Introducing Mr. and Mrs. Aisawa, 2/3
Asuka kept her sucker in her mouth the whole walk to the other side of the resort, making little grumbly noises that made it hard for Kenta to keep a straight face. Her precious article, potentially tanking because of a crazy woman.
There was a strong temptation to go on inside without their dinner companions, but Asuka decided, crunching on her sucker hard enough to make Kenta wince, that it would just make them more annoying later if they ditched them now. They inclined their heads as other couples arrived, some of them heading for the mixed bathing area together while others headed for the males only and females only baths. Perhaps those were the couples that had a lot more to work out, and he watched Asuka’s eyes follow them keenly. She was probably composing paragraphs in her head.
It was long past fifteen minutes when the Sakai couple arrived, Haruko leading the way with her sad sack husband shuffling along after her. Kenta found it hard to believe that the man had been married before this as well. What would a woman have seen in him?
“Shall we do the mixed bathing, Erika-chan?” Haruko asked, although she was leering openly at Kenta as she did so.
“Actually, my husband isn’t comfortable with me doing that. If other men will be there,” Asuka blatantly lied, offering a rather believable contemptuous look Kenta’s way.
“Old-fashioned, huh?” Haruko mumbled, eyeing Kenta up and down in his yukata, probably wishing she had x-ray vision, although Kenta didn’t think his body was really all that exciting.
He was also grateful for Asuka’s decision, because he wasn’t quite sure he was in the mood to be in an onsen with her, with only a small towel to cover his most important bits. “Well, Sakai-san, let’s get moving,” Asuka said, taking the woman by the arm and dragging her to the ladies changing room.
Teruyuki said nothing, glumly walking toward the men’s side. The man didn’t even wait for him, washing up and heading for the baths without a word. This gave Kenta plenty of time to soap up, clean his hair, wash all of the Sakai Haruko off of him. He couldn’t help smiling as he ran his washcloth over his skin, scrubbing. It was now Asuka’s turn to be the focus of Haruko’s endless chatting, and he was kind of happy he’d get to have a nice relaxing soak.
Haruko’s husband sat by himself in a distant corner, and Kenta settled a little ways away from him, outside under the stars. There was a pleasant breeze rustling through the trees, crisp mountain air. There were a few other men he recognized from dinner, and he merely nodded at them, settling in the water. If anyone had noticed the nasty scar on his side while he washed or while he got into the hot bath, nobody thought to ask him about it. He was kind of glad that Asuka didn’t have to see it either, the jagged pink scar that reminded him daily of how close he’d come to dying.
He settled in the water, almost happy that he’d agreed to come along now that he was here, closing his eyes and feeling the heat envelop his body. He was here under false pretenses, without having paid his own way, but all the qualms he had became a mere buzzing in the back of his head as he relaxed. As soon as he left, it would probably be bed time. Lying in the dark at Asuka’s side time. But the prospect wasn’t as frightening as it had been that morning, hours ago when his phone rang and she’d asked so insistently for his help.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d gotten in, but an announcement came over the speaker that the onsen was closing for the night. He got out of the water, changing back into his yukata and slippers and waiting patiently on a bench in the corridor for Asuka. He had the room key, so she couldn’t have gone back without him yet.
He sat for a few minutes until he heard some familiar voices just on the other side, echoing out of the women’s changing room. “…well, I’m sorry, Haruko-san, but I don’t believe in cheating.”
Asuka’s voice, clear and serious.
“Oh come now, if your husband’s gone as often as you say, what’s the harm?” Haruko.
“I just don’t believe in that sort of thing,” she was saying, “and besides, we’re here to become stronger.”
“What could the two of you young kids possibly have to worry about already?”
“I just…maybe I’m just not sure where we stand sometimes, my husband and me.”
Kenta held his breath, hearing their slippers as they stood together talking only a few steps away from him.
“What do you mean?” Haruko pressed on. “Where you stand with what?”
Asuka’s voice was quieter, but he still heard every word.
“I don’t really know what he feels about me. I wish he’d tell me.”
“But you’re married, so he must obviously…”
“I don’t…I don’t know,” Asuka said. “I look at him and I know exactly what I feel, but with him I just…I don’t know what he thinks.”
Kenta remembered Asuka’s advice about lying, about telling as much truth as you could. To make the lie believable. He felt hot, almost too hot sitting in the corridor, sitting on that bench, listening to something he probably wasn’t meant to. But Asuka was just lying. Asuka was just playing a role, wasn’t she?
