The Winter Quarters

by Anna Veriani

  It wasn’t going to work. He’d felt like his paradise was crumbling when the paparazzi had bombarded the inn; he couldn’t imagine asking for Hiro’s hand in marriage when he was bringing a host of cameras with him too. It wouldn’t work. Hiro and his family wouldn’t tolerate their presence.

  His stomach curdled while Kimi hummed. Near the back of the store, their stylist was taking an ebony suit jacket off the rack. It looked like something a spy would wear in a Hollywood film as he walked away coolly from an explosion. Kai’s hands shook. He repeated every mantra Kimi had given to him in the past few days: You are their greatest asset. You are your greatest asset. You have the power. And, her favorite: You didn’t work this hard to not have every single thing you want in life.

  He didn’t want the show anymore, in any capacity. And regardless of Hiro’s sweet, eternal optimism, they were never going to work if New York followed Kai into Hiro’s inn.

  You have the power. He didn’t, did he?

  “This will look amazing on you, Kai,” their stylist gushed. Kai heard her as if from underwater. He smiled shakily. He felt like he was plunging into a deep river, waters fast and lethal. He felt everything slipping away from him.

  [11:00 P.M.] good night Hiro. thinking of you.

  [2:37 a.m.] fired my PR manager Veronica today. she threw an actual diamond at my head. it was fantastic.

  [3:29 a.m.] don’t send me sexts in case my new phone gets hacked but if you’re scruffy in the morning and you take a selfie I will not complain

  [4:01 a.m.] Hiro I miss you

  [4:11 a.m.] they closed our favorite pizzeria while I was gone! It’s going to be a Starbucks now. I hate NY.

  [4:12 a.m.] I’m the saddest man alive I’m never getting over this

  [4:12 a.m.] It was the pizza place we always walked to by the east river. crying

  [5:22 a.m.] about to meet with the producers to discuss next season. going crazy I miss you too much

  [5:23 a.m.] I’m still mad about the pizzeria!

  It was almost like things were returning to normal. Waking up to a stream of texts and a hundred I miss yous every morning had been standard par for their friendship the past couple of years.

  Next season. The words stung. Kai hadn’t mentioned anything about when he thought he might be able to visit Hiro again, let alone… marriage. He was probably too busy to even consider it.

  Meanwhile, Kai’s absence wouldn’t feel truly real until Christmas came and he wasn’t here. Hiro rolled over on his futon, back in his normal bedroom. He’d kept the wooden doors that led outside open overnight so the morning sun spilled in through the glass walls and the mountains loomed high around him. He groggily typed out a text.

  [5:30 a.m.] Good luck, Kai. I love you.

  He reread Kai’s texts and felt his own cheeks, rough with stubble. He took a quick selfie, sitting up so Kai could see a sliver of Mount Haku in the background. Hiro’s eyes were sleepy, his smile dopey. Not his best look, but he sent it regardless.

  Kai’s response was immediate.

  [5:33 a.m.] Fuck you look so good. I fucking love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

  IN a tip picked up from years of being around his mother, Kai kept taking out his phone at dinner and pretending to be incredibly busy. Really he was just looking at Hiro’s selfie over and over again: his dark scruff over his cheeks and his easy, wide-mouthed smile. It drove Kai crazy in exactly the way he needed right now.

  Two of the show’s producers were sitting across from him, and Kimi beside him. Their lawyers were staring coolly at each other from opposite ends of the table. The restaurant had been shut down to ensure their conversation was private, but Kai was pretty sure he’d spotted people taking pictures of their table through the restaurant’s glass walls from the street outside.

  “You’re asking for extraordinary changes,” Jonathan said, stroking his beard. “Not undoable, but definitely undoable with the deadline you’re asking for.”

  Fuck. Kai was freezing and clammy. He looked down at his phone, but his hands were suddenly so sweaty he couldn’t slide his lock screen open. His lawyer, Bryan, said something, but he couldn’t process the legalese.

