Page 66 of Kotori

Paige

Car engines roaring up the drive, doors slamming, urgent voices cutting through the September night. My heart hammers against my ribs as I run toward the entrance, bare feet slapping against cold floors.

Through the windows, I see Takeshi's car—damaged, the rear passenger door hanging open like a wound. Men moving with desperate efficiency in the headlights.

"HAYASHI!"

The scream tears from my throat raw and broken, echoing off ancient walls like the wail of a dying animal. Pure desperation made sound, bouncing through corridors and filling the compound with my absolute terror.

"HAYASHI! HAYASHI!"

She appears instantly, as if she'd been waiting for this moment her entire life. One look through the window at the damaged car and she's already moving, issuing rapid commands in Japanese to staff I didn't even know were awake.

"The doctor?" I ask, following her toward the medical room I've never seen before.

"Already contacted. Dr. Yamada will be here within ten minutes." She glances at me as we hurry down a corridor I didn't know existed. "This is not the first time, Paige-san. We are prepared."

I can hear the tension in her voice, see the way her hands shake slightly as she prepares the medical bay. This feels different. Worse.

The medical room is hidden behind a concealed door in the eastern wing—fully equipped with surgical lights, monitors, enough medical supplies to run a small hospital. Everything needed to treat a yakuza oyabun who can't risk public hospitals.

"How long have you?"

"Too many years," Hayashi says, pulling sheets back from a surgical bed. "Since the first time young Kaito-sama came home bleeding from his father's wars."

The front doors burst open and my world stops.

Takeshi and Nagumo carry him between them, his suit torn and bloodstained, face pale with blood loss. His right arm hangs useless in a field sling, and there's blood—on his clothes, his skin, seeping through makeshift bandages.

But his eyes are open. Dark, unfocused, but open.

Behind them, another man limps in. One of their own, blood streaming from a head wound, moving like every step costs him.

"Where?" Takeshi asks Hayashi, and I can hear the exhaustion in his voice, the strain of someone who's seen too much tonight.

"Here. Careful with the shoulder."

They transfer him to the surgical bed, and I can see the full extent of the damage. The shoulder wound bleeding through field dressings, massive bruising across his chest where kevlar stopped bullets, cuts and scrapes that speak of close combat. The vest probably saved his life, but barely.

"Kaito." I'm beside him before I realize I've moved, my hands finding his face. "You came back. You promised and you came back."

His eyes focus on me with visible effort. "Told you," he whispers, voice rough as broken glass. "Too much to live for."

"Don't talk. Save your strength."

"Girls?"

"Safe. Sleeping. They don't know yet."

Relief flickers across his features before pain pulls him under again.

Dr. Yamada arrives in a flurry of medical bags and quiet competence. He's a small, elderly man who takes one look at the wounds and gets to work. No questions, no hesitation. Just skilled hands doing what needs to be done.

I hold Kaito's left hand while the doctor works, feeling his fingers grip mine whenever the pain spikes. His strength, even wounded, anchors me to this moment.

An hour of careful work. An hour of watching the doctor clean and stitch wounds, of monitoring vital signs and praying to gods I'm not sure I believe in.

An hour of trying not to think about the wife who won't get her husband back tonight, the children who will grow up fatherless because their father died protecting mine.

When Dr. Yamada finally straightens, dawn is painting the windows pale gold.

"He'll be fine," he says simply. "Rest and time."

"I'll watch him."

"I know you will." He packs his supplies with efficient movements. "I'll check on him tomorrow."

After he leaves, Hayashi helps me arrange pillows and blankets.

"The girls?" I ask, suddenly realizing I haven't seen them.

"I kept them in their rooms while the doctor worked. They're awake, worried. Waiting for permission to see their father."

I nod.

"You should rest," she says quietly. "I can sit with him."

"No." I settle into the chair beside his bed, my hand finding his again. "This is where I belong."

She bows slightly, a respectful acknowledgment of one woman recognizing another's devotion.

"Shall I bring the girls?"

"Yes. They need to see he's okay."

Minutes later, all three appear in the doorway together: Aya clutching her stuffed rabbit, Kohana pale with worry, Mizuki trying to look composed but failing. They hover at the threshold, afraid of what they might find.

"Come see for yourselves," I say gently. "He's going to be fine."

