Chapter 11
Tears stung her eyes as she laid on her back against the firm mattress. She buried herself under a pile of blankets that hugged her, mimicking the warmth of a living being. She looked towards her bedside table with the bottle of pills that had diminished quickly over the past few months. She really should taper off on those, she thought to herself.
"Fuck," Kiyoko muttered to herself. This was stupid. Her heart felt heavy and her eyes began to blur. She was a grown woman for fuck's sake. She needed sleep so she could think better in the morning. Her emotions were getting the better of her. She needed rest. It was a simple physiological need so she could function, Kiyoko reasoned with herself. She reached over to the pills. Her phone vibrated again.
Kyouya Ootori was calling.
She ignored the call with a simple tap of the button. Didn't she just tell him not to call? Kiyoko grew annoyed – what was wrong with him? She shook the bottle for the pill to fall into her palm. The buzzing of her phone interrupted again.
Kyouya Ootori was calling.
She tapped the ignore button again and put her phone on silent. Within seconds, the screen lit up without vibrating.
Kyouya Ootori was calling.
Kiyoko stared at the pill in her hand and then back at her phone that had been left charging face-up on the wireless pad. She tapped ignore again. Maybe he would stop after the third try after all. She sighed in relief when she had a minute of peace.
It was as though she jinxed it. Her phone lit up with the same caller, as per usual. Fucking hell, leave a voicemail. Or a text. What was so important that he had to call 4 times in a row within 10 minutes? She was not going to crumble – no. She was going to take this pill, Kiyoko told herself. Get a few hours of sleep. Get up and then figure out what was going on. Again, the phone lit up relentlessly. She tapped the ignore button immediately. Kiyoko made a note to herself to also change her number in the morning. Maybe she would have to do that first. It was such a fucking hassle to have to get a new number… new SIM card… and poor Nami would have to deal with the change again. She sniffed – the remnants of her tears did not seem to want to go away. What was wrong with her?
I'm going to change my number in the morning, she texted him as a warning. Her eyes were still tear stained, the pink beginning to turn to red as she felt the skin around it swell. The glass screen blurred a little as Kiyoko watched the ellipsis in the bubble pop up before disappearing. He called. Again. She put the pill on her bedside table with an irritated growl.
Fucking relentless bastard, she thought to herself. She answered the call without a greeting. The floor was his. He could say what he wanted to say and then she could hang up, throw her phone across the room, and then get some well-deserved chemically induced rest.
"You don't get to tell me what to do," he seethed. He was angry. Kiyoko didn't expect that coming from the Ootori - frustration, yes. But anger? Not quite. It wasn't like him to lose his cool.
She took a deep breath. What else did he have to say? She waited patiently. Why were the tears streaming down her face still? She wiped them with the back of her hand. She was not a pretty crier, she never was. She let out a small sniffle.
"Are you crying?" he could hardly mask the surprise in his voice.
Fuck, she swore to herself. Fuck, fuck, fuck, she repeated inside. Weak, Kiyoko could hear her grandmother's voice at the back of her mind. She had always been so stupidly weak when it counted the most. She slipped up once. And once was too much. Too many times. All it takes is one mistake and your life falls apart.
"I'm sorry," Kyouya wasn't sure what else to say. "I… I just… I didn't mean to make you cry," he stuttered, backtracking on his words with little success. He hadn't realized the tone of his voice was that harsh.
"I'm not crying," Kiyoko kept her voice as even as possible. Was she able to pull it off?
"Then why are you sniffling?" Apparently she wasn't able to pull it off.
"Allergies," she gritted. A terrible lie. Fuck. Oh god, she should have never answered the call. Not like this. Not when she was a fucking mess over god knows what.
"To what?"
"Dust," Kiyoko answered as confidently as she could. She cleared her throat and did her best to be quick on her feet. She had to be. Kiyoko breathed slowly through her mouth, and then exhaled as quietly as she could. Blinking her tears away, she steadied her breathing so she could attempt at speaking in her regular voice.
"I'm changing my number," she choked out. Her grandmother would have snarled at that. Pathetic.
"No," Kyouya pleaded. "No, you need—"
"—I don't need you," Kiyoko pushed him away. "I'm fine."