“It’s called Let’s Talk for a reason, Erika-chan. So get him to talk,” was Haruko’s advice.
Kenta got to his feet hurriedly, the room key nearly cutting into his palm as the two women came around the corner.
“Oh,” Asuka said, her face scrubbed clean and her eyes a little tired as she spotted him. “There you are.”
“Here I am,” was all Kenta managed to say.
Haruko didn’t seem too surprised that her husband wasn’t waiting for her. Kenta hadn’t even noticed when Teruyuki had left. “Good night, see you during the sessions tomorrow!”
Her slippers making loud slapping noises against the floor, they both watched Sakai Haruko walk off. All of the feelings being in the hot water had brought out got twisted and confusing again. It had been easier to think of Asuka in the abstract when he was in the bath, but here she was in a thin yukata, having just told a stranger that she was desperate for her “husband” to tell her what his feelings were. He was deeply concerned with how much of that confession to Haruko-san had been a lie…and how much had been the truth.
Asuka had taken her phone with her, holding it up. “I’m going to see if I can get a signal, I need to call my editor,” she told him. “Leave the door unlocked for me?”
“Sure.”
He turned, walking away and leaving Asuka behind, replaying the conversation he’d just overheard over and over. Thinking about how genuinely sad “Aisawa Erika” had sounded when she wished to know what her husband felt. As he walked, Kenta’s brain was consumed with two conflicting thoughts - either Asuka was a better actress than he thought…or Asuka hadn’t yet figured out that Kenta was in love with her.
He wasn’t sure which option he wanted to be true.
--
His futon was extremely comfortable, and he lay on his stomach, facing the sliding door instead of Asuka’s futon. He’d been lying there for at least an hour, it felt like, when the door to their room opened.
By the time the door was closed and locked, the time had already passed for Kenta to welcome her back, and she probably thought he was asleep. Maybe that was for the best. He listened as Asuka dug around in her bag and then disappeared into the bathroom. He could hear the sink turn on inside, and he kept his eyes closed, imagining her doing normal before bed things. Brushing her teeth, washing her face, putting on night creams.
He checked his phone, the glow hurting his eyes briefly as he saw that it was just after midnight. Asuka had been gone for quite a while. He found himself wondering what she’d been up to, walking around in a yukata on her own.
She emerged from the bathroom, and she said nothing as she got into her own futon. Just behind him, he could hear her breathing, although he knew she hadn’t fallen asleep yet. They had one more day to get through, one more night to get through after this and…
“Ohhhhhh!”
Kenta opened his eyes.
“Ohhhh! Ohhhhh!”
He turned onto his back, sighing, just in time to hear Asuka’s groan of complaint.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she mumbled.
There was definitely no mistaking the sounds coming from the room beside theirs. Sakai Haruko was having a very good time - whether it was her husband in there with her, though, Kenta couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t help laughing as the noise got louder, covering his mouth with his hand.
“We shouldn’t listen,” Kenta decided, folding his hands on his chest, trying not to snicker.
“It can’t be helped if she’s that loud,” Asuka said with a sigh. He could hear her turning around in her futon, and he could tell that she was now facing his way. “She’s really inconsiderate.”
“They seem to get along well enough then, huh? Her and her husband? They’ve kissed and made up?”
Asuka’s voice was surprisingly serious. “Having sex doesn’t necessarily mean they get along. Anyone can have sex, and for any reason or no reason at all.”
This shut him up for a moment. There was only the sound of a happy Haruko coming through the walls, and the knowledge that Asuka was only an arm’s length away from him. As the noise carried on, Kenta became all too aware of how close she was. He closed his eyes, wishing his brain would shut off because one thought in particular kept hitting him, over and over again, like one of those scrolling headlines at the bottom of the screen on a news broadcast.
Would Asuka be loud in bed? Or quiet?
He turned over onto his side, facing away from her again. How could he be having thoughts like that about her, especially when the world’s unsexiest noises were coming through the wall?
“I have one set of ear plugs,” Asuka eventually announced to the darkened room. “You did buy those suckers for me, so I suppose we could janken for the ear plugs.”
But Kenta was mentally gone, trying to think of incredibly unsexy things like…like…tree bark or Gasu using the litter box or…
“Kenta.”
