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He tells himself it doesn’t mean anything, as he lays his head down in your lap.
Your thighs feel soft and plump underneath the weight of his skull. As you rake your fingers through his hair, you tell him about your day. The new kitten your coworker adopted last week won’t stop climbing his curtains, leaving claw marks in the fabric. You’re pretty sure your neighbor has hated you ever since you forgot to recycle your beer can that one time. You feel tired and achy, like you slept on the wrong side of the bed again. They’re the same complaints, but the repetition feels good, sacred almost.
You continue dragging your nails against his scalp, fingers flexing open like a starfish before clamming shut in a fist. “Do I even want to know how your day was, Aki?”
He opens one eye. Stares at you. Closes it. “You know I’m not allowed to talk about that.”
You hum a bit. “Why? Devil Hunting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be?”
“No. It isn’t.”
He turns on his side, cheek pressed against your thighs as he glances at the TV screen. There’s a mortified toddler standing next to the remains of a crab devil. Limbs have been cracked apart and discarded, a graveyard of crustacean morsels. “Looks pretty delicious,” you say, changing the channel. “I would love to eat a devil like that.”
Aki snorts.
The two of you spend the rest of the night watching some random trashy reality TV show. A group of young, attractive individuals are tasked with working a luxury yacht. Psuedo-celebrities cycle in and out as guests. The drama, mostly, writes itself. You tell him your coworker recommended it on a whim, and you’ve been addicted since.
You laugh a little self-consciously. “Sorry. I’m probably boring you.”
You move to change the channel but he takes you gently by the wrist and says it’s fine. He wants to see what happens. While some guy starts drowning on screen, you continue running your fingers through his hair. “You never tell me anything anymore Aki,” you say. For some reason you want to console him.
He just shrugs. You stop touching his hair and press your palm against his cheek. Within seconds, his skin gets hot. “Aki,” you say again. “My friends have been asking about you.”
He feigns a level of disinterest that’s borderline comical. You curl a lock of his hair around your index finger and let it slide away. “They don’t think you exist,” you tell him. “When I told them you were a Devil Hunter, they thought I was joking. You’re basically a glorified imaginary friend.”
He makes a sound that’s a cross between a scoff and a grunt. You sigh, leaning against the cushion of the couch-back. “Come to think of it, I’ve never met your friends,” you say. After a long moment of silence, you ask, “Do you even have friends, Aki?”
“Sort of.” A pause. “Probably not.”
You reach over his head for the remote on the coffee table, but he grabs your hand and stops you midway. He kisses the soft skin on the underside of your wrist and presses your palm against his cheek again. “You smell good,” he says.
“New perfume. My coworker got me some for Christmas.”
He stops, letting the comment weigh a moment longer before sitting up. He meets your gaze, and without warning, leans in to kiss you on the mouth. You give in quickly, lips pulling open and letting his tongue slide into your mouth. He combs his fingers through your hair, yanking your head back at an angle so he can kiss your neck. You tell him not to leave marks but he pretends not to hear.
-
He listens to you cry his name in staggered syllables. It’s sticky on your tongue like honey. You tell him you’re close, so close, don’t stop. He likes watching you like this, all dewy and needy. Skirt hiked up around your waist, underwear curled around your ankles. Your t-shirt’s probably sprawled somewhere on the living room floor. The air conditioner drones on with a deep, sullen rumble through the summer haze, as you squirm underneath his weight.
After: he watches you in the post-glow, as you roll onto your side, staring into the darkness of your one-bedroom apartment.
“Don’t do it,” he says suddenly.
“Don’t do what?” You ask, glancing over your shoulder.
“Don’t become a Devil Hunter.”
“Did I give you any indication I was going to?”
“No.” He doesn’t tell you it’s just a feeling. Nagging and incorrigible, as most bad feelings are. “Just figured I’d say. It’s not fun. It’s terrible, actually. You work shit hours, you attend too many funerals, and the pay is garbage.”
