X. Greed

Upon waking to an empty bed, Hikari feels an immediate sense of relief, but she catches herself, and consciously pushes those thoughts away. She reaches for her discarded night shirt and pulls it down over her head before sitting all the way up.

It’s something of a small miracle to see Daisuke up earlier than ten o’ clock. She hardly sleeps when he stays over because he tends to hog the bed, always lying in strange and crooked angles, and he snores, too.

Still blurry-eyed, she finds him repacking his suitcase for the third time.

“Did you forget something?” She yawns.

He stands, obviously dissatisfied, and returns to the bedside.

“I was trying to figure out a way to rearrange things so that I could take you with me.”

She smiles. “I’m still too big, huh?”

He leans over her with a very light morning kiss. “No, you’re perfect.”

She feels guilty for being relieved when he wasn’t in bed earlier, and soothes her culpability by kissing his forehead. Wearing his pressed dress shirt and black trousers, he nevertheless climbs into bed and lies across her legs, squirming like a newly-washed puppy.

“Even Okinawa will be cold without you.” He says.

Hikari scoffs. “Once you feel the sun, you’ll forget all about me.”

He rolls over and looks up at her. “Do you want to clean my ears before I go?”

“You’ll be late.” She says flatly.

He sighs and stands up. His pressed shirt is already wrinkled. He picks up his suitcase and duffle bag, and her heart quickens inexplicably at the gesture. She climbs out of bed, pulling her nightshirt down as she follows his lumbering figure to the door.

He turns back. “Two weeks and three days, starting now.”

He drops his things and grabs her around the waist.

“I want my Christmas kiss now and my New Years kiss when I come back.”

She kisses him, then sighs into his shoulder. “I’ll be lonely.”

“You can visit Miyako, and Mimi-chan, Rin and Shuya, and…” He hesitates. Her ears perk to listen as her heart races with fear and anticipation of what he’ll say.

“Even Takeru…” He says slowly, as though unsure of the words themselves. “I wouldn’t be jealous if you wanted to see him.”

They both know this is a blatant lie. But it stirs something in her, something without a name, and with her arms around his neck she kisses him.

He immediately tries to lift her night shirt over her head but she says, “You’ll be late.” and with a sigh, he breaks their kiss.

“You’re no fun at all.” And kissing her nose quickly, he hoists up all his bags and lets himself out.

She locks the door behind him, and rests her forehead on the wood paneling. It’s strange, she thinks, how his absence already feels like regret.

She spends her new-found alone time catching up with her reading and taking pictures at her leisure for a change. The trick of working in your field of interest is maintaining that interest once you’re forced to do it every day. After Christmas, she spends three consecutive days taking photographs of and from the giant Ferris wheel, whether early in the morning or in the middle of the night, and spends at least four rolls of film on its mystifying angles.

Miyako, when she meets her for lunch amidst her obsession, just smiles funnily.

“You’re a strange bird sometimes, you know.”

Hikari realizes that there’s nothing she can really say to convince her otherwise, so she merely pouts, and pushes her pasta around with her fork.

“Haven’t you ever been drawn to something mundane for no particular reason?”

She seems to think carefully. “Once, my brother had a mole on his neck that I swear was the spitting image of Morgan Freeman.”

“Morgan Freeman…the actor?”

“Yes, it looked exactly like him.”

Hikari’s fork slides out of her hand and lands with a quiet thump on the table.

“But somehow, the Ferris wheel is a stranger obsession?”

Miyako shrugs. “It was the closest thing I could relate to your bizarre artistic tendencies. So, have you talked to Takeru since the Christmas party?”

She glances up quickly. “Why should I have?”

“I know that you’re back with Daisuke now, but it’s…” She sighs. “How can I say this? If it were just some guy you used to pass the time, it wouldn’t matter. But it wasn’t. It was Takeru.”

Hikari lifts her fork, and says coldly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Miyako quiets.

She continues to push the pasta around.

“Anyway, he’s the one who never wants to talk. He’s just been really…” she sighs, “really hard to understand. Not like himself at all. Maybe it was that co-worker of his.”

Miyako asks, “You really don’t know why?”

Hikari looks up from her plate. “Why what?”

Miyako looks at her for a moment in silence.

“Strange bird.” She says ultimately, and turns to ask for the check.