Asuka was shaking his shoulder, and he was consumed with the thought of turning over, pinning her down, maybe trying to…
“You know, why don’t you just take the ear plugs, okay?” he managed to squeak out, bringing his knees up and ending up in a strange fetal position, his covers over his head as Haruko’s squealing persisted.
He felt her pat his head gently through the covers, and then she was rustling around in her bag. “Good night,” she said, soon after he heard her tearing into a plastic pouch.
“Good night,” he said.
-
Despite his panic, he must have eventually fallen asleep because the alarm on his phone woke him from a deep hazy dream. He fumbled quickly to turn it off, sitting up and running a hand through his hair. He turned aside, discovering the alarm had not woken Asuka at all.
She was in as much disarray as all of her belongings. Her covers had been flung off as she lay in an almost ballerina-like position, her arms thrown back over her head, one leg bent so her foot rested against her other leg near the knee. She hadn’t worn her yukata to bed, but a t-shirt for some band Kenta didn’t know and the neon green shorts he’d seen on the floor earlier.
He’d seen Asuka’s sleeping face before, although the time for enjoying it had been quite short-lived, his mother entering his room and nearly scaring him to death. Her face was utterly tranquil, little huffs of breath emerging as her chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm. The ear plugs she’d worn hadn’t made it through the night with her - he saw them, bright orange, lying on the mat between their futons.
Kenta brought his knees up to his chest, ignoring the usual little twinge in his side. He couldn’t help watching her for a few moments more, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Sunlight was just peeking through, and he wondered if she was cold, if he ought to cover her up.
But before he could think further, his phone went off once again, and he realized that he’d only pressed snooze instead of turning off the alarm. He fumbled for it quickly, but it was too late. He heard her stirring beside him.
“Good morning,” she mumbled, not opening her eyes.
“Morning.” He cleared his throat. “Itinerary says breakfast is from 7:30 until 9:00, when the program starts. It’s 7:00 now.”
“Yuck,” she grumbled, stretching. “Maybe you should bring mine back to the room.”
“No way,” he said. “You’re working, aren’t you? Can’t just hole up in here when there might be observations to make, right?”
“Stop being logical,” she complained, rolling onto her stomach. He had a hard time looking away from the curve of her backside in her bright shorts.
“I’ll have a shower and get ready first,” he decided, knowing he really had to stop gaping at her.
They didn’t manage to leave the room until almost 8:00 AM, Asuka taking a shower so long that Kenta thought she might have fallen asleep inside. While she was getting ready, he managed to get a cell phone signal by opening up the sliding doors and stepping out onto the small balcony.
He had half a dozen LINE messages from Nana, most of which consisted of kissy face stickers and question marks. He sent her at least twenty poop emojis in response, happy at least that his mother hadn’t sent him any annoying messages. What did they expect, honestly? That he was going to use this strange weekend to confess to her? When they were already lying so much? He didn’t want there to be any doubts when he finally did tell Asuka how he felt.
Last night definitely hadn’t helped either.
Dressed in t-shirts and jeans, name tagged and carrying notepads and pens, they both headed back for the resort restaurant. They were, of course, meant to take notes on how best to communicate with one another as a couple, but Asuka was probably going to fill her notepad with observations of the couples around her.
Haruko and Teruyuki were nowhere to be seen when they arrived at breakfast, and they spent their meal chatting quietly with a couple in their forties from Kawasaki. Their son had just moved out to go to college, they admitted, and without him in the house, things had been a little difficult. They’d both changed a lot since they’d married and were looking for ways to connect again. Kenta could just sense how much happier Asuka was beside him at the table. At last, she’d found people who weren’t insane, who genuinely cared for each other and wanted to make their marriage strong again.
The first morning session after breakfast was lecture-style, in one of the resort’s meeting rooms. Kagawa-san was there once again, welcoming them all to Let’s Talk. He and Asuka sat near the back of the room, watching the others. Most couples were in their late thirties or in their forties, though there were a few older than that, including the Sakai couple, who had apparently skipped breakfast and looked exhausted as they slunk into the second row, Haruko whispering noisily about it being “such an early start.”
Asuka responded to that by giving Kenta a poke in the side with her pen, and he had to swallow down a laugh, focusing on a doodle he was making in his notepad. Soon enough Kagawa-san announced that the first “trust” exercise would be taking place in the next room over, and his staff helped to usher them all next door, handing each couple a blindfold.
