“Kanemoto!”
Kiyoshi announced in his booming voice, much like a commissioned officer summons an enlisted soldier. His head peeking into the breakroom, eyes searching for me among all the other faces of these hostesses, the war plan on the tip of his tongue, merely waiting for the eve-of-battle speech to begin.
That family name, used once more as a mace, my heart the armour as it is bludgeoned, no need of steel or might against the impact of this blunt force of unintended ill-meaning.
Nao had already retrieved her schedule for the night and gone off to begin her shift; Mikako followed soon after. The two had slipped into conversation the moment they saw each other, though even that didn’t last long before they were handed their schedules and forced to depart for the coming night.
Now the breakroom was emptying out, almost everyone dressed up and secure in the knowledge of their role for the day. It was just us stragglers left here, hostesses who were either late, taking their sweet time getting ready in the connecting dressing room, or were still waiting for their schedule.
Except I was the only one in that last bracket.
“Your client cancelled last minute…” He began, his muscled arms crossed, the tattooed red dragon upon them wrapping tightly around his skin like a constricting snake, “I have nothing else for you.” He finished with a slight shrug, a curious glint in his eyes at what my reaction might be.
I didn’t say anything; my eyes met him, and silence settled between us. I thought to give a hum and accept this as a wasted journey and head home, but Kiyoshi wasn’t finished speaking, as evidenced by his gaze that bounced from me to the clipboard in his hand in clandestine debate.
“Still stubborn on only doing solo duty?” He continued, no longer withholding the words as if they were a bone and I a dog being rewarded for not having an outburst about the lack of solo duty.
“What is the offered shift, Shikichi?”
Nothing, not a word, peep, or even change in his body language. Kiyoshi just remained watching me, his mind turning as he thought about his following action. Whatever job he had on the table was an irregular one, so much so that he wasn’t confident who would be the best to complete it.
Nevertheless, the requirements Kiyoshi had set for this task must have at least been grazed by me; otherwise, I doubt his decision would have needed this much thought.
“There’s a new girl…” He relented, and my eyes widened in shock, there was no way he was offering me of all people this… “Someone needs to train her, get her up to standard.”
Outstanding, amazing, shocking.
I can’t believe it; he’s asking if I want to train someone. The same woman who’s characterised as an emotionless bitch by the other hostesses. The same woman who defied him and tore her schedule up in front of the whole breakroom. The same woman who leveraged her popularity to force him to agree to unequal terms of shifts.
Why?
This makes no sense. I’m on my way to leaving Ha:Yami, surely he can see that? Only someone with no future here would act as I’ve done, yet he’s asking me to train someone?
Does he not care if she ends up behaving similarly to me?
Or… is that the point? He’s taking a gamble, trying to use his highest-rated hostess to train someone to her level potentially?
Unless, maybe, he hasn’t figured it out? That I’ll be leaving soon, perhaps he sees this as a white flag, a sign to reel me back in, to clear the table between us and patch up our strained working relationship.
Offering trust in the hopes of receiving it in kind.
But he is no sister of mine, perceived or otherwise; neither is he a dear friend or equal liar.
So why?
Perhaps I simply… do not understand companionship as well as I thought.
Or perhaps this is not companionship but instead a mere contract?
That would be more on-brand for Kiyoshi and far easier to accept.
Fine, I agree to the white flag. I’ll train the new girl to the best of my abilities, a replacement for my soon-to-be departure and a favour returned for the privileges he acquiesced to.
“Where is she?”
“You agree?” He instantly shot back, a quickly covered hint of surprise on his face.
Of course, he was shocked, being work mode Seina was once my entire point of coming here, and that could only be done with solo duty, but now that she’s gone, and two is melted into one… it's unnecessary.
Besides, I’m fine with spending what little time I have left here idly wasting away the days training up some new girl.
More than fine, truthfully. It might even be relaxing.
“Yes, now where is she?” I replied, my tone calm yet far colder with him than with the others. Anyone who uses that family name over Seina deserves as much, a delusion of respect that cuts as honourless as a ronin in a duel.
Even if he believes otherwise.
He gestured towards a woman seated on the couch opposite me, the only other woman in the room now that everyone else had filtered out for their shifts, “Over there.”
The woman startled at being so abruptly referred to. She was beautiful, but so was every other hostess who worked here. It was the standard anyone could expect from a high-class place like this.
