The Nightlife Bar and Grill in Harajuku was a middling restaurant offering overpriced food in a loud and cramped environment. The menu, featuring standard Japanese hibachi, was written to cater to tourists who were looking for "the authentic Benihana experience". The restaurant portion of the establishment was so over-the-top Japanese that no actual Japanese person would want to eat there. It was too hot, too noisy, and too claustrophobic to even be able to flirt properly. However, the bloated, public-facing façade paid for the Nightlife to offer to its loyal local clientele a bar, tucked away at the back, that served decent, cheap drinks, and those who knew to ask for it could get top-notch takoyaki at a reasonable price. To a resident in the know, the Nightlife was a solid watering hole for those looking to connect with friends and maybe make a few new ones.
Of course, Makoto, having spent too little of her adult life actually living, knew none of this. Thankfully, in her work clothes and sporting her TMPD identification badge, the hostess at the door could tell she wasn't a dumb tourist. "Are you here to meet a hot date, honey?" she asked, in a tone far too motherly for someone so close to her own age.
Makoto glanced naïvely at the young woman , and replied awkwardly, "Uh, no. I mean, I am meeting someone—two people actually—but it's not a date."
"Business or pleasure, sweetheart?"
Makoto didn't have the first clue how to reply. "Um, both? I guess I was hoping to talk to someone at the bar while I wait for my friends. Were a bunch of businessmen here celebrating last night?"
The hostess smiled knowingly at the fresh-faced young detective, and wrapped a protective arm around her back and shoulders. "Come with me, dear. I'll show you the way." She then proceeded to guide Makoto through the throng of tables and performance artists expertly flinging chopped foodstuffs over a hot metal plank. Toward the back of the main area, the hostess pulled a curtain aside and showed Makoto into the bar.
Before Makoto had even gotten the lay of the land, she had already been spotted. "Yo, Makoto! Wassuuuup!?"
Makoto's eyes were immediately drawn to the loud blond on the other end of the room. Ryuji held a beer high in the air with one hand as he waved enthusiastically with the other. Next to him, Emiko gave her a quick, diminutive wave as she smiled broadly in greeting.
"Are those your people, honey?" asked the hostess, to which Makoto nodded in embarrassment. In return, the hostess smiled warmly and gave her an affectionate pat on the shoulder. "Have a great night, sweetie."
Makoto thanked the young woman and proceeded over to her friends, who were already into their first drinks of the night: Sapporo for Ryuji and a gin and tonic for Emiko. As she got closer, she held her arms out to Emiko for a hug, who wasted no time accepting the offer. "Welcome back, Emi," said Makoto, clutching her friend.
"Good to be back," she said, pulling away to sip from her glass.
"She missed me," said Ryuji, puffing up his chest before wrapping his arm around Emiko's shoulders.
Emiko nudged him playfully in the ribs, laughing it off like it was a joke, but Makoto could still make out the slight blushing of Emiko's cheeks. She had missed him. Makoto felt a twinge of jealousy—for her, getting to be with her boyfriend was the exception to the norm, and for Emiko, it was the opposite. She tried to help play it off like it was nothing. "She just has a thing for blondes," she said, taking a seat on a bar stool next to Emiko.
"Damn straight, I'll take it," he said, taking a pull of his beer.
Makoto laughed, relaxing into her stool and setting her purse on the counter. As she glanced around for the bartender, she mentally inventoried the rest of the establishment: The bar, as well as numerous tables and booths, were filled with patrons happily drinking, talking, eating, and flirting. The clientele were clearly not newcomers to this particular locale. "Have you guys been here before?" asked Makoto, feeling like a foreigner in spite of the company.
"Not me," said Emiko, shaking her head.
"I've been here before, yeah. Dude I work with had his twentieth birthday party here. Good takoyaki. Also, they make a bifty here that'll knock your socks off."
"A 'bifty'?" said Makoto, not comprehending. "What in god's name is that?"
"A bifty, you know. A B-fifty-two. You've never heard of that?"
"No, Ryuji, I haven't, sorry. I guess I don't get out enough."
"Well, there's no time like the present. Barkeep!" he shouted, with a swift smack on the counter to catch the attention of the bar's proprietor. "A bifty for this nice detective lady right here. On me," he said, turning back to Makoto.
Makoto held her hands up defensively. "Oh! No, please, no alcohol for me. I just want food. Besides, I'm still sort of working."
