Aiden has only been in Japan for a week but he's already beginning to regret his decision to come here. And the way Takeda has been putting him through the ringer he suspects that the old sensei might not want him here either.
He wakes before dawn and goes through a series of tests that push him to the edge both physically and mentally. His body is a bruise and his mind is a blur. He feels like a bull in a china shop in this place made of paper walls, like if he turns too quickly he might break the whole place down. And all he wants to do is lash out. If his muscles weren't raw he just might.
At dinner now, he has to sit cross-legged on the floor, and even this has become hard, the way his body aches. He hurts so bad he can't even properly hold chopsticks. All he gets is rice, and even if he wasn't already sick of eating it he can't get the damn food anywhere near his mouth because his knuckles are red gnarly things and it hurts to hold the sticks. He wonders if this isn't just another one of Takeda's tests.
He tries to pick up the chopsticks again, pinches them between his thumb and forefinger. He clamps down on a ball of rice. He slowly brings it to his mouth. An inch away and the whole thing falls to pieces.
He hates it here.
Something clatters onto the table. A fork. Aiden looks up. The blonde girl from New York sits across from him. "There are forks here, you know."
Aiden takes the fork and tries to smile but even his face is not averse to a dull aching and he has no idea if the smile he's attempting looks more like a grimace. "Good to know." It feels good to hold a fork again. Maybe the next time the girl from New York will produce a chair and clue him in to the fact that people around here sometimes sit on them. For now, the normality the fork brings with it is good enough.
The rice tastes exactly how it looks. Like white mush. He eats quickly anyway. He's hungry.
"Takeda is impressed with you," she says.
"You and Takeda been talking about me?" Who is this girl? She must be important to Takeda if he talks to her about other students here. Who knows, maybe he talks to everyone else besides Aiden. It probably has something to do with the fact that Aiden does not speak Japanese but Takeda refuses to speak anything else with him.
"I asked him how you were doing with your training so far. He says you haven't complained. Yet."
"What's there to complain about?" He wonders if the sarcasm comes across. But the girl's face remains stoney. He really wants to know what she looks like when she smiles. "Does it get easier?"
She takes a moment to answer him, considers before she does. "Depends on your definition of 'easier.'"
"The other people here, the students, they walk around like this is a spa," Aiden says. "Is there is a secret I'm not in on? Maybe you can tell me because I'm turning myself into a human punching bag and meanwhile I saw one man—South Asian, must be almost fifty—he was meditating."
It's almost imperceptible, but the corner of her lip twitches. A smile? Maybe?
"That's my husband," she says.
Aiden stops chewing. He recovers quickly, though. Clears his throat, searches the suddenly very interesting inside of his rice bowl. "Oh. I didn't know you were married." To that old man.
"I'm helping Rohan with his mission. We go back to New York in a few weeks to get divorced."
Aiden doesn't even realize he's holding his breath until he feels himself releasing it. "Meditation and marrying you. Seems he gets all the good exercises."
This time her lips twitch like she's trying to keep a smile inside. It might be even better than an actual smile. He realizes he must be smiling himself. His cheeks hurt. "You coming back? After your trip to New York?"
"Yes, I'm coming back."
It surprises him how relived that makes him feel.
"'I'll let you finish your dinner." She stands suddenly.
"Thank you for the fork, Amanda."
She nods, and then she's off.
Aiden is left alone in the room again. Still aching, but smiling.
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His eyes open with a start. He gulps for air. She stops pressing the heels of her palms to his chest, finally. Watery coughs ravage his throat, he is cold and sopping wet, and as everything comes back to him—air, feeling, life—it's her face he sees, hovering over him. Her face, twisted in anguish and concern. He's never seen her like this before. She's crying. He reaches for her face to comfort her but she's already standing, pushing off the ground with force and lunging for someone else, standing just a few feet away.
Takeda's hands are behind his back, impassive.
"He could have died!" Amanda says.
No one talks to Takeda like this. But Amanda is his special student. She tries so hard to be unemotional, but she's not immune to outbursts like this. Aiden sits up with effort. The ocean at his back roars dark and unforgiving.
Takeda does not respond to Amanda and she storms off eventually. Aiden moves to go after her but Takeda says, "Leave her."
English. He must really mean it.
"You did not complete the exercise," the sensei continues. "This time, don't drown."
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It starts with hand-to-hand combat.
When Aiden needs a partner to fight with, Amanda volunteers, and he thinks, What is she doing? She's smaller than him, younger than him, and even if she has been at this place longer than him there's just no denying the fact that by nature he is the stronger party and will inevitably dominate.
