Page 11 of Pragma
“Baby?” My brows jump up in surprise.
“Don’t like it?” He gives me that devilish smile.
How do I explain to him that I hate it because I know he’s fucking with me, and yet…
“Why are you sulking now? Lately you look like you’ve sucked a lemon.”
“I’m not sulking,” I retort. “You are like the eye of a human storm, being annoyed is a daily consequential occurrence for me.”
“Consequential,” he mouths in a mocking way. “If you were anybody else, that would have cost you an ear.”
I know he’s serious—he has done worse for less. And I also know I’m special to him, but not the same way he is to me.
“What I want is a fucking satisfying ‘ah,’ bunny,” he tries again. Relentless fucker.
“Well, you can’t have everything,” I state as we stop in front of his building’s entrance.
He sniffs and unlocks the door, waiting for me to push it open. “Challenge accepted!” He tsks before entering.
I foresee pandemonium in my future.
Chapter Two
RIVER
Aki hooks the back of his shoe heel with the front of the other one and toes both off, leaving them in the entrance as he slides his feet inside gray, furry slippers.
I pull off my boots and line them near the entrance step before climbing it. The floor is warm and hard under my feet until I reach the soft rug covering half of the enormous living room, and my soles tickle over it.
The loft is on the top floor of a cast-iron building of the late 19th century.Spacious, open layout, high ceilings, large windows, and exposed brick—Soho being a former manufacturing and warehouse district. It gives the place a unique blend of industrial character and modern living, featuring luxurious amenities like the high-end marble kitchen, the modern electric fireplace set in the slat wood wall under the 98-inch TV, and the spiral staircase that leads to the second floor where there are two bedrooms and a gym.
Aki's flowery scent has seeped in every corner of the apartment; I can smell him with every step I take. Everything is warm—the air, the floor, the atmosphere—and at the same time chaotic. Two light pink sofas, colorful cushions on the floor near thefireplace, a huge painting on one of the yellow walls showing a Samurai battle scene with vibrant color and sinuous lines, and a blue lacquered dinner table with a cage filled with mice and a wooden box on top—what’s up with that?
Aki throws my coat on one of the chairs near the kitchen counter, gently sets the katana on its stand, and then takes the head bag from my hand and leaves it on the dinner table near the cage.
He tugs the red-smeared shirt from the waistband of his pants and peels it off his body after dropping the pink suit jacket on the floor. His narrow hips and long arms catch my eyes.
He grabs the TV remote from the sofa to turn on the TV to his favorite cartoon channel, and in doing so, he gives his bare back to me, putting on display the intricate tattoo covering the entirety of it. A white snake, slithering through water, goes from his nape down, with his head disappearing under the waistband of Aki’s pants. It’s in honor of his family name, Hebikawa, which means snake river. While generally snakes symbolize danger and misfortune in Japanese culture, white ones represent power and wealth.
But it’s the red ladybug flying over water that always holds my gaze. Aki’s favorite Japanese folktale suggests that the seven-spotted ladybug carries the seven sins of the world so that others may live in happiness and peace. So he got the black spots right over the seven burns on his back. He often uses the fact that he’sfilled with sinsas an excuse for his rash, careless attitude.
The ladybug is there to cover the wounds he got just before we met nine years ago. I learned later on that his beef with Apollo and his gang was in fact very personal. They kidnapped him and kept him locked up in a basement for one whole day before Akiescaped. Apollo heard he was in town and tried to get a ransom. I was ordered to help with the kidnapping—Apollo never told me Aki’s name—and when I refused, he tried to kill me. Ironic how life works out.
Even though Aki put ink over it, I can still see the seven cigar burns Apollo left on him, and every time I do, I want to dig up that psycho fucker’s body to break every bone in his body once again and then…brush the tip of my fingers over Aki’s scars. Gently. Reverently.
I swallow, willing my urges to slide down my throat and disappear as well.
His soft laugh brings me back to the present and the blue cat talking on the TV screen. Aki tosses the remote on the sofa and then quickly climbs the spiral stairs, disappearing on the second floor still chuckling.
He is an unhinged motherfucker, ruthless, merciless, but in front of me, he acts like a thoughtless child. I hear a door opening, then the rushing sound of water from the shower.
Aki’s phone vibrates on top of the coffee table. When I glance down, I notice various notifications, but it’s the picture he set as a screensaver that captures my attention. It’s us in high school, wearing those old uniforms—blue jacket, white shirt, dark pants, and striped tie. Aki is smirking at the camera as I look down at him with an intense expression. The day it was taken I had just discovered he’d threatened to cut our history teacher’s hand off if he didn’t stop belittling me in class. That teacher had been a douchebag, disliking me with no real reason, but Aki being, well, Aki went over the top to defend me. I remember that moment vividly because it was the day after I realized my feelings for himwere changing. And how they did, slowly but incessantly. It took me one more year to find out, though, what it actually meant.
I stroke my hand over my face, willing those thoughts away and letting my hair fall on my left side. I sigh, and after pouring myself a glass of whisky from the tray filled with liquors on top of the coffee table, I slump against the wall by one of the large windows. There’s ateru teru bozudangling down from the curtain rod. Imagining Aki making the doll makes me snort. Tonight, it didn’t work its magic, though. Raindrops are falling outside with an insistentplip plopas I take the first sip of whisky. My shoulder protests against the movement, reminding me I need to take care of the wound on my back.Later.
I push the metal latch and open the window halfway. The view of the city from up here is quite something, but it’s the steady rain filling the air and quickly turning into a torrential downpour that captivates me. The fragrance that releases as it hits the ground is so powerful that it almost makes me dizzy. It calls to me, and with it, memories come back. Hard times, too agonizing to just grit my teeth and ball my fists. But the echo of all the pain I endured is nothing compared to the sorrow I feel when I think about Joel. My sweet, radiant, little brother.
The truth is that it’s been raining in my heart since I had to let him go. He deserved a chance at a good life, away from all the squalor and unfairness we were born into. I was tainted already by all the filth surrounding us, but not my lil’ bro. He was good and pure, with not a shadow of darkness inside him. He moved to Boston with a neighbor, a lady who had a soft spot for him, the day after our shithead of a father was killed.
