The Brighter Side of Brokenness

Trigger Warning: strong language, mature situations, some violence

“So, let me get this straight…”

The group of people standing before her seemed to tremble as she fell silent, sharp eyes levelling a laser-like stare that bored right into every single one of them.

“You meant it as a prank.” The last word was spat out with maximum contempt. They really should have remembered that their boss was a woman who had a notoriously low tolerance for bullying of every kind. Now, her rage was incandescent.

No, Katya’s voice had not been raised to shout: far from it, as her tone was actually quite reasonable. But there was a vicious undertone to it, like a lamprey or a shark lurking, swimming, prowling under deceptively still waters.

Katya wasn’t very tall; she was only five-foot-four and preferred ballerina flats or low-heeled boots in cooler weather, neither of which did anything for her lack of height. But she always gave the impression of being bigger than she actually was — as catty Jana often said, “Miss Kitty is in cobra-mode.”

Indeed, like a cobra with its hood flared out, Katya seemed calm and collected but definitely poised to strike at the whole group.

“You stole his journal from his desk while he was out on assignment,” she continued, her voice still level. “You had Sakurage from Erudite translate it for you, you disgusting little whores. Then you printed the more salacious lines out and plastered them all over the bullpen!” Katya was livid now and her voice rose in volume as she spoke, her last words ringing as an accusatory shout at the assembled writers. “How juvenile of you.”

Jana made the mistake of opening her mouth to say, “It was a harmless joke, miss!”

Katya marched up to her and, to everyone’s shock, smartly — and sharply — slapped her face twice with the back of her hand.

“Harmless?” she hissed at the trembling girl. “Harmless?! Kai just attempted suicide and you have the balls to call your prank harmless?!”

“You hit me!” Jana whined, putting her hands to her injured cheeks. “I’m telling my mother!”

“Go tell your mother, then!” Katya snarled at her, pointing to the phone on the nearest desk. “Go, you filthy little slut! Tell Armida I hit you — and I will tell her everything you’ve done and that Nell agrees with me that we ought to fire you and all your friends! Go on, Jana.” A slow, angry smirk quirked at the corner of her lips. “I dare you.”

Presently, Nell marched into the bullpen. Her face was grim and she slid a rebuking glance at the shamefaced lot of writers as she approached.

“You hit Jana?” she asked Katya.

“I did,” Katya replied without the faintest hint of remorse.

Nell nodded grimly at this. Gently, she patted Katya’s shoulder. “Go take care of Kai, please,” she said in her quiet voice. “He needs someone to tell him that things will be all right; he needs you.”

There was a faint snigger after she said this, and both women shot venomous glares at Jana who quickly blinked at being caught. Nell glared at her and, without batting an eyelash, slapped her harder — and Nell’s blow was strong enough to knock the girl to the floor.

“On your feet!” Nell growled at her, cracking her knuckles menacingly. She nodded to Katya. “Go, Kitty; I’ll take it from here.”

+++

“Kids these days, I tell you!” Sanno exclaimed as the nurse finished bandaging Kai’s wrist. “No respect whatsoever!”

Kai regarded his old friend wretchedly, wincing at the pain. It was fortunate that Katya had caught him when she did; otherwise, he would have been a goner.

She didn’t have to, he thought miserably. After everything I wrote about her…

“He’s going to be all right,” they heard the nurse say. When they looked up, they saw Katya coming in, looking worried. “Good thing you stopped him before he could cut any deeper.”

“Just a flesh wound?” Katya asked.

The nurse nodded. “More than a scratch,” she said. “But thankfully not deep enough to have done serious damage.” She threw Kai a meaningful glare. “Someone needs to see a shrink, if you ask me.”

Kai quickly looked away, his pale cheeks burning with shame as Katya turned his way.

“Chewed ’em out, Kit?” Sanno asked as she came closer.

Katya nodded emphatically. “And Nellie was ripping innards out when I left her,” she declared with grim satisfaction.

To Kai’s surprise, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tight.

“Don’t ever think of doing that again,” she said sternly, her voice half-muffled as she’d buried her face in the space between his neck and shoulder.

Kai sighed as she let him go, not quite daring to look her in the eye. But, “Thanks, Miss Kit.”

She studied him for an uncomfortable moment, gently tilting his chin up with her fingertips so she could look him in the eye. He gulped nervously, seeing how she’d put her expression on neutral as she regarded him.

Finally, “You didn’t eat lunch, I think. Let’s go grab dinner.”

Her tone left no room for argument. Whether Kai liked it or not, they were going out to dinner. He nodded meekly and shakily got to his feet.

“I’d invite you both to dinner with me, Hilda, and the baby,” Sanno chimed in, “but I think you two need to talk: get stuff out into the open and all.” He threw a meaningful glance at Kai whose face was still a deep embarrassed crimson. “May as well get things over and done with.”

Kai meekly nodded at this and sighed as his old friend lightly slapped his back.

