Chapter 12: Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault
“Ayanami? Listen, um... I wanted to ask you if everything’s alright.”
Rei met her with silence. That the class representative had even felt the urge to approach her was enough of an answer in its own right.
“Is it fine if I sit with you?”
Rei’s eyes flicked upwards, away from her bento and towards the girl standing over her; the midday sun flooding in through the window rendered the concern masked behind her weary smile impossible to hide.
“Look, I promise, I’m not scared of you. I really do enjoy being around you - all of us do! And... if you ever need to, you can talk to me anytime you want, okay? About anything.”
Rei could tell she meant every last word that left her lips. She never lied, never broke a promise, never sold anyone out. She spoke with unparalleled confidence. Her uniform was pristine. She was everything Rei desperately wished she could be. She was everything Rei was not.
“I understand what happened with Banette has been difficult for you, but--”
The legs of Rei’s chair ground against the floorboards, and she started off towards the door, unsure of a destination beyond the nebulous concept of “somewhere else.” Anywhere would have been preferable, really.
“Ayanami, hold on!” she heard the other girl call after her. “Where are you--”
“Restroom.”
“Don’t you see I’m trying to help you? Please, at least give me a--”
Rei snapped around the moment she felt the hand on her shoulder. “Horaki,” she began, searching her classmate’s eyes for an answer she wouldn’t be able to comprehend anyway. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can still treat me like this.”
“Like what?”
The words lingered on the tip of Rei’s tongue for a moment. “Like a human being.”
“It’s... easy, actually.”
“...It really shouldn’t be.”
They'd stopped at a gas station on the way home, somewhere around where Nimbasa’s perpetual light show gave way to strip malls and cul-de-sacs indistinguishable from most anywhere else in Unova. Asuka hadn't needed gas. The six dollars' worth she'd filled her tank with was merely a formality.
Rei’s mind had latched onto one particular thing Asuka had told her while they were there, one of the few thoughts she’d even bothered to share since they left the skatepark. “I like going to convenience stores at night,” Asuka had said as she weighed her options between drink flavors. “Something about being alone somewhere you really shouldn’t be. It’s calming.” It had struck a strange chord with Rei at first, hearing her of all people extol the virtues of isolation. It made more sense when she considered the type of company one would normally have in such a setting was far removed from the type that Asuka yearned for. That she hadn’t exactly been alone in the first place may have helped matters, as well.
She wasn’t alone here, either. Neither of them were. Asuka had pulled into the driveway fifteen minutes ago, yet both her and Rei remained in the car, united in their hesitation to enter the house - or, perhaps more accurately, Asuka was the one hesitant to head inside, while Rei remained steadfast in her refusal to push her into something she wasn’t ready for.
Asuka, instead, had occupied herself with the empty bottles that once housed the drinks she and Rei decided on earlier. Bleary, half-lidded eyes lingered on the steering wheel ahead of her as she quietly drummed against it. Though faint enough to nearly be swallowed up by the humming of the car’s idling engine, Rei recognized the rhythm, as she’d heard an even more muffled rendition of it coming through the ceiling more times than she bothered to count. Asuka wasn’t singing this time. Neither she nor Rei had said so much as a word since returning home.
Rei clumsily slipped her shoes off before pulling her legs up onto the seat, hugging them to her chest. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Sometimes, they’d just happen to find themselves like this, sharing a space together, each content to simply exist in the other’s presence. Sometimes existing was enough.
“I’m sorry about what happened earlier.”
The drumming stopped. By the time Rei even realized she’d broken the silence, the apology had already tumbled out of her mouth. She didn’t turn to face Asuka, or even so much as shift her eyes towards the driver’s seat, but the feeling of Asuka’s gaze locking onto her was unmistakable. Leaving it at that wasn’t an option. “About how I left you and Dezmond behind, I mean. I shouldn’t have abandoned you at a time like that.”
“Mmh.” Rei heard the dull thudding of hollow plastic, presumably from Asuka setting the bottles down in her lap. “You’re fine,” Asuka assured her, voice low as if she were trying to avoid waking someone. “Worked out in the end.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Dez and I had to talk about something, anyway.”
“Ah, I see.”
It was a sufficient enough explanation for all of maybe two seconds, before Rei again began to file through the possibilities of what that “something” could’ve been. In all likelihood, it was exactly as she’d assumed, Asuka taking it upon herself to lift her longtime friend’s spirits and nothing more. Yet, hadn’t that merely been her stepping in where Rei had failed? How could Asuka have interpreted her retreat as anything other than cowardice?
Slowly, Rei’s eyes drifted towards Asuka and the fingers tentatively clinging to her key. It was difficult to shake the feeling that the topic was one Asuka would’ve preferred to keep Rei in the dark about, but Asuka didn’t do that anymore. Not as far as Rei knew. If she did, she’d done a magnificent job at hiding it.
Perhaps it truly was nothing for Rei to concern herself with. Or, perhaps, she had it backwards - perhaps it was something Asuka did wish to tell her, desperately so, but couldn’t muster up the courage to. Whatever the case, stewing in silence wouldn’t provide Rei with the answer.
“What did you--” Rei started, but by the time she’d even opened her mouth, Asuka’s door had already swung open. Whether or not Asuka’s lack of a response was deliberate, or if she just hadn’t heard Rei, was left unclear. Rei figured it was the latter. Most likely.
Not until Asuka was halfway to the front porch, at which point she wordlessly beckoned for her to follow, did Rei hastily clamber out of the low-slung coupe and bolt after her. She resolved to deal with the blisters later.
Please be asleep.
Asuka emerged from her car, making it her top priority to not inadvertently smash the door against the charcoal Mercedes beside it. It took more restraint than she cared to admit; a solid gash in the sedan’s rear fender wouldn’t have solved any of her problems, and in fact would’ve ensured her more down the line, but it’d at least let her feel something other than the unrelenting aura of dread suffocating her.
She pushed it to the back of her mind, or at least as far back as she could; if he was awake, he was awake. She’d deal with it. She had before; if history was any indication, the first thing out of his mouth would be something about how she’d sworn to never stay out this late. Typical revisionist history.
