The Enemy Returns
"Oh, hi, Akira," Kaede said nonchalant, surprised to see Ayumi's older brother march into the hotel lobby like he was on a mission.
Kaede hadn't said his name out loud in year--not since that day he forbid Akira to speak to him--and it felt weird on his tongue, like saying a word in Japanese for the first time. No doubt, they were strangers to each other more now than ever. Akira was definitely grown up and Kaede was just an immature high-schooler cowering in his tall, domineering shadow. But he was mature enough to act like an adult and put their past behind. Or at least pretend to.
"Where can I find the receipts from last night?" Akira didn't even make eye contact or say hello.
Jerk.
I handed him a folder. "In there." I waited for his thank you but it never came, so I attempted to fill in the awkward void. "I thought you were interning this summer... In Tokyo?"
Translation: Why the hell are you here ruining my happy situation?
Akira thumbed through the file, brows furrowed.
"I finished. Going to work here for next few weeks before fall semester." He looked around the lobby with disapproval. "And get this place in shape." Did he think I was some slob or something?
"Oh? What's so out of shape?" Kaede asked, a defensive edge to his voice.
Akira finally looked Kaede in the eye and offered a smug, dismissive smile. "It's nothing that concerns you, Kaede."
And with that, he walked away into the adjoining office.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Two more hours--two more long-ass hours with him sitting there, judging me. And it was a Wednesday, one of the slowest days at the hotel unless a convention was in town, so there was no chance of distracting myself with happy, chatty guests.
Kaede sat down and picked up his notebook where he planned to outline his writing assignment.
But instead of writing, he glanced through the glass partition where Akira sat manically crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. He hadn't recently given Akira a good look-over as he was usually scurrying away whenever Akira entered a room. Now, he had ample time and a discreet angle from which to study Akira, and for some reason, he couldn't pass up the opportunity.
Akira was tall, a few inches over Kaede. And his shoulders were broad and full. His skin was tan and clear, at least from what I could see outside of his neatly pressed charcoal slacks and crisp, white dress shirt. Kaede always found it odd that Akira complexion was lighter than anyone else in his family, though Akira still maintained an exotic aura about him. If you had to guess his ethnicity, you might say Italian or Persian--or even Latin.
Akira always kept his hair up. His face was freshly shaven, but he couldn't hide the ongoing threat of a thick 5 o'clock shadow if he got lazy; which he rarely did. Kaede had caught a whiff of his expensive cologne when he walked by him earlier; it was a clean scent and made Kaede think of the ocean.
Akira face was classically handsome--a clear resemblance to Mrs. Sendoh with a strong, straight nose, wide, full lips and dark blue eyes that would suit either a man or woman. They were large and blue dark, with heavy lids and full lashes.
Yes, Kaede would admit, Akira was the epitome of tall and handsome, and something about him commanded Kaede gaze. But Kaede knew he was poison, like a beautifully crafted chocolate filled with arsenic.
And what Akira would do later only proved Kaede theory correct.
That night Kaede cooked dinner for the whole family. He sincerely loved asian food and learning how to master it from Mrs. Sendoh--who learned from her mother, who learned from her mother before her--was an education he could not get from any cooking show or mass-produced cookbook. These were ancient techniques and secrets handed down through the years. Even though Ayumi balked at learning how to pulse fresh ginger and garlic into the finest paste or how to pinch together a samosa so it would withstand the high temperatures of the frying pan, he wasn't going to pass up this opportunity. Her mother wasn't going to be around forever.
"Rukawa-Kun, this is almost better than mom's." Ayumi winked at me.
Akira walked into the dining room, having just arrived home from his marathon of number crunching at the hotel. He sat down without a word as Ayumi passed him a platter.
"Niisan, tell us how you like the dinner. Rukawa-Kun made it." He ignored her then turned his attention to Mr. Sendoh while piling rice onto his plate. I pretended to ignore him back, but his slight bothered me more than I would admit.
What would it take to win this guy's good graces? And why do I care?
"Dad, I'd like to talk to our accountant about last year's numbers. I found some discrepancies today that are a little concerning. There were some injections of capital last year that I can't account for. It's like they cam out of nowhere."
Mr. Sendoh seemed slightly unnerved. He took a long drink of water and then cleared his voice.
