What Do I Call You?

Chapter Seventeen

“Nari’s also a half-Japanese like you, you know?”

This little information about Nari’s origin had my attention instantly seeking for more, opting for a much-elaborated explanation than I could possibly get as I shot Maria a curious stare with widened eyes. Although to be honest, I was already kind of assuming this one—given that her name was Japanese—but I was not yet completely sure of it until Maria had confirmed it with her own words.

“So her father is…”

“Yeah, he was,” Maria answered me right back with a firm nod, not even minding me to end my sentence. I watched her looked away when she spoke those words and I just went quiet as I observed a small curve of a smile slowly forming on her lips. “Her father was a very nice man. He’s not perfect but he was the best father he could ever be for her. In fact, you actually kind of reminded me of him.”

I got flustered with that sudden addition as she softly chuckled at what she just said. I was honestly flattered to even hear that from her. Though it did not actually register to me right away I know what she meant by it. I heard her clearly. I was still not really sure of how to respond back to that vague remark and I only watched her with a smile on my face as she continued to stare at something unable to be seen.

“He was one of a kind. Strong and dependable type of person you would rarely get to meet in your life, you know,” Maria kept on with what I could presume sadness reflected in her eyes and bitterness laced subtly in her soft voice, “He was a man that’s too good for this world to have. Too bad he wasn’t given that much time to be here.”

Her ambiguous statement uttered in that depleting tone of hers did not even need to elaborate much of what she truly meant by saying those words. I might have already guessed about it just by watching the look of her face alone. There was a tragic tale behind the gloominess of her kind eyes. A bitter taste of misery hit me instantly and it numbed me with sadness as I felt even more bothered and affected. Mulling over the thought she had shared, I kept my reservation to myself.

After a moment of comfortable silence, I spoke again.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Maria turned and met my eyes as she smiled at my sincere apology. For a woman with such a fragile and bony appearance, she still looked very calm and collected after saying those words. In fact, I was slightly amazed at how sincere and composed she still acted even after sharing a very sensitive and personal topic with me. I kept my words to myself, deciding eventually to brush off the heavy mood as I chose to drive us away from the subject. I then asked about Nari’s younger years, which somehow shifted the mood as we continued to bask in a brief exchange of words about less significant things that briefly led us towards a much more comfortable conversation. After a while, we found ourselves resettling into easy smiles as she shared many other silly kinds of stuff about Nari’s childhood. It was halfway around three in the afternoon when the tea time finally met its end.

“This is for Nari.”

I handed the bouquet of tulips to Maria as I stepped out of their house and gave her a soft smile. Our long time of talking actually blew me a calm breeze of fresh air and it gave a refreshing peacefulness to my entire mind. For some reason, it really cured me of the recent troubles that I had been suffering for the past few days. When I had gone out of the door, the sky was already a beautiful painting of blazing orange and fading blue with thin clouds scattered around it. The sun still glared so hotly in the air that I could almost feel the sweat dripping down my skin inside my black suit, but it never really mattered. Though if I had only known that wearing such formal attire was never really that needed in this simple yet wonderful short meeting, I would have just worn a typical casual shirt and a pair of denim jeans and stayed much longer.

“Thank you,” Maria blushed as she took the flowers from my hands, grinning back, “They’re beautiful.”

“I hope she’ll like them.”

“She will,” she told me, her eyes meeting mine and we shared a smile to each other again as I took another step back to leave.

“I really appreciated the tea, Ms. Maria.”

“You can visit anytime, you know.”

“Thank you. See you,” I uttered for one last time before I turned and went down on the stairs of their front porch.

“Be careful on your way back,” she said to me, waving. “It’s been nice meeting you, Taiyo.”

I gave her a genuine smile, completely grateful to her kind words before I finally started and walked towards where my car had been parked by the front of their driveway. The road of the neighborhood was still empty—like how it had looked like this noon when I came here. And as I drove slowly back to the motel, whistling a classic children’s song, I can’t help but feel a little lighter for some reason. I don’t know what particular song I was even playing to myself, it just got stuck in my head like some kind of syndrome and I kept humming it until I have finally reached the empty parking lot of the motel.

When I walked in, I instantly caught Henry yawning behind his counter as I stepped into the doors of the building and I smiled when he met my eyes. He merely waved and kept that placid look on his face, masking indifference.

It had been a good day, after all. And the smile on my face was the strong evidence that showed how it had, indeed, ended in a happy note.

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“Are you even sleeping, Henry?”

My question was left unanswered in silence as I nonchalantly rested an arm above the counter in front of the kid. I contemplated for a moment, wondering if I had said it the wrong way because the kid did not say anything back and just blankly stared at me. I quickly noticed a new thick book resting open in his hands. He must have really gotten bored of reading that previous one he had the day before. And for some reason, I was suddenly interested in his business and the strange purpose of the motel in a town where no one really gets to visit. It had me wondering how he actually ended up taking care of the entire place alone.

“Well, in case you didn’t notice I actually close this place at two in the morning and open it at nine. And since you’ve never been up nor down here during those hours, you probably didn’t think about it like that. I sleep in the room beside the stairs. And sometimes, I take a short nap here at noontime.”

