Chapter 0 : THE THING WE BURN
(Present)
The rain fell in sheets, turning the abandoned industrial lot into a shallow lake of black water and reflected neon. Takeshi Kuroda had survived worse nights. He had survived worse men. What he had never survived was silence.
That was what told him something was wrong.
Ren stood ten meters away, rain dripping from the ends of his dark hair, clothes plastered to his frame, face almost unnaturally calm. No shouting. No threats. No theatrical flourish. Just the quiet weight of a decision already made.
Takeshi’s hand found the wall behind him for support. Decades of command had taught him to read the moment before violence. This moment had already passed him by.
Ren raised the gun.
The shot cracked through the rain like a train entering a tunnel. The bullet crossed the distance and punched into Takeshi’s chest with a wet, final sound. Pain arrived a heartbeat later. Hot, blinding, absolute. He staggered, boots slipping on the slick pavement. His palm came away red, the blood immediately diluted by rain into thin pink rivulets that ran down his wrist.
He looked at Ren.
Then at Mei Lin.
“Mei Lin!”
The name was an order. Help me. Stop him. Do something.
Mei Lin did not move. She stood beneath the downpour in her black coat, watching him bleed with the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth. Water streamed from the ends of her hair.
“I never understood,” she said, the rain swallowing half the words like it had a personal stake in the argument, “how you kept trusting Ren with the softest parts of yourself. As if his particular genius for smiling while he mapped the shortest route between people trust and people throat was somehow evidence of devotion.”
Takeshi stared. “You answered to me. I pulled you out of that system. I gave you a name that meant something.”
“You gave me a leash with better branding,” Mei Lin replied. “I answered to the plan. You just never noticed because the plan kept making you powerful richer.”
Ren sighed and dragged a hand over his face, wiping rain from his eyes. The gesture was almost casual.
“Life is funny, isn’t it?” he said. “You build an empire on broken children, and the one you broke the most carefully ends up holding the match. Poetic. If you like your poetry written in blood and ash.”
Then he smiled.
That smile, beautiful, soft, almost innocent, had undone more people than any weapon he had ever carried. Wealthy women and men had invited it into their homes. Men had underestimated it. Fools had died believing it was kindness.
Mei Lin handed him a phone. The screen was already lit.
Ren pressed it to his ear. Rain ran down the device and onto his wrist.
“Burn down the orphanage,” he said, voice almost bored. “No survivors. Confirm when the last room is quiet.”
A muffled reply. Ren listened, eyes half lidded.
“Yes, including the west wing. Especially the west wing. The new intake is there. I don’t care about the paperwork… burn the records with the building. And make sure the children don’t have time to understand what’s happening. Quick. Clean. I want mercy, not theater.”
He ended the call and tossed the phone back. Mei Lin caught it without looking.
Takeshi’s face changed. The pain was suddenly secondary.
“What the fuck are you doing, Ren?” His voice cracked as he tried to straighten. Another wave of agony rolled through his chest. “Are you killing the children?”
Ren glanced at him and smiled again, smaller this time.
“Yeah.” He yawned behind his hand, as if the conversation were mildly tiring. “But don’t worry. They won’t suffer. Everyone gets a bullet to the brain. Merciful death. You taught me that, remember? Quick is kinder. You used to say it while you watched the initiation beatings. You said it the night they put the sun on my arm. Funny how lessons stick when they’re carved in.”
Takeshi’s breathing turned ragged. “You’re insane. Those are children - ”
“Those are inventory,” Ren corrected mildly. “Your word, not mine. You called them assets in every quarterly report I ever stole from your office. Assets don’t get funerals. They get liquidated.”
He began walking forward. Slowly. Not hurried. Not afraid. Almost proudly. Each step splashed through the shallow puddles with deliberate care, as if he wanted Takeshi to feel the distance closing.
When he reached the old man he crouched, bringing their faces nearly level. Rain slid from his eyelashes and dripped between them.
“You know what I always hated about you?” Ren asked, voice quiet, almost conversational. “You thought ownership was the same thing as love.”
Takeshi’s lips trembled. Blood flecked them. “I made you strong. I made you into something the world couldn’t break.”