“Okay, Aki. I won’t.”
And then you turn back around to stare into the darkness again.
You once told him you wanted to die after sex; that that’s all you could ever think of, all that ever consumed your mind, like a livewire of remorse and solitude. I just feel so lonely. Sometimes I get this feeling I’ll never be happy again. That everything I ever loved was just a façade, including you, you said. And then.
And then?
It passes, you’d said. It always does.
When you’re done fixating on nothing, you sit up and mutter, “I need to pee. Move.” You peel away your damp underwear from your ankles and toss them onto the duvet before making the jarring run to the bathroom.
Aki pulls on his pants, sliding his belt through the buckles as he turns his gaze to your underwear. A flush comes from the other side of the bathroom door, followed by the rush of running water in the sink. Without thinking, he grabs the flimsy piece of cloth and shoves it into the pant pocket of his suit. The shower turns on, water slapping down on fiberglass and acrylic with the sound of humming.
Sunlight filters through the window in streams. Aki pulls open the blinds and it floods the room in a pool of orange. He leaves without saying goodbye.
-
You once asked Aki if he wanted to stay the night. The suggestion was met with a look of unease as he turned back to the stove, fussing with the fish on the grill. Somewhat naively, you said there was enough sink-space for two toothbrushes. He told you he couldn’t, that the nature of his work meant he would be called in at any time. You told him you didn’t mind, that you were a heavy sleeper; he could use your landline.
His silence stayed with you, even after the fact. Even after dinner, even after TV, even after sex. You helped him put on his shoes in the foyer, tying up the laces the way a mother would for her inept son. And then you helped him fix up his tie.
“You’re too handsome for your own good,” you’d said, patting him on the chest. He’d sort of sneered at the fact, as you opened the door. “I know you like the compliment Aki,” you went on, wedging your foot in the frame. “You can pretend like you don’t, but I know you do. I bet you collect them like trophies in your nightstand.”
“Shut up.”
The reaction elicited a smile on your part. “Be safe,” you’d told him.
He’d ruffled your hair and said he would. As the door clipped shut gently behind him, he told himself this was for the best.
-
Denji pokes his head into the washing machine, examining the pink, lacy piece of cloth jammed between Aki’s boxer briefs and Power’s t-shirt. “Who’s underwear is this?” He asks, picking it up with the tip of his pinky finger. “Power?”
Power sneers. “I don’t wear underwear.” She pulls down the hem of her shorts, exposing her bare ass cheeks at the sitting table. Denji can’t decide if he wants to be delighted or disgusted. She swipes at the garment like a cat and he raises it higher into the air.
Aki rounds the kitchen counter and snatches it away casually. Denji looks miffed, “That belong to you?”
“No.”
“Then whose is it?”
“None of your business.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No.”
Power collapses onto her side, lounging like a bored cat. “Aki wears women’s panties.”
-
He stands outside your apartment complex, smoking a cigarette. Bad day, hard mission, people died, some people more important than others. He wants someone to be angry at, so he decides to be angry at Denji for washing your underwear, which really means he’s mad at himself for being stupid enough to give Denji the responsibility of doing laundry and therefore washing your underwear.
Eventually you arrive, walking side-by-side with your coworker. A broad young man with nicely coiffed hair. As soon as you see Aki, you say your goodbyes and head to meet him. He checks out your outfit: a mariner’s top, a pair of black trousers, and ballet flats.
“You look French,” he says, thinking it the right thing to say.
"Is that ... a compliment?"
"I don't know. Isn't that the sort of thing girls want to hear?"
You give him a funny look, slotting in your key to open the front door. He tosses away the stub of his cigarette and stomps it with the heel of his dress shoes. You let him in unceremoniously, as if he were a roommate who forgot his keys upstairs. He asks you about your day as you shuffle into the elevator and you tell him it was fine, it was boring, there’s a movie you’ve been meaning to watch but you haven’t found the time.
“Do you wanna go now then?” He asks.
