Chapter 6

Chapter 6

 

      Andria woke to the rustling of a plastic bag and the smell of warm rice. Her eyes fluttered open as a deep, painful growl twisted in her stomach. The smell of food reminded her poor belly that it had not been fed since breakfast the previous morning.
      The aroma wafted to her nostrils from an open grocery bag sitting atop the table. Yuta, in his human Form, was seated in one of the two chairs, sipping from a mug what Andria guessed was warm tea. All notions of sleep fled her as she hungrily eyed the bag and its mystery contents. Is it for me?, she wondered. It was probably rude to ask, though she doubted her hunger would be able to wait long enough for the food to be offered to her.
      Yuta looked up from his mug and smiled sleepily at Andria. His eyes were puffy and darkly ringed from obvious sleep deprivation. Had he been up all night? It couldn’t have been late when she had fallen asleep. Looking back down at his mug, he took a long draft, and then said, “I brought you breakfast, if you’re hungry.” He motioned towards the chair placed opposite his own at the table.
      Thoughtlessly, Andria obliged. “I hope you like onigiri,” he said after taking another short sip. “I wasn’t really sure what you would eat. I hear foreigners have different tastes and I didn’t know what foods you had adapted to. I figured onigiri were pretty safe, though.” He smiled again as Andria took her place at the table. Ignoring everything her Junior High Etiquette class had taught her, Andria ravenously plunged her eager hands into the grocery bag, retrieving one of seven or eight package-wrapped, triangular balls of rice. “That one,” Yuta noted, pointing at the onigiri in her hand, “is salmon. I bought four of those. There are also a couple eel, a haddock, and one roe.” He was referring to the fish at the rice balls’ cores. It was not Andria’s first encounter with onigiri, and luckily, she was indeed very fond of them.
      Yuta smiled weakly as Andria began to rip off the onigiri’s wrapping like some starved, wild thing. As she did so, he casually reached into the bag of rice balls and withdrew one without discrimination. The look in Andria’s eyes was almost comically wild. She sank her teeth into the rice ball’s soft flesh and tore away great chunks as though she couldn’t fill her poor stomach fast enough. She reminded Yuta of the bears he had seen around the mountain, leaping dangerously upon their kill, pinning their defenseless forms to the dirt before quickly going for the throat. Then again, the animals bears preyed upon usually put up a fight; this poor ball of rice was completely submissive and defenseless, trapped in Andria’s merciless jaws.
      Before he caught himself feeling sorry for Andria’s breakfast, Yuta took another long draft of his beverage and looked back down at the local paper he had been reading. Her onigiri down to its last meager crumbs, Andria stole a glance at him while reaching for another rice ball.
      It was the first time Andria had seen Yuta in his human Form since their brief encounter in the cavern the previous morning, and even then, the dimness of the light hadn’t allowed her a careful look at his features. Now, daylight was flooding into the lair from the opening overhead, and she was able to look at him plainly. His hair looked as though it had been combed, or at least an attempt had been made to comb it, for it seemed slightly less matted and awry than the day before. He was shirtless, wearing only a pair of black trousers that cut off at his knees, matched with a pair of beige flip-flops. The muscles of his abs were plainly defined, even in his hunched-over position at the table. Despite the lean, obvious layer of finely-toned muscle that consumed the whole of his core and arms, he was very thin. Andria guessed that the line of his waist was no wider than her own, and her buttocks was almost certainly larger. The line of his jaw was sharp and angular, as were the high bones of his cheeks. His hair was pushed aside so that his eyes were easily visible, just as deep, black, and all-consuming as Andria had remembered.
      Yuta looked up from his paper to catch her gaze. For the brief moment she allowed herself to maintain eye contact with this beautiful Dragon man, Andria was able to plainly see her own reflection in the dark spheres of his irises, enhanced by their mirror-like quality. Tearing her eyes away and looking down at his mug, Andria casually asked, “What are you drinking?”
      Yuta looked mildly surprised by the question and stole a quick glance down at the mug in his hand. He shrugged and said, “Coffee.”
