But nothing felt lacking with Oba. Iwako took a bite of her sweet shrimp, which was so cold she could feel her teeth tingle. As the flavor tickled her tongue, she shared a mirthful smile with Oba.
“…Ooh, this is delicious,” she said.
“Yeah, it really is. Reminds me of you.”
“How exactly?”
“Reminds me of how you taste…down there.”
“You’re such a pervert.”
She loved their dirty exchanges, too.
“The sake is so smooth. It was locally brewed in Fushimi.”
“There’s still food coming, right?”
“Yeah, but it’s going to be a while. It’ll come in slow waves. But we can enjoy ourselves until nighttime. Apparently, we have the room across the hall, too.”
Iwako got the feeling she was already red in the face from the alcohol and pretended she didn’t hear Oba.
“It’s really quiet here,” she commented while opening another window. The trees were in full leaf and blocking the view of the street, but it was so cold that no one was likely out sightseeing today. The freezing, cloudy sky made it look like evening had already come.
Oba looked at the hanging scroll in the alcove.
“Looks like some priest’s calligraphy,” he commented. “A lot of their calligraphy is so abstract.”
“I think it says ‘white clouds’?”
“There’s something on the bottom about Arashiyama.”
Oba said he’d practiced calligraphy once upon a time, but he hated it. He claimed it made him feel exhausted.
“I used to do a little calligraphy myself, but I felt the same way. I couldn’t relax at all. Maybe it had something to do with my inability to concentrate, but I felt like I was wasting my time trying to copy exactly how the instructor wrote. Calligraphy was actually frustrating because I’d remember all the things that annoyed me,” Iwako said, causing Oba to erupt with laughter.
“Yeah, it really does that to you for whatever reason. The only time I feel like I can do calligraphy is when I’m feeling energetic and aggressive. Know what I mean? And I definitely can’t do it if I’m thinking about you, Iwako. That’d put me in a trance. My handwriting’s still garbage, and I can’t even hold a pen properly. Doing calligraphy helped me realize how angry I can get.”
“Drawing’s different, though. I used to take a watercolor painting class and muddied up the paper however I wanted. Drawing and painting are mindless fun.”
“Maybe you’re right. I checked out a haiku meetup once, but it was brutal. Getting any good at poetry seemed like more effort than it was worth, and all the novices who sucked at it put more effort into gossiping than getting better.”
Oba also enjoyed photography and had quit playing golf. Apparently, he’d gotten so busy that all of his hobbies were on hold for the moment.
“You’re the only thing on my mind, Iwako,” he said insouciantly.
She smiled without offering a reply, instead listening carefully to those words and keeping them close to her heart. Iwako treated each meeting with Oba as if it were their last, so seeing him again always felt like a dream come true.
She secretly imagined her and Oba like a couple the night before a suicide pact and thus made sure to indulge in every pleasurable moment she spent with him. Simply meeting a man who made her feel this way made Iwako the happiest woman in the world. Their idle conversations were the icing on top.
Even after taking their time and finishing their plates, the next course still hadn’t arrived. Oba remained calm, though.
“Rushing them won’t solve anything. They can only do so much with the few people who work here.”
Iwako stood in front of the sink. The door to the room Oba had mentioned was shut, but no one appeared to be inside, so she cautiously slid it open. The room had an old-fashioned screen propped up like a partition and a futon rolled out on the floor. This was the first time she’d ever heard of a home welcoming guests so inconspicuously. After all, she usually met Oba at a hotel in the city.
The bathroom—or rather, the small lavatory where the sink was—was extremely cold. Parts of Arashiyama visible from the window sparkled white with snow. After finishing her business, Iwako randomly remembered that she had to call the real estate agent in Mino tomorrow because she’d heard that a somewhat valuable piece of property was about to go on the market. If everything checked out, she planned on purchasing it and building a house there to rent out. That said, making money would never be her dream, nor did she have any intentions of lavishing funds on a man. Money was important. And after seeing her sister working at an iron foundry, her skin rough and covered in metal powder, Iwako became convinced that money was her sole recourse.
Iwako wasn’t interested in buying a man’s affections, either. She’d already had her share of men who made the woman pay for their dates, just like the last younger man she went out with.
When it came to her finances, she didn’t even let her guard down around Oba. She never told him about her fortune. Iwako felt she might lend him some cash if he asked, but that was strictly a what if. Deep down, she knew she would never do such a thing. It wasn’t her style. She could imagine herself selling her body for cash before ever financially supporting a man. Her love for Oba was completely separate.
“Look, it’s snowing. No wonder it’s so cold.”
By the time they finished their meal and took a bath, it was already past five PM.
Oba was in his yukata when he opened the window and made that charming remark. The room with the partition was even quainter than it had seemed, and the carvings above the sliding partitions were completely black from oxidation. There was no view of the mountains; the only things visible outside were the dense trees up against the window, the snow gently falling between the branches. Evening was early this time of year.
Oba looked stunning in his yukata. He was probably used to wearing one around the house. His abs and glutes stuck out through the fabric, and tightening his sash made his yukata fit snug like a glove. Iwako was already under the covers in the futon, gazing at Oba’s backside.
Whenever they went to the hotel right by Lake Biwa or the Royal Hotel in Osaka, she took her time enjoying their encounter as if that were their last. Each time they did meet, it would feel like a distant memory from a past life. There was no “till death do us part.” Iwako didn’t believe that lovers were reunited in an afterlife. She felt that any bonds people had became undone when they died.
Perhaps Oba was right when he said, “There’s never any ‘to be continued’ with you. It always comes to an end, then the next time I see you, it’s a fresh start.”
Iwako shot him a sultry gaze. Her eyes were wicked, even fiendish. She loved the careful way he touched her along with his wild curiosity.
Oba slipped into the warm futon on the floor with her. As his manly hand pulled off her sash, Iwako’s heart started racing like usual, as if this were her first time all over again. She suddenly grabbed his wrist, not even knowing what she was doing herself, and tried to stop him.
“Once this right here starts fading to gray…,” Oba whispered gently above Iwako as his finger softly traced the edges of the hollow between her legs, “…that’s when the real fun starts between a man and a woman. This is where it begins. Let’s enjoy this for as long as we can, until the bitter end…”
Iwako didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring. She found herself lying on her back, gently stripped of her yukata. Her throat became parched from the shyness this act still brought her. She felt as if she could hear the snow falling.