Out of Control
My definition of a good start to a working day is to wake up right when the alarm clock goes off without feeling so much tired and without wishing that I could go back to sleep, driving through traffic from the condo to work without being paralyzed in the congestion and not needing to wait in along queue for coffee at ground floor of the office building.
And, not having to see a certain person as the first person of the day.
"Good morning," a low and slightly rasping voice that I did not want to hear greeted me as I was walking into the office building. Sendoh, in a light blue shirt and dark gray trousers, was taking long steps behind me into the building.
I grunted in frustration in my throat and tried to speed up my steps.
There were so many people out there. Why did I have to meet him as the first person of the day? My luck must have run out today.
"Why are you walking so fast? Are you avoiding me?"
As Sendoh has longer legs than me, he could eventually catch me up with me. His eyes gleamed with joyfulness while I went straight to the elevators where other employees were also waiting in lines. I glanced at the elevator floor displays above the doors which were displaying the changing floor numbers, without paying any attention to the person next to me.
"You're not answering me. How cold-hearted."
"Shut up. What are you blabbering about this early?" I mumbled and gazed at him annoyance.
"I just greeted a friend usual," Sendoh continued, ignoring what I had said. He lifted his elbow and put it on my shoulder and lowered his head while speaking in a lower voice, "we've already shared an experience until late night. How can you not expect me to greet a friend like you?"
His voice sounded so sneaky that it was not trustworthy. I turned towards him and asked coldly.
"What experience are you talking about?"
"The experience we had together when there was a blackout when we were working overtime last week," he raised an eyebrow while looking at me. "Why? What were you thinking about?"
"Nothing!"
"Is that so?"
As he saw me looking at him crossly, he grinned and lowered his head even more towards me. His eyes were full of joy, and he said softly.
"What are you thinking, Mr. Rukawa? Or do you want to have another kind of experience with me?"
"It is bad enough as it is. Don't make me have any more experience with you," I responded without any attempt to be considerate of his feelings and moved away from him to relieve my shoulder of that heavy elbow of his. "Oh, Kaede. You're so damn mean," he pretended to resent, but I did not care because, for me, Sendoh was only my best friend's friend, and my best friend's friend did not have to be a friend of mine. He and I only worked in the same company where we rarely collaborated, and I did not wish to have anything to do with him any more than I already did.
Speaking fairly and putting his flirty habits aside, I could see that Sendoh is a fairly okay person. He took serious responsibility for his work without failing any of his tasks, he was generous and always helped other people. Nevertheless, I did not want to be friends with the person who got on my nerves all day long.
He was obnoxious by choice.
"Hey, about that night..."
"Umm...," uttered a sweet little voice from behind.
I turned around to see a pretty lady in a professional looking blouse and a sweet-colored skirt. Her clear cheeks had pink blush-on applied on which I thought she may have applied the brush on her cheeks too heavily hence the deep color.
"Good morning, Sendoh-San. Good morning, Rukawa-San."
She bowed to greet Sendoh and me. I bowed as well to respond to her greeting and accidentally knitted my eyebrows as I remembered that she was a new employee but could not recall her name...
"Good morning, Sandara-Chan," replied the person next to me. Once I heard her name, I remembered that she was working in Accounting.
"Just arrived?" Sendoh asked in a friendly manner.
"No, I arrived a while ago. I just came down to get coffee," she replied while shyly glancing at the person next to me. It seemed like she was among the tens of girls in the company that fell for Sendoh's handsome face.
How looks could deceive so many people!
"The week before, I asked Fujima-San to give my brownies to you. Have you eaten them?" she asked expectantly.
I rolled my eyes as soon as I heard the answer from the person next to me.
"Of course. They were good."
"Thank you. If you like them, I'll make some more for you," her eyes glistened instantly.
"Oh, I don't want to bother you," Sendoh smiled sweetly.
I grunted lowly in my throat. Speaking of brownies, I seemed to remember him taking a few bites, complaining that it was too sweet, and giving the rest to Fujima. But then when Sandara offered to make some for him again, he did not decline the offer.
He said that he would never get involved with anyone in the same company, but his actions just said otherwise. If I did not call him 'a flirt', then what should I have called him?
"Hey, Kaede, the elevator's here. Where are you going?"
Sendoh called after me after I had walked away. I headed to the café without turning back to answer him.
