Kiku followed Naoto down to the kitchen.

“He ran quite a distance,” Naoto said as they walked. “All the way from Suzuki’s flat. Barefoot, practically naked. Ryu heard someone pounding on the back door, and there he was.” He pushed open the door leading to the kitchen.

Kiku nodded his thanks and stepped in, already seeing a flash of shaggy hair. He paused at the scene.

Yuzo sat in a chair by the large stainless steel centre table. The white button down shirt he wore was pushed back over one shoulder while Basho, the cook at the White Tiger, was smearing cream over one side of Yuzo’s chest. Ryu knelt in front of Yuzo, his pink-dyed head bent over the task of wiping Yuzo’s bare feet gently with a wet cloth. A teapot and cup of tea already sat on the table beside Yuzo.

A flush of pride mingled with the foreboding Kiku already sensed. He’d trained his men well and they’d come a long way on the path of service and compassion from the basket cases each one had been in earlier years.

Ryu saw Kiku first. He looked up, hand freezing in mid-wipe of Yuzo’s left foot. “Kiku,” he said softly. He rose and stood aside, his eyes stricken. No doubt, Yuzo’s plight brought back Ryu’s own nightmarish rape by Suzuki at the tender age of seventeen. Unlike Yuzo however, Ryu had been innocently asleep in his own bed, only to awaken with Suzuki and one of his goons hovering over him.

Although Ryu had set Yuzo’s foot back down, the young man in the chair kept his gaze down, as if not noticing what was happening.

“He’s really hurt,” Ryu went on, his voice tight. “That’s why we disturbed you. We wouldn’t have—”

“You absolutely did the right thing.” Kiku touched Ryu’s shoulder briefly before approaching the chair. When he did, Basho moved away also, revealing the reason for his use of cream on Yuzo’s chest.

Kiku clenched his fists at his sides and stared at Suzuki’s name tattooed on the young man’s chest just under his right collarbone. The job was obviously freshly done, judging by the rawness of the skin around the marks as well as the darkness of the Nara ink, not blue-green as it would eventually turn.

“Suzuki held him down while his goon—” Ryu’s voice choked off.

“I understand.” Kiku’s own voice sounded tight to his ears. It was one thing to undergo the tattooing process by free choice as he and Ryu had done. Quite another to have it done as a branding, no matter how small the mark. Anger he hadn’t allowed himself to feel in years, rose up to choke his gorge.

Only then did Kiku notice the slight trembling of Yuzo’s shoulders. The young man’s face remained tilted downwards, causing the shagginess of his hair to hide his eyes as if he were afraid or ashamed to make eye contact.

Kiku didn’t wonder about that. Even a man in Yuzo’s shattered state had to understand the risk he’d taken as well as the grave danger he put anyone in who gave him shelter.

No matter. Kiku’s soul-driven need to protect always won out, especially when it concerned a victim of Suzuki’s depravity. He knelt down and studied Yuzo’s hunched over form.

Suzuki’s pernicious yang force roiled in the air around Yuzo, like a noxious stink that permeated the young man’s skin and hair. No telling what the rotten energy had done to Yuzo’s heart and soul from prolonged intimate exposure. Ryu still had nightmares ten years after the rape. Kiku shifted to the side and looked at the dark smudges on Yuzo’s throat, a distinct pattern of Suzuki’s fingertips. The bastard! “You’re safe now, Yuzo,” he said.

Yuzo’s ragged breathing made the bangs over his eyes ripple. His lips, full and pouty, were slightly parted and his neatly manicured hands clutched his knees so tightly, his knuckles were white.

At first, Kiku thought the man was in such shock he wouldn’t answer, but then Yuzo lifted his gaze and looked directly at him.

Large, liquid brown pools stared out from under thick heavy lashes. Kiku found himself staring back, disturbed at the sense of capture he experienced. He glanced away but felt drawn back, as if Yuzo’s silent will were stronger than any other force, and saw that the fear and horror in Yuzo’s eyes had already begun to ebb. “Thank you,” Yuzo whispered. Then, as if touched with a cattle prod, he sat up straighter, eyes wide. “I…I promise, Fuju, I won’t stay. I just needed to get away. Please believe me.”

Yes, Yuzo did understand. But there was something else in Yuzo’s words, something that gave Kiku a sense that Yuzo had been planning to escape Suzuki and take refuge here. No doubt a touch would tell him more.

“It’s all right.” He spoke to Yuzo as he would a frightened child. “I believe you.”

Carefully, so as not to startle Yuzo, Kiku took gentle hold of Yuzo’s arms over the white shirt. Suzuki’s shirt, no doubt, judging from the way it draped so largely over Yuzo’s slim form. Yuzo’s triceps, though also lean, were hard and sinewy against Kiku’s fingertips. “We’ll talk about that later, Yuzo-san,” he said softly. “For now, you’ll stay here.”

