mmestrange’s blog

My readers know me as many things: some in the Harry Potter fandom call me Diotima Lestrange, RPG friends call me either Murasaki or Saki-chan, online Arashi friends call me Shoko. Who am I? That's a very good question. But if you are looking for a simple or easy answer, I am sorry to say that I haven't one. Since existential angst on 'what' and 'who' I am will likely bore you, I shall say nothing more on that score. If you must call me something, you may either call me Shoko or Lady Strange.

Here be a repository of my Arashi fangirling, fanfics, and other ramblings. Occasionally, there will be some serious talk on life, as well as original fiction and poetry.

To make life easier for my readers, I have created "easy navigation" links if you're looking to read my fics. Do not abuse these links or I will lock down on everything. D'accord?

Chapter 046 – Skewering the Middlegame

It had been nearly a week since Nino paid a visit to Ohno at the theatre and demanded that he give Umebayashi Saeko a strongly worded set down. Despite knowing that it would bring about a speedy resolution to the problem at hand, Ohno could not bring himself to do it. On the one hand, he did not like giving trouble to people, and it pained him that he was the source of trouble to his friends and their ladies. On the other, he was equally agonised over the thought of giving pain to another person. He had mulled over the things Nino had related to him, and while he truly did feel for Kaoru and what she was going through, he felt similarly well-disposed towards Saeko and what she was going through.

“Why is life always so complicated? Couldn’t it be like fishing?” he muttered under his breath with a sad pout while pottering to his dressing room. Since Nino called on him at the theatre, he spent most of his non-working time mulling over what he should do and arriving at no resolution. It had been five days and now that it was the closing night of his play, Ohno was still unsure of what he must do. “Was there a nice way of doing things so as not to hurt both women?” he wondered, sighing and falling heavily into a chair. “I don’t know. I can’t think now. I’ll go home and work on clay and go fishing in the morning. That would help me to think.”

Pasting a smile at the reflection of himself in the mirror, he proceeded to remove his stage makeup. His final performance that night was decent, he felt. Kaoru had been there. He saw her in the seat next to his mother, and knowledge that she had come especially to support him despite her hectic personal schedule with art and her own studies. He had been deeply disappointed when she did not attend his opening performance, but he swallowed the disappointment with the reminder that Kaoru owed more to her art than to his, which was fitting in his opinion, because she was the Geidai postgraduate with her own exhibitions, and he was an amateur. Moreover, though her presence was missed on opening night, all his friends and their girlfriends were there to lend him their support. Even Saeko was there. Well, it would have been more accurate to say that she was in her private box every night. That closing night was no exception. Were Ohno a more conceited man he might have thought Saeko was stalking him. However, owing to the simple turn of his mind, he believed that as a sponsor to the theatre, the Umebayashi Group CEO had every right to be at every performance if she wished.

Pushing aside the thoughts of Saeko’s presence at his play, Ohno dwelled on the happy realisation that his mother would undoubtedly chaperone Kaoru backstage to meet him, and he could tell his affianced all about the stage settings, and tell her how delighted he was to perform on the same stage as her backdrop designs. A happy happenstance of a knock sounded on his door. He smiled quickly at his reflection and set down the makeup cleansing cream on the dressing table. “It must be ‘kaachan and Kaoru at the door!” his heart thought as his spirits lifted.

To that end, he cheerfully let a “Come in” escape from his lips. The delight that had earlier surged through him ran abruptly into a cement wall when the person entered his room. He had not expected her to venture to his dressing room alone as she had not done so on any occasion. Thinking that it was perhaps business matters, he attempted a weak half-smile.

“Congratulations on a wonderful play run,” she began as soon as she stepped in. On receiving no answer, she left the door ajar as it was and strode towards him, rubbing the jangling bangles on her forearms. “Your talents will go far. I have an idea to market you in Northeast Asia.”

“Johnny-san wouldn’t like…” he stammered, looking away from her.

“I do not think the Jimusho would object as long as it gets a cut.”

As his mother always managed his money matters, it took a while for Saeko’s comment to sink it. He did not think there were people who openly talked about money, except maybe Nino and Alys. Even then, Nino and the professor never discussed how much who earned or who would get a percentage of how much; they restricted their talks about money to the rising costs of basic necessities, bills and the overall rising standard of living. Saeko’s comment took Ohno by surprise, and it both horrified and disturbed him that his worth was associated with his marketability. Having long been spoiled by his mother and Kaoru who looked at him for himself, and the Arashi members who looked on him as a brother, he was stunned that Saeko could openly speak of him as a commodity to be put on display or an object that companies, influential people and other notable bodies carved up for their own convenience and pleasure. He did not like the implications of Saeko’s words, neither did he like the feeling that Saeko was evoking in him. This wasn’t the Saeko he knew from years ago who could laugh at cloud formations. How could she look at him as an object that she could market for gain and profit and share with Johnny’s Entertainment if she claimed to love him as she did? It was puzzling; more than that, Ohno found it deeply disconcerting.

As Ohno did not answer, Saeko attributed his dumbfounded expression to his inability to grasp that which she had just said and continued, “The South Korean market is ripe for the plucking. You’d be able to make an impact there. The Taiwanese market will embrace your talents as well. Make money while you’re still a hot commodity is my advice. You have to stop being so lackadaisical about things. You’ll be happy when you gain more recognition.”

“I’m happy now just as I am,” Ohno pointed out, avoiding her eyes and idly digging in his bag for an imaginary article.

“Are you?” she asked in a low whisper, placing her hands on either side of his shoulders. Ignoring the telltale stiffening of the muscles there, she bent her head to his ear and slowly kneaded his shoulders, “Are you happy with this? Drifting along with whatever the Jimusho says you should do, going along with what your bandmates want you to do?”

“I am signed to the Jimusho and I am a part of Arashi,” he answered plainly. “It’s just how things are.”

“You can change that,” she drawled into his ear. “We can change that.”

“Saeko, it’s not that…” Ohno began, but the rest of his sentence was truncated. His eyes darted to the door that had been left ajar, widening in an admixture of fear and shock, mirroring the same emotions written on the face of his fiancée who had been on the verge of stepping in.

Rendered speechless by the sight before her, Kaoru did not know what she should think. Indeed, what was a woman, a fiancée deeply attached to her future spouse, to think when another female, one with a known previous history to her intended, massages his shoulder and bends down to place her lips near his ear? Try as she might to put a positive and innocent spin on the scene before her, he following questions came unbidden to her mind: Was Saeko whispering words of love and the untold acts she would do to and with him? Did Saeko stoop that low to kiss him? If it was a kiss, even a peck of the cheek, was it an innocent peck or something more sinister? If it was a kiss that meant something more, did her Satoshi-kun relish it? Did it mean he would through her over for his old flame?

Surely, it could not have been anything innocent if Kaoru were to go by the unmistakeably triumphant gleam in Saeko’s eyes when she followed Ohno’s lead and looked up. Saeko had smiled then – a thin, unpleasant smile that hid the razor edged teeth she had used once against her. Kaoru knew how much that smile concealed and had a very good grasp of what it meant. While she had heard Saeko was cornering Ohno at every opportunity, she had not expected to see Saeko in his dressing room. The thought of asking what was going on had occurred to her, but it would have been pointless. She knew Ohno would not have much to say, trusting his innocence to speak for himself. Saeko would be another matter, and Kaoru was herself uncertain whether she wanted to know what her rival would say, having once experienced the honey-coated words of venom she could spew.

There was nothing else to do than to take a few steps back, bow with as much as dignity as she could muster and leave – which was exactly what she did. She had learnt from reading novels that a lady never enters into a fight with an enemy when she wasn’t calm. And Kaoru was anything but calm upon chancing on Saeko in her fiancé’s dressing room in a position that could easily be construed as mildly compromising. In such a circumstance, Kaoru chose to make a dignified exit as a lady should.

Ohno’s mother who had taken Kaoru backstage had earlier urged the artist to see her son first as she was of the opinion that the young couple needed some time alone to talk. The matriarch had a very real affection for Kaoru and had accepted her readily, embracing her as one of the family, and was looking forward to her son’s eventual union with the artist. She was understanding enough to realise that her son would very likely be closer to his wife than to her in time to come, and she accepted that eventuality with good grace. The way to keep her son near to her was to be welcoming to the woman he chose; to do otherwise would be to alienate her son and she had no desire to take that disastrous turn. Moreover, she had observed, as most mothers close to their children would, that her son had been out of humour lately. Given that her son’s artistic endeavours were giving off a half-hearted sensation, Ohno’s mother felt certain that it was more than work troubles ailing him. The receipt of numerous monosyllabic answers to her questions of whether he was in a tight spot or was upset led her to suppose that her son and his fiancée had a small quarrel. If that were the case, then the couple should be allowed to thrash things out. Although she loved her son dearly, she knew he did not always know how to put things politely. That was, incidentally why he was frequently silent. In general, Kaoru did not seem to mind the cloddish ways of her son, but even she could not be expected to remain calm if Ohno had blurted something he shouldn’t have. She had expected that the couple would be engaged in quiet conversation with shy blushes after they had exchanged their views on why they were respectively unhappy and how they each felt they could make things better. That was how they usually functioned in her observation, and she was confident that was how things would come to pass. However, even she was taken at the speed with which Kaoru shuffled past her, away from Ohno’s dressing room. She was so startled that she had nearly dropped the bottle of plum wine she had been carrying. After staring at the retreating pigtailed figure with bewilderment, the Ohno matriarch swivelled her head in the direction of her son’s dressing room, prepared to pull his ear and give him a stern lecture on being inconsiderate to Kaoru.

Before she could do so, Saeko emerged from the dressing room with a superbly exultant smile, inclining her head slightly at the older woman. Ohno’s mother narrowed her eyes at the CEO in suspicion, believing that she half-understood the reason for Kaoru’s hurried and very harried departure. Watching the slim figure that was Umebayashi Saeko slink down the corridor away from the dressing room, the Ohno matriarch picked up her mobile and made a call. “Moshi, moshi, son number two? Are you still outside the theatre?” she asked as soon as Nino picked up.

“Okaasama, I’m on the way to a drama shoot with Sakurai-san,” answered Nino from his seat in the JE van, pausing his DS game and half-watching Sho read a book on international political economy.

Nodding her comprehension, the Ohno matriarch continued, “Could you get daughter-in-law number two to go after Kaoru-chan.”

“Alys’s conducting a graduate seminar tonight,” Nino said, checking his watch. “She gets out in ten minutes. She can’t make it in time. What’s the matter with Kaoru-chan?”

“She’s upset because the Umebayashi woman has just been to see my son. Someone must have said something or done something,” was the matriarch’s reply.

“Damn,” swore Nino under his breath, his fingers winding tightly around his DS. “Try Jun. He has the night off. I’ll get Sho to call him,” he added, leaving unsaid his fervent wish to smack his best friend on the back of his head. “We’ll find her and see that she gets home safely,” were his parting words before he hung up and explained things to a bewildered looking Sho.

That assurance soothed the matriarch somewhat and she entered the dressing room with her tongue and mind replete with scoldings and accusations. However, the moment she saw her son cradling his head in his hands in the manner of a wounded animal, all of the would-be accusations dissipated into nothingness.

As the Ohno matriarch shut the door and strove to comfort her son and extort the whole truth of the Umebayashi Saeko and Morimoto Kaoru dimension from him, the visibly shaken artist had just stumbled out the front of the theatre and hailed a taxi. Observing this scene with a tremendous feeling of satisfaction and achievement, Saeko rolled up the tinted window of her car and bade her driver take her home. It had been a very good and profitable evening for her, she mused, chuckling lowly to herself. She had frightened away the pigtailed artist without exchanging words.

“The kitten was so affrighted by the sight that she scampered off. That’ll keep her away and set her thinking on the fidelity of her fiancé. It’s only a matter of time now,” Saeko thought as the nightlights of the Tokyo cityscape whizzed past her windows. Just then, while she was on the cusp of formulating another move in her scheme, her mobile telephone rang. The strains of the Imperial March from Star Wars alerted her to the caller’s identity and she took the call without hesitation. “Shoot me with what you have,” she said into the receiver.

After listening for a brief period, nodding to herself as she digested that which was relayed to her, she hung up and opened her handbag for a sheaf of stapled papers. On finding it, she flipped through the collated sheets until she came to the one she needed. Inputting the number into her mobile, she gave her hair a generous toss and waited for the called party to answer.

No sooner had the female voice on the end utter a ‘moshi moshi’ than Saeko curled her lips into the plastic smile favoured by socialites everywhere and interrupted with a curt, “Nakahara Chiaki-san, this is Umebayashi Saeko. I have some news that might be of interest to you.”

NOTES

The middlegame in chess refers to the portion of the game that happens immediately after the opening and blends somewhat with the endgame where (sometimes) queens are traded. During this time, players will attempt to strengthen their positions while weakening their opponent's, both by careful arrangement of the pieces for prepared attacks and defenses and by whittling away at their opponent's numbers. The middlegame usually involves a good deal of trading; studying how to trade successfully is important.

In chess, a skewer (or thrust) is an attack upon two pieces in a line. In a skewer, the more valuable piece is in front of the piece of lesser or equal value. The opponent is compelled to move the more valuable piece to avoid its capture, thereby exposing the less valuable piece which can then be captured. The long-range pieces of queen, rook/castle and bishop can skewer. Because the skewer is a direct attack upon the more valuable piece, it is generally a powerful and effective tactic. The victim of a skewer often cannot avoid losing material (though it may be possible if, for example, the more valuable piece can give check, thereby forcing the skewering side to move out of check instead of being able to capture the lesser piece, or if it is possible to move a less valuable piece in the way); the only question is which material will be lost. The skewer does not occur very often in game play as it is difficult to execute. However, when it does occur, however, it is often decisive.

Chapter 045 – Turning revelation to understanding

Meanwhile, at the Jindai Botanical Garden tropical greenhouse and completely ignorant as to this highly illuminating exchange, Chiaki was attempting to set her paperwork to rights amidst the sounds of an early spring storm brewing outside. Self-reflection however proved to be a trying task when her mind was occupied.

