Fiction: Three (part one, chapter three)

Chapter three: Starstruck

It didn’t seem like anything was going to get resolved soon. Heath kept him updated, but there was no sign of the Redmon portfolio, and Arai didn’t get anywhere with his enquiries. It was as if someone was standing behind a curtain, directing what was happening, but neither of them could understand who that person could possibly be.

It didn’t particularly help that Jun had called from school, unhappy about getting bad grades on several tests and papers, even though he had been absolutely certain that he would get top marks like he always did. He had even checked his answers against the textbooks and found that he had answered everything correctly, but the teachers still wouldn’t budge. There was definitely something going on right now.

Maybe it’s just because our lives have been too easy for the past ten years, Kenji thought as he browsed the aisles of his favorite bookstore. However, that didn’t quite seem right either. They had had their struggles; there was no doubt about it. He had fought for his job, Arai had fought in general, Jun had fought to get into the prestigious Yamada School on Shima, and the tuition they paid was a struggle in itself. No, their lives hadn’t been all that easy, even if it seemed like it to an outsider.

Kenji was so lost in thought that he somehow managed to bump right into someone on his way and apologized instantly, bending down to pick up the books that he had knocked over.

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I didn’t see where I was going either,” a soft voice said, and Kenji looked up, only to stare into the most entrancing eyes he had ever seen, apart from Arai’s. They were a strange mix of blue and brown, and he found himself not really caring whether they were real or contacts. A little belatedly he took a look at the rest of the young woman’s face as well, and couldn’t stop the slight sigh over finding that she was utterly beautiful. It made him blush faintly and for a few moments he couldn’t think of one single intelligent thing to say, something which apparently amused her, seeing as she laughed.

“I’m Yukiko. Lover of books, but not the best at seeing where she’s going,” she said, smiling to him. Kenji risked a smile in return, and helped her up with the books. Only now did he notice the white furry ears sticking out of her just as white hair, and he understood what kind she was. However, she was dressed in a very elegant and by the looks of it expensive dress, so he decided not to care about it too much. For now, anyway.

“I’m Kenji, and apparently I’m even worse at seeing where I’m going. I’m sorry for bumping into you like that,” he apologized, putting the books back into place before starting to move down the aisle. Yukiko walked with him, and he was far from objecting.

“Tell you what; if you’ll have lunch with me I’ll call it even.” There was a definite note of amusement in her voice this time, but where Kenji would usually become cold and stiff, he found himself smiling back and nodding to her. It felt as if they were already old friends, or like he had met her before. Maybe he had, because there was something awfully familiar about her, about the way she moved, but Kenji couldn’t for the life of him remember having ever talked to her before – and he was fairly sure that it would have been something he wouldn’t have forgotten all that easily.

“Call it a date.” He smiled at her, and opened the door to the bookstore, playing the chivalry card, though it wasn’t as much playing as who he was. His father had been the same way towards Kenji’s mother, and it had stuck with him ever since. “I know about a nice café not far from here, they have a wonderful lunch menu. Does that sound okay with you?”

Yukiko merely nodded and let Kenji lead the way, and he found that he had no problems talking with her whatsoever. Usually he’d say all the wrong things when he was with girls, or he wouldn’t manage to think of anything to say at all, and then everything went wrong. But then again, usually the girls he went on dates with were girls that someone at work had set him up with, or someone who clients had set him up with, and more often than not those girls were far, far away from his ideal woman. Yukiko, on the other hand, struck him as perfection, no matter if she was what she was. It didn’t take him more than a few minutes to get used to the ears and the tail swishing behind her – it even became attractive on her.

He could safely say afterwards that even if it wasn’t technically a date, it was one of the most wonderful times he had had with a girl, and when he came home – without the groceries he had been supposed to buy – he was smiling in a way that apparently made Arai highly suspicious.

“What have you been doing? You look like an old and lazy cat that has caught a particularly fat rat,” he remarked dryly, but for once Kenji couldn’t be bothered to snap back at him like he normally would, and instead he just showed Arai the little note with Yukiko’s name and number that he had gotten at the end of the lunch. He had given his to Yukiko as well, and promised to call her soon.

For a moment Arai merely stared at the note, as if unable to comprehend that Kenji of all people had met a girl all on his own, and then he started grinning, almost too widely. “Not bad, big brother, not bad at all. Yukiko, huh? Daughter of snow, that’s what her name means, did you know that? Did she have skin as white as snow, with rosy cheeks and the sweetest smile in the whole world?”

“Yes,” Kenji replied almost instantly, making Arai laugh and pat his shoulder. It didn’t bother him, not today, though what did bother him was that Arai for some reason insisted that they go to a club he knew and loved. When Kenji heard the name he frowned, because he had been there a few times when he was younger, and it wasn’t a place he had any wish to go now. So he declined, no matter how much Arai nagged him about it.

