Chapter 1

Home

"The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast."

Oscar Wilde

Setting down my book I turned to my companion and watched him. Not much in the way of an expression, but it was enough to know that I was irritating him to no end. Smiling I turned back to the rest of the interior of the taxi and suppressed a sigh. Yusuke was used to me not talking much and I was still jittery from my long flight from the U.S.

As I watched Tokyo go by I was amazed at how much I had missed my old home. It had changed so much after father and I left. The people and the parks, the schools and the companies, they were all so different than I remembered from my time spent here as a child of six. Now I was back and discovering that life had not stopped to wait for me. I missed New York City, but I was willing to make this my new home.

With father dead that only left my half-brother Yusuke and my mother. That is if I didn't want to stay with my step-mom. That woman gave me the creeps and I was more than happy to accept my mother's offer to return to Japan and live with her. At the age of nineteen I could technically live on my own, but I figured that I owed it to mom and Yusuke to at least give Japan a chance.

Just then the taxi pulled up next to an apartment building and Yusuke unfolded himself from his seat. Going to the trunk he pulled out my suitcase and my duffel bag as I grabbed my tote and toddled after him up the stairs after he paid for the fair. As we walked over to the elevator I noticed that I was accumulating the eyes of all the passers in the lobby. Ducking my head I had to jog to catch up to Yusuke as he pressed the button for the elevator.

Trying not to stand next to him, but still close enough that I could talk to him I eyeballed the man behind the desk. He was talking on the phone while checking out my chest and hips without being too obvious about the whole thing. The doorman on the other hand didn't have that much professionalism and he was whacked by the revolving door when I turned to Yusuke to see him pull out a cigarette and light it up.

Frowning I reached up and plucked it from between his lips while putting one hand on my hips and cocking my head to the side. "Couldn't offer me one?" I asked as I took a drag off it then blew a perfect smoke ring into his face. Behind me you could have heard a pin drop.

"That was my last one, Kat." Yusuke said glaring at me. His glare had never scared me and I just smiled up at him.

"Well isn't that just the saddest thing I've heard all day. God you're such a baby." I said walking past him and into the elevator as it opened. When I passed him I placed the cigarette back in his mouth and closed the door before he could enter. Pressing the top floor I waited for the door to open and dug through my tote while I stood there. Mom had mailed me a key in case Yusuke forgot to pick me up and I had to get to the condo by myself.

Slipping out of the elevator I walked to mom's condo and put the key in the lock. Even if Yusuke ran up the stairs he still had to deal with my luggage and me if anything broke. Smiling I turned to hear a door open at the end of the hall and was surprised to see my brother walk through looking like he owned the place. Shrugging it off I walked into the condo and slammed the door closed with my heel.

I was physically exhausted and wanted to take a nice sit-down bath before mom got home from work. As I threw my bag on a chair I heard the door open and Yusuke walk in. Looking up I watched as he kicked off his shoes and walked to a door on the left with my bags. Picking my tote back up, I followed him and noticed that there was three bedrooms. Smiling I walked into my new room and stopped short.

It was bare of everything except a bed and dresser with a mirror hanging over it. There was a door leading into what I guessed to be the closet and another one leading into the bathroom. Opening one of the doors Yusuke put my belonging inside and shut it.

"Dinner's at eight o'clock if you're hungry. Mom gets home at around five and my room is the one on the left of yours if you need anything." With that he walked out of the room and headed to his own. Shrugging it off, I stood there looking at my new place. Heading over to the door that Yusuke had opened I pulled out my duffel and tossed it on the bed. Unzipping it I pulled out my bath supplies and headed to the second door.

Upon opening it I found myself in a room the size of my bedroom back home. With a large Jacuzzi in one corner, a shower in another, one wall was dedicated to a sink and a closet in the corner opposite the shower. Between the shower and Jacuzzi was a door leading into a small closet with shelves full of towels and bedding supplies for my room. To say it was heaven was an understatement seeing as my last bathroom was a sink, toilet and a shower. Laughing I walked over to the sink and placed my small bag of things on it.

It was almost seven when mom got home that night and I had decided that I would make her some dinner. It had taken me almost an hour to get everything that I needed and I ended up having to bother Yusuke for some help. Getting his help was one thing getting people to stop staring was a totally different one. I was starting to get extremely pissed off at everybody when we got back to the condo that I didn't realize that Yusuke was trying his hardest not to laugh his ass off at me. This though was the icing on the cake.

