Work Text:
you can kiss a hundred boys in bars
shoot another shot, try to stop the feeling
you can say it's just the way you are
Shinichiro peeked at the window between the gaps of her gauzy, flower-printed curtains.
They're out of place in the backroom of her shop and impractical by design, made more to mesh with sunlight to appear ethereal, but she always had a habit of clinging at its edges, pondering on how old she’d already gotten, how they used to be so carefree, and all Takeomi could think about with a wry, knowing smile was how she could puncture holes on her mother's curtains, fastened shut by safety pins. A ruined relic of their girlhood.
"Do you remember the first time I kissed you?"
"Did it rain like this too?"
"Maybe, it didn't," Takeomi mused from the couch. "You pushed me away."
Her bitterness bled through her words, recalling the lipstick smear on Shinichiro's mouth as if they tore off a piece of each other that day. We're just friends.
"I'm sorry," said Shinichiro. There's a raspy weariness to her inflections. Running the motor shop weathered her down, calloused her hands as they pulled back the blanket securely on Takeomi's shoulders. Shinichiro sat and the couch groaned from their combined weight.
"We've kissed more times than that," Shinichiro offered lamely, letting Takeomi run her fingers on her chain necklace. A frustrated sigh. "I'm still mad at you . . ."
It never stopped Takeomi to lean forward and angle their faces. "You're really gonna push me away again? After what happened to me?"
"Tell me what happened." Shinichiro gripped her shoulders, the curve of them pressed in her palms. The blanket slipped off and bared more skin. Then her eyes flicked between her face and collarbones, the low dip of her black dress; a strappy, elegant thing in satin.
The kind Takeomi often imagined Shin would tug off her body with her teeth. Just the thought made her nipples hard and Shinichiro stilled, so tantalized of what she could seize for herself.
Takeomi clutched her necklace and moved their mouths to meet. Shinichiro jolted back – annoyed or aroused, it didn't matter which after having a taste of it – and almost seemed about to protest but.
“Was it like that?” asked Shinichiro, stained with a sad, breathless realization, and her hands slid from her shoulders to her waist. “Like how we—”
“Nothing like us, Shin,” Takeomi said before sitting on her lap and sealing their lips in another kiss, wet with each other's spit just to slake away a terrible day. Some terrible, ravaging need that had Takeomi ripping the buttons of her clothes. But then a hand cupped her face, and for a moment, Takeomi forgot it's the side with the scar when she felt a thumb brush under her eye, a gentle, mindful mutter about her mascara. She plunged down her throat to smother herself. “Not even close . . .”
Takeomi and Shinichiro bore their monstrous share of burdens, heartbreaks, and growing pains in their youth.
Being the eldest daughter was never a glamorous experience and since that was the case, they figured they could just be cursed together.
Sister and scapegoat spooled in the fabric of her identity. No matter what Takeomi did, it was always going to be her fault. Who burned the rice, why the kids didn't grow upright. Her father never stopped calling her a screw-up until she didn't believe she was cut out for the role – her brother was a failure and her sister had nothing in common with her – while Shinichiro raised her siblings as if she was born for it, swathing herself with the responsibility her father couldn't even do himself.
Takeomi began to strip away those layers when Shinichiro was straddled under her, still barely naked from their haste, until the folds of her overalls split open for her waist, hanging helplessly. Then her tank top was pushed above her chest to toy around her frustration some more, marked on the underside of her breast. A pinch on a pierced nipple pulled out a whimper.
Takeomi smirked. “What would they think, hm? If they see you like this?”
“S-shut up.”
No family matters in bed. Well, the couch. It’d be unsalvageable before they could drive back to her place.
Later on, her tank clung on her while everything else was in disarray on the floor. Takeomi hadn't undressed when she wasn't done with her yet, knuckle-deep inside her. Her lips roved over her rocking hips and then lower, the dark underbrush of her hair.
Shinichiro didn't shave, but would probably do it if a guy asked her out. Let herself be all smooth and supple for him. Takeomi wasn't any different, but her resentment still uncoiled in her like a viper. Had half the mind to bend her on the knee and spank her ass. Shinichiro liked her hand better than a belt, liked the shape of it against her skin till it welted, liked how her palm was softer inside of hers . . . even though Takeomi dreamed of her hand since she started masturbating. Came the first time at the thought of it while being fingered by some upperclassman loser at sixteen.
To her, Shinichiro had always been her firsts. It was a pleasure to steal this from her. A sort of revenge.
She’d let her ruin her more than once. Every compromising position revealed a shade of her perversion. Burrowed between her thighs, Takeomi was compelled by something more than her drool and tears when Shinichiro slung an arm over her face, at the brink of climax. Made such a mess of herself.
“Didn't you want me like this?” Shinichiro huffed a little, sprawled with her heart and legs open, and still found her boldness as she watched her with heavy, half-lidded eyes, guiding her soaked fingers inside her mouth.
Her tongue was a weakness. Takeomi clenched.
“Take off your dress . . .”
It'd been around two in the morning when they snuck into the Sano house, undisturbed in the shower. A privilege in itself, despite them sharing space in the bathroom.
Shinichiro offered her fresh clothes and dinner, stirring noodles in a saucepan. Takeomi walked up next to her and noticed the vegetables on the chopping board, decidedly picking up the knife with a sigh. Their limbs often brushed from their proximity. There's only the sound of bubbling broth and their shuffling for ingredients, tranquil and domestic.
She had the money to have them dine in any restaurant in Shibuya. Or get room service in the Hyatt Regency with a bottle of wine.
Shinichiro didn't seem interested in all of that, except for the bait of premium sushi.
You're lucky Emma left me some gyoza. Shinichiro plucked out a plastic container from the fridge, pan-fried the gyoza to a crisp, and paired them with their meal. They ate ramen from the saucepan on the counter, spoons and chopsticks askew, and washed it down with soda. It's awful for Takeomi's diet and begrudgingly, did nothing to Shinichiro's slender figure, slurping up more noodles.
“All that ramen is bad for you.”
“Same goes for you with all that alcohol every night.”
“It's part of my job,” Takeomi scoffed as if she never knew it's all watered-down spirits when she wouldn't be dumb enough to be drunk on the clock. But you think I am.
Shinichiro shrugged, saying nothing else. She hadn’t been the keenest about her being a hostess. It’d been stabler than her enko days though the nature of her work was still bullshit intimacy. Takeomi wore bloodred heels to tower over the other girls. Listened to self-important men meander about themselves until she could coax them into buying her the most expensive liquor in the club. There's gratification in extorting money from the pricks who constructed a place that capitalized on their loneliness. A morally bankrupt thought, but who fucking cared?
Rising up the ranks in the industry furthered her goals though for all the gifts, mind games, and extravagant dates, Takeomi only turned to Shinichiro for the expression on her face, some telltale sign of jealousy.
“Are you even happy with what you do?”
“Sure,” Takeomi bit. “I’d rather not be some pathetic tea lady living paycheck to paycheck. I can actually live with this.”
Shinichiro gave her a disappointed look. She nodded before taking the saucepan and cutlery and dumping them on the sink. The tap ran for awhile.
Her jaw ticked. Takeomi took a step forward and wrapped her arms around her waist, tethering them into her foul mood.
“You just don't like the attention I get, do you?”
“You were stalked once.”
Perhaps without saying it directly, everyone believed she was asking for it. No police report ever took her seriously.
“A long time ago.” Her hold tightened as Takeomi trailed a pensive glance on her scarred knuckles, sudsy from the kitchen sponge. “You protected me, though.”
“I always will, Omi.”
Then her chin rested on her shoulder. They smelled the same, using her shampoo.
Takeomi wasn't the sort to kiss and tell and Shinichiro didn't press for more details, even though she wasn't exactly a stranger to her customers and entanglements.
Takeomi was an expert at compartmentalizing business from pleasure. Shinichiro couldn't wrap her head around it unless a certain boundary was crossed. Her brows were furrowed like how she found her standing outside the shop earlier ago, about to storm out to where she’d been after a distraught call.
“What really happened to you?” she asked, almost done with the dishes. “Troublesome client?”
“Worse.” Takeomi folded her arms over her chest, leaning against the sink. “Someone awfully charming.”
She brought up that host she'd been acquainted with since she debuted in Kabukicho. They moved in the same circles, had mutual ambitions so they agreed on being the other's regular out of convenience. This night, he bought her out with champagne and commission.
