OK Number 60 - Koyū, Chie, Seishin

Kallen, by contrast, had a largely peaceful flight back to Japan. She had not been pleased with how Italy had gone, but she at least knew the team had done everything they could have done, and flew with them on the Monday morning, Italian time. Arriving at around half five in the evening Japanese time, Kallen decided that she might as well sleep in the airport to beat the jet lag while everyone else went to Suzuka to set up. She would not be needed until Thursday, and so could take some time to enjoy her home before she switched her attention back to the race, and so spent a lot of Tuesday going to a shrine to the south of Kyoto, before heading up to Tsukuba, where she had developed her skill and climbed up the bottom few rungs of the ladder as a youth, for a fan meet.

She was surprised by how many people had turned up to the fairly impromptu get-together, with Kallen having posted about it as an informal thing on social media only yesterday. It was a good time, with just over a hundred people turning up, most of whom wanting something signed, however they were mostly decent about it, sharing a good laugh and being infectiously positive.

However, by the time most of the attendants had cleared out and the sun was going down, Kallen quietly realised she needed to find someplace to rest up for Wednesday. Tsukuba was north of the Gaikan ring road around Tokyo, and three hundred and sixty kilometres away from the hotel the team were staying at, meaning that with the commuter belt traffic, she would be lucky to get there this side of midnight.

As she pulled out her phone to try and look up nearby hotels though, she received a notification.

Kōzuki Naoto has unblocked you.

She blinked, uncertain as to what to do with this, before Naoto's profile picture lit up with a symbol reading 'Typing' in kanji. She gave it a moment, before it finally came through.

You're up at Tsukuba aye?

Yes?

Are you still there?

Yes?

Come down to the flat. Don't rent hotel for room we already have.

Kallen blinked. Of course, she had been aware that she, or at least Naoto, had an apartment available in Shinjuku, which they had rented since Naoto was perhaps fifteen and Kallen was nine, however actually using it had not crossed her mind. Naoto had not been ambiguous, either in the phone call after Brazil or in the talking-to he had given her in Spain; he did not want her in their house.

This was the reason she hadn't asked; so that there would not be a similar rebuttal, as it had hurt enough hearing it twice. However, Naoto was no allowing her back? Perhaps pursuant to their talk in the hospital this made sense, but even so, when that had concluded Naoto had affirmed that they were not back on speaking terms yet. However, Kallen was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and hitched a ride with a fan down to Shinjuku sharpish. The lad was alright, though very excited to be having his idol in his car and prone to attempting to show off his skills, which Kallen very quickly shut down. That aside, he seemed fine enough, and as she thanked him as he dropped her off, he pointed towards Kallen's modified Hinomaru, with the five characters of her name, 紅月カレン, occupying the four corners. She nodded, wishing him well before he went on his way, with his destination being further south. Walking down from the outskirts of Saitama to the train station, Kallen picked up a ride from there to the Shinjuku station, arriving just before seven in the evening. It was a very short walk from the station to the block of flats, and from there it was simply a long flight of stairs up to the third floor.

She wasn't sure how she would be greeted, both by Naoto and the rest of the residents. She remembered last year, when she had left on the morning of the 2018 Japanese Grand Prix, on Pole, to every window filled with chanting and cheering, the entire building alive with excitement, that someone from the Tokyo inner city was in a title fight, and that they lived in the same building as them.

However, what with the recent controversies and Kallen having moved to a foreign, corporate team, she was not sure how her reception would prove as she rounded the last corner onto a hallway, containing six doors leading to six apartments, and saw the family in apartment 3-2 leaving in a big group for the night.

They and the Kōzukis had lived on the same hall for many years, and knew Kallen well, however if there would ever be a test of how the block would react to Kallens return, some eight months after her exile, this was it. A respectable, wholesome, decent family.

However, before Kallen could puff them up any more, the youngest daughter of the household Hatsue Miro spotted the redhead and immediately ran over. Only up to Kallens hips, the six year old still gave it her best attempt to tackle the nineteen year old, running into her fully upright. Kallen laughed as Hatsue wrapped her arms around the drivers thighs, as the youngster shouted "Mama, she's back! She's back! Where have you been Kallen? Mama said you were gone!"

