On the rocks.

~*~

I wandered aimlessly through the streets of the city, basking in the bottomless melancholy of the neon signs and bars. The streets were abuzz with life and giggles. Passing me by, couples of all kinds strut on the street. Some pair of drunk men came out of an establishment holding each other by their arms, serving as a mutual crutch. Young frilly looking girls hold onto the arms of salarymen. Amidst the gunk that flows through the city, pure and innocent couples walk by everyone as well.

I often try to blind myself to everything around me. I could’ve been a part of what they were, but I turned down every opportunity life had given me, like a coward. Not even my coworkers bothered asking if I would join a drinking party anymore.

I have no one to blame but myself, and yet I still feel as if it didn’t matter at all, as if I would’ve messed it up anyways. I’ve learned in life that I’m better off alone, and yet I still feel lonely at times.

My footsteps drew me into nowhere, until a certain bright sign caught my attention. ‘SunTempo Bar’. The lights were a bright yellow with a red border that cut off at certain points, less of a pattern and more of a circuit failure. I could tell since the ‘u’ in the sign didn’t turn on like the others. The sign led to a staircase that went down into a basement or such. Captivated by that shoddy sign and the air it was permeated in, I went downstairs.

There’s a couple of tables stuck to the walls, there’s a bar with circular stools in front. The sound from the streets isn’t loud enough to penetrate inside this place. A little corner hidden away from the rest of the world.

I sat down at the bar, and saw a couple of people with nothing behind their eyes. One man, a little younger than me, looked at a can of beer while the bartender, a man who looked significantly younger, and whose’s hair was orange like fire, patted the young man on the back. After a while, he came over to me.

“Welcome to SunTempo, my name’s Yukoku Roberu, what can I get you?”

“Whiskey, on the rocks.”

“Very well, we’ve got…”

The whiskey was alright. The ambiance of the sad lonely little bar, was like a garnish. Yukoku was cleaning some glasses while his gaze was fixed on the man he had been serving a couple of minutes before.

“What’s his deal?” I asked.

“Friend of mine. Marriage stuff. His wife’s got him on edge. SunTempo tends to draw in some poor souls. It’s like they gravitate towards this place.” Yukoku said.

No comment. Just my whiskey and I.

~*~

That same week I returned to the bar, and Yukoku welcomed me with a smile. I sat down on the same spot as before, and asked for the same drink. The sulking young man was there too, this time accompanied by a pink haired lady, with wings on her head. They spoke cheerfully while the bartender pretended to work elsewhere to give them some privacy.

“That lady.” Yukoku told me, unprompted. “Was on the same boat as my friend. Feels nice to see something come out of it, eh?”

And it did. I pitied that man yesterday, today I envied him and cheered. Godspeed you! Still, wasn’t he on edge just yesterday because of his wife? Wasn’t he still married? I had trouble understanding how he managed to switch between two moods so seamlessly, but that’s another one of the mysteries that I couldn’t answer for the life of me. The worst part of knowing something’s off, is not understanding why.

The night was perfectly quiet and mundane, but sadly for me it wouldn’t remain so for long. I received a glass of wine I hadn’t ordered. I asked Yukoku what this was about, to which he just told me it was a gift from the woman a couple of seats next to mine.

Looking over my shoulder, looking but without looking. An elf with long blonde hair, and a bombshell of a body trapped inside the clothes of a regular office lady. I was stunned. I didn’t know how to react, no one’s ever bought me a drink before, much less a woman who seemed too good to ever give me more than a passing glance. I fumbled with my words, I trampled over my own tongue trying to thank Yukoku, who simply smiled and told me I should be thanking someone else. Right.

I stood up, trying to look confident, but the smile that drew on the woman’s face told me she wasn’t buying my act in the slightest. I stood next to her and stretched my hand out, where her fine fingers met with my palm.

“Thanks for the drink.” I shook her hand.

“... Are you not gonna take a seat?”

Oh, I must’ve looked like a goofball. I nodded and sat on the stool next to her, feeling her eyes on my body, on my nervous face, and the more I felt that penetrating gaze inspect every last one of my expressions, the more I felt like I had already screwed up something I didn’t know I could screw up.

“My name’s Aki, Rosenthal Aki.”

“My name’s Anon!” I spurted out, my heart risking to jump out my throat. “Nice to meet you.”

I sat at the bar trying to make smalltalk, which has always been the bane of my existence. I talked about the weather, about recent news I couldn’t remember, I exhausted every last topic to make our conversation last, even if it was going nowhere. Aki sat there, taking sips of her wine with an elegance I perceived once I realized I was grabbing my glass by the bowl instead of the stem.

“So Anon, what do you do?”