  “No, no. It’s definitely undoable,” Goro confirmed. Kai hated the way Jonathan and Goro always showed a united front. It made it that much harder to stand up to them. “I mean, firstly, we’d have to redo all of our marketing for next season’s premiere.”

  “Exactly,” Jonathan said. “You can’t imagine the kind of hard work that goes into these things.”

  “Viewers watch the show because they like surprises,” Kimi said easily. “We’re not people who stay the same, who have boring routines. We change, we grow. This is a growth arc like nothing we’ve had on the show yet: Kai gets married in Japan.”

  “If he were getting married to Duffy, we would welcome the plot twist,” Goro said, as if he were being very generous. “We need time to introduce this new character, though. Otherwise fans just won’t be on board with Kai marrying him.”

  Kai gripped his steak knife. “My life isn’t a story. The people in it are not characters.”

  “Sure,” Goro agreed.

  Kimi parted her lips, and Kai knew he had to do it: Interrupt her. Speak over all of them. Because she was seconds away from negotiating his relocation in Japan, and this was his chance to stop it.

  “My possible wedding doesn’t concern you regardless,” Kai said. “Because I’m quitting the show.”

  Kimi looked as shocked as almost everyone else at the table. Their lawyer, Bryan, was the only one unsurprised. Kai was still grateful Bryan had been awake for last night’s late and sudden phone call. I have a change of plans.

  “It’s clear you want some… alterations to the show, Kai,” Goro said, as if he hadn’t understood him. “Maybe more distance from James? If you want to stage a breakup next season, we can talk about it.”

  Kai looked down at Hiro’s selfie again, pretending to send a text more important than this conversation. He took his time, changed his mind, and sent a real text.

  [7:46 p.m.] do you think we could kiss each other continuously from sunrise to sunset

  He looked up calmly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean for you to misunderstand. I wasn’t making suggestions.”

  [7:47 p.m.] or would it get boring

  “I arranged this dinner to tell you that I’ve booked my private flight to Japan, and I’m arriving on Christmas Eve whether you agree with my decision or not. No one from your network is coming with me.”

  For once Jonathan and Goro were silent. Kimi let out a laugh.

  “This is fantastic,” she said joyously. “I love surprises!”

  “This show has made life difficult for me,” Kai continued. “If I were, in theory, to continue, I would make life exceedingly difficult for you. It’s really very gracious of me to quit now.”

  He looked back down at his phone.

  [7:48 p.m.] I bet it wouldn’t. I bet we could.

  “How would you make life hard for us, Kai?” Jonathan’s smile was all contempt. “Would you get angry on-screen? Because we could just as easily base all of next season off of your hatred of the show. It would be unusual, but it would practically guarantee higher ratings.”

  “No,” Kai said. “I don’t think you would like filming next season with me. Not after I tell the world that Duffy and I were never dating.”

  “That’s a breach of your contract,” his producers’ lawyer said immediately.

  “Excellent observation,” Kai said coolly. His heart was racing, but not in an anxious way. This was as unnatural but thrilling as skydiving, plunging into the great unknown of something he wasn’t supposed to do. “I am prepared to reveal everything I know about everyone involved in this show. The Duffys are an easy target—they love bragging in private about cheating on their taxes. James Duffy despises me, my mother, and this entire city. I have every email he’s ever sent to me, filled with insults. I ha
ve a recording of a rant he made just yesterday.”

  “You can’t—” Jonathan started.

  “But, see, I can,” Kai interrupted, raising his voice. “I can tell everyone my assistant quit on me because the paparazzi harassed her, because your network failed to provide her with sufficient security. I can let the whole world know that your network hired me a PR manager who pressured me into a fake relationship with an elitist asshole. And me and Bryan”—Kai gestured—“met with a psychologist this morning who finds it very curious that, after months of me having panic attacks, doctors on your payroll failed to diagnose me with anxiety.”

  Bryan confirmed this. All of Kai’s visits to the doctors were on record, as were his symptoms and his notable lack of treatment.

  Jonathan’s smile dropped. There was a moment of silence as Kai’s opposition calculated.

