Chapter 14

After Isuke introduced Haruki to her little brother, Haruki of course, was confused and happy at the same time to finally meet the mysterious person who is very important to Isuke. Reiji was a bit shy initially, but after a little bit of encouragement from Isuke, he had warmed up to Haruki. Haruki's good-natured and laidback attitude helped a lot too.

Isuke reached into her bag and pulled out a pen and notebook for Reiji, who took them and drew a smiley face and a heart, before showing it to Haruki.

"That's the only way he knows how to communicate," Isuke had explained to Haruki. "A smiley face and heart means that he likes you."

Haruki smiled. "Yeah, who could resist this unsophisticated charm, huh?"

Isuke rolled her eyes at Haruki's lame joke. Haruki then squatted down in front of Reiji and asked for permission for the notebook and pen, to which Reiji agreed. She then proceeded to draw a smiley and a heart too, before showing it to Reiji. Reiji had clapped his hands in glee upon receiving the pictures from the redhead.

Both of them continued to communicate with each other this way until it was time for Reiji's medicine and the nurse came to wheel him away.

"I'm sure you're hungry already, Haruki. And you have lots of questions," Isuke said once his little brother had left. "Let's have brunch at the cafeteria here. I'll just tell the nurse where we are."


"Everyone thought you're an only child, Isuke-sama," Haruki said once they had ordered their food and sat down at the cafeteria table.

"Yeah, that's what everyone thought," Isuke said as she stared pensively into the distance. Her next sentence was soft, so soft that Haruki thought she had imagined it. "Hell, that's what I thought, too…"

Haruki waited patiently for Isuke to continue, and when she did, the redhead gave Isuke all her attention.

For as long as Isuke could remember, the only happy memory she had of her childhood was when her mama and papa rescued her from her biological parents, who had neglected her and her little brother's well-being in favour of their gambling habits.

One look at Isuke now, nobody would ever thought that she actually came from a poor and broken family. Both of her biological parents were gambling addicts, spending all their earnings on gambling. Sometimes, they would gamble for few days straight without going home, leaving her and her little brother to survive on their own. There was almost always no food on the table as her parents would lose all their money to gambling. When that happened, they would borrow money from loan sharks.

Some days, Isuke was forced to beg on the streets for any scraps in order to find food for herself and her brother. Sometimes, her parents would beat her and her brother up for not begging enough money or food for the whole family.

Their situation got very bad, until her parents had to sell their run down house in order to pay their debts to the loan sharks. However, nobody wanted to buy their house as the condition was very bad. As the months went by, Isuke and Reiji became malnourished and their bodies were covered with bruises and scars due to the beatings received from their parents.

One day, as Isuke was minding her own business in her shared room with Reiji, a man came into her room, thinking that it was the bathroom. She had never seen strangers coming into her room before as most of the prospective buyers would not enter her room. Isuke was sitting in the corner with her brother, who was sleeping very still, when her father came barging into the room and started scolding her for just being there.

"Sir," the man had said, effectively stopping her father's rants. "Is she your daughter?"

"Yes, don't mind her," her father had replied hastily. "She's a waste of space."

The man looked at Isuke, carefully observing her. If Isuke was scared, she didn't show it in her eyes. Instead, she just stared back at the man, as if challenging him. Suddenly, another man entered the room. The first man turned towards the second man and both of them seemed to be in a deep discussion. Once they had finished their discussion, they turned towards Isuke.

"Hey, little girl," the first man had said kindly and squatted down in front of her. "What do you say if you come live with me and my husband? You will never have to starve ever again. Nobody will ever mistreat you, and we will shower you with love and attention and give you everything you ever wanted."

Isuke averted her eyes from the stranger and looked fearfully at her father, who was glaring menacingly at her. Her mother came into the room and she wasn't any different from her father. Because Isuke had no one to protect her all her life, and this is the first time anyone had shown her any kindness, she cowered behind the stranger by instinct.

"That answered my question," the man had said. He stood up and took Isuke by her hand.

The second man turned towards her father. "We will buy your house, but on one condition. We are taking the girl to come live with us. We'd like to adopt her."

