AN: I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, it leads to a whole new secret with more secrets popping up from there but have to stick to the title 😉 I really hope you enjoy.
Chapter Twenty Eight - Away
Kuon looked up at the ceiling as he lay in the bath. Baths had always been healing for him. They were large pools of water that allowed you to get completely wet and to wash away all of the pains that were carried through life. The doctors had even recommended baths to him if he felt okay with getting in and out with minimal assistance.
The day before he was to have his treatment was always a good day to take one so that he would be ready to have chemotherapy. He couldn't get the idea of Kyoko being promised into the Yakuza out of his mind. What on earth did that mean? His pregnant wife was going to become a mob boss? Maybe someone just under a mob boss.
Okay, this was definitely strange and he had seen her chase people away with strange dark energy waves. Was it a superhero organization? Were those 'grudges' as she had explained to him part of her superpowers. Or, maybe he should be thinking about how he was going to make it through yet another round of chemo treatment.
He heard a knock on the door and sighed, "Come in, princess" he called out to her and Kyoko did so, coming to sit on a chair that they had put in there in case he needed to sit down when straight out of the bath or shower.
"Kuon," Kyoko said in a weak voice, "Are you mad at me?"
Kuon stared at her in a strange way before shaking his head, "No. No, I'm not mad at you. Listen, your mother seems like a woman who has been drinking a little too much," he said as Kyoko looked down. She didn't know what to say in response so she smiled at him.
"Do you remember when you were Cain and you just loved baths?" Kyoko smiled as she attempted to change the topic. She wasn't sure where to start on the whole, your family is part of the Yakuza and that means that you need to be part of the Yakuza story.
"I remember being Kuon too and loving my wife being in the bath with me," Kuon grinned to her as he reached out to hold her hand and found it to be shaking. "When you're not pregnant anymore, we should start taking baths together again."
Kyoko smiled peacefully, "That would be really nice."
There were some slow moments of silence as they two of them tried to figure out what to say first. Kuon wasn't sure whether Kyoko's mother's joke was real even though it didn't seem to be. He didn't know why she would find out where they lived, come to a visit, and then just drop a lie as if it was a joke. There had to be at least some truth in it and he wanted to know how much of it there was. Kyoko, it seemed, didn't want to hurt Kuon by letting information slip. She didn't know what to tell him especially when he would be in the hospital most of the next day.
"I'm going to sort it out," Kyoko said as she stared into space and Kuon looked at her, he felt a little clueless about what she might have meant. "You mean that you'll -"
"Yes," Kyoko nodded, "I'll go find my uncle, tell him that there's been a mistake and that I'm not a Mogami anymore, I'm a Hizuri."
"Okay," Kuon said, "You're going to do this whilst you're pregnant with our child? You're going to do this alone?"
"I think that I can," Kyoko said, "If my uncle respects anything it's the idea that someone can stand up to him without shaking. If I say that I can't do it because I'm part of the Hizu-"
"Can I ask if anyone else has ever tried your strategy before?" Kuon asked, "Anyone who has taken on the name of his or her husband when they got married?" Kyoko nodded, "and what happened to the husband?"
"He…was kill-" Kyoko said nervously and then paused. She watched Kuon with her heart breaking. "They can't do that to you. You're too strong, you're inhuman, Kuon…I mean in a good way."
Kuon took a deep breath in, "Moving focus away from that topic, they could kill me or our daughter or you. They could find a way of doing harm to all three of us at once."
"You'll be in the hospital," Kyoko told him as Kuon sighed.
"I was watching this drama the other night, I know I don't actually watch a lot of TV but it was one I had passed up and I wanted to see if I had made an error in judgment. A character died because someone blew air bubbles into their IV and they had a stroke," Kuon told her. "Which means you need to be extremely careful with how you handle them."
"You know that I can't leave you tomorrow," Kyoko said as she felt herself tremble, "I have to be with you then, every moment so that they don't hurt you and I'm not going to get divorced from you. Whatever they try to convince me of."
Kuon looked at her, "Divorce?" he asked
"They might want to marry someone Japanese, one of their own, I can't do that I have you. Are you sure that you weren't affiliated with a gang in America, Kuon. It doesn't even need to be a large gang, in fact it's probably better if it isn't large."
