Broken Fragments

Chapter 22: Back to Her Home

After hearing footsteps from outside, Yuuhi immediately clicked the 'Go Back' button and marked the email as 'Unread' so that Hiroto wouldn't think she read it. She quickly walked away from his computer and grabbed her things.

"You're still here?" Hiroto asked when he walked in.

"I left my purse. I'll see you tomorrow," Yuuhi replied.

She quickly left the building and drove home, the email still in her mind. Yuuhi prepared dinner for her and her aunt, Neko, after she finished taking a quick shower. They ate in silence, trying to figure out what they should talk about.

"S-so how is it being an idol, Yuuhi?" Neko awkwardly asked.

"It's good, I guess. Really busy. Exciting," Yuuhi emotionlessly answered.

When she noticed that Neko seemed down from the cold answer she gave her, Yuuhi changed the subject by asking her aunt a question.

"So how are you and Takumi-nii?" Yuuhi awkwardly smiled as she lifted up her chopsticks to eat the rice.

"We're doing great. Our wedding's in six months."

"That's amazing!"

"You should come and bring your manager as your date. Both of you are about the same age, right?"

Yuuhi looked upset as she continued chewing her food. The look in Yuuhi's eyes scared Neko, that she regretted saying something.

"We don't get along, Kazama-san and I."

Yuuhi got up and placed her plate in the sink, throwing away the remaining small amount of food she had.

"I'm going to bed, Neko-nee. I already prepared your futon in my room. Just come in and sleep when you feel like it. Goodnight," Yuuhi coldly said on her way to her room, leaving her aunt to finish her dinner.

Yuuhi laid down on her bed and pulled the blankets on top of her body. She looked at the moon that reflected its light from behind the curtained window.

"Why would we get along?" she mumbled, thinking about the email she read from her manager's computer.

"When he doesn't even have faith in me."

The next day, Yuuhi and Neko drove to the MEC building after preparing the things that Neko brought. Not planning to stay for more than a day, Yuuhi didn't bring any change of clothes with her. They arrived at Hiroto's office at 7:48 am, thinking that Yuuhi's manager probably wasn't there, yet. However, when they arrived there, Hiroto was on his computer, probably fixing any schedule conflicts.

"Your disguise is in the second drawer. Bring it just in case we have to walk around in public," Hiroto said, not taking his eyes off of the computer.

"The place we're going to is in the country. There's no need for it," Yuuhi replied as she sat on the couch to relax.

Hiroto tilted his head to look at Yuuhi from the other side of the monitor. He gave her a look that made her get up and do as she was told.

"We never know what can happen. It may be out in the country, but you still have fans that—"

"I don't have fans there," Yuuhi furiously interrupted.

Hiroto looked up, seeing the anger and pain in Yuuhi's eyes. They were shimmering as if she was about to start crying.

"I wasn't wanted there. That's also one of the reasons why I ran away," she confessed.

The room was occupied with an awkward atmosphere while the silence lingered. Yuuhi was hurt with remembering the past. Hiroto was confused, and Neko knew that Yuuhi was telling the truth, so Neko was a little hurt to know that she couldn't do anything for Yuuhi.

"Let's just go. It's 7:52. By the time we get out, it'll be 8 am. We'll be leaving just in time," Yuuhi calculated, taking the disguises from the drawer and putting it in a paper bag to fulfill Hiroto's order.

Hiroto sat in the driver's seat while Yuuhi sat in the passenger's seat beside Hiroto. Neko sat in the back with some of the bags she brought for her stay in the city to find her niece. While riding down the busy roads, Yuuhi's mind was occupied with thoughts of the past. She was reminded of how she was bullied for being adopted and how it only got worse because she looked like the famous idol, Kirari. Then, her adoptive parents wouldn't let her follow dreams, resulting to her running away.

"That place is just full of bad memories," she thought, secretly clenching her fist.

"Who am I kidding?" she painfully smiled.

"I, myself, is a bad memory," Yuuhi quietly muttered.

"What?" Hiroto asked, faintly hearing the auburn-haired idol that sat beside him.

"Nothing."

With her cold reply, Hiroto kept quiet and focused on the road. From what she had just seen, Neko realized that Yuuhi was telling the truth about her and Hiroto's not getting along. Neko regretted telling Yuuhi that she should take Hiroto to the wedding as her date.

A few hours later, the three of them had arrived at around noon time. Although, they were a little late from the time they planned to arrive because of the heavy traffic. After exiting the highway, Yuuhi showed Hiroto the directions to her house.

"It's there," Yuuhi pointed at the modern-looking house.

The houses that surrounded Yuuhi's house were traditional, most of them only having one floor. The sidewalks were empty and the road was quiet. The country was very peaceful, especially with its unpolluted air and the cool breeze that made the winds calmly sway.

