I feel like I'm procrastinating because, as much as I hate to say this, the story will eventually come to an end—come on, it has to happen sometime, although personally I hope to hit forty chapters before then. As to how and when, I can honestly tell you…I have no idea. I have an idea, a few actually, but I'm still figuring out where to put them. Maybe I should start investing in outlines more. So whatever may happen—finish or start—I hope you all, my dear readers, stick with this story to its ends.
"Sorry for the wait. Did my men treat you well?"
"If you excuse the squished car ride and being shoved into a chair, and having your hands handcuffed behind your back for four hours…then yeah, they've treated me well," I replied, crossing my legs and then uncrossing them when my wrists strained against the metal of the handcuffs. "You know, if you were busy, you could've sent for me later on in the night, I could've gotten paid then."
"Duty is as duty calls. Business springs up at the most inconvenient of times when you're in this line of work," Shiki explained, sitting back in his chair, his two muscle guys standing behind him like dutiful guard dogs.
"I guess so. So…what is this about? No offense to you or anyone else, but I don't want to waste my time on something stupid," I said, leaning my head against the back of the chair in slight comfort.
"I'll get right to the point then so we don't waste my time. It's not that I disrespect you, Amai, it's just that you beat up a few of my guys, and you need to pay penance."
"How was I supposed to know I wasn't supposed to walk in on an illegal deal?"
"You're not supposed to, that's the problem. What were you doing in an abandoned warehouse anyway?" Shiki asked me, taking out a cigarette and putting it to his lips, one of his guys leaning forward with a lighter, the flame touching the end of the cigarette, glowing bright in the muted light, a small smoke trail rising from the end as he inhaled the acidic smoke and blew it out in a single column. Tapping the end of the stick on the edge of a porcelain ash tray, he looked across the low table at me, patiently waiting for an answer.
"I'm under the impression that the Yakuza are the type to shoot first and ask questions later. I'd have figured that my legs would've been broken and I'd be one-third of the way back to my house by now," I said, dodging the question until my curiosity was quenched.
"I'd rather have a good excuse then willingly break a pretty girl's legs."
"Ever the charmer."
"You know it."
"Do I get a lawyer present or am I to solve this case by myself?"
"We go back far enough to not need lawyers."
"Probably for the best anyway. My lawyer's are either sleeping or pleasing their ladies anyway," I said, kicking my feet up onto the coffee table and crossing my stiletto heels at the ankle, smirking lazily at his glowering face.
"So why were you at the warehouse anyway?" he said, tapping more cigarette smoke into the ash tray and ignoring my feet.
"No particular reason. I was just ambling around all depressed like. Look, I'm not going to explain this in extraneous detail. Come on, we're close, right? Just let me off the hook," I partially begged, referring to things that were long past and done with. Maybe I was appealing to his better nature, whatever nature that was, I couldn't remember anymore, but I already knew he wouldn't let me off the hook.
"I've let you off the hook enough. You beat up four guys, it's an unavoidable situation."
"To be fair they started it."
"With you, it's always everyone else who starts it."
"They had a gun! What was I supposed to do, let them shoot me?" I asked him, dropping my feet to the floor and leaning forward as far as the handcuffs would let me.
"Did you even try talking to them and convincing them otherwise?" Either he didn't know me at all, or he was getting tired of this whole charade, which was pretty much obvious since he was resting his chin on the hand that held his cigarette, looking at me like he was tired of me or my attitude.
"Yeah, I said, "Please don't shoot! My life's sad and pathetic enough!"" he looked at me confused for a second before I explained that I'd been having a depressing few weeks. Stupid Shizuo and his petty, child-like behavior, it was cute sometimes, but when it didn't work in my favor, it was downright annoying. Although, maybe that's my point of view from being dissed for two weeks.
"Look, can you remove the handcuffs at least? I'm not fast enough to run out of here without getting caught. You should know, you're the one that caught me the first time less than twenty seconds after I got up from the chair," I said, trying to bargain for a little freedom, and to maybe stretch my legs after four hours of sitting in a chair.
"From what I heard a couple months ago, you were fast enough to catch Shizuo Heiwajima," he commented, smirking a little at me, taking another drag off of his cigarette.