The more she thinks about the conversation, the more upset she gets. At first she’s upset with Miyako, but the feeling fades almost immediately in realizing her friend had done nothing out of the ordinary, and though that should have been the end of it, thinking of the conversation leaves a lingering discomfort, so she decides not to think about it.

With the New Year just a couple of days away, Hikari instead devotes her energies to getting through the work rush and making some belated party plans. She’d been invited to a couple of high-end parties by some of her clients, fancy Ginza hotel affairs with big names and even bigger checkbooks, but none of them stand out in particular. Miyako and Ken are going for a quiet celebration out in the countryside; Yamato and Mimi have prior engagements; even her brother has vanished to spend the holiday in some tropical hideaway, leaving only an ambiguous automatic e-mail response as to his location.

Hikari goes so far as to ask her assistant Martin what his plans are.

“Well you know, Sadako Matsujiwa invited the entire studio to her party at the Park Hotel, she was so in love with her last session. Eiji and I booked a room there for the night.”

She remembers that shoot very well. She had fought Ms. Matsujiwa endlessly over the artistic direction, one of her biggest pet peeves, but eventually struck a compromise that proved hugely beneficial for her reputation.

Martin continues, “That reminds me, I got a call for you this morning from Sho Iri’s people. He’s also having a spontaneous New Year thing and he insists you be there.”

“Iri Sho?” She asks. An affluent model and entrepreneur, one the media had taken to calling Tokyo’s own Bruce Wayne. She had taken a couple of pictures for him some months ago, but it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“He insists. Apparently, you made quite an impression.” Martin says, a funny little sparkle of both envy and admiration in his tone of voice. “I think you should take the offer. Don’t think me presumptuous, but you’d be crazy not to.”

Hikari thinks a moment. It is the most appealing offer she’s so far received.

“Would you mind telling them I’ll be there, then?”

Martin nods. “I’ll do it right away.”

A mere five hours later, in the middle of her yoga routine, there is a knock on the door, and Hikari receives a hand-delivered invitation to Mr. Iri’s New Year Party. She accepts it, more than slightly bewildered by the formality of it all, and wonders as she closes the door what exactly she’s gotten herself into.

The invitation is printed on a square of thin black silk—though short-notice, Iri has spared no extravagance—and gives a brief detail of the location (the Mandarin Oriental) and the theme, a sort of ode to Qing Empire decadence, all black attire, with a silver hair ornament sporting a small emerald, apparently meant for her to wear.

At the bottom of the invitation, there is a note in succinct, but very slightly embellished hand-writing:

Hikari,

Thank you for accepting my invitation at such short-notice.

Since I’m prevented from escorting you myself, I insist you bring a guest.

Sho

She rereads the handwritten part twice over before a sinking finality settles in. That word ‘insist’ somehow carries a very heavy meaning.

She sets the invitation on her coffee table and thinks of calling Miyako to ask what she ought to do, but knows her answer will be the same as the solution she’s devised in her head. So, before she can lose courage in face of too much thought, she grabs her cell phone and dials Takeru’s phone number.

He doesn’t answer, not immediately, but calls back just as she’s preparing to leave a voice message.

But he remains utterly silent. She hesitates, clears her throat, and hesitates again.

“Takeru? Are you still mad at me?”

He says nothing. She sighs. “I’m calling because I’m invited to a New Year party and I need to bring a guest. Would like to bring a guest, I mean. Are you interested?”

She hears his breathing, but no words at all.

“Look, I’m not just calling you because I need someone. I haven’t seen you since Christmas and that wasn’t…the best time.”

She trails off, hoping he’ll say something. He doesn’t.

She continues, “But I miss you. I do. And I’m sorry I’ve been busy with work and…new things, and…well, it’s going to be one hell of a party, so if you don’t have plans, do you think you’d like to go with me?”

She shuts her eyes, trying to bite down her embarrassment. Takeru must be relishing how foolish she sounds.

“I should mention that I won’t go if you don’t.”

He has yet to say a word. She begins to wonder if he simply hung up the phone, but after another endless moment, he clears his throat.

“I don’t have plans.” He says.

She sighs. “So you’ll come with me?”

Another brief silence. “Is Daisuke okay with it?”

The question catches her off-guard, though in retrospect, she can’t quite imagine why.

“Yes, he actually told me to call you before he left.”

She hears a funny, muffled sound then, like a quiet laughter, but she can’t exactly be sure what it is.

“If he’s okay with it,” Takeru says softly, “then I’ll go with you.”