      Andria paused for a moment, the ravenous feeling in her stomach rising up once more. She hadn’t so much as smelled a cup of coffee since setting foot in Japan. All her host family drank was hot tea. She hesitated and shifted uncomfortably in her seat before asking timidly, “Is there more?”
      The look of pleading in her eyes was so intense that Yuta couldn’t help but laugh to himself. For all the trouble she was, she certainly kept him entertained. Wordlessly, Yuta stood up and crossed to the fireplace, which Andria had scarcely noticed the night before.
      Now that light was flooding the great room, many more things became easily visible, as well. The slanting walls were sparsely adorned at every level with paintings and the occasional tapestry. The images were too distant from where she sat to be able to make out their details. The mini television had been moved from the small table to a seat of honor in the center of the room, atop a waist-height column opposite the couch. The crimson sofa was large and comfortable-looking, fabricated out of a very soft-looking material that caught the light of the morning splendidly. Aside from the necessary cushions comprising the seats, no other decorative pillows adorned the sofa.
      The rest of the lair’s vast spaces were relatively empty. The only other object of interest was a make-shift paper wall on the far side of the room. It was large and curved to make a semi-circle around a space roughly the size of a tennis court.
      Something clinked and brought Andria’s attention back to Yuta. He had a metal pot of coffee in one hand and was pouring its steaming contents into a plain white mug identical to his own. Once the mug had been filled, he replaced the metal pot on a hook hanging on a spit over the fire. On a small table next to the fireplace was a white sugar bowl, which he picked up with his free hand and brought back to their breakfast table along with the mug of hot coffee. He set the two items down in front of her before reclaiming his own seat. “I’m sorry I don’t have any milk,” he apologized, remembering vaguely that Westerners often drank it with their coffee. “I simply don’t have any place cool enough to store it.”
      “Oh, that’s fine,” insisted Andria, silently wishing that such was not the case. She did love milk in her coffee and had never dared try drinking the stuff without it. “This is wonderful,” she said, holding her mug up in indication. “Thank you.”
      Yuta smiled warmly and went back to reading his paper. Andria then proceeded to scoop several spoons of sugar into her mug in an attempt to salvage some of its familiar taste. She took a sip. Not what she was expecting, and not in a good way either. She tried to conceal a frown while attempting to swallow the mouthful of warm, bitter liquid.
      Once she had succeeded, though painfully, Andria replaced the mug of foul coffee on the table and turned back to her onigiri, its final crumbs in decimated shambles on her placemat.
      “They’ve found your shoes,” Yuta stated nonchalantly, turning a page in his paper. He did not look up to meet her gaze.
      Andria’s stomach knotted once more, though no longer from hunger. “Yes?” she implored, expecting him to go on.
      “That’s it,” he sighed. “That’s all it says.” With that, he folded the paper and tossed it on the floor beside his chair. Still, he refused to meet her pleading eyes. The paper had said quite a bit more on the subject, but none that he was willing to allow Andria to get worked up about. For instance, the county-wide search parties, the public pleas from her host family and descriptively desperate father, and especially not the varied, though equally troubling assumptions the media and authorities were beginning to form about her disappearance. The paper had mentioned everything from drowning in the ferry wreck or slaughter by local wildlife after stumbling ashore, to possible abduction, which was currently their strongest hunch.
      “That’s,” she stammered disbelievingly. “That’s…it?”
      Yuta reached over and picked the Japanese newspaper back up, offering it to Andria. Yuta had a hunch that Andria, having shown no indication of proficiency in Japanese, would not be able to read the complex Kanji the story about her disappearance was written in. Otherwise, he certainly would not have offered it to her.
      Yuta’s bluff proved successful. Andria glanced at the paper, intricate Japanese characters sprawled in small print all across its surface, and waved it away. She then became lost in her own thoughts, absently picking at the rice crumbs on her placemat.
      After a long silence, where Andria nursed her coffee and Yuta polished off an onigiri, Yuta stood up from the table and walked to where a large cabinet was pushed against the stone wall. He began rifling through the drawers.