"Free agent," Kuon sighed as he looked up. "I wish I was in better health, nobody would dare mess with you if I was at the top of my game."
"I wish you were in better health too," Kyoko hummed, "for a number of reasons."
…
…
Kyoko had been scared to leave Kuon in the room alone whilst he had the usual drug cocktail running through his body. She was a little afraid of him taking it but everything seemed to be going okay at the time being. She sighed as she stretched out in front of her and then looked at her phone. Maybe if she called her mother, she would have some better ideas about how to handle the situation.
She looked down as she pushed in the buttons and was surprised to see that her mother was standing right in front of her with a man about Kuon's age right next to her. This man was only a few inches shorter than Kuon and he was dressed in excellent fashion. His eyes however didn't have the light that Kuon's did, they were a deep and dark brown that made chills go through Kyoko's body.
She immediately stepped in front of the closed door, her heart beating in her chest. "Hello," she said afraid to bow to this man because she didn't want him to get to Kuon when Kuon was in this type of vulnerable situation.
"Why, Miss Kyoko, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance seeing as how we will be spending a lot of time together, of course," the man said as he reached out and touched Kyoko's belly. "This will be a little bit of a problem in the long run."
Kyoko tried to swat the man's hand away, she didn't want anyone to get to her and Kuon's daughter.
"Good thing that she won't be in there for much longer but my husband and I are extremely excited to be welcoming her into our world. We're going to be a family which is far more than you were, mother," she argued and Saena looked at her in anger before striking her cheek.
"You don't talk like that you insignificant weasel," Saena huffed and Kyoko looked at them.
"Whatever it is, whatever you think you're doing here. I'm not interested," she attempted to tell them as she placed her hands over her daughter protectively. "I'm not interested in being a Mogami. I married Kuon Hizuri and…"
"and he seems to be in the way too. I mean, I've heard that he can handle himself the way that any old street dog can that you find in Los Angeles," the man said, "but he's not house trained. He was raised as a mutt, a mongrel breed. He is not pedigree and he doesn't know what it takes to enter a world where he is socially unwelcome."
Kyoko laughed bitterly, "With his charm, he could become welcome anywhere very easily." Kyoko turned to her mother, "I am finally happy. I finally have a life that you could never provide for me. It's a life that I didn't think that I'd be able to have. It's not fair for you just to come here and attempt to take it away from me."
Saena laughed, "Well, if you don't want him dead there is another option."
Kyoko raised an eyebrow, she didn't want to hear this but she already knew what her mother was going to say.
"You can take it all away from him, not forever though…we'll let you know when your time is up," Saena said as Kyoko felt her heart beat pounding in her chest. Was her mother telling her that she needed to leave her sick husband and not allow him to meet his daughter. Was she supposed to just cut him out of her life as if he were no more important than a wisdom tooth. Still, she could tell from this mysterious man that if she argued against this, a worse fate would meet Kuon.
"I have some conditions, three conditions," Kyoko said as she looked at the door to the room wondering whether this would be alright with him and wondering if he could forgive her for it.
"I told you that she was disobedient," Saena said and Kyoko looked around with a sharp glare.
"Four, I have four conditions. First. Even though I am coming with you unless he chooses for it, I am still his wife and he is still my husband. Second. He is not to be hurt, not now and not in the future. I don't know if he'll heal from the stomach cancer but I have faith in him. Third, this ends in under six months and I am allowed to come back and be with him and Fourth, he gets the baby and in the event that he isn't here, the baby is to be raised by Julienna Hizuri."
"You think that his mother can do better than -"
"Yes," Kyoko nodded. "Yes. I do and I know you're a lawyer and this is a verbal contract. If you want me to come with you and not shame the Mogami name and save you from any harm, this is a contract that you must keep," she said feeling sorry that Kuon wasn't going to be beside her when she gave birth to his first child.
"Then I have one condition to add myself," Saena said, "You come immediately without saying goodbye to him. If you trust him so much then you'll come. I'll permit you to call the president of your old company one time to explain all of this and you must not go into detail."
Kyoko took a shaky breath and looked back at the closed door, "I'm so sorry, Kuon."
[End Chapter 28]
AN2: Thank you so much to everyone who supports this fic in the various ways that you do so. A special shout out to the reviewers of Chapter 27: Ashenvale, ladygraywolf, Tabbykatroses
