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Akihito laid crouched in a fetal position on the slightly charred tatami floor, his knees pressed tightly against his chest, his head curled downwards between his legs. The room had been the one he was staying in while visiting his grandfather's place, but now it was burnt to a crisp.

The fire had only been detained a few hours before, so the patterned sewn floor against the exposed side of his face still felt slightly damp on his cheek. It smelled too, of wet bamboo and charcoal. The rest of the things in the room were covered in soot, broken, or strewn across the room in disarray. But the physical haphazardness of the room was nothing compared to the whirling emotions inside of his mind.

Every single time he went to visit his grandfather, he felt very nervous. Although Akihito was born from a very prominent Yakuza family, he was born oblivious of their world, away from the main family. His mother, his grandfather's youngest daughter, the youngest out of six children, had no power or control despite being the head's child because there was no chance for her to take over the family. When she fell in love with Akihito's father, a scenic photographer that she had met during her college days, she begged her father to let them get married. Akihito heard there was a spiel of arguments from his grandfather's initial rejection of the idea, but then he relented and let them live on their own. After Akihito was born, his parents took him to the main house a few times a year for traditional ceremonies and such, but also mainly because his grandfather was so fond of him.

At the main house, all of Akihito's cousins, children of his mother's older siblings, were all already of marriageable age. The only ones close to Akihito's age were his cousins' children, Akihito's nephews and nieces. Two of his cousins were even older than he was. He never did quite fit in with them. He didn't fit in with anyone at the main house despite being on amiable terms with a few. They all lived in a different world.

A few days ago, his grandfather had called, and although his mother had refused to tell him what it was all about when he had asked, the frantic tone in her voice and her strange, erratic behavior had prompted him that something was terribly wrong. They came to stay at the main house shortly after. And the shortly after that, the fire happened.

But before the fire burst out, the first thing Akihito noticed that tilted the axis of his world off center, screams pierced the air, shouts and strong voices, a crash and a scurry of commotion that brought him out of sleep.

Akihito remembered that it was still dark outside when he woke up because of the noise. Dawn had not yet broken over the horizon. After the screams, a rush of heavy footsteps outside, the first bullet in the air that had frozen Akihito's veins, the orange flames came. The fire came so suddenly and so brightly contrasted against the still pitch-black sky that it stunned him.

He couldn't move. He couldn't do anything but stare, transfixed in an oddly frightened way, at how the flames came up to swallow the building seen across his window.

And after that, Akihito couldn't remember much. His mother had burst inside of his room, and somehow his legs were moving, running with her until some men in black suits had caught them. She had screamed and kicked when they were separated from each other. He remembered one of the guards grabbed a hold of him by the scruff of his collar and then he was hauled over a massive shoulder. Some time went by, and then he remembered being handed back to his mother. The last of his memory was of the cold, of his clothes seeping wet, of his shivering body because of the rain.

And right now, waiting for his mother and grandfather and some other relatives in the next door who have been talking all night long, Akihito just wanted to go home.

…..

"Mother," Akihito whispered, touching lightly at the ends of her white silk kimono. It had the family's crest on it. He adorned one too, although his had no visible markings. It was just a deep royal blue kimono. "Mother, when will we get to go home?"

Hearing her son's question, Aya's face wilted. She yearned to cry out, to embrace him one last time. She willed herself, forced herself to control her face and fold it in a semblance of not completely breaking apart. She was dying inside. One way or another Asami was sealing her fate. Killing her this way was much more painful than if he would just thrust a blade through her heart. And the sad thing was that he had no idea who she was, no interest, an indifference to her pain.

Breathing in and out slowly, she said, "I don't know." Her knuckles white, her fingernails digging half-moon scars into her palms to keep herself from screaming.

Dissatisfied at the answer, he attempted to reach out to touch her kimono one more time, as if repeated his question through his action, but his mother evaded his touch.

The morning after the fire incident, Akihito had been ushered by some of the servants to bathe and dress in the kimono they had placed in his room. Afterwards he was lead to the spare tea room used for training. It was the only room not burnt. He sat down next to his mother. His father was nowhere to be seen.

Everyone was tense. They were all waiting for something. Something to happen. None of the children were present. Something was wrong. Akihito's ears buzzed.

Akihito noticed that a wall of the room was empty, the wall of the entrance. Whoever they were waiting for had yet to appear.

His eyes were beginning to droops after sitting stiffly for half an hour, and when his head began to sluggishly nod a few times, someone cleared their throat. Akihito looked up to see his grandfather and gasped.

