NAKANO BROADWAY

Kyou

Kyou was dwarfed by the two images hanging before her. They were opulently framed and protected by beautifully reflective glass. It was in this glass that she watched Natsuko’s hasty retreat from the gallery. It was bad. Dramatic. No one had told her that the portraits had been taken. It was only a small dealer’s gallery, easy to make a scene in. Kyou didn’t turn. She didn’t have to while the scene was reflected darkly before her.

She overheard the words Natsuko spat: “Like, you really must be an artist. It doesn’t even look like him.”

The public had just started spilling through the doors. Kai, for the amusement of Mamiko and her set, had been booked as a waiter for the opening event and, more importantly, the exclusive after-party. It hadn’t felt good, getting dressed while receiving various check in messages confirming her arrival time, the dress code, and that she would be present with the other nondescript waitstaff to be informed of material facts such as the correct operation of the dishwasher, the location of cleaning products, and where to place crates of rented glassware, the caterers’ platters, the rubbish bins. 

Ever since Antoinette Kutsuki had gallantly threatened Senka with nondescript ruin—and Kyou had had to swear loyalty to remain employed—life at Ganymede had become painful. Her loyalty, it was decided, would be demonstrated by bumping up her time with top-tier clients. Money and boredom was a despicable combination; the drugs were harder, and the sex was riskier. Every shift, Kyou felt the walls closing in, nausea coming on with dizzying speed, arms wrapping around her neck, thighs closing around her face. And every morning, the ping of a new phone notification put her on edge. Senka was trying to break her. They both knew it. It might have been the challenge alone that kept Kyou showering, dressing, and showing up. The amusement would have to wear off for Senka sooner or later. Ideally sooner. 

Now was not the time to suffer a wage cut. Kyou’s aunt had started asking whether she might be able to send more money. The therapy was going well, finally, with a practitioner to whom her mother had taken a shine. But the seeming impossibility of this result was accompanied by a near-prohibitive cost. Kai’s standard wage wouldn’t be enough. What was she to do? It wasn’t really a choice. If this could be the chance—the beautiful, golden opportunity—for her mother to find her lost words—well. Wasn’t that the point of all of this? The perfume and skin and misery and bile? The woeful tales and stealthy exits and long taxi rides? The pain in her jaw and forearms and knowing looks from convenience store staff when she bought cigarettes and beer at 3am?

On bad nights, cheek against bathroom tile in an unfamiliar apartment, Kyou needed to repeat this to herself. Someday she would exist, and Kai could evaporate.

On bad nights, washing out her mouth, looking over the cup of toothbrushes denoting more family members than had been admitted to, she thought of The Moment. She imagined the moment that her mother spoke. Her voice would be serene. She would be calm and composed, with language remembered and anxiety forgotten. She would be able to explain panic attacks like they were bad weather. It would all be different. She would look at Kyou directly, smile softly, and say, “I had always meant to tell you. Your father’s name is—”

 —Something. Someone of Somewhere.

And then that would be it. Kyou would have an identity, a family register to attach herself to. Everything would grow from there. She never spent too long envisioning how the identified man might respond; that was usually the part where the lustre of her hope clouded over. It was too scary. So she came back again and again to The Moment, to  her mother. The Moments would prove her efforts worthwhile.

Ganymede had sponsored a few bad nights of late. And now Kai had fought with Natsuko—or the other way around. Kai wasn’t one for fighting. The disagreement probably wasn’t a bad thing if it meant the end; finding availability around her extra client bookings wasn’t getting any easier. Still, Kyou had hoped for a quieter, more amicable split. It was nicer when there was a natural parting of ways, a drift rather than a rift. 

Their conversation had been unexpected. The worst part wasn’t so much anything Natsuko had said, but the look she had given her. 

Ana, who had evidently invited her sister-in-law, was conveniently absent.

Natsuko had entered the gallery and simply looked at the two photos of Kyou. Then she saw Kai's reflection on their surface, and asked, “When did you have these taken?” And then, before Kyou could answer, “Does my brother know?”

Kyou, slightly taken aback at the second question, faltered. “I mean, I don’t know what she discusses with—”

“Do you two know each other?”

“Well—how do you mean?”

It seemed to have been the wrong thing to say, because Natsuko fell uncommonly silent. Kyou winced to watch her read the artist’s statement, willing the connection not to be made.

