DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the Vocaloid characters appearing in this story. They're the intellectual property of the various software companies. This story constitutes "fair use" of these characters as provided for under applicable U.S. and international copyright laws.

Chapter 2: Antiphon

The restaurant where Yukari took me turned out to be Arai, a trendy bistro located on the ground floor of the nearby Imperial Minato Hotel. It wasn't the type of place I frequented – generally, I preferred take-out noodles to obscenely-priced tuna sashimi – but since Yukari had insisted on treating me, I wasn't about to question her choice.

"Gumi-chan and I are staying upstairs," she explained as we walked through the hotel's spacious lobby toward the bistro's interior entrance. "We wanted to check this place out last night, but they were closed by the time we got here. The travel sites say their seafood's supposed to be awesome."

With its polished oak paneling and gleaming brass fixtures, Arai exuded the sort of understated elegance expected of a fine dining establishment. The headwaiter led us through the main seating area to a table in a quiet, dimly-lit corner; situated between two greenery-filled planters, it seemed the perfect place for a private conversation.

After taking our drink orders and describing the daily special – spicy grilled eel with shiitake mushrooms – he left us to study the menu. Well, one of us, anyway. Yukari's eyes had lit up when he mentioned eel.

"I like the sound of that daily special," she said. "It's tough to find decent unagi outside Japan. Even in northern Europe, it's not the same somehow. How about you? Anything look interesting?"

I stared vacantly at the list of entrées, unable to come to a decision even with help from the heavenly smells wafting from the kitchen. My mind was still stuck on the improbable fact that this beautiful and desirable woman – the Yuzuki Yukari – was sitting right across from me, so close that I could reach out and touch her if I only had the nerve, and smiling a smile that was slowly destroying me from the inside out.

This is too dangerous, I thought. I need to get a grip before I start acting like Lily. Heh. That'd probably get us both arrested. But, God, I can barely look at her without wanting to…

"Um, Akasaka-san…is everything okay?"

With a jolt, I realized I'd drifted off into my thoughts. From the other side of the table, Yukari was staring at me with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

"It's…it's fine." When I shook my head for emphasis, she seemed to relax.

"Oh, good. I was worried I'd done something weird, because you seemed really…uh, anxious all of a sudden. You shouldn't be, okay? Let's just be two normal girls spending time together over lunch."

"I get spacey sometimes," I said. "Don't mind it."

"Okay, then," she said, still looking doubtful. "Hey, I'm sorry if I'm coming on a little strong. It's been a while since I asked someone out to lunch like this – since college, at least – so I'm a bit out of practice."

I found that hard to believe.

"Really? But you're so…" …gorgeous and sexy and fun to be around, I wanted to say, but I didn't dare. "…um, you seem like the type to have friends in every city."

"Me? Hardly." Yukari's tone took on a hint of bitterness. "Gumi-chan's the one with a bazillion names on her contact list. Compared to her, I'm a shut-in. When I'm on the road, I'm either practicing, or hiding in my hotel room, or suffering through yet another god-awful symphony fundraiser where I'm the only one in the room under 40. Not much of a social life, is it?"

"I've heard stories about how tough touring is," I admitted. "We orchestra types have it pretty easy by comparison. Still, I can't believe you don't have friends to hang out with back home in…where is home nowadays, anyway? Your web site doesn't say."

"Los Angeles. Actually, I don't live in the city itself, but in Gardena, which is right to the south. I felt I pretty much had to leave Kyoto when I started touring full time, because it was a pain having to travel so far to get to gigs. Besides, both my record label and my agent's American office are in L.A., and Gumi's fluent in English, so it's easier to do business in the States. The move made sense from a career standpoint."

"Southern California sounds glamorous," I said with a touch of envy. "I'll bet you fit right in."

Her eyes twinkled with amusement.

"You'd think that life there would be one big party, but it's not. Gardena's got a big Japanese community, but I still feel like a fish out of water. I've met a few people through Gumi, but it's hard to make friends and keep them when you spend nine months a year traveling. It doesn't help that my English is so horrible that I can barely get anyone to understand me without Gumi's help. Even in Gardena, hardly any of the younger Japanese-Americans actually speak Japanese. That doesn't leave me with a lot of people to talk to, so I pretty much keep to myself most of the time. The few real friends I have are from when I was in college, but of course I never see them anymore. That's why what you and I are doing right now is so…nice."