“Take care of him, Kit,” he heard Sanno tell Katya as he turned to leave the clinic. “There’s only one Kai Kurosawa — and we’re lucky enough to have him. I’ll be the first to start lopping off heads if he decides to head home to Tokyo because of those bitchy little gossips we have the misfortune of working with.”

“Well, let’s hope that our misfortune ends soon,” Katya replied gravely. “Nell was throwing the rule-book at the lot when she sent me here. Also…” Here, Kai looked up when he heard the faintest hint of amusement in her voice. “We might need to hire better people soon, I think.”

She turned to Kai, and he saw the kindness — not pity, thank goodness, or sorrow — in her eyes.

“Let’s go?” she asked him.

He nodded and followed her out of the clinic.

+++

“I think we both need a drink,” Katya remarked as Kai held the door open for her. The smile she threw his way was rueful. “You, most especially: you’ve had a rough day — and you nearly made it your last.”

Kai shrugged but said nothing. The proprietor who knew them both quite well now looked up from where he’d been polishing glasses at the bar.

“Konban wa,” he greeted them. “Nell called; said to expect you two.”

Normally, they would have both moseyed up to the bar, ordered beers, and started bitching about how their day went. But not tonight. Tonight, the proprietor had a waiter usher them to a quiet booth in a slightly darker corner of the restaurant.

Thank you, Nellie, Katya thought as she and Kai slid into the booth across from each other.

“I suspect you want the usual, Miss Kit?” the waiter asked her.

“Um, I think we’ll go for something more substantial tonight, Bert,” she told him as Kai handed her a menu. “Okonomiyaki alone won’t cut it, I think.”

“A peach chūhai for you and a beer for Kai-san?”

“Just to start with,” Kai replied, looking more than a little tired. “A platter of mixed tempura would be nice, too.”

Katya looked up worriedly when she saw how much paler he was; Kai was naturally very fair-skinned, but his pallor tonight alarmed her.

“Double okonomiyaki with the works, Bert,” she advised the waiter. “The tempura, an order of kara-age, and some of those bacon-asparagus rolls would be nice, too. Thanks.”

When the waiter had gone, Katya turned to Kai who seemed to have withdrawn into himself. He sat there, mute, not daring to meet her gaze. From where he sat, he exuded a deep misery: a loneliness so deep that it hurt to even look at him. Katya sighed; she knew the feeling only too well — she’d been in the throes of such loneliness herself in the past. But the viciousness of some people had driven Kai to the edge; such things were unforgivable, especially when Kai had kept to himself all this time, kept his nose clean, and had hunkered down to work almost as soon as he’d landed in Manila.

They hate him because he makes them all look like a bunch of worthless layabouts, she thought, reaching across the table to give his hands a gentle squeeze. But it’s true: they are a bunch of worthless layabouts. Kai’s been doing the work of four writers all at once. I can’t blame him for…

Gently, ever so gently, she touched the bandaged wrist. She felt him wince and would have drawn away if he hadn’t clutched at her hand. She looked up and saw how close to tears he was.

“I should request for a transfer back to Tokyo,” he said wearily, removing his glasses and placing them on the table. “I… I don’t think I’m cut out for Manila, miss. People don’t want me around.”

“People who don’t matter,” Katya said. “People who aren’t worthy to tie the laces on your sneakers. People whom I wouldn’t trust to make my morning coffee.”

Kai managed a small smile at this. “They’d make you one from an instant packet,” he said. “And they’d screw that up, too.”

They both laughed, but Kai’s laughter trailed off into sobs. Katya moved to sit beside him and hugged him tight, letting him cry.

“It’s okay,” she whispered into his ear. “No shame in that; let it all out. It isn’t healthy to keep it all bottled up in you. It’s all right…”

Kai wept furiously for a good long while. Finally, he drew a deep breath to steady himself and mopped his tears off with the napkin Katya handed to him. He turned to her, cheeks pink, and a worried look on his face.

“Miss, those words…” He gulped, looking incredibly embarrassed. “I shouldn’t…”

Katya pressed a finger to his lips, then kissed him. “And all this time you were worried that the feeling wasn’t mutual,” she chided him, smoothing back his ruffled hair.

“Well, you’re my editor-in-chief,” he reminded her as she went back to her side of the table. “It wouldn’t be professional.”

“You’re forgetting that Nell is married to her managing editor,” she told him. “And Sanno is married to his senior columnist. They aren’t the only ones, you know. Even your old boss back in the Tokyo bureau is married to someone in the system. Besides…” She grinned as she rummaged through her bag, handing Kai a compact disc in a slightly scratched case. “I was a fan of yours long before we ever met.”

Kai blinked in consternation as he took the disc and he gaped in shock when he saw what it was — and saw his face on the cover.

“Kitty!” he exclaimed, dropping the formal “miss” in his confusion. He looked up, staring at her in disbelief. “I pegged you more as a closet heavy metal fan — not a J-rock fangirl!”

Katya threw her head back in delighted laughter. “I am a closet heavy metal fan,” she admitted. “As well as a J-rock fangirl.” She blushed and added that she had wanted to send him a letter through his website. “But my Japanese is atrocious — you know that, of course — and I wanted to write something along the lines of how amazing your music was without sounding like some giddy, giggly schoolgirl.”