Between the two images was the pinned sheet that read:

Kutsuki, Antoinette. ‘Tanabata,’ 2017

For a few months when I was seventeen, I had a correspondent who wrote me stories. I’d been having a difficult time, for reasons that were common (university entrance) and reasons that were uncommon (I can’t say). It had been a long time since I had been comforted by stories; I lost my mother when I was seven, and my father has never troubled himself with such things. 

Even so, as a seventeen-year-old, these stories carried me over. 

My favourite, and the most romantic of these, was sent in two parts. Two cards were sent on the 7th of July for the Tanabata festival. Of course, the story associated with the star festival is romantic in itself; Orihime and Hikoboshi, who love each other to distraction, are divinely separated. Finally, out of mercy, they are permitted an annual opportunity to cross the Milky Way and meet. A kind of elemental Romeo and Juliet, I suppose. But that’s not what moved me.

The story I was sent felt like permission to love or reconnect with oneself; all the pure and impure elements might yet belong together. I began to believe that even I, with my own blend of magnificence and monstrosity, could be loved.

 

What followed was the story of a woman in a fortress and the foolish man who found her. It was a story that Kyou had, once upon a time, copied out onto a pair of postcards, addressing them to a house that she had never entered.

“She’s so strange,” Natsuko said, seemingly more to  herself than to Kyou. “I never understand what her art writing means. It just seems to get weirder. My brother’s worried about her. Did you know that? He thinks she needs to go to a therapist.”

“Hm,” Kyou responded uselessly.

“I guess you need to work,”’ Natsuko sighed. “You do a lot of work these days.”

“You know what I do,” said Kyou. “You know who I am.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” Natsuko looked back at the photos and then away again quickly, as though something in them burnt her. And she walked back to the entrance.

Ana, evidently, had arrived in time to receive Natsuko’s passing barb: “You really must be an artist. It doesn’t even look like him.”

Mamiko’s voice rang out. “Mrs. Kutsuki!” 

Kyou watched in the reflection as Mamiko raised her arms in greeting. It appeared to be less of a personal acknowledgement and more of an all-encompassing call: the welcome of an evangelical leader recalling a wayward member of their flock. Praise the Lord! You have arrived, my foolish, sinning child. 

Kyou thought she caught Ana eyeing her back, but moved off into the kitchen. She wasn’t really in the mood. Should it really have fallen to Kyou to let Natsuko know about the pictures? Ana had invited her, so why no forewarning? 

The clusters of guests thickened. They appeared not to be the types to expect silver-platter service. Instead, they were around Kyou’s age, recent graduates trying to break into the art world. Overall, a friendly collection of beatniks and outcasts discussing matters with early-evening fervour. They always stopped to acknowledge Kyou: to look her in the eye and thank her as she offered glasses and canapes and napkins. They acted as though she may well be one of their colleagues in disguise, making a buck until the next painting or statuette sold. 

She didn’t deserve it, though Kyou was no stranger to art. The residents of Bijushima had made a point of improving their collective knowledge when the galleries were installed. A visiting academic had delivered free education sessions at the Musée de la Mer on art history and current trends. Amusingly, the attendees of these sessions had been predominantly locals rather than international visitors. Led by Kyou’s aunt, they arrived in their unfashionable clothes with their glasses and notebooks and earnestly expectant expressions. The lecturer had loved it. Kyou hadn’t, really, but the information had helped when she worked as a guide.

In the present exhibition—one for students and emerging artists—Kyou could identify with some confidence which works had the shine of those destined for greatness. For the most part they did not. But certainly, the well-crafted and pleasant pieces would suit a gallery shop. That was doing well these days. 

Kyou didn’t know what to think about the photos of herself. They made her breath catch. They dominated the room. Every so often, someone would make the connection  between her face and the one on the wall, and a rustle of whispers and nods in her direction would follow. Maybe a smile. It wasn’t particularly comfortable. But that was unimportant. Kyou had a job that night. Empty glasses were starting to appear on surfaces and she set about gathering them, moving pointedly away from Ana.

“Are you the artist?” A tall man stopped Kyou, handing over the tumbler she was reaching for with a jingle of his wrist. He had plucked eyebrows and two even rows of white teeth.

“Not at all,” Kyou answered. “Just waitstaff. Did you need a top-up?”

“I just love these,” he said, ignoring her question. “I think they’ve already sold a couple copies. I can only afford one, but I can’t choose. You look decisive. Which would you have?” He inclined his head toward the wall from which her own face looked back in duplicate.

