Author’s Notes: By popular demand, I present another Masa/Kai chapter! Yay! And just so
everyone knows, and doesn’t get confused by the timeline presented in the last
chapter, this one comes the day after Chapter
04b ends. Okay?
shat·ter
(shăt’Ər)
Masa paid the cab driver
and thanked him immensely. He hadn’t
realized how out-of-the-way Yoshiki’s “vacation”
house was. Kai held tight to the teddy
bear in her arms beside him and alternated between watching him help the other
man unload the trunk and staring up at the house. Once unpacked, Masa
thanked their driver again and hefted their two suitcases into his hands. Bumping the little girl playfully with one of
them, he smiled and nodded up at the house.
“Come on,” he said quietly, “let’s go.”
She nodded, but said nothing as they trudged
up the drive and the front walk to the door.
Kai found the carving in the bordering windows rather fascinating. Meanwhile, Masa put
one of the suitcases down so he could root through his pocket for the key. After finding it – in the other pocket, which earned him a
moment’s panic – he unlocked the door and ushered the little girl inside before
him. Following her in, he shut the door
behind him and stared.
The front hall was immense and furnished
with only the best. This room alone had
to have cost a fortune. And if they were
all the same…Yoshiki said there were at least ten
rooms in the house, but since he hadn’t visited in awhile, he couldn’t remember
exactly how many or how big they were.
Needless to say, Masa
was impressed. Putting the suitcases down, he offered a hand to the little girl
and said, “Let’s go explore.” This time,
she smiled and took his hand, walking with him through the house. She would peak around corners to see if she
could beat him to the surprise by a few seconds.
After having a self-guided tour of the
downstairs and finding two very nice
cars in the garage, they raced each other upstairs. Kai giggled as she beat him to the bedroom to
their right and leapt onto the king-sized bed, bouncing up and down. Masa reached the
door frame and leaned against it, finally relaxing. “We’ll have to buy new sheets,” he mused.
“Why?” Kai asked. She was currently bouncing back and forth
from the corners back to the middle of the bed while turning in circles. Masa would have
been concerned for her safety if he hadn’t seen her doing a similar routine
back at Gackt’s house.
“Because these
aren’t ours.”
“Why?”
“Because we didn’t
buy them.”
“So?”
“So, we shouldn’t use them.”
Flopping down on her rear end, she bounced
a few times until the bed stilled under her.
She dove into the pillows and there came a muffled, “But I like these
ones – they’re fuzzy!”
“Oh really?” Masa walked up and
joined her on the bed. She was right,
they were fuzzy. And rather comfortable,
he thought. Well…shit, there goes my argument.
“Alright, we’ll keep them.”
“Yay!” she
squealed, jumping up and bouncing a few more times.
“But not without payment.”
She fell to her knees beside him. “What payment?”
“This
payment,” he said, promptly grabbing her sides and tickling her,
successfully wrenching a fit of giggles from her.
After a moment or two she collapsed, still
giggling, across his stomach, her small arms wrapped around his waist. He ran his hand through her dark hair and
rubbed her back, feeling her breathing return to normal against him. “Masa-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“When’s Daddy coming?” She turned her head so her other cheek rested
against him and she could watch his reaction.
The content happiness he had been
experiencing for the last half hour or so immediately evaporated. Continuing his soothing caresses he murmured,
“Not for awhile, Chibi…”
“Does that mean we still have to play
pretend?”
“Yeah,” he sighed, “yeah we do.”
She was silent for a moment. “Okay, Daddy.”