What happened next was a blur for young Isuke. She vaguely remembered her parents agreeing to it, but they asked for higher payment. Isuke vaguely remembered seeing an exchange of cash and some documents between the adults. The next thing she remembered is her asking whether Reiji could come with them or not. She remembered her biological father saying no, although she didn't remember the reason why. Then what happened next is her mama telling her that from now on, her name would be Inukai Isuke and she would be taking over their legacy.

When she arrived at their very huge mansion, she had nearly forgotten about her past. How could she not, when she was given everything that was promised by her mama and papa? The only thing that was holding her back from letting go of her past was her little brother. Everyday, for the first week, she would ask about her little brother, and her parents would always give her the same answer: they would adopt him soon. Until one day, she received the news that her brother had died.

Her whole world came crashing down after that. It took her a little over a year to mourn and get over the death of her little brother, and when she finally did get over his death, she had fully let go of her past as well.

For the longest time, Isuke thought her happiest memory of her childhood was when her mama and papa had adopted her from her abusive biological parents. But little did she know, all of that was about to change when she overheard her parents' conversation one night when she went down to have a glass of drink.

"… no, we can't tell Isuke the truth. Not yet," her mama had said to her papa.

What truth?

Both of them were in the living room and they didn't notice Isuke was standing behind them. Isuke had quickly hid behind the wall to listen.

"Sooner or later, we have to tell her the truth, honey," her papa had said. "We have been hiding the truth from her long enough. We can't be keeping this secret from her forever."

"I think it would be better for her to learn the truth once she is of age to take over our company and my legacy, you know?" her mama had said. "If she knows that her little brother has been alive all this while and is in a mental hospital, she would not be able to focus on her studies and achieve the goals we have set for her. Then, all our plans for her will be for nothing."

Behind the wall, Isuke's jaw had dropped down in shock and her eyes widened in disbelief. Her little brother is in a mental hospital? And most importantly… he is still alive! When and how did that happen? Why had her parents been keeping it a secret all this while? She couldn't believe it. Shaking with rage, she strode out from her hiding and confronted them.

"Reiji's still alive!?" Isuke had asked, her voice trembling.

"Isuke? You shocked us. What were you doing in the shadows?" her papa had asked.

"I shocked you?! My little brother's alive and in a mental hospital and you didn't think to tell me? Why must it be kept a secret from me?" Isuke had shrieked once she got over the initial shock.

"Look Isuke, calm down," her mama had said. "We can explain everything to you."

"You don't have to! I've heard everything!"

"We didn't want to tell you the truth first because you're still too young to handle this," her mama had tried to explain.

"Stop treating me like a kid! Stop sheltering me!" Isuke had yelled in anger.

"You're only thirteen years old. This shouldn't be your burden. Right now, just focus on your studies, alright?"

"Why?! So that I can be successful and take over your legacy one day?!" Isuke had retorted rudely. "Is that the whole reason why you've adopted me? For me to take over your company? You're no better than those scumbags who treated me and my brother like shit!"

Isuke suddenly felt a sharp sting on her left cheek. It was the first time her mama had slapped her. She looked at both of them with so much hatred in their eyes before shouting "I hate you" at them and left.


"What happened after that?" Haruki asked.

"Long story short, I rebelled against them everyday by ignoring them and doing everything against their wishes. I still do, actually. Then, they brought me here one day to visit him, thinking that they could mend our rocky relationship. But no. It had already left a bitter taste in my mouth."

"Anyway, Reiji has a condition… doctors call it environmental autism. People who don't understand it will say he's mentally retarded. The only word he knows how to speak is 'onee-chan'," Isuke replied, her voice suddenly trembling towards the end.

Haruki reached over and held her hand. "You don't have to continue if you can't," the redhead said.

"No, I want to," Isuke said stubbornly as she wiped her tear away.

Taking in a deep, shaky breath, Isuke continued, "I mean I don't want to shout out to the whole world about my past… it's just…" she trailed off, unsure how to convey how she feels.

Haruki squeezed her hand reassuringly. "I understand what you're saying. You need to get this off your chest."

Isuke nodded in appreciation that Haruki understood what she was trying to say without needing her to spell it out. Haruki waited patiently for her to continue.

