Chapter 29
"And you just left?" Twin 1 still had his mouth agape while his brother did the talking. "What if she's plotting your murder as we speak?"
Kyouya had gotten incessant phone calls and texts from the Suoh over the course of the week, increasing in frequency as the week had gone by to remind him of the weekend brunch. It was barely on the cusp of an acceptable waking hour at noon.
Of course, the group had half-expected Kiyoko to join but when the Ootori showed up alone, in a nasty mood from a lack of sleep and a general loathing of social gatherings, questions were asked. The Ootori was much more manageable with his social crutch, Kiyoko - even if she also came with her mysterious yet fearing enigma that lauded over the entire room. The Ootori gave the highlights to the group as they listened intently to a plot centred around Kiyoko.
"That seems rather extreme," Haruhi chimed in as the voice of reason.
"Why did you leave?" Tamaki threw up his hands in frustration. "She obviously needed you."
"I assure you, she most certainly did not," Kyouya snarled as he cut through his omelette. These brunches were getting too tiring for him to attend on a monthly, no, even quarterly basis. "And I would rather not be indicted for conspiring to murder knowing what she is capable of."
"Once again, I do not think she is intending to murder anyone," Haruhi reminded in deadpan, now realizing that no one was listening to her.
"How long has it been?" Honey asked innocuously.
"I don't know," Kyouya grumbled. "A week, maybe?"
"A week without sex? No wonder why you look like you've had better days," Hikaru snickered. Kaoru joined in unison with a chortle. The Ootori shot a glare at the man to have him choke on his mimosa. Sex was the least of his concerns right now. And for the record, it had been far more than just a week, he snapped back in his head.
He tried not to think about those early months of domesticity. When they started something that he naively thought would be a realistic window to the rest of their lives - no complexities, no drama, just them.
"Well, I think Hibayashi-san is a very smart lady," Honey told the group. "With or without Kyouya, she will triumph - isn't that why Kyouya loves her? She is very brave and scary."
"She is foolish," Kyouya corrected with venom. He pretended not to hear the accusation of loving her, hiding his own foolishness behind the facade of indifference. "Not brave."
"I only see one fool at this table," Mori quietly added, turning away as he drank his tea to avoid eye contact with the Ootori. The group stared at the gentle giant who usually had nothing to say about anything, letting the comment settle in its gravity. A silence fell over the group as the Ootori angrily continued to stab at his food.
"Why is it fair that I am always in the dark when it comes to her?" the Ootori vented with a knife in his hand. "She won't take any help and marches straight into danger like it's some parade all with the intent of losing the entire fortune built on two generations."
"How can she afford to trust people?" Haruhi wondered. "She was nearly killed, Kyouya. Being an open book is a weakness, not a strength."
But what about me? He wanted to yell. Didn't she trust him enough to at least let him know what went on in her head? She always gave him just enough and never explained anything further when all Kyouya wanted to do was dissect her brain, her feelings, her thoughts, her body–
"If she is willing to forgo her fortune to seek redemption for her brother that they abandoned all these years, don't you think that is noble? Would you do that for your own siblings?" asked the blond Suoh.
"Geez, I don't know about that," Hikaru muttered in disagreement. "She has always been a shark when it came to business."
"Which is also why," Kaoru nudged his brother's elbow. "She is perfect for Kyouya," Kaoru finished off, trying to appease the Ootori before they were forced to pay reparations of whatever cost, both in a monetary and psychological form.
"Kindness won't pay the bills," Kyouya snarled.
"Don't you think she is trying to protect you?" Haruhi offered.
The twins nodded in agreement. "Rumours say she is connected to the underworld and with that dosage of instability in her family… wouldn't it make sense to keep you out of it, if she could? God knows, we wouldn't know how to deal with it."
"So what are you all saying?" the Ootori snapped. "You," he pointed to Tamaki, "were telling me to stay." He then glanced towards the Twins with his knife and narrowed his eyes at the pair. "And now you two are telling me to stay out of it."
Haruhi rolled her eyes. "Kyouya, we're telling you to respect her boundaries because she has reasons to keep them. You didn't have to leave her when she needed someone."
"Well she didn't want me," he huffed. "As Honey has said, she will triumph with or without me."
"Wouldn't you rather be with her?" the male Suoh chided. "She makes you happy."
"Do I look happy to you?" Kyouya scowled.
The entire group groaned.
Her townhome was empty for a week and a half – not that Kyouya was counting, nor was he squatting in it, if anybody asked. A part of him wondered if the woman had been kidnapped and another part of him kept him spiteful enough not to send a text to at least make sure she was alive. He told her not to worry so he was doing just as he was told.
At the two week mark, Kyouya broke and texted the woman after a long suffering silence and space from her that made him both ache with worry and anger. She responded with a call instead.
"I'm in Singapore taking care of some business," she told him without even a pause for a greeting. "What's wrong?"
"What do you mean, what's wrong?" he quoted angrily. Everything was wrong. She disappeared without a trace or a word, keeping him in the dark as per usual. The very thing that he left her for, she was clearly repeating over again.
"I was under the assumption that you did not want anything to do with me," Kiyoko responded coolly. She didn't blame him for leaving even if it hurt more than she wanted it to. She was too much to handle and came with far too much baggage.
"I really wish I didn't," he fumed. "You left again without notice. Do you know how–"
"–Worried you are?" she finished for him. "Yes, I'm sorry. I promise you I'm safe. I fly back tomorrow."
The nonchalance was on brand, but the apology was unexpected. Kiyoko sensed that the man was still processing his anger and so she filled the silence instead.
"You're allowed to be angry," she sighed. "I was trying to give you space. Maybe you would finally come to your senses to leave me forever."
