Distorted Daytime, Ch. 3/4
Title: Distorted Daytime
Chapters: 3/4
Author: konicoffee
Genre: Psychological Drama (somewhat), Angst, Smut
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
Warnings: Sex. In this chapter, het. sex.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Aoi/Reita
Synopsis: He was Distorted Daytime’s highest paid agent, the most expensive agent in the business. His client was a company executive. A powerful woman. The target: her husband. Akira Suzuki.
Comments: Requested by kapoha. I have abandoned this fic for way too long. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but lo! It looks like there will be another one. Hopefully the next one won't take too long for me to write. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the (long overdue) update!
Chapters: { One } { Two }
The rain didn’t stop.
Akira held his breath as streams of hot water splashed on his face. He ran both of his hands through his hair. Puddles formed around his neck as he raised his arms and contracted his broad shoulders. Shower water ran down his back, completely eliminating the chill from the rain earlier. He thought of his encounter with Aoi. Images of the brunette standing beside him in the rain flashed in his head. He remembered Aoi’s sad eyes and his equally lonely voice.
You are my weakness.
Aoi stood under the downpour of warm water that sprinkled from the showerhead. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, as if praying, repenting. He slid a soapy hand over his chest as he thought of his target. His strong, yet at the same time very delicate target. Rivulets of water rinsed the suds off his body, uncovering a wet sheen over chiseled flesh. He recalled images of Akira turning to him. Frame by frame, he replayed the scene of the teacher moving closer and placing one hand on Aoi’s chest. The feeling of Akira’s fingertips on his chest lingered on his skin. He couldn’t wash it off.
Soapy water flowed down Akira’s firm stomach as he watched water flow through his fingers. He could still feel Aoi’s heavy heartbeat.
Aoi wiped the collecting globules of water off his face with a damp hand. He remembered touching Akira’s cold cheek and leaning close enough to hear the teacher’s breathing. Close enough to see beads of rainwater on the target’s eyelashes.
And then he stopped right there. Your wife is waiting.
The rain stopped, right when Aoi wound the shower knob closed. Right when Akira stepped out of the shower.
Warm shower water dripped from their parted lips as they reached for their towels. Both men sighed. Fuck.
After drying himself, Akira slipped into a robe and walked out of the bathroom, thoughts of his student still lingering in his head. He saw his face and heard his voice, even when he closed his eyes and listened hard for silence.
Silence. Then a voice. “Darling.”
He opened his eyes, finding the woman he called his wife on their bed, covered in sheets from waist down. Low, tender light and her long hair accented the curves of her body. He looked at her while she spoke, her lips moving as if saying words, but he couldn’t hear anything. Another person’s voice echoed in his thoughts. You are my weakness. Your wife is waiting. You are my weakness. Your wife is waiting…
“Akira?”
He didn’t hear the call for attention, even as he walked closer to the woman, or when he crawled onto the bed.
Onto her.
The feeling in his chest when he kissed her lips was alien to him. He couldn’t tell how he felt when she kissed back and caressed his nape, or when he slipped the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders. He tried to remember the name of that certain mood as they ridded each other of the fabric that separated them. He planted kisses all over her body, searching for this feeling’s identity.
It could have been lust. Perhaps it was the desire he was supposed to have for his wife all along, finally coming to him. They came to him in waves of heat as he felt her hands around his length.
Then he found himself waiting for his heart to race. This wasn’t lust.
It was emptiness.
“Sorry…sorry to keep you waiting.”
The man closed his eyes as he plunged into her. He kept his eyes closed, letting uneven breaths escape him. He concentrated on his wife’s gasps, on her moans, on her lips latching onto his skin. He kept himself preoccupied with the tight, wet heat clamping down on him with every thrust he made. His eyes remained closed, and slowly, slowly, he felt his heart hammer against his chest and his mind reel. Suddenly the emptiness was gone.
His heart pounded more and more with every movement and every breath, and every image of his raven-haired student.
Now dressed, Aoi dried his hair with a towel as he walked into the silence of his bedroom, head parallel to the floor, mind submerged in thought. He pondered on the numerous affairs he forced out of different people. All those relationships he destroyed. All those hearts he shattered. At the time, he didn’t care. They were nothing more than jobs he had to finish. Whether or not the relationships he wrecked had hopes of repair was immaterial. How it affected families, how it hurt their children, did not matter to him.