"My papa explained everything to me afterwards. Turns out, those scums refused to let my parents adopt him because they needed him to carry their family name," Isuke scoffed bitterly. "My parents did try to adopt him because I had been very persistent to get Reiji to come live with us. They even tracked my biological parents down and gave a hefty sum of money to them to cure my brother of his illness. He had started developing some autistic behaviour but they didn't bring him for any diagnosis or treatment. They thought he was just suffering from some external injuries due to the beatings he received from those scums. In the end, they promised that they'll let my parents adopt him once he was cured of his illness. Then, a few weeks later, they just told my parents that he had died."

"Oh… you mean they lied to your parents?" Haruki asked.

"Yeah, they never wanted my parents to adopt him. They just latched onto my parents for their money, but I doubt they even brought him for any medical treatment. Knowing them, they had gambled it away. But, I guess they finally won big time and decided that they don't need my parents' money anymore and just lied to them about my brother's death, so that they couldn't adopt him."

"Then, five years ago, those scums died in an accident, leaving my brother behind. Social workers tracked down my parents' location through the documents at my biological parents' house. The social workers managed to contact my parents and asked them to adopt Reiji, but when my parents learned of his medical condition, they put him here instead of bringing him home. He has been here for five years before I found out. If I'd never overheard their conversation that night, they would've continued keeping this from me until I'm an adult."

"Reiji didn't recognize me immediately. I had to come visit him everyday after school for two years and keep on telling him that I'm his onee-chan for him to finally warm up to me. 'Cause that's the only word he knows how to speak… makes me wonder if he had been looking for me, calling out for me every day ever since I left him without saying goodbye." Isuke swallowed a sob that was threatening to come out from her throat.

There was a short pause as Haruki seemed to be in deep thought. Isuke had never shared her private life with anyone before. At school, she was seen as a cold-hearted playgirl who sleeps too much in class and flunked all her tests. If it weren't because of her rich family background, she would have been expelled from school a long time ago. It made Haruki wondered if the reason why Isuke had been failing all her exams on purpose is because she didn't want to fulfil her parents' wish for her to take over their legacy. That one sentence from Isuke about her parents never being home for dinner carried so much weight and meaning behind it now.

Haruki had always suspected that Isuke isn't as shallow as what everyone said. Heck, she was the one who told Isuke that she is more than meets the eye. But she never would have thought that Isuke had a very traumatic childhood. All the things that Isuke had endured when she was young right up to now made Haruki's problems seem small by comparison. And yet, Isuke hid it so well behind a façade of an uncaring bitch who thinks about no one but herself. Suddenly remembering all the harsh words she had said to Isuke when they first quarreled, Haruki realized that she had been wrong about Isuke on so many levels.

"Isuke." The moment Isuke heard the way Haruki say her name and with that guilty look on her face, she knew what the redhead was going to say. "I just wanna tell you I'm sorry about what I said to you when we had our first fight. About how you would never understand-"

"Don't you ever feel bad about it. I never blamed you for it, 'cause you didn't know. Nobody knows. So, don't feel sorry about it," Isuke said reassuringly to Haruki.

"Not even Nio knows? Wasn't she quite close to you around the time this happened?"

"Not even Nio," Isuke confirmed. "She wasn't always my friend. I was only friends with her after, and even so, I had already decided not to tell this part about myself to anyone."

"Why?"

There was a pregnant pause and Haruki could tell that Isuke was struggling for an answer.

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to," Haruki said as she rubbed her girlfriend's hand, providing her as much comfort as she could.

"It's because I… I'm ashamed of myself for forgetting about him and starting to enjoy my luxurious lifestyle, while he was with those scumbags, suffering on his own," Isuke finally confessed while she buried her face in her hand. Wordlessly, Haruki pulled the pinkette into an embrace and rubbed soothing circles behind her back.

Isuke had been ashamed of herself for a very long time and had tried her best to bury this guilt by letting go of her past, but finally, being able to say it out loud to someone… not just someone, but to Haruki, felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest. "Believe me, I did try to bring him out of this place once for a change of environment, but that turned out to be a disaster. He couldn't handle new environments well, which resulted in him having a meltdown in public. People started staring and calling him a retard. Luckily, my chauffeur was with me at that time and he helped me calmed him down. Imagine if everyone at school finds out about him… they wouldn't understand."

