Disclaimer: I do not own HYD or any of its characters, but I wouldn't mind
a piece of Rui, Akira, Soujiro, or Doumyouji! Kawaii!
Chapter 13: Let me feel again
The next few weeks in school my body slowly started to heal. I finally was able to stop wearing the sling around and all that was left was a scar from the stitches on my arm. I looked forward to the upcoming vacation in relief from sneaking around school all the time in fear of bumping into him. I avoided any and all contact with F4. I even avoided Hanazawa Rui who had helped me so much. It was too much to be around them for fear that Doumyouji might show up. He hadn't been to school those last few weeks since the incident. It had been pretty much the same with Haru, Fujio and Jin. Fujio had come to my apartment a few times to check up on my injuries, but we strictly avoided any conversations about Haru. In class, Haru stayed to the back of the room and did his best to stay as far away as possible
I remembered how little I knew about Fujio, Jin, Hana and Haru. They always remained so secretive and I still didn't really understand why Jin had insisted that I not go to the hospital. There was just something suspicious about how they wanted to keep things under wraps. I thought maybe it was because they didn't want people to know that Haru had done this to me, but it seemed like there was more too it. Then there was another incident soon after I returned to school that I questioned.
I had heard rumors about what had happened to those boys beat Haru. I overheard some girls whispering about something. Apparently there was someone copying F4. Those boys had received black tags on their lockers. They just laughed and threw them into the trash thinking it was a joke.
A few days later, I saw Hana walking through the lawn and curiously ran after her, but she was too fast. She was wearing the normal Eitoku uniform with the white blouse and brown skirt. She had her hair tied up in a high ponytail letting her long mane sway back and forth with each bouncy step.
As I approached from behind the building I watched in shock. She had called those boys there to meet her. They tried to attack her making some dirty comments about how easy it would be to take advantage of her. I was about to jump out from my hiding spot to protect her, but she did something that completely astounded me. It was five against one and I thought for sure she was going to get hurt. They lunged at her, but with a cat like gracefulness she dodged all their hits. She swerved around them and quick, hard movements. She knocked one of them to the ground kicking his leg out from under him with a cracking sound of his broken ankle. The next boy much larger than the first one rammed towards her to attack her from behind, but she quickly swung around and jammed her palm into his face breaking his nose with another loud cracking sound. He keeled over in pain screaming. The next two decided to team up against her and managed to grab her from behind while the other started to rip the top buttons off her blouse. She once again reacted stealthily swinging her legs up kicking her assailant away and pushing the one holding her onto his back. She kicked one of them in the face sending a few teeth flying out of his mouth. The other one she snapped his arm back dislocating his shoulder. He bent down in agony while she pulled harder and harder until he passed out from the pain. The last boy was practically begging for mercy and fell to his knees pleading she not hurt him. She slyly smiled and lifted his chin up to look at her.
"This serves as a reminder to regret ever messing with the Tse family. When you wake up tell the rest of them that if anyone finds out about this I will make sure you won't be punished this lightly," she whispered into his ear.
With a twist of her wrist she snapped his neck and dropped his head to the ground. She scanned around her to make sure no one had seen what had just occurred. I slunk back into hiding spot making that I would not be discovered. I watched her pull off her blouse exposing a white tank top underneath. Her exposed arms and shoulders revealed her svelte body sculpted from her training. She looked down at her knuckles which had been bruised dripping a mix of the boys' blood and her own. Slowly she walked away without taking another glance at the massacre she had left behind.
My heart was pounding I snapped back into reality after thinking about that strange situation I had earlier seen. What was it with people in that family? As I crossed the bridge over the gardens I overheard Akira and Soujiro whispering to each other in a serious tone.
"Have you tried to talk to him? Akira solemnly asked.
"No. He's holed himself up in his room refusing to speak to anyone." Soujiro replied shaking his head.
"He can't live like this much longer. All he does is get drunk every night and go into a fit of rage destroying everything."
I walked away not wanting to hear anymore. Everything was just too confusing. First it was that scene with Hana and now this news about Doumyouji. I shouldn't be worrying about him anyway, I told myself. He was the one who pushed this upon himself. I tried to force myself to forget about him, but in the back of my mind I couldn't leave the issue alone. Wanting to escape from all these thoughts I ran. I didn't know where to go. I couldn't go to the stairwell and risk seeing Hanazawa Rui. I soon found myself in a dark room.
