Chikako sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes. She heard the twins and wondered how they could be so loud this early in the morning? She locked the door, just in case, and let the towel fall from her body. The cool of the air conditioning unit made her shiver, and she quickly grabbed a change of clothes from her suitcase. She still hadn't gotten situated in Kyoya's apartment yet, but her anxiety had lessened greatly from simply being closer to him. She would never admit this to him for sake of her pride, but she was a lot calmer here in America with him than she had ever been with her family in Japan while he was gone.
Chikako pulled a loose-fitting sweater over her head as she heard the twins' ruckus calm down. She glanced out at the dull morning light peaking in through the window and sighed. She hadn't been able to sleep last night. She had been up worrying about the conversation from the previous day.
"Who's Jake?"
She was going to have to answer this question sooner or later. She couldn't begin to devise how that conversation would be begin. He was a friend. A good friend. A lover, actually, but he was also the man who helped kidnap me. I think he set me free though, but I still hate him and I think he hates me but…
She groaned, softly, and sat back against the bed. This was hopeless. The morning light poked through the cracks in the window blinds and Chikako raised her hand so the shadows glimmered over her skin. She twisted her wrist in the light, absentmindedly, and wondered if Kyoya loved and cared about her enough to not care about Jake or the fact that she had lied about him. Or perhaps he loved her too much to ignore it.
Or did he love her at all? How could Chikako be sure what love was anymore? Her track record wasn't exactly reliable, after all.
She reached over to the side table for her phone and opened her contacts list but froze. Who would she call for advice? Could she go ask her best friend for help? Would Haruhi answer?
She heard a knock on the door in the foyer and assumed it was Tamaki. There was hushed talking and Chikako quickly rushed to put on makeup and clothes. She decided to visit Haruhi and see what she thought. Despite being immensely naïve about these things, Haruhi was still able to give fairly solid advice. Chikako pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top. She grabbed her pullover again and headed out the bedroom door as she yanked the hoodie over her head.
There was a soft gasp as Chikako smoothed the fabric over her stomach. She looked up and froze.
There in the entryway was the last person she ever wanted to see. Her hands were still on her torso, and one foot slightly ahead of the other, mid-walk. She was frozen in time, all eyes on her, her mind glitching, unable to process what could possibly happen next. Her eyes were wide and flitted back and forth, from one man to the other.
Kyoya pursed his lips, his stance strong and still.
"Chikako," he said.
She took a slow, deep breath in and breathed out, "Kyoya."
"I believe you know our guest?" he asked in English.
Chikako didn't try to lie. She sighed and nodded.
"I do," she said. Her eyes locked with the guest's unwavering gaze. "Jake."
He blinked, surprised.
"Chi-Chi."
Chikako felt her veins shake in anger. She gulped down a scream.
"Why," she said, sucking in a wobbly breath, "are you here?"
Kyoya looked angry as well.
In Japanese, he snapped, "Did you not know he was coming?"
Chikako tossed him a look, annoyed and also lost. "Of course not."
Jake bit his lip. "Chi-Chi, I…" He sighed. "Could we speak in private?"
"No." She looked from her husband to her ex-boyfriend and kidnapper. Her eyes threatened to water, but she wanted – needed – to be stronger. "I never want to be alone with you again."
Kyoya gritted his teeth. "Who is this, Chikako?"
Her stomach tilted.
"This is Jake," she answered.
His voice rose. "And who is Jake?"
She sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils. "Jake is…"
Her voice trailed off with her mind. The memories flashed like bulbs in a camera. The motorbike. His mother's house. The hillside and daisies in summer…
Then the hotel room, the smell of his apartment from the inside of the pantry, the chafing of rope around her wrists. Jake was her ex-boyfriend. Jake was her kidnapper. Jake was once her dream; now he was her nightmare. Jake faded with every passing day she spent with Kyoya and yet here he was, not a ghost or dream, but a person. A real-live person.
She shook her head, filled with disgust that slowly melted to numbed apathy.
"He is nothing."
"What?" Jake breathed.
Chikako leaned back on her heels and crossed her arms over her chest. She took a step away from Jake and toward Kyoya. She knew this would be the harshest thing she had done yet to Jake but also knew he deserved it.
"I knew him a long time ago," she said to her husband, "before you and I even met. But once I met you, Kyoya, Jake was no longer needed in my life. I've had a few… uncomfortable run-ins with him, but I never would have imagined he would come to America and to our apartment no less. Like a stalker."
Jake gawked. "Okay, I-I suppose I deserved that, but—"
Chikako pressed her lips in a fine line. "Why are you here, Jake?"
There was pause.
"I didn't expect you to be…" Jake began.
"Married?" Kyoya offered.
"No," Chikako said, shaking her head, "he knew I was married. Perhaps he didn't expect you to be real or here … with me."
Jake was blanching with each second. This was obviously not going the way he had planned.
"Chikako…"
"Stop," she said. "I have nothing to say to you. I hope you wasted all of the money you've made in the last year to get here." She nodded toward the door. "Now, please leave."
"Chi-Chi, I need to—"
"Please," she continued, more slowly and angrily this time. "Leave."