He knows he is wrong when the fight ends in less than two minutes with the side of his face squished against the ground and all of his limbs seemingly tangled behind his back. "Tap out," she grunts in his ear.
Aiden taps out.
She keeps volunteering, and Aiden begins to like it. Even if he is getting his ass whipped. Fighting with Amanda is… to say the least… fun. It's a dance. There is touching, groping, grabbing, a twisted pleasure that comes from pain, bodies pressed against each other, slamming each other to the ground, flushed cheeks and hard breathing. Usually she ends up on top. Usually she'll end the fight with a cocky out-of-breath smile. She'll demand something of him. "Tap out."
Aiden taps out.
Obviously, they start sleeping together.
It happens wordlessly, and with an air of inevitability. When the fighting ends they're both still buzzing, and there's no way to come down but to release the tension somehow. After the fight, Amanda leaves and he follows her. He walks behind her down the corridors, his eyes on her back, tense and still heaving. She goes into her bedroom and leaves the door open. He walks through it, slides it closed behind him and when he turns around she is on his lips. They do everything furiously. Touch, grope, grab, fingers in hair, clothes stripping off. It's another fight, another dance.
Even in this arena Amanda is somehow the victor. Usually she ends up on top. Usually she'll end up with a cocky out-of-breath smile. She'll demand something of him.
Aiden taps out.
\\\
After a few months in Japan he is beginning to get stronger. He doesn't go down so easily anymore. Now when Amanda volunteers to fight him there is a chance he could win. When this happens it isn't pretty.
It's his body pressed against hers, not holding her but rather restraining her. It's his turn to put on his best cocky smile. "Tap out."
Amanda does not tap out. She tries to squirm out of his grip. Sometimes, because she's more wirey than he is, it works. Sometimes it doesn't. When it doesn't he smiles bigger. He laughs, even. "Tap out," he says again.
Finally she does and he springs off her. After the fight he tries to put his hand on her back but she flinches at his touch. He follows her down the corridor but when she goes into her bedroom she doesn't leave the door open for him.
He stands outside, useless, riled up. She could be petulant sometimes. Stubborn. And even though he is left standing outside, he likes this part of her too.
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He eats his rice alone. He doesn't think he'll ever really grow to like it but he's used to the taste by now. He's also used to sitting cross-legged on the floor, straight-backed, and eating with chopsticks. He's practically an expert at it now.
Takeda appears and takes a seat across from him and out of respect Aiden puts his bowl down and stops eating. Takeda does not mince words. He gets straight to the point, every time. "What is the nature of your relationship with Amanda?" he says in Japanese.
Aiden thinks Takeda already knows the nature of it or he wouldn't be bringing it up. But he can't say that to his mentor. He thinks honestly about how he feels about her. He doesn't think about the times he's spent in her bedroom. He doesn't think of her on the fighting mats. He thinks of the way she moves, the way she speaks. He thinks of her lips. He is completely in love with her.
He can't say this to his mentor either.
"I care for Amanda very much."
"Too much," Takeda says. "You are a distraction for her, as she is for you."
"No," Aiden says. "I'm focused."
"Maybe. But she is more emotional than even you can perceive. You will get in the way of her mission if you do not stop whatever you are doing."
"Takeda, I am indebted to you for taking me in, but with all due respect, you can't tell me how to live my life."
Takeda stands. "You will not do this because I tell you to do this. You will do it because you are all that stands in the way of her mission. If you care about her you will put an end to it."
Aiden is left alone. His body feels like coiled energy and it's all he can do not to lash out and break something. He breathes through flared nostrils. If this is another exercise it's one he will fail.
\\\
He knows it's love when they can lie in bed together and not have sex. Of course, the sex is good, he's not downplaying that, but getting to know her—the real her—might be even better.
It's the middle of the night so they have to whisper.
"Can I tell you a secret?" she says.
"Please."
"It's my birthday."
He sits up. "What? Why didn't you say anything?"
She shrugs and sits up too, facing him. "I don't really celebrate it."
He makes a mental note of the date, June 11th. He won't ever forget it. "Well, how old are you now?"
"Twenty three."
She's still so young. There's so much about her he doesn't know. "And what do you want to be when you grow up?"
She lets out a laugh. "What?"
"There must've been something you've always wanted to be when you were little."
She thinks about it. "I think I wanted to be a teacher. Like most little girls. What did you want to be?"
"No aspirations for me growing up."
"Come on."
