Mercurial Dreams – Chapter Six

Author: tashiichaan
Rating: T
Genre: Romance, angst, humour
Featuring: Sakurai Sho
Banner designed by: tashiichaan
Story Summary: Hiroki never holds expectations for anything. She never expected to be promoted just 6 months into her job; she never expected her housemate to be a little more sane; but of all those damned unexpectations, she didn’t expect to find herself drawn into the life of Sakurai Sho. She didn’t expect to fall in love with him. And it all starts with a can of Coke.
The author’s ecstatic note: MIDYEAR HOLIDAYS STARTS NOWWWWWWWWWW~! ARE YOU READY TO BE HAPPY? I’M READY TO BE HAPPYYYYYYYYY.
But on a very un-ecstatic note: This is a really painful chapter to read, and it’s only halfway through this terrible Sakamoto ordeal. Lots of swearing, lots of anger, quite a bit of blood, mild violence, and through this darkness, a glint of light at the end. Cry with me T_T

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Mercurial Dreams
Chapter Six

What did they just say? Me? I attacked them? How can the truth be so twisted? Where did that come from? Why am I being accused here? Why? Why why why?

Hiroki’s blood ran cold at the dark looks she received from the four people. She became overwhelmed with helplessness and shock to the point of speechlessness, and clutched her chest in disbelief as she regained her voice. “What do you mean, Fukuda-san?”

“Sakamoto showed us quite a number of bruises on his arms, and said you are the one who inflicted them. Also added that you victimised Yuusano quite badly because he’s defenceless,” Fukuda elaborated in a toneless voice.

“What the hell?!” Hiroki cursed hoarsely. Her face burned with Hell’s fury from the accusations so wrongly thrown at her; she’d never felt so betrayed ever. “That boy is a liar!”

Sakamoto’s mother grabbed Hiroki’s arm and pulled her roughly so they were eye to eye. “Don’t you dare call my son a liar, you heartless witch!” she hissed.

Hiroki flung the woman’s hand off of her arm and spat back, “If you can’t even acknowledge your own son’s actions, then you’re as much a devil as him!”

The woman gasped at that insult and in a sudden outburst of rage, she threw her hands out and grabbed a fistful of Hiroki’s hair. Hiroki cried out in pain as the woman yanked harder and harder at her scalp.

“Sukio!” Sakamoto’s father roared, pulling his ballistic wife away. She tried to fight him off and demanded him to let her go, and in her last attempt to inflict any harm she scratched Hiroki across the cheek.

Hiroki winced at the sharp pain and felt the cold liquid of her blood spilling out of the deep cut. She could only stare icily at the woman, reminded so uncannily of Sakamoto’s wild restraints and knew now whom he inherited that insane trait from.

She turned to both her supervisor and the boys’ manager and said, “Are you going to take that Sakamoto’s side just because he’s a young boy? Did he put on an innocent face like how he’s so good at acting? Tell me you aren’t as naïve as I think!”

“Hiroki!” Fukuda boomed, his patience wearing thin, “I merely repeated what the boy said, don’t accuse us anything just yet!”

“YOU’RE THE ONE WITH THE ACCUSING TONE HERE, YOU ASSHOLE!” Hiroki screeched, not bothered by the unleashed vulgarity a least bit. She was angry, so outraged for being framed. She had saved Yuusano right before Sakamoto could pulverise him completely; she got the passerbys to call an ambulance; all her good will and compassion, thrown out of the window because she was betrayed by that incarnation of the devil. Was this payment for doing something right?

“I won’t entertain any of your goddamn lies until you’ve heard Yuusano’s side of the story!” she continued bellowing at the top of her lungs. A few people along the corridor winced at Hiroki’s loud voice and stared disapprovingly at her, but Hiroki didn’t care.

“Yuusano’s parents won’t let us near him till he’s better,” the boys’ manager pointed out meekly.

“SO BE IT!” With that, she grabbed her jacket and stormed off, throwing angry looks at anyone who narrowed their eyes at her.

