Help yourself to a newly baked fan fic
Posted: Tue Dec 24, 2013 6:21 pm
AN: It's the very first time I write a fic. In general I want to know if I should go on, after all. Some foul language is plresent, be alert of it. Also, English's not my mother tongue. Comments, critiques, opinios, remarks etc. are welcome and encouraged.
So, the first portion is hereby delivered in a new reading, alongside with an addition. Also, I'm sorry for a miserable failure in writing plainly and in a single style throughout the story.
UPDATE, UPDATE!
Chapter 4 is currently under construction.
Yes, it's still a WIP. For all those interested, please give me another week. Also, remember to criticize and give advice.
A Hotel of Accomplished Wishes
Chapter 1.
I am walking on the waste grounds in the outskirts of a city I have no intention to name here. The heavy rain is gradually destroying that what is left of my rented suit, making the rags even more uncomfortable, my head dangling between my slumped shoulders. It is a walk to nowhere, without aim and for no good reason. I wish I were drunk, or drugged, or dead, or… anything I wish I could be, but not a revolting knot of loss, self-pity, impotence and uselessness I’ve turned into.
A sordid clot, sobbing, shaking, tripping over the junk; never so sordid as…
Yes exactly, since eight months ago.
***
It was eight months ago that Lilly Satou, the woman I held dearest, the love of my life, that smug self-concerned blind broad of golden hair, left for Scotland under the summon of her family she had long ago been disconnected from. Oh yeah, I was so filled with self-loathing I only could revile Lilly, call her names, and spill mud on her fair image that still was haunting me. An abient response of a sort, all that swearing. You just have to blame someone, even and especially then, when you’ve fouled the things up the most. She played well, too. Not saying a single word of her plans just until a handful of days before her departure, making no attempts to show she ever cared for what we had between us…
I’d rather quit or else I won’t be able not even to tell this story, but even to walk the road to the town ahead. Given my heart condition it’s no hard labor for me to kick the bucket.
Anyway, if I’m going to be a hypocrite any further I’m just bound to start wondering how on earth I fell to such miserable depths. The hypocrisy here is that I know, and I have known the reason from the very beginning.
Still, a brief explanation if you please. I, Hisao Nakai, currently of sound mind and judgment, declare to have made a complete and irrevocable ass of myself after the aforesaid Ms. Satou abandoned my life to live her own. Truth to tell, I played big boy trying to persuade her to do so. Even more strange that she listened. I lost an interest in existence. I even couldn’t, and still barely can bring myself to call THIS a life. I never came back home from Yamaku, for I couldn’t imagine how I’d deal with the compassionate looks on my elders’ faces. They knew all too well what Lilly meant to me, and if I were to tell them the whole story they would pity me, and comfort me, and… Well, at least Mom would. But I just don’t think I want it, or that I’m worth it.
I bullshitted my parents about finding a college and a part-time job quite far away from home, told them I wouldn't be home any soon and even entwined the name of my dear friend and respected teacher, Akio Mutou into this cock-and-bull story to make it even more plausible. Naturally I never told him of that. All I can hope for now is that he won’t find out. According to that disinformation, he recommended me that “educational institution” (I’m so sorry, sensei… ) Strange enough, but my parents ate what I fed them. All I ever did since that time was that I moved from my dorm room into a some decrepit den in the town near Yamaku and took up gambling.
Oh yes, that's how it goes: some play to remember, some play to forget.
I never cared too much for liquors (like, to start heavy drinking), smoking tasted bad to me, and I have always been strongly prejudiced against drugs. I guess I needed an excitement, a something to keep afloat. And that’s how the story of my fall began.
I fed my parents the blatant lies about the state of my affairs and squandered every single yen I could lay my paws upon for practically all sort of games of chance. The things went on while they could, although by fits and starts. Ups and downs came and went in unequal portions, and yet everything has an end… only a sausage has two. Wahaha~ probably? Why not, I mind nothing those days. How can I, actually, under the burden of the circumstances?..
And these are as they follow. May the sixth it was, that is, yesterday when by the whim of doom I came across my former coed Shizune Hakamichi, the Queen of Risk and the deaf-mute tyrant of Yamaku StuCo retired. It was her birthday, and she went to salvage the area for a present, accompanied as always by Shiina Mikado alias Misha, her closest friend, interpreter, unrequited lover and Her Infernal Majesty’s Jolly in a single flask. Me, I sat in a café at the shopping mall that Shizune, the wicked bespectacled bitch, was rummaging. Why in the hell she decided to drop by exactly there and then, only gods will know.
I was feeling content, my mood was moderately elevated due to a luck of having won a game of cards recently and being able to spend some money to pleasure myself. My light-mindedness took me even so far as to accept an invitation from Shizune to pay her a visit for a game in order to support a festive spirit. ‘Kay, I signed and sealed my fate myself when I didn’t ignore her rumbles rendered in an idiotically vigorous high pitch of Misha, and didn’t refuse to make them company for a small while which came out to be as big as seven Hells.
Back in my high school days I heard all sorts of rumor concerning Shizune’s family, and namely her father. Jigoro Hakamichi, the dreaded ex-Yakuza, nowadays a respectable man of business whose temper was sharper than his katana he would always carry around. That’s what the rumor mill was grinding. Who was ever so wise to tell me back then that I’d actually have a chance to know how much truth was there!
…We agreed to meet later the same day at a place that could have hardly been called a prestigious one. It was a run-down club quite a stretch away from downtown, dealing with all manner of shady affairs to stay afloat. But damn me if I cared.
A former warehouse it was, reasonably neat and secluded. Huh, within the last few months I’ve been to the places by far and large the worse that this one.
The girls have already been there, and greeted me with smiles, laughs, rapid jovial gestures and a glass of something that tasted like a splendid gin. At least, I thought it was splendid.
To put it in a nutshell, I turned out to have been invited to one of the gambling clubs her father ran under the cover of his official business. I guessed then, that the competitive demeanor and a tendency to take risks was an inherited trait in Hakamichi family, although it developed differently. The father took up a role of a grey cardinal in the underworld, while the daughter was more outward in her hobbies. It’s hard to say how many times she would come up with a bet, or an offer of a game in our school days.