Isuke didn't have to say it, but Haruki knew what that meant. She felt a warmth in her chest that Isuke trusted her enough to introduce Reiji to her, and tell her this part of her life that nobody had ever known before.

"Hey, Isuke…" Haruki began. "What's your plan now? It's not right that your parents kept this as a secret from you, but are you ever gonna forgive them?"

"Hell, no," Isuke said immediately as she raised her head up from Haruki's shoulder. "They had kept this from me for five years. If they even had an ounce of understanding, they would know how I had blamed myself for my brother's death. How the guilt had been eating me alive. Had it ever crossed their mind that if they had told me the truth right away, it would've helped me tremendously? But no, they'd rather keep this from me until I've taken over their legacy. What the fuck-ever." Isuke paused as she flipped her hair. "Besides, I have a plan already. Once I graduate high school, I will get out of this shitty town away from my parents. I'd bring my brother with me, find a better treatment facility for him, get a job and start over. I have a college fund for this."

"I don't even know what I want to do after I graduate, but you've already had it all planned out," Haruki said, amazed.

"Well, it's either this, or I take the path my parents had chosen for me," Isuke said. "It's better to take my future into my own hands, I feel that it's more liberating that way." Inhaling deeply, she continued, "I know I'm supposed to be grateful for them and just do whatever they asked of me, but it's hard being grateful when someone helped you because they see that you'll be useful for them one day."

Haruki could hear the pain behind the pink-haired girl's voice and she knew that deep down, she still loves her parents very much, even though she was disappointed by them.

Her suspicion was confirmed when she heard Isuke said in a broken voice, "I still love them, you know? It's just that…"

"Hey, you don't have to explain anything to me. Who am I to judge?" Haruki said in a soothing voice. "My family background isn't exactly all rainbows and sunshine too."

"Well, at least they're all genuine."

Haruki just smiled at that. "Do you have any places in mind already? After you graduate, I mean?"

"Either the UK or the US. I heard that their facilities and therapy sessions are top notch." Suddenly, feeling shy, Isuke asked, "Haruki… I know that we've only been together recently, and this might be too soon for me to ask… when I planned my future, you were not in the picture yet… but now that we're together, would you wanna joi-"

Her question was cut off by her phone ringing. Isuke was annoyed at being interrupted when she was about to ask Haruki an important question, but when she saw who it was calling, she immediately picked up her phone.

"It's Reiji. His nurse said he's having a meltdown now and is asking for me. I gotta go." There was a sense of urgency in her voice as she told Haruki this piece of information after she hung up her phone.

Before Haruki could say anything, Isuke had bolted off. Haruki quickly put a few cash on the table, which she hoped was enough to cover for their food and hurried after Isuke.

What Haruki saw when she reached Reiji's room a few minutes after Isuke will be etched into her memory forever. Reiji's room was in disarray from the result of his meltdown. The nurses couldn't calm him down, and as soon as Isuke entered the room to try to calm him, Reiji had hit her. Haruki was worried that Isuke would hit him back, but what happened next shocked her. Isuke just stood there, covering her face with her arms and took each and every single one of her brother's punches. This happened for the longest ten minutes of Haruki's life, seeing her girlfriend getting beaten up like that and yet she couldn't do anything to help.

When the nurses rushed back into the room with an injection to calm him down, it wasn't needed anymore as Isuke had managed to do that by hugging him tightly and comforting him. Isuke, the impatient, cold-hearted playgirl who thinks everybody else is beneath her, and who doesn't take any bullshit from anyone, had just taken all her brother's blows without any complaints and is now comforting him with a patience and care that she had never shown anyone before. The redhead felt like she was intruding a very private moment and so she left the room and waited outside.

"Inukai-san is a really very good sister," one of the nurses told Haruki when she walked past her. "She comes to visit him every Saturday and Sunday without fail."


Haruki sat at the waiting area until Isuke appeared in front of her and told her that it's time to go. On their way out, the nurses who had attended to Reiji thanked Isuke for calming him down. When they got into Isuke's limousine, Isuke immediately instructed the chauffeur to drive.