Then she stared down the wrinkles on her Hole band t-shirt. “I dressed up for Roppongi Hills, but he changed his mind and took me to this teahouse in Jiyugaoka. It was very quaint, old-fashioned, the kind of place where you introduce someone to your parents.”
Shinichiro let out a low, assessing hum. “So he wanted you to meet his parents?”
“I told him no. It wasn't even serious between us.” Takeomi didn't look like someone's fiancée, clean and dainty, nor did the prospect ever seem to save her from herself. “So we talked. He planned to quit, was already thirty-four anyway, but he didn't like what I had to say . . . it got messy and I,” didn't know where to go “lost my key.”
“Oh, I see . . .” Shinichiro stopped what she'd been doing for a moment. “Were you hurt?”
“No, but he was. Across the cheek.”
“Probably deserved it.”
Her lips quirked up that, for doggedly taking her side.
“But you’re still gonna see him?”
“No, he can go back to Sakai for all I care.” There was indignation beneath the icy bite of her words. Takeomi uncrossed her arms. “But he was a decent regular.”
Makoto didn't do anything that I didn't like. Or at least that's what Shinichiro had to grapple with ever since she called him out for being no different from all of the deranged men in her life. Maybe it's Freudian or whatever. His stage name did screw with her head though it's pettier to say she disliked his confidence that captivated and clashed with Takeomi. Regardless, a loss was still a loss.
“Hey, it’ll be all right. You can stay for the night, if you want,” Shinichiro already had that intention in mind when she brought her here but attempting it like this . . . “I don't think I have another spare for the backdoor, though. You actually had it.”
“Thanks,” Takeomi meant it with a thorn in her chest; the key, her unpredictable circumstances with Makoto, all of that lost to regain her good graces.
Their pride and professions had finally compromised their friendship.
It didn't start because of their conflicting schedules. No one could pinpoint when, except for a fight that was long overdue. It happened frequently these days. This one, however, ended up with Takeomi slandering how her motor shop was a hovel and her pay was shit. She was more eloquent than that but she never withheld herself to her.
Shinichiro didn't either, offended. Success was a sore topic – living with the sentiment that you weren't born a son did – though she wasn't a quitter, sustaining herself enough at this age without the post-Bubble cynicism.
On the kitchen table, she even held onto some sliver of hope that there’s a way to work things out between them, rubbing the exhaustion from her face, dark circles and all.
“How have you been?”
“Just dealt with a stressful week but I'm good.”
“You don't look good. What is it?” Takeomi suspected one thing. “Are you holding up with your bills?”
A click of the tongue. “I am. Don't start.”
“Okay. Whatever you say, but I can always cover it for you again.” Then she wrapped her hand over hers, squeezing a bit. “Just ask.”
“I know,” sighed Shinichiro before telling her that she'd pay her back, despite the loan hanging over her head.
Takeomi wasn't interested in keeping check what she monetarily owed her, having more of a preference for collecting the heftier emotional debts.
Shinichiro understood that most of all to be resourceful with people. She sat with her suppliers for cheap drinks and deals and her employees were shiftless misfits trained into mechanics. Her small business probably wouldn't have lasted this long if she didn't have a knack at persuasion.
“If I’m being honest, I’d rather you pick up a wrench and help me with the bikes than cover anything for me,” she told her with a palm under her chin.
Takeomi’s nose wrinkled at that.
“Dirty work.”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Ha,” she reclined back to her chair with a wicked grin. “It's easy money, Shin. You’ve no idea how much those rich assholes spend so much just to talk and drink with a pretty face.”
A snort. “Oh, now you're pitching me your job?”
“You’ll look amazing in a dress.”
Shinichiro blushed. “I-I have more of a fighting chance talking my way to an engine than some CEO.” She tried not to choke from her words before she averted her gaze, adding a low, sullen, “your type, right?”
Takeomi jabbed her ankle with her foot. “What’d you know about my type?”
Shinichiro only shrugged.
Takeomi didn't indulge her, and for awhile, the rain drowned the quiet between them. The dull smattering of it against the window almost sounded forlorn.
“You know, I still think about it . . .”
“About what?”
“That I can drag you out of this,” her hand motioned everywhere; French manicured, carmine nails glinting. “If you'd let me.”
Before Shinichiro could protest about what she meant, what more she could possibly offer her, Takeomi bargained. “You can even keep your shop.”
Shinichiro wouldn't move out of her childhood home to support what's left of her family. Her grandfather’s death months ago took a toll on her though the thin, unhealthy line of obligation and obsession obscured more from dedicating a decade of her life to her siblings.
Outside of that, Takeomi contemplated on the week-old laundry piling up her hamper, the deadlines in sticky notes tacked on the calendar, and then her joyless junkyard of a garage. Shinichiro was at the center of it, grinding away for all-nighters to dismantle the dream.
“There's still so much to do,” was all she could say, not quite an answer.
They went on a drive around the city on a snowy, mid-January night.
Clinging behind her back, it reminded Takeomi of a freer time in their lives.
Shinichiro never looked more alive on a motorcycle. She never missed watching the MotoGP. Had been hardcore about bikes that she built a career out of repairing them rather than enrolling in college. S•S MOTORS was where all aspirations stagnated and her beloved Babu was gifted to her brother, who pursued being a professional racer someday.
Something she couldn’t quite fulfill on her own, even though Takeomi argued she'd been a legend. You blazed past those boys like it's nothing.
Shaking her head, Shinichiro thought her speeding days were just a rebellious phase. Those delinquents got so easily riled up over stupid shit. She found it funny how often she was mistaken as a guy for having short hair.
She’d been so tall in her dad's jeans. Always told the creeps to back off, took a punch for a friend. A bonafide ride or die. She also had zero self-preservation skills that Takeomi couldn't remember her without plasters or a bloody nose. There's still a viciousness to her that not a lot of people understood she was capable of but then again, anyone would've been fooled by her cool, easygoing smile.
“Pretty reckless, yeah.” Shinichiro chuckled, reminiscing.
“Who knew you'd be more popular with girls,” Takeomi wasn't as much for being a closeted snob back then, folding her arms over the railing. They're on a bridge from some sleepy district in Oshiage, overseeing the hazy, glimmering street lights reflected on the frozen river. Tokyo Skytree towered over them from a distance, glowing a romantic red. “Then there's Seishu.”
“It was a kid crush.” Shinichiro cringed at the term, despite Seishu never quite outgrowing his idolization of her ever since she found him in a street fight and got him back on his feet.
“So he asked you out on Christmas?”
“What, no. We just work together,” she blurted with a puff of smoke before adding, “besides, he’s like a little brother to me.”
One too many. Takeomi hummed. “What did you do then? C’mon, don't tell me you spent it alone again.”
“Hey, don't rub it in.” Shinichiro nudged her elbow, and then she came out admitting that she spent Christmas with Benkei and Wakasa. They busted their vocal chords in karaoke and then chased after a wasted Wakasa, who staggered into the wrong train station. Benkei wailed about her worst offenses and each one was countered with a retort. Inseparable then and now. “It was really fun, but to be honest, I kinda felt like a third wheel.”
“Must be nice playing mediator.”
“Whatever,” she snipped back before shrugging in her winter parka. “But you should hang out with us some more, like how we used to.”
Sneak out on a night like this. Sneaking jokes and beers and baggage that were foundational in their decade-long friendship, feet overlapping under the warm, quilted heart of a kotatsu. Takeomi sank to her elbows, taking a deeper drag from her suggestion. “Those two don't like me.”
“You haven't talked to them for a long while.”
Her eyes rolled at that. “Waka actually forgave me after that time?”
Takeomi was better at recalling when she’d been slighted. They hurled diatribes, almost ripped each other's throats out.
Shinichiro remembered it too, sucking the cold air through her teeth. “Okay, I’m not exactly sure what she feels . . . but I think she's passed it now. She even asked about you.”
“Huh. What’d you tell her?”
“You were getting smashed in Sapporo.”
Takeomi wheezed. Shinichiro joined her in laughter until they couldn't notice how their cigarettes had already burnt out, reaching the filter.
Sometimes, a lot of things didn't feel real.
Maybe Wakasa was right about her. Maybe it's from selling dreams for a living.
