Non-Stop Till Tokyo by Kj Charles Page B

allowed in a little sodium light from outside.
    Chanko was sitting on the floor in front of the window, cross-legged. I couldn’t see his face, but I heard the slow, shallow breaths, saw the huge shoulders gently rise and fall.
    Was he meditating?
    I could see him as a monk, I reflected sleepily, one of the fighting sects who had defended their temples with righteous violence through Japan’s vicious history of internal wars. A monk or a samurai, a warrior whose whole existence and purpose was only to serve his daimyo .
    That made Taka a feudal lord. Well, from what I’d read they had mostly been madder than a sackful of rats, so he’d have fitted right in. I could see him contemplating a chrysanthemum under a yellow moon while his warriors crucified a hundred peasants on bamboo poles…Chanko by his side in the thick, padded cloth armour of a noble retainer, impassively gazing on…but the peasants had spiky peroxide hair, and they were wearing shiny blue suits…
    “What did you say?”
    I jolted, realising I’d been drifting off to sleep again. “Wha’?”
    “You shouted something.”
    “Did not.”
    “Yeah, you did. You need to get up or go to sleep for real. Want the light on?”
    I seemed to be wearing only a T-shirt and knickers. “No, leave it,” I muttered, rolled out of bed and hurried the couple of steps to the shower.
    Love hotels are something you get or you don’t. Some people would say that hiring a room for sex, with a vibrator vending machine in one corner and a karaoke set for two in the other, is a bit sleazy. I love them. They’re among the cheapest beds you can get in Japan, and the bathrooms are always well stocked with shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, razor—everything disposable, everything to make you respectable again once you’re ready to leave.
    Judging by the damp pile of towels, Chanko had showered while I slept, but he’d left me plenty of toiletries, and they all had English pop-song quotations printed on them. Not entirely familiar ones, though.
    “‘Of course I’ve had it in the ear before’?” I said, stepping out of the wet-room swathed in white towelling.
    “Doesn’t surprise me one bit,” Chanko remarked from his position near the window.
    “No, smartass, it was printed on the soap wrapper, and I can’t work out where it’s from.”
    “Yeah, I know. It was annoying me too. Until I got it.”
    “Is that what you were meditating about? Alright, I give up, what is it?”
    “You’ll get it eventually. Wouldn’t want to spoil your fun.”
    “Oh, come on, tell me.”
    “Nope.”
    “You’re not going to leave me in suspense, are you?” I knelt and delved in my bag for clean clothes, making sure I stayed covered.
    “Yup.”
    “ Tell me,” I wailed, swinging towards him and catching him looking right at me. I was covered in towelling, with less skin showing than when I’d been in the pink dress, but I suddenly felt very naked underneath.
    Our eyes met briefly, and then he tipped his head back and let his heavy eyelids droop, apparently unruffled. But his voice had a bit of extra gravel in it as he said, “‘Lust for Life’. Iggy Pop.”
    “I knew that,” I insisted, and dived for the bathroom again.
    I wasn’t used to rows, or the aftermath of rows. I don’t have rows. I smile, and the resentment smoulders like a deep-down burn.
    Either Chanko was a better actor than I’d ever be or he wasn’t a guy to hold a grudge. How could you just forget all that? Was he still angry? Was I?
    I took a deep breath. He’s not your problem. Let it go.
    When I came out I was fully clad in my jeans and the white top—roll neck, not cleavage. I checked my phone for about the tenth time. There had been one call from a withheld number just after the battery had died, nothing since then.
    I dried my hair back into its usual choppy, gamine cut, taking extra trouble to get it right, in the hope that if I started looking like myself again, I might feel it too,