Over three weeks had passed since the day VIP hospital room 203 turned into a battlefield of truths and confessions.
Tokyo's autumn began knocking on the door with chilly breezes blowing through the transparent glass windows. Inside the room, the smell of antiseptic seemed to be completely defeated by the faint floral scent radiating from Ichinose Chizuru's personal belongings.
Kazuya's physical condition was recovering at a speed that astonished even the oncology doctors. The early stage mild chemotherapy regimen was responding exceptionally well to his body. Even though his once proud black hair had thinned significantly, to the point he had to wear a thin ash gray beanie to hide the cruel truth of the chemicals, his complexion was no longer as pale as a corpse. His red and white blood cell counts were gradually creeping up to safe levels. The malignant tumor in his bone marrow was being pushed back step by step by his ironclad will to survive and Chizuru's almost extreme care.
According to medical logic, with this clear remission, he was fully qualified to be discharged and transition to outpatient chemotherapy in cycles. Being locked within these four suffocating walls for even one more day was nothing short of torture for a man who worshipped freedom and control like Kazuya.
But the real world did not operate solely on medical records. It operated on power and threats.
That morning, a heated debate took place right in the hospital room. The police inspector in charge of the Roppongi Yakuza ring, accompanied by Kazuya's lawyer, poured cold water on his discharge plan.
"Absolutely not, Mr. Kinoshita," the inspector tapped the table, his bullet shaped face showing clear tension. "Nanami Mami's boyfriend's syndicate is being squeezed by us. They are being backed into a corner. This central hospital has a multi layered security system, cameras in every blind spot, and our undercover police team on duty 24/7. You stepping outside right now, with a body not yet fully recovered, is no different from painting a bullseye on your back and Ms. Ichinose's."
The lawyer pushed up his glasses, adding in a steady, legal tone, "The police have issued an ultimatum. They will only agree to lift the strict protection order and allow you to be discharged if and only if you are completely clear of cancer cells and your body is physically capable of self defense, OR when we round up Mami's entire ring. Until then, this hospital room is your safest fortress."
Kazuya sat with his arms crossed on the bed, his deep black eyes shooting frustrated glares. He utterly despised the feeling of being turned into a passive target, a hostage protected in a glass cage. But his cold rationality understood perfectly that they were right. He could not gamble with Chizuru's safety just because of his personal claustrophobia. Finally, he clicked his tongue, closing his eyes and accepting the house arrest sentence.
When the police and lawyer left, returning the private space, Kazuya reverted to the persona he only dared reveal when there was only one person around. A clingy, grumpy, and highly possessive boyfriend.
Chizuru was standing in front of the mirror, putting on a thin cardigan, preparing to go out. Today she needed to return to the university to submit some remaining paperwork to suspend her academic results and stop by the supermarket to buy personal items.
"Are you really going?" Kazuya's deep, hoarse voice rang out from the hospital bed. He reached out with the arm not attached to an IV, grabbing the hem of her shirt, his eyes staring with clear reluctance. "The campus is too big, the supermarket is crowded. The undercover cops are trash, what if someone approaches you? Can you not wait another two hours for Kibe to come and go with him?"
Chizuru turned around, looking at the posture of a man who once manipulated tens of thousands of people online now pouting, anxiously holding her shirt like a child afraid of being abandoned. Her lips unconsciously curved into a smile that was both helpless and brimming with pampering.
"I am only going for exactly an hour and a half, Kazuya. The route from the hospital to the school always has a police car tailing me anyway," she patiently explained, gently stroking the back of the hand gripping her shirt hem. "You have been complaining about this for three days. Stop acting spoiled, Mr. Strict Director."
"I am not acting spoiled," Kazuya frowned, trying to salvage a bit of his dignity.
Chizuru burst out laughing. She turned around, taking a small black velvet box out of her bag. Kazuya froze slightly. His eyes narrowed, thousands of scripts running through his brain.
She gently opened the box. Inside was nothing sparkly or sappy, but a bracelet that looked exactly like a blessed peace charm from a shrine. Chizuru pulled Kazuya's hand over, skillfully putting the bracelet on his right wrist, clasping it shut with a decisive click.
