Chapter 26: Wednesday

Shopping at Jewel Changi

Wednesday morning had been arranged with unusual discipline.

Each of them had two classes. Each had promised to be finished by noon. Each had made the promise with the confidence of someone who had forgotten how easily a lecture could run over, a professor could ask one final question, or a discussion could become impossible to leave politely.

By twelve fifteen, however, all four were back in the apartment.

Kaito arrived first, carrying his notes in one hand and a paper cup of coffee in the other. He placed both on the kitchen counter with the deliberate care that meant his morning had been more demanding than he intended to admit. A few minutes later, Hana came in with her conference folder pressed against her side, already reaching for it again before she had removed her shoes.

Midori caught her wrist.

“No.”

“I only want to look at one thing.”

“You looked at one thing before breakfast. Then you looked at one thing after breakfast. Then you looked at one thing while you were leaving.”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“Exactly. Which is why you are not opening it again today.”

Hana looked at Kaito for support.

Kaito took a slow drink of coffee.

“I think Midori has a point.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“I know.”

Emiko arrived last. She had taken the longer route home from class and had used it to decide that no one in the apartment was going to work through the afternoon. The decision had begun as a mild irritation with Hana’s conference folder, but by the time she opened the front door, it had become something firmer.

The house felt full of unfinished thoughts.

Kaito was tired. Hana was trying to prepare herself into perfect calm. Midori was keeping everyone from becoming unbearable through force of personality. Emiko had spent the morning listening to people talk about problems that could not be solved in a single class, a single meeting, or a single day.

They needed to leave.

“Put your things down,” Emiko said.

Hana looked up. “I did.”

“Further down.”

Midori smiled.

Kaito glanced from Emiko to Hana. “What are you planning?”

“Jewel.”

For half a second, no one spoke.

Then Midori clapped both hands together.

“Yes.”

Hana looked at the conference folder in her hands.

“I have things to do.”

“You will still have them tonight,” Emiko said. “And tomorrow. And probably next week.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It’s not meant to be. It means you can spare four hours.”

Kaito considered the plan. He had been looking forward to an afternoon in which he could sit quietly, catch up on reading, and perhaps avoid the heat outside altogether. But he could see Hana’s attention narrowing around the folder. He could see Midori preparing to argue until the outing became inevitable. He could see the particular look in Emiko’s eyes that meant she had already decided.

“Jewel,” he said.

Hana looked at him.

“You too?”

“I have been overruled.”

“You have not even tried to object.”

“I am conserving strength.”

Midori laughed. “For what?”

“Shopping, apparently.”

That was enough to make Hana laugh too, though she tried to hide it. The folder loosened in her grip.

By the time they left the apartment, it had been placed on the dining table beneath Hana’s closed laptop.

Midori made certain the laptop remained closed.

Jewel was alive with the kind of afternoon crowd that never seemed hurried and never seemed entirely still. People came through its wide entrances in waves: travelers with luggage, office workers carrying coffee, families taking photographs, teenagers moving in loud clusters, older couples walking slowly beneath the glass roof.

Then the Rain Vortex came into view.

The first sight of it always stopped people.

Water poured from the circular opening high above, descending in a shining white column through the center of the building. It fell between the terraces of the Forest Valley, framed by palms, ferns, and enormous leaves that made the indoor space feel like something borrowed from another climate entirely.

For a moment, all four stood at the railing without speaking.

Hana had seen photographs of the waterfall. She had watched videos. Neither had prepared her for the sound of it, or for the way the water seemed to pull the eye downward even as the glass roof drew it up.

Midori leaned close beside her.

“You were about to spend all afternoon staring at slide sixteen.”

“I was not.”

“You were.”

“I was considering slide sixteen.”

“That’s worse.”

Hana smiled as she looked back at the water.

Kaito stood beside Emiko with his hands in his pockets. The engineer in him—or perhaps simply the part of him that liked to know how things worked—had already begun studying the structure: the vast curved roof, the precise geometry of the oculus, the terraces designed to contain the space rather than compete with it.

Emiko noticed.

“You’re thinking about the engineering.”

“It’s impressive.”

“It’s a waterfall.”

“It’s both.”

Midori turned toward him. “Can you stand near something beautiful without trying to understand how it is held up?”

Kaito looked at the falling water.

“No.”

Emiko slipped her hand into his.

“That’s why we keep you.”

He looked down at their hands, then back at the waterfall. He kissed her, and a small smile appeared and remained.

They walked through the Forest Valley slowly. There was no reason to hurry. The pathways curved between thick green plantings and opened unexpectedly onto different views of the water. Sometimes the Rain Vortex seemed close enough to touch. Sometimes it became a bright white thread seen between palms and hanging leaves.

Midori led them along one of the lower paths, pausing whenever something caught her attention. She had an instinct for small pleasures and an impatience with anyone who pretended not to need them.

Hana had always admired that about her.

“Look,” Midori said, stopping beside a wall of layered plants.

Hana looked.

“It’s greenery.”

“It’s beautiful greenery.”

“It’s still greenery.”

Midori turned to Emiko. “Does she always sound like this when she is nervous?”

“Yes,” Emiko said.

Hana gave them both a look.

“I’m not nervous.”

Kaito, who had learned not to answer questions that were not really questions, said nothing.

His silence was answer enough.

Hana folded her arms. “I’m prepared.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Midori said gently.

The humor faded for a moment, leaving the truth of it between them.

Tomorrow, Hana would stand in a room full of people who knew nothing about the careful route that had brought her there. They would see her presentation, her work, her answers. They would not see the late nights behind the research, the revisions, the doubts she kept private because she disliked making them anyone else’s burden.

Emiko touched her arm.

“You don’t have to be perfectly calm.”

“I know.”

“You only have to be yourself.”

Hana looked at her.

“And what if that is not enough?”

Kaito answered before anyone else could.

“Then they’re not worth your time.”

The certainty in his voice made Hana laugh softly.

“That’s a very Kaito answer.”

“It’s correct.”

“It’s protective.”

“It can be both.”

Midori took Hana’s hand and tugged her gently down the path.

“Good. Now that we have handled the emotional crisis, we are going shopping.”

“I didn’t agree to that.”

“You came to Jewel with us. This was always the plan.”

Kaito added, “If shopping is the plan, I want you girls to buy some ¼ cup balconette bras and some very revealing, sexy panties.”

“Oops, we forgot,” blushed Emiko.

It had not been the plan, precisely. But Midori said it with enough conviction that no one bothered to dispute her.

The clothing stores began one level above the waterfall but Kaito said. “We’re going to the basement.”

“What’s in the basement?” Midori asked

“Triumph Jewel. “We’re buying panties and bras.”

Hana made a sound of mock displeasure. “Just like a man. He has a one track mind.”

“What can I say,” Kaito retorted, “My cup runneth over.”

They caught the elevator down to the basement and found the store.

Kaito had them each try on a ¼ cup balconette bra: Emiko in red lace, Hana in blue lace, and tiny titty Midori in a pink lace.

Kaito thought Perfect! From the outside it looks like they’re wearing a bra, but I can fondle their breasts and nipples too.