@oathstruck - kabukicho nights.
Countless lessons as a young girl replay in Sophie’s mind as she holds her scotch glass, thumb pressing against its rim. Speak when spoken to, never raise your voice, keep yourself in order—the expectations of the dutiful eldest daughter, who was once unchecked and boundless. Girls to women exist in an unspoken world; age is not what marks the transition between them, but it is dictated by another’s perception. Contention arises because one errs in someone’s maturity. How much longer could the mother shield her daughters from reality? It is but a disservice.
A twisted conclusion, but the heiress understands why it was done. The boundaries of the female sex are amenable and adaptable, formless and forced into spaces cramped by the architecture of masculine stripped neoclassicism.
At least, at the age of twenty-three, the cycle is currently at “acceptance.” It may cycle again in the next month, or half of the year, or into the night. Grief never relents and sleeps. All the more glaring it was in the moment, as a colleague whose eyes constantly observed and mouth smirked was commentless; gaze remembering where someone’s eyes are.
The copper-haired patron leans against the counter at the bar, the air in the room practically fogged by cigars and cigarettes. Their leather glove hisses as they flex their free hand.
“Sure, sure,” the words drag out of the investor’s lips, swirling liquor in their glass. Rust brown irises flit around the crowd, the low thudding of the speakers thankfully drowning out half of the conversation.
‘Simeon’ was not a commitment Sophie plotted. Yet, with the accumulated investment and entanglement in the latest strangeness in Kabukicho, a forged identity helped get deeper into the labyrinth of red lights.
Pressing the drink to their lips, they take a quick swig. Eyes trace over their Oxford shoes before scanning through the crowd. Simeon exhales as they retrieve their phone from their black slacks.
This may have been her adoptive father’s territory, but vanishing from the eyeshot of another was ridiculous.
Simeon finally and fully adjusts their weight on their feet. “Ah, I need to check on something,” they wave their hand, dismissing the ‘equal’ who nonchalantly nods and takes a drag of their cigarette. What a strangely shorter exchange. Maneuvering out of that exchange, had she been herself, would have stretched through minutes.
Slipping through the patrons on the dancefloor, Simeon retracts her glass and arm beneath the large suit jacket cloaked over their shoulders. Their other hand even covers the top of their glass.
Heading towards the stage, a familiar face was stepping down from the stage. Simeon hears the whispers of dalliances and feels the heat of bodies pressed against them. They shuffle faster to the stage, feeling their breath balling in their throat.
Finally escaping the pit, Simeon breathes loudly .“Oi, Kujikawa-san,” Simeon calls out to the performer descending. “Is something going on? Kimura-san has been gone for two of your sets.”
