Rules Were Made to be Broken

‣ scene 21 [hitting the fan]

"Come on, Ishimaru!" A coworker prodded, tugging him toward one of the pool tables. "Tonight's your night! Play just one game, will you?"

"...Oh, alright," Kiyotaka laughed. He allowed himself to be pulled onto his feet and followed the other man. The girls around the table clapped and greeted him cheerily. Even if they were faking it, it was nice.

Kiyotaka cleared his head of all other thoughts and moved to line up his shot. And that was when he spotted a familiar face in the doorway. A very solemn face that he had not expected to see.

"Hey, isn't that your dad?" One of the women asked. Kiyotaka gulped and nodded. It certainly was. And Kiyotaka had no idea why he was there. It couldn't possibly be good news.

"...Hang on a moment." He handed the pool cue off to someone else and hurried to the door.

Takaaki Ishimaru was usually serious. He rarely smiled. But Kiyotaka knew how to recognize anger in him. The sight of it gave him pause. He approached the man as politely as he could. He tried not to think about the fact that the last time he'd seen the man so angry, he'd earned himself a slap across the face for an embarrassingly low test score.

"...Dad, what are you doing here?"

Takaaki stepped into the bar and slowed the door behind him without answering, not commenting on the not-so-friendly greeting, took a few steps forward, and quickly eyed the crowd before turning back to his son.

"Dad, you're not answering me. If you're here, where mom—"

"I need to speak with you. It's about Sonia."

Kiyotaka's blood ran cold. He tried to send a signal with his eyes. He tried to tell his father that they should have this conversation elsewhere, where others couldn't hear. Takaaki completely ignored him.

"...What about her?"

Takaaki stared at Kiyotaka, for a long and tense moment, before he sighed heavily and shook his head.

"I don't know how to tell you this, son, but... That fiancée of yours is an adulteress."

Oh god.

"Her parents caught her with another man, and in their own home."

Oh no.

"Right under our noses... How can a person be so disrespectful?"

Oh god, Oh god, Oh god.

This was exactly what Kiyotaka had been terrified of. Sonia had told him so herself— Gundham Tanaka was not an easy man to sway. Of course he wouldn't just stand by and let some other man steal his woman.

But what the hell had happened? How had they both ended up in the Nevermind mansion? What, exactly, had they been doing? Sonia wouldn't have ruined the engagement on purpose, so something must have spiraled out of her control. And this must have just happened, or she likely would have called him about it.

Kiyotaka noticed just then, a bit too late, that a few of his coworkers had heard him and had stopped talking in favor of eavesdropping.

"...Can't we discuss this somewhere more private?"

Once again, he was ignored, and he wasn't about to grab his father and drag him off somewhere. He didn't want to get berated or smacked in front of the people he worked with.

"Is that all you have to say? ...I'd think you would have noticed, son. That girl isn't trustworthy. She never was. Your mother and I have always thought so."

Kiyotaka laughed and rolled his eyes. That wasn't true, and he knew that it wasn't, but Takaaki and Satsuki always had to pretend that they'd seen something coming just so they could scold him about it.