It’s equally obscure how the fOck I became so reckless as to stake my all on a spur of a moment. I wasn’t drunk, no. I never drink too much while playing. But with my previous success on that day I pushed my luck enough, and I should have known that: too much of a good thing it was for me to have won three times in a row during that evening, and to have gained quite a sum of money. And then, a careless bluff here, a stupid move there, an unthought-of dealing, then lo and behold! Hisao Nakai has pissed into his own boots. Only metaphorically, of course.
Without a realization that things got a nasty turn, I hurriedly found Shizune and Misha and asked them half-jokingly for a loan of some hundred yen which Shizune seemed to be benevolent and more than happy to provide. As for the girls, they didn't do anything as much as sitting on a coach, sipping on some indistinguishable liquids in fancy glasses, watching the visitors play the night away and having some sort of talk in sign language.
And when I lost the stake it only seemed to add a fuel to my fire. I asked again for a loan, as I had every intention to win a requital and repay the debt. I seem to have been caught with the game too much, as I cared not for a strategy, or for my moves, and I barely saw the hand I was dealing.
…My third request of a loan raised some suspicion. The fellow gamblers at the table started a shushed discussion as I approached Shizune and Misha for the third time that evening on my rigorous legs, my face white, and heart beating like a black metal band drum. Now it’s not a surprise that Shizune refused to lend me money. She did offer me, though, to cover my debt form her assets, to which I burst out in a stream of incoherent obscenity and demands of cash.
The last thing I remembered from that night was Misha hanging on my left arm pleading me to stop my ranting, my own voice telling her to piss off, a steely blue gaze of Shizune over her hands crossed in a universal gesture of denial, and…a sharp explosion of pain in the back of my head.
***
...As I regained my senses the first thing I saw was Misha's face spattered with a yellow light of several bulbs scattered on the ceiling of an unfamiliar room.
She was wearing a genuinely concerned look, but she never moved from the spot. I assumed I was sitting in a quite uncomfortable manner, and tried to regain a standing posture, and failed. It seemed I was tied to a chair, and whoever did this was not troubling to make me feel at ease upon awakening. Served me right, I believe, but why tie me down?
Then I noticed Misha's glance moving to her right, and in a short while she started speaking, her eyes still averted from me... in disdain? In shame? Ah, clear: it was Shizune she was looking while she rendered her signing.
-Oh, Hicchan, welcome back, - she uttered without a hint of a joke in her tone. - Shicchan says she actually regrets that the things took such a pitiful end. You're such an ardent player like her own self, and she had a good time just with watching you play. Still, the fire of your passion threatened to burn the whole place down... pfff..phhhhh... Wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha~! Ooooh, I'm sorry, Hicchan! Do forgive me!
...Seriously, she can't pretend to be THAT stupid, this girl. It takes to be born with an extra hole in your head through which your wits trickle away. There I was sitting tied to a chair, my head falling into pieces, completely devoid of an idea where I popped up, and the best she could do as to help me was to laugh her bottom off at my expense.
-Nothing to wahaha about, Mikado, - I snarled back at her. - If you're not going to untie me, then maybe you, or your four-eyed sovereign would care to elaborate what the actual fuck is going on here? - This short rant left me almost powerless, and my head nearly cracked from the sheer effort to mouth my indignation at what was happening.
-Right~!- Misha seemed completely unfazed by my formal address to her, or by a grumpy reference to Shizune, although her mind seemed a bit clearer then. - An explanation! So, as much as you may remember from the events of tonight, you have had some sort of extreeeeeeemly~ bad luck with your gambling. Even if Schicchan and me were ready to take your side, and help you out of the debt, you wouldn't listen. Then you offended us both, and even threatened us...
-Enough of this wet-nursing! - A new voice, an older and definitely male one, cut abruptly in making Misha to shut actually up. - This brat is becoming even more tiresome than he has already been! Give way, you magpie!
With this, a large hand emerged from behind her back and unceremoniously shoved her aside.
The next thing I experienced was that what turned out to be a haft of katana hitting my chin as to lift it and make my face better visible to a speaker.
So it was not all fancy crap and idle chatting that was ground in the rumor mill after all, for it was Jigoro Hakamichi in the flesh that towered before me.
He was HUGE. It took me what seemed like ages to take him in completely, even after I was released from my awkward seat and had a fuller view of him. But that happened only in a while. At that time I was merely able to appreciate his abnormally large hands and a bearded face that looked as if it were chopped from an oak stump.
I had a briefest moment to wonder how it came that a monstrosity like that could ever have produced something as neat as Shizune with its genes, but then my thinking ability shrunk to its possible minimum as of these paw-like hands of his seized my hair and pulled my head back, while he leaned closer and looked me in my eyes that were dripping with tears of pain, self-pity and shame.
-Now look what the goat dragged in, - he spoke through his set teeth. He seemed almost interested in what he was inspecting.
-A cat, -I heard Misha pipe in from where she stood. - What a cat dragged in.
-Have I not told you to keep silent? If not, then excuse me for being forgetful, AND SHUT THE DAMN UP! - Jigoro's response started almost like a purring, and ended cannon-loud.
-So, a goat, - He went on musing. - A nasty, rank-smelling goat with wry teeth... Something just like you, - With that, he pulled my hair even stronger, and it took all what was left of my composure and dignity not to squeal like a mug being hurt.
-Errrr.. Dad... Sorrysorrysorry, Hakamichi-san! It's Shizune that is speaking, - Misha rattled her message with a speed of a machine-gun. - And she said you'd rather not hurt Hi... uhm... Nakai-kun's head too much. He may have already had a.. ehm... brain con-cus-sion.
-Pffff, he's got shit for brains, it won't hurt if I finally thrash some out of him, -came an answer. Then he just pulled my head down and wiped his hand against the leg of his trousers.
-Just look at you, flabby-heart, -Jigoro went on as I only could bring my head up and sit there, swallowing my tears and trembling with self-disgust.
- What unfathomable disgrace you've brought on you. Tsk, tsk! As though being a scum wasn't enough for you, you've gambled, and you overstayed your welcome with the good nature of my daughter who was sincerely trying to help you, and even so – it's straightly and outrageously DIS-GRACE-FUL for a man to take money from a woman and fling it away for gambling . But what should a despicable something that you are know of honor and proper demeanor?
