Chapter 30: The Crime That Was Forgiven || Yurusareshita Tsumi

  Ryuichi’s apartment, Nishi-Shinjuku→ October 31st, 2022

  “Some sins are not erased by time—only protected by power.”

  Beep. He didn’t move.

  Beep. Still, he remained a motionless lump under the heavy duvet.

  Beep. Finally, a low, guttural groan escaped Ryuichi’s throat. He fumbled blindly for his nightstand, grabbing his phone with a grip that threatened to shatter the screen. He considered, for a fleeting, glorious second, throwing the device against the wall just to make the noise stop.

  A soft, melodic giggle drifted from the doorway. Of course, Hina was already awake—she was the sun to his persistent, morning-hating shadow. She stood there leaning against the frame, a steaming cup of coffee in her hands, the aroma already beginning to cut through his fog.

  “Ohayo, Ryu,” she said softly, her voice bright with amusement. She walked over and sat on the corner of the bed, the mattress dipping under her weight.

  Ryuichi was many things—a genius, a protector, a strategist—but he was notoriously terrible at the simple act of waking up. He forced himself to sit up, his dark hair sticking up in gravity-defying tufts. He took the cup from Hina, his fingers brushing hers.

  “Arigato, Hina-chan,” he murmured, his voice thick with sleep. He took a long, desperate sip, feeling the heat travel down his throat.

  Ryuichi’s phone buzzed again, this time with a notification that wasn’t an alarm. He squinted at the screen, the blue light reflecting in his dark eyes. It was a message from Taiki.

  When you’re free, come over to the headquarters. I need to give you something. It’s about your family.

  Ryuichi’s head inclined, his brow furrowing as he stared at the text. The word “family” in Taiki’s mouth usually meant something official, but the phrasing felt different today.

  Hina noticed the sudden shift in his energy, the way his jaw tightened. She reached out, her hand resting gently on his forearm. “What’s wrong, Ryuichi?” she asked softly.

  “Taiki wants to meet me at the headquarters,” Ryuichi replied, his voice losing its morning rasp and becoming dangerously level. “He says it’s about my parents. Not Shohei and Sachiko. My real parents.”

  The mere thought of them brought a sharp, familiar ache to his chest. He had been fifteen when they died—old enough to remember everything, but too young to stop the world from collapsing. Officially, the police had ruled it an accident, a tragic twist of fate. But Ryuichi had never believed the official report. He knew his father had been holding onto secrets that were far too heavy, and in their world, secrets were often buried along with the people who kept them.

  Ryuichi stood before the heavy, polished wood of Taiki’s office door. He took a steadying breath, composed his expression into one of stoic professionalism, and knocked. At the muffled command from within, he opened it.

  “You wanted to speak with me, Satsuma-sama,” Ryuichi said. His voice was perfectly modulated—respectful and formal. Despite their long history, he didn’t dare assume informality here; Taiki was the Saikō-komon of the Kawamura-gumi, the brilliant mind that kept the syndicate’s gears turning.

  Taiki stood from behind his desk, his presence commanding the room. He didn’t offer a smile, but he gestured toward the chair opposite his own.

  Ryuichi closed the door with a soft, decisive click and approached. His posture was military-straight, a physical manifestation of the years of discipline that had been indoctrinated into him since he was fifteen. While Ryuichi held significant power in the organization—outranked only by Shohei, Taiki, and Shunsuke himself—he was acutely aware that in this world, rank could be a shield or a target. He knew Taiki would never harm him, but the weight of the office still demanded total submission.

  He sat down, his back not even touching the chair’s leather, waiting for the Senior Advisor to break the silence.

  “You can relax here, Ryuichi,” Taiki’s voice rang through the quiet room, carrying a warmth that was usually reserved for private council. “This isn’t official business. I simply didn’t want to visit your apartment; I didn’t want to involve your girlfriend, and I know Misaki is staying there.”

  Ryuichi let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, his shoulders dropping just an inch as he nodded. “What is the matter, Taiki-san?” he asked, his gaze dropping to the thick, manila file resting on the mahogany desk between them.

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  “It’s about your father, Ryuuga Sakamoto,” Taiki said, his eyes steady. “Shohei gave this to me. He told me it was time I handed it over to you.”

  Ryuichi’s hands trembled—a rare sight for the syndicate’s most composed strategist—as he reached out to touch the paper. The name Ryuuga Sakamoto felt like a ghost in the room.

  “Why now?” Ryuichi’s voice was strained, the words catching in his throat.

  His parents were his deepest, most jagged wound. He had spent years pursuing a law degree, specializing in criminal law, as a silent tribute to his father—a man who had believed in justice until the world proved how cruel it could be. To receive this file now, after years of silence from the Kawamura family, felt like opening a grave.

  “Can I... can I open it?” Ryuichi’s voice was barely a whisper, the poise of a criminal law scholar replaced by the raw nerves of a grieving son.

  Taiki gave a slow, somber nod. “Of course. Perhaps it is better for you to do it here, where the walls are thick.”

