Chapter Seventeen

Tatsuya was locked in his room. Not by choice this time, though. Once his mother found out that he was out and about, going places and doing things, she made sure he was on tight lock down. He wasn’t allowed to leave his room unless his sister was with him, and he wasn’t allowed to leave his house at all.
“That’s the problem with people,” Gina said once Tatsuya had explained his dinner with the Fisher family to her. “All people are so ridiculously flawed. Tatsuya, you deserve perfection. You don’t need friends like that girl, and you don’t have to deal with her parents if you just—”
“Fell in love with you?” Tatsuya snapped, shutting a book he was reading with a lot more force than necessary. “Yeah, wouldn’t life just be so much simpler if I were in love with a computer. A computer program that I created.”
“I understand, Tatsuya,” Gina said. “But if you just listen to me sometimes—”
“Gina, I listen to you all the time,” Tatsuya said. “I listen to you all the time. I have no one else to listen to. I’m not complaining or anything. If I were that annoyed, I would just remove the program from my hard drive, and then I’d be done with you for the rest of my life. Have I done that yet? No, I haven’t. So, please, don’t even talk about me not listening to you. And like I said, I’m not annoyed. If I were going to be annoyed, I would not have created you in the first place. And I really appreciate that you’re here, because you listen to me a lot, too, it’s just now is not the time to be talking about stupid things because there’s some serious dilemmas going on, and I’m just really stressed out, okay?”
“Tatsuya, you are rambling again,” Gina said. “Take a deep breath and calm down.”
He did what she said and took about ten seconds to deeply inhale, held it for a few seconds, and then let it out in a long sigh.
“I’m okay,” he told Gina. “Thanks for that. I’ve never rambled like that before. Man, I must be going insane or something.”
“Don’t worry, Tatsuya,” Gina said. “Just relax. Everything will be fine in the end.”
“Yeah, every thing will be fine,” he said to himself. “I have to make sure everything ends up all right. Not just for me, but for Maddy and Darren and Kimi and everyone else. I have to fix this.”
A knock appeared on the door, and Tatsuya called, “come in, it’s locked from the outside.”
Kimi opened the door and poked her head in. “Hey, Tatsuya?”
Tatsuya stood up. “What is it, Kim?”
“There’s someone here who would like to see you,” she said softly.
“Who is it?”
“There’s actually two people.”
“Are you going to tell me who they are?”
“They are like these two girls. Your friends. Those two girls who are your friends,” she said, a bit more awkwardly this time.
“Do you mean Maddy?” Tatsuya asked. “She said she wanted to talk to me today.”
“Yeah, she’s the blond one right?” Kimi asked. “And the asian one is there, too.”
Tatsuya actually thought about it for a second before he remembered the only asian girl who would attempt to visit him. He actually couldn’t believe he had forgotten. “Oh, is it Kaida?”
“Yes, I think so,” Kimi answered. “Should I tell them to come up here?”
“Sure, go ahead. I don’t know if they want to come up here together or something, but… yeah, just tell them I’ll talk to them both.”
“Okay,” she said. “But while you’re in here with them, I’m going to be right in the hall way making sure you’re not up to anything suspicious.”
“All right, Kimi,” Tatsuya said, nodding at his sister. “Thanks. I’ll be in here.”
Once Kimi had shut the door again, Tatsuya could hear her tiny footsteps run down the stairs, and then back up in a matter of seconds. She unlocked his door and poked her head in again.
“Are they there?” Tatsuya asked.
“Yeah,” Kimi said, swinging the door fully open to reveal the two beautiful woman. “Just don’t do anything mom would disapprove of,” Kimi said, slightly glaring at them before she left.
Kaida stepped in first, closely followed by Maddy, who shut the door.
“I didn’t know you were having more company over, Tatsuya,” Kaida said, her voice chilling Tatsuya to the core as she sat down on the chair across from him. “I have some information I wanted to share with you, and I don’t know if I can now.”
“Tatsuya, I just want an explanation,” Maddy said, sitting next to him on the bed. “I just want you to stop hiding stuff from me. You’re a good friend of mine, Tat, and I just want to know what’s up.”
Tatsuya sighed. He didn’t know what to do. He knew that whatever Kaida had to say was important, but there was just something about Madison Anabel Fisher where he could not say no to her.
“Here’s what we’ll do,” he started, “both of you are going to stay in this room until we’re all finished.”
“But Tatsuya—” Kaida tried to interrupt, but Tatsuya cut her off by raising his hand.
“And we’ll wait until I’m finished,” he said. “Okay, so we’re all going to hear what everyone has to say. I know there have been a lot of secrets, and things that only I can say or things that can only been said to me. But the reason Kaida came here was because she needed to tell me some confidential information. And the only reason Maddy has come here was to find out all the confidential stuff. So I guess the only way to make this work is if we just let everything out right now.”