The doors open on the third floor. Your floor. “Seriously?” You say.
“Yeah.” The answer comes quickly, almost as if he were expecting this kind of reaction. “Why do you look so surprised?”
The doors close. You gaze up at the descending numbers and let out a soft hm. “I don’t know. Probably because you’re you,” you decide at last.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” the doors open in the lobby again and you turn backwards to walk out, “you’re treating for popcorn, stupid head.”
He rolls his eyes.
-
It’s one of those quiet, art-house movies. There’s a genius math professor with a traumatic head injury who only has 80-minutes of short-term memory. And then there’s a keen young housekeeper who ends up developing a tenuous, yet meaningful relationship with him. Nothing really happens, not even a romance—Aki would venture to say most of it is actually pretty boring—but there’s something haunting about it too.
When he glances your way, he finds tears streaming down your face, one fat drop at a time. It’s odd, he thinks, how unblinking you are even when you’re in pain. As the movie ends and the credits start rolling, the tears have dried up, leaving streaks in your makeup. You don’t move.
He reaches over the armrest and takes your hand in his, readjusting your fingers until his are entwined with yours. Neither of you say a word about it, even as the others in the theater get up to leave. When the credits end and the lights turn back on, you pull away from him and stand up first.
“Are you hungry?” You ask with a tired smile.
-
He thinks about the first time he met you, which was at the bakery next to your school. He remembered seeing you depart from your circle of friends, stopping at the bench he was sitting at. You glanced at the milk bread in your hand and back at him; and the same way, reversed. After a long moment of consideration, you set the bread next to him and said, “take it.”
He’d arched an eyebrow, only for the realization to set in. “I don’t need your charity.”
“It’s not charity,” you’d told him.
He gave you a look.
You nudged the bread closer to his thigh, plastic wrap crinkling on contact. “It’s really good. You don’t have to eat it, but it’d be a waste if you didn’t,” you’d said. “Anyway. I don’t want it anymore so you can have it. Feed it to the pigeons for all I care.” And then you left.
Years later, you told him it was charity. “I just had a feeling you were going to kill yourself,” you’d said, lounging around lazily in bed. You were wearing a nude bralette and a pair of gym shorts with your high school name printed on the butt. He remembered the way the fairy lights in your apartment made your skin of your stomach glow orange.
“That is an incredibly weird thing to say,” he’d replied, laying down beside you.
“Is it?” You were watching the ceiling fan spin, light reflecting off your dark irises. “I feel like anyone who announces they’re going to become a Devil Hunter is basically signing up for a suicide march.”
He had nothing to say about this. To change the subject, you rolled onto your stomach and kicked your feet. “You know what I’m afraid of these days?”
“No. What?”
You’d leaned in closer until your lips were right next to his temple. “I’m afraid people are going to discover how handsome you are, Aki.” And then you leaned in to kiss him on the lips.
-
He watches you grab at the headboard of your bed. His fingers dig into your thigh, his pace slow and sloppy as he studies you from below. He likes the feeling of you riding his face, the way you hold back in fear of suffocating him to death. When you cum, it’s quiet, so quiet he can hear the crack in your neck as you crane your head back. As you pull off, he finds the collar of his undershirt damp.
“Hey. How are you roommates?” You ask.
He thinks it’s a stupidly inappropriate thing to bring up while the two of you are both half-naked, fishing for your undergarments off the ground. “They’re whatever,” he decides. “They’re fine.”
“You should bring them over for dinner one day,” you suggest. “We can play cards. Or watch a movie.” When he doesn’t answer, you go on: “I just brought that new board game. Catan or whatever. I have Monopoly too.”
He tries to imagine Denji and Power acting like dignified human beings, sitting around your dining table and moving the proper pieces across the board, but can’t shake the image they’d be shoving them down each other’s throats instead. “That’s probably not a great idea,” he says.
You look a little miffed. “Why not?”