"Says the girl who cries over dust," he wasn't fooled. It would take more than that to fool an Ootori.
"Fuck you," she shot back with her voice reverting to its regular sharpness. It was cold. Sobering, even. It only took a minute for her to gather her wits again, build the wall she had fortified with everything from designer clothes to angry insults. "Give me one good reason I should keep this number." She let a few beats pass before she proved her point. "There isn't."
"You need help," Kyouya offered.
"Psychotic help?" Kiyoko snarled, knowing that it wasn't what he meant. She said it anyway. "I don't get a family discount for it," the woman added bitterly.
"You're in danger," the Ootori pointed out. "You know you're really fucking worrisome, right? You tell me not to call with a voice that made me feel like you were going to do something awful to yourself."
"Living is awful enough," the woman grumbled. She was joking… mostly. "Listen, I'm fine," she told him for what felt like the millionth time. "And even if I'm not, it's none of your business," Kiyoko snapped. At least the tears stopped. The feeling of sadness was replaced with annoyance.
"You're not fine," Kyouya scoffed. "I'm not even fine," he admitted quietly.
"The Hibayashi Health Group has a lot of registered therap—" Kiyoko recited one of their commercials that she could remember off the top of her head.
"—Cut the shit out, Kiyoko," the Ootori angrily responded. "You're not okay. You nearly died tonight. Let's figure this out." Was he the only person with a logical brain right now?
"Can we not?" Kiyoko pleaded. "Can you just forget what you saw? My family is fucked up, the rumours are true," she tiredly reminded him. "I come from a long line of crazy people. I'm not fit to be your wife. Our family company is not worth the turmoil you'll be put through," she lectured. She felt like a broken record now. How many more times can she say it until he believed it?
"You're misunderstood," Kyouya knew that much. She spewed the same kind of spiel she wanted people to know, to understand, to perceive as the truth. He knew better. Even if he didn't know why – Kyouya had his guts to rely on and it was rarely wrong.
"I believe the notion of my family being psychotic is actually very well understood by the public," Kiyoko muttered. Memories of her childhood were not fond. She was the thread that held her family together and it was growing more fragile as the days went on. Someday she would be considered an old hag and no longer of what those considered a marriageable age. Kiyoko waited for her grandmother to lose out on any hope and take whatever offer there was on the table to sell away the company.
"So what? You know you aren't like them."
Kiyoko laughed bitterly. "Need I remind you that I'm a fucking maniac who does not flinch at the sight of a blade against their neck?"
"So maybe you're reckless," Kyouya pointed out. "But it was brave."
"Brave," she repeated with a scoff. Maybe it was one way to describe it. She would have called herself twisted. Fucked up, too.
"You have to be," Kyouya quoted her. He remembered their conversations – replaying them over and over again in the lulls of the weeks where he was unable to meet her without a frivolous excuse. He wished he thought of other things at the back of his mind but unfortunately it always led back to her.
"I do," Kiyoko reminded herself, remembering their conversation at the Ouran benefit. "Listen to me," her voice unwavering. Let's be brave, she told herself. "I know I'll be fine. But you? I don't think so. You're a liability."
"Me?" he responded incredulously. What a statement. Who was he for her to be scared for? He was a grown man. He didn't need anyone to worry for him, especially her. He had a whole private police force and what did she have? Designer bags to swat people away? She was being silly.
"You seem… nice," Kiyoko settled on a half-assed word. She meant to say genuine. Innocuous. And dare she say, even sweet underneath the exterior of being an egotistic bastard who seemed to love money more than he perhaps, loved himself. Kiyoko could not help but to allow his kindness to be preserved – maybe in a fond memory of sorts. She was soft – she always had been, even as a child. She was weak. Hell, she even cried for no apparent reason tonight.
"Nice," he drawled out, obviously unimpressed with that description of him. He was not nice. No, he was someone to be feared.
"Yes," Kiyoko tried her best to make it work. "Nice people don't deserve shitty things, okay?"
"You're nice," Kyouya shot back, quoting her. "You don't deserve whatever is happening to you," he reasoned with the same logic that she had.
"Maybe I do," she muttered. "It comes with being in the family."
