A Year In The Life, 2/4
A Year In The Life - Part Two
Mondays with Shihori
It's a Monday, the day that makes Nino happy and sad all at once. Happy because he's home, can sleep in, can walk around in the same clothes he wore the previous day without much judgment. But sad because the next day he's back at work, surrounded by equally exhausted people, everyone struggling to make nearly impossible quotas.
There are worse jobs at the Rakuten warehouse, Nino is very aware of it. He has acquaintances who work the packing line, fitting the strange items Nino culls together from the shelves into boxes. Over and over, packing and closing and taping. In that job Nino would have to be on his feet at the line the entire time. At first he had thought it would be better, but at least his current job lets him move around. He's never been much for moving or exercise or going out of his way, but running around the warehouse, scanning and bending and sticking things in bins is not as tedious as standing stock still and packing boxes.
He's always tired from four days in a row of doing it, but he's technically in the best shape he's been in a long time. After high school he'd worked at an arcade and then several years for Yamato driving the airport route and wearing that ugly green uniform, bringing luggage from Haneda to people's homes or hotels. Rakuten pays better, probably because it's a 10-hour workday and most people drop out after a few weeks, unable to handle it. But Nino's been a gamer so long he sometimes turns his job into a game, hurrying to retrieve some rare item from a far off treasure chest in the rear of the warehouse.
So he gets through the tedium and actually has calf muscles now and the smallest potbelly he's had since high school, but Mondays are still happy and sad. But now at least he has Mondays with Shihori, and it's better than Mondays alone. It surprises Nino when he reaches that conclusion. Though he's spent the years since high school living with a sampling of roommates both obnoxious and not, he's always preferred to be alone. He used to treasure the time when his roommate would head off to work, leave him alone with his games or other hobbies like watching porn. Nino has always preferred his own company, but Kanjiya Shihori is so off the wall odd sometimes that he feels a bit restless without her around.
This Monday finds Nino slurping cup ramen, of course a brand that Sakurai Sho claims is the best that's sold in stores (although ramen in a restaurant will always be superior, et cetera, et cetera). It's the middle of the day when all the most horrible soap operas grace the television screens, and he wonders how housewives and shut-ins can get through every day with such poor entertainment options. Right now someone is pregnant after an affair with her best friend's husband, and the husband is threatening suicide for reasons Nino cannot even fathom. He slurps his noodles peacefully, happy for his own life and circumstances, when he hears a panicked shout from the bathroom.
"Nino!"
"I changed the toilet paper roll this morning," he shouts back, slurping a bit of broth from the cup.
"Nino!" she calls again. "Nino!"
He rolls his eyes, setting the cup down on one of the coasters ("Japan Airlines Signature Service") before heading to the bathroom. The exterior door is closed and he knocks. "Are you dying?"
"Come in, would you?"
He makes a face at the closed door. "Huh?"
"Just come in. Please, this is bad enough for me."
Slowly he turns the knob and enters. The inside toilet door is closed, and her voice is coming from in there. Her voice carrying all the way through two barriers to the living room to call for him lets him know how desperate she really must be. "Did you fall in? Because if so, I'm getting my phone and taking a photo for blackmail purposes."
"You're so mean to me, why do I let you live here?"
He waits outside the door, shifting from foot to foot. "I promise, I don't have my phone. What do you need?"
He hears her sigh, obviously gathering courage for what she's about to explain to him. It must be bad, whatever it is. "I got my period early," she informs him quietly.
She's better off than the woman in the soap opera on TV, he almost tells her. Instead he waits for the rest of it. Nino would happily go the rest of his life without knowing any details about the female menstrual cycle, but he supposes this is his punishment for living with a woman who isn't embarrassed to overshare. His older sister had been the same way growing up, but mostly just to annoy him and to be shocking.
"I was planning to go to the store today and stock up, but I haven't gone yet."
"So you don't have...anything then? For that issue?"
"No," she admits. "This is my failing as a human being. And a female human being at that. I would, um, I would improvise but I am currently wearing my favorite pair of underwear, and it's...well, not that you have any sense for these things, but it's pretty bad and I can't risk it."
"Are you asking me to go and get you another pair of underwear so you can carry out your, uh, improvising?"
"Initially that was the plan," she tells him, and he's trying not to imagine her sitting on the toilet. They are not that close of friends yet. "But I'd rather you not go in that drawer."
He has to hide his embarrassed laugh in the crook of his elbow. This is getting worse and worse and yet she's trusting him enough to tell him. "Kanjiya-san, I'm not going to steal your underwear."
"It's not...it's not that, um..."
He has to close his eyes now, cover his mouth with his hand and try not to let her hear him laughing at her. She doesn't want him to see her personal items, her personal sex-related items, and he does feel bad for her. "How can I help?" he interrupts, just so she doesn't have to actually say the words "I don't want you to get my underwear because I don't want you to see my vibrator" out loud.
"Can you go to the store and buy me some pads?"
Somehow this request is less embarrassing than letting Nino rummage through her panty drawer. "Seriously?"
"Nino, I wouldn't ask you if I didn't really need to. Please? The smallest pack they have, please? I swear that I will make it up to you. If you need condoms or hemorrhoid cream or something, I will buy you anything. I promise. Just please do this for me? I am in my hour of need! Please Nino, please?!"
He sighs. He's never living with a woman, never again! Never! He's pulled this kind of stuff for work before, big huge jumbo cases of pads, but that's way different than this. "What do they look like, the brand you use?"
"Well, it's a pink package. The brand is called Sofy."
"Alright."
She lets out a squeal of joy that sends him running from the room. He grabs his jacket, wallet, and keys and is out the door. This is just another mission, he has to tell himself. Your princess is in another castle, he thinks. Your maxi pads are in another place. The convenience store around the corner, a place Nino considered safe until this moment, will now have him on tape buying feminine items. He will probably need to shop elsewhere until the end of time or until he moves out of Edogawa, whichever happens first.
He heads for the rear of the store, the health and wellness aisle, bypassing condom boxes and aspirin and foot cream. He finds packages in every color of the rainbow. Despite the size of the store, there's no shortage of choices. He has a keen eye for locating things on shelves on account of his job, so he's able to find Shihori's brand with little trouble. He takes a deep breath and yanks the package from the shelf, heading straight for the register. No detours to the magazines or milk bread allowed on this mission. He pretends he's in Metal Gear Solid, that he needs to get to the end of the level without mistakes or getting caught.
Thankfully there isn't a line, and the clerk is a middle-aged woman. Nino thinks this is the best case scenario for clerks. A younger woman would think he's a pervert, a man would think he's a sucker, but a middle-aged woman...
She scans the package and has it dumped in a black plastic bag in seconds, removing it from sight before Nino can even open his wallet. Perhaps she knows, perhaps she understands the desperate embarrassment in Nino's eyes. "325 yen," she says, face revealing nothing.
He pays and now that he has the black bag, he's in the clear. But knowing Shihori's still waiting for him patiently in the bathroom, he makes an effort, taking the apartment stairs two at a time.
"I'm leaving them outside the door," he says when he reenters the room, setting the bag down.
He hears only a shouted "thank you" by the time he's back in the safety of the living room, his ramen gone completely cold. Nino wonders if Shihori would have asked the same thing of Aiba. She probably would have, honest and open person that she is. Nino just happened to be her only option at the time.
He hears the bathroom door open, keeps his eyes focused on the TV as Shihori quickly shuffles to her room and closes the door. When she emerges a few moments later, her face is calm, relaxed. Not the slightest indication about the suffering she's endured that afternoon, the depths to which she sunk in order to save her favorite pair of panties.