"Tch, yeah well, he was just getting started, and to be fair I cheated by taking side streets to tackle him to the ground." I don't know what it was about Shiki, maybe it was the fact that he was part of the Yakuza, or maybe it was because he was one of the few people in the city who actually liked me as a person, but he seemed to always bring out the boastful side of me that hadn't seen the light of day since high school.
He gave a small gesture with his hand and one of his guys moved behind me started fiddling with the cuffs, eventually they loosened and my brought my hands forward to rub at my sore wrists. 'I swear, if one more person puts a pair of handcuffs on me, I'll hog tie them with them and leave them in a dumpster,' I thought irritably, grimacing at the red lines that seemed to be forever etched on my wrists.
"Listen, the worst we're going to do to you is probably break your—what are you doing?" he asked me when I stood up from the chair and started jogging around it as a way to stretch out my legs without causing a misunderstanding.
"What's it look like? I'm jogging. What, you expect me to sit in that chair another hour while you talk down to me?" I asked him, jogging in place to address him directly.
"It looks like you're warming up to run out of here. Just sit down and act at least a little serious. You're making these guys anxious," he said, annoyance spread over his face.
"Come on, Shiki. You're going to tell me that you'll have one of these tools break my fingers. I'm going to beg for forgiveness on my knees, but we all know I don't mean it. Then you'll do the hand trick and have your guys escort me from the building. And then I'll show up here again in seven months and we'll be right back where we started. So let's just cut the crap and get straight to it, shall we?" I said, hoping to at least catch the second shift at the club.
He gave me something that looked like the cross between a grimace and a smirk before speaking in a low tone of voice to his guys before looking back at me and snapping his fingers, causing his men to move to either side of me and pin me between them, grabbing my arms and spreading them out from my sides.
"Hey, hey! What're you doing?!" I shouted, flailing my legs in a sad attempt to get my arms free.
"Think of this as an insurance that you don't beat up any more of my guys," Shiki said, standing up from his chair, snuffing out his cigarette and coming to stand in front of me.
"Hey, come on, I need those for work!" I pleaded, jerking my arms when her took hold of my fingers and started bending them backward. It was when they were almost at the breaking point and when I thought there was nothing more painful than having your fingers broken, that one of his guys came running in, shouting the one thing I would have been upset about had it been other circumstances.
"Boss! Shizuo Heiwajima's here! He's inside the building!" he said, thankfully making Shiki pause in his torture method, my pointer and middle finger still held in his grasp at a frightful ninety degree angle.
"Bring him to me, I'd like to know why he's here," Shiki said, releasing my fingers and walking back to his seat, snapping his fingers and making his guards release me. "Let's leave the last few minutes between us. There's no need to get Heiwajima involved."
I rubbed my fingers, working out the soreness at the base and glaring down at him from where I stood. "Does this mean I'm off the hook?" I grumbled, not even trying to disguise the anger in my voice.
"For now, but the next time you pull that kind of shit, it'll be more than just your fingers I'll break," he said, threatening me, putting another cigarette between his lips and lightening it up. "Got that miss 'Bipolar Fireball'?"
"Crystal," I muttered, grimacing at the nickname some unknown bastards gave me some number of months ago.
"Boss, he's here," I heard behind me, preceded by a few knocks on the door.
"Amai, what the hell are you doing here?" I heard Shizuo's gruff voice behind me, but I dared not turn from the slightly amused man in front of me.
"Making shitty mistakes and unclear deals," I answered, dropping my hands to my sides when I felt his larger hand touch my shoulder, slightly pulling me backward towards the door we had entered through.
"Come on, you're supposed to be at work," Shizuo said, dropping his hand from my shoulder to grip my hand, pulling me along behind him while I continued to glare challengingly at Shiki while he, in turn, spoke conversationally to me.
"It was good to see you again after all this time Amai, too bad it was under this kind of circumstances."
"Yeah, I'm sure," I muttered, turning my back on him finally to follow Shizuo out of the building, all the while keeping half my focus on navigating in my heels and the other half on keeping my blushing face in check. Blushing. I can't believe myself. Blushing because a boy was holding my hand and walking beside me down the street, and…stupid hormones.