Her uncle has paid her yet another discreet visit earlier that day with further demands for money and reiterated his threat. Once again, she had turned him away, informing him that she would not condescend to give him even a single yen. Despite the brave front she had affected, Chiaki had to admit to herself that her nerves were almost to pieces. She had answered her uncle with bravado. However, bravado would not serve to remove this blackmail problem. While sitting at her desk and staring at the reports of the tropical flower shrubs and their pollination patterns vis-à-vis their hybrid cousins, Chiaki was beginning to feel the vague sense of disquietude gnawing at her. The outlook of her present situation did look bleak and there seemed to be little hope that Arashi’s manager-san or Sora’s deputy commissioner cousin would be able to do much. The longer the situation dragged on, the more helpless she felt; and Chiaki did not enjoy feeling helpless. It seemed to her that there would be no expedient solution to her problem and the longer it dragged on, the further Sho would be implicated in it.

“Well then, the only logical solution is to remove Sho before he is implicated any further,” she thought while putting aside her papers and scrolling down the list of contacts on her mobile phone. To that end, she left the following message on his voice mail:
We need to talk. I’m at the Greenhouse in Jindai and will be here until I finish work.

It did not take Sho long to reply, for he had just finished his News Zero filming for the night. Upon receiving his message that he would be at the greenhouse in a snap, Chiaki exhaled slowly and slumped back in her chair, tossing her mobile phone aside. She convinced herself that it would be the most sensible thing to do under her current circumstances and that Sho would approve and indeed understand it in time. But for now, it would be in his interest if she let him go.

On his part, Sho had sensed that something was amiss with his sensible and constantly logical Chiaki. She had always laughed at him and his friends without reservation. Lately however, she had appeared more distant to him, like she was troubled. Although the other members of Arashi would not put much stock in his observational skills, Sho had enough acuity to sense when something was out of the ordinary with Chiaki. He had observed her breathing had come to resemble sighs of thoughtful despair, and he did not like it. Due to his many commitments, he hesitated to enquire after her problems as he wanted to give them his full attention. Furthermore, he gave her some space because he did not want her to feel that he was pressurising her to confide in him. It seemed that the time for that shared confidence was now, and he hastened to make his way to the Jindai Botanical Garden.

Along the way, the dark clouds, thundering and lightning had given way to rain. Despite the threats of skidding over the road, Sho sped through traffic lights out of concern for Chiaki. Her voice had sounded curt and business-like. Was it an effect of the crackling storm in the skies above, or was it something more? Sho was perturbed by her usage of the ‘we need to talk’ line. He recalled that Chiaki had once told him that the line bothered her, so why was she using it now? Did it herald a break up, as that line usually did? Or was it a slip of the tongue because she was under so much stress and pressure that she needed someone to confide in? If that were the case, Sho felt more driven to get to her as quickly as possible. It was not his mode of operation to allow anyone he cared for (be they family or friend) to sink into the doldrums. His botanist had always been there for him in all his troubles and work related stress issues; it was time he repaid her patience by being there for her.

As with all individuals of the mindset that he or she was about to embark on a journey at the point of no return, the director of the Jindai tropical collection mentally rehearsed what she would say to her boyfriend when he arrived. It would be folly to mince words, so she decided she would go straight to the point.

Lulled by the sounds of the raindrops, Chiaki roused herself to strengthen her resolve by heading outside for some fresh air. To her mind, having a ‘we need to talk’ conversation with Sho in the open instead the confines of the greenhouse would be conducive to better understanding. When she ventured out of her greenhouse, the burst of rain halted as suddenly as it had begun. Spring showers were always the same in her experience – they came quickly, suddenly and without warning; and in so doing, they brought the smell of hope and renewal with them. As a scientist, Chiaki knew the exact composition of anions and cations and their impact on certain centres of the brain. Accordingly, she did not allow herself to be swayed by the false impression of hope lighting dimly in her mind.

The sounds of her footsteps crunched over the gravel as she pondered what her next step ought to be after calling off matters with Sho? Would it be easier to deal with her uncle on her own? Or could she rely on Sora’s cousin for assistance in the matter? She did not know, and the uncertainty depressed her. For all her life, Chiaki had always approached every aspect of her existence with a single-minded and logical methodology – she knew what she had to do to get to where she wanted to be and she would go ahead and do it. However, at the present juncture in her life, she was buttoned into a corner. For the first time, she found herself in the position whereby she knew what she wanted and where she wanted to be but was completely in the dark as to how she could obtain the end result she desired.

Pacing across the gravel path, she heard the sounds of a lone vehicle sputter into the grounds of the botanical garden. The vehicle screeched to a halt some distance away from her and the driver emerged from it, pressing a button to lock the doors. The distinct crunch-stomp-crunch on the gravel alerted Chiaki to the identity of the new arrival, who she knew had seen her. Yet, she deigned not to turn around. She needed a little more time to compose herself; and she believed the time it would take for him to walk to her would be ample enough for her to school her features into their usual forms.

Hearing the sounds on the footsteps, Chiaki momentarily forgot her troubles as the person steadily approached. Sho, long used to the sounds of his own footsteps, called out to her, “Did one of your hybrids die or catch a plant disease, wifey?”

These words brought her back to earth with a sudden jolt that he did not know her true motivations for requesting an audience. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of telling him the whole truth, but the thought that he may decide to cut himself from her on learning about her uncle’s demands held her back. If he was going to call things off between them, she might as well do so first and minimise the pain. Therefore Chiaki shrugged in her light down coat and nervously said on turning around, “Things have happened. We cannot see each other any more.”

“Why? What’s the matter? Is it your mother? Has something happened to her? Is it money? We’ll work something out. Why break up when we don’t know why… when I don’t know why?” sputtered Sho in a single breath as strode beside her.

“Things have happened,” Chiaki repeated nervously.

He took her hand in a warm, protective clasp. But she drew it away and retreated a few steps, seeking desperately for a logical explanation that would result in Sho leaving her to sink or swim in her problem.

“Things have become complicated,” she managed to pronounce at last.

“I’m with JE. Things are always complicated,” he responded in the same quiet tone she had used, wondering whether she was in trouble or whether she was pregnant. He had always taken the usual precautions, but even those weren’t completely foolproof. “I remembered we said we would talk everything over before making a decision as we were alike in desiring a two-way communication.”

“Were we discussing communication?” she asked doubtfully, eyeing him suspiciously.

“We exchanged views on that when we first knew of Ohno’s little artist,” Sho reminded her.

This recollection not unnaturally silenced her. She had prided herself on her good sense, cool logic and sound judgement; she had assumed that less harm would befall Sho’s reputation if she cast him off. She had not expected him to request for her confidence. As she was thoroughly aware of the goodness with which Sho was showing her, she became more unnerved. But Sho, surely one of the calmest if not most puzzled man on learning that his lady wished to end things with him, was adamant that he should get to the root of Chiaki’s sudden call for a break up. Leaning back lightly on one of the wet panels of glass, he watched her frowning face in the dim moonlight. Chiaki, however, was scarcely aware what else she could say to him. She was vaguely aware that breaking up with Sho with no good explanation was a difficult task. The impropriety of not telling him the truth and her rationale for the necessary end to their relationship now filled her with repugnance. With her usual clarity of thought, she realised that in not owning to the truth, she was treating Sho shabbily, so shabbily that she doubted he would forgive her much less continue to regard her with any iota of affection – friendly or otherwise. At this melancholic turn of thought, a sob unconsciously escaped her.

Sho, who had been watching her expression carefully, immediately draped an arm over her shoulder. “What is it, Chiaki?”

“My uncle… my mother’s brother…” She covered her face with her hands to hide the flushing in her cheeks. “He has been an odious creature, blackmailing mother and me for money with the threat that he would expose us to the press. I approached your manager on the matter and he said he would look into matters. Things seem helpless because your manager has been unable to find any leads, and my uncle…I have not agreed to pay, but mother has paid a small fortune already, and with each denial, my uncle’s threat to expose us to the press looms ever closer. While your manager assures me that he will look into things, I cannot foresee your employment agency looking kindly on you if there should be scandal. And I do not wish to see scandal attached to your name. I can’t conceive of it looking on you with favour if the matter should come to light. All things considered, I decided that my proper course was to break up with you and minimise any credibility to the potential scandal. I made up my mind earlier and without further loss of time, I asked to see you. You now know of the extenuating circumstances.”

At this, Sho roused himself to face her, a look of astonishment on his face. His first instinct was to rant and pull at his hair, but doing so would only alarm her. Accordingly, he groaned and shook his head. “Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have let you go through this alone if I had known! My father is somebody; we can work things out. You could have told me! We could have discussed what we should do.”

“But the scandal that would break out! Think about your employment agency!” she exclaimed insistently.

“I can’t stand behind you and let someone – relative or not – blackmail you!” he ventured in frustration at his inability to allay her fears and in anger at the absent uncle.

He stood bolt upright and attempted to reassure her. When she continued her protests that it would be better for him if they broke up and proved the potential scandal false, Sho grimaced in exasperation. He did not and could not understand why his girlfriend believed him to be a spineless fool. While he appreciated and understood her reasoning, he staunchly felt that it would have been more appropriate if he had been a man about things and shielded her from the unpleasantness of her uncle and his lunatic blackmail scheme. Instead, he found her insistently demanding that she would bear the brunt of whatever followed while he went out of the picture.

Increasingly fed up with that mode of thought, touching though it may be, Sho quickly took both her hands, and without warning, knelt on one knee. “Marry me. I’ll stand by you in this,” he said in an urgent whisper.

“Don’t joke! This is hardly the time! We were talking about a blackmailer who could expose us and ruin your career as a member of your employment agency!” Chiaki reasoned, drawing her hands away.

He took her daunting revelation with a surprising degree of composure, realising that the extemporaneous nature of the proposition must have shocked her. He had surprised himself too, and he had not counted on proposing; he did not even have a ring at the ready. But he felt that the situation demanded it if Chiaki was to be made to see that he would not leave her in the lurch. He attempted to reassure her by merely replying, “This is a bona fide offer. Nakahara Chiaki, marry me and we’ll weather this storm together.”

“There will be a scandal if word gets out!”

“Not if you’re my wife,” he pleaded, taking her hands once again.

Chiaki froze on the spot as all the implications of the proposition dawned on her. His soothing assurance that he would share the burden brought to the fore the sinister significance of her blackmailing uncle, and she turned a frightened face to him. “This is lunacy!”

“Iya, I’ll protect you as my wife. Marry me.”

“Sakurai Sho!” she exclaimed in exasperation when she freed one hand. Placing it akimbo on her hip, she regarded him out of appraising and doubtful eyes as she tried to pull him up with a hand. “Get up!”

“Eh?” he let out, his voice strangled as he followed her direction and rose.

Chiaki cast him a stern, disapproving look and extracted a handkerchief from her pocket which she then used to spread over the damp gravel. “It rained earlier! Your trousers were getting wet. Now, that’s better. You may resume if you insist.”

“Was that a yes?”

“I didn’t say no.”

“What will I do without my practical, sensible Chiaki!” Sho said, smiling as he took her into his arms and kissed her soundly.

“What will we do about the potential scandal and my maternal uncle?” she sighed, resting her cheek on his shoulder.

“We’ll think of something; manager-san will have something. You’ve done the right thing in apprising him of matters. But I’m still in the dark about the details. Come, wifey,
we will grab a bite and you can fill me in,” he suggested, hooking her hand on his elbow and leading her towards the car. “Tell me everything.”

Chapter 044 – Stilted words under a flood of music

While the private life of one Arashi member was slowly unravelling, the private life of another more boisterous member was improving. Having lately redeemed himself in his lady’s eyes by assuring her of his constancy and having won the approval of her parents, Aiba was positively beaming. He was beaming so widely that were Nino in the vicinity, the younger man would have uttered a scathing remark as to the blinding light coming from his teeth. Fortunately for Aiba, the truculent Nino was spending his evening lying on his professor’s lap playing his DS and nowhere near the Opera House where a performance was about to begin.

It was Aiba’s personal, optimistic belief that things would get better for all the Arashi members since his personal life was looking up. It was a simplistic way of looking at things, but Aiba’s mind was incapable of conceptualising complexities just as it was incapable of grasping why many people had the tendency to make life more complicated than it already was. He was at that moment at the Opera House perusing the newspapers and waiting for Renée-Caroline’s performance to begin.

He had, if he had full control of his time, wanted to attend the matinee performance with Alys, but his work commitments meant that he was deprived of Alys’s company. He would have preferred it if ‘mama’ were there to explain things to him, but as it was, his ‘mama’ had chosen to attend the matinee performance because she wanted to spend the evening with Nino. Well, it did not matter, he thought. He could always ask Renée-Caroline after the performance if he failed to understand. For now, however, he wanted to read the newspapers. Sho had stated that Sora was cited in an article and Aiba, being curious, wanted to see what it was about. Finally, after much desperate flipping, he chanced upon the relevant headline: Sakiyama Jewel wins the Tanizaki Prize.

“The Tanizaki Prize? What was that?” were some of the questions running through Aiba’s mind, as he scanned the article for information. It wasn’t until he finished the article that he understood that the Tanizaki Prize was the country’s most prestigious literary award. It also took him a while to realise that Sora had won it.

To him, it was momentous news that required celebration and fried chicken. Despite his initial impulse to dash out and phone Sora, he remembered that he was in the Opera House and unable to make a call. It was almost time for the curtains to rise and he had promised Renée-Caroline and her mother that he would watch their performance. A promise was a promise after all, and seeing how he had confused the date of her parents’ arrival, it was the least he could do to make up for it. Secure in these thoughts, he failed to observe two persons slip into the box.

“Ano ne, I didn’t think you would actually be here, ne,” said the taller of the two as he leaned over Aiba’s shoulder.

“Jun-chan!” exclaimed Aiba in genuine excitement and delight. “Did Renée save you tickets too?”

“She sent us all tickets if we wanted them. But we’re the only ones here today. Chiaki has to work due to a cock-up at her laboratory and Sho is occupied. Ohno’s still stewing over the Umebayashi-Morimoto confrontation since Ninomiya saw him two days ago. The misers are working through the evening. Alys was setting mid-semester exams in advance when I called, and Ninomiya-kun was in the background, complaining about losing money between the gaps of the fridge and the cabinets,” Sora offered as explanation as she sat down and fanned herself with the programme booklet.

