It is late and I'm getting ready to get sloshed. I dress up and dab on a bit of aftershave, grab a coil of wire just in case, my money and my fags. In black jeans and sleeveless black top, I look good enough; the tattoo on my shoulder shows nicely, SIN, invitation or threat, whatever people wanna read into it. I went out last night, but my date was gone 'cos I lingered too long in his room. So tonight I'll go to the highest bidder if I like him.
If not, I'll take anyone.
Ayaworked the afternoon shift with me as though nothing had happened, but I will be damned if he didn't shoot glances at me when I was busy flirting with the girls. He is not done, I can tell, but I won't have him laugh at me when really all he wants is bedding me. Taste a bit of the forbidden fruit, while being too up his pretty ass to admit it.
He hasn't grasped what I want. Because if I sleep with him, I will want him, all of him, and keep it.
And I am not for sale. Not for him.
Even if he was knocking at my door now and stepping into my room without waiting for me to say 'clear off, I'm not in', with him staying put there by the damn door with his arms folded over his chest and his face white and blank and those friggin' contacts hiding his eyes. He is in jeans and tee for once; I like him better in his yukata with nothing underneath.
"Yohji."
"I'm off for the night, Ayan, come back later."
"Yohji, listen."
"Later, Ayan, later, I got things to do, dates to go, booze to down…"
"Man, Kudoh, will you the hell listen now!"
Oh. He does not swear often, or blush or blaze at me like that, as though it really mattered, and why did he bother in the first place to turn up here, ah, still after my ass then, aren't we persistent, but now I won't, I'm not that cheap…
"I shouldn't have laughed."
Hell has frozen over, my almost-full flagon of aftershave shatters in the small sink in the corner with the mirror and towel rack, and my world is askew. Fujimiya Aya just apologised for laughing. He should be laughing a lot more in fact, just not about me.
"Still wanna do it, hm? Well, I'm not, Aya! I'll go out and fuck whoever, just not you 'cos we gotta work together, and-"
"How much booze have you downed already?" he snipes and steps closer, unfolding his arms.
And I like you. Way too much for my own good, and you were right when you pointed out how dangerous this kind of attraction can be for folk like us. So better stick with old standbys, go out, get pissed, get laid. "Since when does that matter to you? Look, I've been going out before you turned up here, and I don't see why I shouldn't keep going out now, besides, you can take care of yourself 'cos you know enough 'bout the whole shit."
A brief silence, and something is trying to wriggle its way into my conscious mind, but I'm fogged up from a few of those colourful little capsules I bought from my latest buddy at one of those bars where you can pick up that sorta stuff. Therefore, I can think but not connect.
"Hai, enough," he says, sounding oddly off. "I didn't think a night of Go would be attractive enough to keep you in."
What? He has a plan, I can tell, but… Go? "I'm not good at it."
"Because you have no patience," he admonishes, eyes resting on me with that blank stare of purple lenses. "I could teach you."
"I'd just lose anyway."
"Oh? And here I thought you'd like a challenge."
He is goading me like a small boy, and damn, I'm about to plunge for the bait even if I can see it for what it is. Spending a night with him – playing Go? Well, whatever, as long-
"I wouldn't try anything," he says as though reading my thoughts, and his tone is a bit… almost… somehow rueful. "But if you dislike the idea, perhaps you could forget I asked. And I am sorry if my request earlier insulted you." He draws a deep breath. "Well, then… have a good night."
We're playing our own little game here, and hell, did I ever think I was in control? He is running the show, no doubt, stepping through his katas with me, and before I know it, I'll be down and out if I'm not careful here, watch out Kudoh.
"Just…"
"Yes?" My tongue, running away again.
"Why," a long, awkward pause as he summons the right words and the panache to say them out loud – he's better at silence or yelling – and then, "why everyone else?"
"'Cos they don't friggin' matter!" I had too much of that stuff. Those little pills. Cheap sake, from under the pile of unwashed clothes in a corner by my bed. Smokes. Pot. I had it all tonight even before making a move.
He retreats to the wall, gropes for the door, his eyes blank and purple and wide, if I only could look behind those damn lenses, behind that cold mask of his. But he won't let me, never mind that he collected me from the park where I had collapsed, drunk and out of it, and dragged me back to the Koneko, or that he caught me when I was pissed and dancing at the ledge of the roof in memory of Asuka. Or that he tried to tell me something by placing a white orchid onto my bookshelf. Aya works with flowers and his sword, thorough at both, he's bad at words, and he does not do sappy. That flower was easier for him than words. He won't open up, and I know that if I do, I'm gonna get hurt. Bad. So he can't have me. And I can't have him. Simple.
"I'm gonna go out, Ayan, and you won't spoil it for me, and I'm gonna have fun." Yeah.
And he turns the doorknob and edges out, his face almost ashen now as he says, so quietly that I can hardly hear him, "Hai. You're good at that."
The door clicks shut.
He really ruined it for me.
xxx
Next chapter: Resolution