Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
A Hard Discussion
Nyomi
Kenji's hands stayed on my waist. The miniature Tokyo glowed beside us, the red cord from the performance still draped across some rooftops like rivers of silk blood.
He spoke, "First. . .you have to understand me."
I held his gaze.
"I never chose this life, Tora. It was handed to me after my mother and brother were killed. After my father was destroyed by grief. By rage. By revenge."
My chest ached. I'd known pieces of this story from headlines I'd researched late at night. But hearing it from his mouth. . .
"I was a football star." His lips curved, just barely. "I was known. I had my own path. My own future." The curve disappeared. "And then my father put me on the throne."
"Because he needed you?"
"Because he needed a puppet." His jaw tightened. "He was battered from the bomb attack and he knew his men would only take orders from a strong leader. I was younger. Healthy. The perfect figurehead."
His eyes darkened. "But I was only supposed to follow his commands. Speak his words. Rule as his shadow."
"What happened?"
"I refused to take the throne."
I tensed.
"We fought about it for weeks. But when I finally agreed to take the throne, I had one condition." Kenji leaned closer. "My brother Hiro would stand at my left. Reo at my right. His men could not surround me. Only mine could."
"And he agreed?"
"He had no choice. I told him I wouldn't do it otherwise. So, he accepted." Kenji sighed. "And from that moment, every day has been a war. Against our enemies. Against him. Against his way of ruling."
For the first time since we’d reunited, the dragon-shadow rose behind him.
I parted my lips.
It rose slowly.
Dark and wispy.
It didn't look mean or menacing like this morning. It actually appeared thoughtful as if the dragon-shadow wondered if I would really understand.
"I've done things, Tora. Things that devastated my soul. Things that made it hard to look in the mirror." Kenji paused.
I placed my hand on his lap.
“Sometimes I think my mother's ghost is with me. Watching. Sometimes. . .I think her ghost is disappointed." His eyes drifted while he spoke.
Down from my eyes to my throat.
To the marks he'd left along my neck and shoulder.
He stared at them for a beat too long. Like they grounded him. Like seeing his claim on my skin reminded him that whatever ghosts haunted him, I was real.
I was here.
I was his.
Then his gaze lifted back to mine, and he kept talking.
But the bites pulsed warm where his eyes had been.
My hand left his, moved up to his chest, and pressed against his heart. “Your mother is not disappointed. She knew your father and this world. She understands the sacrifices you’ve had to make to survive.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am.”
"Yet. . ." The dragon-shadow coiled off to the side and watched me with this searing intensity. "Regardless of if she is disappointed or not. . .I will kill tomorrow. And the day after. I will do whatever it takes to protect this throne I never wanted. Because now?"
I widened my eyes.
He raised his hand and placed his fingers over my hand that was over his heart. "Now this throne, this power, and the death that comes with it. . .it's all within me.”
The dragon-shadow sneered.
I shivered.
"And due to that. . .I rule my way. I will win this war my way. And now. . ." He cupped my face with his free hand. "Now I am guaranteed victory with you at my side. Along with my brother and Reo."
His thumb gently traced my cheekbone, yet his next words were steel. "But you must understand, Tora. I cannot ask for permission."
And then his grip on my hand covering his heart, tightened. "I never asked permission from my father. Not from Hiro. Not from Reo." His eyes burned into mine. "And it won’t be from you either, even though you are my heart."
The words should have stung.
They didn't.
They landed hot. Right at the base of my spine. Because there was something in the way he said it—the absolute certainty, the zero hesitation—that my body read as the same alpha energy he always brought to bed when he wrecked my body.
The Dragon didn't ask for permission there either.
And I'd never once wanted him to.
Meanwhile, the dragon-shadow’s sneer relaxed.
Kenji leaned his head to the side. "Do you understand?"
I looked at him. This man who had confessed his sins and his sorrows in the same breath. Who had shown me his wounds and his walls. Who was telling me, in terms as clear as glass, that I would never have veto power over the Dragon.
And somehow, that clarity felt like freedom.
"I do." I nodded slowly. "I understand."
He studied my face for a long time, and I wasn’t sure if he was searching for any doubt or hesitation.
I swallowed. "It took me a while today to even understand. Honestly. . .it really was spending time with your brother that opened my eyes to the reality of all of this."
