Chapter 3: Contrast

Tokyo

"Hinata, you're looking nice and perky this morning. I like that top."

It was the same joke he'd cracked every morning the last two years, a reference to her body-hugging clothing, what she normally wore for work. Though they looked tight, her black jeans were actually very comfortable and were easy to move around in—especially whenever she was with her clients. But Jiraiya was talking about her black turtleneck, again form-fitting. It was one of the many that she owned. She couldn't help wearing the same kind all the time because she liked this particular style and brand, they covered everything to her satisfaction. Plus, she just couldn't be bothered to go shopping for something else. Frankly, she didn't mind that it made her wardrobe monotonous and boring, as Hanabi liked to complain.

But no matter how many times her sister tried to get her to wear something more cheerful or more fashionable, Hinata wore her turtlenecks every day, rain or shine, winter or summer, for better or worse.

These days it was better. She was just glad the worst was over.

Hinata rolled her eyes as she faced her landlord, who saw it and laughed. "Thanks, Jiraiya. You're looking good, too. No sequins this morning, I see."

They did this every morning when he'd greet her with his usual terrible sexual innuendos and she'd give him shit for still trying to hang on to his fading youth and refusing to accept that his days as a Japanese idol were over.

She sniffed and then waved her hands in front of her face, pretending to cough and gag. "God, Ero-jiji! Is there a special occasion today? Your cologne's much stronger than usual. Did you use half the bottle or something?"

Jiraiya only laughed appreciatively and ran a comb over his graying hair, his usual mullet—a proud holdover from the 1980s. He pocketed the comb before coming out with what he really wanted to tell her.

"Just wanted to remind you and Kiba that we're starting new renovations next week on the building's exterior." His tone was apologetic. "All that banging around might scare your customers, especially the kiddies."

"Oh, right! I forgot. Thanks for reminding me."

They grinned at each other, then Hinata eyed Jiraiya's outfit for the day.

"By the way, Jiraiya, you missed a button," she said as she pointed to the vee of his gaudy shirt, a neon riot of pink, yellow, and blue. She remembered seeing one of those from that show, Miami Vice—the original one that aired on television way before she'd been born, but something her father often watched at home. "I don't see enough of your chest hair. Are you trying to be classy all of a sudden?"

"Oh, shit!" Jiraiya looked down and adjusted his shirt, unbuttoning the top to allow his tacky gold medallion and more of his shiny, oiled skin to peek through. "Good catch! Thanks, Hinata!"

She blew him a kiss and gave a little wave as she headed for the elevator. She heard his chuckle as the door closed. Hinata rode it up to the second floor, which consisted entirely of her and Kiba's studio and office.

Jiraiya, she thought with a pang of affection.

Hinata appreciated his dirty jokes, no matter how terrible they were. In this day and age, some might construe it as sexual harassment, but Hinata knew he was only doing it out of the kindness of his heart. Those jokes poked fun at her femininity, reminding her that she was still a woman. Her kidding around with Jiraiya made her feel like she was normal, like she was still an object of sexual desire—and not an object of pity as people tended to do with her these last three years.

Yes, Jiraiya was kind. Hinata only had love and respect for this aging Lothario who had given her and Kiba a tiny place to start their company. When she'd first started out on her own as a photographer, she'd struggled to balance her art and her business, kicked out of her rental spaces a couple of times because she could barely pay for her equipment and office. Then Kiba had come along to help her manage the day-to-day operations and turned things around when he'd brought his business idea and his contact with Jiraiya.

When the two of them had been looking for a place to open their studio, Jiraiya just happened to own a building and was looking for tenants. Since he was a friend of Kiba's mother, it seemed only natural that they'd set up their business in his building.

Jiraiya was a good landlord, pretty lax at enforcing the rules and charging them rates at a discount. He'd admitted to them once that he charged the other tenants of his seven-story building twice what he'd offered them—especially Momochi Zabuza, who ran his dental practice on the third floor, right above their studio. Zabuza got charged triple. Meanwhile, Jiraiya's office was on the first floor and both Kiba and Hinata passed by every morning to greet him and leave little treats.

On the days Jiraiya had nothing to do, which was most of the time, he'd come up to the second floor to "help" but really just to hang around with whoever was in the studio.

Kiba was at the office most of the time. On days she was bored, Hanabi would stop by. She also liked to do her homework there or help out with their young customers. When Shino wasn't stuck in his lab doing research, he'd pop by for lunch or spend an afternoon complaining about work. On a couple of rare occasions, Hiruzen Sarutobi had also visited to drop off some expensive gift.

