Okay, I thought that I would be quicker and I wasn't... sorry to those who are still interested in this story, it's just that summer's heat increases laziness
. Anyway, chapter 2 is here! And it's long enough... Enjoy!
Chapter 2“God, stuck in an elevator with Tanaka… Scary as hell,” Sayumi laughed loudly, at least loud enough to make herself being noticed by the people sitting at the table next to theirs, who muttered something like sounded way to close to ‘how rude’. Sayumi responded to that with a death glare. “I bet you fainted because you thought that she was going to bite you.”
“Oh, god, she isn’t that bad…” Ai rolled her eyes. “She is just…
special.”
“Bad or good, special or ordinary, I just know that the whole agency prefers not to keep contact with her.”
“They exaggerate.”
Sayumi raised an eyebrow at the firmness of her friend’s voice. She had just seen her defend someone so courageously once, one of that unfortunate times when Sayumi, who had probably drunk too much, told Ai what she thought about her relationship with Risa.
But well, she couldn’t blame Ai for defending such a friend.
They knew each other since Ai had came to Tokyo for the first time, before returning to Fukui. She didn’t know anyone, and the other had treated her like if she was family.
But Tanaka? Why?
“Hey,” Sayumi decided to ask Ai directly. “Why do you defend her so much?”
“Nah,” Ai responded lazily while taking a sip at her drink. “I can tell she’s a good girl.”
Sayumi could tell that her friend wasn’t being completely sincere to her. She was about to complain about that, but got distracted by a certain person that was looking at them from the other side of the dimly lit bar.
“Oh my god, look at that one!” Sayumi exclaimed in a hushed tone. “And she’s looking this way…”
Ai turned her head around slightly, enough to catch a good glimpse at the short-haired girl that Sayumi was talking about, but also enough to be discreet and go unnoticed by her.
She was getting good at this. Definitely.
“Wow,” she whispered, moving her head once again to look back at Sayu. “She’s beautiful.”
Ai could swear that she had seen something click in Sayumi’s eyes as the younger sipped on her drink, pretending to be calm and composed. It wouldn’t take Ai a lot of time to figure out that it was pure fury, caused by jealousy.
“I saw her first.” Sayumi muttered under her breath.
“Oh, please. Don’t be such a child,” the older snickered amusedly. “You didn’t see her first,” she finished with a huge smile, which Sayumi found somewhat obnoxious.
“I did see her first!”
“That’s not true! I actually noticed her when she entered the bar… it’s just that she looks more beautiful now that you’re interested in her.”
“Aichan!” Sayumi whined piteously. “That’s not fair! It’s easier for you to find someone… and besides, you’ll always have the lawyer…”
Ai mentally froze at that last sentence. She didn’t like it when Risa’s subject suddenly came up out of nowhere, and she liked it even less when she was out with Sayumi looking forward to meeting new people. She sighed, managing to appear calm, and decided to make up a new plan before the younger started to sulk even more.
“Okay, calm down… Let’s do something new…” Ai spoke up. “I don’t want her to notice us staring… Is she still looking at us?” Sayumi tilted her head to the side a little to see the girl. She nodded slightly. “Good. She was talking to some girl… They’re still talking?”
“Yeah… A friend, maybe?”
“Maybe…” Ai agreed with cheerful voice. “That’s great! We’ll approach them now. The one she talks to first is the winner.”
“Done.”
“Okay, let’s go!” Ai stood up, turned around and was about to start walking towards the pretty girl’s direction when Sayumi took her by the hand, forcing the older to look at her.
“Wait a minute,” she mumbled darkly. “The one who stands nearer to her might have an advantage over the other…”
Ai rolled her eyes and smiled.
“You can have the advantage.”
“Good,” Sayumi grinned. “Let’s go!”
The pair skittered among the very few people that there were in the bar. It was obvious that it wasn’t weekend yet, but the place was crowded enough to have a good amount of people to talk to. Some of them already knew them and threw knowing smiles towards Ai in the way, some others at Sayumi, and some even to them both.
Ai smiled back, of course. Sayumi chose not to. And watching the younger’s election made Ai wonder what was the point behind trying to make so many acquaintances. Why were they there? Why did they do this? Did they need it? Did she needed it?
