The Victim's Stories
Yosuke
Usagi never did find out about the shredded coat. I suppose he had been curious at one point when I'd donned an old blue sweater for an evening out one night, and I'd only mumbled "I think I lost my black coat at school. Sorry." He accepted that and bought me a new one, this one white cashmere with gold buttons. A little feminine, but oh, so warm!
Whether or not he had been aware of the names I'd been called at the party, or why I'd actually left, I didn't know and preferred it that way. I'd have much rather kept that embarrassment to myself.
That brings us back to my lovely little jail cell, thankfully lonely and boring. There are no bars, like I expected. It's just a little room with a bench, stark white tiles, cream-colored walls and a steel door with a tiny window and a little slot I suspect isn't exactly for mail.
My fingers rub at the sore spot on my wrists where handcuffs had bound me earlier. It was an uncomfortable feeling, being restrained that way. Usagi had tried it before in the bedroom, and I think that's the only time I could handle it, when I knew I was in his capable hands.
My face feels hot at the perverted thought and I try to let it slip by with the night as I recall the next arc in my awful story.
[THE STORY OF THE AWKWARD CAB RIDE]
About three weeks after I'd received the disemboweled coat in the mail, I had found that my thoughts weren't quite so heavily interrupted by the memories of that terrible night at Usagi's award party. I was back to my normal routine and ready to move on with my life. So what if all of Usagi's jerk friends thought I was some kind of male prostitute? No skin off my nose, they could think what they want. It shouldn't have affected me in the least. Sticks and stones, as they say.
I was on my way to class, one earbud in and a lovely cello piece playing softly somewhere within my attention span, as I was suddenly overcome by a faint shiver of alert. It was the same feeling I got when I sat on the couch, minding my own business, suddenly to find my mentor's eyes raking over my body shamelessly. I hated that feeling, it was disturbing and prying.
Biting my lip, I had quickly turned to look behind me, but save for one old couple at a bus stop and a notably sleepy high school student stumbling a few feet behind me with a thermos in his hand, there was no one. I tried to brush it off, but the feeling persisted all the way to my campus and to class. I had expected the feeling to dissolve after a while, especially once I gazed around the room and didn't see a single person watching me, at least with the same intensity as Usagi did, but it wouldn't shake and I carried it all the way to my next class, to lunch, to the men's room, to another class, to a study session with Sumi, and right back out the front doors of the school.
By that point I was sweating bullets, irrationality grasping tight as my frenzied brain gradually began to assume that Usagi would soon jump out from behind a bush and hump my brains out right there on the sidewalk. But it couldn't have been that. Even if, somehow, Usagi had been the one following me all day, there was no way in any form of reality that he would have the patience and self-control to wait so many hours just to stalk me and then have his way with me. He could be twisted and play his little games, but they never reached quite that far.
So I was back to square one, and so uncomfortable in my own skin at that point that I had finally conceded to an option I never wanted to do: Call Usagi. I was certain the moment I told him I thought I was being followed or in any kind of danger, he would rush in on horseback with a sword drawn, ready to fight off the baddies.
The hilarious imagery almost cheered me right up as I pulled out my cell phone, but quickly, almost too quickly, as if alerted by the chance that I was about to get away, a black car with deeply tinted windows and a shimmering hood ornament for a foreign car company I'd never been able to pronounce squealed to a halt beside me. I was so startled I dropped my phone, forgetting it almost immediately as a man rushed from the front passenger side, tall, suited, and trimmed up nicely, to the rear driver side door, opening it quickly and letting out an equally tall and very familiar woman.
My heart sank as the blonde deity from the award party approached me on the sidewalk, her glorious yellow hair spilling out over her shoulders and chest, which in turn spilled out from over her low-cut, tight white blouse. Expensive sunglasses obscured her eyes, which was something I was thankful for. Last I heard, chicks like this could turn people into stone just by looking at them.
"So," she began, drawing her glasses off her face to press the tip of one stem against her full, shiny bottom lip. "Mr. Usami's little helper is a college student."
A few different questions fought to be asked in my head like a classroom full of curious ten-year-olds, and slowly one bubbled to the surface, slurring on my lips.
"Were you following me?" Stupid question, of course she had been. Hadn't I been feeling it all day?
A cynical laugh elicited from her smug mouth, one hand sitting firmly on her hip. "Oh, so you did notice. I thought Tetsuo had managed to have been a little more subtle than that." Quickly, she shot a disapproving, almost murderous glare out of the corner of her eye towards the suited man who had opened her door for her. Sunglasses hid his eyes, but I could easily tell by the sheepish twitch of his shoulders and a slight bow of the head that he was ashamed of himself. Poor Tetsuo. She must've paid him well for him to take such abuse.
