UPDATE!!!!!
When Aya arrived at Hitomi’s condo, Mai and Ayaka have already left. By Hitomi’s request, she came by herself. Miki could join Yoshizawa’s staff at the office if she willed it, or go shopping… anything, really.
“What’s our agenda today, Matsuura-san?” Hitomi jested, with a formal tone usually reserved for the office.
Aya took a sip from the cup of freshly brewed coffee. “Well, your brother is worried about Rika-chan…”
“And he talks to YOU about it instead of me?” Hitomi laughed.
“He knows you wouldn’t talk.” Aya placed the cup on the glass coaster on the table. “Always acting tough… HA! … As if a woman has never left you…”
To Hitomi, that last sentence stung a bit, given the current situation that a woman really has left her and the fact that this just came from the reason a woman left her before, but she laughed it off. People don’t need to know about their minute offences. “I don’t know, Ayaya… so much had happened so quickly… I couldn’t believe it…” Hitomi held the glass of apple juice in her hand tightly. “One night, I rescued her from a kidnapping, then the next morning, she left. I don’t think I’ve even experienced that much action in a day ever. I don’t think I ever will…”
“Any measures you took to find her?”
Hitomi leaned back, sinking a bit into the couch. “Hired the Eyes… like everyone does…”
“I’ve never hired them.”
And although Hitomi knew, she just had to pretend that she didn’t. “No way!”
“Never”
“Seriously?”
“Yah.”
“How come?”
“Their services are to expensive!” Aya said, quickly followed by laughter. “Actually, my dad said I shouldn’t hire them… because your father hires them too much, I guess that stuck to mind…”
“Ah, yeah… that old man… wants to know everything all the time… … But isn’t the Eyes all secret and stuff? How the does your dad know that?”
“I dunno… he said he just knows…”
“You know what? I’ve always thought your dad was a weird one…”
“I thought you’d find your own father the weirdest of the bunch.”
“Maybe he is… I really don’t know what he wants… making Rika leave like that…”
“Oh, speaking of Rika… mom came over to our place some days ago… and we somehow drifted onto this Rika-situation…. And she was like ‘Rikacchi?’, and Miki and I were like ‘woah!’,” Aya recreated the look of surprise on her face which made Hitomi laugh out loud. “Yocchan, you okay?”
Hitomi held unto her sides as she tried her best to tame her laughter. “Yeah, go on”
“Mom said they were family friends… and like stuff like Rika and her sisters would come over to the house and play… stuff like that… now, I have absolutely no recollection of this going on… but isn’t it amazing how tiny our worlds really are? When I met Rika, I thought I was meeting somebody new, then my mom wrecks all that by saying that we’ve known Rika and her family since forever.”
“A small world, it is indeed…” Hitomi expression changed so suddenly, as Ayaya’s little anecdote reminded Hitomi more than she had wanted. “My father knew her father too, Ishikawa Yoichi… I don’t think I’ve met Rika and her family before… But To-san… I don’t know what to think anymore, Aya… I know it’s not the whole truth but he said that I am part of the reason why Rika’s father decided to kill himself… I know he just said that and in all likeliness, it’s all his agenda to bring Rika’s father to the edge…”
“You don’t need to blame yourself for all that happened, Yocchan… Like you said, it’s all probably just your father’s vendetta against whoever and it just so happened that you benefitted from his schemes… indirectly at that, mind you…”
“Yeah… but really, it’s my fault that my father even found Rika… That investment fiasco was the bomb” Hitomi tried to change the mood again, reminding Aya that the person she was talking to was just around the same age.
“Ah… That got everybody in the boardrooms talking… The older folk were all speculating if Rika had something to do with the merger and some were already thinking that Yoshizawa-group would block her from investing… Haha… who knew old men could be such gossip-mongers?”
“Indeed… I bet To-san just pieced everything together… despite all my efforts to hide all those transfers… Ayumi was chasing banks all over! If Mai had to do all that, she would still be working on all those transfers like a month later…”
“Seriously, Yocchan, you should learn to hide some money under the mattress like us normal people.”
“Money under the mattress doesn’t earn interest…”
“Yoshizawa-san, money under the mattress don’t need so much paperwork to be moved around”
“You have a point there… I was never the type to mind the costs so much as long as it served its purpose but I cringed at every dollar I had to spend bribing whoever to get everything done as neatly and quickly as possible…”
“I always thought that Yoshizawas were used to that”
“We are… it’s a family heritage! … I think Ken doesn’t have it in him though… But I think it’s for the best….”
“Your brother couldn’t bribe anyone to save his life!”
“Well, having kept me and To-san away from him have their perks and disadvantages”
“He doesn’t know how to court a girl!”
“And he said if Rika wasn’t mine, he’d woo her… Yeah, right…”
The two laughed like the young adults they really were, unimpeded by the protocol of the corporate scheme.
“It’s good that we’ve spoken like this again, isn’t it, Yocchan?” Aya started, recovering from the all the laughing and whatnot.
“Yeah… makes everything a wee bit more bearable…”
“Are you still going to look for Rika?”
“Hmmm…” Hitomi slowly and carefully set her feet on the floor firmly. “Miki said she saw Rika at the airport., right?” She placed her hand on the backrest of the couch for support as she stood up.
Aya offered her hand in assistance but Hitomi gestured that it wasn’t necessary. “Yeah… She said she was sure it was Rika… Thanks to all that… *sigh* …”
Hitomi walked from the couch to the corridor between the rooms, and behind her followed Aya.
“At least I’m not the only one not getting any~”
“Hey!”
“Rika’s probably back there… Japan…” Hitomi walked up to the last door and pushed it open. “Suppose, I follow her back there?” She went on inside, turning the lights and the AC on.
“How the hell do you plan to find her?!”
Hitomi walked on to the violin stand she set beside the baby grand. She carefully picked the instrument up. “I found her before…” Hitomi carefully plucked the strings, and listened to the barely audible, weak notes. “…I can do it again”
Aya simply watched Hitomi tune the violin and play a scale in D minor, her long fingers finding their lots precisely on the fretless fingerboard of the viol.
“Alright, It’s all set…” Hitomi began tapping her foot…
One, two, three, One, two three… “Do you like Faust?”
Hitomi didn’t wait for an answer, as it was irrelevant. And as the bow slid against the strings, a familiar tune began to fill the room. One from a Yoshizawa-sponsored event. It sounds differently now without the cello. But the song was still as powerful and foreboding as the performance from their childhood.
Aya simply kept her eyes on Hitomi like she had never done before and as the tension in the melody grew, Hitomi began to seem like a totally a different person.
Hitomi’s virtuoso shone on the backdrop of the menacing tune.
And as if by some trick, Aya could hear more… Like a string quartet, at the very least... It must be her imagination… nonetheless, it sent her chills.
~~~
no zings here... just writing aout of pure boredom...
Topic: Runaway from the Past (Read 372959 times)