Swept Away

Assassins (4)

There was blood all over my new dress.

Dress.

...Do we really have to talk about the dress?

Really, it failed anyway...fine. I shouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.

...sigh...

Look, if you're looking for a person, and they've given you a photo of a young man, saying "that's the guy, that's the one you need to find".

What do you believe occurs when the expected male target is actually dressed like a girl and looks like one?

Yeah, no one recognizes him.

In movies they make you believe spying and dissapearing in crowds depends on the quality of your disguise. How realistic the fake beard is for example.

But it's not. Simple clothes, different from the ones you usually wear is enough. The rest is about confidence.

My face was recognizable, but that didn't matter. No one was gonna look at me. Well a caucasian tomboyish cutie in a long velvet cotton dress was bringing out stares sure. But no one was looking at me.

The dress was of high quality, undeniably feminine. I bought reddish flats of the same color, and a new white scarf was warming my neck.

The whole set nearly cost me 40 000Y. But it helped me create this new me, the new over the top, stylish european tourist me. I walked confidently in the streets of Kyoto, like I owned the world, always looking at a recently acquired phone, looking like I was feeding my ever hungry Instagram or Twitter account. In truth I was transferring my old contacts from the old to the new mobile device.

The perfect disguise. Or so I thought.

What saved me was my instinct. Again.

"Shit..." I looked at my hand, almost completely covered in red.

I thought I was being way too paranoïd.

No, I had not been enough.

Fortunately the cut in my neck stopped oozing blood. There had been a moment where I expected to just bleed out in the dark alley I had been holing up, but the knife didn't go deep enough.

The question "How?" pummeled my mind.

What happened was impossible.

No not impossible I corrected myself.

Just so unbelievably unlikely I'd rather believe in magic.

After a rough night in the love hotel, I immediately went and bought my new outfit, I didn't inspect my body again, I never undressed further than my boxer and T-Shirt. I could feel that things were still changing but my new motto was, "If you don't see it, it doesn't exist". Afterwards, I went and bought an express ticket for the Shinkansen and a new phone.

I decided to wait the rest of the morning in another love hotel, I had two hours to kill before having to go to the train station.

Maybe that was my mistake, maybe I should have waited in a busy cafe, but I was certain I had not been followed, I really believed I was safe. I just wanted to try to get some more sleep.

It was a girl, barely sixteen, classic long black hair and brown eyes. She was pretty and wearing a rather short school uniform.

I eyed her out, not knowing if I found her sexy or sad.

Standing close to a love hotel, what she was doing was obvious.

Enjo-kōsai.

Compensated dating.