Hinata smiled thinking of how their studio seemed to be a hangout instead of a workplace. But she didn't mind it because it made the space a fun place to be and she loved having everyone there. Her people. Or her "harem," as the old perv liked to joke. Of course, she included Jiraiya in this little group.

Hinata suspected that Jiraiya, who was unmarried and without kids, was lonely. Him hanging out with her and her little harem was a way for him to share news and also to check up on her.

For herself, she allowed the teasing and the harmless flirting, but she shut it down when her little sister was around. During those times, Jiraiya was affectionate but respectful with Hanabi.

Funny how she was kept afloat by a bunch of capable guys, she thought to herself, grinning. First there was Sarutobi, then Shino, and finally Kiba.

She'd initially started off in the business as a journalist after attending a two-year college and earning a general degree. Hinata had gotten a job at a local paper and had developed an instant rapport with the editor, Yuuhi Kurenai. She liked the no-nonsense way her boss ran the paper and how hard she equally worked and pampered her staff.

At first, Hinata had enjoyed her role as one of the three photojournalists on staff, but after a year, her enjoyment had fizzled and she'd become disheartened by her role. Because she was the youngest and newest member of the paper, she'd gotten stuck doing the crappy part of journalism. Most of the time, she was embedded in the crowd of paparazzi trying to get shots of celebrities cheating or doing the walk of shame out of hotels. Either that or having to stand behind police lines and taking photos of bodies covered by a blue sheet being wheeled away by tired-looking emergency personnel.

The future had loomed ahead, of her days being stuck in a perpetual loop of meeting stressful time-pressured deadlines only to chase after deadbeat celebrities and corpses.

Those corpses, though, took a toll on her. It saddened and dispirited her to see those victims. These were usually the people that society tended to neglect: young women down on their luck, the elderly with nobody to care for them, children of abused households.

She'd been grateful for her first job and Hinata didn't want to disappoint her boss, which was why it had taken her some time to work up the nerve to approach her editor to reveal her uncertainty at staying at her job. Kurenai had listened sympathetically to Hinata unburdening her feelings, but she was a busy woman with a thriving newspaper to run. However, she would still respect whatever Hinata decided.

Recognizing one of her best workers was reaching burnout, Kurenai had assigned her to a more "boring" assignment up north in Niigata to cover the opening of a new museum. Hinata welcomed the break away from her usual beat and took Kurenai's advice to mull over her decision to stay or go. While in Niigata, Hinata had changed the trajectory of her destiny through one fateful photograph. It had also given her a newfound passion.

To take her mind off about how miserable she was at her job, she'd gone to the zoo on one of her days off and snapped a photo of a monkey playing in the snow. Like everyone, Hinata had loved watching the snow monkeys bathing in their onsens, but her attention had been captured by a baby monkey who kept launching itself into the snow and rolling around, just simply frolicking. The pureness of monkey joy had charmed her and she'd spent almost all her camera's memory on capturing those moments.

She'd posted her favorite shots on her social media account and they had inexplicably gone viral, enough that unbeknownst to her, it had captured the attention of the philanthropist, Hiruzen Sarutobi, a real estate mogul who had a love for zoos and had been a generous contributor to these establishments.

The following day, when Hinata returned to Tokyo, Kurenai had approached Hinata with a strange expression on her face.

"Hinata, come into my office for a second."

They sat together, Kurenai behind her piles of paperwork and Hinata, sinking into the chair across the desk.

"Congrats on your photo going viral."

"Oh, yeah, I don't think it's against the newspaper's rules, right? I was off company time."

"No, that's not why I called you in here."

Hinata was relieved. She loved those photos and she didn't really want to delete them.

"So you know I'm married to Asuma Sarutobi, right?"

"Yes." Hinata was puzzled by the direction of this conversation.

"Asuma's father wants to meet with you."

"Me? Why?"

"He wouldn't say, but he said he just wanted to discuss that photograph of the monkey with you." Kurenai smiled cryptically. "I won't be there. You're going by yourself."

"Uh-oh." Hinata looked at Kurenai with doubt. "You sure you want me going alone, all by myself, to meet with the CEO of a company? What about the newspaper's reputation? Don't people normally have some third party, like a ref, to oversee these meetings?"

Kurenai's smile became grim. "You know I can't leave the paper. Things will fall apart without me."

"Yeah, but…"

Kurenai laughed. "Just tone the crazy down, Hinata. Don't run your mouth off like you usually do and it should be fine."

"I'll try."

"In any case, my father-in-law says he wants to see you in person."

"Sure." But Hinata was filled with doubt.

"You're lucky to get this opportunity. This is something you can't turn down."

