Cherry Cigarettes

The city air outside was a slap in the face; a mix of exhaust, street food and cherry blossoms. She walked awhile without a destination, the note burning a hole in her pocket. The hollow feeling was morphing into restless energy. She needed to do something, to feel something that wasn’t a vacuum. Outside a corner kiosk, she stopped, its neon sign flickering. Her eyes scanned the racks behind the glass. She pointed to a packet of cigarettes she’d seen the hostesses smoke; red cherry flavored lights. She paid without a word, the transaction empty as she felt.

A few blocks later, she found herself standing across the street from the familiar, neon-streaked facade of Karasu’s club, The Electric Dragon Den, the fluorescent letters pale in the morning light. Her supposed home. His kingdom. Leaning against a grimy wall, she tore the plastic wrap off the packet with her teeth. She pulled out a slender, dark red cigarette and put it between her lips. Her hands were steady.

The first drag was a mistake. The artificial cherry taste clashed violently with the harsh burn in her lungs. She coughed, her eyes watering, a pathetic, sputtering sound in the early day din. But she took another drag. And another. The nicotine hit her system, a lightheaded buzz that did little to fill the void but gave her hands something to do. With her free hand, she pulled out her burner comm. She pulled up the number from the note. Her thumb hovered over the keys. She wasn’t going to be a forgotten secret. She typed, the cherry-scented smoke curling around the screen.

» I’ll be waiting. Don’t make it too long. I get bored easily. – R

She hit send. The message was flirtatious, confident, everything she was supposed to be. After one last, long drag of the horrible cigarette, she dropped it, grinding it under the heel of her boot with a decisiveness she didn’t feel inside. Rei stood there a moment longer, watching the smoke dissipate into the city smog, staring at the door to the bar, wondering if he was inside, if he was watching, waiting.

She had a shift as a hostess in little over two hours. Before that she desperately needed another shower. The one she had taken at the love hotel left her feeling differently dirty; the soap at that place smelled like strawberry candy and sin. On her way up, she didn’t encounter anyone except the cleaning crew and Aoi, who nodded at her in passing. As she entered the apartment, she scanned the rooms for Karasu. He was nowhere in sight. Relived, she sighed, tossed her dress, the red lingerie and her clutch on her bed and walked to the bathroom for a shower.

The hot water did little to wash away the feeling. The cheap, cloying scent of strawberry candy was replaced by her own jasmine soap, but a phantom stickiness remained on her skin; a residue of the hotel, of Takumi’s eager hands, of her own calculated surrender. She scrubbed until her skin was pink, trying to scour away the memory of Karasu’s cold dismissal and replace it with the ghost of a boy’s admiration.

Wrapped in a towel, her hair dripping onto her shoulders, she pushed open the bathroom door, steam billowing out into the cool apartment. She took two steps toward her room before she froze. Karasu was there. In her room. Slouched in the worn velvet armchair by the window, one leg crossed over the other. The morning light, cut across him, illuminating the faint scar through his eyebrow, the tight set of his jaw.

In one hand he held the flimsy note from Takumi. In the other, burning with a faint, sweet cherry scent, was one of her cigarettes. He didn’t look up at her immediately. First he finished reading the note, his expression utterly unreadable. Then slowly, deliberately, he brought the red cigarette to his lips and took a long, contemplative drag. He exhaled the smoke in a thin, steady stream, watching it dissipate in a sunbeam. His sharp blue eyes lifted and fixed her to the spot. He held up the note between two fingers, the paper looking absurdly small and pathetic in his grasp. “‘You’re incredible,’” he read aloud, his voice a low, flat monotone that was far more terrifying than any shout. He took another drag of her cigarette, the cherry flavor seeming grotesque coming from him, “‘Don’t lose it.’”

