He was the only one who seemed special to me.
With the rain-pounded window as a backdrop, he gazed around the pub with those green eyes set in his chiseled features and then brought his drink to his mouth.
Silver hair and stubble. He didn’t eat anything, didn’t talk to anyone. His eyes were sharp like hawk’s, and the other girls said he was “scary.”
To me, it seemed like he was saying, “I’m lonely.”
“Hey, Sumo.”
“Yes?”
“What’s up for tonight? Wanna go upstairs?”
“Uh, nah, tonight I...”
Sumo still comes around every night, but he only buys me once every three times or so.
He’s probably used to having sex by now, but he’s a weird customer who contents himself with listening to my complaints and Kickin’ the Can stories.
When I told him we should chat again soon, he smiled and said, “Okay.”
After seeing him off at the door, I went over to where that guy was sitting.
“How would you like someone to talk with? 20 rubers for 30 minutes.”
“I’m okay.”
No, you’re definitely not. That’s why I’m talking to you.
That night I refused to leave the cold man with the silver hair alone.
“By the way, I saw you over by the arena the other day, sir. Do you live near there?”
“...”
“I used to play Kickin’ the Can, and that was actually the fateful day I met my team. I was a pretty famous player. Did you ever see me anywhere?”
“...”
“Well then, if you’ll excuse me...”
Tch. He won’t even consider me.
What is it, I wonder? Does he just like drinking alone? Then why come to our shop?
I wish he would talk to me, even just a little... I was about to miserably withdraw when it happened.
“Wait.”
The man with the silver hair stopped me for the first time.
“What’s ‘Kickin’ the Can’?”
The gap between his mature voice and the dropped g in “kickin’” really hit me down there.
And when I saw the 20 rubers on the table, I nearly jumped up and down.
“I’m Haru! Nice to meet you!”
“Oh. So, what’s Kickin’ the Can?”
Wow, so you’re more interested in Kickin’ the Can than me? That’s how I felt, but it was the first time he let me sit with him, and I was still so excited about that that I started to explain it.
“—and even if three of your teammates get caught, if someone kicks the can, you get a point. But for every teammate who is caught, you lose a point, so the real fun of the game, I think, is strategizing about how much loss you can take, and then for the defense to see how well they can read the plan and find the other players.”
“Strategy? So children’s games teach how to fight a war. That’s such a human idea.”
I couldn’t tell from his face whether he thought what I said was interesting or boring, but he nodded.
His hawk eyes were looking at me with hawk-like intensity. I found myself wishing he would peck me.
“Kickin’ the Can seems like a national pastime, or sport, or whatever—it seems like everyone plays it when they’re kids. You’ve never seen it before?”
“Do they play it in the rain?”
“No, it gets canceled in the rain.”
“Then I haven’t seen it,” he said, as if that were perfectly natural, and looked out the window.
This guy must just bring the rain with him wherever he goes. Maybe somewhere, they treat him like a god.
“You didn’t play games like that when you were little?”
“There aren’t any games where I was born.”
Hmm? He must have meant he’s from a different city, but for whatever reason I felt like we had something in common.
Like maybe he’s from another world, too. Just kidding.
“Where I was born all we had were games.”
Tokyo and friends and my smartphone. I can still remember what it felt like—so nostalgic.
The man stared at me intently and then cracked a smile for the first time.
My heart felt squeezed in his talons. But although he was looking at me, he was seeing someone else.
“My son likes to play. He used to go out without telling me and play with other people’s kids. I don’t know if there was Kickin’ the Can back then or not, but...”
The man spoke about himself for the first time. You have kids?! It was a pretty big shock, actually, but well, a guy this hot couldn’t be single at his age. It totally made sense.
I waited, ready to hang on his next words, but he just sipped his drink like he wasn’t going to say any more.
“So, you’re married, huh? You have just the one child?”
I probed a little more.
He abruptly stopped talking like, Damn, I said too much! He really had his walls up. Maybe he’d been out in the rain too long?
I started to feel kind of heartbroken. Why do you reject people so much? Will I ever find out? Or maybe he wouldn’t open his heart up to a sex worker.
He pushed back his silver hair with his long, sexy fingers, and I was so jealous of the woman I’d never seen who’d been held in his arms.
“Are you in town on business?”
I thought maybe he would talk to me about his work. That tends to be a topic guys will go for.
“Hmm. Work. Yeah, maybe what I’m doing is work.” Maybe he noticed that I changed the topic and felt like he should hold up his end of the convo. After thinking for a little while, he said, “Sometimes I come here to see people.”
Still expressionless.
People-watching? Oh my god, that’s the most boring thing ever. Guys who think it’s fun to stare at people in secret are some of the most boring damn people.
“Sounds interesting! I like people-watching, too.”
But you can change your hobbies to suit the man.
I drew closer to him, but for some reason his expression clouded over.
“Boring hobby, huh?”
Not at all☆
“Humans are boring. I can only see them as a crowd of lives. But...”
He stopped abruptly and took a sidelong look at the room.
The idiotic men, the women spreading their charms...
It was the usual scene at my workplace. Our job is to make sure the customers are having a good time, so tons of smiles, gripes, brags, and sex transform into money before your eyes.
Does he think this is boring?
Before I came here, I was the kind of person who was always just having fun, so I didn’t realize, but I bet everything fun in every world, if you look behind the scenes, is full of money, labor, and hardship.