Theme 6: Kaidou
Title: Reunion
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: G
Years must have passed and she thought she would not feel so nervous upon meeting him. His attendance was to be expected (and well publicized), being that it was her Father's funeral. Despite the two men no longer being in the same party anymore, once upon a time, Kaidou had been her father's protégé - and once upon a time, her childish heart had ached for him. It had been a long time since, at least that was how it should have felt like now.
He stood and looked even more distinguished than before, his dark, fitted suit gave him a distinctly sharp and well cut silhouette. His pretty wife held on tightly to his curious daughter a step behind him, as a proper woman who yielded the spotlight to her political husband aught. Rei met his proud dark eyes and was suddenly unsure of how to feel about him or his presence. Should she be relieved, angry, apathetic or something else all together different?
She no longer adored him, as she had when she had been only a child. The sight of him putting his hand on his wife's shoulder no longer filled her with despair or envy or heart break. No longer did he even have the power to fill her eyes with tears, not any more than the man who was being buried into the ground that day. In fact, if she was honest, even at her most desperate of moments, perhaps her Father still had more influence on her still. Once she had loved that man too, but Rei had learned that Love, burning hotly as it did in her breast, could be unbound and unraveled like a frayed string holding onto too much weight while lacking support.
She remembered how her impetuous youth had given her courage to take her first kiss but could not protect her from the reality outside of her fantasies. She watched his face and could see the angles that were still attractive and had many times attracted her, even as she had grown older. She had read newspapers and passed television stores, catching glimpses of him at the street corners of Shibuya. She remembered pausing at the sight of his profile in her teenage years, suddenly visited by the memory of how the nape of his neck and the softness of his hair had felt against her fingers as she pulled him down. She had recalled many times, how his hand had burned passed the white of her miko robes at her wrist and the scent of fleeting cherry blossoms, as fleeting as courage and hope and happiness.
A leader of his own party now, he was quite like everything she had once told him she despised, but she found that she still could not hate him after all the disappointments he represented.
"Rei-san, you've grown," Kaidou greeted her after the ceremony was over and the guests gave their condolensces at her father's house. He had that same charismatic smile that she had often seen her father use and had come to loath, he had the same scent as a man with ambitions and power and too little room in his heart for real love. "You're as beautiful as your mother was," he added his eyes scanning her face but politely straying no further. Despite his facade, his eyes were tight and his hand shake briefer than was customary. He gave himself away, but only because she had known him before he learned to wear such elaborate masks.
"Thank you," she answered with all the gravity she was due to show. "I am glad to see that Kaidou-san has fulfilled all the expectations my father surely had for you when he took you as his assistant."
"Ah, you are too kind," he replied while his wife gently tugged on his sleeve to remind him to introduce her and their child. "I'm not so skilled to deserve such praise, it was all thanks to your... late father." His expression was very somber when he said this, and she thought politician's were all such great actors. He was also polite enough not to ignore his wife's insistence too long, but her eyes were as sharp as his. "This here is my wife, Kaidou Sanae, and our daughter, Mai."
By the friendly expression she was given by the woman and the warm, genuine greeting, Rei doubted the other knew anything about her or Kaidou's associations with her beyond the basics. "Nice to meet you," she answered politely. "I have heard much about you from my husband. He was very fond of you when you were a child. It is almost like meeting another daughter or a young sister-in-law," Sanae told her with a gentle, nervous laugh. Rei doubted Sanae truly knew anything about her, and being a daughter or sister to Kaidou would probably be the last thing to describe their relationship. "If only it were under better circumstances," the woman added regretfully.
"Yes, but thank you for coming," she answered instead. "My father would have appreciated it, Sanae-san."
"Your father," Sanae said, grasping her hand. "He was truly a good man. He introduced my husband to me, after all, and because of him, my daughter is in this world. Even though politically my husband may not agree with your late father, we owe him much of our happiness!"
Rei smiled tightly at this and wondered, for a man who was able to spread so much supposed joy onto others, how had he managed to fail so badly at doing the same thing for his daughter? "We won't keep you, Rei-san." Kaidou interrupted his wife quickly, perhaps recognizing the look on her face. She had been utterly honest with him in her youth, and perhaps he may have remembered that fondness for her father was not something she had in her heart. Kaidou gave the line behind them a meaningful glance before looking back at her instead of his wife. "There are many guests here, because Hino-san was a great man indeed. Thank you for allowing us to come and pay our respects, Rei-san."
