Anyway, like I was saying, I really only use CrunchyRoll to binge-watch Dragonball Z on an endless loop until the destruction of the universe under Supreme Lord Trump. But I happened upon the 'Drama' section by accident and found Mischievous Kiss: Love in Tokyo. Which is great, since it was a super cute show and everyone was super cute and it had a happy ending, but it was also horrible since it was a super cute show and everyone was super cute and it had a happy ending. So I'm extending/rewriting it. Drama/Tragedy/Psychological, NaokixOC sort of and Kotoko may or may not be dead. Enjoy and review pls!
Reagan was confused. Okay, she was a little more than confused. She surveyed where her surroundings, watching pedestrians sidestep around her without even a second glance as she stood as an obstacle in the middle of the pavement. The sun was hot overhead and the humidity was making her curly blonde hair puff up.
This was not how she pictured Japan. And her very, very limited Japanese only made it harder. She pushed her hair out of her face and placed her attention back on her cellphone, graphical lines making up a topographical map of Tokyo as she tried to maneuver her way through this gigantic city. She tried looking for landmarks she knew. Shibuya, Hirajuku, etc. But there wasn't very much context to go off of.
Her company offered her a cab to be there waiting for her at the airport. No, no. It's my first time in Japan! She had drawled in her slight Georgia accent. It would be fun to walk it and explore it. That's how she always did it in other cities. But then again, other cities weren't as downright massive as Tokyo.
She was going to have to get used to it. She was stuck here. At least for a little while.
Reagan followed the blue arrow on her cellphone as it GPS'd her movements and showed her where to turn with the patience of a teacher talking to a very small child. She looked up for a second to make sure she wasn't going to face-plant with a vending machine or a trashcan or, worse, a slowing group of people as they all made their way to their various destinations in this confusing city.
That's weird. She regarded for a second, a man standing at the railing of a bridge. But he wasn't standing at the railing of a bridge. She's seen plenty of people doing that back at another bridge: tourists taking pictures, men smoking while talking on the phone, couples enjoying the view. No. This man was standing in front of the railing, his knuckles white as he gripped the metal behind him.
Reagan's blood ran cold in her veins when she realized what was happening. She frantically looked around for help, but unlike the other bridge she crossed, that was in the middle of a metropolitan area, this one was empty. His head dropped towards the water and his shoulders were shaking.
She ran towards him. "Sir," She called out as calmly as she could sound. She didn't want to spook him and accidently slip off the edge. His head snapped to her, a wild, desperate look in his brown eyes. "Sir, come back over the railing, please."
His brown hair flipped in the breeze as his head snapped back towards the water and then back at her. He started chattering in Japanese, his facial features contorting with pain.
"Gomennasai." Reagan pleaded, panic making her heart pound in her head. "Watashi wa nihongo ga sukoshi shika hanasemasen." I only speak a little Japanese. Rehearsed words. It was the first full phrase she committed to memory when she got her assignment to come here. "If I had a dollar for every time I'm going to use this phrase..." She had laughed with a coworker.
"Leave me be!" He screamed. Words she could understand. He then launched back into a flurry of Japanese, tears running red track marks down his face.
"Do you know English?" She approached slowly, trying to get in range to grab him if necessary. What was the number for emergency? 999? No, that's England. Shit. Shit! Her thoughts were all convoluted as she tried to remember how to ask in Japanese if he spoke English.
"Yes," He said, in an accent almost better than her own. The desperation in his voice and the darkness in his eyes made Reagan wonder what brought him here. What tragedy must've taken place to drive him to suicide? What happened to make you think that life wasn't worth living?
"What can I do to help?" She pleaded softly, letting the wind whip her hair. "Please, let me help you."
"No," He shook his head and looked back down at the water. "It's no use."
"What's your name?" She tried again. 119? Was that the number? Shit. Shit. Shit. He just shook his head again, his knuckles gripping tighter to the metal railing of the bridge. She took this as a cue to stall. "My name is Reagan."
