"Excuse me, danna-sama. A note has arrived from Kou Reishin-sama. The courier said it's urgent." A servant informed Houju as he was about to dine.

An urgent note from Reishin…hmm…how curious…

"Bring it here." He ordered.

Kouyuu just suffered a severe case of nerves. Come quickly.

A single line, simple and straight to the point, but the emotions behind it were much more complex.

"Prepare my horse."

Houju stepped into Kouyuu's bedroom just in time to catch Tou Roushi exit the door. He hurried inside.

Reishin was sitting at the round table in the antechamber, his gaze locked firmly on the white porcelain tea cup in his hands.

"How is he?" Houju asked as he took a seat next to Reishin.

"The disorientation and fainting were a culminate result of prolonged stress, lack of sleep, and improper dietary habits. Tou Roushi gave him some opium to tranquilize him. He's sleeping now, but he might start running a fever an hour or two later, in which case his condition will become very dangerous." Reishin replied mechanically, his voice devoid of a single trace of emotion.

Houju frowned. "What happened?"

Reishin glanced over at him momentarily, then, sighing, buried his face in the palm of his hand. "I wanted to see for myself just what kind of a person is Wang Ryuusen, so I invited him over. Kouyuu walked in on us."

"And fainted from disorientation?" Houju asked doubtfully.

There was a pause, before Reishin continued, "No." He heaved another sigh. "He locked himself in his room. I forced an entry and asked him about Wang Ryuusen, then he fainted from disorientation. I knew I shouldn't have asked him, but for some reason I just couldn't stop myself. Quite foolish, no?"

Houju looked at his friend, at the self-mocking expression on his face, and thought ironically that of all the times he had dreamed of Reishin dropping his arrogant god-complex personality, the one time Reishin actually did he was unable to break out in explosive mocking laughter.

"Yes, quite." He couldn't break out in explosive mocking laughter, but there was nothing stopping him from rubbing it in as much as humanly possible.

Half an hour later, the fever started, much to everyone's dismay, as it came far too soon. Tou Roushi, with a frown etched firmly on his brows, ordered preparations to be made for an herbal bath.

"Usually an herbal bath will remedy even the most severe of illnesses, but I'm afraid to use anything to potent right now, as Kouyuu-dono's body is far too weak to handle the extra strain." Tou Roushi explained as he dumped the pre-prepared bag of herbs into the wooden tub of hot water. "The willow bark and turtle blood will help stabilize his vital functions while the reishi is steadying his temperature, although epithelial absorption of turtle blood is quite uncomfortable, so someone should stay with him while he's in the bath."

Two maids came in and began undressing Kouyuu for the herbal bath.

"Stop!" Reishin, who had been quiet during all of Tou Roushi's explanation, declared suddenly, successfully making everyone in the room, including Houju, jump.

Kouyuu didn't like it when others undressed him, and if any one was going to go against his wishes, it was going to be Reishin.

Quietly, he said, "I'll do it."

Everyone left the room, Houju included.

Gingerly, Reishin took a seat on Kouyuu's bed, staring at the serene countenance of his sleeping son. Then, carefully, as though afraid he might break Kouyuu like a porcelain doll by accident, Reishin started unbuttoning the boy's white under-robe, revealing the pale torso underneath, which looked flushed from the fever. Running his arms gently under Kouyuu's back, he drew the boy slowly up into his arms to remove the robe completely.

His fingers felted them first, the unnatural lines on Kouyuu's back. For a moment Reishin was afraid to look, to verify with his eyes what his mind already knew.

This is not the moment for cowardice! Reishin thought sternly to himself.

Gently, he flipped Kouyuu onto his stomach, exposing the boy's bared back to complete view.

Reishin stifled a gasp.

Crisscrossing lines in varying degrees of depth, intricate, like the disrupted web of a geometric design, adorned the white expanse of Kouyuu's back. Reishin trailed a finger tentatively along the burning flesh, a feeling of nausea assaulting him as he felt the slightly raised texture of where the whip had drawn a cruel, perfect line diagonally across Kouyuu's right shoulder blade.

This was what Kouyuu was hiding. This was the reason no one was allowed to see his body.

When Reishin lowered Kouyuu into the herbal bath, his hands shook.

For hours Reishin and Houju watched over Kouyuu, the heavy scent of herbs surrounding them. The opiate unconsciousness wore off some time during the first hour, replaced by a state of feverish delirium, during which Reishin had to hold the boy still lest he drowned himself in an effort to escape the pain induced by the turtle blood.

