Chapter 3

Terry couldn't draw. Every time he tried to the blank page stared back at him, virgin white, and all he could think about was whether Mika would call him. When he had met her, he had experienced a huge spurt of creative energy, and now that she was gone the well was dry. Terry guessed that maybe all that shit about muses was right after all.

He drifted through the next day, pacing around his room like he was going somewhere, continuing his diet of instant noodles, deflecting Naomichi's inquiries about his progress. And then, around 6 PM, the hour when day declines into night, he got the call.

His phone buzzed, coming to life on his desk with a jarring grinding noise. Terry, who had been lying on his bed carefully examining his ceiling, jumped to his feet. He grabbed the phone and saw an unknown number on the call display. He quickly picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hey, remember me?"

"Mika? Of course. Thanks, uh, for calling."

"Don't need to thank me, I had nothing better to do," Mika said. "The stupid secretary just gave me your number now. Impressive job tracking me down though."

"Uh, thanks." Terry was surprised to find himself blushing. "I hope you don't feel creeped out by that."

"Not really," Mika said. "I mean, I gave you my work name, so it's not like I made it too hard."

Terry felt unconfortable at that response, although he wasn't quite sure why. "Your work name? So you're not really Mika Otori?"

"I am Mika Otori," she said. "I'm just also someone else."

"So what's your real name?"

"Maybe some day I'll tell you."

Terry smiled. "I hope that means this call isn't a one-time thing."

Mika laughed. "You're so desperate for conversation you want to keep talking with a drug-addled bimbo like me?"

"I don't think you're a bimbo," Terry said. "And you don't seem that drug-addled to me right now."

There was a pause, and Terry figured that neither of them knew what to say. Finally, Mika spoke. "Anyway, you want to meet up for drinks?"

Terry's heart shuddered. He realized that he hadn't felt this way since high school. "Okay. What time is good for you?"

"I was thinking right now."

The interminable waiting and the sudden rush had Terry feeling whiplashed. "Uh, sure."

Mika told him the location of a bar she liked, which Terry hastily scribbled down in his sketchbook. He then found his nicest shirt, which wasn't really that nice, threw it on, and rushed out the door. He wanted to keep this fairy tale going.

The aftermath of the party, roughly in order:

Yui woke up on Rin's couch with a blistering hangover the likes of which she had never experienced in her young life. Rin said that she had a hangover cure, but Yui refused it, saying that she sort of liked the novel sensation.

Sakura and Hayato woke up next to each other and hastily got dressed. They stumbled through the perfunctory conversation about how they should just be friends and left, both embarassed. Hayato tried to remember whether he was really drunk or whether he had taken advantage of Sakura.

Natsumi, who had taken the subway home on her own last night, found a folded piece of paper in her pocket. It contained a phone number and "When you get tired of pining – Rin". Natsumi threw it away, then later picked it out of the trash can and placed it in her desk drawer.

As soon as she got home Sakura sat down at her computer and wrote more of her novel. The words flowed freely now, as her gaijin artist went to meet up with the mysterious model.

To say the bar was seedy was like saying you might be able to buy a drink there. Clouds of smoke clung to the ceiling as men in torn suits huddled over beers. The bartender was an overweight bald guy with a scar that travelled down his forehead and hooked, almost meeting his eye. There was a small stage with two brass poles sticking up out of it, not quite reaching the ceiling, the brass the dingiest thing in the generally dingy building. It would have looked more at home in an American ghetto than in the heart of Tokyo, but Terry supposed that was part of the draw.

Mika waved to him. She sat at a table in the back. "Terry! Kinda surprised you came."

Terry walked over to Mika, feeling as if she could save him from this place. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. Nice place, by the way."

"You should wait until the strippers come out," Mika said. She had a cigarette smoldering at the edge of her lips and a third-full bottle of beer in front of her.

"You know, I've always wondered," Terry said. "Why does everyone in Japan smoke?"

"Why not?" Mika said with a shrug.

"Well, in America people mostly stopped doing it because of health reasons..."

Mika laughed. "Hon, I'm going to be dead by forty if I'm lucky. Cigarettes are the least of my problems." She flicked some glowing ash into the tray. "But to answer your question, it's mostly salarymen trying to find an excuse to take a break. Don't ask me how that makes sense."

Terry started to say something but Mika cut him off, leaning forward. He was suddenly taken with her beauty again, the contrast of her pale skin and her dark hair. "Now that you've asked me about my nationality ... what's an American doing in Japan drawing smut? I'd have thought there was enough opportunity for boob-drawing back home."