      “Where are you going?” asked Andria.

      Yuta flung a white cotton button-up around his shoulders and thrust his arms through the sleeve holes. “Work,” he grunted.

      “Work?” she asked. “Where do you work?”

      Yuta gave her a calculating glance. As he began buttoning up his shirt, he explained, “I own a small shop in town. If I don’t show up, people will become suspicious.”

      “When will you be back?”

      Yuta shrugged. “Shop closes at four, but I plan to pick up some things before returning.”

      When Andria said nothing, Yuta asked, “Is there anything you think you might need from town?”

“Clothes,” Andria said without the slightest hesitation. She was beginning to smell the putrid odor of the clothes she was wearing quite fiercely, and it disgusted her. She hated the feeling of the dry sand now encrusted onto every surface of her outfit.
            “Alright,” Yuta noted. “Anything else?”
            Andria thought for a moment, once again becoming lost in sad thoughts she wasn’t yet able to control. After a few silent moments had passed, Yuta prodded her, “Well?”
            “It depends,” she mumbled, looking down at her feet, arms crossed across her stomach. “How long will I be here?”
            He told her simply, “I don’t know. Not long, I hope. For now, though,” he continued, “pretend as though you’re packing for a long trip, and tell me what you would need.”
            Disheartened slightly, Andria rambled off a short list of personal items. Deodorant, shaving razors, a toothbrush and toothpaste, etc. Once she felt as though her list had been completed, unable to think of much else that wasn’t too embarrassing to ask for, she reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a still-damp wad of Japanese bills, Yen. She only had about 4,000 yen, roughly 40 dollars, but she wanted to pay Yuta for at least some of the things she was asking for.
            Yuta looked curiously at the wad of crumpled wad of cash and waved it away. “Andria,” he said through a sheepish grin, “I am more than capable of covering it. It’s no big deal.”
            “Are you sure?” she asked, a little uncomfortable having a near-stranger do so much for her.
            “What kind of kidnapper makes his hostage pay for her own necessities?” Yuta said with a weak smile.
            Andria smiled, but wouldn’t laugh at his joke. Was she really a hostage? True, he wouldn’t let her leave, but at the same time, she didn’t really feel like one. He was protecting her, after all.  Or so he said.
            “Save that,” he said, pointing at Andria’s bills. “You’ll probably need it once we get you back home.” He smiled at her as genially as he could. Despite herself, she couldn’t help but feel reassured by the warmth of his expression. Without any further argument, Andria replaced the soggy bills into her skirt pocket.
            “Now,” he said, pointing to the set of sliding paper doors beside them. “I guess you can make yourself at home. I have books, if you’d like to read,” he said, motioning to a bookshelf near the sofa. “Most are in Japanese, but there are some English ones mixed in there.” Yuta glanced around at his lair, making sure he wasn’t forgetting anything. “Ah,” he said, when his eyes landed the set of large paper doors adjacent to the kitchen area. “The washroom is over there,” he said, pointing towards the doors. “Later in the afternoon, get clean, and I’ll try to be quick about bringing you some clean clothes to change into.”
            “Wait,” Andria blurted as he was turning to leave, “What about the Crows?” she asked, a nervous, sick feeling rising in her gut. “What if they come back?”
            Yuta turned back to face her. “I told you,” he said with a slight shrug. “My lair is a fortress.”
            Andria looked up at the giant hole in the ceiling. Yuta followed her gaze. Once he realized that she was possibly concerned about the opening, as clear and vulnerable as a giant door hanging open, welcome mat and all, he said, “Oh. Don’t worry about that.” He started to turn to leave again, calling over his shoulder, “Yenko has the place covered.”
            He crossed the room,  and Andria followed him with her eyes. He stopped once to pick up a tattered-looking backpack pressed against the back of the crimson sofa, and then proceeded to walk towards the far wall. His stride didn’t slacken for a second. Once he neared the wall, he merely waved a hand, and the rock seemed to push itself aside, creating an opening into a dark tunnel. He continued walking, not looking back at her once, until he had disappeared into the shadows of the unlighted tunnel and the stone wall fell seamlessly back into place.

 

*          *          *          *          *         

Yuta passed the day at work with unusual monotony. The recent press had apparently produced a negative effect on the day’s tourism. The ferries did not run, the paddle boats remained stubbornly tied down near shore, yellow tape crossed off every dock. No more than five disgruntled tourists darkened the doors of Yuta’s store, only two bothering to make a purchase. All the while, Yuta stood behind the counter, surrounded by lifeless stone knickknacks that refused to be sold, thinking. The minutes dragged on into hours with cruel lethargy. At 3pm, when the day’s profits had reached a grand total of 847 Yen, less if one figured in the expense of keeping the shop open, Yuta made the command decision to close up early and take a trip to the only good clothing store in town, one he had never voluntarily entered.