With his hair now dry, Aoi took the towel off his head and looked up. His heart stopped upon seeing someone else sitting on his bed.
“Boss.”
“Good evening, Aoi,” the man purred. “How is the hunt coming along?”
You’re not feeling sympathy for the target, are you?
Discarding all thoughts of Akira along with his towel, the agent tilted his head and grinned. “Target locked.”
The other man smiled back. Aoi was unstoppable now. This assignment was going to end soon. Akira Suzuki would be Distorted Daytime’s most prized trophy yet.
“According to Ries and Trout, businesses can use four strategies for marketing warfare.”
Everyone noticed Aoi behaving differently during that week’s Strategic Marketing class. As usual, the brunette was not taking notes, but he was oddly silent that day. Aoi just sat quietly, staring at the blond associate professor, watching him talk, observing how he moved his arms as he spoke.
On the other hand, nothing was different about Akira. He still moved with the confidence that always impressed Aoi. He still spoke with the calmness that intrigued the agent.
“Offensive marketing strategies were formulated for the business to pinpoint weaknesses and attack those points,” the lecturer said. “Note that when using offensive marketing, it is important to attack quickly. The element of surprise is key.”
Aoi would have laughed out loud at Akira’s words, but he chose to remain silent. He found it funny that for someone who knew of such concepts, Akira was totally clueless about what was about to happen. It was hard work, but Aoi knew that he had finally been able to break through Akira’s guard. Trying not to celebrate his victory too early, the agent concealed all emotion and continued listening.
“Defensive strategies, as the name implies, are for businesses that wish to protect their position, as far as market share and profitability go,” Akira said. “So this type of marketing warfare is normally used by market leaders. It is unwise for new players to go with this strategy.”
Silence filled the room as Aoi finally raised his hand.
Two seconds of silence, then Akira responded. “Yes, Satou?”
“How does a company ensure that their defenses are fortified?” The agent asked, throwing a smug look at the lecturer, challenging him. “They wouldn’t know what their competitors are thinking.”
As if completely unfazed, Akira answered. “Companies have to identify their own weak spots and strengthen their defenses in those areas,” he started. “For example, firms can improve their old products and come out with new ones. It will cost them money, but in the long run, they earn more and maintain market share.”
“In other words, Satou,” the lecturer said, his expression absolutely blank. “The best defense is to attack yourself. You gun yourself down and rebuild yourself with stronger material.”
Aoi’s nodded, trying to hide the fact that the target’s answer made him think hard about his situation. It made him stop thinking of his attack for a moment, and look at his own noticeably damaged guard. He refused to admit it, but Akira was the first target to ever make him feel even just briefly reluctant about doing this job.
You are my weakness.
Then he started to wonder what exactly was weighing him down. Was it pity or guilt?
“Moving on,” Akira announced. “Flanking strategies - these are tactics that enable a company to attack areas that their competitors don’t pay attention to,” he said. “An example would be how a certain watch brand distributes their products in drug stores instead of common retail areas, such as specialized watch and jewelry shops. ”
“Companies that use flanking strategies,” the teacher added, “do so in order to avoid confrontation.”
Aoi once again thought of the relationships he demolished, all in the name of silence and civility. Courtesy was of higher value than honesty. It was more important than genuine human connection.
He is our best operative. This is Aoi. Bullshit. Being the best in his field of work meant nothing to him. He felt no merit in being the greatest at toying with people’s emotions. He felt no worth at being unsurpassed at delivering death to human bonds.
And he wasn’t Aoi. Fuck, no. Aoi was just another lie he had to live. Just another face he had to hide behind, like the fucking coward his job entailed him to become.
“Lastly, we have guerilla warfare,” Akira said. “In a nutshell, this is a hit-and-run strategy. Businesses attack, run away and hide, then do it again until they drive their competitors away or break them down.”
Your job is to destroy his relationship with his wife, regardless of the impact it brings to his heart or yours.
I don’t intend to fail this job.
Aoi remained silent, as the man was now further into the depths of his own thoughts. His mission was clear - to put an end to a relationship. But then he asked himself if it was possible to tear down a relationship without wounding the people involved. It seemed that way before, since the clients and the targets he dealt with never cared for each other anyway.
In all of these jobs, the target had always been somewhat at fault. The target was always either a husband’s mistress to be lured away, a wife who was just as sick of her marriage as her husband was, an employee who had been abusing company benefits, or a suitor who showed no effort to prove his sincerity. All of his targets were assholes who didn’t really have much concern for the clients.
