As she stepped into the building, Kaede swallowed, her mouth dry. Wiping her palms on her already grimy cloak, she steeled her resolve. She was doing this for a reason. She had to remember that.
The idea had occurred to her on the car trip to the building. She had almost forgotten who she was going to meet: Mizuo Hanegawa, CEO of a major hotel business, and a huge influence in the industry world. A powerful man; her father.
Also the one responsible for killing the twins and Lucy. Her heart twisted; her expression slid away like fine sand, turning into a hard, cold, marbled face.
It was enough, she decided, to make her hate him. And that was good. It was going to make things much easier.
.
As she stepped into the building, she was aware of Tabitha sliding away from her side, motioning gently in which direction she should go before turning back to the car. So she would have to meet her father alone.
Curious, Kaede decided, that at this point she was not as agitated as she thought she would be. Before, when she had met any sign of her father or his company, she had retaliated with the panicked strength of a wounded animal, running away without another thought, hiding, cowering. But now, forced to face the one person she thought she'd never see again, she felt calm.
Which was odd. Why hadn't she done this earlier?
Her fingers wrapped around the handle of the door, but she hesitated. This was, after all, what she had spent the majority of her life trying to avoid. The moment she opened the door...well, what was going to happen? She didn't know.
For the first time in her life, she wished she could truly see the future, not make mere guesses based off of circumstances. Maybe then she would have been able to prepare herself better. Maybe then she would have known what to do. Maybe then things would have turned out different; she wouldn't have had to spend half of her life running away from nothing and towards nowhere; maybe then-
-they wouldn't have died...
Kaede twisted the handle sharply and flung open the door.
"Hello, father," she said, not bothering to bow. She strode in, latching the door shut behind her with a resounding clack. "It's been a while, hasn't it? "
.
The small office was dimly lit by a single lamp in the corner of a tall, sleek, wooden desk. Plush chairs were arranged beside the door; a small bookcase stood on the edge of the room. In the muted light, it was hard to discern Kaede's expression.
"Would you like some tea?" It wasn't much of a question; the cup of tea had already been placed down in front of her. Kaede took it, feeling the warmth seep into her hands. It was a pretty teacup, probably very expensive, with floral designs of delicate cherry blossoms and curling leaves painted with great care on its porcelain surface. She stared into the brownish water inside. The faint traces of her reflection stared back. Kaede flinched slightly, and twisted the cup in her hands, distorting the image.
"So," she said, finally. The steam from the cup of tea tickled her cheek. "How have you been?"
"I've been doing well," her father replied. "Tabitha's been taking care of me."
She didn't react to that. To the rest of the world, this simply sounded like a proper conversation, albeit a little disjointed. Kaede didn't have to hold back any urge to run away, or to scream. Instead, she just felt stifled by the awkward atmosphere, like she was meeting a stranger and couldn't really figure them out.
Or maybe it was just that all of her feelings had flown away and left her an empty shell. None of the feelings that should have swept through her at the sight of him – square-shouldered, a little shorter than she remembered him, with a blunt, honest face, dressed in warm clothing and a scarf wrapped around his neck despite being indoors. Even when they greeted each other, him with a deep bow and her with a stiff nod, she didn't feel anything other than awkwardness.
He seemed to read an awkward atmosphere, though, and his tone changed to be slightly more congenial. "Would you like coffee instead? That's what youngsters seem to prefer nowadays." He reached for her cup, which was still held tightly in her hands. In an instant, Kaede's earlier apathy sparked into a glare of fury.
"Don't touch me."
"I'm sorry," to her surprise, Mizuo Hanegawa apologized, instantly backing off. "I don't want to push things into a direction you don't want to go in."
He was too damn polite. For some reason, Kaede was relieved by this. It was so much easier to talk to him this way, with no emotions attached; formal, calculating. Distant. Her flare of panic smoothed over into a glacial calmness.
Perhaps that was a good thing, then, because it would be so much easier to kill him.
"No, no," the fingers around the teacup loosened. "It's okay. I think this conversation was bound to happen, anyway. Why don't you start first?" Her voice was beginning to waver despite herself, and Kaede covered it up with a deeper, more menacing tone. Now was not the time to let her petty feelings get in the way. She had to do this.
Her father's gaze was an unreadable shade of green. Like her own eyes, she thought, and then cursed herself for the thought.
"To this day, I still don't quite understand what happened," her father finally began. "When your mother died, I was distraught. I didn't know what to do."
"I know," her voice was bitter. She knew that all too well. So maybe she had been selfish, thinking that perhaps she would be able to replace the hole in her father's heart. Maybe she had thought things would stay the same, even when they so obviously would not be. Maybe.
But there were too many maybes, and she still couldn't forgive him. She wouldn't. Ever.