"I don't want space, Kiyoko! I want to be inside your head and squeezing every thought out of your brain," he interjected. Leaving her was supposed to teach her a lesson, not drive her away. She was unpredictable and reckless. Horrendously on-brand for the Hibayashi name as Kyouya learned the hard way.
"Hm, hard to pinpoint if that is dangerously obsessive or romantic," she said, flippantly. "Either way, not a good look on you, Ootori-san."
"Would it kill you to not be facetious?" Kyouya growled.
"Yes, it really goes against every fibre of my being," Kiyoko was getting on his nerves and she was not the least bit guilty about it.
"What the hell are you doing in Singapore?" he changed the topic. "What business do you have there? I thought all of your art deals were in Europe."
He heard murmurings of a boarding at a gate. "Are you flying? You just said you were flying back tomorrow." Kyouya's tone grew sharper as he realized she was lying to him. Would it kill the woman to just explain her thoughts for once?
"Hold on." He listened to the scratching of what he imagined as her placing him in her pocket as a means to shut him up. After a minute, she came back with a distressed sigh. "I'm flying to Macau right now, can we talk when I'm back in Japan?"
"What the hell are you doing?" he pressed on.
"Tracking someone down," Kiyoko answered, once again with little explanation. "Can you just go into my study and look at the whiteboard? You're a smart guy, you can figure it out. I have to go."
Kyouya wanted to throw the phone against her pristine white walls. Despite living in her home for the past week and a half, he really only had the energy to do three things after exerting himself at work: work out at the company gym, order food by the time he got home, and sleep angrily in their king bed alone. He stomped upstairs to her study where the door had been open the entire time. He turned on the light to the modest study, her bookshelves lined with art history textbooks and novels. The whiteboard was empty at first glance.
What the hell was she on about? Kyouya walked closer to inspect the board and found a hinge that tilted the board. There was a pre-existing backside that he hadn't noticed before. The board was divided into 10 components, each with a name and a percentage and some other keywords that he couldn't quite make sense of. Kyouya recognized the Hibayashi matriarch, her father, her aunt… Kyouya blinked. It was simple math at this rate.
I want to ruin them and take away all that they've ever cared about: their wealth, their extravagance, whatever semblance of a reputation they have built. I want it all and I want it burned to the ground.
Kiyoko huffed in frustration. This woman was a nightmare to track. Of course, running illegal gambling operations meant that Asami's whereabouts were clandestine to the highest degree. Many months ago, Kiyoko called a favour to her friend Eugene to bleed Asami dry - which ultimately meant the woman moving across the continent to set up shop elsewhere.
Eugene eventually called off the operation, citing resources and quite frankly, the Monet was already in his hands to call it an even deal. Kiyoko agreed, so long as she was able to tap into Eugene's network for an update on her whereabouts. With the last bit of intel fed to her by Eugene in the form of a shitty and cryptic text, Kiyoko was nearly about to give up as she carried her Burberry tote full of cash as her buy-in.
She hadn't done this since her early twenties when she started gambling with her small group of friends before they turned legit. Her friends called it practice and Kiyoko pretended not to see the guns being flashed on the regular as they played with low level syndicate members. Kiyoko had grown a sizable equity since then with a hearty appetite for receiving threats.
"Asami," Kiyoko spoke the name to the receptionist without answering their greeting for check-in. "Where would I find her?"
"The Madam is not taking appointments."
It was the first time Kiyoko hadn't been stared at like she grew a third eye or told that there was no Asami. A good sign, at the very least.
"Fine," Kiyoko pursed her lips. She would play her way up. Nothing attracted upper management as an absurdly good card player. The flip side was a horrendously poor one with cash to burn. "Do you have room for a last-minute player?"
Kiyoko waited as she was scanned from head to toe. She made sure to look rich, but not actually rich. The Burberry tote was a throwaway bag, ostensibly obnoxious with the signature cross hatching. On a regular day, Kiyoko would have been caught dead with such a bag. Nails clipped to a shorter style, without her signature claws. No visible jewelry or a watch on her wrist. Dior glasses at the top of her head from a few seasons ago. Her hair was up in a ponytail, not a bun as it should have been if she wanted to look straight out of a socialite event.
"Buy-in is at 50 grand, miss," they said, hoping to ward off the imposter. The bag was a dead giveaway.
She slid 5 stacks of hundreds across the table to the receptionist silently, all in green. American dollars were how they all played, the strongest currency of them all.
"Do you mind?" At least the staff were well-trained to pretend to be polite.
Kiyoko shrugged and waved to the stack of cash. "Be my guest," her tone unwavering at the insinuation that her cash was counterfeit. They ran the stack through a counter and then through another machine.
They couldn't argue against cold hard cash. How could they turn away someone who was willing to play and they had the cash to show for it?
"Your moniker, miss?" No one used real names here.
"The Dragon," Kiyoko decided, noting the watercolour Chinese painting on the wall. She had to think fast. "Tell your Madam that the Dragon is looking for her."
Kiyoko collected her chips without another word, refusing the complimentary alcohol that was being paraded around. The dealers and servers were of course, pretty girls that were likely a handful of years younger than Kiyoko herself. They lived off of tips in the form of cash or chips that were stuffed in between their breasts.
"You serving us drinks, lady?" A man leered at her with broken English. The elder switched back to Cantonese to speak to his tablemates, suddenly becoming white noise to Kiyoko. She chose to ignore the comment, keeping a neutral face and tapped on the velvet to hold. She eased herself back into the game of poker, wishing that she played a few more rounds in an actual casino for a warm-up.
The language barrier did not help. Kiyoko had no choice but to rely on the odds of the table and facial expressions and patterns of the players. Within hours, she recouped her buy-in amount without much resistance. Out of all the players at the table, she was doing rather well for herself. As the only woman, it was impressive but it was certainly not outstanding.