I walked slowly through the dim room careful not to bump into anything. It looked like one of the many lecture halls, but on stage there was a lonely piano in the center of the stage. I took a seat in he back of the hall trying to find some peace. Suddenly sounds began to come out of the piano. I looked up and saw a solitary boy gliding his fingers across the keys. A dark, slow melody slowly flowed from the piano. I listened hearing all the pain and anguish that resided in him being released through the music. I don't know what compelled me to move closer, but the music drew me into a trance towards it. As I approached the pianist stopped out of surprise.
"Tsukushi." he said in surprise.
"Haru" I gasped.
He quickly stood up from the bench and reached to take his bag and leave. He turned away and began to walk off.
'Wait!" I yelled towards him.
He turned around to face me stunned that I stopped him. I took a seat on the bench and patted the space beside me signaling him to sit. He obediently walked back over and took a seat.
"Can you keep playing?" I asked.
He put down his bag on top of the piano and once gain his fingers flew over the keys releasing that haunting melody. I closed my eyes lost in the song. When he finished playing I opened them and look at him.
"Did you compose this?"
"Yes. I wrote it for someone very special to me," he mumbled very lightly.
"It was for your mother, wasn't it?" I asked.
"How did you know?" he asked with a cold voice. He seemed disturbed by the thought that I knew one of his many secrets.
I slid my fingers feeling the coolness of the ivory keys. Suddenly compelled to have more music I started to play a song. Slowly the soothing sound of Canon in D Major floated through the air. Haru just kept his eyes concentrated on my hands gliding carefully across the keys. As I came to a stop I looked up at him. His face was so peaceful, no longer hard and stern as it was before when he was playing. He actually smiled a little.
"This is one of my favorite songs. It's so simple, but it can easily make you feel happy." I said. "There's just an innocence and purity I find it. It always helps me forget all my worries for even the briefest of moments." I sighed streching my arms up over my head. "Hana told me about your mother. She also told me that I should stay away from you. I think we both now know the reason why" I looked at my arm touching the spot of the lingering scar. "I once did a favor for you, and now I would like you to do one for me."
"What is it?" he asked in a quiet voice breaking the silence of the hall.
"When I first met you I thoughts we were friends. I believed that there could be no bad that lied within the lonely boy I saw. I would like to believe you only wanted to be a friend to me too and maybe that was driven in part because of my resemblance to your mother. But there is one thing I hate most in this world. I hate people who lie to me and I believe you have been doing this to me all along. I saw what Hana did to those boys who beat you up earlier. She is not as innocent as she seems, and neither are the rest of you. Fujio told me about how he has seen injuries like mine all too often. Then there was the strange insistence that Jin made to not take me to the hospital when I was stabbed. Finally I saw the change, the anger that you hid within you. I think you at least owe me the truth."
Haru glanced up at my cold fixed face. I continued to stare straight ahead not wanting to look at him while I spoke. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it to carefully choose his words.
The coldness in his voice frightened me a little, but how else could he explain his dark past, but with a sad, distant voice. "Images can be deceiving, can't they? Everyone here assumes my father is some rich businessman from Hong Kong. The wealthy Tse family," he laughed bitterly to himself. "I am wealthy, but the way my family became wealthy is not something I am proud of." His voice trailed off as he began his tail. "My mother was a good woman, but she was trapped in a dark world she was born into. She was just a simple, kind traditional Japanese woman. She married my father in an arranged marriage to increase an empire. It was a great joining of two of the greatest underground families joining Hong Kong with Japan. You could say that my father was a career oriented man and liked to bring his work home. I was raised to take over the family business. You must have noticed our eternity tattoos." He turned his head and pulled down the collar of his shirt revealing the eternity tattoo I had noticed earlier on the back of his neck. "I got this when I turned thirteen, as a reminder of who I belonged to and what I was destined to inherit as leader. Hana and the others have one too. This is the crest of our group. We are yakuza, Tsukushi. No matter what where we go we will be identified as triad or as we are known in Japan, yakuza."
"Yakuza?" I gasped. It just didn't seem possible that they could be a part of something like that. I never would have thought that this group that seemed so friendly and harmless could be so dangerous.
