They hailed a cab and Maruko asked the driver in Japanese to take them back to Namba. The club which was named Smoke was actually very near to where they had first met in the maze that had been Connor's first impression of Japan what seemed like a lifetime ago.
Maruko had been to these clubs before, she loved to dance. Still, this made it all different. She was in danger of allowing protocol and correctness to take this moment from her. She felt compelled to declare to Connor that she was, in fact, his. So it was here, moments before they exited the taxi that she decided to honor her prayer from that morning. Her oath to Hinata in mind, she would allow this evening to happen; she would not live in fear of tomorrow.
The hour had progressed to the point where Namba felt a little less alive at street level than it had in nights past. This all changed as they walked up the narrow staircase which served as the entrance to the club. With each step they took, the whole world around them transformed. From halfway up the stairs, it felt like the walls around them were breathing as the heat and thud of pulsing base came from inside the doors. Every sensory reaction, everything which had been bound by their gentle dancing around these feelings, bloomed all around them like a flower in spring.
As they stood at the coat check waiting to disrobe, the feelings of desire and curiosity which promised to soon be confronted began to intensify inside both of them. They both had a feeling that they had waited for something like this for so long that this unveiling was earned and something which they had been destined to receive.
Connor picked up a red matchbook off of a stack where they had been amassed off to the side of the counter. It was adorned in ornate gold Japanese lettering.
"Kind of ironic," Maruko leaned in with a smirk as she read the writing for Connor, "matches which say 'Smoke.'"
Connor chuckled and tucked the memento into his jacket pocket before taking it off and handing it to the girl at the counter.
The song changed and Maruko's eyes shot towards the ceiling in recognition, "Ooh, this is Susumu Yokota," she purred.
"It's cool," Connor started to respond. He wondered if he didn't almost feel a little bit relieved to have something new to dissect in their familiar tit for tat way. "The rhythms are almost tribal in a way…"
"Shhh," Maruko leaned in and firmly planted her soft lips upon his own unsuspecting mouth before pulling away again to keep it at just one kiss. "I know, really I do, but here," she looked deep into his eyes and whispered smoothly, "maybe we don't need to talk as much, K?"
Had she searched Connor's eyes for approval, she would have found that and more. But, true to her plea, and befitting the small fears she was so intent on releasing to the wind, she had already moved more towards the dance floor, if he had approved, she figured, then he'd still be behind her when she turned around. Violins soared into a mix of beats and rolling drums which then came crashing onto themselves; if it hadn't been for the need to move, Connor never would have again.
Maruko turned to face him and the confirmation she had silently sought was written all across the star crossed look upon his face. As she danced towards him, the room seemed her stage. It was as if wherever she went, the room parted to make way for her. All the others in the room formed one faceless mass. They rhythmically moved together to the room's beat, but Maruko, long and slender, yet strong and focal, her every move declared her desire to be free of any confinement. It was as if everyone around her was restricted in their actions by whatever the music offered, but Maruko was not in any way so restrained. Her movements displayed the freedom she had pleaded with herself to release this very night. Furthermore, it was as if these beats were hers, they were dancing to her. Beads of sweat illuminated upon her skin as she pivoted on the ball of her foot.
The pivot froze Connor for a moment. This sea of madness and still, Connor found himself thinking, she toe stepped to and fro like none of it was there. Connor rebuked himself for thinking too much. Don't think; just allow it to happen, he told himself. The time for thinking, like she'd suggested for talking, had been left outside. Here, it was all he could do to react. Connor recognized this recent pivot as the same which had threatened to take her from him only days before in the record store; a lifetime ago when all she was to him was a scent and a promise. Here of course, that same pivot only brought her closer to him. The lights exploded royal blue from a projector on the ceiling and the whole crowd was covered by the fan of light.
The night passed and they were constantly dancing. Whether on the floor or on the couch they melted into while taking a rest and having a drink or two, still they danced. Maruko moved her torso side to side and matched the count with her chin. Connor, bewildered and yet very much present amidst this night devoted to emotion and reaction, moved along too, watching her and only looking away each time she threatened to catch him with all of this intent in his eyes.
From the classic village sounds, the music segued into an offering of xylophones and jungle drums.
"There's something different," he mused sarcastically.
"Also Japanese," she smiled, "in fact, also Susumo Yokota. You're surprised?"
"I guess I figured that Japanese club music was all," Connor's eyes got big and he made a gesture with his hands as if he were calling for the ball in a basketball game, "the club... a 'jungle vibe,' not a jungle vibe."
