Ashes to Ashes (Book Two of The Kazuya Series) (✔️)

一 (One)

(Arielle's POV)

"The things I would do to get him to take me home."

"Go talk to him."

"Are you kidding? No way."

"Why not?"

"I've been coming here since they opened and I've never seen him speak to anyone except for the one time he spoke to the guy at the front counter."

"Maybe he waits for people to approach him. Maybe he's the closed-off type of guy."

I tried real hard to hold back my laughter as the two women in front of me went on for another fifteen minutes. Their conversation got harder to ignore when the one they were talking about stripped off his shirt and started hitting on one of the punching bags.

You know the one right?

Unruly hair with a slight curl to it, built in a way that makes you want to climb him like a tree, and steel blue eyes.

"What I would give to see him without any clothes on at all." One of the women purred.

I gave up on trying to successfully and peacefully do yoga and stood up. I pulled my earbuds that had died thirty minutes ago out of my ears, rolled up my yoga mat, and headed out the door.

"Hey, Elle." Roland, one of the gym regulars, smiled as I walked past him.

"Hey." I waved.

Roland is part of the Irish mob and his wife sometimes does yoga with me. They're both very friendly.

He stopped punching and held the bag still as I approached him after putting away my yoga mat.

"Hi."

"Hi." He grinned.

His eyes flicked to something over my shoulder that caused his grin to widen before he looked back at me. He stepped closer to me so that we were just barely touching and wrapped one arm around my waist.

"Those women again, huh?" He whispered.

"You just had to take your shirt off, didn't you?" I asked, putting my hand on his abdomen between us, digging in my nails a bit.

He smirked. "Had to give you a good show."

"What makes you think I was watching?"

"Because you're always watching me and I'm always watching you."

"True." I smiled.

"Guys over here were whispering about you too."

I glanced around because we were the only ones in that corner of the gym. How could he have heard other talking?

He motioned with his head towards the fighting ring where several men stood.

"Loud mouths."

"What were they saying?"

"They were saying how much of a...wildcat you must be."

"Wildcat?"

His smirk reached a new level before I realized what he was talking about and I dropped my forehead against his chest in embarrassment.

His back was littered with scratches. Scratches from the previous night.

"Too bad they can't see the marks I gave you." He teased.

"Can we go now?" I asked, trying to change the subject to save myself from further embarrassment.

He nodded.

He slung his discarded shirt over his shoulder before grabbing his bag in one hand and my hand in his other. I tried my best to avoid making eye contact with any of the men in the fighting ring as we walked past, but I could feel them staring at us.

It's been three months since Christmas and things are...well they're pretty great.

Koan is still very much Koan, which is just how I like him. He still hardly says anything to anyone, but he does say more than one word to me when others are in the room. He doesn't say anything loud enough for others to hear, but it's...something I guess. It's so funny to me because he has no issue with PDA in front of people, but won't say more than three words to anyone.

The gym...God bless the gym and the things it's done to Koan's body in the past three months. He's still got his reputation as the "untouchable" Kazuya, but now they say he's also the one who looks most deadly. He spend half of his time in his office and the other half working out or doing something else around the gym.

Renzo still works here too, but he spend most of his days behind the front counter. Koan says that sometimes Renzo will venture out to one of the machines if they're not too busy.

Renzo and my brother are also still together. Renzo keeps begging us to go on a double date, but Koan refuses. Well... he ignores him, so that counts as a refusal in Koan's head.

Seiichi, Kenji, and Shiro are still single. That we know of anyway. I've been told that Seiichi is the kind of guy who'll have a girlfriend, but keep her a secret for a while. They said he's done it in the past.

My parents?

Regular at the Kazuya house for dinners and weekend hangouts. The whole thing still throws me off a bit.
A detective regularly visiting a Yakuza Boss's house for dinner and to watch sports? My father even took Kintaro with him when he and mom went to buy a new car so he could have Kintaro's input. Their friendship is strange, but also wholesome.

Me?

I still work with at the hospital, but I'm no longer where I was. I still work the same though. Instead of working in the emergency department, I work as a PEDs nurse now. It's what I originally wanted to do and now I'm doing it.

I also still make...house calls with Doc. Yeah, I thought he only did house calls for Koan's family, but I was wrong. He does house calls for any mob related family that calls. So far, I've only ever gone with him to treat some men from the Russian mob. They seem to get themselves in trouble and injured a lot.

I still worry about bringing something home to Koan, but I do some things to make sure that doesn't happen. For example, one thing I do is that I change change out of my dirty scrubs before I leave the hospital and put on some comfy clothes.

My newfound safety precautions began when Koan got a cold a week after Christmas. I was worried the whole time, because I hadn't experienced any illness with him before. I checked his vitals religiously and made sure he was eating healthy and taking some medicine. Doc told me that he had experienced many Koan colds and that I was panicking over nothing, but I ignored him.

He got over his cold and I told him he wasn't allowed to ever get sick again. He said he'd try his best, but I think that was partially due to the fact that I told him there would be no sex if he got sick again.

See, Koan really likes...

Well that's a story for another day.

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A/N:

I ever mention how much I hate first chapters? 😬🥴🥴

-B.