Chapter 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HIRO

“What are you staring at?” Maddox asks.

“The grumpy ghost in the corner. He called me something, and if I wouldn’t sound like a fool, I’d ask Yumi what it means,” I say. After visiting the police station yesterday, Maddox and I just wandered around enjoying the sights and main tourist attractions that we hadn’t gotten to the day before. When we got home last night, Yumi was able to tell us that Hikaru was doing so well they expected him to go home within the next couple of days.

Today, we’re heading to a ryokan, which is like a Japanese inn, near Nara. Nara isn’t far from where we are and could have easily been a day trip, but I thought it’d be fun to have a little private time with Maddox while we saw the sights.

The man in the corner repeats what he said earlier as I scrutinize him.

“No, no, I got this. I got this. I’ve watched a lot of anime, and therefore learned Japanese through watching. I’m just fucking good like that,” Reggie assures me. “I can tell you exactly what he’s saying.”

I raise a very skeptical eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”

“I’ve watched some hentai if that helps,” Natalie says. “There wasn’t much talking in that, though. It was mostly like ‘Ohh… yessss… oooh…’ but in Japanese.”

I think we all try to pretend she wasn’t just moaning.

“I don’t even want to know what that is,” Keaton says, which he never should have said if he didn’t want to know.

“It’s like animated porn. Like… full on… in there… porn but animated. All different kinds too. I mean, you got the standard, and then don’t get me started on the tentacles. Oh man, and the censored ones crack me up. In manga, they put like a little black strip over the hoo-ha and the weenie, as if you can’t tell what it is, and call it censored. Or they draw them like they’re beacons of light. Like there is a full-blown hot ball of sun between that chick’s legs. You should watch some hentai with me,” she concludes with, which… like why? Who wants to watch porn with friends besides her and Reggie?

The guy in the corner says something and Reggie goes, “Uh-huh… uh-huh…” reminding me that before Natalie began rambling, Reggie was using his power of anime watching to decipher the man’s words. “Oh noooo. Really? Oh my gosh… are you serious? Hiro, you’re definitely not going to believe this. Oh heeeeeell no. Yeah, I don’t have a damn idea what he’s saying. I guess I learned very little watching anime.”

“I have to assume whatever’s going on in that corner is fascinating … riveting, even,” Maddox says.

That makes me laugh. “Do you ever question why you picked me when I stare off and talk to myself?”

“Nope. It’s just one of your many charms.”

“I feel confident that’s not true,” I say as I zip up my suitcase and set it up before the man struts over and smacks it back down. I can’t tell if he’s mad at me or just offended by whatever conversation has been taking place between Reggie and Natalie.

I cock my head as I watch it hit and Maddox jumps. “Reggie do that?”

“No… this guy,” I respond as I pick it back up and watch as he smacks it down again like a cat who looks you in the eye before knocking a cup of water off the table. He looks so fucking smug . Proud, even, as he struts out of the room with a grin on his face.

“I can’t tell if he hates you or likes you,” Natalie says. “I bet if we watched some porn together it’d fix everything.”

“Were you touching him so he could have the ability to do that?” Maddox asks.

“No… he was just like… really good at that. Like… better than Reggie.”

Reggie gasps and rushes over to the suitcase, which he pushes. It just wobbles a bit. “Noooo! I’m the best, dammit. I don’t want to be replaced by a better man.” He tries his hardest to kick it, and then looks upset, so I reach over and give him my hand. He squeezes it and is thrilled when it gives him the ability to kick it over. “I knew I was better than him.”

“Like… most ghosts need to be super emotional around you to manipulate things whether it’s out of anger or fear for your life, right?” Maddox asks.

“Yeah… Reggie can help in my time of need and sometimes Natalie, but it usually happens when my life is in danger and not when we’re just goofing around.”

“Stop complimenting this strange man and compliment me instead,” Reggie whines.

Deciding that I would rather not waste time or energy on that, we head downstairs with what we need, taking only one suitcase since we’ll be back here in two nights. Rina and Yumi meet us downstairs. “If you need anything, let us know,” Rina tells us.

