Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

In Between

I rent out a coin locker in the gym facility. I make a conscious decision here to pick out a locker in the farthest corner of the area out of sight, with the number 149. There's no real reason to pick this number but I do so anyway. Out of the other numbers this one seemed most appropriate. Inside the locker I place my backpack and suit jacket. I strip down and take the towel provided to the shower room.

There's no one around this time of the day. I shower as efficiently as I can. I shampoo my hair, thoroughly wash each of my arms and under my arms and my chest and back and between my legs and behind my legs and my feet, and I scrub every toe, and then soak in the warm water for a good minute afterwards. It feels good, like shedding an old shell that had wrinkled and had been rotting away slowly. It grew taut and restricting, holding my muscles hostage in heightened tension. I feel my body gradually relax, and I stretch out each muscle carefully. I've never been athletic but I know how to stretch and warm up the body. Each tendon eventually unravels. The kind of feeling when you change strings on a guitar, unwinding each until they hang slack for the first time in a long while, every moment apprehensive of them snapping.

I am startled out of my skin when someone speaks up beside me. I can't tell if it's a woman's voice or a man's voice but there he is beside me, water streaming down his naked body. He is slim, has hips that sort of curve like an adolescent girl, but his chest doesn't look to have any sort of breasts. Perhaps, undeveloped still. That's all I can conclude from a quick glance. I have no desire to inspect another person's body in a public shower.

He says: "You have the look of a guy who hasn't showered in years."

His voice has a raspy texture to it, high enough to sound like a woman trying to sound more masculine. He is looking at me quite intently. I wonder why he had to choose the shower next to mine.

"I apologize for looking," he says.

I let the water stream over my eyes.

"You just have that impression, and you looked familiar. So I checked to make sure."

"Familiar?"

"Like I've seen you somewhere," he speaks through the water rushing down his face. "The feeling that you've seen someone maybe once, or twice, but had never met. But I'm usually very, very good with faces. If I see someone on campus, I think I'll remember them the second time I see them."

"I see." He might have seen Shizuka and I on TV. Or on one of the social media platforms. Maybe on a blog or two. But he must not be able tell for sure from the profile of my face. I never had courage to scour the internet to see what had become of the picture. Every time I would be caught in between my desire to remember the moment and the need to forget.

I feel a sudden sharp pang thinking about Shizuka, like a knife in my rib.

"The more I look at you, the more I am convinced I've seen you somewhere."

"The water's nice." Realizing he isn't about to stop talking, I change the subject. "Do you prefer hot or cold showers?"

He doesn't skip a beat. "Both have their use really. Whichever is appropriate. Sometimes people just need a cold shower to wake up and jolt them out of their senses, sharpen the mind, that kind of thing, and a hot shower to relax, sweat it out, calm down, meditate and expand pores and stuff like that."

"Which do you need now?"

"A cold one, I guess. I can feel the hot water from yours mixing into mine."

I don't reply to that. Weird way to put it.

"Are you stressed out or something? School's out, it's the winter break, what's the big deal?"