Katsuai established itself in Ginza, a step-up from the sleazier places in Kabukicho, even though it served alcohol and women just the same; a sick, marketed play on the club's name, made up of thirst and love, to quench desires.
So Takeomi played along with all the banter, the subtle touches, and even the off-the-clock, borderline flirty messages. Entertaining a clientele of corporate tycoons did trade for some interesting conversation. A compliment didn't hurt either, if only most of them didn't think she was stupid.
Of course, Takeomi knew when to tuck in her opinions like how she would enticingly tuck their business cards into her cleavage. She knew who were more persistent with their offers of dohan to find a way in evading the club's no grope policy. Sometimes, even the most well-mannered, white-collared type tended to be a closet freak underneath for fetishizing her disfigurement.
The scar was thinner now, concealable, after surgery. It used to be traceable beneath charm and cosmetics if scrutinized closely and as if holding a scalpel to her face, she would be pried with who would harm such a beauty like you?
With their hands on her lap, no one looked at her beyond that and if that were the case, she’d do it with finesse. A fantasy to the highest bidder.
Men in suits had a penchant for asking about her future. The ones who weren't had no plans but to party through life in an excessive show of wealth for a dick measuring contest in spite of the former. A ceaseless performance, a circus.
Better if they warred over her like a woman to be won, appealing to both parties with how her makeup was pristine and understated, too much would be whorish, but she kept the bold red lip. A shade of Lover that's difficult to resist once the liquor ran dry, would you like more? So they got more, entitled for more, and she poured glasses full until they threw up decadence on her feet. Spared them the humiliation with a smile and a hot towel outside the restroom to escort them back to their tables. They would be grateful with constraint. They’d be so polite about it too while thinking of dragging her inside and bending her over the sink. But that's the trick, it's the thought. The titillation. The sultry undertone of I’ll take care of you.
The tactic had her portrait in front of Katsuai than in Shinichiro's flip phone, not committing to set their picture as her wallpaper, when Takeomi had to keep hers simple, nondescript, to make herself more available. Had paid for her mother's shortcomings, her shortcomings, after being slapped by her late grandmother for ungratefully refusing the arrangement set up by the local matchmaker.
Who would want you now?
That's fine when more married men would empty their wallets for her nowadays. Even if she got too old for bottle service, she could see herself years later counting profits behind the bar while managing girls like her corrupt themselves in the red-light district.
Because outside of being the biggest fraud, Takeomi wasn't really good at anything else.
It's 9:42 a.m. when Takeomi woke up with a hangover from the leather couch.
She caught a glimpse of Senju about to leave for school. Late.
Takeomi would’ve scolded Haruchiyo for not reminding her as he damn ought to until it dawned on her that she’s alone in the apartment and it's sobering.
Her sister felt more like a stranger when she wasn't a toddler demanding snacks anymore. Takeomi compensated with a credit card when they couldn't stomach having a real conversation. Benkei texted her whenever Senju stayed longer in the gym. It's why she hadn't blocked her number yet and the reminder left Takeomi a bit sore.
There's aspirin and a glass of water on the coffee table, but she picked up the cream bun, tearing off the plastic wrapper. Then she's hit with the sweet, nauseating smell of strawberry.
They held hands since they could remember.
There's no stinginess or transaction in the gesture, the way their fingers laced together.
They reached for the other like that when they used to walk home after school, after entering boutiques within those renowned, red-bricked buildings by the pier.
Shinichiro went with her to Yokohama to be a sentimental tourist, unwilling to splurge in her heavy, well-worn corduroys, though she didn't mind getting stringed along by Takeomi who suggested buying whatever she wanted for lugging around her paper bags. Omi, you don't have to.
Can't you just let me spoil you? Takeomi convinced her after spritzing a bit of tester perfume on herself and had Shinichiro sniff. She couldn't guess the scent, stalling to hold her wrist close to her face, a subtle tease of lips. Let go in panic once the shop assistant snuck up behind them with the answer.
Irritated by the intervention, Takeomi decided to grab Shinichiro by the hand, dragging her into a changing room to make out. The hangers of lingerie she hauled on the way clattered on the floor.
They hadn't met for three months. Learned it the hard way when being an adult meant having to carve up time to show up for someone. There's something to love and lust about Shinichiro's spontaneity. A lot to loathe about it too the moment their texts had gotten sparse all of a sudden. Clients kept clogging her inbox that it roused the gnawing impulse to trash their messages.
Takeomi parsed through her two-line excuses for answers, expecting she’d rip her apart for them, yet here she was hot and short-winded, running her fingers along her jawline. “I missed you . . .”
“Me too,” Shinichiro rasped with a sigh; mint, nicotine, and a hint of grievance. “You'd been ignoring me.”
Her lips were smudged, the color angrier than her frown. “You're not replying much either.”
“You flaked out on me the other day.”
“You weren't picking up my calls for days before that. I know when you're bullshitting and you couldn't even send me a convincing text why.”
“I wanted to explain myself in person but you wouldn’t—” she caught herself for a moment to grope for words.
“Look, I know we’re tired and tied up with work. I got so overwhelmed I didn't want to talk to anyone and it went on for a bit – awhile. It's not okay, I shouldn't have done that to you, but I did want to see you,” and then, more earnestly: “I still want to see you. We don't hang out often anymore. I don't even mind if we just have coffee sometimes than, well, not that I want this to stop now . . .”
Her hands were on her hips as if she's struggling for something real and tangible; a wrinkle on her chiffon blouse, molding her soft.
Takeomi touched her wrist, sighing. “Sure, coffee sounds good. We can have both.”
“Okay,” Shinichiro exhaled.
Because sorry was too shameful. “I hate it when you disappear like that, but I shouldn't have gone all crazy on you.”
“Yeah, you drove me insane too.”
They didn't laugh and there's probably a better way of dealing everything else that went unaddressed than distracting themselves all over again.
The taste of her still lingered in her mouth. Shinichiro must've thought about it too when she pulled her back to her. Takeomi stole fleeting glances at the mirror: their needy, disheveled reflections against the wall. She played the ends of her flyaway hair before tugging them back, nipping on her ear to ask about the scent of that perfume again.
Neck arched, Shinichiro whispered back that she should try harder prying it out of her before shivering from the teeth on the silver hoops of her helix.
Couples passed by their table. Foreign ladies or perhaps long-lost friends hung around the cafe as well, embracing and pecking each other's cheeks, platonically physical with their affection.
They're invisible here, except to each other.
“The next woman you kiss should thank me,” Takeomi whispered smugly in her ear, drinking her reaction.
Her lips twisted on the rim of her steaming cup, mid-sip. Shinichiro wasn't oblivious anymore but kept some things to herself. That there's a binary for her preferences. Labels.
Still, Takeomi couldn't recall Shinichiro hitting on other women. It's the other way around when she had to gently turn down that bartender in Ni-chome. She had no issue blending in there just fine but any straight guy with her might. Even had her reconsider correcting the masculine way she acted and dressed at her lowest point.
Her most authentic always had her appearing like she's made of grit, and perhaps to be everyone's anchor, she had to.
But it's so often overlooked that there's more to her than that. All the other sides of her that verged between petty and passionate; attentive enough to pick off the lint on someone's clothes or remembering those little, random things about them like it's something she could pocket for years.
Or stab me with later. Takeomi thought in a way best friends could be the most intimate and terrible to each other than lovers.
Shinichiro had been jaded about dating for three years after a fling with a former coworker from Gareji Yago.
They were stinking and sweating like dogs in their overalls when he asked her out after pulling through their pit crew gigs in Suzuka Circuit during the racing season. She swooned from the side of the roadtrack anyway.
It's like riding a high to have a man approach her first and not be bewildered by her crassness. She could count his patchwork tattoos on his forearms when they ate in a good hole-in-the-wall before he walked her home or hung out on his unwashed futon where he told her his feelings, his secrets. His shabbiness never bothered her, even though she learned later on that he didn't have a lot to prove to be a mechanic.
It hadn't been his lack of prospects and perspectives or lousy repairs or reluctance to commit that killed it, but her inability to see him as who he was other than his potential.
Takeomi knew Shinichiro had been down bad for scrubs like that for a long time though she didn't remind her how she still settled with him for a miserable month more to spare her hurt ego.
Taking a bite of her danish, Shinichiro didn't like dwelling on it much when she craved in a gaze.
It's picturesque in film and nothing quite like reality but those old spouses across their table unremarkably talk about their day as if it's sacred.