Nino freezes when she climbs onto the couch beside him, wrapping her arms around him tight. It's a turning point, he knows, a significant event. He doesn't know if she wants to be hugged back, so he just lets her hold onto him for a few seconds, smelling her sweet, cheerful perfume. Maybe this is the warm feeling Aiba gets when he comes home with a case of Onion King chips. The satisfaction of having made Shihori smile, the willingness to go above and beyond simply to make her happy.
And then she's gone, releasing him and heading for her purse and shoes. "I'm going to the store, back later!"
Nino watches the door close behind her, wondering if his drama-free life will remain that way for much longer.
--
Super Jumbo Tortillas
With so many trips to Southern California, Aiba has developed a taste for Mexican food. Enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas. Aiba comes home daydreaming about hot sauce and green sauce and the life-changing experience of homemade tamales from a friend of his friend who works in baggage claim at LAX. On his off-days, his scarce days when he's actually the third person in the apartment, he sits in the living room and whines about tamales. It's a similar whine to one Shihori gets when her Onion King bags diminish and Aiba's still in California. Between the two of them and Sho's ramen blog, Nino has found himself surrounded by people with disturbing food obsessions.
"Well then why don't you just buy a tamale?" Shihori finally complains one morning, the two of them sitting on the couch with bowls of some sugary American cereal, the milk in their bowls turned a disturbing purple color that Nino can't readily identify.
"Well maybe I will."
"Then go."
"I will," Aiba insists, not budging from his spot on the couch.
"I'm sick of hearing about it," Shihori says, a total hypocrite, as Nino emerges from the kitchen with a piece of buttered toast and a bad case of bed hair. "Aren't you sick of it, Nino?"
"I don't take sides, I'm smarter than that," he replies, flopping down in the chair.
"Listen to him," Aiba says with a scowl. "Looking down on us."
"Seriously," Shihori chimes in, suddenly losing interest in arguing with Aiba now that Nino has made his true opinions known.
Shihori and Aiba tend to engage in the dumbest arguments Nino has ever heard of, simply to argue. Apparently Keiko had served as peacemaker in these situations, a role Nino is unwilling to take on. Now most mornings that Aiba is home, Nino emerges from his room to find them arguing about the name of a movie they'd both seen, even though they could look it up online in seconds. Or sometimes they're arguing about whose toothpaste is superior at brightening their smile or which animal is cuter, sloths or koalas. They're both terrible at building a compelling, logical argument and most fights simply end in childish name calling ("Airhead!" "Onion breath!"). Nino nibbles his toast and ignores them most of the time.
"Find a Mexican restaurant. Ask Sho-kun, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to research it for you," Nino suggests, the most effort he's willing to put into their conversation.
"Or you could make your own," Shihori decides. "Then you can have it any time."
It's not until mid-afternoon that Aiba puts on jeans and runs a comb through his messy hair. When he's leaving for the airport, he's always perfect and gleaming, kind of like a doll. When he's off, he's intentionally off. He takes a look at both of them, Shihori and Nino and a fierce Mario Kart battle.
"I'm going to go buy some tortillas," he announces to the room, hands on his hips. Tortillas? So much for tamales. Aiba's declaration hangs in the air for a few seconds, the game music and sound effects providing a sad bit of punctuation. "Does anybody want anything?"
"A pony," Shihori says, turning her controller as if it'll make Yoshi go around the curve better.
"World peace," Nino chimes in.
"Tortillas then," Aiba says to himself, using that tone of voice he takes on when he's pretending they said something nice to him instead. "I'll be back later."
Aiba has a four-door hatchback in a parking structure two blocks away, which he'll need because the import store is across town. Sometimes it amazes Nino that Aiba has these things. He's not in the country half the year and yet he has a giant television he never gets to watch and a car he pays out the ass to store somewhere that he hardly ever drives. Flight attendants must make plenty to support such needless excess. Then again, Nino's the type of person who would buy single-ply toilet paper if he was put in charge of apartment shared necessities, but Shihori has appointed herself permanently in charge of such things.
When Aiba returns an hour later, he and Shihori are amazed at the massive bag he hauls in. They pause the game by mutual mental agreement and follow him into the kitchen where he sets the bag down on the table, pulling out a "SUPER JUMBO" pack of flour tortillas, 100 count.
"Masaki," Shihori says, tending only to whip out first names when Aiba has gone above and beyond normal levels of stupidity. "What have you done?"
The only other things he's gotten from the store is a massive brick of cheese labeled "Super Spice" and some hot sauce. He takes them from the bag and settles the cheese in the fridge. "The store only had fresh tortillas in these big packs. Like, they had these taco kits with the crunchy shells, but I don't care much for those. I think we can finish these."
"You leave for California in two days. How are you going to finish 100 tortillas in two days?" Shihori continues, astonished.
Aiba pauses, hand still clasped around his precious bottle of hot sauce. It is clear in that moment that their friend has at last remembered that he is a flight attendant who travels across the Pacific on a weekly basis. "Ah, that's true," is all he says.
Later that night there are six of them gathered around the coffee table in the living room. Aiba disappears into the kitchen every few minutes to shred more cheese and fry up the quesadillas in the skillet. Sho and Keiko don't appear to be that pleased to have taken the train across the city to eat greasy Mexican food made by Chef Aiba, although Ohno just looks thrilled to get a free meal. It's been a while since Nino's seen his senpai, who has already gone through six quesadillas.
"What else goes good with tortillas?" Shihori asks the room, prying her quesadilla into oozy, greasy pieces with her fingers. "Because once that idiot leaves, Nino and I will have to finish these before they go bad."
"I could eat them plain," Ohno admits, sitting cross-legged with Kenji in his lap. The cat turned his nose up at the quesadilla, but still insists on being present for the meal.
"Wrap a hot dog in it," Keiko suggests, although she looks just as repulsed as everyone else does when she says it.
"I'd eat that too," Ohno says, shrugging. "Melt some cheese on it."
Aiba returns with another plate of quesadillas, and everyone starts looking a bit queasy. "Why can't Oh-chan just take the damn tortillas with him when he leaves?" Shihori snits.
"There's like 70 left though," Aiba complains. "I'm not giving him 70 tortillas."
"That's fine, I have food at home," Ohno says with yet another shrug. Nothing ever seems to bother him, and Nino doubts that anything ever will.
"You could split them, give him half," Nino says, taking the hot sauce bottle and dumping some on Sho's quesadilla without asking. Sho shoots him a dirty look but eats it anyway. Nino has discovered that once there's food on his plate, Sho will eat it so as not to appear wasteful. Nino wonders if it's mean to try and fatten him up, just so he isn't the handsomest fellow in the room.
Aiba considers this but makes no promises. "We'll see how we feel later."
Eventually Keiko demands that Sho has to stop eating because he's already gotten ahead of Ohno in tortilla consumption. The final tally is Shihori five, Keiko four, Nino four, Aiba seven, Ohno nine, and Sho an even ten. The remaining sixty-one tortillas, fresher now than they'll ever be again, loom menacingly on the kitchen counter, and Nino would be thrilled to never eat Mexican food again.
"Before you even ask," Keiko says, leaning her head against her boyfriend's shoulder in a cheese-filled stupor, "we are not taking any of that home. I refuse."
"But they're good, aren't they?" Aiba says, sipping his beer. Everyone reluctantly agrees that they were pretty good. This is all Aiba needs to hear, some form of validation that his purchase was not an entirely stupid one, even though it clearly was.
A few days later Shihori comes home from work to inform Nino that on his way to Narita that morning, Aiba stopped by the gas station to give Ohno the package of sixty-one tortillas, most of them halfway stale already. Ohno thanked Aiba for the gift by bowing to him and saying "Hola," which apparently means "Hello" in Spanish.
