My Muse

Chapter 19

His back crinkled against the leather of the familiar sofa. With his elbow propped on it's cushioned arm and his temple resting on just his finger, trying to ignore his therapists raising eyebrows as she processed everything coming out of his mouth. He was just waiting for the first snarky comment so he had a reason to leave this session early. God knew he wanted to.

He did after all, have places to be.

Kaoru glanced impatiently at his watch. Forty-five more minutes.

Then his ears perked up like a nosy puppy when she sighed and threw her notepad on the table. He pretended to look at his nails as his eyes shifted towards it to get a peak at what she wrote. But the pages looked crinkled and yellow with age. It didn't look like the usual notebook he'd seen her slouch over. This one had Hikaru's name on it.

"You can look at it." Inoue said.

He scoffed. "I don't need night terrors."

"There's a lot of back and forth between you two." She said, pulling his notebook. If he wasn't mistaken, his file seemed to be a lot small than Hikaru's. And his brother had only been to therapy six times. "I remember when he found out you had your first appointment with me. He was so angry at me. Like it was my fault, and threw coffee all over my desk. He kept shouting, demanding that I tell him what was 'wrong' with you. And when I finally told him it was because you were showing signs of PTSD because of his overdose, he cried until our session was over."

Kaoru threw his head back until his neck rested against the couch, and he stared at the ceiling. "And it's not like I have insomnia or anything. I'll just be thinking about it until 4am. It's fine. It's not like I have anything better to do." He rambled as she continued to talk over him.

"You were thriving again. For years you've stopped coming here. Your mother's retiring and named you the heir to her multi billion company. You're having your debut soon. But now you live in your brother's basement. You can't sleep. You've scheduled therapy for three days a week and now you're saying you're not going to throw away your inheritance. Because of Hikaru."

She looked away from the pen she was twiddling. Eyes piercing. "Do you understand how ass-backwards this is?"

He frowned. "I never said it was because of Hikaru."

"We've only been talking for seventeen minutes and you've said his name twelve times."

"Well stop counting everything!"

"What did he say when you told him?" Inoue demanded. "Did you tell him you quit because his mother doesn't want him making a pubic appearance at your show?"

"I haven't told him yet."

"Oh. I see."

"Don't write that down," he grumbled once she clicked her pen. "I don't care about how he feels about me. Besides- it's my business. You're worried that I'll make him regress, but how would he feel if he heard what she said about him?"

"So you canceling your show has nothing to do with him?"

"I'm allowed to be angry at her. She has no right to be ashamed of him."

"Don't you want a normal relationship with him? Wouldn't you rather look at him as a brother than a shadow of burdens you let follow you around? He adores you. He wants you to succeed, and he wouldn't want his relationship with your mom be your brick wall."

His lips tightened. "He's worked hard for what he has too. He got out of an abusive relationship and he's coping without his meds. He even has a girlfriend now." He stopped to think about yesterday morning, when he had just gotten up, to find his poor dear brother completely bewitched by that little lawyer girl as she had fed him his breakfast. I think.

"But now he's about to lose his inheritance to dad's company. He's up to his neck in a literal dumpster fire of debt. He can't even show his face in public anymore. How can I be okay with "succeeding"?"

"But you're okay with being the final straw that breaks his back?" She suggested.

The straw the breaks his back.

He mulled over her words with a grouch until his time ran out. And mulled over them as he left her office and made his way to the elevator. In which way was he breaking his back? Of course, he wasn't stupid. There was a reason why he hadn't told him yet. Hikaru would be furious. He'd drag him back to his office himself, kicking and screaming if he knew he canceled his show for any reason.

But it also wasn't something easy to let go. It wasn't easy to ignore all of the things being said about him in the papers. No matter how hard Hikaru tried at hiding all of his tabloids under the couch so he wouldn't see them. You can't stop people from talking.

It was something regular people couldn't understand. To climb up that ladder alone. While his brother's hand grew further and further out of his grasp. Out of his reach. As he left him behind. Was out of the question.

It was easier to stop. To wait for him-

"Stop!"

Kaoru's jumped, eyes widening as he quickly reached out in front of him on instinct, to stop the elevator's door from shutting as a messy heap with legs came stumbling towards him.

He backed into the corner so they'd fit, and watched as the mysterious person dropped their many bags out of their arms and fell against the back wall of the elevator, with a deep exhale, before they slid down the wall and onto their heels.

It was a girl, he saw, as she swiped her hand through her long bangs, and crinkled her nose in a distinct little frown as she muttered a solemn "Thank you."

"Somewhere to be?" He asked, amused.

Cheiko looked up past her hair. A sort of sideways smile appearing under the shadow of her nose seeing a familiar face. "Not really." She said dismissively. "Just wouldn't have been able to open the door by myself."

He considered that, looking at the armload of bags piled at each of her sides. "You could have put them down."

"I'd have to pick them back up."

He thought for a moment, then grinned. "You're right." He reached for one of the floor buttons. "Where are you off to then?"

"The lobby." She said.