Yuta and clothing were never quite compatible. Yuta rarely wore more than sandals and trousers to work, allowing his chest to remain comfortably bare. The beauty of owning one’s own business was that no one ever made him adhere to a dress code. He found that not running air conditioning in the shop cut down dramatically on his power bill each month, and he probably would have baked behind the counter all day had a top layer been necessary. Plus, business didn’t seem to suffer because of it. Quite the contrary, he had quite a loyal niche of customers, elderly women from the nearby village, and near-constant gaggles of giggling, ridiculous school girls who stopped in to ogle his wares.

At a quarter to four, Yuta found himself standing outside the shop doors, unable to move, barely able to breathe. Large displays hung in the windows, all pink, staring at him, judging him. Unfortunately, this particular shop did not seem to suffer from slow traffic that day as the rest of the town was. The sound of women’s voices carried through the cracks in the glass. They were all laughing, candidly conversing about things Yuta did not have the mental capacity to try to understand, or critiquing items with scrutiny that Yuta was not genetically equipped to match.
            A large, decorative sign hung over the doors, displaying the name of the store: Pinku, or “Pink.” Yuta inhaled slowly, his breath catching in his throat. He couldn’t stand outside the shop all day. Passersby were already starting to stare; however, despite their judgmental looks, Yuta could not bring himself to set foot in the venue. Fear paralyzed him.
            What is there to be afraid of?, he thought to himself. They were only women, only clothes. He had faced monsters, obstacles far more terrifying and unspeakable than the lace-fringed manikins that sneered at him then.
            The door opened, causing Yuta to jump. Two teenage girls strolled out, each carrying a pink paper bag with the logo “Pinku” stamped across it, heavy with the day’s purchases. The girls snickered as they quickly glanced at him, either laughing at his startled expression or giggling as girls typically do whenever they cross paths with a handsome stranger such as Yuta. He personally did not find himself very attractive, but he was quite often passed by with similar reactions.
            Taking another deep breath, Yuta found his nerve and pushed open the glass door. His face must have been glowing red, though he kept his expression stoic. Trying not to draw attention to himself, he quickly ducked behind a large rack of skirts close to the door. He kept his head low, examining the frilly garments that hung before him. It was then that he truly realized how clueless he was. He didn’t know what girls wore. He didn’t even really know what size Andria was. His heart sank.
            “Sumimasen ,” a cheerful voice chimed behind him, causing Yuta to jump once more. He looked up to find a prim Japanese woman in a pale pink blazer and matching skirt smiling politely at him. She wore a gold-plated name-tag reading “Sayuri” in Japanese characters. Yuta tried his best to hide his embarrassment and nerves, to little avail. “I’m sorry, sir,” the Japanese woman chimed. “All customers must wear shirts inside the store.” She gave him an apologetic bow, which Yuta returned, embarrassed.
            Quickly, he looked to the wall to his right and saw a row of black jackets hanging easily within reach. He fumbled through the row for a moment until he found one that might be an appropriate size for him and hurriedly threw it on. “I’ll take this,” he said, trying to smile to mask the blood rushing to his cheeks. The effect must have been flattering, judging by the pleasantly shocked expression that crossed the saleswoman’s face.
            Store policy having been satisfied, she asked Yuta, “Is there anything I can help you with, sir?”
            Yuta thought for a moment, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t any idea what he was doing, but even more unwilling to return to Andria empty-handed, or with something hideous and ill-fitting.
            “Yes,” Yuta breathed, drawing closer to the woman so he wouldn’t have to speak too loud. “I’m shopping for my sister,” he lied. “I want to buy her some new clothes. A gift.”
            The saleswoman eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but inquired no further about his motives. “Well,” she began, “What size is your sister?”
            Yuta was at a loss. He didn’t know how to answer. He silently beat himself up for not having asked before leaving the lair. Not knowing what else to do, he held out his hands at waist-length, about a foot and a half apart. “She’s about this wide,” he indicated.
            “In the waist or in the hips,” the saleswoman inquired routinely.
            “Hips,” he blurted quietly, checking every few seconds for potential eavesdroppers. “And this wide,” he moved his hands about six inches closer, “in the waist.”
            “And how tall is she?” the woman asked, already leafing through the rack of skirts they stood near.
            Yuta indicated a mark just below his own chin, several inches higher than the Japanese woman stood.
            “Oh, wow,” the woman remarked. “Very tall.”
            Yuta nodded. He didn’t dare mention Andria’s foreign origins, not when the entire village was searching for her.
