Desperate Obsession

by KatiKat


I remember the first day I met him clearly...

It was early morning. The sun was shining and sakura petals were dancing in the wind. Everything looked so peaceful and quiet...

But still - everything changed on that day and nothing had been the same ever since...

If I had known... If I had known maybe I would have killed him right then and there...

Or maybe... maybe I wouldn´t have after all...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I don´t know what it was about him that turned the heads of our men but they fell for him. Maybe it was his happy smile. Maybe his beautiful violet eyes. Maybe his long shining hair...

It began the moment my step-father, Odin Lowe, hired him as his "bodyguard" as he used to call the men that did the dirty work for him. He said our "organization" - what a lovely name for a yakuza clan - needed a man of his "qualities". Even though I was the second in command after Odin, I never found out what his "qualities" were. He didn´t tell me and I didn´t ask. This was the way things worked in this business. To be too curious meant to play with fire.

I watched them fall for him. Every man, every woman. They would have done everything for his smile, his touch. I knew he slept with them. Maybe just with some, maybe with all of them. I didn´t ask. As long as it didn´t interfere with their jobs it was their business.

He even tried his luck with me, but I refused. I still remember his surprised look. I was probably the first one who turned down his offer of a one-night-stand. It wasn´t that I didn´t feel attracted to him, that I didn´t desire him. It was just... something about him struck me as odd. Maybe it was the hard edge under all those
seductive smiles. My rejection didn´t stop him from coming on to me over and over again and I had to wonder if this was still just a game for him or if there was something deeper behind it. And with every time he came back it was harder and harder to refuse...

But then the killing started. One after the other, our men began to die. Some of the killings were clean. Others were pretty messy and the victim must have died slowly, and in a great deal of pain. Four men died in one week and we still didn´t have a clue about who was the killer. The cops tried to find him too, but they had as much luck as we did. No one knew anything, no one had seen anything. Odin was getting nervous, and when he was nervous he screamed. He did that a lot back then. He demanded for me to find the killer immediately. But when I asked him about how I was supposed to do that, he didn´t know.

I don´t know what exactly brought my attention to our longhaired beauty. Maybe it was just because he smiled a lot. There were too many smiles for such a dangerous situation as ours was. The bad feeling I had about him intensified. But at the same time it warred with my desire for him. Desire I tried to force down. I was becoming obsessed with him, my obsession bordering on desperation to have him no matter what, no matter what suspicions I had. My whole body ached
to touch him every time I got near him.

But in the end I found out the truth...

It was him... He was the killer... He was the enemy among us...

I followed him one night. He had been careful, really careful and still I got lucky. I saw him leaving the house of Odin´s third in command. I wasn´t surprised at all when I found a dead body in there. His throat was slashed and he bled to death.

I don´t know what I felt in that moment. Anger, hate, coldness. But even under all that, a selfish desire for the traitor simmered. And I hated him. And myself just as badly.

My father didn´t take the news well. He didn´t believe me at first. I would have never believed that even he got caught in the net of the beautiful traitor. In the end he ordered me to kill him. As the heir to our clan, I should be the one who took revenge. And I went...

It was easy to find him. He waited for me in our dojo. He knew and he understood. He knew what yakuza did to traitors. And still... he laughed. His laugh wasn´t full of the fake happiness that I got used to hearing from him. It was cold and calculating and mad. His voice dripped with such hate when he told me why he did it, when he explained the tragic history of one unimportant church in one unimportant town that got caught in the middle of a yakuza war, that was set on fire by our clan to get rid of the evidence. He told me about the children and a priest and a nun who were trapped inside when the burning roof collapsed. He told me about their screams, about how they - the only family he had known - died in the most painful of deaths. He told me about how he executed the men who did it, one after the other and that if I wouldn´t stop him he would kill us all.

And I knew he had to be stopped.

And so we fought - with knives, bare hands, swords we grabbed from the wall of the dojo. He was good but I was better and the result was the only possible there could be. It ended with him kneeling in front of me holding his broken sword and me raising my own for the final strike. And when our eyes met, I saw everything he could have been, everything he had lost and everything he would lose.

And I struck down with all my strength. He had to be punished. It was a matter of clan´s honor after all...

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A year has passed and the sakura petals are dancing in the wind again. So much has changed but some things stay the same after all.

I lay on the futon on the floor and gaze out of the open sliding door into the small traditional Japanese garden behind the house. I´m sure Odin doesn´t know about this place. I´m so sure that I feel safe for the first time in almost an year. Safe... the word got a whole new meaning for me in the past months. I´ve never before understood what exactly it meant to be safe.

I look down at the lean form sleeping snuggled to my site. His head is lying on my chest and he is still sound asleep. His long hair is fanned around us and his face is finally at peace. His revenge didn´t go as he intended but it was a success in the end. He managed to destroy the clan after all. Not through the killings but through making the heir into a traitor, escape with him and manage to stay alive.

I am a traitor. I betrayed my people for my own selfish desire and obsession.

I stroke his back and he snuggles closer to me. I raise my left hand and touch the stump of his right arm that ends at his elbow. It has healed a long time ago but it will always serve as a reminder. He killed my people, my friends. Some of them were guilty of the crimes he accused them of, some weren´t. And even though I understood his motives, he needed to be punished. So I took his arm. He will never be able to wield a sword or fire a gun again. Instead of taking his life, I took away his ability to fight and I know he still hates me for that. He is getting stronger with his other arm but he will always have to fight with a disadvantage from now on. And somehow with his arm, his willingness to fight left him too. I´m not naive. I know that he is still dangerous, that if I gave him the chance he would return to finish his job. Even if it would cost his own life. And I´m not prepared to risk *that*.

I don´t know what will happen to us. Odin and the rest of his men are still looking for us. Our heads are the only way to stabilize his position again. He won´t give up. He can´t. If he gave up he could just as well commit suicide. It would mean to admit defeat. And yakuza aren´t fond of losers.

I push the bangs from his face and caress his cheek. He is beautiful. Now more than ever. The burning desire still simmers just under the surface every time I touch him. I don´t know what the thing we have between us is. Is it sex? Is it obsession...? It runs deep, we have it in our blood. We are bound together through hate and anger and desperation. We can´t live without each other but I know that if the situation occured we would kill each other. It would hurt and burn, the survivor´s life would be dull and useless and cold until he too ended his life with his own hand.

Is it love? I don´t know. I´ve never loved before. But I know one thing for sure...

The desperate obsession we share is the only thing we have left.

The End