Kensho

Disclaimer: Just own the words, not the folks.


Tokyo – Chapter 1

His first day out of the hospital arrives much quicker than he’d expected. As he exits the facility that had been his home so long, he tries not to tremble at the surreal experience of wearing normal clothes and walking down the street.

After five and a half years trying to die, six months in a coma, and two years as a recovering mental patient, he’s free. Outside.

People pass by him and he flinches, frightened of their touch, though none had actually attempted to touch him. No one has touched him with anything but clinical detachment, annoyance or violence in a very long time.

Not since Ruka.

Ruka always took care of him. She was his treasure. He’d loved her with every ounce of his being, more than anyone or anything in this world. And he killed her. She was reaching for him; moving to embrace him when it happened. She’d only wanted to comfort him because those boys had beaten him up again.

For a split second, he’d hated those boys with a vehemence he didn’t think he possessed and the power exploded from him. The concussive force had slammed into everything within a ten-foot radius, shattering the table and chairs that his family used for their meals. Startled by the force he felt leaving him, he’d looked up to see the shock pass over Ruka’s face as her bones shattered along with the door and rear wall of their small house.

A shudder runs through him as he remembers the alarm in his father’s eyes when he’d come into the kitchen to investigate the sound of splintering wood. At the sight of the pile of blood, bone and flesh that had once been his only daughter, he’d scowled at Tsuzuki, his father’s face saying he knew what kind of monster he’d sired.

A wail of sorrow had erupted from Tsuzuki’s throat, stopping abruptly when his father punched him. Crumbling to the floor, he’d offered no resistance as the man punched, kicked and beat him. Tears of understanding had streamed as he’d felt ribs crack or break, felt an ankle snap under his father’s weight and felt his consciousness leave him as his head was slammed repeatedly into the floor.

He sighs sadly. Had it really been eight years ago that he destroyed his family?

Lifting his head with a sigh, he tries to calm himself; a grown man, sitting in the middle of a crowd of people, crying into his knees, stares and jeers assaulting him from all sides. Resolving to at least pretend that he isn’t frightened out of his mind at the prospect of being on his own in the world, he rises slowly, clutching the bag of things given to him by his doctor. Purposefully he strides away, seeking shelter on his first night of freedom.

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Waking with a start, he curses lightly, running trembling fingers through his unkempt hair. The nightmares never stop. It’s been two years since his release and every time he thinks he’ll have more than a few nights reprieve, they come back. Ruka and his father plague his dreams, blaming him, cursing him, saying he isn’t human, beating him like those boys always did and he wakes up in a cold sweat. Sometimes, he wakes up in tears.

He hadn’t expected a nightmare tonight, not after the blissful evening that preceded it. Idly he strokes the long, black tresses lying across his chest. He had no idea what to do when she approached him, but he’s very glad he gave in and followed her lead.

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Haruna gave him a freebie. A night that would have normally cost half his month’s salary, she donated to the frustrated virgin. She pitied the 28-year-old whose first glimpse of a naked breast had been at the brothel he cleaned. Haruna had seen him staring at the girls, had watched the cuffs to his head by their bosses to remind him of his place, had seen the longing and fear in those unearthly purple eyes and had decided to act. She also wanted a chance to touch the intriguing innocence hidden behind those pain-filled eyes. Many years and men had passed since she’d known any sort of innocence. She’d freely chosen her life, but being with Tsuzuki had reminded her of what she’d given up. Their night together nearly broke her.

He’d squirmed at every touch. Ragged breathing had accompanied the light strokes against his arousal. Breathy moans were uttered as she licked and teased his nipples. A startled gasp and his eyes rolling back had followed her descent onto his rigid shaft. There was no rhythm that first time around, just jerky movements begging for release. He actually lasted longer than Haruna expected.

That second round, after a brief nap, had proven less frenzied, probably because she chose that time to introduce him to fellatio. Helplessly, he’d clutched the sheets beneath him, too ecstatic to even thrust into her warm, wet mouth. At first, she’d planned to start with her mouth and then guide him into her prone form, but his reaction to her licking, sucking and well-placed nips had kindled a long-dead fire within her and she longed to bring him to climax. Alternating between teasing and bringing him to a close, she’d prolonged Tsuzuki’s sweet agony. His release had finally come with a low growl and an arch of his hips. Haruna didn’t miss a drop, being an expert in her field.

Their third time, a few hours later in the pre-dawn, had come closer to honest lovemaking than anything she could remember and brought tears to her eyes at it’s end. Tsuzuki had rolled off of her, apologizing profusely for some imagined wrong. As assurance, she’d offered a warm smile and a comforting hand on his cheek. It would turn out to be the first of many nights they’d spend together.

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Four years. He’s been free of the hospital for four years and still struggles to cope with being alive. There are still moments of oppressive guilt, but a night with Haruna usually chases that feeling away. It isn’t love that they have, he knows that, but they do draw comfort from one another. Sometimes her clients are rough with her or verbally abusive and Tsuzuki serves as her support.

