Disclaimer I don't own any of the HYD characters nor the original plotline of HYD, but I certainly own this particular plot and all the characters I created for it...

The middle verse is – again – from the song "Dinner at eight", from Rufus Wainwright. I don't own Rufus... Oops, I meant the song. No, not mine, beautiful song. And I think yuou'll be beginning to see where I'm headed, now...

Note :

I hope you'll excuse me for not having answered the reviews yet : I wanted to get this chapter out tonight so as not to discontinue too much the rhythm of upload... I will give all the time and consideration needed for to address completely and seriously those 4 reviews and reviewers – that's the most I had on any given chapter – before the end of tomorrow - or so I hope !

But in advance, thanks to SnuffyTheMonkey, az09, Juliana, and Perilotte to have taken the time to comment - I love constructive criticism, and I will do what I can to use whatever remark you made to correct my flaws.

And I will say this for the moment : sorry if too much thinking and not enough action in the last chapters – maybe that's because what my life feels like at the moment – I always try to give all the info I think is needed for people that are outside of my head ( ;o) )to fully grasp everything that is going on. I'm sorry if it feels tedious to read. Don't worry, I'm not stopping the fic anytime soon, it's even taking more and more of my thoughts about where I'm headed... I'm having lots of hypothesises (not sure about the spelling of this one) and only my fingers and my mood will tell which one will work. This is going to be long : I cannot say how long just yet. But I think 30 chapters or more, if I do evrything I plan and more as the ideas flow... Enjoy the read !

NB : this chapter may seem strange at first... But don't worry or stop reading ; I really do have a point in writing this, even if it does not focus obviously on the Sophie/Akira relationship - or lack thereof.

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12-His nightmare

"I can't sleep and I want to eat. Mama is going to be angry if I eat now : she said if I did not want to eat those vegetables earlier, I would not have anything else for diner. But now I'm hungry. My stomach is growling. I'm going to see if Mama is awake. Maybe she'll give me something to eat when I tell her."

The young boy went through the dark mansion hesitantly – he knew where he was headed, but was worried about the reaction he was going to provoke. Mama had been very irritable these last few weeks. She scolded all the time, now, even if he didn't do anything wrong.

As the boy drew nearer to his parents' bedroom, he heard that they were having a heated argument – again. And the door was not closed completely – he could see part of the scene that was happening from where he stood in the hallway. He stayed in the dark where he was, without moving, unsure of what to do. His Mama was screaming at his Daddy.

"And do yo think I like living like this ? Do you think I enjoy the life I have with you ? The life you have given me ? You make me miserable ! You wanted so much to have an heir, to 'continue the Mimasaka line'... Like this family needs to proliferate more. Did you ever consider what it would do to me ?

- You accepted to have the child, and I never asked you for anything else ever since he was born. He's a healthy cute little boy, what more should you want, Kyoko ?

- I want who I was back. I want my body back – the one I had before having this child made it completely deformed, no matter how much exercise I do or how strict a diet I follow ! I used to be a beautiful woman, men used to fight over me, just to decide who would win the honor of bringing me a glass of water ! You should know, you were one of them !

- And if I had known then, I would have looked at what lied beneath the pretty face."

He saw his mom slap his dad violently and he shivered. His dad's face had been projected on the side. He didn't understand what was happening. Why was Mama so mad ?

"You jerk ! You made me what I am now. It's your fault, and yours only. I used to be cheerful, I used to be a kind person. You're the reason I became ugly and irritable.

- Am I the reason you are completely unable of feeling anything for your own son ? Completely unable to spend more than a minute with him without punishing him for something trivial ?

- You are telling me I should spend more time with him ? I can't believe this... You had this child too, and you're only at home when you're not working – which is never. You never have to discipline the brat because he never sees you. Don't you dare criticize me ! You're not a better father than me a mother. But at least I have the guts to admit it.

- Calm down, Kyoko. Calm down. Stop this fuss, and get a hold of yourself. I did not marry the hysterical woman standing in front of me and reproaching me everything that goes wrong in her life.

- You want calm ? You'll have calm. I'm going to tell you how it is going to be. I'm leaving. I'm leaving this place and I'm leaving you.

- Beware, Kyoko. You know the terms if you do that.

- So, I won't get to see my son anymore ? Please do it now, don't spare me a single second : I long to get the brat out of my sight – he reminds me too much of you. I won't have any right to your money ? I don't care, I was not a poor little Cinderella when you married me. I was rich – and I will still be, away from you, back to my family, where they love and understand me. I should have listened to mother – she was right about you.

- Kyoko...

- There's nothing you can say, Izumi. I'm returning to my family. I want my freedom back, as soon as possible. And if you don't accept to let me go, I'll go to your precious son and slit my throat in front of him. Is this really what you want for your little brat of an heir ? To see his mother bleed to death in front of him ?