"It hurts…" Kouyuu whined softly as he squirmed against the hands that held his shoulders in place.

Reishin's heart clenched at his son's broken whisper. He wanted to pull the boy out this instant, he wanted to take away the pain that was gnawing at Kouyuu, and it took all of his resolve to not follow through with that medically unsound impulse. Gently, he whispered against Kouyuu's ear, "I know, Kouyuu, it's just for a little while."

Two hours into the bath, Kouyuu begun to cry.

"It hurts…" He whimpered softly against his father's palm, which cradled the side of his head. "It really hurts…"

Burning tears trickled against Reishin's hand, through his fingers, and into the calm surface of the water; the sound of Kouyuu's quiet sobs washed against his ear like tidal waves, bathing him in all the feeling of helplessness a child's broken voice could induce. Soothingly, he patted the boy's arm, all the while whispering, "It's alright Kouyuu, it'll just be a little bit longer. Everything will be okay."

Silently observing the interaction, Houju was finally beginning to understand the reason Reishin picked Kouyuu. It was marvelous, really, how the boy was able to bring out so many colorful sides of Reishin that he had never knew existed before.


It was almost two o'clock in the morning, four changes of water later, when Tou Roushi finally declared Kouyuu out of danger.

"He's still running a low fever, but that should go down in a few days. In the mean time, I'm prescribing some white chrysanthemum and peppermint, to be taken twice a day, to dissipate his heat. I'll be back later to check on him again." Tou Roushi instructed as he packed up his medicine chest. "Make sure he eats properly and gets plenty of rest. Oh, and most importantly, try to keep him calm. Do not upset him under any circumstances, otherwise there's no say how bad the relapse might be."

Reishin and Houju nodded obediently like scolded children.

With twenty towels (testament of Reishin tendency to take everything to the extremes, Houju noted with irritation) laid out on the bed, Reishin proceeded to lift Kouyuu out of the tub. With his sleeves rolled up, he slid his arms gently under Kouyuu's arms, his skin burning slightly from the heat of the water, and pulled his son's body out of the tub. With his flushed face and damp hair against Reishin's neck, Kouyuu whimpered, almost instantly, from the sudden chill. Quickly, Reishin wrapped the trembling boy in the layers of towels, and patted him dry.

"You robes are wet." Houju pointed out as he watched Reishin tuck the blankets tightly around Kouyuu's neck.

"It's fine." Reishin replied absently.

"You'll smother him to death that way." He commented again.

"Shut up." The other replied tersely, but despite his words, he loosened the covers around Kouyuu just a little.

Houju waited until Reishin stopped fussing around Kouyuu, then spoke again. "I haven't had dinner."

Reishin turned and glared at him. The point he was getting at was that Reishin probably haven't had dinner either, and standing over a sick boy for six hours straight was no light task.

"Go tell the servants to prepare something for you." The veins on Reishin's forehead were popping, he noted with utter amusement.

"You yanked me out of my house, at least have the courtesy to dine with your guest." He retorted evenly, in his perpetual monotone.

"YOU ARE NOT A GUEST!" The only thing that stopped Reishin from screaming those words was Kouyuu's sleeping form on the bed.

"Didn't Tou Roushi say something about not upsetting Kouyuu? How do you think Kouyuu would feel if he woke up to find you sick in bed due to exhaustion? Do you think he'll be upset?" Yes, he, Kou Houju, the Senior Secretary of Finance, had resorted to blackmail, but the expression on Reishin's face made the moral chastisement all well worth it.


Kouyuu's eyes slowly fluttered open. The burning ray of the afternoon sun fell in shafts through the window, illuminating a figure, dressed in an elaborate burgundy robe, seated beside his bed. He tried to rise, but his head felt so heavy, and his arms only gave a feeble shake before giving out completely under him.

"I see you've decided that four o'clock in the afternoon is a far more appropriate hour to wake up than morning." Came a voice beside him, monotonous, yet without its usual bite.

"Rei…" He tried to speak, but the words scratched and died in his parched throat.

A moment later two strong hands raised him up, stuffing pillows from out of nowhere behind his back. Suddenly he was overtaken by the faint smell of chrysanthemum and mint.

"Open your mouth." Reishin commanded as he held a spoonful of clear liquid against Kouyuu's lips.

He obeyed, and immediately the clean, sweet taste of ice sugar coated his mouth. Unfortunately, his head was still swirling too much for him to marvel at the fact that Reishin-sama was feeding him.

