in a good mood
-x-
Someone is home, Masumi thought when she heard the water running from the shower. She buried her nose in the comforter, thinking that it smelled nice and different when her eyes shot open and she remembered where she was and why she was naked under the covers. The other half of the bed was empty, and she sprawled out, tossing a glance at the closed bathroom door. A part of her wanted to bust it open and jump into the shower with him, while another part of her was still exhausted and wanted to sleep some more.
The digital clock on the nightstand read 7:17am, and she closed her eyes again with a sigh. She'd woken up around 2:30am because of her jetlag and then spent the next hour or so lying awake in the dark, listening to Rei's steady breathing and watching him sleep until her restlessness also woke him up. He fell asleep faster than she did afterwards, but she wasn't sure if it helped or hindered to have his arms around her and their legs tangled together.
This isn't good, she thought, rolling to her side and opening her eyes. She wanted to be with him even more now, but she no longer knew what they were, if they were anything at all. Hearing him shut off the shower head, she let her gaze roam the room that she'd only seen in the dark before. There wasn't much in the room besides the double-sized bed and the nightstand, just a wardrobe and three storage containers stacked on top of each other in the corner. She remembered seeing a desk with a laptop on it in the living room, but she wondered where he kept his books. Was this where he lived when he was younger or had he moved at some point? There were no traces of a person's childhood here, unlike her room back in the house that belonged to her parents.
Getting on her stomach, she reached over to the drawer of the nightstand and pulled it open out of curiosity, but she paused in disappointment when she was greeted by the unremarkable sight of a nail clipper and four packs of tissue. She pushed the drawer shut and planted her face in the pillow, unable to label the scent except as "pleasant." The door opened, and she propped herself up on her elbows to look over her shoulder. Rei walked out, clad in a pair of boxers, and threw her a glance.
"Did I wake you up?" he asked, heading toward the wardrobe.
"I woke you up at 3 so we're even," Masumi said, kicking her legs a couple times under the covers, and watched Rei put on a shirt and a pair of slacks. She was smiling, she suddenly realized, feeling a sort of giddiness that came with the awareness that there was only the present and nothing else on this side of paradise.
"You can use the shower if you want. I'm going to put your clothes in the wash, so why don't you wear this for now?" Rei said, bringing a striped yukata to Masumi. "You seem to be in a good mood today," he remarked as he leaned forward and ruffled her hair.
"I'm in a good mood if I get to see your face," she said with simple honesty, still smiling.
There was a beat, and Masumi wondered what Rei was thinking behind the clouded and distant look. "Do you want to move in with me?" he asked out of the blue. "You don't plan on staying at the hotel forever, do you?"
Masumi's heart skipped a beat and her mind became a blank canvas. She stared at him, trying to identify if there was perhaps something terribly wrong with what she was seeing. Maybe this was a false awakening, where everything looked real and felt real but subtly lacked the lightness, correctness, and clarity that reality possessed. A feeling of reality that somehow eluded the dreaming mind.
"Why don't you think about it?" Rei said. "I'll make us something to eat."
Yes, this must be a dream...
-x-
The living room was filled with the smell of coffee when Masumi walked in, the bottom of her yukata sweeping the floor. She felt clean and refreshed after the shower, but she wasn't anywhere closer to an answer to Rei's question. What was she afraid of?
"I have some things I have to take care of this morning," Rei said without looking up from the folder on the dining table. "So I won't be able to give you a ride back to your hotel."
"That's okay," Masumi said as she poured herself a cup of coffee and slid into the chair next to Rei. Picking up the toast in front of her, she stole a glance at the papers in the folder just as Rei flipped it shut but not before she managed to catch the word "APTX." She froze. The four digits after "APTX" in that folder were different from 4870. 4869? 4896? She couldn't remember. But why would he be reading something like that?
"Did your phone number change?" Rei asked and took a sip of his coffee.
"Yeah, I had to get a new phone when I got back," Masumi replied and then gasped. "Where did my phone go?"
A soft laugh escaped Rei, and he held up her Sony Xperia. "It fell out of your shorts."
Masumi warmed and snatched her phone out of his hand. "You didn't look at it, did you?" she chided, even though her phone was new and had nothing on it.
"What secrets do you have on it that you don't want me to see?" Rei asked, amused.
Masumi's gaze fell on the folder for a split second, then she huffed and bit into the toast in her hand. "State secrets," she lied, chewing, and Rei snorted. She glanced at the folder again, knowing that she wouldn't be able to bring it up anymore, at least not now, but she didn't know if that was for better or for worse.