They approach the bed together, a united front of sisterly concern. Aya reaches him first, studying his peaceful face and the medical equipment with six-year-old seriousness.

"Can I kiss it better?"

"Very gently. We have to be careful not to wake him."

She presses the softest kiss to his forehead. "Get better, Papa. We need you."

The whispered words make my throat tight with emotion.

Kohana touches his uninjured hand carefully, relief flooding her features when she feels his warmth. "It was bad, wasn't it?"

"Bad enough. But he's strong, and he's home, and that's what matters."

Mizuki hangs back slightly, her composed mask finally cracking at the edges. "I keep thinking about the sound of the cars arriving. The way Takeshi-san looked when they carried him in."

"It's okay to be scared, Mizuki. You don't have to be strong all the time."

"Someone has to."

"Not today. Today we just stay close and take care of each other."

"Can we stay?" Aya asks, looking between me and her sisters. "I want to watch over Papa too."

I look at their earnest faces, at the way they cluster protectively around his bed, and make a decision. "Go get your things. We'll camp out in here today."

They disappear together and return with an impressive collection of bedding, pillows, and comfort items. Aya drags her entire futon and half her stuffed animals. Kohana brings books and blankets. Mizuki carries pillows and looks more settled than I've seen her since the crisis started.

Together, we arrange a proper camp in the medical room. Aya's futon on one side, Kohana's reading corner near the window, Mizuki's makeshift bed where she can see the monitors.

"Paige-mama?" Aya whispers as I help her arrange her stuffed animals. "Are you scared?"

"A little," I admit. "But scared people still do what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is take care of Papa until he's strong again."

She nods solemnly, and all three girls settle into their chosen spots, creating a protective circle around their father.

I settle back into my vigil, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest, listening to the quiet beeps of monitoring equipment. Outside, Kyoto wakes to another day, unaware that a war was fought in the industrial district. Unaware that a king nearly died and came home to the women who love him.

I stay there, even as the girls leave for lunch and a bath, under Hayashi’s strict orders.

Alone with him now, I allow myself to really look. Bandaged shoulder, bruised chest, but breathing steadily. Alive. Home. Mine.

Mine. Mine. Mine.

Mine…

The sobs come from somewhere deep and primal, tearing out of my chest in ugly, gasping sounds. I press my hand over my mouth but it's too late, everything I've been holding back crashes over me like a wave.

I'm crying for the man who died. For his wife. For the terror of almost losing him. For the sick relief that it wasn't my hands washing blood from a corpse. But mostly I'm crying because I love him—love him completely, desperately, in ways that would have horrified the woman I used to be.

The tears are hot and endless. My shoulders shake with the force of it, months of transformation and terror and terrible joy finally demanding their due.

I love a killer. I love watching him return from violence. I love the way other men fear him, the way his darkness protects what's ours. I love that he nearly died and still dragged himself home to me.

What kind of woman does that make me?

The crying jag lasts until it doesn't—time has no meaning in this sterile room where monitors beep and my king heals from war. When it finally stops, I feel scraped hollow but strangely clean, like poison has been purged.

I wipe my face with shaking hands, smooth my hair, try to look like a woman who didn't just fall apart completely.

Around three PM, his breathing changes. His eyelids flutter, and I lean forward eagerly.

"Kaito?"

His eyes open slowly, unfocused at first, then finding my face with visible effort.

"Paige." My name is barely a whisper, but it's the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.

"I'm here. You're home. You're safe."

"Girls?"

"All safe. They've been camping out here all day, watching over you. They know you're hurt but they're not scared because they know their father always comes home."

A ghost of a smile touches his lips. "Told you I had too much to live for."

"You did. You kept your promise."

"Always will."

His eyes drift closed again, but his grip on my hand remains strong. Not unconsciousness this time, just the deep sleep of healing and safety.

I settle back into my chair, watching over the man who fought his way through hell to keep his word to me.

Outside, afternoon shadows lengthen across the garden where we made love less than twenty-four hours ago.

A lifetime ago, when I didn't know what it meant to watch the person you love more than life itself hover between worlds.

Now I know. And I know that this vigil, this fierce protection of what's mine, is what love actually looks like when everything else is stripped away.

Just a woman, her wounded king, and the absolute certainty that some things are worth dying for.

Some things are worth living for, too.