  Finally their lawyer spoke. “All of this would reflect very poorly on the network, clearly, Mr. Ledging,” he said. “But it is also very easy to prove that you would be breaching numerous clauses within your contract. We would be forced to take further measures.”

  Finally, the first threat of a lawsuit in the air. Kai almost laughed.

  Bryan leaned forward and proposed a countersuit. Kimi watched this, eyes shining, like it was her favorite episode of reality TV yet. But Kai wasn’t interested in endless lawsuits.

  “I’m prepared to give us all a smooth parting,” Kai said. “I won’t try to keep next season’s paycheck. I don’t need to tell anyone how I was treated by your network. And I’m even willing to make us all look better for my absence.”

  Goro glowered, lips thin. “We will not look better after this,” he said. “Fans will ask questions. Why did Kai dash off the show? What went wrong?”

  Jonathan nodded immediately. “If you give up your income for the year, I find it hard to believe a newspaper couldn’t tempt you with a generous offer for an exposé.”

  “The truth is believable enough.” Kai shrugged. “I’m getting married. My husband and I want our privacy.” He shivered at the words. Married, husband: like an eternity with Hiro was a given. It made him feel powerful. “I’ll be able to tell the world the network and I parted ways amicably if, in fact, we do.”

  “What would an amicable parting look like, Mr. Ledging?” the producers’ lawyer said.

  Kai had to stop from curling his lips in a self-satisfied smile. “I would like,” he said, “for the network to make a contribution to a new charity I’m starting. An acceptable donation might be…the amount of my relinquished paycheck.”

  The charity would be his parting gift to New York. He hadn’t worked out any logistics yet, only the start of an idea: many millions of dollars, homes for the homeless, and activism for housing policy changes in the city. “It’ll be my way of saying goodbye to America,” Kai said, “and your way of making amends.” He smiled. “Your way of ensuring my cooperation.”

  “A network’s reputation is a very important thing,” Kimi agreed. “And I think this sounds delightful, darling. I’d love to match the network’s contribution. I’m sure James would like to offer something as well.”

  “It wouldn’t look very good if he refused,” Kai said mildly. The idea of forcing Duffy’s hand and making him help people was enormously and pettily satisfying. Kai held up his phone, on which he’d uploaded a copy of Duffy’s rant. “A charity donation to help New York’s neediest would look great for Duffy. Certainly better than this.”

  He pressed Play. Duffy’s voice immediately sounded out, too loud in the near-empty restaurant: The average, no-life, fucking loser New Yorker who gobbles up our shitty show just to imagine they could be us, bitching about rent control and squeezing onto their MTA cattle trains all day. Thinking about this shithole city makes me sick.

  “Oh my,” Kimi said, picking at her salad. “That’s not very nice.”

  “It’s not.” Kai tucked his phone away. “But I think everyone would understand why I don’t want to date him, if I leaked this online.”

  “You won’t,” Goro said immediately.

  Kai put up his hands in false surrender. “I mean, I don’t especially want to. But it’d take about ten seconds.”

  “There’s no need, Mr. Ledging.” The producers’ lawyer leaned forward, clearly feeling the situation was getting out of control. “Let’s review your contract and see how it can be revised. I’m sure there’s a way to meet your needs.”

  That sounded, to Kai, like he was about to get everything he wanted.

  “Oh, goodie,” Kimi said. “I think I’ll order more champagne.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Eighteen hours later

  IT was Christmas Eve, and it seemed like the inn was filled exclusively with people who were madly in love. Hiro had spent the morning and afternoon hand delivering heart-shaped strawberry-and-cream cakes to couples lounging in private rooms. He’d stopped a young couple kissing furiously in a public garden. He’d caught two men making out in the onsen. Fucking Christmas in Japan.

  And after all of that was finished, it was even worse, because he had nothing to distract himself with. Once he’d finished every conceivable task for the day, he made up new ones. Shinsuke had found him on his knees, scrubbing the public onsen’s showers for the second time, and dragged him to a room they usually utilized as a meeting room, where Risa had brought them ample decanters of sake.