The men were drinking and laughing, becoming more and more reckless with their bets. This tended to happen, especially with the ones on a win streak although they were never ones to worry about. She stayed quiet, matching their bets quietly and comfortably - slowly growing the pot with the rest of the crowd.
Kiyoko could almost guarantee some lewd comments being made about her, given how they glanced at her. As the night continued, half of the men tapped out from the six player game. Kiyoko wished she had a double shot of espresso before beginning, although the shakiness from her hands would have been too much of a risk to take as a giveaway. She would have to power through until the early morning.
"Where you from?" they asked her when the rowdiness died down and half the players had left.
"UK," Kiyoko responded, concealing her identity and threw in a couple chips to match their bet.
"Beautiful girl, why you here?" They did their best with their English. It wasn't like Kiyoko could understand a word of their Cantonese but she wasn't stupid enough to pretend they didn't talk about her while she was at the table.
"Business," Kiyoko answered.
"We businessmen," the two players pointed to each other. "The owner is friend. Our friend," they explained, gesturing to the top floor - presumably where Asami was at.
She raised an eyebrow. "Friend?" she repeated. "I see."
"Owner is woman," they told her. "Female-owned business. We support," they flashed a wide toothed grin while gesturing for one of the servers to come by, dropping a chip in their manicured hand as a proof.
Kiyoko revealed her hand to win by a pair of tens and stacked her chips. She raised an eyebrow at the two men and calculated how much more they would possibly need to lose to tap out. Judging from the pair, they were not old money by any means. Tacky Gucci shirts, Rolexes that were almost far too easy to attain, and thinning hair that probably meant they were middle-aged pricks who probably paid their ex-wives not enough alimony but complained about it anyway. Harmless and now getting more and more reckless with the game.
She only wished that they would do something stupid to finish it off. There were no clocks and she couldn't read the time on the low budget Rolex without squinting like she hated the man. The goal was to keep her face neutral the entire time.
"Your name?" They asked as the cards were being dealt.
"What's yours?" she countered, once again matching their bets. It was a slow game of quietly trying to drain them out of their chips.
"Ferrari," one man pointed to himself. "This one Lamborghini," he slapped his friend on the shoulder.
Kiyoko nodded, uninterested by the brands of sports cars. She glanced at her cards and then back at the men who were red and tipsy. The odds were not exactly in her favour based on the cards although playing against two idiots made the game a little easier to work with.
"Your turn," they tilted their chin towards the only woman at the table, besides the dealer. "Your name."
It was also her bet. She raised it by five thousand. "Dragon," she coolly responded.
"Dragon?" they guffawed, widening the reach of their arms to mock the grandeur of the mythical creature. "You? A dragon?"
Kiyoko did not respond and sat back instead, hoping that one of them would go all in at some point. The men matched her instead and spoke to each other in their native language. They ordered another round of drinks, to which Kiyoko wanted to scream at. If she had to guess, it was probably nearly 3 AM at this rate. These two men were nowhere close to calling it a night.
She lost the hand anyway, and the men celebrated with a clink to their glass and pointed a finger at her as if saying, we told you so. It didn't bother Kiyoko so much - you had to spend money to make money, after all.
"Hey Dragon," they tried to engage with her again after another two rounds of her folding. The best they could do with their broken English. "Home time?"
"Not yet," she answered. She waited for the two men to start playing against one another, folding every two or three rounds - watching as they quieted down, swaying a little from side to side as they played against each other. Eventually, Lamborghini folded with a grunt and sat back and decided to cash out what little remaining chips he had left. It was expected - Lamborghini had been more of the talker between the two of them.
"Dragon and Ferrari fight," the one man smiled at the woman who had stood her ground for what felt like six hours. Kiyoko could nearly see the light.
"Let you go home," he tried to let her off easy. He gave her a once-over, dressed modestly without any cleavage showing - she wore a dress that showed only her shoulders. Her nails were prim and she looked hardly over 21, especially with that high ponytail of hers. She was a baby in his eyes and just what he liked to see.
"All-in. If I win, you come home with me." His grumpy friend was now intrigued, forgetting about his losses. He smirked at the thought of this girl in his bed, she was so petite - how could she even put up a fight? His friend was in for a good time with this little Dragon.
"And if I win?" Kiyoko raised an eyebrow.
"You take all," he offered his chips. "Buy Birkin, not Burberry." The poor bag was taking a beating that it certainly did not deserve today.
Kiyoko nearly sighed out of relief. She was waiting for this moment. This now all came down to luck and she could go home with almost ten times what she had put in. Kiyoko remembered why people gambled. It was that rush of hope, of adrenaline when something was so close within reach, of living the dream that was just a figment of imagination. It was the quickest way of achieving everything and anything you wanted. This was the moment that made people heady with power, with or without any understanding of calculated odds.
She gingerly pushed her chips into the middle, dampening down her eagerness for this to end. She was dealt a Queen of Spades. Next came a 3 of Clubs. A King of Diamonds. Admittedly, it wasn't going as well as one would like. This was what gambling was all about. The sheer luck of it all.
She looked over to her counterpart who smiled at his own hand and then smiled at her. He was bluffing and she knew it.
"Scared?"
Kiyoko paid no attention to his little jab and waited patiently for the next card. She was no stranger to being in the presence of weapons, and most recently was the target of an attempted murder. She was not scared, she was angry at how the world felt like it was heaving against her at every chance it got.
She glanced down at the King of Clubs to refocus. High pair, not bad. A second pair to cinch the win would be ideal at this point. The last card was dealt silently with Kiyoko sneaking another glance at her hand.
"Last chance to fold, little Dragon," Ferrari warned. "Good girls do not gamble."
Kiyoko only blinked back, biting down her tongue. Old men shouldn't be preying on young girls the age of their children. Why the fuck was this allowed? He probably had a decent hand that countered her own, a pair at the very least given how he was acting up.