"What happened?" Kouyuu asked as Reishin set the empty bowl on the nightstand.

Reishin peered at him for a while, before answering slowly, "You ran a very high fever. The medicine Tou Roushi prescribed knocked you out for a while." He selected his words carefully, deciding not to mention the fact that lack of sleep and nutrition directly contributed to his illness, as that might bring up the associated memories of why he didn't sleep and eat properly, which would, without doubt, trigger memories of him.

"Oh." The swirling of his head made him sleepy…

As such, Kouyuu seemed to have no recollection of what happened that afternoon, and Reishin was more than happy to leave things at that.

"Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when it's time for dinner."


"Well, the fever has certainly dissipated. Excellent! But his body is still too weak. Proper nutrition and ample rest are crucial to his complete recovery, but I trust you will see to that, Kou Shousho?" Tou Roushi eyed Reishin meaningfully when he returned for Kouyuu's checkup a few days later.

Reishin snapped open his fan, the top of which covered half of his face, and mumbled petulantly, "Of course."

Proper nutrition and ample rest, Kouyuu found out to his dismay, meant two bowls of ginseng tortoise soup on top of an impossibly large-portioned diet to be taken daily in total confinement to his bed, except for bathroom breaks. All this Reishin had declared mandatory after Tou Roushi's departure, and had personally monitored since by sweeping into Kouyuu's room everyday soon after the crack of dawn with a large pile of paperwork, which he completed throughout the course of the day while making sure that Kouyuu finished every last drop of his ginseng tortoise soup, and that he didn't do anything more stressful than light reading.

Kouyuu's first evasion attempt came four days later, when color was finally returning to his cheeks and his arms no longer shook every time he held anything heavier than a book. There was still a third left in his evening bowl of soup, and Kouyuu thought he really might regurgitate his entire dinner if he had to bear another mouthful of the bitter taste of ginseng.

Reishin stood up from the table upon the sound of the bowl being set down, and came over to Kouyuu's bedside. His brows creased almost immediately.

"There's still a third left." He informed softly, the threat in his voice thinly concealed.

With the most innocent expression, Kouyuu looked up and met his eyes, and at that moment, Reishin thought, Children, definitely the bane of my existence!

"I really can't drink it anymore." Kouyuu replied guiltily, his lips puckering slightly in a pout.

Reishin's heart skipped a beat. It was definitely a conspiracy of some sort, the way Kouyuu looked so cute.

"It makes me nauseous." There, the fatal punch, Reishin's mind chirped as he glared at his son.

Better to lose one battle than to lose the entire war, Reishin reasoned with himself, for if Kouyuu really threw up his dinner, all of his previous efforts would've gone to waste.

"If you had eaten normally before you would not have to drink the soup now." Battle or not, Reishin still couldn't stop himself from the vicious comment. His gratification was short-lived, however, as regret took over quickly when Kouyuu's head lowered, strands of aquamarine obscuring the full view of his eyes.

Reishin heaved a sigh. "Fine." He conceded peevishly, and removed the bowl.

The next morning, another bowl containing liquid of even thicker viscosity was placed on his nightstand. Kouyuu frowned.

"What is that?"

"Do not sneer, that expression does not become such a young boy as yourself." Reishin retorted without looking up from his breakfast, which he was taking, yet again, in Kouyuu's bedroom with a pile of scrolls. "That's ginseng, tortoise, and pigeon soup."

Kouyuu's frown slipped into an expression of moroseness.

"Try it before you mourn over your horrible fate. The cook said the pigeon should help cover up the bitterness of the ginseng." Because if it didn't, I would have her head. Reishin finished mentally.


"He doesn't sleep unless I'm in the room." Reishin complained exasperatedly to Houju, over their customary afternoon tea session in the Department of Finance.

"I heard the Department of Civil Affairs is swamped six feet deep in work." Houju commented monotonously.

"Well, at least now he can sleep without clutching a piece of my robe. Reading reports all night long in sitting position is quite unpleasant, although I can't honestly say that sleeping while bending over a dinner table is that big of an improvement. Perhaps I should order a bed to be placed in there, but then again, if I did, Kouyuu might notice…" Subject ignored. No one's need measured up to those of Kouyuu.

Houju rolled his eyes. "You've been ditching work for over a week."

"Well, if he could just go to sleep and stay asleep by himself then I wouldn't need to ditch work now, would I?!" Reishin fired back, his fan waving pettily back and forth.