I have already seen that room by those stairs since the first night I came here but it never really occurred to me that it was a place to sleep. I thought it was just a storeroom or something else because it looked kind of too small from the outside as it seemed to have been built like a small addition under the stairs. But now that he had told me about it, I suddenly got more interested. Though his monotone reply had me sulking for no reason and it did fail to leave me wondering quietly. As it bugged me on, it made me think about how he had to do it all and stay there every day like that. It sounded like a boring routine for someone who was left alone to fend for this motel by himself.

“Does this place even earn anything?”

Roaming my eyes towards the space behind him and around me, my curiosity sped on.

“I won’t go into details about it with you. And you don’t have to worry about such matters since it does not really concern you in any way. It has nothing to do with you, Mr. Takagi.” Henry bluntly replied. His frank and straightforward remark had me frowning and I felt a little offended.

“Sorry if I was prying, then.”

“Just another reminder for you, Mr. Takagi. You only got three more days left before the reservation of your room finally ends,” He added on with a serious stare, “It might probably be best if you don’t ask any more questions like that from now on. In regards to this town, there’s not much of a reason for you to delve any deeper than you already have. The only thing you should be doing now is to get a date with Ms. Nari and leave once you’ve finally made it, right?”

His cold and frank remark had me immediately question him with a frown as I stepped back and felt quite mistreated. This was all so unexpected. This kid’s quick change of personality with the way he just talked to me today really bothered me for a minute. It felt even more suspicious. But I had decided not to push it this far, so I soon left the area feeling even more hung with self-resentment as I walked up the stairs, left with nothing else to say, and went back to my room after that.

As soon as the door closed behind me, I strutted inside the room and was almost on my way to the bathroom when my phone clamored inside my pocket just as I was about to take off the black coat I was wearing. It barely even rang for a second when I immediately swiped to answer it.

“Taiyo you won’t believe this.”

Hudson’s voice immediately resonated into my ears as I held the phone on the side of the face and I instinctively froze and felt an intense wave of thrill upon hearing his words.

“What?” I shifted as I dropped the black coat on the floor behind me in an instant and readjusted the phone with my free hand to hear him much clearer. “What is it?”

I could hear Hudson sighing audibly from the other end and it brought a sudden undisguised interest to my tone.

“What did you get?”

I patiently waited as Hudson took his time to speak back while I walked towards my bed to sit down for a minute.

“The thing about Preston,” Hudson soon began in a deep monotonic voice, “I just saw something really unbelievable when I checked the files again. And I think I just found a red flag.”

“A red flag?” I frowned.

“The village at Preston… the one you just told me about? It’s all concealed from the legal papers. And it seemed like your father’s trying to hide it from the officials and to the other executives of the corporation. There are a lot of things that I don’t really want to affirm to you and it’s very alarming, Taiyo. I don’t know what the hell that town was for but it’s all so tightly organized not to be discovered by anyone so easily.”

Hide it from the officials? Concealed from the legal papers?

“What do you mean?”

“The town’s on a lease, Taiyo,” Hudson quickly explained, his tone getting even more frazzled as he went on, “It’s drawn up in an agreement that appeared to be something about the trading business. But the whole document’s complete bogus… Your father kept a track of unidentified transactions located to that place in a compilation that seemed to be a bit too ambiguous and strangely blipped. I think your father’s running some kind of underground market there, Taiyo. I don’t know… But I just have a bad feeling about this. Maybe it would be better if we just let this pass on and forget about this. I don’t really like what I’m seeing right now.”

Somehow, despite the strong warning from his words, I still wanted to know more about it.

“Can you send the copy to me?”

Hudson suddenly paused for a moment that I even heard him stop breathing when I asked the question back to him.

“Look… I don’t really think it would be a good idea now,” he retorted back at me, and he even sounded more aggressive with his words as he insisted on with an erratic voice, “Just let this pass this one time. It’s bothering me, seriously.”

“Just send it to me, Hudson. I’ll take care of it.”

“But—“

“Please.” I crisply cut him off with a short domineering remark. Hudson sighed loudly through the receiver and took his time to speak again. I could only wait for his approval as I dumbly stared up at the clock on the wall in front of me.

“I’m not really sure about this…” he said hesitantly and I almost sighed back. But just as I was about to give up from asking for help from him, Hudson spoke again.

“If you really want this so bad… Fine. I’ll see what I can do about this,” He eventually muttered back in a tone that seemed to be forced as he went on, “But you’ve got to be careful with this one, you hear me? I’m your friend but I’m also a lawyer. Seeing things like this kind of messes up with my moral code, to be honest. So, I just have to warn you beforehand.”

“Thank you,” I said sincerely, “Don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble.”

“That’s not what I meant—“

“I’ll take all the consequences.”

He paused and sighed again. The weight of his dejected feeling somehow managed to ooze out from the phone onto me. Then after a long pause, he quickly changed his tone as he spoke again.

