A/N: Because I said I'll post an update before the week ends, so here it is, earlier out than I first thought ;)
Just want to repeat, I don't own MSGM characters, though that fact is pretty obvious since this is a fanfic after all ;)
Chapter 14. Revelations
Youko and Sei exchanged worried looks as Sachiko remained frozen in her seat, her eyes glued on the photo Youko handed to her.
"And these are the photos of her family."
Youko handed more photos with trembling hands to Sachiko.
Sei, too, took a look at the rest of the photos. Though she was the one who suggested that Yumi might be alive, still seeing the photos of someone who looked exactly like her came as a shock to her system. How could it be that there was a photo of a living Yumi with her family and yet there's also a grave of a dead Yumi in one of the cemeteries here in Tokyo? And how Sachiko would really take all these news?
Worriedly, Sei reached out for Youko's hands just as the latter reached for hers and together, they got strength from each other.
"Let's leave her for a while," Youko whispered as she gazed at Sachiko.
---o---
Sachiko moved mechanically, looking from one photo to another.
There's Yumi smiling.
Yumi making faces.
Yumi looking dignified.
Yumi with her brother.
Yumi with her parents.
There's no denying now that the person she saw at the restaurant and Yumi was the same person. It would be too much of a coincidence if that Aya and her brother and her parents just looked like Yumi and her family.
She gazed at the photos longingly, her trembling fingers grazed Yumi's smiling face. And then as if awoken from her dream, she started to cry unabashedly.
Yumi was just within her reach that time. If she didn't pass out with shock, she would have been with Yumi already.
"Oh Yumi…I've missed you so much. I want to be with you. Yumi…"
It took Sachiko almost an hour before she gathered enough strength to look for Youko.
"What else did the investigator found out, Onee-sama?" She asked holding the photos tightly as if her life depended on it.
"They arrived in Osaka a few months ago, from US, though where from US, the investigator couldn't find. Someone wanted the information hidden."
"My family," Sachiko said without second thought. Who else would have the reason to do it?
"Most likely. No information from her past can be found, only when she had arrived here in Japan. She's an interior designer in an architecture and design company recently established by her father and brother, who's an engineer now."
That information made sense. Before, Yumi's father owned an architecture company. Her brother took a degree on engineering to probably help their father. And Yumi. An interior designer. To help her family. That's just so like her.
"The company is small and very young, but thriving. Their clients liked their works."
'Yumi, do you know that I'm an architect, too? Would you be proud of me?' Sachiko thought as Youko continued her explanation.
"Though the names are different from the Fukuzawas we knew. As we know, that person's name is Houribe Aya, and her brother is Kenji."
"What else?"
Youko hesitated for a moment. She gazed at the waiting Sachiko and to the stiffly standing Sei. She needed to do this. Sachiko needed to know everything.
"There's something else that you must know."
Avoiding Sachiko's eyes, Youko handed her an envelope.
Sachiko, who now thoroughly worried with Youko's and Sei's demeanor, reached for the envelope carefully, as if the envelop was a venomous snake ready to bite her. And when she opened it and saw the photographs inside, her heart started to hammer fast.
"Who is this?"
The envelope contained more photos of Yumi but now with a little girl whom she hadn't seen nor met before.
"Her name is Yana, she's four years old and she's Yumi-chan's daughter," Youko said very fast as if doing so would lessen the impact of the news.
"Yumi's what?" Sachiko asked as she paled.
Youko was immediately at her side, holding her shoulders as she swayed a little.
"That's what the investigator found out."
'Yumi has a daughter? Yumi has a child? Then, does it mean that Yumi is…'
"Yumi-chan isn't married," Sei interrupted Sachiko's thoughts.
"Unless she's denying that she is, or maybe she's a widow," Sei added.
Sachiko's emotions were in turmoil.
'Yumi got married and had a child? Did Yumi forget all about her and had loved another?' Sachiko's thoughts troubled her more.