She was giving him a chance – a chance he didn't deserve. A chance to get off scot free and live a different life where he wasn't a kidnapper, where he hadn't brutally murdered her heart and earned money off her life.
Kyoya looked calmly at his wife, but his brows elevated in surprise. Her fury was too controlled for Chikako's character, making him feel how deeply rooted it was.
"Chikako," he started, "the least we could do is hear him out—"
"No," she growled. "I want him out of our house."
"Chi-Chi," Jake said.
She shot him a glare.
"Jacob Lawrence," she said, seething. "You are not a doctor, a student, a lover, or even a friend. You are a criminal, an enemy, and nothing to me more than pain in my heart and a hole in my head. I do not want you and I certainly do not need you."
"Chikako, I came to apologize. I shouldn't have done it."
Kyoya rested his hand on Chikako's shoulder.
"What did he do?" he asked quietly in Japanese.
Then to Chikako's surprise, Jacob answered back in Japanese as well, broken but coherent, "I kidnapped Chikako… for money."
Kyoya's eyes widened. "What?"
Chikako furrowed her brow.
"He was working with the Americans," she whispered quickly in her native tongue so Jake wouldn't understand her.
"When did you learn Japanese?" she asked in English.
"I learned a little when I was working with… well, when I came to Japan," he said. "Oh, Chi-Chi, I'm so sorry—"
"Wait," Kyoya said in Japanese. "You were the one? You were the one who kidnapped Chikako Ootori-Akiyoshi? My wife? My business partner?" His words came out quicker and quicker as his anger built up. "You had the gall to come into our home the night of our wedding and steal her like she was some bartering object and not a human being?"
Chikako could tell that his rapid Japanese was scaring Jake and instinctively, she put her hand on her husband's arm.
"Kyoya, stop," she said softly, "he doesn't understand."
He shrugged her off.
"Do you understand the immense damage you have done, Mr. Lawrence?" Kyoya asked, gruffly in English. "Not just to the entire Ootori Group or the Akiyoshi Clan or even the Ootori-Akiyoshi assimilated corporation, or to myself or to our individual family members, but to Chikako and her mental, emotional, and physical well-being?"
Jake gulped. Despite being taller than Kyoya, Chikako's husband's anger made him seem to tower over the cowering young man. He looked at Chikako and then back at Kyoya.
"I just needed to be a man and make this right," he said.
Kyoya scoffed. "You have no idea what it is to be an adult, Mr. Lawrence, let alone be a man."
Jake looked pleadingly at Chikako.
She stared back at him and felt an old voice inside her, defiant and crazy in-love begging her to forgive him. Remember the daisies, it said, and the fake roses he gave you that made you laugh. She didn't want to remember, though. It made it that much harder to forget the pain.
She pressed her lips together and started to turn around.
"No, Chi-Chi wait-!" Jake said, grabbing her arm.
Instinctively, Kyoya shoved Chikako aside and rammed his fist into Jake's face.
Chikako spun around to see Jake stumble backward into the hall. Kyoya slammed the front door shut and clicked the deadbolt. He pulled out his phone, dialing some number, and giving instructions for his own police force to bring a tall blond man with green eyes with a motorcycle helmet into custody. He also requested any motorcycles outside the premise to be taken in for evidence.
"We've found our kidnapper," he said before hanging up and walking back toward his bedroom to retrieve his laptop.
It was silent outside the door as Chikako stared at the place where Jake had stood. She glanced behind her to see if Kyoya was looking (he wasn't) and pushed her body softly against the door to look through the peephole into the hallway. Jake was long gone and she slowly back away again.
Kyoya, her husband had just punched her lover – or rather, ex-lover – in the face. She wondered if Kyoya had ever punched anyone in the face or at all. The man who would give her everything she could ever want punched the boy who promised to love her until the world's end. The man with the power and money punched the boy with the groundless dreams and broken promises. She felt like she had just witnessed a just killing, but a murder nonetheless. She was frozen in place before hearing her husband's voice again.
"Chikako, get away from the door."
She didn't move. She couldn't move. It had happened so fast and she had been powerless. Jake was gone. She would never see him again and she couldn't tell how she felt about it. She didn't want to see him, but she also wished with all her heart they could have gone back to the way it had been before she had been engaged and married and moved to Japan and met anyone there.
She wished she could go back to the hills they would zip around on his bike and she wished she could hear his mother calling out the front door again, saying she had lemonade and brownies ready for them.
Kyoya walked toward Chikako, slowly and confused.
"Chi…kako?"
Jake could never be a doctor or anything else for that matter. He was going to jail, possibly forever if the Ootori family had any say—and they would. If he had never met her, would he have had a better life? He surely would have found someone else to love and to hold and to fight for. Was he stalking her or fighting for her? She felt so small, so young, so unimportant, and alone in that American apartment, the paneling on the front door spinning in front of her.
Then she felt her husband's hand on her shoulder and glanced at him with wide, blinking eyes.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Chikako was, for the first time in her life, speechless. She opened her lips and mere air came out. She nodded, slowly, closing her mouth again and walking toward the bedroom and away from Kyoya's grasp.
She opened the bedroom door and then closed it behind her. She locked it. She crawled under the covers and stared ahead in the darkness wondering what would drive her defiance and fervor now.