Kallen looked up at the same time as the father Hidehito, who warmly smiled "Ah, Kallen! Welcome back, welcome back. We weren't expecting you!"

He paused, before whispering "Are you and Naoto…?"

She shrugged, before replying "I guess we'll see."

"Understandable." he shrugged. "I don't get it. The damn Frenchman had it coming, being so disrespectful. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

The word Hidehito had used had several translations, wherein perhaps the most charitable of these was 'damned' and it only grew more explicit from there. She briefly paused, before shaking her head. She mightn't have enjoyed her time with Euphemia and was only doing it out of contractual obligation, but if she was going to spend hours per week at her office, it might as well do some material good. And so, she might as well make a start at what Euphemia called praxis.

"No no no." Kallen replied, moving her raised palms from side to side. "No, he's been going through a lot of pain. I didn't like him, but he didn't deserve that. I've apologised to him."

Hatsue frowned, putting her index finger on her lip before asking innocently "What? Why'd you do that Kallen?"

"Well, little Hatsue…" Kallen smiled, as she knelt down to eye level with the girl, eager to nip in the bud what could be another Kallen. "Have you ever gotten in trouble? And from what I'm hearing you're beginning to take after me, so don't tell a porky."

Awkwardly, Hatsue leaned her head to the side and reluctantly admitted "A biiiiit…"

"Now, what does the teacher make you do?"

Hatsue, seeing where this was going, nodded, however once again it was reluctant, "Say sorry."

"Right." Kallen affirmed, raising her index finger to emphasise the point. "I was a pretty silly child, so I didn't get it at first, but there's a reason they do that. People don't deserve to get hurt like that, no matter how angry you are."

"I know but…. grraagh, sometimes I just wanna…!"

Kallen let out a proper belly laugh. Oh, they would have a proper tyke on their hands soon enough, However, shaking her head while still laughing, she replied "I know, I know. Trust me, I'm like a walking, talking anger problem. Tell you what, I'll give you something you can do, for me."

Hatsue's face immediately brightened up. Something she could do for her hero? The thoughts were immediately on her lips, as she cried "Oh, anything! You're so cool and awesome, just going zoom, zoom zoom zoom, neoowww! Ahaaha!"

"Next time someone's annoying you?" Kallen began, "And I know that happens, there's folks I'm sick to the back teeth of, but what I do, and what you should do next time, I heard this from my friend Euphemia, is that instead of saying 'You did this or that', you should try and begin 'I feel like'. Try and direct your thinking away from a direction of saying the other person is bad or accusing them. Do you know that- does she know that word? Accusing? Sorry, I might've-"

"I know accusing!" Hatsue smiled, feeling intelligent for knowing what a big word meant. "It's like… like in those right games!"

"Phoenix Wright?"

"Yeah!"

Smirking at Hatsue's enthusiasm, Kallen tried to seal the deal, asking "Will you do that for me? I want to see you up there racing with me in a few years, and you won't get there if you're always getting into trouble."

Hatsue nodded enthusiastically, as her parents laughed and tried to hustle her down the stairs, the child turned towards Kallen even as she was moved away, waving furiously back up at her. Kallen smiled slightly, knowing she would be telling the story of how she had met Kallen Kōzuki to all her mates the next school day.

However, as Kallen stood up, she heard someone clearing their throat behind her. She turned, to see Naoto standing in their doorway, with much of the left side of his face the colour and texture of an overcooked, rubbery lasagne and his one remaining eyebrow raised to levels Kallen had never before witnessed.

"What was that I just saw?"

Kallen shrugged, laughing. "Ah well, you know what they say. Those who can't learn, teach."

Shaking his head Naoto could only chuckle at that, before saying "Well don't spend all night standing out there like a melon, get in."

Naoto was still just a bit prickly; not 'come in', but 'get in'. Instruction, not invitation. However, as she took off her shoes, she heard Naoto lighten up and chuckle.