Shinichiro confided that to Takeomi though her words were gradually lost to the slow thumb brushing off the crumbs from the corner of her mouth.
There's a memory of them sprinting out of the commercial wasteland of Shinjuku.
They weren't sure why they got into so much trouble. Maybe it's the kind that could condemn them in men's tabloids because being a teenage girl felt like a slur at the time. The media kept dismembering highschoolers into legs in hiked-up skirts or skinny scandals out for sale.
Her mother would’ve never predicted that when she pushed her out into the world with all her greedy, feminine desires. There’s a cruel irony to her genuinely wanting a girl rather than weaponizing it against her husband, telling her with a cigarette in hand to never waste herself away for a man who wasn't worth all the time and emotional taxes.
Affection hadn't been affordable ever since her mother divorced herself from her life. Her curves swelled up faster than her feelings for them but sadly never shaped her into a daughter deserving of love.
Takeomi converted it into currency with those doting salarymen that were no better than the catcallers and commuters who sneered at her in the station, stereotyping her as shallow in her loose socks. Boys at her school called her stuck-up for not being loose enough. Her screw-up of a brother learned to scowl at her because their relationship calloused like an injury over time and there's no adult around to unteach them from holding the knife.
Takeomi figured that maybe she'd survive the microaggressions everyday with how their joined hands were so clammy, bracelets clattering on their wrists. How Shin made it impossible for her to catch her breath, sometimes. Be a little braver together.
Then there's that disarming smile again. “I didn't mean to drag you so much, but you’d keep up anyway.”
“How couldn't I? You asked me if I wanted to run away with you.”
Everyone chased after a feeling – not the person.
I wish I could talk to my wife as easily as I do to you. The comparison seldom went without mention among her customers but he’s devoid of the petty griping, instead holding despair for a hospitalized partner, catatonic—he didn't tell why, except for an acquaintance's suggestion to be consoled here.
After glassfuls of shochu, doing her part in saying the right things in the right places, it seemed like they bridged a connection that wasn’t really one because it didn't take a lot for people to be drunk on the delusion that maybe there was, just someone near to listen, to feel less hollow inside.
He seemed pleased and a bit sheepish to know how she was after months of no-contact, nominating her this time. On his fourth visit, he delved more about his family – an estranged relationship with his older brother, who’d also been his boss – but the dynastic nepotism in corporate wasn't new to her. She related to him by lying about a brother who forgot about her the moment he studied abroad.
On his sixth, he bought her red-soled Louboutins. They would meet outside Kabuki-za on the opening night of Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura, where she wrapped a cashmere scarf on his neck as thanks for the shoes and seats. After the play, she let him explain why the paramours fled to Yoshino and the greater conflict catching up to them during their starry-lighted stroll in Chuo-dori.
Their hands were entwined but ill-fitted with the ring on his finger. He had the decency to not ask if Takeomi ever loved anyone though she told him he’d been treating her so well. It made her think of him often.
Longing edged his smile, and then he’d bring up if it’s okay to see her next week, like how they all would.
Her clients were in the prime of their lives, having undergone all the adult hallmarks of marriages and mortgages but with the hangups that had grown worse with them to wind up in a place like this.
It's easier to read with all the tells and traumas, the tempers that prowl with so much teeth underneath, the predictability of their upbringing on what defined a respectable man in society. All the pampering must've absolved them deep inside. There's always been some hidden contempt for the deception, but it's only less despicable for a woman when it's providing them with high quality companionship. The Mama of the club disclosed to her how lucrative it was living vicariously through her youth.
Takeomi wondered if they had daughters who denied them affection though she didn't pretend to be one the moment she readily lit their cigarettes with a poised hand because what father would even let her?
Takeomi knew a guy who knew this guy who invited her to this ritzy, all-the-rage nightclub with his babydoll date.
In the VIP booth, she half-shouted over the house music that she must've seen Takeomi somewhere and was stuck there after a vodka shot. Head thrown back in the manner a sophomore had bar-hopped her way throughout the semester of her toxic twenties.
Tons of shiny, new girls at Katsuai looked like her. Called her nee-san more than her own sister, cracked from the pressure of underperforming after being passed around from table to table.
Takeomi already figured out what kind of ‘benevolent person' he wanted to project by getting them their beverages. If he's feeling bold tonight – and trust me, he is in that lame, halfway-open Gucci shirt – he’d gather them later in the after party for a tipsy threesome.
She told her that to shock her. Cute. How her legs squeezed together in that miniskirt from her mean chuckle.
Having had her fill of bars and benders, Takeomi thought this girl should be smarter than this but was a little too willing to forsake it to play the fool for a fun time, with too few encounters to not be fed up yet.
With an arm on the sticky, faux-leather booth behind her, Takeomi leaned close to her ear conspiringly, “wanna ditch him?”
They drank, they danced.
They did it in the dark; somehow, more exposed when she had never done this with a woman before. Takeomi showed her how exquisite it could be but then would slip out of her skin like the night, even more parched from the memory in a plunging neckline that's too revealing in a 24/7 convenience store where Benkei coincidentally was.
In sweats. In search of someone – not her.
They're not cool though to meet like this must’ve been so stark familiar for her to momentarily forget about their fallout and offer her a bottle of Kombucha from her plastic bag. The thirst subsided, but the numbing disorientation fizzled into disgust from the tangy-sweet flavor.
Despite herself, Benkei snickered. “Senju didn't like it either.”
Takeomi was an alluring adornment to the executive vice president during the settai and settled longer with him who paid double for an additional hour alone with an 18-year old Hibiki to celebrate his success. Strategized a peck on his cheek to soften the blow of balking his advances for them to go somewhere nice and private so he could return to Katsuai with a necklace to match her diamond earrings. Because won't you want to see me again in only the jewelry you bought me?
It hadn't been the last time she dangled the prospect of sex to boost her sales, discreet enough to get away with it. She usually kept in touch with her regulars without it, but she wasn't against sleeping with clients who she could squeeze more for generous tips.
The natural cycle of a hostess ended with her body after all.
If Takeomi couldn't let her looks tarnish by thirty, then she should never give the rest of herself away to be consumed and left for scraps inside a hotel room. Never settle for cheap and no condom. Her conditions were firmly met but the first time had her scalding her skin in the bathtub. Still had her fucking and discarding whoever.
Wakasa had been the bane of her existence for an on-and-off year. She had her strings of whoever too but came out that she'd only been seeing women. Told Takeomi once that she had the kind of charisma that could shatter hearts and kept doing it because she had no clue what to do with her own. It could've sounded backhanded to anyone but it'd been from a casual conversation between them to pass the time outside the clinic for her sprained ankle. Her words lacked poison with something so poignant in her eyes though thinking about it now cut deeper than being called a conniving slut.
It didn't change how men and women begged her to turn them into one. The power play got her off most of the time. Takeomi messed up the pretty ones for fun, so eager and miserably inexperienced like Shin used to be.
Shinichiro clutched tight on the headboard with shaky knees; the strap so deep into her, it made her cry out.
Takeomi asked if she'd been too rough, if she should stop, all those things her past hookups didn't consider to ask her because she got better at faking an orgasm or forcing one out of herself, though Shinichiro sobbed a no, don't pull out. The pained shyness and shame shedded away after pleading with her to move, slowly, please slowly.
Takeomi obeyed, and the harness dug more on the skin of her inner thighs; the friction didn't make her wince. She wavered from moaning her name when a desperate, trembling part of her selfishly sought to close the old wound with their bodies as they strained to fit into each other, finding their rhythm again.
Repositioned side by side, that it's a little awkward how their limbs bent in odd, obscene angles, though Takeomi could reach her clit and press her mouth on the moles of her neck like this, making Shinichiro melt against her.
Takeomi couldn't ask her if she still wanted to do it with a man. Mulled over the many ways to sabotage it for her that could be satisfying for both of them, splaying against the sheets they had collapsed on.
Like the first time Takeomi had Shinichiro before she opened herself up to the next prick who only ever had sex with her in a quick, uninspired way she could barely make sense of it. Having friends with exes who looked out for her prepared her for the worst rather than the eroticas that screamed at her face how pleasurable it was getting dicked down to your cervix. It had tamed her expectations that just the naked closeness of their beings was enough.
