When the door finally opened, I saw the first thing that happened. One of the two bodyguards entered the room and looked around. After that, he retained again and gave way to his boss, who ignored me as usual.
I was in no way prepared for the person who followed him.
Usually, the interpreter followed right behind Mr. Tanaka. Still, the person who came through the door second was someone I had never seen before.
He was more of the same age as the two bodyguards and of the same ethnicity. His black hair was cut very short at the sides and long on the head but so coiffed that it would not fall into his face under any circumstances. His eyes were so bright that they looked almost like amber. His features were sharp and distinctive, but in a way that made him look incredibly handsome and just as dangerous as a predator.
He wore a tailor-made suit, and yet I could see the end of a tattoo on his neck that had to be much bigger: he, too, was a Yakuza.
His gaze fell on me, only for a fraction of a second, and yet he hit me in my marrow and leg. I became hot and then cold.
I didn’t even notice the rest of the participants who entered the room and only came back to my senses when Mr. Tanaka started talking. The new interpreter translated the spoken words and added, “I am Hiroshi Tanaka, Yoshihihiro Tanaka’s son, and I will be attending and translating these meetings from now on. It is an honor to meet you.”
I almost missed my cue.
Just in time, I set off to fill the water in the two glasses in front of Mr. Tanaka and his son. I took great care not to look at anyone in the eye and quickly disappeared back to my seat.
Throughout the entire meeting, I had to keep myself from looking at Hiroshi Tanaka by chaining my gaze to the floor. Only in between, I had to check briefly if the glasses on the table were empty. That was the most challenging moment. Because the temptation to look to the side for only a very short time was unbearable.
Something about him attracted me like a moth to light. Was it the brief gush of his aftershave that enveloped me as he passed me by?
Was it the way he moved? The dark tone of his voice? Or was it just the quick eye contact that catapulted me into the sky for a moment? Or had it been hell?
When the meeting was over, I almost froze into a pillar of salt. Instinctively I bowed, as I always did. This time before I had the chance to make eye contact with him again. Had he looked at me one more time?
You belong to the Yakuza, I warned myself. The best thing was to give the Tanakas a wide berth, and yet I was overcome by an obsessive urge to follow Hiroshi Tanaka outside.
I wanted to follow him everywhere, but I couldn’t. At least, not now.
Hiroshi Tanaka’s face haunted my dreams, and the scent of his aftershave hung in my nose as if he had spent every night in my bed. I longed for the next meeting with the Tanakas. My life began to revolve around that day as if the sun was my earth. Everything else receded into the darkness of the universe that was my life.
It was crazy, but it made me happy.
As I waited in my sheath dress for Tanaka-san for the second time, my heart was beating up to my throat. Suddenly, I was overcome with a terrible fear that as soon as I see Hiroshi Tanaka again, that magic would suddenly vanish. But it had the opposite effect. My breath caught and my entire body tingled. At the same time, he did not dignify me with a glance. But that didn’t bother me. Hiroshi was even more handsome than I remembered, even if I could not look at him.
Two more times, I saw him. The last time was on a Friday, and James-san had given me time off early after reporting to him.
My heart fluttered with euphoria as I walked home and still as I walked to the laundromat across the street armed with my workout bag.
While waiting for my laundry to be done, I stared at my phone and saw nothing but him.
For some reason, the sound of a car door slamming snapped me out of my trance. I looked up. My heart stopped.
There he was. Right in front of me, separated only by three steps and a glass front was Hiroshi Tanaka. He was standing next to a black luxury sedan, glancing at his cell phone himself.
What was he doing here?
Was this important?
Somewhere in my mind, I remembered that the Tanakas owned a series of laundromats. Clearly, these served to launder money.
Was this laundromat one of them? Or was it a coincidence? I didn’t care.
When he started moving, I was already on my feet, even before I consciously decided to follow him. It was as if he had his own gravity, pulling me along with him.
I paid no attention to where we were going, only to keep glancing at my phone myself so it wouldn’t be obvious I was following him. Part of me wondered what Hiroshi Tanaka was doing in a neighborhood like this. A community that was dominated by cheap apartment buildings and affordable stores.
It was probably an attempt of my mind to warn me. In the end, though, I didn’t care.
I followed the man of my dreams two streets away, where the sidewalks were lined with cars.
There, he entered a restaurant that seemed to have opened recently. It was called Takahashi, which meant “high bridge” and was a common family name in Japan.
I had never been to this