But this target was different. Akira actually cared about the client above anyone else, and the client loved him back. It’s just that Akira’s nature prohibited him from loving her the way she wanted.
And he was about to destroy this man.
Do I really have to do this?
“Satou.” The agent realized that he had been staring at a blank space for over an hour. He quickly flung his mind back to reality, only to find himself in an empty auditorium with Akira. “Class is over, Satou.”
Shit. “I’m sorry,” Aoi said. He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to Suzuki for spacing out in class, or to himself for letting his guard down. “I’m sorry.”
The teacher sighed at him. “Don’t worry about it. Did you look at your midterm exam?” He asked. “You got the highest score. Congratulations.”
The brunette looked toward his desk and found a marked test paper. Forty-five points out of fifty. A smile formed on his features until he saw the last item in the exam. He missed five out of ten points on one question: what should a company do with their weaknesses?
“Sir,” he started as he watched Akira switch the projector off. “Did I really get only five points on the last question?”
Akira looked up from the teacher’s table. “What was your answer?”
The agent directed his eyes back at his test paper. “Companies should exert effort to make up for their weaknesses,” he read aloud, “by further developing their existing force. They should reinforce their competencies to make up for their shortcomings.” He then looked at Akira again. “You said yourself that businesses should protect their weak spots, so I don’t see how my answer is wrong.”
The associate professor tilted his head and stayed quiet for a few seconds, processing what Aoi just said. From there, Aoi could tell that his answer was spot on.
He was wrong. “Yes, five points sounds just about right.”
Aoi looked right into Akira’s eyes, fully hiding any signs of surprise. He concealed all signs of discomfort at the fact that he wasn’t totally right. “What did I miss, Sir?”
“Well, yes, companies can do that,” Akira said, “but there is a much more effective option.” The teacher turned his back on the brunette and folded his laptop closed. Aoi watched the target’s shoulders rise slowly as he breathed. His wide back broadened even more with each inhale.
“What is it, Sensei?” The agent’s eyes were fixed on Akira. The target's fine cut chest that heaved under a dress shirt, the chunks of his blonde hair, his thin lips, and his fierce eyes were on his mind.
You are my weakness.
Aoi was shaken at the teacher’s calm response. “They can turn their weaknesses into strengths.”
Make me your strength.
A few seconds of silence passed before Akira heard Aoi speak. “Sensei.” The teacher’s back remained turned on Aoi. He said nothing.
“Sensei,” the brunette repeated. Akira remained silent, and he still didn’t face him. He prepared nothing else to say, and he wasn’t quite ready for Aoi to draw him in and then push him away again the way he did last night.
The teacher’s heart jumped to his throat at the feeling of Aoi’s hand on his shoulder. “Akira.”
Akira turned around by instinct. Before his mind could pick up syllables to form words to say, all the lights that illuminated his thought process were switched off as Aoi took both of Akira’s shoulders and gently pulled him close. Time stopped and everything else ceased to exist. All that remained for them were their quiet breathing and the sensation of soft, warm lips molded perfectly together.
The night’s gentle breeze howled into a man’s ears as he stood outside the telephone booth near the train station. While waiting, he looked heavenwards and admired the starlit sky. The sky was bright with stars tonight.
It was just as bright as the smile on the woman in the telephone booth.
“We’ll be near your area in an hour or so,” the voice on the other line told her. “Do you have your camera with you?”
Despite knowing that the man couldn’t see her, she held the handset closer and grinned. “I always do, Sir. I have it in my guitar case,” she answered. “Since it will be another hour before you get here, I still have time to sing, right?”
“Plenty,” he said as she looked far into the stretch of establishments on the street. She giggled at the pretty neon signs of the love hotels. “Anyway, we’ll finally get this assignment over and done with,” he continued. “You won’t get plenty of chances to get evidence, so don’t mess up, alright?”
She shook her head, again forgetting that she was invisible to the person talking to her. “It’s an honor to work with you, Agent Aoi.”
A click, then a busy signal. Quietly humming to herself, she put the phone down and then slowly lifted her guitar case off the floor. The man waiting in line bowed in greeting at the familiar street performer as she stepped out of the telephone booth with a smile on her face, the night’s stars twinkling in her eyes.
“The show is about to start.”
