Faking Calm
Chitoge bit her bottom lip as she stared at the monitor of her laptop. She wasn't actually taking in any of the information that was displayed there, instead she had the thousand-mile stare of someone who was thinking about something else. Who could blame her though? After what had happened Raku…'visited' her. She swallowed hard as her body began to heat up as a reaction to the memory.
What the fuck even was that? Sure maybe she had teased him a little bit, and she definitely hadn't done anything to stop him from doing it, but who walked up to someone and did something like that? She curled her fingers into fists on her desk and stared at the keyboard in front of her, trying to figure out what had happened without actually thinking about what had happened.
She knew that if she let her mind wander it would betray her, playing back the feelings and the scenes, letting her relive the moment like it was one of the dreams she had when she had been watching too many romance movies, or reading too many dirty fanfics online. She already had to keep her hands where she could see them all the time so that they didn't betray her by slipping under her desk to 'help' her work out the events that she had experienced.
Chitoge shuddered softly as she felt a cool breeze slip up her skirt from somewhere, reminding her that her panties had left with the man who had been in her office. It also informed her that without a doubt if she had been wearing them, the memories of what had happened before would have left them a soaking mess. Her breath shook slightly and she closed her eyes a little bit, crossing one leg over the other to try and give herself at least a little bit of coverage.
She slowly opened her eyes again, looking at the screen before her again. Her finger idly tapped at a key as she tried to figure out WHY he had done that to her. It was too extreme for just something to keep up the image of their fake relationship. Had he just been angry at her teasing, and responded in a way that got a little bit carried away? No, it was more than a little carried away. It was totally crazy, and defied reason. She probably wasn't going to find the answers by thinking rationally.
She looked down at the manila folder again and frowned softly. Maybe it was all just something that he had done to get under her skin and tease her a little bit. He had acted like he had come in to get the land, but he had left before she had given it to him. She reached for the manila folder that held the agreement that had been faxed over to her but stopped before her fingers could touch it.
Was he expecting her to bring it over to him? Had he considered what he had done as some sort of 'payment' for the land, something that he'd give in exchange? She stared at the folder for a long moment. No, that wasn't like Raku, he wouldn't monetize affection like that, and even if he would, there was no way that whatever he needed the land for was worth doing something like THAT with someone that he was just pretending was his girlfriend for whatever reason.
That was another thing. Even after all of that, she still had no idea why he was continuing the fake-lovers farce. Given everything, even if he wanted to keep their fake-relationship a thing, wouldn't he rather spend his time sneaking around and doing something like that with Onodera instead? Sure they'd have to keep it a secret, but they had been teenager when they had fooled everyone in two underworld organizations for three years, and from the sounds of it, he was still doing a pretty good job of fooling everyone who they hadn't actively told.
Everyone that she had run into had told her that Raku was going to be able to give her all of the answers that she needed, and instead all she had been getting was even more strange and complex questions. Her mind sabotaged her again by reminding her that wasn't ALL he had given her. She whimpered softly at that thought, knowing that she wasn't likely to find relief without either getting answers or letting her wandering hand find it's way between her legs.
She leaned forward, letting the side of her face lay on the cool surface of the wooden desk. Her eyes looked over to the manila folder again, as she forced her mind to change gears to ask why he had left without it. That was the part that he had come for right? Unless he had come just to do the thing that they had done, and this whole land thing was just some weird pretext that she had been tricked into gobbling up, giving him the excuse to come to her.
Her lip quivered as her mind played with that thought. If it had just been some weird pretext, what would he do if she brought it to him? Would she get more of the treatment that she had seen in her office, or was there something even more that he had planned for her when she crossed into his home and found herself behind enemy lines. If he wanted more, would she be able to refuse him? Would she want to?
She felt her heart grow cold as a contrary thought entered her mind. What if he wanted less? What if the big plan was to get into her head like this and just have her walk the agreement right over to his office, like some sort of trained dog? He didn't need to take it with him because she'd just willingly walk in and hand it over.
She groaned. She was probably thinking way too much about this. Knowing the way that Raku operated, she was probably putting more thought into it than he had. Clearly it wasn't the sort of thing that he would have done on a whim, but at the same time, given the way that she had pushed him…it was kind of understandable that he would have reacted the way that he had.
The folder may have been what he had originally come for, and then her harsh treatment and the way she had teased him had changed his mind and he had decided he was after something else, or just wanted to make a point. Regardless, if it was still a bargaining chip, she could use it to get the answers that she really wanted. She'd bring him the folder and trade it for the answers to what the hell was going on.
She pushed herself up to her seat, pulled the ribbon out of her hair so that she could tie it back up in her usual style again. It was obvious that the intimidation of the tight bun hadn't helped her win their earlier encounter, and it wasn't comfortable enough that she was prepared to wear it into another battle with Raku. She pulled the ribbon tight with both hands and looked forward with eyes that were clear in their purpose.
