Diabolik Lovers: Recovery

Chapter 5: Father, Why? (Reiji)

"You have been out of line more than once," Reiji pointed out. "You ought to be punished."

"I don't think I've done anything wrong," I said stubbornly. "I think that you should allow me some time to fit into life in your home before you analyze my manners too closely."

"And why would I do that?"

"Because I'm panicked, of course I'm not revising my manners on a regular basis," I murmured and finished the last problem. "I've finished, Reiji."

"Allow me to check."

His red eyes skimmed over the page slowly, his brain calculating the different formulas and answers with utmost care. 

How can I find the soft side of  Reiji, Mom? Sure, I got lucky with Subaru, but Reiji... 

"You managed not to make any errors, Miyako," he said dismissively, handing me the papers robotically. 

"So, if you don't mind me asking, what do you know about Shu that I don't?" 

Reiji pondered me for a few moments, his gloved hands twitching slightly. 

"He was supposed to be the head of the family, you know," he said, turning away and grasping a teapot from its burner. It steamed lazily with hot water. "Mother always wanted him to do well, but he never did. He spent more time playing than he did studying and look where that's gotten him."

I noticed the stiffness that wrung his muscles on the word 'mother'. 

"I see," I murmured, trying to think my way around this new information. "But it's strange, don't you think? Now he doesn't have interest in anything much less playing."

"What's it matter?"

"Because people don't just turn into lazy lumps just by spending their time playing around day after day, that doesn't make sense. Kids play all the time and then they calm as they become adults. Shu, he's done something more - he isn't just calm, he just doesn't care it seems."

"What does it matter to you?"

"I'm curious," I stated uncertainly, my chin in my palm as I thought. "Something horrible must've happened."

"Like what?" Reiji suggested, eyeing me with those red eyes. I could only see a corner of them; they looked like chips of frozen blood. 

Like what...? Well, people respond to stress in different ways. If Shuu felt overstessed to become the next head of house, he could've just shut down under pressure. No... that couldn't be, could it?

"Well none of you in this house have a mother around it seems, or a father for that matter, maybe... that has something to do with it? Could Shuu have been close to his mother?"

"You really don't understand, do you?"

"Enlighten me."

"Shuu and I were born of the same mother, the triplets were born of a different mother, and Subaru of yet another," he said, sitting himself on his armchair across from me. "Yes, each of our mothers are dead. Our shared father is alive. I doubt any of us have love for our mothers."

"I have love for my mother still, even though she died when I was too young to remember her," I murmured, still trying to mull over what Reiji had just told me.

"Typical. You're making the conversation about yourself."

"It's possible that your brothers could still love their mothers; you never asked, did you?"

"You don't know anything."

"I don't," I agreed, biting my lower lip as another question rose to mind. Well, the current conversation wasn't going anywhere, so why not? "Reiji, what is a sacrificial bride? What am I doing here?"