Yuuhi got out of the car before Hiroto could open the door for her, hinting him that she was a little upset. When she shut the door, Hiroto realized that she wasn't a little upset, but possibly, a lot. Neko also got out of the car with the few luggage she brought. Yuuhi took a quiet deep breath before she pressed the button that rang the doorbell. After it rang, a man's voice came on the intercom, gloomily greeting them.

"Yes, who is it?" Yuuhi's father asked, despair in his voice.

"It's me, Papa," Yuuhi reluctantly replied.

Yuuhi's father didn't reply with only the sounds of stumbling audible on the intercom. Out of nowhere, the door opened fast and a man came out to hold Yuuhi in his arms.

"Yuuhi! Yuuhi!" her father exclaimed, hugging her tightly.

Yuuhi stood there, not returning her father's embraces. Her eyes were looking out to the side, not wanting to make eye contact with him. She didn't feel any emotions, despite looking a little annoyed and upset.

"Come in, everyone. Come in," Yuuhi's father invited.

Hiroto and Neko bowed to him before they entered his house. They took off their shoes and neatly put it aside, and put on the inside slippers that were prepared by the entrance, a part of Japanese tradition.

"Papa, this is my manager, Hiroto Kazama," Yuuhi introduced, glancing at Hiroto.

"I'm Ichirou Tsubasa. Thank you for taking care of my daughter," Ichirou bowed.

"Nice to meet you, sir," Hiroto bowed, too.

Ichirou invited them over to the living room to get comfortable. The pastel-peach wall matched the long light-teal couch for guests and the love seat, possibly for Yuuhi's parents. There was a coffee table in the middle with a fuzzy carpet underneath it. A tall bookshelf was by the fireplace, and a lamp towered by love seat, hinting that one of Yuuhi's parents loved to read. The house looked lovely with its Westernized design, but its spirit and sense of 'home' had long been gone, probably ever since Yuuhi ran away.

"Please make yourselves comfortable while I make tea," Ichirou smiled.

Hiroto could easily tell that Ichirou had been stressed and exhausted for quite some time, especially since he was looking at the hanging, framed picture of the Tsubasa family. In the picture, Ichirou and Saeko, who were in their early-thirties, stood behind their daughter, who was probably 9-years-old at the time the picture was taken. Their faces were all full of smiles and bliss, and their picture gave off a warm feeling of care and love. However, the present-Ichirou that stood in front of them had dark eye bags and wrinkles on his face, probably from frowning and worrying. His eyes were also a little red from lack of sleep and relaxation.

"I'll do it, Ichirou-nii-san," Ichirou's sister-in-law, Neko, volunteered to give him time to chat with Yuuhi and Hiroto.

"Thanks, Neko-san."

Ichirou sat down on the love seat by himself, closing his eyes in exhaustion. As soon as Neko left, the atmosphere got heavier and more awkward between the three of them. Yuuhi's hands were on her lap, her posture relaxed and her eyes closed. Hiroto nervously sat up straight, his hands also on his lap.

"How's being an idol, Yuuhi?" Ichirou nicely asked.

"It's alright."

Hiroto just realized that there was no TV in the living room or anywhere else in the house. There were also no magazines or any books on celebrities or entertainment. That was probably the reason why Yuuhi's parents didn't have any idea how she was doing in the entertainment business.

"Where's Mama?" Yuuhi quickly asked.

"She's in the bedroom, still asleep. She's been in a coma for—"

"I know. Neko-nee told me," Yuuhi interrupted.

Hiroto was feeling more awkward since he had nothing to say. He was also able to sense that Yuuhi and Ichirou were on bad terms.

"Do you want to see—"

"Not right now, Papa," Yuuhi interrupted once again.

Before Ichirou could say another word to her, Yuuhi stood up and grabbed Hiroto's wrist. He stood up with her, confused on what and where they were going.

"I'm going to show him my room. I didn't take anything, but my clothes, anyways," Yuuhi announced.

Neko arrived with the tea, but Yuuhi walked away from them, taking Hiroto with her. They walked up the stairs without turning back while her head was down to hide her face. Yuuhi kept holding onto Hiroto's wrist until they reached her room in the end of the hallway upstairs.

Yuuhi opened the door and entered her room with Hiroto, closing the door right away. It was dark in the room because she didn't turn her lights on. Hiroto couldn't see anything, but he felt Yuuhi's letting go of his wrist and walking away. Suddenly, Hiroto heard the flutter of the curtains as the rays of sunshine lit up the room.

He looked around, finding Yuuhi's room quite spacious and bigger than other people's rooms. It looked simple and clean, though she had been away for a long time. The walls were a light shade of pink with all of the room's furniture wooden and white. Her full-size bed, located in the corner of her room, was tidily made, the bed sheets and pillows pastel pink, like the curtains. Beside her bed was a short and white, wooden nightstand with a lacey lamp on it. Her desk was on the opposite corner by the window, and a small table was in the center of the room, a carpet underneath it, too. The three-leveled shelf by the door had large stuffed toys on top, smaller stuffed toys on the first level, and the rest contained books.

"You're quite a girly girl, huh?" Hiroto stated, trying to lighten up the mood.

