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“Babe—who’s your hot friend?”
“Me, babe.”
Rosa laughs, pulls Mimi into a hug. In her ear, whining, “Well, duh—but that guy you came with?”
And Mimi, perched up at the bar to give her dancing heels a little break, seeing everything with martini eyes, doesn’t bother to look. She’d arrived with nearly all her old friends, for starters, but there’s also only one person this question is ever about anyway.
“Ken—,” she says, definitively, the end of all possible conversations on hotness in their clique. Apart from herself, of course. Pauses to suck down another sip of her third martini of the night, hold the lip of the glass to her cheek. The ice isn’t cold enough to help with the flush over every inch of her skin, so she fans herself with her hand. Searches the crowded counter for the least dirty napkin to press to her forehead, remembering, “—and he’s about to get married, by the way, so let’s make better decisions.”
Rosa’s eyes are very shiny. She’s wearing purple lipstick, blue glitter smeared over her eyelids, a silver mini dress that makes her look like a disco ball. It’s a lot, but it's also her fuck-it-I’m-single look for her fuck-it-I’m-free breakup party, so she gets a pass. Mimi, loyal to the bone, had spent over an hour on her younger colleague’s hair alone. It’s already spilled from the immaculate braided updo, because there’s never been a song Rosa hasn’t found worth whipping her head to all night, and definitely not when the terrible twosome of Daisuke and Takeru are there to goad her on. “Not that one. The one with the hair.”
Mimi shakes her head again, though secretly is happy to be the wise one for once. “That’s Taichi—but don’t even go there, ‘hun. Have some self respect.”
“Ugh, no, the other one with the hair.” Rosa sweeps the room with a wild hand.
Could be pointing to anyone, so Mimi still won’t bother to look. Knows better than to take her tequila vision seriously, this deep into the night. For all Rosa knows, she could be pointing to a coat rack.
Mimi catalogues the list of their friends in her head, separating out the ones who had already left by then. Spoilsports. Oh! Speaking of—“Yamato!” Mimi hesitates, trying to remember, “But I think he and—,”
“No! Not blond! Opposite, opposite!” Rosa is gesturing with both arms now.
Mimi actually thinks about it that time. This is difficult, as she’s already getting bored of this little guessing game, and now her glass is empty. “Koushiro?” Honestly, she could see it.
Rosa drops her arms. “Forget it. I’ll find out myself.”
“Make me proud.” Laughs with her, too, swiveling around on the stool to watch Rosa slink past her, then through the crowd, and then right up to Jou at the far end of the bar. Huh, thinks Mimi. Well, to each their own, she supposes. Who is she to judge?
The bartender comes by, and Mimi asks for a top up. As she waits, she glances back to witness the comedy unfold, looking forward to teasing Rosa about it when she gets her sober sense back. Jou! The hot friend! Just imagine.
Amused, Mimi watches Rosa’s arms start waving around again, animated, happy. She’s chattering nonstop. Mimi giggles when Jou just stares back. Even from here she can tell he’s got his mildly frightened face on. The awkward way he holds his body in the sharpest geometry, spine rigid, shoulders flat. Had stuck himself up by that post on the corner since he got here, the tallest wallflower in any room. Unhappy to be included, but not so much that he won’t show up, if you really need him.
The bartender returns with a refreshed martini, and Mimi glances away just long enough to properly swirl up the three olives she’d asked for, too. Rosa laughs so loud, for the both of them, that Mimi can hear it from where she’s still sitting. She shakes her head, not bothering to picture the disaster behind her. Well, at least Rosa’s getting in some good practice.
Mimi indulges in a long and refreshing sip. Eats an olive as slowly as possible, closing her eyes to savor the taste, permitting herself a low and achy sigh. Her feet still hurt in these nude pumps she hasn’t finished breaking in, she’s sure her foundation has started to sweat a bit around her hairline, and she isn’t convinced that the new setting spray she’d used is doing its job on her own curly waves. Basically, Mimi is ready to go home, but not ready to admit she can’t keep up with these marathon nights out anymore.
Hears that laugh again. Taking her martini glass with her, she heaves another drunken sigh and turns back to the show.
Rosa’s arms are back at her sides, and Jou’s are now folded across his chest. His sleeves pull taught, stretching over quietly defined muscle. Huh, thinks Mimi again. Vaguely recalls all the times she’d ring him up, bored and in the mood to be a bother, and find him at the gym or the library. The body is as important as the mind, Mimi, he’d say in that way that sounds like being lectured, except that Jou’s only preoccupation is his own sense of responsibility and rarely what he thinks you ought to do with yours. Mimi knew this because one time, on one of these calls, she’d told him that as a doctor familiar with the human body he should know there were other ways to work up a sweat, and he’d said huh? and that was the end of that.
Mimi sighs now, remembering it. Poor Jou. Poor clueless, dateless Jou and his inability to—huh? Because now Rosa is smiling, and now Jou sort of is, too. Even moves to run a hand through his hair, a tick for when he’s nervous. His long fingers lift waves of curls off his temple. Mimi swallows an olive whole.
Rosa steps into his space. He, surprisingly, does not step back, not even when she reaches up and takes off his glasses, and—here, Mimi sits up so straight when she sees this that her vision goes black—he lets her.
Then Jou bends down, dips his head closer to Rosa’s face. Turns his face to talk into her ear. Mimi puts her drink down.
“Babe!” Exclaims Rosa, giggly and drunk, when she materializes beside them. “Can you believe Jou has never been to Mexico City?”
“Of course, he hasn’t,” says Mimi in her bossiest voice, because she knows everything about Jou. Like how he doesn’t travel for fun because he has his work, and he doesn’t come out to parties like these because he has his priorities, and he doesn’t have time for distractions, because he has his goals. And yet, she thinks, here he is. Well, well.