One really could not deny Reishin's skill; his department was hell on earth even without his immediate presence…

"Have your spies returned?" Houju asked a moment later, when the taste of a fresh sip of green tea permeated his tongue.

"Oh, they've returned for some time, I just haven't received them." He paused. "The little brat wakes up three or four times a night. I'm afraid that he'll have another fit if he can't find me."

Houju's eyes sharpened imperceptibly. He had never seen Reishin admit so openly his love for anyone aside from Shouka.

"I saw the scars, on Kouyuu's back." Houju admitted after a short pause.

Reishin turned and stared at him, the seriousness in his eyes unbelievably clear. "Then you will not speak of it, ever again, to anyone."

His voice was even and soft, but the threat in it was unmistakable; it promised a lifetime's un-forgiveness if Houju did not comply.

Such was Kou Reishin…Houju mused afterwards, unimaginably nonchalant about most things, but equally, unimaginably serious about those he loved.


Reishin walked briskly toward the inner compound after he dismounted from the carriage. The butler hurried forward to take his cape.

"How is he?" He asked on the way to Kouyuu's bedroom.

"Kouyuu-sama finished his lunch without any mishap, and is taking a nap right now. The maid said he was relatively calm, although he did inquire after the precise time of your return several times." The butler answered dutifully.

"Hmm…" He pushed open the door softly, and strode straight over to his son's bed. The curtains were drawn, a sign, which he had learned, that meant Kouyuu was afraid.

He withdrew the fabric, and almost instantly, Kouyuu's eyes snapped wide open. Reishin could tell from the alarm that permeated his son's eyes that Kouyuu was having another nightmare. He laid a hand on Kouyuu's arm, and murmured gently, "Don't panic, it's just me."

"Reishin-sama…" Kouyuu managed to squeeze out, but his voice still held that edge of fear that instigated in Reishin the urge to kill.

"Those idiots at the palace are utterly incompetent, I mean honestly! I take a mere ten-day vacation and already the workload has piled into a small mountain!" Reishin whipped open his fan and sneered (apparently, his habit of complaining about his work to Kouyuu started early…). "I'll be here all day, and probably all night too, trying to finish it all…!"

That was a lie. He could finish it all within a few minutes if he wanted to…the keyword being if he wanted to.

Kouyuu smiled wearily. He harbored a growing suspicion that Reishin-sama knew about his inability to sleep without the latter's presence.

Even though there was a supposed mountain of work waiting for him, even though it would supposedly take him hours to finish, Reishin didn't move from Kouyuu's bedside for a long time after the boy had drifted back to sleep.


Two weeks later, after Tou Roushi finally cleared Kouyuu for some light physical exertions, Reishin returned to his own bedroom for the first time in three weeks.

He sat on the bed, waiting patiently. The rest of the manor had gone to sleep, and the only sound was that of the rustling of trees outside. A weak ray of moonlight filtered through the opened window,

A figure dressed entirely in black, seeming to have been born from the shadows, unveiled himself and kneeled before the Kou clan leader.

"Good evening, Reishin-sama." The voice, deep yet with practiced quiet, greeted him.

"Well?"

"There were a few boys in the Wang manor several years ago. One in particular, the son of the youngest concubine of Wang Ryuusen's father, was rumored to have been a favorite of Wang Ryuusen, the young master of the manor then. The concubine was of low birth, so she didn't carry much weight in the family, and since Wang Ryuusen was the eldest son of the family, and greatly favored by his father, his actions in the house were largely unopposed. It was also rumored that Wang Ryuusen was prone to mood swings, and would sometimes treat his half brother with the utmost care and protectiveness, to the point of obsession, and other times whip him so severely that the boy was unable to get up for several days as a result. Three years ago, this boy ran away from the Wang manor, probably unable to withstand Wang Ryuusen's abuse, and no one has heard of him since." The man related calmly.

"Are you sure the boy is Kouyuu?" Reishin asked very quietly, almost hoping that the answer was no, because he will open the gates of hell for Wang Ryuusen if it was.

"I can't confirm that entirely, but according to the description of the kitchen maid, the boy had hair the color of the most unusual shade of aqua…" The spy replied carefully.

Aqua-colored hair…it really was Kouyuu….

"You may go." Reishin dismissed, his tone so soft that it was barely audible.

The man bowed and disappeared, as swiftly as the passing shadow of a cloud, through the open window.