  A little radio was playing at the end of the table. It was “Silent Night” again, Yamashita Tatsuro singing about the pain of waiting in the rain for someone who wasn’t coming.

  “Oh God, turn this off,” Risa said, a cigarette balanced between her lips. She retrieved a lighter tucked into her kimono belt and lit it.

  “Keep it on,” Hiro said savagely. “Tonight might as well be as terrible as possible.”

  His phone lit up. It’d been buzzing all day with holiday wishes from friends, and Hiro resented each and every one of them for not being Kai. He hadn’t responded to Hiro’s messages for nearly a full day.

  [10:25 p.m.]: Just landed in Komatsu. On my way.

  Kai. It was Kai.

  Hiro looked up. “He’s coming.”

  “Who?” Shinsuke said.

  “Kai said he’s on his way,” Hiro said.

  Risa gave him a piteous look he didn’t much care for. “He probably means he’s on his way to that cabin they’re putting him in, right?”

  “He said Komatsu. He just landed in Komatsu.” Hiro put down his sake and scrambled up.

  “What?” Shinsuke said. Before Hiro could reach the door, it opened, his mom peering in. She was holding her phone.

  “I got a message from Kai,” she said. “He’s landed!”

  Hiro stared, thrown off by the total lack of surprise in her voice. Excitement, but no surprise.

  “You knew he was flying here, Mama-san?”

  “He didn’t message you?” She regarded him curiously. “He sent me this before he left.”

  She handed him her phone. On it was the same picture Kai had sent him yesterday of a white sofa he’d assumed belonged to the inside of Kimi’s mansion. Kai’s text said, very sweetly, On my way to Komatsu! Thank you so much for your extraordinary patience. One day soon I’ll fly you anywhere you want to go!

  “Ahhh.” Hiro felt like smacking himself. “This is the inside of a jet! God, that is so dorky. I’m adding that to his embarrassing-celebrity-things list. I thought it was Kimi’s house. I thought he was telling me he was going to upstate New York!”

  His mom’s brows creased. “You thought Kai wasn’t coming back?”

  “No! Thank you, Mama-san,” he added respectfully. “I have to go pick him up.”

  He rushed out of the room, his mother calling behind him, “He’s thirty minutes away and he has a driver, dear.”

  It didn’t matter. The sooner Hiro could see him, the better.

  HIRO drove furiously down the clear nighttime road, careful not to steer wildly into a rice paddy. When a black sedan actual
ly passed him, he swerved aside, looking at it through his rearview mirror.

  “Fuck.” That had to be Kai. Sure enough, the car slowed to a stop, and Hiro got out just as Kai did.

  He dashed toward him blindly. It was snowing, fat flakes melting against Hiro’s sweater because he hadn’t stopped to put on a coat. They got into his eyes, and he rubbed them impatiently.

  “Hiro, you absolute nut,” Kai said when they reached each other, but he didn’t finish before Hiro’s lips were on his.

  They kissed madly, like they were still rushing to find each other, Kai yanking Hiro down so hard they nearly fell onto the snow-wet ground. Kai cupped Hiro’s cheeks and ran his fingers along Hiro’s rough scruff.

  “Your lips are so cold,” Kai said breathlessly. “Fuck, winter kisses. Good.”

  Hiro couldn’t believe this was happening. How had he misunderstood Kai’s plans so badly? Or was this all some elaborate surprise? Kai been joking about not getting out of his contract? Because that was not the sort of humor Hiro appreciated.

  “I thought you were still in New York,” he said. “And now I just feel like I’m dreaming.”

  “Wh—how? I said I was coming.” Kai clung to his sweater, forcing him to hunch down several inches so they were nearly face-to-face.

  “I thought you were being optimistic,” Hiro said. “Like, ‘Don’t worry, I might be with the Big D for Christmas, but I’ll visit soon.’”

  “I sent you a picture before takeoff!” Kai said.

  “I thought it was Kimi’s couch!”

  Kai laughed.

  “We could never do long distance,” Hiro said seriously. “We text each other ten thousand times a day and still have no idea what’s going on.”