On Kurenai's instructions, Hinata had boarded the train bound for Nishi-Kasai and made her way to Edogawa-ku in the eastern part of Tokyo, where the headquarters of Sarutobi Industries was located. She'd been ushered by the staff into a beautiful office with large glass windows overlooking Arakawa River.

Nervous, Hinata had sat staring outside, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her. She felt like she was going to get grilled somehow.

Presently, there was a knock at the door and an older man, dressed in a suit but wearing a light blue jacket over it that had the logo of Sarutobi Industries embroidered on the left breast pocket, came into the room. He was shorter than she'd expected, slightly balding but he had tufts of graying hair on the side of each head, his hollowed cheeks making her worry whether he was being fed properly.

He greeted her with an unsmiling, "Good morning," and then sat across from her.

She then watched, astonished, as he took out something slim and shiny, which turned out to be an old-fashioned and fancy pipe from his breast pocket. He proceeded to light it and then started puffing.

An actual pipe! She couldn't look away because it was so incongruously out of place in this modern building and this sharply-dressed gentleman.

"Good morning," she said. He nodded, but said nothing, only continued staring at her with his intelligent, assessing eyes.

And continued puffing.

Puff. Puff.

Completely unnerved by the situation, Hinata waited for him to speak.

And encountered more silence.

Puff…

Unable to bear this awkwardness any longer, she forgot Kurenai's advice to "tone down the crazy." Hinata blurted out the first thing that had popped into her mind when she'd first seen him enter the room: "With a name like Sarutobi, I was expecting somebody who looks like a monkey, but you look more like an eagle."

"Hm," he responded, unfazed. Another puff from his pipe. "You'd be surprised how many times I've been told that."

She beamed at him and he finally smiled, which softened his features and made Hinata less nervous. She became so comfortable that she rudely asked, "So what's the deal, sir? Why am I here?"

He laughed, stood up, and held out a hand to her, indicating she did the same.

She placed her hand in his, and in a courtly manner, he led her closer to the windows so they could look out.

"What do you see outside?" he asked.

She peered out and saw concrete buildings and bridges, homes and offices. But in that sea of gray, her eyes zoomed in on a speck of green, a tiny area that looked like a park. However, upon closer inspection, she realized it was a zoo. "Edogawa Natural Zoo," she responded, feeling herself smile as she imagined the animals roaming around in that little oasis of theirs, away from the concrete jungles of Tokyo.

"Precisely." He took another puff of his pipe. "I built my headquarters here because I wanted to be close to the animals, so I could be within walking distance to the zoo whenever I felt the need to do so."

He glanced at her. "You're here because I feel like you're like me."

She was still puzzled, not understanding. "Sir?"

"You have a gift for photography," was all Sarutobi said to convince her to leave her current job and to agree to his proposal to give wildlife photography a shot. "I don't want you to ever lose your love for your art."

They then shook hands, and Hinata felt gratified that Sarutobi was treating her as an equal despite the difference in their age and gender. It was a sore spot for her because she'd been treated shabbily by the Japan Professional Photographers Society—an organization filled mostly of older men who didn't look too kindly on young women who were aggressive and trying to prove their worth in the field.

Meeting him launched their beautiful partnership that only deepened when they'd discovered their shared love and fascination for animals. Sarutobi had then generously funded her foray into wildlife photography, providing her with the necessary equipment, sponsoring her trips, and paying for the expenses of such projects. She'd started domestically in Okinawa photographing the sea turtles and the rare Iriomote cat on Yakushima island. She'd then gone on to swim in Australia with the Great White sharks where she'd almost gotten her leg bitten off.

With Sarutobi's encouragement, she entered a couple of contests and supplied content to more prominent international magazines. Her photos had been featured in National Geographic and Wildlife magazines and Hinata gained the confidence in her work, to believe that this was something she could do for the rest of her life.

It definitely beat working at the newspaper and feeling like a paparazzi.

But it was Africa that changed everything for her. She would never forget watching the red sun setting slowly over the Serengeti Plains, meeting members of the Masai Mara tribe, capturing on film those majestic elephants marching through the land, observing, in the flesh, the great migration of wildebeests across Tanzania, getting angular shots of those graceful giraffes as they fed off the leaves of the Acacia tree.

Photographing those wild and free lions.

God, those beautiful lions. She'd loved them the most.

Hinata longed to be back, but she swallowed a twinge of regret and rolled her left shoulder to shake off the memories and the inevitable pain knowing she might never go back.

Hinata looked at her watch and hoped Kiba wasn't already in the studio. She was running late, she knew, but she'd overslept this morning because she'd forgotten to set her alarm clock last night.