With Takeomi, their intimacy made it more intense. Shinichiro dazedly told her that there's something special about the way her hips snapped into her, feeling her all the way in her throat. Their physicality was as good as whatever they had done to each other before but maybe she'd been a bit impatient on getting off before being flipped around.
Takeomi almost snorted out a laugh. It's not the afterglow. Shin’s always like this, to admit things that way.
“Just fess up you're a pillow princess,” she teased. “Oh, don't pout.”
Shinichiro bristled but didn't refute, telling her that she wouldn't mind trying this again. Then after an amused sure, the line of her shoulders sloped in content.
“Doing it with someone else . . . was it like that for you?”
With her experiences, Takeomi decided to not disappoint her.
“Depends.”
The sweat on the backs of their knees had dried up after a discussion on delayed periods and a bit about birth control. Hormonal imbalance because they didn't bleed enough for different reasons. The stains were a hassle so was having a baby. Do you want one?
I already have kids, though it sounded more like Shinichiro underwent postpartum than humoring her question, pillowing her head on Takeomi's stomach to mouth about going to this expo that had the latest Honda line-up with her siblings, the extra ticket she had reserved for Izana, her thoughts of him thumbed in languid circles around her navel like there's no end to the guilt when she kept him hoping in that orphanage for years.
Shinichiro didn't make her vulnerability a subject of discomfort, but whatever happened to no family matters in bed?
Takeomi didn't call her out, liking the idea of her breaking her rules around her instead.
The next time Shinichiro did it again, Takeomi woke up to her gazing at the window.
You look like her, and Shinichiro didn't ask who.
Because it's like all her mother ever knew: waited for her baby’s first kick, waited for her years to pass by her. She waited for her husband every night, wrapping up his dinner and preparing him a blanket on the couch, unbruised from his absence. She’d say he was only working hard with a warm, withering smile when the labor for love was one-sided. She never stopped blaming herself for it, that a sick woman was a burden.
“Then she received a call about his accident the next morning and I’d never seen her so devastated . . .” Shinichiro trailed off her words into a sigh, all too familiar to Takeomi.
It's her process, enforcing to herself that she wasn't angry and agonizingly thirteen anymore, that she had no control being complicit in an affair that couldn't save her family, that she no longer resented her parents for abandoning her with their failings and forgave them for just being flawed people.
“Mom was just a person,” Shinichiro said with a sort of wistful acceptance, despite adoring her mother in all the ways Takeomi might've understood, stabbed with betrayal.
“It’s strange, how we can’t see our mothers as anything but. It changed that day for me. We changed. Even though we carried on the same, kept the house clean, ate our meals together – with Emma. It's just, I know part of keeping her was for him, always for him, despite everything . . . but Mom really loved Emma, loved her as much as she did for me and Manjiro. We even had this picnic at the beach on her fourth birthday. There wasn't much of a crowd, but the wind kept blowing all these huge waves, you’d get swallowed up to your calves. I got to teach Emma how to swim in Manjiro’s floaties.”
Takeomi heard a mix of fondness and pride in her voice, lacking that recurring tone of inadequacy when Shinichiro wasn't prepared to have a sister in her life.
No one is, but she'd still been there for her through a motherless puberty, providing hand-me-downs before she’d grown a sense of identity and standing in line with her for hours in her first idol concert, first crush and cramps, first somethings.
And also: “Bet he's stingy as hell about sharing them.” Little brothers.
“He was!” Shinichiro groused but it wasn't without nostalgia. “Those two, I swear. Made such a fuss about it, splashing around and all, but Emma, she – she missed her brother a lot.” Hesitantly. “Her mom too.”
“Mom wasn't upset. Just tucked her in her chest when Emma curled into herself again, cried with her.” Her eyes were glazed, but she didn't rub them with the heel of her fist. Takeomi held her throughout.
“It was like that for awhile. I waited for them, and then we went back home.”
Shinichiro scrapped more with guys than she could ever seduce them since she was a school girl. She was endearingly stupid too when asking for advice, biting her lip. There's this boy I like . . . and Takeomi kept her feelings behind her teeth, giving her a tube of lipstick on her birthday as if to achingly paint the sentiment.
It's a twin shade to what Takeomi wore when she kissed that boy after rejecting her best friend because he doesn't deserve you, Shin. It's the same spiel, the same brand of bastard, though Takeomi knew Shinichiro had the kind of heart that collected broken souls. Figured maybe she could fix them with her body since her mother died trying.
On the womb of her bed, Takeomi cradled her to her chest that time, tearstained. Shinichiro never knew poverty in this house where she could let herself take up space. Her siblings deeply cared about her grief. Her grandfather too.
I'm still here, Takeomi promised her before pretending to sleep once Shinichiro pulled the covers over them.
Takeomi paced around in nothing but her bra and wide-leg pants.
She'd been so frantic about her missing phone that it didn't register to her that she was shirtless. Shinichiro dialed up the heater with the remote when Takeomi wouldn't listen, hollering to help her search for the damn thing because she couldn't be late for an important dinner reservation.
Shinichiro did, but still lacked the urgency. The hickeys on her neck were unapologetic from the full-body mirror and Takeomi would've been turned on in another day though it got under her skin so much that she flung their scattered clothes in her direction. Shinichiro looked about ready to throw her favorite thong in the trash. Stewing in their tempers made the air in the room muggier as they clothed themselves, backs turned.
Senju found them like that in meek but curious expectancy. She offered Shinichiro one of her burnt toasts while Takeomi slipped on her peacoat and heels, her phone finally in her handbag. The door slammed behind her.
Takeomi never valued playing house with others, not when she could just pour money into owning property where she never had to put up with anyone’s shit anymore.
It's debunked when there's no apartment remote enough to distance herself from a woman who carelessly left traces of herself everywhere. On the chair, a forgotten overshirt that Takeomi had buttoned up for her countless times. There were two mugs atop the marble counter of her island. One of them had a tea bag sogging at the bottom; a brand that tasted like what Shinichiro had only ever brewed for her grandfather, stowed on the pantry shelf and untouched now, the haunt of her absence for days.
Takeomi's neck still had her bruises, the Mama's reprehension. The meddling of other hostesses while she blotted her pores with concealer, thick with lies.
You should've been careful of him because their assumptions were safer and her compliance sunk on her palm, bitten by nails deeper than Shin's loving teeth, deeper for them to split her flesh open like a mouth just to say, the clawing need to scream.
It's not even a breakup and so were the other times; only the aftershocks of their revolting feelings.
All the mood swings, the ghosting. In the unresolved gaps, the text was “I’m busy” or “I don't have time for this” and you might as well been told to fuck off though sometimes, they're not even half-assed excuses because there's always something bigger than them in the way and it still stung.
Takeomi never enjoyed any of this, soaking in regret. Another cesspool of her self-absorption. She could swallow the night away from the glass edge of her drink when she couldn't be the cold, cutthroat bitch she aggrandized herself to be. More like a pitiful shadow of a woman.
She realized that the day Haruchiyo ran away from home years ago, stumbling her way into Shinichiro's doorstep.
Like how it’d always been between them, they cycled through their old habits.
They're in Shinichiro's room because she’d rather not have her siblings see the disaster they could do to each other. It turned out there's none of that after ending up so defeated on her bed.
Prada blistered her feet. Takeomi conceded to having them treated; a peeled-up heel was cradled by her palm to keep still on her lap.
She had fonder memories of swabbing her wounds clean from a scuffle. The contents of the first-aid kit scattered all over the sheets, like their childhood encapsulated in this room: Mars atop a stack of manga and magazines while the missing few were in Emma's shelves, the dried nail polish spotting the floorboards gray over time, girlfriends beaming in photo booth strips from their after-school arcade rendezvous. A tin box full of letters but the unsent ones crumpled like paper flowers on the desk. Then a packet of makeup wipes littered with their leftover affection.
Shinichiro was a hoarder at heart. She didn't have her old man chiding her how unladylike it was to be like this anymore and kept on sleeping closely with the chaos of her sentimentality. Her predispositions would have Mikey napping on the exact spot their grandfather did from the engawa.
“He takes after you.”
“You think so?” Shinichiro stared at the ceiling, striped in sunset from the blinds.
Your best and worst, and something else irredeemable, but Takeomi didn't say it, turning away from her as if to guard the grudge long enough for her to doze off and dream about her brother with stitches on his face while being talked into welcoming back the boy who carved him open like how she’d been in the same hospital, blamed again for the same reasons.