Asuka had her character flaws, sure, but one thing she’d never done was break promises, and she wasn’t looking to make a habit out of it. She knew what she had to do, and she’d sworn to Dez and herself that tonight was going to be the night she saw it through. Whether or not that was a check that could be cashed remained up in the air, though - and with the tropical storm brewing in her stomach, Asuka wasn’t particularly bullish on her odds.
The arrival of Rei at her side, then, jolted Asuka from her brooding like an arc of lightning from the heavens; if not for the glimpse of Rei’s socks out of the outer limits of her vision, she very well might have begun to see some merit in those vampire allegations. “Christ, don’t sneak up on me like that,” she scolded. “Damn near gave me a heart attack.”
“You told me to follow you,” Rei dryly rebutted. “That’s what I did.”
“You could warn me next time. The hell happened to your shoes, anyway?”
“What happened to my--” Judging by the way Rei’s face twisted into something vaguely resembling a half-baked pastry, this was the first time she’d considered any possibility other than them being on her feet. “...Should I go back for--”
“Just leave it for tomorrow,” Asuka replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. There was nothing to be gained from killing even more time; they were already at the front step, standing in the shadow of the Langley household’s monolithic entryway. Somewhere beyond the door’s frosted glass window, Asuka noticed, a solitary light remained switched on.
Asuka certainly wasn’t thrilled to realize said light was coming from her father’s office, but she wasn’t necessarily shocked, either. "Figures that Arschloch would still be awake," she grumbled, digging her keys into her palm as her fist clenched tighter. She was already weighing the potential outcomes of him overhearing her and Rei, and each one made the urge to throw up in her mouth just a little tougher to keep at bay.
Stop wasting time. Heaving a sigh, Asuka swallowed her pride and whatever else was in her mouth; she took it tasting more like passionfruit than bile as a good omen. “So, Rei,” she whispered, “when we head inside... first off, be quiet. Second... you’re coming upstairs with me. To my room.”
“I... I am?” The sheer bewilderment in Rei’s tone painted a better picture of her reaction than any facial expression possibly could’ve. Then again, that wasn’t a particularly high bar.
“Yes, you are,” Asuka clarified, attempting to downplay the five-alarm fire spreading across her face. “I don’t wanna have you trying to sneak past Dad to get to your room. And... there’s something I gotta tell you. A few things, actually.”
Rei’s ensuing silence might as well have lasted a decade - unsurprising, considering Asuka had broached the subject with all the subtlety of a thousand sledgehammers plummeting from a thunderhead. Maybe this was a sign from God to dedicate some time to learning how to conceal her intentions, as opposed to doing the equivalent of manifesting a neon sign reading "I AM HOPELESSLY ATTRACTED TO YOU" in bold, blaring letters above her head. Rei probably had it figured out before her. Asuka would’ve been more surprised if she hadn’t.
“Alright, then,” Rei ultimately replied. “After you.” Either Asuka was worrying over nothing or Rei had a poker face beyond compare.
Asuka surgically inserted her key, twisted, and eased the door open without a sound, shutting it just as stealthily once her and Rei had both crept into the darkened foyer. Locking it behind her wasn’t a priority - as long as it was closed, she’d done enough. Asuka had all night to concoct an excuse, like she had hundreds of times before. That those excuses had only ever concerned herself, however, wasn’t lost on her.
She considered hammering the point home further, envisioning herself turning to Rei with a finger pressed to her lips, but then questioned what, exactly, she'd gain from that. It wasn't even like they had to sneak across the house - the staircase might've felt like it was a first down away, but the reality was that they wouldn't even need to get past Dad's office. Get upstairs first, ground her short-circuiting mind later. Simple as that.
Setting aside the myriad of knots in her gut, Asuka clasped her hand around Rei's wrist and led her towards the stairs. It felt right. Whether or not Rei agreed was for her to decide.
“Asuka.”
She’d made it three steps by the time the distant scrawling of pen against paper came to a sudden halt. Four by the time its absence made Asuka realize it had been there to begin with. Five by the time her father, voice dripping with listless ire, petrified her with the mere utterance of her name.
The worst part was that Asuka was fully aware this was just the first domino. He was going to order her into his office, and he was going to make her bring Rei, and he was going to see her spangled with mosquito bites, and he was going to notice her swollen foot, and he was going to see her wearing this f*cking sundress. Trying to stem the bleeding now would be like applying a tourniquet to a severed head.
Again, her father’s voice rang through the blackened bowels of the house. “Asuka Gretchen Langley,” he called, louder this time, and the exhumation of her middle name came uncomfortably close to coercing whatever remained of whatever she’d gotten from the gas station out of her stomach and onto the mahogany steps beneath her. Not that he would’ve cared. “Come here, please. I’d like to talk.” No, that wasn’t true. He probably would’ve cared about a staircase drenched in vomit.
“I’ll be right there, Dad.” Five syllables, and Asuka loathed every last one.
Slowly, she eased herself back down the few steps she’d managed to ascend and wrenched herself in the direction of her father’s office. Rei’s wrist remained firmly in her grasp, and Asuka resolved to keep it there as long as possible - which, realistically, meant the few precious seconds it took to trudge down the hall. It was fortunate, then, that Rei didn’t seem to mind her lack of urgency.
Asuka couldn’t recall the last time she’d entered her father’s office of her own volition, if she ever had. Stepping into it was a great reminder of why. Even beyond the ultramodern light fixture he mystifyingly insisted on polluting the room with whenever he was in there, the deluge of file cabinets and manila folders bursting with classified info had always made Asuka feel like an intruder in their presence. The gnawing fear that there’d be a black van waiting for her were she to so much as skim the wrong document, ludicrous as it seemed on its face, had never truly left her. Maybe that was more of an indictment of her father’s character than her own neuroticism.
She desperately wanted to grab Rei’s hand. She really did. In the agonizing interim, the hem of her dress would have to suffice.
