The Yakuza's flower

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Kizaki's pov

Hanayama actually did it.

For weeks, I thought it was just talk. Smoke from the fire of everything he'd lost. A threat made out of grief and pride, the kind of thing a man says when he's bleeding inside and no one's looking close enough to see it.

But he meant it. And now it's done.

He moved on their turf like it was owed to him. Like he wasn't just defying his grandfather, but daring him to push back. Not just any turf either—this belonged to the Fujimoto family. The same ones who paraded their daughter like a peace treaty. The same ones his grandfather hoped he'd marry into. For legacy. For politics. For power.

And Hanayama said no.

Now he's got 6 blocks, three clubs, and a warehouse with their family crest still half-painted over.

I watched the smoke rise from that warehouse last week. Watched the boys load out bodies that weren't ours. Didn't flinch. Didn't blink. That's what it is to follow him—loyalty, not softness.

Still, I'm not blind. The whole thing was a bloodbath.

This isn't about territory. Not really. This is him lashing out in the only language he was raised to speak: violence. He can't say what's eating him alive, so he lets his fists do it for him. Lets war make the decisions his heart won't.

He hasn't said her name at all

He doesn't have to. Every move he makes, every command he gives—it all traces back to her shadow. That girl. miss Sato . She's the silence in the room. The ghost in every punch he throws. He lets people think he's moved on. Hell, sometimes he even looks like he believes it himself.

But I know better.

I've known him since he was just a little boy without purpose. I've watched him carry more than any boy should. Watched him break ribs with one hand and carry groceries with the other. There's a heart under all that brutality. He just never learned how to protect it.

Until her.

And now that she's  gone? He's trying to kill off the part of himself that remembers.

The family's uneasy. The old men whisper behind their cigars. Some say he's losing control. Some say he's finally becoming the man his grandfather always wanted.

They're all wrong.

He's not becoming anything.

He's unraveling.

But here's the thing: when you make a life out of loyalty, you don't get to flinch when the man you follow starts walking toward fire.

You follow anyway.

I don't agree with all of it. I think he's burning more than bridges—I think he's burning parts of himself. But I made a promise. I follow him until the end.

Even if that end's already waiting at the door.

Rey's pov

I'd been avoiding the conversation for days.

Every time I looked at her, the words rose to my throat like acid and burned straight back down again.

"It's time. The godfather wants to meet you."

I couldn't say it.

Not when she was finally sleeping without waking up screaming.
Not when her eyes had finally started holding light again.
Not when I'd just started to believe she was safe here—with me. With us.