Spoiler: Not everything is what it seems to be ;)
CHAPTER 10 - ABOUT ANGELS AND DEMONS (PART 1/2)
The first time he saw her, he thought she was angelic and adorable. With her blond curls and frilly dress, she was the perfect image of innocence at the age of six. Innocence that he, at the age of nineteen, had lost a long time ago.
A year later, his heart warmed and broke at the same time when he heard her say she would marry him when she became of age: as far as it was the first time he felt loved by someone, she was only a child, unable to see - and to love - his real self.
Two years later, the childish crush became the favorite joke among the Boss's employees. Although he did not care, because it was good to have someone to look at him with such devotion – even if he kept thinking that what she saw in him was far from reality - , she, in turn, was hurt by the mockery with which they treated her feelings.
Seeing her watery eyes pissed him off like never before. Not because she was the granddaughter of his Boss, godfather and savior, but because she was his special little girl and no one would hurt her without paying the bloody price.
Unfortunately, he could not continue to protect her. The Boss sent him to another country. He went willingly, though it hurt as hell to separate from her as she was clinging to his waist, crying and begging him not to leave her alone.
She saw him as the only person who understood her solitude and he knew it.
Four years later, when they finally met again, he was baffled. Not because she made it clear how annoyed she was that he had not responded to any of the emails she had sent him, but because his porcelain angel was acquiring curves that did not match his purity image of her. To make matters worse, her constant statements that they would marry one day were no longer cute, but rather worrisome and made him feel like a pedophile.
As the situation did not seem to improve and the embarrassment had already reached the level where she was pulling dangerous pranks on his girlfriends, the Boss sent her to a boarding school for girls the following year.
On that day, hell broke loose at the mansion. She only knew about her grandfather's decision at the last moment, when her belongings had already been packaged by the maids. He would always remember how she had to be forcibly placed inside the car, a task no one was happy to do, but the worst were the tears and the pleas she directed at him.
Of all the things he saw and did, that was the one that still caused him nightmares.
She tried to run away almost every day. For exactly one year, she was a handful to the boarding school staff and her grandfather, who did not know what to do with her. Until, for no apparent reason, she became what everyone seemed to expect of her: despite refusing to return home during holidays, a behavior that everyone imagined to be transient, she became the best school student, entered the most prestigious university, and finished the first year as the most promising talent in decades.
Everyone was relieved. Except that, at the beginning of the following year, she vanished into thin air.
"Setsu, remove the sign from the front door. I have hired the new guard."
Distracted by the tedious task of drying the glasses, she only murmured her acquiescence.
"You should have told me about your brother. It would have spared me the trouble of looking for the new guy."
Her movements immediately stopped. Raising her head quickly, she stared at the boss of the Pink Flamingo.
"...Brother?"
Unaware of the astonishment in her face and voice, the burly middle-aged man kept counting money at one of the bar tables.
"In the flesh. Big, bad-faced guy. Perfect for the work! He asked me to live with you in return for receiving less than half the promised salary, so I sent him straight to your apartment." The glass slipped from her hands and shattered on the floor. "Shit, Setsu! I will cash it out of your salary!"
She could not care less.
"Yes, yes, whatever."
As she climbed the stairs to the apartments on the upper floors, Setsu told herself not to be an idiot. Maybe it was not him. Maybe it was anyone else. However, if it was he, certainly he was just following orders.
Opening the door to the tiny apartment, the person she least wanted and most yearned to see became visible. It was he, her demon, comfortably reclined in the chair too small for someone of his size, his dark, indecipherable gaze resting on her.
Setsu could hardly believe her eyes. It was as if he had not aged a single day since the last time she had seen him seven years before, through the tears that streamed from her eyes as he just watched impassively some of Boss's brutes dragging her into the backseat of the limo that took her away from him.
Cain could hardly believe his eyes. He was utterly perplexed to see that his little angel had become a woman dressed in black leather and with more skin on display than hidden, but he was trained to show nothing.
"Really? Brother? You are my brother as much as I am a fairy! What a fucking nonsensical idea!"