She feels a great rush of relief.

“That’s great. It’s the night after tomorrow. Obviously. I’ll send you the details.” She pauses, “Takeru?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She says, and feels it so sincerely that she gets teary-eyed saying it.

“Yeah, of course.” His voice, in contrast, is a little off-handed.

She hesitates a second before ending the call.

Somehow unable to find the strength to stand at just that moment, Hikari sinks deeper into the couch. There is a lingering sense of apprehension in every corner of her body. Her yoga routine forgotten, she instead flips through several television shows—an eating contest, a special on corrupt businessmen, a discourse on the American economic crisis. She idles through several more channels before setting down the remote and retreating to the shower.

When she emerges, wrapped in a towel and brushing her wet hair, the voice on the television piques her interest. She sits down on the couch. It’s a program called “The Imaginary City.” The voice belongs to an old European, dubbed in Japanese.

“What we, that is, what humans fail to realize is the Past is simply an invention; a by-product of the fiction by which we perceive the universe, the structured, endless sequence of events known as Time. However, this sequence in itself is a fabrication—a mean by which to determine other means.”

Hikari listens, mesmerized.

“The truth of the matter is, we have only this minute, this second, this nanosecond, the infinitely small proportion that links one active moment to the next active moment, and that’s all. The rest is an illusion. And memory, outside of its biological significance, has no more physical consequence in the stream of reality than would, say, our expectations.”

The program cuts to a commercial. Lost in thought, she turns off the television.

Two days later to the hour, she is carefully arranging the emerald ornament in her hair. There is an odd familiarity to the ritual that she can’t quite place. It hits her as she is locking the door to her apartment—it’s Monday evening, and she’s meeting Takeru. She actually laughs out loud.

Once downstairs, the doorman hails a taxi for her to take into Chuo, and despite holiday traffic, arrives in front of the Mandarin Oriental with ten minutes to spare. The air is brisk. She walks through crowds of well-dressed people and makes her way inside to the concierge’s desk. The young woman must have recognized her attire because she immediately smiled and pulled a list from inside her desk.

“Your name?”

“Yagami Hikari.”

She glances down. “Here we are. Your guest has already arrived. He’s waiting over there.”

The concierge looks up and immediately covers her mouth to hide her laughter. Hikari turns around, curious, until she sees Takeru posing with three or four teenage girls, no older than sixteen. They switch around, trade phones, pose again. Hikari laughs too; Takeru looks up and sees her—his expression changes ever slightly—before he excuses himself from the girls. She takes a moment to admire the fine cut of his black linen shirt, neatly lined with silk, on his tall, lean figure. She turns back to the concierge who, blushing red, appears to be admiring the same thing, and feels an unabashed swell of pride to call him her guest.

The concierge gives them ribbons to tie around their wrist.

“That will let you in. And here is your room key.”

“Room key?”

“Yes. Iri-san has rented a room for each of his guests. Please enjoy your stay here at the Mandarin Oriental.”

She points then to an elevator guarded by a solemn bouncer. As they walk toward it, Takeru says quietly,

“You look nice.”

But he won’t look at her. All the same, she smiles faintly. “Thanks.”

Akin to the invitation, Iri Sho has spared no expense with the party itself. The suite is all windows, cleared of regular furniture and instead filled with Qing art, sculptures, hanging lanterns and hundreds of candles. In addition to these traditional highlights, there are champagne fountains, endless trays of appetizers, and women, dancing in enormous semi-transparent vases.

“Some friends, huh?” He says softly.

Hikari can sense without looking at him that Takeru is slightly overwhelmed, and she touches his arm. She waits for him to push her away, but he doesn’t.

“Come on, let’s find…”

“Hikari.” They turn to see the attractive figure of Iri Sho wielding two glasses of champagne, as well as two identical women on both arms. “Honored you could make it on such short-notice.”

He kisses her on both cheeks and heartily shakes Takeru’s hand.

“I’m Sho.” He says to Takeru, in English. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise.” says Takeru, also in English. “This is some party.”

“Oh, you like it? Just something I threw together. Listen,” he says to Hikari, “get comfortable. If there’s anything you want that you don’t see here, let me know, we can get it here. And enjoy yourselves, we’ve still got a two hours until Midnight.”

He hands them the glasses and waltzes off into the party.

“He’s friendly.” says Takeru.

“He’s from America.” She says. “As are you, apparently.”

Takeru shrugs.

