Married to the Mafia

Chapter 23

A week passed and my bruises faded to a light yellow. I had not returned to work or to my apartment since Nash and Haizaki knew about them both. The kindy did reopen but I hired more staff. I missed the kids but I was too afraid to go back there, Nash had tainted it and I longer wanted to be there. 

Mayuzumi brought over all my clothes and personal items from my apartment and moved it into Akashi's new bedroom. He had chosen not to take either his or my old room, part of him showing that this time it was different as we started off afresh. At night he only cuddled and kissed me, always watching to see my reactions and I was getting a little frustrated over the gentle treatment. Everyone treated me like I was some fragile thing that could break any minute but I couldn't blame them. I did wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night most nights, afraid that I was back in that horrible place and Akashi would just pull me close and soothe me back to sleep.

Even though I spent all my days and nights in the compound I was never lonely. Akashi spent as much time with me as he could but he did have work, both sides of his jobs but when he wasn't there someone else was. Kiyoshi and Aomine were always by my side. Kiyoshi had been sworn to me and Aomine had been ordered by Akashi to keep me safe. Murasakibara and Kise visited often between work and at night Kagami, Yui and Hyuga would come over too. I don't think I could ever get used to seeing the two policemen talk and laugh with everyone as if they all didn't live and work on opposite sides. It did give me faith though, that I had made the right choice, being with Akashi and living in the grey area with him.

The one dampener through my recovery was that Nash and Haizaki had not been sighted.

"Your up early Tetsu."

I handed Aomine a towel and bottle of water as he walked over to me. He had a thin layer of sweat on his skin and was barely breathing hard while those he had been training were either lying on the ground or pouring water over their heads. Today they were training outside despite the chill in the air. Aomine said a change of scenery was always good and he liked the cold air, said it made for a harder training session.

"I wanted to join in today."

He paused mid way from having his drink, staring at me over the top of the water bottle. I watched his eyes scan my body seeing the still visible bruises. 

"Are you healed enough?"

"They are just bruises, sure it will hurt if I get hit on top of one of them but it's not like I haven't gotten my fair share of bruises from you in our sessions before."

That caused him to smile and he reached out to ruffle my hair.

"Hey, you are the one who said you didn't want any special treatment. Start stretching and go for a warm up run and then you can join the next set."

Even though it had been a couple months I was glad that my fitness hadn't deteriorated too much. I was able to keep up and even came up as a victor most of the time against the men in the training group. I had always though it was cruel that Akashi and Midorima assigned the newbies to Aomine for training. It's not that he was mean but his training regime was hard. It had to be if they wanted to come back alive.

"You're good. I haven't seen you around before,  but you can't be fresh meat like us you talk to the captain like your old friends and those moves are just like his. Are you also a captain?"

I helped one of the guys to his feet and paused, shocked at the question. Is that how I was seen? I supposed to new people who didn't know my name would think so. Aomine sidled up, a huge wicked grin on his his face as he slung his arm around my shoulder.