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The sound of my soft pants felt as though they echoed through the suddenly quiet room, filling the tense air around me. The way my sweat slicked hair stuck to my forehead made my skin crawl, not because of the feeling itself but due to what caused it. “The cause” happened to be the equally out of breath but less tense man lying next to me. His usually messy hair was somehow even messier, his usually pristine skin was heavily bruised with satisfyingly dark punctures littering the purple and red lesions. But best of all, his usually perfectly sized, perfectly placed “all natural” beauty mark was delightfully smeared across his cheek. Getting the absolute satisfaction of smearing that mark was akin to the feeling of seductively removing someone’s gloves. It was utterly, marvelously tantalizing.
I raked my fingers through my hair to pull it off my forehead and sighed. The room was hot but as much as I wanted to push off the thick, bougie covers, I couldn’t help but feel Eiichi’s eyes boring into my skin, as if he were waiting to see me bare naked again. Even after everything that had just happened, I felt as though him seeing me disrobed in a nonsexual setting would make me...unclean. I was relieved to have released the tension that had built between us amidst the hatred and boiling, raw emotions, but I couldn’t help thinking that I needed to do something to get back the bit of dignity I had lost during this encounter. Breaking the silence, Eiichi excused himself to the restroom before placing a kiss on my temple; I waited until he turned his back on me to close my eyes and shudder. I knew that if I was going to act, this would be my one and only chance.
The moment I heard the click of the bathroom lock, I finally pushed the disgustingly expensive leopard print covers off my body, almost moaning in pure content at the cold air rushing over my body. I let myself indulge in the feeling for just a beat before springing into action. I started by throwing my long ago discarded shirt back on, in the off chance that I was caught in the act. The entire time, my eyes were glued on my prey: Eiichi’s vanity, pushed up for some god awful reason against the wall directly next to two side by side full length mirrors. Deciding last minute to also pull my shorts on, I squeezed and tucked my underwear into one of the front pockets as I quickly made my way over to the grossly elegant, deep cherrywood table.
Even before I stood directly in front of the vanity, I started to reach out. I was a woman on a mission. Stopping before I ran into the drawers, I grabbed one of the obnoxiously ornate knobs and pulled open the top drawer. I quickly and quietly rifled through the piles of sharpies and pencils and no-longer-sticky sticky notes when I found my prize: a small tin full of eyebrow pencils labeled “Beauty Mark.” Grinning to myself, I pulled out the tin and ran my hand across all the other contents of the drawer, putting it all back to the organized mess it was before.
I made my way back toward the bed, considering for a moment that I should pull the covers up so they weren’t half on the ground but decided against it. I would not be ashamed to admit that I took a tiny bit of pleasure from the thought of the unsavory sheets collecting dirt from the floor and Eiichi not knowing how to clean it out. I considered for a moment pouring a bit of wine on the sheets from the almost empty bottle on the nightstand, but I wasn’t that cruel. Or maybe I was. I wrapped my fingers nimbly around the neck of the bottle and let a small bit splash out on the bed. The splattered stain, I thought, made the abhorrent design just a little more bearable from the idea that he would have to live with that stain for as long as he owned the sheet set.
I placed the now empty bottle back down on the nightstand with a clink and got to work. I swiftly grabbed my purse off the ground and slid the pencil tin into the inner pouch, noting for the first time since coming here how equally repugnant the overly detailed marble flooring was. Resisting the urge to gag, I slipped my shoes on, threw my purse over my shoulder, and quickly made my way over to the door. I had my fingers wrapped around the knob, so close to freedom, when I heard the muffled padding sound of bare feet on the marble along with an almost inaudible gasp. I sighed and turned around in defeat, knowing I’d been caught, but when I saw the look of despair on Eiichi's face I thought maybe it wasn’t so bad. I got the chance to savor the look for just a bit before I made my escape.
“Thanks for everything, but I’d best be on my way. It’s getting late,” I told him with a cheeky smile. My eyes flicked to the clock on the wall and noted that it wasn’t even midnight yet. I prayed he wouldn’t notice. I didn’t give him the chance to respond, gripping the strap of my purse with one hand and giving him a two fingered salute with the other. I turned back to the door and started out, deciding to indulge a bit by throwing a look over my shoulder as I left, catching one last glimpse of his absolutely shattered, dejected expression.
...
Groaning loudly as he turned off the obnoxiously blaring alarm, Eiichi’s slowly waking mind immediately recalled the knot he’d felt in the pit of his stomach as he watched her retreating figure. His throat tightening at the memory of how the sound of the door slamming shut reverberated through his large room. He’d fallen back asleep soon after, but not without tears in his eyes. He wanted nothing more than to curl back up in bed and wallow in his misery of now knowing that he was nothing more than a one night stand to her. However, he had a job to do.