This admission finally brought a smile to Kai’s face and it was a smile that had always made Katya’s heart go pitter-pat.

“Next thing you’ll tell me is that you have all my albums,” he teased her as he put his glasses back on.

It was Katya’s turn to blush. “Guilty as charged,” she blurted.

Kai said nothing as their drinks arrived and the waiter poured his beer into a mug and Katya’s chūhai into a highball glass. Quietly, they clinked their glasses together and both took a sip.

“I don’t understand why you project this image of you as a mousy desk jockey,” Katya remarked as she broke her chopsticks apart. “When you’re so much hotter, really.”

“I wanted to show a different side of me,” Kai admitted, pushing the bowl of edamame towards her after taking a couple of pods for himself. He raised an eyebrow at her. “You are aware, I think, of who my parents are?”

“Award-winning writers and journalists,” Katya agreed, nodding. “Which explains why your English is upper-crust Brit, your French somewhat Parisian, and do I even want to know where you picked up Spanish and Tagalog?”

Kai chuckled at this as he sucked the beans out of an edamame pod. “I picked both up from Sanno,” he explained. “From the time we worked together at the Hong Kong bureau for Vive.”

“You know, people never seem to see the person behind an idol,” Katya remarked thoughtfully as she swirled the ice in her glass. “They only see the pretty faces and only hear the voices. They never dig deeper or think about whether the lyrics have any meaning. It’s sad.”

“Just so you know, that’s what drew me to you in the first place,” Kai informed her between sips of his beer.

“What do you mean?”

“You go deeper,” he said, putting his mug down and leaning forward to gaze at her. “You have this need to know more, to see more.”

“I’m a journalist,” she reminded him.

“Yes, but…” Kai’s eyebrows furrowed, as if he was trying to hunt down the words he wanted to say. “I think you’re more than that.”

Katya tilted her head to one side, studying him. Then, “I like getting to the bottom of things: the stuff people hide, the stuff they’re dying to say but can’t.” She smiled. “I tell their stories, because they can’t put what they want to say in words.”

“So, you draw the truth out from them,” Kai said, nodding. “And you put it into words.” He drew a deep breath. “But what about your own story?”

“What about it?” Katya asked him. “There’s nothing to tell: ordinary childhood, frustrating professional life, and non-existent social life.”

Kai managed to grin at this. “That’s not what I heard,” he said. “Your parents are film people: your dad’s a prize-winning director and your mother a legendary actress — and you did the teen idol thing when you were younger.”

Katya stared at him, flabbergasted. She leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. “Who told you?” she hissed.

“I’m a journalist, too,” he reminded her, smirking. “And I did my own research about you. You gave up what could have been a legendary career to become a news-hen — and you have won awards for your work.” He suddenly grew sombre. “But I have to ask: what made you turn your back on the glitz and glamour?”

Katya sighed. He would find out soon enough if he pried hard enough, but she decided it would be better if the truth came from her.

“It was a bad break-up,” she replied. “He was shacking up with — surprise, surprise — my best friend behind my back. He felt like he was thrown to the back-burner every time I won an award: I was evolving in my career and he wasn’t. I was getting into these really complex villainess roles and winning regional awards for them both on screen and on stage. He didn’t quite like that — and he didn’t like the way I had chosen to manage myself: my career, my finances, and my public image.” She winced. “He wanted an old-school submissive, a ‘yes-woman’, so to speak.”

Kai fell silent. Then, “So you chose to turn your back. You didn’t pursue the scandal; you made a clean break and moved on.” He nodded approvingly. “You chose not to be broken by what happened.”

“I was furious that it broke me,” Katya admitted honestly, shrugging. “But I decided that I would go above it: I would reinvent myself — and here I am.” She regarded him frankly. “And here you are.”

Kai nodded, holding up his wounded wrist. “I just remembered the concept of kintsugi,” he said.

“The technique of fixing broken stuff with molten gold?”

“Yeah,” he said. He managed a lopsided smile. “We’ve both been broken, but hey: let’s just make the most of it. Maybe we could come out of it better: like a bowl mended with gold. It’s not as perfect as it was when it first came out of the kiln, but it’s more beautiful because of what it’s been through.”

Katya nodded, then she threw a smirk at him. “So,” she said, “those lines from your journal…”

Kai blanched, but he kept his gaze on her. “What about them?” he asked in a quiet voice.

The smirk softened into an expression that was a little unsure. “Do you really feel that way about me?” she asked him. “Those words were kind of limbic, you know.”

Kai gulped, but he nodded. “I do,” he replied. “And, do you…”

She pressed her lips to his. “What do you think?” she asked him between kisses.

“I’d say that was pretty limbic, too.” He smiled shyly at her. “I’m sorry I worried you. I promise never to do that again.”

“I’ll hold you to that, mister,” she told him sternly, but her fingers entwined with his on the table.

He chuckled and pressed his forehead to hers. Katya found that quite comforting.

“Please do,” he whispered, his lips seeking hers yet again.