I did not care to listen to him flirt. Annoyed!
Ten minutes later, I returned to the elevator with a cup of Cappuccino in my hand and instantly knitted my eyebrows as I saw the tall guy, who should have gone up to the office ten minutes earlier; still standing in the same spot. As I stopped there, Sendoh walked toward me and, without my consent, put his arm on my shoulders.
"Let go," I shook him off in dissatisfaction and stepped away from him to keep some distance. He chuckled and let me stand there until the elevator doors opened. As I was at the front of the line, I walked into the innermost part of the elevator cabin so that I did not block anyone. Sendoh followed me, stopped right in front of me, turned around and backed toward me so much that I was almost pinned to the elevator wall.
There were not so many people in the elevator that he had to squeeze himself with me like this. So, there was only one reason why he did this.
He intended to get on my nerves again!
I pounded his back, but the owner of that wide back did not budge an inch. In contrast, he backed even further toward me. Sendoh let me pound his back like that until the elevator reached the fifteenth floor, where our company's office is located. I walked out of the elevator, glancing crossly at him. I could see the teasing smirk on his face.
I did not pound him that lightly. Why was he still smiling?
Was he masochistic?
I scanned my employee ID card to clock in. I was walking behind Sendoh, who was greeting colleagues from other departments everywhere. Sendoh and Fujima were similar in the sense that they both were friendly, so they made friends easily and knew so many people. As for me, beside my IT Department colleagues, I barely talked to people from other departments. I was not good at making conversations. In addition to that, I guessed the indifferent look on my face even made me appear quite unfriendly to most people.
However, leading a quiet life like this is good in its own way. The more people you know, the more complicated things can be.
I walked to my desk and saw a glass of juice on it. It must have been from someone who was trying to hit on me. I moved that glass away from my reach before turning on the computer to get ready for work, just like what I did every day. The clock on the wall indicated that it was almost time to start the day's work. I gazed at Fujima's desk, which still had no signed of him, and had to be surprised.
Fujima usually got to the office around the same time as me. Especially lately, as he came in Maki's car every day, he even got here earlier, but he had not shown up today.
Was he sick?
As I was pondering whether it was a good idea to call him to check, the short frame of Fujima, looking weary, with slightly sloopy hair, walked into the department office, looking a bit frustrated.
"What's up, Kenji? So you're late just because your man didn't give you a ride for only one day?" Sendoh remarked.
"It's because the sky train was out of order!" Fujima sighed loudly while slamming his bag on his desk. I looked at the drops of sweat on his face and pushed the glass of juice to him so that he could quench his thirst. Fujima took a big gulp while flapping his collar to relieve the heat he was feeling.
"Fujima, where's Maki-San today? How come I don't see him?" Big Sis Ayako, our supervisor, the IT Support Department senior officer, uttered the question while gazing at the door.
"He has gone to the something place this morning, Ayako-Chan. He'll be here in the afternoon."
"Oh, okay. I thought he was sick. Otherwise, our appointments for today would have been ruined," Ayako stated affirmatively.
As I heard that remark, I took a peek at the desk calendar and realized that it was the last Friday of the month.
As a tradition, every year when there is an intern in the department, everyone in the department will chip in to throw a welcome party and a farewell party for the intern after the internship has been completed. We usually have a party on Friday so that we can fully enjoy ourselves without having to worry about waking up in time for work the following day. Our usual place is a nearby restaurant.
Everyone in my department always goes all out to have a blast whenever the party because their motto is 'Work Hard, Play Hard'. This is especially true when it comes to food and drinks- they order as much as they want. Also, this time, it had been months since the previous party, so it looked like a considerable sum of everyone's salary from this month would be spent on this party.
The first half of working day had passed. In the afternoon, the star of the party, Maki, in his uniform, walked into the department's office while greeting his superiors like us with a bowed and a gentle smile. In one of his hands, he was holding a plastic bag with two big boxes of doughnuts. I noticed that Fujima's eyes sparkled and followed the bag in Maki's hand ceaselessly. Fujima loves this doughnuts, and Maki just happened to buy some for his colleagues.
Was it a coincidence? Or did Maki know that Fujima liked them, and so he bought some?
"I remember that you like them, Kenji. You can have a lot of them."
A corner of my mouth moved up as I heard Maki say this to Fujima. So it turned out that Maki wanted to buy the doughnuts for Fujima, but he bought some for the rest of us, so as to look subtle.