He shakes his head and tells you it’s hard to explain. You look a little hurt by this. As you head to the bathroom, he wishes he hadn’t been so cold about it. He wishes he would’ve sat you down and explained it. Then again, it’s hard to explain Denji and Power to someone who’s never met Denji and Power. By the time you’re out, you’ve already put on your pajamas and moved into the living room, where you flip on the TV.
He dresses himself and tells you he’ll call you on the way out the door. You tell him “okay” as he leaves alone.
-
When he picked up smoking, you told him it was bad for him. This was after you made him coffee on a Saturday morning, sat around the dining room table with much ado about nothing. You were wearing an oversized band t-shirt and boyshort-styled underwear. He was wearing a white t-shirt and plaid pajama pants. He’d said nothing about it until you reminded him, again, that smoking was bad for him.
“You never smoked in school,” you’d said. “Why did you start so suddenly?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Just felt like it, I guess.”
“Which one is it? You don’t know or you just felt like it?”
“Both. Maybe neither.”
“Is it because of work?”
“Sort of.”
“Is it stressful?”
“Eh. Sometimes.”
You’d studied his face, liking the look of concentration he had when reading the newspaper. He remembered thinking how much he enjoyed the way you looked at him, as if you were checking for cracks and dents. It was the sort of acknowledgment and care that felt natural and earned.
“You never tell me anything anymore, Aki,” you’d said. He didn’t know this would end up becoming a familiar conversation, a familiar dance; at the time, he just thought you were doting on him in that incredibly annoying, but endearing way. “It sucks, you know. You used to tell me everything.”
He told you you were overthinking it. It was easier than saying he was living on borrowed time, that he was essentially cutting his losses short early. He didn’t want you to worry; he thought it was needless. When you came around the table and straddled him in his seat, he remembered placing his hand on the small of your back, right underneath your t-shirt, and counting the ridges of your spine.
You’d squinted at him with one eye closed, “You feel so far away, Aki.”
“I’m right here,” he’d told you.
“Are you?”
He remembered looking into your eyes and feeling, suddenly, so small. So lost. And empty. Like wherever he was now was exactly where he shouldn’t be. He wanted to go back in time, to the moment he graduated high school and told you he was going to become a public safety officer. He would’ve, instead, told you to marry him. In response, you’d laugh and tell him you were too young to get married. No, he thinks now, the truth is: you would’ve said yes.
Instead of telling you any of this, he kissed you.
-
Some doting grandmother recognizes who he is and lets him into your apartment complex. He lets her have the elevator while he takes the stairs up. When he arrives at your door, he knocks twice and receives no answer. He knocks again and still no answer. He starts banging with a clenched fist and only then does he hear shuffling on the other side, the sound of a rolling chair moving across your hardwood floors.
He imagines discovering you with a secret lover, hiding in your closet. You’d tell him shit, sorry, he’s here, and give him a kiss on the cheek before shoving him between your winter coats. The image dissolves promptly as you open the door, wearing your glasses and pajamas.
“Oh. Hi,” you say, smiling.
“Hi.”
“You didn’t call.”
“I left you a voicemail on your answering machine.”
“Oh. Shoot. I think it’s full.” After a lengthy pause, you tell him, “Well, come in.”
You don’t offer him a drink, heading straight to the kitchen table where he sees a spread of papers and important-looking documents. You shuffle them neatly into a nondescript manila folder and shove them into a receptacle by your writing desk. He takes a seat on your couch and asks how your day was, marking a strange shift in the cadence the two of you have established. You’re the one who usually asks; he’s the one who usually tells you it’s the same old, nothing new. And then you tell him about yours.
“Mm,” you have a dreamy little look on your face, as if recalling the sequence of your interactions for the day. “It was a pretty good day.” As you head to the couch to sit next to him, the phone rings, and suddenly you’re rushing to your landline in the kitchen.
“Oh, hi!” You sound excited, maybe too excited, as you twirl the wire around your index finger. “Yeah, now is fine. What’s up?”