"Working?" blurted Ryuji, aghast. "Aw, hell no, it's Sunday night, for fuck's sake! You're having a bifty, and that's that. Am I right or what, babe?"
Emiko shrugged her shoulders, laughing heartily. "You're never wrong about how to have a good time," she said sweetly, kissing him gently on the cheek. This was why the two of them worked, and why her parents would simply never understand. No doctor could ever help her be this relaxed.
The bartender, a well-built man in his mid-to-late forties, approached the trio with a shot glass and a collection of liquor bottles. "B-fifty-two, you said?"
Makoto held out her hands as though she could will the liquor bottles out of existence. "Oh, no, please, I'd just like some food. And maybe some tea."
"Please pour the kahlúa, my good dude," encouraged Ryuji, fanning out a stack of yen. "I've been saving up for my honey's return, and there will be no wet blankets up in here for this celebration. Takoyaki and tea are fine, but nothing is going to stop that bifty from going up in flames. You get me?"
Makoto slumped dejectedly into her stool as she watched the bartender prepare the elaborate beverage. "Fine, I'll drink it. Can I ask you some questions first though, please?" she said, making eye contact with the bartender.
"Sure thing, Miss Detective. What can I do for ya?" he asked, meeting her eyes without the slightest hesitation to what his hands were doing. He poured Baileys over the back of a cold spoon using nothing but pure muscle memory.
"Were you working here last night?"
"I was," he said, putting down the Baileys in favor of a bottle of Grand Marnier.
"Do you remember seeing this guy?" she asked, pulling Kosuke Kobayashi's photo from her purse. "He was here with a group of businessmen from Aspire Media."
The bartender studied the photo as he finished off Makoto's drink. "Hmmm, maybe. Those Aspire guys come here every so often when they land some hotshot clients or whatnot. That one usually doesn't stay very long though, so I don't know him as well. You got a name?"
"Kosuke Kobayashi. Maybe goes by Koko?"
"Koko?" parroted the bartender, incredulous. "'Fraid I don't know anyone by that name, but the face is familiar. What's his story?"
"He's missing. His wife is desperate to find him."
The bartender's eyes got wide for a second, and he shook his head dismissively. "His wife? Uh oh, I've got bad news for her then. If he's who I think he is, he left here with a real looker. You say he's missing?"
"Well, it hasn't been twenty-four hours, but he didn't come home last night, and as of this afternoon, his wife still hasn't seen or heard from him. She's convinced something must have happened to him."
"Well, there's a certain something that might've happened to him," he said, with clear implication.
"You're on a missing person case, Mako-chan?" asked Emiko, perking up.
"Can you describe the woman he left with?" asked Makoto, reaching back into her purse for her notebook and a pen. She was too absorbed in her case to have even registered Emiko's question.
The bartender set the bottle of Grand Marnier down and flattened his palms on the counter, leaning into its surface. "Well," he said, trying to think where to begin, "like I said, she's a looker. Long black hair, nice figure, big full lips. She's been coming here somewhat regularly for a few weeks."
"Roughly how old would you say she is? Height?" said Makoto, furiously jotting notes.
He cocked his head, imagining her. "About your age—maybe a little older. Same height."
"How was she dressed?"
"She was wearing a green dress, tight-fitting. Good lookin'. The dress was sort of low-cut, showing off a bit of cleavage without being too slutty, you know what I mean? I've seen her type around before—kind of a tease. She's got eyes and a body that scream 'fuck me'—please excuse the language, miss—but she's impossible to actually land."
Makoto tried to keep her face even, but couldn't help twisting her lips just a bit at the description. "You've flirted with her before, I take it?"
The bartender waved his hand dismissively. "I'm too old—she's way out of my league. But everyone else on staff has tried—she doesn't give them the time of day." He laughed, like it was all a game.
"But you say she left here with this guy?" she asked, holding up Kosuke's photo one more time.
"I think so, yeah. They would've left arouuuund… eleven o'clock, probably? —If it's the same guy. You know, it's not like it was the guy I was paying attention to, after all," he added, grinning slyly.
"Obviously," Makoto muttered under her breath. She finished writing his description of her into her notebook. "You don't happen to know her name, do you?"
"No, sorry. I asked once, and she just said, 'Sorry honey, not interested.' And I wasn't even trying to flirt."
Makoto huffed quietly in amusement. "You never peeked at her credit card?"
"Always uses cash," he shrugged.
"And you've never carded her? This is a bar, after all."
"Never saw the need. She's clearly old enough to be in here, so honestly, that thought never occurred to me."