She let out a wistful sigh, and for the briefest of moments I caught a glimpse of what I suspected was the real Yukari. Underneath it all, this charismatic artist who always seemed to be the center of attention was in reality a very lonely woman.

No wonder she was so eager to take me to lunch, I thought. It shouldn't be this way. Someone this friendly and kind shouldn't have to be so…alone. I wonder… when she's been on tour for six months or so, what does she do in the middle of the night when she just wants someone to hold her? Her hotel room must seem like a really cold and lonely place when that happens…

Yukari's sudden giggle brought me back to the present.

"You know what I just realized?" A mischievous smirk crept across her face. "This is the closest thing I've had to a date in a year and a half."

"A d-d-date?" The notion that Yukari would view our lunch in those terms had my brain dangerously close to short-circuiting.

"Ugh, I said something strange again, didn't I?" Yukari seemed embarrassed all of a sudden; it was clear that she'd misinterpreted my reaction. "Sorry about that. I worry about my social skills sometimes, especially when I'm talking to a really hot girl-…oops." With a look of sudden horror, she clapped a hand over her mouth, as if she'd just revealed a dark secret by accident. There was a long, awkward silence as I stared dumbly at her, trying to process what she'd said.

Yukari thinks I'm "hot." What did she mean? Does she like me like "that?"

It didn't seem possible, but I couldn't argue with the evidence. Her actions to that point – touching my hair, commenting on my eyes, linking arms with plenty of body contact, inviting me to lunch on the flimsiest of pretexts, and so on – certainly suggested that she might be attracted to me on some level. Unfortunately, there was really no way to know for sure without coming out and asking her, and I wasn't about to do that. In my wildest fantasies, Yukari had been quite direct about her attempts to seduce me, but reality was another matter altogether. For all I knew, she was straight as a meter stick, and was simply admiring another woman she found attractive.

I need to watch my step here. Can't take anything for granted.

Meanwhile, Yukari's sunny, self-assured aura of moments earlier had disappeared, and she now appeared to be as flustered as I was.

"Oh, geez, I didn't…Akasaka-san, I…I'm so sorry! I'd didn't mean to say you're hot. Um, well, I did, but…no, I didn't, not out loud. But God, you are hot, totally, and…no wait, that's not what it sounds like. I mean…dammit, I don't know what I mean anymore." Her shoulders slumped. "You probably think I'm the weirdest person ever. Ugh. Shutting up now."

She looked so mortified that I was afraid she might bolt the restaurant altogether.

"Hey, it's okay. What you said isn't weird. Not at all." I swallowed hard, and decided to take the chance that what she'd said was more than just a simple compliment. "In fact, I'm really happy that you think of me that way."

Our eyes met and locked, and in an instant, the atmosphere between us changed completely. Yukari's cheerful, friendly veil evaporated, allowing me a full view of what lay underneath. In that moment, I realized she was with me not because she wanted to repay an obligation, or to ease her loneliness with a bit of companionship, but because of some deeper, unspoken need that could never be fully met by simple friendship.

Ever so softly, my gaydar began to ping.

"So you really think I'm pretty, then?" I looked away, nibbling on my lower lip while waiting for her answer. My heart began to pound so hard that the beats were almost audible. Finally, I heard a sharp intake of breath from across the table.

"Akasaka-san, you're the most…"

To my utter dismay, the waiter materialized out of nowhere with our drinks just as Yukari began to speak. Just like that, the moment vanished, smothered under a heavy mantle of awkwardness, leaving us both to pretend, at least for the waiter's sake, that things weren't any different from before, even though we both knew otherwise.

Yukari ordered the special without hesitation. I did the same, not because I had a particular taste for eel, but because I'd been so wrapped up in what was going on between Yukari and me that I never bothered to choose something from the menu.

"Compared to what I usually eat on tour, this is pretty fancy stuff," Yukari said after the waiter had retreated. From her suddenly upbeat attitude, I could tell she was trying to push aside our mutual embarrassment and jump-start the conversation. "Most of the time, Gumi-chan gets take-out for me. After what she calls the Pizza Incident, she won't let me order out for myself until I take another round of English lessons."