He continued to speak ignoring my dumbfounded expression. "I used to see this mark as a symbol of greatness and power. Now I just see it as nothing more than a curse. It was this that blinded me and destroyed everything. Fujio and Jin are my companions. Their fathers are my father's left and right arms. As you've already seen, Fujio is trained to be our organization's doctor. Who else could treat all our stab and gun shot wounds without any questions? Jin is trained as our negotiator and lawyer. It's his job to cover up our messes. My fate is to be the leader and executor of the organization. Hana." he sighed. "She's been trained as a decoy. She may look harmless, but she has trained all her life as a fighter. No one would suspect the daughter of a yakuza to be the most deadly of the group." He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed bitterly once again. "A year ago, the yakuza was my life. I couldn't wait to take over the business, but my father insisted his children have the best education. So, I spent most of my life away from my parents and Hana in any boarding school that would take me before expelling me. My only family was Fujio and Jin who followed me everywhere. The only light in all this darkness was my mother. She was a kind, and gentle woman. She hated violence, but turned her head the other way to my father's business. I was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. I probably worried her more than any other mother in the world with all my gang fights. When I was with her in Hong Kong she was always the one waiting with bandages each night after our street fights. She worried I would die a young stupid death with the way I was going. I didn't listen to her, though. I thought I was unstoppable and nothing would stop me from rebuilding my street reputation. My name invoked fear, 'Black Haru'. I can't remember how many times she begged me to stop, but I didn't listen. I didn't hear her until it was too late. She never told me or any of us." tears began to fall down his face dripping onto his clenched hands. "She was sick and hiding it for a long time. We later found out she was in the last stages of cancer. She was already too far gone to get treatment. She wanted to die naturally. I still remember that night. I had come home badly beaten limping through the door. I expected her to be at her normal place on the couch waiting with bandages and a bowl of warm water to wash away the blood staining the floor. But she wasn't there. I found her in her bed coughing up blood. I wanted to bring her to the hospital, but she wouldn't let me. She wanted to die in her own house. Before she took her last few breaths she made one final plea. Those words are burned into my mind. She said, 'Promise you'll escape. I couldn't, but my children still can.' I knew what she meant. She struggled out her final breath and then she was still. I came to Eitoku under my mother's wishes. She left a letter to Hana and I. She wished that we would come to Eitoku and make something better of ourselves. She was a student here many years ago when she was our age. It was that day I died. My spirit died with my mother. I couldn't even bring myself to attend her funeral and say goodbye. I had gotten drunk the night before and was completely passed out in my room during her burial ceremony. I really am a useless son? I couldn't even go to my own mother's funeral. All that matters is that I fulfill her wishes now. I thought if I just buried the darkness that once lived within me I could escape it all, but then I met you. You remind me so much of her. That time you lectured me about smoking threw me back. My mother would always lecture me the same way you did. When I saw Doumyouji try to hurt you my old self came out and it frightened me. How easily I could be pushed back into that world by one person. To make matters worse I hurt the person I was trying to protect. I couldn't protect you like I couldn't protect her."
I let out my breath that I had been holding the entire time during his story. I reached into my pocket and pulled something out that I had been holding onto for the last few weeks.
"Here, You dropped this that day. I meant to return it to you earlier." I opened his hand and placed his jade pendant into his had. He clutched it tightly in his hand making his fingers turn white by the force of his grip. He opened his hand and rubbed the smooth rock between his fingers. He flipped it over and revealed some engravings on the back. It read: 'Always with you -Okaasan'
"This is all I have left of her," he gravely said. He tied it around his neck and let the shimmery jade dangle from his neck. "That is the entire truth. I'm dead inside and there is no rescuing me. I'm not better off now than I was a year ago. I understand if you would prefer I stay away from you like you asked me earlier." He stood up and turned away.
I sat there in complete shock. It was just too much to try to absorb at once. Everything now fit into place. It all suddenly made sense. The tattoos. The secrecy. I don't know what came over me, but my legs began to move from under me. I got up and ran forward grabbing him from behind. 'I'm sorry," I whispered to his back. "It wasn't you fault. You are a better man."
He turned around and wrapped his arms around my waist. I could feel his warm tears falling onto my head. He pushed me away from his body for a moment and stared into my eyes with his piercing brown eyes.
He bent his head down to mine and pressed his warm, soft lips against me.
He kissed me with a tenderness I had never felt before. It was completely different from Doumyouji. The tenderness of his kiss was with a sense of trepidation, not the forceful confidence of Doumyouji. I stood there in complete shock surprised by his actions. The thing that surprised me the most is that I kissed him back. We stood there alone on that stage under the dim light shining above us lost in the moment.
He pulled away from me and my face blushed. He drew my head to rest against his chest and laid small kisses onto my hair. He whispered, "I know now she sent me here to find you. I fell in love with you the moment I saw your smile." He nuzzled his head onto my shoulder. "Can you do something for me?"
