✧ 03. I wanted

The spring begets only a harsh summer that starts to beat down on the world in a torrential blaze. I thought the retreat from the rain of April would bring only a sunny May; I was mistaken, however, and May was only bright and hot days that made one wish they could travel to the North Pole and experience frigidity only experienced by penguins. My habits began to change much like the weather did as a consequence of this; I would leave the izakaya much earlier, and return before the sun was at its peak, only to go back outside in the evening. The time inside was often spent texting Rin, who had recently gotten a phone and exchanged numbers with me, or reading away at various books while I played music.

Kobayashi had begun speaking to me less and less, but the few conversations we had were quite bland and uninteresting. It seems that after he had realized I wouldn’t so easily give up my dignity, he had lost all semblance of intrigue, bumbling about in his monotony or even trying to incite some kind of jealousy by flirting with particularly attractive patrons. One afternoon, as I sorted through the albums and bottle caps I had collected so far, he tried to speak with me about a movie. “Nakuru,” he’d start in his low, grumbling voice, “have you watched Titanic?”

I had. It was a movie Rin and I watched one evening a few weeks back, but I had few thoughts about it. “I did,” I respond.

“Huh. I was going to ask if you wanted to watch it once I closed, but… if you had already seen it, there’s no use asking, right? Then, what did you think of it?”

“It was fine. I mean, it was a real event they made dramatic to appeal to an audience, right? It made me glad I wasn’t on that boat.”

“That’s right,” Kobayashi laughed. “I’m never going on a boat ever again after that.”

“It’d take me some time.”

I didn’t feel too inclined to continue the conversation. Such small talk was nothing to me, but perhaps he was trying his best to reconnect with me so things could be less awkward. I was fine with how they were. When I left for the evening, I decided to wander by the convenience store Rin took me to. She and I didn’t spend time together nearly as often as I had hoped, but according to the few texts she sends throughout the day, Rin was spending all of her time in a different part of the area, one she felt I wouldn’t want to go to. I walked inside, seeing Maya work the counter again.

“Evening, Maya,” I greeted her.

“Oh, Nakuru, good evening. No Rin today?” She replied with a head tilt.

“No, not this time. She’s on the other side of town.”

“Unfortunate… hey, did you hear I’m getting a job with my father’s company?”

“Really? Didn’t know you were into medicine,” I said while holding a bottle of pear juice. Maya shrugged.

“Huh. I thought Rin would've told you…but you're right. I’m not really into medicine,” she admitted. “But he said it was something like changing the world, and there was a branch here, so I might as well. They’re becoming a prominent company all over, you know. Maybe I’ll make decent money, and learn to love the job. Or, at the least, I can use that money to do the things I actually like.”

Maya’s view on work and life was interesting. All the time, parents will stress to their kids to get a good paying job and do what they love. But in this world, not every job pays well. My original goal, when I wanted to go to college, was to become an English teacher. But teachers barely make money unless they’re a professor, and even then, that is built on the back of exploiting the money-less students. Perhaps it isn’t a matter of choosing the job you love that pays well, but more of picking which you’d rather have; a lot of money, or a lot of fun. “Interesting,” I replied back.

When I went to the counter properly, I placed my food down and went to pay for it. However, Maya simply rung everything up and handed it back to me. “Here you go. I have a lot of points, so since you come around so often, why not have a treat?” She said, a warm smile on her face. Maya’s smile was always so genuine, and when she smiled wide enough, a piercing she had would peek from beneath her top lip. I stared at her for a few moments, taking in her eyes and the kind gesture she just showed before nodding and grabbing the bag. Her eyes were a soft olive, with thick eyelashes that almost looked like she applied mascara on them every day. Once I found myself staring for too long, however, I turned and gave another bow as a thank you to her.

When I stepped outside, the world felt quiet. Sitting down at the bench to the left of the store, I listened to the ambience of vending machines, cars driving by, of footsteps that echoed down the block. I unwrapped the onigiri I bought as a mere snack, biting into it when I notice a black car drop off a woman at the street lamp. At this hour, few people were still out and about. Salarymen were stumbling home drunk, but police haven’t begun sweeping the streets. It wasn’t a time in which someone like me should be outside, but finding myself in this unique situation, perhaps there was nothing a girl like me ‘should’ be doing but staying alive.

