If I'd stayed in London, I'd still be dry, fed, and fully sane. But how could I miss my only brother's wedding?
Tokyo greeted me with rain like punishment. Sheets of water hammered my coat, plastering my hair against my face. Neon lights fractured across the slick streets, turning puddles into flickering mirrors. Ten years away, and suddenly the city felt alien—harsh, fast, chaotic. I dragged my suitcase through puddles that threatened to swallow my shoes, my dead phone clenched uselessly in one hand like a cruel joke.
"Excuse me… uh… hotel?" I stammered to a passerby who slowed for me.
The man's eyes flicked over me like he was reading every inch of my confusion. He smirked, thin-lipped and sharp. "Yeah… Pavilion Eight. Not far." He scribbled an address, handed it over like a secret deal. His grin lingered longer than polite, a little predatory. I shivered—not entirely from the rain.
Pavilion Eight. Innocent enough name. Right?
I should have walked away. Instead, the cold gnawed at my bones, hunger clawed at my stomach, and I let the rain herd me toward… whatever mistake awaited.
The door of the Pavilion opened with a sigh—a warm, perfumed sigh, thick with incense and something darker, heavier than perfume. The lobby was small but suffocating, almost theatrical: velvet curtains dragged along the floor, shadows slinking across polished wood, candles flickering in every corner. The scent of sweet smoke hung low, making my chest tighten. A subtle hum of laughter and whispers wove through the air like silk threads, and I realized my stomach was twisting—not from hunger.
A man in a crisp, black uniform approached. His eyes briefly met mine—cold, assessing, alive. Not welcoming, but not hostile either. He handed me a menu. Names, not food. Ranks.
RANKS: Bill, Ace, One.
I blinked. Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, my stomach dropped like I'd fallen into a pit I couldn't climb out of.
And then I saw him.
Rank One: Kaoru Nishimi.
He wasn't just handsome—he was danger. His black shirt hugged him in all the right places, the first two buttons daringly undone. Raven hair fell into his eyes in careless perfection. Lips curved into a smirk that looked carved for sin, eyes sharp, hungry—alive in a way that made everything around him seem like background. Every movement was deliberate, smooth, predatory. He didn't just occupy the room; he reshaped it around him.
When his gaze landed on me, my breath hitched. My pulse accelerated, my chest tightened, and I realized my lungs had forgotten how to breathe.
"So…" His voice purred low, silk and fire. "You've chosen me."
He leaned closer, elbow resting on the counter, shadow stretching toward me like a predator. His smile didn't soften. "Better have cash ready, darling. Men like you… don't wander in here by accident."
My brain screamed. My heart screamed. My stomach lurched like I'd just dropped off a cliff.
I wasn't in a hotel. I wasn't in London. I was in Tokyo's red-light district, trapped and alone.
Before I could protest, Kaoru straightened with a lazy, deliberate grace. Fingers curled like they had been sculpted to command, gesturing toward a side room. "Let's go," he said simply. "Don't worry. You'll enjoy it."
I stumbled after him, suitcase bouncing, teeth chattering, muttering: "Wait—I'm straight! This is a mistake!"
He laughed. Low. Velvet. Sinful. A sound that slid into my chest, pressing me further into panic.
The room smelled of velvet, smoke, and something richer, darker, that made my stomach twist with a combination of dread and curiosity. Red curtains licked up the walls like living flames, their shadows dancing over the polished wood floor. Candles flickered in gold rows, casting light that caught on every curve of the furniture, every glint of glass. Shadows moved like predators stalking, coiling, waiting. My chest tightened. Every breath felt shallow, every heartbeat loud enough to echo in my ears.
And then he was there.
Too close. His hand found my waist with unnerving certainty—deliberate, teasing, burning through wet fabric straight into my skin. The pressure was just enough to make my knees threaten mutiny, just enough to make my heart hammer like a drum. His body pressed near, warm and solid, leaning in with slow patience, like he was savoring my terror before I even realized it. Every nerve screamed to run. Every inch of me betrayed it.
"Relax…" His voice slid over me, silk threaded with smoke and heat. Fingers brushed wet strands of hair from my forehead, lingering too long, tracing the line of my jaw, the swell of my chest beneath my coat. Expert. Dangerous. Intimate. Boundaries I didn't know I had, boundaries I didn't think I wanted challenged, now tested and violated by his mere existence.
"I… I can't—" My words trembled and broke like thin ice over a dark river.
Kaoru laughed, low, deliberate, dangerous. Slow, curling around my ribs like a coil, threading through me in a way that made my skin burn. His hands followed the outline of my torso—not obscene, not soft—but intimate enough to ignite awareness I didn't ask for. I could smell him: cologne sharp, smoke thick, warmth deep, that intangible something darker that made my stomach twist and my pulse spike.
Every instinct shouted run. Every inch of me knew to flee. But every fiber of my body betrayed that instinct.
Then his lips brushed near my ear. A whisper of heat, soft and teasing, so close I felt it in my chest and in my stomach at once. A shiver raced down my spine, my breath caught and stuck halfway, my mind scrambled to catch up, and my body froze as if paralyzed by fire and fascination simultaneously.
The room seemed to contract around us, pressing closer with each heartbeat. The flicker of candlelight turned the shadows into dancers, echoing his movements, mirroring the tension coiling between us. My fingers dug into my coat, knuckles white, fingernails biting the fabric, trying to anchor myself to something solid.
Something primal snapped inside me. A mix of panic, fear, and a heat I didn't understand, a raw, electric awareness that screamed in my veins. My survival instinct and my body's betrayal collided.
I shoved him—harder than I intended, almost violently. His smirk remained, unshaken, a predator unfazed by its prey's first attempt at resistance.
Rain swallowed me as I bolted, suitcase clattering behind me, lungs heaving, chest tight with panic and something else I couldn't name. Virginity intact. Dignity… barely.
I collapsed under the nearest bus shelter, shaking, drenched, gripping my chest as if my hands could hold my heart still. The city felt distant, the rain deafening, every neon reflection slicing through my vision like shards. I gasped, the cold biting through wet clothes, lungs burning, body trembling, and yet part of me still yearned to feel the heat that had just fled.
And then, carried over the pounding of the rain, came his laugh. From Pavilion Eight, smooth, amused, dangerous, curling through the air like smoke into my hair, into my chest, into my frantic heartbeat.
"Interesting…"
The sound lingered, a tether that refused to let me go, a promise, a warning. My knees shook. Nobody ever ran before. Nobody.
Tokyo had welcomed me home in the most unexpected, unnerving way: danger I hadn't invited, curiosity I hadn't asked for, and a fire—so magnetic, so alive—that it had already seared my name into memory.
Kaoru Nishimi.
And somehow, impossibly, he had marked me—not just with his gaze, his touch, or that laugh—but with a charge I couldn't escape, a pull I didn't want to resist, and a tension that would haunt every street I walked in the city for days to come.