The room was not what Kenta expected, finding what seemed to be an obstacle course set up in the large banquet room space. From balance beams raised a few feet off the ground to groupings of plastic cones to upright hula hoops, he heard Asuka let out a chuckle beside him.
“And this is designed to strengthen a marriage?” she asked, following the other couples.
Once everyone was in the room, Kagawa and his staff divided up the couples, placing everyone at one of the “Love Obstacle” stations. There were enough ‘obstacles’ set up that they’d all go around the room clockwise, each couple working through the obstacle before moving on to the next station.
Kenta and Asuka found themselves just beside a station consisting of fourteen tires, and presumably he’d be expected to step into each of them. Kagawa, at the center of the room, was clapping his hands for attention, though Asuka was busy scribbling in her notepad.
“This weekend is about communication and trust,” Kagawa announced in his cheery voice. “This weekend is about partnership. You’ve each been given a blindfold, so now comes the time to decide. The blind partner will go through the course, and the seeing partner has, what I believe, to be the heavier burden. How will you direct your partner? How will you be his or her eyes through the course? If they fall, whose fault is it? You can see the challenge, can’t you? The challenge of communication! You will have two minutes at each station. Please decide who will be blindfolded, and we’ll begin in a few minutes.”
Kenta looked at the blindfold in his hand, sighing. This was going to be a real pain, but he supposed if anyone had to fall off a balance beam or stumble over some tires, it ought to be him. Around the room, Kenta could see that most of the husbands were willingly putting on the blindfolds.
Asuka held out her hand. “I can do it, if you’re scared.”
“I’m not scared,” he said, a little too defiantly. He instead handed her his notepad and pen. “If I have to be crawling on the ground, I don’t want to stab myself with my pen.”
“A wise choice, Masaki-san.”
Soon enough, the world disappeared as Kenta tied the blindfold around his head. He soon felt the press of a hand on his shoulder. It could only be Asuka, and she patted gently.
“How many fingers am I holding up?”
“I can’t see you.”
“This is about trust, Masaki-san,” she said, sounding way too amused by his predicament. He hoped she was getting a lot of material out of this. “Just give me your best guess.”
“Two,” he said. He really couldn’t see her, or anything else for that matter.
He could sense her behind him then, and he whined a little when she tightened the blindfold. “This will be super easy. I’m good with directions,” she whispered, before poking him in the side. He jerked, knowing he was completely at Asuka’s mercy now.
Would she make them fail on purpose? He wasn’t really in the mood to twist an ankle just so they could properly portray an “imperfect” couple. But he had no time to ask her to treat him kindly because he could soon hear Kagawa-san announcing that the two minute timer was starting, followed by the chime of the bell.
Around him, at the stations in front and behind, he could hear the sound of wives starting to give orders. Walk three steps forward. Lift your right leg. Get down on your hands and knees, you need to get through the hoop.
But to Kenta’s surprise, Asuka didn’t start to shout. Instead he suddenly felt her fingers slide over his, her hand giving his a squeeze. “Hold onto me. I’ll walk with you, okay?”
Her voice was gentle and calm, and he almost wished she would just start barking out commands at him. This closeness, he wasn’t sure what she was going for. But she didn’t let go, patiently guiding him forward until he reached the tires. “Okay, let’s go with this timing. Right, left, right, left. Masaki? There are fourteen to get through.”
“Asuka…”
He felt her poke his side again. He still wasn’t comfortable with the fake names. “Fourteen tires,” she repeated. “One, two…three.”
Not letting go, listening to Asuka’s voice, he stepped forward into the first tire, his sneaker scuffing a little against the side. “Now the next one. Your left foot, this time,” she said, still holding his hand. “Good job.”
With Asuka’s encouragement, they made it through long before the chime of the bell, and Kenta could still hear shouting couples all around. “What is wrong with you?” he heard someone scream nearby. Haruko-san, perhaps? “I said your left foot!”
“Thanks for not letting me fall,” he mumbled, squeezing her hand. They were through the obstacle, and he wasn’t sure why she hadn’t let go yet.
“No problem. If you get injured, then I’ll have to attend to you, and I don’t think I have much of a bedside manner,” he heard her reply just as the bell chimed.
Ah, so she did have a reason for not leading him astray. She didn’t want him to inconvenience her, that was all there was to it, huh? They made it through the next few obstacles in a similar fashion, Asuka guiding him through a short course of cones, helping him to crawl through a canvas tunnel, assisting him in throwing some soft darts at a target.
