15. Chapter Fifteen – Adam
Adam
It's surprisingly tough to act like nothing happened between the two of us. Be it in the morning, when I catch her and Felix at breakfast after she snuck out of my room an hour earlier to go to hers to get dressed, or during today's meetings, when I can’t take my fucking eyes of her, last night playing over and over in my head.
And the best thing? Whenever she catches me staring, she blushes and it’s so fucking adorable, I need to fight against a grin.
Only Eve's elbow in my ribs manages to get me back to reality, although I think I can wave ‘paying attention’ goodbye for today.
"Adam's in love," she sing-songs in a whisper, clearly having too much fun, and I shake my head at her.
"Will you shut up?" I hiss at her, making the grin on her face widen.
"No, I will not." She grins at me, and I really want to wipe that smug smile off her face. "Notice how you didn’t deny it? But I’ll let you off the hook for now. The conference is almost done. Are you flying back immediately after?" she asks me, and I shake my head.
"Nothing's set in stone as of now." I take out my phone and scroll through our brothers’ group chat to see when I can have the jet. "But I think I’ll stay a here a bit longer; my room is booked until Monday anyway.”
“Do you have any plans?” She leans her chin into her propped-up hands and looks at me with narrow eyes. I know she’s itching to ask me about Lily, but I’m glad she’s not prying.
I shake my head at her question. “Reed wants me to get him some anime merchandise in Akihabara, wherever that is, so I guess I'm going there. And he said I absolutely needed to go to a maid café so maybe that."
My thoughts wander back to Lily’s and my conversation very early on. She looked so amused talking about maid cafés, so I’m curious.
"A maid café?" Eve asks with wide eyes, just a tiny bit too loudly, raising her hands in an apologetic gesture when people turn around to stare at her.
"Sorry, sorry. A maid café?" she asks me again, this time more quietly when the nosy people turn around again.
"Why, what's so weird about that?" I raise my eyebrow at her. I’ve never heard of a maid café but with how they’re reacting, I’m growing a bit suspicious. “Is it a code word for something sexual?”
"No, it’s not. Don’t worry. Ignore me," she says, just a tad too quickly, a suspicious smile spreading on her face. "I just... When you go to one, send me a picture, please. I need proof that you went."
"You're weird."
"Please just send me a picture." She looks at me with pleading puppy eyes and I shake my head at her.
"Maybe," I finally concede, and Eve pumps the air in victory, just as the end of the lecture is announced. When she realizes that, she rushes out of the room, pushing everyone else aside. She promised her fiancé a call during lunch, and it seems she’s pretty impatient about talking to him.
"So, a maid café," Lily says with a grin tugging at her lips. I startle. I didn’t even realize she’d come over. Where’s her assistant? Before I can even look around the room to check his whereabouts, she continues. "Don't worry, Felix went on ahead to get lunch for us at a convenience store. So, maid café."
"You mentioned them at the beginning of the conference and it sounded intriguing," I remind her, not missing the slight giggle that shakes her whole body, even though she tries to hide it by looking the other way.
Just what is the deal with the maid café? Why is everyone’s reaction so amused?
"I mean, we've done our tourism spots," she says once she’s stopped laughing and glances up at me through her thick eyelashes. "But if you want to go to a maid café, I'm more than happy to take you."
"I'm an adult, Lily. I can also go to a maid café alone if you have other plans."
"You sure are." She reaches up and pats my shoulder, eyes darting around and relaxing when she sees that nobody is paying attention to us. My fingers are itching with the urge to lay at her hips and I flex my hands to force them to relax. "You are the adultiest of adults. And I absolutely know you could go alone, but it's a possibility that you will have no idea what's happening because they will very likely only speak Japanese."
I catch her eyes and narrow my eyes at her, and then my shoulders sag in defeat and I shake my head at myself.
"You're right," I admit with a sigh. "I should have thought of that.”
I can't remember the last time I've been to a non-English speaking country, and it's for sure taking some getting used to. It completely slipped my mind that they might not speak English.
"Okay. Then let’s go to a maid café this afternoon." She nods, then checks her wristwatch for the time. "This is supposed to go on until four, so let's say we leave at four thirty?”
I give her a quick nod, and before I can even open my mouth to elaborate the answer, Felix walks around the corner, shouting for Lily and holding up a plastic bag from the convenience store and Lily shoots me a wink before she walks off.
At four thirty on the dot, I am in front of the hotel, looking at the sky skeptically. I forgot my umbrella in my room and I’m suspicious whether the weather will hold.
"Come on, let's go." Lily suddenly appears beside me, a smile tugging at her lips, and she has a slight spring in her step as she guides the way.
"What's going on?"