“You made me useful,” Ren said. “There��s a difference. Useful things get discarded when the ledger changes. I decided to change the ledger first.”
He leaned closer. The rain made the space between them intimate and filthy at once.
“Your kids are there. I know. I set them free. You will no longer have an orphanage to farm. Every chain you’ve built, every room you’ve locked, every child you’ve broken, every life you’ve turned into currency… will burn tonight. Consider it a final lesson in ownership.”
Takeshi’s face twisted. “You’ll create chaos. You’ll be hunted. The families, the partners, the people who paid for those placements - ”
Ren tilted his head. Rain tracked along the line of his jaw. “By whom? Lotus? The police? The same people who looked the other way for decades while you harvested kids? The only ones who will care are the ones who lose money. And money is replaceable.”
He laughed, soft, almost private. That somehow made it worse.
“Mei Lin. Explain it to your old man. He’s having trouble keeping up. Use small words if you have to.”
Mei Lin stepped closer, boots splashing. She looked down at Takeshi with something that might have been pity if it hadn’t been so empty.
“We don’t have time for sweet talk, Ren. The timetable is tight.”
Ren sighed dramatically, still crouched. “We’ll sweet talk later, then. Promise. I’ll even bring flowers. Dead ones. Thematic.”
He turned back to Takeshi. His smile widened, soft and almost fond.
“DAD”
The word hung between them.
Takeshi froze… not because of the title, but because of the way Ren said it. Almost affectionately. Almost nostalgically. Almost like he meant it.
“After tonight, you don’t get to call me that,” Takeshi whispered.
“I do,” Ren said. “I earned it. Every scar. Every night in that initiation room. Every time you watched and called it investment. So yes. Dad. Enjoy the title.”
Two men appeared from the shadows. Faces Takeshi recognized, men who had once stood beside him in boardrooms and back alleys, men he had fed, men he had trusted. They took him under the arms and hauled him upright. His boots scraped against wet concrete.
“Ren… you will pay - ”
Ren rose, brushing rain from his knees. “Take him. Keep him breathing until I say otherwise.”
Mei Lin’s voice cut through the rain. “What about Hiroshi and Kaito?”
Ren stopped.
“Leave them.” He shrugged. Water slid off his shoulders. “Still important for the plan”
“They aren’t,” Mei Lin said, voice hardening. “Let my people kill them. Lotus style. Clean. No loose ends”
Ren turned his head slowly and looked at her. He did not answer. He only looked.
Mei Lin chuckled under her breath, dry and knowing. “Obsession. Still. After everything. You really can’t let the pretty ones go, can you?”
She slipped the phone back into her pocket. Ren did not deny it. He simply walked away, down the stairs, one measured step after another.
The building had gone strangely quiet. Only the roar of rain against broken windows and the growing crackle of fire deeper inside.
On the 2nd floor he stopped. Two bodies lay inside a room, half in shadow. Hiroshi and Kaito, unconscious, still breathing, still useful. He stared at them for several seconds. His face was empty. No hatred. No affection. No regret. Nothing. Then he continued walking, leaving wet prints the rain would erase within minutes.
Outside again, cold air filled his lungs. Ren stopped beneath the open sky and inhaled as if he had been holding his breath for years. He exhaled a long, trembling breath and looked toward the horizon.
Something moved across his face, a crack so brief Mei Lin, watching from the doorway, almost missed it.
A single tear slipped down his cheek and mixed with the rain.
He tilted his head toward the sky. His lips parted.
With all the hatred, grief, rage, and exhaustion of a man who had carried a dead world inside his chest for far too long, he whispered:
“Burn.”
Then louder, the word tearing free:
“BURN!”
---
A black Mercedes-Benz S 680 Guard stopped behind him with a soft hiss of tires on wet pavement. Twin headlights cut white blades through the downpour. Ren’s shadow stretched long and thin across the asphalt.
Mei Lin’s hand moved instinctively toward the weapon under her coat. The car was not one of theirs.
The rear passenger door opened. A man stepped out. Tall, immaculately dressed, dark coat and white shirt somehow still crisp, hair neat as if the weather had simply decided not to touch him. He carried himself with the quiet confidence of someone who had never needed permission to enter a room.