I thought that sounded like an interesting story, and told her so.

"It happened a couple months after I moved to the States." She grinned sheepishly at the memory. "Gumi-chan wasn't around, and I'd been practicing a brutal piece for about four hours or so and was really hungry. I was too tired to cook, so I decided to order a pizza. I figured, you know, no big deal to do that over the phone. I'd watched Gumi-chan do it a bunch of times. All I had to do was say 'medium pizza with mushrooms and green peppers' and give them my address. Simple, right?" She paused to roll her eyes. "Wrong."

"Oh, God, don't tell me…" I pressed my hand to my mouth to stifle a giggle.

"Yep, you guessed it. Turns out that particular pizza place is run by a bunch of Koreans, and they all must have been fresh off the plane like I was, because their English sucked just as bad as mine. The guy started asking me questions, and it was all downhill from there."

She went on to reenact the phone conversation, complete with an imitation of the increasingly impatient shop attendant that was so hilarious that I had to bite down on a knuckle to keep from bursting into laughter.

"So this cute little Korean girl rings my doorbell, and hands me a personal-size pizza with extra jalapeno peppers and no tomato sauce. Oh, and I wound up with four two-liter bottles of diet cola, too. Heaven knows how that happened. Anyway, it was a fiasco. I just paid her and sent her on her way. God, you should have heard Gumi-chan laugh at me when she found out about it. I just wish she'd told me I could have ordered online before I went and made myself look stupid."

Telling that story on herself was the best thing Yukari could have done to lighten the mood. Before too long, we were chatting freely, swapping stories in much the same way Lily and I would. At first, we talked mostly about classical music in general, and about the upcoming concert in particular. By the time our food arrived, however, Yukari had steered the topic away from work, and we began to reveal more and more of our personal lives to each other.

But like the proverbial elephant in the living room, the romantic undercurrent between us was too obvious to ignore for long. The flirting was subtle at first – a sideways glance here, a tilt of the head there – but soon escalated to more obvious signals like gratuitous compliments and occasional touches to each other's hands. Unable to focus on anything else but Yukari, I found myself hanging on her every word, and gazing raptly at her as if I was trying to commit every small detail of her beautiful face to memory.

But despite the fact that we were flirting openly, we never really made it back to where we were before the waiter interrupted Yukari in mid-sentence. I found that frustrating, because even though I was pretty sure I knew what she was going to say, I still wanted to hear it. Unfortunately, she never volunteered to finish the thought, and I didn't have to courage to ask.

Just as I thought things had hit a dead end, Yukari took the conversation in a direction that finally laid to rest any doubts I had about her attraction to me.

"Man, that was good," she said, pushing back her empty plate. "These guys sure do right by eel. How was yours?"

"Delicious." In truth, I'd barely even been conscious of eating it.

"You should ask your boyfriend to bring you here," she said. "It's a nice place for a romantic meal."

It sounded like an offhand comment, but something told me it was really an unspoken question: Are you single?

"There is no boyfriend." I blurted it out without thinking, but before I had the chance to regret it, Yukari let out a delighted gasp.

"Oh, thank goodness!" With yet another blush, she clapped her hand over her mouth, and immediately began to backpedal. "Um…I mean, uh…that's what the men of Tokyo must be thinking. You know, thank goodness Akasaka-san's single. And available. Yeah, that's what I meant. And I'm doing it again, dammit."

Her flustered reaction was so adorable that I wanted to throw myself across the table and into her arms, but I decided to play it cool, and do a little investigative work of my own.

"I don't really care about the men of Tokyo or any other city," I said, choosing my words carefully. "Never have, to be honest. Men are more trouble than they're worth, and they're much less interesting and fun to be around than women."

Our eyes met, and from the glowing smile on her face, I immediately sensed that we understood each other.

"I totally agree with you." There was a subtle difference to her tone, barely discernable, but one that I picked up nonetheless: an element of heat that hadn't been there before. "Men are overrated. I'd much rather spend time, say, having lunch with a woman I find absolutely fascinating. You know, basically doing what I'm doing right now."

