Welcome to Mizer House, Ch. 11/x

Jul 26, 2010 02:04

Title: Welcome to Mizer House
Chapters: 11/x
Author: konicoffee
Genre: School life, Slice of Life, Romance, Drama, AU, Humor?, Crack, Smut (some chapters)
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
Warnings: Extreme OOC-ness, language
Rating: R
Pairings/Characters: Kai/??? (open pairing)
Bands: The GazettE, ScReW, Malice Mizer, Alice Nine, An Cafe, SuG, more to be added later
Synopsis: Kai is in high school. He lives in an all-male dormitory with bizarre and quirky, but extremely attractive residents. Adventures, drama, and temptation fill the interiors of Mizer House. Premise is roughly based on Koko wa Greenwood.
Comments: Kai's answer to the confession and the identity of Kanna's father revealed.

Chapters: {Cast} {One} {Two} {Three} {Four} {Five} {Six} {Seven} {Eight} {Nine} {9A} {Ten} {10A}




After a few seconds of my mind going completely numb and unable to process anything, I found myself in Reita and Takeru’s room. Kanna was sleeping on Reita’s bed, nuzzling a knitted stuffed bunny. I was looking after her. And then there was Takeru sitting beside me. He was smiling, but he looked serious. I wanted to laugh out loud at the sight of Takeru’s usual wide, silly grin gone from his features.

Then I remembered what he just said. Something about an apology. For telling me that he liked me.

Oh.

I merely blinked at Takeru. I knew my mind was working somewhat, since I was able to recognize him and I fully remembered what he just said. But one of the gears of my mind must have had a screw loose. I couldn’t put together a coherent sentence. “That guy…bathroom…you?”

The skinny guy tilted his head to the side. He looked just as confused as I was. “You mean you don’t remember me telling you?”

Still unable to construct an intelligible statement, I shook my head. My heart pounded hard against my chest. Was I supposed to remember?

“But you answered me.”

My eyes widened as my heart ascended to my throat. I could only vaguely recall sitting on the bathroom floor and listening to him ramble, but I did not remember responding. Not once. I went spelunking through my memory, desperately trying to remember that moment. I searched, but I found nothing of me giving an answer. Not one that I put thought in, anyway.

“Wh-what did I say?” I asked nervously.

Takeru let out a sigh and looked away from me. He looked in Kanna’s direction and smiled again. “You told me you don’t swing that way,” he replied. “That’s why I’m apologizing.”

My brain resumed regular operations, and my heartbeat slowly returned to normal. The air wasn’t as stifling anymore, and the awkwardness in the air had loosened its grip on my neck. Okay. So at the very least I didn’t have to deal with rejecting him. I thanked my lucky stars that I was too incoherent to feel uneasy when I did.

I looked at Takeru again, still thinking of what to say to him. He didn’t seem sad, but I still felt guilty for…dumping him.

Man, that sounded weird.

“Well,” I blurted out, making no attempt at trying to sound like I had something wise to say. “No, I don’t swing that way, Takeru. I’m sorry.”

Takeru looked at me again, his smile still plastered on his face. “Don’t be sorry, Kai,” he responded. “It’s alright. I don’t either.”

If I wasn’t confused earlier, I was now. He just admitted that he was the one who talked to me last night. The same dude who told me that he liked me. Me. A guy in fucking body and mind. And now he was saying he’s supposedly straight. Clearly I was missing something.

He must have caught the confused look on my face as he spoke again. “I thought about it,” he said. “And I realized that I was just convincing myself to like you to get over my loss.”

His response didn’t make me any less confused. “Loss? What do you mean?”

Takeru’s smile widened, but to my surprise, he looked anything but happy. If anything, he looked like he was going to crumble any second. “My best friend,” he said, almost whispered. “He…”

Before Takeru could finish, we heard Kanna whimper as she squirmed in Reita’s sheets. She slowly opened her eyes as she crawled out of the blanket while still hanging on to the handmade stuffed bunny Reita gave her. The child rubbed her eyes and squinted at us.

As if totally forgetting about Kanna’s little accident, Takeru grinned at the little girl. “Hello Princess,” he greeted her. “Did you sleep well?”

Still squinting, Kanna gave Takeru a smile and nodded as she stretched her short arms. Her eyes widened slightly when she looked at me. Her smile, on the other hand, widened more than just a little. “Daddy!” She squealed as she crawled to my direction and threw her arms around me.

I wasn’t sure what expression I had on my face when I caught Kanna with my chest. I must have looked weirded out as Takeru gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Relax, she calls everyone that.”

Kanna snuggled against my chest. Reita was right - it was hard not to feel sorry for her. It was so apparent how badly she wanted even just a semblance of a father figure. I set my hands on the little girl and gently patted her back. With that my stress slowly faded away.

She lifted her head and looked at me. “Read me a story, Daddy.”

I turned to look at Takeru. The blond raised his eyebrows at me and chuckled. “Don’t look at me, I think I’ve taken enough damage today.”

“Um…you were telling me something about your best friend.”

“That’s not important.” His lips formed a grin, the grin I saw on him everyday. Obviously, he was trying to make it look like nothing happened. “Don’t run away from responsibility, Daddy.”

I rolled my eyes at the blond and directed my attention back to the pleading little girl in my arms. For a moment I tried to figure out creative ways to make freshman Japanese history seem like a fairy tale.

It wasn’t too long before it occurred to me that I knew someone who kept children’s books. He kept them for no particular reason apart from being a dork.