"What is this?" Kazuya raised an eyebrow, examining the bracelet. Admittedly, her aesthetic taste was very good. It perfectly suited his pragmatic, edgy style.
"A shackle," Chizuru replied deadpan, but her cheeks began to tint with a layer of red mist. She pointed to the charm face. "Inside this is a micro GPS tracking chip, synced directly to my phone. It is waterproof, shockproof, and the battery lasts for six continuous months."
Kazuya's eyes widened. A man obsessed with information control like him had just been openly fitted with a tracking collar by his girlfriend.
"What did you buy this for?" He asked, his voice mixed with a bit of astonishment.
"So you complain less every time I go out," Chizuru lifted her chin, trying to act stern exactly the way he often used to discipline her. "And also for my peace of mind. From this moment on, where you go, what you do, how your heart rate is, I will know everything. I absolutely forbid you from taking it off your wrist. If you take it off, I will be mad at you for the rest of my life, understand?"
Looking at the commanding face of Chizuru, Kazuya not only did not feel his privacy was violated, but deep inside his chest, a warm stream overflowed. This bracelet was not a restraint; it was an anchor assuring her presence, proof that she was protecting him in her own way.
He smirked slightly, pulling her hand closer. "You think you can bind me with just this one bracelet, Chizuru?"
Chizuru did not pull her hand back. She bowed her head, her long hair falling down to touch his gaunt face. Her light brown eyes looked straight into his deep black ones. Her shyness gradually gave way to extreme seriousness and intensity. She had buried this for too long. The pride of a girl, the ghost of her old profession made her always hesitant. But right now, she wanted to cast it all aside.
"I love you, Kazuya."
The words rang out, completely lacking the sweet, industrial tone of the perfect Mizuhara, but rather the raw, slightly trembling, yet incredibly resolute voice of Ichinose Chizuru. It was crystal clear and heavy as a mountain.
"I love you. I love that toxic tongue of yours, I love the cowardice you always try to hide, I love the way you defy everything to protect me," Chizuru whispered, physiological tears welling up in the corners of her eyes from emotion. "So please. Wear this bracelet, consider it as bringing me along with you. Never disappear from my sight again."
Kazuya was stunned. Every cell in his body seemed to stop functioning. The final block of cold ice remaining at the bottom of his heart was completely melted by the most primal, genuine, and radiant confession he had ever heard in both of his lifetimes.
He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. His eyes darkened, blazing with the fire of a man who no longer wanted to suppress anything.
"You really are a troublesome lady," he growled in his throat, his hoarse voice full of magnetism.
Having spoken, he stood up, walked to the door, and locked it decisively, ignoring the fact that Chizuru had somewhere to be shortly.
Without giving Chizuru time to react or say anything, his right arm wrapped around the back of her neck, pulling her hard to fall onto his chest. Ignoring the pain from the IV needle, ignoring his body still weak from chemicals, he pressed his lips against hers roughly and passionately.
It was not just a normal kiss. It was absolute invasion. He slipped into every corner of her mouth, sucking and lightly biting her soft lips, making Chizuru let out choked moans.
This, to her, was really not okay at all.
Did she object? Yes, but then the pleasure and the boldness flaring deep in her heart betrayed her, urging Chizuru to wrap her arms tightly around his neck, returning that passion with all the pent up longing, along with the latent lust in her instincts that a twenty something girl had unlocked.
In the cramped space of the hospital bed, two flames rubbed against each other, burning away all shells. He slipped his rough hands under her cardigan, caressing the smooth bare skin of her back, undoing the bra strap in the back, then slowly groping towards the most private places, pushing intimacy and adulthood to the climax.
And Chizuru?
This time, she even proactively pushed things to a new level, desiring Kazuya to fill her again and again, clinging tightly to him and taking both of them to the stairway to heaven until she cried because the pleasure consumed her entire mind.
That afternoon, the hospital room once again witnessed two madly in love people entangled with each other, defying all the cruel physiological consequences of a severely ill body.
Rationality, medical boundaries, doctors' orders. All thrown completely out the window by both of them...
...