With the click of a pen wrapping up its shift, the overstuffed office chair Asuka and Rei had been greeted by swung around, revealing the particularly vexed visage of one Reinhardt Langley. “Asuka.”
Asuka made the very deliberate decision to fold her arms as her father examined her. “Didn’t think you’d still be awake,” she replied.
“I can be awake whenever I wish. This is my house, is it not?”
He’d raised an interesting question, really; in the sense that the deed was in his name, yes, it was his house. Whether or not he treated it like his house was a different question entirely. Reinhardt wasn’t the one mowing the lawn. He wasn’t the one vacuuming the floors. He wasn’t dusting the shelves, watering the plants, keeping the pool clean, scrubbing the toilets, feeding the f*cking mannequin he called his wife--
Asuka straightened herself. “How’s work been?”
Her father's gaze narrowed, and Asuka bit her tongue in an attempt to keep her skeleton from escaping her body. "That’s of no concern to you," Reinhardt snapped back. "It's a quarter past two in the morning. Where the hell were you, and exactly why did you think it was okay to drag Rei into it?"
"I went out with Dez,” Asuka retorted; technically, she wasn’t lying. “He wanted to train, so we went to Franklin Park. I took Rei so she could get in on it.”
“I assure you, Mr. Langley, it hadn’t been our intention to stay out so late,” Rei added. “We merely lost track of time, is all.”
Asuka would’ve liked to convince herself they’d offered a satisfactory explanation. She knew the type of man her father was, though, and really, she would’ve been more amazed if it had appeased him. “I suppose it was foolish of me to assume you’d be entirely immune to her influence,” Reinhardt mused, turning his evil eye towards Rei. “Asuka I would expect this from, but I really figured you’d have a more sensible head on your shoulders, Rei. Especially on a school night, this is inexcusable behavior.”
Rei recoiled in response, timidly clutching her own arm as her gaze faltered. “I’m... deeply sorry,” she apologized, her voice melting away in stark contrast to the blaze of contempt spreading within Asuka. “I’ll make it a priority to keep this from happening again. Just... please, do not inform my paren--”
And just like that, Asuka found herself unable to contain the raging wildfire any longer. “Alright, hold on, you wanna run that by me one more time?” she cut in, slamming both hands down onto her father’s desk. “You’d expect this from me, is that what you said? What? What would you expect from me, you wanna elaborate?”
Reinhardt didn’t flinch at her intrusion - in fact, he virtually declined to acknowledge Asuka’s presence at all. “Rei, you really should be heading to bed now,” he suggested, giving his own daughter all the consideration of an imaginary friend. “I’ll refrain from letting them know this time, but if something like this happens again--”
“I asked you a goddamn question, Dad,” Asuka snarled; at this point, she was willing to settle for any response, provided there was a response. “What’s ‘this?’ I want to know-- hell, I want Rei to know especially. Tell me. Tell us.”
Maybe she’d managed to push him far enough, or maybe it was that she’d actually had the sense to get out of her father’s face before she paid for it, but after a disquietingly long pause, Asuka got her answer. Or, at least, what Reinhardt considered an answer. “There’s nothing to tell you that isn’t patently obvious right now - how long has it been since Rei joined us? Two months, give or take? And you’re still acting like an irresponsible brat.”
“Oh, I’m the f*cking irresponsible one now?!” Asuka retaliated, entirely disregarding however many of their neighbors she’d just woken up. “Two months-- for how much of that were you here?! Two weeks? If that?! Of all the f*cking people on this planet to lecture me about irresponsibility, I am not gonna stand here and take that sh*t from someone who’s spent more time having dinner with war profiteers than his own f*cking family.”
If Asuka had left it there, she probably could’ve gotten off easy. Probably could’ve gotten away with throwing in some sort of obscene gesture as a finishing touch, even. If, by some miracle, she’d managed to contain her rage, or if Rei had stepped in to extinguish it, she’d have been storming up to her room and that would’ve been that. But it wasn’t enough. There was so much more for her inferno to consume.
Before Reinhardt could open his mouth, she shouted, “By the way, Dad? How’s Kyoko been lately?”
In hindsight, Asuka wasn’t sure what kind of answer she’d wanted. She wasn’t even sure if she’d expected him to answer at all. Her goal was to drag her father kicking and screaming into reality, and by that metric, she’d passed with flying colors.
The moment his wife’s name hit his ears, Reinhardt went white as a sheet - a change that, in Asuka’s eyes, only served to marginally increase his resemblance to a cadaver. “Rei, go to bed,” he reiterated, significantly sharper at the second time of asking.
“Not until you apologize to Asuka,” Rei growled.
Asuka had never seriously considered the prospect of Rei brazenly defying Reinhardt. Hell, just moments prior, she’d let him steamroll her without a fight. Everyone had their breaking point, though, and astoundingly, Rei had finally discovered her own. This, of all things. She’d utterly folded when she was the one in Reinhardt's crosshairs, yet being forced to stand idly as he attempted to drill Asuka's soul into the earth's core flooded her with an anger caustic enough for even her to succumb to.
That anger - one that Rei visibly boiled with - was for Asuka and Asuka alone. It was almost flattering, really.
“...Excuse me?” Reinhardt responded, his tone confounded as it was venomous.
Rei refused to avert her eyes from his, refused to open her fists, refused to so much as blink. “Everything Asuka just said was true,” she asserted. “How, exactly, can you call her the irresponsible one in this situation?”
“Because I’m her father, are you insane?! What makes you think you have the right to speak to me in such fashion as our guest?!”
“Does it matter that you’re her father? Because I think it’s readily apparent that I know far more about her than you--”
“Get the hell out of my office right now.”
Just as suddenly as Rei had dredged up the fortitude to defy Reinhardt, he’d taken that fortitude and torpedoed it solely by raising his voice. As she shrank away from him, Rei's mouth hung open, whatever she wanted to say visibly lodging in her throat. Her indignation hadn’t yet faded, but their argument was unequivocally over.
As Rei wordlessly turned away, leaving Asuka with an ambiguous look that served to clarify precisely nothing, Asuka could only wonder if it was an argument she’d hallucinated. She spent the seconds afterward envisioning an airport terminal, and if their last goodbye would be as sudden, as vague, without even an ‘I’ll call.’