From that point, the sexual tension between us, which had been bubbling under the surface since she'd let slip that she thought I was "hot," began to boil over. I couldn't remember a word of what either one of us said. I was too busy bathing in the sound of Yukari's voice.

We were so engrossed in each other that we didn't notice that Arai's lunch service had ended, and that we were the only customers left in the dining room. It had been over two hours since we were seated, and yet to me it seemed like only a few minutes.

"Looks like we closed the place down." With a giggle, Yukari nodded toward our waiter, who was lurking in the background, trying not to make it obvious that he was waiting to clear our table. "I wish we could stay longer, but we should probably get out of his way."

With a nod, I slung my trumpet case over my shoulder and followed her out of the restaurant and across the hotel lobby. When we reached the deserted cluster of empty easy chairs and sofas opposite the front desk, she stopped and turned to face me. For the first time since we'd left her dressing room at the Pavilion, we were someplace where no one could overhear us talking together.

"I still owe you an answer," she said, her voice soft and a bit husky. "You know, to that question you asked me." She took a deep breath, as if to steady her nerves. "You're not just pretty, Akasaka-san – you're the most beautiful woman I've ever met. I thought that way in Nagoya, and I still do."

The change in her demeanor was astounding. During lunch, she'd been her usual bubbly self, even while we flirted. But now, with no one else around to witness our exchange, the look on her face was so earnest, and so filled with longing, that I felt my insides turn to liquid.

"Yuzuki-san…I…you…we…"

Suddenly, I forgot how to form proper sentences. Yukari's words – the most beautiful woman I've ever met – had scrambled my ability to reason. I gave up trying to answer, and allowed myself to get lost in those violet eyes.

After what seemed like an eon, Yukari broke the spell.

"I really should go," she apologized.

The seeming finality of those words broke my mind out of its stasis.

"Thanks very much for lunch. You've been so kind to me, and I'll never forget that. So…" I hesitated, not wanting her to leave me. At the back of my mind, a tiny voice kept saying that when she turned and walked away, there was no guarantee I'd see her again except from across the stage during the weekend's concerts. Naturally, I didn't want things to end that way, but my rational side reminded me that I had no reason to expect anything different. "…I guess this is it, then."

In response, Yukari raised her eyes to mine. There was a searching quality to her expression, as if she was trying to read something written deep inside of me. I held her gaze as best I could, although it's hard to appear calm when your abdominal muscles are clenching so hard that you can barely breathe.

"This doesn't have to be 'it,' Akasaka-san," she finally said. "I'm in town until 18:00 Sunday. That's about…what? Seventy-five hours from now. We have all kinds of time." Her expression turned hopeful. "So, um…when can I see you again?"

I thought my heart was going to explode from my chest.

"How about tonight?" I hoped I didn't sound too eager, although quite honestly, I would have fallen to my knees and begged shamelessly if that's what it would have taken to convince her.

"How about right now?" She giggled a bit at my dropped jaw before continuing, "That's a joke, of course, although I wish it wasn't. I have business to take care of, and I'm sure you do, too. It looks like we'll have to wait until later on, after I'm done rubbing elbows with the NSO Board. I'm not sure exactly how long that'll go, but I should be free sometime around, oh, 21:00 or so. We can meet here in the hotel lobby, if that's okay. And hey, how about we exchange phone numbers? That way, I can email you if I'm running late."

As if moving on its own, my hand lifted my cell to meet hers. Once the transfer was complete, I clutched the device to my chest as if it was some sort of holy relic. With Yukari's contact information in it, it might as well have been.

"Make sure you turn on the charm tonight," I said. "The more funds the Board raises, the more likely it is I'll get a raise come January."

My attempted joke wasn't that funny, but it drew an indulgent chuckle from her all the same.

"I'd rather be charming a certain trumpet player, but it can't be helped, can it?" She winked, and then added, "See you at 21:00, Akasaka-san."

The sultry way she said my name sent a shiver up my spine.

"I can't wait," I somehow managed to reply.

With that, Yukari turned and walked toward the bank of elevators at the far side of the lobby. I watched her go, silently marveling at how a girl with such understated curves could be so damned sexy. How I wished to God that it was already 21:00.

