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drabblesandimagines · 2 years ago

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Kitty (part 7)

Parts 1 - 6 here. Rei x (afab) reader fluff

You wake up to the sunlight streaming through the curtains, thankful for what turned out to be a dreamless sleep. You sit up in the bed, stretching, when it hits you. Wait… The last thing you remember was being in the car, on the way back to the apartment with Kazuki, so how did you get here?

It’s late, or late for you, as you note from the alarm clock displaying that it’s already half past nine. You’re still in your clothes from yesterday, so you quickly get changed and hurry out of the room. Rei often pops in to retrieve fresh clothes in the morning when you’re downstairs and you’re slightly worried your lie-in has thrown him off his routine.

You open the door and step out into the hall, where you can hear Kazuki humming away in the kitchen and Rei is sweeping around the ground floor – he must’ve heard the door open as he looks up in your direction, smiling shyly. There it is again – your stomach flips as you smile back before descending the stairs.

You pause at the bottom, feeling a little like a spare part due to your late wake-up. “M-m-morning.”

“Good morning!” Kazuki chimes back, a bright smile on his face as always. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Y-yes, thank you,” you nod. “H-how did I get t-to bed?”

“Well,” Kazuki scratches the back of his head, “you fell asleep in the car on the way home – you looked so peaceful I didn’t want to wake you. I carried you in and then Rei here tucked you up in bed.”

You look over to Rei, but now he’s concentrating particularly hard on one spot of the floor in a continuous sweep. The negative thoughts start to rise up – what a burden you are, can’t even wake up to walk up to the apartment, sleeping in… His voice pipes up in your head. Lazy, useless, worthless, waste of space… You bite your lip, trying to quell the unhelpful voices with distraction. Pain is a good one. You know if you were to voice these aloud that Kazuki and Rei would reassure you, that it’s fine, and that must be tiresome to repeat themselves. But you can’t help it – it’s a 180 whiplash-inducing turn from the past few years.

“Kitty?” Rei’s in front of you now, a hesitant look on his face as he breaks through your thoughts. He’s so good now at telling when you’re caught in your head. “Sorry if that wasn’t okay, you were really out of it.”

It clicks that he’s worried he’s overstepped a line by carrying you up there, and it’s sweet. “N-no, that w-w-was ve-very kind of you. T-t-thank you.”

The shy smile appears back on his face. “That’s okay.”

“I saved you breakfast.” Kazuki interrupts. He’s removing containers from the fridge. “I’ll admit I went a little overboard trying to hit all the nutritional groups.”

“C-can I h-help?”

“Nah, just take a seat.” He points to the table. “It won’t take long.”

You sit down, feeling a little awkward as Kazuki continues retrieving things from the fridge and laying them out on the counter. You can’t believe he’s done all of this for you. Rei finishes sweeping and, after grabbing his mug and filling it with some juice, he hovers beside you.

“Mind if I join you?”

You shake your head.

He takes the seat next to you, bumping your leg with his own as he does so. You’re not sure if it was deliberate.

“How did you find the clinic?”

“It w-was g-g-good.” You pause, and close your eyes, preparing yourself mentally for the next sentence. “S-said the s-stutter was maybe psy-psycho-log… logical.” You force out, before opening your eyes. Thankfully he isn’t looking at you.

“Mm,” Rei takes a sip from his mug. “You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished so far too. It can’t be easy.”

Kazuki comes over with a loaded plate. It is a lot. He chuckles as he sets down a plate in front of you – you guessed you’d let your shock show on your face. “Don’t worry – I don’t expect you to eat all of it! Just a little bit of everything, hm?” He starts pointing around the plate, explaining what’s what and why it’s good for you. “I’ll grab the vitamins too – I put them up in the bathroom cupboard.”

“He made me and Miri eat everything too – said my diet could use it, probably.” Rei confides as you start on the food.

Kazuki returns with the paper bag in his hand and sits opposite you, digging out different bottles and consulting the instructions. It’s quiet for a few moments – just the sounds of Kazuki opening the pill bottles and removing a tablet, lining them up in front of you as your chopsticks scrape the plate.

He then retrieves what you presume is the anxiety medication – it’s in a cardboard box rather than a bottle – and reads through the leaflet carefully.

“What’s that one?” Rei asks, curious.

