The Winter Project

27. Minoru

He had quite possibly never been this furious in his entire life. He thought he was going crazy when he saw Stephanie on the street and had brushed it off as a figment of his imagination. He didn't for a minute believe that it could be humanly possible for the person he saw to have been Stephanie. He was furious that he had to get out of bed and furious that he didn't understand what was going on. This was supposed to be his trip, his chance to see the world and experience it as an independent person, free from the requirement to look after somebody else, and yet here he was, forced by his conscience to get out of bed and work out what the hell was going on.

The only thing keeping him content was the fact that after he had been rudely awoken, he found himself starving and he had learned in the last couple of months that nowhere in Japan seemed to have a closing time. His contentment was short lived, as when he left the hotel room he became irritated again at how cold it was outside and how he had left his jacket on his hotel bed as he had been unaware of how cold it was at four in the morning.

He walked to the nearest bar to his hotel that he had agreed to meet Stephanie in, only a few moments walk away. The bar was empty except for one familiar looking face sat in a booth in the far corner. Minoru found familiarity comforting, as did most people, but not this time. As he walked over, he looked at her and tried to work out from her face what was going on. She had her head down, staring at her phone but he knew she wasn't really looking at anything of importance. She looked guilty and afraid and completely lost. Why would she ever come to Japan? Stephanie hated people, crowds and cities. She had always exasperated in despair every time Minoru suggested going to Japan to meet his grandparents. Her lack of desire to visit Japan was one of the reasons Minoru was able to tell how incompatible they were.

How ironic it was now then, that they were sat together in a bar in the centre of Tokyo despite the fact that their relationship had ended.

"What the hell is going on?" he said as he stared at her across the table, unable to muster up small talk or even say her name. He looked at her and felt nothing romantic at all. He wasn't attracted to her anymore, he hadn't been since the end of their relationship, but he was aware that she was wearing a very low cut top and had applied a lot more make-up that did not suit her face. She was visibly drunk.

"I needed to see you," she said, her voice breaking and he was worried that she would immediately start crying. He was too tired to even begin to entertain the level of drama that Stephanie usually enjoyed during their interactions. "It's Hitoshi."

"What? What happened?" he asked as he started to panic. Why would she fly across the world and wake him up in the middle of the night unless something was seriously wrong? He started to fear that something unspeakable had happened to his little brother. Minoru had always been extremely protective of his two younger siblings, and he hoped that Stephanie would not use her knowledge of this to try and manipulate him in some way.

"Laura and Hitoshi, they had a thing, or something? I don't know," she said as her words slurred together. "She's pregnant."

Minoru had never been less shocked about shocking news. He barely registered what she was saying because he was now so furious that he was finding it difficult to think. He was so infuriated that she had made him worry about his little brother's safety.

"Why are you in a bar in Tokyo a few meters from my hotel that I only checked into a few hours ago?" he practically shouted. "Why are you here? Did you fly to a country you have no interest in being in just to tell me that my brother is having a baby? I could have found out that information over the phone! From my actual brother!"

Her eyes filled with tears and he began to feel a small amount of remorse. Minoru wasn't a nasty person. He tried to be nice to everybody, but he got frustrated when he didn't understand a situation or the way a person was acting. He was excellent at reading people and had a strong sense of emotional intelligence, and this whole situation just made no sense to him.

"Stephanie, talk to me," he said, quieter this time. "Tell me what is going on."

"I miss you," she said, finally looking up at him from the table and making eye contact. Her heavy make-up was now smudged underneath her eyes and she looked even less than attractive than before. "I don't have a hotel tonight, so...if you want to..."

She reached out across the table and took his hand, playing with his fingers delicately with her own. He felt repulsed.