Page 65 of Brutal Union
I snap my right arm to the front, the heel of my palm slamming into the wood, just as Bhon’s whip cracks across my spine. I hiss, my eyes darting to his blank stare.
“You moved your hips,” he shrugs. “You will be one man versus a never-ending onslaught of Yakuza men. Your hips can’t move when you don’t want them to.”
The sting burns straight to my ribs, but I bite down the sound trying to claw its way out of my throat.
My body is soaked in sweat, muscles trembling like faulty wiring. The wood in front of me is dented from repeated strikes, stained red where my palms bled earlier. But I don’t stop.
“You’re losing tempo,” Bhon calls again, stepping closer now. “Again.”
I move. Slower this time. More precise. One motion flows into the next.
Strike. Step. Twist. Hold. Again.
“You think they’ll wait for you to catch your breath?” His voice is a cold sneer that crawls across my flesh like a burn. “They will eat you alive, still. Three years of training and you are still a sloppy mess.”
I push myself harder, eyes focused on the tattered bark in front of me. “You’re a fucking liar and you know it.”
Bhon chuckles, the slick sound of a whip follows, but I lean back escaping the tip by centimeters.
“You’re too cocky.” He comments, walking around the back of the tree, just as the sound of the shoji door opening behind him.
“Are you boys done playing?” Aoi sighs. Her robe hangs loose off one shoulder, silk slipping down her collarbone. She doesn’t flinch under my stare—just yawns and stretches like a cat after a midday feeding and a lazy afternoon nap.
“Only if you’re done playing,” Bhon says simply.
Aoi leans against the door frame, a lazy smile on her face as she stares at Bhon with a fondness I never thought she was capable of. “I am never done playing. I thought you knew that.”
I smirk, moving through the next movement. Bhon’s blank stare flashes at the tease, and he barks his next command. “Break.”
I collapse to my knees, chest heaving, sweat dripping from my jaw to the dirt floor. My back throbs where the whip landed. Aoi walks past me, offering a faint, smug smile. Her robe sways with each step. The scent of her—coconut milk and jasmine—drifts behind her like the temptation she has craved herself into being.
“Get water,” Bhon says without looking at me. “Because after this, we do blades.”
I drag myself toward the tin cup and hot steel sink just outside the house, my mind racing faster than my heartbeat. My mind is clearer than it has been in months, and despite the growing urge to think about her. The compulsion to hear the melancholy purr of her voice.
I drop down into a squat as I fill the tin cup up with barely consumable water. I swallow each drop of the lukewarm water with the hope that today will result in the first day I can breathe without the gnawing gap in my chest wishing to beat again.
I won’t dare say her name, but to myself, my mind calls to her.Nadia. Hime.The first woman I have ever loved. The last woman I have ever loved. The woman who was going to sell me back to the Yakuza for the revenge of her father.
When I first left her she called insistently. She flew to Japan and frequented the darkest corners of the country. She even tracked down my best friend Nickel in Osaka, and camped out at the Onsen for a couple of days. She did everything, but apologized. Refused to beg. Did everything in her power not to beg me, and I hate that I love her for it.
“Stop thinking about her,” Aoi yawns, leaning against the cool exterior of the house. Her arms are crossed over her chest with a look of pure boredom on her face.
I pause, swaying in my squat as I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “I wasn’t thinking about her.”
“You’re a liar,” Aoi sings, plopping down on the concrete step just outside the front door of the house. Her kimono flares around her like waves.
In another life, I wouldn’t have been foolish enough to lay with my enemy. I would have stayed with Aoi, and made do with never feeling the all consuming heat of being infatuated with a girl who I could never quite have. But in this life, I choose to walk into the icy shackles of Nadia’s gaze and Aoi has fallen madly in love with Bhon, their empty gazes and tendencies towards murder draw them closer and closer together.
I push back and fall onto my butt, the impact jarring but nothing compared to what’s churning in my chest. “I do not want to think of her.”
“Then do not,” Aoi sighs, tossing her midnight hair over her shoulder with deliberate ease.
“If it were that simple, I would’ve cut her from my mind and burned the scraps.” I snarl, my gaze drifting to the tips of my fingernails grazing the dirt beneath me. “Not everyone can be like you and Bhon—soulless. In control. ”Utterly in love.
Aoi chuckles, the sound soft and cutting. “I think you were a fool for loving her.”
“Are we stating facts now?” I roll my eyes, plucking a blade of grass and rolling it between my fingertips like it could tether me to something sane.
