AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Haven't got much to say except, aren't you happy to be rid of the disclaimer for the rest of this story?  I sure am!

What Wasn't Meant to Be by Sushifishie

Chapter Two: New Beginnings

Rei glared at the dark blue walls of the clinic.  He'd heard once, that darker colors were supposed to be more soothing than bright ones, like red and yellow.  They were certainly working for him, because he didn't usually open up to shrinks.  But recently, for some reason, he was talking more and more about his feelings.  Maybe it was because his brother had tried to commit suicide, or maybe it was because his dad was coming home less and less frequently.  Or maybe it was just the color of the walls.  But, whatever it was, it was working.

            "Rei, are you listening to me?  Please enlighten me to what is on your mind," the doctor said in his kind, passionate tone.

            "I'm just wondering how you guys get all us freaks to open up to you," admitted Rei, rolling his eyes.  He didn't like that the doctor always had to know what he was thinking, but if he didn't open up, then his father would have his head the next time he got a chance.

            The doctor smiled, "It's just what we're trained to do.  There's certain techniques used for dealing with unruly patients, but I generally just ask questions in the calmest manner that I find is possible."

            Rei cocked his head and nodded with a sigh.  He was beginning to get bored with these sessions.  For the entire break between schools, he was being expected to open up to a psychologist for a few days every week.  The sessions were a lot alike; he'd go there, sit bored, eventually say something that the doctor latched on to, and talk about his feelings on that topic.  They were all starting to run together, and he could no longer decipher one from another.  It was all just so dull!

            "Okay, I suppose that I can accept that for an answer," he said, giving the doctor a wary look.  "That's exactly what a nurse I talked to a while ago told me.  'That's my job,' she said."

            "When was it that you were talking to a nurse," the psychologist inquired.

            "When I was at the hospital visiting Sei" he replied, adding a 'no duh' under his breath.

            "And, how did that make you feel?" the doctor questioned, with his never-ending smile.  How very annoying.

            "It didn't make me feel anything.  It was just a weird sense of deja vu when you said that.  That's all!" he yelled at the psychologist.

            "All right," he said, motioning with his hand to keep his voice down.

            Rei found himself continue talking, and next thing he knew, he was opening up to the doctor.  "I guess it made me feel upset.  I mean, there's no reason for there to be people like her doing such a job.  Why is that she needed to take care of Sei?  Shouldn't everyone be independent enough to take care of themselves?"

            The doctor just sat at his chair, taking notes on what he was saying.  With a calm expression, he listened to Rei's every word, ready to imput if it were necessary.

            "I don't know why it had to be Sei that got hurt," he continued, not showing any signs of stopping.  The doctor looked at his watch quickly, then back at Rei.  "I don't know what I would have done if Sei really had killed himself.  How would I have ever gone on?  I'm being shown how dependent I am of him.  I complain about people who 'can't live without their sweetie,' but then, here I am, not knowing what I would do!  I think that I would probably feel like killing myself, too."

            The doctor hardly flinched at this remark.  He raised his eyebrows slightly, wrote it down, and continued to listen.

            "But, then, it's not like anyone would care.  I mean, since Sei would already be gone.  My dad sure wouldn't," Rei thought for a minute, then continued.  "I'm getting really sick of living with that guy.  He's never home or anything and he expects us to clean and cook for ourselves, as well as for him.  I'm getting really sick of it.  How can a person my age, whom should be able to play all day, be working this hard?  I mean, I can't really get a very good job yet, so I still have to work for my meager allowance.  Plus I have school."

            Scribbling furiously on his notepad, the doctor struggled to keep up with Rei's outburst.  But, at the same time, he was very excited.  In the weeks that he had been coming, Rei had never quite opened up.  He'd say some things, but nothing like this.  Even if his train of thought was very jumpy, it was a wonderful breakthrough that had to be taken note of.

