Reckoning - Chapter 1

Sometimes the smallest of things can affect your life in the most peculiar and terrifying ways. Almost insignificant, often trivial things change your life. Sometimes forever.

That small fraction of a second determining whether you’re going to catch the train. That small voice in your head advising you not to eat that second slice of pie for dessert. The boy you have a crush on seeking you out after school asking you to be his science project partner. A phone call in the middle of the night...

 

The silence in the darkened apartment was pierced by the insistent ringing of the phone.

In her room, the woman groaned, flipped onto her side, and pulled the sheet over her head.

It didn’t help in the least. The phone kept ringing.

She cursed between her teeth and covered her head with the pillow. Of course, the damn phone would start ringing in the middle of the night.  Of course, whoever was calling didn’t call either cell phone, since the numbers were known only to a select few. And of course her partner—the slacker—wouldn’t answer. He probably wasn’t even at home.

So the infernal apparatus kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing...Until it finally stopped.

“Thank you, sweet baby Jesus,” she mumbled, snuggling back into her pillow.

Her relief was short-lived, though. In a few seconds, the ringing started anew. And persisted.

Spitting out a juicy expletive that would make a seasoned sailor proud, she kicked the covers off her body and jumped to her feet.

“You better have a good reason to wake me,” she grumbled. “Because if you don’t or if it’s a wrong number, I’ll hunt you down like a dog!”

The phone kept ringing.

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, stomping down the hallway. “I’m coming.” Her voice pitched dangerously low, a promise of retribution in the tone.

Opening the living room door, her eyes zeroed in on the phone. She could swear it was jumping on its cabinet.

Picking up the receiver, she barely resisted the urge to slam it back down. Or pull the plug out of the wall. But some—still partly sane—part of her consciousness told her that might be a stupid idea. The call could be important.

So instead of smashing the phone to smithereens, she barked an irritated “What?!”

Recognizing the voice on the other end of the line, everything inside her went still. Her spine straightened, her face went blank and devoid of emotion as she listened carefully. After barely a minute, the line went dead.

Great. Now what? I could do a Houdini, but I’d need a very good reason.

Her troubled gaze caught on something white and shimmering in the darkness. “What the—”

She walked to the sofa, touched the flimsy fabric flung carelessly over the back of it, her eyes widening almost imperceptibly as she began calculating the possibilities.

“Oh, good, you picked it up. I was afraid I might throw the damn thing through the window.”

Hearing that nauseatingly fake high-pitched voice, she looked toward the stairs. Against her will, she swallowed convulsively as she saw the woman’s ethereal-looking figure wrapped in a man’s shirt. She knew that shirt. She’d bought that shirt.

Judging by the woman’s bare feet and legs shimmering in the faint moonlight filtering through the clouds, she was naked under the thin material.

“Did that fucking thing finally stop ringing?” came his slurred voice.

Hazel eyes moved from Ōe Megumi’s satisfied expression and landed on the tall, imposing figure of Saeba Ryo, emerging from his bedroom behind the woman, dark hair tousled, a sheet wrapped loosely around his lean hips. His tanned skin shone with a fine layer of perspiration.

Instantly sober, Ryo froze dead in his tracks, eyes widening. “Kaori...”

She stared up at the couple at the top of the stairs, her eyes wide, the wheels in her head turning. She knew, without a single doubt, that if she stood beside them, the two would reek of sex. Because that’s what Megumi had wanted from the first moment she stepped into Saeba’s life. To screw his brains out. To claim him as her own. And she’d obviously succeeded. Judging from that smirk on her pretty, cosmetically enhanced face, she was satisfied as hell.

Kaori sighed internally. Everybody and their mother had warned her about the woman. All her—their—friends. But she hadn’t listened. Well, she had listened; she’d just pretended not to understand. As usual. She had known very well what the woman’s agenda was. She could read it in her eyes, in the way she moved, in the tone of her voice whenever she spoke to Saeba.

Ryo could’ve kicked himself. Hell, he could’ve shot himself then and there. Of all the stupid things he’s done in his life, of all the stupid things he’s done in the past four years of his life with Kaori by his side, this ranked as number one. How could he have done something like this to her? How could he have done something like this to the only woman that had stood by him no matter what? How could he have done this to her when he knew how she felt about him? How could he have done this to her when he...

Drunk or not, he should’ve known better.

