"Handcuffs"
by: S. Schumaker
Standard Disclaimers Apply
(AN: I realize that my updating is a little sporadic, but at least I'm doing it eventually, right? Anyway, here's the latest chapter. Akito's identity is plastered across the world . . . should be an interesting installment. Let me know what you think of it! Enjoy!)
Chapter Four
His eyes squinted against the morning rays shining in on him as he lay sprawled out in the four-poster bed. He threw his legs over the side, letting them dangle over the edge. His feet flexed as he stretched his body awake. Sitting up, he turned his body so his feet landed softly on the cold stone floor.
Grabbing his robe and tossing it around his body, Akito stood and made his way out of his room, tying the robe around him on the way. He yawned loudly, hearing it echo down the long hallways of his castle. The slapping of his bare feet against the floor alerted a group of his servants at the hallway's end. They were leaning over something hidden from Akito's view, examining it intensely.
"Mr. Ackerman! You never told us you knew a celebrity!" Juliette shrieked, grabbing the magazine from the circle of workers and handing it over to Akito. His face blanched and his stomach flipped. It was the popular celebrities' magazine People and the hug he had received from his newest target was the cover photo. His face was entirely visible and easily recognizable. Akito looked over the cover, finding himself falling backwards into a nearby chair, his legs too weak to hold him up.
"Mystery lover? Has Sana broken up with long time love Jacques Pinot?" Akito read off the cover. "Details on her new man inside."
"Is it really true, Monsieur? Are you dating Sana Kurata?" Pierre, his butler, asked. Akito could only blink down at the cover in shock and inner shame. How had he been so reckless? He flipped open the magazine, searching for the article about himself. A few pages into the magazine and he found another large photo of himself, his face nearly as shocked in the picture as it was at the present moment. He began reading the article out loud, his voice sounding strained and unlike his own.
Sana's Mysterious New Lover
A mysterious, unknown man met the young actress outside of her estate in Southern France yesterday. After a rather shocked Sana found him waiting before her house, she yelled out his name, "Akito-kun," and embraced him intimately. A friend of Sana's reported having never met the mysterious Akito-kun, but having heard stories about Sana's youth and the young love the couple shared. Is it possible that Akito has returned to reignite those past feelings? And how will this new addition to Sana's life affect her career and her relationship with current boyfriend Jacques Pinot?
Akito stopped reading, not really caring about the remaining part of the article. They had heard Sana speak his name, his identity was revealed to the entire world.
"Akito-kun? Why did she call you that, Monsieur?" Juliette asked, taking the magazine out of his hands and looking at him puzzled.
"Oh, no worries darling." Akito smiled charmingly at her causing her face to heat up with a blush. "Just a childhood nickname." He explained before standing up and walking back toward his room. What he really needed was some quiet in order to figure out what his next step would be, or if there even was one.
Juliette, Pierre, and the other servants watched him walk back to his room in silence. Juliette dropped her gaze back down to the intimate photo of Sana and Akito on the magazine. "Monsieur Paul Ackerman nicknamed Akito-kun as a child? Seems strange, doesn't it? Wonder where Ms. Kurata thought that up . . . " Juliette wondered out loud before walking off to continue in her work, tossing the magazine on a small table in the hallway.
"I really don't see what the big deal is, Claude. It's not like I kissed the guy or anything!" Sana explained, lounging on a couch, the same People magazine sprawled out on her lap.
"Sana! You know how these things work! Everything that you find piddly or insignificant is like holy water to these people!" Her manager Claude nearly shouted out, grabbing the magazine and waving it about it the air. "I mean look at this guy . . . he's gorgeous! Anyone would wonder about your relationship."
Sana sighed and sank back into the cushions. "Well, what am I supposed to do? I can't go to work with that trail of paparazzi on my rear all the time. Maybe I should just lay low for a while."
"No way! Are you crazy?! That would only make matters worse. Can you imagine what the reporters would write about you if you were seen bringing home an unbelievably attractive ex-boyfriend of yours and then disappearing for a few months? It'd be like celeb gossip heaven to these people!" Claude sank down in a nearby chair, fishing his brain for some sort of solution to his client's predicament.