            "You know what else I'm getting sick of?  School, that's what.  I'm sick of the teachers.  I'm sick of the homework.  I'm sick of wasting my time on something that I'm never going to use in my future and talking to people that I hate.  Why can't I just quit high school and race motorcycles for the rest of my life?  I'll still live in this area, because I don't want to be apart from Sei, but I could do that.  Why can't I?"

            The doctor looked at his watch again, "I'm very sorry, Rei, but we'll have to pick this back up during our next session.  Thank you for coming, and could you send Sei in, please?"

            "Yeah," Rei replied, taking deep breaths, somehow exhausted from his outburst of information.  "Thank you for your time," he grunted as he bowed and left the room.

            He went through the all too familiar hallway, and out into the waiting room.  There, Sei was patiently waiting, reading a magazine to pass the time.  Rei walked up to him, and pulled the magazine down from in front of his face, saying, "It's your turn."

            "Jeez, Rei," he said, annoyed.  "You could have just told me!"

            "I know," he replied, grinning.  "I was just playing with you."

            "I heard you talking to the doc," Sei commented.  "You're finally opening up to that dude?"

            "You were eavesdropping on my session?" Rei asked, dubiously.

            "Not really," Sei confessed.  "I just heard a lot of loud talking.  I couldn't really make out what you were saying, so don't worry about that.  I just figured that if you were getting worked up enough to talk that loudly, then you were probably saying something with all your heart."  He got a thoughtful expression on his face, and then continued, "I've got to go in for my appointment now.  We'll talk about yours later, okay?"

            "Yeah," he replied, watching his brother go into the blue room.  He picked up the magazine his brother had been reading.  It was a weekly magazine with world news in it; the kind of thing that Sei seemed to care about.  There was an article about global warming, so that was probably what sparked his brother's interest.

            He read about a war in the Middle East and a meeting of the United Nations that was coming up.  None of it was too interesting, but it was something to do.  He could have been doing some last minute paperwork before his high school orientation, but who wants to do that?  Finally, he got to the article on global warming.  It was everything that he'd already heard about; environmentalists complaining about pollution, excessive carbon dioxide, acid rain, and everything else that could possibly be thought of.  It was certainly Sei's kind of article.

            Eventually, Rei started his homework.  He worked through some papers before he finally heard a noise.  It started out faint, and then gradually got louder.  Rei thanked his lucky stars that Sei was the last appointment the doctor had, because there was no one else in the waiting room to witness it.  Rei picked up his jacket, and started to head for the door.  Less than a minute later, his crying brother joined him.

* * *

After a little bit of time, Sei was calmed down and talking in a quiet voice again.  Next to his brother, he walked home from the clinic, a route that was to be taken for the next year or so.  He would be going there however long it would take to make him 'healthy' again.  Although he had tried to kill someone, he got off with only this as a sentence.  It wasn't so bad, and Sei felt terrible for inconveniencing everyone with his immature act, as he had decided it was.

            He'd come to this conclusion during his first session at the clinic.  The doctor hadn't said much of anything, but just let him figure it out by himself.  That was really the best way to learn, and he believed it now with his whole heart.  He had just been inconveniencing people even more by trying to kill himself that if he had decided to live.  Look at what he had to go through now!

            Rei had told him that it was a sort of joke, the quitting school thing.  He never really planned on doing that, and he wanted to keep the promise almost as much as he did.  Rei just really disliked books and learning, and was sick of trying.  Now that he was going through the psychology, too, Sei was sure that they would both get better soon.

            "So," Sei began with a sigh, trying his best to make conversation during the long walk home.  "What did you talk with the doctor about?"

            Rei thought for a minute before replying, "Just stuff."

            "What kind of stuff?"

            "Well," he said, glancing around.  "I talked to him about school."

            "Oh!" Sei replied, happy to have something to work with.  "Have you thought about what clubs you're joining?  School starts in a few days, you know."