It's almost an unwritten rule that a girl has to share her triumphs and tragedies with her friends. And since my lunch with Yukari was a triumph of monumental proportions, the moment I walked out of the Imperial Minato's revolving front door, I pulled up Lily's contact page on my cell.

But she proved uncharacteristically difficult to contact by phone, and trying to reach her by email wasn't much more effective. From what I could gather from the few emails she responded to, she was somewhere in Bunkyou Ward with Masami-san – which shouldn't have surprised me after the chemistry I'd seen between them that morning, but still did – and wouldn't be back to Minato before I had to be at the music store to teach my usual Thursday evening private lessons.

After several rounds of emailing back and forth, we agreed to meet at my apartment in Shinjuku after I finished teaching. It was a win-win situation; she said she needed to talk to me about something important, and I was badly in need of her face-to-face moral support before my date with Yukari.

A few minutes past 19:00, I opened the door to my apartment to an unexpected sight: Lily in a black dress and stilettos.

"Excuse the fuck out of me for intruding," she called out. It was obvious that she'd subverted the routine etiquette phrase on purpose simply to mess with me, but rather than give her the satisfaction, I decided to play along.

"It's not like anyone's stopping you from barging in." That response earned me a stuck-out tongue and a pulled-down eyelid.

Lily looked surprisingly stunning. Of course, she would have looked gorgeous wearing a burlap bag, but this was impressive even by her standards. I couldn't remember seeing the dress before, which meant that it was probably new. The section that normally would have covered her stomach was cut away, exposing her toned abs and pierced bellybutton, and the plunging neckline showed off plenty of cleavage. Instead of allowing her golden hair to fall free, Lily had worked part of it into braids, which she wore circled around her head. It was clear that she'd put even more effort into her appearance than usual. I wondered which one of her half-dozen-strong harem had drawn the lucky straw for the evening.

"You certainly do clean up nicely," I said. "That dress really suits you, what there is of it. But what's the occasion for showing up on my doorstep practically naked? It won't get you into my panties, if that's what you're hoping."

"You flatter yourself, jerk," she said with her usual insolent grin, kicking off her heels in the entryway. "I certainly didn't wear this 'fuck me' outfit for your benefit, because you're not the one I'm going to be getting horizontal with tonight. That honor belongs to my date for the evening. Believe it or not, you're not the only one who got asked out."

I decided to ignore the lurid word picture of Lily in a love hotel bed.

"Really? Have I met him?"

"Oh, you know who it is, but more about that later." She gestured toward the damp towel wrapped around my hair. "You're a fine one to mock my dress, given how little you're wearing yourself."

Her point was well-taken. I'd only gotten out of the shower a few minutes before she arrived, so I was still in my bathrobe.

"Sorry. I've running behind all evening. The mother of my 18:00 student caught me on the way out. Normally, that woman wouldn't give me the time of day, but today of all days she wanted a full report. If she didn't pay me so well…argh. Whatever. Hey, I could use a little help with my hair, if it's not too much trouble."

"No prob. Got any tea?"

"In the carafe on the kitchen counter. I made it before I took my shower, so it's fresh. Bring one for me, too, please."

I was sitting in front of my bedroom mirror when Lily appeared with two mugs, one of which she set down on the dressing table in front of me.

"One order of tea, black. You gonna go with the usual 'do?" She was referring to my normal style of letting my hair hang to my waist and half-braiding the side-tails.

"Yeah, although when I saw what you did with yours, I almost changed my mind. It looks really nice. I like that halo effect, even if it's false advertising."

"It's supposed to be a crown, dumbass, but I'll take the back-handed compliment anyway. I've been feeling like a princess today, so…yeah." She finished with a low chuckle, more to herself than to me. Something in it caught my attention.

"Special date tonight, then?"

For a fleeting moment, I could have sworn I saw Lily blush.

"It's kind of a strange situation, but yeah, it's definitely special."

Setting down her mug, she took the comb from my hand and began to run it gently through my still-damp hair. I wondered if this was what she'd wanted to talk to me about, but despite my curiosity, I didn't press her for more. Lily wasn't one to hold back for long, so I figured she'd eventually let me in on the details.