"Well, I originally came over here to work on anime," Terry said. "There was some new company that was looking to bring in foreign artists, and I jumped at the chance. It sounded too good to be true, and, well, it was. The company collapsed, all my cheques bounced, and I was stuck in Japan without airfare enough to get home. Fortunately Naomichi -- did you meet him? I don't think you did – anyway, this guy Naomichi, he had a quote-unquote company that I could work for and stay in the country, and that turned out to be a two-man hentai circle. The rest is, as they say, history."

Mika took another sip of beer. "You still haven't got airfare yet?"

"Well, I do, but now I'm looking to get another animation job or get a real manga series published. It's kind of my dream." Terry found himself blushing up to his ears.

Mika crushed an ice cube between her teeth. "Ah! You're an otaku. Why didn't you just say that?"

"I was, at least. Being around this shit every day, having to draw the latest shitty character getting reamed ... it's kind of taken my love for that stuff away."

"Aww." Mika put a comforting hand on Terry's shoulder. To him, her touch was like an electric shock. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll be back to all-night anime marthons soon enough."

"And what about you?" Terry said, t rying to grin. "How did you get into your ... career?"

"A woman never reveals her secrets," said Mika. "Anyway, what are you doing without a drink? Yamada! Get this guy some booze!" The pudgy, scarred bartender poured a tall glass and brought it over to their table.

Terry had the feeling that this was going to be a long night.

The last day of school was always an emotional one, even for those who tried to hide it. Yui was one of those, strapping on the usual armour of her nonchalant persona, but today it was particularly hard. She made an excuse to part with Rin and the other girls she usually had lunch with, because she just couldn't face the prospect of having one last lunch with them. Of course, they would hang out more, but Yui was a realist. High school friends drifted apart.

Instead, she found Hayato with the usual group of boring girls – the one he had slept with, the one he wanted to sleep with, and some others she didn't recognize. Yui leaned down and pulled at his ear.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"To get your attention."

Hayato frowned. "You could have just said hi."

"And miss my last chance to physically abuse you?" Yui punched him in the shoulder. "Okay, maybe not quite the last chance. Anyway, where's your sentiment?"

"Drowned in a river when I was a boy."

Sakura looked up and waved sheepishly at Yui. "Hey Yui. Sorry if I was a bit of an ass at the party on the weekend. I had, uh, way too much to drink."

"Hey, you stuck around, which makes you less of an ass than almost everyone else," said Yui. "And having too much to drink is the point."

Belatedly, Yui realized that all of the other girls, with their close-cut black hair and smoothly pressed uniforms, were giving her dirty looks. They looked like clones. It only stung a little – Yui was used to girls not liking her. Boys too, really.

"So, uh, what are your plans for the summer?" she asked Hayato.

He shrugged. "I dunno. My uncle says he can get me a job, which will probably be crap, but I'll take what I can get nowadays."

"I'm gonna finish up my novel," Sakura said.

"Listen to Miss Future Bestseller over here," said Natsumi, whose airy voice made it clear she was kidding.

"Well I personally am planning to be a low-life bum for the whole break," said Yui. "And I could use some help. Any of you guys want to bum around with me?" There wasn't much of a response.

Then the gaggle of girls started talking about their summers, an endless recitation of bland vacations and blander jobs. Yui supposed that it was the same as the earlier conversation, but when you didn't care about the person speaking it just became inane. She tuned out.

The chime sounded for the next period, and that was it. Hayato wandered off, talking with Natsumi, and Yui realized that she had lost him.

The elevator in Mika's apartment building rattled and shook but climbed inexcorably upwards. She had one arm around Terry and was running the other hand up and down his flank. She had downed quite a few shots, but she didn't seem drunk. It made him think of a scene he had just sketched out for his comic, a drunken fling between Sakura and Hayato. He wasn't that drunk, but it still seemed strange, life mimicking art.

The elevator arrived at the top and opened into an industrial gray hall. Terry wondered if this was the source of the weird darkness he felt was hidden in Mika, waking up every morning in this gray brute of a building, but that seemed too simple. The feeling of her hands around his torso and her lips on the back of his neck dispelled all thought.

Mika's apartment was spartan, and almost frighteningly clean. Terry didn't get much of a chance to look at it, though, as she spun him around and kissed him on the lips, and once again he tasted her hot spice, a flavour he wasn't sure how he had lived a couple days without. She unbuttoned his shirt as she dragged him to the bedroom, the two of them slowly spinning in a sloppy drunken dance. What they were drunk off of was anyone's guess.