The Rising Sun & The Morning Calm Ch. 24

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Saburo was fuming. There was barely a week left before his wretched brother and his mate returned to the United States. The sound of one his men's voices interrupted his malcontented ruminations. "Boss, have you seen Kenji or Masahiro anywhere?" a short man named Shohei asked.

"No, why?"

"I can't get a hold of them. It's been a few days and usually they return my calls but neither have gotten back to me. I went by that girl Ritsuko's place, but no one was there. It doesn't even look like she lives there anymore."

That was strange. Picking up his phone, Saburo called each one in turn and was greeted with a prompt for a voice mail message. Leaving each one an order to call him on pain of death, he figured that would give them motivation enough to call him soon. "Maybe Hiroshi knows where they are." Hiroshi tended to spend a lot of time with Masahiro as they both had a fondness for gambling. He was also very good about always answering his phone, which was why Saburo was surprised to hear his call go straight to voice mail. "Hiroshi never turns off his phone," he muttered with a frown. "What is going on?"

"[Shiranei]."

Wondering if something else was going on, Saburo called ten more men, deliberately choosing those who were prompt about calling him. Seven returned his calls or picked up right away. After six hours, three had not gotten back to him. "Six of them are MIA?" Shohei shrugged, not knowing what to make of it.

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shiranei: I don't know (Japanese)

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Noboru watched through the video monitor that was linked to the digital camera mounted in the ceiling of the room that contained the remaining five test subjects. Ryuzo had suggested waiting a couple of days to see if they reacted differently to the virus. Interestingly, one was reacting much in the way Kaori had, showing various manifestations of autoimmune attack on his body. The other four were trying to stay as far away from him as possible, under the misperception that this was the result of some sort of contagion. Though the door that locked them in was not particularly thick, none had transformed in the past 48 hours to try to break free.

"I think it is safe to say that the antivirus and the delivery system are both a success," Ryuzo observed.

"I would agree. [Tsugoi]." The hapless test subjects had no idea who had brought them there or where they were but the one thing they did know was that they couldn't take their hybrid forms any more. Noboru could smell their fear. "Get as much information out of them as you can. After you kill them burn the bodies. Throw Kenji in with them, as well. I am going to join Genzo in Seoul."

Ryuzo watched him leave the room and turned back to the video monitor. "Heishiro, go get them to talk." Nodding, Heishiro left to enter the room.

On the screen Ryuzo saw him enter and heard him say, "Now, we can do this the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is that you tell me exactly what it is I need to know and in return, I kill you quickly. If you hold on out me or I suspect you're lying, the reward will be an exquisitely slow and painful death. Is this clear?" All five men nodded, their frightened faces assuring their cooperation. "Good. You can begin by telling me the names, numbers and addresses of every one of your friends that you can think of." Obviously Saburo had a flimsy command over their loyalty as they all began speaking at once, so that Heishiro couldn't get the information down fast enough. After Ryuzo was thoroughly satisfied that they had extracted all the information they had, he made good on his promise and their headless bodies soon joined Kenji's in the incinerator.

Catching Noboru as he was walking out of the building, Saburo handed him a small case. Opening it, Noboru saw the dart gun and five bullets each with a small push button detonator underneath. "Each bullet corresponds to a detonator, so if you miss the first time, you must use the second detonator that corresponds to the second dart, and so on."

"I had better not miss, then."

"We have also been able to obtain quite a lot of information on the specifics of Saburo's contact network. It will make things considerably easier to eradicate his supporters."

"I leave you in charge of seeing to that. I will call when I have cured my brother."

"Do you wish us to render the others mortal as well?"

"That is fine, so long as you are the only one who knows about the anti-virus."

"Understood."

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tsugoi: amazing (Japanese)

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Sang Nam arrived the next morning with Noboru who had wished to check up on Angela and Linnsa before attending to the days business. "I have missed my [tenshi]," he smiled.

"[Tenshi] has missed her [oni] as well." Smelling his aftershave as he kissed her hello, she wished that he didn't have to leave. "You still can't tell me why we're here?"

Nuzzling her cheek affectionately, Noboru realized how long the few days apart they had spent felt. "No, [ichiban]. But, my hope is that when my business is done, we can return to some semblance of normalcy." He smiled brightly and changed the subject. "Later tonight, come to my suite and we will have dinner together."

