1/4PM Dirty Laundry (Motoki/Reika)

[Furuhata Reika]

Home after being gone for week abroad, Reika had floated through the few days after New Year's in connubial bliss. It was a state that left her in no hurry to get back to work, and other than stopping into the foundation's offices to write up a few reports and make phone calls concerning the soil samples she had sent in earlier, there was nothing to be done. They had to wait to secure more funds, and she had previous research to start writing up in a paper, as well. They would all be collaborating on it, so it looked like she was going to be in Tokyo for a good while.

That was a lovely thought, until today. Preoccupied with being home and tidying up loose ends, Reika had no desire to glance at the newspaper or turn on the TV-- however, as time went by and she settled more into a routine, it made sense to catch up on news. When she wasn't on a dig, she followed current events pretty regularly, it was what educated, good citizens did. Never mind the fact that when she first came home, the press were camped out near their place for some odd reason. The numbers had dwindled over the past few days, but she still caught sight of a photographer now and then.

Returning home at noon after double-checking that everyone had logged their equipment back in at the foundation's headquarters, Reika made herself lunch and sat down with the day's newspaper. There were many different stores that she read with avid interest, but it was several pages in that she first saw mention of her husband... and Mamoru. Why-- why was Motoki in the press?

A knot in her stomach, she abandoned her meal and the newspaper in order to fly to the computer. She googled herself now and then, just to check up on the press that the foundation and her work received, but googling Motoki now brought up more than his firm's website. She sat back in the chair, aghast, eyes filling up with tears as the tabloid photos flashed across her screen. Some of the stories were outrageous-- but when the Daily Yomiuri, a reputable newspaper, had several archived stories about it, she knew that there was something to this. Why hadn't he told her?! Surely he knew that he couldn't keep this indiscretion a secret! And now the press had been outside their doorstep, and she was without a clue!

Reika had a good cry. Then she printed out some of the articles, stapled them neatly, sat on the sofa, and got angry. She was going to sit there until he got home, until she got some answers and he had accounted for this. Betrayal festered in her heart. Her husband, of all the people! Drinking and cavorting with girls like some overgrown frat boy!

She crossed her arms, fixing her stormy gaze on the door. Any minute now...

[Furuhata Motoki]

Motoki whistled a happy tune as he walked down the block, the last one until he reached his apartment. Motoki usually walked to the train station and took the train to work, leaving the one car he and Reika shared parked in the apartment parking lot. Riding was far easier than driving, plus he could usually read the newspaper or catch up on his work if he was lucky enough to nab a seat.

He was happy. Reika was home, and with her presence his entire mood had changed. The fridge was clear of beer, except the couple bottles left over from his last six-pack; given that even he and Reika shared a drink here or there a beer in the fridge was not out of the ordinary. Nothing had come up about his arrest, and Lucan's advice had neatly deposited itself in the recesses of his brain back where he subconsciously stored the things he should remember but didn't care to.

The days since Reika had been home had been filled with laughter and love. A lot of love. Enough love to make up for the fact that Motoki had been lonely and miserable for the months she'd been gone. As he turned into the apartment building and pulled out his keys, he decided that a little more love was just what he needed. Left between him and that love was a flight of stairs and a door, neither of which would prove to be difficult obstacles to overcome.

The locked clicked as his key twisted in the deadbolt and then he pushed the door open, a smile blazing across his features... until he saw her face. The daggers of her eyes nearly cut his heart out and he took a step backward across the threshold.

He was no idiot.

She knew.

And he had no idea what he was going to say next...

[Furuhata Reika]

Reika flinched as she heard the keys jingle in the lock. Truly, she had been waiting for this moment for hours, but now the time of reckoning was upon her. She felt her fists clench tighter, the cold grasp of anger over her heart, giving her courage to blaze ahead into this confrontation.

Still, it was hard to watch her husband come in with a smile that quickly died. He was so handsome. She loved him so much. And for what? He was out there doing God-knows-what! The idea of that skank who was pictured with him in the tabloids... She suppressed a shudder. It was painful to look at his face knowing that someone else had been so close to him.

The coward, he was stepping back, as if to retreat! Reika's lips thinned to a line, eyes flashing dangerously. The fury left her face drawn and cold, her features sharper than usual.

"If you leave, I'll follow you out," she stated at a normal volume, but her tone of voice was turbulent. "And we can have a scene in the hallway where all the neighbors can hear or you can come in here and take it like a man." She crossed her arms for emphasis, daring him to defy her. Though Reika was gregarious and easygoing, her temper could be something to behold.