"WHAT ARE YOU LAUGHING AT?" I screamed at him. This though made him loose it and he fell to the floor laughing. Pissed off and ashamed at myself I walked into mom's kitchen and started to cook some food that I hoped would turn out successful. I'm not saying I'm a bad cook; it's just that I never really found the time to practice as much as I probably should have. I could cook the basics and if I had a recipe I could make a decent meal.

As it turned out it was a good thing that I didn't know how to cook much. After about an hour of trying to get the food right I had to settle with a simple soup and rice with a side of fish. Like I said simple. Then I placed the table and discovered that Yusuke had videotaped me trying not to destroy a relatively simple dish. And that is what started the chase around the condo that mom came home to with her guest. Me plus baseball bat plus Yusuke laughing his head off equals one pissed off mother.

"WHAT THE HELL!" Atsuko yelled when she walked in with a brunette behind her. At that moment was not the best time to walk in I must say. I had finally caught Yusuke and was straddled across his hips on the couch trying to strangle him. To anybody who came in though it looked like we were having a make-out session on the couch.

"Mom!" We both shouted at the same time as we tumbled off the couch and onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and banging heads. Cursing I retched my arm from under Yusuke and proceeded to use him to untangle myself and literally run over him to mom. Jumping on her I caught the eye of the girl behind her. She was short and had short cropped hair that just brushed her collar bone when she swung her head, with her large chocolate eyes on me I could almost feel the burning hatred radiating off of her.

"You must be Nii-sans girlfriend." I stated as I held out my hand to her. Looking me up and down she nodded her head and proceeded to ignore my hand as she walked past me and over to Yusuke. "Nice to meet you, too." I mumbled under my breath following her with my eyes.

Looking at my mom she just shrugged and hugged me again. Then I frowned. I only made enough food for three people. I didn't think mom would bring home somebody else.

"Why don't I make us all something to eat?" Mom said heading to the kitchen.

"Kat already made us diner mom, but we weren't expecting you to bring Keiko home with you." Yusuke said making me turn pale. The girl already hated me and now I was adding insult to injury.

"Oh that's ok I wasn't all that hungry to begin with and I still have some unpacking to do. You three can eat and I'll just go finish with that." I said trying to smooth over the choppy waters quickly with my brothers girl. If he was going to be with her I didn't want us to be on bad terms.

"Really?" Both my mom and brother asked at the same time. They both knew that I had a bottomless pit for a stomach and could eat Yusuke under the table with ease and still be hungry.

"Yeah, plus I sampled all the food while I was cooking it to make sure it turned out alright. You guys enjoy yourselves." I said putting my fake smile in place and ushered them to the dining area of the open floored condo.

"Thanks." Keiko said as she turned to follow Yusuke over to eat.

Walking into my room I flung myself down onto the bed and felt my stomach grumble at me for not eating when I was so hungry. Frowning I rolled over onto my side and curled into the fetal position and waited for the sounds to subside. It wasn't like this was my first time going for a long period of time without food.

As I sat there I looked at the wall and realized that there were no windows in my room. Crawling off my bed I walked over to the wall and saw that there were panels running the length of the wall. On the wall as you were looking at it was a switch all the way to the left that looked like a light switch, flipping it I jumped back when the wall started to move. Slowly the wall gave way to wide windows and a sliding glass door that opened out onto a balcony. Smiling I walked out onto the balcony and found myself assaulted by the sounds of the Tokyo night.

Looking around I saw there was a fire escape to the right and another balcony to the left was another patio separated by several feet of open air. Looking down I saw that we were overlooking the main road and the entrance to the building. Smiling I walked back into my room and grabbed my tote, dumped it on my bed and found a pen and piece of paper. Writing on it in capital letters I then found the little role of tape I always carried and walked over to my door. Opening the door I taped the letter onto it then proceeded to close the door and lock it behind me. Grabbing my purse out of my duffel at the end of the bed I walked to my closet and shuffled through my suit case.

As soon as I found an outfit that I liked I changed and headed out the balcony door and down the fire escape. Smiling I started to laugh at my escape.