Seiya froze up in surprise and, in doing so, accidentally hit the send button. “Ah!” he cried.
“What’s wrong?” Isuzu asked anxiously.
“Nothing...” he mumbled.
Isuzu was dressed in a bathrobe, her hair drawn up under a towel. Steam rose up around her, and the color had returned to her face. Her robe was tied securely the front, so all he could see was her head and her ankles, but that was enough to cause his heart to race.
“I... I was just answering some emails,” he told her.
“I see... We can charge our phones here?”
“Yeah, though I don’t see one for Blackberry,” he apologized.
“I brought my charger.” Isuzu returned to the bathroom and fetched her bag. He was hit by the smell of shampoo, and when she pulled the charger from her bag, he caught a glimpse of her underwear balled up inside.
“......” He kept his silence.
Isuzu plugged her phone in and checked her own call history. Seiya moved to the sofa and looked through the menu on the table. He was bored, and didn’t know what else to do. “I... I sent an email to Handa-san,” he said.
“Thanks. Do you want one, too?”
“What?”
“A bath.”
“Oh, r-right... actually, I’m pretty hungry,” he admitted. “Should I order something, first?”
“Do they have room service here?” Isuzu wanted to know.
“It looks like. There’s a menu right here...” There were a few snacks you could order: curry, spaghetti, french fries, and all kinds of drinks.
“W-Would a staff member... bring it to the room? Would they come inside?” Isuzu looked like a survivor of a zombie siege being told, ‘we’re taking down the barricades.’
“I think... probably?” he guessed.
“I’d rather not.”
“Do we have a choice?” Seiya demanded irritably. Is she that desperate not to be seen? he wondered. Not that I don’t feel the same way... “I’ll answer the door,” he finally said, “so you can hole up in the bathroom.”
“Are you certain?”
“What choice do we have? Come on.”
“...Well, if you insist.”
“Here’s the menu,” He said, handing it to Isuzu. It was an awkward thing, as they kept as far away from each other as they could, with arms outstretched to make the hand-off.
“I don’t see any cucumbers,” she grumbled.
“Why would there be cucumbers?” What is with her and cucumbers? “I was thinking I’d get the curry,” he told her.
“Then... I’ll have the curry, too.”
“Okay.” He picked up the phone to make the call.
“Wait!”
“...?” He waited for her to go on.
“I... I’ll have the french fries instead.”
“Why?” he wanted to know.
“What does it matter?”
“Just eating french fries isn’t good for you.”
“It’s not about that...” Isuzu said, seeming hesitant to explain.
“...? Then why?”
At that, she looked away and said, “Well, curry... it might smell, so...”
Seiya was baffled, unsure of what she meant. Smell? Curry? Of course it might, but it wasn’t a bad smell at all... And they were just going to go to bed after, so what was the big— Wait. They were just going to go to bed. But what if they weren’t? What if things turned out... another way? Maybe they should avoid curry after all...
“I... I see,” he finally managed.
“I don’t mean anything by it, of course...”
“Well... maybe I’ll avoid the curry, too.”
“What?”
“I... I just changed my mind,” he said defensively. “Don’t read too much into it.”
Seiya picked up the receiver and pressed the intercom button. A man’s voice answered. Seiya ordered fries and edamame, as if they were looking for beer snacks. When asked what drinks he wanted, he ordered two oolong teas.
They weren’t sure when room service would come, so Seiya decided to hold off on his own shower. Isuzu sat down by the charger, playing around with her smartphone. She was probably replying to emails. Neither said anything; silence reigned. Seiya had assumed they might hear voices from the neighboring rooms, but they didn’t; there must be more soundproofing here than in normal hotels.
Not long after, the doorbell rang. Isuzu quickly went into the bathroom, and Seiya answered the door. A trim, ordinary-looking young man answered; he was polite and considerate. He didn’t enter the room; he simply handed the tray to Seiya through the door, told him to enjoy himself, and then closed it. Because Seiya was in his street clothes, the man didn’t seem to realize that he was in high school.
Seiya tried to act as casually as possible, but he wasn’t sure he’d been convincing. Then again... the man probably did this all the time. Maybe he’d grown tired of trying to psychoanalyze the customers.
As Seiya brought the tray to the table, Isuzu peeked out of the bathroom. “Is he gone?”
“Yeah. Let’s eat.”
They sat down on the sofa as far away from each other as they could, and picked at their fries and edamame. They weren’t especially good; maybe they should have gotten the curry. The silence was awkward.
“Let’s... watch some TV,” Isuzu suggested.
“That’s a good idea...” he agreed. Seiya picked up the remote and started flipping through channels. Abruptly, he hit some hardcore porn... and for some reason, it was in English.
Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Mmmm! Yes! So good! Harder! Harder! There was no sense of shame in the voice. 90% of the screen was blurred out, so he couldn’t tell what was going on.
He quickly shut it off, and the room fell back into its hypnotic silence. Just the crunch of the fries was loud enough to echo throughout the room. “...Sorry,” he said.
“...It’s all right.”
“I heard s-something once... they have really hard restrictions on that kind of thing over there,” Seiya babbled. “Anything even slightly violent is strictly taboo. They have to make sure everything looks consensual and pleasurable, so they have to smile all the time, which makes the acting really over-the-top. That’s why Japanese stuff, with more naturalistic acting, is very popular overseas.” Why am I talking about this? he wondered. He was sure he had heard that tidbit in the company cafeteria at some point, when Tricen was talking to Tiramii and the others.