Chapter 13
Chapter thirteen
The Power of Tears
Kenji
Whatever fucking horror circus my Tiger had planned this evening, I would be shutting it down.
Right as I was about to roar, she spoke, "I wanted the Claws to have a space for joy and a space for grief. To remember their loved ones—"
"They're dead. All of them." My jaw ached from how hard I was holding back my rage. "What the fuck is wrong with you? We don't need this. We were having fun."
“Kenji. . .”
Hiro screamed and Kaede rushed over to help the monks. And I couldn’t even look that way. To continue to witness my brother’s pain was to break.
Fracture.
Splinter.
If I kept my view away, I could save my soul from cracking.
My heart from breaking even more.
And my Tiger had done this. She’d fucking betrayed us.
Nyomi touched my arm.
I moved it away. "Answer me. What do you want from us? Our tears? Regret? Guilt?”
“No—”
“You want us to fucking go crazy tonight?”
“They’re not going crazy, Kenji. Tears are—”
“We are at war. We don't have time for tears."
"It's not just about tears, Kenji. It's about space."
I snarled. "Space?"
"Space to feel it." Her voice stayed infuriatingly steady. "So the pain doesn't own them later."
And now Daisuke was fucking crying and reaching out his hand to his baby sister. And it wasn’t right. It was so fucking wrong. This was not what all of us had come to this ballroom for. Daisuke’s hand went over his own mouth like he was trying to put all the sobs back in.
I ran both of my hands through my hair, unable to deal with this. “I’m stopping this whole party right now—”
“No, you’re not. This is my party—”
“Your party is breaking my men—”
"If we all don't process the grief, it will destroy us later—"
"If we sit in grief, it will weaken us."
"No."
"Tora—"
"They need to let it out. They need to cry—"
"Cry!?" My fists closed. I leaned forward putting my nose barely a few inches from hers. "You want my Claws to fucking shed tears?"
She did not flinch. "If the Claws keep their pain buried. . .it doesn't disappear. It rots. And one day it comes out in a way that even you can't control."
"These are my Claws. They're killers. Soldiers—"
"Look. I know that I haven't been in your world long enough—"
"You haven't—"
"But I know this." Her voice sharpened. "We’re in a war against your father. You want soldiers who can shoot and kill on command. I want men who remember why they're pulling the triggers."
The sentence sat in the air between us like a slap I could not return.
I hissed. "Don't ever overstep like this again."
Yet, she did not back down. "Don't call me your queen, then not expect me to do queen things."
I opened my mouth and then closed it.
The violin answered for me in sorrowful, trembling notes that rose in the air. The bow drew them out and then stretched them thin before cruelly breaking them.
Hiro’s sobbing lessened as the monks whispered prayers around him and even Kaede hugged my brother hard and gave him a sad smile.
Nyomi extended her hand to me. "Come with me."
I stiffened. “What?”
"Come on.”
“No.”
“Let's light candles for your mother. Your brother. And Hiroko."
I did not move.
"Kenji." She looked over at the pictures. "Your dragon is already over there.”
My teeth pressed together until I could feel my rapid pulse vibrating in my gums.
“He’s currently floating in front of the picture of your mother and his eyes are sad. At least go there for him."
I stared and believed her because even though I couldn’t see my dragon-shadow, I could feel my soul was already over there in front of those three pictures.
And for some reason. . .I looked at the twins’ mother. Her altar remained cold and dark. Her frame grinned back at me, cigarette between her fingers like a woman who had never once stopped to count the damage.
An ache moved through me, but it was not for her. It was for the boys who had built a mirror between them because she had not been safe to reflect.
Not all of the dead deserved a flame.
I put my view back on Hiroko, my mother, and my brother. A long sigh left me. My legs moved without asking me, and Nyomi led me across the room.
When we got to their altar, my legs gave and my knees hit the polished marble. It must have hurt, but I didn’t feel it.
Nyomi went down beside me.
My vision was blurring. My chest was doing things that I could not control. There was emotion and pressure there that I had not felt since I was a child.
She looked at me. “Do you want me to light the candles?”
“Yes.”
My Tiger did it, taking her time, lighting each one, and making the photographs glow.
When she was done, I whispered, "I don't want to cry in front of you."
"Why not?" She looked at me. "I love you so much. More than anything. I even love your tears."
I spoke through clenched teeth, "Tora. . ."
"Men cry."
"We are not men. We are parts of a dangerous beast."
"You are men." Her voice was so soft, so fucking tender. "And men laugh. Men protect. And men cry."
She looked up at Hiroko's picture. Tears slid down her face. "We all cry. That's part of being human."
I fought it. My jaw was locked so hard it ached into my molars. My throat had closed around a sound I refused to release. The pressure lived behind my eyes, in the hinge of my jaw, in the diaphragm beneath my ribs.
I held all three shut.
I stared at the candles. The flames. Anywhere but her face or those pictures.
Hiro sobbed and then I heard Reo crying too.
Goddamn it.
I was close to getting up and leaving not only that space, but the entire ballroom.
She spoke, "Would you like the biological reasoning for tears?"
Attempting to avoid crying, I nodded.
"When you get really sad, your brain knows it's too much."
I kept my eyes on the flames.
"So. . .your brain sends signals through your body. Your chest gets tight. Your throat closes. Your head feels heavy."
My jaw tightened.
"That's emotional pressure. And your body has a way to release it."
I exhaled slowly through my nose.
"Tears aren't just water. They carry stress chemicals."
I slowly looked at her. "What?"
"The tears have cortisol and hormones that act as natural pain relievers. It's all the things your body makes when you're overwhelmed."
I parted my lips.
"So, when you cry, you're not falling apart." She took my hand and squeezed it. "You're letting your body release that pressure to. . .heal your whole system."
I looked back at the flame.
"And to hold the tears in. To deny them. Well. . .that just rips the pain open further. Makes it worse. Makes you sick. Makes you go mad."
Silence stretched.
My first tear slid down my face before I understood it was coming.
I made no sound as I looked up at my mother.
I miss you and. . .sometimes that emptiness . . .the fact that I will never see you again. . .it is hard to understand.
A second tear left my eye.
Maybe more.
It had been so long since I’d gazed at a picture of my mother for more than a few seconds.
I miss you. I fucking MISS you!
Shivering, I looked at Jobon’s picture and then Hiroko’s. No words formed in my head, yet more tears came.
They’re watching the Dragon weaken. Surely they are. . .
I couldn’t see the Claws, but I felt their gazes on me. Or maybe that was just what I told myself.
Nyomi's arms went around me, and I let her hold me.
How could she be so calm as dangerous men broke around her?
My head dropped against her shoulder. And the Dragon of Japan cried into his woman's collarbone like a boy who had lost everything and only just now been allowed to realize it. “D-damn you, Tora. . .Damn you.”
And then. . .I thought of the sentence from the book I’d found within my mother’s belongings, the line that had been living in my chest since earlier that day. . .
“To become something powerful, you must first be buried."