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A dewy morning poured through the room, bouncing off the countless mirrors of a dressing room pushed far past its intended capacity. Glowing, smiling faces crowded a landscape of make-up, hair products, and half-consumed mimosas. Kanae was center stage, full of bubbly laughter and eager tension. It was her day, and she knew it.
All the unbridled joy, her joy… it blanketed the room, and the cacophony of jubilance quickly became too bright, too loud, and too much. Though it was a little early to be shirking her duties as the Mother of the Bride, Mrs.Ohtori excused herself. It wasn't difficult to pretend she was needed elsewhere on such a day as this.
Her steps were slow, contemplative, and she indulged them. Honestly. How could she be happy? Knowing the creature her daughter was marrying, and the miserable fate sealed for her because of it… How could she share Kanae's excitement… Even if he’d been a good man, and he was not, the chains would have been the same. Lost in her rationalizations and blinded to her surroundings, her steps turned irrevocably to a certain direction, down a darker hall, and eventually, into a familiar elevator.
Mrs.Ohtori pulled on her matronly mask, expecting a busy room of groomsmen on the other end of the chime announcing her arrival. But it was only Akio, far less tucked into his formal-wear than Kanae had been, and behind him… silence. Inviting silence, a quiet calm far away from women happier than her…
"I'm not supposed to see the Bride until the ceremony, remember?"
"Nor will you." Mrs.Ohtori stepped around him and let out a shaky exhale. "Where is everybody?"
"I’m sure they’re getting ready like the rest of us, but I thought it would be better to keep my schedule open."
"On your wedding day?” She asked, her voice dry with practiced skepticism.
"Especially on my wedding day."
Of course he knew she’d come. She was a book with a worn spine, full of dog-eared pages. "And if I say it's now full?"
Akio laughed at her impudence. "Then my schedule is now full."
Mrs.Ohtori tried to appear comfortable on one of the plush leather couches that occupied the enormous space, but anxiety bubbled up through her still facade, as if the light and the noise still clung to her, even from downstairs. A fingernail tapped impatiently at an extravagant amethyst ring. She had been so sure she wanted to be here just a moment ago.
Akio was in no hurry to distract her from her restlessness. He walked around the room with a proprietary ease, as if he were still alone. She heard a cork pop and closed her eyes, not opening them again until he stood before her, a glass of wine extended into reach. She murmured her thanks, but her hand reached for an empty space as Akio pulled the glass away, his smile disarmingly flirtatious.
"Have you thought of an excuse to be here, yet?"
She frowned and reached again, feeling strangely childish when he let her take it. "This has to end now. I can't anymore. Not when you're…" Her voice trailed off and she looked down, away, up...anywhere but into his sea green eyes now alight with laughter.
Akio drew her gaze with the soft pressure of a fingertip at her chin, poisonous amusement dripping from his voice. "A blasphemy too far, is it? I've been wondering if it would be, but I have to admit, you kept me in suspense longer than I thought you would."
Mrs.Ohtori realized now, far too late, that she'd assumed all along this affair would end with Kanae’s wedding. "Akio, please. You know this has to stop."
"That would be a bitter mercy, wouldn't it? For both of you. But I don't think you want to be merciful, or you wouldn't have come alone. 'God grant me chastity, but not yet.'"
Mrs.Ohtori occupied herself with the glass, imagining a version of this moment where she threw it and its contents at Akio’s head before storming out. She imagined the shards of glass that would scatter across the floor, the dark red wine that would stain his shirt, and the way it would stick to the leather couch. A crime scene, but for so many crimes she had long ago lost count. She rolled the stem in her fingers, knowing by the sleepily satisfied expression Akio wore that she would do no such thing.
"I needed to get away from the wedding party. It was loud, and bright, and full of memories I don't care to relive."
"Happy memories?"
"What's there to be happy about, if they’re all in the past now?"
"There is the happiness of your daughter to consider. That should count for something."
"So you're going to make Kanae happy?"
A foot flexed impatiently in her shoe as Akio drew out the silence of his appraising gaze.
"No, I don't believe I will. Nor do you want me to."
"But...you're…" Mrs.Ohtori felt her jaw clench. She couldn't say it, but the sound of purring laughter made it plain she wouldn't have to.
"Sex alone will not make the daughter any happier than it makes the mother.”