Only when she picked up the faint sound of creaking mahogany did Asuka turn back towards her father. The moment she did, the force of his open hand reacquainted itself with her cheek.
The blow, swift and potent as it was, wasn’t enough to knock her over. Asuka staggered as she pressed her fingers to the site of the impact, yet stood firm, the soles of her sandals grinding dirt into the rug beneath them. Marinating in fear and stewing with rage, she began to formulate a comeback, but Reinhardt beat her to it. “I made it clear that mentioning your mother was forbidden around her,” he admonished, seemingly amazed Asuka was even capable of disobeying him. “What could you have possibly gained from that?”
“I don’t have to keep up that stupid charade you set me up for anymore, for one thing,” Asuka snapped. “And aside from that? Maybe this has flown over your head, but Rei is my friend. And I’m f*cking sick of lying to my friends.”
Reinhardt’s frown widened at Asuka’s choice of words, though he elected to leave it a silent condemnation. “If nothing else... I will say, I’m pleasantly surprised that you two have forged a bond. Frankly, that’s beyond what I’d expected.”
“You’re pleasantly surprised I made a friend?!” The sheer absurdity of it almost made Asuka want to laugh. If those were the assumptions her own father was going to make about her - directly to her face, no less - then, really, she needed to shift her focus from wondering how she could get him to see her as anything beyond a conversation piece to wondering if that was even a prize worth fighting for.
Whichever path she chose, Asuka could at least be confident that Reinhardt held none of the answers she coveted. “I think you’re reading a little too deep into this,” he dismissed, reaching down to tidy up a small stack of disorderly folders. “It’s just that, considering how opposed you’d been to the notion of Rei staying with us in the first place, seeing you get along with her is a welcome development. That’s all.”
Maybe it wouldn’t be such a shock if you’d actually been paying attention. “If you say so.”
“Just, please, going forward, try to avoid getting her roped up in your... escapades, I guess.” Both Reinhardt’s inflection and the muscles in his face had softened considerably, something most would’ve taken as a positive change. All Asuka saw was an eagerness to rinse his hands clean of this encounter, to file it away among the countless signed contracts and answered memos behind him. The artlessness of his next question only strengthened her hypothesis. “Is Dezmond treating you well? If your training sessions are going this late, I’d assume so.”
“Yeah, he’s-- uh, we’re doing just fine,” Asuka stumbled, reminding herself that her and Dez were still together for however much longer this conversation dragged on. “Actually, he just got his hands on a Razor Fang, so we spent a lot of time working with his Gligar... would be nice if evolving mellowed him out a bit, but I’m not gonna get my hopes up.”
Reinhardt declined to so much as pry his eyes away from his desk, amply spelling out just how enthralling he really found Asuka’s daily exploits. “That’s good to hear,” he replied. In one ear, out the other, it seemed; apparently, organizing the contents of his briefcase was just that much more important to him. Asuka had barely even registered its presence up to that point. For that matter, she hadn’t even stopped to wonder why, exactly, Reinhardt felt sitting alone in his office in the dead of night warranted business casual attire.
Asuka, as much as she wanted to be wrong for once in her life, had an inkling she already knew the reason.
Her father snapped his briefcase shut, and as he hoisted it up off the desk, Asuka’s heart sank. “Listen, Asuka, as much as I’d like to continue this conversation--” Bold claim. “--you need to get as much sleep as you can. Aside from that, I have a 5:45 flight to Stahlstadt, so I need to--”
“So you’re leaving. Again.”
Asuka knew her father wasn't stupid, at least from an objective point of view. If he really was, the fact she was right wouldn’t be written across his face nearly as legibly. That was the thing, though - it wouldn’t have mattered how guilty she could manage to make Reinhardt feel in the first place, if she even could. What was he going to do? Not get on that plane? He'd already made that decision seventeen years ago.
“I don’t understand,” Asuka continued, ending a reign of silence that felt like eons. “I really don’t. Don’t I bring this up every single time I see you? Like, I know you’re not just taking these trips for no reason! I understand that! But why does that mean you’ve gotta treat me like I’m a goddamn ghost?! You can’t even bring yourself to call me every so often?! Not even-- Dad, for f*ck’s sake, I won my first major tournament and you brushed it off like it was a f*cking kindergartener’s macaroni art! Don’t you get how heartbreaking that is?!”
“Asuka, dear--”
“Yes, Dad, I know you bring up my battling career every chance you get. Does that even matter when you’ve just made it part of your f*cking sales pitch?! Because, honestly, if that’s the most acknowledgment I’m gonna get outta you, then... then why’d you even f*cking have me in the first place?! Why not just adopt some kid from Orre or something, right?! Would’ve saved Mom a whole lot of misery! sh*t, do you even care about her?! She’s been rotting in that guest room for three months! What the hell have you done to help her?! Do you just want her to f*cking die?!”
Asuka, trembling with rage, struggled to catch her breath - and deep down, she knew she was screaming at a brick wall. The number of times she’d sandblasted her own throat like this made no difference, nor did the number of ugly tears that had cascaded down her cheeks. It didn’t matter. She’d be deluding herself if she thought it did.
Reinhardt awkwardly draped one arm around Asuka’s shoulder, tightly cradling his briefcase in the other. If he was trying to prove her wrong, it was an embarrassing effort. “Asuka, I care about you and your mother more than anything else. Just because I’m not always here doesn’t mean that isn’t the case, and I really wish you could understand that.”
Every single time, his response was the same - the same reluctant half-embrace, the same insipid expression, the same regurgitating of empty platitudes. The sad thing was, Asuka couldn’t even have the satisfaction of calling it futile, because somewhere along the line he’d learned to spring it on her only once she’d burned herself out.
This time, like all the others, Asuka acquiesced. “I know, Dad.”
“I’m glad,” Reinhardt answered. Asuka didn’t need him to tell her; his hasty withdrawal from their dubious interpretation of a hug would’ve gotten the point across just fine. “Well... I should be heading off now. When my flight lands, I’ll make sure to call you, alright?”