The other employees walked from their desks and surrounded the doughnuts boxes, but I was caught up in an urgent task, so I did not have time to walk there to get some. Someone's hand placed a plate with a doughnuts on it along with a small fork on my desk. I looked up to see Maki lightly smiling at me.
"Have a doughnuts, Rukawa."
"Thanks," I gave a short reply, picked up a fork, cut a piece out of doughnuts and ate it in order to be considerate to Maki before resting my chin on my hand while watching him walk straight to Fujima, who was chewing a doughnuts.
Was this a deliberate technique of bribing his way to get to Fujima through a friend?
What a cunning man.
This was the last Friday of the month, which was the day we received our salary for the month. I did not have a lot of work to do today, so this should have been a good day except for the Line messages that kept coming in almost every five minutes.
'Why didn't you answer my message?'
'Kaede, when will you call me back?'
'Can't we just have a decent conversation?'
'I've realized my mistake. Can you give me a chance?'
'Kaede, answer me.'
I let out a long sigh, picked up my phone, got into the Line application and turned off the notifications of my ex's chat to cut out the annoyance. This ex was a famous politician's son. I met him when I attended an older acquaintance's wedding months ago. Eiji came to me, talked to me and asked for my Line ID.
He looked really polite back then, so I gave him my Line ID. After we had been talking to each other for about two months, he asked me to be his boyfriend. At first, he was still nice, but two months later, I found out that he cheated on me with a female model. So I broke up with him. After we broke up, at first he did not seem to be bothered all that much possibly because he had not thought of getting serious with me anyway. However, out of blue, two weeks ago, he sent me a message to ask me to get back together with him, and when I declined, he started to annoy me by constantly calling me and sending me instant messages all day.
I tried to blocking his phone number and Line account, but then he went on to harass me on other social networking sites and also bug my friends, telling them to tell me to unblock him. I did not want to get the others in trouble, so I had to unblock him and endure these annoyances. Fortunately, when we were dating, I did not bring him to my condo. Otherwise, he would surely have come to my condo.
I guessed he might have been dumped, so he tried to get back together wit me, but I had never gotten in his chat to read any of his messages. I just had to wait for him to find a new women, and then, he would probably stop bugging me.
I continued working until the end of the working hours and got my belongings into my bag. Then I drove to the restaurant where we were having Maki's welcome party along with three colleagues from my department who needed a ride. Once we got to the restaurant, I played with my phone and let the others order food. The number of unread messages in Eiji's muted chat was nearly one thousand. That made me frown, but then when I spotted unread messages from 'mom", I was stunned for a while.
I clicked to read the messages, and the messages made me pull a face uncontrollably.
'You got your salary today, right? Transfer some to me.'
'Sakura said she wanted to take a drawing class.'
'You can chip in 3,000 to help with the tuition fee.'
Me again?
My fist clenched the phone tightly as I was upset. Being a brother, I had never held any prejudice against my half-sister that was born to my stepfather. Sakura was a cheerful and well-mannered high school girl and a nice little sister of mine, but what I did not understand was why my mother always demanded that I help with her tuition fee or other expenses while my stepfather was quite well-to-do. On the other hand, I earned a living on a fixed salary and had to pay off a mortgage on my condo.
'About Sakura's extra class tuition fee, why don't you ask Uncle Taka? Why me again?'
'How much do you think Sakura's tuition fee costs each year? Do you think it's cheap? There's also a tuition fee for the cram school classes for the university entrance exam. Your dad already has a lot to pay for. Can't you just help your parents out?'
My mom's answer made me force a smirk at myself. In fact, this amount of money would not cause me any trouble - I was certainly able to give it to my sister - but what made me feel bad was the fact that I had never once received anything like this from my mom.
Sakura was lucky that mom pampered her and always gave her what she wanted - no matter what - but mom never even cared what I had wanted to do. I liked drawing pictures, I had wanted to study in an arts program, but my mon forced me to study in the science-mathematics program. When I was in the eleventh grade, I wanted to take extra classes to get ready for the university entrance exam and take extra drawing classes to prepare myself for the university entrance exam for architecture, but my mom had no supported me in the least bit. She said it was a waste of money, but now she supported my sister through extra classes that I had wanted to take.
