AN: Huge time jump in this one but I hope you like it. There will be answers given and flashbacks shown in future chapters. Also, you guys made it easier to update this quickly as I got three reviews. See how easy that is, I get at least 1% reviews from views and you guys get the chapter easier 😉

Start of Chapter Thirty-Four

Kuu looked around the police station as the officer led him to a small office. He didn't know what this was about. All he knew was that Kuon hadn't returned that night and that he hadn't picked up his phone but had he been arrested? Had something happened again? What was going on?

"Sir, I'd like you to identify some photographs for us," he said and Kuu nervously nodded as he took a seat opposite the officer.

"Where's my son?" Kuu asked nervously but the officer ignored him, "I'm a citizen in this country, I'm a celebrity, I deserve to know where my son is and what condition he's in," Kuu started to demand but the officer instead placed eight photographs in front of him. Four were of the car that Kuon was driving with a pool of blood on the ground and a limp body that seemed placed into the car.

Kuu examined them, the way the body was hanging in the car. His attention then went to the bottom ones which showed that the car had exploded and the body had burnt up in the explosion. His eyes widened, the license plate was the same as the car that Kuon had been driving. No, they must have recreated it for a set.

The police officer saw Kuu's face and then set another photograph down that brought tears to Kuu's eyes as he looked at it in horror. There was a picture of Kuon taken from the front, his head with a bullet hole in it and blood coating his face and hair. Kuu's finger went onto it. His son had had such a promising future and now he was gone.

"Can you identify the ma-" the officer started to ask and Kuu looked at him feeling disgusted by the whole process.

"Yes," he said firmly, closing himself up to the world, "That's my son, Kuon Hizuri."

He looked at the photograph wishing that he had done something to protect Kuon but he wasn't sure what had happened. He put an arm around himself as he looked at the lifeless corpse of his son in the photograph. He was dead. His little boy had been murdered.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Mr. Hizuri" the man continued and Kuu nodded not sure how to respond to anything. His son wasn't going to come back home, he wasn't going to be doing anything any longer.

Chapter Thirty Four – Six Months Later

Kuon Hizuri had died when he was just twenty-two-years-old. He had left behind a celebrated acting career and a loving girlfriend and a hole with his absence between his friends and with his family. Kyoko had gone on to do not just the role that she had left for when she was dating Kuon but she had done other ones too. However, whenever she came to a part in the script that was difficult for her or when she was on set and needed someone to be honest with her, she would look up and realize that he was gone.

Now it was December and Kyoko – very popular with the guys now – was going to spend her birthday with people who loved her and had invited her to their home and now, instead of Kuon going to look at a stone marking Rick's grave, she was going to pay her respects at the memorial that Kuu had built for Kuon.

As she arrived at the Hizuri home on the twenty-third she still couldn't believe that they had once stood there together, basking in the sunlight and thinking about how it might be nice to get married one day and to have children. She might have that one day with somebody else but not with the person she really wanted to share that with, not with Corn.

As she knocked on the door, she saw a skeleton-thin man with brown hair standing there. It was strange seeing Kuu without an enormous amount of food behind him or his golden hair but he had lost the will to continue after he had seen the photographs and the couple had more than enough to take some time off and out of the spotlight. She still was shocked he went back to his original hair color and he had a rather thick amount of stubble covering his mouth.

"Hey," he smiled to her weakly as she noticed that he was still primarily wearing black. "Let me take your bags, you know your way to the guest room?" he asked her and Kyoko nodded. She froze as she saw that still – six months later – Kuu had left Kuon's suitcase in the hallway as if he were coming back for it.

"You look…good, Fa—Kuu" Kyoko said nervously. She saw how pained he was when she called him 'Father' these days and though he would try to hide it, it always reminded him of Kuon. Kyoko saw him nod weakly and looked around for Julie. She had the feeling that she would have been engaged to Kuon at this point. She really had always loved her fairy prince.

"You're such a good actress that I almost believed you," Kuu tried to joke but his delivery was flat. "We'll be having dinner later but if there's anything that you'd like to request."

"All of your cooking is good," Kyoko paused. She saw the pictures of Kuon everywhere still, it pained her how his last conversation about his death was to look for someone to help him, look for a way he could speak to someone about his problems. He had wanted to get better for her and she had disappointed him. She had wanted to give up acting but had felt he would be disappointed in her if she did that.