--
Windbreaker
Because the smell of gasoline and engine oil clings to them so heavily, Shihori does not change into her work clothes until she arrives at the ENEOS station. There's a small locker room they all share, and since Shihori is the only female on the crew, she gets the luxury of changing in the bathroom and not having to look at the bare bodies of her male colleagues.
Nino has only seen the component parts of Shihori's uniform as they hang to dry on the balcony on days she brings them home to wash. A slightly puffy green windbreaker, plain blue slacks, and a short-sleeved polo shirt that goes under the windbreaker except in the summer heat when the crew is allowed to go without jackets. Her look is apparently complete with a pair of thick-soled sneakers and a hat that matches her windbreaker. These things she keeps in her locker.
As the only female, she tells him one day when he gets curious, she gets to do the more superficial tasks. She describes full shifts where she does nothing more than smile and clean windows and windshields while her co-workers fill gas tanks, vacuum inside cars, pop the hood to check oil levels and refill wiper fluid. She usually only gets to step up to the more interesting tasks if someone on the crew is out sick. Sometimes she's allowed to wave customers into position, directing with stiff, precise "go ahead, keep going, keep going, stop" gestures.
Shihori's job has given her incredible cleaning speed. In the apartment she wipes down the kitchen counters, cleans the bathroom mirror, and dusts with an efficiency that would make most housewives cry in jealousy. Nino has attempted to assist her on more than one occasion (a whopping two) and been found inadequate. She has instead entrusted him with cleaning the toilet and sorting trash.
He usually walks the same way to Kasai Station every morning, but one day he gets the sudden compulsion to see her working. How many days has he seen the windbreaker, the slacks tumbling in the washing machine and not been curious? This time he walks the opposite direction, adding an extra three blocks onto his route so he passes the ENEOS station. There's a coffee shop across the street, and he's given himself a window of about 20 minutes to take it all in.
He sips his coffee and sits on a stool facing the window and the street, feet thumping rhythmically against the stool legs in anticipation of the ten miles of walking at the warehouse ahead of him that day. He has a clear view of the station, four full-service lanes, the gas pumps suspended from the ceiling on thick black hoses that look like strange snakes or jungle vines.
Oh-chan is not visible, perhaps working the car wash queue around the side. A crew of three are working on a white Toyota in the third lane - one pumping gas, another vacuuming inside, and a third checking air in the tires while a bored looking housewife waits for them to finish. But finally a second car is ready to turn in off the street, and another waiting crew springs into action.
He knows her from her height and from being the only person that has a dark shock of hair sticking out the back of their hat in a ponytail. She's much smaller than her crew, two guys that absolutely dwarf her as she runs out with a cheerful look he can see even from across the street. Tall Guy number one is sent out to help the car navigate into the lane while the other presumably will pump the gas. It's Shihori, the Shihori he sees every day, who greets the customer and seems to be asking what type of service they'd like that morning.
It's the Shihori he sees every day, but not the one who sings about potato chips or shouts in alarm when a harmless spider crawls across her bedroom wall. She's in her uniform, which is unflattering and hides the shape of her body, the oversized windbreaker giving her the appearance of wearing a sack. He's never seen someone clean a windshield with the same level of enthusiasm before. The driver looks completely indifferent, but it doesn't dampen her smile or demeanor, and when he drives off, she and the other two members of the crew bow as the car departs.
Then another car turns up and it starts all over again. He gets rid of his empty coffee cup and heads for the station and another long work day. He wonders exactly what he was hoping to see or learn by watching her. In the end it was just too voyeuristic and he feels bad for watching without her knowledge.
He mostly manages to forget all about it until he sees the windbreaker clothespinned up on the balcony maybe a week later when he's putting out his own clothes. It's one of their Mondays alone, and when he comes back from hanging his things to dry, he sits down on the couch and gets her attention with a poke to the shoulder. She wrinkles her nose, chewing on her thumb while she reads.
"Mmm?"
"Why do you work at the gas station? Of all the the jobs in the world, why that one?"
"Why did you become an Order Fulfillment Associate?" she asks without looking up from the manga page, turning the question back on him. "Of all the jobs in the world."
"The money," he replies instantly. "And only working four days. Consistent scheduling, no overtime except on the occasional holiday."
She turns to the next page before taking another nibble from the edge of her thumb. "I used to work in an office. I didn't like it."
"Too dull? Long hours?"
"There was a guy in sales, a salaryman, not a contract employee like many of us. His name was Shige, and he was the most conceited, self-involved man I've ever met. He was gorgeous though, so I overlooked the negatives." She tells Nino this without any change in tone, explaining it to him like she's reading a recipe. "I was more aggressive in those days and I made a move. We went out for a while, but it didn't really go anywhere. But because he was a catch, I guess I was resented for pursuing him. For not letting the other women have a crack at him."
"So then what happened?" he asks, feeling suddenly like he's done a horrible thing in asking about it.
"I was frozen out," she explains. "By the women. It was fine for a while, I bitched to Keiko every night and she threatened to go there and tear them all a new one. She's very assertive on other people's behalf. So I got through it with her support. I could handle being ignored in the break room, I could handle them intentionally making plans without me right in front of me. And even when Shige left the company and their original reason for disliking me vanished, I could handle them telling other guys in the company that I was a slut who wanted to sleep her way through the department."
"Shii-chan..."
"Because it had nothing to do with my work. I did my job well, I got good reviews, I was competent. I went almost a year with people whispering about me because I believed I was stronger and I was better, and because I knew I wasn't any of the things they said. And even if I was, so what? I was good at my job, why did it matter who I slept with? Then there was a manager I'd worked with often, someone I'd always gotten along with. And married, mind you. He tried it one night when it was just the two of us. I thought...I stupidly thought it was for work, you know. That he needed my help. Instead he expected me to..."
She closes her manga and takes an angry breath at the memory, shaking her head.
"He grabs my ass and says 'Oi Kanjiya, it has to be my turn by now, right?' A man with a picture of his two toddlers on his desk, a wife who visits the office to drop off snacks, and he's sad that I haven't blown him yet when surely I've given everyone else a go," she explains, seething. "It didn't even matter how good I was at the job. They kept me around because sooner or later, it would obviously be their turn."
Nino lets her sit there, breathing in and out, staring at some spot on the coffee table that he can't see. He's struck with a memory of the stupid Onion King chips, the night soon after he moved in when he asked how she repaid Aiba for bringing her the chips. How easily she'd said something like "I don't do sexual favors." The memory horrifies him. He wants to go back in time, slap himself for saying it, but he knows it's not the same thing. He had no idea.
"So that was it. I handed in my resignation the next morning. I saw a sign in the gas station window walking home from the train, and I went in to inquire. You'd think a macho place like that would be even more ridiculous, more full of that crap, but I'm on the team. I'm crew, I'm family. I'm the little sister or the big sister, and even if I spend the next ten years cleaning windows, I'll clean them." Finally she turns to him, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe I should have just lied and told you I like cars."
"You can tell me anything," he decides in that moment. Hell, she almost always does. He knows her opinions and thoughts on a whole slew of things by now, simply by sharing close quarters. But when he tells her this, he hopes she understands what he's really saying. He finds himself wanting to be someone she can trust, someone who can be relied on. Nino's not used to being that person for anyone.
"Kei-chan will always be my number one," she answers him, getting up and heading to the kitchen to rinse out her coffee mug. "But if I have any secrets to spill or confessions to set free, I'll be happy for a back-up."
"And Aiba-san?"
He hears the kitchen faucet turn on. "Aiba-san thinks I like cars."