She was thin and a little bit shorter than me, though that thinness did her figure no favours. Something that would be irrelevant in any other place other than here, where appearances are chosen no different to drinks on a menu.
Her hair was a pure black, similar to Mikako’s but much shorter, hovering just beside her neck with a loose fringe covering her forehead. She scratched her head under my observation and turned to the side, clearly embarrassed by the scrutiny. The movement revealed that her hair was partially tied into two small buns resting on the back of her head.
It was cute. Her whole appearance came together to somewhat resemble a nervous tomboy but in a very obviously girly way. So, nothing like a tomboy, really.
“Kanemoto, meet Mari Aoyama.” Kiyoshi introduced with a wave of his arm towards her, then repeating the action, he did the same towards me, “Mari, meet Seina Kanemoto.”
Mari stood up from her seat, a speed in her motion that gave away her nervousness, “Miss Kanemoto, it is a pleasure to meet you. Please treat me well!” She declared with practised professionalism mixed in with energetic youthfulness, the arch of her polite bow making her appear no different to a first-time office worker straight out of university rather than a newbie hostess.
She was out of her element.
“Aoyama,” I said, her family name with a curt haste forced out by her address, “Please call me Seina.” I finished with a smile, hollow and acted, yet hopeful all the same that it would put her at ease.
She straightened her back out and stood with her face now in full view. The hair that blanketed it from the bow returned back to its position, revealing the chirpy grin she was struggling to keep to herself.
Her actions were juxtaposed against each other, a blend of her genuine personality and rehearsed movements that someone, perhaps even herself, clearly drilled into her.
It felt as if she may have applied to the Ha:Yami Club without understanding its entire picture. That apprentice-like attitude was seemingly better suited for a new assistant in a corporate environment, while the outgoing grin on her lips and awkward nerves of confusion was probably more in line with the actual Mari.
Though I may be completely wrong in my initial impressions, I have just met her, after all.
“Seina? Okay, sure, if that’s what you want. Could you call me Mari, too?” She replied, her voice a model fit for her face, high pitched, youthful, bubbly, all the traces of a girl naively unaware of what hardship is.
Kiyoshi cleared his throat, a not-so-subtle reminder he was still here, “Kanemoto, get her trained for drinks jockey within the week and showhorse ready in two weeks. Solo duty will be a discussion for another day. You’ll still have your solo duty when it's available, but other than that this is your main task, understood?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, inwardly deciding there was no need for pointless words. He lifted his hand as if to dismiss me, then realised his location and put it back down again in the next moment, the small amount of embarrassment on his face vanished as he turned around and left us all alone in the breakroom.
Mari had retaken her seat, a slight fidget as she bathed in the unwanted silence, clearly wanting to break it with her voice, but she refrained from doing so, likely waiting for me to speak first.
I was uncertain about how to progress. Usually, the older hostess handled any training, drawing on the years of experience they had. It felt like it should have been Nao or Mikako in this room, preparing to guide Mari through the ins and outs of the Ha:Yami Club.
But it wasn’t. It was me, right here, in this room, debating what to do.
It shouldn’t be, I knew that, I wasn’t the right person for this, but what else was there to do? Go home, not even my home but Nao’s, and spend another day away from the Ha:Yami?
“He’s kinda scary, isn’t he?” Mari whispered, her patience finally running out as the detonating cord connected to a dynamite tube. However, the finishing result was an end to the quiet rather than an explosion.
“He’ll grow on you.” I replied, the sentence filled with more falsehoods than a charlatan on the streets, tucked up against the wall of an alleyway, a deck of tarot cards in her grasp.
My words were a repeat of the same thing Mikako told me when I first came here. I wasn’t a void back then, though I was still a lie, a constant and living work mode, but one who hadn’t yet tasted the truth, so at least I remained somewhat alive.
Nao had volunteered to train me, but Kiyoshi chose Mikako over her. I never really wondered why. It didn’t bother me as I barely knew them back then, but I am curious about it now. They had joined the Ha:Yami together, and they had been friends since middle school, I believe, so each had the same four years of experience.
Yet I ended up with Mikako, calm, mellow, and mature. They were my first impressions of her, though they’ve faded a tad as I’ve gotten to know her, not by much, however. She still embodies those traits today, but I’d add ‘indecisive’ to the list, always relying on Nao to lead the way.