Shino had actually sent her a text earlier this morning, and that was what had finally gotten her out of bed when she'd heard her phone vibrate and ping with the alert. He'd texted her asking to share details of the information session she was attending today.

Her friendship with Shino was the direct result of her connection with Sarutobi. Shino was currently a professor of entomology at Keio University, Sarutobi's alma mater. Shino's research into insect behavior interested Sarutobi because of its possible applications in organizational behavior—something he thought would help in the running of his own company.

Sarutobi had introduced the two, and they'd taken an instant liking to each other. Shino and Hinata had teamed up together whenever he needed a professional photographer to capture his research subjects—mostly ants and bees—but he didn't discriminate against insects, he loved all of them. He consequently became one of her most frequent collaborators. Hinata had half-joked that they'd worked together so much only because nobody else wanted to photograph the insects he loved too much. Shino hadn't disagreed.

Hinata's memories of Shino and Sarutobi abruptly stopped when the doors to the elevator opened and Hinata walked into their office. She was here this morning to pick up her gear before she headed off to the seminar where the imperial staff was going to lay out the rules of the competition.

She was greeted by Akamaru's gentle, "Woof!"

He ran to her and stopped to be petted. She laughed and leaned down to hug him instead, squeezing him with affection.

Hinata noted that Kiba had already set up the place for the customers coming in today. The stuffed animals and toys joined the soft pillows on the floor and those leaning against the background wall. He'd opened the shades of the window wide open to let the light in. She didn't see him, but she could hear him humming off-key to the latest Japanese pop song and rummaging for something in the storage closet. The studio was bathed in a calming glow, complementing the particular shade of white on their walls, a color they'd carefully chosen for their clients.

Kiba was Shino's friend from childhood. They'd grown up in the same neighborhood and had remained friends into their adulthood despite going to different schools. On one of their collaborative trips, Shino had mentioned that a friend was looking for a business partner for a unique kind of photography practice.

Hinata had listened to the idea and had jumped at the chance to work with Kiba, who had some basic skills in photography but was really more suited to managing time, money, and paperwork.

Kiba and Hinata operated a studio funded mostly by the Japanese government. In essence, they were a nonprofit, exclusively capturing photographs of people with special needs, hence why Akamaru and the rest of the Inuzuka therapy dogs were allowed in the building.

The Inuzuka family bred and trained service dogs for people with disabilities—among them Kiba's mother, who'd suffered a stroke when he'd been in highschool. Before her stroke, the family business had previously bred normal dogs, but their purpose changed when Tsume became incapacitated and needed help. Hana, Kiba's older sister, was currently in charge of the business, but with their mother still helping out whenever she could.

Kiba had formed a partnership with Hinata in exchange for a better working schedule, one that gave him freedom to manage his own time and also allowed him to head home at a reasonable hour so that he could be there for his mother in evenings and so that Hana could get a break.

Though Kiba pitched in on occasion, Hinata was considerably more skilled at photography and was assigned the bulk of it. She didn't mind it at all and was happy to let Kiba handle the more boring part of running a business. She would fully admit that she didn't have the patience to deal with numbers and documents, invoicing and scheduling. Plus, it was more fun spending her time taking pictures of the sweet kids with Downs Syndrome, or making their wheelchair-bound clients laugh, or trying to get those excitable children to focus and sit still.

Their arrangement was a blissful marriage of work and friendship, one that gave her a steady business in the studio and one that allowed her the freedom to accept more lucrative commissions from other sources whenever the opportunity came up.

"Kiba?" she called out. "I'm here!"

Kiba came out of the utility closet and greeted her with folded arms, a glare, and a terse, "Dang, girl. Took your time to get here today."

"Ugh, Kiba!" she replied with a groan. "Don't give me this much shit so early in the morning!"

"It's not early. You were supposed to have left at 9:00, which was fifteen minutes ago." He picked up the bag filled with her camera equipment and handed it to her.

"I know, I know," she said, accepting it.

His look was stern. "This is very important. Don't be late to the event."

"I won't, I promise. I'll get there in time." Hinata placed her hand over her heart. "Anyways, thanks for packing my stuff. You talked to Jiraiya, right?"

"Yup, I'm on top of it." He pointed to his laptop on his desk. "I'm working on the flyer that we're sending out to our customers about the upcoming renovations right now."

"Cool, thanks. I'm probably going to be gone for the afternoon, too."

"Yeah, I know, so just call me later to let me know what went down at the info sesh, okay?"

"Will do!" Hinata responded as she turned around, patted Akamaru one last time before she walked out of the office and then rode down the elevator again.