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According to his personal calendar, PJ has little to no clue as to when the infatuation has begun. The calamity of his hands turning clammy, chest bounding as if the atoms were reacting to something otherworldly—a vicious being, a scowl, an unidentifiable flying object—all instead of a sushi restaurant owner smiling back at his words, was not a foretold event to his knowledge.
He does not mind the change, though.
A lack of timelines does not deter his affection.
Because he’s a vessel for the family name before he’s a person, PJ is scattered across every business front, names written down in future lapses of people’s stories and hopes. Him meeting you was no different. There’s a reason why Pumpkin Consulting was every sushi restaurant’s only choice in the capital.
“I know you!”
He tenses up. That is utmost impossible since you have just moved here a while back, not long enough for the neighbourhood to draft up old stories and folklores about a boogeyman who feeds on greed, but there are so many unsavoury things one could find out about him, if they want to dig further.
He shifts, and fidgets. Your face is an empty canvas.
How deep have you gone inside his closets, have you met all the skeletons?
“You do?” The question is posed with the thought of rushing out, of travelling further away for a better prey to sink his canines in and drive them underground with his antics. Doe-eyed with no connection in the capital, he has thought you would be so easy to break. Maybe that was his first sin.
“Yeah,” you refill his water, two ice cubes and the tea is gently diluted because you’ve grown to learn his order by heart. “You were one of our first customers, right? The one to take my flyer when everyone else skied by.”
“Ah,” the man makes a faint sound of acknowledgement, his shoes are now situated in a more comfortable position. It’s not that he does it out of the kindness of his heart—a businessman is on the watch out for opportunities, always—but PJ can’t believe you remember him so well, even when the restaurant is no longer in need of having its owner simmer in the sun to hand out thinly scented papers. You have used cheap ink, some smeared inside his coat. People ought to let you know what ink brand is best to use.
The rest of the meeting courses by easier, even when your eyes regard him with curiosity unspoken, and he lets the air speak. Sometimes, he glances at your knuckles and can still make out the faint outlines of old papercuts, which, if he thinks too much about it, makes him feel... something to see them healed up.
Your hands have always been made to handle much more delicate things than handing out flyers to ignorant passersby.
On most days, he communicates through your assistant, Edomae. A fax, a phone call. Rarely does PJ walk into the restaurant in broad daylight, where the office wall is of a muted beige shade and photos of you lie above his head like glass art over the base of a church.
Not even behind these shielded gazes that he can pretend long enough—this knowing: You are dangerous, constructed out of mismatched pieces and he has never been one for the subtlety.
Today, however, the place is crowded. Christmas is pulling closer and there’s music outside the hall, something new you’re trying out and nobody is willing to tell you that maybe the ambience is already lively enough without it. He thinks of you bubbling up words behind a karaoke machine, matching its wires all wrong to make unearthly sounds before stopping short with an apologetic laugh.
He certainly won’t be the one to distract you further, of course, having purposefully chosen one of the busiest evenings to sneak in and out of seeing you.
Edomae leads him to the office and comes from the corner with a tray of refreshments. Unlike you and your casual wears, the assistant—dressed in different kimonos each visit—has made it clear that she is more than happy to be the middleman, not wanting to burden an owner who is always a few steps behind on the current trends, someone who is always neck deep in competitions and the mathematics of placing tentacles on nori sheets.
(He has once caught sight of her tilting an umbrella towards the tired body, heart aching when you waved for far too long under the pouring of July, and he nodded. The shadow between three people—neither good nor bad in its meaning—extended beyond this pavement.)
“We can import Western cheese, the same ones the Americans have been using for their twist on sushi, at the earliest of next month.” PJ lays open his palms, the matcha has settled down to a dark film coating his cup. “I will fly out to make the official arrangement and check their storage. That is, of course, if your boss is happy with this deal.”
Edomae smiles. Her voice has always sounded very placid, too neutral to gauge out anything, and he wonders why and how you’ve met. Sometimes it truly feels like she’s a right hand, an extension of a body that has no need for words.
“I will check in with them.”
The woman folds her hands over before standing up, and she doesn’t point out that it has been far too long of knowing each other for him not to call you by names, keeping an unshakable ground as if the calling of one would usher him into the art of disintegrating, becoming bubbles and the sea by allowing himself to be closer to a burnt path.
He blinks, can’t remember if the parking would be left or right for his Uber.
“Thank you.”
“I have never minded your company,” you smile over the phone—he can tell that much by hearing the intonation of your voice so often—and he can picture the stars pinned almost imperceptibly, on your lashes. “But if you insist on another long trip away to cultivate your skills, I understand.”
You know he wasn’t asking for permission, more so an exclamation or some lame justification as you both ignore the background sounds of a bustling terminal, people are being rung up to occupy a plane up West.
His fingers fidget against the leather handle, not quite knowing what to say next.
"I’ll miss you," you speak with a yawn, perhaps the sentence hasn’t meant to be heard.