For me, it was a waste of money, but, for my sister, it was a necessity in my mom's view?
I was only a parasite in mom's life.
I turned off the phone, grabbed a bottle of beer that had just been served in front of me, poured it into a glass and gulped all of it down at once.
"Cool it. You haven't eaten. Don't rush with the drinks," Fujima yanked my wrist that was going to pour more beer into my glass.
"I wanna drink."
"On an empty stomach, you'll get drunk fast. Don't just-"
"Let him. Get in his way, and he'll give you the evil eye," said Sendoh who was sitting next to Fujima and Maki. As I turned to look at his face, he said, "See? He's giving me the evil eye."
"Shut up!" I exclaimed in irritation while pouring the beer from the glass down my throat again. Fujima sighed before letting go of my hand and turning to Sendoh.
"What about you? Are you gonna drink a lot tonight?"
"Why are you asking? Are you afraid that you'll have to drag me home like the last time?"
"Hell yeah! That time you couldn't walk straight. If I had let you go home on your own and you had hit someone with your car, what would have happened?"
"Rest assured I won't be drinking all that much tonight. I have plans to go somewhere else later."
I caught a glimpse of him raising an eyebrow at Fujima, and I knew what somewhere else meant. He would probably to go another bar or go to see his girl.
I suspended my attention towards the conversation and continued drinking in silence on my own amongst the cheerful voices of my colleagues around me. The longer the time passed, the merrier everyone got. Maki was encouraged by the older colleagues (Fujima was the leader in this) to sing in front of the room. As soon as I heard Maki's song, I immediately glanced at my friend next to me.
Just listening to the lyrics of I've Never Told You, I knew to whom Maki was trying to convey the meaning of the song.
"You said you weren't good at singing. You're such a liar!" Fujima exclaimed as the man walked back to his seat.
Maki smiled widely and asked a question with glisters in his eyes. "Do you like it?"
"Of course, I like it. You sang so beautifully, right, Rukawa? Shin was a great singer, right? Right?" Fujima turned to nudge me continously.
"Yeah, great singer," I gave a short reply. Fujima seemed pleased with my reply as if I had been complimenting him. I knew that Fujima looked at Maki very affectionately because Maki is polite and efficient regarding his work, but I guess Fujima still had no idea that Maki did not look at him in the regular way a junior officer looks at a senior officer.
My friend was a bit slow when it came to things like this.
Now, all around me, people were having fun singing and laughing. I did not know how many times Sakuragi and Ayako had danced in front of the room. Fujima cheered and laughed and took turns in going out to sing and dance. Everyone was having a blast, but I felt so terrible that I did not feel like enjoying the party with them.
I had washed down my throat with so many glasses of the amber-colored drink. I could not comprehend why my life was so bad like this. Since my childhood, I had never felt loved by my family, so I expected to be loved by someone when I grew up. I expected that in every romantic relationship I had ever had. I longed for love, steadiness and sincerity, but I was let down over and over again as if someone had put a curse on me to make me miserable forever.
Was this world too mean to me?
"You're drinking as if you were broken-hearted. What's up, Mr. Rukawa? Someone dumped you again?" Sendoh's voice said in the midst of the loud noise in the room. His eyes looked over Maki's tall body that was sitting between us into mine.
"Give me one day."
"What?"
"Please don't bother me, okay?" I turned away and gulped more beer. Sendoh shrugged and turned his attention away from me to continue talking to Maki. I could not hear what they were talking about, but even if I heard it, I was too tired to care.
My head started to spin as an intoxicating result of those glasses of alcohol that I had poured into my body. I am not the type that could stand a lot of alcohol like Fujima, who can drink as much as he wants without getting tipsy. I was on the verge of my drinking limit now. Normally, I do not drink beyond my limit, but tonight, things were just too much for me to handle- Eiji and my mom. I just did not know how to let it all out, so I turned to alcohol.
From just drinking beer, I moved on to mixing some liquor. I drank the liquor continually. Neither could I stop myself, nor do I want to.
"I think you have drunk too much already," said Sendoh who, I did not know when, came to sit by me, and at the same time, pulled away the glass from my hand.
"Don't you bother me!" I made a face, took the glass back and poured the liquor into my throat. I could hear him utter something in dissatisfaction, but right then my consciousness was not good enough to make any sense of it.