...Huh, I didn't hear your answer, shit-for-brains?! Nothing it was?! Very well, then. Keep your seat and listen to me as closely as you are able to, listen for that little worthless life of yours.
What he said then, shocked me so hard my heart almost stopped:
-You have insulted me and my family, you made threats to my daughter, and you owe her, which also means me, a considerable amount of money. Yes, useless boy, not even the sums you've borrowed, but some retribution of moral harm you've inflicted on us by your outright stupidity. Back in my days, a wrongdoer would have been sliced into as many pieces as the number of his offenses. Still, taking into consideration an unearthly fact that you have been a classmate of my daughter – what a moron admitted you to that school, I wonder? - I give you a chance to remedy a situation by paying me five hundred thousand yen in three days. Reasonable and fair enough a punishment for a nitwit like you.
-But...I have no such money, a-and I-I...d-don't know wh-where to get it from! - I yelled with a stutter of shock.
A clang of katana released from its sheath. A tiny purl of my bladder letting loose what it held. And low growl of a voice that could easily send a bear running for its life:
- If you're old enough to gamble, you're wise enough to know how to pay your debts off. May all the demons of all hells take right away if I care for your pitiful whining. I had my say. Three days, five hundred thousand yen. And...one last thing before we're done so far. - With this, he swung the katana at me and sliced my rope bonds, destroying the front of a suit I was wearing. But it was the least of my concerns.
My pulse rushed so hard that the thunder-like voice of Shizune's father was hardly audible:
-I hope to gods it will teach you some manners, boy. And even so, let me help you remember the lesson better.
With these words he thrashed me with his weapon, now safely put back into its scabbard. The evil bastard was ever so clever not to hit my chest – he surely wanted me alive, as he wanted his filthy money. After another swing from him that landed on my cheekbone I have finally fainted.
***
My senses were restored only in a while, with another shock as I was flung face-first into a puddle of liquid mud. I could muster strength enough to raise my torso on the elbows and turn to where I supposedly been before such a rude awakening. Still, I praise the gods for letting me live so far.
I saw a most plain white-grey minivan that stood by the roadside, its motor still running. The central door of it was open wide, and I took in the people staring at me from the inside. These were Jigoro, Misha and Shizune, accompanied by someone that looked like a stereotypical bouncer.
-Now lest you forget, you stupid twat, - Jigoro's voice came roaring, dampening even the thunder in the sky.
-You've been given three days to find a remedy against the grudge I hold for you on behalf of my family, both living and deceased. And when the 72 hours elapse you'd better have money with you, or else the devils will scare their young ones with the tale of our fate. And wear a diaper next time I see your ugly face! Furuda, take me away from this pitiful worm!
Just before the door of the minivan was slammed shut, I saw Shizune signing to me. I knew some odd signs back from school, and this peculiar one was among them. Shizune never used it in abundance, and that was why I remembered it so well.
She pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand, and then stretched the hand out so that its sharp faced me.
“I'm sorry”. That was what she signed.
***
…The several consequent hours have passed in a painful, half-conscious, incoherent blur. Rising on my feet, walking, stumbling and falling, and struggling back into standing, cursing and falling again.
Now I’m only beginning to switch back to the current reality. I don’t know how long has it taken me to get here, to this outskirt, or even what time is it now. I still don’t know where am I going, and what my plan is. The best option I can think of is to take my belt out of trousers and hang myself. The trouble is, there’s no tree, or even a lantern post visible in proximity. Maybe this bear-pig, this loud son of a gun, the so-called Mr. Hakamichi was right at the end of the day, and I am completely useless – I can’t even take my own life! Bloody disgrace.
I stop in the middle of an extremely vast puddle and loosen the soaked lap that my tie has turned into.
My hands are still shaking, although I know no more what from – cold or fear, or self-disgust, or everything at once.
I view my woefully good-for-nothing extremities and wish for once I could be like Tezuka… but then, I understand it would have been no good. I WOUILD gamble even if my hands were reduced to stumps, like hers.
I feel I’m ready for a next fit of self-pity, but… As if a lightning hit me. Enough is enough. I gave up once, and see where this has brought me to. A task is clear. A method will work itself out if I let it, and with a due diligence on my side. If I have to kill, I will do so. If I have to steal, so be it. I simply MUST get it together and deck myself out. Whatever my hands are useful for or not, how deep in shit I can be, but I quit. I quit everything – whining, giving up, wallowing in past mistakes, even gambling. What I need is, three days and 500 grand yen.
Yeah, it’s that easy. I’ll do what I must – or die trying.
And suddenly, as if to cheer me up and greet me on my decision, the rain stops. As I tear the wet cloth that used to be a tie away from my neck I feel a strong gust of wing coming in from the east, where the ocean supposedly is. I can’t see the sun yet but somehow I know the dawn is in the wake.
Chapter 2.
..Now wait, where the hell have this road taken me?! No. Keep your head straight, man. There’s no doubt it’s the same city I’m used to living in for a while now. It’s very unlikely that Hakamichi would take any trouble to bring me further away than that, or else he’d be compelled to look for me again once the three days have passed.
It’s just the outskirt I popped up in is totally unfamiliar.
Ah, screw this. Once I’m in the city I will be having some more urgent problems at my hands to deal with. But dear Lord, I’m sooooooooooooooooo very tired.
So yeah, that’s how it goes. I get back to my den, have a nice, dreamless sleep, and then… “What then, wise guy?”-I hear my own voice break the damp silence of the early morning. A nonchalant shrug is the best answer I have earned from myself. Let’s live and see, I guess it means. And it leaves me completely befuddled at how stoic I can be at times.
I am barely able to drag my feet. I’m thirsty, the hunger causes a civil war within my guts, my many-a-time-beaten head is eager to start reeling. I must carry on. Nothing I can’t cope with. Because I must.
Another hundred yards of stumbling, swaying like drunk, and groaning in pain takes me deeper into the city. I don’t bother to look around. I haven’t been to many places in my life but it doesn’t take to be a renowned traveler to assume that the suburban areas in the many modern cities in this country look almost identical, and you have to spend quite a time there to tell one outskirt from another.
