Advent '09 [22/25]
Advent 09
December 22nd - 3 days to go
Sho woke confused.
The reason of his confusion is that he seemed to be propped up in a chair rather than lying in the bed he was sure he had fallen asleep in.
Had he sleepwalked? It would have been embarrassing if he had, he thought he had grown out of that phase when he was still in elementary school.
"So you're awake."
Ah, ok. Maybe he hadn't sleepwalked then, not if Reino had anything to do with it.
Wait...oh crap.
"Reino." Sho turned his head, trying to find where the platinum haired man was.
"Sho..." Reino purred, stepping out from the shadows directly behind him.
Sho suppressed a shiver. That had been one of the creepiest things he had seen in a long while.
"Well," Sho drawled, "as pleasant as this conversation is...I'm leaving now." He went to stand but found himself jerked back into his seat. His wrists bound to the armrests. "What?" he asked.
"Did you really think I would let you go so easily? Or give you the means to leave?" Reino stepped around from the back of the chair, trailing his fingers across Sho's shoulder and down his arm.
"You can't just keep me here! Let me go you crazy psycho."
Reino tutted mockingly. "Oh Sho, you wound me."
"I wish." Sho grumbled.
"I took great pains in getting you all set up so we could have a nice chat."
Sho stared at him. Yeah, he thought, chat. Then a thought struck him.
"Wait a minute, just how did you get me here without me waking up?"
Reino smiled, "You shouldn't worry about small things like that."
Sho felt the blood drain from his face. "So you drugged me then."
Reino laughed like he had said the funniest thing in the world. "I didn't need to. You're just an extremely heavy sleeper."
Sho didn't know what was worse - that Reino apparently could get into his room, that Reino could drag his unconscious body around the building without anyone noticing, or that he didn't even have the excuse of being drugged. Trying not to think about it he decided to draw the conversation away from the topic.
"So, where are we?" he asked politely...well, semi-politely at least. Reino would know he was planning something if he suddenly started acting all nice to him and Sho really needed to know where he was so he could try and figure out if he could escape or if help was going to arrive.
Reino just spread his hands out to his side, palms up. "Still in the hotel, if that's what you're wondering."
Sho felt relieved. If he was still in the hotel then that meant that sooner or later someone would find them and he'd be free. He just had to stall, maybe figure out what Reino was up to...subtly of course.
"What are you up to?" Inside Sho cringed. Obviously he'd been hanging around Kyoko to much if he'd become that blunt. The thought of Kyoko send a sharp stab of pain through his chest.
Reino chuckled, amused by Sho's lack of anything. "I just want to talk to you." He said, moving closer. "Well," he amended, "talk to you and Kyoko-chan."
Sho's face twisted into a frown. "What do you want with Kyoko?" He asked harshly, "What's your deal with her anyway?"
"Because!" Reino spat, darkness swallowing his feature for a moment before he smiled again. "It doesn't really matter, Kyoko-chan will get here soon and then we can have a nice discussion."
Sho felt ill.
-/-
After her outburst two days ago, Kyoko had been sure that Sho would stay as far away from her as possible. She had said many things to him, most of them completely uncalled for even before she had found out what Ren had done.
She had been feeling guilty about it and had spent all yesterday coming up with many different plans that would allow them to make up again. Most of them were discarded before she even put them on paper.
As it was she had fallen asleep last night at a complete loss of how to fix it.
So it was reasonable to say that she was surprised when she found a note pushed under her door from Sho asking her to meet him in one of the rooms to talk.
Seeing this as a perfect way to apologise for what she said, she immediately got dressed and went to find him.
The room was hidden away in one of the furthest corner of the building and it took a while to work out where it was. She spared a few seconds to wonder why exactly Sho would want to meet her in such an out of the way place but she reasoned to herself that he probably just didn't want an audience.
The press had doubled their efforts to get into the hotel after someone leaked the news of their public argument.
Shrugging to herself she opened the door, calling out as she did so.
It wasn't until she saw Sho tied to a chair that she realised that she had been lured into a trap.
-/-
Sho could only look on in horror as Kyoko walked straight into Reino's hand. She seemed to realise it too if the look in her eye was any indication.
"Sho?" She asked anyway.
Sho was a little surprised to hear a complete lack of hostility in her tone of voice, but he couldn't dwell on that thought for too long as he was more concerned with the looming shadow that was materialising behind her.
"Hello, Kyoko-chan."
Kyoko gave out a startled squeak and spun around, only to come face to face with Reino who had bent down until his face was level with hers. She stumbled backwards, trying to get away, until she bumped into the chair Sho was sitting on.
"What are you doing here?" She asked, and Sho was impressed that there was only a faint hint of a tremor in her voice.
