Visiting Hours|| G & Susumu

This was not the time nor place nor plane of existence that Susumu wanted to be having this conversation in.  She had been lying to her parents about her life for the better part of a year now about a number of things.  Her hair, taking classes, how much she missed them, her relationship status...and of course the whole villainy thing.  That was a pretty big secret, too.  Now, though, two out of five cats were out of the bag.  She just had to hope neither of them cared enough to pull out the other three.  At least Miho was too distracted by the shock of her daughter's apparent boyfriend for that at the moment.

"B-Boyfriend?!  What in the world, Susumu?!" Miho didn't take her wide, mortified eyes off of G as both her and her daughter confirmed each other's words.  It didn't look like it was setting well with her.  Susumu almost laughed.  Almost.  She was still hoping the bed would devour her in a bloody mess like a certain horror movie.  "You told me you were too busy with school for a relationship, and now this??  This raccoon-eyed, filthy thug?!  My God what is wrong with your face?!"

".....I like his face," Susumu spoke, muffled, into her hands, but it was ignored as Miho finally unfroze herself and stormed back to the bed.  She didn't jerk Susumu's hands away from her face, but she did lean in uncomfortably close and put her own grip on her daughter's shoulders.

"Su-chan, is this all a cry for attention?  The hair, the...socially unacceptable boyfriend, the getting into fights?  Su-chan if you wanted your father and I to pay more attention to you, you didn't have to go this far!"  Miho's tone was an attempt at maternal concern, but Susumu didn't actually feel any in her voice.  It just sounded empty.  Like it was something she'd heard other parents talking about and was now regurgitating back to her daughter.  "It was a mistake to let you live on your own at such a young age.  When you're discharged, you'll come back and live with your father and I.  You can keep up with your classes online, we can get your hair grown back out, get that glass eye..."

Susumu raised her face from her hands, expression unreadable.  But her eyes didn't meet her mother's attempted empathy or whatever sorry excuse of parenting it was.  Instead she just looked at G from around her arm, and a weak smile spread on her lips.

"See?  I told you."

Miho was oblivious.  "Su-chan, please.  Talk to me, not to him."

Susumu would have said something about how 19 was still technically "minor" by Japan's standards, but who was she to put a fork in her boyfriend's logic when he was defending her honor.  Her face flushed just enough to be visible as he pulled her into his arms and called out her mother's condescension and nonsense about how Susumu had started the fight that got her put in the hospital.  Which...again, not entirely the truth, since she had been provoking Nick in the first place.   She would save that revelation for after her mother was out of earshot, though.  Speaking of her, Miho had jerked her hand away like G would somehow stain her skin with a light graze and was back to standing at her full height.  Which...wasn't actually much taller than her daughter was, were she out of her heels.

"You--How d--You ca--" she started and stopped speaking three times before she caught herself.  Standing just slightly straighter and with her hands as fists at her sides, she bore down on her rebellious (in her eyes) daughter and her thug (again, her view) of a "boyfriend".  Her hazel eyes were ice cold and almost made Susumu shiver.  Almost.

She had never been afraid of her parents.  They were all talk, and no action.  They simply didn't care enough to try to punish her or the like.

But, oh, didn't they put on an impressive show.

"Chiba Susumu, is this any way for a girl your age to be acting?  Tell this brute not to speak to your mother that way, and to leave this hospital room right now!  Or else I will...downgrade your room here!"

Seriously?  Susumu did, this time, snort.  Aloud.  Right into the crook of G's neck as he held her close to him.  Miho visibly gave a small start.

"I--Susumu, don't you dare laugh a--"

"Mom," she finally spoke up, her good eye filled with more laughter than she could release at the moment without hurting her throat, "Get the fuck out of here.  Or I'mma call security to have you removed.  Okay?"

Miho stood there gaping like a fish.  No words escaped her, and her expression was stuck in an open-mouthed look of absolute shock.  Susumu let out another cough of laughter before she mumbled to G.

"Hey, baby, can you give my mom a 'hand' to the door please?  Gently."

"DON'T TOUCH ME, YOU THUG!!"

Miho, to her credit, did swat at G's hand as he put it to her jaw, and did try to fight back against getting scooped up like an unruly child and deposited outside of the room, but it was impossible to match strength with a man with almost a solid foot on you and with far more muscle.  Thus, Miho was removed from the room with the satisfying sounds of her yelling insults and berating her daughter from outside the closed door.  Susumu leaned back into her pillow and let out a long breath.

"I am so very, very sorry you had to meet her," Susumu groaned, putting a hand over her good eye and rubbing it with her palm.  "Ugh.  That woman.  That woman!  Is she still going?"

Though muffled by the door it was still audible that Miho had not left the door and was still shouting.  However, the quieter voice of the nurse sounded and her yelling immediately ceased.  Likely she had just been reminded that this was a public space and a hospital and that if she wanted to be a disturbance of the peace then security would be called.

After that there was the clicking of furious heels, and then...silence.

Susumu raised her hand to look at G, who was laughing hysterically.  She smiled back at him a little weaker than normal.  "Well I'm glad you had fun.  I don't think you'll be getting invited to any family holidays...nor will I, for that matter.  At least until she puts up another mental block over this little rebellion and starts sending me gifts again...God."

"It's like having a freaking toddler for a mother."