I looked up into his begging eyes. "Do what?"
"Let me feel again.."
Chapter 13: Let me feel again
The next few weeks in school my body slowly started to heal. I finally was able to stop wearing the sling around and all that was left was a scar from the stitches on my arm. I looked forward to the upcoming vacation in relief from sneaking around school all the time in fear of bumping into him. I avoided any and all contact with F4. I even avoided Hanazawa Rui who had helped me so much. It was too much to be around them for fear that Doumyouji might show up. He hadn't been to school those last few weeks since the incident. It had been pretty much the same with Haru, Fujio and Jin. Fujio had come to my apartment a few times to check up on my injuries, but we strictly avoided any conversations about Haru. In class, Haru stayed to the back of the room and did his best to stay as far away as possible
I remembered how little I knew about Fujio, Jin, Hana and Haru. They always remained so secretive and I still didn't really understand why Jin had insisted that I not go to the hospital. There was just something suspicious about how they wanted to keep things under wraps. I thought maybe it was because they didn't want people to know that Haru had done this to me, but it seemed like there was more too it. Then there was another incident soon after I returned to school that I questioned.
I had heard rumors about what had happened to those boys beat Haru. I overheard some girls whispering about something. Apparently there was someone copying F4. Those boys had received black tags on their lockers. They just laughed and threw them into the trash thinking it was a joke.
A few days later, I saw Hana walking through the lawn and curiously ran after her, but she was too fast. She was wearing the normal Eitoku uniform with the white blouse and brown skirt. She had her hair tied up in a high ponytail letting her long mane sway back and forth with each bouncy step.
As I approached from behind the building I watched in shock. She had called those boys there to meet her. They tried to attack her making some dirty comments about how easy it would be to take advantage of her. I was about to jump out from my hiding spot to protect her, but she did something that completely astounded me. It was five against one and I thought for sure she was going to get hurt. They lunged at her, but with a cat like gracefulness she dodged all their hits. She swerved around them and quick, hard movements. She knocked one of them to the ground kicking his leg out from under him with a cracking sound of his broken ankle. The next boy much larger than the first one rammed towards her to attack her from behind, but she quickly swung around and jammed her palm into his face breaking his nose with another loud cracking sound. He keeled over in pain screaming. The next two decided to team up against her and managed to grab her from behind while the other started to rip the top buttons off her blouse. She once again reacted stealthily swinging her legs up kicking her assailant away and pushing the one holding her onto his back. She kicked one of them in the face sending a few teeth flying out of his mouth. The other one she snapped his arm back dislocating his shoulder. He bent down in agony while she pulled harder and harder until he passed out from the pain. The last boy was practically begging for mercy and fell to his knees pleading she not hurt him. She slyly smiled and lifted his chin up to look at her.
"This serves as a reminder to regret ever messing with the Tse family. When you wake up tell the rest of them that if anyone finds out about this I will make sure you won't be punished this lightly," she whispered into his ear.
With a twist of her wrist she snapped his neck and dropped his head to the ground. She scanned around her to make sure no one had seen what had just occurred. I slunk back into hiding spot making that I would not be discovered. I watched her pull off her blouse exposing a white tank top underneath. Her exposed arms and shoulders revealed her svelte body sculpted from her training. She looked down at her knuckles which had been bruised dripping a mix of the boys' blood and her own. Slowly she walked away without taking another glance at the massacre she had left behind.
My heart was pounding I snapped back into reality after thinking about that strange situation I had earlier seen. What was it with people in that family? As I crossed the bridge over the gardens I overheard Akira and Soujiro whispering to each other in a serious tone.
"Have you tried to talk to him? Akira solemnly asked.
"No. He's holed himself up in his room refusing to speak to anyone." Soujiro replied shaking his head.
"He can't live like this much longer. All he does is get drunk every night and go into a fit of rage destroying everything."
I walked away not wanting to hear anymore. Everything was just too confusing. First it was that scene with Hana and now this news about Doumyouji. I shouldn't be worrying about him anyway, I told myself. He was the one who pushed this upon himself. I tried to force myself to forget about him, but in the back of my mind I couldn't leave the issue alone. Wanting to escape from all these thoughts I ran. I didn't know where to go. I couldn't go to the stairwell and risk seeing Hanazawa Rui. I soon found myself in a dark room.
