Darker Than Love

THE WOMAN WITHOUT A TRACE

It's still quite dark outside, but the morning has already come as Kenji Yanagi quietly gets out of the bed, careful not to wake the sleeping form of the beautiful woman lying beside him. She's too deep in her sleep that it's almost too tempting to jump right back and gather her in his arms once more. Kenji could not even help but wonder if she has ever really been the slightest bit scared to easily let her guard down just like this.

The mere fact that they had literally slept next to each other and on top of that, Kenji has been naked beside her, is certainly some kind of development there. But it still is not something even better knowing now. Especially when she had just tried to assassinate him the other night—something he still feels all sorts of suspicious about—considering that he had also recently wrapped her whole warm body with his arms for one whole night without even thinking.

Well, he is a man after all. And it has been very long since the last he had gotten some company under the covers as well. Maybe, it is about time that he really ought to find some kind of s****l release at some point in this coming week... Just to possibly let off some steam and decrease the tension burning his insides, especially if he's seriously planning on keeping this woman right here in his territory.

But then, what's really the point of even getting over the trouble of having her confined here with him? Isn't it a bit too far of a stretch to actually have this woman on the same bed where he also sleeps?

Certainly, there is still something he needs to know about her. And most likely, that something is just more than what she has tried to do beforehand. Though amusing to actually find that Cherry looks like she's just even much more delighted as she quickly settles so comfortably in his own place, it's pretty obvious that she's not daring to give him the satisfaction of intimidating her, in the very least. Despite the fact that she would have most likely to live in the dangerous premises with the very man she had also threatened to kill not too long ago.

For anybody else, no one would ever really feel safe at this point. Well, not much of a surprise there, as well. Cherry's surely a peculiar brave woman, considering how she had even acted in front of him the first time he met her.

She genuinely does not care at all. And conveniently, Kenji is not even a little bit disappointed to find that she doesn't even feel scared nor a bit threatened with this. She's just strangely compliant, though this is also not something Kenji should never turn a blind eye to. But he does truly like the novelty she is bringing him. It is entirely interesting and refreshing for a cause.

It feels as if her mere presence has finally broken the evergrowing silence that had continued to fill the entire spaces of his own house. And now that she's here, it's also gradually being invaded with her warmth and scent... Which is quite not half good nor half any bad on different levels, depending on how Kenji wants to see it.

But then, it makes no sense to even mull over the entire idea, since it's just something that has naturally changed the cold aura in his house. Nevertheless, there are still more days and months to come for him. And things could still change... In so many possible ways.

It takes him a moment before Kenji comes back from his trance, distracted by the slight stirring of Cherry when she softly moans incoherently and moves over the bed. He merely smiles as he brushes the long hair that has fallen to the side of Cherry's face and he continues to watch her until she turns subconsciously in the opposite direction, still asleep with now her back facing him.

She's so open and very careless for a woman so brave and determined to kill him. Yet Kenji just stands up after that, driving off all his illicit thoughts that have been uncontrollably triggered from staring too hard at her defenseless luscious body.

The stillness of the room continues to blend with the shuffling sounds Kenji makes as he blindly moves away from the bed. He does not even mind flaunting his naked body as he saunters across the room and picks up a velour bathrobe on his way that has been laid over a brown leather armchair in front of a nightstand and leisurely covers himself with that. He then notices the dark figure of his right-hand, Jin, just looming on the corner near the elevator doors.

They could not really see each other's faces that clearly because of the darkness, but Kenji could faintly make out the figure of the quiet man bowing towards him even across the dim-lit space of the living area as soon as he starts walking towards Jin's direction.

"You need to sleep, Jin."

It has been one hell of a weekend, and even though Jin Sasai has been thoroughly trained and is already used to keeping a close watch on their enemies while also not sleeping too much, Kenji knew that the guy is still merely human at the end of the day. He certainly needs to recharge himself. After all, they're not getting any younger now. For them to get through the next few weeks until the promotion day, Jin Sasai would have to be on top of his health.

"You have to sleep," Kenji repeats, just to emphasize his order again because he knows Jin is a little stubborn when it comes to letting go of his post.

The silent guy just obediently nods his head to Kenji's simple order, meekly trying to give what the young boss would want as a response, and allows Kenji Yanagi to pass him by as he stops just in front of the elevator doors. They finally get a clearer view of each other's faces after being a few steps closer now, and Kenji gives Jin a sharp stare.

"I'll order someone in your place for today. I want you to take this whole day off in the meantime. Get as much sleep as you want," Kenji elaborately orders again for one more time just when the elevator also opens. He soon enters it immediately and turns around to face Jin.

"Take care, Boss," the submissive guy just courteously responds to his boss, giving him one last bow just as the doors begin to close in with Kenji inside.

It's one thing that Yanagi is still deliberately letting the woman stay in his own territory for an unknown reason. Jin has still been left with no clue because they still hadn't talked about this for the past few days. But as the silent young man eventually returns to his spot near the silent corner of the place while still keeping a sharp eye towards the sleeping form of Cherry on the bed across the room, Jin inwardly gives it another thought.