Kyou reluctantly turned, almost forgetting the glasses in her hands. It was enough of a pause to allow Ana’s inevitable approach. Concern pinched at her features. ‘Did Nastuko say something?’ she seemed to ask.

Kyou looked back at the wall. She didn’t know how to answer the man’s question. One photo appeared to be of Kai, and one appeared to be of Kyou. That anyone would contemplate purchasing the image of her made no sense; Kai was the one that clients paid to see. Kai made people laugh and feel seen. Kai had friends and followers and posters and flyers within Ganymede. Kai had more of an existence than she did, and perhaps ever would. If she disappeared altogether, it would go unnoticed except perhaps by Yasu. Maybe Shay. Otherwise, Kyou Nakajima had become more of a fiction than her alter-ego. And her alter-ego was a shell.

“It’s very strange to look at.” Kyou said to the man as Ana joined their conversation circle, smiling distractedly. “A bit like a movie, isn’t it? But here is the actual artist—she would be the one to ask.” And Kyou ducked away towards the kitchen.

“You’ve captured something we all feel,” she heard the man say. “That desire to be perceived as ourselves and as something other. A role. A figure that cannot be…” His words became faint as Kyou weaved through bodies.

In the kitchenette, a stout, flushed girl was huffing tiredly through the steam of a freshly-opened dishwasher.

“Time for your break,” Kyou said, and then, before the girl could protest: “Mamiko’s orders. You’ve been working hard lately. She’s noticed. We all have.”

The girl gave a shy little nod, then began fumbling with the apron knot at her back, just out of reach. Someone else must have fastened it. Kyou moved behind her, stroked away her dishwasher’s hands, and loosened the tie. She slipped the apron straps from the girl's shoulders, then turned her back around. 

The girl seemed to freeze. Had that been too much?

“There you go,” Kyou said. “All set.” 

The girl looked up at her as if that statement had been too vague. Kyou dug a hand into her pocket and handed over her cigarette case and a lighter.

“Relax. Take your time. I’ll come and find you when you’re needed back.”

The girl left, her heel catching on the door as she went.

The kitchen was small, yellow-lit, and, unlike the freshly-painted gallery, smelled of the fust of years of microwaved lunches and cheap detergent. The windows were fogged up, and dead insects lay scattered on the sills. It probably hadn’t been properly cleaned since it had been bought. Kyou set to work arranging the steaming glassware into soldier-like rows for the next round of drinkers. When the dishwasher’s cages had been restocked with lipstick-rimmed vessels and grimy crockery and the rolling whoosh of the next load had started, Kyou wrung out a cloth and pushed it through the layers of grease and dust that topped forgotten surfaces. The fridge. The microwave. The sills. Given enough time, Ana Kutsuki would leave, and Kyou would be free to be Kai. On just another work night. With just another set of top-tier clients.

From the gallery came the sounds of the owner calling for quiet and the attendant hush. Kyou paused in her scrubbing.

“Welcome, dear guests. I am so pleased to meet so many new faces. What a beautiful night to celebrate Rainbow Fest!”

There was polite applause.

“We are very happy to support artists in our community. Such exciting work from emerging practitioners! I look forward to further discussions with all those I haven’t yet had a chance to corner. This evening I also have the pleasure of thanking one of our key sponsors, whose work is also represented here tonight—and has sold out, I see! What a result! Please join me in welcoming Ana Kutsuki, artist and representative of the Ito Arts Trust.”

More applause. So she was bankrolling this exhibition as well?

“Thank you,” Ana’s voice began, formally. “And thank you to my fellow artists. As many of you may be aware, the Ito Arts Trust was established around 20 years ago. It funds projects for established artists exhibiting across Japan, as well as issuing grants to emerging artists dedicated to the pursuit of excellence. The submissions review board was easily convinced to sponsor this event after seeing the sample images and biographies of artists from some of Tokyo’s most prestigious institutions.”

“But tell us about your piece!” The voice of the proprietor cut in.

“My piece?” Ana answered. Kyou could imagine her surprised smile. “I suppose I don’t think of it as mine. It was a collaboration. Is that strange to say?”

The room was so quiet that her voice almost echoed.

“I don’t typically work in portraiture,” she continued, “or photography, for that matter. But it seemed right at the time.”

“Your usual medium is light installation, isn’t that right?” the proprietor prompted.

“Yes. I work with light. But I suppose photography is also a study in light, isn’t it? And having a model introduces a different dynamic.”

“The muse! Yes, how was that?”