- No, you're right. I'd rather that you removed your poisonous influence from him, so that he can grow to be someone sane. But just remember this : as for now, you're not his mother anymore, not even on paper. And you may be happy about it at this particular moment, but sooner or later, you'll come to regret this. There is no doubt you will. But then, listen to me – you're never coming back to claim neither me nor our son. You can snort all that you want, I don't care anymore. You've forsaken any right you had on him when we began this conversation. So go, since that's what you want. Out of my sight, out of my life, for the better. Akira will grow into a finer young man without you around. I'm quite sure there will be more than enough willing to take what you discard so easily."

The little boy tried to hide when his mom stormed out of the room – but it was useless, she never even saw him, she was going to fast, detaching herself from her surroundings, enjoying the feeling of the freedom she had just won.

Izumi Mimasaka followed her footsteps silently to the hallway. He noticed his son hiding in the shadows, and more grief and worry came on his handsome face. His son should not have witnessed this – it was plainly written on his features.

The boy came slowly to his father, and pulled at his shirt gently to make him look at him.

"Daddy, does Mama hate me ?

- No, Akira, she doesn't. She hates me, he whispered for himself, while taking his son in his arms. You know,he started again after a short pause, little boy, the most important lesson you will have to learn in your life is quite simple : never trust a woman with your heart, because when you do, that's the moment you allow her to crush you.

- I don't understand, Daddy.

- But you will, someday."

"Why is it so,

That I've always been the one who must go,

That I've always been the one told to flee,

When, in fact, you were the one, long ago,

Actually, in the drifting white snow,

Who left me ?"

Akira woke up violently, covered in cold sweat, with a distinct feeling of intense distress. He sat up in the bed, pushing his wild locks of hair aside with his hands, while trying to calm down a little. Did he just have that same nightmare again? That nightmare that he had been having so regularly for a few years now, but which had become so much more frequent those last few weeks, strangely enough. He could not make any sense of it.

In that dream, he felt like himself as a little boy of four, maybe five. He was hungry, so he went to look for his parents to their bedroom in the family mansion. In the nightmare, he felt that he saw his parents have a violent fight, and then, as if that woman – his mother ? – went away and left them, because of him, because she hated his very existence, never to return again.

But the most disturbing part was that the woman in the dream was not his mother. His mother's name was Chie Mimasaka, not Kyoko Mimasaka. Besides, the lady in the dream was a tall beautiful woman with long black hair and eyes full of suffering. His mother had never looked like that : she was this petite woman with short hair and kind loving eyes. So why did he keep having that same nightmare, why always more details to it, why did it always feel so real, why did he always wake up feeling like the world would be forever empty to him?

A year ago, he had decided to talk to his father about it, to try and learn if there was anything that could be a real memory hidden in this nightmare that made him feel so lost, so vulnerable. His father had seemed shocked when he had told him about it. He had said that it was most disrespectful towards his mother to dare imply she could have – even in thought – forsaken her family like that. Besides, he had reminded Akira, not only was Chie still there, but she loved him as dearly as any mother could, and his two younger sisters were there to prove she didn't have anything against having children. The abruptness of the answer had stopped Akira's attempts at communication. He had enclosed everything inside himself again and kept it from everyone else, including his closest friends, the other F4, lest he should be accused again of being a bad son.

Akira shook his head, in a frivolous attempt to get rid of the feeling of emptiness inside himself. He looked at the sleeping form beside him. He just couldn't do this anymore. He felt disgusted with himself when he woke up near those women, nowadays. Soujiro would probably not understand why, and he didn't feel like having to explain the self-contempt he felt when he saw what he was doing with himself.

"Sophie is right, in a way. This style of life does not feel as good as it should, nor as good as it used to feel."

Akira got out of the hotel bed the most discreetly possible, and got his watch back from the nightstand. Two in the morning. That left him more than enough time to get back home and wash the woman's suffocating musky smell off of him.

Come to think of Sophie, he really had to do something about her. Not bed her – he didn't even feel like that now – but try and smoothen things up with her. It was becoming most annoying to see her frown as soon as he appeared, and watch the faces she made when he said things she deemed moronic – which was almost every single thing he did. It was creating a rift inside the friends group, and that is never good. He had to do something. He could not wait any longer for a piece of luck : he was going to create his own luck.

And since Soujiro was in part responsible for her low opinion of him, he was going to help, whether he wanted it or not. After all, the snails' idea had been the root of a significant part of her dislike of him. Besides, he was the one – excepting Tsukushi – who knew her best in Eitoku, so he had to know something useful.

The issue would be to trick it out of him – piece of cake. That's what seducers do : trick women into believing they want them. And Akira was a master of that art – except when the odd French girl was concerned. Well, Nishikado would be doing his tea ceremony bullshit tomorrow in the afternoon – not that it was very manly, but can you really say that to a man that proves his manliness otherwise all the time – so he would just have to drop by.

Yes, that was a good plan.

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Whether it is a good plqn or not is not my place to decide : this introduces one of the important twists to come. Beware, something important is going to happen soon in this fic...

Plus, you get to learn what I think may be at the root of Akira's character, what made him a playboy with a mother complex... I'll blabber more about this on a next chapter. I need to go to bed, now. Lab meeting tomorrow. ;o)