"Also… also, 'you will not get there if you are always getting into trouble'? What? You were never out of trouble as a youth, and you've made it this far, ehehehe..."

Kallen saw the funny side and shrugged "Do as I say and not as I do."

As Kallen wriggled her toes, freed from the leather brogues she had contained them in, Naoto, consciously pushing his luck, cheekily asked "So… can we see some sprogs in your future?"

Immediately, Naoto doubled over, clutching his crotch as Kallen withdrew her hand, shaped in a wing having jabbed him viciously, though ultimately in jest.

"Next time you ask that I'll be armed." Kallen warned, sliding her other hand across to a knife to underline the point. "They're fine in small doses, but spending all day looking after one? Miss me with that. Also, I'd have to give up racing, and that ain't happening."

"Aha, yeah, fair." Naoto breathlessly chuckled. "You've only got eyes for cars. You'd never part with your first love."

"Not if I can help it." she shook her head, rolling her eyes. She plopped her travel bag up by the couch, before frowning, and asking "So why'd you bring me down here?"

"Well…" Naoto began, before pausing to rub the back of his head uncertainly. "I don't like spending money unnecessarily. I remember vividly when those yen were in pretty scarce supply around this household, and I figured, what's the point of getting a room in a hotel in a country you've already got a house in? It's just a waste of money. So, I thought if you were up here, at least you'd be keeping a bit more cash floating around."

"Miser."

Now Naoto laughed more freely, positively chuckling uproariously as he wiped his eye and replied "I'll take that as a compliment after funding both of our junior careers and propelling us both as high as we're after getting."

He paused again, before adding "Didn't get you through F4 and F3 by being too open with the purse. Although you did a good job getting sponsors towards the end of F3, and by F2 you were pretty close to self-funded."

"Mm." Kallen mused, sceptically, before pointing to the open fridge. "If that's why you invited me, why do you have all of this tempura?"

Naoto shrugged off the comment about the mass of food, replying straightforwardly "Was cheaper to buy it in bulk, and it keeps for a long time."

"God, it feels like I'm talking to Lelouch."

It was a risqué comment given the history between Kallen and Lelouch, however Naoto, mentally set on a point he wanted to expedite, raised his finger to interrupt the flow of the conversation.

"But I will say…" he began. "You didn't see me when you were talking to Hatsue, and that was pretty impressive."

"Why thank you."

"As well… I've still been thinking about Hungary."

Kallen, uncertain quite where Naoto was going with this, straightened up a bit, cautious.

"I was… incredibly responsive to your actions in Brazil. I shut you out. I still… don't know if I was wrong to be, but that's besides the point. I gave you plenty of reason, when it came to it, to not intervene, to not go into the fire, to just move along, and not put yourself at risk. And look, you've explained to me why you did and I get it, never again means never again, but it's… it's meant I can still race, it means Tohdoh is still alive, it means a good few of my friends are still alive. When I needed you, you weren't hesitant for even a second. Your immediate response, your instinct, was to help. Whatever your ultimate decision was, the first thing your head went to was to help. It's your natural inclination I guess, but it's…"

He winced, before reluctantly continuing "…It's hard. I still… if you have that in you, if… the courage and selflessness to run in again and again to that garage on that day, to carry Tohdoh, to try and redirect Hatsue, how can you have that, and at the same time have the capacity to destroy Lelouch's life? How do those coexist?"

"I don't know."

Naoto blinked, not quite confused as much as he was curious, allowing Kallen to sigh and continue.

"I remember being at the Camelot interview, and they asked… some question like this, I don't quite remember, but I was brought back, to thinking about that day. I saw him, and I was standing over him, and… I was terrified. I was at once thinking 'I would not want to get on the wrong side of the monster who did this.', and realising it was me. I just… lost control, and I don't think I've gone a day since… maybe January without just despising that I, in some way or another, had the capacity to dole out unspeakable violence."

