ENISHI'S Aftermath: SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR

CHAPTER #18

There was a bit of a mess to clean up after the play fighting between Enishi and Sumi, but they had settled their disagreement. He had a meeting with Bolin about what was happening in Tientsin, while Sumi went up for a bath. She first checked on the children, who had slept through all the noise.  Sumi was still in the bath, when Enishi came upstairs to wash her back.

"That kid is a good big brother. What do you want to do with them?" He asked.

"I like how he protects her... the girl can help Feng or the cleaning staff to earn her keep. Lei can still be my street ears. I want to teach him how to fight or maybe it's better he learns that from you."

"You teach him... practice for when we have kids."

She smiled at Enishi. "I'm sorry about earlier. Promise me you'll never betray me like that."

He saw how serious she was. "I won't and I know neither will you." Enishi gave her a long deep kiss, then stood up. "I'll be travelling to Tientsin in a few days."

"Am I going too?"

"Of course, because I don't want to come home to a houseful of dead people."

Sumi splashed water at him and missed. "I'll retaliate later."

"We'll travel by train."

She got out of the bath and into the robe he held out to her. "I'll get to see more of China, I can't wait."

"The seafood in Tientsin is way better than here in Shanghai," Enishi shared.

"Is it part of your salt smuggling?"

"We transport the salt from Yangpo to Tientsin. The taxes on salt from the Chinese government, makes food almost unaffordable, but it's why the trade to there is so critical. We also smuggle to Beijing, which is not far from there too."

"Where would you rather live, Tientsin or Beijing?"

"With you, probably Beijing. We also have a high volume of opium sales in Tientsin."

"I heard that there was a second Opium war here in China. Were you involved in that?"

Enishi shook his head negatively. "I was too young and still in Japan. The last one was in 1860."

"If you leave the Shanghai mafia, who will be the new Boss? Is it Bolin?"

"He doesn't have a business mind for the long term. He'll always be just an enforcer."

Sumi took off his shirt and vest, wanting to give him a back rub.  Enishi lay down on the bed and waited for her to begin. Just as she had done before, Sumi warmed up the massage oil and glided her hands up along his spine and into his hair line. With knuckles and more pressure she worked her way back down and horizontally to his waistband.  Enishi groaned because it felt so good and even better because it was his wife doing it. This was pure bliss.

Unlike in the past, her arms were able to do the massage longer, because she'd been working with Lei and on her own fight training. The conditioning helped now. "The kid is picking up the training fast. He reminds me a little of how I was as a street child."

"I noticed Feng being extra patient with Lei's sister. What's her name?"

"Lan."

"Orchid.... She's a cute kid, suits her."

"When you step down, can we take them with us?"

"Those kids?"

"Lei would be fine on his own, not so sure about Lan when she gets to be a teenager."

"You don't want her to go through what you have." It was a statement of fact, not a question.

"She'll have it worse."

"We'll decide together when the time comes." After another ten minutes or so he asked, "when will you teach me how to do this for you?"

"When do you want to learn?"

"Now." Enishi rolled over, hooking his leg, so she landed on her side. "Strip from the waist up, lie on your stomach, in the middle of the bed, while I warm up the oil in my hands."

"How observant of you," she giggled and did as directed. "Let's see what your hands remember from what I did."

Enishi had always been observant, noticing things most didn't and formulating an advanced plan for the future. Now was no exception. His hands repeated what she had done in the past and today. Her groan of pleasure made him smile.

"You're applying more pressure than what I did to you, but it's perfect for me. How did you know?"

"Because you're always more tense than I am, it's because of how you lived for so many years. Wild animals are more tense than domestic ones, because their lives are always on the line."

"Very true, I never thought about that. But, you're always in danger, how can you not be tense?"

"Optimal planning, detailed observation and situational awareness. If I really need to sense everything around me, that's when I use Kyokeimyaku (Frenzied Nerves). Honestly it takes a while for my body to recover after I use it.  And like I said before, few dare to directly challenge and most fear or respect me."

"From someone else that would sound arrogant, from you it doesn't, it's just fact I guess. Like how I can erase my presence and move silently. These are things we developed due to circumstance and survival."

"Exactly."