[Furuhata Motoki]

Motoki cringed, both inward and outwardly. If the icicles from her eyes hadn't been enough to convince him she was infuriated, the words and the tone of her voice sealed the deal. The last thing he wanted was to argue in front of the neighbors, so he calmly stepped back into the house and slowly closed the door of his coffin behind him.

Suddenly he wished he'd told her everything - the night out to make Mamoru feel better, the mess with the girls who hit on them both, the crazy guy who tried to fight with the former-future-king, the jail. When he thought about it, he could have spun the story with enough innocence that she'd have easily forgiven him. Besides a couple extra beers, which could be explained away as a celebration of Mamoru's bachelorhood, he hadn't done anything wrong. He'd just been the unfortunate recipient of bad press. Surely Reika would have understood.

He gulped as he walked slowly toward the sofa. Now, she'd never believe him. Partly because he was sure she'd read a more trumped up version of the story in the papers, but mostly because he had let her find out that way. Lowering himself down next to her, he waited for painful lashing to begin.

[Furuhata Reika]

Reika shook with barely controlled fury as he made his way over to her and sat down. She wasn't sure if he should start talking, or not. Nothing he could say would make this go away, nothing. And yet his silence was almost like an admission of guilt.

Oh, she wanted to be convinced otherwise, she wanted him to concoct a perfect story of why this was all a big mistake and produce hard evidence to back it up. She was a scientist at heart, she wanted his life, his supposed transgressions to be dissected neatly and every last debauchery calculated and analyzed just like her soil samples. Diamonds really were a girl's best friend, because men couldn't be counted on.

She wanted to be the fiery woman scorned, but she found that instead of sulfur and brimstone, she was leaking out hot tears as her temper got the best of her, exploding outward.

"Is this what you do when I'm gone?! Is this the first time or just the first time you've gotten caught?!" Reika yelled. "How stupid do you think I am? I might have trusted you to stay faithful for months at a time, but did you think I would never find out, especially after you got ARRESTED?! I saw the press here but it took me until today to figure it out-- and you let it happen! I've been embarrassed internationally by my husband's drinking and cavorting with the former Consort, and he didn't even have the courtesy to inform me of the situation! The only thing worse than having the man I love photographed with some 20 year old skank with big, fake tits is that I'm the last to know about it!! What the hell happened? And don't you dare insult my intelligence by saying it was all innocent!"

[Furuhata Motoki]

Motoki shrank back into the sofa, his shoulders slumping as she lashed into him. Yes, he felt horrible, but the more she yelled at him the more he felt innocent. With the exception of the drinking, he'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time and while he loved his wife, she wasn't even here. Who was she to judge him for the story she read in the paper without even asking for his side of the story! Any lawyer knew that what you read and what you saw was only a small part of the truth in whole, and shouldn't Reika, a woman married to a lawyer understand at least that much?

He found himself inching away from her as she yelled, his own anger welling up inside. Maybe if she wasn't gone all the damn time, he wouldn't have to find ways to amuse himself. Maybe if she'd go places where he could at least receive a phone call or an email, he wouldn't be so damn lonely.

"You seriously read the papers and believed even word without even thinking of asking me first what happened? Do you really just believe straight out the gate that what you saw there is the only story?" In his anger, he pushed off the couch and paced halfway across the room. "So much for fucking trust from my wife." He turned, angry eyes glaring across the room at her. "You do realize that a recently dumped Mamoru is just too enticing for the press to stay away from and since when have you ever been stupid enough to trust their words, meant only for selling papers and not for telling the truth?"

He furrowed his brow in frustration. The fact remained that he had been drinking and he had been arrested, but the story in the tabloids was so far off the mark from the truth of the details. "Yes, we got arrested, but not for the reasons the tabloids would have you believe."

[Furuhata Reika]

How dare he get angry back at her! The nerve! He should be groveling at her feet for this, not lecturing her! Reika also stood up from the couch, her hands balling into fists, shoulders tensed and shaking.

"How dare you! How stupid do you think I am?" she found herself repeating at him. "Save your 'impeaching the press's testimony' bullshit for someone who cares. I did trust you! Until I come home to this! Forget the tabloids, it was in the Daily Yomuiri!" She reached down to the coffee table, flipping open the pages to show him the glossy photographs she had printed out. "Besides, a picture is worth a thousand words! And why should I ask you, Motoki? It's not like you volunteered to tell me! It's not like you acted as if it was nothing! True or not we're being dragged through the mud and you couldn't even get off your ass long enough to tell me. So-- why should I believe anything from you, at all? You've kept this from me-- that's what guilty people do. The press is all I've got, since apparently you're not a fountain of honesty! If you wanted me to give a crap about your side of the story you should have told me about it from the beginning! Even if everything in those papers is false, I think getting drunk and arrested is bad enough as it is!"

