The Host of My Heart (On Hiatus)

Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

For some reason I had no motivation to even make an effort to dress nicely for Issen. I slipped into a pair of sweat pants and a t-shirt and opened my door again. Issen wasn’t still sitting on the floor, but his stubbed out cigarette was. I snatched it up off the floor and walked to the kitchen to toss it in the trash.

There, in the kitchen, is where I found Issen lounging, flicking his cigarette ass into a teacup saucer and tossing dried squid into his mouth.

“Did you go through my cabinets?” I asked, floored.

“Yeah, I got bored waiting for you. Is this what you wear when you have a man over?” He asked after he looked me up and down.

I frowned at him and walked around the table to throw the cigarette stub into the garbage.

“It’s not like I have anyone in here to impress.”

Issen shook his head and dusted his dirty fingers onto my floor, the bastard, before standing up.

“That’s not the point. The first lesson of my four step class on how to get a man is to dress for men.”

“What does it matter? I really don’t think a man is going to notice if I have on six inch stilettos one day and two inch the next.”

Issen shook his again, “You’re still talking like a woman! Of course men don’t care how high your heels are, they just care about how good the heels make your legs look.”

I sighed and walked over to my fridge before taking out a box of strawberries. I sat down at the table and popped one in my mouth.

“There’s not point to that. I don’t even own a pair of heels?”

“What?” Issen snorted in disbelief, “Then what do you wear when you try to meet guys?”

I shoved four large strawberries in my mouth and garbled out my miserable answer.

“I don’t.”

Issen rolled his eyes, put a hand to his hip while slapping the other over his face.

“I forgot, you haven’t had a boyfriend in a long time. No matter, I will do my best with what I have in an effort to buy myself a couple new watches next week. Stop stuffing your face and take me to your bedroom. It’s obvious we have work to do.”

I stubbornly sat my butt at the kitchen table; still smarting from the ‘you haven’t had a boyfriend in a long time remark’ before Issen roughly hauled me up with a hand around my elbow and pretty much dragged me down the hallway.

I tugged my arm away and slumped towards my bedroom door. I punched it open before walking in and falling face first onto my bed. I turned my head to the side to let out a huff of annoyance and I heard Issen walk in after me and swing the door shut before making a noise of disgust.

“Hopefully, whatever man you can get doesn’t wasn’t to fuck in this room…twenty five years old and you have bunnies on your bedroom walls?”

I groaned and fought the urge to just plug my fingers in my ears and sing nonsensically. I grabbed the edge of my powder blue blanket and threw it over my body. I rolled across the bed and made myself into a cozy Rika burrito.

“Oh my god, what kind of panties are these?” Issen exclaimed from the side of me. I sat up with a smothered noise and rolled myself aggressively to the ground, threw off the covers and snatched my underwear away from Issen’s grabby little hands. I stuffed them back into my draw and slammed it shut. I really didn’t need a stranger going through my assortment of granny and period panties. Yes, I knew that every girl needed a sexy pair for a night on the town, but what the hell did I need those for? For me, a night on the town was dashing to the convenience store to pick up some toilet paper.

“Can you just fucking not.” I snapped at Issen, partially annoyed at him and my loser self.

Issen held up his hands in surrender before walking over to my closet and sliding it open. He flicked through several my outfits with the occasional sound of disgust before throwing his hands up in the air in frustration.

“Ah! What the hell! You dress like a fifty year old school teacher. The only men you’re going to get with these kinds of clothes are men who want to fuck old women without fucking old women.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Never mind. Put some decent clothes on, we’re going shopping. I can’t guarantee myself a new place in Tokyo like this.”

“Shopping? I don’t have any money for that.”

“That’s a lie, Hikaru told me she gave you the $500 back you paid me to fuck off. I really doubt that even you could spend all that on food at once so, put on something that isn’t baggy and be at the door in five minutes. I have work tonight.”

With that last insulting at hell statement, Issen pushed some hair out of his face, pushed his Chanel glasses on his face and walked out of my bedroom. I groaned and slid down onto the floor and pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes so hard that it began to seem like I was in a crowd of paparazzi.

Issen was ordering me around like I was some kind of child. I was a fucking adult. Yet, like a child I began to rise up and began to strip. However, as I stood in my pink walled bedroom with the hopping bunnies on the molding, I realized that everything I owned was baggy. But could you blame me? Anything tight always clung to my stomach like a second skin, letting the world see all the ways I wiggled and jiggled. I’d rather not offend anyone with my body.

I flinched as Issen’s deep voice called through the house “Two minutes!”

I scrambled through my hoard of muted gray and brown clothes and settled on a comfortable fitting brown cardigan and blue jeans. I had just buttoned up my jeans when Issen slammed the door open with a grunt.

“Time’s up.”

Issen looked me up and down from behind his deep brown lenses and let out a little sniff.

“It’s alright. Your breasts are kind of small. You should let Hikaru buy you some new ones.”

I defensively covered my chest with my hands and glared at him.

“What would be the point? Don’t you guys hate when a woman deceives you with make-up and plastic surgery?”

“True, congratulations on reading those women’s magazines. Let’s go.”

Picking up my wallet and bag I followed Issen out of the door. As we walked down the stairs of my apartment complex I noticed a gleaming silver Lexus sitting innocently at the side of the street a few feet away. It was a nice car, a car I could never dream of affording. Issen walked towards the car and unlocked the door nonchalantly and sat down in the driver seat. Face frozen in surprise I walked around and timidly sat myself in the passenger seat.  

“How can you afford a car like this?” I asked as I breathed in the smell of a well taken care of car. I gently pulled the safety belt across my body and clicked it in place gently. I really couldn’t afford to do anything stupid in this car; I probably couldn’t even replace the car seats without being evicted from my apartment. I was going to play it safe.

“Please,” Issen said as the car rumbled to life “Do you think this is my first year as a host? I’ve been in this business so long and have had so many women like Hikaru that I could quit and live comfortably for quite a while.”

As Issen pulled away from the curb and onto the street I asked him a question without letting it go through the proper filters first.

“Then why don’t you just quit?”

Issen glanced at me from the side of his sunglasses before rubbing a finger under his nose and turning back to the road.

“When I have an answer to the question, you’ll be the first person to know.”