Maruko giggled, "Well yeah, you know this is part of our past as well, the shamanistic portions of our history are also very important. We in Japan like to incorporate the old and new into one."
"Now THAT," Connor replied, "I am quickly learning about this place." Learning it indeed, he thought to himself. Everything here was harmonious juxtaposition. Whether a collection of art, simple yet profound, housed within a glass and steel temple or an Indian restaurant amidst the Japanese neon fog; this place was constantly both sides of the coin. Or was it, he paused, the tour guide? She was for him a lens turned looking glass. He was no longer interested in only looking through her, but rather in never looking at things without her aid again. This antique capable of cutting straight to tomorrow, this time machine wanting only to return to the origin of it all was fast becoming much more than an accessory to anything in his life which had been normal.
Connor paused and looked up at Maruko who'd wandered out to begin dancing away from him and into the crowd once again. How many days and how many nights would he sit chewing on each minute memory from this week, savoring each last taste in search of one more stimulus? How many sleepless nights would he spend thinking all of this through once he was forced to return home without her? Just tonight, he repeated to himself, give yourself to this for tonight. Dance tonight, just you and this cherry blossom dream.
The music changed again, this time to more the ambient flow of earlier in the evening. The mood drew Connor's attention once again to the beads of sweat forming along Maruko's neck line. He ran his hand along her side, resting it right above her hip bone and with the slightest flex of a fingertip, drew her nearer. Maruko lowered her arms and immediately moved to fit within Connor's frame. Suddenly, all he could think was of what it would be like to lay in bed with her, their bodies complementing one another's each and every bend and curve. In mere moments they were moving as one upon the floor. Tossing back her damp hair, Maruko looked up into Connor's eyes. With a common gaze which they shared for a few extra moments, each confided to the other how utterly thrilling and terrifying it was to be in this place together. Connor squinted slightly to focus even more on the eyes which were staring back up at him. He gave a gentle nod as if to reassure any doubts she may have been experiencing at that moment. Maruko, barely biting the inside of her lip, acknowledged with one extraordinarily deliberate batting of her eyelids that she too was here, in a place so far in the future and yet so very, very in this moment.
As another song reached higher peaks, like a once abandoned orgasm, the escalation began again. As beats percolated, the only bubbles were Connor's occasional worry. He couldn't help but reflect once more on how Maruko had gone, in a few hours time, from an amazing addition to his life to something that he felt a need for. He could no longer imagine leaving her. He tried not to think about it all at that moment, there would be time for that, but he was now more confident than ever that these were decisions that would have to be made, if she'd have him. If she'd have him; it was this most recent concession that truly had him terrified. They were, he had felt, a fragile balance. Or were they more like the Enso, he wondered. Were they a circle whose beginning, though recognizable, had only been the beginning of something continuous, the continuation of something previous? Was there even, he asked himself, a point to fighting it? He of course didn't want to fight against it, but he did wish to have some amount of control in it all. If what they had discovered had been there before this night, would it remain tomorrow still?
Enough, he all but shouted at himself as his thoughts and steps drifted away from her, there would be time for all of that. He pleaded with himself to re-engage this moment and this girl in front of him. He moved towards her shaking the cuffs of his shirt back off his sweaty forearms where they had begun to creep up. He moved into her, steadying himself to what still seemed like her beats. As they danced, fittingly making small turns in circles, emulating those circles which, so clearly, all of this had been ignited by, he began to wonder if perhaps she was the completion of his Enso. Was he then the completion of hers as well?
It wasn't long until no one would have known the beginning or the end of either of them apart from the other. Their bodies throbbing, they both suddenly felt a longing for the speaking which had brought them together initially. Eager to fill this void, they returned to the couches again. Maruko's fatigue quickly dissipated, but she didn't use her energy to hold herself up. Instead, she leaned into him all the more.
"We met right around the corner from here," she said.
"Yeah, I know, I had been out walking that night, wanted to find something to do near my hotel."
"Well, I'm glad it led you to that store, for sure."
"OK, honestly, do you even remember seeing me there?" Connor asked.
"Umm, well of course," Maruko giggled, "but then how much do you really remember seeing me there?"
"Every," he craned away and made eye contact, "detail. I remember a bag, here," he gestured to the hand which had carried the shopping back. "A phone here, which you switched from hand to hand when you looked for the CD you later told me you had bought for rehearsal."