“Some friends.” She says.

She takes a sip of champagne and smiles delightedly. “Oh, it’s delicious!”

A small, but genuine smile peeks through his lips.

Hikari spends the majority of the party chatting with actors, models and socialites, some familiar and others she’s never met, collecting each of their business cards, while Takeru, in line with his American persona, listens to conversation after conversation in broken English. Eventually, boredom forces him to reveal his fluency in Japanese, and despite the embarrassment of the other guests, Sho is delighted by the jest and crowns him Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, after which he decides wholeheartedly that no one is drunk enough and briefly turns the event into a drinking game.

It is no surprise then that by Midnight, everyone is hysterically drunk. Hikari now leans her weight almost exclusively on Takeru just to stand for the last ten seconds of the year. The suite shakes with noise and laughter, and the chanting of the party guests—ten, nine, eight, seven—and laughter as people exchange New Year kisses even before the year is up.

Six, five.

Hikari manages to stand on her own, turning to face him.

Four, three, two.

One.

The night sky explodes with fireworks, and from the ceiling, lanterns burst with yen, raining over the crowd. Everyone is kissing and mad scrambling for money, and the lights in the room turn a brilliant green, and Takeru is holding Hikari’s arms, and they haven’t moved an inch.

He leans down, hesitantly, and kisses her cheek.

“Happy New Year.” His voice is barely audible above the chaos.

They still have yet to move. Hikari closes her eyes and tilts forward; her legs give out at the same time; and the next thing she knows, she’s lying parallel in a hallway, and her eyelevel is four inches higher up than usual.

She struggles in vain to sit up. “Where are we going? Takeru?”

“To the room for a while, just until everything dies down. Can you stand up?”

She nods, holding her head, and he lets her carefully on her feet. She sways dangerously; steadying her with one arm, he uses the other to open the door.

It’s small but by no means modest. She carefully, slowly takes off her shoes and sits on the bed, drunk and exhausted. Takeru, in the mean time, is rummaging through the mini-fridge. He opens a bottle of water and hands it to her.

“Some friends.” He says, laughing.

“Some party.” She says. “Why do I ever drink? Please say you’re at least half as drunk as I am.”

“I’m more than half as drunk as you are.” He says, laughing still as he sits beside her. “Just more graceful.”

She nudges him, then drinks more water. “Thank you. For coming.”

“It’s fun.” He says.

She looks at him seriously. “Did you really have nothing to do and that’s why you came, or…”

“I came because you asked me to.”

She can’t think of anything to say. He urges her to drink more water, but she sets it on the night stand and leans instead on his shoulder.

He laughs. “Aren’t you afraid?”

“Afraid of what?”

“That I’ll take advantage of you.”

Now she laughs. “You couldn’t.”

“You mean I wouldn’t.”

“Yeah.” She says. “Besides, I wouldn’t stop you.”

He smiles. “You couldn’t.”

“Yeah.” She giggles helplessly. “Shit, I’m drunk.”

More laughter. She continues to lean on his shoulder, and lets her hand draw little designs in his palm. Then she says, a little cautiously,

“When we’re not drunk anymore, please don’t keep being mad at me.”

He tries to smile it off. “I wasn’t mad at you.”

She nudges him again. “You’re such a liar. And you’re a bad liar, too.” Her eyes close. “I really, really care about you. You’re not just…some friends.”

She stops to giggle, then continues. “You’re Takeru. That means you’re special to me.”

She looks at him clearly. “So stop being mad.”

He looks back at her and nods. Smiling faintly, she brushes her forehead lightly against his before she stands up.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she says, “I am going to the bathroom to be sick.”

Which she does.

With the exception of New Year’s morning, the week before Daisuke’s return passes with strange peace. Takeru keeps his promise and stops acting cold toward her, and though he is too preoccupied with work to spend as much time together as before, they take a few lunch dates, and he accompanies her to the Ferris wheel on Saturday evening for an hour or so.

As they step off of the platform, Hikari’s cell phone rings with a call from Okinawa. She steps away to answer.

“They extended training?”

“Don’t remind me.” Daisuke whines unhappily. “I’m sore all the way up to my earlobes.”

“Then when do you fly back?”

“Friday,” he pouts.

“That’s not too bad.”

“But I want my New Year kiss!” He laments. “I miss you so much, especially at night, I’m so…”

The music roars up, and Hikari has to move further away before she can hear anything.