"I thought I would be able to recover. I thought it would be okay with just the two of us. I could take care of the business by myself. And then, all of a sudden, you disappeared too. Gone without a trace. I thought you were dead. That would be when I found the note - the note that said you had been kidnapped, and I would never see you again."
Her fingers tightened against the teacup.
What? What did Mizuo Hanegawa just say?
"A note...?" Kaede had become unnaturally still, unable to breath. Her calmness shattered like a wall of glass, and she felt her panic overwhelm her. Even more uncertainties. Even more maybes. Her certainty threatened to slide away. The floor lurched. "What? Kidnapped?"
She had left no note.
So that meant...that meant...
"You mean...you thought-"
The door was abruptly flung open. Kaede's sentence died in her throat, and she turned. Tabitha stood in the doorway, a graceful smile adorning her face. Her hair had been covered with a hat, and there was a flush across her cheeks, as if she was excited about something. Or nervous. Kaede couldn't tell.
"Tabitha," her father stood at once. After a moment of hesitation, Kaede stood too, her chair pushed halfway back. For some reason she felt her calm return again. This woman's very existence invalidated anything CEO Mizuo Hanegawa could say to Kaede. So there had been a conspiracy to separate them. So there had been someone else involved in the end of Kaede's childhood life. Well that was the past now, and Tabitha's presence made Kaede realize that in the end, it was too late for her father to change his fate. Nothing that happened between father and daughter mattered now.
"Oh..." Tabitha seemed to realize that she had interrupted something. "I'm sorry...should I just wait outside?"
"No," Kaede said immediately, "it's fine. We're finished talking." Mizuo Hanegawa shot her a startled glance, but she ignored it. There would be no more talking, only actions.
Her father turned to Tabitha, and instantly a warm smile filled his honest face. His eyes even went a little glassy, which was sick and amusing at the same time. He seemed to have completely forgotten the conversation with Kaede earlier. "Have a seat, my dear." He indicated the chair next to him.
"No, it's fine." Tabitha replied, and then sat down in a chair next to Kaede's. "I actually have a lot I want to speak to Kaede about."
The look on Tabitha's face was of pure enthusiasm, but when Kaede saw it, a bad feeling simmered beneath her skin. Everything was perfect about Tabitha - her carefully applied make-up, her smooth, glossy hair, her straight and poised posture...and the way she expressed her emotions. The perfectness of it made Kaede uneasy. Now that she thought about it, who was this woman, pushing her way into her father's life?
.
"Because I...really love that man."
A worm of doubt twisted in Kaede's stomach. Perhaps she had just stopped believing in love, but that just sounded too fake, coming from a beautiful lady, in regards to a middle-aged, widowed, stout and square-jawed man with no charm.
But then if that's the case….what in the world could Tabitha want?
.
"I didn't even know this about Kaede," she exclaimed, looking back and forth at them, a charming smile on her face. "Honey, have you heard of Kaede's most interesting power? All over the downtown area where she was found, they've been talking about her fortune-telling abilities."
Her heart plummeted to her stomach. Kaede hadn't expected her street life to be brought up so suddenly, and by Tabitha of all people. Another part of her brain raced. How did Tabitha know? Perhaps she had listened in on conversations - it wouldn't have been hard. If she knew about that, then shouldn't she know about the twins and Lucy as well? Would she be able to guess Kaede's true intentions?
"...Fortune telling?" Her father was looking interested. Kaede stiffened and started to listen desperately for signs of betrayal. Her plan wouldn't work if he suspected, if they suspected...
"No," Kaede cut in quickly, "it's not like that. I can't really predict the future." She had to stop this somehow. She hadn't planned on letting her father in on how she could see strings. How had her plans unraveled so fast?
Tabitha's next words ruined everything. "But you do have a certain power, yes?" Tabitha pressed on, still smiling. "I've heard about it. Something about seeing threads - is that true?"
Kaede narrowed her eyes. "How do you know that?" Someone had evidently done their share of investigating. Did this woman know everything?
"So you can?" her father asked, lacing his fingers together and leaning forwards. "It must be an ability that you learned on the streets. Do tell us more, Kaede."
Kaede swallowed, shifting uncomfortably backwards, scooting further into her chair. This wasn't what she had wanted. "...I can see strings," she finally admitted, unable to bear the scrutinizing stares of Tabitha and her father. She had to regain their trust, somehow, worm her way into their confidences, bring her father down from the inside. "Strings of Fate."
"Fate?" Her father asked, eyebrows raising. "Such as how you die?"
"No!" Kaede said quickly, and then corrected herself, smoothing over her sense of panic with the cold professionalism she had used on so many customers in the backstreets of York Shin. "Well, yes, but that's not all. I can see the strings that dictate your life. Your friendships, your competitors, your luck, your love..." Kaede decided to add a little dark flair, to show off a little to the people who thought they knew her, but really didn't. "It has limitations though, Certain conditions have to be met. It's a difficult art, fortune telling."