“Just be careful,” He reminded lightly and this time he was quite more relaxed as if he had just decided to finally trust me, “Just ring me up if anything else bothers you… I may have second thoughts after finding this out but I’ll try to back you up, no matter what.”

I didn’t actually think he would let me through in this one but I was really relieved that he was my friend.

“I really appreciate this, Hud. Will talk to you soon.”

And the call quickly ended after that.

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The email from Hudson came sooner than I had expected right after we had talked, though I haven’t really tried to check and see what it really was about yet. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to know everything at this point. I tried to let it remain unopened for this night as I fought my thoughts off and forced my eyes to get some sleep first.

To be honest, I was not completely confident about how I would feel once I have finally read the whole thing. My father has always been very secretive and cryptic when it’s about his business and I used to tread on the safe matters whenever I managed the company after he had resigned from his post. Though he was still handling a few matters that I was still not given the authority to work on, I am actually already aware that there could still be a few things that I don’t know about the company. Hudson might be really right about the whole fiasco. There is probably a very troubling truth beneath the existence of this town. Our family had been very persistent to remain low-key all this time. But I knew one thing was definitely true…

This whole town was taboo.

I may have already thought about that possibility after Henry mentioned something about the town not being openly welcoming to any outsiders. But I just didn’t expect that it could be somehow really kind of true. And as these musings continued on inside my head, I did not even realize I had finally slept through all that. The next thing I knew, I was waking up the next morning and still was completely hung up from the conversation I had with Hudson the night before.

The telephone on the bedside table rang just when I had opened my eyes and it continued for a few more seconds. Grunting to myself, I lazily moved off from where I was lying on my bed and reached for it. The moment I picked the receiver up and held it against my ear, Henry’s baritone voice greeted me in a breathy sound.

“Someone’s looking for you down here.”

I almost laugh at how incredulous it had sounded. Then, I suddenly paused. I didn’t really know what to think of what he just told me. For a long moment, I was contemplating to myself whether it was actually a dream or did I really hear him right. I squinted my eyes and frowned towards the telephone placed on the bedside table. Someone’s looking for me? Why?

“Who?”

“Miss Nari.”

It felt like time stopped for a second and not even long after hearing that, I was already jumping out of the bed. I did not even bother to check how I looked from the mirror with my loose shirt and a pair of pants I had hastily pulled out of the luggage by the side of the bathroom door on my way out. I just rushed to fasten the buttons as I ran down the stairs as if my life depended on it and immediately stumbled my way into the lobby of the motel. Nari was standing in front of the receptionist’s counter when I got there, and her eyes met mine when she turned to the noisy entrance I just made.

“H-hey,” I hesitantly said, abruptly stopping a few meters away from her as I tried to catch my breath.

For a few seconds, Nari only blinked back at me with her face completely unreadable as her eyes skimmed slowly at my whole appearance. Maybe my entire hasty get-up had overwhelmed her too suddenly and she needed a moment to process everything. I felt completely lame as I waited for her to speak and I could almost feel Henry laughing inwardly at my expense from behind his counter.

Then after a long pause, Nari finally spoke.

“Can we talk?”

Did she just ask that? It took me a while to process that but the instant I did, my eyes lit up immediately and I could not even stop myself from grinning like a complete i***t.

“Right now?” I reaffirmed back, almost squeaking out the words.

“Yeah, if you’re free…”

“I am,” I immediately nodded and rushed a hasty addition of, “Just give me a few minutes.”

To even think that she wanted to talk, this must really be a dream. I was even tempted to slap myself just to make sure. But then, I didn’t want to make a fool out of myself again. Luckily, I stopped just before I got too impulsive.

“I’ll be right back. Just wait here.” I quickly told her as I immediately ran back up to my room to fix myself. It was a great day, indeed. Rushing myself to groom and brush my teeth then choosing what to wear for this sudden invitation, I was starting to forget everything else. I went down feeling even much better in casual attire, completely relieved of the stress that had haunted me the past week. I briefly escorted Nari on the way out of the place and Henry had only watched us with amusement behind the counter as we left, not even minding to acknowledge his presence. I was too occupied to greet him, to be honest. And before I knew it, Nari and I were already sitting inside my car.

We somehow ended up deciding to have the talk at the nearest diner we will see outside the town. We did not really want to risk ever being seen by any locals for now. I was actually anticipating my company with her but somehow, the entire drive we had was completely basked in a discomforting silence until we had finally reached a suitable place for brunch.

We were sitting across from each other at a table when Nari finally made an attempt to start talking.

“I want to make this quick.” She said, turning her face away as she looked out to the empty view of the road through the glass walls of the place beside the spot where we had just seated.

“This is new…” I soundly commented, trying to ignore the apparent gloom sounding from her voice. She did not even try to look back at me and the completely good mood shifted down to uneasiness as I tried to mask my anxiety with a smile. “I did not really expect you to approach me like this just to talk.”

The food was soon served just a moment after I spoke, interrupting the heavy tension at our table and we silently watched the waitress set everything on the table between us. When she left, Nari didn’t even spare any more minutes to get to her point.

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