“Oh, I mentioned the panic attack the other night. Doctor said it could take the edge off. It’s obviously up to you, though, Kitty, if you want to take them. I know it’s not the most professional set-up there. I think the vitamins are a good idea though, but, again, it’s your choice.”

“N-no, v-vitamins s-sound good.” You set down the chopsticks. The doctor had listed symptoms last night of vitamin deficiency and they’d all rang true with you – fatigue, aches, bruises and wounds taking a long time to heal. There had been times when you’d got up too fast from cleaning the floors and felt woozy, having to sit with your head between your knees until it passed, hoping that no-one would see you and accuse you of slacking off. “I’m n-not sure on t-these ones.” And you pause, always bracing for a backlash, even though you know he’s said it’s your choice. “W-will t-they make my h-h-head feel w-w-weird?”

“Mm. There are a fair few potential side effects, that’s for sure. It’s what you feel is best for you.” He reassures again, passing over the box for you to take a look.

“Did he make you take something that made your head feel weird?” Rei asks, quietly.

“A-at the be-begin-ning, h-h-he made me t-take s-s-something to-to relax.” It was to stop you screaming and struggling, really, while he mulled over exactly what he was going to do with you.

“Relax?” Kazuki raises an eyebrow. Rei’s clenching his fists. He wishes the man wasn’t already dead so he could shoot him all over again and not make it as quick as a death as he’d had.

“It m-made m-me sleepy a-and f-f-fuzzy.” You swallow. “I d-d-don’t w-want to f-feel like that a-again.”

“Yeah, I think I can understand that. We’ll just keep these aside, as an option, okay? You all done there?” He gestures to the plate.

“Mm. It w-was r-really nice, thank y-you.” There’s still things left on the plate but you made a decent dent in it, more so than you would’ve a week ago.

“Good! Here,” he slides your glass of water closer to you. “You’ll probably want to wash those pills down with something.”

He stands up and takes your plate, pausing as he scrutinizes Rei. “Hair’s getting long again, man. Want me to do a trim?”

“Sure,” Rei nods. He’s gotten used to Kazuki’s haircuts. It keeps it easier to manage.

“Y-you can c-cut hair?”

“Eh, I kinda have the one style,” he gestures at Rei’s cut. “Your hair bothering you?”

It has been bothering you. It’s so long, seems to tangle constantly and the ends are particularly dry, splitting when you braid it. It feels heavy on your head, really, like it’s weighing you down. It wasn’t something you ever thought much about in the house – there was no way they’d let you have access to scissors and they were hardly going to sit you down and cut your hair. Your showers had been sporadic at best– you managed to get one usually once a week when you were cleaning bathrooms, but never a relaxing experience. Here, though, it was nice to wash every day and not have to worry about when the next one was coming.

“Mm, it’s s-s-o l-long.”

“Well, I can book you in at a proper salon?” you shake your head furiously at the idea. “Yeah, maybe still out of the comfort zone. Hm. I reckon I can cut in a relatively straight line by now, if you like.”

“If t-t-that’s okay, I t-think I would l-l-like that.”

“Of course! I can book you both in for today,” he winks.

Kazuki makes another snip. “What are you thinking for your next move, then?” You’re in the bathroom, washing your hair in preparation for your haircut. Rei’s staring into space – Kazuki won’t let him use his phone whilst he cuts in case it goes wonky.

“Move?”

“With Kitty.”

“Oh. I…” he hesitates. “I don’t know. Am I meant to be doing something?”

“That depends. Like, would you like to kiss her?”

Rei feels the blood fill his cheeks as Kazuki continues snipping away at his hair, though he’s not sure why. It’s not like he hadn’t kissed a girl before. His father had hired escorts for his 18th birthday – not that it was something he’d ever shown an interest in, but the other men in the compound had seemed pleased. An escort had dragged him back to his bedroom and there had been some kissing but that’s as far as it went. He wasn’t one for a honeytrap – what need was there for it? He was skilled and stealthy enough to complete jobs without the need for seduction. As if he could seduce anybody…

“Mm.”

“Well, I think your next move should be working up to that. You gotta handle this delicately, though. She’s been through a lot.”

“I… I don’t want to hurt her. Sometimes…” A pause, this is exactly the type of feeling his father would tell him to ignore – to feel at all is to show weakness, but he trusts Kazuki. “Sometimes it feels like all I’m good for is hurting people.” He stares at his hands.