"As much as we hang out at each other's places, it's been a long time since I've actually been in your bedroom," she said, glancing around at the spartan furnishings: a twin bed, a vanity, and a dresser, with a matching bedspread and curtains in unadorned navy blue. "I'd forgotten how…um, boyish the décor is. That's new, though." She nodded toward a large wall poster of Yukari playing the piano in concert that hung in a frame on the wall by my bed.

"It came with her most recent album," I said, omitting the fact that I'd had to get up at 05:00 to submit one of the first 100 on-line preorders of the album to get it. I didn't need Lily teasing me about being obsessed with Yukari, even though after all that had happened that day, it would have been a fair assessment.

"So you really are going out with her tonight. Huh." Lily sounded like she still didn't quite believe it. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay," I lied.

"Bullshit. I can see you trembling. You're nervous as hell, aren't you?"

At first, I was tempted to deny her accusation, but from the look in her eye, I could tell she wouldn't buy it.

"Scared to death."

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere," Lily said. "Maybe it'd help if you talk to me about it. That's the main reason I'm here, right? Besides, you still owe me a report on your lunch date."

"Let's get my hair taken care of first," I replied.

One lengthy session with the blow-dryer later, Lily retreated to the edge of my bed with her tea mug, watching and listening while I worked on my half-braids and told her about my afternoon, from the time I left her in the Pavilion through that final conversation with Yukari in the hotel lobby. Most of it was hardly news to her, because between my emails and what she'd learned from Masami-san, she already had the gist of what happened. After I got the whole story out, I confessed my lingering misgivings.

"I'm having a hard time believing this whole thing isn't a joke," I said. "I keep expecting someone to pop around a corner with a TV camera and tell me I've been punked. And I'm still not a hundred percent clear on exactly what there is between us. I mean, what if I'm misreading her, and all she wants is my friendship?"

After a long moment, Lily let out a weary sigh.

"You're doing it again."

"What?"

"Thinking too much," she said, placing her empty tea mug on the nightstand and leaning forward to force eye contact. "Listen to me, Ia. Yuzuki-san is totally into you. You're not imagining it – it's a fact. Masami-san even confirmed it. Apparently, Yuzuki-san was bombarding her with emails saying how wonderful you are, among other things. And get this: Masami-san even had to talk Yuzuki-san out of making up some excuse to get out of her engagement with the Board this evening. It seems she didn't want to wait until 21:00 to see you again. Masami-san says she's never seen her boss act this way. Tonight's going to go just fine, I'm telling you."

"You're saying all the right things, so why am I not as sure about this as you are?" I pressed my fingers to my temples, as if massaging them could make my anxiety magically disappear. It didn't work. "You're always so confident when it comes to love and sex. I'm not like you, Lily."

"Well, yeah, normally that's true, but tonight even Masuda Lily, the NSO's very own love goddess, is a little out of her depth." After forcing out a tight laugh, she looked away, twiddling her fingers in her lap. The blush I was pretty sure I'd seen before returned, and there was no mistaking it this time. It was a rare display indeed for a woman who had as little shame as anyone I'd ever known. "Remember how I said tonight was going to be a bit unusual? Um, so…what would you say if I told you my date is a girl?"

I looked at her suspiciously, wondering if this was yet another prank. But while Lily had needled me about everything imaginable during our long friendship, she had never once made light of things like gender identity or sexual orientation. When I'd finally had the courage to come out to her all those years ago, our friendship never missed a beat. So I decided that her statement must have been absolutely serious. And then it dawned on me.

"It's Masami-san, right?" It was the only name I could come up with that made sense. "I guess this is what you wanted to tell me about."

"Bingo. So, yeah…I mean, I haven't gone out with another woman since, like, ever, so I kind of hoped you would give me some pointers, seeing that you're the only one I can ask about girl-on-girl kinds of things."

If Lily hoped to distract me from my apprehension over the upcoming evening with Yukari, she'd done a good job of it – too good, in fact. When a friend you're convinced is heterosexual tells you she's going on a date with another woman, and not only expects the evening to end in hot lesbian sex but is looking forward to it, it's not exactly a minor revelation. I honestly didn't know what to say, so I just stared back at her, trying to wrap my mind around it all.

