Kodai is ushered into the back of his hostess bar in Shinjuku.
He goes through the kitchen, where a cook batter dips chicken for frying and into the main room, lit by dim red lights and tea candles floating in red liquid. He stops at the bar, and moves into the shadows and exhaled vapor of the pollute area.
First introduced to Japan about twenty years ago, pollutes quickly replaced cigarettes as a favorite Japanese inhalant. The fact that they are designer intoxicants in a land defined by its conspicuous consumption only made them more popular. The ones offered in Kodai’s bars and clubs are of the strictly legal variety – of which there are many – but the real money is in the illicit trade of banned pollutes.
A Nikka whiskey is placed in front of him and he takes a sip from it, savoring its smoothness. With his glass in hand, Kodai turns to the front of the hostess bar. He spots Sarah immediately – hard not to – and watches as she playfully pours a glass of champagne for a salaryman still in his work clothes.
As Kodai takes another sip from his whiskey, a twinge of jealousy makes him tense his hands. He sets his whiskey down on a coaster and motions the bartender over. “Pollute mask.” The bartender bows. It takes almost no time to produce a pollution mask shaped like an anime skull with green polypropylene lenses for eyes and the BAPE brand label in about the same place where forty minutes earlier, Kodai served Meosa with his separation package.
The bartender feeds the pollute tube to an adjustable hook that keeps it free from the bar top. Kodai places the mask over his head and a cute bunny appears on the insides of the mask’s lenses. The bunny bows repeatedly as it explains to Kodai how to use the mask and asks if he’d like to sync the mask with his iNet feed.
He declines.
Kodai doesn’t sync his feed with anything if he can help it, as doing so is a surefire way to have one’s data tapped.
A meter appears on the right hand side of his pane of vision. The bunny starts to ask a question regarding the type of experience he’d like, but Kodai silences him by saying aloud, “I want something to calm me.”
An hourglass appears over the bunny’s head as it interprets his request. A few seconds later, a single option appears: Dior Aeolian Deposit.
“Fine.”
The meter on the right adjusts the dose. After it reminds Kodai that he can adjust it manually, or by syncing his iNet feed, the experience begins.
Inhale, exhale.
With the mask over his face, Kodai experiences a brief moment of calm, which is, of course, interrupted by his disappointment in the outcome of his day.
He’s losing control, which is something that plagues him in a way that reaches to his very core. Inhale, exhale and relax, he reminds himself, things are going according to plan. He thinks back to the proceedings of the day and a slight grin tugs at the corner of his mouth. He is just about to manually up the dosage when Sarah approaches him.
She reaches him before he can take the mask off, places her elbows on the bar top and leans forward in a way that arches her back end.
Sarah is in a sheer black dress tonight that barely covers the cheeks of her ass. Criss-crossed spaghetti straps over her chest keep her funbags from spilling out. The black choker collar around her neck is accented by a small trinket shaped into a diamond studded spade, and she wears long earrings which dangle to the bottom of her neckline.
“Do you mind if I have a puff?” she asks.
“I don’t normally share.”
“I don’t normally ask a client to share.”
“Fair enough.” Kodai unclips the mask from behind his head and hands it to her. The action of taking the mask off overwhelms his senses for just a moment – suddenly, he’s back in the dimly lit club and even with the dark spaces, color has returned to everything. An image of Meosa’s face and the trickle of blood flashes in his mind’s eye. It disappears as quickly as it came.
Without strapping the pollute mask to her head, mostly to avoid messing up her hair, Sarah takes three fast puffs. On her final exhale, she turns to Kodai. “Is there something bothering you?” she asks.
“My brother,” he says in Japanese.
“Your what?” she asks over the loud music.
He switches to English. “My business. Every time I get a leg-up, something makes sure to take my knees out from beneath me.”
“Have another hit,” she tells him.
He obliges, takes the mask from her and inhales deeply. A thought comes to him, “What do you call a puppetless puppetmaster?”
Sarah moves closer to him and motions for him to bend towards her. Once he has done so, she says in a voice just above a whisper, “If it’s control you want, Kodai, you can control me, any way you want.”
He shifts away from her and cocks an eyebrow. “You’d like that?”
She nods. “I would.”
“Why?”
“It’s what I like.” She brushes a single curl of hair out of her face.
“What happens if I get out of control?” Kodai grabs her wrist and pulls her to him. For a moment, they stare pupil to pupil and to his surprise, she doesn’t look away.
“That’s up to you,” she finally says. A hostess in a blue dress passes them and quickly averts her eyes away.
“Why do you trust me?” Kodai asks after taking another small hit off his pollute mask. “I’m dangerous.”
She laughs softly. “Danger is in the eye of the beholder.”
“I’m not familiar with that phrase.”
“Nevermind.” Sarah’s visage morphs into a wolfish grin. “You’ve had a long night, haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“Then let’s leave. You go first and I’ll follow.”
Enchanted by the look in her eyes, Kodai slowly nods his head. “Got it.”
“We’ll go to your place.”
“Of course.”
“And then what will happen?” she asks.
“I’ll watch you undress, shower, go to the … ” He clears his throat. “I’ll watch you do whatever I tell you to do.”
“Fine, I like the sound of that.” She turns and glances back at him over her shoulder. “As long as it helps you clear your head.”
Chapter 21: Rilakkuma pancakes on the fly
First thing in the morning, Ryuk vows, that’s when he’ll log back in to join Tamana and his guildmates. Sure, he could stay in Tritania using his Somnium skip box, but it’s late in the real world, and there’s something about one’s own bed that the digital world just can’t replicate. Besides, Tamana needs some rest. Now that she’s an RPC, she has to sleep.
His haptic rig powers down and he takes off his NV visor. He yawns, contemplates moving to the living room to tell Hajime the good news, and thinks otherwise. Even if he protests, Hajime will insist that he eats breakfast; Ryuk can tell him then.
“Hajime?” he whispers, just to be sure that the humandroid isn’t seated in a dark corner of his room meditating. No one answers.
He stands, yawns again, and over iNet, he instructs the lights in his room to dim ever-so-slightly. Once they’ve done so, he goes for the small box on his desk. Domo-kun rocks the front of the box of ListerCope Winter Fire Spearmint BrushFast, and as Ryuk opens it, a message appears on his iNet desktop offering him a coupon on his next purchase of ListerCope.
He’s seconds away from swiping it away when FeeTwix’s avatar, rich boy gloves, golden hair and all hops down in front of the box and shoots him a thumbs up. “Hello there, honorable oral hygiene enthusiasts in the Metro Tokyo urboplex! Mention #FeeTwixRox at checkout and take an additional 10% off!” the little avatar tells him in Japanese. “Arigato gozaimasu!” It then bows repeatedly.
Is he really that popular? Ryuk considers this for a moment. The ad probably just targeted me because I’m a Tritania regular. He swipes the message away, simultaneously reminding himself that he’d better watch what he says in front of FeeTwix.