Love.
If you asked either of them what love is, neither of them would have known yet their answer would have been the same.
Love is dead, they'd say. There would be no thought, no hesitation in their answer.
Kudo Himiko believed it to be so. And so did Akabane Kuroudo.
Somewhere along the road, the possibility of love for Himiko had been squashed, burned, and melted away.
Somewhere along the road, the idea of love for Akabane had been shot, hacked to pieces, and buried in the ground.
They had this in common. In fact, they had many things in common. They just never had the opportunity to find out.
Well, they were about to. Ironically, Akabane was helping Himiko get to another date the day everything got started for the two of them.
They never saw it coming. They should have, buuuut they didn't.
"How much money do you have?"
Akabane turned out his pockets.
"Not a penny," he answered with a sigh.
"Damn!" cursed Himiko, slamming the phone back onto its receiver with a clang. Several heads turned toward the loud noise. Akabane stood outside the phone booth fiddling with the end of his dead cell phone, feigning guilt. He had forgotten to charge it the night before.
"Why don't we go into the café across the street? I'm sure they'd let us borrow their phone if we say it's an emergency," he suggested.
"It is an emergency!" said Himiko. "I have date. I'm supposed to be at the pier in half an hour! Who the hell does Maguruma think he is, driving off with all our loot?"
"You can't blame him. We all agreed beforehand that if we were held up by any trouble, Maguruma-san would drive ahead and transport the package without us," Akabane explained calmly. Having already dealt with the aforementioned "trouble," Akabane didn't actually care when they'd be able to go home. On days like this, he could wait for hours while entertaining himself by replaying the events of the day in his head over and over again.
The doctor fingered the red stains coloring his white shirt cuffs the wrists and smiled placidly. Today was a good day.
Well, for him at least. The girl with him begged to differ.
Himiko drug a hand down her face in frustration as she made her way across the street. Akabane stopped at the curb, looked both ways then stalked after her.
They were in and out of the café within ten seconds.
Himiko fumed. "Well of course we didn't have money to order anything! That's why we didn't use the payphone, jerk."
Akabane shrugged and patted her shoulder twice.
"Then stay here please – or better yet – stand under the lantern over there and look pretty," said the doctor, pointing to the street lantern at the corner.
"Over there? Why?"
"I'm going to find us a phone so we can call a cab."
"Oh, I see."
Himiko stood under the lamp obediently but continued to sulk. She saw Akabane disappear around the building, just as the lights of many buildings turned on to welcome evening customers.
Impatiently, she tapped her foot.
"What did he mean by 'look pretty?'" she asked, before she her thoughts her interrupted by loud cat-calling to her left.
An old-fashioned, clunky vehicle pulled up next to her from behind and Himiko found a pair of wannabe gangsters wiggling their eyebrows at her. She looked around at the scantily clad women around her and suddenly it dawned on her.
I'm gonna kill him.
"I do NOT look like PROSTITUTE you sick, manipulative CREEP!" bellowed Himiko, surprising the two men in the car with her volume. They each did a double take, but had no time to respond because at that same moment there was an audible click and the driver's door swung open.
The shadow cast by the building at sunset made Akabane nearly invisible in the alley He received no trouble in slipping his hand through the window – conveniently rolled down – and unlocking the door from the inside while the two men stared, flabbergasted, at the furious girl on the curb. The man in the passenger seat didn't even notice when the driver was knocked out cold, though Akabane was careful not to have him slump over the steering wheel and press on the horn. Once he saw that Himiko noticed him from the other side of the car, Akabane winked at her then tapped the other man's shoulder.
The man's poorly-dyed blond head swiveled around to meet a sight that nearly shocked him into peeing in his pants.
His partner was slumped over, unconscious, and a strange-looking man sat behind the wheel, leering at him. He could feel the tip of a small knife poking under his ribs.
Akabane tilted his head in greeting. "Evening," he delivered, casually. "Sorry for the interruption but I'm in a hurry, you see. If you would be so kind as to lending me your phone, I won't feel the need to eviscerate you for insulting my partner."
The man clumsily dropped his cell phone twice – he was trembling quite a lot, after all – before it made it to Akabane's outstretched hand.
"Thanks," came a hard, female voice from behind, and then he was out cold.
Akabane smiled at Himiko and tossed her the phone through the window. Himiko glared at him.