“Oh! Mama came for the mid-week matinee thingy. Nino said he hears enough of this kind of music at home because mama listens to it all the time. Do you think them weird? I think they’re 100% weird,” Aiba blithely ran on, grinning at both Jun and Sora. “Mama thinks Renée-chan’s mother has a very innovative interpretation. I think it would be good too. Want to go for supper after this?”

“How much can you eat, ne?” Jun rolled his eyes and sat down, folding his arms. “Every time you eat, it makes me feel sick, eh, because you eat so much.”

“I do not! I’m a growing boy!” protested the self-professed super idol indignantly.

“Growing sideways, ne.” Jun raised a disinterested brow at his friend.

Ignoring the youngest member, Aiba grabbed the novelist’s hands impulsively and merrily continued, “Sora-chan! I read about your Tanizaki Prize thingy! It’s 100% super great! I knew you could do it! What book was it for? Was I the hero in it?”

“It isn’t something I think you would read,” Sora told him as kindly as she could. “It’s one shock to another in the book.”

“How shocking is shocking?” asked Aiba, eyes shining with interest.

“Eto, chapter one opens with wife rape. The courts let him get away with it. The boy and girl twins have an incestuous relationship, eh. That’s just for starters, ne,” Jun said in a bored droning drawl as he flipped through the programme booklet.

Those words and the dimming of the lights in the Opera House effectively silenced Aiba, who was still blinking over the things he had been told about Sora’s prize winning book. The muscular, stolid form of Date-san discreetly watched them in the box across theirs.

A thin smile graced the lips of Arashi’s manager as he witnessed the camaraderie they shared even out of the recording studio. Unlike the trio opposite him, Date-san was not there by choice. Rather, he was in the Opera House by design. One of his contacts, the head of one of the One Winged Stork gang in Tokyo had a penchant for classical music and never missed a performance. Date-san checked his watch, wondering where his contact had been. It wasn’t like his associate to arrive late for a performance especially when he had arranged for a ‘business’ meeting.

However, he needn’t have worried. The elusive contact soon slithered into the seat next to him as his other ‘brothers’ guarded the door to the private box. A curt nod and a brief silence followed when Renée-Caroline and Eguchi Tamiko walked out on the stage to the feet stamping applause of the orchestra.

On the programme that evening was Rachmaninov’s third, and the audience, the critics, and the orchestra were all in equal parts trepidation and excitement. Everyone’s breath (save possibly Aiba’s) was sucked in as they awaited the execution of this technically demanding piece. As soon as the first movement began, Date-san watched with amusement as his contact rolled his head back with a handkerchief in his hand, poised at the ready to dab away the tears. Not for the first time, Date-san marvelled at the incongruous figure his associate cut. His contact was one of the most feared leaders in the underworld, yet he was effeminate in his habits and mannerisms.

“We’ve found Yoshida Akira,” stated the contact plainly, staring down at the pianist and the orchestra, completely mesmerised by the music as it became more intense.

Date-san darted his eyes to his friend briefly. He had, of course known of the strong antipathy between the One Winged Stork and the Silver Beetle gangs, and was therefore surprised to learn that the Storks had succeeded in locating the errant blackmailer when the Beetles had failed. “Where?” he asked quietly.

But the head of the One Winged Storks seemingly did not hear the question. He toyed with the edges of his handkerchief and continued, “Yoshida snuck into our gambling den in the factory slums last night and tried to borrow from us. He could offer us no collateral we were interested in, but we welcomed his continued patronage at our den. He will return, I expect. He does owe us some money.”

Torn between thanking the deities for his good luck and cursing Chiaki’s uncle for his gambling proclivities, Date-san enquired as to the venue of the illegal gambling establishment.

As soon as his contact related the exact place to him, he went on, “Ano, Date, we could silence him permanently for you. He doesn’t look like he’d pay us back, and if we don’t get back our interest… You know how it is. Business.” He paused and made a careless gesture as he dabbed the corner of his eyes as the first movement of the piano concerto came to an end. “We’d pin it on the Beetles; the coppers get the Beetles, and your man is silenced. Three times the benefit.”

“Not yet. I have to see him for myself first,” Date-san said, declining his associate’s generosity as he brushed off his sleeve and rose. “Thanks for the tip off.”

“No problem,” replied the yakuza boss. “Use the back door when you get there.”

Chapter 043 – Accepting the Queen’s Gambit

Ohno’s stomach was a jumble of emotions, or at least, that was what he thought it was. It certainly wasn’t hunger because he had just eaten. Was it nerves, he wondered? Perhaps it was because his energy levels were flagging? That could be it. After all, it was the last week that his play would be running. The play would close in another week and a half. Maybe he was tired. No, it wasn’t the feeling of tiredness. It was the discomfiting feeling rising from his stomach that said something was wrong. “But what was wrong?” he pondered with a pout as pottered backstage after the late morning dry run at the theatre.

It couldn’t be nerves because he had gone through concerts and numerous stage performances and the butterflies in his tummy were never this pronounced. He was excited and overjoyed that Nino and Sho were back in Japan and he would see them again. But that wasn’t the feeling in his stomach. Kaoru’s designs were used for the backdrop of the play and he felt a surge of pride when he looked at them, and that still wasn’t the disquieting feeling swamping him.

Perhaps it was the shadow of Saeko that seemed to dog all his performances. She had a private box at the theatre some distance away in the circle seats where she would scrutinise him intently. While Ohno was accustomed to people gaping at him, he did not like it when someone socially acquainted with him stared freely at him. He felt like one of the fishes for sale at the fish stall of Kaoru’s father, waiting to be de-scaled and gutted. That must be the feeling, he thought, nodding vigorously to himself. Why wouldn’t Saeko let him be? Why couldn’t she let him go? Ohno didn’t think he was anything special or that he was remarkable in any way, so why was Saeko so hard up to get him back? He supposed it must have been something he said to her in the past, or had given her a false impression. If that was true, thought Ohno glumly, then he had brought the whole black business upon himself. But what was it he was supposed to have said or done that resulted in her firm unshakeable decision to win him back? He did not think he could be won back, and he certainly wasn’t going to let Kaoru find out. It would break Kaoru’s heart, he sighed, thrusting out his lower lip despondently. What was he going to do?

These unpleasant, self-reproachful thoughts were temporarily lifted when Ohno stepped into his dressing room to find Nino crouching in the chair before the dressing table playing his DS.

“What kept you?” Nino muttered, lifting his head once and then returning to his game. “I’ve been here for nearly an hour.”

“Kazu-chan, I’m glad you’re here. I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Ohno uttered as soon as he shut the door.

“So have I,” returned the gamer, taking a discreet and dispassionate peek at his friend from the safety of his DS screen.

Nino did not want to be there that day. He had only just returned to Japan, and it was a rare day off. Even rarer than that was the very tiny but no less important fact that his little philosopher did not have to lecture that day. It had not been his wish to head to the theatre to see Ohno when he could have stayed home with Alys and parked himself on the chaise lounge of her study for a long nap while she prepared lectures and papers or he could have glued himself to the PS3 while she sprawled on the floor and did her research. If Alys had not stressed that Umebayashi Saeko had ‘warned off’ Kaoru from his dear Oh-chan personally, and if Alys had not insisted that he go see Ohno and ‘knock sense into the fellow’, Nino would not have bestirred himself at all. It was Ohno’s problem that he was so spineless as to allow Saeko to jerk his chain. If Ohno were more resolute, he could have put his foot firmly down and protected Kaoru as a man should. That was Nino’s private opinion at least. He did not like it when other men sniffed around his Alys and if someone had been frightening his Alys, he would have called on all the forces of hell to smite that someone. However, he doubted that would happen, given how well he knew his lady. It was more likely that she would frighten her adversary into fleeing, and in his opinion, therein lay her irrefutable allure. Still, these reflections aside, Nino could not deny that the self-interested part of his soul had urged him to speak to Ohno as well. He liked Kaoru and she was something of a baby sister to all of Arashi, and if her boyfriend wasn’t going to wake up and assist the poor girl, he was going to kick the boyfriend into action.

“I think it’s time I told Kaoru, what do…” Ohno began just as Nino said, “What have you been doing to have…”

Both men stared at each other and smiled. Nino then flicked a wrist as his eyes darted back to the DS in tacit permission for Ohno to go ahead and speak first.

“I think I should tell Kaoru about Saeko. Do you think I should? But I don’t want her to think that I want Saeko back because I don’t. I don’t want Kaoru to be upset, but what if she’s upset. I can’t bear it if she’s going to cry in front of me. I mean I know it’s my fault that Saeko…”

“Damn right it’s your fault!” interjected Nino peevishly. “You’ve done something or you may have done nothing, which is just the same where that Saeko bitch is concerned because she thinks she stands a chance with your inability to come to the point with her. That bitch hopes you’d take her back because you don’t tell her point blank to her face that you don’t care if she lives or dies.”

Ohno pouted and shook his head in an attempt to clear his head. “I know it’s my fault because it wasn’t clean break as Jun says it should be, but I can’t tell her directly. It would hurt her feelings. And Kaoru…”

“Well, yeah, about that,” Nino ejaculated sneeringly. “She already knows about Saeko. She’s known about it for a while. All our women know about it. It seemed that your bitchy ex paid a morning call on Kaoru at her Geidai studio to tell your fiancée to give you up.”

“Eh! No!” protested Ohno, hands flying to the sides of his cheeks.

“We, and by we, I mean the rest of the guys and our women, know about this,” Nino explained slowly and in such a bored manner that Ohno almost presumed his best friend was describing a commonplace natural occurrence. “What I want to know is – why did you let this happen to your fiancée, who, forgive me if I am wrong, you love very much? If you want to get rid of Kaoru, it would be an excellent plan, worthy of me, even if I do say so myself. But if you don’t, why the hell did you let it happen!”

“I didn’t know Saeko would… She went that far? How? Why? Kaoru didn’t tell me,” Ohno’s voice faltered as he tried to understand what was going on. His mind swirled in images of how he pictured the scene would have played out and he was horrified that the gentle Kaoru should be spoken unkindly to.

“Why would she confide in a fiancé who failed in his duty to protect her?” spat Nino, snapping his DS shut and glaring accusingly at his best friend.

Ohno sank down on the chair beside Nino and put his head despairingly on the thinner man’s shoulders. “What would you do? What should I do?”

“How the hell do I know?” Nino bit back cuttingly as he laced his fingers with Ohno’s to comfort the older man. “Kaoru’s your fiancée not mine! Just tell the Saeko bitch to lay off your woman or you’d do something terrible, and mean it.”

“Is that what you would do?”

“This is your game, Oh-chan! You play it!” cried an exasperated Nino as he screwed his eyes shut to think. As soon as he had his temper under control, he squeezed his friend’s hand and said in a conciliatory tone, “If it were me playing this game, I would watch the women go picnicking on each other’s vitals. What could be grander – two women fighting over me! Believe me when I say this, Riida, you wouldn’t be able to handle how I would play it.”

“If it were Alys instead of Kaoru?”

“I’d love to watch her tear that bitch to pieces.” Nino smirked and stroked Ohno’s hair. “But your Kaoru wouldn’t. She held her ground with Saeko once and nearly fell to pieces, she can’t do it again alone.”

“What should I do then? Tell Saeko that I don’t like when she confronts Kaoru and upsets her?” blustered Ohno, pouting in frustration as he realised he was being forced to act against his will.

“That would be a start!” snapped the gamer as he rose to leave.

“Where are you going?” whinged the older man whose inner turmoil was now so great that he wanted to go off with Nino for some air.

“Somewhere I should be!” snapped the younger man.

“Where?” pouted Ohno, rising and making a gesture that he would follow.

“Damn it! If you knew where you should be, you wouldn’t have gotten Kaoru involved in this in the very first place!”

“Where are you going? A walk? Can I come too? My head feels heavy and my stomach is making me sick,” pouted Ohno, shaking his head and taking Nino’s hand.

“Yeah, that serves you right!” hissed his best friend, flinging aside the hand.

“Eh? What do you mean?” exclaimed a bewildered Ohno. “Why can’t I go for a walk with you? Where are you going?”

“Home to my Alys,” came the irascible reply as he left. “Tell that Umebayashi bitch off, and do it soon, Satoshi. Do it for Kaoru. Do it for yourself if nothing else. We’re all losing our patience with the bitch and with you.”

Date-san, Arashi’s muscular and dodgy-looking manager, who was lurking in the shadows placing a discreet call to one of his underworld contacts heard the last part of this illuminating exchange as Nino swung open the door of Ohno’s dressing room. Watching Nino shuffle away, Date-san frowned, consternation squatting heavily on his brow. He had long suspected that Ohno had a secret wife or fiancée, and he finally had confirmation of it at last. What convoluted lives those boys led, mused Date-san as he went out the back of the theatre and lit his cigarette.

That proved to be a mistake because it was raining. Date swore under his breath. He hated March, early March especially. It always rained in March, and in this first week of March, the rain was relentlessly pouring.

Lighting a cigarette anyway, Date considered his duties for the week as he watched the freezing rain pelt down on the pavement and watched Ninomiya turn up his collar, open a large Todai umbrella and run off in the direction of the bullet train station. For that first week of March, he had to see that Ohno’s stage play went smoothly, ensure that Arashi were chaperoned to the various television shows they hosted and invited to attend, keep Arashi in line in the recording studio for another single, make sure that there were no complaints on Sho or Nino from their drama crew, rearrange Jun’s schedule to accommodate all the band’s engagements as well as his drama and movie commitments, and arrange for Aiba to do something with some carnivores on his Tensai programme.

Well, now there seemed to be a new development. If he had heard correctly, Umebayashi Saeko had made a play for Ohno, and Ohno’s failure to keep her in check had alarmed his secret girlfriend named Kaoru. Very interesting, he mused. There must be something wrong with the boys he managed if they kept something like that from him. They weren’t boys anymore in age, but he still thought of them as such. It was fine if they didn’t want to tell him about Ohno’s secret girlfriend. All he had to keep the peace was keep the boys in order so that they didn’t fly wild at Umebayashi Saeko who was still a shareholder of their record label. He would even do one better for them – he would keep an eye on Umebayashi Saeko and step in if she got too much. That could be easily done for he could always use the excuse that she could not interfere in Jimusho business.