"Miura is in Austria on holiday with his family. Surely you can wait until he comes back." As if to change the subject, Mr. Sendoh smiled at me. "This is very delicious, Rukawa-Kun." He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. "The best I've tasted."
But Akira wasn't deterred. "I'll call him tomorrow. He can take five minutes out from sightseeing or eating pastries given what we pay him."
Mr. Sendoh said nothing, but I could tell the he was trying hard--too hard--to act casual about the question. It was a strange moment I had never witnessed between them.
That night Kaede said very little. Days past, when they ate at their table, Akira would eat quickly and then leave, his quiet presence hardly noticeable. Now his overbearing energy seemed to fill the room, like he was running a corporate meeting and they were all his employees.
Akira talked to everyone but not to Kaede.
Akira asked his siblings about school, discussed the future of the hotel with his parents, and mentioned that he was invited to interview in New York for a job after graduation by an old family friend. Franklin something or another.
His father seemed oddly disturbed by this and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hide it. "New York? Why not stay and manage the hotels?" His father asked, a slight frantic undertone to his voice.
Akira gave him a cold stare. "You know I don't belong here" he replied. A steely moment passed between father and son, subtext hanging in the air. Mr. Sendoh went eerily silent.
Akira, trying to sound normal in the way his father had tried and failed at moments earlier, now turned his attention to his sister. "Living in a real city is amazing. The people in New York are intelligent, diverse and--" He quickly glanced my way with disapproving coolness. ..."sophisticate."
I cursed him silently and then made an attempt to smooth out my wild and unsophisticated golden curls which seemed to have a mind of their own.
He continued. "Did you know that the gross product for just the city alone last year was 1.5 billion?"
Kaede couldn't help himself. He had sat silent for too long. "I guess that explains why New York attracts an inordinate number of greedy people from all over the world" I offered with a syrupy smile. I took a quick sip of water and instantly regretted my words.
Akira looked at Kaede like he had just realized he was a human being and capable of speech. "I suppose you think there's something wrong with the pursuit of money?" Akira asked, meeting Kaede eyes.
Kaede shrugged his shoulders much the way Akira had done to him at his home long time ago. "No, just the love of it above all other things. Including people."
Akira didn't say anything, so I continued, fool that I was. "It doesn't make sense to me, why there are so many people without basic necessities--like clean drinking water--and the super wealthy can largely ignore their plight and even take advantage of their desperation underpaying them in sweat shops, and we should applaud it and praise it, like greed is the highest of all virtues."
He laughed at me as if I were a naive child who just said he still believed in Santa Claus. "Oh? take advantage by creating large, successful companies that, in turn, create thousands of jobs that will, in turn, lift those very same people you care about out of poverty?"
I looked at him sternly and decided to cut to the chase. "I'm just not impressed with people who want more money for the sake of more money and at the expense of everyone else."
He stare, dismissive gaze shot through me like sharpened, poisoned arrows. God, why did he have to look so handsome? Couldn't he have been born with some disfigurement that would make me less attracted to him? It put me at a distinct disadvantage when sparring with him.
"Well, in that case, you'll be happy to know that you're the last person I'm looking to impress, Kaede."
I could feel my face turn red. Why did I care so much how he felt about me?
Kaede abruptly stood up and started to clear the table. Mrs. Sendoh gave a stern look to Ayumi. She rolled her eyes and then stood up reluctantly.
"Let me help, Rukawa-Kun," she offered.
Oddly, Akira stopped her. "Actually, Ayumi, I wanted to talk to you for a moment."
She shrugged. "Sure, I guess."
They left the room while I continued cleaning up. I sighed.
A few minutes later, Kaede walked down the long hall of the kitchen to use the bathroom near the study where Akira and Ayumi had retreated to for their chat. Why couldn't I have used a bathroom elsewhere?
While Kaede washed his hands, he studied himself in the mirror. Everyone told him that his face was pretty, but he didn't like it. He knew he got his looks from his mother: her same heart-shaped face, high cheekbones, and porcelain skin that always burns in the relentless Japan's sun. From old pictures, he could tell that he had her same cerulean blue eyes.
That didn't stop girls from hitting on me, but there wasn't anyone at school who made me feel that certain something. I was sure I was supposed to feel with a girl.
As he dried his hands, he heard Akira's deep voice through the vent at the floor. He was in the next room, and he couldn't resist eavesdropping. What did he want to tell Ayumi? Part of him wondered if he had something to do with it. He knelt down to the vent and smashed his cheek up against it.