"You can't be too sure, Sachiko. Yumi-chan is too young to be a mother. Though of course that isn't an excuse because a lot of people get married early nowadays," Youko said softly, before gazing at Sei fiercely, as if telling her that she wasn't helping at all.
"But…"
"I don't think Yumi-chan will forget you easily, Sachiko. We don't know the truth yet, so don't jump into conclusions. We don't know what happened in all these years. Maybe that girl isn't her daughter at all, don't forget about that possibility."
"Yumi didn't remember me when we saw each other. Or if she did, she's avoiding me. Why else did she not contact me all these years? Why she…"
"Too many questions, but you won't find an answer just by asking yourself like that. You should talk to her, or we should investigate deeper."
'Yumi was alive.
Yumi had a daughter.
Yumi married.
Yumi had forgotten all about her.'
Sachiko didn't know how to handle the shock and turmoil anymore. She's happy. She's confused. She's hurt.
Coupled with tiredness and stress, it became too much for Sachiko.
---o---
"But how could that be?" Youko whispered as she watched Sachiko's sleeping form. She was happy for Sachiko and at the possibility that Yumi's still alive. Possibility because unless there's more proof aside from the photos, she couldn't exactly claim that it's Yumi. There's still a chance that it's not her, though the photos were screaming that it's her.
She's confused.
What in the world happened?
Was everything a fraud?
What was really the truth?
Yumi dead or alive?
She could see in Sei's face that their thoughts were the same.
"Do you think there's…"
"If Yumi-chan is truly alive, which now I think that it's a possibility, then they must have done something to twist the events that happened," Sei said, looking at Sachiko.
"They?"
Sei could only mean none other than Sachiko's own family.
"…"
"You're a lawyer. You're more familiar on how some people of their kind works. It's possible that they had paid people to hide the truth, even killed some of them."
Youko knew the truth of what Sei said. Money could easily twist things around. And power could easily silence people.
"How about the Fukuzawa family?"
"We don't know what really happened. They surely have a serious reason to leave. And they might have their names changed if the investigator couldn't see a trace of their names at Osaka."
It made sense, Youko thought.
"We need to find out. And we need to be careful, too, because if they twisted the truth before, then they probably know everything that's been happening. We should be careful from now on."
However, amidst that emotional turmoil, the worries that the two women felt at the moment, one emotion stood out.
Happiness.
For there's now a hope for the long time stricken and mourning Sachiko.
"You know…"
"What?" Youko asked, lifting her eyes from Sachiko to the serious-looking Sei.
"I still don't get the blue eyes."
"And I thought you have something useful to say," Youko said with a bit of sarcasm.
"What? Aren't you curious? Unless she's not Yumi-chan. I like her brown eyes," Sei said with feigned hurt.
"If it's Yumi-chan, then it's just contact lens or something else."
"Makes perfect sense. Maybe because she wants to remember Sachiko's eyes and…"
"Stop talking nonsense," Youko cut off.
Sei pouted in response.
After giving a tender look at Sachiko, Youko stood and pulled Sei towards the door.
"Come on. We have work to do. I want someone to check on the grave."
---o---
"She already knows some of the information, Sir."
"I see. Just continue on what you're doing. And good job for not letting them find out that she already knows," he said to the man on the other line.
Now, what he needed to do was to prepare himself for a confrontation that was inevitable. It wouldn't be long. It would only be a matter of time.
A/N: You might say that it's another torture, but I'm shedding light little by little. Sachiko's suffering too much? That's how it will be for now, so I hope you'll forgive me.
You may want to rest reading until the last chapter is up, but two more chapters and they will talk for real, though it doesn't mean that once they talk, everything's settled already.
Do you want to kill me now? ;)
Hope not (hiding under the desk while muttering "I have to revise the next chapter as soon as possible")
After a couple of seconds under the desk…
"I shouldn't hide because if I do, I won't be able to write anything." ;) ;)
Pressure, pressure, pressure…but I'll still smile ;)
---Arvendell---
22 October 2008
12:58 PM