Some tiny part of me kept asking, how is it that I’m feeling this way, like I’m on holiday, and what does it mean? And then I felt like I hit on a kind of answer, and I wanted to tell him about it. But we were busy eating curry, so I didn’t bring it up. Once we went back to the hotel and had sex again and were in the interval before the next round, I told him.
We took a different route back to the hotel, and when we were waiting to cross the big Shibuya intersection a protest march was going by below the huge digital billboard on the Tsutaya Building. The billboard was flashing clips of the week’s hit music videos, and right under the music and the dancing was a news ticker that said LIMITED CRUISE MISSILE BOMBARDMENT OF BAGHDAD BEGINS, and when we read that we were like, I guess the war really started. It was the first time I had ever seen a protest march, and just like the foreign girl at the performance said, the column of marchers, which included some foreigners, was surprisingly narrow. And the air swirling around the marchers was so calm. From close up, I could feel it. Like the feeling on a train a little after morning rush hour. The procession went through the intersection, then angled down towards Aoyama. When the end of the march started to fade in the distance, we headed home to the hotel. Yeah, funny how at that moment going home became the reverse of normal going home. Going up Love Hotel Hill totally felt like going home. We had only stood watching the march for a tiny stretch of time, so we didn’t give it too much thought, but later it kept popping back into my mind. Like we would be licking each other all over, wordlessly, almost automatically, and the image of the march would creep in to fill the space.
We walked to where there was only a slight slope, so slight you could call it level, across from Book 1st and near the Don Quijote discount store. Then the hill got steep, but it wasn’t far to our hotel. By the time we were back in our room it felt like we had been gone a long while, though it couldn’t have been more than two hours. It hit me that I had actually been missing the room! And the feeling grew stronger. In the next instant it filled me completely. It was the first time I had ever experienced such an instant attachment. I didn’t know such a thing was even possible. That feeling’s been with me ever since, much softer, but always there. Like being homesick. I wish I didn’t feel that way, but I haven’t been able to shake it. When it first happened I tried to ignore it. That was one of the reasons we kept having sex.
Then I noticed that he was pressing his hands against his groin, alongside his penis. At first I thought it was because pressing like that felt good to him, but then I wondered if all this sex might be starting to make him hurt. I figured it out when I saw him close his eyes, like he was willing his penis not to hurt where it was getting raw and chafed. If you’re not feeling good we can stop, is what I should have said, but even if I had, he probably would have been like no, it’s fine, and still kept going, I bet.
When we first got back to the hotel we started kissing, and our mouths tasted like curry and yoghurt. It made us laugh. The sex started, but the pace was much more relaxed than it had been before. Maybe we were both getting a little bored with it. The intervals we spent talking between the sex got longer and longer too. Maybe the boredom was because of having sex with the same person over and over, and maybe talking was getting easier because we had spent all this time together. Anyway, in the course of talking we decided that we would end this thing between us after two more nights. Two more nights would mean that in total we would have been at the hotel four nights. We both thought that was like the right amount of time. The limit. Pretty soon we would run out of money. But we didn’t have to leave just yet. I had several ¥10,000 notes. He had almost nothing on him, though.
The sex was totally different now, the rhythm and the way we were doing it. The excitement we’d felt at the beginning was over, replaced by a sentimental feeling from knowing that the moment was going to end and a crazy kind of calculation that kept us going longer than we might have so that later we wouldn’t feel like we had missed out. But even that had its limits. We took long breaks, whereas at the beginning there were hardly any breaks at all. At one point, he said, so this is like, this is probably just me, but in a couple of days we’re going to leave this hotel, right, and I feel like maybe the war’ll be over by then too. Am I just being optimistic? But I mean, the difference in power is so totally obvious. And like the Gulf War was over real quick, just one pinpoint assault… When he said this and didn’t finish the sentence, we were lying side by side, staring at the stains on the ceiling. By that time we knew every little mark and discolouration, knew them by heart, which was a sign that little by little we were feeling like it was time to leave.
Him: Hey, you know, this whole time we’ve been here we haven’t turned on the TV, you know that? I mean, we’ve just been doing it non-stop, maybe that’s why. But anyway, if we made it this long without TV, let’s leave it off. What do you think? Her: Sure. Him: Yeah? Okay, great. Actually, I was going to suggest that when we got here, I just didn’t. But it happened that way, it kind of just worked out. So like, we have no idea what’s happening with the war now, right? That’s fine, you know. When we go back to our own places, when we turn on the TV, it’ll be like, hey, the war’s over! That’s how I’m thinking this whole scenario plays out. Like, man, the war ended almost as soon as it started, and then we’ll be like, in hindsight it was all for the best. And at that point we’ll be by ourselves but we’ll each think the same thing. And then I’ll be like, see, it happened just like I said it would, and I’ll be all pleased with myself. And then you (although he didn’t really say the word “you” out loud, he kind of swallowed it)will be like, oh, it’s exactly how he said it’d be. And then we’ll be like, wait a second, that means that we were doing it for the whole war. That’s pretty awesome, that’s what we’ll think. While we were fucking our brains out, the war started and ended. Like, instead of love and peace, it’d be sex and war. I don’t really know what I’m saying. But when I think about it happening that way, it kind of feels like… like we’re a part of history. I was thinking like, there’s a good chance I’ll think back on this time right before I die.
They had sex again. The ejaculation seemed to drain his cheekbones, but he didn’t complain, didn’t say anything, even though his penis felt like rubber to him. He knew he only had to hang on a little while longer. Now she did most of the talking. He listened to her, meanwhile applying pressure to his groin, trying to look casual about it. She talked about how she felt like she was on holiday, way different from her everyday mode, how Shibuya felt like a foreign country when they were out walking, and while she talked she stretched her left leg up towards the ceiling. She spoke each word as if she was finding it on the street and picking it up. And then she changed the leg she was stretching. He thought about what she was saying as he watched her stretching her legs and said, so what would you call what we’re doing now? What is this, a life? A way of life? Whatever, to be blunt, when I think about just keeping on like this, I mean think about it, it’s impossible, right? We’ve got to face the facts. We don’t have the money, for one thing. And really, how long can we keep this up, anyway?