            "I don't think I'm joining any club.  I might check out the courts after school, but I don't want to join basketball.  Team sports really aren't my thing, you know?"

            "Yeah," he agreed.  "Well, I'm thinking of joining the art club."  He paused a moment before adding, "What do I mean 'thinking of?'  I'm definitely joining the art club!"

            "Good thing we're in the same class, huh?" Rei smiled, "Now you'll do all of my homework for me!"

            Sei laughed, "NO!"

            They walked in silence for awhile before Rei got bored enough to talk some more.  "I also talked about Dad."

            "What about him?"

            Rei rolled his eyes before yelling, "I'm getting so freaking sick of that guy!  All he does is just work, work, work!  When you were in the hospital, he didn't even take time off to come visit you!" 

            "But," Sei rebutted in a small voice, "I wasn't hurt that bad or anything!  He had no reason to come and see me; he couldn't have done anything.  Besides," continued Sei, his voice slowly rising.  "The only reason he's working is to feed you and put a roof over your head.  Aren't you grateful to him for that, at least?"

            "How could I be!" he yelled.  "He treats me like shit!  He's gonna make me be some office worker who gets a fat ass from sitting at a computer all day!  What kind of a life is that?  An office worker!  Me!  Hah!"

            When Rei gets mad, he starts to resort to using profanity to make himself heard, Sei thought, angry at his brother.  "I won't have you talking that way about my father, Rei," he said sternly.  "I've got to buy some supplies, so wait for me here, okay?" he asked, walking into a small art shop that they almost passed.

            Rei stood, fuming outside the building.  Who did Sei think he was, telling him what to think of his own father?  He took a few deep breaths, just as the psychologist had instructed.  He thought about the five steps to solving an argument.  The first was to calm down, which was solved with the deep breathing technique.  The second was to put on the other person's shoes.  What was Sei thinking when he said those things?

            No matter how silly Rei had thought this process was in the beginning, when it came to real life, it actually seemed to work in managing anger.  By thinking as Sei might have, he figured that his brother was probably upset about inconveniencing their father or something like that.  After all, he had to work even harder to pay the hospital bills, not to mention the ones from the psychologist.  Their dad didn't get paid that much, so maybe he was putting in extra hours to pay off their debts.  Maybe that's what Sei was seeing, even thought Rei was acting narrow-minded?

            Rei was completely calm now.  His heavy breathing was gone, and he wasn't even slightly annoyed with Sei anymore.  His twin could see a lot more than he could when it came to debates.  He could do the five steps much better than he could, too.  His brother would remember that the third step was talk to the other person about the conflict.  So, he had to wait for Sei to come back out of course.    The fourth and the fifth steps were to come to an agreement on the conflict and to decide what to do differently in the future.

            Finally, Sei came out of the art store, holding a bag containing pastels and oil paint.  He was no longer angry, as Rei could see from the considerate expression on his face.  He had a sort of air around him, like he understood something a little bit better.  It was obvious to him that Sei had followed the steps, too.  He asked his brother if this was true, and Sei responded, "Oh!  You used them, too?"

            They smiled at each other, and Rei thought of a sappy children's story he'd once seen.  It was a bit like this, where two kids who hated each other finally understood each other and became best friends for the rest of their life.  He remembered something about the story that he'd forgotten, and quickly told it to Sei.

            "I'm sorry," he said.  "I didn't mean to blow up at you like that.  I was just really mad at Dad for working so hard."

            "No," Sei told him.  "It's me who should be sorry.  I was being narrow-minded.  I should have thought of it from your point of view."

            "We're so lame sounding," Rei said, laughing.

            "I know," he responded.  "It's like we're in a play or something, a really bad one."

            "With bad actors, too," Rei imputed.  "And trashy scenery," he added, gesturing to the scruffy street they were walking beside.

            "Yeah," agreed Sei as they approached their home.  He opened the door with a smile, because even though their dad wasn't home yet, he still had his brother to watch over him.