While you go on, Aki stands up from the couch and makes his way into your bedroom. Your shelves have been reorganized, and there’s a new nightstand sitting next to your bed. He decides he’ll ask you about it later as he glances at your closet, the door sitting ajar with nothing and no one inside, except your winter coats.
He hears you laughing in the kitchen, the sound of “oh! Okay. Yeah! Sure, that works,” as you hang up the phone. “Aki, I’m jumping in the shower! Feel free to rummage through the fridge if you’re hungry!” Before he gets in a word edgewise, he hears the sound of a door clipping shut and water turning on.
You’re in there for a while. He starts watching whatever trashy reality show you left the TV on while waiting for you to finish. By the time you’re out, you look like a different person. You’ve put on your makeup, you’re wearing a fresh pair of bra and panties, and your hair is in the process of air-drying. After dumping your dirty clothes into a hamper, you start humming a pleasant tune.
“Hey,” says Aki. “Can I stay the night?”
In your bedroom, you start browsing through your closet, eventually settling on a simple black slip dress with a strappy back. “Unfortunately I have plans tonight,” you say, though they don’t sound very unfortunate; and you don’t sound very disappointed. When you come back outside, he sees you carrying a beige trench coat in your arms and a pair of ballet flats.
“You’re going out like that?” He asks.
The strap of your slip dress falls down your shoulder and you pick it back up, only for it to fall again. “Yeah, I think so,” you tell him with a knowing smile.
After realizing you have no intention of telling him what your plans are, or who they’re with, he asks, “Are you going on a date or something?”
“Mm. Something like that.”
“Your lack of specificity is beginning to annoy me.”
“If you’re looking for something to be annoyed by, chances are you’re going to find it,” you tell him, putting on your shoes in the foyer. “Anyway, feel free to browse the fridge while I’m gone.”
“You already said that.”
But you’re barely listening, checking your face in the mirror and saying, “The door will autolock behind you, so you can leave whenever you want.” And just like that, you’re gone.
-
He decides to tail you, as you shuffle underground into the train station, take two transfers, and exit at Shibuya Crossing. There’s a young man waiting for you outside a coffee shop in a quieter alley. Your coworker, the same one who walked you home that day. He’s tall, almost stupidly so. Aki doesn’t think he’s ever seen such a tall man in his life.
The two of you continue down the block until you arrive outside a movie theater. You tell him a joke that makes him throw his head back and laugh. Rain starts pebbling down from the sky and he leans in to kiss you on the forehead before the two of you disappear into the theater doors.
-
He’s waiting outside your apartment when you arrive home at 2:02 a.m. The look of disappointment on your face could not be more apparent as you fumble through your purse for your keys, only to drop them on the ground. In lieu of a decent greeting, you ask him why he’s there.
“I got locked out,” he says, observing you. “You’re drunk.”
Once you get your keys, you nod at him. “A little bit, yeah.” As soon as the two of you are inside, you flop down on the couch and start massaging your temples, “I know you were following me. That wasn’t cool.”
“It was for your safety, idiot. No one in their right mind walks around outside alone these days.”
You twirl a lock of hair around your index finger, eyes registering dull and uninterested. “You even have the right excuses ready.”
He takes a seat next to your head, watching you fumble for the remote. Once the TV is on, he says, “You’ve been acting different.”
“I have?”
“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.”
Whatever vestige of a smile disappears from your face as you change the channel to the news. A ladybug devil running amuck in Meiji Shrine. You look deep in consideration, likely wondering if he really wants to know. By this time, he’s already changed his mind. The truth is, he’s probably better off not knowing; but you’re already opening your mouth to tell him so.
“I met someone,” you say.
He lets the statement sit a moment before sinking back against the couch. “So? It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“This is different,” you tell him. “I think I might marry him.”
He stiffens, feeling something plummet in his stomach like stone. Sensing his pause, you crawl onto your knees and fall back on the heels of your feet. “You never wanted to be my boyfriend, Aki. You said so yourself. You’ve always been in love with someone else,” you tell him, almost pleadingly. “Are you really allowed to be sad about this?”
