Chapter 5

The drinks arrived and to Misaki's surprise, so did a plate of her favorite appetizer. Takumi saw her eyeing the plate. "I thought you might like a little bite," he said.

"These are my favorite," Misaki responded.

"Yes, I know," Takumi answered. He'd said it softly but she'd picked up on it. It seemed that perhaps he had been a rather good friend at one time. She might have to ask her mother or sister to tell her more about that relationship when she had the time.

Takumi decided it was time to feel the waters and see if Misaki might consider returning to Japan with him on his jet. "You know," he started, "I rarely fly commercial these days." Damn. That sounded pretty arrogant. "I work such long hours that it becomes difficult to find flights that work with my schedule. Also it's not quite as easy to get enough rest and be prepared to walk into a 15 hour meeting when you fly commercial." Had he recovered or did he still sound like a privileged asshole? Maybe he came off as a workaholic? Why was this so hard?

"I thought you said a few months ago you'd flown this same airline and had an issue with your seating?" Misaki was suspicious. Was he trying to impress her with his wealth?

"Well yes," he had to be quick on his feet, "I was actually getting to that. A few months ago, the flight attendant, who is simply not my type, on our company jet started coming on to me when ever I flew on the plane. I found the only way I could get some peace and quite was if I could convince one of my female colleagues to fly with me. Obviously, I would never consider dating a coworker, but the flight attendant does not know that. When I'd show up with a female, I discovered I wasn't getting harassed." He silently apologized to Ralph. He would be sure to get him a very nice gift to give to his wife to make up for telling such terrible lies about him. He looked at Misa trying to read her expression. He wanted to see if she was buying this. "Well, this trip, I found someone willing to help me out but, at the last minute she was given a lot of work to finish and couldn't make it."

"Why don't you fired this flight attendant?" Misaki asked.

This situation might be a lie, but Takumi had a very honest answer to this question. "I have been told by HR that I am not permitted to fire every employee that flirts with me. Apparently, the company doesn't have enough resources to recruit for that number of vacancies simultaneously." He wasn't trying to be conceited. He honestly wished that he didn't garnish so much attention. He was truly an introvert at heart and wanted to be able to work and live his life without constantly being noticed.

"You must have the same problem as Tora," Misaki said. "It doesn't happen to him so much anymore, but back in high school he couldn't walk on the beach with out women throwing themselves at him."

Takumi grit his teeth. He was pretty sure that was him she was thinking about. "Poor guy. I had no idea he had the same issue. I didn't really notice that happening to him when I spent time with him. Not to say he wasn't the playboy," he said with a smile. Misaki looked a little bothered by that comment. Takumi was walking a fine line. He wanted to slowly put a wedge between Misaki and Tora but if he upset her, or if she didn't find his company pleasant, he wouldn't be able to advance his own case. He'd redirect the conversation back to the objective at hand, "You know, you would be doing me a huge favor if you would allow me to fly you into Tokyo on the company jet. It flys a bit faster than the one we're scheduled to take so you'd get home sooner. An earlier arrival time would be a huge benefit to me. Then I wouldn't need to rush off to my meeting." Just for good measure he'd reiterate why he needed her to accompany him, "And if you arrived with me, I could enjoy the flight without any fears of getting sexually harassed."

If she agreed, he'd be thrilled. If she declined, he could still appear to have a plausible excuse for opting to stay on the commercial flight even though his invitation made it evident he had a better option available. If this didn't work, he'd try the "I need your professional guidance, fly on my jet so I can discuss our top secrete product (which I need privacy to discuss) to get your marketing insights – I'll pay you of course " angle.

Misaki wasn't sure how appropriate it would be to pretend to be Mr. Walker's girlfriend. She was sure Tora wouldn't like it. Besides, did she really know this guy well enough to trap herself with him in a confined space for 12 hours without witnesses?

"Thank you the very generous offer, but I think I'll need to decline. My sister is coming to the airport to get me and I'm sure private jets do not fly into Haneda." Misaki had finished her drink and the appetizer. "Thank you very much for the cocktail and food. I need to go check on my seat now. I hope you enjoy your flight."

With that she left back to Gate 4B. Takumi sent a text to Claire: "Any luck getting the flight delayed? -T"

A minute later he received a response. "Working on it. Know one of the air traffic controllers. His shift starts in 10 min. He's going to see what he can do. Keep u posted. -C"

Takumi paid for the drinks and food and walked back over to Misa. The attendant at the service counter was handing her a new boarding pass.

"Did they recover your seat?" He asked.