Hiroki started to feel numb as she made her way across the hospital lobby. Just… numb. It all went in a noiseless blur as she vaguely remembered ignoring the nurses’ pleas to tend to her bleeding cheek, or the extremely agonising long ride of the underground train, or the weird stares she received from the commuters, wondering in disgust, by the looks of her dishevelled hair and worn-out expression, if she was another dodgy night crawler, or the slow walk she had taken from the subway to her home in a quiet downtown Ikebukuro area.

She pressed the doorbell of her apartment, and immediately the door opened, revealing a worried Mayu whose eyes widened at an almost-faint Hiroki.

“Oh my god, Hiroki-chan, I’ve been calling you for a million times! I heard you were involved in a fight with some Juniors but I couldn’t get the details, what happened?!” Mayu asked in one short breath.

“Sorry, I left my stuff at the office…” Hiroki mumbled with half-closed eyes. Mayu supported her limp body and guided her inside the two-room apartment they rented together.

“I was so worried,” Mayu complained as she kicked the bedroom door open and helped Hiroki onto her bed. “I’ll get you some aspirin and water. Can you change out of your work clothes yourself?”

Hiroki gave an incoherent answer, and Mayu rushed out and rummaged through the medicine cabinet in the kitchen. But when she returned, Hiroki had already fallen asleep, her small body curled in a ball and her face hidden in the pillow.

- ~ -

Johnny’s Entertainment was a name not unfamiliar on every person’s lips, or even to those J-pop savvy followers outside Japan. The company was renowned for producing the most successful male idols by marketing them in an image of innocence and perfection and their whole dedication to their fans.

It should be added that Johnny’s Entertainment was exceptionally cunning in covering up scandals and chaos. They had every connection possible, every available skilled PR agent, to protect their young idols’ image from further taint.

That was just the exact case when news broke out of the Johnny’s Entertainment circle of a chaotic fight between two young Juniors. Word had passed around, discussed too, but official word gave that it was merely a baseless rumour created from overzealous fans. Just from that one statement and the rumour died down.

However, that was not the case with the other person involved in the incident. With Sakamoto and Yuusano’s reputation maintained, the company cared nothing to uphold the reputation of that young, unknown employee, because she wasn’t a priority at all.

“That’s the girl?”

“Yeah, the one who punched the crap out of two boys who’re her own students.”

“How could she do that to such young boys?!”

“That’s what we’re wondering. She’s a fishy person – she has only worked for Johnny’s for about four months and hardly knows anyone here.”

“I heard Takehiko-kun telling the others that she’s got a violent history.”

“Who knows? Right now she’s most probably going to lose her job and worst, her reputation.”

Hiroki frowned at the two hushed voices. Hidden by the four walls of the toilet cubicle, she fought the incredible urge to rush out and attack them for even believing those lies. The familiar stabbing sensation stung her whenever she heard anyone doubting her innocence; she hated nothing more than to be accused of something she had nothing to do with. Instead she leaned against the door and continued to eavesdrop, the deep lurch in the stomach making her feel nauseous.

“I think I’ve seen her around before… she really doesn’t look like the violent type.”

“Looks can always be deceiving, you know that. I’ll be glad to see that bitch get kicked out before she drags the company down with her.”

Two pairs of heels clicked away noisily, and the washroom door swung close to a lonesome figure who exited from the cubicle. Standing in the middle of the exquisitely-decorated bathroom, Hiroki observed herself in the mirror, meeting a mirror image of herself staring back with dark circles under those lifeless eyes.

“Eight days… eight bloody days and they’re still talking!” she cursed bitterly to herself.

In a blind surge of fury, Hiroki slammed her fist hard into the mirror, followed by a strangled shriek. In a second she regretted doing so, but it was too late as a deafening crack met her ears, and a stinging pain prickling in her knuckles and the back of her hand. She looked down and saw drops of thick, dark blood oozing onto the white canvas of the sink.

“Yuusano still refuses to accept visitors,” Fukuda had informed Hiroki when he sat her down in his office earlier today, “his parents say he’s still traumatised.”

“So it comes down to this? I get accused for a crime I didn’t commit and Sakamoto continues to play the victim? What sort of investigation is this?!” Hiroki demanded.