Maybe it’s due to the fact I’ve never been exactly here, or maybe the stress has sharpened my senses in some way, but I’m sure I wouldn’t otherwise have paid any attention to that building.
A rather old but well-cared-for red brick three-storeyed house of a rather… what do they call it, Edwardian?! – exterior. I’m not an expert in history or architecture, though. It looked anachronistic and totally un-Japanese, but its windows sent a welcoming warm light through the milky mist that gathered all of a sudden.
The building seems empty but at the same time inhabited. I even imagine a shadow of a man, probably an owner, or an elderly porter, gazing at the uncomfortable weather outside. Nonsense of course. The respectable members of the society are by far still asleep at this time.
Another thing that arrested my attention was a ridiculously modern neon sign on its façade, as if to add up to the eccentricity of its standing there. The sign read something in Latin letters. The language resembled English but the endings made no sense to me.
Something like “Le hotel des désirs accomplis” … about the wishes coming true…unless I’m totally wrong.
As entertaining a sight as this building were, I moved forth into the fog heading to the room I rented after an inspection of this oddity. Yet another problem – a rental I’d eventually have to pay. If I live as long as the middle of this month of course.
It seems now that the Fate, or any other power upon this world, has had a different plans for me that morning. I haven’t made as much as a couple of steps away from the front door of a strange hotel with a cheerfully blinking sign above it when my heart, this mean piece of muscles, finally gives way under the stress and weariness I’ve experienced for the previous 24 hours.
As I collapse on my knees I catch a brief glance of a man rushing through the hotel front door toward me. My vision is faded by a vessel pattern of my retinas and the hearing is degraded by a terrible tocsin of throbbing blood. I weakly stretch my hand towards the blurred figure, and then…
…And then there were only silence and darkness which I welcome this time.
Die trying, you say? Maybe it’s the best option for me.
If only the things were that easy.
Chapter 3.
Wonderful enough, but the first thing I feel is a warm softness of linen pillow case against my cheek.
Pain and fatigue are gone, if only for a while. Just the feeling I need: warm and calm.
Now stop!
Where am I, actually? A hospital?! Well, not bloody likely. Where's the smell of detergents and disinfectants? Where did the merciless lights of the ward and the never-ending beeps of medical appliances go?
There's no way I'm in a hospital. That means, if I am capable of analyzing something, I still live, but still I'm at bay with my current location. The darkness is still around me, but a darkness of a different kind. It is filled with the sounds of careful motion, of breathing, and smells...damn, it smells like it has food in it!
Nevertheless I lie still and take the pleasant sensations of painlessness and safety in. If this is a dream, I'm only willing to take my time before I wake up.
A creak of a chair, maybe, and a rustling of clothes, and a couple of quick steps.
Then, a voice: “Awake at last”.
The voice is feminine, a bit low, and quite heavily but pleasantly accented, with a trail of question in a simple affirmation. I finally open my eyes to meet an inspective gaze of a woman that spoke moments ago. Her appearance almost sent me back to unconsciousness as I thought for a shortest while (which seemed to be enough, though) that there is Lilly standing at my bed.
This would have been too much. But as my vision restores from the sleep I see more clearly that I'm wrong.
Not that it were difficult to mistake these two for one another. The resemblance is stunning, especially if you only cast a skipping glance.
I know it's impolite but I just can't help staring her down. As I do so I notice more and more details under the weight of which the specter of Lilly crumbles.
The stranger looks definitely older, around thirty years of age. Delicate wrinkles outlining her naturally red lips and the tiny laugh lines in the corners of her bright eyes only prove me being right. She stands very straight and still, arms folded in front of her.
The woman looks very foreign, I'd guess she's Northern European with her dark blond hair, blue-grey eyes and a tall figure with pleasant curves under the... what?! A maid uniform?! Merciful gods, what is this place where a woman has to wear in a plain brown dress whit snow-white apron and cap?! An otaku cafe?
I blink dully and only utter: “Why are you dressed up like that?”.
A sigh of slight exasperation. “That's the best you can think of? I beg your pardon, young sir, but your head must have really taken a bad damage if you forget the manners. A greeting and a word of thankfulness would be at least acceptable before you start making such personal inquiries.”
Oh shwah. She's right. I hurriedly raise myself from the bed and bow before her as I say: “I accord a thank for having taken care of me, and beg of your forgiveness for being rude. I am genuinely confused, and I would like to know what is this place, and who are you who take care of me so generously”. I keep a bowing posture for a while more before straightening again.
As our gazes meet I see she's actually smiling. A nice, open and a very familiar smile she has. She fuffs with an ensuing laughter before speaking again. I can only wonder how ceremonious and yet devoid of irony her speech is.
“Now that's what I can call a polite young gentleman. So, first thing first. I, Jun Arboret, the maid at the Hotel of accomplished Dreams welcome you, young master at our establishment, and declare my readiness of being at your service”.- With that last word she actually does a curtsy.
And that strange name. Jun... or June? This is more or less common, but the last name... Oh my, she can't be serious. But she's far from mocking me, either.
Anyway I bow again and make an introduction. “Hiaso Nakai, a grateful client of your establishment, and definitely charmed. I promise to cause you as little trouble as I am able to, madam Arboret”.
“Miz Arboret. It's Miz, master Nakai”. Then she breaks the composure and actually laughs. “You've taken a pain to do all that polite talk, haventcha?! And me, what a fool am I!” She clapped her hands. “ I could chat you to death. You must be starving. So go for a wash, and then eat till the food runs stale” - She gestured to a side table with a covered tray on it. “Once you're done come downstairs to the reception and check in, would you be a love. The master's going to be waiting for you by that time”.
In a single quick, unexpected and utterly playful motion she delicately brushed the side of my face with her warm and slightly roughened hand, bumped the tip of my nose with her thumb, and went out of the room.
My my, a grown up woman acting like a hormone-driven teenager, with a man she barely knows... But I swear she's not wenching.