* * *

Sei stiffly walked through the crowds of people.  About half of them were staring at him and Rei as they made their way through the halls.  It was the first day of high school, and it seemed that the entire student body wanted to feast their eyes on the Kashino brothers.  It wasn't surprising though.  Not only did they have blonde hair, they were a beautiful pair, and had model-good looks.

            "Rei," Sei began with a grin creeping onto his face.  "Why is it that they lose interest in me after the first day and direct their attention towards you instead?"

            Beginning to smile, Rei responded, "Could it be because of my manly charm?"

            "NOT!" they both finished at the same time, laughing.

            As more and more girls began to flock around them, Rei's amusement began to wane.  "If you guys keep staring like that, I won't ever grow to respect you!" he told them all.

            "Okay, Rei Kashino!" they chorused.  How they had found out his brother's name was beyond Sei's knowledge, but he assumed that the girls would be back the next day, too.  It was the same in junior high until they got used to his "prettiness."

            "We've got to get to our lockers, now," Rei reminded his brother, still laughing at the girls.

            They went to their matching lockers that they had visited once before during orientation.  Already their books and binders were piled on the few shelves, and Rei's was already cluttered with gym clothes and papers.  "Last year's homework," he explained.  The two of them gathered their belongings needed for their first class and headed into their first day of school.

* * *

Rei stared out at the courts, as he had told Sei he would do.  They were a little trashed; basketball wasn't too big at this high school.  The team hadn't gotten to the semi-finals in years, and even longer since they'd won a championship.  But, Rei promised himself not to get involved in the basketball club.  Not only was it a team sport, but you had to come to practices regularly to play.  That wasn't the kind of ball that he enjoyed playing.

            "Hey," said a boy with short hair coming up to Rei.  He looked to be a first year, but one could never really tell.  "You play ball?"

            "Maybe," he said, misleadingly.  "Why?"

            "I'm looking for a person or two to get some money off of.  Wanna have a little one on one?  Bet, say, twenty bucks?"

            "Hey," Rei grinned.  "All right, dude."

            "It's Tatsuya."

            "All right, Tatsuya," he repeated.  "But get ready to get your ass whooped!"

            From out of no where, Tatsuya pulled a basketball.  Suddenly, almost as quickly the basketball, two large groups of girls appeared out of thin air.  One, Rei could see, was a first year that he'd remembered from his classes.  She seemed to be the ringleader of the clique, with her somewhat slutty clothing and short, trendy haircut.  The other leader was probably a year older, judging by her appearance.  She had flowing permed hair and plump, red lips.  So, they had an audience.  Rei wouldn't play easy, now.

            "You can start, man," Tatsuya offered.

            "Great," he said, taking the check.  "And it's Rei!" he called, dribbling right past his opponent and scoring an easy lay-up.

            "Oooohhh!" the two groups chorused.

            "Hey, Harumi," said one of the groupies on the side with the first year.  "That girl is staring at you!"

            Harumi glared across the court at this person.  She was no longer staring at Harumi, but her real target; Rei Kashino.  That was her man!  Harumi's!  "Just who does that girl think she is, trying to get close to my Rei?" she asked one of her friends.

            "That's Rika," one of them replied.  "She's a second year, and I've heard she really plays around."

            "Not with my Rei she doesn't," Harumi decided, glaring at Rika.

            At first, Rika didn't notice this, but soon every one of her groupies was staring at the evenly matched first year group.  They sat there like glaring as the game continued, losing sight of their real target.

            The target went on to bring his score up to twenty-one before Tatsuya could score twelve.  Grabbing his money, Rei fled to the gate saying, "Thanks for the money, Tatsuya!"

            "Wanna play with me against the boys from Shibuya tomorrow?" he called to Rei.

            "Sure!" he yelled back, hurrying to meet Sei at the gate.