“Thank you! We’ll be back in a couple of days. We really appreciate you guys having us,” I say.

We head for the subway station, planning on going straight to the ryokan and then adventuring out from there.

“Well, I’m thrilled our excitement is over,” I say.

“I can’t stop thinking about that text message,” Maddox admits as we walk.

“Of course you can’t,” I say as I raise an eyebrow. “Because you are incapable of keeping your nose out of things. All of you enjoy blaming me for running headfirst into trouble, but no one sees the real problem.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I ask.

He grins at me. “Maybe a little bit. Teeny bit. Smallest bit.”

“You’re fooling no one into thinking you’re not contemplating how you’d be running this investigation.”

“Oh I am. I would love to spend a day trailing around after them, being nosy as can be about how they run things and do things,” he says.

“Go ask them. Tell them you deserve it after having to brawl a man.”

Maddox laughs. “I’m not wasting a day doing that. We have things to do, people to see, each other to do.”

“Definitely don’t want to forget that last part,” I say, which makes him grin.

The ride to our ryokan is blissfully boring. We quietly talk a little before I pull out a book to read, and Maddox tries to read a book I’d suggested for him yet seems too distracted by the people to do so. I’ve honestly had enough of people for a bit, so I’m fine getting lost in the world of fiction.

When we arrive, Maddox follows me down the streets toward the inn that’s tucked back in some trees. A woman greets us the moment we reach the front door and tells us that our room is already available, so we’re taken back to it. It’s a more traditional-style room with tatami mat floors that are currently bare besides a table that sits low to the floor with some cushions, telling me our futons will be laid out later.

“This is so neat,” I say after she leaves. “Look at our private bath.” I slide the door open and step outside to where the outdoor bath is, steam drifting off into the air. “We should get one of these at our house.”

“You never sit in the bath we already have.”

“Yeah, but I’d sit in it if it looked like this… maybe. I mean… you’re right. Dammit, Maddox, stop being smart.”

“I’ll try to stop,” he assures me. “This is… a really weird ask and I feel strange even doing this, but could I talk to your ghosts for a second? Like you stay out here, and I go in there and we talk?”

“Ohhhhhhhhhh snap. He wants to bitch about Hiro,” Natalie says, sounding far too excited for someone who is my best friend. Like really?

Reggie nods. “Oh yeah, I totally would bitch about him too. I’m always up for a good bitching.”

Keaton shakes his head. Finally, someone on my side. “Why would he bitch about Hiro? Unless he wants to complain about how Hiro runs straight into trouble with no care for his own life and well-being… which I get,” he says. “I’d totally bitch about that too.”

“But… you can’t hear them without me…” I protest. “Like right now you can’t hear that they’ve decided you wish to talk to them because you want to ‘bitch about me.’”

That makes Maddox laugh. “Okay, can I talk at your ghosts for a second?”

I eye the man, wondering if they’re right and he does have something to complain about. “About?”

Maddox is grinning now. “I’m not complaining about you. Now stop being all skeptical! Stay out here and I’m going to go in there with them!”

“Fine, fine, my ghost army, go in and see what he wants and then come back here and tell me everything,” I say as I watch them excitedly go. Maddox gives me a wink before sliding the door shut, leaving me outside.

What a suspicious man.

While he does that, I stick my fingers in the water and wiggle them around, trying to come up with some course of action for when they return. Spite flies down and lands on my shoulder, so at least I have one being on my side while the rest of them are off doing something suspicious.

It isn’t long at all before Maddox slides the door open. “Alright, you ready to go?”

I eye him. And then I eye the three ghosts behind him. Natalie is chowing on popcorn like her life depends on it, which makes me all the more suspicious, and Reggie looks me right in the eyes, slides his hands in his pockets, and goes, “Wassup.”

“What the hell happened?” I ask. “Why are they acting so weird? What did you do to them?”