Haruki could sense that Isuke was tense, so she reached an arm over her shoulders and pulled her into a half hug. The moment Haruki pulled Isuke into her body, Isuke couldn't hold it in any longer. She cried into the redhead's shoulder. Haruki just held onto her and comforted her as best as she could.

Once Isuke's sobs subsided, she let go of Haruki and looked at her. "He's never had a meltdown whenever I visit him. This is the first time. I asked the nurse what triggered him. The nurse said it could be a lot of factors, one of them is because he met someone new and he's had more stimulation than he could handle," Isuke said as she wiped her tears.

"My God. I'm such an idiot," Isuke said, sniffling. "I should've known that he-"

"No, you're not an idiot, Isuke," Haruki interrupted. "You couldn't have known."

"But I should've, you know?" Isuke argued. "I'm his big sister and I should've known. I should've stayed back and not left with mama and papa. It should've been me in the centre. Not him!"

Haruki immediately pulled Isuke into her body again. "Hey, don't say that. Whatever happened isn't your fault."

There was a moment of silence as they embraced each other. After a while, Isuke spoke up, her voice soft and vulnerable. "I've been thinking about this over and over, you know? Every night when I lied in bed trying to fall asleep. How I shouldn't have left. How I could've protected him if I didn't leave. Even though he couldn't speak, I could feel that he thinks that I'm ashamed of him… ashamed of what he's become." Isuke started sobbing again as Haruki rubbed her hands behind her girlfriend's back to comfort her. "I wasn't there for him. I left him alone and he was too weak and young to fend for himself."

Haruki understood that feeling all too well. The feelings of helplessness and guilt. The feeling of beating yourself up over something that you think is your fault even though you knew it wasn't. Haruki just kept quiet and continued stroking Isuke's back in a comforting manner.

Both of them stayed like that for a while, until Isuke finally broke the silence. "… Haruki, do you have any plans for the rest of the day?" Isuke suddenly asked, her voice small.

"No, ever since my mom got discharged, I'm more free now. My next client isn't only until tonight."

Isuke lifted her head up to look at Haruki in the eye. "Do you think it's ok if you drop by my house for a while? I don't wanna be alone." As she said the last part, she avoided eye contact with Haruki's.

A huge smile slowly formed on Haruki's face. "I'd love to," Haruki replied before capturing Isuke's mouth into a breathless kiss. She couldn't help it, seeing Isuke getting all embarrassed is her kryptonite.

Isuke could barely part her lips from Haruki to instruct her chauffeur to drive back home, instead of sending Haruki back to her house.


Haruki had never been into a big house before, so the first time she set foot in Isuke's mansion, she was amazed at how enormous it was.

"Make yourself at home," Isuke said as she took off her shoes. "My parents are never home, so there's no need to be shy. Ask my maid if you need anything."

"Wow, your house is humongous, Isuke-sama," Haruki said as she walked around.

Isuke scoffed. "If you think this is huge, wait 'til you see the queen bee's. Mine is nothing compared to hers."

There was a portrait of a young Isuke with her dads hanging on the wall. Entranced by it, Haruki walked towards it to take a closer look at it.

"So these are your parents?" Haruki asked rhetorically. She wasn't aware that Isuke had come to stand very close next to her until she felt a brush on her arm. She turned around to find that Isuke had been staring at her with what can be described as a desire look in her eyes. She didn't need to read much into it as Isuke had suddenly captured her lips in a slow and passionate kiss. As their kiss began to get heated, Isuke had to release Haruki's lips to tell her to take this upstairs in her room.

Too dazed, Haruki barely nodded, before she was pulled by her collar. They barely made it into Isuke's room without stumbling a few steps, and before Haruki could close the bedroom door, she was slammed against the wall by her girlfriend. Isuke wasted no time to attack Haruki's neck, leaving bruises and lovebites in their wake.

"H-hey, Isuke…" Haruki said weakly. Isuke responded with a hum against her neck, which wasn't helping her libido.

"A-are you sure you wanna do this?" Haruki asked, before gasping at Isuke's tongue tracing her collarbone. "I mean… shouldn't we talk about what happened?"