It's another thing that Kenji Yanagi is also asking Jin to rest for some time now, indirectly telling him to leave the woman alone in here... As if the big Boss has just suddenly felt like she isn't a threat anymore. But guessing it that way, Jin quickly feels even more troubled about if that were the case.

All the more reason for him to keep a much closer watch on this mysterious woman named Cherry.

_________________________________

It's just f*****g SIX in the morning.

The sky is still barely awake with the heavy clouds surrounding its atmosphere, indicating potential rains nearing the end of the autumn season to cover up most of Tokyo. Sakamoto yawns so loudly as he stretches his arms and leans his back on his desk chair with the sudden growl of his groaning voice filling in the entire silence of his huge office on the top floor of a five-story upscale building in the middle of the modish and colorful busy districts surrounding the extent of Shibuya City.

He has only gotten a little over three hours of sleep right after having a surmountable blast from a juicy investigation he had quickly conducted the previous night. Well, it's not that he's complaining about anything else. The tough effort has surely rewarded him with something even more worthy of the deprivation and exhaustion he has endured for the past several hours.

In fact, it has been the very first time he has really gotten the deets this fast that it has only taken him shortly within the first twenty-four hours of receiving an order from the boss. Most of the time, it would have taken him days, and days, before he could even put his hands on something he had really wanted.

The subject's name this time is Cherry. That is her screen name and what would most of her customers have called her.

She's quite famous and fairly known to be one of the top beauties within the big and flashy red-light district (Kabukicho) of Tokyo. She's also a really expensive choice and a top-tier hostess at Pandora's Club. But she's also surprisingly new to the business since she has only started to work in the club eight months ago.

Seemingly an average simple woman, she also lives alone in a small studio-type apartment. She resides in a small neighborhood in the west of Shinjuku, within the district of Koenji. And just prior to being employed in Pandora's Club, she used to work first as a full-time waitress for five years in a middle-scale restaurant in the business area of Suginami.

Her real name is Aoi Chiba. There's nothing else there that could eventually pinpoint a much more distant part of her origins other than she had just moved to live independently in Tokyo shortly after she had graduated from her secondary school. She is believed to be just roughly around her late twenties. Her hometown is still unknown, as well as the date of her birth.

With this enough gathered information, Sakamoto knew he has already gotten more than enough leads for Yanagi to be satisfied. And if the big Boss is really planning to delve any much deeper than this, it would be much easier now that they have already recorded fair reasonable evidence about her identity. Yet it still felt strangely odd that when Sakamoto has tried to squeeze out more stuff from the supposed to be "informant", only too little remains in regards to where Aoi Chiba, aka "Cherry", had really come from.

But then, there's still the help of the digital means, but Sakamoto doubts it would even potentially lead them to anything even more worthwhile to take note of.

She's totally pretty harmless and she might just as well be another small peculiar case. Initially, that's what Sakamoto thinks of it. But he must admit, it somehow smells really fishy, even for a veteran like Sakamoto, that all these details provided by the "squeak" he had caught have been too instantaneously easy for him to find out. It was really too simple.

He got the stupid "squeak" on chokehold and the i***t had quickly surrendered everything he knew about the woman. And this is what actually gives Sakamoto a feeling that there is still something more that he has missed about this investigation.

It's strange enough that there is suddenly a woman who just wants to kill the Big Boss in the middle of the critical 'executive promotion' and when the murder insufficiently failed right on the spot, the said woman just quickly confessed about it too... as if it was some kind of a terrible joke. And miraculously, she's still actually alive. But it sure is even much stranger that a member of another Yakuza family in the Dojima clan would be the one to know so much about her and just deliberately give Sakamoto all this information as if pushing him to go ahead and relay it so blatantly to Kenji Yanagi...

Circumstantially, Sakamoto might just be overthinking too much again, but his long time of working as a part of the Yakuza has already taught him so much about not fully trusting some "squeak" just because he had given quite the useful data.

Perhaps, it's something Sakamoto will no longer have anything to do with now. Yanagi could just decide for himself here what he would do next...

And with that thought, Sakamoto steadily reaches out for his phone lying on top of the desk in front of him. Man, he really wants to get this whole thing over and done so he could finally get some comfortable sleep on a bed. He tries to rub his temples as he starts to press on the speed dial on his phone to call Kenji Yanagi's number.

The dusky morning light is also starting to illuminate through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind Sakamoto, signaling a cloudy start of the day. The shadows of the rain droplets showering from outside are also dripping down against the glass, creating an animated blur of its movements on the floor across the room.

Sakamoto finally hears the first ringing of the call from his ear as he casually taps his fingers on the desk. And just when the ringing finally stops, confirming that somebody has finally answered from the other end, something suddenly cuts the call off.

At this point, things are finally about to take a huge turn.

And it's not something you would want to know much more about.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------