I sat on Nao’s bed, suddenly wondering what the hell I was doing there. I did remember going there with Kanna so we could borrow one of Nao’s books for me to read to her. I was quite ready to do the job, so I wasn’t sure how Nao ended up with Kanna on his lap, reading to her and looking like he was actually enjoying it. It took an army of high school boys to tire Kanna out enough to get her to keep still, but here was my best friend, calmly reading to her while she sat quietly, eyes fixed on the pictures on Nao’s books.

Who would have guessed the dork was an expert babysitter? In addition to being a mutant with photographic memory, of course.

With nothing better to do, I pondered about Takeru and our conversation. He probably didn’t want to talk about it anymore even if I asked, but I was still curious about his “loss.” It was something about his best friend. Takeru was friends with everyone, and now that I thought about it, I couldn’t tell which one of the people he hung out with was closest to him.

I then wondered why he convinced himself to like me, of all people, for a reason like “getting over a loss.” I wanted to know what I had that reminded him of his best friend, whoever he was, wherever he was. And I was curious as to what could possibly have happened between Takeru and his best friend, and why he thought he needed to try to convince himself that he was gay.

Then I heard Nao giggling with Kanna. It really was no surprise Kanna enjoyed Nao’s company; he could be an idiot when he wants to be, but he’s a good guy. Looking at him made me question how badly it would mess me up if my friendship with Nao ever had to end.

Everything stopped as we heard a knock on the door and Byou’s voice afterwards.

“Kanna’s mother is here.”

We rushed downstairs to find the other residents already at the lobby, crowding around a guest. Kanna squeezed her way through, and we knew she found the guest as “Mommy!” resonated in the halls with a woman’s soft sobbing following shortly. One by one, the guys moved to clear the way for Nao and me. And at almost the exact same time, we saw the woman and froze. She looked familiar.

“Megumi,” slowly broke away from Nao’s mouth.

It was the girl from the ramen house he worked in. The girl he really, really liked.

Megumi later explained that Kanna’s father, Teruki Nagata, was an alumnus of Malice and used to live in Mizer. Kanna misunderstood when her mother told her about it. Thinking her father still lived here, the child must have snuck out to find him. As for the whereabouts of Kanna’s father, Megumi said that he found a job in another country, and he was working on getting her and Kanna to live with him there soon.

As Megumi apologized to us profusely, I watched Nao stand behind a random guy (I think it was Aoi) and just stare at her while he hid. His face was coated in sheer shock. He obviously didn’t know that she was married, and he obviously had no idea that she had a child. He looked like he was about to fall apart.

I jumped a little when it was Kanna who burst into tears and began wailing.

“What’s wrong, Kanna?” Megumi asked the child.

The little girl buried her face in her hands, struggling to talk between sobs. “I’m going to miss all of them. All of my Daddies. I…I don’t want to leave…”

Her words tugged violently at my heart. I didn’t know how the other guys felt, but at that moment, I wished she didn’t have to leave either. I held back my tears as I watched Megumi attempt to console Kanna.

The child didn’t stop crying. Not until Nao stepped forward and knelt down to hold Kanna in an embrace.

“If you stay here, your Mom’s gonna be lonely,” I heard him told her.

Kanna’s bawling slowly reduced to quiet sobs. She nodded before hugging Nao back. “I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you too, sweetheart. Now go. That’s a girl.”

We each took our turns saying our goodbyes to Kanna. Some simply waved at her, others patted her head, and still others gave her hugs. I was one of those who hugged her goodbye.

“You take care now, alright?” I whispered to her, holding her close. Yet again I held my tears as she snuggled up to me. It saddened me that only a few hours ago did I teach myself to get used to this warm feeling, and now I wasn’t going to feel it again anytime soon.

The little girl nodded and rubbed her eyes, as if keeping herself from crying again. She lifted her head and put her cheek against mine. Then she whispered.

“I think Daddy likes you too.”

Wait. Too?

I pulled away from her a little and looked at her, puzzled. First off, I didn’t look at any guy that way. I harbored absolutely no romantic feelings for any of the residents. What the hell was she talking about?

“Talk to him, Daddy. So you don’t have to talk to him in your dreams.”

Well, holy shit.

I breathed as I cranked up the battered machinery of my brain. Takeru told me that I dumped him (although I was near unconscious when I did), so it couldn’t have been him. She couldn’t have been talking about his confession.

I could only guess that I dreamt of someone and talked in my sleep. I then calmed down; people could have weird dreams of people they weren’t necessarily in love with.

Right?

Nao and I stayed out to see Megumi and Kanna off. I looked at Nao as he watched the two leave. He didn’t say a word as mother and daughter waved at us one last time and slowly disappeared from our view. I couldn’t entertain any other thought while I watched my best friend quietly stare at what was now an empty walkway.

We stood there for a few minutes. None of us moved, and none of us said anything. I waited for Nao to say something. Anything. Like “shit” at his horrible luck, or “I’m going to miss that kid,” or “good fucking riddance.”

I waited, but he said nothing.

So I spoke. “You okay?”

He stayed quiet and just smiled. Still standing beside me, he closed his eyes and lowered his head and rested his forehead on my shoulder. I looked at the walkway he was previously staring at, silently wishing for…no, I couldn’t wish for Megumi to come running back to Nao to give him a chance to sweep her off her feet. No matter how much he liked her, Nao just wasn’t that kind of person. He wasn’t someone who would wreck a happy home.

I closed my eyes as I felt Nao quivering beside me. The air was quiet save for his shaky breathing. As I wrapped an arm around him, the weight on my shoulder felt noticeably heavier. But it couldn’t have been anything compared to Nao's burden as his world came crashing down.

---

A/N: *dances* I'm writing, I swear I am. Just not regular fics. I've been loitering around x_akujunkan these days. Oh, you should join. It's awesome.

Chapter 12

[fic], pairing: kai/?, artist: crossover

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