Damn, Nakai. You've been to Yamaku, you've seen all manner of abnormalities, you're even on of those abnormalities yourself, and now a regular woman with nothing but jocular disposition sends your mind astray. DIS-GRACE-FUL. I laugh as I head towards a door across the room from the bed, where a bathroom probably is.
So, the first portion is hereby delivered in a new reading, alongside with an addition. Also, I'm sorry for a miserable failure in writing plainly and in a single style throughout the story.
UPDATE, UPDATE!
Chapter 4 is currently under construction.
Yes, it's still a WIP. For all those interested, please give me another week. Also, remember to criticize and give advice.
A Hotel of Accomplished Wishes
Chapter 1.
I am walking on the waste grounds in the outskirts of a city I have no intention to name here. The heavy rain is gradually destroying that what is left of my rented suit, making the rags even more uncomfortable, my head dangling between my slumped shoulders. It is a walk to nowhere, without aim and for no good reason. I wish I were drunk, or drugged, or dead, or… anything I wish I could be, but not a revolting knot of loss, self-pity, impotence and uselessness I’ve turned into.
A sordid clot, sobbing, shaking, tripping over the junk; never so sordid as…
Yes exactly, since eight months ago.
***
It was eight months ago that Lilly Satou, the woman I held dearest, the love of my life, that smug self-concerned blind broad of golden hair, left for Scotland under the summon of her family she had long ago been disconnected from. Oh yeah, I was so filled with self-loathing I only could revile Lilly, call her names, and spill mud on her fair image that still was haunting me. An abient response of a sort, all that swearing. You just have to blame someone, even and especially then, when you’ve fouled the things up the most. She played well, too. Not saying a single word of her plans just until a handful of days before her departure, making no attempts to show she ever cared for what we had between us…
I’d rather quit or else I won’t be able not even to tell this story, but even to walk the road to the town ahead. Given my heart condition it’s no hard labor for me to kick the bucket.
Anyway, if I’m going to be a hypocrite any further I’m just bound to start wondering how on earth I fell to such miserable depths. The hypocrisy here is that I know, and I have known the reason from the very beginning.
Still, a brief explanation if you please. I, Hisao Nakai, currently of sound mind and judgment, declare to have made a complete and irrevocable ass of myself after the aforesaid Ms. Satou abandoned my life to live her own. Truth to tell, I played big boy trying to persuade her to do so. Even more strange that she listened. I lost an interest in existence. I even couldn’t, and still barely can bring myself to call THIS a life. I never came back home from Yamaku, for I couldn’t imagine how I’d deal with the compassionate looks on my elders’ faces. They knew all too well what Lilly meant to me, and if I were to tell them the whole story they would pity me, and comfort me, and… Well, at least Mom would. But I just don’t think I want it, or that I’m worth it.
I bullshitted my parents about finding a college and a part-time job quite far away from home, told them I wouldn't be home any soon and even entwined the name of my dear friend and respected teacher, Akio Mutou into this cock-and-bull story to make it even more plausible. Naturally I never told him of that. All I can hope for now is that he won’t find out. According to that disinformation, he recommended me that “educational institution” (I’m so sorry, sensei… ) Strange enough, but my parents ate what I fed them. All I ever did since that time was that I moved from my dorm room into a some decrepit den in the town near Yamaku and took up gambling.
Oh yes, that's how it goes: some play to remember, some play to forget.
I never cared too much for liquors (like, to start heavy drinking), smoking tasted bad to me, and I have always been strongly prejudiced against drugs. I guess I needed an excitement, a something to keep afloat. And that’s how the story of my fall began.
I fed my parents the blatant lies about the state of my affairs and squandered every single yen I could lay my paws upon for practically all sort of games of chance. The things went on while they could, although by fits and starts. Ups and downs came and went in unequal portions, and yet everything has an end… only a sausage has two. Wahaha~ probably? Why not, I mind nothing those days. How can I, actually, under the burden of the circumstances?..
And these are as they follow. May the sixth it was, that is, yesterday when by the whim of doom I came across my former coed Shizune Hakamichi, the Queen of Risk and the deaf-mute tyrant of Yamaku StuCo retired. It was her birthday, and she went to salvage the area for a present, accompanied as always by Shiina Mikado alias Misha, her closest friend, interpreter, unrequited lover and Her Infernal Majesty’s Jolly in a single flask. Me, I sat in a café at the shopping mall that Shizune, the wicked bespectacled bitch, was rummaging. Why in the hell she decided to drop by exactly there and then, only gods will know.
I was feeling content, my mood was moderately elevated due to a luck of having won a game of cards recently and being able to spend some money to pleasure myself. My light-mindedness took me even so far as to accept an invitation from Shizune to pay her a visit for a game in order to support a festive spirit. ‘Kay, I signed and sealed my fate myself when I didn’t ignore her rumbles rendered in an idiotically vigorous high pitch of Misha, and didn’t refuse to make them company for a small while which came out to be as big as seven Hells.
Back in my high school days I heard all sorts of rumor concerning Shizune’s family, and namely her father. Jigoro Hakamichi, the dreaded ex-Yakuza, nowadays a respectable man of business whose temper was sharper than his katana he would always carry around. That’s what the rumor mill was grinding. Who was ever so wise to tell me back then that I’d actually have a chance to know how much truth was there!
…We agreed to meet later the same day at a place that could have hardly been called a prestigious one. It was a run-down club quite a stretch away from downtown, dealing with all manner of shady affairs to stay afloat. But damn me if I cared.
A former warehouse it was, reasonably neat and secluded. Huh, within the last few months I’ve been to the places by far and large the worse that this one.
The girls have already been there, and greeted me with smiles, laughs, rapid jovial gestures and a glass of something that tasted like a splendid gin. At least, I thought it was splendid.
To put it in a nutshell, I turned out to have been invited to one of the gambling clubs her father ran under the cover of his official business. I guessed then, that the competitive demeanor and a tendency to take risks was an inherited trait in Hakamichi family, although it developed differently. The father took up a role of a grey cardinal in the underworld, while the daughter was more outward in her hobbies. It’s hard to say how many times she would come up with a bet, or an offer of a game in our school days.