--
CDG
It was buy one, get one free at the pet superstore off the highway on the road to Gunma, Keiko explained. Sho's grandmother, pushing 90 and still going strong, lives out in the country there, and the couple had just returned from a visit. One "Kitty Kondo" for Keiko's new cat, Pom Pom, and of course one "Kitty Kondo" for Kenji.
They've been putting it off a few days now, the construction project. The box itself is massive, and he's not sure how Keiko and Sho got not just one but two into his car. Somehow Nino imagines Keiko leaving Sho behind with his grandma and hauling the boxes to Tokyo herself, picking him up later when she remembered to. Nino decides not to voice this opinion aloud as he has found that he likes Keiko a great deal and is only amused rather than turned off by her extreme kitty love.
Kenji has been a very curious fellow as long as the box has sat unopened in the living room. He has sniffed it from end to end, nibbling a bit at the seemingly tasty cardboard corners. Aiba has promised to help them put the Kitty Kondo together on his return from Los Angeles. He will be jet-lagged and incoherent within a few hours of his return, Nino is sure of it, but at least it's another set of hands for the opening construction kick-off.
What Nino and Shihori don't expect, sitting around watching TV that night, is for Aiba to return with a friend. Aiba's companion is of a height with him, though not as lanky. Instead the new guy is broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and big-faced. Large eyes, thick eyebrows, strong bone structure. He's not looking too happy either, but Nino knows that Aiba is a persuasive person and this guy was probably caught in an Aiba trap.
Aiba, arm around his friend's shoulder, introduces him as Matsumoto Jun, another cabin attendant at Japan Airlines. "The only other male in my training group," Aiba explains. Apparently they go way back, probably bonding over their endangered species status in a sea of pretty women. Matsumoto Jun greets Nino and Shihori with none of the Aiba enthusiasm, looking so serious Nino tries not to laugh at his extremely polite "it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"I didn't have time to call ahead," Aiba rambles on, dumping his bags in the space behind the couch. "But if it's not too much trouble, Jun-kun's going to be staying here tonight."
Nino and Shihori exchange a worried glance, although Nino sees Shihori's eyes shift away as soon as Matsumoto slips out of his outer jacket. He's still in his airline uniform - the same neat navy blue suit and the tie with the red and white diagonal stripes that they're so used to seeing on Aiba. It fits him well, Nino can admit it. It fits him even better than it does Aiba. Even after a long flight, Matsumoto Jun stands upright, perfectly polished. Shihori's sizing the poor guy up like a piece of meat, and Nino clears his throat.
"Welcome then," Nino says. "No trouble at all."
"I'm sorry to bother you," he continues, his voice a bit sharp, just like his face.
Matsumoto excuses himself to use the facilities, and Aiba leans close to whisper as soon as the door closes. "Just before he went on his last flight out, his girlfriend broke up with him. Now he's back, and he has to move out and find a new place, and he didn't want to go back there tonight and have it be weird...it really is okay for him to be here?"
Shihori frowns. "She dumped him before he headed off to work? That's cruel."
"Well, he works the Narita-CDG route," Aiba says, "He's gone as much as I am. It's not easy to find a good time for it."
"CDG?" Nino asks.
Aiba seems to think they've memorized all the airport codes like he has. "Charles de Gaulle. Paris. He flies Tokyo-Paris."
Nino sees Shihori visibly swoon at this, and he rolls his eyes. She's got her Onion King hookup. Now Nino's envisioning a laundry list of chocolates and croissants if this Matsumoto Jun becomes a regular fixture at the apartment.
"I'll make a place for him in the fourth bedroom," she says almost gleefully, heading for the linen cupboard in the laundry room. She pulls Matsumoto into the bedroom once she's gotten started, encouraging him to change and make himself at home.
Aiba heads for his own room to change and eventually the two flight attendants lose some of their aura, emerging into the living room in t-shirts and casual pants. To Shihori's barely-contained delight, Matsumoto wears a thick pair of glasses when he's not on a plane. They reconvene in the room with the TV on, but there's an odd tension in the air. It's pretty clear that everyone knows the reason for Matsumoto being there, even if it probably wasn't Aiba's story to tell. So Matsumoto makes no effort to hide his obvious unhappiness. Nobody knows what to say to the guy, though, seeing as how only Aiba knows him, but Nino decides that if Matsumoto Jun is spending the night free of charge, it's best to put him to work until he passes out from a combination of exhaustion and breakup-induced depression.
Nino gets off the couch, thumps the Kitty Kondo box with his foot. "Aiba-shi promised we'd put this together for Kenji when he got home. Matsumoto-san, would you like to help?"
The guy is out of the leather chair with a quickness that nearly startles Nino. "Oh? What's this?"
Kenji, usually friendlier, hasn't shown much interest in Matsumoto Jun since his arrival and is perched on the TV stand, watching the four of them. His tail swishes lazily as Nino directs Matsumoto to the box, lets him have a look. "A former resident of this apartment believes that cat over there needs this."
"Kitty Kondo," Matsumoto says, reading the box. It's an elaborate thing they need to construct. It's not a "kondo" so much as an entire estate. It's a connecting series of slanted walkways and perches and nooks, some of it covered with the roughly-textured gray carpet similar to what's on one of Kenji's scratching posts. There are fluffy toys suspended from perches. The thing, once put together, will be a hideous blot on their already oddly appointed living room. Ugly cat area, giant TV, ugly couch, puffy chair, Nino's game cabinet, band posters.
Matsumoto's sitting cross-legged on the floor almost instantly, prying open the box and yanking out its contents. Despite being a stranger, a guest, and having just flown back from France, he starts issuing orders. Arrange these toys here, these walkways here, let's do a count and make sure nothing's missing. He finds the instruction manual and his already serious demeanor grows even more serious, if such a thing is possible. He's probably the lead member of his cabin crew.
Aiba passes out on the couch within an hour, snoring on his back with Kenji curled up comfortably at his feet. But Matsumoto is wired, seemingly thrilled to have something he can control. He's got the manual next to him and some grand architectural vision for the Kitty Kondo. Shihori follows his orders with the obedience of a servant, connecting Walkway 1-A to Perch 2-C according to Matsumoto's exact requirements. Nino sits back in the role of supplier, handing over various parts as Matsumoto calls out their names. "The dangling pink thing, Toy 12...no, not that pink thing, the other pink thing."
By midnight the Kitty Kondo is complete. Its future resident remains indifferent, hopping down from the couch for a quick munch in the kitchen, but it's Matsumoto Jun who is most pleased. It's the broken-hearted guy with the firm biceps barely concealed under his t-shirt that has achieved the greatest satisfaction tonight. Shihori even rewards him and the biceps she's been watching so closely by leaving the room to draw him a hot bath.
Nino gathers up the packaging mess, the spare bits of cardboard, the now empty box while Matsumoto takes out his cell phone, snaps a few photos of the thing he's put together for his friend's cat. It's the little victories, Nino knows, having been dumped on several occasions. It's being able to get something done even when you just want to get in bed and hide for a week.
"How long were you together?" Nino asks, draping a blanket over Aiba on the couch.
"Three years," Matsumoto readily admits. "She wants to start a family. I want that too someday, but..."
"You're gone half the month."
"I'm gone half the month," he agrees.
Nino doesn't really know what it's like to want a family of his own, to want to be responsible for a crying, pooping infant. Some days he wonders how he manages to take care of himself. But Matsumoto Jun, similar to him in age, does want that. He wants it so badly Nino can see it in the depressed set of his jaw, the obvious tension in his back. But wanting what he wants would mean giving up his job, and it's clear he's not yet ready to compromise there.
"How's Paris?"
Matsumoto allows himself a brief smile. "Amazing."