She had won the battle with her mind and had switched gears, no longer thinking about the possibility that he might want to do things to her. She was thinking about how after doing something like that to her, she had still ended up totally clueless. This was all part of his plan somehow. He wanted to try and make her crazy or something. Well, she wasn't crazy, she was mad. When she got to him she was going to show him the mistake that he had made.
"Time to get some fucking answers." He may have thought himself prepared for crazy, but there was nothing on this green earth that would protect him from Chitoge's rage.
oOo0oOo
The Shuei-Gumi compound was not prepared for the event of an angry Chitoge. The guards had opened doors and then scrambled to get out of the way as she stomped her way through anything that stood in her way. They may have fancied themselves as big scary gangsters, but in the face of the thin, weak looking girl, they proved to be about as much resistance as soap bubbles waiting to be pushed aside, or popped if they stood their ground.
When the furious woman burst into his office she found Raku sitting quietly behind a large desk of his own. He looked up at her from the papers that he had been organizing and addressed her like it was nothing at all, "Hello, Chitoge."
She stomped across the room and slammed the manila envelope down against his desk with both hands "Why would you do that!?"
His eyebrows rose in a feigned ignorance, "Surely I have no idea what you're talking about."
Her eyebrow twitched as she felt a vein in her forehead pulse. Was he playing this like a joke? Did think it'd be funny to make her say it out loud? Now that she thought about it, that would be pretty embarrassing. Maybe he just thought that she'd drop it rather than say it. She glared at him, her fingers curling into tight fists, her manicured fingernails digging into her palms. So he was going to tease her now? No. She wasn't going to let him get away with it, not after what he had done in her office.
"You know what I'm talking about." Her voice came out in a low growl, "I'm talking about when you came into my office and-"
He brought his hand up quickly, "Okay, okay!" He looked at her for a moment and then looked over her shoulder at the sliding paper door, "Are you sure you want to talk to me about that sort of stuff here?"
Her bottom lip rose up in displeasure, "I want answers, Raku."
"I'm just saying that this might not be the time or place for this conversation." He smiled weakly at her, "These are some DELICATE matters, and it would probably be better if we found a way to discuss them somewhere a little more private, where it won't cause a scene."
Her eyes went wide. He thought that she was going to be open to going someplace secluded with him after what he had done the last time they had been behind closed doors. Oh no. That might have worked on her if she had come here before she had realized how angry she was at him, but not anymore. That was just not going to stand.
Her eyebrows quirked down as she shot another angry glare at him from behind the lenses of the vanity glasses that she was still wearing, "You mean someplace like my office!? I guess you could have talked to me about everything that's going on there, right!?"
He swallowed hard as he looked at her. She could tell that he very much felt the power of her anger radiating off of her as he shrunk back into his seat a little bit, "I'm sensing that you're angry about that."
"Little bit!" She let it out with a huff of breath, "Was that all you came over there for, because we didn't talk, and you sure as fuck didn't take the land deal that you were looking for." She pounded her knuckles into the manila folder.
He swallowed hard again, looking down at her fist and the folder before looking back into her eyes that were so cold he thought she was trying to freeze his blood, "I guess I got a little carried away?"
She wanted to deck him. She wanted to punch him so hard that he'd fly though the air and shoot through walls. She wanted to pull off a move like in one of those shonen anime, where the hero punches the villain so har that he hits the moon and is stuck in the middle of a crater the size of a building. 'Little carried away' did not begin to describe what had happened, and the fact that he was trying to brush it off like it was no big deal was just adding more fuel to the raging fire of her anger.
"I thought for sure you were going to stop me before things went too far, and then you didn't." His eyes darted back in panic as he looked around the room for a way to escape from the terrifying monster before him.
He was blaming her for what had happened? He had come into her office acting all cold, and then she had pushed her back over the desk and…and done things! How was any of that her fault!? Sure she may have been conveniently forgetting that she had shot her panties at him, and writing out the part of the narrative where she had kind of egged him on, but none of that was important to her right at this moment.
She had gone from the loud and flashy anger to something else. Her bangs cast her eyes in shadow as she spoke in a calm and collected manner, "Answers, or I'll tell everyone the truth."
Raku froze as he looked at her, "What truth?"
When she looked up at him, it almost looked as if her ice-blue eyes had begun to glow with an unholy energy, "The truth about us."
He took a long breath as he looked at her, "I can't let you do that."
His body had gone tense when she had mentioned the truth. It seemed that this direction of the conversation had finally shown him that she was serious. The more she added to it, the more she could see him tense up. She narrowed her eyes dangerously as she watched him try to project calm with joints that were so tense that they had locked up.
"What do you want to know?" He swallowed as he looked at her.