My eyes found the gleaming blonde hair again as she folded her glasses and hooked them to the front of her shirt, further pulling the fabric to show half an inch more cleavage.
"I suppose we weren't properly introduced at the party. My name is Ikuko Sakurabi, of Sakurabi Digital Industries. The job description is long and complicated, so I'll shorten it down for you: Basically, Mr. Usami wouldn't be able to print his books without me."
Again the questions shuffled around in my head, but my next response was automatic.
"Misaki Takahashi."
"I know who you are," she almost spat, but quickly corrected herself as if she'd previously promised herself not to get brash. An innocent smile came across her face. "I know we got off on the wrong foot at the party, so I was hoping to sit down and have a talk with you. Get to know each other. Share common interests, like..."
"...Usagi?" It came out before I could stop it, and I regretted it instantly once I saw the sly smile light up her face.
"Yes. Mr. Usami, for instance. Why don't you join me for a chat? I'll drive you back to Mr. Usami's place and we can talk on the way there."
Air-raid sirens blared in my head, and an imaginary version of myself danced into my sight, waving red flags and screaming through a bullhorn. Averting my eyes, I took a step back.
"N-No, I'd rather not, if it's all the same. I've got errands to run. I gotta make dinner for Usagi tonight."
"Come on, one little car ride can't hurt. Just to talk." She moved straight to me then, putting a perfectly-manicured hand on my shoulder lightly. "How about if we got a cab instead? I can understand if riding in a stranger's car seems a little scary." She whipped her head around and waved her arm once angrily towards Tetsuo, who quickly clambered into the car, which sped off down the block and out of sight. I strangely enough felt a little better.
I'm not sure at what point I agreed, but within moments a cab had pulled around the corner and I was in it, seated very uncomfortably and nearly breathlessly next to Ms. Sakurabi. She was angled in the corner of the seat against it and the door, no seat belt, one leg resting across the other as she stared intently at me. I couldn't even begin to imagine what she was thinking. I, for the most part, sat on the edge of my seat as close to the door as I could, gripping the pleather cushioning and trying not to look nervous but failing miserably.
After a few moments, I heard her lips part as she would to speak. I glimpsed over at her from the corner of my eye.
"There's no need to be nervous, Mr. Takahashi... Can I call you Misaki?"
No way in hell.
"Sure."
"Wonderful. Now, Misaki, if I could just discuss a few little things with you, just menial things, nothing to worry about..."
Too late for that.
She leaned in closer, one fingernail scraping along the shoulder of my new coat almost in appreciation. "Sakurabi Digital Industries, to be honest, hasn't been doing so well recently, and we're holding on to every client we can. Mr. Usami has been a hard worker and a generous donor."
"I thought Marukawa Publishing printed Usagi's books."
"They do." She leaned back, a look in her that suggested she was slightly impressed that I had known that. "But Marukawa's resources come from us, from the paper they print on to the websites they advertise on. Like I said, Mr. Usami wouldn't be able to print his books without us."
Understanding settled in, and I nodded dumbly. She continued.
"Now every so often, my company likes to invest a bit of money into promising authors, much like how one invests money in a stock. In the end, we hope that it pays off, and when it does, all the money we throw towards the author is returned with interest. We make a little money, our reputation goes up, and the company stays afloat for a minimum of another year."
"I see." Where was she going with this?
"Mr. Usami is a brilliant author, and we saw promise in him right from the start. So we invested our money in him. Last year, his profits at Marukawa were phenomenal, and we were rewarded as well. The thing is," she drifted off, her eyes narrowing accusingly at me. "Over the past year, Mr. Usami's workflow has declined quite a bit. We haven't seen nearly as much productivity from him as we used to. And I have to wonder... Is it because of any distractions?"
I finally saw the light in the conversation, and I didn't like it one bit. I knew exactly where she was getting at, and I tried to prepare a rebuttal to challenge her with.
"Misaki, Mr. Usami is a dear client to us, and we appreciate all the work he does, but if there's something stifling his creativity, we have to snuff that out now."
I didn't like the word "snuff" falling from her lips.
"And I think that something is you, Misaki."
"I..." I started, my challenge dying in my throat. "I don't understand..."
"What I'm saying is that the solution to this problem is simple enough." She leaned back in again, blonde hair spilling forward to perfectly frame her cleavage, which I almost dared assumed was intentional. "I want you to move out of Mr. Usami's place and get out of his life."
The demand came as a shock, though I had expected to hear it the moment she'd said the word "distractions". My mouth gaped a few times like a dying fish, unsure if it should breathe or speak.
"I... I can't do that..."