“Where are you?” He asks.

“At the Ferris wheel. It’s my new muse.”

He laughs. “You’re like a little kid. It’s cute though.”

Her smile wilts. She feels slightly put-off by that comment.

He sighs. “Alright, I’m going to bed. Early rise tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll have a dream about you.”

“Spare me the details.” She says. “Good night.”

She ends the call, and searches for Takeru among the hoards of people. She finds him starring up at the giant wheel, hands shoved into his pockets and a far away look in his eyes. She stares up at it beside him.

“Whatcha looking at?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. Something about Ferris wheels make me wish I believed in magic. That’s strange, right?”

She doesn’t think it is at all. He reluctantly glances down at her. “How’s Daisuke?”

“Delayed.” She swings her purse over her shoulder. “His training got extended.”

“Are you okay with that?”

She shrugs. “It is what it is. I mean, I’m not lonely.”

He quickly looks away.

“Although,” she continues, “it does damper my dinner plans for tomorrow night. We were supposed to double date with Miyako and Ken. I don’t suppose you’re interested?”

He shakes his head. “As romantic as that sounds…”

“Come on.” She begs, pulling his arm. “I thought you weren’t mad at me anymore.”

“Mad? That has nothing to do with…” He rolls his eyes. “Fine. I’ll come.”

She interlaces her fingers and smiles. He gives her a withering look.

“You really don’t care as long as you get your way, do you?”

“Not a bit.” She says. “Let’s ride the Ferris wheel again. Come on!”

At seven o’ clock that Sunday, she runs into Takeru as he enters Miyako and Ken’s apartment building.

“Hey, you’re here.”

“I’m here.” He says lamely, shoving his hands in his pockets.

She pokes him in the rib. “You could be more excited.”

“I could?”

She pokes him again.

They pass by the mailboxes and toward the elevator. Hikari hits the button.

“So.” She says, stretching her arms forward. “When are we going to talk about why you were so mad at me two weeks ago?”

He looks at her mildly from the corner of his eye. “Not right now, that’s for sure.”

She puts on her best pout. “Are you still mad?”

“I wasn’t mad…”

“Oh!” She stamps her foot. “Stop saying you weren’t, I know that you’re lying.”

He sighs. “I mean I wasn’t mad at you.”

“Then why were you so upset?”

He opens his mouth, then closes it and turns back to the elevator. “I’m not having this conversation.”

The elevator finally arrives on the first floor. She glances quickly between it and the stair entrance.

“If I beat you to Miyako’s apartment you have to tell me.”

“No.” He says flatly. “Besides, there’s no way you could.”

“I can and you will.”

“Forget it.”

The elevator door slides open and Takeru steps inside.

Hikari frowns darkly and steps into the elevator, moving to select the floor. But in a flash she hits the Emergency Stop and darts, fast as she can, toward the stairs. She can faintly here Takeru shout something disapproving as the door closes.

Miyako and Ken live on the eighth floor. She moves quickly, working not to trip over her boots, and stops on the fourth, fifth and sixth floor to hit the elevator button. By the time she reaches the eighth floor, she’s ready to faint—but she arrives in front of the elevator doors a full ten seconds before they open to Takeru’s startled eyes.

“See?” She says breathlessly. “Now you have to tell me.”

He shakes his head. “I already said no.”

She glares at him lethally, sure that she looks as betrayed as she presently feels. But his tone is different, somehow; less open to persuasion. She expels the last of her fatigue with an angry sigh, and has no words to say to him at all as they walk up to Miyako and Ken’s door.

It’s Ken who answers.

“There you are. You could have buzzed, we would have just come down.”

“We didn’t think about it.” says Takeru.

Ken glances at Hikari’s face and, seeing her expression, looks suspiciously between them. Miyako emerges from the apartment and locks the door.

“Okay, let’s go.” She links Hikari’s arm with hers without waiting for the other’s consent. “I hope this restaurant has Korean barbeque. Doesn’t that sound good?”

Behind her, she hears Ken whisper something, to which Takeru responds, “Better not to ask.”

The restaurant is called The Green Room. It’s an eclectic place with a large bar full of twenty-somethings, with a huge Nordic dragon painted on the ceiling. Their server brings them to a soft-lit booth in the corner. Hikari purposefully sits on the opposite side from Takeru, leaving the girls on one end and the boys on the other.

There is an oppressive silence.

Ken drums his fingers on the table. “Cool place, huh.”

