The Camera Loves You

By Asynca, who is in a haiku mood.

Many guest reviews

Ask me excellent questions

I want to answer!

If you don't log in,

And you don't leave your email,

I just can't explain.

The time on Sam's phone was 03:21AM – four and a half hours. Unbelievable.

I unlocked the phone and texted back, "Who sends messages to people in the middle of the night expecting them to be read?"

It was literally ten seconds before the reply came through. "Figured youd be up all night thinking about how excited u r to meet me again haha." I scoffed. It did remind me, however, that I actually hadn't read the message that had tipped Sam off earlier, so I scrolled up looking for it. There it was, short, succinct and terribly incriminating: "Boss wants to fly u out tmrw will add extra $$$ to ur contract to cover contract break with nishamira will txt u later with more details".

"'Nishamira'," I whispered to myself. Well, it made sense that if he was basically illiterate in one language he was unlikely to be able to speak a second.

I was busy writing a rather sharp reply to his flirting when another message came through. "just kidding had stomach wounds myself know what there like," then, "dont tell the father we will keep him quiet".

Thinking back to those prison tattoos on Larson's knuckles, I had a horrible graphic image of something happening to Mr. Nishimura which was fuelled by some of my memories from Yamatai.

Panicking, I selected Larson's number and tried to call it, not even caring that by speaking I'd probably wake the house up. I didn't get the opportunity, however, as the line was engaged.

"Damnit!"I hissed under my breath, and tried it again. It was still busy.

On the other side of the house, I heard a man say, "What?"

I sat bolt upright in my bedroll, looking towards the sound, torn between running across the house to defend him and tried to find some way to hide Sam.

"You're joking. Tell me you're joking." He sounded really angry, and he was speaking in English. "We would never agree to an amount that low. I don't know who signed the authorities. This is unacceptable. I'm coming in, get me a flight to New York before lunch."

I exhaled, listening to him striding across the floor and opening and closing cupboards. Presumably he was getting dressed to leave. I winced. What on earth had I been worried about? This was Tokyo, not Yamatai. I could not have picked a country where people were less likely to be dismembered as they slept.

Beside me, Sam stirred, rolling onto her back and rubbing her eyes. For a second she smiled warmly at me and then the smile quickly faded as she remembered.

It hurt.

"What's going on?" she whispered to me, looking over her pillow towards the sound of her father stomping around the house. "Is that about us?"

I pressed my lips together, trying to determine how best I should answer. "Indirectly," I said cryptically, and handed her the mobile.

She squinted at it.

"Straight after he sent that message, your father got the phone call he's shouting about."

Sam shot me an expression of real concern. "That's really creepy, like really." She put the phone down beside her. "It's like they're doing something illegal, with all this confidentiality stuff and trying to smuggle you out of Japan."

"Smuggle us out."

She didn't acknowledge my correction. "What's his boss like? Is she like him?"

I thought about Jacqueline Natla and her complete professionalism and predatory attractiveness. "No, she's just a corporate CEO."

Sam folded her arms behind her head, staring up at the ceiling while she considered what I'd said. "Corps can get pretty secretive about big projects, maybe they're just being like this because they know the media's after you." Mr. Nishimura walked out the front door and jogged down the front stairs, grumbling to himself. The starter engine turned in the car. "You know," she said eventually. "That's probably it. You're staying here and my family owns the biggest media corporation in Asia. They're probably just being careful."

I lay back in bed. "It's odd they suddenly want you to come, too."

"Maybe they found out you told me somehow?"

"Maybe," I said, but I wasn't convinced. The question I really wanted the answer to was much harder to ask. "Are you going to come with me?"

She took a long time to answer me. "I should say no." She turned her head towards me. "But who am I kidding?" I smiled at her, and she accidentally smiled back. I felt her hand touch mine. She pulled it away just as quickly, though, making a pained noise. "God, what the hell is wrong with me? I should really care a lot more about doing something like this." She shot me a sharp glare, but I'm pretty sure it was mostly for show. "You're a bad influence."

I had never in my life been accused of such a thing and it was a strange concept. People's parents had always been delighted to have me play with their children and my last boyfriend's family had practically tried to marry me off to him. I even used to get teased for sitting up the front of the classroom.

"I hope your creepy friend actually does what he says he's going to do and keeps my father busy." She slowly sat up, putting a hand to her forehead and groaning. "I guess I should actually appreciate the feeling of a hangover while I still actually have a head."

