Chapter 28

Enjoying an on-the-floor meal with an array of organic choices. I particularly like the fish of some sort put on skewers, grilled with soy sauce.

“This is delicious.”

“Glad you like,” she says with a toothy grin. “It’s unagi, fresh from the river.”

“Hmm, is that a type of fish?”

“You could say that,” Orian says, “It’s grilled eel.”

I freeze. Chewed pieces marinating in saliva. My stomach churns. I look at the half empty side of my plate. I’ve eaten so many of them already. Orian releases a humored breath through his nostrils, bringing his fist to his mouth.

“Something wrong?”

I look back at her, stretching a smile. I shake my head stiffly.

I force myself to swallow. “No.” My voice reaches a new pitch.

“You stay here tonight,” she orders.

Orian’s brows furrow. “No, we can’t. We’re on a schedule.”

She points to the open window. “It’s late. Stay for one night, eh? Leave in morning.”

She gathers the plates, not giving us a chance to deny her again. Courteously, I help her out, transporting the dishes to the kitchen. Orian comes in and relives her, taking her place as he starts washing the dishes in the sink. Keeping his wrapped hand above the water.

I must be dreaming.

“Where are the tabloids when you need them? Breaking news, this just in, Orian Moon was found doing dishes like a regular person.”

He glances at me askew. “These hands have tended fields and herded cattle. I knew what it’s like to have nothing. And I know what it’s like to have everything.”

I take a dry cloth, drying the dishes. “And?”

He deliberates for a moment. “It will never be enough. Just like filling a cup that has no end.”

“The three sides of Orian moon,” I say reflectively. “Orian. Kenjie. And Ichiro. A man of many masks.”

“I don’t hide—” he accidentally flicks up the plate too fast, spurting water all over me.

Squeaking in shock, my hands fly up to my shoulders. I glare back at him. “Seriously?”

“Mistake.”

“Mistake?” I repeat with raised eyebrows. I dunk my hand in the water, letting it pool in my palm before I launch it at him. “That was a mistake.”

Water strings down those carved cheekbones. He stares back at me stonily.

“You have the impulse control of a child.”

It doesn’t help that I make childish face at him. “And you have the temper of a wild animal.”

His face deadpans and he calmly turns his attention back to washing.

And in one quick motion, he pours an entire plastic jug of water over my head, utterly drenching my clothes and hair in a second. Screaming, I splash water at him from the sink frenziedly. He counters with a fresh deluge, flooding the floor, catching glimpses of his ripped stomach through his shirt. Seconds later, obaasan wobbles inside. She stares at her wet floor, wide eyed, and unleashes a raging rant. Orian tries placating her in a remorseful tone. She shoos us both out like we’re stray cats.

Snorting laughs on my way out, my hand pasted over my mouth.

She follows us out, raving on relentlessly, reminding me of my own mother.

“What is she saying?” I whisper.

“You want the X or PG version?” He smiles, his teeth iridescent, gleaming in the dark. “Basically, she’ll clean our mess. She still has some of her husband’s clothes for me to wear.”

She motions for us to stop. We stop. She disappears into a room and comes back with a set of folded clothes. He takes it from her and walks down the dimly lit corridor, picking up his boots on his way out. I take up my own shoes. Orian takes us to a room, sliding the screen aside. I look around the simple cream-paneled bedroom with the bed on the floor.

He pulls the white top over his head, peeling it off. “Use this.”

“As what?”

“To sleep in.”

“We’re seriously crashing here?”

“I’m not driving back.”

“And why not?”

He shrugs. “I’m scared of the dark.”

Laughing, I say, “Oh, really?”

I snatch his top. “It’s still wet.”

“Air dry.”

My eyes fill their sockets. “Turn around.”

“It’s not like I haven’t—”

“Orian!”

He licks his lips and whirls around. The phone he gave me is still in my pocket. I turn my back on him, taking off the blouse and jeans to slip into his white top that fits his torso, but on me it nearly reaches my knees, baggy and infused with his aromatic and delectable fragrance. I swivel around, capturing a peek of something harrowing on his back. He fixes on a silk black shirt, a matching set, embroidered with a golden graphic dragon snaking up from the chest and around the collar to the other side.