I walked slowly through the dim room careful not to bump into anything. It looked like one of the many lecture halls, but on stage there was a lonely piano in the center of the stage. I took a seat in he back of the hall trying to find some peace. Suddenly sounds began to come out of the piano. I looked up and saw a solitary boy gliding his fingers across the keys. A dark, slow melody slowly flowed from the piano. I listened hearing all the pain and anguish that resided in him being released through the music. I don't know what compelled me to move closer, but the music drew me into a trance towards it. As I approached the pianist stopped out of surprise.
"Tsukushi." he said in surprise.
"Haru" I gasped.
He quickly stood up from the bench and reached to take his bag and leave. He turned away and began to walk off.
'Wait!" I yelled towards him.
He turned around to face me stunned that I stopped him. I took a seat on the bench and patted the space beside me signaling him to sit. He obediently walked back over and took a seat.
"Can you keep playing?" I asked.
He put down his bag on top of the piano and once gain his fingers flew over the keys releasing that haunting melody. I closed my eyes lost in the song. When he finished playing I opened them and look at him.
"Did you compose this?"
"Yes. I wrote it for someone very special to me," he mumbled very lightly.
"It was for your mother, wasn't it?" I asked.
"How did you know?" he asked with a cold voice. He seemed disturbed by the thought that I knew one of his many secrets.
I slid my fingers feeling the coolness of the ivory keys. Suddenly compelled to have more music I started to play a song. Slowly the soothing sound of Canon in D Major floated through the air. Haru just kept his eyes concentrated on my hands gliding carefully across the keys. As I came to a stop I looked up at him. His face was so peaceful, no longer hard and stern as it was before when he was playing. He actually smiled a little.
"This is one of my favorite songs. It's so simple, but it can easily make you feel happy." I said. "There's just an innocence and purity I find it. It always helps me forget all my worries for even the briefest of moments." I sighed streching my arms up over my head. "Hana told me about your mother. She also told me that I should stay away from you. I think we both now know the reason why" I looked at my arm touching the spot of the lingering scar. "I once did a favor for you, and now I would like you to do one for me."
"What is it?" he asked in a quiet voice breaking the silence of the hall.
"When I first met you I thoughts we were friends. I believed that there could be no bad that lied within the lonely boy I saw. I would like to believe you only wanted to be a friend to me too and maybe that was driven in part because of my resemblance to your mother. But there is one thing I hate most in this world. I hate people who lie to me and I believe you have been doing this to me all along. I saw what Hana did to those boys who beat you up earlier. She is not as innocent as she seems, and neither are the rest of you. Fujio told me about how he has seen injuries like mine all too often. Then there was the strange insistence that Jin made to not take me to the hospital when I was stabbed. Finally I saw the change, the anger that you hid within you. I think you at least owe me the truth."
Haru glanced up at my cold fixed face. I continued to stare straight ahead not wanting to look at him while I spoke. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it to carefully choose his words.
The coldness in his voice frightened me a little, but how else could he explain his dark past, but with a sad, distant voice. "Images can be deceiving, can't they? Everyone here assumes my father is some rich businessman from Hong Kong. The wealthy Tse family," he laughed bitterly to himself. "I am wealthy, but the way my family became wealthy is not something I am proud of." His voice trailed off as he began his tail. "My mother was a good woman, but she was trapped in a dark world she was born into. She was just a simple, kind traditional Japanese woman. She married my father in an arranged marriage to increase an empire. It was a great joining of two of the greatest underground families joining Hong Kong with Japan. You could say that my father was a career oriented man and liked to bring his work home. I was raised to take over the family business. You must have noticed our eternity tattoos." He turned his head and pulled down the collar of his shirt revealing the eternity tattoo I had noticed earlier on the back of his neck. "I got this when I turned thirteen, as a reminder of who I belonged to and what I was destined to inherit as leader. Hana and the others have one too. This is the crest of our group. We are yakuza, Tsukushi. No matter what where we go we will be identified as triad or as we are known in Japan, yakuza."
"Yakuza?" I gasped. It just didn't seem possible that they could be a part of something like that. I never would have thought that this group that seemed so friendly and harmless could be so dangerous.
