Tokyo Seduction (Book 1 Of The Gaijin Series)

Chapter 19

Mimi woke up to knocking on her door and her mobile ringing. She groaned loudly, crawled out of bed and staggered to the door. Her head pounded, still fuzzy from last night. Mimi pulled open the door and tried to muster a smile when she saw Hatori, but couldn't quite manage it.

"Are you alright? You look a bit rough." He asked, shocked to see her in such a dishevelled state.

"I'm fine. Just had a late night. Come on in," Mimi replied and walked back into the room, rubbing her temples in a vain attempt to relieve some of the pain.

As Hatori walked into Mimi's room, his eyes were drawn to the desks. One was in complete chaos with papers sticking out of drawers and all over the top. After close inspection, a laptop could just be made out beneath the mess of papers. There were also books piled in a mountain on the side of the desk. The other desk had some papers scattered about and there were tons of post-it notes hanging off of the sides and flash cards piled about. That desk looked used but not chaotic.

"You did say anytime after Nine. I would've come later if you had said you weren't a morning person," Hatori said, returning his attention to the state Mimi was in.

She popped some aspirin in her mouth and dry swallowed them. Then looked at her mobile only to discover she had three missed calls from Hatori and ten from her harasser. She cursed under her breath when she saw all the missed calls from that guy.

Mimi couldn't believe the ringtone she'd assigned to her harasser's number hadn't woke her up. The song defined their relationship and always sent a shiver down her spine when she heard it. If she was asleep, that song would instantly jolt her awake, it was the main reason she had picked the song. Dread washed over her until she remembered Hatori was in the room. Mimi shoved it all to the back of her mind, placed the phone on the bedside table and made her bed.

When she had finished she tried to liven up a bit more, but with the sorry state her head was in it made it hard. Instead, she decided to explain why she was in such a state. "I had every intention of being ready for when you arrived this morning, but certain events happened last night that were somewhat out of my control." She paused for a moment as Hatori stood in the middle of her room, then said, "You can sit on my bed while I get ready.

"You see, Ritsu started this rule with me, Erika and a few other girls when we became good friends, because all of us kept ditching our girl's night out to go out with boyfriend."

Mimi stopped talking as she walked into the bathroom and set her clothes down and thought, it's going be very tricky to get changed in here. The room was tiny. It had a bath with a shower, which was big enough for you to sit in if you had your knees pulled up, along the right wall. And there wasn't a lot of leg room when you closed the door and were on the toilet.

She decided to pull the changing screen over to the bathroom door so it blocked it off. Once she dried herself off in the bathroom, she could get dressed behind it without putting any of herself on display. She wasn't sure if Hatori was a prude or not and thought if he got scared off by her changing behind a screen, then so be it.

Mimi had been shocked by the shy and downright awkward nature of the majority of Japanese men her age. As well as the fact that Japanese women her age were more bold and outgoing when it came to the opposite sex. The roles had reversed between the sexes and it wasn't uncommon for a girl to ask a boy out these days. After three years, Mimi still wasn't used to this.

She hung her clothes on the changing screen while she continued her explanation, "The rule is: if you're going to ditch your friends for a man, you have to pay a forfeit. That forfeit is you have to go out with the girls and buy all the drinks. This usually happens a few days after your date, but Ritsu insisted on last night. I managed to get her drunk enough to agree to call it a night by Two-thirty and I got back here by Three. But I got quite drunk as well in the process, despite my efforts not to drink much. I thought five hours of sleep would be enough. I even set my alarm for Eight, but it never went off." Mimi poked her head around the changing screen, "I am sorry for the state I'm in. I don't get drunk that often. Anyway, I won't be long." She closed the door and hopped in the shower.

As Mimi washed her hair, Sarah Mclachlan's Possession started to blare out on her phone. Over and over again which meant her harasser kept calling.

"Do you want me to answer your phone for you? It seems like this Peacock person really wants to get a hold of you," Hatori called out.

Peacock was the name she had assigned to her harasser's number, which she thought was the perfect description of him. Mimi started to scratch her left wrist; she knew the Peacock was going to make her pay for not answering his calls.

"Sorry about that, Hatori. Please just turn my phone off for me. Thanks," she shouted back. She knew it would drive the Peacock crazy and he would make her life a living hell until he calmed down, but at that moment she didn't care. Mimi wasn't about to let that jerk ruin her date with Mr. Perfect.

She turned off the water, towelled off, and started getting dressed.

"So who is the Peacock? That's a funny nickname for someone," Hatori asked.

There was no way she was going to reveal the guy's identity or anything about him and decided to play things down. "It's just the friend of a friend and Peacock is more of a description than a nickname. The person is more of a pest and usually just calls me to moan about everything. They'd only be chewing my ear off for hours and we're running late for our date already."

Hatori shook his head and chuckled. "That's some ring tone you have. Do you know the real meaning behind that song?"

Of course she knew the song was about a stalker, after all the Peacock was acting like a stalker. Although he didn't have to hide in bushes or follow her around to know what she was up to and harass her about it. She wasn't about to let on that she knew and wanted to change the subject. "I've always liked Sarah Mclachlan and that song just has a catchy beat. Man, oh man, my head won't stop pounding," Mimi said, changing the subject, as she got dressed. "Sake is a killer, I am never going to drink that much again."

"You have a hard time saying no to your friends, don't you?"

It was an apt observation, as she always gave into whatever Ritsu wanted. "It's true, but Ritsu is my best friend. Well, she's more like a sister. I know she can get a little crazy at times but I like to think I'm the voice of reason. Besides, when she finds a boyfriend she'll ease up.

"Ritsu's stressed out at the moment. Her dad told her she was going to have to start her job in a month. She expected to have the whole summer free and now she's going to have to put in some crazy hours at the new job. I think her dad is trying to get her to grow up and adjust to her new life by throwing her in at the deep end." She put the changing screen back. Proud with herself for only taking ten minutes to get ready, my best record yet, she thought. She did have to forgo putting any makeup on─not that she ever wore much in the first place.

She was wearing a yellow dress with a hem that kissed her knees, white ankle socks with ruffles along the rim, a yellow and white gin gum handbag, and a huge faux tortoise shell bracelet on her left wrist. Thinking for a minute about where her shoes were, then she cringed remembering.

Mimi walked over to Erika's closet, slid the door open a little to peek in, winced at the state of madness inside. Shoving her arm in, she grabbed one shoe, put it on and repeated the process.

She turned and saw the bemuse expression on Hatori's face. "That's Erika's closet," Mimi started to explain. "She is a major slob and if I let her, this whole room would be a mess." She pointed to the desk that was in chaos. "Lucky for her, I'm a neat freak so I'm always cleaning up after her. But I refuse to clean her closet and it's beyond a mess. She also likes to borrow my things and not put them back."

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Thanks for reading and don't for get to vote.

Xoxo J

I chose Over U by Kylee as the video. Its a good song and one we hope Mimi takes to heart with Jin.  

Also I first heard this song on Xamd Lost Memories. This is the closing song but the whole soundtrack is really good, so is the anime.