            “Well I suppose it runs in the family, eh?” the woman noted with a toothy smile. True to her observation, Yuta did stand several inches taller than any Japanese male he knew, which often brought him a lot of attention.
            The woman rifled through the rack with impressive concentration. She would stop to look at a particular skirt, mutter something derogatory to herself, and then continue searching. After several painful moments, she finally breathed, “Aha!”
            She held up a bright yellow garment detailed with white lace and some modest gold sequin work, a skirt that would probably fall dangerously short on Andria’s long legs. He couldn’t help but think that the color of the material would complement Andria’s hair wonderfully, but it made him blush ferociously to think of her in something so revealing.
Wordlessly, he shook his head, a look of mild horror in his eyes. “Oh, I see,” the Japanese woman said coyly. “Protective big brother, eh?”
            Yuta shrugged. “Don’t you have anything a little more modest?” he asked. “But still stylish,” he added, reminding himself that she was indeed a teenage girl who probably stressed about her appearance as much as any other teenage girl he had ever encountered in his long years.
            Forty-five minutes later, Yuta’s arms were weighted down with any number of skirts, blouses, and a wide assortment of sun-dresses. Dresses were his preference, and he did have fun imagining Andria wearing some of the frilly pieces he had helped pick out for her.
            Yuta followed close behind Sayuri, who had spent so much of her morning imparting her fashion wisdom upon him. She probably didn’t mind at all, Yuta thought to himself. He had pretty much trusted her judgment with every selection she pressed upon him, only providing his own input when something looked as though it was too short, too low-cut, or too small to stretch across Andria’s chest, which he couldn’t help but notice was considerably fuller than the average Japanese girl’s. For all the time Sayuri had spent piling clothes into his arms, receiving little to no objection or limitations, she would probably be receiving a rather large commission.
            As they made their way to the counter, the saleswoman beaming with success, Yuta noticed something that made all of his awkward, nervous energy return full-force.
            Underpants.
            When it came to bras, Andria was absolutely on her own. He wouldn’t even consider trying to employ the saleswoman’s help for that particular sizing crisis. Underpants, however, she probably needed.
            His face must have been shining crimson. No one was looking. The store seemed to be experiencing a break from the normal steady stream of customers, as only two or three women were still browsing close to the front of the shop. Checking to make sure the saleswoman’s gaze was fixed directly ahead, Yuta quickly adjusted the clothes in his hands and blindly grabbed a small stack of frilly panties from the bottom shelf. He hurriedly tucked them into the middle of his pile of new clothes without so much as glancing at sizes or styles.
            He hurried to catch up with Sayuri, plopping the entire stack of clothing on the counter in one fluid motion. Sayuri took her place behind the register and began scanning items with a pleasant smile. Yuta withdrew his wallet and nervously began rifling through it.
            Beep. Beep. Beep.
            The sound of clothes passing swiftly under the scan gun was hypnotic. He kept his eyes intent on his meaningless work, taking out a card, putting it back in a different slot, fumbling through the tiny pockets.
            Beep. Beep…
            There was a moment of hesitation. Yuta glanced over at the small pile of items still waiting to be scanned.
            His heart hit his shoes. He stopped breathing.
            There, atop the pile was the skimpiest piece of black lace Yuta had ever knowingly laid eyes upon. It made him blush imagining it on any woman, much less Andria. Beneath it, he could make out the fringes of more lace and more frills in a wide assortment of colors: hot pink, neon green, white, yellow, etc.
            He couldn’t bring himself to meet Sayuri’s eyes, but nervously continued fumbling through his wallet, hands shaking.
            Thankfully, the steady beeping of the scan-gun resumed without a word passed between them. When the beeping finally ceased, Yuta looked down and found five moderately sized shopping bags propped beside the cash register. Each was brimming with fabric and tissue paper. “Sumimasen, sir,” Sayuri said sweetly. Yuta looked up into her smiling face. She was holding the scan gun in her right hand and motioning at his jacket sleeve with the other.
            “Oh,” Yuta replied. He found the tag hanging from his sleeve and yanked it off, offering it to her to scan. She did so and then punched a long series of codes into her computer.
            A large number flashed on the small digital screen facing him. Yuta noted the figure with mild indifference and pulled several large bills from his wallet. He handed Sayuri the sum, plus some extra as a tip for all of her help (and for not humiliating him in his already vulnerable state). She thanked him graciously, bowing with gratitude as he quickly exited the store, his hands laden with pink shopping bags.