It’s equally obscure how the fOck I became so reckless as to stake my all on a spur of a moment. I wasn’t drunk, no. I never drink too much while playing. But with my previous success on that day I pushed my luck enough, and I should have known that: too much of a good thing it was for me to have won three times in a row during that evening, and to have gained quite a sum of money. And then, a careless bluff here, a stupid move there, an unthought-of dealing, then lo and behold! Hisao Nakai has pissed into his own boots. Only metaphorically, of course.
Without a realization that things got a nasty turn, I hurriedly found Shizune and Misha and asked them half-jokingly for a loan of some hundred yen which Shizune seemed to be benevolent and more than happy to provide. As for the girls, they didn't do anything as much as sitting on a coach, sipping on some indistinguishable liquids in fancy glasses, watching the visitors play the night away and having some sort of talk in sign language.
And when I lost the stake it only seemed to add a fuel to my fire. I asked again for a loan, as I had every intention to win a requital and repay the debt. I seem to have been caught with the game too much, as I cared not for a strategy, or for my moves, and I barely saw the hand I was dealing.
…My third request of a loan raised some suspicion. The fellow gamblers at the table started a shushed discussion as I approached Shizune and Misha for the third time that evening on my rigorous legs, my face white, and heart beating like a black metal band drum. Now it’s not a surprise that Shizune refused to lend me money. She did offer me, though, to cover my debt form her assets, to which I burst out in a stream of incoherent obscenity and demands of cash.
The last thing I remembered from that night was Misha hanging on my left arm pleading me to stop my ranting, my own voice telling her to piss off, a steely blue gaze of Shizune over her hands crossed in a universal gesture of denial, and…a sharp explosion of pain in the back of my head.
***
...As I regained my senses the first thing I saw was Misha's face spattered with a yellow light of several bulbs scattered on the ceiling of an unfamiliar room.
She was wearing a genuinely concerned look, but she never moved from the spot. I assumed I was sitting in a quite uncomfortable manner, and tried to regain a standing posture, and failed. It seemed I was tied to a chair, and whoever did this was not troubling to make me feel at ease upon awakening. Served me right, I believe, but why tie me down?
Then I noticed Misha's glance moving to her right, and in a short while she started speaking, her eyes still averted from me... in disdain? In shame? Ah, clear: it was Shizune she was looking while she rendered her signing.
-Oh, Hicchan, welcome back, - she uttered without a hint of a joke in her tone. - Shicchan says she actually regrets that the things took such a pitiful end. You're such an ardent player like her own self, and she had a good time just with watching you play. Still, the fire of your passion threatened to burn the whole place down... pfff..phhhhh... Wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha~! Ooooh, I'm sorry, Hicchan! Do forgive me!
...Seriously, she can't pretend to be THAT stupid, this girl. It takes to be born with an extra hole in your head through which your wits trickle away. There I was sitting tied to a chair, my head falling into pieces, completely devoid of an idea where I popped up, and the best she could do as to help me was to laugh her bottom off at my expense.
-Nothing to wahaha about, Mikado, - I snarled back at her. - If you're not going to untie me, then maybe you, or your four-eyed sovereign would care to elaborate what the actual fuck is going on here? - This short rant left me almost powerless, and my head nearly cracked from the sheer effort to mouth my indignation at what was happening.
-Right~!- Misha seemed completely unfazed by my formal address to her, or by a grumpy reference to Shizune, although her mind seemed a bit clearer then. - An explanation! So, as much as you may remember from the events of tonight, you have had some sort of extreeeeeeemly~ bad luck with your gambling. Even if Schicchan and me were ready to take your side, and help you out of the debt, you wouldn't listen. Then you offended us both, and even threatened us...
-Enough of this wet-nursing! - A new voice, an older and definitely male one, cut abruptly in making Misha to shut actually up. - This brat is becoming even more tiresome than he has already been! Give way, you magpie!
With this, a large hand emerged from behind her back and unceremoniously shoved her aside.
The next thing I experienced was that what turned out to be a haft of katana hitting my chin as to lift it and make my face better visible to a speaker.
So it was not all fancy crap and idle chatting that was ground in the rumor mill after all, for it was Jigoro Hakamichi in the flesh that towered before me.
He was HUGE. It took me what seemed like ages to take him in completely, even after I was released from my awkward seat and had a fuller view of him. But that happened only in a while. At that time I was merely able to appreciate his abnormally large hands and a bearded face that looked as if it were chopped from an oak stump.
I had a briefest moment to wonder how it came that a monstrosity like that could ever have produced something as neat as Shizune with its genes, but then my thinking ability shrunk to its possible minimum as of these paw-like hands of his seized my hair and pulled my head back, while he leaned closer and looked me in my eyes that were dripping with tears of pain, self-pity and shame.
-Now look what the goat dragged in, - he spoke through his set teeth. He seemed almost interested in what he was inspecting.
-A cat, -I heard Misha pipe in from where she stood. - What a cat dragged in.
-Have I not told you to keep silent? If not, then excuse me for being forgetful, AND SHUT THE DAMN UP! - Jigoro's response started almost like a purring, and ended cannon-loud.
-So, a goat, - He went on musing. - A nasty, rank-smelling goat with wry teeth... Something just like you, - With that, he pulled my hair even stronger, and it took all what was left of my composure and dignity not to squeal like a mug being hurt.
-Errrr.. Dad... Sorrysorrysorry, Hakamichi-san! It's Shizune that is speaking, - Misha rattled her message with a speed of a machine-gun. - And she said you'd rather not hurt Hi... uhm... Nakai-kun's head too much. He may have already had a.. ehm... brain con-cus-sion.
-Pffff, he's got shit for brains, it won't hurt if I finally thrash some out of him, -came an answer. Then he just pulled my head down and wiped his hand against the leg of his trousers.
-Just look at you, flabby-heart, -Jigoro went on as I only could bring my head up and sit there, swallowing my tears and trembling with self-disgust.
- What unfathomable disgrace you've brought on you. Tsk, tsk! As though being a scum wasn't enough for you, you've gambled, and you overstayed your welcome with the good nature of my daughter who was sincerely trying to help you, and even so – it's straightly and outrageously DIS-GRACE-FUL for a man to take money from a woman and fling it away for gambling . But what should a despicable something that you are know of honor and proper demeanor?