“Hey, that’s not true, buddy.” Kazuki pauses the trim to place a hand on his shoulder. “You make Miri really happy, for one. And, for what it’s worth, having you around makes me happy too. You’re not going to hurt Kitty. Come on, Rei, remember how I had a freak out about how she wouldn’t say my name and then there was you with your research and listening and all that?”

“I guess.”

“Uh-uh, no guessing about it.”

“What did you do the other night, when she panicked?” It’s been bugging him what happened in the bathroom. He’s wanted to ask – of course he’d searched up on panic attacks as soon as he’d heard the term, but he wants to know what Kazuki did specifically because it seemed to have really worked.

“Oh, yeah - it was a breathing exercise. Breathing’s an unconscious action mostly, so it helps you really focus on it. You inhale through your nose for four seconds, hold the breath in another four, exhale out your mouth for four, hold for another four. Repeat. It can take a fair few goes but it usually works.”

He goes to nod but knows that Kazuki will tell him off for jeopardizing the haircut. “Thanks.”

There’s another spell of silence. “Rei, you do believe me right? You’re more than just your family’s name. Plus, it’s not like Kitty doesn’t know what you and I do for work.” He continues snipping away as he talks. “The most important thing, I think, is to make sure you’re going at her pace.”

“Her pace?”

“I mean, you’re not, like, throwing yourself at her.”

“She held my hand.” He confesses.

“She did?” Rei swears he can hear the smile in his voice, somehow.

“The other day, when we were walking home. She reached out for my hand…” He flexes his fingers. “It felt different from when Miri’s held it before. I didn’t want to let go.”

“Ugh,” Kazuki sniffs loudly and Rei doesn’t even need to look to know he’s crying. “I’m a sucker for a good romance. This is so sweet! Think of the story you’ll tell your kids…” Rei stiffens. “Okay, okay, I’m jumping the gun. It’s still sickeningly sweet though.”

He wipes his sleeve across his eyes before he continues the haircut. “Hey, I know - you could take her to the zoo.”

“The zoo?”

“Yeah, you said you hadn’t been before when we went, and we were kinda too preoccupied on the mission for you to see the place properly. I bet she’d like that, it’d make a great first date.”

“Yeah, that could be nice.” He’s ignoring the date part, but he can’t help a dig. “When you say mission, though, you do mean when you made us stalk Miri to get her lunch?”

“It was a mission.”

The bathroom lock clicks and you exit, your hair partially dried and hanging loose to your lower back - you’ve thoroughly brushed it out too, ridding it of all knots and tangles. Rei’s haircut looks to be coming to an end.

Kazuki whistles, “That is long – I guess I hadn’t realized since you have it up all the time.”

“I w-wasn’t s-sure what would b-b-be easier to cut. S-should I br-braid it?”

“Yeah, I think braided would be easier to get a symmetrical length off it.”

You nod and head over to the sofa, tucking your legs underneath you before you part your hair. You make quick work of the two braids, securing them with elastic bands. Your hair is pretty thin – another possible side effect of vitamin deficiency, you’d learned.

“Right,” Kazuki whips the cloak off Rei with a flourish. “Next customer, please.”

Rei gives you a smile before immediately heading to the bathroom, grabbing some clothes out of the laundry pile to be folded on the way, muttering about how itchy he was – you’d guessed some hair had made its way down his back despite the cloak.

You sit down on the chair and Kazuki drapes the cloak over your shoulders. “Now, Kitty, you’re sure about this?”

“De-def-initely.”

“Where do you want me to cut to?” He crouches a little, his hands on his knees to get level with you.

Your fingers wrap round one of the braids and you tug it forward, trying to picture a length. “H-here, I t-think.” You press your finger against your collar bone.

“And, again, you’re absolutely 100% positive?” Kazuki seems nervous as he picks up the scissors.

“Pos-positive.” You give him what you hope is an encouraging smile.

“Okay, here we go…” He takes hold of the braid, gently, and snips through in one smooth motion. “Here, hold on to it for me.”

It feels weird to hold it in your hand, almost a physical representation of your last few years. Cutting off dead weight, things holding you back. It isn’t long until the other one is gone too, and you feel lighter. Kazuki runs his fingers through your hair to free it from the braids and sets about evening things up until he seems happy with his work.

“I think that does it.” The bathroom lock clicks and Rei emerges, freshly showered and dressed. “Ah, perfect timing. Go have a look in the mirror though to make sure you’re happy.” He pulls the cloak from your shoulders and lays it on the table, before laying the cut braids on top.