Isuke stopped and straightened her body to look at Haruki in the eye. "Isuke's done talking. What Isuke needs now, is a different kind of comfort," she said, her sultry voice sent pleasure straight to Haruki's core. Smirking, Isuke leaned forward and captured Haruki's lips in a sensual kiss. Haruki got into the kiss and as her confidence grew, she wrapped her arms around Isuke's waist. Slowly, she backed Isuke further and further into the room, until the pinkette's legs hit the edge of the bed. They kept on kissing until Isuke was lying down on the bed and Haruki was on top of her. The moment Isuke's head hit her bed, her hands immediately flew up to remove Haruki's shirt. Now left in her sports bra and jeans, Haruki suddenly realized that she was half naked. She immediately stopped kissing Isuke and sat up on the bed.

With Haruki's half naked body on full display, Isuke just stared shamelessly at it. The muscles, the abs; they were far far better than her imagination. Her body is the perfect combination of masculinity and femininity, and it turned Isuke on even more. Smirking seductively, Isuke started to unbutton her own shirt and tossed it at Haruki's dumbfounded face.

When the pink-haired girl started to reach behind her own bra, Haruki's brain started working again. She knew that once Isuke took her bra off, there was no going back. Suddenly, the gravity of the situation hit her hard. She shouldn't be doing this with Isuke. It was like she was pulled out from her hypnosis and her brain had kick-started her muscles to start acting. Immediately, she stood up from the bed and quickly got dressed.

"What's wrong?" Isuke asked, her fingers hovering mid-air over her bra hooks, as she watched Haruki getting dressed.

"I-I'm sorry, Isuke," Haruki said quickly after she got dressed. "I don't think I can do this."

"… Why?" Isuke asked, perplexed. She suddently felt self conscious and quickly covered herself with her blanket.

Haruki could see the disappointment in Isuke's eyes. She didn't mean to hurt her. "I-I-uh… I just remembered I have an appointment now. There's something I need to settle real quick," Haruki said, before reaching over to kiss Isuke on the cheek. "I'll show myself out. Don't worry. I'll text you when I get home, yeah?"

Before Isuke could utter a single word, Haruki was gone. Isuke was left alone, feeling extremely puzzled and sexually frustrated. Nobody had ever rejected her like that before. Heck, she had never even brought any of her girlfriends back into her home, and the first girl she brought back had up and left her, right when things were about to get steamy. Talk about a total buzzkill.


As soon as Haruki stepped out of the house, she made a run for it. She couldn't do it with Isuke not because she didn't want to. Every fibre of her being was screaming for her to reach out to Isuke and hold her close, to make love with her until their bodies were spent. But she couldn't do it because it would be a lie. She needed to call things off with Sumireko first. She needed to end her deal with the heiress first before she could give her all to Isuke.

She wanted to make things right first because she had fallen in love with the enigma that is Isuke, and she couldn't bear to carry out Sumireko's plan to break her heart and humiliate her in public.


Disclaimer: I'm no autism expert, so my knowledge of it is from what I read/watched from Internet articles/YouTube videos. If I made any mistakes, please forgive me. I do not mean to offend anyone who is really suffering from autism, or who knows someone to be suffering from one.

So, I came up with the name Reiji because after Googling for the perfect Japanese name for Isuke's little brother, "Reiji" sounds perfect because of its meaning.

Anyway, I know it's been quite a while ever since my last update. IRL sucks, and also, I kept on going back and forth on whether to make Isuke's parents really unforgivable or give them a redeeming quality. In the end, I decided to go for the latter because I don't want to stray too far from canon. I love Isuke's mama in canon. He's funny and a loving mom to Isuke.

Also, I felt the need to explore that one line from canon Eisuke implying to us readers that the reason why he adopted Isuke was because he needed someone to continue his legacy. Hey, how about you adopt someone because you truly love them, huh? I've always wondered how Isuke felt about this in canon, but I think she didn't mind that because after all, she was saved by her mama and she loves money, and there is no motivation for her to hate the reason why she was adopted. I think that the only person who can motivate her is her little brother, if he's not dead. Hence, this fic happened. Don't get me wrong, Eisuke loves Isuke; I have no doubt about that. Maybe it's a misguided love? Parents made mistakes too, sometimes.

And to answer a reviewer's question: Is this the reason why Isuke conspired with Sumireko? Well... read on to find out! :D