There’s a humour to this all: both Nao and Mikako were twenty-two when I first joined, and now, four years later, I’m in the same position as they were, training up my first rookie at the same age.
Time truly is endless, sprinting without need for rest. No matter how much I beg for it to take just a moment's breath, it refuses me, its ears plugged up so soundlessly that it cannot even hear the rips and tears of my vocal cords as I scream for it to stop.
It cannot heed a thing, so it continues, passing with a record-maintaining pace. Four years at Ha:Yami, four years spent to repair what was broken at childhood, my youth bleeds out from cuts made a lifetime ago, and I can do nothing to stop it.
My hand twitches, the desire to slip it into my bag and remove a cigarette, place the poison upon my lips and let it seep into me. But I am no longer rot, so the decay wouldn’t take properly to this body of mine, besides… I have no poison left to even tempt it.
Nevertheless, time is ignorant to rot and poison, so I feel nothing as they are traded away for a life admiring the view; no lies within a mirror are needed to perform on this stage, the only one I’ve ever wanted to reside upon.
“You’re a bit intimidating too.” Mari continued, her tone meek as if she were admitting a wrongdoing to a parent.
“Oh, sorry.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I was caught off guard and left stunned.
“I didn’t mean it in a bad way.” She explained, worry coating her bright lips, “I love it. It's really cool. You’re like a cold beauty, mysterious and elegant. Can you sing?”
“Sing?” I asked, taken aback by her swiftly evolving conversation.
“Ah-huh, sing, can you do it? You’d make an interesting idol if you can, definitely not the centre or anything, but definitely one of those quiet and monotone girls with a secret heart full of love or something. A real life kuudere.” Her head swayed up and down, eyes darting in energised passion as she spoke. This topic was evidently one that was dear to her.
“A… kuudere?”
And on the other hand, I struggled to keep up with her. This wasn’t how I predicted our first training session would start, though at the very least, her talks of idols reminded me of Takamura. That lie Seina told him, the one about her false dream of being an idol, one spoken in the hopes it’d pair perfectly with the front she displayed.
However, Takamura followed it up by calling Seina an excellent liar, claiming that was the reason she’d fit in well with other idols. He wasn’t wrong, but I’m glad Mari hadn’t yet started down that route. Though, without that falsehood of a work mode, could the same claim even be made?
I doubt it; my lies are much better now that they aren’t as forced.
“Oh, they’re a character archetype. So the cold, emotionless character with a calm voice and blunt attitude- Ah, and high IQ, too. They’re usually the leaders and soldiers of a show. And then all beneath that frosty exterior, they’re filled with love and care that’s only visible if you pay close attention to them, like them being kind to animals or the elderly or something like that.”
“I don’t think those types of people exist in real life.”
She tucked her hand beneath her chin, resting her head on it like an ambassador about to declare a grand revelation at an international summit, “Well yeah, obviously. But the whole point of being an idol is putting on a front, an idealisation of what people expect to see, and tropes from anime sell really well, you know?”
“I’m assuming you’re a big fan of idols, then?” I asked, earning another sparkly grin from her that made me second-guess the question and follow it up with a reviewed one, “Are you trying to become an idol?”
She leapt off her seat and struck a dramatic pose, her fingers forming into a peace sign that she pushed out towards me, “Bingo!” She exclaimed with a bounce, a baffling act that made me question her age, “You’re looking at the centre of… S7M-” Mari declared with bountiful enthusiasm, settling into a spin as she announced the three characters as if they were a morning attendance, “Rollover!” She cried out the final word in awkward English before breaking into a laugh and rushing to take a seat before she fell over.
“Sorry, sorry~ You don’t understand how fun that is.” She wiped at her eyes, the giggling perhaps a tad too much for her to bear, though it was a thorough cover for any embarrassment she felt, “Ah-huh, let me guess, you’ve never heard of us?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
I shook my head and answered truthfully. “I don’t spend much time focusing on idols. Even if you were popular, I probably wouldn’t have heard of you.”
“Ah-huh,” She began, readjusting her reclined position and sitting up straighter before continuing, “Well, don’t worry because we’re definitely not popular! Not even an idol-obsessed otaku would know the name- S7M: Rollover! The up-and-coming number-one Rock Idol group!” She proclaimed the name as if she were an announcer welcoming the group onto the stage of the Tokyo Dome.
“Why do you keep saying that bit of the group name in English?”