  Ryuichi’s fingers fumbled with the clasp of the manila folder. The first document was yellowed with age, the official seal of the municipal office still crisp. It was his father’s birth certificate. Ryuichi’s eyes scanned the kanji, looking for the familiar Sakamoto name he had carried with pride for twenty-four years.

  His breath hitched. The paper slipped from his trembling fingers, fluttering onto the mahogany desk like a dying bird.

  “That... that can’t be possible,” he choked out, his mind frantically trying to find a logical error, a clerical mistake, anything to deny what his eyes had just seen.

  Under the section for the father’s name, the ink was clear. It wasn’t Sakamoto. The surname written there was Kawamura.

  Ryuichi felt a cold, prickling sensation wash over his skin. His father hadn’t just worked for the syndicate; he had been a blood member of the family. He wasn’t just an adopted brother to Shunsuke by choice—they were bound by the very DNA he had spent his life trying to separate from the underworld.

  “He was a Kawamura,” Ryuichi whispered, his voice shaking with a mixture of betrayal and shock. “My father was part of this family... and no one told me?”

  Taiki watched Ryuichi, his gaze steady as he witnessed the young man’s world unraveling in real time.

  “Your father, Ryuuga... he was Shohei’s older brother,” Taiki began, his voice heavy with the weight of decades-old secrets. “He was the original heir to the Kawamura-gumi. Your father and I—we were inseparable back then. We both studied law with dreams of something beyond this life. But the previous patriarch... he wouldn’t allow it. He forced us both to fail our final bar exams.”

  Taiki closed his eyes, the lines on his face deepening with the memory. “I complied. I was weak; my family’s lives were used as leverage. But Ryuuga... Ryuuga was different. He rebelled. He stood his ground, allowed himself to be disowned, and walked away from the family name entirely. He took the name Sakamoto to erase the blood on his hands, and soon after, he met your mother, Isabelle.”

  Ryuichi’s breathing was labored, each gasp feeling like it was being pulled through broken glass. He looked down at the certificate, the name Kawamura staring back at him like an accusation.

  “Your father walked away from the syndicate before you even entered this world,” Taiki said softly, leaning forward. “He did it so that you would never have to carry this burden. In his heart, and in the eyes of the law he loved, you are a Sakamoto. Not a Kawamura.”

  Ryuichi looked at Taiki, his eyes narrowing as the gears of his strategic mind began to turn. The shock was still there, but the scholar was taking over, analyzing the board.

  “That’s why Shohei is so afraid of me…” he said, his composure slowly stitching itself back together. “By the laws of the old world, I am a more legitimate heir than Shunsuke. I am the son of the firstborn.”

  “Your parents didn’t want the throne, Ryuichi. They wanted a family,” Taiki said, his voice soft but resonant. “In fact, they wanted to adopt Shunsuke. Your father had realized his nephew was being mistreated—though even he didn’t know the full, horrific magnitude of it. Ryuuga began building a legal case against the Kawamura-gumi, systematically documenting their crimes. He made himself a target for one reason: to destroy the syndicate from the outside and rescue Shunsuke and Misaki.”

  Ryuichi leaned back, the air leaving his lungs in a long, shaky exhale. “They wanted to save them. They wanted to pull them out before Tsukasa could break them... before the torment became permanent. They could have lived normal lives.”

  “Perhaps,” Taiki countered, his gaze piercing. “But if they had, Shunsuke never would have met her.”

  Ryuichi’s head snapped up, his eyes wide. “You mean Miyu?”

  Taiki nodded solemnly. “Shunsuke saved her when he was eighteen, a night born of the darkness he was forced to inhabit. If your parents had succeeded, if he had been safe in a suburban home with you, he never would have been in that place, at that time. Miyu would have been killed that night. Yuki would never have been born. He never would have found Kuro. The light in his life was forged in the very fire your father tried to put out—not because the fire was just, but because Shunsuke survived it.”

  “Who killed my parents?”

  Ryuichi’s voice had returned to its usual tone—flat, analytical, and terrifyingly calm. It was the voice of a man who had already moved past grief and into the cold calculations of justice.

  “Tsukasa,” Taiki said simply.

  He watched as a dark, flickering rage ignited in Ryuichi’s eyes. It wasn’t the explosive anger of a child, but the steady, pressurized fury of a predator.

  “Shohei sent Tsukasa to intimidate your father,” Taiki explained, his own voice heavy with the shame of the past. “The goal was to force Ryuuga to withdraw the legal case. But you know how Tsukasa was. Impulsive. Aggressive. A sadist who enjoyed the scent of fear.”

  Ryuichi’s hands gripped the edge of the mahogany desk, his knuckles turning a skeletal white. The wood groaned under the pressure of his grip.

  “He killed them,” Ryuichi stated, his voice dropping to a glacial, dangerous level. “He was given an order to intimidate, and he chose to execute them instead?”

  “Yes,” Taiki admitted.

  “And Tsukasa disobeyed a direct order from the oyabun—an act of treason in our world—and he received no punishment?” Ryuichi’s fury was a physical thing now, vibrating in the air between them. “Shohei let the man who murdered his own brother walk free?”