———
WHY DO
YOU LOOK
SO LOST?
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Time does not exist in Tokyo. The city's drowning in oceans of whispers flooding the open road with bustling men and women carrying their thoughts hidden within the depths of their oesophagus. It was easy to get lost in the idea of Tokyo because the city itself is alive, it pulls you in like a magnet in slow-motion. Tokyo was the perfect area for Miyoshi Manami because it was easier to blend into the ground along with the lost democratic hopes of Japan.
She found herself walking between a large group of drunken teenagers behind a tight alleyway, they were whistling and laughing gallantly as they punched and gagged at nothing at all. If Manami could make herself blend between the group like an erased line on a sheet of loose-leaf paper, who's to say she isn't transparent like cellophane?
The boys of the group chuckled knowingly, admiring the giggling girls that nudged each other as though there was a long-running joke being retold in their little gaggle of friends. Manami eyed the girl being held tightly by a taller boy with shaggy hair and dark eyebags lingering underneath his eyes.
And she was left disappointed. He held her with such discrete lust and desperation, it made her stomach swirl with orange juice burning her from the inside out. It wasn't difficult for her to understand the way he caressed her, because his hands lingered lower than the curve of her waist, his eyes were directed pointedly to the swells of her breasts and the emptiness of his smile tied off the insincerity of his actions.
She hated how lost the girl looked, almost like she didn't recognise the way his hands felt on her milky skin. Manami hated how familiar the drunken girl looked, and she cursed out the woman's name under her tongue.
Manami elbowed her way out of the drunken group of teenagers, their angry shouts drowned out in the background like angry pizzicatos on a rotting violin with chipped wood. She left the alleyway with the bitter taste of disappointment lingering on her tongue, there was nothing better than walking between a group of drunken teenagers in broad daylight, but she wasn't one to complain anyway.
The bright sun walking along the path she slaved on, gushing over her bright, brittle bones as she marched with a perpetual frown on her face. It soaked on her misery like a sponge, people moved away from her like she was a walking disaster; treating her like a macabre series of murders walking between them.
But she walked on and ignored the curious whispers of the men and women. Manami trod lightly on the pavement with her head held high, eyes bright with mirth and speckles of disappointment, but that didn't make her less appealing - desperation looks good on girls her age.
Her hands dug into the pocket of her pencil skirt and tugged her cellphone out of it gently. For a moment, she felt an urgency to phone the woman, just to be sure. But she knew it wouldn't be wise, a conversation with the eccentric woman would last far longer than she'd like it to, and it wouldn't be practical for her to be spending hours on the phone with her. Especially since she was about to meet another woman, a difficult and terrifyingly beautiful woman with eyes of swirls like a god crying mercy on the unfaithful.
Miyoshi Manami did it anyway, she dialled the ringing number without hesitation. Because the desperation to hear the woman's voice made her heart palpitate unsteadily, it wasn't good for her weakening heart.
"Miyoshi Manami, long time no hear." The woman spoke with a sultry tone, wrapping her lips around the cigarette bud eagerly as she held the phone in her other hand. "How's my favourite girl?" She smiled lazily.
"Apparently not your most favourite girl, since you haven't contacted me in 13 days." Manami expressed lamely.
The world around her gravitated towards just a single phone call from the woman that nurtured her since she was a young orphan. When Manami couldn't reach her older brother, she would bear her skin open for Himeno to inspect.