“Hehe, it's part of the meaning behind the name, but I can’t tell you the secret! However, I’ll give you a clue… we’re three members!” She finished with a bright but cheeky grin, the same one you’d find on the face of a sleazy gambler unwilling to give away their dastardly trick to winning big but bragging about it all the same.
“If you’re an idol, why are you working here?”
Meekness settled in, and she turned away from me. An awkward finger scratching the back of her head, the enthusiasm drained out like a bathtub after the plug was pulled, though the emptied water was replaced with an embarrassed giggle.
“We aren’t idols yet.” She spoke the words with more pace than a prize-winning horse, evidently hoping the pain of saying them would be tolerable if it were ripped off quickly, similar to an old bandage, leaving no time for the brain to react as the scab is exposed. “We maybe kinda need to make some money beforehand…”
“Hmm,” I hummed, only partially interested, “How much?”
“One million yen.” Mari replied without missing a beat, making it abundantly apparent that they had a goal in mind for that money.
And it was a fair amount, roughly a few months of work, depending on the position. In reality, it wouldn’t be impossible to make that much in a week here at the Ha:Yami, though it’d be significantly more challenging without the backing of work mode, or at least the experiences it imparted upon me.
“And then you’ll quit?”
She jumped again, the shocking look of, oh no, I’ve made a mistake and said too much on her face. There was a joke in here, my inward claim that I’d train this girl up to replace me and then to discover she had every intention to quit once she’d raised the funds she needed.
Sorry, Kiyoshi, but it appears as if that white flag was pointless after all.
“Ahahaha, what? No, not a chance-” Mari paused, realising that her lies weren’t even believable to herself, and perhaps seeing the slight smile on my face that gave away my lack of offence, “Please don’t tell on me!” She instead resorted to begging, and while she didn’t exactly get down on her knees in repentance and pray to me, her actions sure gave the impression she was about to.
“I won’t say a word,” I calmed, “But don’t let Kiyoshi find out.”
A visible sigh of relief left her lips as the stiffness in her body slowly faded out, “Thank you… and-” That lively smile returned itself to her face, looking like a familiar sight even to my recently greeted eyes, “How long do you think it’ll take me to earn all that?”
I stood up, a brief stretch and roll of my shoulders as I did. She shot me a curious glance, asking why I suddenly got up and pleading for the answer to her question.
“Why do you need the money?” I queried, wondering why a prospective idol would need to raise funds as usually they either applied for an audition to join an idol group as a new member or are hand-chosen by a talent agency for a debut group. There are, of course, always exceptions, but rarely will an idol be picked off the street.
No, that type of thing is more reserved for liars masquerading as upright managers.
“A secret!” She declared, much in the same manner as her previous secret regarding the meaning behind the group name, though this time, there was far more zeal behind it.
“So many secrets…” I muttered, a tint of joking in my tone. She was playing up this whole secret thing as if it were an act on the stage of a live house, performing a set for a crowd of hundreds who otherwise would have been more focused on the drinks than the music if not for their curiosity at what these secrets could possibly be.
My phone buzzed in my pocket; I fished it out and gave the notification a once over. It was a message from Emiko double-checking about our plans for tomorrow, the shopping trip to furnish Jonpexi that we were meant to do last week until my run-in with a fire.
And though the wounds had already faded and begun to vanish like the paint of a sun-damaged car left abandoned in the street for too long, the memories of that day are still tucked up within my mind.
I sent back a text message of affirmation, the plans for tomorrow set firmly in stone.
The time on my phone informed me we had spent much of the time talking rather than working. A tragedy in the making if Kiyoshi were to find out, though even in that unlikely scenario, we’d be let off with nothing more than a stern look and a token reminder.
“Let’s get started on your training. We’ll be practising your drink-mixing abilities first.” I told her; the opening task for any budding drinks jockey.
“Ah-huh, bartending is something I can definitely do- but what about my question? How long do you think it’ll take to raise the money?” She added, not attempting to hide the end goal that’ll see her depart from the Ha:Yami before she’s even settled in.
I considered her seriously, my surveying gaze evaluating her from top to bottom. It was all for show, a returned act to her energetic idol performance. After all, I had no way of telling how well she’d sell at this early stage; we were just practising drinks, and it’d be the later training that would tell me whether this was a woman fit for a first-place podium, a trophy to be displayed aside a client, or simply another forgettable face to ferry drinks to and from the rear staircase between the VIP area and the commoner dancefloor.