"Go away, Reagan-san." He said darkly. "I will not make this your responsibility."
"No!" She yelled, not even recognizing her own voice in her ears. "I will not let you do this." She looked down at the water, it was green and blue and churned wildly with the wind and without thinking, she grabbed his wrist. She brushed lines and lines of scars and could feel her heart drop into her stomach. "If you jump, then I'm jumping too."
This was not how she pictured Japan.
Kotoko looked down at the brown eyes that were tracking her as she moved around the nursery, putting away clothes and supplies. Aww, she has your nose! Oba-sama had said that when she was still in the hospital. Kotoko was actually surprised how many times people compared Kotomi to herself or to Naoki. It seemed to be the conversation-started along with How old is she? and She is so cute!
Kotoko didn't see it at first. Actually, Kotoko made the comparison of Kotomi and a pickled prune a couple of times. She actually was scared for a second if that's how Kotomi was going to look forever: purple, wrinkled, and pinched like she had just tasted something sour. But as the months went on, Kotomi's skin turned a pretty pink, her face turned round and her eyes grew bright and curious. And Kotoko could actually see that Kotomi was going to have her nose and her father's cheek dimples. Oba-sama was correct.
She lifted the baby to her shoulder. Kotoko wasn't good at much. She did graduate in Class F, the worst class in the school. She wasn't good at cooking or sewing or walking or playing sports. She wasn't very good at being a nurse. Heck, most of the time she thought she wasn't a very good wife to Naoki either.
But she was excellent at being Kotomi's mother.
She hummed to herself as she danced with the infant pressed against chest as she used her free hand to fold tiny shirts and pants and onesies and place them in the drawer. The baby hiccupped and then settled, pressing her tiny face into Kotoko's shoulder. Kotoko could feel her breathing underneath her hand as she fell asleep.
"You impress me."
Kotoko jumped at the intrusion and then quickly adjusted to make sure she hadn't wakened the baby. She turned to see her husband, his dark hair and knowing brown eyes staring at her as he leaned in the threshold of the door. He wasn't wearing his lab coat, but he was still in his button-down, his tie hanging loosely around his neck. "Naoki!" She breathed. "I didn't even hear you enter. You're early."
He waved her off and approached her. Even after eight years of knowing Irie-kun and two years of being married to him, he still had the ability to make her heart beat like a ceremony drum in her chest. "The operation got cancelled." He gently lifted the child off of her shoulder and cradled her against his own chest.
"I'll go start dinner then." Kotoko volunteered and moved towards the door.
"No, wait." He said as he grabbed her hand and pulled her close to him, opposite of their daughter. He sighed gently into her hair. Kotoko felt like her chest was going to explode like a fireworks show, but she was also confused. Naoki wasn't the type to initiate affection. She was usually the one to do that.
"Is everything alright?"
There was silence. Kotoko had known Naoki for far too long to know that silence wasn't unusual. He did not really speak unless he thought absolutely necessary. He would rather watch and analyze. "Yes." He finally said. "Sometimes, being a doctor reminds me how precious family is to me."
Kotoko squeezed her eyes shut and reveled in the fact that she was the luckiest girl in the world. She didn't even need a shooting star to tell her that.
Reagan gripped this strange man's wrist like she was trying to strangle the life out of it. A million emotions crossed his face. Fear, anxiety, anger, regret. Reagan could feel that he was trembling under her touch, and that his hands were cold as ice. She gently stepped on the bottom rung of the railing and maneuvered her leg over, so that she was straddling it.
"If you jump, I jump." She reaffirmed, now that she was eye-level with this lunatic.
His face contorted with tears as he looked back down at the river below them. "I just can't do it anymore." He said, his voice carrying in the wind. Reagan wondered for a second where he learned English, because he spoke it perfectly. "I feel like I am drowning and I can't find which way is up."