“I work on sales.” I said, and as if I hadn’t said enough, I mentioned the company, my position, some measle projects I was working on. Her eyebrows raised, the corners of her grin met with the sky, I think she was enjoying my nervousness, if that makes sense. I don’t know how to be interesting, I don’t know how to be a gentleman. I kept glancing at the openings in her cleavage and berated myself for doing so. I wondered if it was a good time to switch topics or mention something that salvaged my image, but then Aki took the lead and spoke about her own life, about her job, about being bored. She mentioned being a couch potato, she mentioned liking to sing, and having an insane resistance to alcohol. Every word that came out of her mouth felt so natural, like she was in complete control of the conversation, like she knew exactly what she wanted to say and how to say it, all the while I sank more and more into a strange distress, of suddenly becoming self-aware about every little detail about myself. I tried to pick up the thread, I tried to make something out of her efforts to talk to me.

“So you like to sing?” I said.

“Yeah, I visit karaoke’s often. I’m no superstar, but I think I’m pretty good.”

“That’s great, I bet you’re a nice singer.”

“How do you know? You’ve never heard me sing before.” She smiled, her words becoming a fine thread that entered through my ears, and wrapped themselves right around my brain.

“I-I mean, your voice is nice, so…”

“Ah~” She chuckled, putting a strand of her hair behind her ear. “You think so?”

“Yeah, it’s really smooth, it’s-it’s nice to listen to.” I took a swig of my glass. “I guess.”

“Do you want to hear me sing?”

“Right here?” I spurted out. “I mean, the bar’s quiet but-”

“No, silly.” She giggled. “There’s a karaoke bar not far from here, I can show you how I sing if you want.”

And then, I forgot how to say yes or no. My brain did a short circuit. Did this lady ask me out? Did she really? While my head was still trying to process her words, I nodded, and like that she finished her drink and stood up. I soon followed. She beckoned the bartender, she paid for our drinks and headed for the door. We stepped outside, back into the streets, our ears bombarded by the sounds of life that previously I tried to escape from. As we walked up the stairs she covered her mouth to let out a yawn, and by the time we were on the sidewalk, she grabbed onto my arm. I felt like I was leading the way, like I was supposed to lead us to the karaoke she talked about, and in a way I did. We walked and talked, her face tinted by the city lights into a tone of orange, of yellow, of blue, of red.

“So Anon, where are you taking me?” She spurted out.

“... To the karaoke bar?” I mumbled. With a giggle she pointed behind her, and I looked. I almost walked past it. Shiny Smily Story Karaoke.

~*~

Our room had pink lights and a frosted glass door, impeding the passerby from peeking inside. I was sitting on the couch distracting myself with a list of songs I hadn’t heard of while Aki’s jacket rested at my side. She had ordered drinks without asking me, and a half empty bottle of vodka rested on top of a table. I had only one or two shots. Either that lady’s liver was on its last steps, or she was born from two sailors.

I was tipsy, drunk on the ambiance, on the surprise, on seeing Aki walk to the front of the booth and seeing those cheap LED lights make her stage on top of an old rug. Something I noticed right away was how her purple-blue eyes shone under the pink lights. She took a deep breath that reverberated through the speakers, and a piano and a violin sat between her and her voice.

And then, once her voice was released from its entrapment, I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. To accompany her performance, her hips swayed to and fro like they had a mind of her own.

She wasn’t lying, her voice was fantastic. I’m not a music critic, much less an expert, but she had that see-through talent that anyone with working ears could pick up on, and I was blessed enough to have this personal concert all to myself. I had this woman all to myself.

More instruments joined in, as if Aki’s voice needed any more parade. Her piercing eyes were fixed on me, and I didn’t know if to cheer her, or just sit there and wait for her to finish. Once the chorus dropped, so did Aki’s microphone. The way I could hear the steps of her heels clearer than the music around me caught me off guard, at least until I realized I was hearing my own heart in my ears, until I realized Aki was sitting back on the couch next to me, letting the instrumental go on without her as she attended other needs.

She said something I couldn’t understand. It could’ve been ‘Did you like my voice?’ As much as it could’ve been ‘What did you think?’, she could’ve asked what planet I was on for all I know. I still hadn’t come down from the high the situation had taken me to.

A sly smile crept on her face as I tried to answer, and before I knew it, she had pounced on me and her plush body had me pinned. Her breath stank of cool mint and alcohol, and I couldn’t complain as her tongue showed its way inside my mouth. The only resistance I showed was how hesitant I was to take action. I paralyzed as my body froze in shock and yet burned in passions unknown. All I could hear was the wet sounds of our lips, of our rustling clothes, of my speech dying in the back of my throat. The sound of flesh, as I grabbed her behind and I heard her giggle into my mouth. She unbuttoned her shirt, she threw it on the table, and I still had no idea how I had gotten here.