If heaven exists, Kazuya touched it that afternoon. But the price of ignoring the law of conservation of energy for a blood cancer patient was a tragic collapse early the next morning.
He was immediately rushed straight into the ICU.
The heart monitors wailed with piercing alarms. Kazuya lay flat on the bed, pale, lips bloodless, his whole body drenched in cold sweat. His blood pressure plummeted tragically, his heart rate was erratic, and he fell into a state of shivering ague, his muscles aching as if thousands of needles were piercing his bone marrow. His health plummeted in an extremely alarming manner.
The medical team scrambled, frantically running a series of blood tests, cultures, and scans.
"How strange," the head doctor frowned, reviewing the results while administering more electrolyte fluids and broad spectrum antibiotics to Kazuya. "His immune system shows no signs of severe external infection. It seems the patient consumed something unhygienic or had a severe allergic reaction leading to digestive disorders and mild anaphylactic shock, depleting the little physical strength he had."
"It must be that bento box from the supermarket yesterday!" Kazuo expressed regret. "The boy kept insisting on eating the canned tuna. It is my fault!"
While everyone breathed a sigh of relief thinking the cause was just food poisoning, on the hospital bed, Kazuya was experiencing a feeling scarier than death itself right after being brought back to his familiar patient room.
From the corner of the room, near the window, Chizuru stood with her arms crossed over her chest. Her face was icy, not a single tear of sorrow like usual. Her everyday smile had vanished, replaced by a dark, rolling killing intent. The corners of her eyes twitched, her gaze shooting straight at Kazuya as if wanting to carve him into a hundred pieces.
Only the two of them knew clearly that the so called consuming unhygienic food was actually draining his vitality to the last drop during the non stop lovemaking session yesterday. His reckless exertion of strength during chemotherapy had caused his body to collapse completely.
Kazuya gulped. The man now shrank back, pulling the blanket up to cover half his face, scared pale, avoiding the gaze of the boss. He knew he had played a stupid game for a prize, and the consequences of angering a girlfriend who always adhered to medical principles were incredibly horrific.
When his family and the doctors left, Chizuru took long strides, her heels clicking as she marched to the bedside.
Kazuya squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for an earth shattering fury.
But no scolding came. Instead, he felt a warm, gentle but firm hand cup his cheek. Kazuya opened his eyes. Chizuru's angry face had softened, along with tears falling freely.
"You idiot," her voice choked, scolding but overflowing with both sorrow and fear. "You wanted to mess with me, did you not? Do you know how scared I was when I saw your heart rate stop for a moment?!"
"Chizuru... I'm sorry." Kazuya whispered, his hand lifting slightly to touch the GPS bracelet on her wrist.
"I forbid you from apologizing," she cut him off, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on his forehead, stopping him from saying self deprecating words. "I will let it go this time. But absolutely no next time until you are completely cured. Kazuya, please try hard. I want us to have a normal life, I want to go for walks with you in the park, I want to watch your livestreams without having to worry about your every breath. Cure this damn disease completely, okay?"
Those gentle yet sharp words of encouragement acted like a doping shot injected straight into Kazuya's veins. He looked at her, his deep black eyes regaining their determination. He nodded, a firm nod carrying a life and death oath.
But that brief peace did not last long. Nightmares began knocking on the door again in the most brutal way.
A few days later, Kibe pushed the hospital room door open, his face as gray as ash. The air around him was so heavy it made Kazuya instantly sit up straight, his intuition telling him something bad had happened.
"Kazuya," Kibe swallowed hard, hesitantly handing over a stack of hastily developed photos. "Your family's traditional liquor store in the countryside...It...burned down last night."
The air in the room felt drained of oxygen. Kazuya snatched the photos. His heart clenched. The two story building bearing deep childhood marks, holding Kazuo and Harumi's lifelong dedication, was now just a pile of black ash. Firefighters determined it was arson. Someone had poured gasoline and set fire to the back of the store.
Fury flared up, burning all his neurons. They had made their move. The police, with dozens of agents protecting him at the hospital, had completely failed to protect his family back home. They were too passive, only knowing how to write reports after the tragedy occurred.