Mrs.Ohtori took a deep swallow of wine, hoping to wash down the searing acid at the back of her throat. "It would be nothing to you to make her happy. So why wouldn't you? She's not a greedy girl, and it would take so little… So that she has something…"
Akio smiled behind his glass, an indulgent, patient look that made her again feel uncomfortably juvenile. He watched her emotions swirl about in confusion, inky shapes in patterns he could see, even if she couldn't.
"If only for a little while… can't you give her that?"
"And if I do, for a little while, make her happy…do you honestly think living vicariously through her will be enough for a woman like you? After the things you've seen, and done, and had…”
There was a disarming affection in his voice, and it made his words ring true… “You are a selfish woman. Kanae's joy costs you."
Her skin went cold and her chest tightened as he spoke. It was the sensation of having the wind knocked out of her. Hadn’t she known he would be cruel? Especially now? Today? Wasn’t that why she was here? To pay the grim price he would charge for his company? Bile rose again in the back of her throat, but it was bile meant only for her, and she let it burn there.
"Her youthful exuberance tastes like ash in your mouth. Living with the waning of your own vibrancy, clinging to the pride of a job well done... maybe you think, as her mother, you owe her that? But it won't bring you any joy, nor will it alleviate the guilt you feel now. It will only leave you cold."
"How dare you-"
"Why did you leave your daughter alone on the happiest day of her life?"
"It was loud."
"It was beautiful. Full of excitement. Full of bright futures. None of it was yours."
A tension left Mrs.Ohtori’s shoulders, his little hurts accumulating enough to force her from her pretense. For a moment, she felt relieved by their silence, but when she spoke, her voice was frail and lost.
"Couldn't that have been enough? Being happy for her? …Maybe in some other life… "
"Perhaps. But not in this one." Akio set his glass on the coffee table and leaned back into the plush couch across from her, watching her for a long, terrible moment from beneath heavy eyelids. "Come here, Naoko."
So she did, even knowing this for what it was. Another indignity. Making her crawl to him, no matter how high she held her head. He uncrossed his legs, and at least did her the kindness of reaching for her as she leaned down, coaxing her onto the couch with him.
"Were you ever that happy?"
"Maybe I was. On my wedding day at least, I was happy. I was beautiful." She laughed, soft and bitter, as his fingers wound through her hair, making quick work of careful styling. "My hair was long…it peeked out from beneath the veil. I chose my veil on purpose to do that. The little hint of scandal felt so exciting."
"So you were beautiful because you had long hair?" Akio murmured, his nails scratching lightly at her scalp, as if to punctuate his words.
"No… I had long hair because I was beautiful." She set a hand tentatively on his shoulder, stabilizing herself to lean forward. He tugged at the back of her head, making her bare her neck.
“And now?”
“I’m still beautiful. Shouldn’t you be telling me that?” She had meant to sound flippant, and as if to hide the sincerity of the question, she threw a leg over Akio’s lap, straddling him. He pulled her head back farther, letting the first she felt of his lips be a tantalizing brush at her outstretched throat.
“Why should I do that? It won’t convince you that I mean it.”
“Can you? Convince me that you mean it?”
“Of course I can.” Akio’s other hand reached behind her, plucking at a string of iridescent pearls, and with a flick of his fingers, they slipped from her neck, landing with a clatter on the coffee table. She tugged at his grip, but failed to turn her face from the dark amusement bearing down on her. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, indecisive, before she finally made an attempt on the necktie hanging along his open collar. He laughed chidingly, a quick swat at her hand leaving it stinging before he plucked her earrings away as well, tossing them behind her.
“Will believing that I find you beautiful make you happy?”
“No… but it’s what I want.”
Akio’s lips traced a feathery line from her throat, closing on her earlobe. She groaned softly, made more naked by the contact with her unadorned ear than nudity often felt. His voice lowered to a scandalous purr. “You’ll have to start all over again. Your hair. Your makeup. Your clothes.”
“I know,” she murmured, pressing her chest toward him, the zipper at the back of her dress opening with barely a whisper.
He captured her mouth with a propriety that disarmed her, and what battle might have taken place between their lips she quickly lost as her body lowered, settling onto his lap.
“I won’t leave you long enough to get ready before the ceremony,” he continued, cool air whispering down her spine as the dress gave way.
“It doesn’t matter. No one will be looking at me.”