"You don't have to be a part of it," the Ootori's voice grew frustrated. "You could be… a part of mine."
Kiyoko laughed lowly at the thought. "Are you proposing? Where's my ring? I hope it's a pear-cut 1 carat diamond flanked by smaller diamonds on each side and a tapered white gold band," she listed.
"Noted," Kyouya rolled his eyes. "You know that's not what I meant."
"Too late, I already have a ring like that anyway," Kiyoko shrugged as she brushed off his offer. She could afford what she had always wanted – at least within reason. She never needed a man, or anybody to buy things for her.
He groaned. He wasn't getting anywhere with her. "Fucking hell – if you're so confident in solving this on your own, what's your plan?"
"Get some sleep. Change my number. The rest is none of your business," Kiyoko responded.
"So you don't have a plan," Kyouya deduced. "How do you plan on keeping yourself safe? You won't be alive for long if you aren't giving them what they want out of you. What would they want out of you?"
Kiyoko thought about it. What did she have? She had money in every form: in her bank account, in her clothes, her jewelry, her properties. But she was literally given money. It made no sense to ask for more from her. She didn't know. This felt like some sort of reverse-blackmail.
"Who are they anyway?" He asked when she couldn't provide an answer.
Hell, if Kiyoko knew – she wouldn't have such a headache forming now. She needed more than just a sleeping pill at this rate. She wanted to deal with this in the morning. Not now. Not with him. He wasn't supposed to know.
"Is your aunt behind this?" Kyouya wondered out loud.
"I don't know," Kiyoko softly responded. "I don't know what she would want from me." If Asami wanted to destroy her – she had plenty of dirt to do so, why would she come at her with a stack of money? She wasn't about to tell the Ootori what her aunt had on the rest of the family.
"Who else?"
"I don't have enemies like that," Kiyoko racked her brain. "I mean, sure, I get name-called or whatever, but I don't think the malicious intent goes as far as to threatening me."
"What about your clients?" he suggested.
"They wouldn't kill for art," the gallerist scoffed. "Besides, they talk with money, not knives."
"Fine," Kyouya muttered. She had a point. So they hit a wall. "What was in the bag?"
Kiyoko counted at least 10 stacks of money with the violet strap. She could approximate it to around 20 thousand dollars. Play money, really. She hadn't seen stacks like that since her gambling days. Which was odd – her gambling days were over many years ago. Was this an invitation to play? That would explain the address on the card. Who would want her to play? Why would they want her to play? How did they even find out about her? She wasn't ranked first in the world, even at her peak. She made a sizeable fortune but not enough to attract attention. At least, she didn't think so.
"What was in the bag?" Kyouya repeated again.
"Nothing important," Kiyoko answered.
"When did you become such a terrible liar?"
"Always," she admitted without skipping a beat.
Kyouya paused – not expecting her sudden admission. He had to compute what she even said for a split second. "Really?"
"Yes," Kiyoko shrugged. "Lying is a skill – anyone can become a good liar."
"And a good gambler?" the Ootori was curious.
"Anything can be taught," she murmured.
"Who taught you?" Kyouya wondered. It was always a mystery as to how the woman ever got started in the game of poker.
Kiyoko smiled at the memory. "A friend of mine."
"You have friends?" The surprise in his voice was actually offensive at this point.
"How rude of you to assume I don't," Kiyoko shot back. She didn't bother hiding her offended tone.
"To be fair, you told me that Ouran was not a place for friendship," Kyouya pointed out.
Kiyoko sighed and dug herself out of her blankets, sitting up against the wooden headboard of her bed. Well now she couldn't sleep even if she tried to. The problem at hand would gnaw at her mind for the rest of the night. At the very least, the Ootori was a bit of a distraction.
"I don't know how you'd even think you could help," Kiyoko swiftly moved onto the topic at hand. Right, the focus was trying to get rid of the Ootori. Not hanging onto him, she told herself.
"I'm resourceful," Kyouya asserted. "It's you who's being difficult. You won't let me know anything."
"I don't think knowing things will help your case," she snapped back.
Kyouya huffed. "How?"