“My muse?” Ana asked. 

Kyou held her breath. Why did these friends of Mamiko’s have to be such creeps?

“I suppose she is. Yes,” Ana said. “It is a different dynamic. It’s—intimate. As a photographer, you master the shot. The sitter is at your mercy. But you don’t have control of your sitter. Not totally. She arrives with her own posture, her style, her moods and thoughts. So you are simultaneously at her mercy. And after the pictures are taken, and the tests printed—and those were larger than life—there are hours of scrutinising the surface, sometimes on your knees, for light artefacts or dust motes to be burnt out. And then you’re carefully putting on cloth gloves, carefully running your hands over the final work. Then it is mounted behind glass, separate from you again. And all the while, you are being watched back by this image and unable to ask her—is this how she felt? Does she see herself in this light? Was it the right thing to do?”

Again, silence answered.

“So I think of it as a collaboration. There is no work without the model. No, honestly. In this case, I am sure that the arresting element is not a reflection of my talent. You would know. If you have met her, you would know. In any room, she just—she draws the light in. It’s hard to look away.”

Kyou turned on the tap and let the roar of water block out any further misguided profundity. It was sickening. A muse. A muse with grey grease beneath her fingernails, stale steam destroying her hairstyle and perfuming her clothes. What horseshit. 

After innumerable wash cycles of cleared trays and emptied glasses, the sound from the gallery quieted down from of a full crowd to a few scattered conversationalists. Kyou rolled her shoulders, which clicked and snapped like a broken toy. She ached from hunching over the sink. When she escaped the kitchen, it was with the first of the caterer’s crates, which had to be stacked outside the back entrance, away from the gallery. With a little luck, the original kitchen hand would be in the alley, skulking amongst the bins, minding her cigarettes. Kyou shouldered open the door and almost tripped down the few stairs abutted by trash cans and bundles of decommissioned bubble wrap. She wandered along the wall seeking a clear half-metre to start stacking. A cigarette would be a fine thing. The kitchen hand couldn’t be far.

But that would have been too easy. Instead, from across the lane, Ana Kutsuki’s voice announced, “We’ve sold out.”

Kyou didn’t turn, dropping a heavy stack of platters with a threatening rattle. “We?”

“I think of the work as ours. That’s how I described it.” She stepped closer.

“I heard how you described it. ‘Intimate.’ ‘Master.’ ‘Mercy.’ ‘Mounting.’” Kyou wiped her hands on the front of her apron and turned. “People could get the wrong idea.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Ana was apparently amused. “But it’s open to interpretation.”

She moved into the light that fell from the storeroom window. She was dressed as elegantly as she had been for the show at the tower, looking every bit the corporate ambassador. She held a bottle of champagne in one hand and extended two flutes with the other. Kyou took the glasses, holding still while they were filled to the top and slightly over, leaving foam to bubble up and trickle over her fingers. 

“Natsuko brought this as a gift.” Ana said, stepping to stand alongside Kyou. “We should enjoy it.”

“She didn’t seem to enjoy it. I didn’t know she was coming.” 

“Why wouldn’t she?” Ana sipped.

“Why invite her and not tell her that you’d—about taking the pictures?”

“You didn’t tell her?”

“You knew I didn’t tell her,” Kyou answered.

“Hm.” Ana looked over the road and up to an apartment where television light flickered on drawn blinds. “My muse, huh?”

Kyou drank then and scanned the same apartment block. “I suppose it’s a classic relationship. Between those in your profession and those in mine.”

“Is it?”

“Toulouse-Lautrec had courtesans. Van Gogh lost his mind—or was it his ear?—over a brothel worker.”

Ana turned, “Is that how you see yourself?”

“It’s how I see Kai.”

“I don’t care about Kai. I wasn’t trying to depict Kai.”

“I know,” said Kyou. “I suppose that’s what I don’t understand.” She took the bottle and refilled her glass. “And I think Natsuko struggled with it too. So we had a fight.” 

“I would never have printed them if you’d said—.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what? Is it the open shirt? Have I—do you see yourself—as a man?”

“Huh? No. No, I’ve told you I don’t care about that.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, truly. Yasu’s the one you want to talk to if that’s what you’re interested in. Gender identity. He can talk for hours about gender identity. Gender as a construct. Gender as control. Gender as violence. Not my thing.” Kyou drank. Then sighed. “Whether I am a man or a woman is of concern to other people. I just impersonate.”

“So what? You have no identity?”