While pondering on the vested interest Saeko seemed to have in Arashi or more specifically its leader, Date’s mobile phone vibrated. Fishing it out of his pocket, he grinned when he saw the name flashing across the screen. “About time,” he snarled as he picked up the call. “I’m five minutes away. I’ll meet you there.”

It took him less than five minutes to arrive at the appointed place, which was a small book and stationery store. Walking briskly into the premises and brushing the rainwater away from his mackintosh, he promptly wound his way to the magazine section at the back, picked up a digest on cars and stood next to the man who was already there and perusing a similar digest.

“The weather is thawing early,” began Arashi’s manager, his face obscured behind the magazine.

“To the detriments of the spring buds,” answered the man at the stand.

“Takatsukasa-san.”

“Date-san,” acknowledged the man who had now revealed himself to be Sora’s cousin in the police force. “What do you have for me?”

“My sources indicate that the silver beetle gang is involved. Yoshida Akira owes them money from underground mahjong. The last known den is the slums of in the outskirts of town. They’ve since moved to an unknown location. The private investigations have revealed that Yoshida had successfully extorted various sums from Mother Nakahara,” said Date-san, idly flipping through the magazine.

“We’ve been watching the silver beetles for the past few years, but we haven’t enough to nail them. If we can get Yoshida skulking around the beetles, we can catch them in the same net. Any leads on location?”

“That’s my question for you,” responded Date-san without changing the tone of his voice.

“You’re the one with the underworld contacts. I’m in the light and unaware of the dark,” said Deputy Police Commissioner Takatsukasa.

“You have the right to scope out the dodgy ends of town where my associates would mess up things up. Plus, the Jimusho cannot be seen having a hand in this. The Old Man wouldn’t like it. The parties involved also cannot have their names mentioned. You have the means to do that.”

“We need time and a good lead.”

“Yoshida Akira as a blackmailer in monetary debt to the Silver Beetle gang is a good a lead as any other.”

“You sound like you think we would be able to apprehend him and the gang,” commented Takatsukasa-san as he pretended to study something in the magazine.

“I have every confidence of resolving this before mid-year. I’ll call if I have something,” said Date-san on replacing the digest on the rack.

“I’ll do the same. Tell the lady to hang in there,” replied Takatsukasa-san with a miniscule forward inclination of his head.

Returning the tacit acknowledgement, Date-san left for the theatre so as to keep a closer eye on Ohno around whom he knew some trouble seemed to be brewing.

NOTES

The Queen’s Gambit in the chapter title refers to one of the oldest known chess openings and though currently ‘unfashionable’ amongst amateur chess players, is often the opening moves of chess grandmasters.

In Queen’s Gambit Accepted (QGA) Black typically gives up control of the centre to obtain freer development.

I shall leave it to the reader to decide what the QGA entails for the characters in this chapter and in the rest of the story.

In the UK, Mackintosh is a kind of coat worn to keep one dry from the rain. It is like a raincoat that looks like a trench coat. In the Beatles’ song ‘Penny Lane’, they referred obliquely to the mackintosh as the ‘mac’ in the lyrics.

Chapter 042 – Water in Acid

As if enacting a response to the kindly meant queries of Sho and Chiaki, the party at the Dragon’s Pearl had just finished their simple three course Chinese dinner and were partaking of the post-dinner beverages, which in this case was Australian strawberry port for Haruyo and more pu-er tea for Alys. Haruyo had apparently ordered some wine in the course of dinner and pretended to be one of those women who insisted on having alcohol even though they had little capacity. Her motivations for ordering wine were less pure. It was her intention to look as if she was in her cups so that Nino would have no choice but to support her, when he did so, she could cunningly grope some part of his anatomy. Ignorant of this plan, Alys watched Haruyo’s consumption of Australian strawberry port with a jaundiced eye. As a rule, Alys rarely consumed alcohol, preferring instead to mix two parts water with her claret at Christmas. Thus, she had a near puritanical distaste for hard drinking within the purview of her vision. On his part, Nino politely took a few sips of the port before deciding that it was too much like Haruyo in being too sweet for his liking, and he promptly pushed aside the glass.

The conversation between the three had been stilted whereby the women were sizing each other up and Alys was inflicting physical torture on Nino with continued kicks, thwacks and smacks. Therefore, it was with some relief when the bill was summoned and duly paid, whereupon the tipsy arch coquette Haruyo was shoved into a taxi and sent on her way to the hotel from which she came. Indeed, she could not be more pleased with herself, for her plan was flawlessly executed. In fact, it was too well carried out in Alys’s estimation. Both she and Nino had gone to Haruyo’s assistance when she unsuccessfully tried to rise from her seat, however much they would have liked to leave her to fester in the restaurant. Although Alys had no idea that Haruyo’s inebriation was an act, she was monstrously displeased to see Haruyo slip her hand down to Nino’s buttock for a feel when they supported her and called a taxi for her.

That, coupled with the facts that Nino had done absolutely nothing to deter Haruyo’s less than subtle advances towards him, had incensed Alys. He had even asked her if she was jealous. Of course she was, but she would not grant him the satisfaction of knowing it. To Alys, Nino’s failure to discourage Haruyo and his subtle manner of goading her on by giving Haruyo that meltingly winsome half-pleading smile in his eyes, were the most galling things of the evening. He may have brushed aside Haruyo’s hand when the younger woman groped his posterior, but Alys was not the least palliated. She may have said nothing, but she had eyes enough behind her glasses to see that Haruyo had spent the entire evening making eyes at Nino and making little seductive gestures by flipping her wavy hair, and adjusting her well-enhanced bosom in her dress.

“What were you trying to prove tonight, Ninomiya-san?” Alys asked him quietly when the taxi carrying the model-actress sped off and they were left alone on the porch of the Excelsior Hotel.

The return to formality did not startle Nino. He had long been used to his lady’s habit of retreating into cold civility when she was angry. However, her refusal to lash out at Haruyo still gnawed on his mind and he wanted to uncover the reason for it. To that end, he goaded her with a sneering, “I’ve been thinking of taking that one out for a test drive. I wasn’t sure you’d approve of my choice? Ne, Teng sensei, what do you think?”

The philosopher pursed her lips and pushed up her glasses to calm herself as she reminded herself that this was merely a worst case scenario come true, and that she would be able to get over it in time. “Is it to be out Alys and in Ichinose Haruyo?” she enquired in voice of faint interest.

“Iya, just a little, you know, fling.” He slid his hands in his pockets and looked askance at her from the corner of his glasses, waiting for some kind of negative response.

“I will not have you flaunting your mistress in front of me. I told you before – if you must have affairs, do it safely with protection, and make sure I never find out who they are, or God help me, I will not be accountable for what could happen to you,” Alys informed him, surprising him with the quiet venom in her voice.

His mind went, “I’ve got you now, Alys-chan!” That was the opening he needed to strike. It was a sign that she was angered by Haruyo’s preposterous behaviour, and was similarly cross with him. Nino flashed her a cocky smile and raised a brow as he followed her to the lift lobby, watching her jab the button violently. “And you said you weren’t jealous? You could have nipped in the bud, Teng sensei. Why didn’t you?”

“Why didn’t I? How bloody wonderful that the onus should be on me!” she snorted and glared at him when the lift door opened. “Why didn’t you discourage the tart?”

“I knew it,” Nino said, the traces of a giggle clinging to his voice. Nino turned his head to the side as they stepped into the lift, hiding his chortle. The plan may have failed to permanently rid him of Haruyo, but that was inconsequential. He was delighted to have elicited a response from Alys in which she was dignifiedly jealous. It meant that she still cared and that was enough. Haruyo, well, he could manage and deal with her appropriately as she deserved. But his Alys – she was a different story, and the most challenging game he had played to date.

“What are you sniggering at? Is this one of your plots?” she snapped waspishly in English, pressing the button to her floor.

Seeing how the game was up, he laughed aloud and gave himself away. “I knew you’d know. I knew you’ll be bothered with what I did.”

“I couldn’t care less what you did. But what she did! Ha! How could you play me this way!” she hissed, repeatedly smacking his arm as hard as she could.

“It’s what I do,” he smirked, taking hold of the hand that had been assaulting him and chafing it gently to warm it.

“What you do? You practically encouraged the tart! How did you think I felt watching her play the coquette, ogle at you, and grope your arse while you did nothing!” she snapped, snatching back her hand.

“Yeah? What did I feel when you didn’t explode at her! Ever thought about that?” he riposted half-teasingly, not knowing that Alys was already on the warpath.

“What good would that have done? I could get rid of her – true, but if you wanted to ‘play’ you would have found others. Why get rid of all those girls when you’re the cause of it!” she bit back in a low hiss, steadily glowering at him and flicking her hand sharply so as to cuff him.

Deftly catching the hand that would have struck him, he met her glare for glare, now fully riled up. He had meant for her to be jealous so as to be rid of Haruyo, and he had planned to apologise for making her upset, but she was making it too damn difficult for him. He was incredulous that his reasonable prank should result in her putting the blame on him, and his inner displeasure and earlier jealousy were now incited.

“Me?” he returned crossly, slapping her verbally with an accusation of his own. “What about you? I saw you at the conference hall at that City University place! I saw what you allowed him to do to you! Have you been stringing me along? Am I second best to that Eyre sensei guy? It had always been him, am I right? I know he wants you back!”

“You’re a bloody fine one to talk! Why didn’t you do something if you saw it? Henry said you were lurking outside, I went out to… God knows what I thought!” she riposted, flinging aside the uncomfortably painful grip with which he had used to stay the slap she would have given him.

“You went out to what? To meet him?” he challenged, his eyes glittering in the need to know, placing a hand on the lift wall to keep her pinned in place.

“I don’t give a fig about Francis Eyre any more than I give a fig about your pathetic inability to follow a simple English conversation! Where were you when my virtue needed rescuing, hmm? Go back to your hotel and reflect upon what you’ve done. Goodnight.” She whacked aside his arm with her handbag, straightened her posture, and stalked out of the lift.

As she did so, Nino swiftly strode after her. It would have been too much to expect Nino to leave her be for he did not cow to threats anymore than she did. Besides, the quarrel was far from over in his opinion. As with all their quarrels, this was one a match of hard fighting, for the woman had unbearable insults to avenge and the man wished to extort his revenge on his lady for failing to crush her rival. Thus, no sooner did Alys insert the keycard into her door than a burst of ironic laughter arrested her from stepping inside. She turned to see him ambling casually towards her with a mocking smirk affixed on his face. As he came towards her, she backed into the room and tried to shut the door against him. However, he was too quick for her and she soon found herself against the wall closest to the wardrobe.

Upon shutting the door behind him, he roughly grabbed her shoulders and pinned her to the wall. “Ever the rational creature, eh? You have no virtue, Teng Alys!” he spat. “How can you expect me to react when you didn’t do anything to Ichinose? You could have clawed at her. Did you defend my honour when she made her moves on me?”

In response, she struggled out of his grip and unhesitatingly turned the tables on him. “Why should I? You encouraged her with that chocolate marzipan mouth and that imploring gaze!”

“Oh yeah?” he riposted, leaning closer with a sneer. “Maybe you could have kept at her bay.”

“Enough, I’ve had enough of your games!” she shot back, pushing her glasses up and glaring at him poisonously so as to deny him the satisfaction of cornering her. Deciding that she no longer wanted to deal with his irascibility, she sought to escape to the bathroom.

His reflexes, much better than hers, owing to years of dancing and acting, prevented her exit as he tugged her around to face him. The impact was so great that she forcibly came into contact with his chest. Meeting her scowl as she hurled all manner of English and Latin abuses at him while struggling, he manoeuvred her to sit on the edge of the bed and curled his lips dangerously at her. While he was perfectly aware that his Ni no Arashi attempt had gone awry, he was presently much too incensed to bother with that tiny detail.

“You’re not walking away from me! This is as much your game as it is mine!” he hissed, a hard edge of irritation clearly audible in his voice.

“We’re a game now? I should have known! You want to go out and frolic with painted maypoles like that tart? Very well! Go forth and sow your wild oats! I don’t give a damn,” she snorted dismissively in English, flicking a wrist at him.

Catching both her wrists, he studied her expression for any subtle changes and sneered, “Yeah, I’d go do that if I didn’t dislike oats.”

“Then sow wild whatever! See if I care!” she retorted, still in English, meeting his penetrating gaze and refusing to back down. There was a chance that she would win this argument, and even if there wasn’t, she would have stuck to her guns anyway.

“I’ll make a note of that. I’ll bring them home when you’re in and do it on our bed!” He increased the pressure of his grip on her wrists, and leaned forward so much so that she fell back on to the mattress.

“You want my blessing on top of my permission? Done, you have it,” she purred in a dangerously low tone as she attempted to break out from his iron grip.

“Bluff away, I love it when you do.” He curled his lips at her tenacious spirit.

“Don’t give me that self-satisfied smirk! It’s none of my business what you do with your time and with whom,” she coldly stated with narrowed eyes.

He inched closer to her face, without relinquishing her wrists. “I’ll do things with them that will make your blood curdle. I’ll make sure you can hear us.”

Glaring at him so as not allow him the satisfaction of having frightened her, she answered in English with frosty disinterest, “Sod it, Kazunari! You could videotape it for all I care.”

“Yeah? I’ll deliberately make it so that you can see us,” he spat almost viciously and leaned in until their noses touched.

She felt her breath pick up a notch and she hissed unevenly, “I’ll kill you if you do that.”

“Do it now. No one’s watching,” Nino whispered with malicious smirk before devouring her contemptuously curling lips. As their glasses had clashed when she enthusiastically returned his kiss, he judged that he could release her wrists. That proved to be his mistake, for immediately upon regaining her freedom, she bit him harder than usual on the lower lip. So startled was he by the assault that he had to roll off her. Seizing the opportunity his shock afforded, she quickly straddled him, stepped her right foot on his chest and took hold of his tie.

Watching him touch his mouth as he checked for blood, she pursed her lips and purred in English, “Kill you, my darling? With pleasure.” Following which declaration, she tightened the knot of his tie by pushing it further up his neck to constrict his breathing. While mentally taking note of the time and digging the heel of her shoe into his chest, she informed him in between savage kisses, “Do you know the brain could die if it is oxygen deprived for four minutes?”