I saw her to the exit. I had this knot on the back of my throat that only tightened the more I thought about my performance. First timers aren’t anything special, but Aki seemed satisfied. I called her a cab, I gave her some money for the ride, and she thanked me for the night, fluttering her eyelashes at me. I could’ve donned the situation with more meaning, with more emotion, ask for her number, if we could see each other again, but by the time I had found my courage, the cab took off, and off went my golden princess, disappearing, merging seamlessly into the hundreds of cars that traversed the streets that night.

I walked home, opened my apartment’s door, and I sat down to have a cup of tea. So, that happened. I scored with a woman leagues above me. If I didn’t carry a hickey on my chest I would’ve believed that I had imagined everything, from the moment Yukoku handed me the glass of wine, to the moment Aki whispered those sweet nothings into my ear.

I felt great, maybe I was in love, or at least I thought I was. Men become so cuddly after feeling the warmth of a woman. My head was filled with thoughts of sunshine and marriage. Maybe I thought about stepping back out into the night and scout the entirety of Tokyo for her, to get my tongue permeated in that musk of liquor and then use it to tell her I love her and to marry me.

A bunch of silly nonsense that love tends to make people think about.

~*~

My night with Aki had ruined me mentally. I went to sleep thinking about her, I woke up thinking about her. I gave myself a once over in the mirror and felt like I had rejuvenated by a decade. My joints stopped aching, my back felt stronger, and more importantly, I felt like I was seeing the world with a new pair of eyes. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing delightfully, the train seemed to arrive just as I did, and the greenlights favored my steps.

By the time I was off work, I headed back to SunTempo, thinking me and Aki would meet again by mere chance. I wasn’t looking for her, yet I was trying to meet with her. The man and his pink lady were coddled next to each other, talking. He said something about having to admit to something, and then I heard something metallic on the table. His mistress then spoke to him, and he gasped as he let out a quiet ‘What?’ that reverberated through the whole bar.

I then listened to a fly that landed on an old flatscreen, and the subsequent swing from Roberu’s swatter that splattered it on the screen. I was killing time, waiting for Aki to show up and recreate that magical evening we had together all over again.

But she didn’t show up, not tonight.

There were around a thousand bars and karaokes in this city, she could be in any of them waiting for me, and I was ready to search every last one of them.

For a week or so I visited random bars and clubs, asking for Aki, the blonde elf. Some asked me what the hell I wanted to talk to her for, some said they had no idea, and some others introduced me to the wrong elves. Funny as life is, wherever I went with this sort of urgency to my mannerisms, I caught the attention of a few fair ladies, but I turned all of them down. I was already set on finding that one woman, her and no one else.

My search was fruitless. The more I dived into the swarms of people, the more I thought that Aki had been an illusion, a product of a lonely imagination. Seas of women with all of her characteristics wrong. Blonde women, but without the ears of an elf. Elves, without the blonde hair. Blonde hair and pointy ears, but without the purple eyes of my beloved. I found myself walking amidst the mob with my spirit giving in, ready to forfeit my desire to reunite with the elf.

In hindsight, it would’ve been a lot better so, it would’ve been a lot easier.

Then, I saw a glimpse of her. I saw a strand of Blonde hair pass me by, and just from that I knew it was Aki. My instinct told me so. I turned around and tried to follow her shadow, to catch up to her ghost. Marching against the masses. I saw her, I saw her ears, I saw her hair, and by God I needed to see her eyes and make sure that it was indeed Aki.

Then, I noticed she was walking next to someone else, and happily latched to his arms. My heart sank, but my feet didn’t ease their march. My voice gathered the last of its strength and pushed out a faint cry, ‘Aki…?’ it muttered, and it should’ve been quiet enough to die amidst the steps of the walking passerby, in the chit chat that flew through the air, but Aki’s ears twitched, and ever so slightly, she turned to me. There, her cold eyes met with me, and a confused grimace painted on her eyebrows and lips. She must’ve recognized me. I know so, because she beamed at me with a smile.

Then, she rested her head on her man’s shoulder and walked on without me, while I stood still, in the middle of a sea of faceless people.

~*~

In the end I suppose it isn’t her fault. At worst, I got played or used. It’s on me to have played up our little interaction so much. What meant a change in my life to me was nothing more than a Wednesday night for her.

I was mad at first, and then I felt sad. Indifferent at best. I went back to my usual self, but one thing had changed, and it ruined me.

Before, Aki, I hadn’t the slightest idea what love felt like, and I think I could’ve died without ever learning it, or caring for it more than I did. Now, I had a taste of a world that I would never belong to again.

But hey, it helps no one being down. So, I did what I did best. I went back to SunTempo and I asked Yukoku for a whiskey, on the rocks.

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Pub: 02 May 2024 17:44 UTC

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