Ever since they met, when she was still in high school, there had been something about her that drew him in. Enticed him, charmed him, bewitched him. And since they’ve been working together, after her brother’s death, his admiration for her had kept on growing—not that he showed it. For someone who hadn’t been born for this sort of life, she’d proven herself over and over again. Granted, she had been a little clumsy at the beginning; she drew stray bullets like a magnet, and she kept getting kidnapped, but she was willing to learn from her mistakes and proved willing to give her life for him.

How could he have betrayed her like this?

Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to stand to see the look of hurt, pain, and betrayal on her face, in her eyes, he took a step down the stairs. “Kaori...”

Like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights, she quickly took a step back, melting deeper into the shadows of the apartment. She didn’t want him to see her face.

Megumi’s smile grew as she stepped behind Saeba to run her hand over his abdomen.

He flinched, a shiver of disgust running through his body. And to think he’d been so drunk he hadn’t minded her touch just half an hour ago. But now Kaori was watching him, and it made him feel dirty. How he wished he could see her face, but she kept in the shadows. How he wished she would speak, even just to yell at him or send him to hell, but she didn’t utter a single word.

He desperately wanted to know what she was feeling at the moment, if maybe there was any way of her forgiving him after this worst sort of betrayal, but she didn’t move a single muscle. If it weren’t for the faint outline of her body, it would appear as if she wasn’t even there.

“Seeing it’s quite late,” she spoke calmly from the darkness, her tone even. “I guess we best turn back in.” Her pajamas rustled as she moved to the living room door. “Good night.”

Ryo sighed. So this was it. She was going to pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened? “Who was it?” he asked, surprised at the rustiness of his voice, desperate to keep her in his line of vision a little longer. She seemed to slowly vanish in front of his eyes, like a shimmering mirage...

“Wrong number.”

And just like that, she disappeared out in the hallway, softly closing the door behind her, leaving him standing at the top of the stairs, feeling as if his heart was in a vise. Why had those two words sounded like goodbye?

Behind him, Megumi grinned maliciously. The little chit had finally understood her place. She held absolutely no lure over Saeba anymore, if she ever had. He was hers. All hers, and tonight he’s proven it.

With a seductive sigh, she placed an open-mouthed kiss on his shoulder. “Come back to bed, lover.”

Ryo spun with lightning speed, towering over her menacingly, his eyes cold. “My job is done, Megumi. You can go home now.”

She stared up at him in utter shock. How could he talk to her like that? They were lovers now. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I want you out of our house.”

Our. His and that bitch’s? “You can’t just throw me out like this.” For once, the high pitch of her voice wasn’t fake.

Ryo’s mouth was a thin line. “Of course not.”

Megumi relaxed a bit.

“You can get dressed first.” And, tucking the sheet tighter around his waist, he walked down the stairs, leaving her there, staring after him with her mouth agape.

“You can’t throw me out, Saeba! We’re lovers now.”

He didn’t even turn. “We’re not lovers. You were just a willing body. Like many before you.” And he disappeared into the shadows of the apartment.

 

Feeling the whiskey burn a fiery path down his throat, he waited until he heard the front door slam closed before going back to bed. He closed his bedroom door and leaned against it. He sighed tiredly, rubbing a hand down his face.

Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a day.

X Y Z

She didn’t barge in to wake him in the morning. As a matter of fact, he hasn’t heard a sound since daybreak when—unable to sleep—he’d finally given up and moved to sit on the windowsill, staring down at Shinjuku slowly awakening, waiting for Kaori to wake up.

Ryo sighed, staring intently at his bedroom door, willing her to make her appearance. She didn’t.

Giving up all pretenses, he went against every principle in his stupid body and went on the prowl over the apartment in search of her. Everything was untouched. The table wasn’t set for breakfast, the blinds weren’t up to let the sunshine in, the windows were closed. The apartment was dark and silent.

Opening the door to her room, his heart stopped beating. It was empty. Not in the sense of being truly empty; all her belongings were still there, even the photo of her with Hideyuki and the ring box he’d meant to give her for her birthday.

But she was gone. He could feel it in his very being. She left. She left without a note, without a word, without making any sound. Makimura Kaori left him.

Stumbling back against the wall, he slowly slid down to sit on the floor. Dropping his head back, he stared through her window into the bright, sunny day.

He lost her.

The thought was unbearable.

 

Saeba Ryo had no idea just how unbearable living without the person you most care about was. But he was about to learn. In the end, the old adage always stands.

You never know what you have until you lose it.