Finding it impossible to keep a straight face. “You look adorable.”

He flips around, giving me a long, lingering, once over. “And you look how you’re meant to be. Mine.”

Heat stings my cheeks. I look at the bed. Then back at him. Repeating this at least twice.



He drops the last set of pillows, purposely smacking me with one of them.

We’re decked out on the veranda, lounging on the outdoor mats, cushioned with blankets and pillows. The temperature is warm and comforting; the air tinctured with the fragrant scent of field rice from nearby paddies. I lean back on the pillows, captivated by the cosmos. The moon, like a silvery claw, tore a luminous wound into the abyss-black flesh of the firmament. Freckled with speckles of stars, a penumbra of a malachite green and amethyst flecked on the canvas of the aether.

“This is amazing.”

He lies down next to me, his one hand behind his head.

“Don’t know how you could ever choose to leave this place.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Didn’t you hear, Daku?” I question wryly. ”We all have choices, Ichiro."

“I don’t want you calling me that.” His voice lashed with sudden hostility. “Call me by my name.”

“Which one?”

He doesn’t respond.

Annoyed that he’s aggravated with me. I flop over to be on my side.

“Then tell me… why did you leave?”

His eyes soar to the sky. “My father was a good man,” he begins somberly. “He just made a lot of bad choices. He wanted out with his problems, tired of debt and being broke. He met with a low-level thug at the place he liked to gamble, loaned money, and couldn’t pay it back. They killed him.”

A flicker of grief appears in his eyes before it vanishes with one blink. His face an eternal mask of cold calm.

“That same night, obaasan took me here. I snuck out to find him. By the time the sun rose, his body was found with multiple stab wounds.” He cracks into a humorless smile. “Turns out he was a heavy hitter for the Yakuza. When Daku found out, he wanted to meet the kid that killed one of his own. He saw it as potential. At the time, he threatened obaasan’s life if I didn’t come with him.”

Bile burns the back of my throat. “Were you his first?”

“No, he recruited other orphans like me. Now they serve in his personal army. Bred to be loyal and dedicated to protecting him and safeguarding his interests.”

“Must have trusted you a lot to have you look after his daughters.”

“It wasn’t about trust,” he says with held-in irritation. “I was the best. The one that could do what others didn’t have the nerve for. It’s why I was his number two before I left. When I realized I was never meant to follow.”

I take a moment to digest it all. “Ichiro’s origin story.”

“The first son,” he says, “that’s what that name means. Because Kenjie was weak. Ichiro was built. Orian killed them both.”

That struck deep, thinning the cords of my heart. “Well. If I had to choose between the rigid CEO and the dangerous underworld leader. I think I’d choose the village boy.”

He looks back at me, bearing the universe in those infinite black eyes.

His gaze drops to my neck. And I glance down at the dangling crucifix.

“What significance does that necklace have for you?”

“The last thing I have to remember my father by,” I blurt without thinking, words gushing out. “He’s not too dissimilar to your dad. Good guy who did bad things. It’s just that when things got tough, he took the coward’s route and committed suicide.”

He looks back at me. Not in pity, just quizzically.

“We struggled for a long time and it only got worse when my father banked his entire life savings on an investment firm that turned out to be fraudulent. He lost everything. Including the will to live. So, from that day, I tried to find and expose the company owned by Markov Sidorov.”

He bobs his brows. “There’s no greater motivator than family or vengeance. And you had both.”

“I didn’t do it for revenge,” I say too snappishly. “I did it for justice for my father and so that Sidorov would never do what he did to me—my family—to anyone else. He was my first failure and from that ordeal. I made sure he was my last.”

“I want to hear you say it. Did he hurt you?”

Tears burn behind my eyes. “Let’s just say —,” my voice cracking, “—I don’t believe in God because it was my family’s religion or some shit. I believe because he saved me. The officer that found me told me that he was going to pass on but something led him to the place I was being holed up. I should’ve died that day. You believe in yourself. But I believe in the one that believed in me first. I’m not bitter about what happened to me. Every trauma I faced made me into who I am and led me to help other people. To balance the scales. Now I fight for more than myself.”