"Kyouya Ootori – you're a fucking idiot, you know that? Your entire reputation is untainted until you come prancing into our territory. I told you to tread carefully thinking you'd be smart enough to retreat but you just keep poking your nose into our affairs," Kiyoko scolded. "You of all people would have been smart enough to think for yourself."
She was right. Fuck, he hated how she was right. He knew better than this. He knew that he shouldn't have been involved. Maybe it was Tamaki who had rubbed off on him all this time, feeling like he had to save her. But even then, she was someone who didn't need saving. He didn't know what he was doing with her.
But she felt like someone who needed a friend. She needed someone. And for some reason, Kyouya decided that he was going to be it. There would be no one else who would be the one.
"Do you have some kind of hero complex? Do you pity me? Whatever the fuck it is – I told you: I don't need it," Kiyoko continued coldly. Her sharp tongue didn't wear him down as easily as it did before.
"Why were you crying?" he cut off, pretending to ignore her entire spiel. She was all bark and no bite, especially over the phone.
"Why the fuck does that matter?" the woman growled. "Didn't we agree on allergies? Fuck off," Kiyoko snapped.
"I don't think we agreed on anything except that you'd fuck me," Kyouya countered. It was enough to get her to pause at the sudden change in topic. For two people who used the word fuck a lot, they really didn't do any of it. He refused to let his mind wander beyond the hypotheticals.
"What?" He could have sworn there was a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Fuck me," he repeated lowly with a smirk, disarming her with the phrase in the same way she did to him.
"Ha ha," Kiyoko responded sarcastically while she rolled her eyes. Good try, she thought. "You're too much of a nice guy to let me fuck you anyway." He should have known better than to try to get back at her with the same joke.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Everything she said felt like a jab at his ego.
"You know what it means," Kiyoko chuckled, letting his mind run free at the thought.
He was oddly good at distracting her. Like she wasn't coerced into taking a box of suspicious cash sitting in the back of her trunk. Kiyoko wondered if she needed a defense attorney, was any of this legal? It felt illegal. What were her options here?
"No, please elaborate," Kyouya gritted out. He wanted to hear it for himself instead of having to always assume.
"Why you're too nice to get fucked?" Kiyoko hummed, trying to distract herself from the legalities of that mystery bag. "My conscience wouldn't allow it."
"Monsters don't have a conscience," he pointed out. His lips twitched upwards, his teeth biting down on his lips to control the grin forming on his face. He caught her. He wished to have seen her expression at that but Kyouya had a pretty good idea of the unamused blank stare she had on her face. He wondered what she looked like without all that makeup. He imagined her looking younger, more tired than she let on.
"Huh," Kiyoko muttered nonchalantly. She hadn't realized she slipped. Goodness, she really was losing it. "Wipe that grin off your face, Ootori," she drawled with a grumble. She heard the satisfaction in his voice and wasn't going to allow him to have it. "Remember that I'm still crazy."
"Aren't we all just a little crazy?" he mused. Maybe he really was losing his mind, talking to her in the dead of the night. Against his better judgement too. "That's what your family capitalizes on."
"And what you want to capitalize on too," she reminded. "Maybe I'm not the only monster." She spoke of it as though it were a bitter truth. The silence was an indicator of his discomfort at the thought of it. Kiyoko knew it was enough to make him think twice. She leaned back and let the game begin.
"It's pretty fucked up when you think about it, hm?" Kiyoko continued. "An industry based purely on those who are the weakest, the most marginalized. The drugs, the facilities, the healthcare counselling… all worth billions a year. All for you to take with a heavy price."
"Name your price," Kyouya challenged.
"It's not mine to name," she shrugged. "Nothing was ever mine," Kiyoko admitted, a hint of resentment settling in between.
"You make things difficult," he sighed. Just when he was getting somewhere with her, she always managed to bring it all to a sudden halt. It was like getting whiplash every time he spoke with her.
"As do you," she countered monotonously. "You still want to fuck me?" Kiyoko posed the question with impeccable timing.
He was obviously taken off-guard when he paused at the thought. He could have sworn they were talking about business before the mention of her asking the question. "What?" It was his turn to ask the same question only seconds later.
Kiyoko laughed at the intended effect. "Guess not, hm?"
