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Kyoko's PoV

I squinted and tried my best to see anything, anything at all that could be useful to us. But it was no use, the bright spot light kept me blinded to my surroundings.

"Ugh, waste of effort." I shifted over the chains connected to my handcuffs and lied down sideways. If I had a minute I might be able to pick the lock on this thing....

"10 million from no. 7!"

The voice of I assume the auctioneer rings through the hall. Well the least I can conclude is that this hall seems pretty large.

Dang it, even if that phony guy before tried to knock me out, I still could've pretended to be and know the way to the auction. If this is, when someone brings me out...I should remember the route from there.

"25 million from seat number 100!"

From the many times mom told me her love story, I'm sure dad's seat number was a hundred.

Eh, why does that matter.

"Sold to seat no. 100 for 25 million yen!"

The bird cage I was kept in was pulled to the back of the stage.

I laid lazily until someone opened the gate and opened my handcuffs.

I follow two masked people up two elevators to the penthouse floor.

As soon as I enter the lounge, I sit down crossed-legged on the ground.

"Uh..?" the guy in the top hat was obviously surprised as he took off his mask.

"What's a kid like you doing in the auctions?" a guy who seems unfazed by my behavior says with his arms crossed. I glanced up to a man with black sapphire hair sitting at the furthest couch.

"I..." I didn't know how to answer. What should I say?

Just as I was pondering on what to do, the man I saw before in the lobby walked up. He dropped a yellow folder on the long sofa beside a man with dark brown hair, who opened the folder and read off it.

"Kyoko Kishi...?"

Everyone else in the room looked at me with such wide eyes all I could do was lift up a peace sign beside my face.

"Who's your mother?" the blondie behind me asks right away.

Alright, I am stuck in a lounge full of weirdos.

"Her name is Arian.... That question is not random at all...." I mumble under my breath. I realize even the guy at the back smoking a cigarette stopped dead in his business.

"...What about your father?" The guy in the top hat asked with a rather serious face.

"You tell me!" I grumbled at him, slightly angry that he's bringing up that man who abandoned mom when she needed him the most. I only reason why I had a thought of searching for him was to see what kind of rotten person he was.

"It's not that hard to." The man reading the folder puts it down.

"Excuse me?" I said in a shushed yet clear voice I only used when I'm upset.

"You see." The man in the top hat sat down beside me, who does he take me for? A little kid that needs comforting? "It isn't that hard to put together when you have the same appearance, surname and attitude."

I was about to question him when a ringing tone broke through the atmosphere.

Mamoru's PoV

"Hey...it's me." A forever-familiar voice came from the other side of my phone as soon as I pick it up.

I got up without a word and headed to my suite for privacy.

"...Um...hello?" she says again when I didn't make a sound for a while. There's no doubt about it.

"Arian?" I whispered.

"Hi...." I can imagine her twiddling with the ends of her sleeves in nervousness. "Listen...I am so sorry about what happened s-seventeen years ago and...if you're willing to m-meet up...?" I can almost hear her breaths through the cell.

"Boarder in front of the hotel, see ya in ten."

I got up and speed walked out of my suite and across to the lounge.

"Okay, all those things aren't real proof!" Kyoko, the girl we bought on the auction, was now up on her feet and speaking to Baba and Kisaki, who're trying to convince her of something.

I'm not going to assume anything until I get confirmation from Arian.

Arian and I met up at our agreed spot. Other than the slightly muter tone of clothing, she didn't change much.

Almost as soon as she saw me, I opened my arms, and she dived into them.

"...I need to tell you something." She looked up at me, "you see...the reason, well, why I left a long time ago...hah...was because..."

"ya were pregnant?" I finished for her since she was really having trouble getting the words out.

Her jaw dropped in surprise, "How'd you know?!"

"Is her name Kyoko? I kinda just met 'er."

"Oh...yes." She looks at me again, "I have a tracker on her phone just for safety since, like you, she really can't look after herself. And, and...and I almost flipped when I saw her position at Tres Spades...I mean...her new college is for exclusive Investigators and detectives but I didn't think they'd suspect the hotel already! The first thing that came to mind were the auctions and then I just panicked—"

I chuckled deeply at her panicking form, "good thing to know ya didn't change at all."

Her breathing slows down after a few seconds. "So...she's safe and sound at the penthouse...right?"

"Yeah, ya wanna see her?"

She looked down, "No...she probably doesn't want to see me, I'm just glad she's alright."

Arian meditates for a long while before pulling me to a bench and sat down. "She was kind of furious...when I refused to tell her more about you other than our story. I-I'm a horrible mother, I mistook her eagerness to know as a child's curiosity and...she kind of changed. I can't quite put it into specific words but things were off about our relationship ever since then. Then one day, she spoke to me, she asked tons of questions. I can't keep up with her interrogating so she figured out you were a detective...."

Is that why she joined the police academy? To find me?

"...She was fifteen then, and ever since that talk she secretly started learning what investigators do and applied for that college. We had a long talk about her future just three months ago, she insisted on moving out. She had a scholarship and she says she can live on her own." Arian looked so wounded as she continued speaking, "We grew very far apart just those few years...it's all my fault, I don't blame her. I shouldn't have kept so many things from her, she had the right to know."

I hugged her close. She returned the embrace with equal strength. It must've been hard on her, raising a child on her own.

