Hiroshi took a taxi home. It was just a ten-minute ride and he got out a few blocks from the apartment to let the cool autumn air clear out the sake and frustration. He didn’t want to think, which is what he’d done all day. He just wanted to walk. As always in Tokyo, he wasn’t the only one out walking around. He headed home.
In the apartment, all the lights were on. Ayana was usually the one trying to conserve resources. Hiroshi clicked off the switches as he headed to the bedroom.
Ayana had taken over the bed with an iPad, two laptops, and papers strewn every which way.
Hiroshi dropped on the bed and bounced.
“You’re messing up everything.” Ayana screamed, snatching at the papers.
He breathed out on her before closing in for a kiss. “See? Not drunk.”
Ayana pecked his lips and pushed him away. “Be careful of my notes.”
“Notes for what?”
“The wedding speech.” Ayana stayed focused on her screen.
“Let me hear what you have so far.”
“Take a shower first.”
Hiroshi got undressed.
Ayana kept her eyes on the screen. “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”
“To the wedding ceremony?”
“I told you about it.” She hummed as if it was decided. “But what am I going to wear? I have to stand at the front with everyone staring at me.”
“So, do some shopping.”
“What do you think I’m doing?” Ayana held her laptop out. One-piece dresses filled the screen.
“I thought you were working on your speech?”
Ayana looked at him and sighed. “Help, or don’t help, but don’t interrupt.”
Hiroshi tickled Ayana’s foot poking out under the covers as he headed in for a shower.
He turned the water on high. When he felt warm, he remembered Ayana told him one of her younger colleagues at the National Archives was getting married and she was asked to give the best friend speech. It was the first time she’d ever mentioned marriage at all. He didn’t know what to say.
At dinner the week before at one of their favorite neighborhood trattorias, she started searching for wedding speeches and wedding dresses. Hiroshi finished his meal and the bottle of wine, but she didn’t talk about anything on the way home. Was that just a set-up? He was happy with how things were, but didn’t mind talking about it. He loved living with her. It was that simple.
Ayana’s apartment wasn’t ostentatious like the 4LDK in Azabu. It was the right size and within walking distance of three stations with eight train lines, cozy restaurants, takeaway delis, a decent liquor shop, and a cool neighborhood vibe that was modern by day, traditional by night.
It was all so easy living there. He’d never thought of himself as comfortably middle class, as settled in any sense, but he was getting used to it. He could get married, sure. Why not?
He couldn’t do worse than his parents, whose home had been a warzone of unspoken acrimony right up to his mother’s death from cancer. The silence became complete when his father’s heart gave out soon after. Maybe they’d been in love, but from the outside, that was hard to see.
After they died, Hiroshi’s uncle offered him a place, but Hiroshi wanted to live on his own near his university. His uncle pushed him toward something more practical than history. Not knowing how to argue against it, he went to Boston to study accounting and English. He ended up liking America, and all the places he lived in, dorms and funky apartments, a string of girlfriends’ places. He liked them knowing they wouldn’t last.
When he came back to Tokyo after years in Boston, his longest-term girlfriend, Linda, came with him. That was exciting at first, but she was basically on a long vacation and Hiroshi didn’t want to move back to Boston. So she left and he stayed in Tokyo. Without any big argument scenes. It wasn’t even a breakup, more like a move, for her, and a stay, for him.
For a couple of years after Linda left, he kept the cheap apartment with its view of a too-close hillside overrun with bamboo grass. Once he got the detective job, he often slept in his office where the heating had two settings—arctic or equator. With the time difference, he made phone calls to overseas police departments and Interpol mostly at night, so it didn’t much matter where he woke up sleep-deprived.
That was when he re-met Ayana on a case. The spark from their brief college affair reignited, more strongly than he’d been ready for, and in a short time, he moved into her apartment. Though it was part of her divorce settlement, it was the first place that ever felt like home.
He turned off the water and the pipes gave out their familiar clunk. The towels smelled fresh and clean. He dried off and stepped into the bedroom.
Ayana was still working away.
He dug in the drawer for something to wear. “How’s your new boss?”
“Well, he’s certainly the most unpleasant librarian I’ve ever met.”
“He’s taking over while, um, what’s her name again?”
“Whose name?”
“The colleague getting married.”
Ayana sighed. “Rina. I told you a hundred times.”
“So, the boss is unpleasant?”
