he wondered if Asami would want to share something this beautifully simple with him some day. His life had gotten so progressively complicated the last years that something as simple as standing before the quiet of nature in a secluded house was blissful in ways he could hardly explain.

There was a knock on the door, and he knew that it meant his therapist was here. Hopefully Yomeda-sensei will help keep him from going crazy… He already felt like he was halfway there.

“Come in, Sensei.”

The door opened and the elegant middle-aged woman stepped in. Akihito wondered, not for the first time, where in hell did Kirishima find this woman because she looked more apt to be in the centerfold or front cover of some magazine about gorgeous people instead of being dressed in the stereotypical doctor’s white coat. His hands were itching to photograph her, it was ridiculous.

She took a seat on the wingback chair in the room’s sitting area and he sat on the couch and put his feet up as he took deep breaths to gather his courage. She waited quietly while he took his time, they were not pressed to cram their sessions into an hour. She had moved in with him he second Kirishima had hired her and will stay in the same location as he is at all times, in case he needed to talk until she deemed it okay for him to have more space. Their sessions will go until Akihito feels that he is done with them for the day, or until he is too overwhelmed to continue. In the time she has been around him since he got out of the hospital they had hadultiple sessions in a day, sometimes up to four. She had the feeling ghe just didn't want to be alone, wanted to fill the silence with any kind of chatter. So far, the sessions had ranged in time from between forty-five minutes to three hours.

Sometimes, Akihito just sat there looking emptily into space, sometimes, it was like a river of words flowed out of him and it didn’t want to stop, and sometimes he just cried his heart out without saying a single coherent word.

Most of the time, his words had nothing to do with what was affecting him, but were about him growing up and how much he loved his father. It was normal, he was subconsciously making it so that the therapist knew him as a person before he opened up his heart and became vulnerable in front of her. Many patients used that tactic, she knew it, and pretended she didn’t because that was what he needed. To see her as someone he can confide in because by knowing of him and his life before things went to hell, somehow made him feel like she was his friend and made it easier to tell her things he would not tell a stranger.

Akihito has been avoiding until now, talking about the hard stuff by talking about these things. From the moment he called on her, she knew this was to be his first true look into the mess that his life has become. The first time he truly puts it out into words without a filter. This was when he would truly face his monsters and everything that follows will have been built on this foundation.

She was somehow glad Asami was not here at the moment. She had a feeling what Akihito would have to say would likely not be out in the man's presence. Akihito, she had noticed, did some careful editing when Asami was around. As if he did not want to bother the man. It was mostly subconscious of him, but she noticed it, and vowed to have some private sessions with just the two of them periodically.

It was only twenty minutes later when his eyes filled with conviction and he looked up at her that she spoke again.

“Are you ready?”

“I… Yes.”

“What would you like to talk about today?”

He paused again, the silence stretched between them and she just waited until he was ready.

“I had another nightmare last night.” he said suddenly. She had almost expected this session to be another hour-long-sitting-in-silence sort of situation. Gods knew they’ve had several of those already.

“Would you like to tell me what it was about?”

He retold every single detail of his very disturbing nightmare that he could remember, and though he had to take several pauses in between, he still got through it and she was proud of him for it.

“How did you feel while this was happening?” It was obvious how he would be feeling in such a situation, but that was not the point. The point was for him to come to terms and acknowledge how it made him feel, so he could move past it.

“I was disgusted. Afraid, hopeless, helpless… Alone.” he said with a sigh. He was so tired and needed some sleep. “I guess so. I really want to be done being afraid, but I’m not sure if I can right now. It seems so impossible.”

“Disgust is a very reasonable feeling to have towards such things. There is no shame in feeling dislike to things. Fear is natural, through our lives we fear of many things, and it is a response meant to aid us in survival, not a weakness unless you let it consume you.”

“Hm.”

“Do you think you are hopeless?”

“No, well… I would like to think that there is hope for me. That I can pick up the pieces and start again. That there is a light at the end of the tunnel.”

“Sounds to me like you have hope already.”

“Maybe?”

“What about helpless? Do you feel that there is no one out there to lend you a hand in your hour of need?”

Was he helpless? Truly?

‘I will do everything in my power, so you never have to feel like that is the only option ever again.’

“No, I am not helpless. I’ve got people I can lean on.”

“And are you alone?”

“No.”

‘I would not know what to do with my life now that I’ve had your light shining in my abyss.’

He had Asami, Feilong, and his friends. He had many people to depend on when he is at his lowest. People who cared for him and people who loved him, and it shamed him to not have seen it before.

“Now that we have established how the nightmare made you feel and whether those feelings are truly a reflection of your life, would you like to talk about what you think the nightmare means?”

Akihito was by no means a dream interpreter, but he did his best to try to make the whole fucked up scenario into some semblance of meaning.

At some point, like he knew it would, the narrative morphed into a retelling of his first moments with Asami. He dug out all those things he had been burying inside for so long and aired them out in the warm Kyoto sun.

He spoke of his time in Hong Kong, of all the near deaths since then, of his consensual and not so consensual moments with Asami, of how the man was like a drug to him that he just couldn’t quit because he honestly didn’t want to, and of how at this point, he had the man so deep under his skin that trying to be without him would feel like living without air. He spoke of Asami’s strength, of the overwhelming presence he exuded that covered a whole room as soon as he walked in, and how he could no longer remember what life was like before Asami.

Akihito confessed he didn’t think it was love, because love just sounded so hollow when in comparison to the burning he felt when Asami looked at him, that he sometimes felt like the whole universe just falls into place and that other times he feels like the universe of Asami’s existence is just too big and he has no true place in it.

“It could not be love,” he had said. “Because I was sure love should not hurt this much.”

Maybe it was something similar? Maybe it was something beyond? It was something… more, perhaps?

The word love, it just seemed to fall short sometimes.

At the same time, he had expressed that he hoped to all deities watching that it was truly not love. Because despite how much Asami had assured him that he would never let him go, he feared that if he fell in love, he would be forever condemned to suffer by seeing his love not returned in kind. He knew there was affection in Asami towards him, it was clear in the quiet moments they had shared together, but going so far as calling what Asami felt for him “love”? He simply did not dare to, he did not dare to hope because hope could be so easily broken and he was already broken enough.

Akihito was a bubbling ball of insecurities and fears, a trembling mess of confusion and hurt.

He got eerily quiet all of a sudden and when she was sure he was done speaking, she used the moment to ask a very hard question.

"Akihito, do you feel somehow tainted by the events you have suffered through, the things that have been done to you? Do you feel that you are dirty?"

Akihito broke down in a soul-wrenching sob, and in a desperately wounded way he had never cried in before.

He knew, that not so deep inside, he did feel dirty.