The linen sheets twisted beneath Reishin's fingers. It was not longer anger that was flaring in his chest, but hatred, pure, undiluted hatred for Wang Ryuusen that tumbled ceaselessly inside of him like the strained prances of a caged animal. He couldn't sleep for that seething hatred; the image of Kouyuu being whipped replayed itself repeatedly in his mind, in all the different angles and settings possible.

More than three years ago…Kouyuu couldn't have been more than five or six at the time…! If the damage had been done at a later age, if he had been older, Kouyuu's fear of Wang Ryuusen might not have been so deep-rooted…

His conclusion, by the time the sun was starting to shower its light for the coming day, was that death would not suffice for the penance of Wang Ryuusen's sins. After all, good things must be savored carefully, and most important of all, slowly.


"And, so? What will you do?" Houju asked in his customarily casual tone during their tea session the next afternoon.

"I don't know. There are just so many ways I can destroy him, it's rather hard to make a choice." Reishin replied thoughtfully, but today the tone of his voice had a foreign, cruel edge to it that quieted any qualms on Houju's part as to exactly why Reishin was chosen as the head of the Kou clan.

"You could always ruin him socially—destroy his reputation with scandals, strip him of his titles and estates, devastate his business and grind him so far in debt that his great-grandchildren four generations down the road will still be repaying it." Houju suggested smoothly.

"Well, of course, that's a given. But in some instances one must exact one's revenge in creative ways. Simply going the usual route of destroying the opponent's social and financial backings is boring." Reishin retorted almost petulantly.

Houju cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Then what do you propose?"

Reishin stared at his friend thoughtfully for a moment, the cruelty in his eyes hard and sharp like the glaring light of a diamond, before looking away slowly to the cherry trees outside the window and whispering, almost like a sigh, softly, "Some times it is more fun to break people, not only their bodies, but their minds as well. To tear his confidence and basic sense of security to utter shreds, to slowly but firmly sand down his sanity till the will to live is not even comprehensible to him anymore, that is what I will do."

It didn't matter Wang Ryuusen was before Reishin met Kouyuu. It didn't matter that Wang Ryuusen will never lay an eye, let alone a hand, on Kouyuu again. To be able to place such an expression of fear in Kouyuu's eyes, to be able to make Kouyuu tremble with his mere presence, for those things Wang Ryuusen would suffer the deepest and darkest furies of hell, for those things Wang Ryuusen would wish from this day forward that he had been released onto death.


A soft knock made Reishin look up from his work.

"You wanted to see me, Reishin-sama?" His son, now almost completely recovered from his illness, inquired respectfully.

For a moment, Reishin marveled at the sight of Kouyuu standing healthily before him, and even more so, at the unfathomable feeling of elation that accompanied the sight.

"Yes, close the doors behind you." Reishin commanded when he snapped back to reality.

Kouyuu came and stood in front of Reishin's desk after complying.

Reishin cleared his throat, and began softly, "This is the only time I'm ever going to mention him in front of you, after this I shall never speak of this matter again."

Kouyuu blinked nervously, ransacking his brain for anything that he might have done wrong in the past two weeks.

"Tomorrow, Wang Ryuusen" Kouyuu's sudden tenseness at the name didn't escape Reishin, but he forced himself to continue. "will find that, for reasons unfathomable to him, or anyone else for that matter, his lucrative proposal of becoming the government's sole supplier of refined iron has been vetoed with no hope of a repeal or reconsideration. On his very disappointed trip back to the White province, all the while unaware that this would be the last time he will ever set foot inside Kiyou, he will be attacked by a group of particularly vicious bandits. Once in the White Province, a series of inexplicable mishaps will happen to him and his family, all of his family, which will result in the gradual but certain decline of his social and financial backing. Within a year the Wang manor will be reduced to pebbles and squandered furniture, and its remaining inhabitants to tenants of a small, tattered wooden shack. However, Wang Ryuusen's streak of bad luck will not stop there. He will find that, as though by divine intervention, any trade that he tries to enter is closed to him, and as a result, nothing short of begging will provide him with enough sustenance to survive. Small mishaps will happen during the few years that he will survive by hunting and gathering on the street, but what would be the result of the accumulation of so many unfortunate tragedies, be it insanity or attempted suicide, one could not really say." Reishin finished smoothly, without even a single place of falter.

For a long while Kouyuu stood, unmoving, then, slowly, with tears threatening to fall from his misted eyes, he gave a deep bow.

"Yes, Reishin-sama." He murmured.

I will remove all that truly hinders you, all that you cannot overcome, because since I saw you for the first time, I could not help but want to protect you…