“Saa. Who knows? When you dream, do you dream as a woman? Are you your true self then?”

“You don’t care how I see you?”

“No.”

“I see you as a woman.”

“That’s fine. I see you as an heiress.”

Ana laughed.

One of the waiters jogged out and unlocked his bicycle. He had a student’s backpack into which he stuffed his apron. Noticing Kyou and Ana, he gave a little salute before pushing out onto the road. Perhaps mindful of his audience, he stood, pumping the pedals to make a speedy retreat until he turned down another lane and out of sight.

Kyou spoke again. “I don’t envy the lives of the men or women in this city. Even those that fit the role perfectly. They all seem miserable. Exhausted. Do you think your husband is happy?”

“John? I assumed he was. Yes. I think so.”

“Hmm. I suppose you have a unique relationship.”

“Do we?”

“Natsuko said you were together since childhood. That neither of you had ever—been involved outside of that one relationship. Sounds like a fairy-tale.”

“Yes,” Ana gave a hollow laugh, taking back the bottle of champagne. “I imagine Natsuko could make my marriage sound like a fairy-tale. I don’t think John would see it that way.”

The night grew thicker. The noise of cars entered the soundscape. Kyou and Ana exchanged non-contentious views on the other works in the exhibition: the artists that looked to have a future, the pieces that left a sense of disquiet or unexpected joy. They drained the undeserved bottle and didn’t mention Natsuko again, all the while observing domestic moments in the neighbourhood that seemed so foreign. Kyou felt a strange ache. Suddenly it was that more than anything else that she wanted to articulate to Ana: that she had such a sense of separation from the familiar that the confrontation with an image of herself—herself—had felt like a brush with something honest. Something Natsuko found repellent. And it left her raw.

“When I think of you, Kyou,” Ana said, as if sensing some of this, “and what I was thinking of while I touched up and laid out and mounted those images, was that Natsuko is wrong. She’s wrong to think of you as a man or a stand-in or—I don’t know. Either you’re not sharing it or she’s not seeing it, but it’s not you. It isn’t. It’s not enough. How can it be enough? All those stories—”

“You need to stop quoting me in your statements,” Kyou stepped forward and clinked her glass with Ana’s. “Your sister-in-law thinks you’re losing your mind.”

“My.” Ana smiled, nodding. A lock of hair fell over her right eye. What should have looked messy or awkward appeared incomprehensibly glamorous on her. “That may be hereditary. Lately, I feel closer to losing my grip. Again.” 

She looked up. “Do you know, when I read your postcards—that story in particular—I had always imagined that I was that woman in the story. The one in the fortress. The one who is cursed and waiting.” The amber in each iris seemed to glow. Her eyes were searching, daring a response. “But lately I’ve been wondering whether I was wrong, you know? Whether it was you—if all along it was you, and your story, and all this time you were waiting behind stone and curses, and no one ever—who do you have?“

Kyou opened her mouth, but found it dry, and swallowed instead. She understood the look directed at her. On some level she’d accepted the inevitability of this moment some time ago, but now that it was here, she still found herself ill prepared, pulse stammering, words evaporated.

Ana’s palm flattened itself against the chest binding somewhere over Kyou’s heart. She felt the other hand reach around to the back of her neck. 

And Antoinette Kutsuki kissed her.

And Kyou leant in.

It was a kiss that was neither gentle nor polite. 

Kyou dropped her glass and gathered in the other woman. 

And it was only a kiss—and this one was a terrible idea—but it was also something else. It was a kiss that sought an answer. A kiss to take in all the stories exchanged and unfinished. For all the conversations that had played out as one-sided imagining and those that could never be had. It was for hours spent wondering, for hours that stretched and left a melancholy taste.

Ana’s scent was of Lily of the Valley. Her mouth was soft and insistent. 

It was a kiss of untangling and breathing deeper. Of drowning only to discover that air had never been essential. That somehow they had been blessed. That—if only for a moment—mercy held them gently, curling its wings all around.

Ana’s fingers dug and pulled and untucked and closed on bare skin.

It was a kiss for every star in the Milky Way that separated the lovers in the story of Tanabata. For every blade of grass bowing around the hopeful shepherd, every tear of the heavenly daughter. For every feather on every crow that flocked together to build the bridge between the two. For every running step. Every detail that came into focus as the other neared was confirmed not to be a mirage of an oasis, but true.