He let the silence hang, his gaze sweeping over her towel-clad frame, hair wet, caught utterly off guard. His eyes travelling from the note to the cigarette, then back to her face, a single, mocking eyebrow raised. “So,” he said, his voice dripping with a cold, quiet amusement that made her blood run cold, “Was it worth the price of admission, little fox? A few sweet words and a cheap smoke?” He flicked the cigarette to the floor and stepped on it. The cherry ember died with a soft sizzle under the heel of his polished shoe. The act was so deliberately crude, so out of character for his usual controlled precision, that it stole the air from the room.

“I was curious about the red smokes the hostesses prefer,” he said, his voice a low, conversational rumble that belied the violence of the gesture. His piercing eyes, however, were not on the crushed cigarette but on her, “They taste better on their lips than directly. Too sweet.” Rei just blinked, her mind scrambling. Was this jealousy? This petty, destructive act? Or was it just sheer, unbothered contempt, finding her as tasteless as the candy-scented soap?

His gaze didn’t waver. It traveled over her, from her dripping hair down the line of her throat, over the towel clutched to her chest, and down her bare legs. The look was clinical and fiery all at once. He was bothered. Deeply. Finding her voice, she kept it deliberately light, a counterpoint to his tension,“I was curious too. Didn’t like the sweetness with the burn, though.” She shrugged one bare shoulder, a gesture she’d practiced in the mirror. Then, with courage that felt like falling, she let the towel drop.

Before it pooled at her feet on the cool floor, she grabbed it and put it over her head instead. She didn’t try to cover herself. Instead, she used the damp towel to vigorously dry her hair, a picture of casual indifference. Her silent challenge hung in the air between them: You’ve seen all this anyway, right? You’ve touched it. It didn’t move you enough then. It shouldn’t now.

Karasu’s eyes darkened, the blue turning nearly black. His practiced composure held, but it was a thin coating. His gaze didn’t linger on the curves she was offering for his appraisal. It snagged, instead, on the faint finger sized bruises on her hips and the inside of her thighs left by Takumi’s enthusiastic grip. A muscle in his jaw jumped, a tiny, furious tic.

For a long moment, he said nothing. The only sound was the soft rustle of the towel in her hair and the hum of the city below. The tension was a live wire, thrumming with everything unsaid; her defiance, his possession, the ghost of the boy who had dared to leave a mark. With a force of will that was almost audible, he broke the stare. He rose from the chair, his movement fluid and stoic, a beast reining itself in.

The air between them had cooled into something brittle by the time Karasu finally spoke. His voice was quieter now, the rough edges sanded down, but no less cutting. “Get ready,” he said, his voice clipped and utterly devoid of the heat that had been in his face a second before. After lighting one of his own cigarettes, he turned toward the door, snatching the pack of cherry cigarettes from the arm of the chair. He crumpled Takumi’s note in his other hand and tossed it toward the waste bin without a second glance. It missed, landing on the floor beside the crushed butt. “There’s an important VIP client here to see you this morning,” he stated, not looking back at her as he reached the doorway.

“But before you go,” he said, flicking invisible ash from his fingers, “stop by the hostess dressing room.” Rei blinked, her towel still draped loosely around her shoulders, “What for?” Karasu turned and leaned against the doorframe, exhaling through his nose, “Your shots,” he said flatly, “And the pill.” Her brows knit, the pill she understood, prevention against pregnancy, but she wondered aloud, “Shots?”

He gave a soft, humorless laugh, the kind that felt more like an exhale of disappointment than amusement, “You really are still green sometimes.” He straightened, the blue cigarette smoldering between his fingers, tracing faint trails of smoke in the shaft of sunlight, “Now that you’ve joined the ranks of the more experienced girls, you’ll need the full package – vaccines, boosters, the usual cocktail. We can patch most things these days, but prevention costs less than repair.” She felt her throat tighten. The clinical efficiency of it, the way he said it without hesitation, like it was another line item in her training, hurt more than any accusation might have.