“Alys…chan… let go…” gasped a startled Nino from both a lack of air in his lungs and surprise that the woman with whom he had slept, quarrelled and discussed money matters did indeed possess a perversely violent streak. Yet he was strangely unperturbed by it, feeling instead a certain strange amusement that she had played him and caught him off guard. Well, it would seem that this was as far as she could be pushed. He would make a note of that, and would take heed never to provoke her over the edge again.

“Of what? The necktie or you?” she asked, a mocking smile playing on her lips.

“The tie…” he managed to wheeze.

She cocked a brow at him and did nothing, choosing to watch him struggle for his breath until the two minute mark. Once the hundred and twenty seconds were past, she abruptly released her grasp on his tie, and rose without haste, drawing her dress closer across her hips. Coolly eyeing him through the mirror as she sat on a dressing chair and removed her glasses, she cuttingly reminded him while removing her makeup, “Flaunt your mistress in front of me again in another one of your bloody excuses for jokes, and I wouldn’t let go until you’re dead.”

It took him a while to regain his breath and in the interim, he watched her remove her makeup. He had expected her to be upset and a little jealous, but not to this extent; and if he was honest with himself (which he was), he found himself excited by this hitherto unseen side to her. Then again, he reminded himself, even the tightly controlled manner in which she threw aside the dirty facial cottons in forced calm excited him.

“That’s easy, isn’t it?” he rejoined bitingly with a careless gesture when he recovered enough to sit up. If she could strangle him, step on him with high heeled shoes, and tear facial cotton to shreds, what else could she do to him? Idly, as his eyes met hers in the mirror, he wondered if his mode of thinking and her manner of dealing with him made them perverted. His lips curled almost malevolently when all her makeup was gone and she had replaced her glasses on her face.

“Is it?” she intoned crisply, narrowing her eyes at his, still staring at him via the mirror.

“Yeah,” he sneered, reclining on the bed and glaring a challenge at her. “I’ll just have to make sure you never find out about the others.”

Turning her head sharply towards him in an impassive sideways glance, she placed one hand over the other in a semblance of calm and chuckled bitterly. “Rot in hell,” she said coldly, lifting her eyes to his.

The brief flash of pain written in her eyes twisted something in Nino’s chest and he wished he could have taken his words back. It was meant to be a sarcastic jest; it had not been his intention to wound her. He strove to explain himself, “I didn’t mean it to…”

She cut him off curtly by hissing angrily, “Didn’t you? I resent you. I want to hate you.” Then removing her glasses, she pounced on him, kissing along his jaw and biting the part of his neck closest to his collarbone. She continued in the same dangerous purr when he gasped in surprise, “Is that how it is? Do they do this to you? Do you pretend you are with a younger and prettier woman when you’re with me? Do you pretend that you’re with that sweet ingénue actress you slept with on-and-off before me?” She kissed him desperately and with such ferocity that Nino was in no position to protest even if his mind could find the words. Rolling her eyes at his silence, she went on bitterly between bruising kisses as she removed his tie and whipped it against his legs, “Not tonight. It’s high time you were punished. Tonight, Kazu, you’re mine and mine alone.”

Nino allowed her to do what she wanted with him. Without really understanding why he allowed her to do so, he let her do as she chose, following her lead and indulging in her needs for the better part of two hours. He could not find it in himself to protest against the force of her ire or the fury of her passion or find words to soothe her fears and insecurities. It was difficult to get a word in edgewise in objection when his mouth was constantly occupied with various pieces of her anatomy. Likewise, it was nigh impossible to form an articulate sentence when she was evoking sensations in him that he did not think he was capable of.

When it was over and their tempers had fizzled out, they managed to arrive at some verbal understanding as to what set off each other’s dark sides. After cuddling, exchanging apologies, differing points of view and desultory post-coital conversation, one half of the satiated pair drifted to sleep murmuring that she was sorry if she had injured him.

On his part, Nino merely pulled the bedcovers over her before lighting a cigarette. What had just happened? He found himself asking as he puffed on his cigarette and absently stroked her hair. It wasn’t like they hadn’t made love before. However, their previous engagements in the deed had not been like that – wild and unfettered. While it had been interesting and pleasurable for them both, he could not help but feel a little used. Well, he had driven her to it, he mused with a smirk, gingerly rubbing the areas where she had bitten him in the heat of passion. The irony of this reversal of roles was not lost on him and he rubbed his face in mortification until the ringing of his mobile broke through his guilt induced haze. Scrambling to find his trousers and his mobile, he hit the answer button when he saw who was calling.

“What do you want, Sho-chan?” he whispered harshly as he slid down the bedcovers again to watch Alys sleep.

“Woah, Nino, chill. Just checking in. Are you all right? I thought the professor had murdered you! Where are you?” came the anxious voice of the ‘mother’ of Arashi.

“In bed. With my Alys. Why?” he replied, half-watching his lady kick and curl into the foetal position in her sleep.

A long pause fell over line. Then when Sho found his voice again, he sighed and decided to go ahead and issue Nino a friendly reminder. “Will you be back in time for the 10am shoot? It’s our last day on this set before we head home.”

“Ever known me to be late to work?” responded Nino smugly, stubbing out his cigarette as Alys curled up into a smaller ball and muttered brokenly about the injustice of judging her by her unorthodox interpretations of ancient texts and the harms done to students who were allowed to pass the course without handing up their assignments or attending class.

“Are you coming back tonight?”

“What do you think?” he asked sarcastically while soothing his partner’s apparently fitful slumber as she kicked and hissed violently she was at least attempting to lead the philosophic life rather than an acquisitive one that only paid lip service to the all too human things.

Sho groaned over the line on catching the implication. “You have to be back in your room by 9.10 tomorrow morning or they’d know you’ve slipped out. Say hi to the professor for me.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Putting away the mobile phone so as to hold her shaking, sleeping form, he wondered what he should do. He knew she had night terrors where she would mutter incomprehensible things in English and another language he could not identify, kick him, and occasionally sob and scream. He had a rough inkling what these night terrors were about, having often woken up to them – if it wasn’t about her or her mother being ill-treated by her father, it was probably about idiot students who wouldn’t leave her alone or about her ill-fated foray into further education in America. He never asked her about them because he had a feeling she would evade the issue and would dismiss everything as ordinary nightmares. While considering the possible repercussions of waking her, he paused in mid-thought when she clawed at the bedcovers over him.

“Not my books! Don’t take away my books. Don’t expel me. Hang me, quarter me, suspend me from the university, anything – don’t deny me the right to study philosophy,” she sobbed in English whilst tossing away from him in her sleep.

Smoothening her tousled hair, he snorted at the realisation that she was still haunted by her ill-fated expulsion from that American university. Holding her cold body and patting her as best he could, he murmured soothingly precisely because he was certain she could not hear him or recall it when she awoke, “Shhh, I’m here. Listen to me, no one’s kicking you out. You are a philosopher; iya, even better, you are a professor in Todai. Shhh…. No one will take anything from you. No one will unreasonably say ‘no’ to you. I’ll see to it. Shhh, sleep, sleep.”

NOTES

I know the standard procedure is AW (acid into water) rather than WA (water into acid). But there is a reason why I have titled this chapter Water in Acid.

Traditionally, when acid is mixed with water, a lot of heat is released. It then follows that adding more acid releases more heat. When acid is added to water (AW), the solution that forms is very dilute and the small amount of heat released is not enough to vaporize and spatter it

However, when water is added to acid (WA), an extremely concentrated solution of acid initially forms at a very rapid rate. This causes a lot more heat to be produced than the traditional AW method. When WA occurs, so much heat is released that the solution may boil very violently, splashing concentrated acid out of the container.

Now that you know the difference between AW and WA, I expect readers to make the necessary connections to understand why I have titled this chapter “Water in Acid” and what this means for the characters in this chapter AND beyond.

Those who have no idea what I’m talking about vis-à-vis night terrors should:
(a) do some research so as to know the difference between nightmares and night terrors
(b) it has been stated in the previous stories of this series that Alys kicks and talks in her sleep. It is also stated in the previous stories Nino occasionally talks in his sleep
(c) reread Between Wit & Sarcasm for Alys’s academic troubles and past. Cf. Chs 11, 21 and 31 of the aforementioned story.

Chapter 041 – Inexplicability of the ‘Now’

“While Nino meets his little professor for dinner with the mantrap, I’m all alone, picking at something I ordered from room service,” Sho said into the microphone that was hooked to his ear.

It was 9.20pm and he was still online and still in his Hong Kong hotel room in the Marriot, talking about the day’s happenings to Chiaki. His friends in Arashi may laugh at him for being somewhat ‘hen-pecked’. He liked to think that he had a very open and honest relationship. It was much easier to facilitate discussions when his Chiaki was rational and commonsensical. Unlike Ohno who let Kaoru make the decisions, or Aiba who discussed things with Renée-Caroline before going ahead and doing something impulsive, Sho believed he and Chiaki discussed everything before coming to a satisfactory decision. This was in stark contrast to the Ninomiyas, he mused with a furrowed brow. Nino had just left for Alys’s hotel where she was residing for the duration of her philosophy conference, and was doubtlessly planning to play her against Ichinose Haruyo in a Ni no Arashi that could yield one of three results – (1) a catfight, (2) both women killing Nino, (3) Nino and Alys end up murdering each other and obliterating Hong Kong from the world map. As Sho did not wish to dwell on those frightening and all too real possibilities, he enquired after the news at home.

“Anything new in Jindai Botanic Garden or the labs other than the project to shoot a gene into a new hybrid? How are the others?” he continued.

“Kaoru caught me on MSN earlier. She said Umebayashi Saeko paid her a morning call,” Chiaki stated as she turned on the orbital shaker. She may be conversing with Sho, but that did not mean she could do her own work as well. As the ability to multitask had been ingrained in her since her girlhood, she found it quite easy to talk to Sho over the speaker phone without losing concentration on her laboratory work.

“Did she tell Kaoru-chan to stay away from Ohno like Jun said she would?” Sho asked, his brow clouding over at the nefarious, underhanded methods of J Storm’s shareholder as he recalled how overjoyed she looked at the opening night of Ohno’s play when she saw that Kaoru had not been in attendance

“Not in so many words, but it was intimated,” came the botanist’s even reply. “Kaoru’s understandably upset. Umebayashi is unrelenting when she wants something.”

“She’s a shrewd businesswoman with a head for politics. I know their ilk. My father is one of them. That kind always swoops to conquer. They’re like falcons,” Sho intoned lowly as he rubbed the vein throbbing on his temple. “How is Kaoru? Has anyone told Ohno?”

“There are only two people who can knock sense into Ohno at a time like this and they both do not know,” Chiaki replied. “Ninomiya has to talk to him when the two of you get back. He’s a better choice than roping in Ohno’s mother. I’ve not told Sora yet, so Jun should still be in the dark. Jun would go ballistic and not stop until he’s satisfied with the carnage at his feel. I’m not even going to contemplate who his first victim would be, Umebayashi or Ohno.”

“We might as well send Jun to him! Leader of our band or not, Ohno can’t think he can get away with doing nothing. The matter isn’t going to resolve itself until he makes things clear to Umebayashi! He can’t think that things will blow over! Nothing’s blowing over! If this keeps up, Arashi would be in a real crisis.”

“It would be folly to assume how he thinks, Sho. It would be similarly foolhardy to send Jun to him because Jun’s great concern for the drizzle boys and their welfare would override his reason,” counselled Chiaki thoughtfully as she sat down at her workstation in the Jidai Botanical Garden laboratory. “You’ll be back in another day or two. Send Nino to him to get a feeler as to his stance before deciding your step. There has to be an explanation for Umebayashi’s sudden visit to Kaoru. She was threatened enough to go straight to the source of the threat in an attempt to bully it into submission. That is done. Ohno’s next step would be crucial. A woman fighting for a man as Umebayashi is can never be underestimated, and should be handled with iron gloves.”

“Do you mean kid gloves, wifey?” sighed a clearly troubled Sho as he resisted the urge to have a cigarette. He too was deeply worried, almost as worried as he was shocked by Saeko’s boldness. Things were coming to a head, he could feel it.

“Iye. Kid gloves are for women like Sora and Alys who respond more to the soft approach. Iron gloves are for women who only understand force,” Chiaki stated grimly, her mind wandering to her own recent spate of trouble.

“What sort of gloves should I use with you?” asked Sho suddenly, more to break the unhappy mood that had fallen on them than any real curiosity.

“None. I am a relatively reasonable person,” she declared with an affected laugh. “Though, I confess, I would not have been as civil to Saeko as Kaoru. I would have made a mess of things if your ex demanded I keep away from you.”

“My good, sensible wifey couldn’t make a mess of anything,” Sho reassured her with a chuckle, “I can’t say the same about Nino. I worry he would make a mess of things with the professor.”

He shook his head at the Ninomiyas, as he had long come to think of Nino and his little professor, in more anxiety than disapproval. They were a couple beyond the bounds of what he thought was acceptable. They were like an old married couple when they thought they were unobserved – doing their own thing but still concerned for each other in an absentminded manner. Yet, the moment they were in company, they either went overboard with extravagant gestures of grand affection that bordered onto farce or snarled at each other as if their lives depended on it. While they compromised in most matters as most couples in old married couple mode do, the compromise was only wrought after several snappy remarks about each other’s insufferable foolishness. It seemed to Sho that they fought out of habit than over any real need to fight. Indeed, he believed they fought over everything except in money matters, which was the only thing drawing their perfect agreement. Yet, Aiba had contradicted this view of them by claiming that the Ninomiyas were actually considerate of each other’s personal space and feelings at home. Perhaps that was possible, mused Sho. The professor had a thoughtful turn of mind, and Nino was melancholic at times. On the one hand, it was easy to see why Nino and Alys got along. They were both rascals and scoundrels, completely hard, unscrupulous and stubborn. On the other, it was just as easy to see the volatility of the Ninomiya-Teng combination. No where was it more apparent than in the present situation between Nino and Alys. Sho sighed and shook his head. What was he going to do with them?