She took a long breath to try and calm herself back away from the dangerous pinnacle that she had been headed to, "I want to know what has been happening this past five years." She closed her eyes, taking in another long, calming breath, "I want to know what everyone else has been avoiding telling me." She opened her eyes again and shot him with a glance that would pierce right to his heart, "I want to know why you've spent the last five years telling people that we're-"
He lunged forward, cupping his hand over her mouth, stopping her from saying anything more. His face now had the same serious expression that hers had. He continued to give her a long hard look, holding his breath as if listening to see if anyone was listening in on them. She pulled back, freeing herself and glaring angrily at him from a few steps back from the desk.
He spoke softly and calmly, "I will tell you everything, Chitoge, I swear on my life." He sank back into his seat closed his eyes, "I just…can't tell you here."
She continued to cast him an angry glare from where she stood, "So what? You want me to just drop this and go back to acting like nothing is wrong?" She put an emphasis on the word acting, knowing that he'd pick up her meaning.
He shook his head slowly and looked back up to her, "I want you to go back to doing whatever you were doing before our recent run-ins with each other." He had a pleading look in his eyes as he looked at her, "I want you to go back to your office. Once I'm done with this project, I'll visit you there." When he felt her glare again he added, "You can have one of your security guys on hand to tase me if I get out of hand or whatever."
She crossed her arms over her chest, letting out a huff. If he was being the classic indecisive Raku, he'd probably postpone this as long as possible so that he didn't have to deal with it. She couldn't afford to let him procrastinate too long, "I'm in town for a week. If I'm not satisfied by then-"
He held up his hands in surrender, "I know, I know."
She turned and stomped back out of his office, "Don't make me wait!"
oOo0oOo
Chitoge found herself sitting at her desk again, staring at her laptop monitor. This time, instead of the thousand-yard stare of someone who didn't know what had happened to them, it was still a look of rage and contempt. Her poor secretary had nearly had a heart-attack when she had come stomping back into the office still looking like a rage-fuelled monster.
She knew that she couldn't just sit there and wait for Raku though. She had come here on a business trip, there was business that needed to get done, and now that she had just handed over a land deal, she was going to need to find a way to justify that expenditure as well. Maybe she could argue that the Shuei-Gumi was a non-profit organization and write it off as a tax shelter.
Giving Raku the land deed had also meant that the part of her job that had been complete, was now very much not. She was going to have to go around to all of those other spots that her people had been seeking out, and then she was going to have to play the office politics game, where who had picked the space that got picked was as much of a deciding factor on whether or not the spot was in a location that suited their needs, or the price for which they had got it. Factors like that were the one part of her job that made Chitoge think about not doing it anymore.
She looked at her computer, dreading all of the work that she was going to have to put in. She'd need to read the e-mailed proposals for their new location, do her own research to find out the parts that everyone had left out of their reports, and then start knocking off the ones that she knew definitely wouldn't work for them. It shouldn't have been this hard to get themselves an office that they could ship clothes out of.
Her finger moved to the track-pad of her laptop, dragging the mouse cursor over to her e-mail client. She opened it and began the dull tedium of scanning through her e-mails for anything that might be helpful to the situation that she was currently in.
She had gotten rid of a few of the obvious losers, and then her eyes found a new entry as it came into her mailbox. It wasn't a proposal, or at least the subject line wasn't formatted like the others had been. Her lips moved a little as she decided to re-read the subject line again, "You are cordially invited".
The subject line was of course not the most interesting part of this entry. It was the sender. It had come from another company. Normally that would be no surprise, she got e-mails from other companies that wanted to try and start deals with her, or get her to work on their uniforms all the time. This company though, she recognized it, and it wasn't one of the usual takers. It was one of the shell companies that the Shuei-Gumi used when they were doing more legitimate business.
She cautiously clicked to open the e-mail, half-afraid of what she would see written inside.
"Ms Chitoge Kirisaki. We cordially invite you to attend a gala ball to celebrate our newest venture. We would like to share our excitement over our newest acquisition with you. Join us for a night of dancing, culminating in the reveal of our big plans for lot…"
It went on in standard invitation fashion, giving her the address, telling her that it would be a black-tie affair, all things she was used to. This didn't make sense though. Why was she getting an invite to this? Raku had just told her to go away for a little bit, and now he was inviting her to come right back into the lion's den? It didn't make any sense at all.
She felt like pulling her hair out. She scrolled a little bit further down and found a post-script near the bottom;
"Young Mistress, we'd like to thank you and honour you for your donation of the land. Thanks so much for the generous gift."
She stared blankly at her screen for a long moment. Had she been played? Had this all been a plan just to get the land from her after all. She grit her teeth together and curled her fingers into tight fists again. She couldn't just let this slide. He had somehow tricked her into doing whatever he wanted, and now he planned to rub her face in it by telling her not to go to a party, only to immediately send her an invitation.
She growled softly, "What the fuck, Raku." She then looked over her shoulder at the small wardrobe in the corner of her office, "You want to play head-games? Fine. Let's dance."
