Reiji started to get into fights and skip school, eventually spending time with a biker gang, Through the gang is how he met Ryoko, the woman that would give birth to Soichiro. Ryoko's eye had caught the handsome young man and the potential to get her hands on his rich families wealth motivated her to make him hers. People had tried to warn Reiji about her, telling him stories about how dangerous she was. At that point she was dating a gang leader who she had beaten into submission. She was beautiful but could be uncontrollable when angry, due to a terrible early life of repeated rapes.
Ryoko toyed with Reiji and made it look like they were sleeping together. This enraged her boyfriend who tried to kill Reiji multiple times. The bikers he thought were his friends turned their back on him, not willing to risk their lives for someone they onl wanted around for his money. In a moment of desperation Reiji slept with Ryoko, an event that would haunt him. Soon after recovering from a particularly savage beating he learned that Soji was fighting through a stomach ulcer. Reiji felt the strain on his older brother was his doing and decided he needed to be a better person for his brother sake. He returned to his home and schooling, looking to make a better person of himself.
Just as Reiji see's progress in restoring his relationship with Soji he receives a letter and a phone call from Ryoko. She gave birth to a boy who looks like him. She isn't looking to marry him, just money from hi family so that she can raise his son. She didn't get an abortion in the chance she could make money from the baby due to who its fathers family is. Reiji hid the existence of the baby from his brother, sending Ryoko money in secret. But she was never satisfied with what he sent her, continuing to demand more and more. Eventually he broke the news to Ryoko that he couldn't keep supporting her and there wasn't going to be any payday due to his status as an illegitimate child. She refused to let him see his son and soon he hired a private detective to search for her. It was fate that led him to his son the night he almost died. At that moment he left Soichiro's life in his brothers hands.
When Soji decided to raise Soichiro as his own child he rejected Reiji as his brother. Reiji understood but was devastated by that rejection all the same. Soon he moved away, to live in New York, to chaise after a dream of being a musician and to be as far a way as he could from everything that brought him pain. Since that day Reiji had never contacted Soji or Soichiro, but his return makes Soji uneasy. Soichiro relays his families past to Yukino. A pas of generational neglect and abuse that seems to haunt the Arima family. Given his own unexpected and unwanted birth Yukino struggles with how to tell him that she thinks she is pregnant herself. she remains silent on this life altering decision, hoping that everything will work out well in the end, regardless of the Arima families terrible patterns.
The reality behind Reiji returning to Japan after so long becomes apparent when Soichiro's mother tracks him down, demanding he tell her were Reiji is. Before he and Yukino can shake the woman off Reiji arrives, suspecting she would approach their son out of desperation again. His true intention for all of the attention and hype was to draw her out, to test how desperate she was to leach anything out of him. He was using this as a last chance for her to show her real nature.
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