"Really. I was a bad kid. Never cared too much about the future. My father probably would've gotten me a baggage claim job alongside him at Heathrow to keep me out of trouble. I probably would've done that until I retired, old and fat. Unless they fired me, of course. They probably would've fired me."
She laughs and touches his earlobe. "You are the firing kind."
"Do you think we ever would have met if none of this… if it were different?"
"If the plane never went down?"
He nods.
"Definitely," Amanda says, and he wants to believe her. "I would've studied abroad for a semester. I would've met you at the airport."
"You would've caught my eye straight away. The most beautiful girl there. You wouldn't give me the time of day."
"Yes I would," Amanda says. "Of course I would."
"Okay, then I would've helped you with your bags and said something cheeky, make you smile."
"Make me roll my eyes, more likely. But I would still find it charming. I'd give you my number."
"I'd call you," Aiden says. "On my night off I'd take you to the fanciest restaurant I couldn't afford."
"I'd pay for dinner."
"I wouldn't let you."
"We'd fight about your pig-headed pride."
"But then you'd realize I'm just a big softie family man when I introduce you to my sister. She'd love you."
"And eventually I'd take you back to Long Island with me so you could meet my father."
"I'd be shaking like a leaf on the porch while you fix my tie."
"You'd wear a tie?" Amanda says.
"To meet your father? Of course I would."
Amanda smiles a bittersweet smile and he knows what she's feeling because he's feeling the exact same thing. They are sad, but suddenly, maybe for the first time in their lives, okay. They understand each other
"Happy birthday, Amanda."
\\\
They are not immune to fighting. Actually, they do it often. Sometimes they indulge themselves and fight just for the spark of it, enough to ignite the passionate make-up.
But this fight's different. He follows her to the maze, where they don't have to whisper, where they can have some privacy, and where, ironically enough, they can get lost or find each other.
When he does find her eventually, he spits out his words. "When were you going to tell me?"
"I wasn't."
He laughs, bitter. He has known her—been her only confidante in this place—for over a year, and there is so much she doesn't tell him still.
She comes up to him, gets in his face. "What the hell were you doing looking through my things?"
Takeda had sent Aiden to Amanda's room to fetch her. That was where he'd found her files strewn about her bed. Takeda knew what he was doing. Records about a Grayson family. Profiles of her targets. But the thing that really got to him was all the information there was on some snot-nosed privileged brat named Daniel.
"Seems that's the only way I can get anything out of you," he says. "So you're going to infiltrate that family through their son."
"How I go about my revenge is none of your business."
"It is my business," he hisses, grabbing her elbow.
She pulls out of his grasp easily enough. "I've been working on this for years before I met you. I don't tell you how to run your mission."
"My mission doesn't include seduction."
"Even if it did I wouldn't try to get in the way of that," Amanda counters. "I won't change anything about my plans just because you don't like them."
"Well it's good to know how you really feel."
"I want to be with you, Aiden, but completing my mission is my priority. If you don't understand that yet then what are you even doing here?"
She has to pass him to go and he doesn't bother stopping her. He'd rather stay lost in the maze a while.
\\\
Part two of training is simulations, and Takeda sends Amanda and Aiden out on the field with a mission to complete. Takeda says this one is important—get it right and Aiden could be one step closer to finding his sister. Aiden would commit to this mission one hundred percent for that reason alone, but it doesn't hurt that this simulation takes place in Italy, and that he and Amanda must pretend to be a married couple renting out a villa in Capri for the summer.
Not the worst mission one could hope to be on.
There are functions to attend, nefarious figures to spy on, information to obtain and things to steal, but there are also strolls along the street, open air dinners, the best wine in the world.
At night they lie together, Amanda's head on Aiden's chest, the summer breeze making the wispy curtains sway.
He runs his fingers through her hair and feels the way her breath illustrates across his skin. "I could stay just like this," she whispers. "Forever."
He thinks two years with someone is enough to know if he could spend a lifetime with them. And Aiden does want to. There is no one else for him. "Then we'll never leave this bed."
She lifts her head to look at him, rests her chin on him. "We'll just stay here and grow old together?"
He knows they'll have to leave soon, that they both have missions to complete, but he also knows that people like them—with bad pasts—all people like them have is the promise of the future.
"We'll grow old together here," he promises her.
She leans forward to kiss him. The moment lasts forever and ends too quickly.
\\\
Telling her to meet him in the maze at midnight is easier than saying goodbye.
The mission is priority number. She told him that.
He'll come back for her. He swears it.
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Thanks for reading. If you liked it, I'd love to know! Thanks :)