With Only a Wall Between Us
It was a pleasant morning, the kind that begins with sunlight leaking through the curtains.
A soft rustle, and he stretched where he lay, pushing himself upright. The scent that had been resting in the bedding rose again—warm, and somehow thick, like lilies. He was sure he’d never smelled it before, and yet, strangely, it put him at ease.
Do they use the good fabric softener?
He buried his face in the pillow once more, then came to his senses. The clock on the wall pointed to eleven in the morning. He’d only gotten home at dawn, so it was hard to call it sleeping in.
“Both of you, it’s about time you were up~”
When he opened the door, a savory smell brushed the tip of his nose. His mother, an apron tied around her, was setting a frying pan down in the kitchen. Unlike their first meeting, when her hair had hung straight down her front, the long silver strands were loosely undone today, and they suited her far too well. For a man fresh out of bed, the sight was a little stimulating.
He made his awkward way toward the table.
“You’re up, Inkyu?”
“Yes. Did you sleep well last night, Ms. Ryuah?”
“O-of course! It was a very quiet, peaceful night.”
The answer came far too quickly. He had a feeling he’d heard something through the wall last night.
“Sounded like you were talking in your sleep.”
When he said it and looked at her, Ryuah snatched up a water glass in a hurry.
“Son, if you’re up, come sit over here.”
The table held freshly cooked rice and soup, a rolled omelet, even grilled fish. She must have prepared all of it while he was asleep.
“You made all this yourself, Mom?”
“Of course~ Breakfast ought to be filling.”
Her brown eyes curved, soft.
“Eat plenty. If it’s not enough, just say so~”
The moment he sat, a piece of rolled omelet landed on his rice.
“Thanks for the meal, Mom.”
He was getting a little used to this kind of overprotection. He reached for his chopsticks, and this time a piece of fish was laid on from the other side—flesh picked perfectly clean of bones.
“Protein is important at your age, Inkyu!”
“Officer.”
At his mother’s gentle voice, the temperature around the table dropped.
“My son likes eggs more than fish.”
“At the Center he ate fish just fine, though?”
“A few days spent together isn’t quite the same as raising him for twenty-five years, is it?”
“I have data recording exactly how much he ate over those few days, and his full nutritional status.”
Their eyes collided. Faced with that, he put both the omelet and the fish into his mouth at once.
“I like both.”
“Is that so…?”
“Is that so…”
They were smiling at each other, and it was a little chilling.
After the meal he sorted through the luggage and packages brought from the Center. Clothes and toiletries, prescription medicine that didn’t look like something he needed to take anymore, even a men’s personal safety alarm… the variety was impressive.
“Ms. Ryu. Do guys usually haul this much stuff around?”
“Looking at it, some of the items are a bit much, but the alarm and the spray really are essential.”
Ryuah checked each item and explained how to use it. Something felt off, though. Until yesterday she’d clung to him; today she seemed to move a step away. Every time she handed him something, she let go before their fingertips could meet, and he felt it clearly.
“Ms. Ryuah.”
“Yes!”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? Not at all.”
“Then why do you keep avoiding me?”
For an instant, her gaze wavered.
“A house is supposed to be a comfortable place, isn’t it? If I cling to you, you might be uncomfortable…”
Her voice trailed off, little by little. Comfortable was supposed to be normal. And yet the thought that she was avoiding him stung, just a little.
“I’m not really uncomfortable.”
“…What?”
“You doing that doesn’t bother me at all.”
Ryuah’s lips parted slightly. Then she glanced toward his door, and with her face gone red she ducked her head.
“Seriously… don’t confuse a person like that…”
He meant to ask what she meant, but his mother came over with an armful of towels and the conversation broke off.
“Officer, would you help me sort things over here?”
“Yes… I’m coming…”
Ryuah avoided his eyes and followed his mother.
After that they ate a late lunch together and sat in the living room watching TV. His mother kept the seat beside him the whole time, while Ryuah, apparently busy with work reports, only stared at a tablet on the sofa. Now and then she lifted her head and their eyes met, but she was always the first to look away.
They passed a quiet day that way, and when night came they returned to their own rooms.
Click.
He turned off the light and lay down, but sleep refused to come. The fact that Ryuah was there, with only a single wall between them, kept forcing itself into his awareness. The voice he’d heard yesterday. The face that had stayed flushed all day. And the eyes that had dodged him.
A rustle from beyond the wall, the comforter shifting, and then the bed gave the smallest creak. Once. And then, after a steady interval, once more.
Without meaning to, he held his breath. Every nerve was fixed on Ryuah on the other side of the wall.
At some point the sound stopped. In its place, a long exhale reached him faintly, as if she were forcing something down.
This time he was sure. Ryuah had called his name. But he couldn’t answer. He only closed his eyes, still facing the wall, and his heart would not settle.
Maybe Ryuah, on the other side, had noticed that he was awake.
He hadn’t slept properly all night. The voice from beyond the wall kept circling in his head. This time it had definitely been his name—and not once, but several times.
Holding that certainty, he got up and opened the door, and a faint floral scent drifted from the kitchen. His mother was sitting at the table, drinking tea.
“Sleep well, son?”
“Slept nice and cozy again today.”
“That’s a relief~”
Her gaze went to Ryuah’s door, then came back. A smile whose meaning he couldn’t read.
“Ms. Ryuah isn’t up yet?”
“She was up ages ago. I think she’s working in the officer’s room right now~”
She seemed to have taken, quite naturally, to calling the room where Ryuah was staying the protection officer’s quarters.
A moment later the door opened, and Ryuah came out dressed neatly in her uniform. It was nothing like yesterday’s shirt, and the difference was just a little infuriating.