What had made her go to the bar the first day she entered there, in the first place?
Thinking about that made Ai realise that she couldn’t answer those questions. She shuddered inwardly, but broke from her trance as soon as she noticed that they had already reached their desired destination.
She couldn’t go back now.
“Hi,” the pretty girl spoke up first. “I’m Kamei Eri.”
She looked at Ai, and extended her hand towards her first, even though Sayumi was right beside her. Ai shook hands with her and heard Sayumi muttering something that sounded too much like ‘fuck’.
“Takahashi Ai,” she smiled and decided to introduce the sulking Sayumi as well. “My grumpy friend is called Sayumi.”
“Michishige Sayumi,” the younger remarked with a vindictive tone in her voice as Ai shook hands with the other girl, named Mitsui Aika. She hadn’t lost yet; she would have the chance to show that she was as interesting as Ai might appear at first sight. “Want to have a drink with us?”
“Sure.” Eri smiled at her and Sayumi could feel her knees literally going weak.
***
A while later they found themselves chatting about random topics that had pretty came up thanks to the natural flow of the conversation, and also thanks to the fact that they were somewhat tipsy at the moment. But they were still sane. Aika had already left; the girl had to attend to some university classes early in the morning.
“Well, what can you tell me about yourselves?” Eri said suddenly.
“Huh?” Sayumi asked, her eloquence had been already left behind, probably also due to the alcohol. Ai laughed.
“I know what you mean, we’ve pretty much only talked about you and Aika,” she smiled at Eri, who nodded enthusiastically in response. “Well, let’s start with our profession: we’re photographers.”
“Really?” The girl asked, seeming pleasantly surprised. “That’s cool, what kind of photographers?”
“We work for a talent’s agency…” Ai explained. “We take photographs of models, idols, singers, entertainers…”
“That’s amazing!”
“It isn’t that amazing, to be honest…” Sayumi laughed. “Sometimes it’s such a pain to work with them…”
“Ah, I can understand that, I guess… Celebrities are pretty eccentric, right?”
“Right,” Ai and Sayumi said at the same time.
“And how did you start working there?”
“Well, it’s a pretty long story…” Ai responded as she scratched the back of her head in what Eri thought it was an adorable way.
“Can’t you make it shorter?” The girl pleaded clapping her hands together.
“Can’t you, Aichan~?” Sayumi impersonated Eri.
“Okay…” Ai sighed before taking a long drink from her glass. She cleared her voice. “Well, I think we haven’t told you yet that we aren’t from Tokyo.”
“I kinda noticed that…” Eri laughed. “You’ve used your accent quite a couple of times…”
“Really? Well… That’s a natural phenomenon, I guess,” Ai smiled amusedly. “I’m from Fukui, and Sayu’s from Yamaguchi, but she moved to Fukui when she was 12.”
“So you met there?” Ai and Sayumi nodded, and the youngest of the three took the lead.
“We attended the same school, and lived near each other… So we became friends, and discovered that we both loved taking photographs,” Sayumi smiled at the distant memories. “We started doing that together.”
“A lot?”
“We didn’t do anything else from photography in our free time,” Ai laughed. “We both knew that we wanted to do this professionally, so when I turned 22 I came to Tokyo. Sayumi was still 19, so I left her behind.”
“You guys seem close,” Eri said turning to look at the younger. “Didn’t you feel sad?”
“I did,” Sayumi nodded. “But well, she was back soon enough.”
“You went back to Fukui?”
“Yeah,” it was Ai’s turn to nod. “I spent here about two years, working for the same agency we work for now, and doing the same thing that I do now. Then I arrived at Fukui again. We spent there another three years trying to pursue some bigger projects of our own but—”
“But it wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be, and we came here to work for the talent agency,” Sayumi finished for her. “It’s not a really creative or artistic work, but the payment is good for our age.”
“How old are you?” Eri asked.
“I’m twenty-eight,” Ai said.
“And I’m twenty-five.” Sayumi grinned, feeling superior for being younger. “And you are…?”
“Twenty-six,” Eri smiled back. “But why did you go back to Fukui then?” She asked Ai suddenly, not quite getting the story.