“Hi, Mimi.” Clueless, Jou smiles at her. “Having fun?”
Mimi laughs. They both balk. She turns to Rosa, holds out her hand, palm up. “I think Hikari’s looking for you.”
It’s not a total lie, Mimi assures herself. Hasn’t seen the younger crew for an hour by that point, likely still lost to the very center of the dance floor from which Rosa had emerged only minutes ago, finding Mimi the bar. So their looking for her could be true, and this possibility brightens up her colleague’s already bright considerably. Looks right at Jou, grinning wicked. “Ooh, come with?” And puts her hand on his bicep. Not lost on her that her fingertips don’t meet when she does, either, not even close. Not lost on Mimi, either.
Snatches Jou’s glasses out of Rosa’s other hand. “We’ll get drinks and meet you.”
Rosa giggles. Looking at him all flirty, lusty. “You better.”
Jou smiles again, nervous, high cheekbones all red. Addresses her politely, but leans back over her to do so again, struggling to talk over the noise in the crowd. “Maybe another time—,”
“All right,” says Mimi, pushing him upright with a hand on his chest. Lets Rosa bounce away first before rounding on him so sharply he finally does step back. Oh, so he knows how to do that now, does he? Well, well!
“You—,” poking him with a manicured nail, startled to find him firm, and built, and hiding something she hadn’t known to look for, “—you are not my hot friend, Jou!”
He stares at her, and then squints at her, blinder than a bat. “I’m—I’m what?”
But she can’t answer him, looking up into his face. His eyes take her in, full of concern, focused. Grey, like dark skies over high seas, but steady, flecked in winter green and storm blue. Overwhelmed, Mimi struggles to unfold his glasses in her fingers, pushes them back onto his face, squishes his nose so hard under her palms she thinks she hears some cartilage snap, but that could just as likely be the sound of her heartbeat going wild in her ears.
“Don’t show other girls that color!” So forceful he actually stumbles back, his hands closing around both her wrists, so she goes with him.
His shoulder hits the wall, elbow knocked at the worst possible angle, but the shock of pain still isn’t enough to keep him from sheltering her from the fall. “Mimi,” he groans, catching them both, an arm around her waist, glasses askew over his nose and mouth, fogging up the lens. “What are you talking about? What color?”
Her fists grip his shirt. The collar is stiff, neatly starched, freshly done up. Mimi vividly pictures him spritzing misted water over the button up laid out over his ironing board and spending all of twenty minutes just on sleeve cuffs no one will appreciate because he’s going to roll them up to his elbows anyway, and almost goes insane.
Wrangles herself up and off him, but the message does not deliver to her hands, which bunch the front of his shirt. “Girls who think—girls who might think—,” and cannot for the life of her get the rest of her thought out of her mouth.
His curls have loosened out of their combed wave. His hands are firm on her waist. His eyes are still that steady storm grey, and still steady on her. Mimi knows she’s out of luck. Or, maybe, just finally waking up to it.
She closes her mouth, flares her nostrils, puffs up her cheeks. “Let’s get one thing straight,” says Mimi, declarative, and he’s looking at her like there’s a lot more he’d prefer to clear up, actually, “I’m your hot friend. That goes one way, Jou. One way!”
His cheeks are red again, and he blinks quickly through the lens. “All right,” squirming a little, too, letting her go. Straightens up where he stands, which means he regains the foot and half he has over her, and she’s back to overwhelmed, but also panicked, too, because—well, because—is Jou hot??
“Okay,” he’s saying now, visibly uncomfortable. “You—you’re the—you’re that friend.”
Mimi holds up a single, threatening finger. He looks between this and her face, the wild blush fading to sincere alarm. “One way, Jou.”
“I just—okay, but what does that mean?” Exasperated now, he gestures in the direction of their friends. “Ken’s right there. And Taichi. And Yamato. And Kou’s over—,”
“Me, Jou! One way! Say it! Say I’m—,” and gasps when he cuts her off, because he rarely does, and rarely looks as good as this when he means business.
“Mimi,” he says in a serious tone. Looking stern, even disciplinarian. She is not prepared for how quickly the doctor voice works on her, and that he might also be hot when he puts himself in charge, too. Has this always been true? Has everyone figured this out but her? And then, with horror at the direction people's eyes are falling, the louder their tiff gets—Are these girls looking at him instead of her? Why are people looking at him? Have people always been looking at him??
“I think you should sit down for a bit.” And without waiting for her to agree, he folds her finger down, and then folds her hand into his, and pulls her along beside him. The crowd splits at once, clearing a path. He doesn’t have to ask either, they just seem to know, but he does make a short bow of appreciation once they get to the bar.
When he looks at her then, she sits herself down without being asked, utterly helpless. Her face is far too warm. She looks at him with her clearest eyes—and sees it.
Mimi is beyond bewildered. Heated, undone. How did she not know this, before this?
Jou studies her over carefully. “I’m not telling you what to do,” he starts, and Mimi suddenly pictures herself folding like a lawn chair. It is a very vivid image, “but I don’t think it would be a bad idea to take it easy for the rest of the night.”
She wants to argue back. Have an opinion and act on it, in charge of her own life from end to end.
She points to the other bar seat.
Jou smiles. Puts himself beside her, like every other time before, and every time after.
“You’re not the hot friend.” Mumbles this to herself, in a perfect daze. He hears her, of course.
“Okay.” Laughs, too, his shoulders lifting a little. His sleeve rides up again, stretching nicely over a secret Mimi is only just coming to understand, and she’s a goner. Absolutely folded.
*