RIVALS INCARNATE

Chapter Forty-Seven: What Loneliness Can Offer

PRESENT, 2020 (Tokyo)

***THREE DAYS AGO (the day after that night Kyouhei Kurosaki met the unknown woman)***

It did not matter if it was wrong or right. Kyouhei Kurosaki was drowned in guilt and regret. How did he end up here? He woke up slightly jarred while nursing a heavy headache and sore muscles. When he opened his eyes that noon, he was already all alone on his bed and there were no traces left anymore by the strange woman he just had spent the night with. She really left.

Kurosaki immediately felt like a total asshole. He did not even bother to give her anything, maybe coffee, breakfast, or taxi fare. He's so pathetic. The feeling of nausea eventually hit him as it blended with the emptiness filling his chest as he groggily got up from his bed and looked around.

His place looked like a complete mess and he could not even remember when he had actually fallen asleep last night. He was just too drunk and blinded by the temptation to even mind about anything else. And as he tried to remember anything, all the memory from last night was just too foggy and faded. He cannot even recall the name of the woman he was with. He's really a jerk.

He let out an exasperated sigh, guilty and kind of disappointed. The day was already midway through it but he was still there in his bed, just about to start it. Kyouhei felt lazy but he felt the need to take a shower right away. Forcing himself to get up, he groaned and left his bed to walk straight to his bathroom to begin his morning routine, like usual.

As he moved, he tried to regain some bits from what really happened last night, but his headache was killing him and he slumped against the door of his bathroom as soon as he walked inside and closed the door shut behind him. He turned to his right and immediately saw his pathetic reflection from the mirror on the wall. He winced and rubbed his face with his palm. He felt horrible, for some reason. He thought being with someone just for a quick company would eventually help him get over his heartache but it seemed like it just worsened it more. And now, he felt emptier than yesterday.

He can't even look straight to his face as he headed to the shower trying to avoid his own reflection. As soon as the cold water hit his face, he finally felt a little calmer, and he tried to bask in the cool, relieving sensation of the water flowing down his entire body. He started scrubbing every part of him quite roughly as if trying to erase every mark that had been left from last night. He felt uneasy... And he felt like he just needed to do this. And for some reason, he was feeling sorry but not for himself. He was actually feeling sorry for what he did and for that unknown woman he spent the night with.

She did not even try to let him know she left. 

There was really no trace of her. No note, no scent... Nothing. And maybe it had been better that she did not leave any of that. It would have made things awkward in the morning anyway. Kyouhei would never really know what to tell or do with her if she really had stayed longer. It would definitely be much more terrible and awful for both of them.

Kyouhei sighed again. 

This time, he no longer sounded tired anymore. He sounded a little more relieved. It actually felt better to be alone, even though it was not always the case for him. Loneliness had been one of the main reasons why he had let himself swayed into the physical desires of his body, yet today, it was also the loneliness that had made him feel much better for being all alone. He would just forget it all.

That was what he had decided the moment he finished his bath and wrapped a towel around his waist before walking out of his bathroom, returning to his bedroom. Without even glancing at the clock on his bedside table, Kyouhei already knew that he was already too late to rush and go to work now. He checked his phone and saw that he had received several missed calls and voicemails from his secretary, some from Amazawa, and some were from his other staff members. And so he quickly called his secretary back just to tell her of his situation and instructing her to tell it to everyone else before it could even slip out of his mind. When his call ended, Kyouhei fell silent and threw the phone over the mattress beside him where he sat near the edge, realizing that he really had nothing to do at home now.

There was nothing else left to do.

He had never really stayed at home that much, except for weekends. And all he ever really did when he was at home was sleep all day and eat. When he goes to work, it would all just be about attending the meetings, checking over his projects, updating Yuko about his schedule, and then going home, sleeping, and eat when he had to. It was a repetitive routine that he always did for the past few years and somehow today, it just changed. And it felt lonely again.

He looked around his room and saw the scattered pieces of clothing on the floor that all belonged to him. The woman did not really seem like she was just here, sleeping next to him on his bed last night. And it felt strange because it was the very first-time Kyouhei had actually let a total stranger into his bedroom without hesitating. Yet it never even left any kind of mark anywhere. Though there was relief that there was no reason for him to remember it all over again, there was still also that shadow of disappointment inside him because he did not feel better from it. Was that for nothing?

He could not even know what else to feel. But this whole experience just made Kyouhei realize how fleeting intimacy really felt. When you think you could just cut off everything from it and feel nothing, it actually could do a lot more than that. It would make you feel colder... distant, less hurt, and indifferent from anything else.

And somehow, he discovered how easy it really was to let yourself just be completely lost in a heated passion of sharing someone else's warmth and then quickly detached yourself from it all once it was over. Kyouhei learned it all from last night, that it would never really affect you if you never really cared about it that much. In the end, you would only feel nothing.

Nothing at all. 

And maybe if he did it again with someone else, and filled his head with nothing but indifference, he can eventually live by just indulging himself from that temporary bliss so he could slowly forget all the pain inside his chest until it gets totally numb that he would no longer have to do it anymore.

Maybe all he need was to do it again... and again.

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PRESENT 2020 (Tokyo) - Back to the real-time

Yuko Amazawa immediately saw the note left on her desk by her secretary after her lunch meeting that day when she walked into her office, informing her that Kyouhei Kurosaki had called in sick from work again. Just like he did three days ago. But it no longer surprised her. He must be really out of it lately, and she could not really blame him for acting quite strange recently considering that she was partly at fault for what had happened to him. But it still did not stop Yuko from getting worried about him again.

She slumped down on her office chair and leaned on it to relax the muscles of her strained back. It felt like it had been a very long day but she still got a few more hours before she could even get home. She suddenly felt sleepy. She checked the time from the clock hanging on the wall across her desk. It was just a little over one in the afternoon. She still had a lot of paperwork to do. Forcing herself to start it right away, she began to keep herself busy for a moment.

An hour went on, and she was already in the middle of her draft when her phone rang, startling her a little as she picked it up and checked the caller ID. It was an unknown number but since she knew that it could probably be urgent or perhaps, Osamu calling her from a different number, Yuko answered it right away without much of a thought.

But instead of hearing a familiar voice from the other end of the line, Yuko stopped before she could even utter a single word when an indistinctive modulated voice suddenly spoke to her with a threatening tone, "Beware of your actions, Miss Amazawa. Don't just easily trust everybody around you. I know what you are to Kurosaki."

Then the call ended right away after those words. She froze on her seat. She was too caught off guard by the voice that had spoken to her and it took her a few more moments before she could finally process all of that. And when she did, the very first thing she tried to do was to call Osamu Sato. She knew that Sato was the only person she could trust her whole life right now. And when he finally answered on the second ring, Yuko spoke right away.

"We need to meet tonight," she told him sternly, "It's important."

"Everything's okay?" Osamu worriedly asked after a beat.

"Someone just called me."

"Okay," Osamu did not even hesitate as soon as he heard her words and obligingly agreed, "I will pick you up after work. I'll call you when I get there."

Yuko felt her entire body getting cold when she remembered what that voice told her again. She was sure it was not just a harmless threat anymore, because this time, it was all real. She received it directly and this was a much alarming sign. And as she tried to think of another plan for Kurosaki, the only one thing that came to her mind while she pondered quietly was...

She will have to talk to him soon. That was inevitable. Even if it felt like she still could not do it, she had to. 

It was about time, they finally face their own demons.

------------------------------------------------------------------------next chapter: Chapter Forty-Eight