“They’re always weird,” Keaton says. “You know they’re acting like this to make you think something more went on, right? Maddox just talked to us about not leading you off without him. I guess I did draw you away from him the other day.”

“Oh.” I guess that makes sense.

“Let’s go,” Maddox says.

“Fine, fine,” I agree.

“Fine with a capital F for Fiiiiiiiine ,” Reggie says, making me question Keaton’s excuse. It was a perfectly valid excuse until Reggie started acting weirder and Natalie began eating popcorn faster. A piece falls out and Spite flutters off my shoulder to chase it down and consume it.

“I don’t know what you said or did, but you made them so much more suspicious,” I say.

“Were they not born suspicious?” Maddox asks.

“Oh, they were born suspicious, alright,” I say as I follow him.

“So what’s first up on our agenda?”

“Nara Park,” I tell him as I hurry us along. “That’s all I have planned for today. I thought we could check the area out and then go back to the inn to relax for the rest of the day.”

“Sounds perfect,” he says. It doesn’t take us long at all to reach the park that will eventually lead us to a temple.

“It’s a deer ,” Natalie shouts as she runs toward it. “Look at the deer!”

“Why are there so many deer just frolicking around?” Maddox asks. “They’re everywhere.”

“There’s a shrine nearby whose deity was said to have ridden to Nara on a sacred deer, so the deer here are pretty special. But what’s even more special is that I get to feed them,” I say as I hurry over to one of the stands selling what look like large round crackers for the deer. I pass over the yen and the seller hands me the crackers.

The deer, who had been mostly ignoring us, snap their attention to us as I hand Maddox half the crackers.

“I suddenly feel like prey in a lion’s den,” Maddox says as they rush him. He breaks off a piece and hands it to a more polite deer.

“No, you have to bow to them before giving them a piece.”

“I have to bow?” Maddox asks skeptically.

“Yeah, bow to them.”

He gives me a suspicious look, but he bows and the deer immediately bows back.

“It’s so cute,” I coo as I snap pictures of him feeding the deer. One keeps bowing, and when it decides that Maddox isn’t feeding it fast enough, it headbutts him.

“Calm yourself,” Maddox says as he breaks off a piece and hands it over.

“Can I have one? Can I take it home? Snugglebum will love it,” Reggie gushes as he hugs the deer that has no idea he even exists.

“I agree,” Natalie says as she sits on one while it wanders around. “I feel like a princess.”

“Your feet are dragging on the ground,” Keaton comments.

“A long-legged princess,” she says as the deer she’s riding, oblivious to what’s happening, goes over and bites Maddox in the ass.

“Ow! Dammit! I’m feeding you!” he complains as he jerks away. “Why are they only attacking me?”

“Because they didn’t notice I also have some.” Honestly, I’m enjoying the pictures and videos too much as Maddox tries to appease them by passing out cracker pieces as quickly as he can. I think it’s only making them more ravenous for flesh. There are about ten deer swarming him, all in various stages of bowing in hopes of getting his attention. He jumps as another bites him in the ass and I’m delighted I got it on camera.

“Why do they like my ass so much?” he cries.

“Can you blame them?” I ask. He hurries around, trying to get rid of the crackers as quickly as he can while I laugh.

I break off a piece and give it to a sweet deer next to me that gently takes it.

“Why are they so nice to you? Look! I don’t have any more! All gone!” he says as he shows them his hands. He gets one more headbutt before they decide he’s not worth it and wander off to find a new victim.

“I have no idea what you’re complaining about. They’re all so sweet to me,” I inform him as I treat each one when they politely bow to me.

“Hiro, make this one follow you. Hiro! Hiro!” Natalie says as the one she’s riding wanders off in the opposite direction we’re going. I leave her to it and hurry after Maddox, who is giving the deer a wary look.

“Want another cracker?” I ask.

“Nope. I do not. My ass… it bit my ass so many times.”

“You never cry when I bite your ass.”

He laughs and when a greedy deer comes for me, I scurry away, afraid for my own ass. “No! Only Maddox is allowed to have my ass.”