[Furuhata Motoki]

Motoki was about ninety-five percent sure he wasn't going to win this battle, but that five percent change seemed big enough to risk the fight. "That's right I dare. So it's a picture. A snapshot in time. It doesn't show you what happened one second before or one second after, does it? It doesn't tell you that she tripped, stumbled, grabbed my shirt and we fell to the floor right as the light bulb flashed."

Controlling his tone of voice was difficult, but he forced himself to do so. All the percentages in the world weren't going to win the battle over why he didn't tell her at all. He probably should have told her, but he hadn't wanted to think about it and he'd let it slip his mind while he enjoyed the time with his wife. But if he conceded he was wrong about that one point.... well, he could still win this war. The lawyer in him, the drive to dominate the argument, to give a little to take a lot, to close the case with a successful outcome had taken over. Angry irrational Motoki was gone, and skilled and practiced lawyer with sound arguments and the smooth voice stepped into the courtroom. He wasn't going down without a fight.

"So what if I went out and had a few beers with a guy who just got his ass dumped by his fiance of ten years? That's what guys do, by the way, since you asked at the party the other night. We go have a few beers and pretend that women don't exist while we're doing it. And the press fabricated a bunch of lies after someone else attacked Mamoru. Lies, I might point out, that you believed right out of the paper."

Flat toned, he shook his head, "You should see the things they write about Usagi. Do you respect her less because the tabloids, or heaven forbid even your precious Yomuiri question her and her choices and find ways to make her look less than flattering? If so, you aren't the woman I thought I married Reika.

"I'll give you the point that I didn't say anything, and perhaps I should have. But after not seeing you for months do you think the first thing on my mind was to destroy our happy reunion by dumping all this on your lap? Would you really have cheerly accepted the news anyway? At least I had three days of happy Reika. Now I can spend the rest of the time between now and the next time you vanish for months on end wallowing around with a pissed off wife. In my book, that beats spending no days with a happy wife. Don't expect me to believe that telling you would have made you pleased as punch either."

[Furuhata Reika]

Reika shook with barely controlled fury. The nerve! She hated this, hated when he pulled this attorney bullshit-- just because he had a law degree didn't mean that he could turn this around and put her on trial! It smacked of bullying to her, though she was the one that had yelled at him first, and she just hated the self-righteous attitude it gave him. For a split second she wanted to reach out and smack that arrogant look off of his self-righteous face.

Fine, he wanted to play?

"You can't blame this all on the press, Motoki, and you know it!" Reika snapped back. "That's cute for here, but as a litigator, what would you say if someone tried to write off photographic evidence as just one instance in time and then blamed the rest on press bias? Please! That would never fly! And in court don't you go under oath to tell the whole truth? That's certainly not what you've done here! Save it for a judge. This is not your job, this is your marriage. All the logic in the world isn't going to change what you did!"

She took a deep breath before continuing. "You have nobody but yourself to blame for this. I didn't swallow everything in the press, but there was enough consistency to know that something went down! Something that you should have told me about from the beginning, but you didn't! And why? Because you were selfish! Of course I wouldn't have been thrilled to hear about it, but I happen to believe that honesty is more important than a 'happy reunion.' At least I would have known! At least I could figure out how to deal with it then-- we could have dealt with it together! And if it was as innocent as you seem to claim, then it wouldn't have been a big deal-- I would know, I would get over it-- and I could trust you! Trust you to tell me things I need to know... You're not the person I married either," she shook her head, but her ire grew at his words.

"Fine," Reika snapped, stomping into the kitchen and returning with a beer. She set it down on the coffee table, hard enough to gouge the wood. "Here. If that's how you feel, then you can have a beer and do what guys do and drink and try to forget that women exist while I will go pack so that you won't have to live with an unhappy wife any longer." If that's how he was going to be, she certainly wasn't going to loiter around for weeks on end while he was stubborn and resenting her presence. She'd find somewhere else to go until the Foundation figured out where to send her next. "No use letting you wallow around with a pissed off wife, or anything."

[Furuhata Motoki]

She had a point, Motoki thought. He'd argue a photograph into a case if need be, although in his line of work paper documents were far more applicable than pictures. Occasionally though, a damaged piece of equipment was part of a company disagreement and photographs were a large part of his case. Of course, he wasn't about to admit that to Reika. "It depends on the photograph and you know it. A picture of a stationary object is far more admissible than a single snapshot photo. Usually, multiple photos taken in succession to show a series of actions make for more damning, or honest, evidence."