“I will be looking at you." His words tickled as he coaxed her arms out of the little black dress that had so flattered her, pulling it unceremoniously over her head and tossing it behind her.
“That isn’t right. You should be looking at Kanae. It's her moment."
A slender thumb ran down each side of her nose, dragging along the creases that led from there to her mouth, and Akio's gaze followed the gently cruel touch. It stripped away clever contouring and left behind fine lines she had so carefully hidden under the makeup that dissipated in the wake of his touch.
"Do you ever wonder if, had it not been for her, your glowing skin, bright eyes, and youthful radiance would have stayed yours forever?”
What she’d hoped would be a laugh only came out in a miserable, harsh breath. “That's ridiculous. None of this is Kanae’s fault, she didn't steal any of that from me. Time did.”
His fingers moved on, stroking away the concealer that hid two fine vertical lines between her eyebrows. He watched his work with an attentive curiosity that unnerved her. "And like a jealous lover, seeing her with so much time only feels like a twisting knife.”
"I can't bear to look at her, sometimes." She flinched away as his efforts betrayed faint crow's feet around her eyes. "Akio, what are you doing?"
He pulled her into another kiss, and she knew it for what it was, a laugh contained in a liplock. "I'm making an honest woman out of you," he answered, and she could hear the mocking grin he wore.
She reached again for his clothing. "Then shouldn't I return the favor?" This time she aimed lower, and she was thwarted not with a stinging slap but with fingers curling under hers. He lifted her hand to his lips and caught the setting of her amethyst ring in his teeth, sliding it off her finger. She frowned, plucking it away and throwing it behind her, a flare of stubborn resolve welling in her as she grasped her wedding band. But this Akio stopped, too.
“No, no. You are a married woman. That's no artifice to be stripped away."
Naoko touched her face. There was no smear of pale concealer. No dark lipstick. Air tickled bare, clean skin. "I don't understand."
“Oh, I think you do.”
Naoko looked away, her pursed lips now framed by faint vertical lines. Though she saw his approach, she flinched nevertheless when he delicately peeled away the false eyelashes she wore. The subtle ones, that she felt blended quite well. It was not painful, but it hurt nevertheless, as if he were exposing something raw and bloody underneath.
This time, when her hands dropped to his waist, they were unchallenged. Experience unfastened his belt and opened his pants, and with a whisper his shirt was drawn open and out of the way.
Her efforts failed to distract from the way his eyes wandered her naked face. "Now, I can almost see you."
She loaded up an angry reply, but it withered in her mouth as his fingers slid into her hair. He started at her forehead, his palm disappearing behind her eyes, fingers grasping tightly as he ran them over her crown and down to the nape of her neck.
"Stop. Akio, please… "
So he did. He held his hand up, and though it made no sense, she was unsurprised to see thin streaks of inky blue drip down onto his wrist like watery paint. Naoko's skin paled to a deathly hue, her stillness only marred by the faint quivering of her lips. The color seeped into the pressed white sleeve of his shirt, staining it a dark teal. "Please. Put it back."
His other hand drifted down the side of her cheek, drawing her attention to the untamed, desaturated strands of hair that now framed her face. Her vision flooded with coarse grey.
She closed her eyes tight, and a tear fell into Akio's touch. "Why are you doing this? This can't be what you want."
Akio flicked the ink away, leaving his sleeve and his skin unmarred, but she didn't have the heart to ask how that was possible. A slight, coaxing touch at her chin turned her from side to side, his eyes flicking over her, appraising. It felt like burning lines across her bare skin, her naked face, and her greying hair.
"Please... Don't leave me like this."
He flexed his hips, so that the growing bulge in his pants pressed into her stilled fingers, and she responded, though cautiously, her fingernails running through his curls and into his pants.
"This is who you are, Naoko. How will I convince you of your beauty if we both know I am only seeing a facade?”
“...how can you possibly convince me that this is beautiful…”
“You will have to trust me, won’t you?”
She stared into the inky well of his eyes, into a blackness that had been gradually eclipsing the sea green that circled it. Her nakedness was absolute, reflected there for her to see, no matter what sweet lie she trusted she would believe by the end.
“Don’t ruin this day for Kanae. Akio… I…please…”
“I will enjoy ruining it for you far more. Worry not, my dear. The rush and regret will come later, and she will know nothing of either. Time may be her lover, but for now, you are mine…and I will make this moment last forever.”