“That depends on how well you can learn what I’m about to teach you…”
And she learnt it perfectly; every word and sentence spoken was committed to memory in a heartbeat. A recipe recited, showcased to her watching eye, then instantly copied, repeated back to me with picture-perfect clarity.
It was impressive, and from what little I had seen of her personality, I would never have expected this. Another facet of herself that seemed juxtaposed against her carefree and bubbly attitude. I couldn’t exactly call it a surprise, as I knew nothing of her prior abilities; either way, it was certainly convenient not to have to repeat my actions tens of times for her to understand it finally.
A drink prepared with expertise that paired oddly with a beginner. She had a vehement motivation for this, a continuous reserve of energy that she was drawing on, bottomless and chasm-like with a depth rivalling the Mariana Trench. The grand goal of becoming an idol that she was relentlessly pursuing was all coming together to propel her onwards and ensure all focus was on this.
It was something I understood well, a thirst unquenchable. I wonder if this is how Emiko viewed me when she first taught me. If I appeared as devoted to the task as Mari? Though I’m now in the same position as Emiko, am I not? A teacher overlooking a student, and while the subject may differ, the profession always remains the same.
She squealed a triumphant gasp as she finished another drink. We were tucked in a room behind the common area's main bar. A small mixing area where the less showy drinks were prepared before being handed off to the drinks jockeys.
With the number of customers and thus orders the Ha:Yami could see in a single night, this type of thing was necessary. The complex and eye-catching drinks would be made at the bar, all created in the most played-up manner possible to really sell the experience, but all the mundane items were quickly mixed here and either passed over to a drinks jockey so they can cart it to a table down here, or just placed on the bar for whoever ordered it.
So everything to teach Mari was here, and if one of her drinks happened to pass standards, they’d be shipped to the bar along the small holes that connected the two areas. And with Mari’s eager learning, that ended up being the majority of her drinks, which meant I’d be able to upgrade her from these simple mixes to the complex ones at her next session.
That should be two days from now, on Thursday, as tomorrow is my day off. Though the discovery she had tomorrow off as well was unexpected to her, the idea of starting a new job and immediately having a day off on your second day was confusing to her.
However, as Kiyoshi put her under me, I was technically her supervisor. And obviously, I couldn’t supervise her if I wasn’t here, so Mari’s schedule was automatically synced up with mine.
It was one of Kiyoshi’s systems that he put in place long before my time here. Honestly, there were a lot of things I could fault him on, but his affinity for managing wasn’t one of them. His methods prioritised long-term retention, ensuring experienced hostesses remained at the Ha:Yami and weren’t poached to another club. Thus, he could make use of that accumulated knowledge to train new hostesses up to standard at a rapid pace.
I can’t imagine another manager would be able to do half the things Kiyoshi does, and if they could, then they wouldn’t be completed to the same level.
If only he ceased using that family name, I might have liked him a little more.
My hand pushed open the door to the employee restroom. All the stalls but one were open. Two hostesses were inside, their faces stuck staring into the mirrored wall as they debated their appearances.
“Opinions? I look like shit, don’t I?” The first hostess asked the second, her voice full of half-serious bitterness, yet she expected comforting compliments over any sort of honesty.
The night was winding down now. Mari had been dismissed by me roughly five minutes ago. Now, all I cared about was washing all the sticky beverages that had accumulated on my hands throughout this shift.
The second hostess gave a studious glance by looking in the jointly shared mirror before them, though her eyes quickly stopped to linger on the first’s breasts. “You overstuffed your bra again? You know that won’t get you solo duty just as well as I do.”
I ignored the two and their bickering. Instead, I came to the nearby sink and let the cold water run over my hands, ridding them of the irksome filth from a night spent teaching someone to make drinks.
A reflection of myself stared back at me, no work mode or comforting lie to be seen; it was the same me that I saw in the reflective surface of a metal wall set into a train station, yet without the blur or unrecognisable image of a silhouette morphed by the shimmer and shine of something that was never supposed to be used as a mirror.
