Dirty, Dirty Liars [Mature/Editing]

[10] 十

A/N: The following chapter contains mentions of blood. If you are squeamish, you may want to avoid the portion between the first and second page breaks. 

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Tokyo was growing on me. I felt less lost and less like a stranger every week, but that's because Ryuzo and I were together. All the time.

The more time that passed, the easier it got. We got on the same schedule, spending more time together, having sex almost every night.

I never asked about the Yakuza, or what they did, but it seeped so much into the rest of his life. The way he behaved around his brothers, the way he drew a hard line around anything related to business, that haunted gaze that only seemed to fade when he looked at me. 

We were so comfortable with each other, we made each other happy, and he made me feel safe. That was all that mattered. If he wanted to tell me, he would.

One day, we slept too late and he had to sneak out while the landlady was there. She caught me on my way to work later that day.

She was a small woman who had to be in her late sixties. The lovely grandmother type who would feed you three times over and still insist you should eat more. She talked to me as if I were her daughter, just like the other girls staying in the building. That day, I was in trouble.

She took me by the arm and pulled me close. "He is bad man," she scolded me in the best English she could muster. I knew she was talking about Ryuzo. "You are good girl. Good girls do not be with bad men."

I knew the walls were thin, and we were not quiet. I had already caught looks from the other tenants. The Slutty American Girl and the Gang Member was the new K-Drama living in their heads rent free. But I didn't mind. Nothing I did would make me fit in with the status quo here. I wanted to go to work, get paid, and get laid.

He wasn't a bad man — at least he wasn't to me. And I was most definitely not a good girl.

. . .

When I got to the hospital the next day, something unexpected happened.

I walked into a scene down the hall from the ER. Nurses from another team stood outside the room, looking frightened. I didn't know what was wrong until I looked inside. The patient was in a horrible state, every alarm going off from the massive injuries they suffered. Blood dripped from his tattooed arm onto the floor.

Ayumi stood there, so I went to her. "Why is no one helping?" I asked.

"The patient is Yakuza," Ayumi whispered. Her eyes darted behind me. I followed them, seeing the men in bloodied suits watching the crowd. "People are afraid that if they are there when he dies, they will come for their families."

That didn't scare me.

Without pause, I went into the room. The doctor and lead nurse looked surprised but thankful. "How can I help?" I asked. What were they going to do? Come after a virtually orphaned American working for an international company?

The doctor instructed the nurse to remove the compression. Blood flowed immediately.

It was a gunshot wound. I hadn't seen one since I had left the States. Back home, I hadn't worked in an emergency department long, but even in my short time, we saw them once a week, if not once a day. But it was different in Japan. There were strict regulations on both guns and ammunition that required both to be registered. The only ones who seemed to own them were the police and the Yakuza.

Tattoos covered the man's chest and arms, but the rest of him laid bare. He was young, and must have been a newer member — too early to be deep enough to get shot.