"Some of the hugs lasted too long."
"See!" Hiro fell back onto the bed and laughed. "You've turned my brother out."
I frowned. "I'm not turned out."
"Brother, you are so far past turned out. So pussy whipped that whipped is a small dot behind you."
"I'm not—"
"You flexed your pectoral muscles."
"I was stretching."
"You were peacocking." Hiro turned to Nyomi. "What do you think,Tora?"
She held up her hands. "I'm not involved in this."
“Smart answer.” Hiro sat back up and studied me. "Actually. Speaking of you two having sex—"
"No one was speaking of it." I took a swig of the sake.
Hiro pointed. "What was happening in that teahouse this morning?"
Nyomi's color rose in her face as she reached for the sake bottle. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Hiro watched her take the bottle. "The two of you were on a stone slab. Half naked. Instruments laid out like there was an operation happening or possibly a car engine being rebuilt. I think I saw a blowtorch. I don't know. Lots of weird shit."
Nyomi chuckled against the mouth of the bottle.
Hiro kept his eyes on me. "And your chest and arms had all these dark pinkish slashes. What kind of freaky shit did you both do the night before?"
Nyomi shrugged one shoulder. "Normal stuff."
I gestured toward the bottle. "Have a drink and don't worry about what we were doing."
"Must be pretty freaky then." Hiro reclaimed the sake. "I ask because the image I walked in on this morning now lives in my head rent free and I deserve context."
"You deserve nothing." I settled my hand back into Nyomi's braids.
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling. "Koi."
We both looked at her.
"That should go up on the ceiling. Gold and red koi swimming in a circle." She tilted her head further back and took in the plaster like she was already commissioning the mural. "Lotus flowers around the edges. And a moon."
Hiro put the sake on the nightstand close to him and stared up too. "Full moon or crescent?"
"Full."
"Yes." A long, satisfied exhale left him and he laid back down. "A full moon should go there because. . .that's the moon that witnesses everything. It knows it all. The truth. The lies. The things left unsaid."
The three of us went quiet after that.
Nyomi's breathing slowed and deepened. It wasn’t sleep, but close to it.
I leaned toward my nightstand, grabbed the small remote, and pressed it.
Sound rose into the space. Theshakuhachiflute sang low through the bamboo. Then akotojoined it. The musician perfectly plucked the strings one at a time. And all the notes twisted together in the most spiritual way.