"Hey, thanks for coming when you did. Dude was about to break my fingers," I commented, flexing the fingers of my left hand unconsciously before jumping in surprise when Shizuo spoke.
"Are you a dumbass? What the hell were you doing there?!" Shizuo said loudly, glaring back at me as he pulled me down the street towards what I could only assume was my workplace.
"I can't tell you, but the real question should be: how'd you know I was there?" I asked him, looking at him quizzically since the only person I knew that would know I was there was a low down dirty bastard.
"Celty," he said simply, looking ahead at the crosswalk while we crossed the street.
"How'd Celty know?"
"I don't know, she just texted me that you were in some kind of trouble. Guess you weren't since you two seemed chummy."
"The guy was going to break my finger. And what do you mean?" I said stupidly, looking up at him as he continued to look straight ahead.
"How do you guys know each other?" he asked me, glancing down at me quickly before looking straight ahead again.
"Why do you ask? Do you guys know each other?" I asked him out of curiosity.
"No, but you seemed pretty friendly," he said, his voice dropping an octave, either out of annoyance or irritation I couldn't tell, but I was almost sure he sounded…
"I guess. I met him the second month I was here, but we don't see each other that often anymore," I answered, watching his features carefully for any hint besides his tone and words that he was jealous.
"Oh. So then…did you two ever…" he said, almost unsure of how he wanted to phrase his question, or if he wanted to know the answer at all.
"No, we mostly fooled around, but we never did anything serious," I answered, the words flying out of my mouth before I could seriously think of what to say. It must have been second nature for me to say things like that. It was obvious by the tightening of his hand around mine that what I said upset him. Maybe I could turn this around before he starts hurling things…at me.
"Shizuo, I'm kidding…he mostly stayed at second-base." Maybe I just liked seeing him jealous; it was pretty much a first for me since almost none of my previous boyfriends ever felt the need to be. Then again, I didn't want to screw this up for my own personal amusement.
"Kidding again! Geez, calm down. We're just simple acquaintances, met him two years ago when I beat up one of his guys. Threatened to cement my shoes," I said, unwinding my fingers from his tight grasp and pulling his sleeve, gesturing for him to lean down to my level and pecking him on the lips.
"Come on, have you had dinner yet? 'Cause I could make us something. My way of apology for screwing with you today, as well as a celebration that I still have use of my fingers," I said, wiggling my fingers in his face and smirking at his bewildered expression.
"What about work?" he asked me, grasping my hand with his again and pulling them back down to our sides. Despite asking me, he turned us around anyway and we started heading back to his house.
"Tamamura-senpai saw me getting taken by the Yakuza, so I'm sure I'm off for the night. Did you eat yet? 'Cause I haven't eaten since three," I said, continuing the odd conversation of food.
"What do you wanna make?" he asked me, looking down at me instead of looking ahead at the street like before.
"Stir-fry rice? You add, I'll stir?" I was never one for dates; actually I didn't have much experience in them since there wasn't much to do way back when, the only consolation being that Shizuo would hopefully not know if I screwed it up or not. But…somehow I felt like this was something that counted as one, and it felt like it would be a really nice one between the two of us.
DRRR!
"That's absurd! Never? Not even a small crush on your senpai?" I asked him, taking a break from stuffing my face full of half-burned rice to take what he said seriously.
"Not really. All the girls in school were annoying. And a lot of my time was spent fighting random douche bags," he said, eating another spoonful forkful of stir-fry, looking over at me with a dull expression.
"What about out of school? No one spiked your interest?" I asked him, finding it hard to believe that a healthy, young specimen of the male species had no middle school crushes, or high school heart-breaks.
"Well…there was one when I was kid. But I got over it," he said, eating another forkful of colorful fried rice.
"Come on! Tell me~ so far the only romantic interest I know about is me. And I already know all about me," I said, begging slightly while pointing my fork at myself before taking another bite.
"…You know that I woman from the bakery…?" he trailed off, glancing around the room at anywhere but me.
"…You had a crush on a woman three times your age?"
