A Moment in Time
Waking up early was not a common habit for one Tanaka Reina.
Even less likely when it was not for work. Reina wondered what sort of insanity she had tumbled into in agreeing to participate in her little protege's harebrained scheme. Her taste for mischief had not diminished as the years rolled on, and Reina was quite determined to stay young at heart, even if time chose to erode her outer shell. That was her way of thumbing her nose at nature's inevitable progress.
Still, this was not a prank, at least not in the usual sense. It involved deception, which appealed to the trickster in Reina, and the girly side of her positively squealed at the earnest effort little Riho was putting in for something like Mother's Day -- not that she would let her appreciation slip, of course. One had an image to maintain.
The display did, however, shame her into sending along a handwritten card along with the usual flowers she still sent on the day, as she faithfully did every year. Reina might be terrified of the cantankerous old bat -- a dangerous chill ran through her at the blasphemous thought -- but that didn't mean she didn't love her. They were both busy people, but they did make time to have meals together at least once or twice a year.
It was thus somewhat inconceivable to her how Riho was so abnormally (to her) attached to her Mama. Once upon a time, Reina imagined, she had felt close to her mother, but that seemed buried under that colossal mountain known as Work.
Reina had grown up practically on her own, since she did not have the benefit of a supportive extended family the way the Takahashi household had banded around Riho and her Mama. She had never met her grandparents, who had disowned her mother for being, ironically, too respectable. Reina knew little about the family history, but guessed enough to know that she probably didn't want to find out.
Her mother had proved too strong a character against her obviously weak-willed father, whom she did not recall, since the man either ran away or killed himself, depending on how cynical you wanted to be while listening to a mother's drunken rambles. Reina grew up relatively independent and able to hold her own in a scuffle, though she preferred to avoid them to begin with, if possible. Still, some fights could not be avoided, as was her inevitable involvement with delinquents during her younger days.
Such a far cry from those days, her idol self now. Reina eyed her nails with her usual alacrity, not bothering to suppress the yawn that came reflexively. Her bag bounced on her shoulder, weighted down by the parcel she was set to deliver to Riho. The invitation to come to her house was a surprise, though what surprised Reina most was how she had accepted it to begin with. She had taken a liking to the little tyke somehow, damn it.
It helped that Riho was quiet, obedient, and quick to learn. Reina's famous impatience could hardly find anything wrong with the Wonderbrat, except maybe with the singing, but the kid was young yet, and she at least possessed some sense of pitch. Reina's inner critic despaired of ever instilling that instinct into her dear cousin. Thank God for autotune.
The building was well maintained, though hardly spectacular. The general neighborhood was not particularly glamorous compared to her own, even though by some odd twist of fate, they were not located all that far apart. Had Reina really wanted, she could probably have walked there from home. Less than 2 kilometers away by her estimate, which was a trifling. Not that she would have walked there in heels. Or walked there, period. There was a somewhat unsavory neighborhood smack in the middle of their two districts, and Reina would never take such risks with her person. She had too much to lose.
With a fashionable beret on and famous face masked by her usual shades, Reina was convinced she looked no different from the average young woman on the streets. Going incognito became more of a imperative as the years passed; while early in her career she would have been more than happy to be noticed on the streets, time had eventually urged her to caution -- that, and growing fame made it difficult to do anything without people stalking her. While the attention was flattering, an older and hopefully wiser Reina had decided that having private time was more precious than she had reckoned.
Checking the address on her phone, she looked back up at the door. It had to be the right place. The wonders of GPS. Gone were the days when she ended up hopelessly lost! Technology was such a wonderful thing...once she figured out how to use it. Thankfully, her phone was more or less idiot-proof.
She rang the bell. The door opened between one yawn and the next, though she hid any signs of it quickly enough. The kid had to be parked right beside the door to open it that quickly. Smirking slightly in greeting, she lifted a small box out of her bag and waved it at Riho, who beamed widely in welcome.
Riho was prattling about one thing or another -- excitable little thing she was, really, though you wouldn't have imagined it of her -- and Reina nodded, not really listening. She turned her attention instead to her surroundings, which were quite spartan overall, but the inward progress into the tiny apartment yielded more signs of being lived in.
When Riho bounced forward to announce her, Reina's eyes caught sight of something on the table, an old photograph that had a visibly younger Riho and...
Her throat seized up. A ghost, it had to be. Ghosts from a past she tried to forget, though it still appeared in her dreams from time to time. She sucked in a deep breath, and turned.
Terror greeted her. For her part, Reina's eyes went absolutely blank, her brain doing the equivalent of CANNOT COMPUTE as seen in computers. This lasted but a mere moment, as she quickly recovered her composure -- outwardly, in any case -- and looked more closely at the teary-eyed woman on the couch.