As he sat up, stretching out his arms and yawning, he paused. Something was out of place. In fact, several things were out of place. The first he noted was that his sheets were strewn about, half on the floor. Rolling to the side of his bed, he began to blindly pull them back up. Once again he gave pause, this time because a large portion of the fabric felt, well, sticky. At first he thought it was a result of the prior nights...escapades, but upon examination, found a large red stain. He eyed the empty bottle on the nightstand and tightened his fists in the fabric before letting go with a sigh.
Eiichi considered himself to be quite knowledgeable in many regards but home maintenance was certainly not one of those. Given this, and the fact that he lived alone, he thought it wise for the time being to simply flip the sheets over. During this surprisingly laborious task given the large, some may even say irritating, nature of his bed, he caught sight of himself in his vanity mirror. He looked positively awful . His normally messy hair would seem pristine compared to the monstrosity of knots and flyaways it was in that moment. His cheeks were red and eyes puffy with crust in the corners. He quickly wiped his eyes and tried to give himself a smile. It wasn’t anything some dry conditioner and concealer couldn’t fix.
After a good hour and a half of dressing and redressing, combing and spraying, Eiichi sat himself down at his vanity with a smile, a genuine one this time. He was rather proud of the work he’d done making it look like he’d gotten a full night's sleep, void of any heartbreak. His hair looked like it did on an average day and his eyes no longer showed signs of despair. It was finally time for the finishing touch, his most well kept secret: his beauty mark. As if it were second nature, he swiftly slid the top drawer of his vanity open and reached in. Quickly noticing an empty space the size of, say, a pencil box, he scowled and began a frenzied search of every drawer within his reach.
Suddenly, Eiichi froze in place as realization crept onto his face, keeping so still as though he believed that if he didn’t move then it wouldn’t be true. He cautiously turned his head back toward his bed, glaring at the stained sheets. In a burst of energy, he let out an enraged, frustrated scream. Fueled by pure, unadulterated anger, he yanked a drawer out of the vanity and dropped it to the floor. The nauseatingly glossy wood cracked on impact and the knob fell off with a clank. He stood so fast that his chair tumbled and fell beside the drawer but it was as if he didn’t even notice. Racing over to his bedside, he started reaching for random objects, starting with his suffocating decorative throw pillows, and throwing them aggressively against the far wall of his room. Once he ran out of pillows he glanced around desperately until his eyes landed on the empty wine bottle. Gripping it by the neck, he raised his arm over his head, aimed for his vanity mirror, and then-
A series of unending knocks at his front door echoed through the halls up to his room. Only a split second of thought was needed before Eiichi tossed the bottle on his bed, smacked his cheeks a few times, and scrambled to answer the door. The relentless knocking only ended when the door was opened, but was almost immediately replaced by howling laughter that could only belong to a gremlin of a boy who knew exactly what he came for. Of course if anyone were to immediately find out about this, it would be Nagi. If he were being honest, he should have expected Nagi to show up even sooner.
Before he could stop his laughter and begin his teasing, Eiichi started to close the door, but Nagi reached out to keep it propped open.
“Wait, wait,” Nagi finally choked out between lingering chuckles. He cleared his throat and held out a dented metal box.
“I found this in your yard and-”
Eiichi immediately yanked it out of his hand and opened it, but was, for what felt like the millionth time, heart broken.
“And it was empty. As I’m sure you’ve realized,” the small boy held a hand over his mouth to cover his smile, knowing fully well that it was still obvious in his eyes that he was thoroughly enjoying this. Eiichi, however, did not find it as humorous, tossing the box over his shoulder somewhere on the floor of his foyer.
“I can’t show my face anywhere ever again, Nagi,” he began to ramble and his eyes welled up with tears. “I’ll have to become a hermit, I can never perform again, I can’t go to the grocery store without a bag over my head and, and...”
“Oh my god shut up!” Throwing his arms in the air, clearly he was no longer laughing. “You ruined it. It was hilarious but now you're all weepy and it’s just...sad. Hurry up, we gotta get to rehearsal.”
Eiichi wiped some tears from his eyes with the heel of his hand and sniffled. Nagi gagged at the sound of Eiichi’s snot and threw a small package of tissues from his coat pocket at him.
“Hurry uuuuuup, I swear.”
“But, but I can’t go. Everyone will notice. Everyone will stare .”
“ God , no one’ll notice, I promise. It’s not that bad.”
“Really?”
“Yes really, now please let’s go. And blow your nose, I gave you tissues. Use them.”
Nagi pulled Eiichi by the hand out of the doorway and pushed him gently ahead to have him lead the way. From behind, as he turned to shut the door for Eiichi, he raised a hand to cover his laughter once again. Everyone was definitely going to notice.