All around him, he could hear shouts of frustration - angry husbands complaining about the poor directions given to them, irritated wives protesting that the men simply weren’t listening to them. “They sound really mad,” Kenta commented after completing the tenth obstacle, another set of tires that they’d finished very quickly.
Asuka had started to instruct him to just rest a hand on her shoulder while they waited for the bell, so she could jot down her thoughts in the meantime before leading him to the next station. “Such good stuff, this is amazing,” she was saying, laughing at all the complaints they were hearing.
“Is anyone else as good as us?” he asked.
“Yeah, there’s a few who actually figured out that skinship works,” she said, giggling. “They’re not having as much trouble, as hard as it may be for them to hold hands in a crowded room.”
He wondered if it was hard for Asuka to hold his hand again and again, to pat him on the back and guide him through the obstacles. As difficult as it was not to see, he hadn’t really felt scared yet. Kenta had to give Kagawa-san credit - this really was an effective exercise in trust, and as hesitant as he’d been at first, Asuka hadn’t done anything to cause him trouble so far. If anything, he could sense some competitive spirit in her, wanting to make it through the course without mistakes.
The bell chimed again, and Asuka squeezed his arm. “This one’s a balance beam, okay?”
He took a deep breath. She’d been whispering to him a few times, that people had fallen off or stumbled quite a bit on this one.
“Okay Kenta,” she said, and it sent a pleasing tingle down his spine, hearing her slip up with the names. She didn’t seem to notice. “Lift your right foot. It’s higher than you’ll expect.”
He lifted his leg, feeling out with the tip of his sneaker until he found it. “Wow.”
“Right?”
Somehow, he managed to get up there, one foot in front of the other. “This is scary,” he mumbled, feeling badly for how hard he squeezed her hand in that moment.
“Is it easier if I let go? For your balance?”
He tried letting her go, sliding his foot out a few inches and teetering precariously. “Asuka, Asuka, Asuka,” he hissed, limbs flailing in seconds, and then somehow she was there. There on the balance beam with him, because he heard the thing creak a bit with her added weight.
Her hands were holding his then, her voice close. “I’ll step back, you step forward. Trust me, okay?”
“It’s dangerous,” he mumbled, his legs trembling.
“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” She sounded incredibly serious. “I won’t let you fall.”
And astonishingly, she didn’t. Though their progress was slow and he nearly stumbled once or twice, her voice and her hands pulled him along. The room around them had been noisy, chaotic, but as they progressed further across the beam, that all seemed to fall away. He knew only the calm tones of her voice, the feeling of her hands in his. He felt like they were the only people around for miles. That there was only Asuka, who told him to trust her. He had, for so long now.
“We’re at the end now. I’m going to step down.” He felt her move, his arms dropping. “Do you want to step down or jump down?”
“Jumping would be showing off, right?”
“It would,” she agreed.
“Okay, coming down.” He tightened his grip, and put one foot out, gently hopping down. He jerked suddenly when another hand, a non-Asuka hand, patted him on the back. He whirled around, letting out a little shout.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Aisawa-san!” It was Kagawa-san, rubbing his shoulder awkwardly. “I’m so sorry to interrupt, but that was really incredible to watch. I don’t think any of the couples have done the balance beam together before.”
“It was my idea,” Asuka piped up. “I figure he’d never listen to me if I was on the ground. He’s…he’s always been clumsy.”
“You’d never know it, watching the two of you,” Kagawa said, and Kenta felt his cheeks flush at his comment. “I can see that you’re already well on your way to rebuilding. Keep it up, you’re doing great.”
He left them alone, and Asuka rested her hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we should make a mistake. Or two.”
Despite that, they made it through the rest of the course without so much as a stumble, and when Kenta was finally allowed to take his blindfold off, blinking in the sudden return of daylight, the first thing he saw was Asuka, scribbling wildly in her notepad. When she looked up at him, he saw her smile. It was a smile he loved. He wanted to tell her how much he loved it. But he still…he still couldn’t…
“You did admirably, Masaki-san.”
“You were a good partner.”
She let out an unreadable little “hmm” noise in response, looking back to her notepad. For the last hour, he’d placed his trust in Asuka, entirely, totally. It had felt good, and it had felt right. Around them he saw frustrated faces, bickering couples. And in front of him, he saw someone he knew he needed. Not just wanted, but needed.