"How interesting!" Her father exclaimed. "And yet, what a simple concept!"
It's not simple at all, Kaede thought. For one, she had never been able to foretell the timing, which was all that people were really interested in. All she knew, for example, was how people would die. If the strings were fading and unraveling, they'd be close to death, or dying of some sickness, or old age. If their strings were strong and visible, but there was a black one wrapped around another string, that meant that someone was going to murder them. And if there was a single, snipped black thread on their hand, it meant that they had murdered someone else.
She didn't see any black strings on her father's hands. Not yet, anyway.
"It could be useful, couldn't it?" Tabitha asked eagerly. "Think of how much influence you could gain, especially in the corporate world!"
This took Kaede by surprise. She had been thinking along the same lines, and to hear them repeated aloud by Tabitha unsettled her. "What do you mean?" she asked.
This seemed to strike a chord in Mizuo Hanegawa, and he straightened, as if he had remembered something. "Kaede..." He seemed to be searching for the right words to say. "I know we've only just been reunited. But the truth is, I need your help. I will offer anything in return, anything you desire. Your ability to see strings might just be able to save something that's very important to me – my company."
Kaede couldn't believe it. They had decided to trust her after all! And now they were offering her a business deal. She should have been elated, but instead she felt as if her stomach had just been crushed by a heavy rock.
So in the end, they had an ulterior motive from the beginning. She didn't know if she was expecting it or not, but the fact that it had surprised her at all made her angry. Of course, she thought, why else would they suddenly start putting so much effort into finding me? They had been one step ahead of her, planned on using her from the very beginning.
She was so...disappointed.
"What kind of proposition?" Her tone had become more wary and guarded.
"You see," Tabitha sighed, "despite how well our company is doing, it's not doing well enough."
"We have a rival company that's been growing steadily bigger," her father explained. "In actuality, they're doing much, much better than us."
"That's where we want you come in," Tabitha smiled, letting her ebony black hair fall out in long waves as she removed and repositioned her hat. "We want you to appear, all dressed up and mysterious, gain their trust, and to put it bluntly, ruin them from the inside."
Silence stretched inside the small office. Kaede's mind began to hurt due to the speed of her thoughts.
"Ruin them from the inside? That's a preposterous idea." Kaede spoke slowly, almost a little lazily, trying not to betray the thought spinning in her mind. "Sabotage? Well, I can't say that it's unheard of, but if it were to be discovered, it would cause a huge scandal... Are you willing to face the consequences?"
Tabitha glanced furtively between Kaede and her father. Her father swallowed and looked at a spot on the wall slightly to the left of Kaede.
Slowly looking between the two faces of the adults, she understood something. "You're desperate for the company, aren't you? You've tried everything you can, but it hasn't been working. So you've decided to grasp at a handful of bees, hoping to actually catch one that won't sting you. And you did." She had the full picture now, understood her situation. This was going to be easier than she thought, as long as she could get rid of that sick feeling in her stomach that screamed with disappointment in her father. "You found me."
"I'm sorry, Kaede," Mizuo Hanegawa sighed, perhaps picking up on the raging feelings beneath her cool expression, or perhaps apologizing out of proper conduct. "I'm truly sorry. But this plan is going to work. We've thought it all through already. So, please?" He attempted to smile, but it was too forced. Perhaps he was also coming to realize what a horrible father he was being.
"If I accept your…proposition... let's make this clear. You promised me anything I wanted, isn't that right?"
Mizuo Hanegawa nodded vigorously. "I apologize for asking this of you, so soon after we were reunited after all…"
"No," Kaede was shaking her head, her lips curving into a smile. "No, it's fine." Nothing that happened between father and daughter mattered now. "This proposition...I'll go along with it. On one condition."
Tabitha and the CEO looked at each other. "Yes!" Mizuo Hanegawa said eagerly, nodding. "Of course, anything. Anything you want."
Kaede heard her voice come out like velvet covering steel. She was not afraid anymore.
"Do you remember, about two months ago, there were three children who were murdered? A few years younger than me. All on the same night. By one person."
Tabitha's smile disappeared completely, while her father's softened in confusion. Kaede's smile was predatory as she leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with malice. "I want you to give me a hundred-thousand jennis. And then...I want the name of the assassin you hired to kill them."
The plot, evidently, will go faster from now on. I intend for this story to be short; I feel like I won't be able to stretch it out for more than 10 or so chapters. So I offer my apologies, and the promise of more Hisoka appearances. I know, I miss him too.
Anyways, review! I really like it when people tell me what they think of my story. Constructive criticism is always appreciated; flames, not so much. I don't think I've gotten any flames, though o.o is that a good thing?
Bleh. I'm so sorry for my awful updating speed. I'm sincerely trying my best (you won't believe how much I nagged my sister to beta-read this, goodness) to give you guys something good each time I upload.
Thank you!
- Colorii