I could barely say it. "You don't have to come, Sam."

She groaned again, leaning heavily against the hand that she had cradling her head. "Ugh, what am I doing?" She glanced at me. "Whatever's made you crazy is contagious. I'm not letting you get on a plane alone with that guy." She put her face back in her hands. "And it's totally going to mean my entire family is going to kill me and will probably never let me in any of their studios ever again."

I should have been more concerned about that, really, but I was just so happy we were going together. Everything was so completely over my head that it would be so lovely to just have her there. I took a risk and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder. "Thank you."

She made a noise. "Oh, my God, I hate you so much right now. At least pack my bag so I can take a mouthful of painkillers and go back to sleep. "

I actually did haul myself out of bed and begin doing that for us, but Sam was too concerned about what clothes I would choose and eventually it got the better of her and her hangover.

"No way can I wear that in Croatia," she told me, completely going through everything I'd put in her suitcase piece-by-piece. "It'll be a million degrees at this time of year. Don't pack anything with sleeves."

"But the text message said you should pack warmly."

"Whatever, I want to work on my tan." It was so pleasant to hear her speaking to me like normal again without any of the anger or accusation that I let her get away with it. I did, however, manage to convince her to pack the coat that she used to wear to uni. Compared to all the tiny singlets and shorts she'd otherwise packed it took up half the suitcase.

The only clothes I had were the ones Sam had bought me, and I dropped them into the suitcase in the space of about ten seconds.

"I should have brought you a swimsuit," Sam said from behind me as she dug through her own to find one that might fit me. Probably most of them would have, but there was absolutely zero chance I was wearing anything she offered me. I'd seen more fabric and less string on a teabag. While she was draping a bikini top across the front of her pajamas to try to decide whether or not to take it, I had an uncomfortable memory from the club. I'd touched what was underneath that top.

In the midst of packing up the rest of my belongings, I found the knickers that I'd been wearing the night before and was at a loss as to what to do with them. I didn't want either Yoko or Sam to find them in the state they were in, so I stuffed them into a pocket of my suitcase. I could wash them myself in whatever hotel we ended up in.

It was dawn when we'd finished.

Despite the fact we'd probably kept her awake for most of the night, Yoko had only just risen and there was a pleasant smell coming from the kitchen. My mouth watered; it was a relief to have my appetite back.

I wandered into the kitchen to have a look at what food she'd made for us. It looked like rice and some sort of white-fleshed fish. My stomach rumbled.

"Is it alright if I make some tea quickly?" I asked her.

"Are you in a rush to go somewhere?" she said, I think feigning innocence.

I wasn't sure how to answer that, apart from looking horribly guilty. Sam came up behind me to search through the medicine cabinet. "Nowhere important," she said casually, threw a couple of tablets down her throat and then gave me the remainder of the antibiotics to pack.

I sat cross-legged at the table in the next room, eating the rice and trying not to make eye contact with Yoko as she presented me with the tea I wanted. Sam sat down beside me for a space of about two minutes, purely to drink her morning coffee.

"She knows," I said quietly to Sam. "I'm sure of it."

Sam shrugged. "She always does. Don't worry, she won't say anything."

By ten to eight, we were sitting on the front steps with our suitcases at our feet. The sound of people idly chatting outside the front gate made me uncomfortable – for some reason a small selection of journalists had gathered on the street this morning. They were speaking English.

"We can still be responsible and unpack," I said half-heartedly, but even I didn't think there was any commitment in it.

Sam was trying to do her eyeliner in the forward-facing camera on her iPhone. "You totally have no right to use your sensible voice on me." She imitated my accent. "I'm still pissed with you. Anyway, it's kind of reminds me of when we decided to cut the last two weeks of class and do Europe and I nearly failed Applied Lighting."

Except this time, we weren't in uni and there wouldn't be an opportunity to repeat the class if we did fail it.

I scratched at one of the scabs on my arms, wondering what had possessed me to sign that bloody contract. God knows what was out there in Atlantis. I'd been on plenty of ordinary digs, but what if this one was like Yamatai? Did I really want to do this to myself?

I couldn't believe what I had got us into, and I couldn't really believe Sam had willingly agreed to be part of it. She was missing out on her shot to become a name in international media by interviewing me. She was missing out on all of the things she had always been so passionate about. The most distressing part was how easily she was choosing to let down her father. It didn't bear thinking about why she was doing any of it.

There was some commotion outside the gates and a horn honked several times.

Well, there was no going back on this one.