The Art of Us

by Hilaria Alexander

  I made a face. “What am I wrong about? Using your cock to get information? I certainly am, but nothing is going to happen between us until you answer all my questions.”

  “No, you’re wrong about what you said. I didn’t just break up with Olivia. It happened a while ago.”

  I gasped, surprised by his words. “What do you mean a while ago? When did you break up?”

  He looked away, his eyes staring at the small window of the bathroom.

  “Right after Marty and Violet’s wedding. I knew we had gone too far to patch things up and move forward. Besides, my heart hadn’t been in it for…a long time.” His eyes met mine, hazy and warm, my resolve wavering at his new confession.

  “Wait…you broke up with her eight months ago? And you’re only telling me now? Why?”

  He hesitated. “I didn’t tell you because you would have pushed me away again. You wouldn’t have believed me.”

  “Believed…what? That you have the hots for me? I suspected,” I told him with a nonchalant shrug.

  He laughed. “I’m afraid I’m past the point of having the hots for you,” he replied in a slightly embarrassed tone, wiggling his eyebrows. He looked elsewhere as he ran a hand through his wet hair.

  My eyes fell on his lips and I kissed him tenderly. When I pulled back, his eyes were shining with the kind of emotion I wasn’t sure I could handle.

  “Don’t go soft on me, St. Clair,” I threatened playfully, and something shifted in him.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” he said in a gravelly voice as he wrapped his arms tighter around my waist and started placing slow, hot kisses on my neck. I moaned against his ear, and the ache between my legs sharpened as he rubbed one of my nipples between his thumb and forefinger, causing my skin to break into goose bumps again. The water was getting colder. It was time to get out of there, and possibly take the party elsewhere.

  “So, to recap…you are currently single?” I asked in a low, breathy voice. I was hoping I could lighten the mood and divert the conversation from the serious turn it had taken.

  I didn’t do feelings. I had a crush on Amos, but I didn’t know what I felt for him.

  If I understood his words correctly, he was already past the point of a simple crush. I didn’t know if I felt as strongly as he did.

  Up until then, my obsession for him had been mostly driven by my attraction. I couldn’t think about feelings yet.

  I had to focus on the positive, which at the present included the possibility of fucking him without feeling guilty.

  He had broken up with Olivia months and months ago, and he hadn’t made a move because he knew I would have tried to push him away, like I had almost three years before.

  “We need to get out of here,” I mumbled against his lips, stealing another kiss.

  “Hmmm. If I could have it my way, I’d grab your ass and take you to my room this instant, soaking wet and all.”

  “That sounds very promising.”

  “But we’d have an audience,” he teased, and I laughed.

  He drank in my laughter, his eyes brighter with amusement; the ache in my heart grew bigger.

  You don’t do feelings, a voice reminded me.

  “That could be fun.”

  He cocked one eyebrow at me, his smile growing bigger.

  “But I don’t think I want to compromise the rest of our stay because of some lust-driven fantasy,” I added. Just then, my stomach grumbled, and he stifled a laugh.

  “As much as I can’t wait to take you to bed, I think we should get dinner first.”

  “Let’s go. I’m starving.”

  AMOS

  “Lena, it’s me. Are you ready?”

  “What do you want now, Amos?” she asked in an annoyed tone from the other side of the sliding door.

  I frowned, confused. Weren’t we just making out in the bathroom?

  “Lena, I—”

  “Gotcha!” the screen door opened, and an amused Lena appeared on the other side.

  She was dressed simply in skinny black jeans and a loose white t-shirt, but she’d put makeup on and had even styled her hair.

  She looked beautiful, but there was something else about her. There was a light in her eyes I hadn’t seen in a long time.

  Maybe since our very first kiss…maybe since that night in Seattle.

  “Look at you, playing tricks on me,” I said, wrapping my arms around her and leaning in for a kiss. If I could have had it my way, I would have spent the next few hours kissing her beautiful, soft pink lips.

  She pulled back once again, just like she had in the bath.

  “I don’t think we should…not here where they can see us.”

  “What now? Are you trying to tell me I’m going to have to take you to a love hotel so I can have my way with you?”

  She smiled sheepishly, as if my proposal pleased her. “That’s not a bad idea, St. Clair, but no. I meant, let’s try not to make it too obvious. Let’s limit kissing and fucking to our bedrooms, shall we?”

  I nodded. “I can’t wait,” I whispered, leaning dangerously close to her lips.

  She smiled as she brought one of her hands down and patted my crotch playfully. I shook my head in disbelief, unable to contain my smile, partly incredulous that the evening had taken such a turn. Lena broke out of my hold and then walked past me.

  I followed her closely as she flung the strap of her bag across her shoulder and made her way along the narrow hallway. The loose waves of her hair bounced as she walked in front of me, catching the light of the sunset coming in from the courtyard.

  “Itte kaerimas,” she told Hiroyuki and Rika. Hiroyuki waved, while Rika gave us a cautious look above the rim of her mug. Maybe Lena was right about keeping things quiet.

  We already looked suspicious enough.

  I sat down next to her by the door and put my sneakers on.

  She took off without me, and I had to hurry up to keep up with her.

