Tokyo Deception

3

After

Mimi and Hatori had spent two years in blissful happy married life and for those two years Mimi had managed to bury her true feelings for Shigure very successfully so much so that she was able to fool herself into thinking that she had put the whole thing behind her. But as with most repressed feelings and memories they eventually come bubbling to the surface with a vengeance and don't go away until they are faced head on.

Mimi eventually had become stuck in a sea of her own guilt and conflicting emotions and feelings. Mimi loved Hatori so much but she also knew that her feelings of love for Shigure were not just friendship and that they were deeper. And no matter how much she tried to hide or get rid of these feelings she had for Shigure they would keep coming back and were slowly eating away at Mimi.

The guilt of kissing Shigure and allowing herself to love him prevented Mimi from leaving Hatori. She felt she had to atone for what she did by staying with him. At the same time it also prevented Mimi from giving her heart fully to Hatori as well and eventually this took its toll on Mimi and she began to push Hatori away. Mimi also desperately craved the acceptance of her new family and was constantly pushing herself to be the perfect wife in the eyes of the family. This eventually put so much pressure on Mimi that she would be attentive and loving to Hatori one day and the next she would be lukewarm and distant. This went on for a year and it drove Hatori crazy because he could not understand what was wrong and how they could go from being the perfect couple to this. No matter how hard he tried Hatori couldn't figure out if it was something he was doing or if it was Mimi falling out of love with him. In that same year Hatori put his heart and soul into trying to get to the crux of what was happening and got nowhere because Mimi was insistent that nothing was wrong and this destroyed him and made him vulnerable.

In the three years after Hatori and Mimi married, Kyoko had been secretly working with Natsume trying to get Hatori to have an affair with Natsume. Finally out of frustration, loneliness and devastating heartache from being pushed away by the woman he loved, Hatori had succumb to the warm open and loving arms Natsume had been offering him.

...September 15, five years after the wedding...

The weather was still very warm, and had not started to turn cold yet, even as the rain started to come down with even more force than it had when Mimi had first walked out on the balcony to clear her thoughts. She stood numb and expressionless staring out at the sea not taking any notice of anything that was going on around her and thought "It was also raining on that day."

Exactly one year ago Mimi attended Erika's funeral. Erika had been gunned down by the Yakuza when she was trying to find out who kidnapped her best friend Rin. Mimi was getting soaked to the bone and still did not take any notice of the rain as she remembered the last conversation she had with Erika.

...July 20, one year earlier...

"I can't believe you still haven't found anything about where Rin is being held." Mimi said as they sat in the coffee shop in Rippongi where they usually met up each week.

"Oh I have some leads I'm just keeping quiet about them. I really don't know who I can trust." Erika replied in a low voice and then continued to drink her coffee like she hadn't said anything, "Now tell me how have you been getting on without having Ritsu here. I've noticed you've wanted to spend a lot more time with me, not that I'm complaining or anything."

Even though Mimi and Erika were close friends they both had a closer friendship with someone else and it never bothered either of them. When Ritsu moved away and Rin went missing, Mimi and Erika started to rely on each other more and both of them developed a stronger friendship with one another.