"You seem like you're having trouble with this," Lily said, eyeing me warily. "To be honest, that kind of surprises me. I figured that of all people, you'd be more accepting."

I couldn't keep my reply from sounding bitchy.

"Well, excuse me for needing a moment to regroup. I thought you were straight, Lily. Or have you been lying to me all this time?"

"If I have to put a label on myself, then yes, I'm straight," Lily said, reacting to my snark with surprising calm. "Sorry, Ia. I wish there was a simple way to explain what's going on between Masami-san and me, but there isn't. All I can tell you is that she may very well be the one gay hiccup in my straight existence. And even then, I'm not really sure if that's true. That's kind of the point of going out with her tonight, to find if she's the one exception."

"Only one? What if you like being with a woman? How many more 'exceptions' will there be? And how am I supposed to interpret your jokes and innuendo now?"

At first, Lily appeared hurt by the bitterness in my voice, but after a moment, the light of comprehension dawned on her face.

"If you're worried about me suddenly seeing you differently, don't. I can't speak for you, but for me, nothing's going to change between us. We've been together forever, and you've never so much as made me tingle. That's no different right this minute, even though you're one pull of the robe belt from being completely naked. It ain't gonna happen, Ia. Besides, you'd be the shittiest lover imaginable."

I bristled at the perceived insult.

"How the hell would you know what I'm like in bed? Of all the –"

"Sorry, that came out wrong," Lily interrupted, waving her hands in protest. "I meant that we'd be no good together as lovers, because we'd drive each other crazy. We're much better as friends, because we need that kind of space to get along. You're the best friend I've ever had, Ia, and the most important. I don't want to lose what we have right now, because I could never replace it as long as I lived."

Leave it to Lily to make me feel like a fool for overreacting. Even though I knew she loved me, she normally had a funny way of showing it, and it wasn't often that I got such a forthright statement of how much our friendship meant to her. Of course, she wouldn't have been Lily if she hadn't immediately and completely ruined the warm, fuzzy mood with a perverted wisecrack.

"Besides, you're not my type. Your tits aren't big enough…although I'll admit the last time I groped-…erm, inspected them, they were certainly firm enough. Time to update my database." She stood up from the bed, and with an exaggerated mad-scientist cackle, took a step toward me, wiggling her fingers suggestively. "Come on, Ia, be a good girl and let Lily-oneesama examine your boobs."

"Don't touch my chest, you perverted bitch!" With a scowl, I clamped my hands protectively over the front of my bathrobe. "Save the octopus routine for your date. And don't go calling yourself my 'onee-sama.' Didn't you just say I wasn't girlfriend material?"

"Who said anything about romance? This is plain old sexual harassment." After another second or two of finger-wiggling, Lily let loose a deep, throaty guffaw, and sat back down on the bed. "Thank you ever so much for reacting. You never fail to disappoint me."

As tempting as it was to tell her to kiss my ass, I was afraid she'd actually try it, so I swallowed the snappy comeback. Still, I had to admit that Lily's shenanigans had done the trick, because I felt my distress and confusion recede. But even so, I had one more question.

"Why Masami-san?"

Lily shrugged.

"That's a good one." She paused for a moment to think. "It's not so much that she's gorgeous, because I've been around plenty of truly beautiful women in my life, including you…" I tried to protest her compliment, but she ignored me and kept right on talking. "…and I never even felt a tremor. Dry as a bone, every time. And yet she's different somehow. Maybe it's the way she carries herself, I don't know, or the way she glows when she looks at me. Remember that j-pop song from a while back, the MikuLuka duet that had everyone buzzing?"

"You mean Magnet? Sure, I remember it. Gayest song since I Don't Do Boys. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"It sounds crazy and perverted, but I've been hearing that damned song in my head since I met her this morning. I can't help it." Lily's eyes fluttered closed, and she smiled, as if lingering over the memory. "When she came back out to talk to me, after she took you to see Yuzuki-san, I bought her that milk tea. It turned into lunch, and then I tagged along while she ran errands. That's how we wound up in Bunkyou. I can't explain why I see her differently, other than that she's the right combination of smooth, smart, and sexy. By the time we were on the train home, Magnet was playing on infinite loop in my brain. That's how intense my emotions were, and that scared me, because, well, she's not a guy. But still, I can't help really wanting to find out what it would be like to be with her. If I was the sort of girl to obsess over my sexuality – Am I gay? Bi? Pan? Only bi-curious? – I'd probably wind up talking myself out of tonight, but I'm not exactly the thinking kind. That's your department. So I'm just going to do what I always do."

