Kristal waves one hand toward me as she explains whatever she believes this dire situation to be to him. And he listens, his expression going from jolly to grave.
I’m trying to decide whether to stay where I am or go over there and rudely interrupt a conversation that’s obviously about me and whoever this mysterious Jae-Hyun is when she shakes hands with the hipster Santa and returns to me with a relieved look on her face.
“It’s a good thing you tracked me down here. Again, I am so sorry you had to, but I fixed it. Santa just agreed to give Jae-Hyun more time, so we can go to him now. Did you bring a car again?”
Confusion and frustration bite through me. “Yes, but—”
“Great, we can drive to his shop in the Mission District. It’s not open today, but Jae-Hyun lives above it. Maybe he’ll still be up. C’mon.”
Before I can answer, she heads in the direction of the warehouse’s open barnyard doors.
“Kristal!” I call after her, throwing “pardon me,” in every direction as I push through partygoers in elf hats to follow after her.
She’s fast though, and I don’t catch up with her until we’re outside.
“Where’s your car?” she asks when I come to a stop beside her.
I grab her arm so that she can’t run off again, “I didn’t come here to meet this Jae-Hyun person!”
She turns to fully face me, her expression going from urgent to befuddled, “Then why did you come?”
“I…” That is as far as I get before my thoughts careen to a shocking stop. The truth is, I’d been so consumed with trying and failing to explain my sudden decision to fly here to myself, it never occurred to me just how crazy this might look to her.
But right now I see no matching passion in her eyes. Only an urgency to get to whoever this Jae-Hyun character is.
How could I explain the reasons for my sudden appearance? The many nights I’ve lain awake, only to finally fall asleep and dream of her? The strange craving for her touch? The song that never stopped playing, not until the moment I saw her again.
“I…”
No, there are no words to explain myself, so I step closer and draw her into my arms. She is as warm as I remember and bringing my mouth to hers feels like coming home.
The party, the cold night, San Francisco…it all fades away as I cup her face in both hands and explain myself to her with a kiss. A kiss she returns at first, as if she, too, has been haunted by that night.
Eventually, she draws back with a smile and breathlessly says, “Oh, so this is about what Krista said. But what happened to paying Eloa to go away?”
Eloa…it takes me a dazed moment to even recall that escort’s name.
“You are not Eloa,” I answer after I do. “Unlike her, I would like to engage your services for another night.”
Kristal blinks, then steps back. “What?”
“I would like to be with you again,” I answer, not sure if I’m making myself clear. “I came here to invite you to come back to my hotel.”
“You came here to…” Kristal shakes her head at me. “So this is just about sex?”
“You do not wish to have sex with me again?” I ask, wondering if I mistook her passion when we kissed just a few moments ago.
Kristal presses a hand into her forehead. “Okay, while I have no problem with sex work, you do understand I’m not in Eloa’s line of business, right?”
“Yes, of course, I understand that,” I answer, tensing. “I meant you no insult. I am only trying to say that I would like to spend another night with you.”
Her brow drops underneath the elf hat, her expression confused. “Why?”
Again, I am not sure how to reply to her question. To break your song so that you’ll stop haunting me, while true, it doesn’t feel like an answer that will get me what I want.
“So this isn’t about True Love. Like, at all?” she asks, her face falling when I fail to respond to her question.
“I do not believe in true love. Nor do I engage in relationships,” I answer honestly. “But we had a very good time last January, and I would like to have a good time with you again. I can spare a few days away from work. Perhaps you will show me around the city, and we can go shopping. You’ll find me a very generous companion, and I’ll buy you whatever you want.”
This situation corresponds to most women’s dreams, but Kristal’s head jerks, as if I’ve slapped her, not just offered her a few more nights of great sex with shopping in between.
“I…wow…okay, Hayato, while that night was fun, and the sex was totally mind-melting, I’m not looking to do it again.”
An odd panic darts through me at the prospect of this deal not going through, and now it is my turn to ask, “Why?”
“Because, I do believe in true love,” she answers just as emphatically as I did her. “And I only want to engage in a relationship. The kind that lasts for more than twelve hours and doesn’t involve any kind of monetary transactions in exchange for sex. I know it sounds cliché, but I’m just not a one-night-stand kind of elf, and Grandpa raised us to be true to our hearts. So no….”
Her eyes drop to the ground, and she says, “No, I’m not going to spend any more time with you, because it doesn’t sound like we’re on the same page.”
“Surely, there is something you need. Something I could buy for you…”
She cuts me off with another shake of her head. “No, Hayato, that one-night-stand was supposed to be a last hurrah. I planned to quit Santa’s workshop this year, train under Jae-Hyun as a manga artist for as long as I could and start looking for someone I could spend the rest of my life with and possibly start a family. Krista believes that’s you, but standing here, having to explain not wanting a one-night-stand, like, three ways to you…? I’m thinking it couldn’t possibly be.”
No, it couldn’t be me, I think, even as I desperately trying to guess her price. Everyone has one. I know this for a fact. But I come up with nothing.
I lower my eyes to the dark asphalt beneath our feet as well. I am not used to being told no. In Japan, it is considered rude to issue a direct no, and because of my status, even when I travel to other countries, my requests are rarely denied.
Yet here I am,
We stand there like that, both looking at the ground. At an impasse.
“Can we just go see Jae-Hyun?” she asks, her now somber voice, breaking the tense silence. “Seriously, this True Love misunderstanding doesn’t matter right now. I just want to make sure he’s okay.”
Again, I have no idea who this Jae-Hyun is, but a new feeling rises inside of me, dark and thick because she seems obsessed with him. As obsessed with him, as I’ve been with her this past year.
“As I said, I have no knowledge of this Jae-Hyun, or any wish to go see him,” I answer flatly. “That is not why I came to San Francisco.”
Kristal, I discover then, is not like me. While I keep both my face and my tone dispassionate, so that she will not be able to glean my true emotions, her face falls into an expression of anger and disappointment. “Then you shouldn’t have come to San Francisco!”
A chill envelops me, killing the hot urgency I’d been feeling when I decided to get on that plane.