The woman glanced at me for a moment before standing closer to the street lamp. Her makeup and hair were simple and clean, though her outfit itself was sloppily put together. She dressed expensively, but her heels had some wear and a strap of her dress was held together with a hasty sewing job, as if done last moment to save herself from a wardrobe malfunction. She even had an expensive purse, but it was clearly a duplicate brand, as its logo was inverted and stretched out. Turning towards the store, she continues to dig through her purse before stopping in front of me and pulling out a 10,000-yen bill.

“Where can I get this broken down?” She asks me, voice deep and smooth.

I point to the inside of the store. “Cashier does it,” I reply. The woman smiles at me, then enters the store. She didn’t say much, but I could sense the command in her voice, as if she was putting her best foot forward to keep up an act. When she exited the convenience store after minutes, she once again stopped in front of me and bowed deeply.

“Thanks.”

That was all she said.

I didn’t get a chance to respond back, staring at her for a second with my mouth full of rice. She wore a deep red lipstick, the color of a black cherry, glossy against her lips with a light sparkle. I found it interesting in comparison to Rin’s lip gloss, always pink and shimmering garishly to compliment her excessively decorated appearance. Both styles fit them respectively, and for a moment I began to ponder which way I’d rather go should I go through the effort to put on makeup. I watched the woman disappear into the night, assuming I would not see her again. This was the nature of this area; it was one many passed through, the only regulars being those who lived around the area like myself, those who worked for the local businesses like Maya, or people who did both – like the bookstore owners. However, she began to show up more and more, each time I stayed by the convenience store. We had few exchanges, either glancing and nodding or wishing each other a good night. After about a week, however, the woman then sat down next to me, handing me a bottle.

“Have this,” she said with a hushed tone.

“What?”

Inspecting the bottle, it was just apple juice, but the way it was handed felt as if she had given me something important. I chose not to open the bottle yet, staring at the woman as I parsed her intentions.

“I’m repaying you again for the bill. I know I don’t need to, but I figured you wouldn’t refuse it.”

By now, I’ve named this woman ‘Lipstick,’ given she always had some glamorous lipstick on her lips that wouldn’t leave residue on anything she touched. Lipstick was staring back at me, as if waiting for me to have any response to her. “Thanks,” I replied, soon opening the bottle just to inspect the cap. Lipstick, over the week I had been seeing her, always had an interesting personality. She arrived on the block around the same hour, she would get the same few snacks, and she’d walk off in the same direction each night. However, her behavior and appearance varied. On some nights, she’d walk in comfortably, almost flaunting her coat and purse, while on others, she’d practically be limping in. She would usually take a phone call before leaving, addressing different people and having wildly different reactions. Tonight, however, all of her routine was broken. There was no phone call or even a flaunting of her purse; she kept a small handbag and wore black velvet gloves, moving elegantly as opposed to her usual high-class confident act. In my silent addressing, she relaxed her posture and crossed her legs. I noticed that she wore different heels this time; simple black pumps as opposed to the usual different colored stilettos she’d strut around in, toes peeking out to show fresh pedicures and accentuating her ankle jewelry. Lipstick’s glamorous look was toned down tonight, and here she was sitting with me; I could only assume it was a calculated effort to appear less intimidating, and I found myself falling for it quite easily.

“Miss Four-Eyes,” she addresses me, taking out a cigarette to offer.

I stared at her again, brows furrowed. She didn’t ask my age, nor even my name. Already assigning me a moniker, Lipstick acted casually as if I knew everything about her, asking no questions and making little assessments of my person. I suddenly found myself feeling embarrassed, not just because of the offering of a cigarette, but because I had been trying to read everything about this woman when all she has done is acknowledge me without further interrogation. In this stupor, though, I at least should acknowledge her offer, as it was rude not to do so. I shook my head, turning down the cigarette. “I don’t do that,” I said plainly.

Lipstick looked amused. “Good,” she whispered, “Don’t put this poison into your body until you’re wanting to die.”

“You want to die?”

“Not really,” she laughs. “But I did when I was younger, and now I can’t stop.”

I looked at her for a moment again before turning to stare at my shoes. Such vices were understandable, drinking or smoking, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it after seeing the monsters that became of people who indulged too much. Maybe in my abstinence I was still juvenile, but I’d rather be seen as a child than to damage myself in such ways and dare say it’s a rite of passage for being ‘grown-up.’ However, I could only nod along in agreement in the moment instead of proclaiming my view.

Lipstick crosses her legs. “Have you been in Shinjuku for long?”