Part Three
Mondays with Shihori
It's a Monday, the day that makes Nino happy and sad all at once. Happy because he's home, can sleep in, can walk around in the same clothes he wore the previous day without much judgment. But sad because the next day he's back at work, surrounded by equally exhausted people, everyone struggling to make nearly impossible quotas.
There are worse jobs at the Rakuten warehouse, Nino is very aware of it. He has acquaintances who work the packing line, fitting the strange items Nino culls together from the shelves into boxes. Over and over, packing and closing and taping. In that job Nino would have to be on his feet at the line the entire time. At first he had thought it would be better, but at least his current job lets him move around. He's never been much for moving or exercise or going out of his way, but running around the warehouse, scanning and bending and sticking things in bins is not as tedious as standing stock still and packing boxes.
He's always tired from four days in a row of doing it, but he's technically in the best shape he's been in a long time. After high school he'd worked at an arcade and then several years for Yamato driving the airport route and wearing that ugly green uniform, bringing luggage from Haneda to people's homes or hotels. Rakuten pays better, probably because it's a 10-hour workday and most people drop out after a few weeks, unable to handle it. But Nino's been a gamer so long he sometimes turns his job into a game, hurrying to retrieve some rare item from a far off treasure chest in the rear of the warehouse.
So he gets through the tedium and actually has calf muscles now and the smallest potbelly he's had since high school, but Mondays are still happy and sad. But now at least he has Mondays with Shihori, and it's better than Mondays alone. It surprises Nino when he reaches that conclusion. Though he's spent the years since high school living with a sampling of roommates both obnoxious and not, he's always preferred to be alone. He used to treasure the time when his roommate would head off to work, leave him alone with his games or other hobbies like watching porn. Nino has always preferred his own company, but Kanjiya Shihori is so off the wall odd sometimes that he feels a bit restless without her around.
This Monday finds Nino slurping cup ramen, of course a brand that Sakurai Sho claims is the best that's sold in stores (although ramen in a restaurant will always be superior, et cetera, et cetera). It's the middle of the day when all the most horrible soap operas grace the television screens, and he wonders how housewives and shut-ins can get through every day with such poor entertainment options. Right now someone is pregnant after an affair with her best friend's husband, and the husband is threatening suicide for reasons Nino cannot even fathom. He slurps his noodles peacefully, happy for his own life and circumstances, when he hears a panicked shout from the bathroom.
"Nino!"
"I changed the toilet paper roll this morning," he shouts back, slurping a bit of broth from the cup.
"Nino!" she calls again. "Nino!"
He rolls his eyes, setting the cup down on one of the coasters ("Japan Airlines Signature Service") before heading to the bathroom. The exterior door is closed and he knocks. "Are you dying?"
"Come in, would you?"
He makes a face at the closed door. "Huh?"
"Just come in. Please, this is bad enough for me."
Slowly he turns the knob and enters. The inside toilet door is closed, and her voice is coming from in there. Her voice carrying all the way through two barriers to the living room to call for him lets him know how desperate she really must be. "Did you fall in? Because if so, I'm getting my phone and taking a photo for blackmail purposes."
"You're so mean to me, why do I let you live here?"
He waits outside the door, shifting from foot to foot. "I promise, I don't have my phone. What do you need?"
He hears her sigh, obviously gathering courage for what she's about to explain to him. It must be bad, whatever it is. "I got my period early," she informs him quietly.
She's better off than the woman in the soap opera on TV, he almost tells her. Instead he waits for the rest of it. Nino would happily go the rest of his life without knowing any details about the female menstrual cycle, but he supposes this is his punishment for living with a woman who isn't embarrassed to overshare. His older sister had been the same way growing up, but mostly just to annoy him and to be shocking.
"I was planning to go to the store today and stock up, but I haven't gone yet."
"So you don't have...anything then? For that issue?"
"No," she admits. "This is my failing as a human being. And a female human being at that. I would, um, I would improvise but I am currently wearing my favorite pair of underwear, and it's...well, not that you have any sense for these things, but it's pretty bad and I can't risk it."
"Are you asking me to go and get you another pair of underwear so you can carry out your, uh, improvising?"
"Initially that was the plan," she tells him, and he's trying not to imagine her sitting on the toilet. They are not that close of friends yet. "But I'd rather you not go in that drawer."
He has to hide his embarrassed laugh in the crook of his elbow. This is getting worse and worse and yet she's trusting him enough to tell him. "Kanjiya-san, I'm not going to steal your underwear."
"It's not...it's not that, um..."
He has to close his eyes now, cover his mouth with his hand and try not to let her hear him laughing at her. She doesn't want him to see her personal items, her personal sex-related items, and he does feel bad for her. "How can I help?" he interrupts, just so she doesn't have to actually say the words "I don't want you to get my underwear because I don't want you to see my vibrator" out loud.
"Can you go to the store and buy me some pads?"
Somehow this request is less embarrassing than letting Nino rummage through her panty drawer. "Seriously?"
"Nino, I wouldn't ask you if I didn't really need to. Please? The smallest pack they have, please? I swear that I will make it up to you. If you need condoms or hemorrhoid cream or something, I will buy you anything. I promise. Just please do this for me? I am in my hour of need! Please Nino, please?!"
He sighs. He's never living with a woman, never again! Never! He's pulled this kind of stuff for work before, big huge jumbo cases of pads, but that's way different than this. "What do they look like, the brand you use?"
"Well, it's a pink package. The brand is called Sofy."
"Alright."
She lets out a squeal of joy that sends him running from the room. He grabs his jacket, wallet, and keys and is out the door. This is just another mission, he has to tell himself. Your princess is in another castle, he thinks. Your maxi pads are in another place. The convenience store around the corner, a place Nino considered safe until this moment, will now have him on tape buying feminine items. He will probably need to shop elsewhere until the end of time or until he moves out of Edogawa, whichever happens first.
He heads for the rear of the store, the health and wellness aisle, bypassing condom boxes and aspirin and foot cream. He finds packages in every color of the rainbow. Despite the size of the store, there's no shortage of choices. He has a keen eye for locating things on shelves on account of his job, so he's able to find Shihori's brand with little trouble. He takes a deep breath and yanks the package from the shelf, heading straight for the register. No detours to the magazines or milk bread allowed on this mission. He pretends he's in Metal Gear Solid, that he needs to get to the end of the level without mistakes or getting caught.
Thankfully there isn't a line, and the clerk is a middle-aged woman. Nino thinks this is the best case scenario for clerks. A younger woman would think he's a pervert, a man would think he's a sucker, but a middle-aged woman...
She scans the package and has it dumped in a black plastic bag in seconds, removing it from sight before Nino can even open his wallet. Perhaps she knows, perhaps she understands the desperate embarrassment in Nino's eyes. "325 yen," she says, face revealing nothing.
He pays and now that he has the black bag, he's in the clear. But knowing Shihori's still waiting for him patiently in the bathroom, he makes an effort, taking the apartment stairs two at a time.
"I'm leaving them outside the door," he says when he reenters the room, setting the bag down.
He hears only a shouted "thank you" by the time he's back in the safety of the living room, his ramen gone completely cold. Nino wonders if Shihori would have asked the same thing of Aiba. She probably would have, honest and open person that she is. Nino just happened to be her only option at the time.
He hears the bathroom door open, keeps his eyes focused on the TV as Shihori quickly shuffles to her room and closes the door. When she emerges a few moments later, her face is calm, relaxed. Not the slightest indication about the suffering she's endured that afternoon, the depths to which she sunk in order to save her favorite pair of panties.