"Huh," said Makoto, disappointed. She clicked her pen closed, but didn't put it away right away. She bit her lip pensively.
"That it for your questions?" he asked, straightening back up off the bar.
She continued chewing on her lip for a moment longer before answering. "I take it you don't know where they went."
"Sorry, 'fraid not. She was practically carrying him out of here though, so he was clearly in good hands," he said, snickering.
Makoto sighed, slipping her notebook and pen back into her purse. "Okay, that's it then. Thank you."
"So, takoyaki and tea?" he asked. Makoto nodded in response. "And how did you want this B-fifty-two?" he asked, more of Ryuji than Makoto.
"On fire, baby," said Ryuji, taking another pull from his beer.
"On fire it is," said the bartender, pulling out a box of matches. "You ready, miss?"
Makoto crinkled her forehead in confusion. "Wait, what? Are you really setting that on fire? How am I supposed to drink it then?"
"With a straw, duh," said Ryuji, pulling out his phone to be ready to document the moment. "Now, you gotta do it quick, before all the alcohol burns up, 'kay? One big suck, got it? Just pretend it's Ren," He added, with a shit-eating grin on his face that earned him a healthy jab in the ribs from Emiko.
With a pronounced roll of her eyes, Makoto accepted the small plastic straw from the bartender. She stared at the glass, trying to conjure a reason not to inhale its contents. She was off the clock, and she'd asked all her questions. She still didn't know entirely what had happened to Kosuke Kobayashi, but the narrative was developing, and there wasn't anything she could do at the moment to make it any clearer. It's okay, you can relax a little, she told herself—or maybe that was just her inner Ryuji speaking. Either way, she decided not to overthink it too much and try something really daring: just living a little.
Fuck it.
Makoto took a deep breath, preparing for the inevitable. Pinching it delicately, she brought the straw to her lips and stooped closer to the counter. With a cool flick of his thumbnail, the bartender lit the match he had been holding, and touched it to the surface of the drink, igniting the top layer of alcohol. With Ryuji cheering gleefully behind her, Makoto dove in and sucked the glass dry.
Four matches and two gin and tonics later, the group of friends finally called it a night.
— — —At half past midnight, Makoto finally stumbled through the door of the home she shared with her sister. Sae had work in the morning, so Makoto did her best to enter quietly. Her best, however, was, at the moment, pretty poor. She hadn't made it five steps into the living room before knocking over the coat rack, sending it crashing into an end table next to the sofa.
"Shhhh!" she hissed, pointing accusatorily at the inanimate objects she'd sent tumbling down. "Sae seeping…" she slurred.
Makoto clumsily stripped off her work blazer and dropped it onto the toppled coat rack, not even trying to pick it back up. Almost as unceremoniously, she flung her purse onto the couch and teetered her way toward the main hall. Clutching the bedroom doorknob firmly in one hand, she twisted it open and entered the room, but stopped almost immediately, disoriented by the sight of her sister sitting up in bed.
"Just getting in?" asked Sae, her hand on the pull chain of her bedside lamp.
"Huh?" said Makoto, confused. "Whyou in my bed…?"
"This is my room, dummy," said Sae, throwing back her sheets. "Come on, let me help you to your room, you little lush." She threw her legs to the floor and slipped out of bed, padding her way over to her sister's side.
"Your room?" said Makoto, perplexed. She squinted, her eyes wandering laboriously around the tidy bedroom, looking for evidence that she was truly in the wrong place. "You sure…?"
"Do you see any of your stuff in here?" Sae asked rhetorically as she put her arm around Makoto's shoulders. "Your room is this way, come on."
Makoto let her sister pull her along towards the correct bedroom. Sae opened the door and guided her to the bed, setting her down on the foot of it. She knelt at her sister's feet and started removing her shoes. "You're out pretty late for someone who went to the office on her day off to work on a PowerPoint presentation."
"Emi back…" said Makoto woozily. "Celebrating…"
"She was only out of town for a couple weeks," observed Sae. "Odd for you to celebrate to the point of getting wasted like this…"
It was odd. Makoto didn't normally let herself lose control like that anymore—not since becoming a detective. That's right… she thought, I'm a detective… "Big case…" she said, by way of explanation, "'m real detectiving…"
"Big case?" said Sae, helping her sister up again now that her shoes were off. She unbuttoned her sister's dress skirt and let it fall to the floor. "What case?"