Chiaki, made of sterner stuff and a less meddlesome disposition, chided him gently, “He hasn’t yet. It stands to reason he wouldn’t. He knows every twist and bend of her mind; he reads her moods better than anyone of us can. We can trust him not to go too far.”

“This is Nino we’re talking about,” Sho said, typing an email reply to his younger sister as he spoke to Chiaki. “He wants to provoke a reaction from others. He becomes more perverted when it comes to those he cares for. Nino is as reliable as clockwork in that he could be trusted to do everything to push all her wrong buttons.”

“While I share your opinion that he should not go ahead with his scheme, your outlook on the matter is unnecessarily bleak,” cautioned the botanist as she weighed the possible consequences of Nino’s current deviousness plan.

Sho groaned and placed an arm behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. “The prognostication is bleak because Nino and Alys share the same insanely malevolent streak. This is petty revenge, wifey. He’s dragging the mantrap with breasts in the plot.”

“Ninomiya isn’t that poor spirited to use a woman who had been throwing herself at his head against Alys. What kind of a man exacts revenge on his beloved through another woman!” pooh-poohed Chiaki as she tinkered with the test-tubes in her laboratory.

“You did not see him when I confronted him,” stated Sho, firm in his belief that something was going to go awry between the Ninomiyas. “When he saw Alys’s old flame kiss her and offer marriage pending his divorce, his face puckered in abhorrence, anguish, admonishment, rage and indifference under one minute. He wants her pride in the dust.”

Chiaki threw her head back in a laugh at this melodramatic turn of Sho’s mind. “Call Sora and tell her that. She’ll use it in a book.”

“I am serious. The Ninomiyas are a tragedy in the making. He’s only using young Ichinose to make Alys jealous because he’s jealous and threatened by the thought that she would get back with her former professor.”

“Why?” asked Chiaki emphatically in undisguised surprise, incredulity evident in the raised pitch of her voice. “Anyone who knows Alys knows that she does not bestir herself for anything but her ambitions, her mother and her freeloader. Anyone who knows Ninomiya can see that next to his mother’s comfort comes Alys’s. It’s obvious that he plans and schemes with her in mind!”

“Everyone knows that but them!” groaned Sho, knocking a fist lightly on his forehead. “I really think locking them in a cupboard would allow them to better communicate.”

“Your fixation on locking them in small and cramped spaces not withstanding, I advise you to stay out of their way. I don’t trust you to dodge when they let loose their missiles,” Chiaki chuckled to hide her own anxieties surrounding the problem of her blackmailing uncle.

While she trusted Date-san would settle the matter in a timely and expedient fashion, she was concerned with recent developments as revealed to her by Arashi’s manager. Date-san had informed her that he had been unable to track down her uncle, and has left the task of locating the blackmailer to his yakuza contacts. It appeared that things were getting difficult, especially since she had not heard from or seen their sorry specimen of a gambler for an extended period of time. With so many obstacles in her way and the fear that her uncle could sell the story of her and Sho to the tabloids at any day, Chiaki wondered whether it would be fairer to Sho if she broke up with him. It wouldn’t serve to get her uncle to desist from his pestering demands for money, it would at least give less credence to the tabloids if her uncle sold the story to them.

However, that would be her very last resort, whereupon she would put things clearly and concisely to Sho. He would then see her point of view and naturally see the wisdom of their enforced break up. As it was a last resort method only, Chiaki did not see the necessity in alerting Sho to her current plight. She would trust Date-san for the time being and let Sora’s cousin in the police force do what he must. Those would be the safest and most prudent thing to do in her current circumstances. Tempted as she was to tell all to Sho, she held her tongue. She did not want to foist an additional burden on him when he was already worried for his friends and fearing for the very existence of Arashi now that Umebayashi Saeko had made another move against Kaoru and Ohno. Keeping mum was the right thing to do, she convinced herself.

Shaking her head to dispel the notion from her mind, she laughed at Sho’s protests that he was not as incompetent at dodging the verbal volleys of the Ninomiyas as she supposed. Expertly seizing that comment as a means to turn her mind away from the weighty matter troubling her, she asked, “Has Ninomiya returned? Any tremors in Hong Kong from Alys’s rampage?”

“Iya, iya, not yet. But there will be,” Sho sighed and propped his back up with a pillow. “He’s not back yet. If he doesn’t get back by midnight, I’ll call him.”

Chapter 040 – Better late than never

That very same evening found Aiba in Kyushu. He had landed some forty minutes ago and was desperately waiting for a taxi. He was still keenly embarrassed by the events of the previous day where Sora and Jun had found him at the Takenaga Golf Course. He had not quite forgiven himself and was even then still reproaching himself for being so careless. How could he have forgotten the date that Renée-Caroline’s parents were to arrive? She had repeatedly told him, reminded him, and he was as eager for their visit as she was. He had partaken of her excitement when she told him that her mother would be performing a piano concerto she would conduct. He had suggested plans to her when she said her father was looking forward to studying the classical music scene in Japan. He had even volunteered to chauffeur them around Tokyo should they wish it. How could he have forgotten when he had entered so thoroughly into Renée-Caroline’s feelings and plans on the matter? Did that make him a very bad and neglectful boyfriend, he wondered. Did that make him uncaring? He certainly felt he was extremely callous and negligent of the things that were most important to Renée-Caroline. After all, he reasoned to himself, Renée-Caroline had never forgotten anything about his family. She had always reminded him to send messages or cards to his parents and brother on their birthdays. Given all that she had done for him with regard to his family, how could he have been so stupid as to forget what was due to her parents?

He was still engaged in the agreeable task of mentally kicking himself in the arse when luck favoured him and he found a taxi. The reason for the seemingly unending self-imposed admonishments lay with one simple fact – from the moment he left the golf course the previous day and retrieved his mobile phone, Aiba had been unable to contact Renée-Caroline.

What should he do? It would be pointless to call the Opera House because she had taken a few days leave to take her parents around. Besides, he knew she was in Kyushu. It would also be pointless to call Jun and Sora for advice because they would think that they had already helped him enough, though exactly how they had done so still eluded him. Ohno would not offer any help other than spout mysterious things like he should be like the reed that bent with the wind so as not to be broken – whatever that meant. Neither did Aiba want to disturb Kaoru by bombarding her with text messages and emails. The poor thing had been looking strained lately and Aiba did not want to worry her anymore than was necessary. Nino would be no good to him either if he was in the country and able to take his call. The smaller fellow would say something cutting and leave him to flounder. He would call Sho if he were not in Hong Kong because Sho always knew how to encourage him. Briefly, Aiba entertained thoughts of calling Alys because to his straightforward child-like mind, ‘mama’ Alys knew nearly everything. But the woman was at a philosophy conference, and as the Arashi members knew, the professor enjoyed being incommunicado for the sheer hell of being un-contactable. Furthermore, attempting to tear Alys away from anything to do with philosophy was like attempting to tear Nino away from money or games. Faced with these severely reduced options, Aiba called the only person left whom he thought would be most inclined to allay his fears and advise him – Yokoyama Yuu.

“Yoko-chan…Kimi-kun…I’ve done something wrong,” Aiba immediately said when the party on the line picked up.

“You’re a natural idiot! You’re always doing something wrong,” Yokoyama exclaimed with an exasperated edge in his voice. “What did you do this time?”

“What do you make it sound like I’m in trouble?” Aiba complained, staring ahead at the empty stretch of road as the sun slowly sank below the horizon.

“If you’ve done something wrong, you’re probably in trouble,” stated Yokoyama as if it were an academic fact. “What did you say or do and who did you say or do it to?”

“Renée-chan…”

“Has your mermaid run away from you again? Why do you always pick the troublesome ones, Kappe? What did you do or say to her? Or what didn’t you say to her?” teased the Kanjani8 member.

“I’m always doing something wrong. I forgot that I was supposed to meet her to pick up her parents yesterday. I went golfing instead with Mari-chan, and then Jun found me and he thought I was like playing around. But that’s settled already even if it was 100% weird because I wouldn’t want Renée to run away. And now I can’t get her on her keitai and I’m trying to find her because I think I remembered she said her parents, her ‘Kaasan especially wanted to see Eguchi ‘Baasan, who is the mermaid ohime-sama’s grandmother and her ‘Kaasan’s mother. But I can’t be sure if they’re here or they stayed in Tokyo for a few more days,” blurted out Aiba, deciding that it was better to clearly state all his sins and receive one big scolding for them than to receive dozens of small scolds.

Although Yokoyama listened to him with some compassion and understanding, he was thoroughly flabbergasted by his long time friend’s appalling sense of time. As he could not bring himself to speak words of comfort, he shot back, “Ahou! How could you forget? Girls place great stock in things like that!” Harrumphing once, he continued, “How far along are you in catching up with her?”

“I’m in Kyushu. But she didn’t pick up her keitai and hasn’t been picking up since last night,” cried out a nearly frantic Aiba.

“Is her keitai battery dead?”

“I didn’t think about that. Could it be dead?” he asked, thinking that it was a possible reason for his girlfriend’s inexplicable failure to answer her phone.

“I don’t know! I’m not a keitai!” exclaimed Yokoyama over the line. “Find her and then apologise! Don’t waste time with me.”

It was a valid suggestion and Aiba hastened to comply with it as he had come upon the traditional structure of the Eguchi family house. He walked into the house, following one of the servants until he espied the object of his thoughts wandering down the picturesque path leading to the inner courtyard. Slowing his steps so that the servant would go ahead without noticing that he was not following behind, Aiba soon strode towards Renée-Caroline.

The day had been remarkably windy and Renée-Caroline had chosen to walk a little before dinner so as to gather her thoughts. Sora had called her back the previous evening informing the maestra that she and Jun had found Aiba at the Takenaga Golf Course taking lessons from a shapely instructress. Sora had also added that the gangly monkey would be heading her way soon. When she heard that, Renée-Caroline’s mind froze. She did not pay any heed to the latter half of Sora’s exposition for her mind had stopped short at the revelation that Aiba had been taking golf lessons from a comely wench. Ah, it had to be that woman whom they had seen at the golf course when they chanced upon Saeko. She had suspected that Aiba had more than passing interest in the well-proportioned woman. She would not be surprised in it turned out he much preferred that woman to the bat eared, emotionally insecure maestra of the Tokyo City Metropolitan Opera. Her fear that that event should come to pass prevented her from answering her mobile even though his number had shown up on the missed calls list. As she was expecting this unhappy event to come into being, she did not expect to see him in Kyushu presently approaching her with the compounds of her maternal grandmother’s house. The moment she saw him, it immediately became apparent to her that he was labouring under a strong sense of resentment.

It did seem that way to her for hardly had he extended a greeting to her than Aiba burst out with the rather unnecessary information that he had come to see adding explosively, “I was so scared you ran away again. You promised you wouldn’t. Why didn’t you pick up your keitai! I have to tell you something.”

“You wish to inform me and I have no objection to hearing it,” replied the maestra, bracing herself for what she believed to be inevitable ‘it’s not you, it’s me; I’m sorry but it’s over’ conversation.

“I was coming to that. You wouldn’t believe it! I scarcely do myself. I mean to say, I forgot my keitai yesterday. I took the TV remote instead. Baka, deshou? I think it’s 100% baka too but I’m a natural baka, so that’s okay. Then I tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up, and then I remembered you said your parents to meet Eguchin Obaasan and so I’ve come here to meet them! Are they angry with me? Are you angry with me? Don’t be,” Aiba sighed and paused to take a breath, tilting his head and running after her when she purposefully pushed forward on the path. “I’ll die if you say you’re angry. I’ll go without karaage for a week if you’ll stop being angry.”

“Par Dieu! You could say that! Are you trying to send you up into high dudgeon? Come to the point, hein?” demanded Renée-Caroline, stopping in her tracks. “You came here for a reason. Are you trying to tell me that it’s over? Merci, mais I’ve already noticed.”

“Eh?” Incredulity spread over Aiba’s features as he gasped. “There’s no one else. I know you’re 100% weird and you have many funny habits but I didn’t think I wanted someone else.”

“The golf instructress… I thought…” the conductor lifted her eyes to his.

“She has a nice butt but she’s not you. She can’t make music like you can; and she hasn’t anything else she’s good at, only golf. You’re good at lots of things! I just confused the dates. You know I can’t remember things when you’re not there to remind me – chirp, chirp, like a bird. I need you to tell me things or I won’t remember anything.”

Renée-Caroline looked sharply at him and interrupted him. “But I saw you looking at her the other day, I...” she left off suddenly, two large tears threatening to roll from her eyes. Aiba’s hands went out to her, but she stepped back and looked askance at him, shaking her head. He looked confusedly at her and was on the verge of speaking when she continued, “Listen, Masaki, I truly want to be the sort of petite amie you want, and not get into scrapes. But I am only…” She gestured meaningfully to herself.

“You are the sort of girl I want,” Aiba insisted, draping an arm carelessly around her shoulders,

“Am I, vraiment?” her voice faltered as she sniffed back the tears.

He tilted her head up and grinned earnestly at her. “Renée-chan, Caro-chan, I’m kind of young – maybe not anymore, or not so young anymore. And I’m a natural baka, so baka that no one wants to really talk to me seriously. But you talk to me seriously!”

“I thought… I thought the golf instructress…I know you had someone else in you heart when you first pulled me out of the river…”

“There’s no other woman now. There was when I first met you, but that was a silly crush and it didn’t mean anything. She had her own panda to love. She isn’t what I wanted. She was a dream that I chased. In my heart, she never had a place. She’s not there now, Caro-chan. You’re there now,” he answered, and caught her up in his arms and mercilessly kissed her.

“Oh la la!” whispered Renée-Caroline, as she processed everything that had been said since his arrival at the Eguchi house. “I didn’t know you could kiss like that!”

“I can! I’ve been saving it up!” he grinned shamelessly. “Like it? It’s a skill only a natural baka like me has! Want me to do it again?”

Aiba’s hands went out to her again, but a footstep on the path made both him and Renée-Caroline turn. The petite, older woman with a classic profile, a pair of deep hazel eyes and an arched mouth stepped on the unevenly shaped cobblestones, fluent words on her lips, “Renée-Caroline, ma jolie, we cannot keep your grandmother waiting. Your father… Ah, well, we have a visitor.” She executed a well-feigned start and then a bow and a little laugh with a knowing twinkle in her eyes. “You must be the enoki mushroom boyfriend. What a lucky chance you’re here! My husband has been asking about you.”

