Chapter 2: Tadaima!
Raeven Sakada watched the impressive structure before her. It's been such a long time since she had set foot on the Estate and the mansion never failed to take her breath away.
This will be her sanctuary for the time being.
This will allow her to heal and think about what she really wanted.
Away from the pressures of her life, her seemingly perfect existence.
Away from home.
Hanamichi was cowering at his side of the couch was he watched The Ring with his brother at the spacious rec room of the Sakada Mansion. The house was eerily quiet, all the staff and their grandfather were fast asleep in their bed and it made his hackles rise all the more.
The silence was broken when the chimes of the doorbell echoed throughout the house, making Hanamichi jump out of his skin.
"W-who could be coming at this h-hour?" He stuttered, his eyes wildly roaming around the room.
"I don't know," Kaede said absently, his eyes glued to the horror that was currently playing on screen. "Check it out, will you?"
"Alone? In the dark? Are you freaking crazy?" Hanamichi hissed at him, his eyes wide with fear. It was almost comical if it hadn't been so genuine.
"You are such a wimp," Kaede said in mixed amusement and distaste. He never really understood his fear of the dark, even after the last four months they have lived under the same roof. But he always makes it a point to torment him about him whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Like now.
"Where are you going?" Hanamichi asked him when he saw the kitsune switch the TV off, casting the room in eerie shadows, and walked towards the door.
"To get the door, Pepper," Kaede said in exaperation. as he exited the room, woth Hanamichi close behind. "Really now, aren't you a little too old to be afraid of the dark?"
"I am not afraid. I'm just...just uncomfortable," he said defensively as he followed Kaede out in the shadowed hallway. HIs imagination wasn't of help, of course, as the shadows loomed before them.
Then the doorbell rang again.
A little more forceful that the last, making him jump.
Kaede rolled his eyes and teased him, "I wonder what Haruko would say if she could see you now?"
"Shut up and open the door," he hissed at him. "Wait!" he said as he picked up a heavy bronze statuette from the table in the hallway. He positioned himself behind the door way and raised the as if brandishing a weapon.
"What are you doing?" Kaede asked, looking at him with a mystified expression.
"Better be safe than sorry," came the reply.
"D'ahou," he muttered as he turned the knob to open the massive oak door.
"You sure took your own sweet time to open the damned door," a feminine voice said sarcastically.
"Er, may I help you?" Kaede asked the person stading at their doorway. Her face, he assumed that the person was of the feminine species due to the voice and the silhouette of soft curves, was slightly hidden from view. Though her voice was somewhat familiar.
"No, you can't," Rae said and walked past Kaede into the house. "But can you please tell the moron behind the door to drop the damn statuette before he kills himself with it."
"I am not a moron," Hanamichi said indignantly as he stepped out of the shadows.
"Works like a charm," the girl said with an affectionate smile as she flicked the lights of the nearby lampshade open, illuminating part of the hallway. "Still scared of the dark, huh, bubba?"
Hanamichi's frown disappeared and his jaw slackened as he stared at the person before him. The long hair of spun gold, the emerald green of those eyes and that cocky tilt of those pouty lips. There can only be one who's as beautiful as an angel yet as naughty as a vixen.
"Raeven?" he whispered and blinked.
"Alive and in the flesh," she said with a cocky grin.
"Oh, didn't recognize you there," Kaede said, dumbfounded.
"I'm crushed that my only cousin and my godfather's son did not recognize me," Raeven said with a pout.
"But you weren't expected until tomorrow," Hanamichi pointed out.
"Slight change of plans," Raeven said evasively and shrugged. "Can you be a dear, Kaede, and please hand me that duffel?" She said pointing to the big black duffel at the threshold.
"Where are the rest of your bags?" Kaede asked as he handed the bag over.
"They're on their way, I had to switch planes on the stop over in Italy," Rae explained as she trudged up the stairs. "Is Jiya asleep or in Tokyo?"
"Asleep," the two boys chorused and followed her up the stairs.
"What are you really doing here, Rae?" Hanamichi asked him. "Mom said that Aunt Celeste was inconsolable on the phone."
An icy silence followed the question and Hanamichi didn't know what to make out of it. His Aunt Celeste and Rae are as close as mothers and daughters can be. This recent falling out was such a mystery to all of them.
"Oh, you know that there's a certain stage in a girl's life that she can't seem to get along with one's mother?" Rae asked them as they reacherd the room she uses during her visits there. "I'm at that stage."
"Meaning?" Kaede said, being familiar with Rae's familial relationships.
"Meaning that I," Rae said as she dropped the heavy bag and her helmet at the foot of her bed and turned to face the two boys, "have been a very, very bad girl."
"How bad?" Hanamichi couldn't resist asking as she took off her leather jacket, revealing a white unadorned tank top.
"My definition of bad," she replied with a smirk.
"No wonder Aunt Celeste balked," Kaede muttered.
"Oh shut up," Rae said as she kicked of her army boots. "You two should talk. You practically killed each other when your parents got married."
"That was different," Hanamichi said defensively.
"How so?"
"We hated each other," Kaede said bluntly. "While you are running wild. In New York."
Rae rolled her eyes and plopped down on the bed. "Then, enlighten me, o great one," Rae said sarcastically. "What have you been doing to keep busy around here?"
Hanamichi and Kaede lied down the bed, flanking her on both sides as they started to recount the detail of the first few turbulent months of living together under the same roof.
As the night passed, the three of them drifted into slumber.
Side by side.
It's a promising start, Rae thought sleepily and yawned.
AN: Well, I've read the story again and it has come to my attention that my original version is a bit too shallow compared to the other stories that will follow. I decided to rewrite it and unlike My Other Half and Family Ties, I'm doing this as I go along. So it would really take a long while to finish this one. The original has 12 chapters with a short epilogue, but now it will be longer than that, I hope.
Reviews!
ONEGAI!