He just didn’t know the right words to say.
-
Since most of the couples seemed a little tired after the obstacle course, the Let’s Talk program continued on with another visit to the lecture room set-up. A video screen had been brought into the room, and Kagawa introduced the next part of the course. They were going to watch a series of short videos, interviews with couples “just like them” who were struggling. The couples would explain how they overcame their problems.
“For a program called Let’s Talk,” he saw Asuka write on her notepad, “we haven’t done much talking yet.”
He leaned over with his pen, drawing a frowning face on her paper. “You have bad handwriting!” he wrote, earning himself a little smack in the arm.
Following the videos was lunch, and thankfully, Sakai Haruko had made friends with another couple, or, more likely, had bullied her way into a new group since she’d had little luck with luring in Aisawa Masaki with her wiles. The couple they sat with was in a pretty bad mood, the husband complaining about the food while the wife mostly sat in silence. Not everyone was liking the Let’s Talk curriculum.
As the plates were cleared, Kagawa got on the microphone again, a shrill little noise whining through the restaurant. “Sorry about that! Many apologies, sorry! I hope everyone’s had a good meal?”
Some applause throughout the room served as a pretty tepid response. Kenta clapped, if only because he thought the food was actually darn good.
“Now that your bellies are full, it’s time to fill your minds!”
He watched Asuka scribble the words “so cheesy!” in her notepad.
“It’s time for one of the highlights of our Let’s Talk weekend. Private Couple Time! Now it’s not what you’re thinking…”
Some uncomfortable laughs filled the room, although Sakai Haruko’s was the loudest and least uncomfortable.
Kagawa-san continued. “It’s a little one-on-one time, now that you’ve been through the Love Obstacles and you’ve seen what other couples just like you have endured. I want each and every one of you to use Private Couple Time to air out all your troubles. Think of it like taking out the futon and giving it a good thrashing, a thorough cleaning of what’s currently ailing in your marriage.”
“Air your troubles out like a futon?????” Asuka wrote in her notepad, and Kenta nearly choked on his tea. He leaned over, uncapping his own pen to add five more question marks. Asuka added a few more, and they kept it up until Asuka had to flip to another page to keep it going, and he failed to hold in a chuckle.
“Aisawa-san?” Kenta looked up, seeing Kagawa’s smiling face aimed directly at him. Others were turning around, looking at him curiously. He froze, his pen still poised over Asuka’s notepad. “Aisawa-san, did you have a question?”
“N-no…no, please excuse me,” he said, mortified.
Kagawa looked elsewhere. “Any questions about Private Couple Time? It’s your time, to use as you best see fit. Take advantage of this time. This is your marriage! This is vital, so important!”
As the other couples got to their feet, escorted from the room by the staff, Asuka primly capped her pen and closed her notepad. He leaned forward, sighing. “That was embarrassing,” he mumbled, and that was when Asuka let out a noisy laugh that warmed him through and through. It took a while for her to stop, and there were tears in her eyes when she got to her feet.
A few other couples were looking at them strangely, but soon enough they were alone, each couple told to go to their room for Private Couple Time, that they would be expected back by 2:00 in the afternoon and would be retrieved if they lost track of time.
The resort’s housekeeping staff had tidied the room in their absence, and he was happy to see that all of Asuka’s scattered items had been folded up, settled next to her bag. Their futons had been put away, leaving the room almost as neat as they’d found it upon yesterday’s arrival.
Asuka quickly pulled hers back out of the cabinet, booting up her laptop once she had things laid out to her satisfaction again. She gestured with her hand at the table, and Kenta rolled his eyes, picking up the bag of suckers. He walked over, holding out the bag and she took one, unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth while she opened up her writing program.
“Isn’t this Private Couple Time?” he asked as Asuka opened her notepad, clearly set to type up all her notes from the morning session.
She looked over, grinning and pointing her sucker at him. “Now’s a good time for the onsen, don’t you think? If you want to go, I won’t tell Kagawa-san.”
He shook his head. “I’ll just…stick around here.”
“Suit yourself!”
He let Asuka type, occupying himself with a game on his phone that didn’t require Internet access. When he ran out of the lives that the game supplied for free, he pulled open the balcony door and went outside. It was chillier out here in the mountains, but not unbearably so, and Kenta felt refreshed when the crisp air met his skin.