The last card was dealt and the balding man threw down his pair with a smirk. A pair of aces. Higher than her pair of Kings, just by a hair. She narrowed her eyes at the cards that were placed in front of her, watching the man's grubby fingers collect the pot in the middle. Fuck this guy and his disgusting grin as almost climbed over to her with his short legs for a better look at his newly trapped prey. The behaviour wasn't anything new to Kiyoko but goodness, if her intrusive thoughts had taken over she would have easily broken the glass of his whisky to stab him with a shard, right in the eyes. There was no way she would go home with anyone, much less this fuck.
Kiyoko looked towards the dealer with a cold stare, threatening her silently to do her job.
"Sir," the dealer intercepted the collection of the man's winnings. "These are not yours."
"What do you mean?" he roared. A whole barrage of Cantonese was strewn at the innocent dealer who explained that he did not have a winning hand. Kiyoko held up her own cards with a flick of her thumb to reveal a 3 of diamonds that was hidden beneath the other cards.
Two pairs. Fortune seemed to favour the Dragon tonight. The man snarled at her and pointed at her with what she assumed were insults. Kiyoko stood up, unamused by the man's wounded pride. Men were all the same, even as they were escorted off the premises after a long night.
The chips were organized by the staff and brought into another room for counting and to be cashed out. Kiyoko sat in the velvet chair, fighting her way to stay awake. She could have sworn that they were on the brink of dawn.
"Where is Asami's office?" Kiyoko tried again.
"Do you have any business with her, miss?" The staff were clearly trained to evade questions like this.
"I certainly do."
"An appointment?"
Kiyoko wanted to scream. As if Asami would have appointments for what she does, running a covert gambling operation over the course of the night at high-end hotels? Why would she meet her clientele - after all, they all operated on anonymity and a cash-only basis. No taxes, no government to report to, the money was all theirs.
"She does not operate on appointments," Kiyoko deduced. "She operates on word of mouth. Tell her I need her."
"And why would she care?" the accountant raised an eyebrow. "How would she know who you are?"
Kiyoko shrugged. Who else would clear the night with a half a million dollar winning? A female winner, at that. Asami had made enough in one night to keep her afloat, with or without the rake that she had been taking. It was lower than the usual casinos nearby. Her clientele were businessmen who used the platform to network and to make deals. A 50 K buy-in only attracted the right kind of high-stakes players and businessmen who could afford to waste such money. Poker was just an activity in the background for them all, an ego-boost if anything.
The stacks of green were lined up neatly for Kiyoko. It certainly was not going to fit in her Burberry tote. She won back her winnings and just about ten times more. Certainly, it was not the time to be greedy. She was not here for that.
"Would you like a case?" they offered plainly. It was the least they could do so she could take all her winnings home. The Burberry tote was a joke to them all.
Kiyoko chuckled and shook her head, reaching over for the five stacks that she placed in for her buy-in. She counted them briefly, fanning out the green bills. The weight felt right and the width was just about what she remembered.
"May I?" Kiyoko pointed towards the counter and counterfeit detector. They pushed over the machine with a huff. The audacity of these people was nearly comical to Kiyoko. She wanted her money back and she sure as hell would make sure that it was legitimate. She put the band back on the stack and plopped it into the Burberry bag that seemed to be sacrilegious to the upper class.
Kiyoko stood from the table with her money back in tow. "Keep it," she pointed to the rest of the money. "Your boss will want to know who I am."
Kiyoko tossed a card with her phone number on it, right above the bills and sighed in good riddance. She was in some desperate need for coffee and a lot more luck for what else needed to happen.
Kyouya had texted her incessantly while she had been playing poker for the night. Ranging from easy things like, "What is your flight number?" to, "A hostile takeover?" followed up with, "What are you doing?" and then, "How are you going to do this?" and some other paragraphs of what she was up against. The chance of her becoming remotely close to the goal of sitting on the board was a near impossible feat.
Kiyoko threw her phone into her usual Goyard tote and stared at the runway of planes instead. The skies were overcast with a darkness that loomed over the planes and the sudden overwhelming possibility of failure overtook her gut. The migraine grew stronger from the back of her skull, ringing in her ears had dulled the announcements of the airport. Nausea bloomed from her insides, threatening the stomach acid and coffee to spew out of her mouth from her empty stomach.
The incessant buzzing of her cell phone barely managed to distract Kiyoko from a near panic attack. She scavenged through her tote to find the device, now a few years old and with a throwaway SIM card that she purchased only days earlier at a different country. Her finger shakily tapped the green button as she caught her breath as silently as she could.
"You sound like you're dying." Asami's voice pierced through her ear, dripping with venom.
Apparently Kiyoko was not doing as well of a job as she had thought at masking her deep breathing. "It seems like you are doing well," Kiyoko snapped back, reaching for a glass of water in front of her. She gulped down a large sip to keep her calm.
"I heard you were looking for me and demolished two of my best clients. What are you doing here stirring up trouble? Did your grandmother send you?"
"I need your vote," she admitted. There was a cackle of disbelief on the other line.
"My vote? You want a seat at the adult table now? What makes you think I would possibly part from them? After your father had taken so much from me? That is all men do. Take, take, take," she growled.
"Indeed," Kiyoko agreed. "That's all he'll ever do if you let him. But I want him out. I want them all out."
"You'll need more than mine to oust them," Asami pointed out. "I thought you had your own little circus of art shows or whatever. Is that not enough for you now, child? So much so that you had to come onto my territory to–"
"Haru is dead," Kiyoko coldly informed her aunt. Aunt-mother. Whatever she was to her, she was never really considered family.
"Well, it was about time. No one could survive a family like this, not when he was the bane of everyone's existence," Asami answered without a lick of sympathy. She had none to spare over the years.