“Yeah.” says Miyako. She flicks her hair over her shoulder. “You know, I think we have to order our drinks from the bar? Ken?”

They retreat. Hikari watches them go, then returns her gaze to the table. Takeru shakes his head.

“You’re being incredibly stupid right now.”

“You’re just incredibly stupid in general.” She glowers at him. “Why won’t you tell me?”

“Did it ever occur to you,” he says tersely, “that right now is just not a good time?”

“When’s a good time, then?” she snaps. “You can’t just be mad at someone and not tell them why.”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“But you are. You’re still mad about something. If it’s not me, then what is it?”

“I’m not…” He stops, choked up with words, “I’m not telling you here. Leave it alone.”

She sits deadly still for a moment. Then she gets up and walks out of the restaurant.

Alone outside in the movement of the city, she feels the full heights of her irritation crawling out of her skin. She sits on a planter, stands again, paces a few steps, sits back down. She thinks of going home all together but Miyako appears and grabs her hands.

“What is going on?” She asks.

Hikari is fighting an angry onslaught of tears, the ones you hate to fall because they make you feel weak. She takes a couple of deep breathes.

“Before, I said I didn’t understand why Takeru was upset and you said ‘you really don’t know why’.” She looks at Miyako clearly. “Why?”

Miyako hesitates, visibly torn, but finally takes a seat on the planter beside her.

“Kari…” she says slowly, “did you ever think that…Takeru might have feelings for you?”

Miyako looks at her earnestly. Her breath catches in her throat and her mind goes reeling in several directions at once, though thinking about it now, it is the answer she expected somewhere in the back of her mind.

“I thought…” she hesitates, “I thought maybe, but then…no. No, he didn’t, he…”

“I’ve never talked to him about it, so I can’t say for sure.” She looks furtively toward the door, then back to her. “But I think, I think, that he’s been in love with you for a very long time, and he’s just…all mixed up about it. I think you both are.”

Miyako smiles grimly. Hikari stares holes into her knees, and she squeezes her hands so tightly shut around her skirt that her knuckles blanch completely.

“I’m going to go back inside, okay?” She pats her hand. “Please come back.”

Hikari nods and stands, following her in an overwhelmed silence back to the booth, where the boys sit in equal wordlessness.

Takeru looks at Hikari, but she can’t meet his gaze. He then casts a meaningful glance at Miyako. She stares back at him, apologetic but resolved.

Ken laughs pathetically. “This isn’t too much fun, is it?”

Hikari smiles, as convincingly as she can, and looks up. “I’m sorry. I’m…being a downer. We should have fun. This is the first night I’ve been out with the two of you since you got engaged. I think we should get have a round of celebration drinks.”

“No drinks for you,” says Takeru, also trying hard to smile. “I don’t want to have to carry you home again.”

She laughs softly, and though the mood is improved, she still can’t face him entirely. Miyako orders her Korean barbeque, and they do have a round of drinks. They order two more for the newly-engaged, and the conversation grows increasingly animated.

Miyako’s cheeks have turned their characteristic pink as she tells a story, gesturing wildly with her chopsticks.

“And of course it shouldn’t have mattered, but then she got super angry, picks up the half a pork bun,” she lifts a dripping piece of Korean barbeque from the platter, “and flings it at my head!”

As she says the word ‘fling,’ the meat flies out of her chopsticks and hits Takeru squarely in the chest, leaving a long dark smatter of sauce and oil on his light gray vest. Miyako drops her chopsticks and immediately covers her mouth.

“Oh, I’m so sorry!”

Takeru laughs, wiping it with a napkin. “Don’t worry, it’s not a big deal.”

“No, no, it’s super greasy, it’ll stain!” She says. “You should go wash it off in the bathroom.”

Takeru nods and stands. “Just with water?”

“Use soap,” suggests Ken.

He leaves.

Miyako blushes terribly. “I feel really bad.”

“He doesn’t care about that kind of thing.” says Hikari.

“I know, but still…”

Minutes pass, and Takeru has yet to return from the bathroom. Miyako gets up with the intention of going to help him but Hikari beats her to it.

“I’ll go.” She says. “You guys sit tight.”

She wanders to the back of the restaurant, where she finds two unisex bathrooms sitting next to each other. The first is empty. She knocks on the door of the second.

“Takeru? Okay in there?”

He sighs through the door. “It’s not coming out. I think the stain’s getting bigger.”