Takeomi sat in silence in the room with Haruchiyo and Shinichiro that day because as her relatives put it, she ought to know better than to overreact and cause another scene.
They hadn't done it since they were dumb teenagers, skipping class with cigarettes to seclude into themselves. The interior of their world was compressed in a bathroom stall and Takeomi's body spray that smelled like cake.
Cuz I still want to smell like something you'd eat, and they sputtered into giggles before letting their curiosity smolder inside their mouths, tarrying to touch, until Takeomi couldn't take it anymore, coughing smoke in her balcony.
Golden Bat was fervid and dizzying with the memory. So was the hand on her jaw, lowering to rub her back like the one that had soothed her from the toilet bowl after overindulgent nights. Maybe Shinichiro had a kink for being reliable, and hearing that loosened a chuckle out of her, dropping the cigarette butt in her empty chuhai can. Takeomi's skin tingled from the gentle grip on her arm, leading her back inside the living room that was dumped with napkins and paper boxes of greasy Thai takeout on the coffee table.
Senju was holed up in her room because it's a Sunday, but could probably hear them over the wedding scene playing in the background; a tearjerker that they still had the attention span to follow after sixty-eight episodes. They had no clue who decided for their mid-twenties to devolve into watching the trashiest primetime dramas while sitting cross-legged on the floor.
The room was dark, except for the glow of the TV. The kind of moody ambiance that hid all the imperfections on her face, hid every experimental mistake and embarrassingly drunken apology.
“I think you wouldn't love me as much if I wasn't fucked up,” Takeomi told her and Shinichiro insisted that wasn't true as if they didn't lead the lives they had. Their brothers were the spitting image of their shitty fathers and although Shinichiro harbored love for Mikey, Takeomi brought out the rage because it never betrayed you. Because she'd been so pent-up from the sacrifices Izana resented her for, unable to live up to what everyone expected her to be.
Takeomi caressed her cheek. “Baby, it's because I know how much you want to be needed.”
They didn't talk right after that.
Takeomi couldn't remember the rest of it – would rather not – and found Shinichiro simmering in her bathtub the next morning.
The heat rose up in tendrils, fogging the frosted glass of the screen. Takeomi invited herself in to perch on the side of the tub. Hauled up her hand and ripped off the wrinkled bandaid at the back of it, eliciting a surprised hiss. Shinichiro glared at her for giving no warning.
With a shrug, Takeomi chastised her for not replacing it and inspected the wound weep a bit – her bruised knuckles belied more than a clumsy scrape at work – before swiping ointment there and patching her up with a new one like a foul metaphor to cover the damage between them.
Her gaze lingered on the dewiness of her skin, how she's uncoy about it . . .
Her phone rang in another room.
Takeomi closed her eyes, swallowing a sharp breath. Then she reminded Shinichiro that there were towels on the cabinet under the sink as if she needed to know where, something like the locked shape of her ribcage, about to burst when her damp hand held her knee, drenching warm trails at the edge of her night robe.
“Don't pick it up.” Her fingers curled.
Takeomi stood, stubborn. “Make me.”
The bathwater sloshed around her legs as Shinichiro stepped out of the tub, wrapping herself with her arms, though she didn't look weak from it. Nothing about her had ever been.
“I’m not mad at you,” she decided. “But I still think you're an asshole.”
With a scoff, Takeomi walked away from her to come back, swaddling her with a large towel over her shoulders. Wiped the side of her face as her eyes blinked, lashes long and lovely.
Takeomi sighed, frustrated all over again. “You’re getting my floor all wet.”
Their bare feet almost touched. The ringing stopped awhile ago.
But soon enough, there would be another call and their lives wouldn’t intersect until Golden Week.
Families swarmed everywhere, but there were more wealthy expats around on vacation. Carp streamers floated in a myriad of colors at a park from a gentrified district in Minato, and then a bit farther would be Roppongi Hills Mori Tower, built on buried settlements and small businesses going bust around ‘99. One of them was an insurance firm where her father got laid off for cutting costs.
Takeomi had been on the top floor years later, privately dining on kaiseki with this investment banker who had a disinterest for panoramic views, once you’d been in a skyscraper, you’d seen it all, he said.
Shinichiro didn’t comment much on it, nodding to her words while paying their entrance fee at the register of a public museum. It's a random route, really. They didn't know much about art or antiques, just a detached appreciation for the collection, ambling in a place where they held no history but in themselves.
The elevator wasn't crowded but they headed for the stairs, climbing up to the next gallery.
“Do you still hate Waka?” Shinichiro asked, suddenly.
“I don’t,” Takeomi said, stopping for a second to reconsider it, but her conclusion remained unchanged. “I thought I did. She made herself so effortless about everything that it pissed me off so I,” humbled her? Put her in her place as soon as I left? “She’s just a casual fuck. It’s nothing.”
Her eyes were tempestuous. “Don’t say that – it wasn't nothing!”
Her face was set in defense, almost to a cold, sneering degree. “If that's how you see it. Why does it matter to you?”
“She’s our friend,” Shinichiro snapped.
“No, she’s yours.”
An intervention of footfalls, low, hushed whispers.
The temporary break in tension had Takeomi turning away first, retreating upstairs to lean on the balustrade in silent exasperation, while Shinichiro tailed after her and sat on a bench nearby. It’d been like that for a minute.
“I’m yours too,” resolved or regretful, it blurred like how it often did.
“Did something happen between you?” accused Takeomi, but her head shook with this vague, annoyed expression that's insinuating how she's missing the point. “What is it then? Why now?”
“I don't know. We’ve been so tense, and I guess what happened between you has been on my mind lately, no, maybe ever since we . . .” her words drifted to a searching look. “I just need to understand what really made you upset like that.”
It's sincere but selfish. More meddlesome than it was back then. The repercussions of her situationship with Wakasa ran deep and irreparable in their clique. Shinichiro took the separation personally but didn't have the heart to shun them for their choices.
Takeomi sighed, somber and aggrieved. “I think I liked her, more than she ever did for me, and I felt embarrassed going through that again,” a pause. “I couldn’t stand it.”
Shinichiro gave a nod as if she's there to listen. Another second passed without judgment, and Takeomi slumped down beside her, toeing off her stilettos and shoving them aside because this was taking a long while to be over.
“You were always better at dealing with that sort of thing,” she reflected.
“No, not really. All I do is cry and hope the hurt goes away.” Shinichiro didn't insist on being wise, feeling more foolish than she should. It's a reflex, how her hand shuffled for her pack, and they would've already been bumming on a cigarette if this uptight place wasn't a no smoking area.
Still, she let out a languished breath. “But it does, most of the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For always making things complicated.”
Takeomi sensed a stir to her side before a head fell on the cusp of her shoulder; a familiar, clinging weight.
“It’s not unsalvageable,” she heard her say softly. Her enduring optimism could be insufferable at times though she’d be lying if it hadn't steadied her throughout her life. She's damaged goods so she never really knew what it's like to prosper. Perhaps having that was something close to it.
People wove around them at a leisurely pace. Glances wandered. Shinichiro went on, “we can talk with Waka and Benkei whenever you're ready. Or – ah, I’m getting ahead of myself, huh.”
“A little, yeah.”
“Sorry, but do you want to?”
“I’ll think about it,” Takeomi said noncommittally.
“Sure.” A small, pensive nod. “Oh, and did you know they adore your sister?”
Pride kindled in her chest. “I don't know anyone who wouldn't. She's better for it, having them.”
“She's still your sister.”
“I haven't been much lately.”
“Then I’ll help you,” Shinichiro persisted.
“Well, it didn't work out with Haru, did it.” The words were sharp-ended because it's fragile and final. Her brother would always be her wound.
“I know,” because she would, more than anyone, lingering beside her for their losses. "I just don't want you to be alone.”
Takeomi reached for her hand and it's terrifying, sometimes. “I never did with you.”
The ukiyo-e section was a quiet affair.
A sprawling scenery of Yoshiwara later, Takeomi tugged at the cuff of her sleeve to ask if she wanted to go out.
Nodding, Shinichiro followed her in stride before faltering after a few steps. She gestured her to wait and disentangled a lock on her earring, stalling to stare at the way her hair fell back in waves against the burgundy velvet of her dress.
