“I didn’t have the time to book the penthouse suite this year,” he says, coming up to stand behind me. “I had to take what they had available at the last minute.”
“Oh, I actually like this better,” I answer, taking in the simple city view for longer than I need to, as I try to calm down my heart, which is lit up like an electronic toy, just because I’m in the same room with Hayato again. “It’s a lot less intimidating.”
Except it isn’t. I discover that out when I finally turn around and find him holding two drinks. They’re both brown, but why do I get the feeling the glass he’s holding out to me is brandy? Same as last time. And there goes my heart again, beating so hard, it feels like my whole body is pulsing right along with it.
“Would you prefer something else?” he asks, mistaking my stricken look.
“No, this is fine, thanks,” I answer in a too-quick rush. It feels like the air is thinner up here. Maybe because I’m not used to being so high up. But more likely, because Hayato looks unbelievably handsome standing across from me in a crisp white business shirt with rolled-up sleeves.
What is it about a man with rolled-up sleeves? I wonder, mentally sketching the play of roped veins in his arm as I self-consciously take the drink from him. He looks even hotter now to me than he did in a tux.
“Sit wherever you like,” he says, indicating the seating area.
I choose the dove gray reception chair, unable to even consider the couch after what happened on the last piece of upholstered furniture we found ourselves on together.
He doesn’t seem to have any of the same qualms as me, though. He calmly takes a seat at the end of the flared arm sofa, placing himself at a diagonal. For some reason, this feels even more intimate than when he sat down across from me at Sukiyabashi Daniel.
“Please, explain this request to me,” he says, setting his drink down on a small table with a lamp.
Both his words and his expression are polite enough, but I’m once again struck by the same feeling I got the last time he offered me a drink. That his politeness is a mask, just a mask. One that could come off at any second.
“Well…um,” I start with a shaky breath. “As…you sort of know…I have a special ability…to, um, predict, when a loved one is close to dying. Within a year. And when you had Declan drop off my drawing pad…”
Hayato’s expression remains inscrutable, his eyes watchful. “The one you placed in my messenger bag.”
I cringe inwardly but then decide this story already sounds crazy enough without adding a “No, Santa did that” into the mix.
Pushing on, I explain, “Anyway, when he brought me my pad, I ended up having to draw a picture of a woman who turned out to be his mother.”
Hayato tilts his head with an elegant curiosity only wealthy foreigners can pull off. “Declan believed you when you said his mother would soon die?”
“Yes, yes, he did. You’d be surprised how many people respond to my drawings just like Declan and Eloa did. I think maybe humans are connected to their loved ones on a level they don’t quite understand…”
I stop, waiting for Hayato to give me a “wow, you’re crazy” look. But his features remain neutral, as if he’s waiting for me to finish.
So I do. “Also, it’s not exactly soon. The date on the drawing is within eleven months. A sort of long time from now, but when it’s that far out, often it’s indicating something that might be prevented. Declan hopes that’s the case. Apparently, she had a cough the last time he visited her in Maine, and he asked her to get it checked out, but she refused. So now he needs me to go with him and tell her myself that she’s going to die if she doesn’t see a doctor.”
A few seconds tick by, and Hayato seems to be still considering my words when he asks, “Why do you and Declan believe she will listen to you when she refused to listen to her son?”
If I were drawing this, I’d shrink my face so hard, and even though I’m too dark to blush visibly, I’d hatch in some severely red cheeks to indicate embarrassment. So much embarrassment. Like, all the embarrassment there ever was to embarrass.
I cringe and decide to just get the explanation over in one rush of breath. “Because she’s Irish. And I’m an elf. And she believes in elves…and will actually listen to them—at least according to Declan.”
A beat.
Then Hayato translates, “I see. Declan wants to use your story about being an elf to convince his mother to go see a doctor.”