"I do," he countered, trying to keep up with her snide comment. "Want to fuck you," he added far too late as a way of clarifying. He didn't mean it. Or did he? He couldn't think straight, not at this hour. He felt like he had gone through a binge of working over-time for far too long with too little caffeine to function. His brain screamed for him to just shut up. The blood rushed elsewhere from his head instead.
"Oh?" She didn't believe him, not in the way he spoke of it like a teenager who could hardly put a coherent sentence together about the topic. "And where would you have me? On a bed? On your desk in your office? In the car? Right now?" she listed off the locations with her voice that was slow and steady – as if inviting him to play out the scenarios in his head. She sighed softly, letting the sound travel over the phone to make him wonder if he could elicit that same sound out of her. Maybe with his lips? His hands? She held back an amused chortle to herself, hoping that it would drive him mad.
"Do you do this with everyone?" Kyouya snapped while refusing her invitation to consider any of the above. She was a distraction and a damn good one at that.
"Just you," she cackled. As if there were anybody else that was actively trying to vie for her attention. "See? Too nice," Kiyoko made her point. "You wouldn't even consider those options."
"It's—" he huffed in frustration. She could hear his loud exhale over the line, enough to smile softly to herself. It wasn't appropriate, he wanted to say. She deserved better than that.
"What? You wanted to buy me dinner first?" she rolled her eyes at the thought. "So you could feel less shitty about—"
"—No," Kyouya cut her off. "So I could get to know you better." He meant it.
Kiyoko relented. "And then?"
"Then…" he trailed off. He didn't know what came next, either.
"Then we get married? Live a life for everyone to envy?" she listed off the options with a scoff. "You know that's not what you want."
"What do I want?" he mused.
Kiyoko thought about it. She had a few hypotheses but none concrete. She really would have to get to know him better. Either way, it wasn't her to decide what he wanted out of his life. But she knew that both of them were averse to the thought of living a cookie cutter life. She couldn't afford to, purely because she never fit the mold of it. And him… well, Kyouya Ootori was not a cookie cutter kind of person – he was the sort that wanted to be exceptional, in everything imaginable.
"You don't know what I want," the Ootori asserted when he was met with silence.
"I know that it's not me that you'll want," Kiyoko murmured. "You want the hospitals. You want the company. You want the title of heir," she listed. "But then what?"
"What do you mean?" he narrowed his eyes at the thought. What else could there possibly be?
"Your life doesn't stop there," her voice gentle, as if trying to spare him from feeling stupid. "You need to think further."
"What about you?" he asked. "What do you want?"
"It doesn't matter what I want," she mumbled while avoiding the question. "We've been through this already."
"It matters to me." He said it with so much force it made her heart skip a beat. What was she getting herself into with this man? He couldn't have possibly been sincere in that. He always managed to penetrate through her stone cold heart in the way that he spoke with such intent. He was just saying these things, things to make her defenses weak, she reminded. Kiyoko caught herself before she delved any further. She needed to cut him off.
"Well…" Kiyoko paused, wondering what else she could say to convince him. She was tired of this. Don't believe him, she told herself. Kiyoko wondered how much longer she could last against his stubborn ways. "It shouldn't."
"Why not?"
"I won't let you have that power, Kyouya," Kiyoko answered truthfully. "Besides, there's not much to know."
"You won't let me know," he pressed. Where did he even have the energy to keep pursuing this topic? Kiyoko sighed. Well, at the very least she stopped crying. How odd it was to have the Ootori of all people comfort her in a strange time of need.
"You need sleep," Kiyoko chided at him. "I need it too," she added.
"Don't change your number," he nearly begged, realizing that he was on the verge of losing her again. It took a whirlwind of events just even talk to her for as long as he did.
"You don't need it."
"I do," he insisted.
Kiyoko laughed lightly to herself. "For what?" she challenged him again, expecting nothing more than silence and maybe an exhale of frustration out of him. But instead, he responded with the utmost confidence.
"For dinner."
She mulled over the thought. "Dinner," she repeated, unimpressed. Dinner seemed like a poor joke.
"I'll make it worth your time," Kyouya declared. "Have dinner with me," he demanded.
