The Escort
Chapter Three: Reflections
Hiroki stood looking at himself in his hallway mirror.
It had been a little over three months since the night he'd asked Akihiko for his second "favor." Even so, the memory of that evening still felt fresh and Hiroki found his eyes grow watery at the sting of it.
Stupid Ass, get a hold of yourself. You should feel delighted right now. Hiroki silently berated his reflection as he adjusted his tie.
The head of his department had been beside himself when, a few days after Akihiko had agreed, Isaka Ryuichiro, the Vice President of Marukawa Publishing had called to discuss Akihiko's visit to the University. Hiroki had been lauded for managing to secure the unobtainable and his favor within the department had risen considerably. Any remaining residue from the unfortunate incident with Shinoda seemed to have evaporated as well.
After smoothing down his troublesome tie, Hiroki regarded himself in the mirror anew and a furrow instantly formed on his forehead. In his head he could hear Miyagi's teasing tones; his senior's voice warning him about wrinkles. Hiroki tried to smooth out his expression and found it far more stubborn than his tie.
Tonight was the big event and he was at least partly in charge of the evening. He was to introduce Akihiko and felt nervous as hell about it. As if the introduction wasn't anxiety producing enough, he'd had to go and complicate things further setting up the whole "escort" thing.
Tonight is going to be a disaster. Serves you right though, Idiot. What the hell were you thinking, Kamijou, hiring an escort?
This was something else that had been set in motion along with the lecture: the further development of his imaginary "boyfriend."
It had seemed to comfort Akihiko that someone was looking out for him, as every time the author called since, Akihiko inquired after his "fellow" and how the state of their union was. Akihiko's interest was both touching and further wounding and Hiroki found himself continuing the deception, though he worked diligently to keep his story simple and vague.
Hiroki knew he should have left off his lie months ago. But the night of "the favor," when Akihiko had stayed over, had brought up old ghosts for him in a new way, and he'd found he'd not been able to exorcise them. This was another reason he'd initially maintained the ruse, because it had served as a neat explanation for his physical avoidance of his best friend. He had also even used this, so far unnamed boyfriend, as a means of fighting off the increasing and annoying advances of his "not gay" senior professor.
Unfortunately, his fabricated relationship was turning out to follow the same pattern as most of his real relationships: it had started out feeling uncomfortable but also slightly satisfying and had now turned around and bitten him really hard in the ass.
As if to affirm this, Hiroki's phone suddenly chimed. He dipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out his cell. A new and deeper crease formed on his forehead when he saw it was his mother.
Again.
Annoyingly attentive to begin with, she had been pestering him almost incessantly lately it seemed. Hiroki ignored the call, turned his phone to vibrate, and stuck it back into his pocket. The last thing he needed (besides having to talk to his mother) was to have his cell ring in the middle of Akihiko's lecture with some wrong number.
That would be my luck.
His imagined interruptive call would have normally been the lady Kamijou and not some mis-dial. Unfortunately, however, Hiroki's maternal unit had made the astounding declaration a few days prior that she was leaving her house to attend Akihiko's lecture.
Akihiko talked to the lady Kamijou far more often than her own son did and he had obviously recently gone and blabbed about her son's "serious" love interest. Hiroki thought it might have been a purposeful slip: Akihiko having a little fun at his expense, since the author was undoubtedly now feeling very uncomfortable about the public event he'd agreed to.
An invisible fist suddenly grabbed a hold of Hiroki's guts and gave a sharp twist.
Since she'd decided to go to see her lovely "Aki-kun's" lecture, the lady Kamijou now insisted that while on this rare trip away from the family estate, she be allowed to meet the man who, according, to her foster son, had been so "tenaciously" courting her Hiro-chan. Hiroki knew in all likelihood, meeting his imaginary interest was actually probably more the true reason for her outing. The lecture was just an excuse to size up his possible match.
The knot in Hiroki's stomach suddenly bloomed into something more. Hiroki made a mad dash to the bathroom. He had the presence of mind to flip his unruly tie over his shoulder before he ended up on his knees before the toilet. The remains of his last convenience store meal tumbled out of him and into the porcelain bowl.
Once he'd stopped retching Hiroki scooted back and allowed his flushed forehead to rest against the toilet's cool ceramic rim. He knew his mother meeting the escort was dangerous: while she seemed very simple in many things, Mama Kamijou was actually a very keen woman.
I should have had the balls to go through with my last plan.
He had considered an imaginary break up prior to tonight's event. However, there was the distressing fact that both Akihiko and Miyagi had begun voicing the opinion that his hereto unseen boyfriend might not be real. Hiroki had realized late he'd allowed his charade to go on too long and he'd suddenly broken up with his beau, without Akihiko or Miyagi ever seeing him, it would have only served to confirm their suspicions.
This possibility or anyone finding out that there had never really been a mystery man was too humiliating for him to even consider.
After rising shakily and inspecting his shirt for spots, Hiroki moved over to the sink to wash his face and brush his teeth again.
He had been at a loss for how to gracefully extricate himself from this situation until the answer had been provided in the unlikeliest of forms: Akihiko's brother, Usami Haruhiko. Hiroki had run into the man while wandering the Tokyo Art Museum the previous weekend.
Watching the water run, the young professor's mind drifted back to that moment.
He'd gone to the museum to see a new ecphrastic calligraphy exhibition that had combined the brushed art form with some significant contemporary poets. Usami Haruhiko was lingering in front of one of the pieces with a very pretty and very bored looking blond when Hiroki had chanced upon him.
