Chapter Five – Stay Safe

Damn it! I can't find any clues here, any new information. I need to find out so many things. Who was the guy who took her? Why did he take her, was it because they'd know I'd give anything for her safe return? How can I best murder this asshole? I don't have much to go on except for the fact that it happened here before Hikari went to class and that feeling in my heart that I still hold a connection with her, that she's still alive.

I need a license plate number. I need an address or phone number or something. I need a witness who can tell me in exact detail what they saw. I freeze. There has to be something in the footage. There are metal posts here, other cars, there has to be something there. I bow my head. That would mean leaving this area. It would mean giving up whilst I check any tapes in the area. The traffic controllers have to give me something.

"I heard her yelling for me," I tell Jiro knowing that I look like a scared kid instead of her strong husband. I shake my head. I know that happened internally and could be very easily interpreted as my own imagination except for the fact that I feel it wasn't. She's alive and she's counting on me.

"Kei, the first step of the -" Jiro attempts to comfort me. Is he just giving up!? He can't give up on her! He's her father.

"She's not dead," I tell him as I push myself up from the ground. I have to find some more evidence and I'm stuck between staying here and looking over the evidence at home. I can imagine them putting her in some type of room but Hikari has skills that only people like myself possess, despite them trapping her, she could get out easily. No, she's probably being stupid again. She probably isn't thinking of her own life and safety. She probably is trying to help her abductor because she feels sorry for him and can't turn a blind eye.

Yes, that is most likely it and as stupid as that sounds, it is characteristic for HIkari. She'll call me. I just know that she'll call me. She needs to get to a phone. I look at Jiro and bow my head. "We should go back, I'm sorry that I dragged you out here."

"Kei," Jiro says before putting a hand to my shoulder. "I will do anything to find my daughter but you have to consider other options," he says and I shake my head. I can't accept or even consider accepting that there is any chance that she is no longer with us. She's alive. There is no way that the girl I love so deeply, the girl who trained all those hours in which to beat me, the woman who agreed to and happily became my wife is dead. There is no way that I've lost her.

"Let's just get back," I tell him not wanting to argue. It won't help. He's not ready to understand that Hikari is definitely not dead without any doubt in his mind. Still, I don't have any doubt in my own mind. The truth is that she's still alive because she has to be alive.

….

….

I feel hollow and scared and as if I want to curl in on myself. I don't want to help these people. I don't want to be here for this type of entertainment for them. I want Kei Taksihima. He has always always protected me and kept me safe. I know that he'll exhaust himself trying to find me but I believe that he won't give up until he does.

I don't care if he hates me as long as he finds me. Even if he finds out what they have done to me and never wants to see me again, he won't let that stop him from helping me out of here. It would break my heart to see those hurt looks on his face and I don't think I could live with any happiness were he to tell me that he hated me but Takishima is a really good person, he'd save me and protect me.

I take a shaky breath. Although chances are that I haven't conceived a child after that, that wouldn't matter to Kei in terms of him getting me out of here. He's so famous and popular. He could get any girl that he wanted but for some strange reason, he wanted me. I want him to. I want to be held in those arms, kissed by those lips, hear my name said by his voice.

I feel terrified as I see someone else enter. He bends down opposite me and grabs my chin in his hand and I feel far too weak to protect myself. I have never been like this before. I was able to do martial arts since I was a kid but it takes too much labor to even breathe properly.

"She'll do," the man says before ripping my clothes off of me. I try to scream but he covers my mouth with his hand and I just feel myself having to endure his body entering mine. Once the ordeal is over, he throws me onto the ground like a discarded piece of trash and cleans himself off. "Yeah. She performed," he says before leaving me. What the hell was that!? Is that what I'm going to have to face for the rest of my life?

I hear something bounce on the floor before the door is closed on me but I feel too emotionally drained to look at it for a while. After I have calmed myself down the best that I can, I notice that the man dropped his phone. This is hope and the universe shining down on me. Nobody would have ideally dropped a phone but I grab it quickly. My voice is hoarse and I'm not mentally prepared to speak but I have his number memorized.

I quickly dial the number and listen to the ringing. I hope he picks up. He has to pick up.

"Takishima Kei speaking," he says in a panicked voice. He's worried about me. He knows that something happened but I don't know if he knows what. For some reason my mind becomes frozen and I can't speak for a moment. "Hello? Is someone there? I swear if this is some kind of a jo-"

"K-K-K-Kei" I stutter out before coughing very harshly, my chest hurts, I can't breathe but I hear his voice get louder.

"Hikari!?" he asks. He knows just by my saying his name where I am.

….

…..

I can't believe this. This is her. This has to be her.

"Hikari" I ask holding the phone to me closely. "Where are you?"

"I do—n't…" she coughs and I realize that even in the moments when she has been most exhausted or tired out, she doesn't sound like this. I'm even more worried but I put the phone on speaker despite being the only one in this room and grab something so I can record the call. Who knows what type of further evidence this will give me.

"What kind of place are you in? Is it a building or a -" I try to ask. I know that she's in shock. If I can get just a few answers to questions that will be enough. She coughs harshly as if she's going to cough out a lung and I listen carefully.

"Far…" she says before crying and I hate to hear her so weak. When I find her those assholes will have to be breathing through a tube if they even breathe at all. "C-C-Ca-nn't br-br—" she struggles and I can only imagine her struggling and needing help. These assholes did this to her. How could they do this to her!? She hasn't done anything wrong. Is it really because they want me, why go so far if they want something from me?

"Hikari listen, stay alive. I'm coming for you. I'll be there for you," I try to reassure her but I hear a door unlock. It sounds like a heavy metal door, maybe something in an industrial building.

"So the b**tch took it," I hear a man say and I feel a heaviness and a hatefulness in my heart. "Who'd you call kitten?" They ask before I hear them hurting her and she starts crying. It's breaking my heart to hear her in pain. I hear the man pick up the phone and maybe begging and reasoning and bribing with them is what's best.

"My name is Kei Takishima," I say very quickly and loudly needing for them to hear me. I'm desperate. Hikari is what I care about most. "You want something from me, correct? What is it money? You can have money. A part of the business? If you return Hikari to me then I'll sign over my shares. You have to want something from me to do this. If you let her go, I'll take her place and I won't even attempt to escape."

Okay. That's a lie. I would attempt to escape and succeed as soon as I knew she was safe. This has to be some kind of blackmail or threat against me but fine, it's working, they can have whatever they want from me as long as she is safe.

The man laughs, "All I want from you is your reaction to your wife's death," he says and I feel my chest pull in. I don't know where she is. Even with all of the evidence and data that this phone call has provided me with, I don't know where she is.

"There has to be something that you want from me!" I say begging for them to just let her go and we can move on and forget that this is happening. "I can gi-"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I freeze. That is the sound of a gun being shot three times and the crying stops. My eyes widen. She's not dead. She couldn't be dead. No. There's some mistake. She's not dead. The phone call stops and I back up knowing my body has turned pale and cold. No. She's not dead. I can't believe that she's dead.

End of Chapter Five

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