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Even this far from the hotel, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu hears music in the air, music and voices filtering through the wind and waves. If they're trying to be inconspicuous, he thinks, they're doing a piss-poor job. Save for the islands further out, the ocean looks endless, and just as blinding blue at night. No one is here but him, cameras be damned.
He shuffles out to the ocean's edge.
Fuyuhiko digs his loafers into the sand, watching the water skim in and out like breaths. The sand looks powdery to touch -- real tropical island sand, not the pebbly stuff at his cousins' beach house half a world away. He fights the urge to discard his shoes, to roll up his slacks and wade right in.
If someone were to die tonight, and he came back to the others dripping wet, they'd draw a few conclusions. Blood, water, guilty. Still, the mental image of someone seeing Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu splashing in the waves, carefree as a damn kid, was just as much a death sentence.
He sighs, and wishes the waves could drown it out.
They don't. Someone listens, silently. He doesn't have to turn around to know whom.
"What is it," he asks the sand at his feet.
"I came to check on you."
"Why?"
Silence. "...The others were concerned."
He knows damn well they weren't. "That's your excuse?"
"Really. They did ask about you."
"Ask what? Why I haven't killed anyone yet?"
More silence. "...You know, there's still time to go back. If you want."
He pinches the bridge of his nose, willing himself not to turn around, not to see whatever pitied expression Peko's forcing for his sake.
"I'm not going," Fuyuhiko snaps. "I made that clear to the others and that includes you now, remember? Fuck. Go have fun. Eat something. Get to know your new friends. And stop worrying about me."
Still more silence. Enough silence to fill the night with, all the way to the horizon.
He turns to face Peko, and she's focusing on the sand, thumbing the end of a braid, her laser-sharp gaze mellowed. He knows that look.
Many years past, the two of them stood in that beach house's pebble sand. Both sopping wet, towel-wrapped. Fuyuhiko couldn't keep himself from the waves, then. He was a young child; young children play, and young children climb on driftwood. Young children don't know the meaning of the term "sneaker wave", and neither did Fuyuhiko. His cousin Naomichi shouted it from the shoreline. The wave in question roared over Fuyuhiko's head, and three of Naomichi's brothers dove into the water, swimming like Fuyuhiko's father was behind them, chomping at the bit to punish their carelessness. Three teenage boys swimming for their lives, and it was Peko, a seven-year-old girl with an inner tube, who outswam all of them, who reached Fuyuhiko first. She said nothing. Her face showed all the emotion she needed. Concern.
She handed Fuyuhiko the inner tube and towed him like hell back to shore, swimming as though old Master Kuzuryuu would punish her too. He did, some hours later, and even now Fuyuhiko winces at the memory.
Back then, though, Peko was safe and so was he. Safe, sandy and shivering, waiting for cousins with towels. Peko had stared down at the ground then, pigtail in hand.
"What is it," Fuyuhiko remembered asking.
"I..." Peko turned to face him, tears welling in those huge red eyes, and Fuyuhiko had wanted to hug her tight, and he told her 'hey, it's okay, you're going to be okay, I'm here'. He remembered Peko hugging him back with alarming strength, remembered her tears on his shoulder. They almost stung.
"I'm so happy you're safe," Peko had whimpered, voice choked. "Please..." She held his face in both cold hands, those eyes laser-focused again. "Please don't do anything that dangerous again, young master. Don't. Ever."
That snapped Fuyuhiko back to reality. It wasn't concern. It was duty. Those tears, that reassuring hug, the relief in Peko's voice -- all of it had fooled him, and the moment the words "young master" left her mouth, it was like being smacked upside the head with reality. It hurt Fuyuhiko worse than his father's backhands.
He wasn't sure what was real anymore. He still isn't.
It's the present, and right now Peko's about to walk off and rejoin the others. She hesitates. She hesitates because he asked her to stop worrying. Fuck. She's taking it as an order, and now she's --
"Young master," she finally says. "May I speak freely?"
This is new. Fuyuhiko can't remember the last time she's asked that. He shuffles around to face Peko, and she looks at him, just as laser-focused as all those years ago, her intent eyes shining like those watchful stars.
"Go ahead," he permits.
"There isn't a thing that could prevent me from worrying about you. I don't think there ever has been.Take of that statement what you will."
Peko turns on a heel and leaves, but not without one last glance over her shoulder. "Caring for someone isn't something one can be duty-bound to do."
With that, she leaves the shoreline on silent footsteps, back to the hotel, back to friends enjoying each other's company. The wind and waves fill in her presence, echoing her parting words. Fuyuhiko almost wishes they don't.
He kicks sand at the water's edge. "Caring for someone, huh."
The others seem to care for Peko. Hell, she fits right in. She looks... right in the company of friends, more right than she has in years. And if these friends really asked about Fuyuhiko, too... He wants to be naive enough to believe that's true, to believe that anyone does anything without some ulterior motive. That was Fuyuhiko's world. That was all he'd known.
Then again, anything is possible in this bizarre, fucked up reality we're living in. Who's to say what's normal anymore.
He leaves the water's edge, heading for the hotel. The sound of his footsteps on the boardwalk is decisive. Purposeful. New.
If caring for someone outweighs obligation, I guess wanting company outweighs it too, Fuyuhiko thinks, glancing at the old hotel building. He swears he can see warm light peeking through those bolted windows, as inviting as the chatter and laughter inside. He strains his ears to hear Peko's voice, talking and laughing as if she had no act to keep up, as if she could be that honest girl he remembered once more. If Peko could do that, so can he.
Public enemy status be damned. Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu was ready to be normal. God knows he'd been aching for it. A slight smile warms his face, and he makes his way forward.