"Missing person…" said Makoto lazily. Now that she was safely in her room, she was beginning to let go of her tenuous grip on her consciousness.
"Wow, missing person, huh? Well, that's great for you," said Sae, with genuine pride. "I'm sure you'll find whoever it is. Good on the department for finally handing you something worthy of your talents."
"Mmmm…" hummed Makoto, practically falling over standing up.
Sae edged her closer to the head of the bed and pulled the sheets out from under the pillows. Setting Makoto back on the mattress, she prepared to put her little sister to bed. "Do you want help with your bra, or can you handle it?" she asked. Makoto answered by just sliding further into bed, bra and all.
From the floor, Makoto's phone chimed. "We should probably charge that," said Sae, moving to the foot of the bed and the discarded skirt Makoto had been wearing. She pulled the phone out of the pocket of the skirt and folded it before setting it on top of Makoto's dresser. She looked at the notifications on the dashboard of the phone.
"It's Ren," said Sae. "Do you want me to answer for you?"
Makoto was practically asleep. "MmmMmmm…. love Ren…" she drawled, snuggling into her pillow.
Sae chuckled and punched in Makoto's passcode to unlock the screen. Opening Makoto's texts, she read the last few they'd exchanged with one another:
Heading to a bar to meet Emi and Ryuji, and also run down a lead on that missing person case I snagged
Right on
You chase those leads
And also tell Emi I said hi
Not Ryuji though
You tell him I'm still mad at him
He knows why
Lol you got it
F that guy
Damn right
Let me know when you're headed home, k?
You bet
There was a big gap in the timestamps between that and the next message:
Heading gone now
Say what?
On grain
dunk. ..
Oh, heading *home* now…
I guess autocorrect can't figure you out
You're clearly wasted
ya
I guess I shouldn't be surprised…
Ryuji texted me a picture of you drinking something that was on fire…
Ren?
Yeah?
I lice toy
Um, wtf?
Lobe you
Nope, not gettin it…
Laksdjflk
:p[
I live hot
You sure do
There was a gap in the messages where it appeared Ren had waited to see what other drunk talk Makoto could conjure in her efforts to spit out a decipherable 'I love you', but it appeared she'd either given up or gotten distracted. Eventually, Ren messaged her again:
Okay, well, I guess you're too 'dunk' to keep this up, so we'll pause for now…
Try to text me once you're off the grain…
There was another modest time gap after that, but the next message was the one that had just arrived:
You must be home by now, right?
Sae smiled, and began texting a response:
Yes, she made it home
(this is Sae)
Hi Sae
She in one piece?
Seems so
Looks like she did some good celebrating
Which I'm glad about
She deserves to let off some steam
She does
She's been pouring her heart and soul into that department since they hired her
Bout time someone noticed her
She too drunk to answer her own phone?
Definitely
Though she wasn't too drunk to mutter out a protracted 'mmmmm love ren' before finally losing consciousness
Yeah, there were some pretty spectacular swype fails earlier in this chat
It was fun watching her continue to try though
I wonder how many different words there are that you can spell just with the letters adjacent to LOVE
We should keep a running word list
Ha, well, something to look forward to making
Anyway, I guess now's not a good time to talk to her…
I was hoping I'd get to grill her for details on her new case
Yeah, I don't know much about it yet either
I only just learned about it since she came home
I guess I'll have to try to touch base with her again tomorrow
Speaking of, I think I should go to bed
Class again in the morning…
Just two more months
Twelve weeks
Counting the days, then?
I should make myself an advent calendar
You'll get through it
I have faith in you
Thanks
Now put makoto's phone down
I wanna say stuff to her i don't want you to see
Lol ok good night
See ya sae
Sae tiptoed over to Makoto's nightstand and located her phone's charging cable. The phone buzzed as she plugged it in, lighting up the dashboard once more and revealing the last message from Ren. She paused momentarily to see what new messages might pop up. Not to pry, but she couldn't deny she was curious about what he wanted to say that he didn't want her to read, assuming he wasn't just being cute.
Nothing was showing up though, so Sae just straightened Makoto's blankets around her and saw herself to the door. She flipped the switch to darken the room and was just about to leave when the phone's screen lit back up, a beacon in the night. The temptation to peek was strong, but Sae was able to pull the door closed and preserve their privacy. She was by no means a perfect person, but of the seven deadly sins, she suffered the sin of envy most strongly. She navigated the dimly lit hallway back to the confines of her own room, and put herself back to sleep, hoping to dream of that just-right person out there who must exist for her too.