Takaba Kai was sporting a gash across his face and a heavily bruised cheek. The barely-there wisps of white hair on his face drooped like a wilted plant, so thin and delicate they seemed ready to fall from his head at the slightest of winds.

He didn't know what to say to his grandpa, not that anyone was saying anything at all. Instead, everyone in the room looked like they'd rather be somewhere else, as if they avoided looking at grandfather's face, but more especially, they avoided Akihito's gaze. Even his mother pretended as if he didn't exist, as if she herself was a statue glued to the spot, immobile.

Just then quiet footsteps pattered across the sleek wooden floors of the entrance and into the room. Several men in black suits entered and sat on the empty tatami mats laid out. There were five of them. A hoard of bodyguards probably stood in the background no doubt. Upon their entrance the other family members stiffened even further. Considering that they were already stiff as it was, Akihito thought that it couldn't be done, but they somehow did it. It must be because the guests gave off a rather strange atmosphere, a deadly aura that Akihito couldn't fathom. It was especially strong from the man sitting in the center.

He was very tall, even sitting down his height was not diminished because of it. His suit was immaculate, and it framed his body nicely. Small strands of his jet black hair gently fell down his face and graced his bare forehead. He was very handsome, no speck or blemish could be found on his face, but it was his eyes that drew Akihito in. They were a strange golden color, that even sitting quite a distance away, Akihito saw were like molten lava. Those eyes looked hard, like a pair of finely chiseled garnets were inserted instead. They scared him. The man scared him.

Like a deer caught in headlights, he was frozen to the spot, just like everyone else was. And underneath that, was fear. Like the prey sensing the predator, Akihito instinctively wanted to flee.

But he couldn't.

The doors were barricaded by the wall of bodyguards. And if he ran, no doubt he would be caught.

Akihito didn't pay attention to what they were talking about. It was a negotiation of some kind. His family members were tense. The other side wasn't. He wasn't even sure why he was present in the middle of the meeting. Surely he and his mother had no part in any Yakuza dealings. Especially him. But it wasn't until he heard his name that he snapped out of it.

Those words came from the tall man on the other side. His eyes flicked over to Akihito's when he said it, as if calling him out, and then their eyes met.

Akihito felt strange to be under the scrutiny of that man. He looked cold and foreboding, and the stare he bore down on Akihito felt as if he was being dragged down under by the sea, as if a hand was holding his head down under water and he couldn't breathe. It made him squirm in his seat and start to pay attention to what they were discussing.

"I've already agreed to uphold my part of the deal, Takaba-san. Your family is alive. You're alive." Asami inclined his head towards the rest of the people sitting there, and then at Akihito's grandfather. He spoke in the tone suggesting a generosity that Akihito couldn't see. His voice purred like a large cat full of cream. "In addition, I also grant you a small portion of property for the rest of your family, seeing as how this one," he referred to the room, "is indisposed."

His voice after that changed from a languid cat into a preying lion. It booked no refusal. "And now it's your turn to give me what I want."

…

The boy looked so confused. It was adorable. He was just sitting there in his blue kimono, trying to figure things out and put the picture together. He slightly hindered by his mother's figure. She sat in front of him, and despite her pale countenance, drained of color, he could tell she wanted nothing more than to protect her son, to save him from Asami.

But of course Asami knew that there was nothing she could do. He knew she sat there in complete silence, head bowed down, eyes casted on the floor, because she was perfectly aware of that fact. But the least she could do was to spare her dear boy from Asami's gaze, to save him what few minutes she could from Asami's scrutiny.

The desperate attempt of a mother.

And here was where he would see her fall apart. Fall even further than she already has. Asami and his men stood up and headed towards the middle of the room where he was to collect his prize, his collateral.

Takaba-san slowly stood up as well and slowly made his way over to where Akihito sat. "Stand up, my dear boy," he said softly.

Akihito was looking around the room frantically now. It seems the boy finally connected the dots. Good.

And then, instead of coming over, he ran. He ran to his mother, who broke from her silence and clutched him tightly, sobbing ferociously. "No! No! No!" Akihito screamed it over and over again, and Asami couldn't wait to hear it up close.

Several of the relatives came over to pry the boy off his mother but he wouldn't budge. Asami signaled for some of his men to come over. They grabbed a hold of the boy who was thrashing wildly, tears streaming down his face, screaming so hoarsely they were a list of pleas and profanities and gibberish. The boy's face looked positively strickened. Everyone else was in an uproar trying to calm the mother and hold her back, but Asami only concentrated on the little boy headed his way.