Broom Closet

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Outside the changing booth, we stumbled into the open like two teenagers caught mid-sin. I clutched the shopping bag to my chest like a lifeline, cheeks flushed from more than just embarrassment. Ryoji slung his free arm around my shoulders with exaggerated nonchalance, dragging me into the daylight of the boutique.

“That was so dumb,” I hissed loud enough for the whole floor to hear. “You said we’d be quick!”

He winced theatrically. “I didn’t think they’d rip the curtain open.”

A couple nearby glanced at us and smirked. The clerk at the register avoided eye contact entirely.

“I told you we shouldn’t have tried that,” I added, upping the volume.

“We’re on vacation,” Ryoji replied, raising his voice just enough. “We’ll be out of the country next week. Probably banned for life.”

I rolled my eyes for dramatic effect. “We’re never coming back to Osaka.”

More side-eyes. Good. Let them stare.

We breezed through the register, bagging up the clothes with hurried hands and red faces. The clerk didn’t say a word. Just took the yen and looked like she’d rather be anywhere else. A perfect storm of awkward youth, bad manners, and tourist shame.

As we exited the shop into the fluorescent veins of the underground mall, Ryoji leaned close to my ear again—too close for propriety, just right for the part.

“Public restrooms, up ahead. Left turn after the arcade banners.”

I nodded once.

Then, as we neared the toilet corridor, Ryoji’s fingers brushed mine—then slipped away.

“I’ll go in the back,” he murmured. “Keep walking. Look flushed. I’ll split off.”

“What—”

“There’s a staff backdoor. Right side. I’ll be there before you pass the second vending machine in the corridor just before the bathroom. Don’t stop.”

And like that, he peeled off, swallowed into a tide of shoppers. One second he was beside me—warmth, tension, act—and the next, just another back in the crowd.

I followed the hallway signs toward the restroom, muttering under my breath. “Stupid boyfriend. Should’ve left him in Yokohama.”

Two vending machines. A sign pointing to the women’s restroom.

I didn’t even look around.

Just walked, slow and steady, then pivoted sharply right.

A gray metal door, marked Staff Only. Ryoji’s hand emerged from the crack just in time, grabbed my wrist, and pulled me inside.

The door clicked shut behind me.

Silence.

Faint buzz of industrial lighting.

Steel carts. Brooms. Empty crates.

Ryoji stood still, just inches from me, mask off again. Operative mode—quiet, calculating, locked in.

Outside, if our tails were still watching, they’d seen a couple too embarrassed to hold it any longer—diving into the restrooms to complete the show.

Except we weren’t there.

We were behind the scenes now.

Ryoji moved through the staff corridor like he’d walked it every day of his life. No hesitation. No second glances. Just a steady, predatory pace past racks of uniforms, boxes of bulk merchandise, and cleaning carts parked like sleeping sentries. I barely kept up.

Without a word, he stopped in front of a maintenance door with chipped paint and a faded label. He pulled it open with one sharp tug and yanked me in behind him.

The door clicked shut.

Instant blackness—then a flicker of overhead light as Ryoji found the switch.

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We were in a broom closet.

Cramped. Concrete walls. The scent of bleach and dust and old mop fibers clinging to everything. A half-deflated trash bag leaned in the corner stood like a corpse. I tried not to look directly at it.

Ryoji set the shopping bags down and exhaled through his nose.

“They’ll have eyes on every mall exit,” he said, voice low and cold now—no trace of the smirking flirt. “Best case, they just follow us. Worst case, they’ve got people dressed like station guards. Maybe even fake police.”

I blinked. “Wait. Police?”

“If we try to bolt through a main door, we’ll get stopped for ‘routine questioning.’ Probably won’t escalate unless we resist. But it’ll put us in their hands.”

My breath caught. “Who are these guys?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he crouched, rifled through one of the bags, and started laying out the disguise: ripped jeans, oversized layers, studded belts, a hoodie with a faded U.S. band logo, fake piercings still in plastic, sunglasses.

He looked up. “Punks. We walk out of here like two broke kids from Amerikamura with nowhere to be.”

I nodded slowly, forcing my pulse to steady. “And we go where?”

“No metro,” he said. “Too many cameras. We walk. Through Amerikamura. We’ll cut east through the alleys near Triangle Park and come out by the river. Then we’re clear.”

It made sense. All of it.

Except for one thing.

I looked around the broom closet—barely enough room for a mop and a sense of dignity.

“This closet barely fits a mop and my shame—and you want me to change in here?”