  “Slow down, Lena. What’s the hurry?”

  She finally stopped and turned around. “I’m really hungry,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “Plus, I can’t walk slow. It’s not my style. Keep up, St. Clair.”

  “What’s up with the ‘St. Clair’ thing, by the way? You used to call me Amos.”

  “Did I? Well, maybe now I will save it for the bedroom.” She winked.

  God, I was dying to pin her against the wall and kiss her.

  My heart was racing inside my chest, and I just couldn’t wait to have her naked in my arms again. I’d been tormented, agonizing about her for months, and I couldn’t believe the time had finally come.

  “Amos,” she called, stopping in her tracks. I smiled hearing her say my name.

  “What is it, Lena?”

  “Would you have told me about you and Olivia if it hadn’t been for Rika-san meddling in your business today?”

  “Maybe eventually.”

  “Why not now? Why not yesterday?”

  “Because I didn’t want to distract you. I know how important your job is to you. I didn’t want to cause any drama…any more drama between us.”

  She took my words in, and when she looked back at me, her eyes had grown softer.

  “I’m glad Rika meddled in our business. I probably still wouldn’t have wanted to know in a week, a month, or even longer.” She had subtly tried to avoid any talk about feelings earlier in the day, but something in her words made me hope that one day she might feel about me the same way I did about her.

  I took her hand in mine and kissed the back; she rewarded me with a coy smile.

  “Where are we going? Do you know where you want to have dinner?” I asked her.

  “I want to get kaiten sushi.” The conveyer belt sushi places were a staple in Japan.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not somewhere else? Somewhere fancier?”

  “I don’t do fancy.”

  I fought to hold back a laugh. “But, t
here are other places we could go…”

  “You said earlier I could have whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, right? Besides, why would we go anywhere fancy? This isn’t a date.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “Is it?” she asked in an alarmed tone.

  “What’s the big deal? I know you’ve been dating the whole time I’ve known you. I’ve heard you and Violet talk about guys.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, but those were…strangers. Those dates didn’t matter,” she said hesitantly, with a hint of embarrassment.

  I paused and pressed my lips together.

  There was a wariness in her eyes, and I felt the need to reassure her.

  “Naruhodo,” I said with a smile, putting two and two together. Naruhodo meant I get it, and she’d told me before it was one of her favorite Japanese expressions.

  My heart swelled with hope that I mattered to her.

  Lena smiled at my words and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. I took it between my fingers and tucked it behind her ear.

  “We can call it a date, or we can just call it dinner, but, Lena?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have no reason to be nervous about this. This feels right, and you know it does. Stop overthinking it.”

  “You make it sound so easy, Amos,” she said in a whisper.

  I cupped her cheek. “It doesn’t have to be complicated, babe. I told you, this feels right. I have been waiting for it for a long time.”

  She relaxed under my touch, taking my hand in hers, lacing her fingers with mine. We walked side by side the rest of the way, took the JR line in Omotesando, and stopped in Yoyogi Uehara to hop on the Odakyu line.

  We got to Shimokitazawa after a couple of stops.

  We had been in Tokyo for a few months, and even though I went out almost every other night, I felt there was so much I still hadn’t seen. The weekends passed us by just doing routine stuff. I barely had time to do my laundry, catch up with my friends back in Portland, and check out the latest comics at the nearest manga-kissaten, the manga café which offered an “all you can read” buffet for few hundred yen per hour.

  I followed her lead. She hadn’t been there in years, but she displayed no hesitation when it came to deciding which way to go.

  It was as if, to that day, she still remembered every single detail of her time there.

  I knew how hesitant she’d been about the trip, and I often wondered if this place held bad memories for her.

  She hadn’t told me anything I wanted to know yet, but I was determined to find out sooner or later.

  LENA

  He walked beside me the rest of the way, keeping quiet, but I could feel he was holding back somehow. From my furtive glances in his direction, I knew there were things he wanted to say, things he wanted to ask me, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk about anything.

  I couldn’t think or talk about much. I was still processing what he’d told me a little over an hour ago.

  We reached a restaurant we’d been to when we had first arrived.

  A cute hostess with bleached blonde hair greeted us. She had a bit too much makeup on, an indulgence that seemed to be common among girls of her age in Japan. She looked like she could have been anywhere from sixteen to twenty-two.

  The hostess reminded me of the girls I used to work with when I lived there.

  She had too much concealer on, but her eyeliner game was on point, and her fake eyelashes made her eyes look bigger. Every woman wanted bigger eyes and bigger lashes, and there it was true even more so than in other countries.

  “Irassyamase!” the girl said, bowing.

  “Nimei,” I replied, holding two fingers up.

  “Hai! Douzo,” she replied, welcoming us into the restaurant and leading us to two available seats in the snug kaiten sushi place.

  Amos and I both bowed as she pointed to our seats, and we sat down without saying a word.

  It was such an unassuming, generic place, not fancy by any means. I had been to a couple of the kaiten places in Portland, but the main problem about them—besides not being in Japan—was that they cut their fish too thick and in all kinds of wrong ways. There was an art to sushi, as with all things Japanese.

