Eidolon

Warning (PG16)

This episode contains adult themes. Reader discretion recommended.

The silence Reon left behind was deafening. Rei stood frozen, her cheeks flushed, her lips parted, her breath coming in shallow gasps. Takumi stared at her, the sight of that kiss, so different from the carnal acts Reon had alluded to, hitting him with a far more profound shock. It was not the implication of sex that gutted him; it was the undeniable proof of her attraction, the unguarded way her body had responded.

He directed the swirling storm of his jealousy and disappointment into motion, stalking to the table where his suit lay. With aggressive, jerky movements, he began dressing. Rei, sensing the danger, moved to help him as before, her approach cautious. “Wait for me outside the shrine,” he bit out, his voice dangerously low. She obeyed without a word, slipping on her color-block sneakers and walking out, the door sliding shut behind her with a soft, final sound.

The moment she was out of earshot, a string of vicious, carefully unintelligible curses tore from Takumi’s lips, an unfiltered torrent of rage. He cursed Reon, he cursed the syndicate, he cursed the meeting with Bjorn, and most of all, he cursed the terrifying, undeniable connection he had just witnessed between the woman he now knew without a doubt he loved, and the man who held absolute power over them both.

Rei waited outside on the sun-warmed stone of the plateau, the faint, muffled resonance of Takumi’s curses reaching her. He had seen it all, seen how Reon’s kiss had unraveled her, how her body had betrayed her complicated loyalty in a moment of softness. There was no denying the attraction now. Reon, true to his cruel nature, had planted a poisonous pill between them before his exit, ensuring their victory would be bittersweet at best.

Why did she feel this pull towards someone so deliberately petty? Especially when her love for Takumi had felt clearer than ever the moment he entered the room. His scent, his presence, even the heavy, punishing weight of his hand on her sakura had felt like a reclamation, a brutal but honest signal of his possession and his own tangled affection.

She sensed the depth of his fury, but beneath it, a current of longing and care she desperately wanted to soothe. Rei wanted to apologize, to repent, to prove her devotion. But she also knew she had to be honest. It would be impossible to hide her strange, burgeoning connection with Reon, not after that display. Looming over it all, like a distant but insisting cloud, was a worry for Cillian. What had Takumi done to him? The guilt for dragging her friend into her foolish mistake was a heavy stone in her stomach.

Inside the shrine, Takumi finished reassembling himself into his corporate armor, his movements punctuated by hissed breaths as the deep bruises on his forearms, ribs and shins began to throb with a vivid heat. It could have been so much worse. Five more minutes, and Reon’s relentless assault would have shattered his defensive pace. The victory, hard-won and cleverly executed, felt utterly hollow. Watching that kiss, the tenderness in it, the way Rei had softened and blushed, was a different kind of defeat. It was far worse than the lewd images of Reon taking her in the hot spring. What he witnessed had been emotional.

Takumi joined her on the plateau, the mountain air doing little to cool the heat of his anger. She turned, and the sight of her filled him with a conflicting turmoil of want, tenderness, and pure wrath.

Rei began apologizing immediately, her words tumbling out as she reached for him, stepping closer, “Takumi, I want you to know, I don’t care for him like that. What you saw… the kiss… it’s just attraction. It’s probably because he looks like Karasu, but it’s you that I… you I…”, she stepped nearer, within hugging distance, a vulnerable blush coloring her cheeks.

Rei had never said the words outright. Wanting to be his was a statement of possession, this was a confession of the heart. She collected herself, her earnest black eyes pleading, “It’s you that I love. I feel that clearly, now more than ever.”

Takumi stood rigid, the memory of her mouth opening for Reon still playing on a vicious loop behind his eyes. He heard the truth in her words; they resonated with the same certainty he felt in his own soul. But they did not cancel out the betrayal, the jealousy, the sheer complexity of the mess they were in.

Before her arms could wrap around him, his hands shot out, grabbing her upper arms and holding her firmly at a distance. He sighed, a ragged sound of exhaustion and pain, and closed his eyes for a moment, unable to bear the heartbreakingly desperate expression on her face. The words ‘I love you’ hung in the air between them, a precious, fragile thing he was too angry and too hurt to engage with.

Takumi took a few deep, measured breaths, pulling the crisp Norwegian air into his lungs like a man starved for clarity. There simply wasn’t time for this. Bjorn Jorgensen was waiting. A day of critical meetings about collaborative team divisions, half Kuroda, half Helix Apex, lay ahead; a delicate corporate dance that required his absolute focus.

Work was a clean, logical problem. Love? Fighting a Ceremonial Master in a shrine for a single night with his own damn concubine was an intensely impractical, emotionally draining and profoundly unwelcome context he would have preferred to postpone until the end of time, or at the very least, until the evening.

How was he supposed to respond to Rei? The woman he loved with a fervor that mirrored her own confession, yet in the grip of his jealousy, felt no current need to voice. He had, in his own way, loved his wife. Perhaps he still did, in the manner one respects a longstanding business partner.

But he had never desired her, not like this all-consuming fire for Rei. He had never felt more than a flicker of jealousy as she took lovers, first to spite him, then simply to fill his absences. The tangled web of lovers and emotions was too dense, too chaotic, for the sterile countdown of a corporate deadline.

All he had the will to offer, as he opened his eyes and found her still looking hurt but standing strong, her body neither leaning in nor pulling away in a patient, painful silence, was practicality. “There is no time for love,” he stated, his voice flat, stripping the emotion from the moment, “We need to go.” 

It was a brutal dismissal of her vulnerability. But then, in a small, contradictory peace offering, he wrapped a strong arm around her waist, his grip both a claim and a tether, and set a demanding pace down the long, stone staircase.

For the first part of the descent, Rei stayed obediently mute, the only sound their footsteps and the whisper of the wind. Then, her voice, tentative, broke the silence, “The fight… I was impressed by how well you defended yourself. Are you okay? You must be sore from the blocks.”

Takumi didn’t look at her, his gaze fixed on the steps ahead. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, the words terse, and added more clearly, “There’s a change of clothes for you in the car.” Rei, who presently couldn’t care less about clothes, pressed on, her voice softening, “I’m just thankful you won. I didn’t want to go back. I wanted to be with you”, she paused, then added, so quietly it was almost stolen by the wind, “I missed you.”

Takumi swallowed hard, annoyed at himself for the immediate, warm flush of satisfaction her words sent through him, a balm on his bruised pride and heart. He didn’t give her an answer, no verbal acknowledgment of the confession.

But his hold on her waist shifted almost imperceptibly, the grip becoming less about steering her and more about holding her close. His frantic, hurried pace down the mountain eased, just a little, into something more measured, a silent concession to the fragile truce her words had forged between them.