Nino freezes when she climbs onto the couch beside him, wrapping her arms around him tight. It's a turning point, he knows, a significant event. He doesn't know if she wants to be hugged back, so he just lets her hold onto him for a few seconds, smelling her sweet, cheerful perfume. Maybe this is the warm feeling Aiba gets when he comes home with a case of Onion King chips. The satisfaction of having made Shihori smile, the willingness to go above and beyond simply to make her happy.
And then she's gone, releasing him and heading for her purse and shoes. "I'm going to the store, back later!"
Nino watches the door close behind her, wondering if his drama-free life will remain that way for much longer.
--
Super Jumbo Tortillas
With so many trips to Southern California, Aiba has developed a taste for Mexican food. Enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas. Aiba comes home daydreaming about hot sauce and green sauce and the life-changing experience of homemade tamales from a friend of his friend who works in baggage claim at LAX. On his off-days, his scarce days when he's actually the third person in the apartment, he sits in the living room and whines about tamales. It's a similar whine to one Shihori gets when her Onion King bags diminish and Aiba's still in California. Between the two of them and Sho's ramen blog, Nino has found himself surrounded by people with disturbing food obsessions.
"Well then why don't you just buy a tamale?" Shihori finally complains one morning, the two of them sitting on the couch with bowls of some sugary American cereal, the milk in their bowls turned a disturbing purple color that Nino can't readily identify.
"Well maybe I will."
"Then go."
"I will," Aiba insists, not budging from his spot on the couch.
"I'm sick of hearing about it," Shihori says, a total hypocrite, as Nino emerges from the kitchen with a piece of buttered toast and a bad case of bed hair. "Aren't you sick of it, Nino?"
"I don't take sides, I'm smarter than that," he replies, flopping down in the chair.
"Listen to him," Aiba says with a scowl. "Looking down on us."
"Seriously," Shihori chimes in, suddenly losing interest in arguing with Aiba now that Nino has made his true opinions known.
Shihori and Aiba tend to engage in the dumbest arguments Nino has ever heard of, simply to argue. Apparently Keiko had served as peacemaker in these situations, a role Nino is unwilling to take on. Now most mornings that Aiba is home, Nino emerges from his room to find them arguing about the name of a movie they'd both seen, even though they could look it up online in seconds. Or sometimes they're arguing about whose toothpaste is superior at brightening their smile or which animal is cuter, sloths or koalas. They're both terrible at building a compelling, logical argument and most fights simply end in childish name calling ("Airhead!" "Onion breath!"). Nino nibbles his toast and ignores them most of the time.
"Find a Mexican restaurant. Ask Sho-kun, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to research it for you," Nino suggests, the most effort he's willing to put into their conversation.
"Or you could make your own," Shihori decides. "Then you can have it any time."
It's not until mid-afternoon that Aiba puts on jeans and runs a comb through his messy hair. When he's leaving for the airport, he's always perfect and gleaming, kind of like a doll. When he's off, he's intentionally off. He takes a look at both of them, Shihori and Nino and a fierce Mario Kart battle.
"I'm going to go buy some tortillas," he announces to the room, hands on his hips. Tortillas? So much for tamales. Aiba's declaration hangs in the air for a few seconds, the game music and sound effects providing a sad bit of punctuation. "Does anybody want anything?"
"A pony," Shihori says, turning her controller as if it'll make Yoshi go around the curve better.
"World peace," Nino chimes in.
"Tortillas then," Aiba says to himself, using that tone of voice he takes on when he's pretending they said something nice to him instead. "I'll be back later."
Aiba has a four-door hatchback in a parking structure two blocks away, which he'll need because the import store is across town. Sometimes it amazes Nino that Aiba has these things. He's not in the country half the year and yet he has a giant television he never gets to watch and a car he pays out the ass to store somewhere that he hardly ever drives. Flight attendants must make plenty to support such needless excess. Then again, Nino's the type of person who would buy single-ply toilet paper if he was put in charge of apartment shared necessities, but Shihori has appointed herself permanently in charge of such things.
When Aiba returns an hour later, he and Shihori are amazed at the massive bag he hauls in. They pause the game by mutual mental agreement and follow him into the kitchen where he sets the bag down on the table, pulling out a "SUPER JUMBO" pack of flour tortillas, 100 count.
"Masaki," Shihori says, tending only to whip out first names when Aiba has gone above and beyond normal levels of stupidity. "What have you done?"
The only other things he's gotten from the store is a massive brick of cheese labeled "Super Spice" and some hot sauce. He takes them from the bag and settles the cheese in the fridge. "The store only had fresh tortillas in these big packs. Like, they had these taco kits with the crunchy shells, but I don't care much for those. I think we can finish these."
"You leave for California in two days. How are you going to finish 100 tortillas in two days?" Shihori continues, astonished.
Aiba pauses, hand still clasped around his precious bottle of hot sauce. It is clear in that moment that their friend has at last remembered that he is a flight attendant who travels across the Pacific on a weekly basis. "Ah, that's true," is all he says.
Later that night there are six of them gathered around the coffee table in the living room. Aiba disappears into the kitchen every few minutes to shred more cheese and fry up the quesadillas in the skillet. Sho and Keiko don't appear to be that pleased to have taken the train across the city to eat greasy Mexican food made by Chef Aiba, although Ohno just looks thrilled to get a free meal. It's been a while since Nino's seen his senpai, who has already gone through six quesadillas.
"What else goes good with tortillas?" Shihori asks the room, prying her quesadilla into oozy, greasy pieces with her fingers. "Because once that idiot leaves, Nino and I will have to finish these before they go bad."
"I could eat them plain," Ohno admits, sitting cross-legged with Kenji in his lap. The cat turned his nose up at the quesadilla, but still insists on being present for the meal.
"Wrap a hot dog in it," Keiko suggests, although she looks just as repulsed as everyone else does when she says it.
"I'd eat that too," Ohno says, shrugging. "Melt some cheese on it."
Aiba returns with another plate of quesadillas, and everyone starts looking a bit queasy. "Why can't Oh-chan just take the damn tortillas with him when he leaves?" Shihori snits.
"There's like 70 left though," Aiba complains. "I'm not giving him 70 tortillas."
"That's fine, I have food at home," Ohno says with yet another shrug. Nothing ever seems to bother him, and Nino doubts that anything ever will.
"You could split them, give him half," Nino says, taking the hot sauce bottle and dumping some on Sho's quesadilla without asking. Sho shoots him a dirty look but eats it anyway. Nino has discovered that once there's food on his plate, Sho will eat it so as not to appear wasteful. Nino wonders if it's mean to try and fatten him up, just so he isn't the handsomest fellow in the room.
Aiba considers this but makes no promises. "We'll see how we feel later."
Eventually Keiko demands that Sho has to stop eating because he's already gotten ahead of Ohno in tortilla consumption. The final tally is Shihori five, Keiko four, Nino four, Aiba seven, Ohno nine, and Sho an even ten. The remaining sixty-one tortillas, fresher now than they'll ever be again, loom menacingly on the kitchen counter, and Nino would be thrilled to never eat Mexican food again.
"Before you even ask," Keiko says, leaning her head against her boyfriend's shoulder in a cheese-filled stupor, "we are not taking any of that home. I refuse."
"But they're good, aren't they?" Aiba says, sipping his beer. Everyone reluctantly agrees that they were pretty good. This is all Aiba needs to hear, some form of validation that his purchase was not an entirely stupid one, even though it clearly was.
A few days later Shihori comes home from work to inform Nino that on his way to Narita that morning, Aiba stopped by the gas station to give Ohno the package of sixty-one tortillas, most of them halfway stale already. Ohno thanked Aiba for the gift by bowing to him and saying "Hola," which apparently means "Hello" in Spanish.