That short hair, still mussed from sleep. It looked so different, yet so familiar, that a part of Reina almost reached towards it, but only sheer will prevented such an instinct. Her own eyes were hard, to mask the shock she was feeling, her posture wary, like a cat about to bolt.
The tear-streaked face...tears had not been a big part of those long-buried memories. Those long forgotten days were possessed of an innocent joy that excluded the need for them. The days that followed though...Reina felt her heart squeeze, then harden painfully at the memory. That time of her life shamed her deeply, a shame that she could never quite bury because one other person -- her dear cousin, Sayu -- had been privy to the depths to which she had sunk.
Those feelings of weakness, of vulnerability...all that was in the past. She had moved on past them, and no longer had any use for them. Useless emotions, that was all. She amused herself toying with young men, breaking hearts with the carelessness of a child, and never ever opened up her heart to anyone. No good could ever come of being open to others. It only ever allowed for betrayal.
This grim memory jolted her back into present times, and her own voice sounded distinctly clipped as she mouthed the usual formality, even managing a tiny upward quirk of the lips to suggest some sort of smile -- though no Oscars would be won for it.
Riho seemed unaware of the tension brewing in the room, and Reina briefly envied her for it. To be young and ignorant again! She watched with a steely glint in her eye as Riho catapulted back into Ai's arms with a contented sounding 'Mama~' emerging from her lips.
The perfect image of mother-daughter bonding would have been disgustingly sweet in any other situation, but it only made Reina cold in this case. She stood awkwardly at the edge, unsure of what she should do.
It was Riho who made that decision for her, bounding back to retrieve the case that Reina had obtained for her. Reina watched dumbly as Riho opened the box for her Mama (who just as obviously was hyperaware of Reina's presence), and in moments the room was filled with the haunting notes of an orgel.
Reina watched as Ai's eyes softened at the music, a motherly tenderness directed at her daughter, and inexplicably felt a kind of jealousy at the situation. Riho was beaming to see her final gift so well received, though even Reina had to let slip a hollow chuckle when Ai's next act was to rap her little girl's head and scold her for inviting a guest in to see her in so unglamorous a state. Riho looked suitably chastised, and did not need much a second smack to dash off in the direction of the bedroom to fetch a hairbrush.
And it was just the two of them, briefly, in that suddenly claustrophobic living room.
"Reina..." Oh, so she remembers me, thought Reina bitterly, though her face remained impassive. The idol glided closer, her stocking feet making nary a sound on the tiled floor. She stopped just short of the couch, looking down at the person she had not seen in a dozen years, a confusing gamut of emotions tangled in her chest.
Ai did not shy away from meeting her eyes. Their eye contact remained unbroken from when Riho exited the room, and even now, less than a foot apart, neither looked away. A whisper of thought reminded Reina of how things change. The Ai she knew could never have met her eyes so consistently, so bravely, so...so...honestly. There was something almost naked in that gaze, and it made Reina uncomfortable -- which irritated her more than she could ever say.
"That kid..." Reina began abruptly, the first words simply leaping off her lips as they crossed her mind. "She's yours?"
"Yes." This close, Reina could see the defiant set of her jaw, and briefly entertained the notion of running her fingers along it. She dismissed the thought as quickly as it came.
"You left because of her." The words came out in a rush; hypothesis, conclusion, accusation all. Her thoughts all in a whirl, Reina stood alone in that roaring vortex, a silent calm within that churning storm. She was calm because the other option was hysteria. She felt nothing because she would not.
"Yes." There was something unutterably sad in that honest gaze, but it did not conceal the determination within. Reina jerked back slightly when Ai stood, their faces finally level.
A moment of tense silence, and Reina twitched visibly when Ai stepped towards her, placing a tentative hand on her arm. She was about to shake the grip off, but Ai had already let go after a light squeeze and a whispered "we'll talk later" before stepping past her to greet Riho with a smile on her face.
Reina's own expression was unreadable as Ai left Riho instructions to entertain their guest while she freshened up. She had half a mind to leave just then, but some perverse instinct made her stay. Her younger, more impetuous self might already have stormed out long ago, but Reina had learned a kind of stillness over the years. The kitten of yore had matured into a seasoned predator, and deep down, she wanted answers. She needed, no, demanded an accounting.
Her arm still burned where Ai had touched her. Reina wondered what it would take to exorcise old ghosts from the past, and hoped, not for the first time, for an end to it all.
And then what dreams would come?
Reina did not know. She could not.
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Preliminaries. Riho being there makes things difficult, but also interesting, in a way...