Kallen fell silent for a moment, looking down. Her hands were red, cracked and hardened, like dense wax, tough to distort but once it was distorted a bit, immediately shearing and splitting at the seams. They had been red before, red with blood. Perhaps it was some form of penalty, the guilty hands now deformed, fated to bleed like Lelouch had bled whenever they curled, or the skin around the knuckles stretched. No matter how hard she tried, she would never wash her hands of the blood fully, as it would spill over her hands again regardless of how thoroughly she cleaned.

Kallen did not believe in any cosmic design in spite of being nominally and culturally Shinto, however she could hardly view her hands, the instruments of her violence, being deformed and reduced to their current fragility, as much else.

Simply a confiscation of her weapons.

"But… with Euphemia I've put a lot the work into having the capacity not to. I can't put the genie back in the bottle, again, to say that I have a way to make what happened to Lelouch okay cheapens what he's gone through, but I was so horrified… if I can seal that away, not even go near that place ever again… I can be someone who deserves to be looked at the way Hatsue was looking at me. Admiration and so on. I don't deserve that right now, but with works, I can hope. It's not up to me though, all I can do is just keep at it."

Naoto, even with the prelude of the conversation in the hospital before they went to Belgium, seemed caught off guard by this, and looked away briefly, suppressing a burst of emotion.

"God… damn it, heh…" Naoto chuckled, as he tried to find the words in between his breathless breaths. "If you've got that in you… ach. Perhaps I'll be a bit more reticent to observe my natural instinct. I said a long time ago… ten years I think… that I'd look after you come thick or thin. I'll not be letting the side down at this late stage, especially when you have an attitude like that."

Kallen remembered, like she had in Hungary. Naoto had cried something tremendous, but he had had resolve, had had fire and steel in his soul and had kept a roof over their heads, kept the lights on, had dealt with Kallen's delinquency, and not failed to prepare a single meal.

Indeed, it was that resolve that had resulted in the situation with Tohdoh surprising her. With all his steel, all the resolute implacability he had unfailingly exhibited, the ease with which he had conformed to Rebellion's insistence on focusing on Tohdoh, swallowed his pride and done it, at least publicly, with a smile continued to surprise her.

And then it didn't.

While at first Kallen was staggered at how effectively it had broken his spirit, upon reflection she had to acknowledge the strength it had likely taken. Kallen certainly couldn't do it; to put her heart and soul into a race, coming out with the pace to have earned a solid position, and then to pull aside and let her teammate take it? That took a lot of self-assurance, and no small amount of big-picture thinking, something that was not in short supply within Naoto's fairly logical mind.

She could not bring herself to say that it was noble, or in the spirit of her attitude towards racing, but she supposed to could only be for Naoto that she had this freedom to fight at all. However, with the benefit of hindsight, if Naoto had fought and won, perhaps he would be on two championships already. But that was only with hindsight; it had been impossible to know that, with a reality check and a spot of courage, Naoto could, on his day, lead the team just as well as Tohdoh. He could never have known that, and unlike Kallen was not at liberty to risk his seat.

In this sense, Naoto had swerved not an inch from his most steadfast commitment; in a way quite like Lelouch, he would protect his family, except where Lelouch's 'by any means necessary' meant politicking and conniving his way to success, Naoto's tack revolved more around falling on his own sword.

Of course, Naoto had explained this before, on a fuzzy video call over two years ago, the night after the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix. But Kallen was far less mature, only seeing from her perspective, that of a child. She was in ignorance of the strength Naoto had had to exhibit for years, patiently waiting so that his reputation could grow and his seat, and Kallen's seat, could be firmly secured. In that capacity Kallen had been incredibly disrespectful, and while that had been quickly forgotten, she had unquestionably been flippant of the sacrifice he had made, wasting three years of his career as a number two in a sport where careers might only last ten to twelve years before the reflexes dulled.

He had done it without even thinking of himself, only thinking of what he could do for Kallen.

He had leapt right into the fire for her, and, beyond coming away with even the damage he had expected, which was the loss of perhaps half of his career, not blinking, not even hesitating. She laughed. And he had the audacity to ask her why she had been so unhesitant in Hungary?