"What a coincidence! So am I."

"Sometimes I feel like I'm being followed." She muttered a teasing whisper.

"I could say the same." He said, fake concern curling at his eyebrows. "I think we should make a run for it. If we go to the cafe down the street we might lose 'em."

She raised her brow. "That one that sells cake?"

He nodded wisely. "Particularly the one that sells cake."

Then he turned back to her and smiled. "If you don't mind the company."

The elevator doors opened but she took her time getting off the floor. Her eyes wandering from the pretty clip on his collar to the small dimples in his cheeks. It was hard to find her footing.

Hikaru used to look at her like that sometimes.

"Yeah," she said, eyes dimming slightly. "I'd like that."

She'd gotten home later before, but the stairs had never quite been this dark. They creaked with every step and kept her looking back, afraid that her shadow behind her could be someone hiding behind the corner ready to jump out and grab her.

She could taste the soap on her lips, that were still red and swollen from scrubbing them until they were raw, as she hunched over the sink in an old cafe's bathroom. But no matter how thoroughly she'd hard her mouth with that napkin, she couldn't quite wash away the taste of his tongue running over her teeth. Or the feeling of his fingers sinking into her throat.

Just the tickle of his mustache made the lower of her back shiver, like someone was scratching their nails under her shirt. She had to tighten her arms around herself just to keep her back from slouching falling over, but just until her legs drug her to the door to her apartment. Then, she was finally able to breathe, and smell the fresh air of her home rather than the stench of that old man that still lingered on her. The only thing being left to do was take a shower to scrub away the last bits of him.

But she was unpleasantly surprised when she opened the door and all she smelt was a stale breeze of tobacco.

She covered her mouth, about to puke.

Her bag fell from her tightly knitted fist and fell on her foot, when she saw the table, that was freshly polished this morning but was now hoarding a pile empty food containers and a tiny vintage saucer, with a cigarette butt sitting inside of it like it was a dirty ashtray.

He was sitting on the edge of the couch, leaning over that table, fingers running tenderly over the watch around his wrist. She almost didn't recognize him.

She couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice. "I thought you quit smoking."

Joichiro didn't look up, and she saw his jaw grind as his teeth bit into the gum in his mouth. "We've been really out of touch lately I guess."

"Because I thought you were supposed to be home three hours ago." He added.

Haruhi looked down at her wrist, but unlike him, she didn't have a watch. Strange. She did earlier. "...Is it late?"

"It's almost ten."

Her face cringed out of place, as she thought about Fujibayashi. "...Something came up."

"You were at his house again, weren't you?"

She frowned. "What?"

"You're always with him." His voice got louder, as he stood and her heart did a 180' into the back of her chest. "You know I've been calling you for the last two hours. I know your phone didn't die because I kept getting your voice mail. Were you ignoring me? was I interrupting something?"

He was talking too fast, and sounded too angry that her mouth just getting wider, until her lips were dry. Her hands patted her pockets, but her phone wasn't there.

"...I lost it," she mumbled regrettably, but that only emitted a bitter scoff.

"Where? between his sheets?"

She knew what he was implying. Why did everyone think of them that way? Why did they think of Hikaru that way? They weren't like that. They weren't even close. She'd kissed Fujibayashi one too many more times than She'd kissed Hikaru.

"We're not like that," she said, tired that she'd had to say it twice. "We've never done anything."

Joichiro's back was tensed. And she could see it when he turned it towards her as he ripped an ugly tabloid off the table. She'd seen that one before. "So this is what you consider work? Eating out with him out of town every weekend? and staying at his house all day. Do you think I wouldn't know? You even went to a hotel with him last week."

He shoved that picture of them close to her face. It was blurry, but she recognized where they were. It was in front of that skyscraper, where Hikaru had lunch with his father that day. She didn't know it was a hotel.

And the picture just happened to capture that moment Hikaru had hugged her. It was hard to explain.

"That's not what that looks like," she tried.

"My ass." She flinched when he threw it at her feet and the pages made a smack as the spine of the thin book spread open wide on the floor. "You're sleeping with him."

"I'm not." Her voice raised by accident, and she quickly bit her mouth closed. "He's-" She stopped. Because He's what? What was Hikaru? "just a friend."

The word 'friend' felt prickly in her throat. That seemed like dangerous territory. That was a line she felt they hadn't crossed yet. She'd never asked if they were friends yet.

His hand slammed against the door beside her head and her heart leaped to the bottom of her throat. She felt him as he leaned in closer. His breath and clothes musked with a bitterness that made her jaw hurt. Her back, aching from her position as she pressed harder against the door when his chest closed in on her.

"He's your friend?" he mocked her meekness. "You think someone like that is with you just to be your friend? He's buttered you up and you're eating right out of his hands. You've always patronized me over dropping out of school but you really think I'm that stupid-"

She gasped before she could stop herself. "I've never-"

"You know nothing about him and that's why you've made it so easy for him to stick it between your legs. You're like every other girl he leaves behind in hotel rooms. Except he has a reason to keep you around, and you're the only one who still believes he not the worthless piece of shit he is."