“About a year,” I admitted.

“Really? Hm. I only came here a few months ago, just as winter began. The trains run so slow, it’s quite the bother in comparison to Nakameguro.”

“Nakameguro? You’ve come far, huh?”

“Maybe.” Lipstick takes a sip out of her bottle of water. “I don’t think it’s anything special; I travel a lot. But I heard work’s good out here.”

“I’ve heard the same.”

“Do you have a job?”

“No…” I murmur, avoiding her curious gaze.

Lipstick hums. “That’s alright. You’re not missing much. Money’s everywhere, even in the hands of those who don’t do anything to earn it.”

After she left that night, I found myself thinking of her more often. The way she carried herself in such a simple manner was intriguing, when up to that moment she had been anything but ordinary in appearance. Days later, Lipstick chose to sit and talk with me once again. She was on the phone this time, turning her body away from me, but like she had done a few times before, she gently placed a bottle of juice into my hands. I listened into the conversation; it was something tense, she only referred to the person on the other end as “sir,” discussing some matter that was beyond me. Words of payment, of promise, of illness, they pass from her lips simply, and she only passes a brief glance before hanging up the call abruptly.

“I’m sorry, Miss Four-eyes,” Lipstick moaned.

“It’s fine.”

She takes a moment to look directly at me now, wordlessly taking a piece of my hair stuck to my lips and brush it out of the way. Lipstick then, with a pass of her nail, wipes beneath my lip and gives my head a rub. “Careful with that hair of yours,” she then commented. I found myself smiling, cheeks burning hot while I tried to come up with some kind of response or acknowledgement of the gesture. I could only nod weakly. Lipstick then decided to keep talking, her usual smooth voice now softened to a whisper. “That was… a client on the phone. He’s been paying me half of what he owes, claiming it was because of a sick daughter.” With a sigh, she begins to look at her nails, biting one of them as her leg bounces. “I don’t know enough to say the man’s lying, but he conveniently never has a date for when he’ll pay me properly,” she said.

“Are you an escort?” I asked. Perhaps it was a rude question to ask her so blatantly, as often such jobs would illicit shame, but I found myself curious. After all, it’d explain her behavior, the clothes she’d wear, even the lingering scent of cherry blossom and sandalwood that seemed luxurious yet cheap that followed Lipstick. She then stared past me, a smile on her face.

“Yes.”

“Ah. Why would you accept half-payment for something like that?”

“It was an act of kindness,” she admits.

“…That was taken advantage of.”

“Correct. You’re quite the smart girl, Miss Four-Eyes.”

“I guess,” I could only answer. “I’ve come to learn that kindness only comes at an advantage for someone. Either you’re kind and someone else abuses it, or you extend your kindness because you want something out of it.”

“That’s not wrong.” Lipstick takes out a pocket mirror, looking at her makeup for a moment. “But it’s not entirely a bad thing. After all, I was kind enough to keep giving you those drinks because I wanted your company.”

“…” I couldn’t come up with a response.

“Wanting something isn’t all that bad; after all, without desires, what are you in this world? A monk?”

“Enlightened, maybe.”

“Pfft,” Lipstick grins widely at me. “Perhaps. The true evil comes from those who lie about their desires. Should someone come to you, extend their kindness, but not tell you what it was for, only for you to find out… Well, that’s betrayal right there.”

“I didn’t expect to get a lecture about life from you,” I reply with a laugh.

“Right? I didn’t even give you my name, either.” She turns to me, extending her slender hand for me to take. “It’s … Sumire.” It was clear the name was a pseudonym, but I didn’t mind.

“Sumire,” I repeated back. “I’m Na…tsume. Natsume.” It was lucky in that moment I could come up with something, simply uttering the name of my favorite author. Sumire nodded in acknowledgement, perhaps understanding I also uttered out a fake name.

“Well, nice to properly meet you, Natsume.” The way she emphasized my name could only tell me she knew I was definitely lying, but between the two of us, whether or not the names we gave were our actual names didn’t matter in the long run. Just that we had that sense of familiarity either way. “Is this your favorite place to sit every night?”

“Something like that.”

“I think it’s starting to become my favorite. I didn’t ask to be dropped off here that first night, but I find your company to be worth the detour.”