Fortunately, the Kinoshita family did not collapse. Kazuo called, his voice strangely calm.
"Do not worry, son. The combined fire insurance money and the family's massive savings are more than enough for us to tear it down and rebuild, open a supermarket three times the size of the old store. Lost assets can be earned back, you and everyone being safe is the most important thing."
Even though his family was not devastated, Kazuya understood perfectly well that this was not a matter of money. This was a bloody ultimatum. It was psychological terrorism.
That same day, his smartphone, the one confiscated by the doctor for so long, was returned to him by the special police so he could contact his family to handle urgent paperwork.
As soon as he turned it on, the phone vibrated violently with dozens of notifications. An encrypted email from an anonymous server popped up on the main screen. No subject, just a short, chilling line.
"This isn't over yet."
Accompanying it was a close up photo of the Kinoshita family store sign burning fiercely, and a blurry photo taken from afar. The back of Chizuru when she was shopping at the supermarket the other day.
The blood in Kazuya's body seemed to freeze. The little rationality he had left screamed. They were watching Chizuru. They were toying with him, suffocating him slowly to admire their enemy's panic. The feeling of helplessness, sitting still and watching those he loved fall into danger, was driving a control freak like Kazuya insane.
...
The worst case scenario happened the very next afternoon.
Chizuru had an appointment with her academic advisor at the university campus to complete the suspension procedures. The undercover protection team followed her. Kazuya lay on his hospital bed, his eyes glued to the green location dot on the app linked to her bracelet.
Suddenly, his phone vibrated. A text message from an unidentified spam number.
[Your girlfriend looks really pretty walking past the university side gate. It would be a real pity if a truck carrying construction materials coincidentally lost its brakes and crushed her into a pile of minced meat, right?]
Accompanying the message was a live photo of Chizuru standing waiting for a red light at an empty intersection. The angle was from a truck less than twenty meters away from her.
Kazuya shot up, cold sweat soaking his forehead. The analytical system in his brain booted up with maximum effort.
A low angle photo. Direct threatening words. This was not a random accident, this was an organized assassination attempt. And its true purpose?
The second message popped up. [Sneak out of the hospital through the west garbage elevator, where there are no cops. At side gate D, there is a black truck waiting. Go alone. If you call the cops or bring anyone, that truck with lost brakes will hit the gas immediately.]
Kazuya gritted his teeth until they bled.
The mind of a master manipulator like him understood perfectly well that this was a trap. A classic, stupid, and blatant trap that only idiots in cheap TV dramas would run into. Mami wanted to lure him out of the hospital, stripping away his police protection to easily eliminate him. If he called the police now, they would immediately cast a net.
But...what if the police were even one second too late? What if that driver was an addict willing to trade his life? Dared he gamble Chizuru's life on the reaction capabilities of the police who let his family's store burn down?
The answer was NO.
He could calculate a 50-50 probability with his own cancer death sentence, but with Chizuru's life, he absolutely would not allow even a 0.1% risk to exist. His extreme love had completely crushed his pragmatic survival principles.
This was the first time, and also the only time since reincarnating into this world, Kazuya knew clearly he was being tricked, yet still closed his eyes and accepted stepping into the trap. He would rather be beaten, killed, than let Chizuru be a pawn on Mami's gambling table.
Kazuya threw the hospital gown to the floor. He hastily threw on a long black coat, pulling a slouchy hat over his head to hide his thinning hair.
He looked down at his right wrist. The peace charm with the GPS tracker Chizuru had put on him still lay quietly there. A cold, brutal, bloodthirsty smile slowly appeared on his gaunt face.
He knew clearly that with this bracelet, Chizuru and the police would find him. His job now was to stall for time as live bait, and when the time came, he would personally tear apart those who dared touch his reverse scale in the most legal but ruthless way possible.
Slipping through the lax security in the medical waste disposal area, Kazuya calmly stepped out into the alley behind the hospital. A black truck without a license plate was parked there. The vehicle door swung open. Two heavily tattooed men in black suits grabbed his collar, threw a pitch black burlap sack over his head, shoved him hard into the dark back of the truck, and sped off into the silence of the late afternoon.