A few months ago she had a customer beat her severely. He’d comforted her while she healed, glad he could offer something for the many kindnesses she bestowes upon him, sometimes unknowingly. Like when she doesn’t flinch while looking into his eyes or shrink back in fear as so many of the other women working at the brothel do. He and Haruna also share a love of sweets and he always brings something back to split between them whenever the bosses send him out on errands. Sometimes he makes Origami animals for her and she grins happily at him, marveling at his skill.

Origami comforts him. Ruka and he used to spend hours making things together. His father had taught them when they were five and seven. Their mother had run off a few months before hand. Tsuzuki never really found out where, though he suspected himself to be the reason why. The two of them had grown sullen and despondent after her disappearance, so his father thought to distract them with Origami. Later, he’d also taught them calligraphy.

Finding the distractions to be working, he’d added more, sending them to a local dojo for Karate a year later and teaching them to cook when Tsuzuki and Ruka were ten and twelve. Tsuzuki had possessed a natural affinity for cooking and had even entertained the idea of studying it as a vocation, at least before those boys beat it out of him.

The teacher had asked everyone to stand and tell what he or she wanted to do when they grew up. 14-year-old Tsuzuki had said he wanted to be a chef. Though he wasn’t the only one with that response, his tormentors had added that to the list of reasons to hurt him.

“As if anyone but your stupid sister would ever eat anything you cooked,” they’d taunted as they punched and kicked him.

After a while, he couldn’t cook at all, subconsciously associating the act with pain.

Ruka had struggled at first, but then became the primary meal maker for the household, especially after Tsuzuki had succumbed to his fears.

Pausing in his sweeping, he leans against the broom and sighs to himself.

He hasn’t thought about such things in years, not since finding out about his father’s death year before he left the hospital.

Tsuzuki had been too badly injured to attend Ruka’s funeral, not that he’d have gone anyway, but he’d really wanted to see his father off into the hands of the Shinigami.

There’d been an accident. His father had fallen from a ladder and struck his head. A neighbor had found him three days later. Tsuzuki had been beside himself with grief when the majority of his assigned doctors wouldn’t let him attend the funeral. They’d determined that attending the funeral of the man who’d nearly killed him would have set back his recovery.

They hadn’t understood.

Tsuzuki had never blamed his father. He’d actually thought his father had done the right thing; after killing his beloved Ruka, he’d deserved to die. But no matter how much he’d pleaded, he couldn’t go. His attempts to fight his way out had only served to land him drugged and in restraints for 3 days.

Weeks later, he’d found out that Dr. Muraki had gone in his stead.

Convulsively, he clutches at the ring on a black cord around his neck.

The doctor had somehow managed to get his father’s wedding band and had presented it to Tsuzuki at one of his therapy sessions. The unexpected present had reduced Tsuzuki to a whimpering, weeping, sobbing mess. That ring was the only thing Tsuzuki made sure to take with him when he left the hospital.

A twinge of guilt pecks at Tsuzuki as he realizes he hasn’t written to the doctor since the letter three years ago when he found this job and place to stay. His last day at the hospital, the doctor had given him a bag of things to help him as he re-entered the world. Inside he’d put several changes of clothes, a little food and a fair amount of money. Tsuzuki remembers that he’s never thanked the doctor for that.

The sound of shouting in the front hall draws him from his reverie. As he leans the broom against a wall and moves forward, gunshots from that area still him. Suddenly there is screaming and more gunfire. In a panic, he runs up the back stairs to Haruna’s room.

Slamming open the door, the sight of a large man emptying his gun into Haruna’s stunned form greets him. Her bullet-riddled body slides down her bedroom wall, leaving a wide smear of blood in its wake.

“Haruna…” Tsuzuki whispers in shock.

Frozen to the spot, he barely hears the taunt from the murderer.

“Well, what do we have here,” the man sneers.

A hand roughly grabbing his hair from behind crashes Tsuzuki back into reality. It’s then that he remembers the other man in the room.

“He’s as pretty as a girl,” the one holding his hair smirks. Tsuzuki’s fear triples when a cold smile graces the larger man’s face. His hair is released and he hears the door close behind him.

The man opens his kimono, revealing a yakuza’s intricate tattoo. Tsuzuki’s desperate lunge for the door falls far short. Fighting proves futile against the imposing figure. Tsuzuki’s yukata is torn from him and the large man tears into him. Tsuzuki’s screams reverberate, joining the cacophony of others throughout the establishment, as Haruna’s corpse stares at him from the floor.

He’s not sure when he passed out, but he wakes hours later to pain and blood.

His whole body aches; especially...

Clutching reflexively for the minor comfort of his father’s ring since Haruna is forever lost to him, he remembers that his assailant took it with him “as a souvenir.”

Curling into a ball, sobs wrack his battered frame.