Ren turned just slightly. Their eyes met.
For the first time that night, something resembling emotion crossed his face. The corner of his mouth twitched. Then he smiled, not his usual smile, but something smaller, sadder, almost relieved.
He raised the gun still in his hand.
Mei Lin’s eyes widened. “Ren, don’t you fucking dare - ”
He pressed the barrel to his own temple. His finger tightened.
Before he could pull the trigger, a second shot cracked.
The bullet took him in the chest from the side, clean and precise. Ren’s body jerked. For one suspended moment the world seemed to stop. Rain hung in the air like static. He looked down at the spreading red on his shirt, then back at the man. Blood bloomed across the fabric, diluted by rain into something almost beautiful. His knees gave way. He collapsed into the rain.
And somehow, he smiled.
Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, not from fear, but because he recognized the face he had spent years pretending he had forgotten.
The world went quiet.
Then black.
“Sebastian?” Mei Lin ran forward, boots splashing hard. The man caught Ren before his body could hit the ground. He held him carefully, almost tenderly, as though the man bleeding in his arms were not an assassin, not a criminal, not a monster.
One arm under Ren’s shoulders, the other supporting his weight, Sebastian lowered them both to a kneeling position so the rain would not fill Ren’s mouth.
“Long time no see,” Mei Lin said, stopping a few meters away, hand still near her weapon. “You always did have timing.”
Sebastian did not answer. He checked the wound with practiced fingers, then looked up.
“Let Ren go.” Asked Mei Lin.
Nothing.
His eyes shifted toward the armed men behind Mei Lin. One glance was enough. Safety catches clicked off in near-unison. Mei Lin lifted a hand without looking at them.
“Stand down. Now.”
The barrels lowered.
Sebastian looked toward the Mercedes. A middle aged man already stood beside the rear door, phone to his ear, speaking rapid low French. No explanation was necessary. He already knew.
Minutes later the sound of rotor blades tore through the night, growing from a distant thrum into a physical pressure that flattened the rain. A private medical helicopter descended through the storm, lights cutting white circles across the pavement.
Mei Lin watched Sebastian carry Ren toward it, steps steady despite the weight and the weather.
“We’ll follow your car,” she called over the noise of the blades. “You don’t get to disappear with him without answers.”
Sebastian did not answer. He simply continued walking, Ren’s head resting against his shoulder, blood already soaking into the expensive coat.
Mei Lin took that as permission. She turned toward her own vehicle, voice sharp.
“Move. Now. Don’t lose them. And someone get me a status on the fire. I want confirmation the west wing is gone.”
The convoy disappeared into the darkness, taillights smeared red by the rain.
Ayeee… John Wick still got a little bit of a soft spot in him.
If you watch anime tho, MAKIMA is literally the perfect devil. She’ll manipulate you with the sweetest smile on her face, mentally fuck you up until you don’t even know who you are anymore, orchestrate an entire shitshow from right under the government’s nose, then mercilessly kill whoever gets in her way. She doesn’t need to act like a monster when she can make you believe the monster is actually saving the world.
Thank you, everyone, for making Phor Kru Zai the No. 1 character of September! 🥹❤️🔥 Let’s keep supporting him and work together to boost his ranking every single day until the very last day of this year! Let’s keep him at the top! 🏆💪💕
#kRusai#RVW#BXXMRVW#BoomRaveewit
@thetiswa Ayeee… Boom’s out here looking happier than I’ve ever seen him, glowing like he swallowed a ring light, somehow even prettier, and walking around with a whole new level of confidence.
Like seriously, you want us to feel despair seeing something like this 👇🏼?
Know your worth, @bxxm_rvw .
You deserve to feel included, supported, appreciated,
Dont settle for crumbs when you deserve the whole damn table. If they can’t see your value, that’s their loss, not yours. You don’t have to keep proving yourself to people who should’ve recognized your worth in the first place.
🫸🏼🖤🤍🫷🏼
#RVW
@Afaf23535 Probably just wanted to lay low. All we ever see is him riding his motorcycle or grabbing a Grab ride.
I know for a long time that he has more than enough money, just not from acting gigs… cuz let’s be real, those paychecks ain’t buying him a Porsche