Right, he thinks, as the revelation dawns. The thought had almost escaped him: he’s interested in someone else, someone pretty, someone better; he doesn’t get a say in who you see or what you want to do with your life. Slowly, his mind starts clearing; the hurt starts subsiding. He stands up and starts gathering his bearings. The two of you say nothing as you wait for him to put on his jacket.
“We used to be so close,” you say, heading towards the door. “I don’t know. I just can’t figure out what happened between us.”
“Nothing happened,” is his reply, flippant as ever. “That’s just life.”
You look like you want to cry. Suddenly Aki finds himself overcome with a need to hug you, to console you. Instead, you look away, letting the tears dry in your eyes as he approaches you at the door. You want to tell him you really loved him once. But the confession feels unearned, especially now. He puts on his shoes, ties up his laces, and tells you he’ll see you around.
“Aki.”
“What?” He says.
You linger in the frame of the door, watching the fluorescent hallway light bounce off his face. “Never mind. It’s nothing,” you say.
He waits a moment longer, giving you a chance to change your mind. When you don’t, he turns around and leaves.
-
You move out of your apartment, change your phone number, and lose contact with him. He finds out through a mutual friend that you’ve gotten engaged, that you’re planning to throw a wedding in Naples. They have a hunch you’re planning to move out of the country too, maybe to the U.S., but it’s just speculation.
When was the last time you two met up? They ask.
Aki considers it a moment, “Almost a year ago, I think.”
Oh, they reply. I thought the two of you were close.
It’s going to become a talking point in a pool of your other mutual friends, he thinks. He sort of wishes he hadn’t said anything at all; maybe he should’ve just lied about the timeframe and said the two of you were busy.
Nursing his beer, he glances outside at the first blizzard of the season and sees Denji and Power pelting each other with snowballs. The pain starts receding slowly, like sand in an hourglass, as he stands up from his seat. He pays for his beer, tells his friend it was nice seeing them, and takes his leave.
-
It gets better; it hurts less. He stops imagining what it’d be like to bump into you at an izakaya, or that Italian restaurant you both liked. He focuses on his missions and starts hanging out with Denji and Power begrudgingly. The seasons pass; it’s suddenly summer; he has one less friend and another funeral to attend.
-
That’s where he sees you again.
Crouched before a tombstone, disposing of the dead, brown flowers in the ground. He realizes you look different. Your hair is longer, your lipstick is darker, and you’re wearing pearl earrings and a black dress. When you stand up, you catch his gaze and stiffen. It’s almost comical, the way you stop in your tracks, like you’ve been caught stealing from a cookie jar. You seem to find it pretty funny too as a smile forms on your face.
-
Staring at the stains in the ceiling, you expel smoke from your mouth. The cigarette looks loose in your hand, like you’re encouraging it to run away from you. “They told me it was an unidentified devil. It’s apparently quite common in denser parts of the city,” you explain. “And then they gave me his death certificate and left.”
He tries to imagine breaking the news to you, having to be the one to alter the course of your life with a few choice words. “I’m sorry,” he says.
“Thanks.” You tap off the excess ash into the ash tray on the nightstand and take another drag. The smoke feels good in your lungs, like something sticky and sweet. “It doesn’t feel real, you know? It feels like I’m going to wake up one morning and realize it was just a temporary crease in a simulacrum.” You take another drag and stomp out the butt of your cigarette. “This is a horrible world we live in, Aki.”
You meet his gaze with a sad smile, “How are we supposed to make any sense of it?”
“I don’t think we can,” he replies; and as deliberately as possible: “I don’t think we’re supposed to.”
The two of you sit like that for some time. Eventually you let out a sigh and lean against his shoulder, feeling all those familiar ridges and bumps. “I think I’m going to become a Devil Hunter,” you tell him.
After a long moment of silence, he leans back against your head and tells you okay.