"Call a taxi for us, will you?" said Akabane as he turned off the engine and arranged the two men to leaned against each other in a more entertaining position. He dropped the keys in the driver's pocket and emerged from the vehicle.
"I hate you," said Himiko already dialing the number, smiling, in spite of herself.
Himiko was nineteen and she had little faith in men, which was why she was dating them. To gain faith, you had to build it up from somewhere, but with the present turn of events, her efforts seemed to be having the opposite effect.
"He couldn't have waited another five minutes."
"I'm so sorry, Himiko-san."
"Five minutes. If it were me, I would have had the patience to wait another half hour! There's the difference between a woman and a man!"
"Men are the weaker sex in that respect."
"He was the one that asked me out on a date! It wouldn't kill him to forgive me for being a little late, I'm a girl. Most girls are late doing their make-up – I hauled ass to get here after work looking like crap just to meet him, but that's not good enough is it?"
"Don't be so hard on yourself, I think you look fine."
"I bet he doesn't even have a job. Stupid rich college kid couldn't tell the difference between real work ethic and cleaning his room!"
"College kids do live in a sheltered environment, I would have to agree."
"'ey, guy!" interrupted the cab driver. "Unless you want me to drive you somewhere else, I got other people to pick up, okay?"
"Oh hush, the lady just got stood up on a date, can't you see she's clearly upset?" chastised Akabane.
"Look, it's nothing personal, but I got other customers waitin'. You got somewhere else you need to get to? I can't wait around forever," said the cab driver.
"He does have a point, Himiko-san. There's no use standing here kicking pebbles into the water," said Akabane.
Himiko continued kicking.
It took another five minutes to coax her back into the cab with Akabane tugging gently on her hand. They sat in awkward silence for a while until the cab driver could hardly take it and struck up some casual conversation with the amiable doctor behind him. Himiko, who was not entirely immersed in her sulking, found out her fellow transporter knew more about normal-people hobbies, such as baseball, than she ever gave him credit for.
It made the ride seem a lot shorter. Twenty minutes later, Himiko discovered her apartment snuck up on her while she was – almost, but not quite – drooling on Akabane's sleeve, having dozed off a little during the ride.
Gently, Akabane eased her off his shoulder and moved to the other side of the cab to open the door for her.
"I'll just be a minute," she heard him say, then there was the sound of the car door opening and the feeling of Akabane's hand under hers as she was guided out of the taxi just like a queen from her carriage.
"I'm fine," said Himiko, attempting to shoo him away but to no avail. Akabane just smiled down at her as he always did, then waved goodbye to the cab driver as he sped away. Himiko took some time to stretch out her tense shoulders as she made her way down the street away from her apartment. It was finally dark and there weren't many street lamps to light her way.
Confused, Akabane turned to look back at her apartment building. Himiko was already several strides ahead of him but his long legs took him to her in just two.
"Not going home?" asked Akabane, slowing down beside her.
Himiko turned to glare at him. "I missed dinner remember?"
The doctor smiled sheepishly. "Forgive me for being insensitive," he replied.
They turned the corner into a much busier street. Himiko didn't say where they were going, but Akabane assumed it had to be one of the tiny restaurants he saw lining the street.
Himiko surprised him by turning sharply, climbing up a set of shallow steps into a noisy bar. As the door swung open, he could feel the bar's shifty atmosphere crawling through into the open air. He also noticed the lack of hesitation his companion showed as she passed through the doorway. At this he couldn't help but smile. How intriguing it was that a woman as young and upright as Lady Poison chose to dine here of all places.
Makes sense, with the kind of company she keeps, he thought to himself as he followed her deeper into the dark corners of the bar. He thoughtfully considered the irony of their situation, remembering that he was usually the one leading the other into darker places.
They passed by a table of drunken gangsters and a lone man with darting yellow eyes. Himiko looked around searching for a booth with a clean table, as the doctor eyed the lone man curiously. She didn't wait for him to sit down with her, knowing fully well that whatever man caught her fellow transporter's interest usually had something fatally wrong with him.
"Something's fatally wrong with him," said Akabane conversationally as he slid into the booth, across from her.
"You don't say," Himiko replied absently as her bored eyes skimmed over the menu. A little conversation couldn't hurt. "That guy's name is Yuuichi. He's a regular."
