Takuma

Three

When I walked back to the Host Club, Daisuke was waiting. He said that my guest was here and fussed about his drenched trench coat but it was good natured. Typical of his gossipy ways, Daisuke followed me back to the locker room to pry into my private life.

"So Nine, that was a rather long lunch break... out with a girl?" he quipped as I change into my suit.

"No, I was out alone."

"Well, you sure do like yourself."

"Or maybe I just have thoughts and ideas that can entertain me for a long time in solitude. A concept that I understand may be a bit difficult to grasp for horny rascals like you," I knuckled Daisuke in the head and closed my locker. "Is my next client here yet?" I asked.

"Not yet."

"Then what were you rushing me for?"

"Well, because while you were gone I found out through the other guys that the girl, the client of that Host club that went missing years ago was found dead," Daisuke whispered the last word and looked around as if someone was spying on us.

Two years ago, a story in the paper broke that this girl came to a Host club one night and went missing the next day. The obvious connection people drew was that one of the hosts had killed her, but no one was ever charged because the police were never able to find her. Still, the story did affect the number of customers that frequent Host clubs afterward, leading many to shut down. However, because the culprit was never discovered, the missing of the girl was turned into more of a legend than an event that actually happened. The unearthing of an actual body changed all of that, hence Daisuke's guarded fascination.

I never really cared much for the story because it's scope never affected me. I was a popular enough that the number of my customers per night stayed the same even when the story first hit the news. Now, even if the Narcissus club were to go under as a result of this scandal, I would still be able to go work at another, more prestigious Host club. So I let Daisuke trailed behind me as I go out to greet the guests.

It was getting later so large groups of middle-aged women and a couple of younger ladies were trickling in. Daisuke was still trying to get my attention when the receptionist pointed me to my awaiting guest. As I follow the direction his hand was pointing to, there was Kagami.

She sat at the booth, wearing a black velvet dress, her hair down, her skin pale, there was no trace of the scar that the porcelain cut left by her right eye.

"I heard they found her dead body in a wooden trunk." I heard Daisuke said.

When my eyes met Kagami's, the room seemed to collapse onto itself, closing the distance between us such that all I could see were the remarkable features of her face.

"She was bloodied and her right eye was mutilated. They found the trunk buried in this garden... And the fucked up thing is, she was wearing black." Daisuke whispered, shivering himself with every word.

Altitudes and latitudes, dimensions and proportions were all shattered by the intensity of our gaze. The explosion burned a hole in my force field, in me, and I wondered if it did the same to her, all the way across the room.

"It was as if the killer had played a sadistic game of stuffing her in that little trunk like it was a proper coffin."

I studied Kagami's pupils, dark like the seed of a longane, and the rays shooting out of them into a celestial brown river.

"Poor girl," Daisuke sighed and walked away.

In this depth defying universe, I saw my inverted reflection emerging from the murky water; it was like staring into the lens of some alien projector that wields its power from darkness, the kind that sweeps you up and tells you it is all that is left.

As Kagami and I existed there, in the same room, but in different spaces, I realized that I am in pain.

I had gone plunging inward to reach for something deep inside, dark down under, only to find that I found nothing. There was a gaping hole tucked between the intricate network of arteries and veins and organs. Somewhere in there nested the dark stain of my presence, the traces of someone gone, someone I forgot.

When I come up with nothing, no passion, no dreams, no conviction, I see that I am in pain. Pain like I am burning cell by cell. I don't shatter, I rot.

I am something I don't believe in.