...Huh, I didn't hear your answer, shit-for-brains?! Nothing it was?! Very well, then. Keep your seat and listen to me as closely as you are able to, listen for that little worthless life of yours.
What he said then, shocked me so hard my heart almost stopped:
-You have insulted me and my family, you made threats to my daughter, and you owe her, which also means me, a considerable amount of money. Yes, useless boy, not even the sums you've borrowed, but some retribution of moral harm you've inflicted on us by your outright stupidity. Back in my days, a wrongdoer would have been sliced into as many pieces as the number of his offenses. Still, taking into consideration an unearthly fact that you have been a classmate of my daughter – what a moron admitted you to that school, I wonder? - I give you a chance to remedy a situation by paying me five hundred thousand yen in three days. Reasonable and fair enough a punishment for a nitwit like you.
-But...I have no such money, a-and I-I...d-don't know wh-where to get it from! - I yelled with a stutter of shock.
A clang of katana released from its sheath. A tiny purl of my bladder letting loose what it held. And low growl of a voice that could easily send a bear running for its life:
- If you're old enough to gamble, you're wise enough to know how to pay your debts off. May all the demons of all hells take right away if I care for your pitiful whining. I had my say. Three days, five hundred thousand yen. And...one last thing before we're done so far. - With this, he swung the katana at me and sliced my rope bonds, destroying the front of a suit I was wearing. But it was the least of my concerns.
My pulse rushed so hard that the thunder-like voice of Shizune's father was hardly audible:
-I hope to gods it will teach you some manners, boy. And even so, let me help you remember the lesson better.
With these words he thrashed me with his weapon, now safely put back into its scabbard. The evil bastard was ever so clever not to hit my chest – he surely wanted me alive, as he wanted his filthy money. After another swing from him that landed on my cheekbone I have finally fainted.
***
My senses were restored only in a while, with another shock as I was flung face-first into a puddle of liquid mud. I could muster strength enough to raise my torso on the elbows and turn to where I supposedly been before such a rude awakening. Still, I praise the gods for letting me live so far.
I saw a most plain white-grey minivan that stood by the roadside, its motor still running. The central door of it was open wide, and I took in the people staring at me from the inside. These were Jigoro, Misha and Shizune, accompanied by someone that looked like a stereotypical bouncer.
-Now lest you forget, you stupid twat, - Jigoro's voice came roaring, dampening even the thunder in the sky.
-You've been given three days to find a remedy against the grudge I hold for you on behalf of my family, both living and deceased. And when the 72 hours elapse you'd better have money with you, or else the devils will scare their young ones with the tale of our fate. And wear a diaper next time I see your ugly face! Furuda, take me away from this pitiful worm!
Just before the door of the minivan was slammed shut, I saw Shizune signing to me. I knew some odd signs back from school, and this peculiar one was among them. Shizune never used it in abundance, and that was why I remembered it so well.
She pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand, and then stretched the hand out so that its sharp faced me.
“I'm sorry”. That was what she signed.
***
…The several consequent hours have passed in a painful, half-conscious, incoherent blur. Rising on my feet, walking, stumbling and falling, and struggling back into standing, cursing and falling again.
Now I’m only beginning to switch back to the current reality. I don’t know how long has it taken me to get here, to this outskirt, or even what time is it now. I still don’t know where am I going, and what my plan is. The best option I can think of is to take my belt out of trousers and hang myself. The trouble is, there’s no tree, or even a lantern post visible in proximity. Maybe this bear-pig, this loud son of a gun, the so-called Mr. Hakamichi was right at the end of the day, and I am completely useless – I can’t even take my own life! Bloody disgrace.
I stop in the middle of an extremely vast puddle and loosen the soaked lap that my tie has turned into.
My hands are still shaking, although I know no more what from – cold or fear, or self-disgust, or everything at once.
I view my woefully good-for-nothing extremities and wish for once I could be like Tezuka… but then, I understand it would have been no good. I WOUILD gamble even if my hands were reduced to stumps, like hers.
I feel I’m ready for a next fit of self-pity, but… As if a lightning hit me. Enough is enough. I gave up once, and see where this has brought me to. A task is clear. A method will work itself out if I let it, and with a due diligence on my side. If I have to kill, I will do so. If I have to steal, so be it. I simply MUST get it together and deck myself out. Whatever my hands are useful for or not, how deep in shit I can be, but I quit. I quit everything – whining, giving up, wallowing in past mistakes, even gambling. What I need is, three days and 500 grand yen.
Yeah, it’s that easy. I’ll do what I must – or die trying.
And suddenly, as if to cheer me up and greet me on my decision, the rain stops. As I tear the wet cloth that used to be a tie away from my neck I feel a strong gust of wing coming in from the east, where the ocean supposedly is. I can’t see the sun yet but somehow I know the dawn is in the wake.
Chapter 2.
..Now wait, where the hell have this road taken me?! No. Keep your head straight, man. There’s no doubt it’s the same city I’m used to living in for a while now. It’s very unlikely that Hakamichi would take any trouble to bring me further away than that, or else he’d be compelled to look for me again once the three days have passed.
It’s just the outskirt I popped up in is totally unfamiliar.
Ah, screw this. Once I’m in the city I will be having some more urgent problems at my hands to deal with. But dear Lord, I’m sooooooooooooooooo very tired.
So yeah, that’s how it goes. I get back to my den, have a nice, dreamless sleep, and then… “What then, wise guy?”-I hear my own voice break the damp silence of the early morning. A nonchalant shrug is the best answer I have earned from myself. Let’s live and see, I guess it means. And it leaves me completely befuddled at how stoic I can be at times.
I am barely able to drag my feet. I’m thirsty, the hunger causes a civil war within my guts, my many-a-time-beaten head is eager to start reeling. I must carry on. Nothing I can’t cope with. Because I must.
Another hundred yards of stumbling, swaying like drunk, and groaning in pain takes me deeper into the city. I don’t bother to look around. I haven’t been to many places in my life but it doesn’t take to be a renowned traveler to assume that the suburban areas in the many modern cities in this country look almost identical, and you have to spend quite a time there to tell one outskirt from another.