“There’s nothing we can do with gossip until we can determine the outcome, which we can’t without Yuusano,” Fukuda explained as he pinched the bridge between his eyebrows in exhaustion, “I’m sorry, Hiroki, but that’s just the way it goes.”

“The way it bloody well goes when influence of money is involved,” Hiroki snarled venomously, noting the known fact that Sakamoto’s parents contributed regularly to the company’s finance in hopes of securing their son’s position as a Junior.

“You should know that your classes are cancelled until further notice too. Parents are getting worried of their sons in the same room as—”

The chair screeched aloud as it got thrown backwards. Hiroki stood with nothing but a cold, hard stare at her supervisor. “A violent, angry person? I’m surprised you got the entire department worked up on controlling any news breaking out to the media, but you do nothing to help me, your employee, out. It’s wrong for me to think you care at all.”

When Hiroki walked out of that room and straight to the washroom to regain herself, the only thought that crossed her mind was, she definitely wasn’t going to back down even if it would take months or years to clear her name. It was a stupid thing to say, but she wouldn’t want shame to be stamped on her name. Pride was an awful thing, yet it boosted her bravery and even, her sanity.

“They might be true about me being violent,” Hiroki murmured as she wrapped paper towels around her bleeding hand. Biting her lip and ignoring the throbbing pain, she left the washroom and strode off for her night shift at the cafeteria.

Once she stepped foot into the crowded dining area, the clattering noise of cutlery and chatters subdued distinctly in her presence. Audible and hurried whispers sounded across as fingers pointed at her; every single pair of eyes burnt into her as she made her way to the locker room with her head held stubbornly high. While she got out her chef outfit and apron from her locker, Mayu cautiously approached her.

“Hiroki-chan…” Mayu started feebly, keeping a safe distance between them.

Hiroki grunted an irritated response. Of all damnation, she was pissed off by Mayu’s two-faced, hypocritical self. At home, Mayu would show her support for Hiroki and comfort her as a friend would, but once they entered as employees into the company building, Mayu would turn a cold shoulder to her and act as if she believed every word of the rumours. As if she hadn’t known Hiroki at all.

“Just… leave me alone, okay?” Hiroki snapped at Mayu before heading to the stove she was stationed.

Once Hiroki turned the heat on the griddle and picked up her spatulas, two girls instantaneously took a seat by the bar directly in front of her. Hiroki recognised the girls as part of the choreography team assisting in the upcoming summer concerts, transferred from the Hiroshima branch. They were the exact definition of cutesy, fashionably dressed, high-pitch-voiced girls with the bounciest curly ponytails, and Hiroki didn’t like the smirks plastered on their plastic faces.

“Onee-san, Two beef teppanyaki, please,” one of them ordered sweetly.

“Hai,” Hiroki nodded, and scooped chopped beef pieces onto the heated iron griddle and started grilling deftly.

Out of nowhere, water suddenly splashed onto the cooking beef, and in sharp contrast of heat, a thick cloud of steam rose and burnt Hiroki in the face. Hiroki gasped aloud at the burning heat just as the same water splashed onto her face. The liquid slipped onto her lips and she tasted it: the water wasn’t, well, water. It was chilled lemon tea, purposely tipped by the two girls.

“That’s for being a cold, cruel bitch!” one of them howled, a cruel, triumphant smile forming on her ugly face.

“You whore! You should just crawl into a hole and die because you don’t have a heart!” the other one patronised in her high-pitched voice. She flung the empty cup at Hiroki, which bounced off and fell to her feet in a loud crash.

Hiroki just stood still and unmoving. She just stared at the ruined teppanyaki still sizzling and soaked in lemon tea, her dripping-wet face taut with tension, her eyes large and shining with unconcealed stupor. In a trance she didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to think, or how to react. In her disconnected mind, she could only think: is this what I deserve?

“She did not,” a deep voice rang out venomously, “deserve that.”

The entire cafeteria hushed into a deadly silence. That voice was so familiar that for a second it warmed Hiroki’s heart and made it flutter in a faint sense of encouragement. She felt more alive. She needed assurance, desperate for a sort of comfort. She turned her head up, and caught the sight of Sho striding towards her.

~