"Yes. It was just like you said. It was a computer error." She smiled. Next time, she would give the staff some space to do their jobs rather than hanging around pestering them. She walked away from the service counter and found a seat in the waiting area near a plug. She sat down and was surprised to see that Mr. Walker had followed her and was leaning against the pole that was adjacent to her seat.

"Great!" He said with a smile. "So what seat are you in."

"Ummmm…." She looked at her boarding pass to verify it was the same seat she'd booked for herself. She was. "It looks like row 1 seat A." Hopefully he would be moving along now so she could get back to work before they had to board.

Takumi pulled out his ticket and looked at it. "Well you look at that! I'm your seat buddy. I've been assigned row 1 seat B." She was looking like she wanted to be left alone and didn't seem entirely pleased with his announcement. This gave him an idea. Maybe he'd try a technique that seemed to work on her in the past. She was always very diligent with her work. He knew her flight plans as well as he knew his own. She would have brought some work. Maybe 2 hours worth. She'd want to be entirely focused on that and then she would want to go to sleep. Sometimes when he really wanted her to do something, he'd be sure to be just a little too distracting so she'd give him what he wanted just to get rid of him. What if he made sure she understood her current alternatives were: sit next to him on this flight where he would spend the full 12 hours interrupting her with various questions and requests, or take him up on his offer to fly privately, where she'd only be stuck with him for 10 hours and he would be less likely to bother her during that window. Would that be enough to convince her?

"It looks like I'll be near the window. I hope you don't mind but the change in air pressure does a number on my bladder. I'll probably need to run to the restrooms about once an hour."

Misaki wondered if he was always so free about sharing such details about his life, but if he was going to be needing to squeeze by her seat that often, she would have figured it out anyway. She wasn't very happy to hear of his condition. It could prove to be a bit inconvenient for her and since she'd made such a fuss at the counter about keeping her seat it would seem odd or rude to offer to switch seats with him.

"Actually, I'm really excited we're sitting together," he continued. "The company jet has two separate bedrooms, so I normally head back to my room and sleep most of the trip, but I find it very hard to sleep on commercial airlines, even in first class. Now I'll have someone to talk to while we travel." He was banking that her moral code still ranked politeness as more important than self interest.

She managed a weak smile. The prospect of chatting to a Takumi Walker for 12 straight hours with her only breaks coming hourly where she needed to let him scotch by her to run to the restrooms was not very appealing.

"Since flying on these big planes makes me so nervous, it's nice to have an old friend by my side. It's kind of strange that I'm a nervous flyer on these big planes but I really don't seem to be bothered by the smaller planes. Most people have the opposite problem." He could see her mind calculating the pros and cons of his earlier offer. He was starting to make that offer look pretty good. "It's probably because hitting turbulence on a commercial plane upsets my stomach so much more than when I fly privately. It's a good thing that the barf bags are always so readily available." 'God,' he thought, 'Misaki has always been such a hard nut to crack. If she was anyone else, a simple offer with a smile would have done the trick.' But he knew that this was one of the things that made her different. This was one of the many reasons he loved her. She made him work to earn her love, her attention, her obedience. She didn't care about any of the superficial things that seemed to define him in the eyes of the world. She could only be won once he showed her the real him. And not just any version of the real him. He would need to work hard to go back to living and behaving as the best version of himself.

But not right now. Right now, the goal was to get her on that jet and that required that he be the most annoying version of himself. He needed her to understand that she really didn't want to sit next to him in seat 1A and that her best solution was to accept his earlier offer. He was going to begin talking about how his flight anxiety could trigger his sweat glands, throw in something about confined spaces, maybe mention the showers on the jet, but he was spared making up more lies by an announcement over the PA. "Attention passengers on flight 1244, flying from a Heathrow to Haneda. The flight has been delayed for one and a half hours due to an issue with the runway. We will update you as additional information becomes available."

Takumi said a secret prayer thanking Claire. He did not like having to make himself out to be a sickly, jabber mouth, with a small bladder and it would be tricky to back track. Claire had saved him from making his list of bogus faults grow even longer. And she'd pushed Misaki over the edge.

"So, that offer about the company jet," she said thinking that there would be a horny stewardess on his plane that would probably prevent him from hurting her if he also turned out to be a psychopath, "is that offer still open?"

Takumi could not suppress his smile. "Yes, of course. I'll just send off a few texts to make sure your bags are collected and delivered to you in Japan and I'll let them know to prepare our flight. Let's head outside. A car should be able to get here within 10 minutes."