Yuzo’s large eyes were staring down into his unflinchingly and Kiku found himself studying every contour of the man’s face. The brush-like lashes, the shaggy way his dyed hair framed his delicately-boned face, the poutiness of his full lips as well as the barest hint of moustache on his upper lip. With his androgynous beauty and deep smooth voice, Yuzo was the image of the boy-band type that was wildly popular these days. What wasn’t androgynous was Yuzo’s slender body of lightly chiselled muscle. That was all male.

Kiku caught himself staring and silently chided himself. To be objectifying the man at a moment like this—

Wait. Where were the images? He always received impressions from touch within seconds, especially when a person was in the amount of distress Yuzo was in. Perhaps he’d been too distracted by Yuzo’s incredible physical beauty.

Trying again, Kiku brushed his thumbs over Yuzo’s biceps, also hard and as enticing as the rest of him. Nothing. Except for the familiar hum of emotional vibes he received from everyone around him—Yuzo’s fear, mingled with relief and the continuing burn of Suzuki’s raw, angry qi.

Kiku frowned. How was this possible? In his forty years of life he’d not met one human being whose soul he couldn’t see into. Could there possibly be…?

Never mind that, he continued to chide himself. No doubt, once he got Yuzo into the shower, naked with him, to cleanse him of Suzuki’s negative energy, the images would come. They always did. “Will you come upstairs with me?” he asked Yuzo. It was crucial the frightened man didn’t perceive any more threat to himself. “I must balance your qi immediately.”

Yuzo nodded. In spite of his trembling, a look of trust glistened through the fear in his huge eyes.

With hands still on Yuzo’s upper arms, he ushered Yuzo to a standing position. Someone, Ryu probably, had placed a set of hotel slippers with the White Tiger emblem printed on the tops on the floor by Yuzo’s chair. Ryu knelt down and put the slippers by the trembling man’s feet and made sure he slipped into them.

When Ryu had straightened, Kiku looked into his friend’s eyes. “Thank you, Ryu-chan.” He touched Ryu’s cheek, wishing there were time to comfort him as well. Then he turned and led Yuzo out of the kitchen, away from the small crowd of concerned men, up the elevator to the top floor where his bedroom was.

“I understand about qi,” Yuzo said after having been silent the whole way up. His voice sounded strange, faraway and light. His hand was limp in Kiku’s and he followed Kiku like a trusting child. “I read all about it on your pamphlet. I stole one while he wasn’t looking and studied it. I’ve been practicing, the breathing and everything. But I didn’t dare look at the website, even if Taro wasn’t around. If he found out, he’d have punished me. I’m sure he’d have punished me.”

A sick feeling sprang into Kiku’s gut as he slid open the soji screen to his bedroom. Yuzo was rambling, the way a person in shock did. While he’d been struggling to survive around Suzuki, he’d probably managed to hold himself together. Now, away from the yak and somewhere safe, all the stuff he’d been suppressing would probably come out.

“Come in here, Yuzo-chan,” he said gently, sliding the screen closed behind them. His eye fell on the bed. Someone had had the forethought to put on clean linens and straighten the covers, leaving the black comforter folded back in an inviting way. Maybe it had even been Chan Chan.

Without stopping, he led Yuzo into the tiny bathroom and flicked on the soft lighting before turning on the shower.

“I probably have too much yang, right?”

Yuzo’s voice made him turn. The smaller man’s eyes were wide as if being held open against his will. He was still trembling, causing the spiky bangs over his forehead to move against his smooth pale skin. “I need more yin, don’t I?”

Yuzo was definitely demonstrating a working knowledge of the life force concept, but now wasn’t the time for a new lesson. “Sort of,” Kiku answered softly. Truth was, Yuzo had too much of Suzuki’s yang and not enough yang from a gentle source. No doubt Yuzo’s own yang force had been drained out of him and would need to be replenished from a new source.
It was up to Kiku to help him achieve this balance.

Kiku turned on the shower. As the stream of water hissed in the background, he faced Yuzo once more. The young man hadn’t moved. Tentatively, Kiku reached out and began rubbing his shoulders gently over the white shirt. Kiku grimaced. Suzuki’s white shirt. Best to get that article of clothing off of Yuzo immediately. Even an inanimate object that belonged to Suzuki would be impregnated with his destructive energy. “I’m going to help you now with all of that, Yuzo-chan, with your permission, okay? I won’t do anything to you that you don’t want me to do. You can stop me anytime you want to.” As he spoke in a soft, murmuring tone, he continued his soft massage. The young man’s shoulder muscles felt tense.

Yuzo nodded. “I give my permission,” he said, never taking his eyes off Kiku. His voice still sounded manic, but the light of trust Kiku had seen earlier still shone past the shock in his demeanour and voice.

The look sent a strange tingle of energy over the surface of Kiku’s skin. He reached out and smoothed Yuzo’s hair back, resisting the sudden, overpowering urge to lean over and kiss him.

“Let’s get this shirt off.” He slid his hands inside the shirt and gently slipped it off Yuzo’s shoulders. He couldn’t help a quick intake of breath at the warm, silky feel of the young man’s skin.