Maybe it’s due to the fact I’ve never been exactly here, or maybe the stress has sharpened my senses in some way, but I’m sure I wouldn’t otherwise have paid any attention to that building.
A rather old but well-cared-for red brick three-storeyed house of a rather… what do they call it, Edwardian?! – exterior. I’m not an expert in history or architecture, though. It looked anachronistic and totally un-Japanese, but its windows sent a welcoming warm light through the milky mist that gathered all of a sudden.
The building seems empty but at the same time inhabited. I even imagine a shadow of a man, probably an owner, or an elderly porter, gazing at the uncomfortable weather outside. Nonsense of course. The respectable members of the society are by far still asleep at this time.
Another thing that arrested my attention was a ridiculously modern neon sign on its façade, as if to add up to the eccentricity of its standing there. The sign read something in Latin letters. The language resembled English but the endings made no sense to me.
Something like “Le hotel des désirs accomplis” … about the wishes coming true…unless I’m totally wrong.
As entertaining a sight as this building were, I moved forth into the fog heading to the room I rented after an inspection of this oddity. Yet another problem – a rental I’d eventually have to pay. If I live as long as the middle of this month of course.
It seems now that the Fate, or any other power upon this world, has had a different plans for me that morning. I haven’t made as much as a couple of steps away from the front door of a strange hotel with a cheerfully blinking sign above it when my heart, this mean piece of muscles, finally gives way under the stress and weariness I’ve experienced for the previous 24 hours.
As I collapse on my knees I catch a brief glance of a man rushing through the hotel front door toward me. My vision is faded by a vessel pattern of my retinas and the hearing is degraded by a terrible tocsin of throbbing blood. I weakly stretch my hand towards the blurred figure, and then…
…And then there were only silence and darkness which I welcome this time.
Die trying, you say? Maybe it’s the best option for me.
If only the things were that easy.
Chapter 3.
Wonderful enough, but the first thing I feel is a warm softness of linen pillow case against my cheek.
Pain and fatigue are gone, if only for a while. Just the feeling I need: warm and calm.
Now stop!
Where am I, actually? A hospital?! Well, not bloody likely. Where's the smell of detergents and disinfectants? Where did the merciless lights of the ward and the never-ending beeps of medical appliances go?
There's no way I'm in a hospital. That means, if I am capable of analyzing something, I still live, but still I'm at bay with my current location. The darkness is still around me, but a darkness of a different kind. It is filled with the sounds of careful motion, of breathing, and smells...damn, it smells like it has food in it!
Nevertheless I lie still and take the pleasant sensations of painlessness and safety in. If this is a dream, I'm only willing to take my time before I wake up.
A creak of a chair, maybe, and a rustling of clothes, and a couple of quick steps.
Then, a voice: “Awake at last”.
The voice is feminine, a bit low, and quite heavily but pleasantly accented, with a trail of question in a simple affirmation. I finally open my eyes to meet an inspective gaze of a woman that spoke moments ago. Her appearance almost sent me back to unconsciousness as I thought for a shortest while (which seemed to be enough, though) that there is Lilly standing at my bed.
This would have been too much. But as my vision restores from the sleep I see more clearly that I'm wrong.
Not that it were difficult to mistake these two for one another. The resemblance is stunning, especially if you only cast a skipping glance.
I know it's impolite but I just can't help staring her down. As I do so I notice more and more details under the weight of which the specter of Lilly crumbles.
The stranger looks definitely older, around thirty years of age. Delicate wrinkles outlining her naturally red lips and the tiny laugh lines in the corners of her bright eyes only prove me being right. She stands very straight and still, arms folded in front of her.
The woman looks very foreign, I'd guess she's Northern European with her dark blond hair, blue-grey eyes and a tall figure with pleasant curves under the... what?! A maid uniform?! Merciful gods, what is this place where a woman has to wear in a plain brown dress whit snow-white apron and cap?! An otaku cafe?
I blink dully and only utter: “Why are you dressed up like that?”.
A sigh of slight exasperation. “That's the best you can think of? I beg your pardon, young sir, but your head must have really taken a bad damage if you forget the manners. A greeting and a word of thankfulness would be at least acceptable before you start making such personal inquiries.”
Oh shwah. She's right. I hurriedly raise myself from the bed and bow before her as I say: “I accord a thank for having taken care of me, and beg of your forgiveness for being rude. I am genuinely confused, and I would like to know what is this place, and who are you who take care of me so generously”. I keep a bowing posture for a while more before straightening again.
As our gazes meet I see she's actually smiling. A nice, open and a very familiar smile she has. She fuffs with an ensuing laughter before speaking again. I can only wonder how ceremonious and yet devoid of irony her speech is.
“Now that's what I can call a polite young gentleman. So, first thing first. I, Jun Arboret, the maid at the Hotel of accomplished Dreams welcome you, young master at our establishment, and declare my readiness of being at your service”.- With that last word she actually does a curtsy.
And that strange name. Jun... or June? This is more or less common, but the last name... Oh my, she can't be serious. But she's far from mocking me, either.
Anyway I bow again and make an introduction. “Hiaso Nakai, a grateful client of your establishment, and definitely charmed. I promise to cause you as little trouble as I am able to, madam Arboret”.
“Miz Arboret. It's Miz, master Nakai”. Then she breaks the composure and actually laughs. “You've taken a pain to do all that polite talk, haventcha?! And me, what a fool am I!” She clapped her hands. “ I could chat you to death. You must be starving. So go for a wash, and then eat till the food runs stale” - She gestured to a side table with a covered tray on it. “Once you're done come downstairs to the reception and check in, would you be a love. The master's going to be waiting for you by that time”.
In a single quick, unexpected and utterly playful motion she delicately brushed the side of my face with her warm and slightly roughened hand, bumped the tip of my nose with her thumb, and went out of the room.
My my, a grown up woman acting like a hormone-driven teenager, with a man she barely knows... But I swear she's not wenching.
Damn, Nakai. You've been to Yamaku, you've seen all manner of abnormalities, you're even on of those abnormalities yourself, and now a regular woman with nothing but jocular disposition sends your mind astray. DIS-GRACE-FUL. I laugh as I head towards a door across the room from the bed, where a bathroom probably is.