His brow furrowed. "My brother talked to you about this?"
"Yes." With my free hand, I raised it to my face and squeezed his hand against my cheek. "And I want to be vulnerable with you too. The way you just were with me."
“Go ahead, Tora.”
“Demanding that you ask for my permission wasn’t just about power, it was about.
. .well. . .I wanted to help carry the grief with you.
" I sighed. "I saw what you went through last night.
Everything you carried after you tortured Sako and the others.
Everything you faced. And I wanted to be there for you. I wanted to help shoulder it. . ."
Kenji closed his eyes.
He was still for a moment.
Just breathing. His hand still cradling my face, his chest rising and falling beneath my palm. And I watched the emotion move through him—the realization that someone wanted to carry his pain with him.
That I wanted to.
When he opened his eyes, they were watery. “Tora. . .”
I wanted to look away, but I kept my focus on him.
"You can help me carry the grief in other ways. Just by being here."
"I could do more."
"And you will. Hold me when I need you like you did last night and let me hold you.
" His thumb stroked my jaw. "Let me smell you.
Breathing you calms me. Kissing you gives me peace.
Loving you gives me purpose." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine.
"That's enough, Tora. That alone, eases everything. "
To prove it, he leaned forward and pressed his face into my neck. Right into the curve where my pulse beat.
He inhaled.
Long.
Slow.
Deep.
Like he was drawing my soul into his lungs.
My eyes fluttered shut. My hand slid from his chest to the back of his head, fingers curling into his damp hair.
He exhaled against my skin, and the warmth spread down my neck, across my collarbone, and settled in my chest like a second heartbeat.
"See?" he murmured against my throat. "Peace."
I held him there.
Let him breathe me in some more.
Let the moment be quiet and full.
My heart swelled.
The dragon-shadow watched us.
Still.
Silent.
Present.
"Kenji. . .”
“Yes.”
“I also realized something else today."
He lifted his head from mine. “What did you realize, Tora?”
“I was trying to teach you when I should have been learning. I was making demands like I had the authority to make them." Heat rose to my cheeks. "I made a mistake this morning. I shouldn’t have."
"No." Firmer now. He lifted my hand from his chest and pressed his lips to my knuckles. "We're human, Tora. We all make mistakes."
"But I don't want to make mistakes with you. I want to do this right."
“That’s impossible.” His thumb brushed my jaw. "We're human. The best parts of us are our imperfections and mistakes."
I leaned into his touch and let his words settle into my bones.
"You are so smart. So intelligent. So vital to me.
" His hand slid to the back of my neck, cradling it.
"And today I learned from the Lion that many of the spies in that pyre were also his spies too. Apparently, the extra pay off from my father wasn’t enough.
They got greedy and started feeding the Lion information too. "
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"You exposed them, Tora. You. Your presence. Your questions. Your instincts. That makes you even more important than you ever were."
I tried to process this.
"Which is why. . .I am glad you did make a demand.”
“Why?”
Kenji moved his hands away from me and then gestured to the 4D Tokyo. “I sit on my throne and control this empire.”
I looked back at it—this massive, bustling city, and now understood that we weren’t just eating in his war room for romance or aesthetics either.
He was using every facet to speak to me—our surroundings, his attire, even the food, probably even the performance.
I took in the space with new eyes, and he waited, clearly wanting me to understand it all on my own. I stared at the red cord draped across the buildings.
In the performance, the woman had stood between two forces, not choosing either—trying to exist in the middle.
And that was what destroyed her. Not the swords. The impossibility of being torn in two.
I lifted my gaze back to Kenji, understanding settling into my bones.
This wasn’t about men.
It was about worlds.
And I was the woman caught between them.
I looked back at him. “You want me to choose you and your world. Leave mine.”
“You can’t be on both sides anymore, Tora. You’re my Heart now.”
“It sounds like you’re choosing for me.”
“No. Yet, there is no other option. What other choice could you make?”
Because you would never let me walk away. . .
And somehow, that didn't scare me.
It should have. Any sane woman would have felt the walls closing in. But I didn't feel trapped. I felt chosen. Claimed by a man who would burn the world before he lost me.
Surely, there were worse prisons than the arms of a Dragon.
His gaze softened. “And. . .I believe it's time that you have a throne, one that should sit right next to me."
"A throne?"