When Ana finally pulled back, right hand on Kyou’s face, thumb stroking her cheek, the artist’s eyes remained on Kyou’s mouth. That wasn’t so unusual; to look up would require an admission of guilt or of a mistake. The look might be sheepish or apologetic. A look that said ‘I don’t really do this; I’m just a little tipsy. This isn’t me. Not really.’

But when Ana looked her in the eye, Kyou didn’t see any of those things. Her gaze was steady, close, and—if anything—filled with a kind of deep, sweet sorrow that was hard to look at in return.

“I wanted to ask you something. A favour.”

“Yes,” Kyou managed.

“You don’t have to answer now. You can send me a message. But—I need to go to Bijushima. Soon. Before my—“ she looked away, dropping her hands. 

‘Before my husband gets back,’ presumably.

“I’ll need to check with work.” Kyou swallowed, regaining a sense of herself.

“Natsuko said you’d missed a chance to get there recently.”

“It’s true.”

“I would arrange the tickets, of course. And accommodation if—“

“I can stay at home.”

“—of course.” Ana nodded. “If you prefer. I’d just feel—I’d appreciate it if you were there this time around. It’s an important trip.”

So Kyou agreed to think about it. And Ana leant in and touched their foreheads together and whispered her thanks and—

The back door clattered. 

Panic threw Kyou several paces back. But it was only the stocky figure of the damn kitchen hand, blinking into the dark.

 “Oh, hey, is it Kai?” she called. “Sorry to disturb.” She waved to Ana. The girl couldn’t have witnessed anything. No, surely not. “We’re just packing down out front. Mrs. Kutsuki, we have some flowers for you, if you’d like to follow me?”

After giving Kyou a fleeting smile, Ana did as requested. Kyou hung back a moment, cursed into the night air, then drifted toward the remaining staff, who were all engaged in lifting and shifting.

The afterparty of eight of Mamiko’s peers was hosted in the loft above the gallery. Kyou helped rearrange the remaining finger food into a suitably attractive platter and walked it up, along with several bottles of wine that had been gifted by or intentionally withheld from the general public. Two of the remaining set were artists from the show: a man in a silk scarf who wore no shirt under his jacket, and a woman with fringe cut diagonally across her face. The others looked suitably rich or artistic. Mamiko, Kyou considered, was not really that creative in the company she kept. They were scattered over an open lounge area, some on cushions on the floor, and were passing around a joint.

“Please come. Come.” Mamiko waved her over. “I love this little getup you wear. Take a seat. You’ve done such beautiful work tonight. Hasn’t she?” Mamiko was addressing the woman on the other end of the sofa, who wore a perfect dove-grey suit, pencil skirt, and an impassive expression. She tipped her head in acquiescence.

“Senka says you’ve been with the club for almost ten years now,” Mamiko continued. “Must be a record. And to still look so young!”

Kyou sat and took a glass that hadn’t been claimed. She smiled into it and at the warped reflection of her lips. She smiled at the thought of Ana’s lips, and the familiar sound of her name on them. She wanted to sigh like a teenager and stalk out of the ‘party.’

“What’s your next move?” Mamiko asked. “Or will you be Senka’s lackey forever?”

“Ha.” Kyou sipped. “No plans to move.”

“No special client?”

“Mm-mm.” Kyou shook her head.

“Still so young!” Mamiko lamented and flopped her hand on Kyou’s shoulder.

“Have you met my friend?” She referred to the woman again. “Bought one of your posters.”

“Ah, thank you. I’m not actually the artist.”

“I know.” The woman’s voice was calm and certain, the kind that carried across water.

“She works too hard,” Mamiko said. “Look at her. Look at that outfit. So officious.”

Kyou smiled.

“Do her pressure points, eh, Kai?”

Kai, was it? Kyou replaced her glass and turned properly in the woman’s direction expecting some polite protestation. None was forthcoming.

“Where would you like me?” she asked.

Kyou smiled and walked around the back of the sofa. She pressed her middle and forefingers into the woman’s temples, moving in slowly growing circles. The woman, after a minute of maintaining her composure, closed her eyes and exhaled beautifully. Mamiko occupied herself with her other friends. The parting on top of the woman’s head formed a neat, white line. Her hair, too, had an architectural aspect to it, lopped perfectly just above the shoulders, straight, black, no hint of a grey hair. Her shampoo was pleasant and familiar. The woman was definitely out of place among the attendees. She was perched on the outermost edge of the couch as though its mossy pattern would stain her suit.

