Forever Dream — (Chapter 9) Dragons and Horses

“Do you remember me?” Hide asks the girl looking at her with a hawk’s gaze as if waiting for her to attack him any minute. He ignores the way her eyes shift every now and then as if charged by overzealous atoms and edges closer to her muttering impatiently, “speak already!” pushing away the tray of toasted bread and cereal.

She continues to stare off into empty space, swaying on the stop, her knees pressed to her. Hide can already feel his patience running thin as his fingers tremble in a fist, aching to grab a hold of the laptop lying around on the coffee or the table lamp or even her hair. He chooses to grab the table lamp and slams at on bedroom floor, but she doesn’t flinch. Her eyes unsteady, she continues swaying.

A phonecall stops him from reaching for the laptop and Hide huffs as he walks away from the girl to answers the phone.

“Kagawa, she’s still not speaking! You wanna decide how I’ll kill you or should I do that myself too, seeing as you’re basically USELESS!?”

“It’s nice to see being a villain doesn’t diminish your flair for dramatics, Hide.” the voice from the receiver says as Hide paces the corridor of the building complex. “I’ll be there in a few so just go for a walk or something while I get there… before you break her head or something.”

“I’m a Doctor, Ms Hanazaki. I was appointed by your father to care for you while you’re in the influence of drugs and to help with the schizophrenia.”

Kagawa smiles gently at the girl and almost looks like he genuinely cares for her. For a second, Hide questions where his loyalties might lie but shakes his head at the thought. He doesn’t exactly have the liberty to choose his accomplice now, does he? Not after revealing everything to the man already.

So he chooses to monitor the man for now and watches Kagawa push the breakfast tray — that had turned cold and soggy now — towards the young girl. “You should eat before we can further discuss the matters of your health, Ms Hanazaki.”

She doesn’t respond but Hide is shocked to see her nod her head and pull the tray closer. She starts eating and Kagawa looks back at him from over his shoulders and smirks mockingly. It takes every bit of his self-restraint not to ram the phoney doctor’s head through the bedroom window.

He moves to sit beside her and Kagawa, and the girl stops biting for a while, watching his from the corner of her eyes before turning to him with raised eyes.

For the first time in a week since they’ve met, she’s looking at him. Into his eyes. Unflinchingly calm.

“You must be my fiance. Kito Nagoya.”

He scans the crevices of his brain from any information on a certain Kito Nagoya in the list of people she is supposed to know, that he was given by his mother, but finds nothing. “No. Rui. I’m Rui Atashi.”

She smiles gently waving her spoon in the air and slow claps as she exclaims, “I’m impressed. You didn’t fall for the trick question.” Hide pats his back in triumph and almost thinks he can actually fool her but she breaks that private ceremony with a cutting remark. “I still know you’re not who you claim to be, though. Just like I know you” she points at Kagawa with her spoon, smirking easily “were not appointed by my father. Though you are a doctor, I give you that. Nice touch with the aspirin in the milk by the way.”

“I don’t know — “

“ — what I’m talking about? Come on now, you don’t look that dumb.”

Hide bites his lips as Kagawa stands up next to him. Both men looking at her as if she’s some alien. She continues eating her breakfast and Hide, having somewhat recovered from the whiplash the sudden change of attitude gave him, smiles cheekily as he moves to sit beside her. Letting his armrest across her shoulder.

“You’re right,” he tells her, ignoring the fear in Kagawa’s eyes as he gazes upon her. “I’m not you’re fiance. In fact, I don’t even know who the fuck Rui Atashi is! I legit came up with that name like two seconds ago!”

“I could tell,” she says, looking at him in all coolness and nonchalance. “Your Doctor friend over there was a dead giveaway.”

“Right…” He sends a look towards Kagawa, who takes that as a cue to exit and leaves the room immediately. “So?” He turns to her once Kagawa leaves. “Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know… but I doubt you’re a well-wisher.”

Hide barks a laugh at her words and pushes off from the mattress. He waltzes towards the minifridge near the windows and pulls out two beer bottles, walking back towards her one a bottle opener. He opens one and hands it to her — she takes it without a second thought — and takes a swig of his own bottle as he watches her follow suit.

“You don’t look scared,” Hide says, sitting at the edge of the bed and leaning on his hand as he looks at her sideways. “Has this happened a lot before?”

“More times than you can imagine.” When he doesn’t fill up the silence that follows she continues, “now, now. Don’t get all soft with me. Kidnappers aren’t supposed to get all limp for their victims.”

“I’m not a kidnapper.”

“Rapist or murderer, then.” She shrugs, rolling her eyes as she sips her beer. “Doesn’t make a difference.”

Hide doesn't respond and continues looking at his beer bottle. She quietly watches him, waiting for any sudden moves. Waiting for anything at all. For several minutes, he doesn’t speak and she allows the thick silence to choke them — refusing to make the first move.

He speaks after a while and his words seem to come to her as a genuine surprise. The first normal emotion she’s exhibited since coming to.

“I want to kill your father.”

She raises her at him and leans back into the headboard of her bed, crossing her arms across her chest and smirks at him. “Really now? And you’re telling me this because…”

“Because you’re not getting away. You’re stuck here, with me…” Hide pushes himself off the bed and strolls towards the windows as he explains, “what’s the point of hiding it from you?”

“But there must be a point in telling me, right?”

He turns to her, his face covered by the darkness like the devil’s mask, the rising sun rising ominously behind him, casting deep shadows in the dark bedroom floor. A chill runs down her spine as he watches him cross his arms across his chest and bow his head down as if asking for mercy.

“I thought we could celebrate his death once I kill him. Enjoy the freedom when that cage called Family falls. Together.”

She looks for any signs of mockery, or false promises in his eyes but for once, those dark eyes seem to be telling her the truth. And easily, a smiles finds her lips as she thinks to herself why not? What wrong with killing sweet old daddykins, after all?