Susumu's eye widened slightly at G's surprisingly casual admittance that his father had been physically abusive towards him.  Oh.  Suddenly a whole lot of puzzle pieces put themselves together in her head.  The literal kick that had started out his villainy, one might say, finally was clearly right in front of her: he had to have killed his father for hurting him.  It made too much sense with all the hints he had dropped and records he had made for himself at such a young age.  And the need for love and affection, paired with what he'd said about his family before...fuck.  To think the most she had to deal with from hers was narcissism and tantrums.  And the occasional gun pointed at her.

As he embraced her, she leaned into his arms and wrapped her own around his torso, nestling in close as she could.  What were you supposed to say in this situation?  "Sorry your father was a fucking dick, good thing you murdered him"?  Nope.  Stupid idea.  That would be something she would have said before promising to be a better person.

...the fact that she recognized that was probably a good thing.

Instead she returned his kiss by raising one hand to tilt his face towards her, and press her lips against her own.  He'd been peppering her with gentle touches and kisses since they made up, but she hadn't done this since well before the fight.  It felt so good to be connected to him again, to be held by him and know that he would love her and keep her safe, and now without the walls and lies and secrets she'd kept up.

It will change.

She opened her eye to look up at him, visible turmoil in her face.

It will all change.  This peace, this happiness, it won't last.  You know it won't.  Will you really try to be neutral?  Do you really think Amadeus will let you do that, with his goals?  With his vision?  Best case scenario is he puts a bullet in your other eye and lets you live with brain damage.

Or he'll fuck up again.  He'll have a break-down over something you did, or something you didn't do, and he'll find another whore to fuck.  He'll realize you're still the same selfish, controlling, horrible woman he hated only a few days ago.  He'll drag you back to the cops and kill himself.

Susumu drew in a shaking breath.

".....Gil-kun.....p-...promise me that whatever goes wrong with us, or with me, or whatever.....you won't kill yourself, okay...?  Because...I'm a shit person.  A really, really shit person, and I'm going to try to do better.  But.  I can't do that if you're gone.  I just can't.  And I told you before I can't lose to you but now...not I just can't lose you.  So...please...?"

What are you doing?

I'm sharing my fucking fears and feelings with the man I love, like a real person.  So shut the hell up you goddamn backseat driver.

"You...you absolute fucking idiot..." 

Susumu let out a laugh that was half-way to a sob with how much her voice shook.  He had to be joking.  Did he not know what he'd almost done to himself by threatening to turn himself and her into the police?  If he hadn't then he hadn't been really, truly, willing to die to spite her.  This man...she loved him, but he was such a goddamn fool.  Well, no sense keeping this vital information to herself.  "Gil-kun, the punishment for murder in Japan is death.  You know, the death penalty?  It's a thing!  Even if you've been better, you've killed people since coming here.  Hell, you killed somebody on the day we met, and you weren't exactly subtle!  When you tried to turn us both in, I thought that you were going to kill yourself on purpose...that's why I ran!  I...I thought..."

She felt the wetness of the gauze over her empty eye socket before she even saw the blur of tears in her good eye.  It was strange.  Without an eye to rest over the tear-ducts they didn't really have anywhere to go but out, and out they went.  She wiped at her face with her arm.

"...I th-though you were trying...to kill yourself to g-get away from me..."

Susumu continued to weep into G's shoulder, her body trembling as her cries dipped in and out of weak, bitter giggles.  So it had all been a mistake.  The pain she'd felt that had been worse than anything she'd ever known--even worse than losing her eye, though it came pretty close--had been for nothing.  G hadn't been trying to kill himself, he'd just been unaware of Japanese law.  It was as comforting as it was concerning.  What else did he not know?  God, he could have turned himself in for Miku or something to just seem 'noble' and been killed for it without realizing what he had done. 

If she hadn't escaped...no, no, she didn't want to think about it.

"F-From now on, you're not allowed to make s-such crazy fucking choices without doing your research, you hear me?"  Susumu managed to speak between her shaking breaths, another harsh laugh following her words.  "God.  Fuck you.  I was s-so scared that you wanted to die.  I was willing to...to do anything just so you wouldn't...I even..."

Susumu stopped, though her breathing was still hard and shaking, and swallowed.  Ah.  Should she tell him?  Should she tell him what she had tried to do to that girl who really had nothing to do with this?  The insane, unwarranted jealousy that had led to her losing her eye?  She didn't want to.  What if he hated her for it...?  But not telling him and him finding out later, somehow, would be just as bad, if not worse.

And she was trying to be better.

She drew in a breath, sat up straighter, and wiped her eyes.  ".......I went to Nick Cross.  The boy you had me stalk, who beat me up?  He has a weird thing for a girl named Rin Kurama.  The maid at that cafe you visited most recently...and...I watched you through your phone, jealous the whole time, and got into my head that you liked her."  She sighed into her hand.  "Yeah.  I know now, that was stupid.  You can be kind to people without wanting to fuck them, or...but...after Sophie, and after I thought you had been.....I wasn't thinking rationally.  I just wanted somebody to be hurting, because I was hurting.  So I went to Nick."

"I tried to get him to kidnap Rin for me, so I could lure you out.  Make some twisted exchange of your freedom for hers, because of course you would do that.  And then I'd keep you from turning yourself in and hurting yourself.  It was.....it was the only way I could think of."

"But Nick didn't go through with it.  Fucked up little twat that he is, I guess he just hates me more than he wants to shack up with Rin.  So when I tried to blackmail him into doing it...that's when he got my eye."

Susumu placed her finger tips just under the wet spot of her gauze.  Urgh.  That would need to be changed, and soon.  But for now she just needed to get this off her chest.  If this was going to work, she had to.

"...guess that's what I get for not thinking before I act, either."