As I stand outside her door, Airi’s favourite song, “One way or another, I’m gonna find ya…” plays in my head even though I’d turned the car radio off several minutes ago.
The lyrics take me back to the cafe where I had last heard it. The coffee tasted worse than the bile reflux from the previous night’s dinner. Actually, it could very well have been the travel. Who knows. I could feel, even now, the cafe blasting around me like a chainsaw, the incessant chatter hammering on every synapse of my brain.
The silhouette that filled the cafe entrance as I jammed a tenner under the cup was still vivid. The timing was perfect. The guy mumbled something as our shoulders collided. The pain made me regret my annoyance and probably embarrassed more than one patron. Funny then, I now realise that the bloke kept walking. Was he pretending he hadn’t heard me? Surely he couldn’t know, could he? I have no way of telling now… so, pointless to dwell on it. The caffeine, the headache and the nausea was such a heady mix that I wasn’t going to allow some punk to push me around. I followed him right into the sweat and blood of the cafe kitchen. Well, the sweat was evident but the blood was yet to be spilled.
My quarry had reached a dead-end at the far wall and spun around while my eyes darted around the kitchen, even as my head all but exploded. That’s when I saw the sushi knife! In another life, when Airi was alive and beautiful, I got one-on-one, intimate, sushi classes for at least two years.
The loud crashing mayhem of pots brought me back to the kitchen of the cafe. The staff went screaming all the way out to the front. As the smoke and steam filled the kitchen, I felt my target’s fear through the haze. His eyes followed the blade twirling menacingly in my outstretched arm and I sneered at him, just like in the movies: “It’s tiiiime!”
All he could do was whisper, but the fear was loud in his voice. I savoured his confusion but couldn’t hold back: “I’m here to save her, you bastard! You took your revenge when she tried to escape your abusing ways. YOU LEFT HER TO DIE!”
I’d never seen anyone stammer in fear before. “You’re fuckin’ crazy! I don’t even know you, man!!” he pleaded, the poor bugger.
“This one’s for Airi!” I boomed in that small kitchen and he sprang at me but I was too quick for him. The knife sliced his neck with precision to make any Itamae proud. In minutes, my breathing was the loudest thing in that kitchen – not counting the banging in my head. But they weren’t going to find the weapon, or the killer. The device in my pocket would do the trick long before the cops would burst through the door behind me.
To be completely honest, it hadn’t been too hard tracking Airi’s ex-lover. A wastrel who spent too many hours on social media, and none doing useful work.
I wonder what’s his status on social media now.
Anyway, here I am, waiting at her front door, and the song seems befitting. The bottle of red, and matching rose, reflect my hope. Yet I’m apprehensive. Have I really found her again? Is this the present she would want? I ring the bell thrice, just as she likes, cross my fingers and suck in my breath. It is time.
Time to see if altering the past can change the future.