When asked if there's something else out of place, it had Shinichiro blink at her and then her lips curled up like it's a funny notion. “No, it's not that. You just look beautiful.”
“Oh. You too.” A warmth crept up her exposed nape. Takeomi welcomed it like a relief and went on saying she liked her flannels.
A chuckle, it's bargain-bin cheap, and Takeomi replied that it didn't look like it with the sleek turtleneck. Shinichiro joshed back anyway, “what, so you’ll wear it?”
There's game on her grin, widening after Takeomi let out an amused, unattractive snort with her arm in the crook of hers.
“Not in public.” It's half joking, half indicative enough for her to read more into it, maybe ruminate the idea that it's almost voyeuristic how every painted, scantily clad courtesan was a spectator behind glass.
They left the museum for lunch, and then booked themselves in a love hotel because it began to rain, because it really wasn’t about the rain when they went about hooking up without preamble.
It's still midday and Shinichiro was already unzipping her dress; their clothes pooling beneath their feet, except for underwear. Black embellished lace on her hip bone, traced by a fingertip. “This is new . . .”
“Ah, you noticed.” Takeomi reveled in it, pulling her on her lap, and then like a promise, “comes with a garter belt too.”
“Sexy. Next time then,” Shinichiro sank on her skin with a sigh; the plush of their thighs softer than the mattress under them. “You look good in anything.”
Their hands roamed all over each other, making the thin strap of her balconette fall down her shoulder. The underwire was a bit uncomfortable with her heart on her throat.
“Shin.”
“Mm, yeah?”
“How would you want me to be?”
Her demeanor shifted from hearing that when her palms cupped her face, like Takeomi could be swallowed to the depths of those eyes, dark and devastating.
“I’m not one of your clients.” It didn’t sound mean-spirited nor was it a mood-killer. She was harsh about it, but there’s a gentleness to her touch, holding her longer. “You don't have to try hard for me.”
“Say that again,” and the words dripped out of her a second time, a stickiness to her stutter, like her boxer briefs that mismatched the washed-out navy of her bra; all discarded from desperation, rubbed raw and ripe, as she rode her thigh.
She’s so graceless, so glorious.
“—for me.”
Her gaze trailed the way pleasure rippled off her body, her head lolling backwards with that chain around her neck.
Shinichiro would make this deep, broken sound rolling out of her throat after arching for the palms molding her breasts, perked up with barbells, though this time, it's because Takeomi evaded her lips with a sly turn of her head. They grazed against the side of her jaw with a kiss and another on the sweet spot under her ear, open-mouthed. “Baby, no marks . . .”
There's a pause as if awaiting for the follow-up, anywhere else is fine, but it didn't come, making her sigh. Shinichiro conceded but stayed on her shoulder for a moment before uncurling herself when she felt a tap on her backside.
It's playful as if to remind her there's nothing to sulk about. Takeomi knew she sucked at keeping it like that though she gave her a look, and then had her reach for her handbag on the nightstand. There's a pouch of cosmetics, a bullet lipstick.
Shinichiro regarded it curiously until it registered to her. “I can't believe you sometimes.”
Takeomi tilted her head to the side, smiling a little when she did. She wished she said something wittier to earn it. “This is your color.”
Her arms draped around her neck. “Oh, how’d you know?”
“I just do,” she held her chin. “Stay still.”
So still that Takeomi could feel herself throb, aching and demanding and locked under the heat spreading slick between those legs of hers.
She had no clue where her restraint came from to carefully uncap the golden tube and twist it up; a red, rounded tip poking out in a warm shade, like a blush. Would’ve had her like that if she stuck her fingers down her throat, have her take it, but no, not yet, as her thumb parted open her lips, pliant from long, creamy strokes of lipstick, and then had them pressed together, letting the color bloom on the swell of her mouth.
“Perfect. Look at you,” Takeomi shuddered out from the hot slide of her cunt against her thigh, mesmerized from the closeness of her face, so pretty tormented, please.
Just as badly. “Kiss me.”
Shinichiro did, smearing moans. With how she’d been worked up to wait, it's a startlingly indulgent sort of kiss, a slow unraveling.
It's how Shinichiro finished too, anchored in by the hand that had her grab onto Takeomi like a lifeline. There's a bit of lipstick on her front teeth and she licked it off her. Takeomi would've stretched this out longer if Shinichiro hadn't pulled off her bra and had her lie back down, laying her lips on her like she's drinking her curves.
Shinichiro took her time. Takeomi couldn't find it in herself to stammer at her to just take her apart already. All she did was graze roads on her back as their bodies moved together, hips grinding, but in the bare space of her sternum, their gazes met breathlessly. Her hair was brushed back by a hand to see her better.
Those eyes held her entirety. Takeomi didn't want to exist anywhere else.
“Let me take care of you.”
Shinichiro waited for her nod before pressing mouth-shaped trails that blossomed on her chest and then her ribs, under the dip of her navel where she's all drenched need and woman.
See how you do this to me, Takeomi wanted to say after a yank that had her lace underwear dangle on her foot, toes curling from the long, honey-slow lap up to her clit.
Sweat-soaked sheets chafed against them. Shinichiro groaned into her and Takeomi felt it from the base of her spine. Her legs spread open for more, sucked senseless. She trembled hard. It's pathetic, how it took so little to have her this sensitive while she's sober. She's sure she had great sex before, when it used to mean something, though with Shinichiro, there hadn't been a time Takeomi felt like a stranger in her own skin.
Her fingers dug for her orgasm after her lips parted for a second, tied by a string of cum, before pursing them around where she's most swollen with ache, her tongue sloppy; a silken secret that Takeomi hoped to never share with anyone else because Shinichiro wouldn't even deign to define what their relationship was, how much it deeply meant to her – until it spilled. Hand on her breast, Takeomi came so fast it's shameless. She came so fast she could do it all over again until she's sent over the edge and it's almost unbearable, too much, too good it'd hurt to end.
So Takeomi pulled her hair tighter, painful. The pleasure was a vice-grip, bruising skin more with lipstick stains, and she should feel teeth sinking but for whatever reason, it's always her tenderness that scraped her thin.
Fresh from the shower, Shinichiro laid flat on the bed and left a damp spot on her pillow.
They're still in bathrobes and a bare knee from the slit dipped down the edge of the mattress. Takeomi handed her a glass of water, which she gratefully received and rinsed down. It sat on the nightstand, glinting amber from the lamp. The curtains were drawn shut.
Takeomi reclined on the space left for her. Their legs were in an idle tangle, sheets tousled over cold toes.
“It's yours if you want.”
Shinichiro observed the red poke out from the lipstick before capping it and flipping back the bottom of the tube to read the name stamped in tiny, black letters. Lovers in the Dark.
“It looks familiar . . . something you got me years ago,” she mused, placing the lipstick back on the nightstand. “The color’s the same but not the brand.”
Takeomi shrugged. “That was a dupe. So, you still remember that?”
“Yeah, I remember you stole it for me too.” Shinichiro had been in the drugstore that day, gandering around the beauty aisle with mock interest to shield her from the cashier.
“You taught me how.” Takeomi reminisced the teenage thrill of getting away with it when she wasn't allowed to dye her hair like their rebel friends. Shinichiro hadn't done it either with unspoken solidarity. “Bad influence.”
Her lips bent into a smirk. “Fast learner.”
“I could say the same.” Her hand was on the hem of her collar, peeling it back to press her lips on her skin. “You really didn't know what to do with your hands when you were still a—”
“Cut me some slack,” Shinichiro bemoaned. “I was so nervous and confused. I wasn't even sure if I wore deodorant.”
Twenty and panting under Takeomi who laughed a little from their unpreparedness before deciding to pull her top over her head and pin her down the bed with a kiss that's full and realized and devouring of the good that's been robbed from them because they had already been making concessions to the world since they were half their age, a bit scarcer of themselves as proper adults, because no matter how they strove hard, Shinichiro was still disparaged at her workplace and Takeomi was disillusioned of her personhood. Perhaps, those widowed aunties would call what they feel for each other an ephemeral thing and wording it that way ought to finally wither with their lot because it wasn't a phase. Because after bearing all that pain for so long, how could you ever give this up?
Shinichiro wrapped a languid arm around her waist, listening to the low humdrum of the air conditioner, the rise and fall of their chests. Takeomi rested comfortably on her heartbeat, murmuring how she fussed too much over unnecessary things.