Akabane turned furtively to study the twitchy man named Yuuichi. "He seems to have some sort of addiction."
"Well, he spends all his time here because of Yura. She's that prostitute over there," supplied Himiko jerking her chin at a woman wearing a green dress.
Yura appeared to be in her mid thirties. She had a lot of make-up tracing her eyes, but she wore it well, the same way as she wore her laugh lines as she put on her practiced grin for her patron gangsters.
"She's beautiful," said Akabane and he didn't mean it sarcastically.
"That's how Yuuichi feels," nodded Himiko.
A waitress brought them water in two dirty glasses. Akabane flicked at his straw while he waited for Himiko to finish ordering a pan of fried noodles for them both before ordering a coffee. Himiko ordered a martini.
"I meant to ask. Are you a regular here, Himiko-san?" asked the doctor curiously.
Himiko shrugged. She was behaving rather unusually this entire evening.
He tried again. "This doesn't seem to be your kind of place."
"I like their fried noodles," she replied.
"Oh. I see. So much that you would tolerate eating among bottom feeders such as these? Forgive me, but it seems like it's not just the noodles you come here for. I hardly think this is the sort of place to pick up a date."
Himiko glared at him over her cup.
"Why are you being so nosy today? You're a little less annoying when you don't pretend to care," she said haughtily.
"I just find your behavior rather mysterious this evening," answered Akabane.
He watched her hesitate. "It's nothing," she said quietly.
"Just humor me. Waiting for food is always the most boring part of dining out. Conversation always makes it go by faster."
The waitress came back with their drinks. Himiko fiddled with her hands.
"Ban and I had a fight over me seeing other guys," she admitted. "It's embarrassing, but somehow I got this idea that dating college boys was a good idea."
Akabane raised his eyebrows. He said nothing, letting her continue.
"I never made it past fifth grade. My brother home-schooled me after that. I suppose girls my age usually get into college to go find a career and get married. I have a career and I'm damn good at it."
"…So?"
"Work's all I've got. I never had a boyfriend. Nothing ever happens between Ban and me so I go find other people. I thought about dating nice guys but I didn't know any nice guys. Everyone I know is – "
"Unusual?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry. Go on."
"A few months ago, I bumped into this kid a the convenience store. He went to Tokyo University. I guess that makes him a good kid. He asked me for my number and we went out a few times. I took him to the Honky Tonk a week ago to meet everybody, but he sort of clammed up. Didn't say much until we left, then he asked me why I was hanging around a bunch of jobless poor kids."
"And what did you say to him?"
"I said it wasn't any of his business with whom I choose to be around and that he wouldn't know the first thing about living in the real world without Mommy and Daddy paying the bills."
Akabane laughed out loud at this.
"Did you break up?"
"Not right away. He apologized to me and I told him to just forget it. I went back into the Honky Tonk and Ban demanded to know why I was dating some naïve college kid. It didn't seem fair to me for him to to get upset that I wasn't waiting around for him anymore."
"Are you still going to see that boy?"
Himiko scoffed. "After night? It's over. It told him I was had a job tonight but he couldn't wait around for working girl like me."
She let out a frustrated sigh.
"I used to come here a lot but now I don't know where I belong. Not with Ban, not with normal people, not even with pathetic drunks like these!" said Himiko, gesturing at the noise around them.
"If you don't belong anywhere, then why look for love at all?" asked Akabane. That seemed to catch her by surprise.
"Ha. Who said anything about love? Does it even exist?"
Akabane shrugged. "Probably. It only happens to some people."
"Did it ever happen to you?"
"Why are you being so nosy today?"
Himiko laughed and the waitress returned with their food. Her partner frowned down at the pan. There was only one large plate sitting between them.
"Should I ask for more plates?" asked Himiko, but the waitress was gone.
Akabane picked up his fork. "No. It's fine."
"You know, I came out thinking I'd have a fancy dinner with a nice, normal boy tonight, but I guess this isn't so bad either. I should feel terrible about missing a date."
"If it would make you happier, you may consider this to be your date."
Himiko sipped at her martini shyly and smiled.
"Yeah, I guess this is kind of like a date."
They spoke quietly and pleasantly for the rest of the evening, even the background noises from the other tables couldn't seem to reach them. When the plate was empty and their drinks were gone, they parted ways out the door a little happier than they had entered.