Like hell you will. “Alright.”
Asuka shut her eyes, began to cycle through deep breaths, and followed the sound of her father’s footsteps as they moved towards the doorway. In just a few short seconds, he’d be gone - which, paradoxical as it may have been, instilled a certain sense of comfort within her. Maybe it was more that she wanted the idea of him in her life, as opposed to the man himself. Maybe she just wanted a different father.
What she didn’t want was to hear the footsteps stop.
“By the way, Asuka,” Reinhardt added, “it’s nice to see you wearing that dress. I’m sure Kyoko would be deeply grateful.”
With that, he disappeared into the still of the night, leaving Asuka to contemplate whether or not she truly wanted a father at all.
Rei never could've imagined it would've been this bad.
Asuka had never been particularly coy about just how fractured her relationship with her father was, even from Rei's earliest days in Unova. Even still, the true extent of Mr. Langley's callous treatment of her - not to mention the unfiltered virulence with which Asuka reciprocated - invoked all the structural integrity of a condemned bridge. If what she’d just seen unfold in that office was at all an accurate portrayal of a typical interaction between the two, Rei was starting to believe Asuka, astonishingly, may very well have been underselling things.
As Rei slowly crept up the stairs towards Asuka’s room, itself a surreal enough thing to be doing with her blessing, a particularly sharp impact resonated through the halls, temporarily rooting her to the spot. She tried to explain it away as something else. Perhaps something had fallen over, or it had even just been the house’s foundation settling. Rei, however, knew the sound of skin against skin too well to convince herself otherwise.
The best she could do was picture Asuka as the guilty party. That, at least, was a concept with some catharsis behind it.
Not to say Rei herself had refrained from pouring any gasoline onto the fire - in fact, to suggest otherwise would’ve been missing her own point. She, too, had blown up on Reinhardt, and her punishment had been little more than simply being sent to her room. To think Asuka’s would be as lenient would’ve been hopelessly optimistic. If Reinhardt truly had struck his own daughter, then, Rei struggled to place the blame on anyone but herself.
Perhaps the more important question to ask was why the urge to intervene on Asuka’s behalf, and in such confrontational fashion at that, had sprung up inside her to begin with. Just a scant couple of hours ago, she’d taken it upon herself to dress down the recruiter from Plasma, however justifiable her anger may have been. Then there was her conversation with Dr. Graziano, and while she'd mostly held herself together, the resentment she'd contended with throughout was a feeling particularly foreign to her.
It wasn’t as if Rei hadn’t had reasons to be angry. What concerned her more was the anger’s enduring presence, lingering like a cloud over her head ever since--
Banette.
There was nothing else for it to trace back to. It made far too much sense that, ever since Rei had made the disastrous decision to put her trust in Banette, she’d found herself growing steadily less composed, more irritable, more volatile. Maybe it really was nothing more than happenstance. Whatever the case, Rei needed to calm herself down. Perhaps a change of scenery would help.
Rei recognized Asuka’s room from the sliver of magma-red drywall peeking through a crack in the doorway, beckoning to her from the end of the shadowed hall. She took her sweet time making her way towards the door, and even once her fingers were curled around the knob, Rei wavered for a moment. She’d peered into Asuka’s room on a few fleeting occasions, but not once did she ever think she’d actually be granted access. Even now, with full permission to enter, so much as touching the doorknob felt monumental.
Once she’d gathered herself, Rei pushed the door to the side, and the first thing that dawned on her was just how unmistakably Asuka the room felt. Nowhere was that more evident than the walls, lined with dozens upon dozens of posters reflecting Asuka’s interests - her favorite bands, Unova League tournaments of years past, magazine ads for high-performance sports cars, and everything in between. The presence of one depicting Elesa was an amusing outlier, made doubly so by its oddly low placement. In fact, the more Rei looked, the more posters she realized had been positioned at odd angles, but she didn’t give it much thought beyond the initial observation.
As Rei approached the bed, the sight of a gleaming gold championship belt mounted above it coaxed a grin out of her; it was little wonder Asuka had made her first major trophy the star the rest of her room orbited around. That care translated to the bed itself, too - including the peculiarly meticulous placement of a single stuffed Monferno, propped up against the pillows and staring back at Rei with its beady, unblinking eyes. That Asuka so much as owned one plushie was enough of a bombshell. That she, for all intents and purposes, seemed to cherish it was something beyond even the most audacious reaches of Rei’s imagination.
The urge to inspect the doll further was undeniably tempting, but the sudden intrusion of squeaking hinges tore Rei’s attention towards the door before she had the chance. Likely for the best.
Rei, as expected, found herself face-to-face with Asuka. That was where the good news stopped. Asuka stood in the door frame, trembling like Castelia in an earthquake and rapidly heaving deep breaths in a desperate effort to burn off what remained of her rage. Most distressing, though, was the state of her left cheek - swollen, discolored, and affirming Rei’s biggest fear.
It seemed as if, unless Rei said something, they’d be standing there staring each other down until sunrise. The problem lied in figuring out what she could say without kicking a metaphorical Beedrill nest. And, for some ungodly reason, Rei figured lightening the mood was the way to go.
“So, um... your middle name is Gretche--” The plan didn’t make it so far as a single sentence, as the moment Asuka realized what the question was, she trained a full-blown death glare onto Rei, effortlessly stunning her into silence.
After several excruciating, regret-filled seconds, Asuka shut her eyes and sighed. “Can you look away for, like, a minute?” she requested, making a clear audible attempt to defuse the situation. “‘Cause I think I’ve had about enough of this goddamn dress for one day.”
“Of course.”
“If you peek, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m aware.”
Rei turned back towards the wall, continuing to examine the posters adorning it. The apprehension in the ensuing beat was not lost on her, but Asuka did begin changing soon enough, heralded by a medley of shuffling fabric and sliding drawers. The accompanying surge of heat through Rei’s cheeks, the likes of which she tended to save for her scattered bouts of rage, perplexed her.