Fuck you, Kiyoko wanted to say. That was her nephew. But that was a poor negotiation tactic and certainly not how you did business.
"Don't you hate them too? How they ousted you?" Kiyoko pressed on, trying to focus on the task at hand. Asami had just as much power as her father at some point. But over the years she had to trade in her shares for money. The only thing left for her was a board seat and some measly dividends that would only be comfortable if you did not live the lifestyle of the rich.
"You're a weak link to the family, like Haru. Unstable and unwanted. A tiresome little cockroach that won't die."
"On the contrary, child, I chose to leave," Asami informed. "And I intend to keep what little I have left of that company. I have spent years building my empire."
Kiyoko would not have considered Asami's business venture an empire if it were so easily toppled. She digressed and stayed focused.
"Why did you keep coming back then? Why did dinners always end up with glass being thrown and knives being pointed at each other?" It was always about money, Kiyoko remembered vaguely. Asami's business ventures never really ended well - she often lost her money and needed more each time. It had been nearly a decade since her last appearance at a family dinner.
"I'm not giving you my vote, Kiyoko," Asami cut to the chase. "There is no peaceful co-existence with that clan. Don't fuck with my business - consider this a warning."
"Your business is illegal," Kiyoko reminded. "Consider this a warning. Between Japan, Singapore, and now Macau? We have plenty on you."
"And you're coming down right with me, Kiyoko," Asami countered her bluff.
Kiyoko scoffed. "I'd like to see you try," she spat back. "Mother," she added. "It would do you well to think twice about your voting power. You already have enough enemies and I am not afraid of taking away what little percentage you have left of this family business."
Asami called her bluff. "My vote in exchange for what? You have nothing to offer."
"What do you want, then?"
"The sun, the stars, the moon," Asami listed off mockingly. "I don't want your little pieces of art or your little ploy at winning me over, child. Go play your game of shareholders elsewhere."
"How about redemption?"
Kyouya walked home to the lights left on the entryway of the genkan and a pair of beaten up leather flats haphazardly kicked away to the corner. At his usual schedule, Kyouya had been staying late in the office once again to keep his mind off of things. Technically, his mind off of her. After some time, it seemed like he had finally gotten back into the swing of things: expediting and pushing through project deadlines, scaring his employees into becoming workaholics alongside him, writing reports on the direction of the department to maximize quarterly earning and then–
Did she finally come home? It threw a wrench in it all. There was no balance with her - he was consumed by her, all of her, all the time.
The rest of the house was dark. The kitchen was untouched. Her study door was still closed, no dimmed lights peeking through the frame. A carry-on was left askew in the hallway. The little townhome had plenty of space for one person and rather comfortable for two. Somehow, the Ootori had grown to appreciate how he did not have to walk hundreds of meters to get to the kitchen or his bedroom over time. He learned to survive with just a few items of clothing in the wardrobe, lucky that no one cared to comment on his recycled suits over the week.
The stairs leading up to the master bedroom door was left wide open to reveal Kiyoko cocooned beneath their down duvet, sleeping soundly in their bed. In a rare moment of peace, Kyouya sighed out of relief. Her hair had grown longer since he last saw her. Her delicate hands were still coated in a glossy layer of oxidized blood on her nails. Kiyoko looked exhausted even though she had likely slept for most of the day. It seemed like she finally returned from ripping her enemies apart with her bare hands, or whatever the hell she did on her own.
Kyouya tried his best to quietly leave, letting her be in the fragile state that she was. He got as far as three steps towards the door before Kiyoko instinctively jolted awake, gasping for breath as though she had been drowning in a sea of a nightmare. When she noticed she wasn't alone, Kiyoko kicked off the duvet and slid up the bed to stare daggers at the figure, her fingers gripping the sharp metal hair pin beneath her pillow. She readied herself to attack while her body turned frigid and her eyes narrowed to focus on the sight of the reflective glasses.
She spent a minute catching her breath in silence, realizing that she had scared him as much as she scared herself. What a sight that must have been, like watching a demon exorcize itself from the body of the possessed. Kiyoko almost chuckled at the thought. When she finally let herself relax, Kyouya slowly approached the foot of the bed.
"Shouldn't you be at home?" She tried not to sound bitter about the way he left things. "What time is it?" Kiyoko brushed off her previous question with another.
"7:32," he answered.
"Why didn't you wake me?" She rubbed her eyes. They twinkled in the light with a ring of pink. It was clear Kiyoko had not slept enough. Eaten enough. Done enough to take care of herself as a human being.
"You need sleep," the Ootori demanded. She needed more than that.
"No rest for the wicked, they say," Kiyoko brushed him off. She ran her hands through her shoulder length hair, tying it up loosely and fought the shiver out of bed. The cool air stinging her skin was the rude awakening she needed to get back to business.
"Oi," he pushed her back down by the shoulders. She hardly resisted when she fell back down to the mattress. "You need rest."
"I need," Kiyoko huffed. More capital. More shares. More time. More ways to convince the board to vote in her favour. Or rather, the more ways to oust the family out of the so-called family business. "Food," she fought back with a reasonable request.
Kyouya gave in and let her stand. "And you," she sighed while brushing past him. "You should go home. Why are you here? Did you forget something?" She marched over to her walk-in closet, pretending to ignore the corner that now hung a few suit jackets that were certainly not hers. She grabbed a cashmere sweater off the shelf, layering over her camisole. She put on some wool socks over her leggings and marched downstairs.
"I live here," he told her while trailing behind. How she somehow reanimated back to life within minutes, he had no idea. She was doing a damn good job at pulling herself together in a record amount of time. Kiyoko turned on the lights to her kitchen and opened up her fridge to see a whole slew of leftovers, the garbage bin full of takeout boxes and plastic bags.