"Not at all," she said faintly as they left. Seeing him so close, Rei wondered why her heart stuttered so when there was nothing at all about him to love or even like, anymore. Perhaps she had been wrong about herself, about the feelings she had called frivolous and the hopes that he had inspired in her as a child, ones she had eventually believed to be no more than mere delusions.
Maybe she was getting heartburn, she corrected herself as she spent much of the evening thanking the other guests she knew nothing or little about. They all spoke highly of her father and so she ended up feeling nothing in common with any of them. Not that it really mattered in the end...
"There you are," Kaidou's voice surprised her out of her thoughts as she stood looking out over the city. "Most of the guests are gone, but I hadn't told you that you did a good job. There wasn't enough time..." he trailed off and she thought she heard implications in his words when he did not continue.
"Kaidou-san?" she asked, blinking at him but finding much of his expression hidden in shadows. The balacony was not a well lit place but it was private. "Where is your lovely wife and daughter?" she asked calmly. "She's quite pretty, as I remembered her being."
"She had to go clean Mai-chan up. Mai-chan is still too young to understand keeping food in her mouth," Kaidou answered easily, with his tone tinged with embarrassed amusement. As if there was not something suspicious in him coming to see her alone, as if she had not once kissed him and confessed her feelings of love and loneliness. But she had and she was not foolish enough to believe he had forgotten.
"They are both very lovely," she said at last, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked up to him. Silence settled between them. At last, Kaidou cleared his throat.
"I-I came to apologize," he finally spoke, breaking the silence. "I never had the courage when I was younger."
"Apologize?" she asked.
"You had feelings for me," he said after another long pause. "I didn't know how to deal with it, so I ran away from it."
"It was a long time ago, Kaidou-san. If you had felt nothing for me then, I don't understand why you would apologize for it now. It is the past and how I felt was not something you had control over."
"Rei," the too familiar way he spoke her name made her take a step back from him.
"You should go back inside," she told him instead. She was not a child anymore. The sight of him walking away would not weaken her knees and the denial on his lips would not blind her with tears. Time does not just heal wounds, it teaches. At least, that was what Rei told herself as he stood and looked back at her with that same, dark and quiet stare that once made her catch her breath. Yet, it was different now, more confident and far more guarded.
Her heart thumped but she was no longer a child ruled by only her heart. "You look so much like your mother," he finally said softly.
Her gaze was firm and she stood straight and proud. "I am not my mother, Kaidou-san. I am not a ghost nor would I settle for being treated as second rate to another's aspirations. And where once I had thought us kindred spirits, that is also no longer true." The wind blew through her hair and she clutched the fingers that still wondered if his hair felt the same and if his skin was still as hot. "Kaidou-san, I must go say goodbye to the remaining guests. You are welcome to stay out here as long as you like," she added the last part with a tilt of her chin and did not wait for his reply as she walked passed him. "Excuse me."
"I did care for you... in my own way, Rei," he told her softly. "And this, it was what was best for both of us at the time."
She heard him but she did not stop walking away or look behind her shoulder to meet his gaze or pause to speak more of regrets with him. He had been the second man to disappoint her and the first man she had ever kissed. Yet, she had long decided, that day when she had seen him smiling for another, that it was over. She had judged his heart long ago, on the side-walk by another woman - one who could help him achieve his political ambitions and be sated to be his shadow - and she had found him wanting.
Because for Rei, it would never be enough.
end
I'll be honest here. Kaidou, I'm meh about him. On the one hand, he reminds me of Jadeite with glasses... which is kind of sexy. On the other hand, he's the jack-ass that broke Rei's heart. And then, there's the fact that his face is probably why Rei reacts to him the way she does...
So like, do I really like Rei x Kaidou, not really. But, I do like cynical stories about them... If I had time, I'd have made this something different. Like: Kaidou, corrupt politician, meets Rei, girl from his past! [insert sound affects]
Hmm...maybe later... ne?