“If you must know,” Asuka abruptly began, and Rei resisted every instilled social urge to turn and nod, “yes, ‘Asuka Gretchen Langley’ is my rea-- well. My legal name, anyway. Hilarious, I know.”
“Soryu isn’t part of it?”
“Nope. Actually, it was almost even worse, ‘cause Gretchen was almost my first name. I think Reinhardt wanted to name me ‘Gretchen Annika’ or somethin’ like that, but Mom won out on that one. Point is, Mom kept her last name when she married him, so it just... felt wrong, y’know? Not having it be part of mine.”
Rei could only speculate as to why Soryu had been left off Asuka’s birth certificate, because she wasn’t particularly interested in cracking open another can of worms. “Understandable.”
“You can turn around, by the way.”
Rei did so, taking note of Asuka’s new ensemble of lumberjack-plaid pajama pants and a well-worn band tee; her sundress laid carelessly discarded on the carpet beside her, imbued with all the grace of a used tissue. Asuka herself looked like a Skitty left to fend for itself in a hurricane.
“So, what was that, the third time I’ve lost my sh*t today? Maybe fourth?” Asuka pinched the bridge of her nose, brow furrowed with enough torque to pull a muscle. “Look, Rei, I know all I’ve been doing is making sh*t worse, and I’m sorry I keep dragging you down with--”
“Is your foot okay?”
Asuka tilted her head quizzically, following Rei's gaze down her right leg. At the very least, Asuka was putting weight onto it, even if that weight was entirely concentrated on her heel. Her heel, however, hadn’t been the part of her foot that struck Beheeyem’s barrier - and not only had Asuka kept her toes clear of the floor, they’d taken on a disconcerting purple tinge in the hours since.
Rei returned her focus to Asuka’s face, ready to make the obvious connection, but the presence of a languid, yet vividly red smile upon it swiftly overwrote whatever that might’ve been. “I can still walk, can’t I?” Asuka wearily laughed. “It’ll be alright. Appreciate you asking, though.”
“You’re welcome,” Rei replied.
Asuka gave a small nod of acknowledgement before heaving herself onto the bed, and for a moment, seemed to withdraw herself into a separate reality. Lying prone atop the blankets, she listlessly scrolled through her phone as she held silent congress with her Monferno plushie. Rei watched on, occasionally averting her eyes when it felt like she’d done so for too long. About a dozen different things to say drifted through her mind, but she respected Asuka too much to act on any of them.
When Asuka did decide she was ready to talk, her words were like shattering glass. “You get that I hate him, right? I’ve made that clear?”
“You-- huh?”
“Reinhardt.” Asuka reached to set her phone atop its charger before rolling onto her back. “I don’t want you to get this impression that ‘oh, of course I love him, I’m just mad that he’s never around--’ I mean, that part’s true. Doesn’t mean it’s born outta love or anything, ‘cause honestly? There’s nothin’ there. Hasn’t been since I was a dumbass kid.”
Hesitantly, Rei sat down at the foot of Asuka’s bed, allowing her shoulders to sag once it was apparent there were no bear traps lurking beneath the covers. “You’re really that sure?” she asked.
Asuka shrugged. “Maybe it’d be a different story if he gave me a reason.”
“To love him?”
“To think he’s putting any effort in at all.”
A door slammed shut downstairs; Asuka held her breath as footsteps followed from just beyond the room’s sole curtained window. Her eyes remained riveted to the ceiling, and eventually, Rei’s followed suit. Keeping watch over the bed was a poster for Perfect Blue, and the vacant, fractured stare of Mima Kirigoe did little to temper the uneasy atmosphere.
It was upon the sound of an engine rumbling to life, its bass-rich exhaust note a distinct departure from the snarling beast Rei had grown so accustomed to, that Asuka propelled herself from the mattress. “Even if he was the spitting image of some model kinda network sitcom dad,” Asuka continued as she crossed her legs, “I mean... you know the type of business he’s in. Best case scenario, we’re still talking about a guy who’s totally cool with the blood he’s got on his hands.”
Rei gave what she could only hope came across as an empathetic nod. “It’s a dilemma I’m quite familiar with,” she replied.
“‘Cause your dad’s in the defense industry too, nicht?”
“Mhm.”
Admittedly, Rei had never given her father’s career much thought - or, failing that, she’d at least done a decent job of suppressing any she did have. She’d always had reason to believe he cared for her, so it only made sense that it wasn’t something that crossed her mind often. The more Rei listened to Asuka, though, the more she wondered if that was a particularly rose-tinted view of the situation.
Rei, surmising this was a puzzle best solved some other time, silently beckoned for Asuka to continue.
“Honestly, I don’t really know what else I can say about him without sounding like a broken record,” Asuka continued. “But... just because I don’t love him, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. Because I do! I really do! Why do you think I threw myself headlong into being a Pokemon trainer the moment I could? Because I knew that’s what he wanted me to be from the moment he even thought about having a kid, and that’s why it stings even worse that I’ve gotten to the point where I’m actually good enough to win major tournaments, and all it turns out that’s good for is being somethin’ else for him to brag about over dinner to his war buddies. And then he comes home three weeks later and thinks that’s what constitutes being a good dad?! Verpiss dich!”
Asuka’s cadence had begun to accelerate at an alarming rate; at any moment, her sentences would surely crumble into indecipherable fragments. As Asuka unraveled further, attempting to stutter out her next word, Rei spent the same time inching forward atop the covers; though usually far from her first course of action, she could tell something was different this time. Like so many times before, Asuka needed her. This time, she could answer.
Rei, as delicately as she could, placed a hand atop Asuka’s thigh - and as she kneaded the flannel fabric between her fingers, Asuka squeezed her eyes shut and exhaled a shaky breath. “Don’t rush yourself,” Rei whispered. “Take as long as you need.”
