RIVALS INCARNATE

Chapter Forty-Three: Chasing Pavements

She looked across the room, wearing that unreadable face and slight slackened mouth as she fixed his eyes on him. Don't look at me that way, she consciously thought in her mind. But she could not look away, even when she was already feeling quite uncomfortable. Where was Shin's hatred when she needed it? Why was she getting affected like this? 

"Of course, I'm important," Yuko broke eye contact and later said this smiling tightly, dropping her gaze to the table, as she went on, "I have been working with you since the beginning. And just like you, I've committed myself to this so of course, I'm important to you."

No, not that way. Kyouhei wanted to say. But he stopped himself because he could already tell that Yuko actually knew what he truly meant when he said she was important to him. He was not really one to play and enjoy mind games but he knew it could be difficult to get his real feelings to reach her. She was a hard nut to c***k. The type who never really idealized romance and had always considered intimacy a piece of baggage rather than comfort, not even a commodity. It was a burden for her, and love had always been absent in her life. He had never really seen her meet anyone outside of work. 

Was she really not into the idea of relationships? He even once believed that she was asexual. Or perhaps, she really was. He just could not tell because she was mostly busy and too recluse. She did not really like sharing too much of her personal life. He would not even know how big and close her family was really like if he had not shown up uninvited in her hometown last time. And that had been the very first time for him to see her in a different light. It was really unexpected and too out of her character. 

Kyouhei could not believe that she had been living a completely warm and normal life underneath that icy cold exterior she always put up around her. For some reason, it made him realize that he really knew nothing about her, not in the very least. And the only thing that had been really tying them together since the very beginning was all just business and his own political background. She never really considered him anything more than that.

He was just a client.

"We're not really what we are, aren't we?" he asked out loud, musing bitterly to the conclusion he just came up with. Yuko shot him a curious glance and frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing..." he sighed loudly, "I have something to tell you, Yuko-san," he then added, looking away as he moved his eyes up towards the ceiling and mustered enough courage to say what he wanted to say. Was he really going to say it?

Yuko froze in her seat upon hearing him. She can tell that it was not going to be a good thing the moment he said it in a way that she felt she was not yet ready to hear it. What was it now? But she was curious, her brows knitting together as she looked his way and stare at him. He was all slouched down on the couch. The clock on the wall across her desk said it was not even half an hour past nine. She kept her silence and waited, anxious about what he was going to tell her.

Kyouhei sighed loudly. "I want to get married and have kids."

What?

In the first few seconds, Yuko thought she heard it all wrong. Did he just really say that? It was almost like a joke but she did not find it funny... Not even a little. She thought he was drunk for a moment, the only valid reason she could think of that would make him spout nonsense. And come to think of it, he even showed up way too early here in her office just to meet her. He must be really out of it. 

"I'm not kidding," Kyouhei added with a slight emphasis on his words as if reading her mind even when he was not really looking at her. Then he sighed again. "I really want a family of my own."

Then go and have them.

"I understand," Yuko remarked, masking her indifference, "It's not like I'm prohibiting you to have that and meet someone. As long as you're doing it for a good cause and the person you want to be with is a good person too, nothing's wrong with it. You don't have to ask permission from me."

"That's not what I meant, Yuko," he heavily intoned, turning his head as he spoke and looked her way with deep dark eyes as he continued, "I do want a family, but not just with anyone else. I want you to marry me."

Her?

Flashbacks of Emperor Shin started playing in her head. Yuko felt like she had been transported in a time warp for a moment and she lost her sense of reality. She almost freaked out but resisted a grunt as she clenched her fists and tried to look as calm as she could. Shin getting stabbed, Rei looking down on him... Rei with those ruthless eyes, raising the sword over Shin's body until...

SPLAT.

SPLAT.

SPLAT.

SPLAT.

HISS...

"NO."

The word had already come out of her mouth before she could even realize what she just said to him. Then Kyouhei suddenly stood up and walked towards her, frowning softly.

"Yuko--"

"STOP!" she exploded, glaring at him in fury, "Why are you saying this to me? What are you trying to get out of this kind of game? Are you mocking me?!--"

"No!" Kyouhei strongly shook his head, "I don--"

"--You think? That just because you have been so nice and good and charming and got all the good characteristics of an ideal guy you think women would fall for you so quickly. And I could fall for it too?! I don't have time for this," she went on, scoffing, her voice getting louder, "I'm not going to let you make me feel like this. Why are you messing things up?!"

She ranted out, her face contorted into a deep scowl as she found herself standing up behind her desk while catching her breath. Her heart was pounding... her mind was so clouded by the past scenes of Shin's death replaying back and forth. This was pure torture and she felt helplessly trapped. Kyouhei looked so torn.

"I didn't mean it that way, Yuko. I--"

"STOP. CALLING. ME. YUKO," she angrily ordered. Her eyes glaring harder. Her voice raised higher. She was in a rage.

"I don't want to hear anything about what you just said right now," she said after a moment when she finally calmed down. She avoided looking at him, refusing to see what he looked like right now. She was too angry to stare at him, aware that she would see Rei's face as well and it would just make her feel madder.

Kyouhei did not say anything. He really thought he could try to reason out to her. He thought he could make her understand his feelings. He might have been pushing it too far, but he was serious. He felt pain inside his chest, his body going cold as he gazed at her, with a sad look in his eyes.

She was drifting away.

"From now on," she said to him with a pause, not looking at him as she spoke, "You and I would only talk about business. You're my client. I am your publicist. I don't want to ruin what we have right now, Kurosaki. So please, don't mess this up. We only have one goal. Let's focus on that."

She was indirectly telling him to forget and give it all up. His feelings did not worth anything at all. He should have known. It was so obvious she was pushing him away. She can never feel the same and he felt like weeping. He lost her completely.

Was this the end?

"Right," he found himself replying back, almost as if his mouth had its own mind and he just went with it then he said, "I understand... I know what's important. Don't worry. I'm still going to run for the Prime Minister position. You still have me... Amazawa-san."

The sound of her name when it rolled over his tongue, felt extremely strange and foreign. It actually felt like he was saying it for the very first time again and he could not get the sound right. It just did not feel fitting. He stood a meter away from her desk, not knowing what to do next and he waited for a few seconds.

Then she said, after a long silence, "Go."

She did not even bother to spare him a glance. She turned her back on him and said, "Leave now. I still have a lot of work to do."

It felt like a dream when he had walked out of her office. He did not even know if he ever said anything back when he walked away. He was staring blankly into space until he found himself riding the elevators down to the main lobby to leave the building. His whole body moved on its own, his mind in someplace else. Until he got to his car, parked at the space beside the building. He got into the driver's seat, his mouth drawing a bitter smirk on his face. What the hell did he just do?

Yuko stood inside her office. The door shut closed and had been for a while now. She stood and was still staring down the floor. Her face unreadable, her eyes hollowed. She can't even feel anything but a chilling sensation running down her spine. She could still see the flashbacks in her mind, for several times Emperor Shin had been stabbed in the heart repeatedly... then she watched the look on Rei's face when he did it to him. He never even displayed any form of remorse... It was complete hatred. 

The entire betrayal. What a twisted reality... This was not just revenging anymore. This was a whole new kind of torture.

------------------------------------------------------------------------next chapter: Chapter Forty-Four