She hesitates. “I’m coming in.”

“Don’t, it’s okay.”

She rolls her eyes and opens the door.

He glances up, scrubbing the vest vociferously in half a sink of water. Hikari locks the door behind her. In doing so, however, she becomes super aware of herself, and the idea of being alone with him makes her turn red. She tries to draw attention away from her face, and says quietly, “Here, let me see it.”

He hands it to her. The stain has gotten bigger, but is somewhat diluted. She takes a paper towel and dabs it futilely with soap and water.

Takeru stands back watching.

“Um, I’m sorry about earlier.” He says.

She shrugs, keeping her eyes on the vest. “I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re right; I was being incredibly stupid.”

“There was just…a general air of stupidity at that point.”

She sees him smiling at her from the mirror and her stomach kicks all the way up to her ribs.

“What did Miyako say to bring you back inside?” He asks.

She thinks her heart might stop.

“N-nothing. We’ll um, just have to let it soak for a minute.”

She plugs the drain and turns on the faucet, forcing the stained half of the vest under the stream of running water. As she does, Hikari feels, then sees, his hand cover hers in the sink.

“You’re a bad liar, too, you know.”

Just as she feels/sees his hand, she feels his other arm wrap itself around her shoulders, and his mouth come to rest beside her ear.

“I’m sorry.” He says, meaningfully. “I promise I won’t make the same mistakes again.”

She can feel herself shaking inside and wonders, briefly, if she’s shaking all over.

“Next time,” continues Takeru, “if there is a next time, I…”

She turns around.

“There are no ‘next times’. There’s this second, this nanosecond; there’s just…now.”

She puts her hands on either side of his face. His eyes are bright and earnest.

“This bathroom exists outside of time and context.” She says. “It’s an alternate universe.”

He almost laughs, obviously bewildered, but she holds his face steady and the change in his expression tells her he knows how serious she is.

“Whatever happens here, in this room, will not exist once we leave. Because it’s an alternate universe. Do you understand?”

He nods dumbly. She pulls his face down to hers and they kiss. And kiss. And kiss.

Their bodies are suddenly pressed close, without a breath between them, and as his hand has done before in rare, uninhibited embrace, he traces her spine down to the top of her hips, sliding it underneath her tee-shirt to the tingling skin beneath. She strokes his neck and the sides of his face, the marvelous bones and skin, almost too soft for a man, but perfectly suited to him, and though this isn’t the first time she has ever kissed him, she thinks she has never been so awed by his mouth and tongue moving in time with hers, or by anyone before.

He pushes her up onto the sink, where the steam from the running water on her back elicits a moan of delight she can hardly recognize in herself. She feels dizzy, excited, scared, as though in the midst of a near-death experience; terrifying and electric, bold, ever insatiable, dissatisfied even as she counts her blessings. It’s extraordinary and it’s simply not enough.

She unbuttons his shirt.

He retreats a breath’s width, opens his eyes dreamily, but does nothing to stop her. She holds him by the belt loops and they kiss once more, and her shirt slides higher up her belly, and the skirt slides farther and farther up her thighs, and the last shreds of reason have all but dissipated when a small flood of steaming water startles her out of dreaming. Takeru immediately lifts her up from the sink overflowing and fumbles to turn off the faucet.

“Did I get wet?” She asks breathlessly.

“Only a little bit.”

She reddens, and it is then that she knows with passionate regret that the moment has ended. The water’s sluggish drip-drop from the counter to the floor is the only sound in the room. She takes that second to center herself, to put herself back together. Takeru says nothing.

“That w…” she falters, then starts again, finding herself once more unable to look at him, “that might have gone…not that I…”

“It doesn’t matter, though, does it?” His tone, though quiet, is clearly wounded. “It all disappears when you walk out that door. Right?”

She lets her head hang, smiles regretfully, closes her eyes. “Yes, that’s right.”

He chuckles; it is a sound entirely devoid of mirth. In his pain, he must not realize that she’s hurting just as much as he.

He picks up the soaking wet vest off the countertop.

“I need a minute.” He says. “You should go back to the table.”

She does. Outside of the bathroom door, she hears a loud, sudden smack, like a man punching a wall, and she nearly cries out and runs back inside. But instead, she wipes her eyes and returns to Miyako and Ken. They are talking closely, their hands clasped across the table, and they smile at her when she sits down, neverthewiser.

