Chapter Eleven
"SO IT WAS ABOUT TWO years ago when she came to me, and the moment I saw her wearing ripped jeans that weren't really ripped but fake ripped?" Matt shook his head. "I knew she was a gold-digger."
"You don't have to apologize," Katherine protested.
"I totally understood where you were coming from.
Our dad cheated on your mom with my mom.
You had every reason to struggle with my existence.
" She reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
"But I always knew you were a good person at heart.
The moment I saw your snow globe keychain?
I knew one day everything would be alright. "
Matt squeezed his sister’s hand. “You’re too kind.”
“No, you’re the one who’s kind!”
“No, it’s you.”
If Kazeyuki needed any other proof that these two were truly related by blood, then this was it.
Their rose-colored glasses. Their readiness to appreciate and ask forgiveness.
But most of all, the proof of these two being siblings was how, despite being raised in two different homes, they both shared an incomparable ability to jump to the craziest conclusions based on the most illogical premises.
Ripped jeans made one a gold-digger? A snow globe keychain made one a good person?
It was hard to determine whether he was more amused or incredulous as the two siblings took turns to explain how they came together, their voices overlapping and correcting each other with the ease of people who had already told this story to themselves enough times that the rough edges had been worn smooth.
The rest of it, Kazeyuki pieced together as he listened.
Two years ago, Katherine had reached out to Matt, with her brain surgery making her realize that life was too short, and that she had to at least try having a relationship with her half-brother.
Matt at that time, however, had only seen her overture as a prelude to leeching off a wealthier family member. He had hurled insults and called her names, and to top it all off, he had also threatened Katherine with a restraining order if she were to contact him again.
That encounter alone could’ve traumatized Katherine for life.
But for some reason, it had made her think that her brother simply needed more time.
And surprisingly enough, she was right. In a way.
Because it was only weeks ago that Matt had reached out to her, and in fact, it was their phone call that Kazeyuki had overheard that day at the hospital.
At that time, he had thought she was speaking with someone who wanted to go out on a date with her. Not that he was jealous, though. It was just what Kazeyuki had...inferred. Because that was smart and mature men like him did. They were very logical in their...inference.
But as it turned out, that was one of the rare instances he had been incorrect.
It was not another boy but Matt, who had been diagnosed with a meningioma, and whose subsequent, panic-driven research had led him to wanting a consultation with Kazeyuki—the same doctor who operated on the half-sister he had just called a gold-digger, among other things.
During that call, Matt had very stiffly offered to pay Katherine a sum of money to connect him with Kazeyuki.
She had very naturally refused and offered instead to speak to Kazeyuki on his behalf.
Quite naturally as well, Matt—who was by then made paranoid and guilty by his earlier treatment of Katherine—had instead gone berserk and accused Katherine of having plans to avenge herself.
I know what you’re planning! You’re going to tell your doctor to kill me and pretend it’s all an accident, aren’t you? I’ve done my research, damn you! I know you’re close to him! Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing.
The next time Matt had talked to Katherine again, it was in person.
He had gotten drunk, taken a cab to Katherine’s apartment near midnight, and started banging on her door.
Katherine could’ve turned the tables around on him at that moment.
She could’ve been the one to ask for a restraining order against him.
But instead, Katherine had given her older brother a place to sleep, nursed him through her hangover, and come morning, was just as sweet and understanding as she listened to Matt, who had finally realized he was wrong about his baby sister.
That was the day Katherine had ended up late for her consultation with him at the hospital, and it was why she still had the snow globe in her possession, with Matt only remembering to hand it to her when she was about to leave.
Our father gave it to me when I was ten. It’s one of the few things I have from him, and I want you to have it.
As Katherine and Matt continued to reminisce about all the things they had in common despite growing up separately, Kazeyuki found his thoughts drifting in a similar direction. For so long, he had refused to even think of the past...because of her.
Inori.
He had not allowed himself to think about her in years.
The name itself was something he kept sealed behind the same wall that held everything else he had decided, at seventeen, was too dangerous to feel.
But sitting here, listening to the story of what Matt had done to Katherine, the wall was doing nothing.
The comparison had walked straight through it.
The words Matt had used against Katherine were worse than anything Kazeyuki had ever said to Inori.
Not by a small margin. By a chasm.
Matt had called her names. Had threatened legal action. Had treated her like a con artist and a parasite, and had done so repeatedly, over months, with the full weight of his anger and his fear and his grief behind every word.
And Katherine had survived it.
Not just survived. She had come out the other side still believing her brother was worth loving. Still showing up. Still holding the door open for someone who had slammed it in her face, because Katherine McKenna did not know how to stop believing in people, even when they gave her every reason to.
She was the living proof of something his father had once said to him in the back of a limousine, twenty-three years ago.
But the girl could have also been stronger.
All this time, Kazeyuki had heard those words and dismissed them.
He had carried the first half — you could have been gentler — like a stone around his neck, and he had let it define him.
He had built a life around it. A mask around it.
A twenty-three-year sentence of performed kindness that had slowly, methodically suffocated every honest impulse he had ever had.
But his father had said something else that day, and Kazeyuki had refused to hear it.
Until now.