"Right, we'll have dinner," she purred coyly.

Stifling a groan, Noboru gently pushed her away from him before she began getting ideas and blew her a kiss goodbye.

"Where's Linnsa?" Sang Nam asked.

"She tends to stay in her room most of the time." As Genzo closed the door behind Noboru, she added, "But at least we're too far up for her to try to make a break for it."

As Angela chatted with Genzo, Sang Nam crept over to Linns's room and knocked softly. "Linnsa? It's Sang Nam. May I come in?"

"Sure," her voice answered through the door.

Opening the door tentatively, he poked his head in. "You must think I'm such an insensitive jerk," he began with a sheepish smile. As he watched her replace her violin in its case, he realized he had entered just as she had been ready to play. "I'm sorry. You were in the middle of something. I'll leave you be."

"That's alright." She paused for a moment. "You don't really have a Korean accent," Linnsa noted curiously.

"I've been speaking English for a long time," he responded. "How long have you been playing?"

"Since I can remember. My sister and I were really young when we learned." She gestured for him to sit. "Do you play any instruments?"

Sang Nam slid into a chair and shook his head. "I always tell myself I'll take the time to learn a new talent, but it seems like every decade I find a way to procrastinate." HIs tone changed to one of seriousness. "I truly am sorry for the comment I made the other day. I had no idea you'd been through so much in such a short period of time. When your sister told me what had happened, I felt that much worse for what I said. I know how awful it feels to lose someone you care about."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's a long story. I'm sure you have better things to do with your time."

Curious, Linnsa waved her hand. "Please go on. Now you have my curiosity piqued."

Sang Nam looked down at his hands and gave a rueful laugh. "I suppose after being so clumsy the other day, it's only fair." It was strange for her to see him actually acting so serious. Linnsa had pegged him as someone who was always in a lighthearted mood. "When your sister's boyfriend helped me out almost a century ago, it was because I'd gotten into a scrape with the Japanese."

"What happened?"

"The occupation was a rough time in our history. We couldn't speak Korean and we were at the mercy of the whims of the Japanese colonizers. They treated us like second class citizens. I remember when I was a boy, they'd barge into our houses and just steal whatever they wanted." He laughed bitterly. "They even killed my dog for its meat and fur. That was really hard to watch, but my father made sure that I never said a word."

"I can't imagine what it's like to live like that," Linnsa remarked with sadness.

"It really wasn't living. You never knew what would happen one day to the next. Anyway, the last straw occurred when I was about seventeen. There was a girl who lived in my town that I'd grown up with and she was almost like a sister to me, that's how close we were. Well, she grew up into a beautiful young girl, and I told her that when I finally made something of myself that I wanted her to marry me."

"What was her name?" Linnsa couldn't help asking.

"Hee Yan." He paused. "I haven't said that name for many years. We were walking to her home one day when we ran into some Japanese soldiers. They started being really...disrespectful, if you get my meaning. I told her that I would distract them to give her time to run."

"Did she get away?"

Nodding, Sang Nam sighed. "Unfortunately, I wasn't so lucky. They shot me six times and left me for dead."

Linnsa recoiled in horror. "What happened?"

He gave a half-hearted smile "Noboru found me and revived me."

"Did you ever find Hee Yan?"

"I had to lay low in order to not risk getting her or my family in trouble. By the time I felt that it was safe to re-emerge, she'd assumed I was dead and had married someone else."

The idea that the person he had loved had found solace with another sent a pang of familiar sadness through her. "I can imagine how it must have felt for you," she said with sympathy.

"Thank you." Some of his cheerful air returned when he saw her smile at him. "I'll leave you to play." As he was about to exit the room, he winked at her over his shoulder and added, "I was about to go have a cigarette, but your smile seems to have taken that craving away for the moment." He was surprised to see her blush and quickly duck her head.

Genzo looked up from his conversation with Angela when he heard Linnsa playing her violin and was caught off guard when he saw Sang Nam leaving the room with a bemused smile on his face. He didn't know why, but an uneasy feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach.

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tenshi: angel (Japanese)

oni: demon (Japanese)

ichiban: little one (Japanese)

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