Chapter 4
Chapters: 3/4
Author: konicoffee
Genre: Psychological Drama (somewhat), Angst, Smut
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in this story.
Warnings: Sex. In this chapter, het. sex.
Rating: NC-17
Pairings/Characters: Aoi/Reita
Synopsis: He was Distorted Daytime’s highest paid agent, the most expensive agent in the business. His client was a company executive. A powerful woman. The target: her husband. Akira Suzuki.
Comments: Requested by kapoha. I have abandoned this fic for way too long. This was supposed to be the last chapter, but lo! It looks like there will be another one. Hopefully the next one won't take too long for me to write. Anyways, I hope you enjoy the (long overdue) update!
Chapters: { One } { Two }
The rain didn’t stop.
Akira held his breath as streams of hot water splashed on his face. He ran both of his hands through his hair. Puddles formed around his neck as he raised his arms and contracted his broad shoulders. Shower water ran down his back, completely eliminating the chill from the rain earlier. He thought of his encounter with Aoi. Images of the brunette standing beside him in the rain flashed in his head. He remembered Aoi’s sad eyes and his equally lonely voice.
You are my weakness.
Aoi stood under the downpour of warm water that sprinkled from the showerhead. He closed his eyes and bowed his head, as if praying, repenting. He slid a soapy hand over his chest as he thought of his target. His strong, yet at the same time very delicate target. Rivulets of water rinsed the suds off his body, uncovering a wet sheen over chiseled flesh. He recalled images of Akira turning to him. Frame by frame, he replayed the scene of the teacher moving closer and placing one hand on Aoi’s chest. The feeling of Akira’s fingertips on his chest lingered on his skin. He couldn’t wash it off.
Soapy water flowed down Akira’s firm stomach as he watched water flow through his fingers. He could still feel Aoi’s heavy heartbeat.
Aoi wiped the collecting globules of water off his face with a damp hand. He remembered touching Akira’s cold cheek and leaning close enough to hear the teacher’s breathing. Close enough to see beads of rainwater on the target’s eyelashes.
And then he stopped right there. Your wife is waiting.
The rain stopped, right when Aoi wound the shower knob closed. Right when Akira stepped out of the shower.
Warm shower water dripped from their parted lips as they reached for their towels. Both men sighed. Fuck.
After drying himself, Akira slipped into a robe and walked out of the bathroom, thoughts of his student still lingering in his head. He saw his face and heard his voice, even when he closed his eyes and listened hard for silence.
Silence. Then a voice. “Darling.”
He opened his eyes, finding the woman he called his wife on their bed, covered in sheets from waist down. Low, tender light and her long hair accented the curves of her body. He looked at her while she spoke, her lips moving as if saying words, but he couldn’t hear anything. Another person’s voice echoed in his thoughts. You are my weakness. Your wife is waiting. You are my weakness. Your wife is waiting…
“Akira?”
He didn’t hear the call for attention, even as he walked closer to the woman, or when he crawled onto the bed.
Onto her.
The feeling in his chest when he kissed her lips was alien to him. He couldn’t tell how he felt when she kissed back and caressed his nape, or when he slipped the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders. He tried to remember the name of that certain mood as they ridded each other of the fabric that separated them. He planted kisses all over her body, searching for this feeling’s identity.
It could have been lust. Perhaps it was the desire he was supposed to have for his wife all along, finally coming to him. They came to him in waves of heat as he felt her hands around his length.
Then he found himself waiting for his heart to race. This wasn’t lust.
It was emptiness.
“Sorry…sorry to keep you waiting.”
The man closed his eyes as he plunged into her. He kept his eyes closed, letting uneven breaths escape him. He concentrated on his wife’s gasps, on her moans, on her lips latching onto his skin. He kept himself preoccupied with the tight, wet heat clamping down on him with every thrust he made. His eyes remained closed, and slowly, slowly, he felt his heart hammer against his chest and his mind reel. Suddenly the emptiness was gone.
His heart pounded more and more with every movement and every breath, and every image of his raven-haired student.
Now dressed, Aoi dried his hair with a towel as he walked into the silence of his bedroom, head parallel to the floor, mind submerged in thought. He pondered on the numerous affairs he forced out of different people. All those relationships he destroyed. All those hearts he shattered. At the time, he didn’t care. They were nothing more than jobs he had to finish. Whether or not the relationships he wrecked had hopes of repair was immaterial. How it affected families, how it hurt their children, did not matter to him.