He recognized the fire and the unusual statements that did not match the situation as much as it did not surprise him that the little girl who liked to collect occult articles had become a woman with gothic tastes, but both her curves and her language were being challenges to him.
"...It's not as nonsensical as your idea of using a fake document with my surname."
In fact, it was a brilliant idea, but he could not tell her that. (Above all, he could not tell her how he felt when he discovered she still remembered him after so many years.) The Takarada organization took two years to locate her, which was a rare feat. Not even the "business" enemies had been able to hide for so long.
They stared at each other indefinitely, both trying to absorb that moment.
"...Whatever. You cannot stay here."
He almost smiled as he recognized Lory's 'straight to the business' tone. She had been away from home for seven years, but not even such a separation was enough to erase the influence of the family.
"As long as you come with me, I can leave right now."
She was visibly irritated, but he was already waiting for the challenge.
"I'm serious, Cain. I know who sent you here and why, but neither you nor he has control over my life now."
After all, she was already an adult woman, a reality he was having a hard time to accept, however obvious it was.
"Is that what you think about your grandfather?"
"Did you become a family therapist, by any chance? Or are you just being the loyal dog as always?"
"Enough, Sestu."
She really hated being treated like a child. Especially by him.
"No, it is not enough! You broke into my home-"
"This dump is not your home."
"-And infiltrated my workplace-"
"A brothel!"
"It is not a brothel! It is a nightclub!"
"A damn strip club. Setsuka Takarada, in a strip club. Do you want to insult your grandfather so much? Or is your target your father?"
She scoffed.
"Insult him? How? Is not this how the Takarada fortune began? So he can become a tycoon exploring places like this, but after the first million and the first casino, does he become too good for a nightclub?"
"He's not the one that's too good for this place, Setsu. You are. Everything your grandfather had always wanted was to give you a good and dignified life, away from the filth he knows."
"Tch, is that what he told you… let me guess… while smoking a Cuban cigar and drinking champagne?"
"A man has the right to enjoy the empire he has built."
"Just as a woman has the right to trace her own path."
That annoyed him enough to make him stand up, but neither his physique nor his anger intimidated her. As usual.
"Is that what you're doing? Tracing your path?" It was his turn to scoff. "Do not make me laugh, Setsu. With your intelligence, the sky is the limit for you. Anything you want to do is within your reach, and you choose-"
"What I choose is my business!"
Of all the people who acted paternalistically with her, Cain was the one who bothered her the most.
"No, it's not! Not when you need to hide your identity! Do the women who work here, not by choice but out of necessity know that you are one of the richest heiress in the world?"
"No, but I'm not hiding from them, but from you, from my family and from the damn Takarada organization!"
Her statement hurt so much that he chose to pretend he had not listened.
"How would your colleagues feel if they knew? Your attitude mocks the life story of each one of them and you know it so well that you are hiding behind a fake name!"
There was more truth in his words than she was willing to admit.
"I'm not mocking anyone! I am just trying to live my way!"
The desperation in her voice caught him by surprise, so Cain silently watched her as he tried to understand where the pain - his and hers – were coming from.
Interpreting his silence as recrimination, Setsu's shoulders fell in a rare gesture of defeat. The words she whispered next showed so much hopelessness that Cain wanted to hold her and assure her that everything would be all right, but he could not do it.
Not anymore.
"Why am I still trying? You would never understand..."
That was how Cain discovered that nothing hurt more than losing the privileged position he once had: he was no longer the only person who understood her solitude, and they both knew it.
A / N – I had to put the notice before the chapter because I thought "Darn, they're going to start reading and they're going to think 'how absurd! Ren is Kyoko's man!' (Yes, yes, I agree XD) and then they will drop the chapter" T_T
I was not able to work on the other fic because this story was pestering me. XD Therefore, we will have another chapter before we get back to The Dragon's Lair.
By the way, if you started reading and thought this was a 'Ren and Maria' chapter, I'm glad! :) My intention was exactly to merge the stories of Ren and Maria (age difference, crush and all) with the 'siblings' in an alternative universe. ;)
(I have wanted to write about the Heel siblings for a long time. I do not know why it took me so long...)