--
Windbreaker
Because the smell of gasoline and engine oil clings to them so heavily, Shihori does not change into her work clothes until she arrives at the ENEOS station. There's a small locker room they all share, and since Shihori is the only female on the crew, she gets the luxury of changing in the bathroom and not having to look at the bare bodies of her male colleagues.
Nino has only seen the component parts of Shihori's uniform as they hang to dry on the balcony on days she brings them home to wash. A slightly puffy green windbreaker, plain blue slacks, and a short-sleeved polo shirt that goes under the windbreaker except in the summer heat when the crew is allowed to go without jackets. Her look is apparently complete with a pair of thick-soled sneakers and a hat that matches her windbreaker. These things she keeps in her locker.
As the only female, she tells him one day when he gets curious, she gets to do the more superficial tasks. She describes full shifts where she does nothing more than smile and clean windows and windshields while her co-workers fill gas tanks, vacuum inside cars, pop the hood to check oil levels and refill wiper fluid. She usually only gets to step up to the more interesting tasks if someone on the crew is out sick. Sometimes she's allowed to wave customers into position, directing with stiff, precise "go ahead, keep going, keep going, stop" gestures.
Shihori's job has given her incredible cleaning speed. In the apartment she wipes down the kitchen counters, cleans the bathroom mirror, and dusts with an efficiency that would make most housewives cry in jealousy. Nino has attempted to assist her on more than one occasion (a whopping two) and been found inadequate. She has instead entrusted him with cleaning the toilet and sorting trash.
He usually walks the same way to Kasai Station every morning, but one day he gets the sudden compulsion to see her working. How many days has he seen the windbreaker, the slacks tumbling in the washing machine and not been curious? This time he walks the opposite direction, adding an extra three blocks onto his route so he passes the ENEOS station. There's a coffee shop across the street, and he's given himself a window of about 20 minutes to take it all in.
He sips his coffee and sits on a stool facing the window and the street, feet thumping rhythmically against the stool legs in anticipation of the ten miles of walking at the warehouse ahead of him that day. He has a clear view of the station, four full-service lanes, the gas pumps suspended from the ceiling on thick black hoses that look like strange snakes or jungle vines.
Oh-chan is not visible, perhaps working the car wash queue around the side. A crew of three are working on a white Toyota in the third lane - one pumping gas, another vacuuming inside, and a third checking air in the tires while a bored looking housewife waits for them to finish. But finally a second car is ready to turn in off the street, and another waiting crew springs into action.
He knows her from her height and from being the only person that has a dark shock of hair sticking out the back of their hat in a ponytail. She's much smaller than her crew, two guys that absolutely dwarf her as she runs out with a cheerful look he can see even from across the street. Tall Guy number one is sent out to help the car navigate into the lane while the other presumably will pump the gas. It's Shihori, the Shihori he sees every day, who greets the customer and seems to be asking what type of service they'd like that morning.
It's the Shihori he sees every day, but not the one who sings about potato chips or shouts in alarm when a harmless spider crawls across her bedroom wall. She's in her uniform, which is unflattering and hides the shape of her body, the oversized windbreaker giving her the appearance of wearing a sack. He's never seen someone clean a windshield with the same level of enthusiasm before. The driver looks completely indifferent, but it doesn't dampen her smile or demeanor, and when he drives off, she and the other two members of the crew bow as the car departs.
Then another car turns up and it starts all over again. He gets rid of his empty coffee cup and heads for the station and another long work day. He wonders exactly what he was hoping to see or learn by watching her. In the end it was just too voyeuristic and he feels bad for watching without her knowledge.
He mostly manages to forget all about it until he sees the windbreaker clothespinned up on the balcony maybe a week later when he's putting out his own clothes. It's one of their Mondays alone, and when he comes back from hanging his things to dry, he sits down on the couch and gets her attention with a poke to the shoulder. She wrinkles her nose, chewing on her thumb while she reads.
"Mmm?"
"Why do you work at the gas station? Of all the the jobs in the world, why that one?"
"Why did you become an Order Fulfillment Associate?" she asks without looking up from the manga page, turning the question back on him. "Of all the jobs in the world."
"The money," he replies instantly. "And only working four days. Consistent scheduling, no overtime except on the occasional holiday."
She turns to the next page before taking another nibble from the edge of her thumb. "I used to work in an office. I didn't like it."
"Too dull? Long hours?"
"There was a guy in sales, a salaryman, not a contract employee like many of us. His name was Shige, and he was the most conceited, self-involved man I've ever met. He was gorgeous though, so I overlooked the negatives." She tells Nino this without any change in tone, explaining it to him like she's reading a recipe. "I was more aggressive in those days and I made a move. We went out for a while, but it didn't really go anywhere. But because he was a catch, I guess I was resented for pursuing him. For not letting the other women have a crack at him."
"So then what happened?" he asks, feeling suddenly like he's done a horrible thing in asking about it.
"I was frozen out," she explains. "By the women. It was fine for a while, I bitched to Keiko every night and she threatened to go there and tear them all a new one. She's very assertive on other people's behalf. So I got through it with her support. I could handle being ignored in the break room, I could handle them intentionally making plans without me right in front of me. And even when Shige left the company and their original reason for disliking me vanished, I could handle them telling other guys in the company that I was a slut who wanted to sleep her way through the department."
"Shii-chan..."
"Because it had nothing to do with my work. I did my job well, I got good reviews, I was competent. I went almost a year with people whispering about me because I believed I was stronger and I was better, and because I knew I wasn't any of the things they said. And even if I was, so what? I was good at my job, why did it matter who I slept with? Then there was a manager I'd worked with often, someone I'd always gotten along with. And married, mind you. He tried it one night when it was just the two of us. I thought...I stupidly thought it was for work, you know. That he needed my help. Instead he expected me to..."
She closes her manga and takes an angry breath at the memory, shaking her head.
"He grabs my ass and says 'Oi Kanjiya, it has to be my turn by now, right?' A man with a picture of his two toddlers on his desk, a wife who visits the office to drop off snacks, and he's sad that I haven't blown him yet when surely I've given everyone else a go," she explains, seething. "It didn't even matter how good I was at the job. They kept me around because sooner or later, it would obviously be their turn."
Nino lets her sit there, breathing in and out, staring at some spot on the coffee table that he can't see. He's struck with a memory of the stupid Onion King chips, the night soon after he moved in when he asked how she repaid Aiba for bringing her the chips. How easily she'd said something like "I don't do sexual favors." The memory horrifies him. He wants to go back in time, slap himself for saying it, but he knows it's not the same thing. He had no idea.
"So that was it. I handed in my resignation the next morning. I saw a sign in the gas station window walking home from the train, and I went in to inquire. You'd think a macho place like that would be even more ridiculous, more full of that crap, but I'm on the team. I'm crew, I'm family. I'm the little sister or the big sister, and even if I spend the next ten years cleaning windows, I'll clean them." Finally she turns to him, raising an eyebrow. "Maybe I should have just lied and told you I like cars."
"You can tell me anything," he decides in that moment. Hell, she almost always does. He knows her opinions and thoughts on a whole slew of things by now, simply by sharing close quarters. But when he tells her this, he hopes she understands what he's really saying. He finds himself wanting to be someone she can trust, someone who can be relied on. Nino's not used to being that person for anyone.
"Kei-chan will always be my number one," she answers him, getting up and heading to the kitchen to rinse out her coffee mug. "But if I have any secrets to spill or confessions to set free, I'll be happy for a back-up."
"And Aiba-san?"
He hears the kitchen faucet turn on. "Aiba-san thinks I like cars."
