Chapter 9

The secretary led the two younger men through the corridors of Sion. The walls were sparsely but tastefully decorated with paintings, both traditional Japanese art and more modern and international pieces as well as the occasional flower arrangement. All of it looked insanely expensive, the boys thought. At the end of the corridor, by what must be the corner office on the top floor, Kirishima stopped in front of the door and rapped the door, hard and efficiently, four times.

"Enter," a deep voice sounded from inside the office. The voice was somehow both calming and intimidating, as if the owner of it was a person who would pet you gently on your head with one hand while brutally stangling you with the other.

Kou and Takato entered the room with their heads bowed. It kind of seemed like the way to go.

"Raise your heads," the deep voice said, and Kou (who was a bit slower at following the command) heard a slight tremble with Takato's intake of breath. He then felt a sharp jab in his side as his friend hit him with his elbow in an effort to make him obey as well. So he did.

The man stood with his back towards them, facing the window. Outside darkness had started to creep in over the skyline, and the glass was almost a mirror in which the man's eerily handsome features were reflected. His face was dark with fury. His gaze rested on the two boys.

"You are Akihito's friends?" he asked them.

"H-hai, sir," Takato answered. "A-a-and may we ask your name and as to who you are to our friend... that is, what is your interest in Akihito?"

Kou marvelled at his friend's courage.

The shape of the man's mouth changed slightly, leaving the chiseled face with a hardly visible smirk. He finally turned around, scrutinized them for what felt like ten minutes, then sat down behind his desk. He leaned forward over his firmly clasped hands, drilling his eyes into theirs.

"My name, as you have probably heard on your way up here, is Asami Ryuuichi. You can call me Asami-sama or stick with sir. As to my relationship with Akihito, let's just say I enjoy his meals on a daily basis and will be greatly distressed if my cook is not returned to me swiftly."

A stiffled cough came from the corner where Kirishima the secretary was standing. Apparently he was not altogether on board with this explanation.

"Now," Asami continued while leaning back in his chair and buttoning up his tailored suit jacket, "tell me all you remember from the moment you parted with Akihito to the second you followed Kirishima into the car."

No matter how strange the situation Takato and Kou both had the feeling that this was not a man you disobeyed without consequences. So they started talking.


"Where is Eddie?" the man Akihito had mentally nicknamned Blondie asked his companion in the ship's contol room. He spoke in their foreign language, which had sounded so alien to the captured boy.

"He's taking a nap with the prisoner," one of the men grinned. He was in charge of surveillance and was keeping tabs on all the monitors showing the different rooms of the ship.

"What? Don't tell me he's started to get off on men now?" Blondie said incredulously and with a slightly digusted face.

"Well," the monitor man said, "I wish that at some point you would actually join us in the twenty first century and stop being such an arseholed bigot, but no, he has not. I mean he is actually taking a nap with the prisoner," he repeated and nodded to one of the screens in which the boss's cabin was visible.

Blondie gave up a snort as he finally laid eyes on the weird scene.

Eddie was indeed sleeping soundly in his bed, using the tied up boy as some sort of body pillow. Akihito was securely fastened to the pipe on the wall behind the bedpost and could not move an inch or make a sound, due to the tape over his mouth. But it was quite clear that the boy had not been able to sleep a wink in that awkward position, his eyes were winde open and the fear and confusion on his battered face was actually quite laughable, Blondie thought to himself.

"Anyway," the monitor man continued, "if he really was to have a taste of that, would you blame him?" He grinned again, lecherously this time.

"You make me sick, Karl," Blondie said and gave his colleague a hard slap on the back of his head.

The monitor man named Karl laugued loudly and after a while Blondie joined in.

"Anyway, let's call up the others," he said after the laugter had faded away. "It's time to wake up the boss and continue the interrogation."


"Look, we want to find Akihito as much as anyone, but what do you think you can do that the police can't?" Kou said after having gone over their experience for the third time. Asami had already made a call to dispatch his men to search for the warehouse where they had woken up, but continued to make them repeat their story. Takato nodded absent mindedly. He could not for the life of him put the pieces of this upside down puzzle together. The man was obviously very fond of Akihito as well as well connected and powerful, but what could he possibly contribute to the search unless...

"Wait, do you by chance know something, Asami-sama, sir?" he asked, hoping he would not insult the terrifyingly well dressed man.

Asami did not answer for a while. Then his lips parted slightly, but before a sound could escape them his phone started to buzz angrily.

He picked it up at lightning speed, and listened to the report from the other end of the line. Without uttering a word he then hung up, put the phone in his breast pocket and stood up while opening a drawer on his desk and picking up a gun (Kou and Takato gave a simultaneous gulp), which he holstered under his armpit with more ease than with which Kou put on socks in the morning. It was a practiced and precise move.

"Kirishima," he said curtly. "Make sure these two get home safely. Place them under surveillance for the time being, and have the car brought to the door for me."

"Wait, surveillance?" Kou and Takato asked indignantly. Did he suspect they had anything to do with what had happened?

Asami strode past them, and at first they thought they were not going to get an answer. But then, just before exiting the door he said, "It's for your protection, in case those who did this come back for you. Akihito would probably be very upset if something happened to his friends."

He then exited the room, muttering something that sounded like "How did I end up taking care of all these stupid brats?"

Kirishima left instructions with two stone-faced men who had been posted outside the office for the entire hearing. He then hurried after his boss while talking on the phone. They heard something about "bring out the fastest car" and "we need at least five men" before he was out of earshot.

Kou looked at Takato. "Do you have any idea about what just happened in there? Who the hell is this guy and why is he so obsessed with Akihito's cooking? He's not even that good of a cook. I mean, he's not bad but the food is not worth that much trouble." Takato sighed.

"Akihito obviously means something to the man, you dummy. And I have a feeling he might somehow be involved in this mess."

"You think so? Well, anything that brings Akihito home safely and quickly is fine with me."

Takato nodded in agreement.


On the phone a short while earlier Asami's subordinate had said something about finding a pile of boxes with a logo that the boss might recognize and proposed that he send a photo of them to the boss's smartphone. Asami however, had hung up and been on his way. This was something he'd rather do in person.

The cars came to a stop outside the warehouse by the harbour. A few of the men went in in advance to reconvene with the men who had made the discovery and had been ordered to wait inside and make sure the building was secure, but Asami was not far behind. Any lead, no matter how small, that would lead him to his precious boy's return was something he had to see for himself as soon as possible.

As soon as the crime lord stepped inside the large building his men respectfully ushered him towards the boxes. Asami froze as soon as he saw the emblem on the wooden sides. It was a red snowflake. The paint used to form it had started to drip in one place, making it look like it was drawn with blood.

He knew this sign. He had seen it before, a long time ago. Long before he had even laid eyes on the beautiful photographer and lured him into his life and his bed. But somehow, he could not remember from where.

A memory flickered somewhere deep inside his mind. A memory of whiteness and cold, a snowstorm, a roaring fire and the metallic taste of blood in the air.

A memory of a promise. A promise of revenge.


A/N: As always, thank you for reading and reviewing. Please know that every review means the world to me, and I will try to become better at responding to your comments. I would not have the confidence to continue writing if it were not for you all, so all my love to you guys! Also, sorry for possible continuous misrepresentations of Japanese customs and geography since I don't really have any first hand knowledge of this.