"You're the one that asked in the first place!" he said, suddenly getting defense.
"Oh, no, I'm not making fun of you. I'm just worried that I'll lose you to a forty-year-old cougar with a five-year-old face." Okay, I was half making fun of him, but if he asked me, I'd probably tell him about my crush on my violin instructor just to even out the playing field. I wouldn't tell him on my own though, that'd be too embarrassing.
"Hmph, don't count on it," he said, setting his bowl and fork down on the table, contents empty, as he stood up, picking up the dishes and walking around me to place them in the sink.
"Why not? I've given you grief about being jealous. You should be happy that I'm on the other end," I said, copying his movements to stand beside him, placing my dishes in the hot water before picking up a dry towel.
"Because I don't want to screw this up. And because I doubt I'd find another girl like you," he said, removing his hands from the dish water to place them on either side of my face, kissing me at least four times as long as my mere peck.
"Shizuo, that's the most fruiticiously sweet line I've ever heard. And lucky for you I like sweet things, or else I'd give you hell for making me wet," I said, using the towel to dry off my face after Shizuo returned to washing dishes.
"What about you?" he asked me, handing me a frying pan from the depths of the sink.
"What about me?" I asked confused, taking the pan from his hand and drying the edges.
"You haven't told me about any of your relationships," he said, pausing in his work to look me in the eye.
"Shizuo, believe me when I tell you that the only things you need to know is that my longest relationship was five months, and only three ever got serious," I said, setting the dry pan on the counter and waiting for him to get back to washing.
"That's all you're going to say? That's not fair," he said growling a bit in frustration that I was being so secretive after I had forced him to tell me something he obviously didn't want to tell me.
"I'd rather end this night on a happy note than a sour one. Not to mention that want to break my record. So the less you know, the better," I answered him, taking dishes and silverware from his hand and setting them beside me on the counter after drying them. "I'll see you later," I said, folding the towel in a neat wad and heading towards the front door, only to be stopped by his deep voice.
"You can spend the night if you want." I stopped and turned back to him.
"I really can't. As much fun as it was freaking out your neighbor, I don't want to come off as someone cheap. And besides, I don't have clothes for tomorrow here" I told him, turning back to the door, only to be stopped halfway when he spoke again.
"I can walk you back if you want."
"Shizuo, I'm a big girl now. I think I can handle walking down a few streets and alleyways," I said, feeling a little annoyed that he wouldn't let me leave. When it seemed that he would say nothing more, I turned again and went to the door. Only when my hand touched the handle did he speak again and set off my nerves.
"Amai."
"Oh for the love of God, what Shizuo?!" I shouted, whirling around to face him, my face morphing from anger to shock when I felt his fingers weave into my now shoulder-length hair and his mouth press over mine in a hot, smoky, stir-fry flavored kiss, pulling back after a few seconds to say:
"See you later," before reaching around me and pulling the door open, holding it while I worked my way out of my surprise and repeated back dumbly before leaving his apartment, the door closing quietly behind me as I walked down the outside hall and down the steps to the side walk, floating in and out of a cloud as I walked home.
DRRR!
When I got home, my shock had transformed into a pleasant warmth in my belly and mind. Until I opened the door that is, when I found a single man lying on the black couch, a small dust-speckled kitten—the only one in the litter that remotely resembled her mother—curled in his hands on top of his stomach.
"Hey. What happened to date night?" I asked him, stepping out of the pepper-red heels and laying my fedora on top of the fridge—the only thing in the apartment I felt safe enough to touch.
"What happened to work?" he retorted, painted nails absentmindedly stroking the kitten—dubbed dusty by the man petting her.
"The Yakuza picked me up, and then Shizuo saved my fingers from being broken," I said, short and sweet in favor of hearing the reason why he looked a lot like the me from last week.
"Did you thank him properly?" he asked no amount of emotion in his voice other than the slight curiosity.
"If you mean half burned dinner and a good night kiss, then yeah, I thanked him properly," I said, walking over to the couch, lifting his stocking-covered feet up and plopping myself down in the seat, setting his feet in my lap.