“A total asshole.” Ayana used English.
“It’s temporary, while Rina’s gone, right?”
“That was supposed to be a month, but now it might be nine months.”
“Nine?” Hiroshi pulled on his shorts, realizing what she meant. “Oh, that kind of wedding.”
“That’s the fashion now.” Ayana smiled.
He pulled on a T-shirt and snuggled into bed. He rolled on his back and tugged her arm. She set the computer, iPad, and notes on the other side and rolled close.
“Do we have enough money?” he asked. Between the apartments and the wealth management, he’d been doing estimates of cash flow all day.
“We have this place, jobs, us, who needs money?”
“Yeah, but, a little more would give us more, what, security?” Hiroshi wasn’t sure what he was saying but he wanted to say something.
Ayana patted his chest. “In my experience, money dissolves trust.”
“You mean your husband.”
“He made a lot of money, but it only fueled his pride, his affairs, his ambitions. He thought money bought anything. Me included.”
“Is there something you want or need?”
“Is this about your job again? If you want to quit, quit. But I think you’ll go crazy with a boring job, even if the salary’s better.”
Hiroshi thought about that. “All these other people fill up their lives with things. They buy cases of wine, new cars, bigger apartments—”
Ayana kissed him to shut him up. “I had all of that. Business-class flights, the apartment in Paris, charge accounts. I spent all day at museums, movies, cafes, and shopping. But it was all at my husband’s expense and he kept track. I was never more lonely.”
“I want to pay for half of this apartment.”
Ayana laughed. “It’s already paid for. You’re here. End of story.”
“I don’t want to live for free.”
“You’re not living for free.”
“My former girlfriend always wanted to split everything fifty-fifty.”
“And that didn’t last, did it?” Ayana thumped his chest with each syllable.
Hiroshi coughed and held her wrist. “This apartment I saw today—”
“On a case?”
“A 4LDK in Azabu.”
Ayana whistled. “Not cheap. And…?”
“And… well… nothing.”
“I want you here, not us somewhere bigger.”
Hiroshi pulled her tighter.
“If you want to help with something, why not help with the wedding speech?”
He started kissing her. “Want me to check your speech right now?”
“No, you’re doing something more important.” Ayana climbed on him.
Afterward, Hiroshi stared at the ceiling with Ayana’s hair spread over his chest. “What do you think about marriage? Kids?”
“What is all this?” Ayana sat up.
“I don’t know. I’m just asking.”
“Our work-life balance is just right as it is, except you work too much.”
“Well, what do you think about all this?”
Ayana pulled on her T-shirt.
Hiroshi shrugged. “OK, you don’t want to talk about it.”
“What’s this all about?” She lifted her hips and wiggled her shorts on.
“Do you want children?”
“Can we have this discussion another time? I have to give this wedding speech at Rina’s wedding. It’s a lot harder than you think.” She opened her laptop and settled it in her lap.
“Well, do you want to get married?”
Ayana put her laptop down. “Can we talk about this when we’re both ready? Let’s plan a trip to an onsen hot springs and talk about it then? In a private rotenburo, looking out at the mountains and a forest stream.”
“Naked, you mean?”
“Unhurried, I mean. Without having to get up in the morning and go to work. Without having to write a wedding speech and find a wedding dress.”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m a traditional Japanese—”
“What? You’re not even making sense. Plus, you are more foreign than me, sleeping with all those American—”
“You speak English and French and lived abroad longer than I did.”
“You’re the one who knows pillow-talk in English.”
“And you don’t?”
“No, I don’t.”
Hiroshi pulled her to him, but she pushed away. “I have to finish this wedding speech and find a dress.”
“Can I help?”
“You can help by not bringing up serious topics at the wrong time.”
Hiroshi scooted toward her, threw his leg close, and pressed himself against her. “Speaking of serious topics coming up.”
She shifted away and picked her computer up. “Do you need a new suit or wedding tie or anything? I found a template for a ‘speech from an older colleague at work.’ I’ll copy that, add some anecdotes…”
He gave up and rolled on his back and looked at the ceiling. “Put something funny in, something archive related.”
“Funny? Archive related?” She bit her lip, irritated, and stared at the screen.
When he turned over, in submission, she leaned over and kissed the back of his neck.
He let her work, wondering why she wouldn’t let him pay half.
Maybe because he didn’t really have the money. A detective’s salary wasn’t much.