Yuuhi, who was looking out the window, didn't reply to Hiroto's statement. Hiroto realized that he shouldn't have said anything at all after he was silently rejected.

"You can sit down if you want," Yuuhi said, pointing at her bed.

Obeying her, Hiroto sat down on her soft bed and kept looking around to observe her room. On Yuuhi's desk, he found a picture of her when she was younger. He was a little shocked and sad to find that the young Yuuhi looked so similar to the late Kirari when she was at the same age. On the wall, he also found a framed picture of Yuuhi in her school uniform on her senior high school graduation, her parents behind her with their hands on her shoulders, under the rain of cherry blossom petals in front of the school gates. Hiroto noticed that Yuuhi's hair had been cut to her shoulders and dyed an auburn color in her graduation picture. He wondered why she would do something like that to her hair, what most women treasured dearly.

"I was bullied, that's why," Yuuhi answered as if she was able to read Hiroto's mind.

He turned to Yuuhi, making eye contact with her. Hiroto saw the sadness in her eyes before she turned away again and looked out the window.

Before Hiroto could console her, Yuuhi narrated her past about how she was bullied for being adopted. She told him that her being adopted was the first reason why she was bullied. Then, after Kirari rose to fame, Yuuhi revealed to Hiroto that she was bullied for looking like the idol.

"Of course, I didn't know what they were talking about at first," Yuuhi recalled.

"Since I have no contact with the entertainment world in this house, if you haven't noticed," she continued.

Hiroto's assumption earlier was right, but he became curious as to why Yuuhi wanted to become an idol if she had no contact with the entertainment world.

"So, I didn't know about Kirari Tsukishima. That was why I was a confused on why they said I looked like her. Then one day, while I walked home from school, I saw a picture of her on the newspaper stand in the small store by the school. For the first time," Yuuhi narrated as she went through her desk's drawer.

"I was intrigued by the entertainment world."

Yuuhi handed Hiroto the newspaper she bought that day. In the cover page, Kirari was shown in her sky blue tutu for her debut song, 'Koi Kana.'

"I looked at myself in the mirror and at the picture, and realized that I do look like her," Yuuhi said, looking at herself in the mirror.

Yuuhi continued her narration and told her manager about how she dyed her hair. She told him that even though she had changed her hairstyle, the bullying didn't stop. Yuuhi also confessed to Hiroto that she never got to tell her parents about it because she was aware of her burdening them.

"Because of me, Papa always had to look for a new job because I was getting bullied. Because of me, Mama had to close her dream restaurant to move to a different place. Because of me," Yuuhi quietly said.

"Their lives have been ruined."

She looked at the hanging picture of her on graduation day, staring at her parents' faces. A tear escaped her eyes while Yuuhi clenched her fist in frustration and pain.

"That's not true!" Hiroto roared as he got up to walk towards Yuuhi.

"That's not true! You shouldn't think that way, Yuuhi! Your parents love you! They love you more than—" Hiroto ranted as he placed his hand on Yuuhi to turn her around, only to get interrupted to see her crying face.

For the first time, Yuuhi didn't hide her crying face from Hiroto. For the first time, Yuuhi showed Hiroto all her emotions. For the first time, Yuuhi let her tears flow down her cheeks in front of Hiroto, the last person she would want to see her crying.

"You don't understand! It was all my fault! My mother's in a coma because of me!" Yuuhi cried.

"My father's tired and it's all because—"

Interfering her, Hiroto grabbed Yuuhi's hand and pulled her to him, embracing the sobbing Yuuhi in his arms. Yuuhi couldn't say anything in shock. She couldn't move because of his warm and comforting embrace. Yuuhi wanted to get away from him as soon as she felt her heart's beating really fast, but the way Hiroto held her was soothing. With the height difference they had, Hiroto had the ability to lean Yuuhi's head on his chest, and Yuuhi was able to hear his heartbeat. Even though Yuuhi didn't want to return Hiroto's actions, she was forced to put her hands on his chest because of the way he pulled her to him. However, the feel of his strong chest made Yuuhi feel like she was a little child again.

"Don't say that about yourself," Hiroto softly said.

"Your parents love you with all their heart," he continued as he closed his eyes and stroked Yuuhi's hair to help her ease her pains.

"That's why they did all those things for you."

Yuuhi felt better and reassured with Hiroto's words as she closed her eyes in relief.

"Fine," she said, still against Hiroto's chest.

"I'll talk to Papa."

Author's note:

Hello, minna-san! I'm so sorry for not updating Broken Fragments in awhile. I'm trying to finish up my other story, Forbidden Love, so I can just focus on one story. I apologize for making this chapter longer than usual because I got carried away. XD Well, if any of you like Vocaloid or myths, please read Forbidden Love because I think you would like it. Please continue to support me and my stories, and also, thank you so much for supporting Broken Fragments. Keep on reading! (: Reviews are highly appreciated by Mayumi-chan. :3 Thank you!