He took a deep breath, knowing that she wasn't going to accept his bullshit and yet he was unable to stop. "You state that I wasn't honest and that I lied to you, but actually, Reika, I haven't said a single word since you've been home that was untrue. I simply didn't tell you what happened. Period. But that doesn't make me a liar, it only makes me a husband who didn't want to bother his wife with something that had already been cleared up and was in that past. No harm, no foul, except for a few pictures in the paper that will be forgotten in a few days because unlike Mamoru and Usagi, no one in Japan or the world gives a rat's ass about who the hell Furuhata Motoki is."

He was still fuming, but he kept his voice to the calm lawyer tones, even if she knew that was exactly what he was doing. "Mamoru and I went out for some drinks. A girl hit on Mamoru and some guy who felt attached to her came over to beat him up. The next thing I knew, Mamoru had punched him, another girl was tripping and falling and all of us were tumbling to the ground. The bar called the cops and without asking a single question everyone involved was hauled off to jail. The mess was cleared up, no charges even filed, and Lucan brought me home and let me pass out and sweep the whole memory away. Except now I remember it all again, thanks to your incessant 'need to know.' Hope you're happy now."

Motoki's jaw almost dropped when Reika decided she was leaving, but he held it firm. He didn't want her to go, and hadn't expected their fight to go so far, but he seemed unable to force himself from being anything other than an asshole to her. He lost his cool, his voice burning with fire as he shouted at her. "Oh? What? you're packing and leaving? And I'm supposed to feel shocked by this? After all, you pack and leave me for months on end anyway. It'll be just like you're off on another one of your digs, nothing new there. Me and my beer will just become buddies again like always!"

[Furuhata Reika]

"I found more than one photograph of you at that bar," Reika said. She couldn't believe she was getting into this argument about what was and was not admissible evidence! "But that's just splitting hairs. Like I said, save it for a judge. Your chance to discredit this has long passed. In fact, you're the one that gives these photographs their power-- your silence credited them."

Reika found herself shaking her head, her anger diminishing to be replaced by sheer incredulity. "You're a piece of work, you know that? Bull. Shit. Omission is a form a lying. The whole means complete, in its entirety, with no exceptions, no exclusions, and no rationalizations. No, Motoki, you didn't outright lie, but you had plenty of opportunity when you could and should have told me. I have you several that first night we were together, and you went out of your way to avoid the subject. That is, as I said before, what guilty people do. And you didn't tell me, not because you were ever so noble in wanting to sustain our domestic happiness, but because you were selfish! You thought only of yourself-- how you didn't want to remember, how you thought it was nothing, you, you, YOU! Nothing about how I would have reacted to it-- or maybe you did think that far, but my feelings, and my need to know, and being honest and forthright with me wasn't important enough for you to get over yourself and tell me!"

Reika ignored his heated shouting, throwing open the door to their bedroom and piling some clothes in a suitcase. She'd have to come back for more later, but there was no way she was sleeping under the same roof with him tonight! He had the nerve to blame her for this-- for leaving! If he was that upset by her work then he should have said so, maturely, a long, long time ago. However, at his words about beer, she paused.

There was something about this that wasn't quite right. Alcohol had been too much of a factor in all of this. Motoki had been drinking when she kissed him, the first night she was back, at the ball. Then he avoided telling her about the whole incident, as well as what 'guy's did.' Which, she learned during this fight, was drink together to drown their sorrows. And he had been drunk in the papers-- and he said that he had been dropped off and allowed to pass out-- you only passed out if you were extremely drunk! And now he was threatening to become best friends with his bottle of beer. Which meant that he drank like that all the time.

Her husband was an alcoholic.

Reika stormed back out of the bedroom, stopping by Motoki long enough to snatch up the bottle of beer and head into the kitchen, popping the top off and pouring it down the drain. "So it wasn't the first time, then, was it?" she asked with far more calm than she felt, watching the amber liquid disappear into the drain. She opened the fridge and took the rest of the six-pack out, opening each in turn and dumping them out. She'd move onto the wine bottles next. "The funny thing is, you don't even have to be drunk to be mean."

[Furuhata Motoki]

"Fine!" he yelled after he as she disappeared into the bedroom. He made no move to follow her, despite the warning bell in his head that this conversation was heading in the same direction as an airplane following out of the sky. He should be stopping her. He should be apologizing to her. He should be telling her that he loves her with all his heart and he's being a foolish ass. But Motoki's pride had gotten the better of him and those words and actions were abandoned in favor of more yelling and screaming and acting like a man who deserved to be slapped a few times. "Just leave. Nothing you aren't used to doing to me anyway."