--
CDG
It was buy one, get one free at the pet superstore off the highway on the road to Gunma, Keiko explained. Sho's grandmother, pushing 90 and still going strong, lives out in the country there, and the couple had just returned from a visit. One "Kitty Kondo" for Keiko's new cat, Pom Pom, and of course one "Kitty Kondo" for Kenji.
They've been putting it off a few days now, the construction project. The box itself is massive, and he's not sure how Keiko and Sho got not just one but two into his car. Somehow Nino imagines Keiko leaving Sho behind with his grandma and hauling the boxes to Tokyo herself, picking him up later when she remembered to. Nino decides not to voice this opinion aloud as he has found that he likes Keiko a great deal and is only amused rather than turned off by her extreme kitty love.
Kenji has been a very curious fellow as long as the box has sat unopened in the living room. He has sniffed it from end to end, nibbling a bit at the seemingly tasty cardboard corners. Aiba has promised to help them put the Kitty Kondo together on his return from Los Angeles. He will be jet-lagged and incoherent within a few hours of his return, Nino is sure of it, but at least it's another set of hands for the opening construction kick-off.
What Nino and Shihori don't expect, sitting around watching TV that night, is for Aiba to return with a friend. Aiba's companion is of a height with him, though not as lanky. Instead the new guy is broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and big-faced. Large eyes, thick eyebrows, strong bone structure. He's not looking too happy either, but Nino knows that Aiba is a persuasive person and this guy was probably caught in an Aiba trap.
Aiba, arm around his friend's shoulder, introduces him as Matsumoto Jun, another cabin attendant at Japan Airlines. "The only other male in my training group," Aiba explains. Apparently they go way back, probably bonding over their endangered species status in a sea of pretty women. Matsumoto Jun greets Nino and Shihori with none of the Aiba enthusiasm, looking so serious Nino tries not to laugh at his extremely polite "it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"I didn't have time to call ahead," Aiba rambles on, dumping his bags in the space behind the couch. "But if it's not too much trouble, Jun-kun's going to be staying here tonight."
Nino and Shihori exchange a worried glance, although Nino sees Shihori's eyes shift away as soon as Matsumoto slips out of his outer jacket. He's still in his airline uniform - the same neat navy blue suit and the tie with the red and white diagonal stripes that they're so used to seeing on Aiba. It fits him well, Nino can admit it. It fits him even better than it does Aiba. Even after a long flight, Matsumoto Jun stands upright, perfectly polished. Shihori's sizing the poor guy up like a piece of meat, and Nino clears his throat.
"Welcome then," Nino says. "No trouble at all."
"I'm sorry to bother you," he continues, his voice a bit sharp, just like his face.
Matsumoto excuses himself to use the facilities, and Aiba leans close to whisper as soon as the door closes. "Just before he went on his last flight out, his girlfriend broke up with him. Now he's back, and he has to move out and find a new place, and he didn't want to go back there tonight and have it be weird...it really is okay for him to be here?"
Shihori frowns. "She dumped him before he headed off to work? That's cruel."
"Well, he works the Narita-CDG route," Aiba says, "He's gone as much as I am. It's not easy to find a good time for it."
"CDG?" Nino asks.
Aiba seems to think they've memorized all the airport codes like he has. "Charles de Gaulle. Paris. He flies Tokyo-Paris."
Nino sees Shihori visibly swoon at this, and he rolls his eyes. She's got her Onion King hookup. Now Nino's envisioning a laundry list of chocolates and croissants if this Matsumoto Jun becomes a regular fixture at the apartment.
"I'll make a place for him in the fourth bedroom," she says almost gleefully, heading for the linen cupboard in the laundry room. She pulls Matsumoto into the bedroom once she's gotten started, encouraging him to change and make himself at home.
Aiba heads for his own room to change and eventually the two flight attendants lose some of their aura, emerging into the living room in t-shirts and casual pants. To Shihori's barely-contained delight, Matsumoto wears a thick pair of glasses when he's not on a plane. They reconvene in the room with the TV on, but there's an odd tension in the air. It's pretty clear that everyone knows the reason for Matsumoto being there, even if it probably wasn't Aiba's story to tell. So Matsumoto makes no effort to hide his obvious unhappiness. Nobody knows what to say to the guy, though, seeing as how only Aiba knows him, but Nino decides that if Matsumoto Jun is spending the night free of charge, it's best to put him to work until he passes out from a combination of exhaustion and breakup-induced depression.
Nino gets off the couch, thumps the Kitty Kondo box with his foot. "Aiba-shi promised we'd put this together for Kenji when he got home. Matsumoto-san, would you like to help?"
The guy is out of the leather chair with a quickness that nearly startles Nino. "Oh? What's this?"
Kenji, usually friendlier, hasn't shown much interest in Matsumoto Jun since his arrival and is perched on the TV stand, watching the four of them. His tail swishes lazily as Nino directs Matsumoto to the box, lets him have a look. "A former resident of this apartment believes that cat over there needs this."
"Kitty Kondo," Matsumoto says, reading the box. It's an elaborate thing they need to construct. It's not a "kondo" so much as an entire estate. It's a connecting series of slanted walkways and perches and nooks, some of it covered with the roughly-textured gray carpet similar to what's on one of Kenji's scratching posts. There are fluffy toys suspended from perches. The thing, once put together, will be a hideous blot on their already oddly appointed living room. Ugly cat area, giant TV, ugly couch, puffy chair, Nino's game cabinet, band posters.
Matsumoto's sitting cross-legged on the floor almost instantly, prying open the box and yanking out its contents. Despite being a stranger, a guest, and having just flown back from France, he starts issuing orders. Arrange these toys here, these walkways here, let's do a count and make sure nothing's missing. He finds the instruction manual and his already serious demeanor grows even more serious, if such a thing is possible. He's probably the lead member of his cabin crew.
Aiba passes out on the couch within an hour, snoring on his back with Kenji curled up comfortably at his feet. But Matsumoto is wired, seemingly thrilled to have something he can control. He's got the manual next to him and some grand architectural vision for the Kitty Kondo. Shihori follows his orders with the obedience of a servant, connecting Walkway 1-A to Perch 2-C according to Matsumoto's exact requirements. Nino sits back in the role of supplier, handing over various parts as Matsumoto calls out their names. "The dangling pink thing, Toy 12...no, not that pink thing, the other pink thing."
By midnight the Kitty Kondo is complete. Its future resident remains indifferent, hopping down from the couch for a quick munch in the kitchen, but it's Matsumoto Jun who is most pleased. It's the broken-hearted guy with the firm biceps barely concealed under his t-shirt that has achieved the greatest satisfaction tonight. Shihori even rewards him and the biceps she's been watching so closely by leaving the room to draw him a hot bath.
Nino gathers up the packaging mess, the spare bits of cardboard, the now empty box while Matsumoto takes out his cell phone, snaps a few photos of the thing he's put together for his friend's cat. It's the little victories, Nino knows, having been dumped on several occasions. It's being able to get something done even when you just want to get in bed and hide for a week.
"How long were you together?" Nino asks, draping a blanket over Aiba on the couch.
"Three years," Matsumoto readily admits. "She wants to start a family. I want that too someday, but..."
"You're gone half the month."
"I'm gone half the month," he agrees.
Nino doesn't really know what it's like to want a family of his own, to want to be responsible for a crying, pooping infant. Some days he wonders how he manages to take care of himself. But Matsumoto Jun, similar to him in age, does want that. He wants it so badly Nino can see it in the depressed set of his jaw, the obvious tension in his back. But wanting what he wants would mean giving up his job, and it's clear he's not yet ready to compromise there.
"How's Paris?"
Matsumoto allows himself a brief smile. "Amazing."
Part Three