With his hair now dry, Aoi took the towel off his head and looked up. His heart stopped upon seeing someone else sitting on his bed.
“Boss.”
“Good evening, Aoi,” the man purred. “How is the hunt coming along?”
You’re not feeling sympathy for the target, are you?
Discarding all thoughts of Akira along with his towel, the agent tilted his head and grinned. “Target locked.”
The other man smiled back. Aoi was unstoppable now. This assignment was going to end soon. Akira Suzuki would be Distorted Daytime’s most prized trophy yet.
“According to Ries and Trout, businesses can use four strategies for marketing warfare.”
Everyone noticed Aoi behaving differently during that week’s Strategic Marketing class. As usual, the brunette was not taking notes, but he was oddly silent that day. Aoi just sat quietly, staring at the blond associate professor, watching him talk, observing how he moved his arms as he spoke.
On the other hand, nothing was different about Akira. He still moved with the confidence that always impressed Aoi. He still spoke with the calmness that intrigued the agent.
“Offensive marketing strategies were formulated for the business to pinpoint weaknesses and attack those points,” the lecturer said. “Note that when using offensive marketing, it is important to attack quickly. The element of surprise is key.”
Aoi would have laughed out loud at Akira’s words, but he chose to remain silent. He found it funny that for someone who knew of such concepts, Akira was totally clueless about what was about to happen. It was hard work, but Aoi knew that he had finally been able to break through Akira’s guard. Trying not to celebrate his victory too early, the agent concealed all emotion and continued listening.
“Defensive strategies, as the name implies, are for businesses that wish to protect their position, as far as market share and profitability go,” Akira said. “So this type of marketing warfare is normally used by market leaders. It is unwise for new players to go with this strategy.”
Silence filled the room as Aoi finally raised his hand.
Two seconds of silence, then Akira responded. “Yes, Satou?”
“How does a company ensure that their defenses are fortified?” The agent asked, throwing a smug look at the lecturer, challenging him. “They wouldn’t know what their competitors are thinking.”
As if completely unfazed, Akira answered. “Companies have to identify their own weak spots and strengthen their defenses in those areas,” he started. “For example, firms can improve their old products and come out with new ones. It will cost them money, but in the long run, they earn more and maintain market share.”
“In other words, Satou,” the lecturer said, his expression absolutely blank. “The best defense is to attack yourself. You gun yourself down and rebuild yourself with stronger material.”
Aoi’s nodded, trying to hide the fact that the target’s answer made him think hard about his situation. It made him stop thinking of his attack for a moment, and look at his own noticeably damaged guard. He refused to admit it, but Akira was the first target to ever make him feel even just briefly reluctant about doing this job.
You are my weakness.
Then he started to wonder what exactly was weighing him down. Was it pity or guilt?
“Moving on,” Akira announced. “Flanking strategies - these are tactics that enable a company to attack areas that their competitors don’t pay attention to,” he said. “An example would be how a certain watch brand distributes their products in drug stores instead of common retail areas, such as specialized watch and jewelry shops. ”
“Companies that use flanking strategies,” the teacher added, “do so in order to avoid confrontation.”
Aoi once again thought of the relationships he demolished, all in the name of silence and civility. Courtesy was of higher value than honesty. It was more important than genuine human connection.
He is our best operative. This is Aoi. Bullshit. Being the best in his field of work meant nothing to him. He felt no merit in being the greatest at toying with people’s emotions. He felt no worth at being unsurpassed at delivering death to human bonds.
And he wasn’t Aoi. Fuck, no. Aoi was just another lie he had to live. Just another face he had to hide behind, like the fucking coward his job entailed him to become.
“Lastly, we have guerilla warfare,” Akira said. “In a nutshell, this is a hit-and-run strategy. Businesses attack, run away and hide, then do it again until they drive their competitors away or break them down.”
Your job is to destroy his relationship with his wife, regardless of the impact it brings to his heart or yours.
I don’t intend to fail this job.
Aoi remained silent, as the man was now further into the depths of his own thoughts. His mission was clear - to put an end to a relationship. But then he asked himself if it was possible to tear down a relationship without wounding the people involved. It seemed that way before, since the clients and the targets he dealt with never cared for each other anyway.
In all of these jobs, the target had always been somewhat at fault. The target was always either a husband’s mistress to be lured away, a wife who was just as sick of her marriage as her husband was, an employee who had been abusing company benefits, or a suitor who showed no effort to prove his sincerity. All of his targets were assholes who didn’t really have much concern for the clients.