Genre: General/Drama
Version: Manga
Rating: G
Years must have passed and she thought she would not feel so nervous upon meeting him. His attendance was to be expected (and well publicized), being that it was her Father's funeral. Despite the two men no longer being in the same party anymore, once upon a time, Kaidou had been her father's protégé - and once upon a time, her childish heart had ached for him. It had been a long time since, at least that was how it should have felt like now.
He stood and looked even more distinguished than before, his dark, fitted suit gave him a distinctly sharp and well cut silhouette. His pretty wife held on tightly to his curious daughter a step behind him, as a proper woman who yielded the spotlight to her political husband aught. Rei met his proud dark eyes and was suddenly unsure of how to feel about him or his presence. Should she be relieved, angry, apathetic or something else all together different?
She no longer adored him, as she had when she had been only a child. The sight of him putting his hand on his wife's shoulder no longer filled her with despair or envy or heart break. No longer did he even have the power to fill her eyes with tears, not any more than the man who was being buried into the ground that day. In fact, if she was honest, even at her most desperate of moments, perhaps her Father still had more influence on her still. Once she had loved that man too, but Rei had learned that Love, burning hotly as it did in her breast, could be unbound and unraveled like a frayed string holding onto too much weight while lacking support.
She remembered how her impetuous youth had given her courage to take her first kiss but could not protect her from the reality outside of her fantasies. She watched his face and could see the angles that were still attractive and had many times attracted her, even as she had grown older. She had read newspapers and passed television stores, catching glimpses of him at the street corners of Shibuya. She remembered pausing at the sight of his profile in her teenage years, suddenly visited by the memory of how the nape of his neck and the softness of his hair had felt against her fingers as she pulled him down. She had recalled many times, how his hand had burned passed the white of her miko robes at her wrist and the scent of fleeting cherry blossoms, as fleeting as courage and hope and happiness.
A leader of his own party now, he was quite like everything she had once told him she despised, but she found that she still could not hate him after all the disappointments he represented.
"Rei-san, you've grown," Kaidou greeted her after the ceremony was over and the guests gave their condolensces at her father's house. He had that same charismatic smile that she had often seen her father use and had come to loath, he had the same scent as a man with ambitions and power and too little room in his heart for real love. "You're as beautiful as your mother was," he added his eyes scanning her face but politely straying no further. Despite his facade, his eyes were tight and his hand shake briefer than was customary. He gave himself away, but only because she had known him before he learned to wear such elaborate masks.
"Thank you," she answered with all the gravity she was due to show. "I am glad to see that Kaidou-san has fulfilled all the expectations my father surely had for you when he took you as his assistant."
"Ah, you are too kind," he replied while his wife gently tugged on his sleeve to remind him to introduce her and their child. "I'm not so skilled to deserve such praise, it was all thanks to your... late father." His expression was very somber when he said this, and she thought politician's were all such great actors. He was also polite enough not to ignore his wife's insistence too long, but her eyes were as sharp as his. "This here is my wife, Kaidou Sanae, and our daughter, Mai."
By the friendly expression she was given by the woman and the warm, genuine greeting, Rei doubted the other knew anything about her or Kaidou's associations with her beyond the basics. "Nice to meet you," she answered politely. "I have heard much about you from my husband. He was very fond of you when you were a child. It is almost like meeting another daughter or a young sister-in-law," Sanae told her with a gentle, nervous laugh. Rei doubted Sanae truly knew anything about her, and being a daughter or sister to Kaidou would probably be the last thing to describe their relationship. "If only it were under better circumstances," the woman added regretfully.
"Yes, but thank you for coming," she answered instead. "My father would have appreciated it, Sanae-san."
"Your father," Sanae said, grasping her hand. "He was truly a good man. He introduced my husband to me, after all, and because of him, my daughter is in this world. Even though politically my husband may not agree with your late father, we owe him much of our happiness!"
Rei smiled tightly at this and wondered, for a man who was able to spread so much supposed joy onto others, how had he managed to fail so badly at doing the same thing for his daughter? "We won't keep you, Rei-san." Kaidou interrupted his wife quickly, perhaps recognizing the look on her face. She had been utterly honest with him in her youth, and perhaps he may have remembered that fondness for her father was not something she had in her heart. Kaidou gave the line behind them a meaningful glance before looking back at her instead of his wife. "There are many guests here, because Hino-san was a great man indeed. Thank you for allowing us to come and pay our respects, Rei-san."