"We've been waiting for you, isn't that right Sho?"
Sho scowled. "I still don't understand why you've brought her into this. It's not like we're friends." He added, unable to keep the bitterness away.
Kyoko flinched.
Reino smiled to himself, "Ah yes," he mused, "The infamous argument. Nevertheless, friends you may not be but that isn't what the problem is."
"There's a problem?" Sho asked, twisting his wrists to try and loosen the ropes.
"Of course there's a problem."
There was silence for a moment before Kyoko worked up the courage. "What's the problem?"
Reino grinned at her, showing off far too many teeth for it to be innocent...if anything he did could ever be classified as that. "Why, you are."
Kyoko's eyes widened and she took a step closer to Sho, leaning against him.
Sho didn't know why though, it wasn't as if he could actually stop Reino in the state he was in.
"You see," Reino said, ignoring his two guests for the moment. "I like to destroy things. It keeps me entertained. But copies just don't have the same thrill as originals.
"That's why I went after out darling Sho-kun. Of course, nothing I did ever seemed to make a mark on him." Reino frowned, "I tried everything that I could think of, using all the tricks that I knew had worked before, but still..."
He turned to Kyoko and took a step towards her, a maniacal gleam in his eye. "I was getting frustrated. No one had ever come through like that. I grew desperate. And then you came in and I realised that I had been going about this all the wrong way.
"To destroy him, I'd have to destroy those things he loved, and I had foolishly believed that it had been the material possessions."
Sho made a sound of denial at the statement.
"I saw how he acted towards you. How you acted towards each other..." he took another step forward. "And I realised then that the only way to destroy his would be to take away you."
"What?" Kyoko asked faintly.
"Don't you see?" Reino implored, "He had to see me. I was the one putting all this effort into it. He should only have been focused on me. But then you came along," he snarled, "and all Sho could see was you even though I was right there.
"I had to do it. I had to make it so that whenever he looked at you he only saw me."
"That's why you did it?" Kyoko choked out.
"Of course. But it still didn't work. Sho still saw you! Even now he only sees you. So I decided that you had to go. If you went then Sho wouldn't get distracted by you.
"Only that didn't go according to plan either - leaving you trapped together for two days. Two days! Where I could do nothing! And he nearly died."
Sho and Kyoko just stared at him, unable to fully believe what they were hearing.
"But I have a new plan now. One that will get you out of the way for good."
Kyoko swallowed and took another step back until Sho was between her and Reino.
"Come, Kyoko-chan," he said, "I promise you this will work."
"No it won't." The soft voice of Sho stopped Reino in his tracks.
"What?" he asked.
"I said, 'No it won't'," Sho repeated, his voice becoming stronger. "No matter what you do, if your goal is to make me forget about Kyoko then it's going to fail.
"Because every time I look at you all I will see is her."
Reino took a sharp step back, his feature twisting into a grimace.
"Whatever you're planning, it will fail."
Sho sounded so certain that Kyoko could not believe in anything other than what he had just said. She felt flattered but also extremely guilty.
"If you want me to see you," Sho continued, looking at Reino, "then you have to make me see you without forcing me."
Reino looked torn for a moment before he blanked his face. He glanced at Kyoko who was still standing behind Sho.
"This isn't over." He spat out eventually, "I will get you and destroy you in the end." He turned and exited the room.
Sho just watched him go apathetically. He vaguely registered that he had just invited Reino to practically double his vendetta against him. If vendetta was even the right word...but Kyoko seemed to be safe for the moment and for the foreseeable future which was good.
"Sho?"
Sho snapped his head around to look at Kyoko who was still standing behind him nervously.
"Could you undo these ropes?" He asked, not wanting to get into a conversation with her lest she start to yell at him again and blame him for what Reino had tricked her into today. His emotions just couldn't handle it right at this moment.
"Oh, yeah. Sure."
Kyoko kept her head bowed as she worked at the knots, refusing to even look at him. Sho stared at the ceiling, wanting to just curl up and go back to bed.
After he had switched rooms of course.
The ropes gave way and Sho stood, massaging his wrists.
"Sho?" Kyoko asked again, timidly.
"I'm sorry about this." Sho said, refusing to look at her. Instead he walked over to the door. "I honestly didn't think this would happen. Not that I think you'd believe me."
He murmured the last part but Kyoko still heard it. She winced. "Sho. I need to talk to you about what I said."
Sho grabbed the door knob and pulled, "I got the message, Mogami. You made it pretty clear. Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go and see about changing my room."
Kyoko watched him leave, guilt eating at her. She had wanted to apologise but it seemed that she had burned all her bridges with Sho.
She had no clue how to make this right.