I was right.
Akira's voice was irate. "Why is he sleep here? Isn't he suppose to go his home now?"
"Hey! Isn't he your best friend's brother? What is wrong if he's sleep here? Beside, tonight, dad order him to sleep here. I don't want him to go Osaka. You don't understand that because you don't have any crush."
"You have nothing in common. He is your crush? Do not expect too much. He never served girls well, and his sister told me he never been interested with girls. He's just... white trash. Remember." Akira warned his sister.
White trash.
Of all the names I had been called throughout my life, this one stung the most. It was the identity I was so desperately trying to escape, but couldn't, and through no fault of my own.
Kaede leaned back against the bathroom wall, his heart heavy. He wished he hadn't heard it even if he knew he thought it. Hearing it out loud confirmed his deepest, darkest fear: that he was just like his parents, never going to amount to anything but a cheap, rusted out trailer, a high school diploma and a minimum wage job.
As hard as he fought them, the tears came.
He was alone in the world and the one place he sought refuge now felt hostile.
The pressure was too much.
He rushed out of the bathroom. Naturally, of all the things that could happen next, he ran into someone.
Into Akira.
He was walking quickly down the hallway from the study when Kaede blasted into his side. Kaede tripped over his foot and nearly fell, but he caught Kaede in the nick of time, in an awkward embrace.
For a moment, Kaede forgot that Akira was his enemy. Akira touch was electric--and it was the first time Kaede had felt it. But the moment passed and Kaede remembered who Akira really was and what he had just said about me.
I turned my face to prevent him from seeing, but I couldn't be sure if I was successful. "Sorry." I uttered, before rushing off. I caught a glimpse of his stunned expression, like I was the last person he thought he would see at that moment. I thought maybe there was guilt in his eyes, or regret, but then he would be a normal person with a heart.
And I had already decided that he didn't have one.
The last few weeks of summer were hellish. Kaede worked every day at the hotel with Akira who barely could look at him in the eye let alone speak to him.
Thankfully, there was a glimmer of happiness that helped me get through it. Japan Monthly gave me a small interview with a renowned Japan artist and they were going to publish it in the next issue. Every time Akira made me feel unworthy, I thought about that article and how I was going to show him one day: I was not white trash.
Serendipitously, he was there when Ayumi rushed over with the latest issue of Japan Monthly.
"It's here!" she screamed in the hotel lobby. The two elderly guests I was checking in nearly had simultaneous heart attacks.
"Sorry about that," I said to them. "Ayumi, just a moment, okay?" I handed the couple their card keys. "You're in room 302. You can take the elevator behind the lobby."
It felt like an eternity before they finally left and I could leap out from behind the desk. It's here. It's really here!
Ayumi had the plastic wrapped issue in her hands. "Should I open it?"
I grabbed at it. "No. Let me. I just want to savor this moment." I held the crisp, brand new magazine to my heart and took deep breath.
And then Akira strolled in.
Moment ruined.
"Ayumi," he barked, "why did you scream in front of guest? You weren't raised that way." He glanced at me like it was obvious that my influence was taking hold.
"Sorry, I'm so excited for Rukawa-Kun! He's in Japan Monthly!"
Akira looked confused. "What do you mean?"
"He wrote an article, dummy. Rukawa-Kun, did you find it?"
I was leafing through the pages, my hands shaking. "Found it." I whispered as my eyes lingered over my name in print. Ayumi threw her arms around me.
"I knew you would do it! I'm going to read it when I get back." She looked at her watch. "Oh hell, I'm already late for the dentist."
She hugged me before she left... After she left, me alone with Akira who was standing there, observing quietly.
"You wrote an article? I never know it. I think you just know play basketball," he asked incredulously as if I were a dyslexic baboon and had accomplished the impossible. Of all the people to share this moment with, and it had to be him.
"Just a small one. It's not a big deal. I mean, it kind of is. They usually don't publish anything from their high school interns."
He didn't say anything. He just looked at me...studying me like I studied him in the office that first day he returned. What did I want him to do? Gush over me? Tell me how impressed he was?
Why did I care?
I smoothed out my shirt again, feeling the weight of his stare.
And just like that, he turned and went back to his office.
Nothing. I got nothing.
What killed me was I wanted something from him in the first place, and I hated myself for it. No, I take that back.
I hated him for it.