“And me,” Reggie says as he smacks it.

“And Reggie!”

“Excuse me?” Maddox asks. “What have you two been doing when I’m not around?”

“And Keaton,” I assure him.

“Not Keaton,” Keaton growls, which makes me chuckle.

“I think the three of them need to find new people to haunt,” Maddox says as he tries shooing them off, despite not being able to see them.

I just laugh as I pull him over to see a temple in the area.

“Why is everything so neat here?” I ask. “I totally saw a ghost samurai and I can’t tell if it was a real samurai or someone cosplaying.”

“Did you ask him?” Maddox asks.

“No, I definitely didn’t. Reggie told him he had a ‘sick hat,’ and the guy looked confused and quickly walked away.”

Maddox smiles. “Reggie, how’s it feel that even dead people avoid you?”

“Oh my god. You tell him that he was so turned on by me that he had to excuse himself to take a cold bath,” Reggie says, which I tell Maddox.

“Funny. Hiro, before we go back to the inn, Yumi told me about this neat garden to check out.”

“Not the garden from the ghost pictures?” I ask nervously.

“No. I’m not dragging you off to the ghost garden.”

“You guys have fun, I’m going to go play with the deer some more. I’m going to find a ghost one and Hiro can bring it home,” Natalie decides as she hurries off and, surprisingly, the other two follow her.

Maddox follows directions on his phone until we end up in a little area near the ryokan that seems less busy. “Here,” he says as he drops some yen into a box out front. We seem to be the only ones here, which I definitely don’t mind.

“This is so pretty. I can’t believe no one’s here. I guess because it’s outside the touristy area,” I say as I look at the various shades of green plants covered in flowers. “There’s probably a sign in Japanese that says something like ‘Do not enter. Wild animal on the loose that will eat you and shit you out.’”

“You mean that sign with all the monkeys drawn on it? I definitely saw that sign but thought they were just being cute,” Maddox teases.

I grin at him. “Yeah, that sign. Wow. It’s absolutely gorgeous here.”

“Right? Let’s go over to the water,” he suggests as he leads me over to a beautiful wooden bridge with low railings so you can look over the sides to see huge koi swimming about. Noticing us, they hurry over to see if we have any food and swarm the water directly below us.

“They’re so big! I didn’t know koi got so big!” I say as I watch them. They’re quite determined that food is going to rain down on them.

“Hiro?” Maddox asks, and I look over at him as he drops to one knee, small box in his hand.

I’m pretty sure my heart leaps up into my throat because I don’t even know how to find words. I’m over here thinking “Maybe he’s tying his shoe? But his shoes are definitely tied and he’s looking me in the eyes and that’s definitely a box and that’s definitely a ring in the box, but he can’t actually be proposing to me, can he?”

“Hiro, I would love to say that from the moment I met you, I fell in love with you. But when I met you, you were busy stomping all around on my crime scene and I was horribly suspicious of you. So… it might have taken a little while, but the second I fell for you, I knew I never wanted to let you go. You are so very, unbelievably special. You are sweet and share your kindness with so many people. How I ever got so lucky to end up with someone like you, I’ll never know. So will you marry me and spend the rest of your life with me?”

I nod, struggling to get my words to form. “Yes… of course. All of the yeses. I just…” I reach for Maddox, drawing him up as he slides a silver band with a black accent onto my finger. “I love you…” I finally manage to get out. “I love you so much. I cannot… I’m not… I am fumbling this so badly. Your speech was perfect and I’m like… what are words?”

“I had months to prepare and fret over it,” he assures me.

“I just can’t even… express how much you mean to me. You are so important to me. You make me so unbelievably happy. Of course I want to spend the rest of my life with you. When I… when I nearly lost you, all I could do was spend days afterward thinking about how I would even live my life without you in it, and I can’t, Maddox. I need you more than I’ve needed anything.”