It seemed to be getting darker all around me among the loud noise. I felt like I heard Fujima's voice from far away. I heard something about a taxi. I felt like someone was gently holding me and helping me get up. The faded scent of mint, mixed with the smell of alcohol from someone's body that was holding me, made me feel so familiar with that person that I let him hold me without any struggle. After that, I drifted off to sleep for a long time. I became conscious again when I was gently taken out of the car.
I felt totally dizzy. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt too heavy. It took me a fairly long time to be able to peel my eyes open. I found myself standing in front of a door. I heard the beeping sound of a keycard unlocking the door before I was brought gently into the pitch-dark room.
"Who is it?" I asked in a rasping, dry voice. My little consciousness began to reawaken because of the silence all around me.
"You're awake? You're completely trashed, you know that?" someone's low, familiar voice that answered me sounded more prolonged than usual.
My heart pounded as I was taken into a dark room. My instinctive fear made me grab hold of the shirt of the person next to me firmly.
"You sleep in this room, and I'll go sleep on the couch Damn! I'm feeling giddy..." said next to my ear, the low voice of the person holding me. He went on to say something that I could not make any sense of as a warm palm was trying to unlock my grasp of his shirt.
"Kaede, let go!"
"Where are...you going?" I asked in fear. In this room, there was the sound of the air-conditioner working, but it was tok dark to see anything.
I could not see anything.
"I'm hitting the sack, and you should, too."
He successfully unlocked my grasp and pushed me back, and I fell down on the bed. In my dizziness, I gathered all my might and pulled the other person in the room onto the bed with me.
My body felt heavy after someone else was lying on top of me. I heard faint swearing that I could not understand. The person was just about to get up when I threw myself towards him and held more tightly onto him.
"No...," I mumbled. Terror filled my heart, making me shiver. As there was no reply from the other person, I threw my hands everywhere all over him to grab hold of anything that I could. "Don't go...I'm scared..."
"Kaede, stop it."
The angry voice that replied did not scare me as much as being left alone. I threw my hands around his neck, murmuring the same words repeatedly.
I had been left in the darkness over and over again. I did not want to be all alone in the dark like that time ever again.
"Hold...me," I murmured softly, thrusting my body towards the warmth of the person's body on top of me.
"Kaede, stop. Let go!"
"No... No...," I refused to let go immediately, trying to hold him with me with all my strength.
I could not be alone now. I wanted him with me, to hold me, to comfort me...
"Hold me... Don't..leave."
His heavy breathing was the answer. The alcohol smell in his breath became more distinct as he lowered his head to whisper to me.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" the other person's shaking voice filled with sensations somehow made me feel butterflies in my stomach. "You know my restraint has its limit, right?"
"Hold me, ...please," I muttered while holding him so closely that there was almost no space between our bodies. I felt a soft touch passing by my cheek. It moved on down towards the side of my neck. That made my lower part stiffen up and hot. I breathed more heavily, trying to scrape myself on the mattress to relieve the uneasiness of my body.
Something hard pushed against my lower part. I carried myself against it, rubbing my hip against it unconsciously.
"If you still go on seducing me like this, I won't let you go," the rasping low voice said right beside my ear. My small amount of consciousness told me that it was the last warning.
I completely ignored that consciousness and half opened my eyes to look at the person on top of me. The alcohol awakened my basic instinct, and it took complete control over me.
"Don't go... Hold me..., please. Hmmm."
The burning and raging tenderness pressed onto my lips instantly. Something warm and wet, mixed with the alcohol smell, slid into my mouth and tangled up heavily with my tongue. Big hands squeezed and caressed all over me, leaving lust everywhere they moved past. The low grunt in his throat greatly escalated the heat I felt.
Everything started there, and the heat was building up more and more intensely.
The steamy touch moved further down my body, and that made me curl. Sparks spread all over my body once my middle part was taken. Loud moans came out of my mouth and got mixed with a low grunt and the wet sounds of the rhythmic accompaniment- everything echoed in my ears.
In the darkness, I was aroused and fulfilled endlessly, and I reciprocated equally. My consciousness was blurry, but my feelings were so clear.
I longed for the cuddling up and touching so much that there was nothing else left on my mind- the only thing left was the ever-increasing desire- and I did not want it to end.
Everything went on for a long time after that. The last thing that I remembered was that I was floating in the sky before the darkness of slumber took over me.
Will be continued.