"Stop it." She managed.

"Do you know what he did to his ex-fiance?" He seethed. "He terrorized her until she went mad. And somehow blocked out everything he's done to her and says he can't even remember being engaged to her. He's mental."

"Stop," Haruhi begged, his breath making her eyes water. "You don't know that."

"People from his office are telling stories." He whispered against her neck. Her stomach curled in as his hand felt around her waist. "They're saying they've seen you and him kissing in the back of his Mercedes."

"That never happened-"

"Still, don't you think it's wrong," he looked up, and her knees stiffened until they hurt, not knowing which way to to cringe as both his hands played with the hem of her shirt, "that so many people believe things like this about you and him, when I'm the one who's supposed to be with you, and we've never even had sex before."

"Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?" She closed her eyes, shaking her head no. Her bottom lip shaking with her anxious breath. "Knowing that we've been together since we were in school, and you've only known him for four months and he's already had you in more ways than I have?"

Then, he got angry, and grabbed both her wrists. She flinched on habit. "You could at least say something. This really is unfair."

Her bottom jaw kinked, as her tongue stuck through her cheek. Eyes not leaving the dirty carpet. "I've never touched him."

She wasn't sure when, but her both her wrists now were squeezed in just one of his fists and suddenly her head was yanked back into the wall by his other hand in her hair. Eyes forced up.

"You could at least look at me when you say it."

"You heard me the first time." She spat.

His mouth was on her before she could struggle away. His lips slick with tasteless chapstick and her teeth being the only thing keeping his tongue from raging further into her mouth. And she'd have bit his tongue if she hadn't gotten her hands free and was able to shove him back. But he was too big and her hands were too small, that all she did was shove him back onto his heels. She gasped when she could breathe again, yet he was the one who wiped his mouth. Like she was the one diseased.

"Be that way." He snorted angrily. His brown eyes had never seemed so black, as he gripped her left palm with his nails and, with a hard yank that made her gasp, he ripped off her engagement ring. He threw her hand back, now red.

There was a pause, as he expected something. Anything. A beg or plead for him. But she said nothing. And that was enough. Joichiro pushed away her shoulder and shoved the rest of her with the door as he slipped past her, then slammed the door behind him. Leaving her there. Mangled and angry. For the second time that day.

The feeling in her heart was complicated. There was a pain, but she wasn't sad. It was a deeper pain. Lonely. Exhausted. Confused. A pain that she felt deep inside her stomach that made her want to curl up inside herself, when she looked down at her finger where her ring used to be, and now just saw a green ring of tarnish.

A pain that made her scream in ineffable rage, yet cry, until she was choking, as she went to the coffee table and pushed everything onto the floor. She threw everything that smelt of cigarette, until she she locked herself in her bedroom. And cried until she felt nothing. Until her eyes were closed, and she was sleeping. Until she used her last conscious breath to ask for help, from a mother who couldn't hear her.

He looked down at his watch. The tiny glow of it announcing the time gave his figure a undefined shadow that flickered across the bare wall of his foyer. It was midnight, and he still had Haruhi's phone close to his chest, but he made sure it was safely in his hand before he tore off his coat and threw it at the floor, and was in the middle of loosening his tie when he was caught under the sudden piercing light from the chandelier that made him squint.

"It's about time." Kaoru's voice came from somewhere in front of him. His brother's barely shadowed figure in the corner. As a long pampered finger still pressed under the light-switch. "I thought you decided to crash at the studio or something."

"What're you waiting up for?" He snapped, already too irritated that when his tie didn't simply loosen, he shrugged it over his head and threw it into his heap like it was diseased. Kaoru raised his brow.

"What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing." Hikaru couldn't seem to stop the acid escaping past his lips. "I'm going to bed."

He felt heavy, so heavy he could barely lift his legs as he drug himself to the stairs, but he was practically weightless when a warm hand reached out and turned his shoulder around, making him face him. He was determined to keep his eyes to the floor, until those hands, nearly identical to his own, held his face and brought to him to his gaze.

Kaoru looked tired. He didn't mean to keep him waiting. Not that Kaoru needed to wait, but he should have figured he would anyway.

He rubbed his thumb under his eye, His voice raising in alertness. "Have you been crying?"

Did he look that tired? Hikaru pulled away. "Don't be stupid."

"Dad called today." Kaoru said, watching his brother's back as he made his way up the stairs. "He said he's worried about you. After today."

"He should be."

"I'm worried about you, too."

"You always are."

With that, Kaoru just scoffed, tucking one hand into his sweats as his other hand flipped the light off. "G'night, Hikaru."

Hikaru stopped, halfway to the second floor, now in the pitch dark. "Did... Haruhi stop by today?"

"No," his brother replied softly, a little amused. "Why? Did you two have a fight?" Surely that was the reason for his bad mood.

"No," but even the thought of fighting with Haruhi made his heart hurt. "No. We didn't fight."