Familiar blue eyes, telling and reminding, always carrying with them the knowledge of their origin. Long waterfall-flowing blonde hair ran down my back, not wet or bunched up in here, instead bright and conspicuous, yet even so, a price tag was attached to the colour. There was no rain to ruin my outfit either, so my bra and bust were hidden from wandering eyes, not that the clandestineness would protect them from ogles. Finally, I came to my soft white skin, annoyingly sticky but still silky, though that was changing with the running tap.
And how could I forget my face? Perfect, not once perfect, but still perfect. No rot or void to be seen, simply a woman striving to be whole, a slight foreign trace, yet distinctly Japanese, and perfectly perfect.
It has to be.
“Most clients don’t like big boobs, it's too perverted. Class over lust, you know? Look at the highest-rated girls, they all have medium-sized tits, that’s the sweet spot, like- Seina?” She suddenly stopped upon noticing me, her train of thought halting as if the emergency brake had been pulled.
“Oh shit, when did she come in?” The first girl whispered to the second while ensuring her voice was loud enough for me to overhear.
The other woman merely shrugged as she signalled at the door, “Come on, let’s go.” She responded, the two of them hastily exiting the restroom but not before dropping another unsubtle insult directed at me.
Now alone in the restroom, I continued to focus on scrubbing my hands clean. The continued mass of dispensed soap gradually wore down this clingy grime that seemed resolved to clad my hands in its stickiness.
“Seina?” A voice unexpectedly called out from behind that sole shut stall, “Is that you?”
Bringing my startled body under control, I spent the brief second of rearrangement contemplating where I’d heard that voice. It held a trace of recognition within it, so it was someone I knew, but who could it be?
This was the Ha:Yami’s female bathroom, so there were, at best, three people it could be. So if it wasn’t Nao, and it couldn’t be Mari. There was only one option left…
“Mikako?”
“Hey.” Came the reply, her tone calm and mature, yet the word she used felt awkward as if she was unsure exactly what to reply with.
“Is there… anything you need?” I answered back, curious about why she had called out to me while inside a bathroom stall.
Her voice recoiled in uncertainty, a tiny sliver of consideration as even she herself couldn’t quite figure out why she had called out to me, “No, it- I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said anything.” She squeezed the words out between shaky sentences and feigned composure, “I didn’t mean to distract you. You must be busy with your shift. Forget I said anything.”
She was crying.
The way her voice hitched in pitch, a treble but without the accompanying orchestra. A quiver in her tone, the constriction of her throat as the breaths are forced out quickly and in short bursts. There was a tension, too, held briefly before she spoke, so when she did, the sentences came out hurriedly, spoken with a haste cut by a sniffle.
Yes, she was indeed crying.
“Are you crying?” I asked, both of us already knowing the answer, yet it was her escape. All she had to say was no. I would leave, and we could pretend that this day never happened, that it was an anomaly, a dreamt-up night of make-believe where the calm and mature Mikako was absurdly crying.
Because, of course, she wasn’t, and even if she was, she just has to say no.
“Yes…” She replied with all the humility of a prisoner soon-to-be condemned for a crime they didn’t commit but had to plead guilty to regardless, “It's my hormones. They’re all over the place. It’s nothing unusual.”
It’s nothing unusual, I’m sure. I understood, just one of those days. So I gave a light hum, no words necessary. This dim bathroom, a silent chapel, the roll of toilet paper as she blew her nose, the sole pipe organ, the stall, a confession box, and the sin divulged? Who even knows anymore?
“Seina…” My name was a prayer on her tongue, “Do you regret coming here?”
Yet I answered, how unusual for the recipient, “I don’t.”
And it was truth, without doubt. This was the only escape available to me; my experience subsidised it, and my appearance trivialised it. Exactly how I was raised, I wonder if they would have done it differently if they knew how it ended?
How will it end?
Somewhere far away from here, I hope, and with me as an actress. The one I strive to be, totally and completely filled, with no trace of the void I once was.
“You’re the same as Nao in that regard.” She continued, a break in the sentence that grouped up as a duo with the break in her voice, “She’s the one who convinced me to come here. We both needed the money. Her family was never well off, and mine were…” A second break, closer to a pause as she moved on, “We weren’t the best students. I wouldn’t say I like looking back on it, but I wouldn’t have done well in university, same as her. We lacked the maturity and outlook on life that someone needs to plan for the future. I suppose we were too addicted to that high youth and beauty gives you, how everything can seem to all fit into place with a slight smile and coltish laugh.”
Another break, a second pause. Her words were skittish as they jumped around on purpose, all trying to avoid admitting the end result of this.