Asuka dabbed her quickly-dampening eyes with her shirt, though made no effort to soak up the fresh tears that promptly pooled in their place. “I... I think that’s the part that pisses me off the most,” she muttered. “Like, he does the absolute bare minimum, and usually not even that much, and he still expects me to idolize him... but if I even slightly deviate from whatever his idea of the perfect daughter is, then I really might as well be dead to him. And it’s not just him, either, i-it’s like no matter what I do, if I’m not absolutely perfect at everything, then... what good am I to anyone? ‘Cause-- that match against Cilan, right? I won that! But since I was facing a Grass specialist and didn’t sweep him, suddenly it’s okay for some talking head to go on TV and call me a fraud in front of the entire country?!”
“But you won that tournament, didn’t you? You said it yourself, those people just do that because they think it’s entertaining. You can’t let people like that get to you.”
“I know that! I-I know that, but it still makes me so goddamn angry! It’s like there’s a flock of Mandibuzz circling me, and every single time I make a single mistake, they all just start dive-bombing or something... a-and I’m sick of it, Rei. I’m sick of being angry. Everything makes me so, so angry, and I don’t... want it to be like that. I just... I don’t know how to get it to stop.”
“Is that where the scars come from, then?”
Asuka’s waterlogged eyes joined Rei’s in drifting down towards her wrists, falling upon the dozens of faded, threadlike scars lining them like railroad tracks. Rei, of course, had noticed them long ago - to her, they were as synonymous with Asuka as her freckles - but had never once dreamed of pointing them out. Even here, asking didn’t feel quite right. Maybe it never would’ve.
A gleam out of the corner of Rei’s vision drew her attention towards Asuka’s end table. There, amongst broken picture frames and the tattered remnants of old magazines, lied a plastic, candy-red box cutter. The blade, at the very least, didn't appear to be rusted; Rei still struggled to consider that much of a victory.
Asuka dwelled on her arms for a moment longer, tears continuing to trickle down her face until she clamped her eyes shut to dam them. Her answer to Rei’s question came as a single, solemn nod, followed by more rhythmic breathing; Rei, grateful for so much as that, reciprocated with an arm around her shoulders and a heart in her throat.
“Hey,” Asuka eventually uttered, eyes still shut. “I, uh... I almost forgot. I need to tell you something.”
“Mm? What is it?”
“It’s... y’know how I had to talk about something with Dez earlier, back at the park? It’s about that.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“Thanks.” Asuka pried her eyes open, gently wiping the tears away. “So, I didn’t wanna bring it up while we were all together, but... well, Dez and I used to date. Probably somethin’ you already guessed, but yeah, we dated for... two years, I think? More or less.”
“I can’t help but notice you’re speaking in past tense.”
“Well, yeah. And don’t get me wrong, ‘cause Dez is one of my best friends, but after a while, it just... wasn’t working.”
“Why not?” Rei quickly picked up on the faint shade of pink adorning Asuka’s face. It was a welcome respite from the discolored bruise lying beneath.
“Because I didn’t actually love him. Never had. And it got to a point where, like... I knew I didn’t love him, but I kept acting like I did, because-- well, so Reinhardt wouldn’t get on my ass about breaking up with him, for one. But beyond that, I was pretty much doing it just to... convince myself of something I knew wasn’t true, I guess. And I felt terrible about it, too! Because if I wanted to keep lying to myself, I had to keep lying to Dez, too... and, like, Dez has told me over and over he understands, but... Scheiße, it’s the exact kinda thing Reinhardt would do.”
“Why would you think that?” Rei asked; if Asuka was willing to bridge the gulf between herself and her father for self-deprecation, it had to be something truly serious.
“Because...” Asuka started, only for her voice to wither into nothingness. The pink glow of her cheeks had mutated into ambulance-siren red, and Rei could practically see the outline of Asuka’s heart pounding through the dove on her shirt. She appeared seconds from detonating, though now in a fashion far different than Rei had grown accustomed to.
Asuka’s eyes darted towards her door, then back towards Rei. She went so far as to shoot her stuffed Monferno an uncertain glance, as if it had truly been eavesdropping on everything they’d said. Rei remained silent - if Asuka truly did need all the time in the world, she was more than willing to grant it to her.
Asuka, still failing to fully meet Rei’s gaze, anxiously tugged at her hair. “Because... I’m not even into guys in the first place, Rei.”
“You’re not?”
Incredibly, Asuka’s lips curled into something vaguely resembling a smile. “You... what do you mean, ‘you’re not?’” she echoed, punctuated with a giggle Rei may or may not have hallucinated. “Rei, I-- I came out to you, and your response is just... y’know what, forget it. Point is, um... y-yeah. I’m a lesbian.”
Asuka took a moment to gather herself, leaving both girls to ruminate on the revelation - that Asuka Langley Soryu was a lesbian, and now that Rei knew that, she seemed to breathe free for what very well might have been the first time in her life. Rei found herself cycling through countless potential responses, all failing to leave her lips. Some seemed too callous, others overly enthusiastic.
She ended up settling on one that, admittedly, may have been somewhat trivial. “Were you trying to convince yourself you weren’t?”
Asuka slowly nodded. “Yeah. When I finally realized it, I was... scared, honestly. Scared of what would happen if it got out, scared of what Mom or especially Reinhardt would think... I guess scared of what it said about me, too, a-as stupid as that sounds. So for a while, I kinda just... pressed on like normal. Hoped it’d go away.”
“And that’s why you kept dating Dezmond.”
“Yeah. But then it came to a point where I realized it was just gonna keep gettin’ worse the longer I kept deluding myself. Elesa was the first person I told-- I mean, obviously, right? Then I told Dez, even though I felt like I was gonna have a heart attack... and now I’ve told you. Skyla knows, too, but... that’s more or less it.”
Rei spotted a second poster of Elesa affixed to the wall upon the mention of her name, decidedly more provocative than the first, and another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. “So I’m that important to you?” she quipped.
“I-if that’s how you wanna put it, yeah.”
Rei did her best to mask the smirk Asuka’s reinvigorated blush brought to her face. “In any case, thank you for telling me. I’m glad you were comfortable enough.”
“Honestly, I was really worried, but... yeah, I’m glad I was, too.”