Kallen quietly chuckled. Shaking her head, she could only just about speak up, having left the conversation hanging for almost a minute.

"Thank you… you fool. You utter fool. You have done… so much for- for a clot like me and… and I-"

Kallen's voice broke off, as Naoto looked down with a smile before replying quietly "Look at it this way. If being a fool were a criminal offence, I'd have been locked up long ago."

Kallen shook her head, resting her forehead on the dorsal side of her wrist as she began to cry. She couldn't see Naoto's face, but she imagined that it was wearing a shit-eating grin, having found the opportunity to turn Kallen's phrase back around on her. Everything, even his instinct, were superseded by his promise, which he had not broken even to this point. Just as Kallen had went into the fire for him, he would go into the fire for her.

"And it took this long for me to get it. God we're both fools."

"You can sing that one."

"I love you Naoto."

Kallen had whispered it amidst sobs, before Naoto smiled, close to tears himself, and leaned forward, before they shared an embrace, at first tender before they came together more emphatically, Naoto and Kallen each wrapping their arms around the other, though Kallen had to let her hands and wrists just miss to avoid discomfort. She felt Naoto's coarse, leathery left cheek, burned to char, bristle up against hers, as they both sobbed out their reconciliation.

"I think… you've cut yourself shaving Naoto." she joked through the tears, with her brother responding in kind, blubbering through the admittedly witty retort "I was just surprised when you dropped the kettle on yourself, you spilled all the hot tea all over your arms."

They chuckled through the heaving sobs, each one cheering the other up. It was a good thing too, as just at that moment came a heavy knock at the door.

They instantly parted, feeling for a moment guilt before remembering that siblings traditionally had emotional connections and that there was no significant embarrassment over being emotional with a sibling, especially in ones own house. However, there would be some embarrassment in answering the door in tears, and so Kallen, probably in the more presentable state, dabbed her eyes with a tissue and moved towards the door, not knowing who would be there. Aside from perhaps the people within the building itself, for whom it was something of a fun, jokey secret to have two national athletes in the same crummy old apartment block, Kallen could not think of who would know where they lived. Both of them had their pay routed to their bank via a P.O box, and very few people would have looked twice at their flat. Then again, it might a visit for another reason.

She shrugged, and pulled at the door. While the chain lock was still in place, the door had a few degrees of free rotation, and she pulled it as far as the bolt allowed, just to get a view of the person on the other side, before her eyes widened in surprise.

"Hey…"

Suzaku Kururugi stood at the door, diffident and emphatically looking as if he was somewhere he felt uncomfortable, which Kallen imagined made sense. Suzaku, had grown up in the French countryside after the age of three, as opposed to the Tokyo city streets as you could get. However, given the overarching mood and good spirit of the evening, which had seen emotions run a bit high and both Kallen and Naoto feeling a bit sensitive to positivity, Suzaku's unfamiliarity with the dense city and what were undeniably noisy and crowded streets were hardly sharp enough a bodkin to spike their emotional balloon.

Smiling weakly, just about able to set aside enough emotion from her well to set up a warm greeting, Kallen made him feel welcome, as Naoto had taught her to.

"Hey, Suzaku!" she exclaimed. "Do come in, I'll just get… these bolts…"

She had to close the door again, as, while the slides had been already taken out, there were four locked chains of varied lengths littering the inside of the door, leaving Suzaku standing out by the front as she tried to unhitch them one by one, before she was able to open the door fully.

"Ah, sorry about that!" she laughed awkwardly as the final restraining element fell away and the door was opened. "Anyway, come in, come in, just take off your shoes. Naoto, it's Suzaku!"

Given the lack of possibilities, Kallen suspected that Naoto had told Suzaku where they lived, given that the pair were quite close, which was confirmed when Naoto, far from being concerned, reached over from the kitchen to slap hands with Suzaku, before saying "Sit down inside, I think I have a few drinks in the fridge."

~G1ll3s