“So you’re a collector?” Kyou asked the top of the head.

“I dabble,” came the response in time.

“Sounds nice.”

Through the balcony window was a good view of the illuminated lounges of families, dimmed by curtains. Kyou wondered whether her mother would be sitting at the dining table finishing a glass of jasmine tea by now, or watching one of the variety shows that made her smile and Auntie cackle. What was that game show host’s name? He had skin like a mandarin, vividly painted and shiny. He looked close to bursting with excitement whenever a new contestant came quivering from the wings and into view. Kyou wondered if she would feel more or less at ease if her aunt lived at the inn permanently. But then, what would that signify?

She relaxed her fingers and trailed them back behind the woman’s head, pushing her thumbs into the muscles at the top of her neck, on either side of the spinal column. They were tight, but not unworkable. Shay, when she had been considering nursing as a study option, had been passionate about explaining back knots. ‘It feels good because it's an acknowledgement of suffering,’ she’d said. ‘Massage reads the story of your tension and pain then slowly but surely convinces your body of an alternate ending.’ An untouched muscle contraction could otherwise starve tissue of oxygen and nutrients, leaving a buildup of toxins. Imagine that! A wasteland growing under the skin.

Even amateur physiotherapy could bring tears of relief. For certain clients it had, but then it wasn’t clear whether it was a matter of technical skill in myofascial manipulation or simply a reunion with human touch. People lived such lonely lives in the city.

She focused on the woman’s shoulders, moving carefully; they could be a site of slow and steady pain. Certainly true for people caught in office jobs with long hours. This woman was undoubtedly in that category.

Kyou could already see that she would have to break things off with Natsuko. She had to, before everything collapsed around her. Acknowledging what had been a niggling concern had caused it to spread, now occupying Kyou’s thoughts entirely. She winced at the memory of Natsuko’s expression. Who are you? it seemed to say. Why are you pretending like this, and who are you pretending for? Kyou’s words were slipping ever closer to the edges of traps that she herself had set. 

Natsu was one of the sweetest and most easy-going clients she had had in a while, perhaps ever. Perhaps the perfect client. And Kyou was screwing it up. Natsuko was not an anxious person, but that was changing. She was a dancer and a joker; a give-it-a-whirl type; a why-the-hell-not type; into anything, open to anyone. It felt unfair. Even before the picnic, it had felt unfair. Although she couldn’t pretend anything more than a gentle fondness for the girl, Kyou’s focus was not where it should have been when they were together.

Then again…Well, then again, in ending things with Natsuko, Kyou would lose her reason to see…

Mamiko patted Kyou’s hands, holding them on the woman’s shoulders.

“You’re going to melt her arms off in a moment,” she chuckled.

“No rest for the wicked.” The woman gave a half smile, then ducked out from under Kyou’s touch and stood next to Mamiko. The contrast between the two was almost comical. If a collector, the woman did not appear to be of the creative bent at all. Her style was akin to a piece by Mondrian: flat palette, chic, cut just so. Mamiko, by contrast, in her shirts of indeterminate layering and with her tendency to throw back her head at the mildest joke, was a Warhol print in a museum gift shop. A replication of a replication of a replication that lost all sense of origin.

“So you don’t mind assisting with bringing the work through tonight,” the woman informed, more than asked, Kyou. She then looked at Mamiko. “I appreciate the break with convention. I just don’t have any patience once I’ve decided on these things, and I’m never at home to take delivery.”

“Of course, of course!” Mamiko tilted her head and laughed.

The woman didn’t have much further patience for the after-party once that had been resolved. At Mamiko’s vague instruction, Kyou wrapped the frame in bubble wrap and called a taxi. It was only once they had exited the car at the woman’s apartment that she deigned to inform Kyou of her name.

“Chiyoko.” She said, “And you are Kai. You work in a nabe bar owned by a friend or acquaintance of Mamiko’s. And you happen to be the muse of Ms Ana Kutsuki.”

“Yes,” Kyou said. “All true.”

The apartment was situated not far from Ana’s, close to the embassies with their strange gothic gates and large, black vehicles. There were only expensive women’s shoes in the entryway. Kyou felt mildly embarrassed to position her lesser pair beside the others. Chiyoko walked on ahead, calling back to Kyou.

“Take that through to my room on the left for the moment.”