A few minutes of silence passed between the manager and his client, before Claude spoke up again: "What did Jacques say about all this?"
Sana sighed to herself on the couch, forcing her body to an upright position. "Just like these reporters, he blew the whole thing out of proportion. Asking me about every little detail about my relationship with Akito. How long I'd known him, what was he doing here now . . . it was a nightmare."
"Well, what did you tell him?" Pressed Claude, moving closer to her, desperate for his own fill of gossip for the day.
"What could I tell him? I mean, we were kids. Our relationship was basically that, the kind of relationship teenagers have. And, the whole issue about what he is doing here I couldn't even answer because Akito skipped out of here before we could even get to that. So, after telling Jacques all that I could, all that I felt was necessary, he skipped out too, thinking that I was hiding things from him, I'm sure. It's all just one big mess!" Sana finished, slumping back onto the couch, exhausted just from remembering the conversation she had with her boyfriend last night.
"Hm, sounds like you're in for a rough year, honey." Claude laughed to himself, before standing and walking out of the room. "Still have some of that lemonade, dearie?" He shouted out from the next room over.
"Yeah, it's in the fridge, Claude!" Sana shouted back, just as her home security alarm started blaring unbelievably loud. Sana clapped her hands over her ears in pain, rushing over to the code panel on the wall. She quickly punched in her code, shutting down the alarm and looking around for the breech of security.
"Ms. Kurata? Are you all right?" One of her security guards asked over the intercom system. She pressed down the reply button and answered back: "Yeah, but what happened?" Before the guard could give her a reply, her front door slammed open, the echoes bouncing off the foyer and into the room she stood. The alarm started blazing with noise again, and in walked her mother, smiling sweetly at her daughter.
"Mom? What are you doing here?" Sana shouted to her mother over the blaring alarm as she tried desperately to turn it off again. She just walked in, dropping her purse onto the coffee table and dropping herself onto the couch that Sana had previously occupied. She grabbed the top of her hair, currently decorated up like the Eiffel Tower with Maro-chan sitting inside, and removed it, setting it down next to her purse.
Sana just looked at her mom, her fingers blindingly fidgeting with the alarm. Misako motioned her hand around in a little circle to her daughter toward the screeching alarm. Sana turned back instantly and quickly entered in her code, stopping the noise immediately.
"Finally. What, are you trying to make me go deaf, child?" Misako smiled at her daughter, propping her feet on the table and leaning back into the couch.
Seven bodyguards quickly raced into the room, guns drawn and all pointing toward Misako. She looked over the men briefly, before shrugging her shoulders and closing her eyes in content. "It's okay guys. Just Mama." Sana told her guards, slowly pushing down their guys and shooing them from the room.
"Whaffs haffening?" screeched Claude as he raced into the room, his mouth stuffed full with cookies.
Sana just slumped down into a chair, wondering that herself. "Mama, what in the devil are you doing here? I thought you were on a book tour in Tajikistan." Claude, after realizing his client was ignoring him sauntered back to the kitchen.
Misako stood suddenly, startling her daughter. She pulled something out from behind her, a magazine, and tossed it into Sana's lap. An array of foreign words that Sana couldn't understand were sprawled over the cover, but she could practically understand what they were saying simply by the picture that lay beneath them. Another picture of her embrace with Akito, this one altered to make it look like they were leaning in for a kiss. "This is what I'm doing here, daughter. Care to explain?"
With another sigh, Sana began her tale of Akito's sudden appearance and sudden disappearance. After she had explained how nothing really happened between them and how the picture was definitely a fake, she took a deep breath, waiting for whatever wrath her mother was about to give her.
"That's it? No kisses? No intimate sexual positions? How disappointing . . . " Misako groaned to herself, resetting her Eiffel Tower hairdo and grabbing her purse, standing up and heading for the door.
"Mama?! Where are you going?" Sana asked, startled by her mother's reaction.
"I'm leaving. I have a book tour to continue. But, really Sana, I'm a bit disappointed that you didn't do anything with Akito. I've always said that he was the boy for you. Tata!" And with that, Misako walked out the front door, setting the alarm off once again.
To Be Continued . . .
(AN: Yeah! A new chapter!! Leave reviews?)