He leaned against the balcony rail, finding the sweet spot where he was able to catch a signal. He found himself sending an email to his mother and Nana, being purposely unhelpful in the details he supplied, writing only about the good food and the relaxing onsen.
Send me a picture! came a reply from his mother within moments.
He held up his phone, smirking. Forest View was exactly that, so his mother got a photo full of branches and leaves and bark.
The reply to that was Did you know that your Papa proposed to me while we were on a hike in the forest? It was a very romantic place to do so!
He scowled at his phone, considered going back inside so he wouldn’t be able to reply, but he pressed on anyhow. He could still hear Asuka’s fingers tapping away on her laptop behind him.
I don’t need those details about you and Dad.
Before he knew it, Nana had hijacked the conversation, creating a group message among the three of them. Hi Nii-chan! I’ve always wanted a sister!
Nana, you have never said this before in your life.
Nii-chan, are you and Asuka-chan sharing a bed????
He almost let out a growl, tempted to fling his phone off the balcony and into the woods. He wondered if Nana would be this annoying after she made her big move to Shizuoka. She most likely would, since she’d still have access to a cell phone.
You’re a crazy person! Why would you ask such a thing?
Don’t speak that way to your sister! his mother chimed in, managing to find an emoji of an angry face to make her point.
For the record, I am not proposing to Asuka. We are not even dating!
Please say hello to Asuka-chan! his mother responded diplomatically. But maybe, Kenta, you could make some happy memories!
Bad signal. GOODBYE!
He turned his phone completely off, stepping back into the room. Asuka was still using Private Couple Time as work time, so Kenta sat with his elbow on the table, chin in hand. She eventually looked up, grinning at him.
“You look really angry. What’s wrong?”
He couldn’t exactly say why, just shrugging. “I’m stuck on a level in my game. It’s not a big deal.”
She bit her lip, eyes sparkling in amusement. “I see. Well, we still have an hour of Private Couple Time and…”
“Ohhhhhhh!”
Asuka shut her eyes, hands gripping her futon. “No, I need to write!” she complained as Haruko and her husband once again proved themselves to be the worst neighbors possible.
“Ear plugs?” Kenta suggested.
She sighed. “But what about you?”
“I’ll manage,” he grumbled, knowing he probably couldn’t escape the room. He expected members of Kagawa-san’s staff to be patrolling the halls, ensuring that Private Couple Time was enforced.
While Asuka jammed the little orange plugs into her ears, Kenta dug through his bag, finding the sketchpad he’d brought along. Haruko’s noise continued for an agonizingly long time, but he did his best to distract himself. Keeping the sliding door shut in case their noisy sex-obsessed neighbors had theirs open to punish the local wildlife, he sketched the trees, the balcony, the door. It wasn’t the most artistically inspiring view, and once Haruko quieted down again, he turned, setting his sketchpad down on the table.
Before he realized it, he started sketching the room, Asuka’s bag and her pile of colorful clothes. Her socks, her laptop, and soon she was on his page. He’d never been as skillful with drawing people from life, especially when he was trying not to stare, but as the afternoon dragged on, she started to appear. Rough pencil, her nose not quite right, but her hair tucked behind her ear was close to truth, the stick of her sucker still poking out of her mouth long after she finished it.
She didn’t seem to notice that he was staring at her, watching every few moments before darting his gaze away. He didn’t quite have the skill to capture her perfectly, and it frustrated him. Private Couple Time ended up being rather solitary for the both of them, the sounds of Asuka typing and Kenta’s scratching pencil filling the silence. He was starting to fill in some details, was redoing her chin a bit when she closed her laptop.
“It’s 2:00!” she announced, setting her computer aside.
He looked up, panicking as he saw her eyes look over at the table. “We should go then. Back…back to the session.”
“What are you drawing? Something for work?”
“No, no, it’s nothing,” he said, heart racing as he hurriedly closed his sketchpad, forcing it back awkwardly into his bag when she got to her feet.
“I’ll just use the washroom then, and we can head back.”
“Sure.”
When she closed the bathroom door, he tugged his pad back out, gently ripping the sketch of her out. He doubted she’d actually go through his stuff, but better safe than sorry. He folded it up, her unfinished chin and imperfect nose, and stuck it into the back pocket of his jeans instead. It was unlikely she’d find much excuse to put her hand there, although the thought of that…
The toilet flushed, and Kenta was saved from finishing that thought.
part three