"That's bold of you to assume I'd have the time for it. I'm a busy woman," Kiyoko said with the clear intent of not showing for such an event.
"You don't have plans," he hedged his bets. "Your exhibit is run by Nami and she handles the sales. What could you possibly have to do?"
The man had a point. He knew how she operated. Kiyoko did have plans though but theoretically she could be back in time for the dinner that he offered. No, she thought to herself. She shouldn't. She had other priorities. Like, getting an actual night's rest for example.
"Have dinner with me," Kyouya softly tried again. "With a nice guy," he quoted as a poor attempt in convincing her.
"I guess we'll see how nice of a guy you really are." The phrase fell off her tongue without a second thought, amusedly. Goodness, what was wrong with her? It was so natural. So easy with him. She tried to ignore the fluttering in her chest. Weak, she could hear her grandmother's voice echo at the back of her head.
"I won't disappoint," he assured with confidence she had no idea where he got from.
"It's not me who will be disappointed," Kiyoko responded easily.
"I'll pick you up," Kyouya offered, already a step ahead.
"Ha," she rolled her eyes. As if she would let him know where she lived. "Nice try. I'll meet you wherever."
"I can figure out where you live," the Ootori warned.
"And I can move just as quickly," Kiyoko countered. "Don't test your luck, Kyouya."
"But it is a yes to dinner?" She could hear his smirk through the phone. Late night conversations on the phone with the Ootori wasn't exactly what she expected. She most certainly was not willing to end the night with him feeling like he had won the battle. But who was she to lie to herself?
"I won't change my number you stubborn son of a bitch. Now let me sleep," Kiyoko muttered while evading the question.
"See you tomorrow," He let her go this time with a small smile. He would take whatever he could get. And he would most certainly take this as a win.
"What do you think, Haru?" she asked, even though she knew her brother wouldn't have much to say about it anyway. It was nice just to talk to someone about it.
The siblings sat across from each other on the same sofa. Kiyoko made the trip to the mountains in the cabin that Haru had lived in for the greater part of the decade. The brother had been sketching something on the pad while the sister recounted what happened the night before. With the exhibition, the box in the trunk, the knife… but not the Ootori. She wasn't sure if he was worthwhile in mentioning to Haru.
"Hm," he hummed, not paying attention to the little sister who had come all the way to visit. It had only been two weeks since she had last visited but it felt like forever to Kiyoko. She had been busy with the new exhibition.
"You're not listening," Kiyoko frowned. "What are you drawing, anyway?"
He flipped the sketchpad over to show her a hyper realistic sketch of a whale. He had been drawing a lot of the sea lately, having been obsessed with some of the documentaries he had been watching about the deep sea according to the caretakers.
"You know, we could go to the aquarium," Kiyoko proposed. It seemed like a fun idea instead of being cooped up all the time.
"People," he told her. It was enough of an explanation.
"You know, you aren't trapped here, right?" the sister softly reminded. "You can go outside. I can come with you," she offered.
"People," he said again without warming up to the idea.
Haru didn't like crowds of people. It made him anxious. Everything and everyone seemed to overwhelm his senses. From the noise to the artificial lights to the crowds and the eyes that felt like they were always on him. Instead, Kiyoko and Haru often went out to the nearby hiking trails and immersed themselves in nature when the weather was better. Today was a dreary overcast day that invited them to spend more time indoors instead of the brutal cold.
"I'll rent the whole aquarium for you," Kiyoko smiled. "We can make a day of it."
He shook his head. No meant no when it came to Haru. Stubbornness seemed to have run in the Hibayashi family.
"What else have you been up to?" the sister asked casually. "Yamato-san said you were wood carving."
He nodded, not really a fan of speaking in general.
"Show me?" she softly tugged at her brother's sleeve. He had always been taller than her with both of them inheriting a rather lean frame. Although over the years, it became more apparent that they did not look alike. Kiyoko never chose to look too closely at it until she realized that they were only half-siblings.
Haru paused what he was doing and pulled his sister up from the sofa into the workshop. It was an absolute mess with a couple wood figures that stood in the midst of the room. It would have been a garage but the man had no need for a car.