  People who didn’t respect that, who didn’t commit to learning enough about the food they were making were guilty of blasphemy in my eyes. Kaiten sushi places in the US were always more about atmosphere and location.

  The kaiten sushi in Japan, on the other hand, had no frills. Here, it wasn’t smoke and mirrors. The room of the restaurant would usually be a rectangular, commercial space with neon lights, very little décor, bare walls and basic furnishings. All there was room for was the big conveyor belt in the middle of the room.

  Most places had roughly twenty to thirty seats, with enough room in the middle to fit two or three sushi chefs.

  Maybe that was what I loved most about the kaiten sushi—it wasn’t about appearances. It was purposely unpretentious. They served good, fresh sushi, and that was about it.

  An older lady brought over our tea mugs, and I thanked her with a nod of my head.

  That was another thing I loved about it. It didn’t get better than hot green tea with sushi—well, unless you had sake.

  Plates upon plates of sushi scrolled right in front of my eyes, slowly making me forget about the butterflies in my stomach.

  Amos said we didn’t need to overthink it, but this was a date and we both knew it.

  He’d kissed me, we’d touched, and I was dying for it to happen again.

  I wanted it to happen again.

  I wanted him, but part of me was so scared.

  “Are you not going to eat?” he asked as he looked at me staring at the plates.

  “Of course I’m going to eat.” I glanced his way and noticed he already had a plate of maguro in front of him—my favorite. For some stupid reason, it made me smile.

  He gave me a shy grin, his eyes sparkling with that kind of excitement that comes with beginnings. We held each other’s gaze for a few seconds then he reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.

  I took a deep breath. I could have stared at his eyes forever.

  What was happening to me?

  Was I lying to myself? Did I have feelings for him?

  I shifted my attention to the conveyor belt again, trying to decide what to pick first, and Amos went back to the plate in front of him.

  He had lifted the piece of tuna from the rice and placed it in the little dish with the soy sauce.

  Apparently, I had missed him asking for additional wasabi, but clearly he had because he was now placing a pinch of the green paste on the molded rice. That was such an American thing to do. Unlike sushi in the US, the kind they prepared in Japan always had plenty of wasabi. There was virtually no need to request more, unless you wanted to test your limit with the green, spicy radish. I glanced around us, and of course no one else was using extra wasabi.

  I looked at one of the chefs, expecting to see a scolding look in our direction, but he and the others were entirely too busy filling the empty spots on the conveyor belt with more plates of sushi.

  I picked a plate of tuna rolls and instinctively said, “Itadakimasu,” under my breath. Although it could be compared to the French bon appetit, itadakimasu was more said by the person who received the food as a thank you.

  I picked a roll with the chopsticks and placed it in the soy sauce. I picked it up again, making sure to pause with it over the dish for a moment so I wouldn’t drip soy sauce all over the place, and then I opened my mouth to accommodate the roll.

  I hummed when the mix of rice, fresh fish, seaweed, and soy sauce teased my taste buds. I could taste the wasabi, too; it was just enough. Any more and I would have had my nostrils prickling and tears filling my eyes.

  There was a ritual about eating sushi, and although I felt like I was on a mission to eat as much as I could when I entered one of these places, it was still an experience, different from when I
’d sit down for a burger or even a bowl of katsudon.

  Breaking out of my initial daydream-induced hesitation, I started grabbing plate after plate. Each one had two pieces of nigiri, or six small rolls.

  There were no fancy, elaborate rolls like they made in the US.

  California rolls were the equivalent of pepperoni pizza in Italy—it simply didn’t exist. I was never too much of a fan of any of those, anyway. One of the things I loved the most about sushi was its simplicity.

  I ate my food slowly, enjoying each bite, trying not to think about my companion for the night and what the future might hold for us.

  Before I knew it, I had seven little plates collected in front of me, piled up like a tower, and I was sipping on my second cup of hot tea. I loved the individual faucets where you could pour yourself more steaming water.

  Seats around us emptied and filled up again. The chefs kept working tirelessly, exchanging very few words.

  Soon enough, it became evident that Amos was trying his hardest to give me space. We exchanged a few glances and a few smiles but didn’t talk much, and for that, I was thankful. This was not the place to have a private conversation, and our gaijin faces gave us away enough already.

  However, despite not talking, I could feel Amos’ eyes on me the entire time, and it made me a bit uncomfortable; no one looks classy eating sushi, especially if you try to do it the Japanese way.

  One of the first things Maggie and I were taught when we got to Japan is that you never break the piece of sushi. You are not supposed to take a bite out of it. If you are eating a piece of nigiri, whether it’s salmon, tuna, or shrimp, you’re supposed to put the whole thing in your mouth.

  For that reason alone, I didn’t want to have anyone looking at me while I ate sushi.

  I took another sip of my green tea and glanced over to Amos. He’d just finished working on his tenth plate—shrimp nigiri, I guessed from the little tails left behind.

  “Ugh!” he said in a high-pitched tone. “Put too much wasabi on that one.”

  “You’re insane,” I told him jokingly, taking another sip of tea.

  He glanced my way and smiled, suddenly looking slightly more relaxed.