“Did it come out?” Ken asks.

“I think it’s stained.” is her quiet reply.

Miyako and Ken go home.

Takeru and Hikari begin to walk in the direction of their respective apartment buildings.

His nearness makes her heartbeat quick in her chest, and she feels flushed and warm despite the chill in the air. Takeru, his vest in a plastic bag swinging at his side, wets his mouth.

“I should probably take it to the drycleaner in the morning. Just in case.”

“Mm, that’s probably wise.”

It is not very late, but the streets feel more empty than usual.

She finds herself counting the seconds until the corner where their paths divide. When they reach it, she literally bumps into him in surprise.

He looks down at her. There is, once again, a strange and unreadable expression in his eyes.

“Good night.” He says.

“I feel like walking.” She blurts out quickly, before she can even stop herself from saying it. “I’ll walk you to your apartment.”

He looks at her funnily. “Okay.”

They walk in silence toward his apartment building. She clenches her eyes shut, rubbing her hands together in her coat. When they reach it, she feels faint with apprehension.

“Okay.” He says. “Goodnight.”

“Um…” she starts, then stops. He looks at her expectantly.

“Um…” she says again, “can I come upstairs? Just for a little bit? To warm up.”

He nods slowly. They ride the elevator in silence, and enter his apartment without saying a word. She removes her shoes and quietly sits on the couch, wondering what in the hell she’s doing. She pulls her coat off and rubs her hands together.

“Do you want something to drink? Tea? Coffee?”

“No, thanks.” She says. She fidgets. What am I doing, she thinks.

What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing?

She stands abruptly. “Well, I should go home, now. Ja.”

She darts for the door, struggles with her shoes, then realizes she left her coat on the sofa and un-struggles with her shoes to retrieve it. But before she can turn back to the foyer, she bumps headlong into Takeru for the second time in fifteen minutes.

He holds her still by the shoulders. She stands there awkwardly, blushing and flustered. He lifts one hand to stroke her hair, and as he does, his face turns serious, and he watches her carefully.

“You want it all,” he says, “but you can’t have it. Even I can’t give it to you.”

She looks up at him guilelessly. “I don’t want it all.”

He laughs, and his smile is gentle, but very sad. “Maybe you don’t know it, but you do.”

She says nothing. Standing there in the dim light, her desire for him is suddenly overwhelming. She takes his hand in hers and kisses the knuckle.

“This room…” She begins.

“Save it.” He deftly lifts her into his arms. “There’s no way you’re pretending this didn’t happen.”

She’s getting the same swept-away feeling as she had in the bathroom, and her heart thunders so loud in her chest, it must be perfectly audible. He’s right, of course: she could make believe if she wanted to, but this and everything else would inevitably stain.

As he takes her to the bedroom, she sees an imaginary city, populated with thought, with reason and fidelity. Daisuke is at the center, his goofy smile and shiny eyes, turning his back to show her something in the distance. He doesn’t see the smoke, building among the high-rises.

Takeru lays her onto the bed, eyes closed as he meditates over her figure. He kisses her neck, slowly, traces the lines of her arms, down the center of her body, as if he’s experiencing something spiritual.

“I love you so much,” he says, “I might eat you alive.”

“Then, please.” She says, and arcs her head back.

Hikari sees briefly the last image of her invented world.

The delicate architecture, the trees, the people:

Everything in it is consumed with flames.

End of Chapter X.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Digimon.

Notes, notes, notes.

The Mandarin Oriental is a real hotel that one day, when I am rich and famous (HAHAHA) I will stay at. In short, not any time soon.

The Monkey King is a character from one of the four classic Chinese novels Journey to the West, which I have never read. Don’t you just love all the thorough research I put into these stories?

That whole philosophical time jargon was something I made up. The more I read it, the less sense it makes.

Morgan Freeman, if you are reading this, I love your work.

That’s all.

Dude. I haven’t not had writer’s block in so long, I didn’t think it was possible to put out two chapters in one week. Oh, and by the way, OMG FOR THE LONGEST CHAPTER EVER. They won’t all be this way, I promise. Regardless of everything included here was necessary, it was certainly all very, insanely fun for me. Hopefully you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it (dare I hope?). Is it so wrong to live vicariously through your stories?

Don’t answer that.

With any luck, I can get this bad boy finished before the year is out.

HAHA. HAHAHAHAH. Well, I can dream.

Thanks for reading, yo.