“I think it looks pretty cute, though. Don’t you agree, Rei?” Kazuki winks behind your back as you head towards the vacated bathroom.

“Y-yeah,” Rei stutters as he stares, “Really cute.”

There it is again – the heat in your cheeks. You duck your head in thanks and walk a little faster to the bathroom. It’s steamy in there after Rei’s shower, so you have to rub some condensation off the mirror to see at first. There’s a weird sense of déjà vu as you see your reflection. It’s almost as if you’ve had this haircut before, and maybe you have - is that why you asked for that length, a subconscious reflex? You smile as you admire it in the mirror. It sounds silly in your head so you’ll keep the thought to yourself, but you feel like you - more so than you have in whoever knows how long, even if you still didn’t remember your name.

Kazuki is hovering at the bathroom door now, looking tense. “Is it okay?”

“I l-l-love it, Z-Zuki.” You smile, brightly, and the blonde bursts into tears.

“Not again,” Rei sighs.

Again?

Rei and you headed to pick Miri up later that afternoon. Kazuki had pretty much hounded the two of you out the door earlier than usual. You could’ve sworn he’d whispered “Ask her,” in Rei’s direction as you stepped out the door. Ask her what? Are you the her?

You’d be a liar if you said you weren’t nervous about facing an inquisition into Kazuki’s whereabouts from the daycare mothers, but having Rei with you again is reassuring at least. You step into the elevator and as the doors slide close, his hand brushes up against yours, hesitantly.

“Is it okay if I…?” He murmurs, softly, but before he finishes his question you lace your fingers with his and squeeze in affirmation.

You walk the route to Miri’s daycare at a slow pace, in a companiable silence – it doesn’t feel awkward or clumsy, just as if the two of you savoring in each other’s company. As the daycare comes into sight – mothers already in the playground with a few kids already out - you feel his grip slip out, before he stops in his tracks completely and your heart sinks a little. Does he not want them to see? Is he embarrassed?

“I need to ask you something.”

You are the her. Immediately, your mind skips to what you could’ve done wrong to be questioned about - a trained reflex.

“Oh?” You try to keep your voice steady, trying to reason with the doubt in your mind. This is Rei, kind, sweet Rei who was just holding your hand.

“Would you like to go to the zoo? With me, I mean. On a date.”

“I would.” The words are out of your mouth before you can even think about it – no hesitancy, no stutter.

“Great.” He nods, smiling, before he grabs hold of your hand again and walks at speed towards the daycare. As you reach the gaggle of mothers, he does drop your hand again, but only to wrap his arm around your shoulders as last time to keep you close as he navigates his way through the crowd, ignoring all remarks thrown his way.

Miri waves as she spots the two of you, hugging Ms Anna’s legs before she sprints over, eyes wide in wonder.

“Kitty, your hair!”

You crouch down so she can see it better and her small hands grab at the ends in fascination.

“D-do you l-like it, M-Miri?”

“Yes! It’s pretty. Isn’t Kitty pretty, Papa Rei?” She giggles at her rhyme.

“She is,” Rei murmurs in agreement, placing his hand affectionately on Miri’s head. “Very pretty. You both are.”

“Thank you! You’re…” She stops, frowns and leans into the side of you, cupping her mouth in a theatrical whisper directed into your ear. “Can boys be pretty too?”

“Mm-hm, or h-han-handsome.” Miri giggles at your response, a glint of something in her eye.

“What’s the big secret?” Rei looks down at the two of you.

“Kitty says you’re handsome, Papa Rei!” The little girl squeals. You don’t even need to look around to know the mothers are frantically texting each other and you get to your feet, wanting to make a quick exit. Rei grabs both yours and Miri’s hands and walks speedily to the gate, pulling you both along but Miri’s already seen Rei’s face.

“Papa Rei, you’re so red again! Red like an eucky tomato.” Miri giggles as she points up at the black-haired man.

“Am not.”

“Are so!” --

Author's note: I hope the slow burn isn't getting too boring, but I feel it's necessary for the both of them. When I started writing this, I didn't think it would end up being so long, but I'm sitting at over 26,000 words cos they're just adorable. I have started working on how to wrap this series up but, who knows, maybe we'll return for some one-shots... Thank you for all the support so far - please, like, reblog and follow if you can. Love reading all your comments too <3

EDIT: Part 8.

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