"We can get you help." She said as she gripped his wrist with one hand and the railing she was sitting on with the other. Her long blonde hair whipped into her face, making tears sting her own eyes. Or maybe that was just sympathy. "You don't have to feel like this."
Reagan watched in horror as his toe slipped off of the precarious edge. In the seconds that he fought to regain his balance, time stood still. She reached forward and embraced his shoulders and threw both of themselves backwards, so that they both fell over the railing onto the safe pavement of the bridge.
She rolled off of him and rubbed the hip that she landed on. "Shit, that hurt." She said. "Are you okay?"
His hair splayed over his forehead as his brown eyes stared blankly towards the sky, tears spilling out of the corners. "Gomennasai." He whispered. Reagan knew that meant I'm sorry and she shivered at the thought of who he was speaking to. What happened to make you like this?
"Do you want me to call emergency services?" She asked, but he didn't respond, he just stared at the sky. Reagan took the opportunity to inspect him for wounds. He was wearing a cardigan and a button-down over dark pants. She pressed each leg, looking for broken bones and then started at one wrist. He flinched and recoiled, a flurry of what Reagan assumed were insults, hurled at her direction. "I'm sorry!" She leaned back. "I'm just making sure you're okay."
"I don't need your help." He growled and rolled up and onto his feet. He swayed a little, like he was on a boat before straightening out. "Thank you," He made a complete bow. "For not letting me fall." He stood back up and
Reagan couldn't believe her ears. She had just saved this guy from taking a suicidal leap off of a bridge. And this is how he thanks her? "Hey, buddy!" She called after him. "That's all I get?"
He turned and regarded her coolly, a new aura of composure that wasn't there before. His eyes were steel: cold, metal, unfeeling. "Well, what do you want?"
Reagan felt herself crumple a little. She could still feel his wild pulse in her fingertips. To help you. "Can I have your name?"
"Irie." He said, his gaze moving from her face to the water that sparkled underneath the sun. "Irie Naoki."
Naoki could feel a headache coming on behind his eyes. Lack of sleep mixed with the adrenaline wearing off, he presumed. He tried not to think about it as this American blonde girl with eyes as green as grass stared at him like he was going to shatter into a million pieces. Maybe he was. Maybe he was already broken, broken beyond repair.
"Irie Naoki." She repeated with an accent that he had only seen in movies before. He was unsure if it was a put-on, or if there were actually Americans that talked like that. "Do you want me to call an ambulance?"
He recoiled at having doctors, his colleagues, see him in the condition he was in. It made his skin tingle with anxiety. Or maybe disgust. Disgust for himself. He couldn't tell anymore. He shook his head. "No. It was a moment of…psychological weakness. It won't happen again."
This girl wore her emotions in her expressions like a very loud, obnoxious shirt. Her eyes animating with her thoughts in real-time as they ran through her head. It reminded him so much of…
No.
He had to get out of here. It felt like the walls of his mind were collapsing in on themselves. He was shattering, one piece lost at a time, every time he was reminded of what he lost.
"Do you want to come over for coffee and let me clean up that wound?" Her face twisted into a purse and her eyes squinted in the sun as she motioned to the blood stain that was starting to bloom on his trousers at the knee. He didn't even realize he was bleeding. "I mean, you gotta admit, you do kind of owe me one."
He didn't want to go anywhere, really, except home where he could drug himself with sleeping pills and sleep this day into a distant memory and screen phone calls from his worried mother. Where he could exist without worrying about who could see the cracks. And he didn't owe this girl anything. Owing her would mean that she did something that he wanted. And he wasn't sure he wanted to be saved. "Okay." So it surprised him when he uttered the words.
Her hair, wild mess of curls that he also was sure only existed in movies until five minutes ago, blew into her face, but he could still see the relief in her eyes.
Don't get too close. A malicious voice cooed gently from the back of his mind. You'll lose her too.