"You know there is no maid, right? You actually have to take out the garbage." Kiyoko pointed to the mess that the Ootori very much was responsible for.
"There is no staff to take care of it?" he asked, dumbly. "I thought they were just late."
Kiyoko shot him with an icy glare. This was not how she wanted to come home after being abroad. The fridge was empty but at the very least, her kitchen had some condiments and rice. She had no appetite for much else but some porridge.
"We could just order in," Kyouya suggested lamely.
"Take out the fucking garbage," she demanded.
"How?"
A genuine question. He was just trying to help. She stared back at him in disbelief. Kiyoko could have sworn that this man had a Harvard degree. Or something like that. The woman pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath.
"Just sit down and be quiet," Kiyoko raised her hand at the man, putting up an invisible barrier between him and her. She needed some peace, a lot of space, and some fucking rice in her stomach before she passed out. Her fridge was empty. She did not even have aromatics. Maybe the man did have a point. Maybe the best they could do today was to just order in. A headache began to form at the back of her neck, inching its way through her skull and then seeped into her temple before it pounded against her forehead.
"Do you know where the nearest grocery store is?"
"I can look it up," he offered.
"Do you know what ginger looks like? Garlic? Scallions?"
He shot her a look of offense.
"Natto?" Kiyoko continued on the list with a raised eyebrow, now with more urgency.
"I can read, Kiyoko," Kyouya snapped.
"But you can't take out the garbage?" she argued. It was a joke, kind-of.
"Fuck off," he grumbled. Kyouya grabbed his phone and hopped off from the bar stool. Kiyoko watched as he finagled the garbage bag out of the bin, wrestling with the taut edges of the bag against the corners. Kiyoko did not have the energy to tell the man that he needed to sort every component of the garbage. He could figure it out himself, she decided.
"Text me a list. I'll be back," he promised.
The house was empty. She should have been used to this having lived on her own for years. The silence was supposed to bring peace and yet somehow, the emptiness left her more anxious than before. She should have taken some aspirin but instead she poured herself the first liquor she laid her hands on at the bar cart.
The burn awakened her senses enough to dull the pain of the headache that had been bothering her as long as she was conscious. Kiyoko ran through the numbers again in her head. The people that sat on the board. The flimsy plan she had brewing in her brain.
Kiyoko craved a cigarette. She had long squashed that habit of hers but in stressful times, all her brain wanted was a hit to soothe the anxiety. Alcohol was not doing enough. The hammering against her head became more of a dull stabbing of a paring knife. She quickly texted the Ootori.
Pick up a carton of Hope.
It only took a minute for him to respond.
Is that a milk brand?
She groaned and threw her phone across the couch, not bothering to respond. She let out a loud cuss to the emptiness of her living room. Fuck. This guy hadn't smoked in his life and clearly did not hang around people who did. Her fingers gripped the deep auburn glass of Yamazaki, the cool condensate from the ice was now dripping down against her palm. She held her breath to chug down the rest of the whiskey and laid down on her couch, waiting for the pain to subside.
The buzz hit by the time the door opened again, likely more than half an hour later. The ceiling became fuzzier, the glow of the lights had dimmed. The numbers in her head had stopped ticking, the names of the people she needed to track down had grown to just a quiet whisper. The Ootori came through to the kitchen with a bag from the local grocery store.
"What is Hope?" he asked as he sauntered into the kitchen.
"Don't worry about it," Kiyoko willed herself up from the couch, taking some time in the upright position to make sense of the surroundings that spun. A couple deep breaths in and with laser sharp focus, Kiyoko forced herself to keep her composure. "Did you get everything?" she asked.
"Only the things you listed," Kyouya had been unbagging the groceries. "I thought you would text."
"I did," Kiyoko grumbled. She texted him the one thing that she desperately needed right then and there.
"Hope?" Kyouya was confused. How was the Ootori supposed to provide any ounce of hope? What did she need hope for?
"It's fine," Kiyoko brushed off. She was quick to get to work, after all she had no clue how much longer her brain would be numbed for. The kitchen was a familiar place and the busy work of washing produce, chopping, and cooking was something she knew how to do without thinking too much.
She washed the produce in a haze, ignoring the watchful eye of the Ootori. There was minimal chopping, thankfully. Ginger, garlic, scallions were easily done even while mildly drunk. The alcohol had suppressed her appetite for now. It would probably last long enough for the porridge to cook.
After closing the rice cooker, she faced the Ootori who had quietly stayed across the island.
"Were you drinking?" He noticed the tumbler on the coffee table. Only ice was in the glass, not even a sliver of whiskey had been left behind.
"Yes," Kiyoko scrubbed her hands clean beneath the faucet. "Not that it is any of your business," she added. If anything, she deserved a drink and a smoke after a whirlwind of two weeks trying to track down an unreliable ally. A true waste of her time.
"Hope is a cigarette brand," Kyouya looked it up while she had been prepping the food.
"Well done, Ootori-san," she snarled. She felt rather hopeless at this point. "Came only half an hour too late."
He frowned in disapproval. "How often do you smoke?"
"Not often enough," Kiyoko sighed, opting for some filtered water instead of another glass of whiskey no matter how tempting it would have been. The buzz was still there but the incessant commentary from the Ootori did not make it easy to enjoy.
Kyouya sat in silence, watching her sip water precariously.
"Go on," she raised an eyebrow. "Where is the lecture you're itching to give about smoking being bad for me?"
"You do a lot of things that are bad for you," Kyouya scoffed. "Smoking is only one of many."
"How lovely of you to notice," she snapped back. "Self-destructive tendencies run in the family because none of us deserve anything good."
"Kiyoko," he begged. "Just let me in."
"You're in my house," she stared back at him, defiant and unwilling with her jaw clenched. He left her. She figured that she had no time to mope around at his abandonment of her. It was business as usual.