Because Katherine was not Inori.
Katherine was the girl who could have broken and didn't.
And knowing this changed everything. Not the facts of what he had done—those would always be what they were.
But the verdict he had handed down to himself, the self-inflicted sentence to wear a mask of gentleness for the rest of his life, even if it ended up killing his soul—that verdict had been issued by a seventeen-year-old boy who had never once considered that cruelty and evil were not the same thing.
That a single act of coldness did not make him a monster.
That a girl's death, as devastating as it was, did not make him her murderer.
He had been his own judge for twenty-three years, and the sentence had been absolute: to never be cruel again, even if it meant never being honest.
But Katherine had changed him. Freed him. And through this, she had also given him the power to be what he used to pretend he was.
And that was why, when Katherine had finally steered the conversation toward Matt’s condition, Kazeyuki did not even think of holding grudges on his fiancée’s behalf.
What happened in the past was done. It was time to move forward, and right now, what Matt needed was for him to be both his doctor and future brother-in-law.
It was already almost three in the afternoon when Matt's phone went off against the tablecloth, and Kazeyuki saw the screen light up with the name of his office before Matt flipped the phone over and took the call with a grimace.
“Is everything alright?” Katherine asked.
"I’m sorry about this...” Matt was already rising when he said it. "There's a contract closing and they need me to sign before four. I'm sorry to cut this short."
“It’s fine,” Katherine assured her brother. “You should go ahead. It might take a while for the valet to bring your car around.”
As Matt gratefully went ahead, Kazeyuki pulled the chair out for Katherine, who was now smiling up at him like he had done something heroic.
Her lips parted, but before she could say a word—
"Kitty?"
Kazeyuki’s gaze narrowed as he saw the younger man approaching them. The boy was about Katherine’s age, boyishly good-looking, and just as boyishly infatuated with the way his whole face lit up when Katherined turned to face him.
“Brad, hey!”
“Hi, um—” Brad was visibly distracted by the way Kazeyuki casually placed his hand at the small of Katherine’s back. "I...”
Kazeyuki adjusted his hold to the curve of Katherine’s waist so he could pull her closer to him.
Katherine finally noticed the way Brad was staring, but Katherine being Katherine—
“Oh gosh, where are my manners? Brad, this is Dr. Kazeyuki Collington—”
The boy looked torn between relief and concern. "Is this a health consultation over lunch?"
“It is,” Kazeyuki said gravely. “But I’d like to think that my fiancée believes her older brother is in good hands.”
“Of course, I do!” Katherine was so earnest in making sure Kazeyuki knew she had no doubts of his capabilities as a doctor that she failed to see the way Brad looked as if he had been hit by a bus, the moment he heard Kazeyuki refer to Katherine as his fiancée.
Kazeyuki glanced at Katherine. "Your brother's waiting outside."
The reminder was enough to get them going, and throughout the quick exchange of goodbyes, Kazeyuki held her close. It was not that he was jealous, but he just wanted to make sure she...she didn’t trip.
Yes, just that.
Katherine could be remarkably clumsy at times so it was important that he kept her close.
"Kaz?"
As soon as they were out of the restaurant, Katherine turned to smile cheekily up at him. The afternoon sun was behind her, and the sidewalk was quiet, and Matt was across the street at the valet stand, waiting for his car.
"Yes?"
"A while ago, I noticed something about you and Brad."
"Such as?" His voice was casual...even when his heart was pounding like he was suddenly that boy's age.
"You..."
Kazeyuki told himself he had nothing to hide. They were engaged, and unlike before, this relationship was real to him now. So what if Katherine—
"...want to be friends with him, too, don't you?"
—was still the same Katherine, whose eyes would always see things he would never see?
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"Absolutely."
Kazeyuki only smiled as she started planning a double date with Brad. Perhaps one day she would figure out he was jealous, and perhaps one day, she would also realize whenever a boy was into her, the way her college friend was.
Perhaps.
But for now, a red sports car was pulling up in front of Matt, and Matt was lifting a hand in farewell before sliding into the driver's seat, and by the time Kazeyuki and Katherine reached the curb where his own driver was already waiting, Matt was pulling into traffic and disappearing down the street.
Katherine turned to him.
"What is it?"
He had not expected the tears. Not here, not now, not after the restaurant had gone so well and Matt had smiled at her three separate times and kissed the top of her head before leaving.
"Thank you," she whispered tremulously. "It just hit me this moment, how Matt needs you the way I needed you, and I can't thank you enough—"
"He's family, Katherine. That makes him a priority."
A smile touched her lips. "Like I'm a priority?"
That was true, but how unlike her to sound so confident.
"I know you've seen me as your future wife from the start," she teased.
Kazeyuki raised a brow. "Is that so?"
"I saw Emily's list for calls you would always answer."
Ah.
So that was what had her sounding adorably confident.
"You said it yourself, Katherine. It was Emily's list, not mine." His tone was one of amusement as he said this, and he also missed the way Katherine's face had lost all color at his words, with his attention on his phone for he was already texting Emily about Matt.
To Kazeyuki, none of this was a big deal, only to find out later on...
To Katherine, this was the point where everything started falling apart.