Hi everyone! I'm back with another chapter! Thank you for your reviews and for welcoming me back! Here is a longer chapter for you!
I admit that writing Rei was a bit tricky, but I tried to imagine what she would be like after so many years.
"So, what brings you here?" Yuuri asked, still carrying the box.
"Aren't you happy to see me?" Rei asked in a teasing tone. They were walking together, heading to the Kurosawa antique store.
"Of course I'm happy to see you." Yuuri smiled. "You didn't visit in a while."
"Sorry about that. I was a bit busy. Hisoka called me the other day so I decided to pay her a visit." The photographer answered. "Did you make any friends, lost puppy?"
"Could you please drop that nickname?" Yuuri rolled her eyes. "And I'm already friends with Ren!"
"Kid, by friends I mean someone who isn't as introvert as you are. No offense."
"That's pretty offensive." The brunette mumbled. "Besides, there's also Miu and Rui."
Rei stopped and her expression became unreadable. "Miu Hinasaki, right?"
Yuuri looked at her surprised, wondering how she knew about her, then realization hit her.
The woman Miku Hinasaki mentioned in her diary was this Rei Kurosawa.
She really was clueless.
"C'mon puppy, let's go." Rei gave her a pat on the back and resumed her walking.
"Please drop the nickname." The brunette sighed and followed her. She had a feeling that this was going to be a long day.
Hisoka was enjoying a warm cup of coffee, when the two came in. She stared for few seconds before rushing to hug her guest.
"Rei! I missed you! How are you? Are you eating well? Are you getting enough sleep?"
"Hisoka. You're my cousin, not my mother." Rei said. Her smile grew as she hugged back her younger relative. "But before you start grilling me with questions. I'd love a cup of coffee."
"Yuuri! Make some coffee!" Hisoka said to the other girl who was putting the cats in another room. She then looked at her pet in horror.
"Hisoka-san! What have you done to Yuu?!" Yuuri exclaimed as she tried to free her dog from the clothes he was forced to wear.
"Yuu?" Rei's expression was blank. Yuuri and Hisoka froze. They forgot that Yuu was the name of her dead fiancé. "He's so adorable!" The photographer lifted the pet and her eyes wandered from him to the brunette before voicing her thoughts. "He looks a lot like you, Yuuri."
"Rei-san, no."
"Especially the puppy eyes."
"I do not have puppy eyes."
"Yes you do." Hisoka intervened and the brunette sighed in defeat before leaving to make coffee.
"How are you holding up?" Rei asked her cousin, as her playful expression turned into a concerned one. The deeper meaning of the question was clear. It was about what happened on Mt. Hikami. Her cousin told her everything.
"I'm fine." Hisoka assured her.
"What about Yuuri?" Rei asked. "She wasn't doing very well. Even we thought she got better, she was still cold and distant. It's been two years."
"She changed in a short amount of time. It almost felt as if what happened on that mountain gave her the closure she needed." The store's owner explained with a smile. She was always concerned about her assistant in the last few years. She even feared that she was going to make the same mistake after she started getting to close to ghosts again.
"It looks like ghosts did what we couldn't achieve." The photographer rested her face on her palm, as her thoughts wandered back to the past. "They always do."
"Don't say that. If you weren't here, I'm sure she would have gave up earlier." Hisoka said, and the conversation ended as Yuuri put the cup on the table.
Miu walked home after she and Rui parted ways. She was about to open the store's door when someone from inside beat her to it. She recognized the woman immediately. She was the woman in her mother's picture.
Rei couldn't tear her eyes away. She couldn't help but think of how identical they were. She was seeing the ghost of a bright girl she used to know.
She knew that old wounds were going to open, but she wasn't ready for this yet.
Few minutes later, they were sitting at a table in the store, in an awkward silence. So awkward that even Yuuri couldn't stand it.
"Just talk already!" She said clearly annoyed.
"What is it puppy? I thought you liked silence." Rei teased and Miu glared immediately at the use of the nickname.
"Comfortable silence, Rei-san." She answered, not bothering to say anything about the nickname anymore.
"Why are you here?" Miu decided to ask.
"This place belongs to my family." But I guess that's not really what you want to hear." The photographer answered, her hand playing with the ring necklace around her neck. "Hisoka called me one morning and told me that Miku Hinasaki's daughter is here."
"Then she told you what happened to my mother."
"She's dead." Rei stated so calmly that the young Hinasaki could feel her insides on fire.
"How can you say that so calmly? Wasn't she your friend?" She stood and slammed her hands on the table, never breaking eye contact.
"I do not recall someone abandoning others being worthy of the title friend!" Rei's calm voice was starting to slip into anger.