“I see,” PJ replies anyway.
He sees.
The flight out is much lonelier when he thinks about being away from you. Layovers and he pushes himself to stay awake to keep up with the long schedule ahead. In the hollowness of paperwork and long trips to Michigan, he keeps himself occupied with thoughts of you, things that he has accumulated in the past year of knowing you, seeing you, hearing you talk.
His mind drifts somewhere forbidden, sort of.
One time.
Just this one time.
You sit down, tousling your hair a little more to its left when the alcohol hits your throat and he is sitting two seats away from you on the empty conveyor belt, trying not to mess up even when you show little to no recollection of remembering anything each time you guys share a drunken talk.
“I looked up your name the other day,” you begin and his heart tightens, the city is reduced to crickets. He wonders what is on the Internet these days, would the rumour of him helping a chain ramen restaurant shoo out every other competitor—by giving them illegal drugs in national competitions—be first? Or would it be the fact that he has dabbled in matchmaking through unorthodox means—skeezy group dates, soapland hookups, trades of phone numbers on SNS—solely to hike up the prices of some apartment complex downtown?
PJ frowns, but clears his throat. If you have decided to hate his guts and want him out of here, of your life and everything you both had built up, you’re awfully calm.
“What did you find?”
“Hmmm,” you draw out the conclusion and god you’re killing him with the suspense, with your hair to the side and he can pinpoint the mole on your neck. PJ takes two more sips, for courage, and you’re still thinking, a finger tapping against glass as if the noose around his neck is undecided. “You’re rich. Loaded. Could have wiped out our local Tsukiji Market with ease,” you smile.
He winces a little at the idea, though there is no denying these facts. He has done worse, the electric blue of these bottle sodas reminds him of things lost at sea.
“But I’m glad you didn’t, really.” You enunciate every letter out, a smile sketched in the reflection of melted ice and he has half a mind to take your drink away, though there is hardly anything left. “Thanks for sticking it out for the little ones, Jones. I’m really glad you chose to do so.”
“Oh,” he blinks.
No one has ever called him that.
(But no one has ever made him feel like this either, so.)
He comes back in the summer, late summer and the restaurant has changed up again.
Up the hall and down these steps, Edomae gives him a light bow and gestures towards another newly built entrance, seemingly pleased after their latest assimilation regarding ingredients.
Then stops.
“This photo,” he trails off. Following his eyesight is a rather fresh instalment of decoration, an updated portrait of all the current employees and their boss, alike. He hasn’t been there when you made the decision to take a framed photo, but he’s there—in the corner—as a sticky note doodle and your handwriting right beneath.
And thank you for making our dream possible, Mister P. Jones Pumpkin.
The assistant catches him in a ripple of recognition, and smiles to herself.
“Pretty, isn’t it? There is one thing you and I have in common, Mister Pumpkin.”
He lets the sentence sink in, doesn’t ask.
Edomae finishes every beginning on her own anyway.
“We both care deeply about the person behind this establishment, wouldn’t you say so?”
He sits down for a drink after closing hours, one seat in between your bodies and the newest concoction on your menu is a little too sour for his taste. PJ hasn’t realised what face he was making until you turn over, slightly apologetic.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to force yourself to try out the new menu.”
“I want to,” he replies, but not above himself to turn away the chaser you’re offering.
Your fingers brush and he grows, under the influence of a faint buzz, more conscious of this hunger that can only be calmed down, satiated by your presence even when there’s enough space for anything and not enough for anything he wants. The thing he’s starting to learn is this: He makes too much space on his calendar for you, to run your errands and travel in circles for your happiness. Is there anything else he can do? Is there anything you wish? He would be on his knees and pick up every flyer thrashed if that would make the smile on your face—a permanent feature.
He would worship you so much, so silently, so pliantly.
(Has that ever been a good thing, in history of wars and overlords?)
Bathing in these scenes of recognition where you laugh a little and ask him about these business trips while the blue deification in his eyes can fill up your latest koi pond by the entrance, there lives no confessions, nothing beyond sentences exchanged for communal worth.
PJ lets your hand rest on his wrist when you’re waving for a cab home, and he dutifully helps you into the backseat with a soft seat belt click. He’s still smiling and waving, even when you’re too far away from making out what expression he’s carrying, and you text him goodnight despite knowing he never really replies to anyone after work.
But he can surprise you, though.
He has changed up his axis to float above ground.
Around the first blush of autumn, PJ orders a bouquet to celebrate your booming sales. It’s a scheme, some weak con where he gets something all floral, coloured ribbons and too grand for it to be displayed anywhere other than the space of your office. He thinks about making it a bigger gesture, like writing some love poems you would decode in sunrise—but fights against it.
Carrying the display with bare knuckles and the grin you wear, the way you say his name in a half laugh before giving him a hug that is shivering down his spine—
Perhaps his love does not need words or a set timing to convey, at all.