Dents

[+] We Got The Power

The interior of Noodle's room was heavy with the fragrant smoke of sandalwood incense, suffocating an indistinct undertone of something sweet and fruity beneath it. Milky white lanterns hung leisurely from the low paneled ceiling. They swayed slowly with the draft of our movements. Occasionally, they flickered with a dim glow as if there were real candles burning inside. I realized that it was simply a trick of the eyes on account of the bad wiring in the house.

She retrieved a lighter from a shelf with various Zippos. There were a variety in all sorts of designs. She used one with a snake pattern to ignite a small tea candle. She delicately placed the flame beneath a ceramic saké warmer. We kneeled on opposite sides of the kotatsu in the center of the floor, tucking our legs beneath the plush downy blanket. 

I cracked the seal on the bottle. The label was covered in artful black strokes I couldn't read. There was a single phrase written on the bottle with English letters. 'Kenbishi Mizuho' was printed in a tiny space toward the bottom of the script. Once I opened the bottle, Noodle reached for it and poured us both a moderate serving of the room temperature liquid.

"Of all the gifts I purchased, this was the only one I wanted to share."

She laughed. She set the bottle in the warmer without bothering to peel off the paper label on the front. 

"Well, I wasn't about to drink it alone. We're drinking buddies anyway, right? The sharing goes both ways."

"Correct," she nodded.

She lifted her glass and clinked it softly against mine before raising it to her lips. She had taken to wearing a pale shade of pink lipstick. It suited her beautifully. It left a faint rosy stain on the rim of her glass.

I decided that now was as good a time as any to ask what was up with the call from Murdoc a few minutes ago.

"So Noodle, I actually wanted to ask you about something. It's about Murdoc. Does he... "

I trailed off, not knowing how to continue. It crossed my mind that I may have unknowingly exposed something that I was not supposed to. If so, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what the ramifications were going to be.

"Does he not know anything about the album?"

Noodle's emerald green eyes analyzed me. It was as if she was putting together the entire situation simply by observation.

She sipped at her glass.

"It seems that he knows something of it now."

She twisted the drink clockwise on the table.

"How much does he know?"

"That's what I'm asking you, actually."

"You would have a better answer than I, Saoirse-san. Prior to his phone call with you, he knew nothing of it."

My heart sank. A creeping fear lingered dormant in my chest, nagging that I had potentially made a horrible mistake and not some minor blunder.

I drank some of the liquor in my glass. It smelled nutty and earthy. I sloshed it around my mouth for a moment before swigging it back in a single gulp.

"How bad did I mess up?"

Noodle shook her head and waved off my question.

"Nothing beyond what he deserves to know."

She stuck a single finger into the water of the saké warmer to test if it had become an appropriate temperature for a hotter round of drinks. Apparently, it wasn't. She flicked a loose drop of water from her fingernail and went back to spinning her drink around idly.