Spiritual sequel to Time Passages. Thanks to PJ Harvey for the additional inspiration.
1.
She sits on the edge of the bed, with its gold-embroidered spread and striped sateen pillows, her legs dangling off the side. A far cry from the cramped cubbyholes with dingy white sheets and telltale stains that she and Kazuo frequented. Places picked for their discreetness, their convenience, their ease on the pocketbook. The Grand Pacific Le Daiba was definitely not in the same league.
She remembers seeing ads for wedding expos held here on some of the JR routes. It must have come to his attention that way, since she somehow doubts that he enlisted Yotsuba's help. She blushes, thinking of her younger neighbor now, probably curled up in her sleeping bag on Ena's bedroom floor, Duralumin tucked under one arm. Blissfully ignorant of what her father is doing here.
He is, in fact, in the bathroom, examining the complimentary Shiseido products lined up on the sink. "You could open the curtains, if you want," he calls from within the tiled enclosure.
She knows. But if she opens them, this somehow isn't a secret anymore. As if everyone below them, and everyone across the bay, and everyone back in her house, for that matter, could somehow peer inside the window, as if the pane were a magnifying glass; and see her sitting there on the bed, waiting for him to join her. If she opens the window, it won't be her secret anymore, this tiny, thrumming, on-the-verge-of-exploding sensation that she carries inside her chest like a bomb strapped to her ribs. It thrills her, but terrifies her, too.
The terrifying is a thrill in itself.
Her feet soundlessly sink into plush carpeting as she crosses to the window and shunts the curtains aside. The lights of Haneda's runways twinkle at her in the distance, a silent promise that her secret is safe with them.
"I asked for a bay view, but they were all booked up," he says apologetically as he emerges from the bathroom at last. "Still, at least it's not facing a wall, huh?"
He's wearing a long-sleeved black henley and what are ostensibly the same jeans he's worn every day for the last three years—when he bothered to wear jeans at all, of course. For him, this is "dressed up". She looks down at her skirt and flushes again. It's more and more absurd the more she thinks about it. The effort she put into picking out this skirt when at the end of the day it was only going to end up crumpled on the floor of a posh hotel in Odaiba.
Not half as absurd as the fact that she is here with Koiwai-san.
"Everything all right?" he asks, and she notes the sudden concern in his voice. She cranes her neck around and smiles.
"Fine." For so long he's had only the distinction of being Yotsuba-chan's father, the man next door, her neighbor. Thinking of him as her boyfriend is something she's still grappling with.
Her hesitation is more obvious than she realizes. "We don't…" he exhales slightly. "We don't have to do this tonight, Fuuka, if you don't want to."
She knows. She knows all she has to do is say the word and they'll check out and drive back to the suburbs. She to her old bedroom with its posters and plush toys lined up on the bookcase, and he'll carry Yotsuba back to his house, and they'll go to sleep under separate roofs, everything safe and static as it has been all these years.
She shakes her head.
"No, I want to."
He smiles and takes a step toward her and although her heart is pounding violently, she is no longer scared, because his hands are on either side of her head and his eyes are locked with hers and then so are his lips and this, this is what she has wanted, without even knowing it, all along. Right now he is no longer Koiwai-san, or Yotsuba's dad, or anything in her mind but her lover, and if he doesn't turn his attention to getting her blouse off, she—oh.
She observes almost lazily, as if in a dream, as her buttons are undone by foreign fingers. Fingers that slowly trace a line from her sternum to her navel before traveling north again to tilt up her chin. She breathes in his scent: a vague whiff of coffee and musk hidden beneath sandalwood and spices. She chortles. "You're wearing cologne. I didn't think you owned any."
He looks sheepish. "I didn't. I bought it last week. Seemed like a good idea for some reason."
She leans in closer and sniffs playfully at his throat. "I think I smell a little bit of licorice, too."
"It's Yohji Yamamoto."
"It's nice."
That's all she can say before he crushes his lips to hers again, and her hands wrench through his hair, and the world outside their window is welcome to watch, for all she cares.