Dangerous Lines | Yuzuru Hanyu

32. Aspire

On certain days, it was easy to panic or feel squeamish.

There was a particular case of a man she saw being tortured. All he begged was for them to leave his family alone, he couldn't care less about what happened to him but he wanted to make sure that nothing happened to his family.

The way Yaeko saw the man screaming in agony brought her back to a different time.

Maybe it was the reason why he was there, gambling, that bothered her so much but the truth was that she could barely look at this man in the eye.

Surely, over the years she had gotten a bit immune to a lot of violence but seeing this man was different.

Was this so different from her story?

Her father had been a gambler too and instead of submitting to this torture, he had dutifully offered her as a bargaining chip.
One could argue that this man was far better than her father could ever be but at the same time, seeing the suffering it brought made her wonder.

She had obviously been forced into a life of confinement that made it impossible to have ambitions and a sense of personal fulfillment but she had never been in that much pain.

So maybe enduring all of that torture wasn't worth it, maybe family was exactly for these things, no matter how much she still hated her father for his wrongdoings.

But no, she couldn't think like that.

Well, she shouldn't think about her father in general, let alone compare the two situations. Whatever happened, it was already too late to change a single thing.

The access she now had gave a lot of a different perspective on things. For one, how there was so much powerplay inside the organization.

Her husband wasn't just nervous about their stay in Sendai because he didn't have power, he was also afraid of who could step up into his position because of it.

The fights inside the organization weren't so obvious to her in the past but it was becoming obvious that all of these new members wanted to rise to the top.
Like most youth, however, they were too impatient.

Rise in the ranks of the Yakuza didn't happen easily and the trials to prove yourself worthy often included homicides and corruption. You simply couldn't show that you were capable of leading without being willing to do whatever was necessary.

Truthfully, even if all of the current events ended up distracting her husband, Yaeko was a bit nervous about the end result of all of those inner battles. It was almost as if they were in a constant state of civil war and only those with more connections and power could survive.

One of the youngsters who had more potential was called Akiko Nakamura and Yae had to admit that he always seemed a bit creepy to her.

Even before this whole thing, the woman had been allowed to meet him in the past and for a long time thought the man to be weird as hell.

Akiko was bold, as you would expect from someone who rose to the ranks so easily but he was also very intelligent.

More than anything, he was extremely loyal to the Yakuza and had ideals that could be easily distorted for the good of the organization.

From the moment she met this man, Yaeko felt like he was trouble and well... She wasn't necessarily wrong.

Thankfully for her, he wasn't one to mess with other members' business because she knew for one how curious he was about everything and also, how he was obsessed with leaks of information.

Akiko wanted to get to the top at any cost so he couldn't care less about who got hurt in the process.

When he rose sufficiently in the ranks to constantly be around Kiyoshi, that was when his existence started bothering Yae.

You see, she was just fine with her husband, doing her best to just stay relatively unnoticed and unharmed but once this man came into their lives, Yaeko noticed his eyes and suspicions from miles away.

When they were in the room, this man always found his eyes on her, watching her every move and it bothered her way too much to ignore. He was a hindrance to her plans and Yaeko didn't need any more challenges.

Still, focusing on the plan she tried to ignore him as much as possible.

The thing is that this was one of the things that was completely out of his control and Yaeko would soon find that whenever this person had anything on his mind, nothing could take it out of there.

The detail that was awfully bad for her was that Yaeko was the one thing he had on his mind.

In one of the social events at the house, her husband was mostly busy with other members to even look in her direction which unfortunately for her, gave the other man all the freedom to pull her to the side.

"What do you want?" She asked without a single bit of politeness or respect in his direction. If he was planning to treat her like an object or a pet he could order around, then she could certainly return the favour.

"Isn't it obvious? You walk around as if nothing happened but I know what you did, I know what you are, princess."

Disgust filled her head, Yaeko's brain was merely trying to understand which part he meant because she had been doing a lot of things on those days and neither of them could be seen as wrong in the Yakuza's eyes.

"What are you talking about? What do you want?"

Forcing her body to the nearest wall, the man quickly made his point come across.

"I want you... Don't play coy, we both know you're a slut. If you don't want your husband to know about your skater friend, it's probably time to listen to what I ask of you."