"Wow," Maruko blushed, "It is fun, even (or especially) when someone talks as much as I do, to have someone listen, but to have someone truly hear you? That is something different; pure flattery. Thank you."
He leaned in and again they kissed, this time it was slower and more than once in succession. Maruko pulled back, a million thoughts were swimming in her head at once. Decisively, she made her choice. She knew which option needed to win for tonight and told herself that only this one thought would be allowed any power from this moment forward.
"We should probably get going," she said.
"OK, yeah, for sure," Connor wasn't sure what had happened, but suddenly the room felt colder. Had that been it? Now as before, it was as if there was a stopwatch in the corner of every picture of them in his mind.
They moved swiftly to retrieve their coats and started to shuffle back down the stairs. Maruko walked a step in front of Connor which not only made her seem even shorter than she was, but also gave the impression of her getting away. Suddenly, while he was still standing on the last step she stopped and turned to face him at the foot of the steep staircase.
"So you can walk to your room from here," she stated while looking up at him.
"Yeah, but I can wait with you, too. Were you going to catch a taxi at this...?"
He was stopped by her look. He had, as people so often do when nervous, looked away and spoken to the air while preparing himself for a goodbye, and ending, which he had no desire to begin. When he looked back at her, she was staring right at him. Nods and glances, innuendo and light touching on one another's waist and arms; a game of nonverbal truth or dare ensued. Neither blinked, and so it was that as they left the club, both knew where they were heading.
"Yeah," Connor finally felt the need to say it, just to make sure that it hadn't been residual magic from the club talking, "we can walk there from here."
He held her hand and they walked the few short blocks back to his Hotel. Namba had a second life at this hour. It seemed that they weren't the only ones who had left a club at that moment. The shopping arcade held all manners of the walking half-asleep. All around them restaurant windows were lined with a decidedly younger clientele then may have occupied them during more normal dining hours. Connor knew this area which led to the hotel like the back of his hand after the past week, but it still felt entirely new to him in this moment. It wasn't just that he hadn't walked to his room with Maruko before it was that he truly hadn't seen enough of a genuine possibility of this happening to construct such a fantasy. What they would be doing shortly, that he may have allowed his mind to wander to, but this, their entrance together, was delightfully novel to him.
They laughed from mutual nervousness as they stumbled up the steps to the hotel. Connor really hadn't done this in a very long time. Maruko hadn't either, though she was also not totally foreign to this aspect of relation. Certainly there hadn't been these details before. This, what they were about to do, felt completely appropriate and necessary, like the way any couple would explore one another. This was not a hook up, it was not a simple… Even considering some of the terms others may have used felt metallic and vile as Connor chewed over them, but then that was the point. Nothing about this would be anything like that. No matter the perceptions of others, this would be something the furthest extent from anything so banal, selfish or detached.
"I'm going to get water from the little store over there," Maruko gestured to her right and darted across the lobby. Connor stood idly in the entryway waiting and was greeted by the friendly, portly night-doorman.
"Ah, sir, good evening," the doorman said with a smile.
Connor smiled a broad grin and responded with a slow and exaggerated nod of his head, "Yes, yes it is."
"Sir," the doorman continued, having missed the play on words, "you had some calls while you were away. I knew you wanted me to deliver them to you so that you wouldn't miss anything important."
"Oh? Yes, exactly, thank you." Had Connor received a gift, he wondered? All he could pray was that Ken was going to extend his stay. Another forty years might do it, he thought.
The doorman fumbled through a collection of notes which were all written inside of a leather-bound spiral notebook. Finally, he stopped on a page and recognition shown in his eyes before he continued, "Yes, sorry sir, here is it, a Ms. Audrey, she called more than once actually."
Connor's face was ashen and he couldn't stop the doorman fast enough.
"She said that, wait, I have it here, that she really wanted to discuss your most recent talk again before you returned home and that she truly has had time to think about your relationship and what each of you mean to each other. She ended by saying that she is excited to talk to you soon about your future together."
Connor felt his jaw tighten and swallowed hard before turning to see Maruko standing only a foot behind him. She looked directly through him. Fair Maruko, only moments before made of blossoms and silk, now stood stoically as if a photo of a gravestone, taken in black and white. She squeezed her lips together tightly, exhaled through her nose and nodded slowly before spinning and walking away.
"Maruko, wait!" Connor pleaded.
But it was no use, she reached the door, opened it and with one more pivot, she was gone.