"Where did you learn this?" the sister blinked. "Like, who taught you?"
"Internet," he answered. "Lots of wood outside," he explained. "Yamato-san helped gather them and bought the supplies I wanted."
"That's very kind of him," Kiyoko commented. It was their job, after all. They weren't paying these people for nothing.
"These are for sale," Haru directed his sister. "Took a long time to make these."
"Yeah, I could imagine," the gallerist stared in awe. She wished she could show people who he was – he was a genius in his own right but hidden from the world in the outskirts of the forest and the mountains. Haru was happily reclusive, much to the rest of the family's relief. It was only Kiyoko who often pushed for him to come into contact with the rest of civilization. It didn't seem healthy otherwise. He had lived this way his whole life and didn't know anything else. It was worrisome, but it was also the seemingly comfortable choice for everyone.
"Do you want to watch something?" the sister smiled up at her brother. "Or cook some lunch?"
Haru liked that idea. "Let's eat."
Haru was not a picky eater. Kiyoko, however, was the kind of woman who had the pleasure of dining in the most expensive restaurants if she had wanted to. She would order the most expensive produce from the ends of the earth – vanilla beans from Madagascar, macadamia nuts from Hawaii, or truffles from the middle of Italy and Haru would not bat an eye to any of it as long as he could eat it.
"Pancakes?" she offered. He agreed and let his sister take over the kitchen. The caretakers were around at their beck and call if they were ever needed, but they often let the pair have their space. Haru watched his sister quickly measure out the ingredients.
"Will you ever leave me, Kiki?" he asked. The question was so sudden that Kiyoko nearly spilled the buttermilk.
"I would never," Kiyoko answered with a stern look on her face. "How could you ever think that?"
"What if you love someone else?" Haru wondered.
"Impossible," the sister brushed off. "Would you want to love someone else?" she asked the question back to him.
"No," he shook his head. "I'm asexual. I have no interest in it."
Kiyoko blinked. "You're what?"
"Sexuality is a spectrum," he recited from the internet. "There are many—"
"Yes, I know," Kiyoko snapped. "Thank you, Haru," she muttered. "Please be careful on the internet, okay? You are who you are but—"
"I'm not a child," Haru deadpanned. He was older than his little sister, after all. She was the only person in the world that he felt comfortable with. Even the caretakers took years to have him warm up to them. It was a long arduous process.
"I know you aren't, I just—" Kiyoko huffed while sifting the flour. "It's dangerous, okay?"
"Yes, I read an article about children being trafficked and—"
"—Just be careful," Kiyoko reminded as she continued sifting the flour into the mixing bowl.
"I know," the brother nodded. "I must be invisible or else Obaa-chan will come back to put me away."
"Don't you worry about that," she softly reassured. "She won't come back for you. I'll make sure of it."
Haru nodded, trusting his sister. "I like this. The quiet. The woods. I don't want to leave."
"Okay. You won't have to. It's your home, yeah?" Kiyoko comforted.
"Yes. Home," Haru breathed. "Home," he repeated. "Home." He didn't want to leave. This was where he was the most comfortable. He was perfectly content living like this forever. He repeated the word over and over again, pacing around the kitchen as Kiyoko let him be.
He let his sister continue on with the batter mixing as he watched, learning from Kiyoko's movements around the kitchen. He could make this on his own at some point as long as he memorized the steps and the ingredients.
"Will you love someone else?" He asked while she waited to flip the pancakes. The only thing filling in the silence was the fume hood over the gas stove. Kiyoko's hair had been in a low ponytail and he quietly ran his hand through the strands. It was always so soft, even when they were children.
"Nah," she brushed off with a shrug. It wasn't ever an option to her. "Love is overrated."
"Why?" he asked.
"Do you want me to?" Kiyoko looked up at Haru with a squint. Where was all of this talk coming from?
"It makes people happy from what I have read," the brother answered.
"Well, it also makes people very sad," she countered as she flipped one of the pancakes over. She let Haru take apart her low ponytail to form a tight French braid that hugged her scalp. His deft fingers worked their way down her neck as he always had, even as kids. Haru had always played with her hair throughout childhood. Kiyoko had always assumed it was a soothing thing for him to do and let him do so.