“I love you,” he says. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

I nod, not trusting my words. He leans down and kisses me tenderly on the lips before wrapping me up in his arms and holding me close. I squeeze him tightly to me, prepared to never let him go. I can hear the way his heart beats and feel the strength in his arms. And I know that I want to spend my life with this man who makes my heart race, who makes me laugh, who loves me and never judges me or finds me strange when I chat with things he can’t see.

Maddox smiles down at me. “Thank you for making my life just that much more special.”

“You definitely don’t need to thank me. For so long, I felt like I was never going to have a real family again. And then I got so lucky with Patricia and my brothers and Natalie, and then I met you. I wish so much that I could introduce you to my parents. They would have loved you so much.”

He squeezes me. “I’m sure. I would have loved them too.”

We lean against the railing of the bridge as we watch the koi swim, and I stare at the ring on my finger as countless happy thoughts circulate in my mind. I feel so at ease, like I could just stay here with him by my side all day. He makes me feel so comfortable… so happy.

“This is such a beautiful area. You did a good job,” I tell Maddox.

“I one hundred percent asked Yumi where to go,” he says. “But we can pretend I didn’t, and it was all my awesome talent.”

I grin at him as I start to walk with him by my side. “So much sexy talent. Hey… sexy talent man who is now my fiancé … what do you think about going back to the inn? They’re serving dinner soon, so say we eat and then… frisky time?”

“We can do that,” he says as he lifts my hand and kisses the ring on my finger.

“Fucking hell, we have to go back now,” I decide.

He laughs. “Okay, we’re going back. But we probably shouldn’t be rolling around when they come to lay out the futons.”

“I know, but my clothes are just threatening to jump off the longer you look at me.”

“I didn’t know proposals would make you horny.”

“I didn’t either,” I say as I grab his wrist, pulling him after me. I want to be alone with him to kiss him and hold him and feel him. To enjoy a fun evening filled with new adventures and realize that every day we’ll face things together.

When we reach the road, I power walk down it as Maddox laughs and quickly catches up.

“I can’t tell if you’re running away from me or what,” he teases.

“I was hoping you would be moving so fast your clothes would just whip right off your body.”

“I… feel like that might not be appropriate out on the street… or really anywhere besides the privacy of our room.”

“Well, at the sloth-like speed you’re going, we’re not going to have to worry.”

Maddox laughs. “Sloth-like? We didn’t even make it fifteen minutes from my very thought-out and fretted-over proposal, and you’re already calling me names.”

“We’re going to have a whole damn life of this. I’m preparing you early, so you still have a chance to run,” I tease.

“If I didn’t run when I walked in on you watching a ghost strip show alone in our room, I’m not running now,” he assures me.

“That… that makes me sound a little strange.”

“You… enjoyed it too. The level of fixation you had transcends anything I’ve ever shown you. It was like ‘Wow, what is he staring at that hard?’ Then you were giggling.”

I can’t help but grin. “I don’t giggle.”

“It was a squeal giggle.”

“Never. My laughs are always sexy baritones.”

“We’ll pretend that’s correct or even makes sense.”

“It is. Don’t be jealous of me already, fiancé. We have a whole life of this. You know, speaking of ghosts… my ghost army is gone… is that what you did earlier? Tell them to leave?”

“In much nicer words. It was closer to ‘Hey, I need the three of you to fuck off.’ I just… wanted it to be the two of us.”

“That was definitely nice of you,” I say as we reach the ryokan and head inside to our room. “Let’s get ready for dinner. And then afterward, your ass is going to be so naked.”

Maddox checks the time. “Speaking of getting naked afterward… where are the futons? Do we lay them out ourselves? Is it weird to lay them out ourselves? Are they going to tuck us in? Do we just do it on the floor?”

“I’d rather not have rice straw burns on my ass. The floor is made of sophisticated straw, Maddox. My ass is not interested.”

“It’s so smooth, though.”

“My ass or the floor?”

“Both.”

“I’m not sure if my ass has ever been compared to straw, and now I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“Definitely is.”

“I’m pretty sure they come put them out. If not, we’ll wing it.”