“Thanks,” I say before downing the juice she handed me. Sumire pulled out her own bottle, peeling the label off of it before folding it into a crane. She then placed it on the chair of the bench we sat on, placing her palm on the bottom of the bottle before swirling it and chugging its contents. It was a gesture quite unbecoming of an elegant woman like her, but I found myself wanting to imitate it. With only half of the juice left, I performed the same steps. It flowed out seamlessly, almost making me choke from the speed in which the juice spilled out, but I soon swallowed it all and wiped my lip.

“Good job,” Sumire gently praised me. “You’re a natural learner.” She swirled the bottle in her hand, watching the last drops of juice travel along the edges of the plastic before looking towards me again. The way she looked at me was in no way patronizing; yet I still found myself feeling utterly embarrassed each time we made eye contact. Someone so much older and wiser looked at me as if I were nearly her equal, yet with a gentleness you’d only see from a mother or an older sister. Her next words were a quiet profession of her worldview. “Natsume,” Sumire began under her breath, “I’m sure you understand the world’s full of hollow pleasantries. Right?”

“Correct,” I gulped.

“…Mm. And how would you determine if our bond is real?”

“Who knows.”

“You should. After all, is Natsume truly your name?”

I felt my chest tighten. “Is Sumire yours?”

“…Perhaps not.”

“That should be your answer.”

“Mm,” Sumire hums to me. She leans back, pressing the bottle to her bosom in deep thought. “We don’t need to exchange our names for our bond to be real. After all, we’re having this talk and we have met quite a few times. It’s simply how you view it, and how much of your true self you wish to offer me.”

I scoffed.

“My only advice is that you figure that part out, then tell me what you learn when you have an answer about our bond.” Sumire then got up, walking back to that same streetlamp she was always dropped off at before a car picked her up. I had no clue in the moment, but that’d be the last time I’d see her for at least a week. Despite sitting at the same bench, by the same convenience store, everything was silent each night. By the eighth night, I decided to come by a little later without buying anything.

The way Sumire described things was interesting. By now, I’ve become disillusioned to the idea of relationships. Good things are rare, pricey, and they disappear within moments even if you’ve done nothing to them. Sumire understood this very well, and she knew how to exist within it. I never knew where she’d go off to, or where she’d come from. Perhaps both of us were between places, a little aimless, but at least she had a hustle and routine that I lacked. I could only find myself ruminating in this in her absence, thinking of her words about desire and about bonds.

I came to realize, in that moment, that love itself is an illusion. However, illusions may not be all bad; a bit of imagination can be the exact medicine one needs to navigate quite an unsettling life. It’s just when your illusions are shattered that they tend to take on a dangerous life, one you cannot control and will come to hate or fear. Sumire sells ‘love’ in a shape that is mutually understood to be false, but in that moment is real. She can then give that love out in a way she finds is truest to her, separate from her work. The ‘love’ Kobayashi had for me was hollow, shattered the moment I rejected him. Rin’s ‘love’ for me is hectic, unstable, but chosen with pure intentions. Could any of it be real? I began to loathe this sort of introspection, trying to shut it out with other thoughts. I wondered if Sumire was okay, or if she was simply too busy tonight.

Before I got up to leave and return to the izakaya, I could see a figure walking stiffly towards me. It swung side to side, almost limping before sitting next to me without a word. It was ‘Sumire.’ Her usual demeanor had changed drastically; the makeup she wore was smudged, and her bottom lip was purple with a bruise. Her dress was half-off, tears visible around her shoulders and back. She tried to hide it with a fur coat, but it did a poor job of hiding anything as she clung to it. I sat back down on the bench, not looking her way. She only spoke a few sentences to me at first. “Some people think money makes them interesting…” Sumire whispered in a strained, husky tone. I opted not to say anything in response. In this moment, she likely didn’t want to hear anything I had to say, but the fact she had still chosen to appear and offer her company after so long without it felt like it had some kind of meaning. Only a few minutes passed, but it felt like hours before I spoke up finally.

“Are you okay?” I could only ask.

“That’s not the right question to ask,” Sumire replied softly.

“Right. Ah… what happened?”

“My confidence caught up with me for once.”

She could have meant this in many ways. I didn’t press further, only giving her a bottle of water stashed in my bag for her to graze on. She took it wholeheartedly, drinking from it with the same technique from before. Perhaps she could understand my curiosity, because she spoke further.

“Some people, in thinking there is a specific order to your connection, will push the boundaries of it to see if they can benefit themselves. And when you decide to draw the line, should they be someone of poor handling, they will turn against you for it.”