"Not at all," she said faintly as they left. Seeing him so close, Rei wondered why her heart stuttered so when there was nothing at all about him to love or even like, anymore. Perhaps she had been wrong about herself, about the feelings she had called frivolous and the hopes that he had inspired in her as a child, ones she had eventually believed to be no more than mere delusions.
Maybe she was getting heartburn, she corrected herself as she spent much of the evening thanking the other guests she knew nothing or little about. They all spoke highly of her father and so she ended up feeling nothing in common with any of them. Not that it really mattered in the end...
"There you are," Kaidou's voice surprised her out of her thoughts as she stood looking out over the city. "Most of the guests are gone, but I hadn't told you that you did a good job. There wasn't enough time..." he trailed off and she thought she heard implications in his words when he did not continue.
"Kaidou-san?" she asked, blinking at him but finding much of his expression hidden in shadows. The balacony was not a well lit place but it was private. "Where is your lovely wife and daughter?" she asked calmly. "She's quite pretty, as I remembered her being."
"She had to go clean Mai-chan up. Mai-chan is still too young to understand keeping food in her mouth," Kaidou answered easily, with his tone tinged with embarrassed amusement. As if there was not something suspicious in him coming to see her alone, as if she had not once kissed him and confessed her feelings of love and loneliness. But she had and she was not foolish enough to believe he had forgotten.
"They are both very lovely," she said at last, her eyes narrowing slightly as she looked up to him. Silence settled between them. At last, Kaidou cleared his throat.
"I-I came to apologize," he finally spoke, breaking the silence. "I never had the courage when I was younger."
"Apologize?" she asked.
"You had feelings for me," he said after another long pause. "I didn't know how to deal with it, so I ran away from it."
"It was a long time ago, Kaidou-san. If you had felt nothing for me then, I don't understand why you would apologize for it now. It is the past and how I felt was not something you had control over."
"Rei," the too familiar way he spoke her name made her take a step back from him.
"You should go back inside," she told him instead. She was not a child anymore. The sight of him walking away would not weaken her knees and the denial on his lips would not blind her with tears. Time does not just heal wounds, it teaches. At least, that was what Rei told herself as he stood and looked back at her with that same, dark and quiet stare that once made her catch her breath. Yet, it was different now, more confident and far more guarded.
Her heart thumped but she was no longer a child ruled by only her heart. "You look so much like your mother," he finally said softly.
Her gaze was firm and she stood straight and proud. "I am not my mother, Kaidou-san. I am not a ghost nor would I settle for being treated as second rate to another's aspirations. And where once I had thought us kindred spirits, that is also no longer true." The wind blew through her hair and she clutched the fingers that still wondered if his hair felt the same and if his skin was still as hot. "Kaidou-san, I must go say goodbye to the remaining guests. You are welcome to stay out here as long as you like," she added the last part with a tilt of her chin and did not wait for his reply as she walked passed him. "Excuse me."
"I did care for you... in my own way, Rei," he told her softly. "And this, it was what was best for both of us at the time."
She heard him but she did not stop walking away or look behind her shoulder to meet his gaze or pause to speak more of regrets with him. He had been the second man to disappoint her and the first man she had ever kissed. Yet, she had long decided, that day when she had seen him smiling for another, that it was over. She had judged his heart long ago, on the side-walk by another woman - one who could help him achieve his political ambitions and be sated to be his shadow - and she had found him wanting.
Because for Rei, it would never be enough.
end
I'll be honest here. Kaidou, I'm meh about him. On the one hand, he reminds me of Jadeite with glasses... which is kind of sexy. On the other hand, he's the jack-ass that broke Rei's heart. And then, there's the fact that his face is probably why Rei reacts to him the way she does...
So like, do I really like Rei x Kaidou, not really. But, I do like cynical stories about them... If I had time, I'd have made this something different. Like: Kaidou, corrupt politician, meets Rei, girl from his past! [insert sound affects]
Hmm...maybe later... ne?