Dirty, Dirty Liars [Mature/Editing]

[2] 二

My conversation with Ryuzo felt unfinished. For more than a week, the words were stolen from us. Unable to cross paths at the right time, our looks spoke for us yet again. Maybe it was in my head, but it felt like we both had a longing to be alone. To talk. To do more.

I told myself to stay away from him, but how was I supposed to stay away when he was always there, always looking delicious, always making me feel pretty in a place that otherwise made me feel reptilian?

It was odd being a Black girl in Japan — feeling like the only Black girl in Japan some days. Back home, I got attention. Thousands of followers thirsting over my pictures — some even paying for them — before I deleted my accounts. I was Instagram pretty with a button nose, pouty lips, and rare, light eyes the same shade as my skin, but here, that meant nothing. My existence was a spectacle. Something new or different, not something desired.

I didn't have the pale skin, slender frame, or "Western" features people idolized. My brown skin never faded, my curl struggle was even worse without easy access to hair care, and no matter how thin I got from missed meals and running for trains, my ass was never going to stop assing.

Only one person seemed to appreciate that. His attention brought me joy when little else did.

But, after two years of celibacy, that joy was easily skewed. Maybe I thought I wanted him as a friend, but my body wanted something else.

My dreams were filled with thoughts of kissing him, tasting him, feeling his body on top of me. I imagined my hands reaching down to hold his hips while they moved between my thighs, that deep voice whispering in my ear, "Mina."

I jolted awake. A sheen of sweat covered my skin. Another part of me was wet in a different way.

"What the hell?" I asked myself aloud.

I hadn't been with anyone since Vince, but after everything that happened, my trust issues told me to stay away from every man I encountered, gang-related or not. Being lonely and horny wouldn't kill me. Or anyone else.

I shook off the thoughts and got up to make myself some tea, hoping to soothe myself back to sleep. The restaurant's red glow through my window lulled me back to my dream. I peeked through the blinds, secretly hoping to see him, but no one was there. The restaurant was closed, and the sun was a few minutes from rising.

Let it go, I urged myself. Let him go.

. . .

Work was stifling. In Japan, people worked hard, played hard, then worked harder. Busy barely described it.

Sixteen-hour shifts four days a week, no sitting, no questioning, no talking back. If a superior reprimanded you for anything, you didn't speak when spoken to. You didn't speak at all. You just accepted it, absorbed it. Let it eat you alive if you let it.

By the end of the week and fourteen hours into my shift, my nerves were shredded. I tucked myself into the bathroom and cried behind the safety of the Toto toilet's music. When I gathered myself enough to leave, I walked out of the bathroom and into a frenzy.

My team rushed down the hallway, including my lead. I followed her into a room where an older woman was unconscious and turning blue. They lowered the bed and I started working on her.

Our doctor, Toriyami-senpai, rushed in, his face calm but cold, a sneer seemingly always on his face.

Anxiously trying to revive her, the doctor barked commands at us. My lead nurse wasn't helping, but I understood enough to follow. Epi. Compressions. Epi. He pushed me away, and I stood hands up, watching the doctor shock her over and over. Her daughter and granddaughter cried to her from the hall. But, the patient didn't come back.