Dangerous Lines | Yuzuru Hanyu

34. Wrath

It took just stepping out of her little corner to realize that quite a few people were already waiting for her.

Yaeko could have sworn that the whole Yakuza of Tokyo had gathered to watch her demise and truth be told, she probably deserved it.

The little leverage she had would probably be useless and the people around her realized what she was doing.

Well, the good news was that if this was due to her affair, that was the lighter sin she committed in their eyes.

It certainly showed because rather than killing her right away as they would do with any other traitor, Yaeko was merely dragged by her husband, hearing him mutter small words and pissed sounds.

"I fucking knew it." She heard eventually "There was no way you were so happy suddenly without a reason."

Yaeko could handle it all, the pressure of the possibility of torture and even death, if it came to it.

She felt like most of her life was useless from the start so she had fully accepted the possibilities of what could happen to her on that evening from the moment she left that secluded corner.

No one cared much for what she felt as she was dragged to the middle of an unknown place but what she knew was that being taken to a warehouse was never a good sign.

Similar to the torture methods used in the man she watched a couple of weeks prior, Yaeko found the whole place to be organized similarly, with all sorts of props that were most likely for decoration and rarely used fully.

The mere thought of being submitted to the same things made her skin crawl in fear. Yaeko had never felt that scared in her life and it certainly seemed like none of it could get much worse.

That's exactly where she got it all wrong because a few steps inside the warehouse revealed that she wasn't the only one there.

A scream erupted from her lungs when she saw him, blood dripping from his forehead from what looked like a pretty nasty cut on his brow.

There was nothing worse than feeling like all of it was her fault. Yuzuru would have never gotten in trouble with these people if it wasn't for her.

Yet, looking into his eyes and expression, he didn't show a single bit of fear. He just looked at her with concern in his features, clearly as worried about her as she was about him.

Yae knew very well that it was useless to hide anything now. If she could even allege everything to be a lie, her reaction to his presence was way too telling to hide.

From the moment she found a bit of leeway in the hold they had on her, the woman just ran to the skater, the man she loved, and met a small smile on his face.

Yuzuru was tied up, looking exhausted from whatever had happened before her arrival but even if he should be worried about himself, the skater only seemed to care about her.

"Are you ok?" He asked almost right away.

"Me? You're the one..."

"Shh... I'm fine. You shouldn't... React..."

Yuzuru might have been trying to be a hero but she saw right through his apparent strong attitude. He was way too obvious with his emotions, at least for her.

They hadn't seen each other in months but he still made her feel just at home as he did in Sendai. There was no doubt that he was truly the key for her to feel better and happy.

As good as it was to understand that he wasn't half as affected as it really looked, the awaited reunion didn't last too long.

"You don't even have shame, do you?" Yaeko heard the distinctive voice of her husband. "I warned you, Yaeko, and somehow you still kept contact with your friend and don't even bother to hide it."

The disdain in her husband's voice was way too obvious to ignore but the whole thing wasn't lost on her. It was no coincidence that this happened after she refused the other man.

He had gone to her husband from the moment she fled his hold and made sure to control a narrative that she didn't know about.

Without being certain of what he has told Kiyoshi, Yaeko couldn't defend herself properly.

Instead, she just chose to shield the skater with her own body. No one would touch him while she was there and she had no fear of being tortured instead.

"Leave him out of this." She begged her husband

"Tell me, why should I do that?"

"Because he has no blame in this. I'm the one who betrayed you, he was just an innocent casualty of my sins and shouldn't be blamed for any of it."

"He's to blame from the moment he touched you, silly girl."

"That's just the thing, he didn't, no matter what they want you to believe. Kiyoshi, I know you won't believe me but you know the young members of the Yakuza better than I ever will and you know what happens when ambition makes them act irrationally. Don't believe everything you're told."

"Yaeko, you really think you can fool me with that after I just saw you run to this man?"

"I'm just saying that not everything is as obvious as it seems"

"We will see about that. You're about to tell me everything." The man gave her a stern look before ordering: "Tie her up"