Kyoko kissed his cheek and went to the guest room. She put her bag onto the bed and cried. This was his family's house and after years of them all getting therapy and even after Kuu had gone to threaten Rick's family and demand that he have an explanation for Kuon's death, there was still that gaping hole that the wonderful blond man had left.

Kyoko nervously walked out of the room and went to the main bedroom, she heard a woman sobbing inside and she could only imagine that Julie was still not coping with the fact that Kuon had died and how it had been done so ruthlessly. She closed her eyes as the sadness inside the house took hold of her and then she felt her heart straining as alarm bells sounded. Someone had broken onto the Hizuri property.

…..

…..

Kuu had heard the sound of someone breaking in and had decided to go out to see for himself what it was. He had thought that if someone had had interest in them that they would have come to get them six months ago when Kuon had died. Their interest seemed to stop with Kuon and because it was a gang crime, the police had been of little help and Kuu blamed corruption for that. There had to be someone who had blown the car up, someone who had shot his son. Kuu put his boots on and went to a locked part of his bookcase and took out his own gun.

If they were going to play with weapons then he would too.

Kuu slowly stepped out of the house, noticing how the sun was going down which put him even more on edge. He took a steady breath and held the gun up. His eyes widened as he saw a figure wearing torn-up jeans, a grey baggy hoody, and the type of shoes that you might expect a homeless guy to be wearing staggering across his lawn.

How did this guy get in here? How did he break through the gate? He didn't seem in good enough physical form to jump over it.

"I'm warning you," Kuu said as he pointed his gun at the man, "This is private property. You have just broken onto private property and it is my right to shoot you if you do not leave. Please return to the gate or I'll call the authorities. Please leave," he said and looked at the man as he seemed to stumble. Was he drunk?

Kuu's eyes widened as he noticed that the guy was carrying a gun in one of the pockets of his hoody. He took another breath in. Had this guy been sent to kill them? He was doing an inadequate job if that was the case.

"I do not want to kill you but I may have to shoot you if you do not drop your weapon and leave," Kuu threatened before seeing the man move over to the house, he collapsed against it and Kuu saw the man's hand slip to his pocket. Was he really aiming for the gun? Kuu took a deep breath in and shot the gun, missing intentionally by a few inches but the man fell down anyway.

"I'm not…" the man said, his voice coming out extremely rough as if he were recovering from a sore throat. "I won't hurt you. I'm not…I'm not here for that," he coughed and Kuu could tell that this man had some kind of a chest infection. He didn't know what to do. His moves depended on what the man did next.

"Get up and move to the gate," Kuu said as he felt a pain in his chest at how this might be connected to Kuon's murder and he was unwilling to do anything. He should have taken revenge on Rick's family for the pain that he and Julie had had to endure. He saw the man start to cough as he rolled onto his side and took the chance. Kuu ran over to the man and grabbed the gun from his pocket. With deep breaths he held one of the two guns to the man's chest, he couldn't see his face.

"I can't…I can't get up," the man said and Kuu rolled his eyes. He used his foot to move the man onto his back and then kicked the man's hood back. His eyes widened as he looked at the guy who was lying limply on the ground. No…way.

Despite how messy and ungroomed the man was, his longer unkempt blond hair, the way that he had a number of scars on his face and neck, a broken nose, despite the pain in his eyes of someone who has narrowly escaped death, Kuu Hizuri knew what his son looked like.

"Can't be seen," Kuon seemed to panic as if he were on some type of drug, "I can't be seen. I need the hood," he said before coughing again and Kuu crouched beside him. He put his hands on Kuon's chest but something was very wrong. What had his son been through?

"It's okay," Kuu said as he pulled the hood of the sweater up and covered his son's face again. "It's okay, you won't be seen," he tried to promise him. "You're safe, okay?" he asked as he heard Kuon whispering something but he was speaking too quietly for Kuu to make out the words. It was as if his son had been drugged. "I'm here," Kuu tried to reassure him as he held Kuon's hands with both of his.

"I had to…keep a…promise," Kuon finally breathed out painfully and Kuu paused.

"To Kyoko?" he asked and Kuon nodded, "What did you -"

"Also to you," Kuon told him, "I promised…you'd know if…I was alive but in hiding," he said and Kuu smiled weakly. Kuon had said that and when they had had that discussion, Kuu had thought that he would have wanted to know Kuon wasn't dead and take care of him, now he was scared that he might not be able to do that last part.

End of Chapter Thirty Four

Thank you for reading

Thank you to EmmaLasagna, H-Nala, vprocks and paulagatofor reviewing Chapter Thirty Three