His eyes softened, barely, when she didn’t move, “You wanted to play grown-up, little fox,” he said, voice dipping low, “It’s my job to keep you healthy. Go to Aiko, I’ve briefed her, she’ll know what to give you.” He gestured toward the door, “After that, go straight to the hostess floor. The client’s already waiting.” Before he could read the mix of resentment and resignation on her face, she turned to her wardrobe already looking for a dress. Behind her, the faint hiss of a long drag on his cigarette sounded like punctuation. He turned, then paused for a fraction of a second, his broad back to her, “Don’t be late.” And then he was gone, leaving her standing there, naked and shivering in the sudden chill of his departure, the scent of crushed cherry and friction hanging in the air.

The Big Leagues

Rei got ready, cursing Karasu under her breath. After saving the crumbled paper from the floor, she unfolded the note and memorized the number. Then she placed it as a bookmark in a romance manga on her bedside table. In her closet she found her most elegant black dress and coupled it with daring fishnet stockings and lace garters. Important customer he had said? Well, she would dress to impress. Her red hair was still moist as she used a curling iron to make bigger waves. She studied herself in the mirror and noticed something new in her posture. The loss of innocence at the love hotel did have an effect. She saw a woman in the mirror, not a girl trying hard. Even if she still felt the coldness of Karasu’s rejection, she also noticed the heat of his conflicted gaze. By now she realized that her ability to unsettle him, was what Karasu hated most: when other people held any influence and power over him. It made them precarious; it made her hazardous.

The dressing room was a wash of neon reflection and perfume haze. The hostesses were mid-shift prep; laughter, curling irons, the hiss of steamers against sequined fabric. It all moved too fast, too bright. Rei’s world felt a step behind, still echoing with Karasu’s voice. Aiko spotted her immediately, “There she is, our little rookie, looking good – and all grown up.” Rei managed a weak smile, “Karasu said I needed… shots.” Aiko laughed, leading her toward a curtained partition where a med tech’s case sat open; sleek chrome instruments and tiny vials labeled in spidery digital font, “Standard protocol, sweetheart. Welcome to the big leagues.”

Rei sat, bare arm extended. The injector hissed softly against her skin, barely a sting. Aiko handed her a small capsule of faint blue, shimmering faintly in the light. “The day-after pill,” Aiko said cheerfully, “Just in case. You know how it is – better safe and free than pregnant. The vaccines will cover the rest. No more worries about anything catching or spreading. You’re practically bulletproof now, baby”, she winked, “Except in the heart. No shots for that yet.”

Rei gave a faint, mechanical laugh, “Right.” As Aiko tidied the vials, another hostess, Mina, leaned against the counter. She was older, with glittering eyes and a laugh like crushed velvet. “So,” she purred, “word is you finally popped the purity patch, huh? Congratulations.” Rei looked down, her cheeks warming, “I… guess so.” Mina laughed, a throaty, amused sound, “Guess so, she says. Honey, that’s a no, yes or hell yes kind of question.” She tilted her head, curious, “Was he good to you at least?” Rei thought of Takumi’s gentle hands, his careful touch; the way he’d looked at her like she was something sacred, not something bought. “He was… respectful,” she said slowly, choosing her words, “and passionate.” Mina’s grin widened, “Well, well. First time and already with adjectives. Not bad.”

Then, tone turning practical again, she gestured toward the injector kit, “Those vaccines? They’re top shelf, newest gen. They even work retroactively a day or two. So even if you came straight here from… wherever, you’re covered. If any target ever tries to claim you gave him something, you tell him he’s lying through his teeth.” Rei nodded, managing to match the easy laughter of the others. Inside, she felt her confidence building, even as she also felt scrubbed clean, polished until she was basically transparent.

As she rose and studied herself in a tall mirror, the soft fabric clinging to her skin, she caught something new in her eyes, a little less innocence, a little more control. Aiko caught her gaze in the mirror and smiled knowingly, “You’re glowing, sweetheart. That’s good. Clients love a girl who looks like she knows something they don’t.”