"Teenagers and their puberty." I try to lighten up the mood, "I'm sure she ain't mad at ya."

"...I sure hope so." She snuggled into my chest, we stayed like that for a while.

~~

Holding Arian's nervous hand, I open the door to the lounge.

"You even have the same blood type!" the sound of Kisaki's voice was heard.

"That proves nothing." Kyoko's voice sent a slight shiver down my spine. This is my own daughter.

"It smells like smoke in here, what do you think of that?" Soryu then asks. What're they trying to accomplish here?

"I find the smell of gun smoke calming, but I won't ever try cigarettes."

Eisuke was the first one to notice me here standing with Arian, who had her undivided attention on Kyoko.

I'm glad she already feels fearless to talk to everyone.

"Your eyes are even the color of smoke! C'mon!" Baba whines.

By then, the girl has turned around and saw us together, hand-in-hand.

At first, she didn't show any sort of emotion and just repeated glanced at both of us. Moments later she started getting more anxious as she looked me from head to toe and especially my face.

Slowly, the fire burning in her eyes burned out and the usual dull gray color floated back up. She made herself comfortable by sitting on the ground again.

"Told ya." Kisaki crouched down beside her, "this guy's your father, how do you feel right now?"

Kyoko stared at Arian for a few seconds before nonchalantly saying: "How should I feel? It's not like this is going to change my life. It's not gonna change anything."

"Hey...." Baba stood behind her, "there's still a bloodline, y'know."

"Alright." She looked up at me, "as your biological child, I will cover up the auctions from the academy since you're a part of it, and mom will get in trouble as well since she's related."

"Wait what. Academy?" Soryu sits up right in alarm.

"They've been searching for the secret gun trade locations of the Ice Dragons' as well." She doesn't even look back at him, "seems like it's right 'ere in this hotel."

"Girl, don't you dare pop a single word to—" Eisuke started.

"Or else you're gonna wipe me off the face of this planet? Yup, heard that before." She got up. Her voice was starting to sound slightly hoarse.

Nobody could say anything as she strode to the door.

"I gotta go, my friends are probably worried about me. And I have school tomorrow." She says without turning back and shuts the door softly behind her.

"..." The lounge was quiet for a moment.

"So...no one's gonna stop her, huh." Baba says rather awkwardly.

"That's your daughter, Mamoru." Kisaki adds on with one of his fake smiles.

Takumori's PoV (Kyoko's childhood friend)

I drove off as soon as Kyoko disappeared inside the hotel front door.

"I'm sure someone as smart as Kyo would figure something out." Yoshiro adjusted the shotgun seat and leaned back in relaxation.

"This is pretty serious, don't take it so lightly." I said, couldn't help but worrying about Kyoko's safety.

"Taku, I know you too well after these four years of being roommates." We make eye contact in the rear view mirror. "It's obvious that you like her, man."

"She thinks of me as a best friend, Yoshiro, it's not like that." I answer, my grip on the steering wheel unconsciously tightening.

"You never know unless you try. It's the key problem to every single romance TV drama ever made! Both of them have trouble voicing out their feelings, resulting in—"

"This isn't a TV drama."

"Those are all reality TV shows..."

"That doesn't mean the plotline is real." I roll my eyes at him, but a small smile forms. Sometimes he'd just pretend to be stupid to make me loosen up a little.

I park at a café half a block away from the hotel. We took seats beside the window at the nearest to the entrance.

"Who knew that fancy hotel like that could be hiding something as an illegal black market auction?" Yoshiro voiced his thought out loud in a low voice.

"They are innocent until proven guilty." I say.

"True. We'll just see what kind of evidence Kyo brings back." He leans back in his chair comfortably.

As he says that, I can't help but feel a little uneasy. I'm probably just overthinking.

Yoshiro put his arms up behind his head, his unzipped jacket revealed the Academy uniform underneath.

"Hey...hey...!" after a few minutes of peace and quiet, a boy looking our age sat down on the third seat around the round table. His eyes glittering as he spoke to us.

"Can we...help you?" I focus my attention on him. He looked like a happy-go-lucky type of guy.

"Are you from that college as well? I am too." He nodded towards Yoshiro's uniform.

"Yup! Both of us." Yoshiro happily starts chatting with the new guy.

"I'm starting my first day there tomorrow." He grinned as he said livelily. His teeth were perfectly straight, probably fixed with braces in the past.

"Awesome!" Yoshiro completely faces him, "then you must be aiming to be an investigator or something?"

"Ah...about that...." His expression changed a little bit, "I only applied...because I'm looking for someone who goes to that college. My actual interest is photography."

"...Oh...." That took Yoshiro by surprise. I guess he decided not to ask his personal manners.

To keep the chat going, I thought we should introduce ourselves.

"Hey, I'm Takumori Takeda, nice to meet you." I held out my hand and he shook it.

"I'm Yoshiro Nakamaru, hope we see each other at the Academy!" He very soon goes back into his usual character.

"Sorry I haven't introduced myself at first." He smiled sheepishly, "My name is..."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aaaaaaand I need more time to come up with a name XD

January 2, 2016

Happy New Year, guys!!!

Thank you to my followers who're still with me for an entire year :)

Well it is currently 12:07 am....think of it as January first?

And guess who's about to turn 15 in ten more days?

I'm getting old =.=

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful year!

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-Lily ❤

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