A glint of disappointment was in her eyes as she leaned back again, staring down her nose at me in pure disdain.
"And why is that?"
Because Usagi was my tutor. Because he would be helpless without me cooking and cleaning for him, or making sure he got out of bed in a timely manner, or to remind him to turn the bathtub faucet off before the whole room flooded. Because he took care of me when I was sick, even though he sucked at it, and he could always tell when I was feeling lonely, even though his usual remedy for that consisted of hardcore sexual molestation.
Because... I liked the way he made love to me, despite how much I told him I hated it, and how he kissed me even though I was burning with embarrassment, and when he told me he loved me fifteen times in a row.
"Because... he can't can't feed himself."
Her sharp laughter brought me back down to the reality inside that suddenly so awkward cab ride, my fingers rubbing nervously against the seat cushions in hopes that I could somehow dissolve through the car and away from that awful woman. But her persisting glare told me that I was nowhere near accomplishing that.
"Misaki, let me be frank: You are a complication in his workflow, a tumor in his home that needs to be removed. Perhaps if you understood how much money was riding on this one man, you'd be able to comprehend the situation a little better, but you can't, and it's creating great difficulties for everyone. I don't know how much money Mr. Usami pays you to sleep with him, but whatever that number is, I can double it if you just leave."
Oh, no. We were back to this. I bit my lip to keep from yelling. "I'm not a prostitute. He doesn't give me money." I braced myself for the next admittance. "I sleep with him of my own free will."
"That doesn't seem to be the popular rumor, now does it?" Ms. Sakurabi sneered at me, her fingers once again brushing the sleeve of my cashmere coat as flashbacks of the horrible party resurfaced in my head. "By the way, this coat is just gorgeous."
I gritted my teeth, eyes falling to my feet.
"But... what happened to your old one?"
And my gaze shot right back up to meet her icy eyes, a pretentious smile pulling one side of her mouth up as the insinuation struck me deep. That whole mess was turning into one intricately designed web that I was stuck helplessly in.
"Misaki, let me be completely clear with you. You are obstructing my client, and in my line of work, obstructions are dealt with swiftly and quietly. Leave Mr. Usami. Give him a chance to find his pace of work again so everyone can continue with their jobs, and stop... confusing him."
My previous anger shifted to the back of my brain for a moment as I eyed her speculatively. "Confusing him?"
"I told you at the party, I didn't like that I was passed up for a kink escort. I've had my eye on Mr. Usami for a while, but then some fag strolls in and snatches him up? I'm afraid that's not something I'm prepared to deal with. I'm a powerful woman, and I always get what I want." She flipped a lock of golden hair over her shoulder, eyebrows raised in a challenging manner as the whole course of the conversation, from the moment we'd entered the car, settled uncomfortably inside me, the gravity of it all too strenuous as I sank back against the car door, eyes unfocused and hardly aware of my own breathing.
"I can't leave him."
"I'm afraid you will, Misaki," she chided confidently, and before I knew it, I was falling backwards, my head smacking into the hard pavement of the road, my legs flying up over me as I toppled gracelessly out of the car. When I could next see, Tetsuo made his way into my vision, his hand on the handle of the door I had been half-lying against. From inside the car, I heard a witch cackle.
"Please consider everything carefully, Misaki. I like to play dirty, so don't give me the opportunity to, for your own sake."
And then they were all gone, me still lying on the pavement of the drive-around in front of Usagi's building, my head achy and my heart confused. Fag? Distraction? Obstruction? Play dirty?
I'm not sure how long I had lain there, considering everything, wondering what I could have possibly done to deserve such bad luck and whether or not Usagi should've been told about any of this, but I immediately knew all the consequences that would arise if he did find out. He would pull his name as far away from Sakurabi Digital Industries as he could get, which would subsequently mean he'd have to withdraw from Marukawa Publishing. He would basically be jobless, and though I was certain he would get snatched up by any other publishing company in a heartbeat, I couldn't put that kind of stress on him. He had been doing so well, with that award and the party. Who was I to take that away just because one jealous woman was making what could've possibly been empty threats?
No, Usagi didn't need to know. Ignorance is bliss. I was going to go the store, make Usagi his dinner, feign a headache from class, and turn in early. And Usagi would be the none the wiser as to who had been a part of a very awkward cab ride with me.
To be continued.
AN: Pleeeeease, no criticism or questions about all the media mumbo-jumbo with Marukawa and Sakurabi Digital Industries. I don't know how that crap actually works, I was just working off of an educated guess. I doubt I'll be using the same plot again in the future, so let's just let it go; the story is already finished. I'm just taking my time posting the chapters. Thanks in advance.