“I’m glad it was you,” Shinichiro confessed anyway.
Takeomi hadn't slept with a woman before Shin, and there's no one else she could've trusted more either. “Do you care about that, firsts and all?”
“I shouldn't?” she asked before screwing her mouth in doubt. “Yeah, it's a bit childish.”
“No, it's actually nice that you do,” Takeomi reassured her. “I’d really hate it if you did it with a jerk who’d make you feel bad about yourself.”
"I wouldn't want that for you too."
Her despair almost squeezed a question out of Takeomi but she closed her mouth. Bottled it for the drink tomorrow until her guts cramped and churned while thinking about the way her arm tightened. She touched her elbow, rubbing slow circles there with her thumb.
"We've had our share, huh," she mused; mourned for them. “But there were girls who liked you.”
"You're overestimating me too much."
“Well, you're always acting like no one had a crush on you. You never even gave them a chance.” Not that she had an issue with that.
Shinichiro fretted. “That's because, you know, I didn't . . .”
“You know now,” Takeomi said, “so why not?”
“I never really felt wanted.”
Shinichiro sounded like she’d been torn open but no longer had tears to shed for it. Just tired, so tired and lonely.
“It didn't go as far as this and it isn't a lot, but I think every woman I met only had a certain idea of me,” she told her before heaving out a sigh, a weight in her chest. “They’re wonderful. It's nice when they tell me I make them feel safe . . . but I just can't pretend to be a man in the relationship. I’m not one, but this is me.”
“I like that a lot about you,” Takeomi admitted, despite herself. “But some expectations can't be met, I guess. Their loss.”
“It’s fine. I don't mind getting shot down at the start when not all of them are exactly fond of me liking men too . . .”
“Yeah,” she huffed; a sparse laugh, a little sorry for her. A little guilty too. “Yeah, I get what you mean.”
That nudged up her lips into a smile. The name between them flew past Shinichiro like a stray thought before she could keep herself shut. Her guilt stuttered.
“Waka didn't care about that, if you're curious,” Takeomi interrupted her, lacking bite for recalling the nicer parts of what they had. “We’re just a pair of wrecks.”
Shinichiro couldn't help herself. “I wish you didn't have to hurt each other.”
Takeomi didn't deny she was deliberate about it, so did Wakasa. She'd rather dismiss her opinion about that, even if it meant well, but something else crept up her mind.
“Hey, when we were together,” she hesitated because together wasn't an accurate term for them. She only used it for Shin's sake. “Did you ever think it could've been you?”
“No,” Shinichiro looked like she had more to say; perhaps realizations, their past of rebounds and regrets, the way they return back to each other like old, broken halves. “But I don't think I would have kept doing this with anyone else either . . .”
“Are you scared to?” Takeomi asked delicately.
“Yeah, I almost hate myself for it.”
“Do you hate yourself when you're with me?”
“No.” But. It lingered with a twinge. “I don't want to lose you.”
“You have me,” ever since they met in the rain and everything else after that muddled between them. “You always did, Shin.”
Their breaths mingled, warm, closer; the shape of her lips so damningly familiar it almost hurt.
“Because we're still friends.”
“We are.”
Exposition Corner:
[1] Enjo Kosai: Shortened to Enko, it is compensated dating where men pay or give luxury gifts to highschool girls or housewives for companionship. The transaction of the relationship isn’t always sexual but it can be. The term is also outdated to fit the timeline of the story, set around the 2000s. Nowadays, Enjo Kosai is referred to as Papakatsu (sugar dating).
[2] 'tea lady living paycheck to paycheck': A reference to office ladies who are delegated in the ochakumi (tea squad), responsible for serving tea to the team. This additional duty for female employees indicates sexual discrimination in the workplace, along with the income gap and fewer opportunities for them being promoted to managerial positions.
[2] Makoto: Freud and daddy issues aside, Shinichiro's father, Makoto [真], has the same kanji for Shinichiro's name [真一郎], [真] being the kanji for ‘truth’ or ‘sincerity’ and [一郎] for ‘first son.’ Another reading of [真一郎] can be Makoto’s First Son.
[3] "Post-Bubble": It is meant to reference Japan's Lost Decade, a period of economic stagnation and price deflation during the 1990s to early 2000s, following after the boom of the country’s bubble economy in the 1980s.
[4] Katsuai: The dictionary term of Katsuai [渇愛] would translate to thirst, craving, desire, comprised of the kanji [渇] for ‘thirst’ and [愛] for ‘love’. The Buddhist term for this is derived from the concept of Taṇhā. It’s more difficult to summarize in this glossary, but here’s a [link] for a more digestible understanding of it, for those interested! I sort of recycled this from my other fic, but this is just my fun, personal lore for Takeomi.
[5] “[...] for refusing the arrangement set up by the local matchmaker.”: A reference to Miai, a traditional custom of matchmaking for potential partners, not to confuse this with arranged marriage. Matchmakers who set you up could range from marriage agencies to just your meddlesome relative introducing you to the neighbor’s kid. I’d also like to note that this isn’t a popular practice with the younger people, who’d still prefer the courtship-to-marriage route.
[6] Dohan: The term for a date with a hostess before her shift, coming into the club together.
[7] Ni-chome: It is known for being the LGBTQ+ neighborhood in Tokyo.
[8] Gareji Yago: This was the motor shop were Shinichiro worked at in the original timeline, and what I’m assuming before he got his shop (if Mikey’s accident didn’t happen).
[9] "Maybe it's the kind that could condemn them in men's tabloids [...]": A reference to the misogyny and predatory male media around the highschool girls who engaged in the Gyaru subculture and the sensationalized scandals about them and their 'participation' in Enjo Kosai during the 1980s to 1990s. To clarify, shortening uniform skirts and wearing loose socks was a fashion trend started by kogyaru, which then became popular to highschool girls, even though they don’t consider themselves being part of the subculture. Takeomi was one of those girls.
This is just a summary but goddamn was Gyaru subculture a massive rabbit hole, honestly why schoolgirls are rampantly sexualized in Japan. If you want a good deep dive, I implore you to check these well-researched videos [1] and [2].
[10] Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura: a popular kabuki play about an epic set in the aftermath of the Genji–Heike war, centered on Minamoto no Yoshitsune and his retainers escaping the capture of his older brother, the shogun’s henchmen. So for context, the paramours who fled to Yoshino refer to Yoshitsune and Shizuka, his mistress. This bit was under his loyal retainer, Benkei's POV who followed after them.
Fun fact, the main characters of the play are based on semi-legendary, historical figures like Minamoto no Yoshitsune and Benkei. It’s not outright stated in TR, but these two were probably the inspiration for Wakasa and Benkei. The former were respected warriors, had a duel in Gojo Bridge (Gojo gym), and the height difference lol. Yoshitsune also had the childhood name, Ushiwakamaru [牛若丸] ( Imaushi Wakasa [今牛 若狭] ).
[11] Settai: The term for entertaining business partners, often through drinking or dinners. Hostess clubs are places that can be used to conduct them.
[12] Mama: she is the head-hostess and owner of a hostess club.
[13] Golden Week: It is a series of four holidays in Japan, starting at the end of April to early May.
[14] Ukiyo-e and Yoshiwara: translated as pictures of the floating world, ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art during the Tokugawa period. One of the many subject matters depicted in ukiyo-e paintings and woodblock prints were people who worked in the entertainment and pleasure districts, like Yoshiwara. Like present-day Kabukicho, it is prominently known to be a red-light district of Edo (Tokyo).
[15] Ages: in Japan, the age of adulthood is 20 under the Civil Law Act, wherein you can drink, smoke, vote, and rent an apartment without a guarantor or guardian's consent. You're no longer considered a child at 18 and over according to the Child Welfare Law but you're not exactly (legally) an adult until you're 20. The legal age to be a hostess is 18 years old (yes these girls aren't allowed to drink alcohol but from what I've heard they're given tea). There are also cases where establishments don’t check the girls’ ID, some getting the job younger than 18.
Regarding when she kept him hoping in that orphanage for years - in another fic I wrote Shinichiro should have to be 20 to adopt Izana so let me correct myself here that the age requirement is actually over 25 (at least, one partner has to be). Aside from how complicated Japanese adoptions are in itself, the easier route is still for Izana to wait and grow out of his orphanage until he turns 18.