A/N: I haven't had access to a computer for a while now, so I haven't been able to update until now. Sumimasen! But now I have maaany new chapters for you. And there's still many more to come. Thanks to those who have reviewed Nakushita so far! Please keep giving me your opinions, they really help me in my work. And I have now added translations to all previous Japanese sentences, I'm sorry I forgot to do that before. I have of course translated all the new Japanese sentences as well. Hope you'll enjoy the story.

Promise

***2 DAYS AFTERWARDS***

The warehouse was huge, but it turned out that the kidnappers had only been using one of the small rooms that had once served as offices when some company had housed their business there. The floor was littered with scraps of old, yellowed paper and covered with a thick layer of dust. In the middle of the room, there were signs of someone having lain in the dust, and there were also signs of a struggle. At the far end, two straight-backed chairs had been drawn up to a small table scarred by years of use. There were several fresh cigarette burns on the wooden surface. Someone had carved the word RIVER into the wood.

Yuki studied it with a deep frown on his troubled forehead. "Amerikajin?" (Americans?) he observed, this being directed at detectives Hameba and Kimura, whom were standing three feet behind him, watching him suspiciously as he moved around the room.

Seguchi stayed in the doorway.

"Well, we can't be sure that it's actually connected to the kidnappers," Kimura said awkwardly, "but yeah, this warehouse used to be used by an American shipping company. But as I said, it probably has nothing to do with the kidnapping. Just someone having a bore some decade or two ago."

Yuki shrugged and continued his slow investigation of the small room. He stopped in front of the place where someone had been lying in the inch-deep dust. Knelt down to touch the spot. "Shu-chan..."

A loud gasp made him turn his attention to the doorway, where Seguchi was now hugging himself with an expression of utter terror on his pallid face.

Yuki frowned. "What's wrong with you?"

His brother-in-law looked up, but he did not seem to see anything. His eyes were glazed over, and he was making an eerie 'uh-uh-uh-uh'-sound that totally freaked Eiri out. Instead of hugging himself, he now clutched his chest with his left hand. It was shaking bad. He looked as if he was about to have some sort of seizure. Before Yuki knew it, the blond president had turned on his heel and run squealing towards the back of the warehouse.

The novelist gazed after him with knitted brows.

"What the hell happened to him?" detective Hameba wondered.

Yuki ignored him and continued to scrutinize every inch of the small office. Small shivers of fear traveled up and down his spine, twinging in his every nerve, when he came across the blood stains that had been left behind by the corpse. If anything had happened to his husband... if they had so much as dyed his beautiful black hair... he would fucking kill them. All of them. Kitazawa Yuki would have a whole bunch of new friends crowding around his grave if he found out that they had hurt Shuichi. "And that, you kidnapping motherfuckers... is a promise."