Even if he had a feeling that it might be considered a tad bit desperate, he called Yukiko the next day, asking her out. It was the first time he had actually met someone on his own and liked her enough to ask her out, and he felt like an idiot, but somehow he managed to get through the conversation without making too many stupid mistakes. Two nights later they met up for an early dinner, seeing as Yukiko told him that she worked in the evenings – Kenji had forgotten to ask what she worked with because she had laughed and apologized for dragging him out at an unusual hour for food.

When they met in front of the restaurant that night, Kenji found her to be even more beautiful than the day they had met at the bookstore – maybe because this time she had been prepared. For a few seconds all he could do was stare at her and the way her elegant dress seemed to make her look almost flawless, until Yukiko laughed and told him that he had stars in his eyes.

“You might be right about that,” he replied with a shy laughter, and led her inside. It seemed to him that Yukiko was the perfect woman, and the more he talked to her, the more he wanted to know about her. They talked about literature and music, about theatre and movies, about the city and their friends, what they enjoyed and what they disliked – and Kenji found that they had just enough in common. There were things were they wildly disagreed, and they spent nearly an hour discussing before they came to a truce, grinning to each other as they knew they would keep on discussing the matter at a later date. Kenji couldn’t wait; even now he was looking forward to the next time they were together.

After the meal they wandered around the lit streets before they parted, reluctantly, at the big fountain in the heart of The Plains. Yukiko was heading one way, Kenji the other. He wanted to kiss her, he really did, but a part of him wanted to wait as well – he wanted to know her better, to like her better. To wait just that little longer to make it even more special when it did happen – because he was absolutely certain that he would kiss her, and more.

Arai called him a lovesick puppy when Kenji got home, not without amusement in his voice. Normally, Kenji would have reacted to that hint of amusement, because when coming from Arai, it could never mean anything good.

Another thing that should probably have made Kenji suspicious was that Arai kept insisting on taking him out to a favorite club of his, nagging for days on end until Kenji finally agreed just to shut his brother up for five minutes. By that time he had met Yukiko for lunch a couple of more times, and they had talked on the phone nearly every day.

Walking beside Arai into The Slums felt strange, almost wrong. As if he was dirtying himself somehow by setting foot in that part of town. It wasn’t so much that he was a snob, it was more that to him, The Slums was a symbol of his youth, the time he had lost and could never return to. No matter if he wanted to or not. Being here felt wrong, but Arai wouldn’t let him turn back.

“No, no, no, you’re not going home to call your little baby girl, you promised you’d come with me. I told all my lovers to stay away from me tonight because I wanted to spend time with you,” Arai said, tugging insistently on Kenji’s arm, not leaving him any choice whatsoever in the matter.

Still, Kenji protested as they stopped in front of the club for a split second – just enough time for Kenji to notice that it was a strip club, and he couldn’t understand why on earth Arai would be so incredibly insistent on bringing him to this kind of place. Especially now, after Yukiko had come into his life. Not that they had anything official as of yet, but he knew that he liked her, and liked her a lot, and he was fairly certain that she liked him too. She felt like exactly what he needed right now, and he loved the fact that they had met so completely by accident.

His vague protests fell flat though, as Arai waved to the bouncer and was let in immediately. It hardly surprised Kenji, seeing as his brother seemed to have connections everywhere, from The Slums to The Hills – it was as if he knew absolutely everyone, and he didn’t discriminate one single bit. He didn’t care if the person he talked to was Japanese or some other nationality, he didn’t care about gender or race or species, he didn’t care about money and status or anything else. Hell, Arai didn’t even care about rules, about normalcy. He was the exact opposite of Kenji in so many ways, there was no denying that. It was probably why they fought so often. But possibly why they still maintained such a strong love for each other as well.

Arai dragged Kenji inside, keeping a firm hold of his hand so that Kenji wouldn’t run away. It felt slightly humiliating, to be led around like that as if he was a little child in need of guidance and help. Finally he managed to tear his hand away, but by then they were already right next to the stage at what had to be Arai’s regular table, seeing as two girls came over right away to talk to him, one leaving and coming back with two drinks – a strong and colorful one for Arai, a more traditional and less alcoholic for Kenji.

For a while he merely sat there, trying to look anywhere but on stage – not that the girls weren’t beautiful, that much he could see from his quick glances in their direction. However, it felt wrong to be here somehow, he could just tell that something wasn’t quite right, especially by the way Arai kept looking over at him, grinning in that special way of his that told Kenji that he had been up to no good. He knew that grin. He had seen it at least once a week for over twenty years. There was no way Arai was going to fool him.

Just as he opened his mouth to protest, rather loudly, and demand that they left now because this was pure idiocy, there was a shift in the music and a loud cheer went through the crowd of more or less horny men that had nothing better to do than to sit here and stare at strippers, night after night after night.

Arai’s grin got something victorious about it as Kenji kept his eyes on his brother, attempting to stare him down and not caring about what was happening on the stage. Arai waited just that extra little moment before he pointed to the stage. Purely out of reflex Kenji followed his gaze.

There, on the stage, scantily clad in clothes that didn’t leave anything to the imagination, was Yukiko.


~tbc~