“Because the work wasn’t that creative,” Ai lied quickly, making a good use of her friend’s earlier explanation.
Eri tilted her head to the side, seeming somewhat unsatisfied with the explanation. She smiled mischievously and Ai raised an eyebrow, even though she didn’t expect what was going to come.
“I bet that you went back to Fukui after breaking up with someone or something.”
Ai showed an expression of utter terror for a moment before starting to laugh nervously. The face that she had showed was absolutely imperceptible for the human eye, but both Sayumi and Ai were photographers, it was their job to analyze expressions, and the younger had known her for a while. Sayumi froze for a second before starting to laugh with the others, but she made a mental note to herself to ask Ai about that later.
She wouldn’t have to wait much, anyway. Eri’s cell rang, and she excused herself for a moment, promising to be back in a few minutes after making a couple of calls.
When she was gone, Sayumi turned to look at her long-time friend.
“I saw your face when Eri joked about that break-up thing…” She said accusingly. “It’s true, right? That’s why you were so weird when you came back… I knew that you were hiding something! But I couldn’t tell what it was…” Ai said nothing, and Sayumi took that as a confirmation. “I thought you weren’t the type that would leave a place after a rupture…”
“It wasn’t like that, alright? I didn’t leave just because of the break-up!” Ai defended herself. “I’m not that stupid…”
“Yeah, whatever…” Sayumi said, finishing her drink in one go. “And… who was it? Do I know her?”
Ai looked down at the table. Suddenly, she felt weak. Maybe she really needed to tell someone about that… maybe it was time to speak about it and move on… Or maybe speaking would make her feel more stuck on her than she was now.
Anyway, Sayumi was her friend. She was fucking annoying sometimes, but she could trust her blindly.
And maybe saying who it was out loud for the first time would make her feel better after all she had gone through.
Or maybe she was just more drunk than what she had initially thought.
“Reina…” she mumbled.
Sayumi’s eyes widened. She had expected to hear the lawyer’s name.
“What?”
“You heard it.”
Sayumi didn’t know what to say. She just wanted to tease her friend a little, give her a hand to help her sort things out with Risa, but now Ai really looked down. And they were talking about Tanaka… What the hell could have happened between those two? How could have it happened in the first place?
“Were you… serious?”
Ai massaged her temples before burying her face in her palms. It took her a while to speak up.
“Yeah…”
“But serious like… Like with the lawyer?” Sayumi inquired.
“No,” she responded firmly. “Gaki’s relationship with me isn’t like that…”She sighed. “And you know that.”
“I don’t mean to be indiscreet, okay?” Sayumi said concerned. “But were you… official?”
Ai rubbed the back of her neck and closed her eyes.
“Technically, yes.”
“So that’s why you didn’t want to come back here, rig--?”
“Listen Sayumi,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” Sayumi said defensively, but her curiosity had rocketed due to the alcohol. “Just one more question… Why did you break up?”
“It was a complicated relationship…” Ai said concisely.
She was getting angry.
“I understand…” Sayumi nodded. “You know what? I always thought that you weren’t made for compromise… maybe that’s why your relationship failed.” She said, forgetting completely that Ai hated it when someone questioned her capability to act like an adult. “But I’m rooting for you to ask the lawyer out, that would work for sure.”
That was it.
Ai stood up and shot Sayumi a death glare. She didn’t need to be reminded of Risa at that moment. Besides, the temperature was too hot in the bar, she was getting irritated. She was also irritated by the fact that she was there, getting drunk when she should be sorting things out with other people. Not only with Risa and Reina.
She was irritated by herself.
And she was confused.
And tired.
“I’m not in the mood for this, sorry Sayu.”
“Hey, where are you going?” Sayumi stood up too. Ai placed some bills on the table, turned around and started walking towards the door.
“Nowhere…” she responded without looking back.
“Ai? What about Eri?”
“She’s all yours.”
“Hey! Wait up!”
Sayumi ran towards the door and saw Eri still talking on the phone. Ai was nowhere in sight.
Topic: Here I am - Chapter 2 (07/31/12) (Read 3928 times)