Except business was not usual and it was not going the way she had hoped. The headache seeped deeper into her temples with the truth.
He crossed his arms and shook his head at her. Where was she running off to in these past two weeks? Singapore? Garnering votes of the board? Who the fuck would be in Singapore? Kyouya had looked up every single person on that list. No one of any remote importance was in Singapore.
"You're never going to be able to do a hostile takeover, not without capital."
As if Kiyoko didn't know that from the start. Ousting the CEO would be easy - it was just another position to be filled, regardless of it being in the family. It was having a majority of the board voting out her father, her grandmother, and if Asami was not willing to come on her side, her as well. It was voting out the entire Hibayashi clan, dismantling the business, and then selling it for parts while forcibly letting the entire family watch. The more she thought about it, the more it felt like a pipe dream. The anger she had simmered into a bottomless pit of a harsh reality check.
She had been wasting her time, living in a nightmare. Somehow she had believed in herself enough to undertake this ridiculous idea. That she would not amount to nothing.
"Have you spoken to anyone yet?" Kyouya asked.
"Just my aunt. Or mother, I guess," she admitted. "You know, the one who apparently isn't dead," Kiyoko added with a small laugh.
"In Singapore?" Asami was not one that Kyouya had bothered to check on. She had a history for being rather unstable.
"Macau, actually."
"And?" Kyouya continued to press on.
Kiyoko ran her fingers through her hair and massaged her temples. She went on a goose chase, fell back into her old career, and still: "No dice."
"Well," Kyouya sighed. "That's that, I suppose."
"That's that," she repeated in a clipped tone.
She had been a fucking idiot. She was the girl that everyone thought would amount to nothing: gambling away her money, dealing frivolous art like a game, invisible and unheard of unless you mention her last name. A heavy name to bear, full of shame and ridicule by everyone around her since the dawn of time.
"Then what's next?"
Kiyoko didn't know. Giving up seemed like the best idea. So much for dismantling a whole corporation out of spite. She was weak without capital, without the power she so desired for the first time in her life. She knew her income was a pea-sized amount but now it dwindled down to something near microscopic for what she wanted to do with it.
"Get capital," she answered, unwilling to admit defeat. Not outloud, anyway. "Try not to get murdered again, I guess."
"And what do you even have to liquidate?" Kyouya raised his eyebrow, ignoring the bad joke. Sure, like anybody in their circle, Kiyoko was comfortable. But certainly not comfortable nor powerful enough to have a portfolio to buy out a whole company. Not even the Ootori himself had that kind of leverage.
"We'll see," Kiyoko responded with a sigh.
The Ootori was unconvinced. Hell, Kiyoko herself was unconvinced and it showed.
"Remember when you said I would amount to something great? How you told me that power looked good on me?" She was defeated. Exhausted. Angry at herself. Swimming in uncertainty, drowning in the fact that she was as useless as everyone expected her to be. What took her so long to realize this?
He softened his gaze. Kyouya slowly approached her from the other side of the marbled kitchen island. He towered over her even if she glared at him with those piercing orbs. "Kiyoko, you are resilient but reckless–"
"I'm not–" Reckless, she wanted to say. There was a method to this… madness, yes, madness would probably have been the right word to use anyhow. Kyouya shook his head and spoke over her.
"I promise I will not stand in the way of you," He was careful to keep his tone gentle. Even in her most fragile of moments, Kyouya had witnessed the way she built up her walls and shut him out in a blink of an eye. He tried again, determined to make sure that she would listen to some form of reason.
"But I need you to tell me how to help you. If you want to dismantle a company, just tell me how you want it." At this rate, he would do anything for her, as long as she asked him to. Kyouya massaged her temples with his thumbs before putting his forehead against hers. She smelled like oak from the whiskey. A faint hint of the peonies and jasmine that lingered on her skin. He held her by the shoulders before slowly enclosing his arms around her ever so gently.
"I don't want help," Kiyoko mumbled into his shoulder, fighting back the sudden heat that swelled out of her eyes. This was the stress mounting up in her body, Kiyoko told herself. It was just stress. Tears that flooded her eyes were absorbed quickly by his shirt. "I…"
She pulled away quickly, shielding herself from the embarrassment and tried to pull herself together. "Fuck," she whispered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck," Kiyoko wiped away the tears and sniffed. Hunching over the sink, she had to remember to breathe. In, out, in, out. Her vision blurred and she had no choice but to close her eyes. How embarrassing. How was she always so weak around him? Kiyoko hated how she felt like she embodied the exact opposite of what he thought of her, without the wealth or power she did not care for until it became the very thing she needed. She was just wasted potential after all.
The soothing pat on her back was not noticed until she managed to gain back her composure. He stayed, quietly giving her the delicate space she needed. "I wanted to earn you," Kiyoko had to face the backsplash of her kitchen. She could not bear to look him in the eye without more tears, disappointed that she had nothing to show for it.
"I wanted to prove to you that you weren't wrong about me. I was capable. I was not some… washed up rich bitch with nothing to show for it…" At this point she felt like she was rambling. "I wanted to deserve you in every way that you have told me so."
"I'm not wrong about you," Kyouya reassured. "I never have been." He pulled her into his chest and placed a kiss into her hair. He could engulf himself in this scent forever, holding her tight so she could stay together.
"I'm sorry," she blurted out. She knew she was a handful for him but clearly made no effort to change her flighty ways. "For worrying you, for disappointing–"
"It's alright," he comforted. "I understand." Or at least, he tried to. He wished she would just tell him what was going on in her mind but in no way was she a disappointment to him.
The rice cooker beeped before he could tell her so, snapping Kiyoko out of her moment of vulnerability. She quickly wiped her face and quickly moved to stir the sludge of rice porridge. A comforting and clean meal. It was the fresh start her body needed to replenish her aching soul. She served him a bowl before herself.