He continued to speak ignoring my dumbfounded expression. "I used to see this mark as a symbol of greatness and power. Now I just see it as nothing more than a curse. It was this that blinded me and destroyed everything. Fujio and Jin are my companions. Their fathers are my father's left and right arms. As you've already seen, Fujio is trained to be our organization's doctor. Who else could treat all our stab and gun shot wounds without any questions? Jin is trained as our negotiator and lawyer. It's his job to cover up our messes. My fate is to be the leader and executor of the organization. Hana." he sighed. "She's been trained as a decoy. She may look harmless, but she has trained all her life as a fighter. No one would suspect the daughter of a yakuza to be the most deadly of the group." He ran his fingers through his hair and laughed bitterly once again. "A year ago, the yakuza was my life. I couldn't wait to take over the business, but my father insisted his children have the best education. So, I spent most of my life away from my parents and Hana in any boarding school that would take me before expelling me. My only family was Fujio and Jin who followed me everywhere. The only light in all this darkness was my mother. She was a kind, and gentle woman. She hated violence, but turned her head the other way to my father's business. I was a ticking bomb waiting to explode. I probably worried her more than any other mother in the world with all my gang fights. When I was with her in Hong Kong she was always the one waiting with bandages each night after our street fights. She worried I would die a young stupid death with the way I was going. I didn't listen to her, though. I thought I was unstoppable and nothing would stop me from rebuilding my street reputation. My name invoked fear, 'Black Haru'. I can't remember how many times she begged me to stop, but I didn't listen. I didn't hear her until it was too late. She never told me or any of us." tears began to fall down his face dripping onto his clenched hands. "She was sick and hiding it for a long time. We later found out she was in the last stages of cancer. She was already too far gone to get treatment. She wanted to die naturally. I still remember that night. I had come home badly beaten limping through the door. I expected her to be at her normal place on the couch waiting with bandages and a bowl of warm water to wash away the blood staining the floor. But she wasn't there. I found her in her bed coughing up blood. I wanted to bring her to the hospital, but she wouldn't let me. She wanted to die in her own house. Before she took her last few breaths she made one final plea. Those words are burned into my mind. She said, 'Promise you'll escape. I couldn't, but my children still can.' I knew what she meant. She struggled out her final breath and then she was still. I came to Eitoku under my mother's wishes. She left a letter to Hana and I. She wished that we would come to Eitoku and make something better of ourselves. She was a student here many years ago when she was our age. It was that day I died. My spirit died with my mother. I couldn't even bring myself to attend her funeral and say goodbye. I had gotten drunk the night before and was completely passed out in my room during her burial ceremony. I really am a useless son? I couldn't even go to my own mother's funeral. All that matters is that I fulfill her wishes now. I thought if I just buried the darkness that once lived within me I could escape it all, but then I met you. You remind me so much of her. That time you lectured me about smoking threw me back. My mother would always lecture me the same way you did. When I saw Doumyouji try to hurt you my old self came out and it frightened me. How easily I could be pushed back into that world by one person. To make matters worse I hurt the person I was trying to protect. I couldn't protect you like I couldn't protect her."
I let out my breath that I had been holding the entire time during his story. I reached into my pocket and pulled something out that I had been holding onto for the last few weeks.
"Here, You dropped this that day. I meant to return it to you earlier." I opened his hand and placed his jade pendant into his had. He clutched it tightly in his hand making his fingers turn white by the force of his grip. He opened his hand and rubbed the smooth rock between his fingers. He flipped it over and revealed some engravings on the back. It read: 'Always with you -Okaasan'
"This is all I have left of her," he gravely said. He tied it around his neck and let the shimmery jade dangle from his neck. "That is the entire truth. I'm dead inside and there is no rescuing me. I'm not better off now than I was a year ago. I understand if you would prefer I stay away from you like you asked me earlier." He stood up and turned away.
I sat there in complete shock. It was just too much to try to absorb at once. Everything now fit into place. It all suddenly made sense. The tattoos. The secrecy. I don't know what came over me, but my legs began to move from under me. I got up and ran forward grabbing him from behind. 'I'm sorry," I whispered to his back. "It wasn't you fault. You are a better man."
He turned around and wrapped his arms around my waist. I could feel his warm tears falling onto my head. He pushed me away from his body for a moment and stared into my eyes with his piercing brown eyes.
He bent his head down to mine and pressed his warm, soft lips against me.
He kissed me with a tenderness I had never felt before. It was completely different from Doumyouji. The tenderness of his kiss was with a sense of trepidation, not the forceful confidence of Doumyouji. I stood there in complete shock surprised by his actions. The thing that surprised me the most is that I kissed him back. We stood there alone on that stage under the dim light shining above us lost in the moment.
He pulled away from me and my face blushed. He drew my head to rest against his chest and laid small kisses onto my hair. He whispered, "I know now she sent me here to find you. I fell in love with you the moment I saw your smile." He nuzzled his head onto my shoulder. "Can you do something for me?"
I looked up into his begging eyes. "Do what?"
"Let me feel again.."