“What I’m trying to say is…” She readjusted her words, the heading now on-course away from this sentimental strait, “I regret coming here.”
“Why?” I asked, the question slipping out before I had time to digest the meaning behind her words.
“This place is rot, poison, vile, disgusting, and I wish I had never come here.” Mikako declared; the totality of her statement much like the gavel of a judge as it is brought down to signal the final sentencing. “I’m tired of being sold, treated as an accessory to men whose faces I can’t even remember, seen as nothing more than a status symbol, a toy or plaything to display for a night to impress people who have never seen me as a person, not even as a woman, less than even that. I feel powerless; I have no control over what I do; everything is an act, putting on a performance to suit their needs. Who I’m with, what face I have to wear, none of it is my own, but I’m forced to go along with it. The money I’m paid afterwards stops becoming a boon and instead reminds me that I’m complicit in my own sale, that I lack even the pity a victim is given.”
She was crying again, the tears mixed in with frustration and anger, more potent than any drink made tonight.
“I’ll be getting married soon. I’ll have a husband. He knows, but I can’t talk to him about this. I can’t speak to anyone about it. It’s so isolating; they don’t want to understand. This job, being a hostess, is nothing more than sex work to them. It doesn’t matter whether it happens or not; that shame is carried with us. The stigma of it is unavoidable, and it means they stop seeing us as women… As people, we become non-humans with no personal boundaries, no anxiety or disgust, little more than aliens to touch and probe, safe in the belief that we don’t even understand the meaning of no. But I do understand it, I do!”
“What about Nao? Isn’t she there for you? Couldn’t you tell her this?”
“Nao? She loves this. The feeling of being desired, of the control she has over these people. It's all she’s ever craved, that need to possess things, never let them go. That’s what her clients are to her, flies that willingly return to the spider’s web time and time again like an addict. Why do you think she never gave up on you? It wasn’t just regret or pity, it’s because she needs people to rely on her, she’s a star and everyone has to be stuck in her orbit.” Her voice halted, no screeching plane tyres as it hit the runway and ground to a stop, but the silence after was long all the same.
“And she’s still my best friend, the idiot sister I never had but always wished I would.”
What could I say to this? Could I say anything? I understood the words, I had even been in the same position, everything she said had at some point happened to me… but…
I felt nothing. No desire for possession as she claims Nao has, or fear at what it’s done to me as a person as Mikako has.
No, this was all an escape to me, a trade for money, for a life of freedom. There was nothing wrong with it, it was all worth it, and besides, this type of thing is what I was raised for, it’s all normal for someone like me.
Yet I understood her, comprehended it all no different than how an astronomer comprehends the skies, unbound, open, and free that they are, with no shackles or strings to hold those stars in place.
So yes, I understood her, but I couldn’t relate to her pains. After all, this is all normal for someone like me.
“Seina,” My name spoken once again, but no longer as a prayer. There was no begging involved this time, but that did not mean it was devoid of demands, “I’ll be quitting soon, and I think you’re too.”
“Yes, I am…”
She nodded, and her next words were said with conviction, “I don’t want this place to follow me once I’ve left. I won’t be blackmailed or have the past chase after me. I’m aware this is all a result of my own actions, but I refuse to suffer with this taint my entire life all because of a decision I made when I was barely an adult. I don’t care if it's selfish, but to be free of this all, of this shame and the worry that this could break my family before I’ve even finished building it, I’d burn this whole place down to the ground.”
But that doesn’t work, there never is one last fire to burn it all away. The only thing is you; all you have to do is agree to let go.
Except… that stops being the case once the past starts to involve more than just yourself.
“Thank you for listening to me, Seina.” Mikako’s voice cut into my thoughts, the looming feeling that what was coming next was a dismissal similar to one of Kiyoshi’s.
“But I’d like to be alone now.”
And it was.
So I obliged, leaving her alone in that bathroom stall. The tears that I could only hear ran down her face while her mind was wrapped up in a race against her heart. That desire to be free, to no longer be afraid of the past catching up with her.
Yet it isn’t a past, is it?
It’s today.
But she isn’t reminiscing- No, she’s running from a place she hasn’t left, a time that she still lives within.
Change; It happens sooner or later.
And I wonder what she’s trading the Ha:Yami for? Because for some reason…
I doubt it’s acting.