The bedroom door was ajar. Kyou nudged it with her shoulder to reveal a plush carpet and a hotel-style queen bed. There were white orchids on the bedside cabinet to the left. All of the cupboards and drawers were closed. There were no paintings or art pieces to speak of. The woman hadn’t been kidding when she said she was never there. Kyou turned to locate an appropriate place to lean the frame that wouldn’t risk scraping a wall or dirtying the floor.

“Oh good.” Chiyoko framed herself in the doorway. “The cleaners have been in.”

“Do you...have a hammer?” Kyou asked, forgetting what kind of catch was on the back of the frame.

“Oh, I don’t know.” The woman tipped her head indicating that they exit the room. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll have my EA organise one of those men. Have a drink.”

The options were exclusively white spirits; Chiyoko did not like the thought of wasting calories on sugary wine.

“My father died of cancer,” she said. “He was healthy, but the sugar gets you. Feeds the cells. Eats you from inside.”

“Sorry for your loss.” Kyou sipped a dangerously smooth sake.

“Don’t be. It was last year. I’m interested to understand how you met Ms. Kutsuki.”

“Hm?” Kyou swallowed. “Why do you ask?”

The woman smiled, sat on a pale sofa, pulling her legs under her and gesturing that Kyou might do the same on the seat opposite. “You’re familiar with her father, of course.”

“Yes.”

“Yes. So it seems to me that you would mix in different circles.”

“Do you work for her father?”

“Who doesn’t!” The woman laughed, a strangely deep uh-uh-uh sound that could have emanated from the walls more than her own throat. Eventually she recovered from her private joke. “No, not quite. Not directly. Worked on a merger and a few projects. You know.”

“Sure,” Kyou nodded. “You seem very busy. This is a beautiful apartment.”

“Not a patch on Ms. Kutsuki’s, I’m sure?”

Nice try.

“You’re interested in her,” Kyou answered. “I think she has a website with…”

“Did she visit that club of yours?”

“No.”

“No?”

“She…” Kyou shrugged. “there was an exhibition at the art school. I went with a friend. I saw her work. We talked. Arranged to take the photos.”

“How fortuitous. The birth of a collaboration from a chance meeting.” It wasn’t easy to tell whether Chiyoko was sarcastic or simply dismissive of any detail that didn’t interest her.

“Well no, not a collaboration. She’s the artist. I just showed up.”

“Mm. Well. I disagree. I think she would too if you asked her. If she answered honestly.”

“I don’t—”

“In that photograph, she is trying to uncover something about you. It’s what a photographer does. But you—as the subject—are simultaneously, even painfully, preoccupied with covering that up. It’s in the light, your clothes, your posture. The bandage. That’s a bit obvious, but I suppose you wear it regularly?”

“Yes.”

“So, voilà,” Chiyoko smiled. “Collaboration.”

“Huh.” Kyou wondered how long it would be till she reached the bottom of the glass. “You’re probably right. She’s very clever, Mrs. Kutsuki. You should talk to her.”

“I might. But tonight, I have you.” Chiyoko strung out the last two words in a way that Kyou recognised. “You’ll forgive me if I bypass the bar in Shinjuku. Not very discreet. I appreciated the massage.” She turned her head from side to side, keeping her eyes on Kyou.

“Your shoulders were very tight. It didn’t hurt?”

“Hm.” The woman took a sip, nodding slowly. “It was excruciating.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She got up then and walked over to Kyou, who stood in turn. Chiyoko’s face was away from the light. “It’s funny. You remind me of myself, somehow. Maybe ten years ago.”

“Suit, perhaps.”

“Perhaps.” There were hands at Kyou’s throat then, loosening and unknotting her tie. “If I asked you to put this around my neck,” She held up the length of the tie with her thumb and forefinger, “and if I asked you pull it tight. Tight enough for me to—”

“No,” Kyou interrupted.

“Shame. Your hands are strong, I know.”

“So?”

“You don’t want to collaborate?”

“Funny. That’s funny, actually.” Kyou took the hands holding her tie, pushed them together as if in prayer, pushed up the cuffs of the dove grey jacket and began slowly winding the silk around the wrists. “You don’t seem to be the type to collaborate at all.” The tie was drawn tight to a gasp. A devilish smile. “You seem like you call the shots. Day in. Day out. That so?”

“Mm.” The woman continued to smile.

“The word,” Kyou leant toward the woman’s ear, “Is “Merger,” do you understand? That’s what you say to get out and we stop. That’s the handbrake, okay?”

Chiyoko, unsurprisingly, appeared familiar with the concept, and smiled. “Understood.”