From a certain point of view, Rei found Asuka’s reservations entirely understandable, even if Rei herself had already made her own preferences abundantly clear - in fact, she’d done so ages ago. At least, it felt like she had. It seemed absurd to think she hadn’t.
Yet, the longer Rei attempted to conjure a corresponding memory, the more distraught she became by the decided absence of one.
Evidently, Asuka had noticed, as her expression quickly morphed into one of concern. “Hey, uh, Rei? You good?”
“Did I... never tell you?”
“About?”
“That I’m the same way.”
Asuka’s eyes immediately widened, seemingly more out of shock than anything else. “You... why didn’t you tell me that sooner?!” she exclaimed, her tone equally as dumbstruck. “I-I’m not mad at you or anything! I’m just... y-you could’ve...”
“I genuinely thought you knew by now,” Rei answered. “I... cannot believe I never actually told you.”
Not only did Asuka not know, it apparently stunned her enough to send her flopping backwards onto the mattress. “I mean... better late than never, I guess,” she said, sounding genuinely winded. “Though, honestly? You’re right. Or maybe it’s that I was right, ‘cause I figured you were into girls a while ago.”
Rei tilted her head at that. “What gave it away?”
“Y’know, little things. Short hair. Cargo pants. The way Skyla turned you into a blushing wreck when we went to Chargestone. Stuff like that.”
“That last one sounds like projection.”
Asuka’s grin widened, prompting Rei to realize it had returned in the first place. “Does it? Guess we remember it differently.”
Rei conceded with a cheerful shrug. “Guess so.”
For a moment, that was where the conversation ended, and the ensuing silence brought a sense of comfort instead of unease. As Asuka contently hummed to herself, Rei continued to scour the room, making mental notes of every little detail - a die-cast replica of the crimson Audi in the driveway, what remained of a broken fightstick, a photo of Asuka and Dezmond sporting Bludworth High baseball uniforms, and so on.
Soon enough, the humming stopped. “Hey, Rei. You wanna do me a favor?”
“Hm?” Rei swiveled back around just in time to see Asuka pull herself up from her horde of pillows. “Of course, what is it?”
“Well, uh... it’s just that...” Whatever confidence shone through in Asuka’s initial request had already completely evaporated. “...I was wondering if we could kiss.”
Rei instantly found herself with a death grip on the covers beneath her. “Y-you--”
“Just once! Because, like... I’ve never actually gotten to kiss another girl before, right? And... since you’re my best friend, and you’re, y’know...”
Inexplicably, Rei’s initial shock began to give way to something that wasn’t abject terror. She put a moment of effort into unclenching her body and considering the prospect; unfortunately, her brain refused to throw out anything that didn't scream 'error', 'bug report', or 'misfire'.
For a moment that had to have been discouraging to Asuka, Rei gripped her head, as if to dispel a migraine. Then, quietly, she replied, "I... haven’t kissed anyone before. I don’t want to disappoint you."
Asuka scoffed. “I mean, if that’s the logic you operate on, you’re gonna have to disappoint someone eventually, right?”
“I suppose you have a point.”
“Then why not disappoint me?”
Try as she might, Rei couldn’t help but crack a smile. “I’d... be glad to--”
Asuka eagerly flung her arms over Rei’s shoulders the moment she could, and within the same second, pulled her into a kiss fraught with far more passion than anything Rei could have imagined. Whatever remaining hang-ups Rei had melted away as soon as their lips were locked, as she allowed herself to shut her eyes and let Asuka’s enthusiasm guide her; she even found herself so bold as to wrap her arms around Asuka’s waist, pulling the two ever so slightly closer together.
Rei’s eyes fluttered open as their lips eventually parted, and the sight of Asuka’s face as something more akin to a freckled stop sign came as little surprise. In fairness, her own was probably even more of a spectacle.
“How did it feel?” Rei whispered.
Asuka’s smile just about extended beyond her cheeks. “Like the right thing to do, I guess.”
“Glad to disappoint you.” Reluctantly, Rei retracted her arms from Asuka’s waist, shifting backwards atop the bed to give her space. “Just once, right?”
“Yeah. Once.” Asuka lowered her arms, gently taking both of Rei’s hands in her own without a fight. “Hey, um... I was gonna ask you one other thing, just ‘cause of how much of a mess tonight’s been-- up until now, I mean. But, uh... there’s an amusem*nt park, Scarlet Oaks, just across the river from Nimbasa... and I was wonderin’ if you’d wanna go. Figured that’d be a decent way of making it up to you, y’know, for how crappy the past few days have been.”
Rei’s gaze drifted downward, lingering on the sight of her and Asuka’s conjoined hands. “I’d love that,” she agreed.
“Fantastisch! It’ll have to be next Saturday, though, ‘cause I promised Elesa I’d sub in for her at the gym this weekend.”
“You can do that...?”
“As long as I’m using the gym’s Pokemon, yeah. Though I haven’t battled with any Electric-types in a bit... and honestly, I’m not really lookin’ forward to it.”
Rei allowed herself to giggle at that; she could hardly remember the last time she’d giggled at anything. If ever. “Rotom and Magnezone would be happy to get you up to speed, I’m sure.”
“Eh, we can talk about that tomorrow.”
Asuka tugged at the covers, beginning the arduous process of wriggling herself under them. In turn, Rei gave the room one final once-over, ultimately zeroing in on the feasibly-comfortable loveseat sitting across from the television. “I suppose I can sleep over there, then?”
Bewilderingly, the suggestion seemed to confuse Asuka more than anything. “What do you mean? This is a queen-size, y’know.”
“...You... want me to...?”
“You just kissed me, now you’re actin’ all weird about sleeping next to me? Mein Gott, Wonder Girl, you really are from some other planet.”
Maybe Rei could’ve come up with a valid argument for sleeping alone on the couch, if she really wanted to. Then again, maybe Asuka had a point - maybe things really would be just fine if Rei crawled back across the bed and joined her beneath the covers.
As tough of a decision as it was, Rei decided that, just this once, she deserved to save herself the headache. “In that case,” she said, nestling in by Asuka’s side, “I appreciate the hospitality.”