"Will that be enough for you?" Kiyoko made sure to give him a larger bowl but her usual cooking was a little more elaborate than a pathetic rice porridge. "There are still leftovers in the fridge."
"I'll be fine," he assured her. Kyouya did not care about the food. He was relieved to have her back home and took his usual spot by the dining table, forming some semblance of the routine they had established within months of knowing each other. They had something so good - he could have sworn that she felt the same. All he wanted was to come home to her every night, eat dinner, watch the news, talk about said news, and then go to bed. Rinse, lather, and repeat - forever, if she would allow him to. He was a simple man, who knew?
They sat across from each other, quietly letting the utensils sing against the ceramic as they ate. Kiyoko did not have much of an appetite but at the very least, the food was enough for her to stomach without wanting to hurl her guts out along with the whiskey she consumed.
"Tell me what's new," she casually asked, deciding she had enough about her. She was exhausted from having to put her feelings into words, having to always feel so inadequate whenever she saw him. Somehow, she could not decide if it would have been easier without him here to comfort her or if he left her alone to ruminate in her own panicked state about her next moves.
"What do you mean?" the Ootori answered after swallowing a mouthful. How could porridge taste so good? Rice, soup stock, aromatics - it was so simple and yet so comforting. The woman was a genius to him. Did she add some kind of magic ingredient?
"What have you been up to?" Kiyoko tilted her head at the man.
"Working," he shrugged. "The usual." Day in and day out. He would tell her about the progress he was finally making at work although Kiyoko seemed to have little interest in the business until recently and it was not to inherit a company, it was the exact opposite.
She frowned at the answer. "Well, that's lame."
"Did you want me to mope around?" Because he certainly did and he was not about to admit it. Kyouya was lucky she was not in regular contact with his friends who would jump at the opportunity to tell her otherwise.
She let out a small chuckle. "Your moping state is very similar to your regular state, anyhow."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he shot back with a frown and a furrow of his eyebrows.
"That," she pointed with her chopsticks to his permanent scowl. "You're a grump."
"As if you aren't?"
"No," Kiyoko corrected. "A resting bitch face is part of the demeanor of a woman to survive. I'm not a grump."
"I haven't seen you happy in a long time," Kyouya pointed out. "Have you ever been happy?"
Kiyoko shrugged. Sure, she had moments of happiness but it was always fleeting. Happiness seemed intangible, like she was trying to grasp water every time she tried to reach for it. It ebbed and flowed around her and she would never be able to step foot in it, to swim in it, or to even think to capture it in a bottle to drink or to remember. Happiness was a concept, not an experience.
And perhaps, for many reasons - she did not deserve it to begin with.
"Have you?" she deflected.
"Yes," he told her, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. "I'm happiest with you."
She cackled. "I'm a mess, Kyouya. Do you enjoy cleaning up emotional wrecks? Are you so bored that you just want to be a part of my chaos?"
"I enjoy picking your brain. I enjoy learning about you, every part of you. I want to be inside of your brain, fuck, Kiyoko–" he sighed. "I just want to be with you."
Kiyoko put her chopsticks down and stared at him. "But I can't offer you anything." Who was she kidding?
"It's not supposed to be transactional. Sure, it was initially meant to be," he added. They were not beating around the bush about why they were introduced. "I can leave at any time, Kiyoko," he reminded. They were not bound by any contract. "I didn't mean that you had to destroy your own net worth to earn me," Kyouya explained.
"But I want to," she insisted.
"That's insane," Kyouya shot back. Did she not hear herself? How could one survive without money?
She stared at him blankly with her arms crossed, as if to say, so? You already knew I was insane.
"Don't do it for me," he tried again, with the voice of reason.
"Bold of you to think that this was all for you," Kiyoko raised an eyebrow. "I mean, it kind of was but–"
"Kiyoko–"
"No, listen," Kiyoko gently cut him off. "The one time I wanted to prove my worth was because I wanted to earn you, like you asked me to. I could earn you in the easiest way possible: marry you, inherit the company, and hand it off to you. That was the only way that made me even remotely appealing to your family."
"But instead you're not marrying me, nor are you inheriting the company: you're destroying it because you can?"
"Well, yes," That was a pretty decent summary. "Would that not impress you?" she cocked an eyebrow.
Kyouya pushed up the glasses from his nose bridge with a large sigh. "Yes, it would impress me." But it also terrified him. She was a Hibayashi through and through. Impressive yet terrifying. It was her modus operandi and was never without reason. He fell in love with her with all that she came with.
"You need to understand," her voice now gentle. "That without the company, I can earn you properly without needing the crutch of my inheritance for me to fall back on. It's insane, reckless, and honestly a large gamble. But fuck, if I pull it off…" she laughed to herself. "Wouldn't it be the greatest gesture of love?" And it would give her the freedom that she desperately craved since the beginning of her life.
He sat there trying to piece together her ideas. It was so ridiculous that it did make sense to him. How she would continuously remind him that he deserved better, and without the company, she was nothing. Only then could Kiyoko could properly earn him with whatever she had left. The epitome of a self-made woman. If only she would realize that Kyouya did not need such a thing for her to prove her worth to him, that the job had already been done, time and time again. Kyouya could only sit back and let her do what she needed to do to feel worthy.
"And besides, inheriting the company with my father's to-be-born child on the way will be messier than it already is," Kiyoko could already see the back and forth of who owned what or who was entitled to the wealth continue for decades. Her grandmother would eventually die and then it would be her versus the vultures for the pieces left of the company. "I could just end it now, for all of us."
"Now?" How soon was she planning for this?
"You said you wanted peace," Kiyoko shrugged. "The peace will come at a price." She was on the hunt to scorch the earth and did not plan to stop until it was done.