"That's nice," he remarked, his eyes never leaving the Dusty.
"Okay, what the hell is wrong with you? Eight hours ago I was made aware of a certain "date night" and was super pissed about a double shift, and then I come home to find that Naoki-san is not, in fact, getting it in. So what the hell happened, and should I, or should I not go over to his apartment and kick his ass again?" I asked him, feeling annoyed at the lack of emotions I had felt irritated by since day twelve.
"Naoki had to cancel 'cause of work. He came over for a little bit to drop off Sea Shell, but left soon after," he answered, making my head fall back against the couch in exasperation at his over-rated reaction.
"…This is the first time I've heard that Naoki-san has a job. What is it?" I asked him, picking up the little sand colored kitten and setting him on top of Taka-chan's feet, leaving him to crawl up and down his stockings playfully.
"He's the head of the sales department at clothing head quarters down town. I like him in a suit, but I hate when he has to travel." I guess another exception to his skirts and dresses rule was when he was pouty and depressed. The sad thing was he wasn't wearing pants.
"Well…while his job is a surprise, it sounds pretty important. So…you know, hang in there," I said, trying to comfort him.
"Like you're one to talk. You see your boyfriend so often, it's like you're stalking each other," he said, dismissing my attempt to help.
"Whatever. Where's Moo-Moo and Shizu-chan? Or are they upset that I have a boyfriend too?" I asked him, pushing his feet off of my lap, Sea Shell now lying on the arm rest next to me, looking at us with curious eyes. I didn't bother refuting the boyfriend comment wince it would be pointless to try, and if I were asked, I would most likely confirm that Shizuo and I are dating.
"Shizu-chan is in the sink playing with a dish rag and Moo-Moo is…I think the last time I checked she was in your old apartment eating mice. Which reminds me, when are you moving out?" he asked me, his head peeking up above the edge of the couch in mild interest and boredom.
"Why so eager? Want your couch back?" I asked him, picking Shizu-chan up out of the sink while he hissed at me in annoyance.
"I'd have bet money that as soon as you and Heiwajima-kun "gotten together", you two would have started living together by now."
"'Gotten together?' what's that supposed to mean?" I asked him, scratching the little blond kitten behind his ears while he in turn purred in content.
"Beast with two backs, bumping uglies, burying a bone, sexual intercourse. Pick one, they all mean the same thing," he said nonchalantly, stifling laughter as he watched my face morph from mild confusion, to a virgin blush, to mild anger.
"We haven't yet, you old perv. We're waiting."
"Who exactly is 'we'?"
"Okay, I'm waiting. Can't really blame me though after my last sexual encounter," I muttered, partially hoping he didn't hear me. He did, but whatever.
"What happened last time? Is this the one who dumped you last year?" he asked, suddenly perking up at the oh-so-interesting topic that was, apparently, my sex life.
"Yeah. The tool said I was sexually frigid and had the nerve to tell me that sex is ninety percent of a relationship," I growled, "God! That shit really pisses me off!" I yelled kicking a nearby chair leg and sending it flying across the room, the cat in my hands meowing like nothing happened.
"I wouldn't say it's as high as ninety—which just says the douche was as horny as a triceratops—but I think it's important to be sexually compatible, don't you?" Taka-chan said, stating his input.
"So nothing less than fireworks?" I asked half-heartedly, glancing over at him in slight interest.
"Maybe you should try it with Heiwajima-kun? You never know till you find out if you're, literally, made for each other."
I smiled wryly at him before answering his contemplation. "I don't like to jump into sex early in a relationship, and I feel that it may be a while before we actually go that far. But…"
"But?"
"Shizuo's unpredictable, sexually innocent, easy to get along with if you know how not to piss him off, and he makes me happy."
"So what are you saying?"
"I'm saying it won't happen till it happens and if it happens soon—not saying or denying if it does—I don't want it to change our relationship. Now get off my bed-couch, I've got work in the morning," I said, shooing him off the couch and placing Shizu-chan on top of the cushion, stripping myself of my work clothes and pulling on my sweat pants and tank top, letting myself fall to the couch in preparation for a tomorrow that might as well be just as unpredictable as today was.