“Tatsuya, we can’t do that,” Kaida said. “How do we know if we can trust her?”
“Excuse me?” Maddy snapped. “Tatsuya, you don’t trust me?”
“I trust you,” Tatsuya told Maddy. “But I’m really just not sure how you’re going to take all of this.”
“Tatsuya, I don’t think I can tell just anyone,” Kaida said. “I can’t just reveal myself to anyone. I just can’t do that.”
“Why? What’ll happen if you tell anyone? Is there some sort of consequence or something?”
“Well, not exactly. Nothing will happen, but we don’t like telling just anyone.”
“Excuse me,” Maddy snapped again. “I’m not just anyone, just so you know. I’m Tatsuya’s friend, and I have a right to know what the hell is going on.”
“She does have the right,” Tatsuya said. Even though he didn’t truly believe in what he was saying one hundred per cent, he still could never say no to Madison Anabel Fisher. There was just that aura about her that made anyone fall to her every whim.
Everyone except for Kaida, of course.
“I don’t want to tell her,” Kaida said firmly. “This is a secret kept for thousands of years, and she’s just some girl who has nothing to do with it.”
“Kaida, I almost killed myself because of this,” Tatsuya said. “And if Maddy wants to know why, then I can’t lie to her about something like that. I can’t lie to her at all.”
“Tatsuya, try to understand—” Kaida started, but got interrupted by Maddy.
“No, you should try to understand,” she said again. “I’ve been standing in the background, just smiling and nodding at everything Tatsuya has done. But then he goes off and tries to kill himself, and I’m extremely worried, and all I want to know is what the hell is going on.”
Kaida frowned, and Tatsuya stood up to look her in the eyes.
“I’m going to explain myself,” he said. “I’m going to explain everything. I just have to make sure it’s okay with Kaida first, because it’s not just my secret.”
Maddy’s eyes widened. “Is she pregnant or something?”
“No!” Kaida snapped. “Tatsuya, I don’t think this is a very good idea.”
“It may not be a good idea or not,” Tatsuya said. “But it’s the right thing to do, and I want to do it.”
Maddy smiled. “Thank you, Tatsuya. But I completely respect Kaida and her rights, so… do you mind if Tatsuya spills the beans, Kaida?”
Kaida frowned at Maddy. “Despite what I say, Tatsuya is going to want to tell you,” she said with a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing I can do about that. Maybe you will prove me wrong and turn out worthy of my trust after all.”
“Oh, thank you so much, Kaida,” she said, clicking her heals together as she jumped lightly. “Don’t worry, I’m really good at keeping secrets. What ever you’re about to tell me, I won’t tell a soul.”
“I just don’t know how you’re going to react to it,” Kaida said. “It’s not exactly your usual secret.”
“I’ll try to think about it with an open mind,” she said, smiling again. “So please, tell me what’s going on.”
Tatsuya took a deep breath, and began to explain everything he could to Maddy. He talked about his great-grandfather’s journal, and what had happened to him on his journey. He told her all about Kaida’s true identity and why she was there in the first place. Possibly the hardest thing to explain to her was about how Darren got sick and about his power to kill anyone he chooses to reject. He carefully made sure to avoid anything that would bring up the fact that Madison Anabel Fisher was his best friend ten years ago, because amongst all this crazy unbelievable mishaps, he was positive she was already overwhelmed.
“D-dragons?” Maddy stuttered. She glanced quickly at Kaida and then back at Tatsuya. “I-I know I said I would have an open mind about this, but… dragons? Are you sure about this? I mean, do you have any proof?”
“Not really, no,” Tatsuya said.
“Once it is my turn to speak, I will be able to confirm my identity to you,” Kaida said. “But I don’t want to interrupt. You probably have loads of questions.”
“Well, I don’t really have questions, per say,” Maddy said, cocking her head to one side. “But this is just all so incredible. Like, I would have never expected this answer in a million years. Maybe if I were in some movie or something like that, but nothing like this in my life.”
“That’s life,” Tatsuya said, shrugging. “The most unexpected things will happen to you.”
“Yeah, I’ll say,” Maddy said, still attempting to catch her breath. “Are you sure about this? I mean, it’s your fault that my Darren is home in bed… dying?”
Tatsuya frowned and shrugged again. “It’s also my fault my grandfather is dead.”
“That’s horrible,” Maddy said.
“Yeah. My great-grandfather killed himself because it was the only way for him to stop killing people.”
“And that’s why you…” Maddy said, but she couldn’t finish her thought.
Tatsuya nodded. “Yeah. I’m glad you understand.”
“Of course I understand,” Maddy said with a sigh. “But this is all still so unbelievable. And since the whole killing yourself thing didn’t work, how are you going to fix everything? You can’t just let Darren die.” Maddy held onto his arm. “Please, Tatsuya, we can’t just let Darren die!”
Kaida stood up. “I do believe it’s my turn to speak. I have a plan.”