Renée-Caroline sighed and snapped her fingers to remind her mother that she was still present. “Maman! I feel sure you have an urgent message from grand-mère that will take me to the other end of the garden!”

“Not that far,” assured Eguchi Tamiko, fabled pianist and mother to the Renée-Caroline. “Your grandmother asked if we could play a duet for her after dinner. Will you join us, mushroom-san?”

“I’m not a mushroom! I’m Aiba Masaki!” he pointed to his own nose with an insupportably wide grin.

“Who?” the pianist stared at him, in genuine ignorance as to who he was. “You’ll tell us later, I hope. How did you find us here? Renée-Caroline hasn’t been taking calls since we got here.”

“Alors, what I chiefly admire in Masaki is his resourcefulness,” said Renée-Caroline with a faint smile, recalling the time he dragged her on a plane and arranged for her to meet her grandmother. He had fostered this reconciliation on the maternal side of her family, and she felt she must give credit where it was due.

“Is that a good thing?” enquired Aiba, looking from mother to daughter in increasing confusion. “Is everyone angry with me because I forgot to pick you and Chaussée-san from the airport yesterday? I’m really sorry. I’ll attend your recital to make up for it; and I’ll take Chaussée-san to play golf. Oh, I also got presents for Eguchi Obaasan!”

“My daughter did say you were something. Please don’t go through the trouble,” conceded the maestra’s mother laughingly. “Come in for dinner…”

“Maman, I do not want to be rude, but you are a trifle de trop,” Renée-Caroline said amiably, nodding at the older woman and stealing a glance at Aiba from under her lashes.

The pianist cocked a knowing eyebrow and looked from her daughter to Aiba. “D’accord, ma jolie. Do not stay out too long. We dine punctually.” She nodded at the gangly Arashi member and smiled. “Keep an eye on my daughter.”

“Eh? What does that mean?” Aiba asked, running after the retreating older woman and then running back to the conductor.

“She approves of you,” Renée-Caroline put into simple terms for him.

“Oh! So I can do this again!” he grinned, wrapping his arms around her as he kissed her and crushed her with the force of his emotions.

NOTES

De trop = excessive

When Renee-Caroline says her mother is “a trifle de trop”, she means that her mother is in the way.

D’accord = all right / okay.

Vraiment = really

Alors = Well then. *Please note ‘Alors’ has no real English equivalent.

N’est-ce pas = don’t you agree / don’t you think. *Please note this also has no real English equivalenet. It is used in the same place as the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in the examples below:
(a) Time is of the essence, no?
(b) You speak Polish, yes?
Bear this in mind when you next encounter “n’est-ce pas”

Hein = an expression of disagreement or agreement (depends on context). Think of it like a snort of agreement or disagreement.

Merci, mais…= thank you, but…

Petite amie = girlfriend

Grand-mère = grandmother

Maman = mummy, mama

Ma jolie = lit. my pretty. I always translate this as “my beauty” or “my pretty little one”.

D’accord, ma jolie = all right, my beauty

Chapter 039 – Gaining a tempo

Later that day in Hong Kong, Alys was seated before the dressing table in her hotel room in the Excelsior, pinning up her long cable of hair into a chignon at the nape of her neck. The day had been long and tedious. It had been the final day of the Ancient World Philosophy Conference where she spent the most of her time being distant and insouciant to anyone who spoke to her, thereby giving credence to the lie that she was not feeling well and was unable to attend the conference dinner that night held in one of the ballrooms in the fashionable part of the city. She had also spent much of the day keeping herself close to Henry Goldman and a few of her philosopher friends from Taiwan and the European continent so as to keep Francis Eyre at bay. Having worked hard to be where she was in the philosophical and academic world, she was not going to risk her standing in it by attaching her name to the Francis Eyre and Rose de Winter scandal once more. Fortunately, Dr Eyre had gotten the message and exchanged nothing more than commonplace pleasantries and philosophical points on Xenophon with her. “Well, that’s over,” she sighed to herself, giving her head a shake to ascertain that the chignon was secure.

Indeed, the conference was over as was the shadow of Francis Eyre. She had much to look forward to in the coming months – possible tenure with the University of Tokyo, a conference on Renaissance political philosophy in Britain in early May, and right now, within the short space of an hour, dinner with her annoying freeloading brat of a beau. Unlike most women, Alys never fussed over what she should wear or over her makeup. She had already decided that the dress she brought for the formal conference dinner would suffice for a night out with her partner, and her makeup would be subtle as she preferred it. No, Alys was more concerned with who would be paying for dinner and how much they would have to spend that night. If it would be possible for her to take him with her to her conference dinner, and she would have, for it would have meant absolutely zero expenditure. However, she did not wish to thrust him into the politics of the philosophical and academic world anymore than he wanted her to be the subject of gossip in entertainment rags. Thus, through a tactic agreement, they kept their professional lives and their attendant duties away from their relationship.

Putting down her lipstick brush, Alys gave the corner of her terracotta red painted lips a wipe before an idea on Machiavelli’s Socratic irony dawned upon her. Suddenly seizing upon a pen and paper, she quickly scrawled across the page as the idea flowed from her head. It would be a key concept in a new paper she was trying to write, and it would serve as a bridge between the warring notions of Machiavelli as practical thinker and Machiavelli as a perceived devil’s advocate.

While she was wrapped up in this agreeable activity, her equally mordant partner was in Sho’s hotel room. Unusually for him, he was having second thoughts on the Ni no Arashi prank. His irresoluteness on the matter revolted against the devil-may-care attitude he had always had, and Sho’s failure to either assuage his fears or consign him to the devil grated on his nerves. However, the fault did not lie with Sho for the older man was on his laptop, having a video-conference call with Chiaki and unable to entertain Nino’s irascibility.

“What would happen if you did what I am about to do to Alys-chan to Chiaki?” was the hypothetical question Nino posed to Sho.

“I wouldn’t do it,” Sho said, watching Nino knot a slim Prussian blue necktie loosely to his shirt.

“I’d set my fire ants on you and leave you for dead,” Chiaki’s voice came over the laptop speakers. “Alys would not be so kind. She gave Sora some very graphic ideas for the torture scene in Burning like Ice.”

Sho shuddered and cringed. “Wifey has a point; she’s not really a woman sometimes.”

“Oi! You’re besmirching the character of my evil little witch,” snapped Nino defensively.

“Renée-Caroline suggested that Alys is an unnatural woman,” Chiaki replied matter-of-factly. “Not really fair to her seeing how she is exceptionally kind sometimes.”

“Heh, she’s bitter poison and I wouldn’t trade any of her,” chuckled Nino, doffing his hat on his head and wrapping a scarf around his neck and chin.

“Then don’t go ahead with it,” Chiaki cautioned over the speakers.

But it was too late, Nino had already gone, and when Sho told Chiaki so, they both hoped that the prank wouldn’t go too far.

Technically speaking, it was not too late for Nino to call off his latest Ni no Arashi stunt, and he was toying with that notion as he and Haruyo sat down in a dark corner of the Dragon Pearl restaurant in the Excelsior. It was already 8.15pm and there was no sign of the elusive academic. Although he was perturbed by his lady’s uncustomary tardiness, Nino managed to present a nonchalant face to Haruyo as he sipped the excellent grade of warm pu-er tea.

“You should go if you don’t want to wait,” Nino intoned coldly, fishing out his DS and starting it up. He believed that if he was indifferent enough, the honeysuckle beauty of the Japanese entertainment industry would get the idea that he wasn’t interested and leave him alone. His original Ni no Arashi plan be damned, he thought. Right now, all he wanted was to spend a quiet evening with Alys talking about what he did on set and what she did at her conference.

Haruyo could not be so easily put off, mainly because she was painfully oblivious to Nino’s disinterest in her, just as she was painfully unconscious of his patent boredom with the fact that her sunshine yellow alter-necked wrap dress was cut shockingly low.

“Is this normal for you? Waiting for your companion, I mean?” Haruyo enquired, smoothening the creases from her dress while her imagination conjured the picture of a dowdy middle-aged female professor keeping Nino as a toy boy. That her imagination could not be further from the truth did not occur to her, and she continued to ply Nino and the staring garcons with her brilliant smile and ample bosom.

“She usually waits for me,” he replied in his most bored voice, tilting his DS to move his character out of harm’s way. “Ever thought you could make yourself scarce, Ichinose-san?”

“I told you to call me Haru-chan, everyone does,” she tittered in the time-honoured manner of young ladies affecting false modesty.

“Well yeah, I’m not everybody,” he retorted, still half-watching his game and half-watching for any human figure that resembled his lady’s.

“You’re really funny,” she giggled again, and Nino successfully fought the urge to make a disdainful face at her.

“And you’re not,” he snapped, and upon pushing a few more buttons on his game, he dropped his voice suddenly, “You know what you can do to be useful?”

She slid closer to him and flashed a sweet, dimpled smile. “What?”

“Get lost,” he intoned so lowly that it was almost a cross between a hiss and a snarl.

“But what about the plan to make your companion jealous?” she remonstrated, clearly confused by this sudden change in Nino. Reaching over from her seat opposite his so as to touch the fingers that he had wound around his cup, she continued with a smile, “You want to get rid of her, deshou? I understand, I can help.”

“You can help by getting lost!” hissed Nino, lowering the DS from his face and glaring at her. As he did so, he uncurled his fingers from the cup to flick away her hand. However, the ever opportunistic Haruyo seized the chance to cover his hand with hers.

This last gesture was observed by the newly arrived Alys who had finally managed to tear herself away from jotting down her thoughts on Machiavelli. She had never in all her years in academia regretted the claims of work and study on her, and welcomed the burdens those worthy occupations placed upon her. Like most academics, Alys would neglect to heed the time when lulled into the pleasant distraction of reading and writing on subjects she loved. But that evening, she mentally cursed herself for her besetting sin of placing intellectual pursuits over and above social intercourse. It would be a gross understatement to say that she was seething over the sight of Haruyo touching Nino’s hand with a come-hither expression. Despite her displeasure, Alys managed to school her features into the habitual mask of insouciance she always wore when forced into social events. Then she dismissed the hovering waiter and made her way to the table.

“Hello, darling,” she greeted him in English with such chilly casualness that Nino raised his mocking eyes to hers as if to say ‘at last, you damnable witch’.

Her arrival had the desired effect of Haruyo withdrawing her hand with a flash of surprise in her wide kohl rimmed eyes. Patting the hand Alys had rested on his shoulder, he cocked a smug half-smirk at her as he drank in the vision of his professor in her sleeveless sapphire calf-length blue dress that ended in a trumpet hem. Going by the gaping O that was Haruyo’s mouth, he knew his young co-star did not believe that this petite and bespectacled creature was both a professor and his ‘long time companion’. But it was just the reaction he wished her to have. Perhaps she would finally get it in her thick skull that Ninomiya Kazunari could not be won by a few smiles and a few flashes of inflated bosom. But since Haruyo was there, he might as well go ahead with the plan and leave his Alys to deal with the woman in her own inimitable cruelty.

“Alys-chan, this is a co-star from the Resurrected Butterflies drama, Ichinose Haruyo. Ichinose-san, my companion, Professor Teng Alys. We had a free evening today and I invited her to join us,” he informed her, handing her the menu.

“How generous,” she conceded with a polite nod at Haruyo and a smile at Nino. Her behaviour underneath the table however was a far cry from her placid and courteous tone of voice, for she made it a point to step as hard as possible on his foot. “Will she pay for dinner tonight, or are we going to survive on tea?”

“You are funny, Teng sensei; it will be my honour to treat you both tonight,” said Haruyo with an expression of sweetness which Alys knew instinctively was feigned, as such expressions always were in her experience.

“Alys-chan has a wicked wit.” Nino smirked to mask the pain that was shooting up his leg from his professor’s assault. “Her honours and graduate students call her the philosopher’s philosopher in Todai.”

“You really are a Todai professor?” gasped Haruyo in disbelief, while making eyes at Nino.

Alys’s eyes flashed briefly in contempt and rummaged through her handbag for a name card. “I’m one of the lesser professors,” she deadpanned with a self-deprecatory curl of her lips after placing their orders in Cantonese.

“In what way lesser?” Nino asked, pushing her cup towards her, ignoring the looks Haruyo threw at him because he was more in favour of getting Alys to throw off her mask of cool indifference to his shameless co-star. He could tell that there was certain awkwardness in her behaviour. Nino knew better than to judge by faces, and with Alys that evening, he did not try. He levelled his gaze at Alys’s hardened eyes as she stared keenly and penetratingly at him. But the more he looked at her, the more he was convinced that there was more melancholy than suspicion in her gaze. It was as though Alys’s eyes were saying she understood that trust and affection were folly, but still regretted that it was so.

She grasped his hand tightly and dug her freshly clipped nails into his palm. “You tell me, freeloader.” Then leaning in his earshot, she hissed in English, “Why is this tart here?”

“You call him freeloader?” Haruyo’s eyes flew up from Alys’s name card, putting on a show of innocence at the public display of affection between the professor and Nino.

Pushing up her glasses and allowing vitriol to drip from her tongue, she replied, “Among other things unsuited to your chaste ears.”

“Hontou desu ka?” Haruyo put on an exaggerated gasp as her hand flew to her mouth.

That gross hyperbolic act had Nino in near stitches for he was doing his best not to laugh. While Haruyo’s bad acting was amusing in its own way, Nino was concerned with Alys’s tightly controlled behaviour. Had his plan backfired? He could not fathom why Alys did not blow up even though she had given every indication that she was upset with Haruyo’s presence and the sheep’s eyes the younger woman was making at him.

“She’s very adept at torture,” Nino said blandly to his co-star. Then on the pretext of pouring out more tea for Alys, he bent to her ear and whispered, “Jealous yet, witch?”

“Good Lord! Don’t tell everyone!” she laughed hollowly, smacking his arm with more force than she usually did. When she did so, she cast him a furtive glare and hissed in English under her breath, “Jealous? Me? Not a whit.”