"Wing it, and hope for the best?"

"Exactly. Wing it, and hope for the best." Her eyes opened again, and she turned them on me; they gleamed with a sense of purpose I rarely saw from her. "It wouldn't hurt you to do the same with Yuzuki-san. Think about it. You've got a date with the famous pianist you've lusted after for years – the one whose picture you have hanging on your wall." She pointed to the framed poster of Yukari. "She wants you just as much as you want her. Unless you pull a really dumb move, like puking on her shoes or something, you're going to get laid. You've always wanted this, so now's not the time for second-guessing. Quit navel-gazing and embrace the fantasy."

Lily sounded so absolutely convinced that what she was saying was true that I began to let go of my reservations. As it finally sank in that I was more than likely going to end the night in Yukari's arms, my hormones began to surge. It was something I wanted badly, but had hardly dared to hope for. Still, Lily had an annoying way of making the sublime sound ridiculous, even when she was trying to be encouraging.

"Geez, you don't have to make it sound so…cheap."

"It doesn't matter what words I use to describe it, it's reality. If you back out now, it'd be like hitting a ¥100 million lottery and refusing to claim the prize because you weren't sure how to spend it."

"I never said I was backing out," I countered. "Only that I…oh, never mind. Look, are you going to give me a few minutes of privacy or what? I need to get dressed."

"I'll give you ¥2,000 if you let me stay and watch." Lily's grin was even more insolent than usual. "I'll up it to ¥10,000 if you let me take that robe off myself."

"What am I, a soap girl? Keep your money, you perverted old man."

"Some friend," Lily said, putting on her best fake pout. "She can't even handle a bit of harmless skinship. Fine. I'll be waiting in the living room. We might as well head over together, since we both have to be at the hotel at the same time." When she reached the doorway, she turned back toward me to deliver her parting shot. "Remember to wear lacy underwear." When I stared blankly at her, she added, "If you were serious, you'd go commando, like me, because what a girl doesn't wear is almost as important as what she does wear. But since you're too much of a coward to go without lingerie, make it cute, frilly, and preferably black. It'll give Yuzuki-san something interesting to tear off your body."

"Get out, dammit!"

I reinforced the demand by launching my hairbrush in Lily's general direction, but she dodged it easily, and retreated through the door, slamming it shut behind her. Ignoring her muffled laughter, I focused instead on pulling together my outfit for the evening: a black, off-the-shoulder crop-top that I'd matched with a pleated, low-rise miniskirt in contrasting salmon. I hadn't worn that outfit in a while, but it had turned its share of heads in the past, and I was convinced it would have the same effect on Yukari.

It'll be a cold day in hell before I follow Lily's advice, I thought, pulling a leopard-pattern push-up bra and a black thong from my underwear drawer. If it I left it up to her, she'd have me looking like a prostitute.

But after I shrugged off my bathrobe and stood naked in front of the mirror, I began to reconsider.

What would turn Yuzuki-san on the most? I imagined her reaction as she palmed my unrestrained breasts through my top, or ran those long, elegant fingers up under my skirt, only to find nothing but bare skin. At the very thought of her hands on me, I felt the heat of arousal begin to build deep inside. I wasn't even touching my nipples, and yet they hardened all on their own as I pictured Yukari pulling up my top to take one between her teeth, and telling me what a dirty girl I was for not wearing any panties.

The mental image was enough to convince me that just this once, Lily might be onto something. I put the underwear back in the drawer, and after pulling on the rest of my outfit, headed for the living room without looking back.

A/N:

− Once again, my dedicated team of beta readers, Musican74 and Gray Voice, kept this story on track. I'm grateful for all their input to this chapter.

− I Don't Do Boys, released by Icelandic pop band Elektra in 2009, may very well be the single most lesbian song ever recorded. Check it out on YouTube at clip cUiOgcuD_x0. (Warning: both the song lyrics and the associated video are NSFW!)

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