Sumire looked at me. I stayed silent still, just nodding at her statement. Everything made sense in that moment, and I could only feel like I was seeing a more graphic version of what happened to me that night with Kobayashi. I laid my head on her shoulder gently, only able to offer my company this late at night. The streetlamp that usually lit up the corner went out, crackling and fizzling, plunging us into a near-complete darkness together. There was nothing that could be said of this moment, nothing smart I could say for once that would make her feel better or alleviate anything Sumire was experiencing in that moment. However, I came to understand the bond her and I had was genuine, despite our lies to one another. “Do you … want to talk about something?” I asked.

“Sure. What do you love?”

I took a moment to think before responding. “I love… the color blue.”

“You wear mostly black.”

“I keep my underwear blue, so only I get to see it, or the person who loves me most. They can see my favorite color, then,” I stuttered out in defense. Sumire chuckled warmly.

“How poetic. What else?”

“I… I love writing. I’ve always wanted to be an author, and I hope my stories can make others feel the way I feel when writing them.”

“Is that so? You must read often, don’t you? Were you going to school for this?”

“I…” I choked on my words for a moment. “I was going to, but I failed to get into the program that’d let me study what I wanted. But if I got in, then yes. I also… love reading. It’s one of my few hobbies, besides collecting these bottle caps.”

“Hm. I knew of the caps. You were the only person I’ve ever seen stash them away and look at them so carefully. How many do you have?” Sumire asked. She seemed genuinely interested, wrapping her arm around me in a side-hug.

“About 100,” I respond. “I haven’t been counting past 80, but every time I find a new drink, I try to collect the cap.”

“Now, if only you could travel,” she hummed. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You would have a brand-new selection at your fingertips, and maybe your collection could expand by tenfold.”

“Do you travel?”

“I did when I was your age.”

“What was your favorite place to go to?”

“Hmm. Though China was nice, I think my favorite was America. It’s so big that each place you could go to is distinct from one another. And the people there are quite friendly, much more than here. The men are handsome as well.” Sumire’s face lit up as she spoke, and for a moment, I could see a youthful gleam in her eyes.

“I see. I was going to study there, if I passed. Maybe I could’ve gotten to meet one of those handsome American men,” I joked.

“Well, I hope you can make it someday. It’s a different world, and there’s many different kinds of drinks to try there. Since it’s known for bringing people from all over, maybe every drink you could ever dream of is somewhere over there.”

Sumire began to cheer up from our conversation, leaning her head on my own. For a second, it truly felt like we were family, bonding over interests and speaking so casually to one another. We talked more and more about ourselves and our interests deep into the evening, until Sumire had to leave once again. I learned much about her; she used to be married, and her job before becoming an escort was as a primary school teacher. She loves kids, even wanting some of her own, but has long since abandoned the notion. She studied to be a nurse, but dropped out when realizing she couldn’t take the heartbreak of her patients possibly dying or being impossible to save under her care. The more I learned about Sumire, the more I realized her and I were in similar positions, surviving in our own way. Perhaps she had nowhere to go to that was a proper home, much like myself.

That was the last time I had ever seen Sumire, though. She never came back to that spot, nor had I seen her along the streets. When I asked Maya weeks later, she even admitted that it had been some time since she had visited. I found myself watching every car that drove by that street lamp, or every figure that would approach the convenience store, hoping to see her again. Perhaps she got a better job, no longer needing to stay up so late. Or a worse one, one where she couldn’t even spare time to sit with me and chat over snacks. Perhaps after what happened, she ended up in the hospital, or met a worse fate I couldn’t begin to stomach. Either way, Sumire’s presence rang with me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to find her again with a false name and her appearance, with a life as transient as mine. That bond, as unusual as it was, was the most genuine thing I had experienced since I began this new life a year ago, and I continuously find myself missing it, thinking back on the advice and wisdom I gained from it.

I once considered myself to be well-rounded and wise beyond my years. With my observations, I need not make mistakes so much as I need to see and understand them. However, seeing someone so much older with so many views I never truly considered has only proven to me that I have just begun learning and the only way to go is up. Sumire proved to me that although kindness comes with a price, not everyone seeks to use you for ulterior motives; sometimes, all they want is your companionship to feel a little less lonely in this world. Wherever Sumire had gone, I could only hope she had some good company that she could be herself with, much like she seemed to be with me.