But this target was different. Akira actually cared about the client above anyone else, and the client loved him back. It’s just that Akira’s nature prohibited him from loving her the way she wanted.
And he was about to destroy this man.
Do I really have to do this?
“Satou.” The agent realized that he had been staring at a blank space for over an hour. He quickly flung his mind back to reality, only to find himself in an empty auditorium with Akira. “Class is over, Satou.”
Shit. “I’m sorry,” Aoi said. He wasn’t sure if he was apologizing to Suzuki for spacing out in class, or to himself for letting his guard down. “I’m sorry.”
The teacher sighed at him. “Don’t worry about it. Did you look at your midterm exam?” He asked. “You got the highest score. Congratulations.”
The brunette looked toward his desk and found a marked test paper. Forty-five points out of fifty. A smile formed on his features until he saw the last item in the exam. He missed five out of ten points on one question: what should a company do with their weaknesses?
“Sir,” he started as he watched Akira switch the projector off. “Did I really get only five points on the last question?”
Akira looked up from the teacher’s table. “What was your answer?”
The agent directed his eyes back at his test paper. “Companies should exert effort to make up for their weaknesses,” he read aloud, “by further developing their existing force. They should reinforce their competencies to make up for their shortcomings.” He then looked at Akira again. “You said yourself that businesses should protect their weak spots, so I don’t see how my answer is wrong.”
The associate professor tilted his head and stayed quiet for a few seconds, processing what Aoi just said. From there, Aoi could tell that his answer was spot on.
He was wrong. “Yes, five points sounds just about right.”
Aoi looked right into Akira’s eyes, fully hiding any signs of surprise. He concealed all signs of discomfort at the fact that he wasn’t totally right. “What did I miss, Sir?”
“Well, yes, companies can do that,” Akira said, “but there is a much more effective option.” The teacher turned his back on the brunette and folded his laptop closed. Aoi watched the target’s shoulders rise slowly as he breathed. His wide back broadened even more with each inhale.
“What is it, Sensei?” The agent’s eyes were fixed on Akira. The target's fine cut chest that heaved under a dress shirt, the chunks of his blonde hair, his thin lips, and his fierce eyes were on his mind.
You are my weakness.
Aoi was shaken at the teacher’s calm response. “They can turn their weaknesses into strengths.”
Make me your strength.
A few seconds of silence passed before Akira heard Aoi speak. “Sensei.” The teacher’s back remained turned on Aoi. He said nothing.
“Sensei,” the brunette repeated. Akira remained silent, and he still didn’t face him. He prepared nothing else to say, and he wasn’t quite ready for Aoi to draw him in and then push him away again the way he did last night.
The teacher’s heart jumped to his throat at the feeling of Aoi’s hand on his shoulder. “Akira.”
Akira turned around by instinct. Before his mind could pick up syllables to form words to say, all the lights that illuminated his thought process were switched off as Aoi took both of Akira’s shoulders and gently pulled him close. Time stopped and everything else ceased to exist. All that remained for them were their quiet breathing and the sensation of soft, warm lips molded perfectly together.
The night’s gentle breeze howled into a man’s ears as he stood outside the telephone booth near the train station. While waiting, he looked heavenwards and admired the starlit sky. The sky was bright with stars tonight.
It was just as bright as the smile on the woman in the telephone booth.
“We’ll be near your area in an hour or so,” the voice on the other line told her. “Do you have your camera with you?”
Despite knowing that the man couldn’t see her, she held the handset closer and grinned. “I always do, Sir. I have it in my guitar case,” she answered. “Since it will be another hour before you get here, I still have time to sing, right?”
“Plenty,” he said as she looked far into the stretch of establishments on the street. She giggled at the pretty neon signs of the love hotels. “Anyway, we’ll finally get this assignment over and done with,” he continued. “You won’t get plenty of chances to get evidence, so don’t mess up, alright?”
She shook her head, again forgetting that she was invisible to the person talking to her. “It’s an honor to work with you, Agent Aoi.”
A click, then a busy signal. Quietly humming to herself, she put the phone down and then slowly lifted her guitar case off the floor. The man waiting in line bowed in greeting at the familiar street performer as she stepped out of the telephone booth with a smile on her face, the night’s stars twinkling in her eyes.
“The show is about to start.”
Chapter 4