Reagan dropped her bag right at the step of the genkan and slid out of her shoes. Her shoulders were starting to ache and stiffen from the fall and stress of it all and she was thinking that she could do with a shot of Jack about now. She glanced up at Naoki, who's expression was blank, except for tightness in his jaw and wondered if he was feeling the same. He stepped out of his shoes and stepped up into her apartment.
She looked around at her company-procured quarters. They were about as western as you could find, with a full washer/dryer set and air-conditioning unit and everything. The only thing that reminded you that you were in Japan was the small genkan right at the door. This both upset and relieved Reagan, as she probably would enjoy stepping into another culture's shoes for awhile, but at the same time, reminded her of her apartment in LA and she didn't feel so far from home.
"If you want to take a seat on the sofa," She motioned to the direction of her living room. "I'll go get some peroxide." She gathered what she needed from the well-stock medicine cabinet and a hand towel and found Naoki sitting on the edge of the couch, staring at his hands.
"You don't have to do this." He said without looking up. "Really."
"You told me you weren't going to make it my responsibility." Reagan retorted and sat down on the coffee table across from him. "So, I'm doing that myself."
"Fuzakeru na!" He barked, a light of fire flickering in his eyes before he extinguished it and recomposed himself. "You don't even know me."
Reagan bent over and picked up Naoki's socked foot to rest in her lap, and hiked his pants leg up to reveal a palm-sized patch of road rash. She remembered getting these when she would try and out-race her brother on her skates. They hurt the worse when you were trying to take care of them. She wondered for a second if that's how Naoki felt. "That's not the issue, though." She said and pressed some gauze and peroxide onto the abrasion. "The issue is that you don't feel like you deserve the help."
"You talk too much." He retorted and winced as she cleaned away the dried blood asphalt from his knee.
"I'm American." She smiled up at him. "It kind of comes with the branding." But instead of responding back he just stared at something to the left of her head, his eyes steeling over. She went back to work and pressed a bandage onto the road rash. "Where did you learn English? You speak it so well." She asked, as casually as one could when you had just rescued someone from throwing themselves off a bridge an hour before.
"School." He shrugged. "I wish I could say the same for you."
"You can't be the judge of that." She argued as she moved to sit next to him on the sofa. "Maybe I'm not that great at English, but I'm very fluent in Southern."
"Southern." He repeated like he was tasting that word for the first time. "That's not a language."
"Sure it is. Like: when you gotta go down to the Winn-Dixie to pick up grits because Paw, bless his heart, said that a good breakfast on a Sunday makes him happier than a flea on a fat dog."
Naoki didn't smile, but Reagan was sure that she could see something in his eyes. Humor, maybe. "Those words, collectively, don't make sense."
"They do if you're from Alabama."
Like the spark of anger before, Naoki quickly extinguished the light humor in his eyes and stood up. "Thank you for the first aid." He bowed. "I think I should go home."
Reagan was surprised at this sudden turn. But knot in her stomach told her that she would regret it if she let him leave. "Wait, wait!" She jumped to her feet and grabbed his wrist. She could feel the lines of scars and he jerked his arm out of her grasp. She disregarded the angry look he gave her. "Are you going to be alright? I mean, they even put suicidal patients in hospitals on a watch for 24 hours at least." She tried to make her voice sound light for such a heavy subject. "I don't want to let my tackling skills go to waste."
Reagan watched as a wave of what looked to be physical pain wash over Naoki's face. "I'll be fine."
No you won't. "Can I call you?" She tried, the knot in her stomach growing. "I just want to make sure you're okay. I won't be able to sleep knowing you might try something again."
He stared at her hard with contempt, but then pulled his wallet out the back pocket of his trousers and pulled a business card out and threw it on the coffee table. "This isn't your responsibility." He muttered mostly to himself before slipping on his shoes and slipping out the door.
She watched the door latch shut before picking up the business card. It was all in Japanese, but there was a caduceus symbol in the corner. Did he work in the medical field? She ran her thumb over the snakes. And a phone number at the bottom.
What have I gotten myself into with you?