* * *

Sei sat in the art room looking around.  There were many more people than at his junior high, so the club was also better funded.  There was excellent lighting and a window looking out on the basketball courts.  From there, he could see his brother looking around at the green cement.  He watched him pretend to shoot a ball from the three, then half court.  Then he took a victory bow to the invisible crowd that had been gathering.  Sei chuckled to himself, not finding anyone to chuckle with.

            Seeing the rest of the club members, Sei deduced that there were far more upperclassmen than there were freshman.  There was only one person that he recognized as Kurasawa.  He had read about him in the newspaper at the end of the school year for winning an art contest.  As he remembered, the article had said the painting was now displayed in a lobby in the school, or somewhere like that.  There was quite a bit of competition in this group, obviously.  Even with the large number of students, no one was sitting next to him.  The only empty chair in the room was next to him.  Maybe he wouldn't make any friends in high school either?

            The supervisor brought his attention back.  She was an older woman with graying hair pulled tightly in a bun.  She put on a pair of stylish glasses as she called the attention of the group.  "We have a good turnout, don't we," she said, gesturing to the impressive number of students gathered.  "We'll have lots of funds this year, I'll bet.  Let me take attendance, and we'll see about starting some art!"

            She walked over to the door and began to close it.  Just before it slid shut, a girl came rushing through.  She bowed an apology to the facilitator and hurried over to a seat; the only empty seat, which of course, was next to Sei.  She was breathing heavy, and Sei noted that she was very small and weak looking.  She looked down into her lap as the teacher talked, careful not to make eye contact with anyone.  She looked so shy, that Sei was almost feeling bad for her, though he was in no position to do that.  He probably looked just as pitiful, sitting without anyone beside him.

            "Thank you for joining us!" the teacher said sarcastically.  "Now the real party can begin, huh?"

            "I'm sorry," the girl said again in a small voice.  She didn't give any explanation as to why she was late, or ask how she could make it up to the teacher, she just apologized.  The instructor didn't seem to notice this lack of respect, and just kept right on taking roll.

            Sei kept watching her out of the corner of his eye.  Although she wasn't doing anything in particular, she held his interest.  She seemed like his mirror image, when he thought about it.  She looked quiet, shy, and friendless.  His heart beat quicker when he decided to introduce himself.  I'm gonna do it, he thought.  I really will!

            "There are paints in the cupboards, and I'm sure that most of you have your own supplies," the instructor informed them.  "The modeling clay is on these shelves over here, but you'll have to take it down the hall to fire it."

            When she looked like she was finished, Sei chickened out.  Instead of talking, he went and got some clay to play with.  He softened the gray rock at his seat and began molding a can.  He didn't have any other project in mind because inspiration hadn't struck in quite awhile, but practicing making simple objects was a good practice to get into.  The girl had pulled out her sketch book and was making a light sketch of something unintelligible at the moment.  From the way she moved her hand in light strokes, he could tell that she was an artist.  Just say something, man! He encouraged himself.

            Finally, he spoke up, "How long have you been drawing?"

            At first she didn't respond.  After a few moments of silence, she glanced up from her sketch pad at the person asking the question.  She found Sei staring right at her, making it obvious that he was directing it at her.  She mumbled something that Sei couldn't make out, and he pretended that he had heard.

            "I'm Kashino Sei," he said with a welcoming smile.  "What's your name?"

            A faint grin appeared on her face, and she looked up a little.  Finally, in a strong voice she replied, "Kira Aso!"

AUTHOR'S NOTES:  Hey, hey!  How was it?  Now, we've got a few more characters!  There's Sei, Rei, Kurasawa, Tatsuya, Harumi, Rika, Kyoko, and Kira.  Wow!  Guess what?  MARS 4 comes out tomorrow (I wrote this on the 23)!  Happy, happy day for everyone!  Let's celebrate by reading the volume three update to my other MARS fic.  You know, "Things Aren't the Way They Were Before"?  Well, review both of them.  I look forward to updating them both again, soon!