"You shouldn't be sad," Haru told her. "I don't want you to be sad."
"Haru, I'm not sad," Kiyoko shook her head and smiled up at her brother when he finished tying off the end of her braid.
"Yes, you are," he frowned. He always had this uncanny ability to tell what she was feeling. She was the only person he could read. He didn't care for anyone else. Nobody else cared for him. "Why are you sad?"
Kiyoko shuffled around to try to get their plates in the cabinet around him. "I'm not," she denied by not looking him in the eye.
"Are people making you sad?" Haru tried again. "People are mean. I don't like people," he explained.
The sister shook her head. "No, Haru. No one is making me sad," she tried her best to sound earnest. She began cutting the strawberries to add on the side of their pancakes.
"Is it Obaa-chan?" he narrowed his eyes. "Obaa-chan makes people sad."
"Our grandmother is…" Kiyoko sighed. He was right. "Well, she's something else. But I'm all good. I'm happy spending time with you," she assured.
"Forever?" Haru shook his head. "That's not normal."
"Neither of us are normal," Kiyoko pointed out, careful not to point her knife at her own brother to prove her point. She knew how he felt about knives. "But we have each other. That's enough. You and I against the world, like it always has been," the sister continued.
"What if you have children?" the brother asked.
"I won't have children," Kiyoko decided quickly. She could hardly keep either of them afloat with their bills, much less have children to take care of.
"I want you to," Haru urged. The sister's nose scrunched up in confusion – it was an odd ask. Where was this suddenly coming from? "Then we can all play together," he explained.
"What? I'm not enough to play with anymore?" the sister pouted. "You know, I need like, an actual partner to have children with, right?"
"Then go find one," Haru made it sound as easy as picking up an ingredient from a grocery store. Or running a regular errand.
"Haru," she groaned. "Aren't I enough?"
"Yes," he agreed. "Am I enough for you?"
"Of course," Kiyoko responded without hesitation. "You're my only family."
"You can make a bigger one," Haru thought about it. "We can paint and draw together. We can go out into the mountains and watch the stars at night. We can eat meals like a family. Play games too. We can even live here."
"Like a family," she repeated to herself. They never really had that. Maybe it was normal for them to long for such a thing. Kiyoko didn't have to long for such things – she was busy trying to make money to survive for the both of them instead. The thought of a family seemed like a joke to her. "Haru, you'd want to live here with my husband and children?"
"Someday," Haru patted her on the back. "The gestation period for a human is 9 months. Takes a long time to grow a human. But not as much as an elephant."
"Yes, thank you, Haru," Kiyoko tried her best to not roll her eyes. "Now eat your pancakes."
It was a good day. Haru was enjoying himself, speaking to her more than he had in weeks. There were days where he would ignore her completely. Some days where he would be frustrated at how the light flickered or how the noise of the TV was just a little too loud. But today was a good day and Kiyoko was grateful for it. She didn't want to ruin the moment.
"What if…" Kiyoko started off with a murmur, not entirely sure where she was going with the thought either. She put her fork down at the ideation. Haru looked up from his plate intently at his sister. "Do you think someone else would love me?" she whispered it like it was a secret. The thought of going to dinner with Kyouya had been at the back of her mind as she wondered the silly things. What to wear? What to think? What to expect? Was she thinking too hard?
"Yes," Haru responded without hesitation.
"Why?" Kiyoko wondered.
"Because I made your hair pretty," he told her. The braid held up nicely against her scalp, tightly woven with hardly any baby hairs that had fallen out. It might not have held up until the evening, but even then - for now, the braid was wonderfully done. "Someone will think you are pretty."
Kiyoko laughed. "Yeah? You think so? Someone would fall in love with my hair?"
Haru nodded confidently.
"I hope they will fall in love with you, too," Kiyoko smiled at the thought. "Because you're part of my family."
"Just make sure they're nice," he told her.
"Nice," she repeated with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah, nice people are important," Haru noted. "Lots of bad people in the world. You have to make sure they are nice first," he warned.
Kiyoko nodded. "Alright, I'll try," she promised.
It was just an ideation. Nothing more, she reminded herself.