With that, he stayed silent, for once lost for words. That was until Reika snatched his beer away. "What the hell do you think you're doing!" he called out, following her into the kitchen. "STOP!" he cried, all his cool lost as he watched her WASTE his precious beer. Before she could finish, he snatched two of the bottles from the six-pack and stepped away. "What are you doing! That's good stuff and you're wasting it! If you're leaving, then leave. After all, once you're gone, why the hell should you care what I do anyway."

[Furuhata Reika]

Reika's hands shook as she emptied the last bottle in her possession. The air was charged, and her eyes brimmed with tears. Her anger had been abandoned for shock and acute concern. But Motoki's loosing it over her ridding their place of alcohol disturbed her on many levels. Whatever thoughts she had that perhaps she was overreacting, that his actions might qualify as substance abuse but not alcoholism, vanished as he freaked out, grabbing the beer.

"It's called tough love," Reika snapped at him, but her voice shook, full of fear more than anger, now. "You have a serious problem, Motoki. You need help," she said, shaking her head and grabbing a bottle of wine from the wine rack. She didn't know if they had any more hard liquor in the house. Occasionally if they were entertaining she would make a drink for people, but she was more of a wine person herself. However much she enjoyed it, though, Reika had no problem pulling out the cork and turning the bottle over, watching the garnet stream of Merlot follow the beer down the drain.

"Oh, is that it?" she found herself snapping as he kept up his blaming her for all of this, because she was leaving. "You're only a husband-- or a responsible adult-- when I'm around? You have no responsibility to control yourself when I'm not here? That because I'm gone I shouldn't care what you do? We're married. Distance doesn't change that." She shook her head at him as she discarded the cork to another bottle of wine. "What else is in the house besides this? Do we have any vodka?" she demanded to know. She couldn't stay with him, not when things were so volatile between them. She didn't want to see what Motoki the Alcoholic was like. But she would do her best to remove temptation before she left. "Tell me, Motoki!!"

[Furuhata Motoki]

"What I need," Motoki barked back, "Is a wife who doesn't take off for half the year and then come home and harass me when every little decision I make while she's gone doesn't fit into her pleased category." He'd never struggled as much in the past as he'd struggled this time around - Reika had been gone longer with no communication. Toss in stress at work and he had drunk far more than was even normal for his alcoholic moments.

But he wasn't going to admit that.

He turned his back to her, unable to watch the destruction of so much good alcohol. Instead, he opened his beer, twisting off the cap, and began to drink. He was sure his decision would only piss her off more, but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Part of him really did want to drown himself in the beer so that her incessant shouting would seem less obnoxious, and part of him wanted to pour the beer down the drain, take her in his arms and apology. Why his body was unable to perform the latter was beyond him...

And she was yelling again, about Vodka. "Hell if I know," Motoki yelled back, "I'm surprised you didn't just assume I drank it all already."

[Furuhata Reika]

"And I need a husband who can actually communicate," Reika snapped back. "If you had a problem with my job, you should have said so a long time ago, instead of trying to manipulate me by putting on a guilt trip. I'm not criticizing your every little decision, I'm taking action against your addiction! That's a pretty big problem!"

Setting down the empty bottle of wine, she just shot him a glare as he opened the beer and began to drink. Muttering under her breath about men, she threw open the cabinets, shoving their contents aside to look for any secret stashes. Eventually she found a half-full bottle of vodka, though she wasn't sure who had depleted its supply. She hadn't been home in so long, that it was possible it had been her during a party, before she left. Nonetheless, down the drain it went.

That done, Reika went back into the bedroom, closing the suitcase and coming out. She just stood there for a moment, staring at him. It felt wrong to leave now, even if they were furious at each other, he was most in need now. He had an illness. Still, she didn't know how to help him-- and she didn't want to see who he would become once he consumed all that beer. She wasn't going to fight him over it.

"I'm taking the car," Reika said finally. The last thing he needed to be doing was driving. "You know how to reach me. When I said I was leaving before... it's because you were talking about having to leave with a pissed off wife. I thought if that's what you really wanted, I'd give it to you. But now... Now I don't know if I can really stay in the same place as you. I don't know if that's healthy, or what you need, or if I'm capable of it. You're an alcoholic, Motoki. I need to figure out how I'm going to live with that-- if I could or should live with it. If it's possible to live with."

Reika shook her head, and just went out, shutting the door behind her and finding her way to their car. She didn't know where she was driving, but somehow she ended up on the freeway. Maybe it was time to see family. It would be cheaper than a hotel, anyway.