From their first meeting as children, seeing Haruhiko had always been awkward for Hiroki. Akihiko and his older brother had never gotten along, so by default, growing up as a loyal friend, he had of course taken Akihiko's side. Over time, however, his sense of unease about encountering Haruhiko had been exponentially compounded by a devastating twist.
Haruhiko had been Hiroki's "first" and not by choice.
Hiroki leaned over the sink suddenly feeling as though he might become ill again. His heartbeat had accelerated and his chest felt compressed. This happened most times when his mind drifted back to that terrible day.
Had it ended with that one instance, it would have been terrible but perhaps more easily navigated. This, however, had unfortunately not been the case.
When finally free of the elder Usami's attentions, Hiroki had done what he could to get past these "incidents." It was his private shame, something he'd never disclosed to anyone, especially not Akihiko. His dealings with Haruhiko had added a new and unfortunate layer to Hiroki's love for his friend.
It had been years since he'd encountered the older Usami, but Hiroki recognized him immediately and had turned and started walking away, but not before Haruhiko had seen him and called out.
In the relatively crowded exhibition hall, the Usami brother's greeting had been loud enough that a number of people had stopped to look. As much as it pierced him, Hiroki could not simply continue to walk away. He'd paused in his step, so it was obvious he'd heard the "halloo," and while he could bear being perceived as rude by a bunch of strangers, Hiroki could not allow Haruhiko to think he still held any power over him. Such a retreat would have surely conveyed this.
Their exchange had been short and casual, at least on Usami's part. Haruhiko had always been this way. The older brother acted then, exactly as he had when they were younger: as if nothing had ever happened between the two of them. Try as he might, however, as always, Hiroki had been unable to hide how much their interaction strained him.
Standing in his small bathroom now, safely away from Usami, Hiroki's hands clenched the edge of the vanity and he felt the tears that seemed to be always flowing so close the surface of him well up in his eyes.
So fucking weak, Kamijou. Haruhiko knew that from the start. Why else would he have done what he did?
Difficult as it was to release the grounding countertop, Hiroki dipped his hands under the running water and splashed his face.
As if any amount of ablution could wash my shame away.
During their interaction, sensing Hiroki's distress, Haruhiko had moved in quickly to mock him. The older Usami had ended their short conversation by telling Hiroki that he thought it might help his nervousness to get laid. He'd then motioned towards the boy who was standing off to the side now, a few feet away, prettily pouting.
As he stepped off to reclaim his eye candy, Haruhiko had pressed a card from Matsuo's escort service into Hiroki's tremoring hand.
"Here, this might help you, Kamijou-kun," Haruhiko had purred. "Maybe this way, you'll finally get to be in charge. If that is what you really want." Haruhiko had then walked away laughing, taken his sullen boy's arm, and rather roughly pulled the youth off with him.
With the shock of the cold water on his skin, the wave of nausea that had gripped Hiroki passed. He imagined that had he begun retching again, there probably would have been little left to come up; his nerves about the evening had made it difficult to eat much that day. Feeling his heart begin to drop down to its usual pace, Hiroki opened his medicine cabinet to gather his toothbrush and paste. His dark eyes avoided looking at himself in the cabinet's mirrored door.
Hiroki didn't know why he hadn't thrown the card away the instant it had been given him. Instead he'd stuffed it, with his clenched fists, into his pants' pockets and had only come across it later while doing some laundry. He'd been pondering how to resolve the issue of dealing with his fictional crisis when he'd rediscovered the card. Turning it over and over in his hand, it had seemed at the time, almost as if the gods had suddenly provided him with the answer.
After brushing his teeth, Hiroki put his things away and shut the water off.
And now here I am, in an even bigger fucking mess.
His "date" would be arriving any minute to accompany him to Akihiko's lecture and meet his mother and he hoped whoever they sent had a modicum of acting ability. Hiroki suddenly wondered if he should have added that to the list of what he was looking for.
For as much as this "date" is costing me, I could have probably hired an award winning actor. He prayed to his ancestors that he… they, would be able to carry this charade off.
Clouded eyes cleared as Hiroki pulled himself out of his internal reflections and back into present. He tried to stuff all his jumbled emotions away and finally risked a glance at himself in the mirror. He slipped his tie back down to his shirtfront and studied himself with a sense of mounting dissatisfaction.
His hair had always been unruly and today had been no different.
Hiroki knew he should have gotten a haircut, but with classes and grading, his own PHD research, and all the extra work he was doing for Miyagi, he'd hardly had time to sleep, let alone worry about such niceties. Besides, he had never been good with things like that anyway: he was much more comfortable in the ethereal worlds created by words than the physical one.
Dealing with his wild mane as it was, he hadn't been able decide what in the hell to do with it for the lecture. He'd tried slicking it down but that had been a disaster. Besides, as soon as he'd done that, he'd remembered the last time that Akihiko had seen his hair that way and had informed him the look did not become him.
Now after his recent bout of nerves his brunet tresses looked even more disheveled.
Hiroki pushed his unruly bangs up off his forehead and sighed. He felt, to his horror, new tears of frustration burn his eyes. No matter his hopes for a pleasant evening, he had a sudden terrible intuition.
This whole thing is going to be a fucking fiasco... Just like most of the things in my life.
As if in answer to his thoughts, a quiet knock sounded at his front door.
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