Ryoji met my eyes.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t smirk.

Just said, calmly: “I do.”

And that was where the pretending ended.

Ryoji gave a single nod, then turned his back to me with a level of gentlemanly nonchalance that almost felt theatrical.

“Let’s make it quick,” he said, already unzipping his jacket. “We’ve got maybe ten minutes before one of them circles back for a second sweep.”

I nodded—even though he couldn’t see it—and turned to face the opposite wall.

The air in the broom closet was suddenly thicker, warmer. My fingers fumbled with the buttons on my blouse, and I told myself it was just the pressure, just the time limit.

Definitely not the fact that Ryoji, now just a breath behind me, was also undressing.

There was the rustle of fabric, the sound of a belt unbuckling, the soft thud of something—his boots?—hitting the ground behind me.

Underwear stayed on. Of course. We weren’t that reckless.

But it was still… close.

Clothes slipped off. Clothes were passed back and forth. Elbows bumped. My bare shoulder brushed his arm once when I reached for the hoodie and—

My skin lit up like it had touched static.

I dared a glance over my shoulder.

Just a glance.

There were marks across his ribs. Faint, old, too faded to tell if they were scars.

And somehow, they made him even more unreal—like danger carved into something divine.

I should’ve looked away. I meant to.

But I didn’t.

Not until he turned slightly, and my breath caught—

Desire flickered up before I could name it, wild and stupid and real.

I turned, too fast, heat rushing to my face.

What was I even thinking?

This wasn’t the moment. Wasn’t the place.

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But a part of me—one I barely knew—wanted to keep looking. To trace those stories written in skin.

And that scared me more than anything.

He didn’t notice me looking.

Which made it worse.

I spun back, tugged on the oversized hoodie and tried to drown in it.

My heart was doing something weird—something fluttery and erratic—and the worst part?

The fear wasn’t the only reason.

I kept telling myself this was a job. A disguise. A mission. We were hiding from people who might fake-arrest us.

But all I could think about, as I tightened the belt over my hips and reached for the hair wax, was how much I wanted to feel his hand again—just resting on my back like in the train. Just once more.

“Almost there,” Ryoji said behind me, voice cool again.

We pulled the sunglasses from their packaging. Smudged them on purpose. He handed me the black lipstick.

“You know how to look like you haven’t slept in three days?”

“Do I look like I’ve slept in three days?” I muttered, smearing the lipstick with two fingers and dotting shadow under my eyes.

Ryoji grinned. “Perfect.”

He tied a black bandana low around his brow, pushing his hair up messily beneath it. I reached for the ribbon I’d yanked off a discounted accessory pack and twisted it once, clumsily, before knotting it at the top of my head.

“This looks stupid,” I mumbled.

Ryoji reached into the bag again and tossed me a stretchy net wrap—flimsy, loud, a color between green and ‘why’. “Now you look committed,” he said.

I gave him a look. “You know this isn’t what punks actually looked like, right?”

“Says the ballerina wearing neon fishnets and fake smeared eyeliner.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You think real punks would color-coordinate their accessories?”

He grinned. “Real punks didn’t carry shop receipts.”

We stared at each other for a beat. Then laughed, quietly—just enough to break the pressure.

Then, before I could stop him, he reached for the liner pencil and tilted my chin with two fingers.

His touch was steady, annoyingly gentle. The kind that made it hard to blink, hard to breathe. He dragged a dark smudge under each eye, then stepped back, inspecting me like I was another part of the operation.

“My turn,” I said, snatching the pencil and rising on my toes.

He didn’t flinch as I ran it along his lash line—messy, uneven, exactly how someone trying too hard would do it. I pressed a smudge along his jaw, added a sharp streak near his temple. Up close, his lashes were darker than I expected. He smelled faintly like leather and aftershave.

I fished the compact mirror from my purse, popped it open between us. We both leaned in.

The punks who stared back were jagged, restless, worn at the edges—black-rimmed, pale-lipped, dangerous.

Unrecognizable.

Almost.

He knelt, zipped the clothes into the duffel, and slipped it into the hollow of the collapsible trolley. He secured the flap. It now looked like nothing more than a beat-up shopper cart.

Just two grungy punks on a budget day trip.

I stared at him—this man who could play flirt, killer, and bodyguard without blinking—and realized something else.

It wasn’t just the act I was caught up in anymore.

It was him.

“Ready?” he asked, already at the door.

I swallowed. Straightened my sunglasses.

“Let’s vanish.”

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