Kabukichou Complex

3.

Shoved up against the back of my throat, I wiggled my index and middle finger. A burning feeling welled up at the back of my nose and my eyes watered, my body crouched in front of a toilet seat as I forced ragged breaths in and out. It seemed like a race against time to get the alcohol out of my system before it reached my brain and dragged me from a coherent reality.

I flushed the toilet and washed my hand, allowing the pressure of cool water against my skin to refresh me slightly. Outside, the purple were hypnotizing. The shouts and laughter of people over one another blurred into a monotonous murmur in the background. In the center of the room was a champagne tower, an elaborate crystal bottle decked with gold flakes next to it. The tower sparkled like a million stars. Maro's face was plastered on each of the bottles, their necks decked with ribbons.

Across the room, someone hooted, and the melodic birthday song commenced. Voices reverberating over microphones. Another cork being popped and crystalline liquid flowing from the bottle, filling the glasses to the brim and gushing over the edges.

"Yuuki!" He called out to me, eyes glazed with mischief. We crossed arms. I tilted the glass and let the champagne slip past my lips. 

The materialistic world? It was saccharine. Every word was a transaction and I was starting to feel like a spoilt child, or like a dog conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell. Their echoing sentences drowned out reason. A second glass became a third and time dissolved. 

The voices dissolved.

The ground, too, dissolved.

How long had passed? A cocktail flavors mixed like colors on a painter's palette, punctuated with the occasional tang that gripped my tongue and lingered in my throat. 

"Fresh air! Fresh air!" Someone was gasping beside me, dragging me out of the elevator and onto the streets. The night wind was chilly. It bit at the parts of my cheeks where the checkered scarf didn't cover, and found its way into my pockets. 

... Whose hand was it on my shoulder? I found myself half dragged along.

I looked over at Maro, gesturing wildly down the street. Maybe he was trying to hail a cab. Wait. Someone else was there. 

Risa's figure could be vaguely made out next to the stairway of a neighboring building. She pointed up the stairs, her lips moving.

Police.

Maro took my wrist and soon we were running in the opposite direction from which we came.  The street seemed longer than it had ever been. At the end of it, red and blue lights, reflected off the wall from around the corner, consumed my vision. My heart jumped at the hopelessness that flooded me momentarily. I forced my legs to move, staggering into an alleyway and pushing Maro behind a trash can.

"Yakuza?" 

He muttered, crouching with his hands cradling his chin.

"Shut up, shut up." I shook him by the shoulders. At least I think I did. It was true that the Yakuza were in control of host and hostess clubs, but if anything they were the ones who kept the district safe from other criminals. It wasn't to say that any of them were particularly amiable with me. In any case, it was just that it was a bad idea to hold a discussion about them in a drunken state.

I don't recall who called the cab or how I made it home in one piece, but somehow I found myself on my own couch, the back of my skull pressed against the armrest. My eyelids grew heavier by the second. Sleep beckoned me, and yet...

"Hey, Yuuki..." This person looking over me was oddly handsome in his half confusion. The amber light of the living room cast a halo around his head, his hair brighter than usual. "You know..."

He pulled me up by the wrist. I was facing him now; sitting next to the top-ranked host of Kabukichou. I searched his eyes for a while but it had been a blur. What color were they again?

"You're the one I always wanted."

I laughed. Even my laugh sounded dreamlike in my head. It was just another part of the script, no? The script that even I were capable of reciting. The room was oddly quiet for a while, save for the water trickling in the aquarium by the wally.

"Very special princess. Only one in the world. Beautiful, right? Un, beautiful." 

What I said must have been something along those lines.

His laughter was so innocent. His breath smelled like champagne as he leaned closer. His lips tasted like champagne. It's fine, I probably radiated champagne as well.

"My mother ...'s the Queen of this place
...very image of her
Everybody was trying to touch me and
That place was so exciting for me still but a child."

He murmured the lyrics in a slurred manner, warm hands tracing the back of my neck. The syllable melted into a senseless string of sound but the melody was vaguely familiar at the back of my head. 

"... Ah. Shiina Ringo?"

His hair was ruffled, bangs falling messily over his forehead and casting a shadow on his eyes. He ignored me, arms snaking up my back whilst he ran his tongue along my collarbone. 

"...'n those who ... glory ... fall"
...'nderstood that meaning
I stepped into that place..."

I could barley make out the lyrics anymore, since the only thing that encompassed me was Maro's scent. 

"...And I'll lose everything
If I wish for people's sympathy..."