"Why didn't you look for her?! Why didn't you stop her?!" Miu asked. She felt so angry and sad and she just wanted to blame someone, and the woman across her was the perfect target.
"I wasn't going to waste my life looking for someone who did not want to be found!" Rei yelled and her words hit the other girl harder than they should.
After all, she spent many years doing that one thing.
"You're the worst!" She said before rushing upstairs.
"Miu!" Yuuri called after her then sighed and rubbed her temples. "I knew this was going to happen." She muttered under her breath and followed the younger girl, while Rei sat there looking blankly at the door.
Yuuri knocked on Hinasaki's door, hoping to get an answer. "Miu, it's me. Please open the door."
"No." Yuuri was surprised by how small her voice sounded behind the door. "I want to be alone."
She rested her forehead on the door and sighed. The younger girl was just starting to heal from her mother's death, but this had to come up. She decided not to push her and walked away, but stopped when she saw the store's owner.
"I heard the whole thing." Hisoka said with a reassuring smile. "How about you go downstairs and let me talk to her instead?"
"But…" Yuuri started and Hisoka gave her a pat on the shoulder.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of your girlfriend." Hisoka winked before walking to the room, while Yuuri just stared at her embarrassed.
"Huh?" She wondered, feeling her face heat up a little then sighed and decided to go downstairs.
Rei's head was resting on the table and she was holding something in her hand.
"Rei-san. What are doing?" Yuuri stared at her blankly.
"Drinking. You serve beer to the regulars, right?" Rei answered with a silly grin before taking another sip.
"How much did you drink?"
Rei burst out in laughter before staring at her blankly. "Enough to be dead drunk. Come sit here Yuuri-chan!"
Yuuri was starting to think that jumping off the cliff might be a good idea.
She sat across her and glared as the woman took kept drinking.
"I looked for her, you know." Rei admitted, and Yuuri's glare left as she focused on what the woman was saying. "I spent two years looking for her, and when I found her, she was with her daughter. I didn't know what to do. I thought that she moved on with her life, and that I would be nothing but a reminder of a dark past."
"That's not…" Yuuri started, but the more she thought about it, the more she understood where the woman was coming from.
"Puppy, you get it, right?" Rei asked. "You always understood me, even if you're the most clueless person I ever met."
The brunette glared at the nickname and the somehow offending words. "I know this is hard for you, Rei-san. However, that doesn't mean you get to be harsh towards Miu. She's suffering as much as you are." She said in a scolding tone.
"Hey! She was harsh to me too!" Rei pouted. "Why are you being so overprotective?"
A drunk Kurosawa was a pain to deal with. It was a lesson the brunette learned the hard way.
"Rei-san."
"Okay, sorry." Rei sighed and her expression changed from playful to sorrowful in a second. "She just looks so much like her! I thought that I mattered to her! She just left without a word… She should've trusted me…" She was crying at this point.
"You did matter to her. I'm sure." Yuuri smiled brightly, remembering the diary she and Miu read. "I think that you and Miu should give each other a chance. You were hurt by the same person, and you can heal together. One thing I know for sure is, Hinasaki-san cared about you both, and I'm sure she would want you to be friends."
Rei just stared at her for few seconds before smiling and patting her head. "You just upgraded from lost puppy to wise puppy." Yuuri groaned. "Thanks for the advice. I should go now. It's getting dark." She tried to walk but almost fell if Yuuri didn't catch her.
"What are you saying? You're drunk! You're spending the night here." Yuuri said. She had her arm around the drunk woman and helped her walk.
"Oh look at you, my prince charming." Rei teased, as she let the younger girl drag her.
"I swear, I'm the only adult in this building." Yuuri complained.
She ended up passing out on the sofa in the office after giving Rei her room. It was a long and overwhelming day, and she was too tired.
She then felt a blanket covering her and she heard someone talking. "When will you start taking care of yourself, idiot?"
She opened her eyes to see Miu looking away with a visible blush.
"Miu, how are you?" Yuuri sat up and asked her.
"I…" Miu sat beside her and looked down, ashamed. "I'm sorry about earlier." She then felt Yuuri's hand grip her own. She looked at the brunette, and was speechless by the intense look in her eyes.
She didn't trust herself under that gaze, so she rested her head on the brunette's shoulder. Yuuri was surprised by the contact, but she didn't say anything, instead she just tightened her grip.
"Hisoka-san knocked some sense into me. I was an idiot." Miu admitted. "Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"Well… I didn't realize they were the same person, and she looked younger in the picture." Yuuri admitted, feeling a bit embarrassed. "And Kurosawa is a very common name, you know!"
Miu couldn't hold back the laughter. She looked at her with a bright smile. "You really are clueless."
It didn't take long for them to fall asleep, and of course, Hisoka teased them in the morning.