“I’ve scheduled an outing for this afternoon.”
“An outing?”
“We need to buy the things you’ll need. It’s a store in the men’s protection zone under contract with the Center, so you can relax.”
Staying shut in the house had been stifling, and the timing was good.
“Officer.”
His mother set down the teacup she’d been drinking from.
“I can come along too, can’t I?”
“I’m sorry, but companions are limited to one per protected individual.”
She was smiling, but there was strength in the fingers wrapped around the cup.
“Then I’ll leave him in your care.”
A short while later he left the house with Ryuah, hat and mask hiding his face.
“Do I really have to go out bundled up this tight?”
“Of course. That’s what keeps you safe.”
“Keeping your distance from me again today?”
“I’m on duty.”
“Ms. Ryuah, you forgot what I said yesterday, didn’t you?”
She said nothing, and simply took the wheel.
“Inkyu. Please don’t say things like that so easily.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not as good a person as you think I am.”
With that, Ryuah started the engine.
A private store set up inside the men’s protection zone. At a glance, the interior wasn’t so different from an ordinary mall. The aisles were simply wide, so people would rarely run into one another, and partitions blocking outside eyes, along with lounges reserved for men, had been placed throughout. The staff kept a set distance from customers, and beneath the ceiling, signs forbidding photography were posted at regular intervals.
In here, at least, a man didn’t seem to need to worry about anyone’s gaze. Or so it should have been—except there were so few customers that he could feel eyes on him anyway. Store employees smiled as if they were only attending to him while stealing looks at his face, and a clerk in the clothing shop across the way turned her head again and again even as she folded clothes.
“This is more uncomfortable than I expected.”
When he said it quietly, Ryuah took a step toward him.
“Stay beside me.”
At that reliable sight, he was the one who linked arms with her today. The sudden move startled her; Ryuah flinched hard.
“Well? How’s it feel, being on the receiving end?”
“Inkyu. Everyone is staring. And I’m on duty.”
The answer was all business, but her body pressed closer anyway. And so they walked the store arm in arm, like a couple. Ryuah picked out clothes that would suit him, checked the sizes, and warned off any employee who came too near.
For today, at least, a date with this strict version of her was starting to feel like a successful outing—right up until the moment they were about to leave the store.
A woman who had been standing at the information desk suddenly thrust a camera forward and came at him. She wore an employee name tag, but there was something wrong in her eyes.
“Um, couldn’t we take just one photo together?”
“Photography is prohibited.”
Ryuah stepped in front of him.
“Just one. Just one, please, I’m begging you.”
She showed no sign of backing down easily. Rather, she reached out to pull his mask off—and in that instant—
Smack!
Ryuah snatched her wrist. Security officers from around them came running at once, and the woman was restrained on the spot. It ended without any real incident, but Ryuah kept her body in front of him to the very end, so he couldn’t be seen.
“Inkyu, are you hurt anywhere? You weren’t frightened?”
“I’m fine. What about you, Ms. Ryuah?”
“I’m fine…”
The slight tremor in her voice worried him.
“This is my failure as your protection officer. I should have stopped her properly…”
Instead of answering, he gave her back a light pat.
“Inkyu, I’m sorry. I…”
“Still, today was fun, Ms. Ryuah.”
He cut her off on purpose, bright, before the self-reproach could go on.
“Take good care of me from now on, too~”
Ryuah looked at him for a moment, then ducked her head as if to hide the flush in her face. When they started walking again, her warmth drew a little closer between their touching arms.
“Don’t keep making me want more…”
He didn’t catch the voice that slipped out so softly. But all the way home, the hand wound around his arm never once let go.
I Wish It Were Me…
Sleep would not come easily. The work she’d done with Inkyu that day felt so much like a tender date that his eyes, the way he’d looked at her, kept rising in her mind.
Don’t keep making me want more…
The words had been mixed with a wish that he might indulge her, even a little. The more she thought of Inkyu beyond the wall, the more her chest ached. A night she couldn’t simply fall asleep through. The heat filling her body refused to sink.
In the end, tonight too, the bed began to creak, small and soft. A precarious comfort, with only a single wall between them.
Slick. Slick.
Each time she called his name, the breath she’d been holding came a little more undone. She stopped moving more than once, afraid the small sounds might carry through the wall, but every time there was no sign at all from the next room.
He must be asleep.
Thinking that, she headed for the bathroom still holding a heat that would not go down. She stood under the cold stream for a long while, and little by little her flushed body and rough breathing found their place again.
Shower finished, she was on her way back to the room. In the unlit hallway, only the faint sound of water falling from her toes lingered. She was about to close the door when a familiar sound cut through the quiet dark.
Creak.
The hand she’d set on the knob stopped where it was. The sound had come from Inkyu’s room. It resembled what had been sounding in her own room only a little while ago—the bed, at steady intervals. Now and then it paused, as if checking for someone’s reaction, then carefully went on. Mixed in with it was a faint friction, like skin brushing skin.
No.
It didn’t take long to realize what he was doing.
Who is he thinking about…
The thought that it might be some woman she didn’t know set her chest boiling with jealousy.
…I wish it were me.
She killed even the sound of her breathing, returned to her room, and stood before the wall that met Inkyu’s. Holding that small wish, she carefully set her palm to the wall, and it seemed as if his warmth came through from the other side.
She remembered the moments at the Center when she had drawn close with her body before she had ever confirmed his heart. What if he disliked her… What if he simply hadn’t been able to refuse, because she was his protection officer…
That anxiety dug into her chest.
“It’s all right even if it isn’t me…”
Tears she couldn’t hold back welled at the corners of her eyes. Just like that, she pressed strength into the palm against the wall.
“Just don’t throw me away…”