All That Remains

They chose a restaurant well away from the main thoroughfares that served thin-crust pizzas with an almost drinkable house red. For all intents and purposes, they looked like a couple out on a date.

No, they were not friends. Accomplices, perhaps, but not friends.

After ordering and politely sipping their drinks, they faced each other over the plastic red-checked table cloth and clichéd candle-in-a-wine-bottle for the even more daunting task of making small-talk.

"So how are you, whoever-it-is-you-are-now?"

"Boring. I'm a very boring person with a boring job that no-one ever asks about."

"And what are you when you're not this person?"

His answer made her laugh--a pleasant tinkling sound echoing around the candlelit corner they sat in.

"You sound like some pompous superhero in tights. But Batman had a more gravelly voice in the movies."

Ugh--tights. He supposed that he was lucky that being Zero had not involved tights.

“Do you have a secret lair? Secret passages?”

“Yes.” Not just one. Just in case. Always just in case.

Shifting the focus of the conversation, she talked about her travels around Europe. How the strudel no longer tasted as good as it did when she had last been there. How the works of Leonardo were still as impressive as they were when she had first seen them. She had done an Artic tour to see the last icebergs--such a shame about global warming.

The places and names in her narrative were familiar to him in the same way that exotic locales were familiar to a casual reader of travelogues. He had travelled to many cities and countries as Zero, but the taste of the local cuisine and the nuances of their various cultures eluded him. The next summit to review greenhouse gas emission protocols would be held in Geneva next month and Nunally had said that his presence would be much more useful in Tunisia during the mediation talks for the African territorial disputes. They could be selective about how he would deployed now. He usually left the final decision to Schneizel.

“So you’re on leave now?” she asked, toying with a breadstick.

“For about three weeks.” Actually, Nunally had told him to take three weeks off. She was concerned about him becoming a workaholic. It was a bit too late though.

“You should try doing a European tour.”

“Maybe . . . but my vacations tend to become working ones.” His choice. He came back to Japan, ostensibly because he missed his native land. That was true enough but he kept his ear on the ground, “coincidentally” bumping into members of the old guard now and then.

They kept the deception alive even though they spoke occasionally to a man named Satou from Tokyo who just happened to be in the neighbourhood at that time. They might not have agreed with the methods, but they were not going to argue about the end result.

He might admit that he took some nostalgic pleasure in seeing familiar faces. See the life that they had created in the aftermath of the war growing year by year. A reminder of what he was fighting for.

A European tour might turn out to be a fact-finding mission. She knew this and let it go.

The pizza came. She ate most of it. They declined the dessert menu and the decanter of wine the waiter offered.

“I have a room nearby,” she said. He nodded and signalled for the bill. Some privacy was required if they were going to talk about anything more serious than the scenery in Zurich.

She was staying at one of the non-descript two-star business hotels near the train station. The receptionist who nodded at them on the way in was the only soul they encountered before they reached the room on the fifth floor.

The small hotel room was a clone of all the other rooms around them. Double bed, plastic-container-combination-bathroom and complimentary guest slippers. He almost expected to see the large orange plush on the bed.

"I can't bring Cheese-kun around anymore--he's a collector's item now," she said. He realised that he was being too obvious.

“Really?”

“Easily fifty-thousand yen on the online auctions.”

She took her jacket and cap off unhurriedly while he set their shoes neatly by the side of the narrow entry way. Old habits died hard.

"Such a good Japanese boy," she said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and freeing her long, long hair from its pins.

“Traditional upbringing,” he said agreeably before moving to the bed and sitting where she indicated.

“Good customs should be kept.” she said, leaning against him.

“Aa.” He fingered a strand of green hair, aware of her closeness and her warmth. “Did you go down to the school?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Fabric rustled as she unbuttoned her blouse. “Same reason as you. Maybe just for old times’ sake.”

He supposed she was attractive in a perky way. If one did not know what she was, there might have been something alluring about those golden eyes.

It was strangely normal. He helped her to slip off her skirt and her stockings, tracing the curves of her hips and calves with his hands before settling on the bed.

She sighed into his mouth as they shared a kiss, pliant and soft in his arms. Unfamiliar as it was, this was for old times’ sake. She was all curves and unblemished skin--except for that scar that he ignored for the time being.

It had been a rather long time since--

Since that day. Before the sun came up and banished all shadows and ghosts. Before a hero slew a dragon that had threatened to burn the world.

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