Secrets and Solace

Riku checked his watch. Twenty minutes had passed since Yua excused herself. The dessert sat untouched, wine growing warm in abandoned glasses.

Something was wrong.

He signaled the waiter, left cash on the table, and made his way toward the restrooms. The hallway was empty, elegant in its minimalist design, but he could hear something that made his chest tighten.

Soft crying.

He found her in the small lounge area adjacent to the women's restroom, sitting on a velvet bench with her head in her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent sobs, and for a moment, he couldn't reconcile this broken woman with the commanding CEO who'd dominated the Ministry meeting hours earlier.

"Yua."

She looked up, mascara smudged, eyes red and vulnerable in a way that made his heart ache. She tried to compose herself, tried to summon that professional mask, but it was shattered beyond repair.

"I'm so tired, Riku," she whispered. "I'm so tired of being strong."

She stepped forward....then all at once, collapsed into his arms, clinging to him with desperate intensity. Her body trembled against his chest, and he could feel her tears soaking through his shirt.

For a moment, he stood frozen, unsure. Then instinct took over...not the enhanced awareness of his abilities, but something deeper, more human. His arms closed around her, one hand stroking her hair while the other held her steady.

"It's okay," he murmured. "Whatever it is, it's going to be okay. You can tell me."

She stayed there, breathing him in like he was oxygen, until the shaking stopped and her breathing steadied.

"I can't go home tonight," she said finally, her voice muffled against his chest.

"Then you won't."

___

Twenty minutes later, Riku was speaking quietly with the concierge while Yua sat curled in an oversized leather chair, like a guest in someone else's life.

"We have a suite available," the woman said professionally. "Executive level, separate sitting area."

"Perfect."

The room was elegant and spacious, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Yua sat on the edge of the sofa, hands folded in her lap, staring at nothing.

Riku poured water from the mini-bar and sat across from her, close enough to offer comfort but far enough to give her space.

"Whenever you're ready," he said simply.

She looked at him then, really looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Something shifted in her expression...a decision being made.

"I didn't want to pull you into this," she began, her voice steadier now. "But after tonight, I think you deserve to know what's really going on."

His enhanced awareness picked up the subtle changes, the way her pulse quickened, how her hands trembled slightly before she clasped them tighter. Whatever she was about to tell him, it scared her more than crying in his arms had.

"You remember the board meeting last week?" she continued. "When I announced your promotion to Vice President?"

Riku nodded. He remembered Kenji's face that day...the barely contained rage, the way his knuckles had gone white gripping his portfolio.

"Kenji didn't just object because he wanted the position himself. He's been... watching us. Watching how we interact, how I look at you, how you..." She paused, color rising in her cheeks despite everything. "How comfortable we've become with each other."

"Yua..."

"He's convinced we're having an affair." Her laugh was bitter. "Which would be ironic, considering he's been pursuing me for over the years while married to my closest friend."

Riku felt that familiar cold settle in his stomach, his enhanced senses picking up the spike in her stress hormones. "Pursuing you how?"

"Messages. Gifts. Showing up at places he shouldn't know I'd be. I handled it quietly because Fuyumi is like a sister to me. I couldn't destroy her marriage over her husband's delusions."

She stood abruptly, moving to the window, her silhouette stark against the city lights.

"Three days ago, Kenji disappeared. Fuyumi was frantic...he'd taken an unauthorized trip, claimed it was for business but couldn't give details.

"Where did he go?"

Yua's hands pressed against the glass. "Osaka. To see my ex-husband."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Riku's enhanced awareness went into overdrive...the way her breathing changed, the barely perceptible increase in her body temperature that suggested fight-or-flight response.

"Kaito, Kaito Sogimoto," she whispered, and there was genuine fear in her voice now. "Kenji went to him with stories about you and me. Told him I was having an affair, that I was betraying everything we'd built together." Her reflection wavered in the glass. "He thought he was being clever. Thought he could use my past against me."

"What happened?"

She turned around, and Riku saw something in her eyes that made his enhanced senses go on high alert. Not just fear...knowledge of real danger.

"Sogimoto comes from the kind of family that doesn't forget slights, and doesn't file lawsuits." Her voice was carefully controlled. "He doesn't appreciate people spreading lies about his business or his former wife. And he especially doesn't appreciate being used as a weapon in someone else's petty jealousy."

Riku pieced it together. "The message?"

She nodded, pulling out her phone with shaking hands. The message was simple: "Hope you like my gift."

"Kenji came back yesterday morning. Beaten. Hospitalized. Fuyumi thinks it was a mugging, but..." She showed him another message. "This came with a photo of Kenji in the hospital bed."

Riku took the phone. The image hit him like a blow: Kenji, bruised and unconscious, surrounded by IVs and machines. Not a mugging. A birthday present wrapped in violence and delivered with surgical precision.

"Sogimoto sent him back as a warning."

"Not to me. To anyone else who might think they can manipulate my relationships or use my past connections for their own purposes."

Riku stood, processing the implications. His enhanced awareness was cataloging everything...the micro-expressions she couldn't control, the way she unconsciously touched her ring finger where a wedding band used to be, the careful phrasing around her ex-husband's methods.

"And now Kenji knows exactly how deep in over his head he is."

"Why can't you just tell Fuyumi the truth?"

"Because she's already dealing with enough. And because..." Yua hesitated. "Because some connections are better left unexplored. Sogimoto's family operates in circles that don't appreciate scrutiny. Even from people I care about."

The weight of what she wasn't saying settled between them. Riku could sense the layers of fear beneath her composed exterior...not just fear of violence, but of exposure, of dragging innocent people into a world where problems were solved with hospital visits and cryptic messages.

"So what do we do?"

"We? Riku, you don't understand what you'd be walking into..."

"I understand that someone tried to use me as a weapon against you, and it backfired spectacularly. I understand that you're scared. And I understand that whatever this is, it's bigger than office politics."

She stared at him, and he saw something shift in her expression. Recognition. As if she was finally seeing him clearly.

"This could get very dangerous," she said quietly. "The kind of dangerous that doesn't just threaten careers."

"Good thing I'm not just vice president material."

Outside, Tokyo glittered like scattered diamonds, beautiful and indifferent to the predators hunting in its shadows. But in the safety of the hotel room, Yua Kanzaki allowed herself to believe, for the first time in months, that someone might finally stand beside her in a world where most people would watch her drown from the shore.

What she couldn't tell him...what she couldn't tell anyone...was exactly how deep those waters ran, or what kind of power her ex-husband wielded that made grown men like Kenji return home broken and terrified.

Some secrets were worth more than trust.

Some were worth more than love.

And some were dangerous enough to get the people you cared about killed.

But as she watched Riku process everything she'd told him, saw the calm determination in his eyes instead of fear, she wondered if maybe, just maybe, he was more equipped to handle her world than she'd given him credit for.

After all, there had to be a reason she'd called him back after three years.

There had to be a reason he felt like the safest place she'd ever found.