Haruyo made a mouth and made a comically exaggerated show of cringing at Alys’s thwacks. “Doesn’t it hurt?” she rubbed her arms and shuddered with the well-practiced skill of someone to whom a pinprick would constitute excruciating pain.

“Sometimes,” Nino said, shooting Haruyo a warning look as she fluttered her eyelashes coquettishly at him. But her acting was such that he soon had to feign a cough to hide the laugh that was inadvertently threatening to engulf him.

“Only when I want to hurt him.” Alys’s lips curled scornfully as she stepped on his foot again, this time she made sure to twist the heel of her shoe to maximise his pain.

To which claim, Nino corroborated by kicking her shin. While he was inwardly relieved that Alys was galled enough to respond to him, he could not understand why she refused to lash out at Haruyo. How could she hit him, kick him, step on him and more but not level an insult at Haruyo? How could she sit there and make polite small talk with Haruyo about her lessons at Hitotsubashi University when the younger woman was making eyes at him? How could she act like nothing was wrong? Alys’s actions or non-action rather puzzled him. Nino had always prided himself on his ability to read people and their moods like books, but now when faced with Alys’s perplexing mask of calm against Haruyo’s patent flirtatiousness, he wondered whether he was losing his touch or whether he had misread her, her behaviour, and her thoughts. More importantly, he was suddenly afraid that in misreading his Alys he was gradually losing her.

NOTES

In chess, a tempo refers to a "turn" or single move. When a player achieves a desired result in one fewer moves, he "gains a tempo" and conversely when he takes one more move than necessary he "loses a tempo." Similarly, when one forces his opponent to expend moves (often in defense) that he would not otherwise have expended, one "gains tempo" because the opponent wastes moves.

‘Hontou desu ka’ may be translated loosely as ‘Really? You don’t say.”

Chapter 038 – Tête-à-tête

While the potential misunderstanding that could have arisen between Aiba and Renée-Caroline was temporarily averted, the same could not be said for the relationship between Ohno and Kaoru. The CEO of the Umebayashi Corporation was still as determined as ever to drive a wedge between them, not out of any deep rooted hatred for Kaoru whom she acknowledged was a sweet young woman, but out of a carefully crafted plan to induce Ohno to return to her. In the current stage of her plans, she would have to have a tête-à-tête with the artist to gently ‘persuade’ the younger woman to release Ohno from his bonds to her.

Completely ignorant of the fact that Umebayashi Saeko had requested her secretary to free up her schedule for such a purpose, Kaoru went to Geidai the following morning after the arrival of Renée-Caroline’s parents in Japan.

As she knew nothing of Saeko’s plans or of Aiba’s very silly and sorry error of having golf instructions instead of picking up Renée-Caroline’s parents, Kaoru arrived at her art studio in Geidai in high spirits. She was still contemplating the offer from the Saatchi Gallery and to that end, had redoubled her artistic efforts on four new pieces which she worked on simultaneously. Unknown to her, trouble was brewing and it would be as murky as the swirls of paint she was trying to mix on her palette. She was too busy concentrating on her art to dwell on her private unhappiness that her fiancé had chosen not to confide in her. To her, art was her escape.

Art did not lie, and it provided solace for her thoughts. Kaoru did most of her thinking whilst sketching, painting and dabbling in photography. It was her unshakeable belief that art was a reflection of life writ small. She believed that art dealt with everything to do with humanity because she felt the constituents of an artwork mirrored the composition of life. It was as Ohno once told her – working with clays and drawing helped him to draw his sensitivity to pains and pleasures of everyday modern life. Because art frequently engaged in the visual senses, Kaoru believed that it engaged the mind and encouraged the brain to reflect and to contemplate the meaning of everything that a person would experience in life. In this respect, Kaoru thought like Alys, whom she had come to think of as her older sister because they placed the same value on reflection and thought. Indeed, her latest series of art pieces were inspired by online conversations she had with Alys on Enlightenment philosophical thought. Accordingly, the art pieces and her set of preliminary sketches were in turns playful yet ironic, leading her dissertation supervisor, Dr Toyomi Hoshina, to declare that the latest evolution in her artistic vision was the most thought-provoking yet.

These were her thoughts as she picked up her brush and worked quick, broad strokes over the canvas. She was proud of her latest series. The pieces were as yet untitled, but they thematically depicted everything that was right with the world in shadows, and everything that she thought was wrong in the light. Toyomi sensei told her that it was disturbing and would draw attention to her work. However, she was unconcerned with that. Art was her mode of catharsis and as long as she could express herself, she was happy with herself. At the moment, she was more concerned with how her fiancé was doing. She had not heard from him since he informed her that he would be occupied with his play and that she could pick up tickets for the closing performance when she visited his mother. He had seemed disappointed when she said she would be unable to attend the opening night performance, but he quickly recovered to say that he would reserve tickets for the closing night so that she could see him. Kaoru had been so occupied with her art that the last time she saw him, they had discussed the plot of his play and she had given him preliminary sketches of a few background scenes which he assured her he would bring to the attention of the set designer. That was a fortnight and a half ago, and as far as she knew, he was hard at work and so was she. It was the way things should be, she reflected, changing another brush for more intricate strokes on the canvas.

She was so wrapped up in these thoughts and her painting that she failed to notice the very presentable form of a well-dressed female declining one of her classmates’ escort and entering the art studio.

This newcomer stopped to shut the door behind her and took her time to inspect the various art work, all of which she acknowledged to be nearly first rate. When she realised that the artist had paid no heed to her, she was ticked off. How could anyone ignore her when she was now one of the leaders of the business world? But the feeling of infuriation gave way in the end as she recalled that Kaoru was very nearly deaf. She had heard the warnings from one of the other Geidai students that Morimoto senpai disliked turning on her hearing aid while she worked, and Saeko could see that it was true. There was something infinitely charming about a person who could be so enveloped in a task as to lose himself or herself in it completely.

Despite that one charitable thought, Saeko was there on business, she could not dally in what she deemed to be the idle pursuits of the artisan class. She had not realised, owing to her pettiness and meanness, that the very object of her desire – the hapless Ohno, belonged to this same artisan class as well. But such was Saeko’s nature. She had swept into Geidai with only one thought – to snip off the unwanted thread cleaving to Ohno. She had gone to Geidai that morning for the express purpose of tauntingly laying out the disparities between Kaoru and Ohno in the hope of inducing the younger woman to give him up.

“We meet at last, Morimoto-san,” she said with a civil nod as soon as she touched the artist on her shoulder.

Caught unawares, Kaoru dropped her brush and stared at the intruder who looked back at her haughtily. Gesturing politely for the CEO of the Umebayashi Group to sit, Kaoru carefully moved her easel nearest to her completed pieces from which she drew her strength and courage and twisted her lips into a semblance of a smile. She knew with a sinking heart without being told what Saeko had come for, but she was desperate to avoid the inevitable. Accordingly, she took her time to pour out some green tea from a flask which she offered to her would-be interlocutor and with a final pursing of her lips, turned on her hearing aid.

“Regardless as to how much she frightens you, you mustn’t show that you’re afraid,” she reminded herself whilst lowering the easel to a height from which she could sit and paint.

“How kind of you to see me when you’re so busy, Umebayashi-san,” Kaoru said aloud with an angelic smile, surprising herself at her ability to keep the fear and misery away from her voice. Taking up her brush again, she sat down facing Saeko in a low chair with her knees stuck up close to her chest. She would have not assumed that unladylike posture had she not been trying so hard to keep her rage in check. Whatever others may believe, the gentle Kaoru did possess a mighty rage. It was not the kind practised by Sora whereby threats of dastardly retaliation would be roared; neither was it the kind Alys practiced whereby physical pain was meted out to others so as to dull her own pain. No, Kaoru could never bring herself to forget propriety completely, and if not for the perceptibly tightened grip on her brush or the drawing down of her delicate brows towards her nose, the observer would not have known that she was inwardly seething.

“Do you wish to commission a piece?” Kaoru ejaculated before Saeko could begin. “Or do you wish to talk about Satoshi-kun? That is what you’re here to talk about, isn’t it? Please say what you have to say and you may get on with your busy life.”

The soft vehemence of her words startled Saeko who had expected the artist to be a spiritless and meek creature. All the reports she had gathered on the artist had proclaimed her to be quiet and unfailingly good so much so that she never said an unkind thing about anyone. Saeko had certainly not expected this, and she was a little alarmed by this unprecedented outburst from Kaoru.

“Return him to me,” said Saeko with great affability as she plucked at the folds of her skirt.

“Sorry?” exclaimed Kaoru as she dabbed more paint onto the canvas, hoping that she had misread the direct request on the CEO’s lips.

Saeko’s eyes narrowed to mere slits and she stared across at the painter. “Return Ohno Satoshi to me,” she repeated, carefully enunciating each syllable.

Two spots of colour appeared on the artist’s cheeks as she tightened her grip on the brush to quell her anger. She smiled blandly at the request as if it were an art session where the subject had arrived late for a sitting. If Saeko wanted a skirmish as the rest of the Arashi princesses thought she did, Kaoru would give her one. “I did not know he belonged to you. Satoshi-kun is himself, is he not? If he belongs to anyone, it would be his parents. Did you buy him from them?”

“What can you give him? I can build his career, bring him to greater heights, and bring the pick of the entertainment industry. Can you do that?” Saeko smiled, not very pleasantly, waiting for the younger woman’s capitulation.

Kaoru was determined to maintain her peace and calm as much as Saeko was determined to tear those things from her, and thus, she only schooled her features into a mask of polite interest, “No, but I think I understand how you see him. You look at him and you see him and you see lights, money, investments and a lot of other things I don’t fully understand. I look at him and I see only him.”

“You’re as blind as you are deaf,” retorted Saeko angrily.

“Iye, I see moderately well, thank you,” Kaoru smiled cordially, letting the insult about her near deafness slide. “Do you want Satoshi-kun to be unhappy? He will be unhappy if he is bound to you. You will want him all to yourself and you will strive to keep him by your side. He will indubitably want to be free to be himself, but due to his deference to your wishes, he swallows his pride and subverts his spirit to your will. He will become paler, thinner and miserable. When you see him in such a condition, you would be unhappy too. That is not very nice at all. Everyone will be so very unhappy.”

Saeko reddened and crossly went over to the window. “What will your nice way of looking him get him? Will it make him a bigger success? Will you bring him to the top of his profession? I will do these things for him because I care. If he stays with you, you will hold him back! I can see the way for him; you can’t see beyond this.” She made a dismissive gesture at the art pieces in the studio.

“Umebayashi-san experiences life with all five senses; I make do with only four. But we are more alike than you know, don’t you think?” Kaoru commented, returning to her painting.

“How is that possible! We want different things for him!” came the sudden retort, anger swamping her face.

“Art, like business, objectifies people. Everyone we meet is a representation or appearance that imprints itself in our heads. I know about art like you know about business through what I see, taste, smell, touch and hear. These five senses prints things in our minds like a photo image captured on film, don’t you see? If we take away all the five senses, we will have no direct access to reality anymore because we only see and feel the world around us through these representations. Because these representations are images we have of the external world – images that I use in art and images that you use in business dealings with other people, maybe we don’t really know the external world. We know that there’s a reality out there somewhere, but all we get is an image of that reality. That’s why we’re alike…” Kaoru broke off artistically and made a moue with a discontent with her mouth. “But we differ because you see Satoshi-kun like someone you do business with; you love him but you also love what he can bring in for you – money, royalties, profits, business deals, endorsements, technological advancement, business mergers and collaborations. I see only him. Maybe it’s because I’m only using four senses instead of five.”

Watching Saeko straighten herself, Kaoru knew the arrow struck had home. Nearly three years acquaintance with Alys and discussing philosophy with her had paid off, she thought, but the conversation was far from over and she could not afford to let her guard down.

Saeko abandoned the threatening attitude she had adopted and became more conciliatory, though no less alert. She paid a call on Kaoru to see her humbled, and she would do everything to ensure that she succeeded. “We were talking about Ohno-kun’s happiness here, not the way you do art, and not the way I do business.”

Persisting in holding her ground, Kaoru blithely pointed out, “But happiness is about moving towards what we desire and away from what we have an aversion to. And right now, I am very unhappy talking to you. It’s not you, you understand, Umebayashi-san. But would you mind leaving.”

Saeko inwardly writhed at this dismissal. No one had dared treat her in this fashion. She swooped down for her bag and glared coldly at the artist. “Will you return him to me or won’t you?”

Narrowing her eyes in response, Kaoru leaned forward towards her canvas and clenched her hands tightly in her lap. “That is a question for Satoshi-kun, don’t you think?” she pronounced with deceptive indifference.

Without another word, Saeko swept out as suddenly as she had entered the art studio, leaving a quaking Kaoru to fall from her chair and onto the floor, her overwrought nerves finally giving way. As she burst into quiet tears, she knew instinctively that Saeko would probably go to Ohno and demand that he make a definitive choice. But how could he? He was irresoluteness itself; he could not be expected to make a decision if it meant someone would be hurt. It wasn’t how he liked to do things and Kaoru was well aware of that. She cried even harder when she erroneously pinned the blame on herself. She had only wanted him to be happy and to be himself but she believed she had hurt him and made him miserable with everything she tried to do and tried not to say. Perhaps that was why he would not confide the Saeko problem to her; perhaps that was why she had to hear of the twists and turns of this dimension from the other ladies. The more she thought on it, the more Kaoru grew convinced that so long as she chose to cleave to him, she would be the cause of his alienation from his friends, the cause of his broken pride and the destruction of his inner peace.

She needed some distance from this, she abruptly realised as she dried her tears. It was a happy coincidence that he was busy with his stage play. He wouldn’t notice that she was starting a new project. Toyomi sensei had been suggesting that she should undertake something new, and it would be a rare honour for her works to be considered and displayed at the Saatchi Gallery. Yes, she decided firmly, she would do that. She would start a new art project for the sole purpose of accepting the invitation from the Saatchi Gallery in Britain. She would throw herself into her art, work on at least six additional new pieces, and launch her career into the commercial art world. It would serve to keep her occupied – so occupied that she would not be in a position to wreck his pride, self-respect, life, integrity, career, and inner peace. Yes, she would do just that.