"Nothing," she says way too quickly, underlying laughter making her voice shake.
"Why is everyone so goddamn giddy at me visiting one of these maid cafés?" I ask her, stopping and cross my arms in front of my chest.
"I'm not telling you," Lily says as she turns around, reaching for my wrist to pull me along with her.
“So there is something. Tell me.”
"Don’t be so impatient. You will see in a bit."
She lets go of my wrist and I’m about to sigh disappointedly when she glances up and down the street, nods satisfied and then laces her fingers with mine instead. Instantly, I’m in a better mood as we walk for around ten minutes. We’re in the middle of an ordinary street where she pulls me into an inconspicuous house entrance.
"Here?" I ask her, my eyebrows drawn together in confusion, and look around. It looks like she’s pulling me into an office building .
"Yes, here." She nods, sounding very sure of it, and pulls me further into the building and then into an elevator.
"Are you sure?" I ask her and look around. “Like, sure, sure?”
"Very sure.” She rolls her eyes at me. “I've been here before, a few years ago. And yes, I checked if the maid café is still here beforehand."
She grins at me, and I lean my back against the cold metal wall of the elevator. Reaching out, I grab her forearm and pull her to me for a quick hug, inhaling her flowery scent greedily and humming happily against her hair.
"You know, this ‘nobody can know’ business is harder than I thought it would be," I admit and squeeze her a bit tighter.
“Yeah.” I feel her nod against my shoulder, and she melts into the hug, leaning her head back against my shoulder and taking a deep breath. “But we have to.”
When the elevator doors open, she quickly steps out of my grasp and pulls me out into a hallway that still very much looks like an office building. And I still wouldn’t be convinced that we’re at the right place, if it weren’t for the very loud, very cutesy and happy music.
We follow the sound and then step around a corner, and I start laughing. Everything is pink and cute and glittery, and I think I understand now why Eve was so amused.
Lily is giggling as well as she pulls me with her until we reach an entrance to a café.
"I won’t be able to translate word for word, but I’ll give you the gist, alright?" She looks up at me with her wide eyes that I couldn’t say ‘no’ to if I tried, and I raise my eyebrow at her.
"Sure," I say, sounding anything but.
What the hell have I signed up for?
But before I can even think about turning around and running fast and far, a girl wearing a maid uniform steps up in front of us. It’s a black dress with a frilly, white apron on top and she’s wearing some kind of ribbon in her hair.
I have no idea what I thought a maid café would be. In my head, I pictured a regular café where the servers would be wearing maid outfits. But I definitely didn’t think it would be this… gimmicky.
The woman says something to us, and I smile politely, internally freaking out a bit, because all I understand is a ‘Welcome’. In contrast, Lily nods along with what she’s saying, listens intently, then says something in Japanese herself.
"I just told her that I’m translating. And just so you know how awkward this is, she’s calling us prince and princess," she whispers as to not interrupt her and grins, then nods for me to look back at the maid. "We're to follow her."
At every step in the café, the woman wearing the maid outfit stops and says something with a bright smile and slight bow, pointing at it, which Lily takes great pleasure to translate to, "Take care, step ahead," every single time, until we reach a broader room where the actual café is located .
The maid stops in her tracks, right at the entrance, and then shouts something into the room that makes all of the maids currently in there turn to us, bow and shout something. God, I don’t understand a word and I find this awkward.
"They said welcome back, prince and princess, and that they’ve missed us." Lily giggles and I shake my head, to my surprise realizing that I’m blushing. Me. And oh my God, this is so much more uncomfortable than I thought it would be.
“Oh God.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, making Lily giggle and squeeze my hand reassuringly. "Now I get it."
"Oh, you don't even know the half of it yet," she assures me with a mischievous wink and pats my arm, pulling me after her to the table that the maid is pointing us towards.
"So," Lily says as we sit down. I can't help but notice that on the table are two of these tiny bells rich people use to call for their staff in movies. Although, I have seen people use them for real and it never failed to make me feel like the biggest douche.
"Seriously? Bells?"
"Seriously. And? Is it everything you thought it would be?" Lily raises her eyebrow at me, and I rub my hand over my eyes, shaking my head at her with a chuckle.
"You are having way too much fun with this."
"Listen, the only way to get through a maid café without cringing is to go with it. And even then, you might only be semi-successful." She grins and pats my hand, but instead of reassuring me, it makes me more fearful of what's to come. "So I recommend you just smile and go with it."
"Go with what?"
Now she’s really scaring me.
Our maid appears next to our table, grinning so widely and talking so animatedly, it’s hard to believe she’s a real person. I've never seen that before. She is holding up the menu and pointing at picture and talking with a childlike joy and now I realize how next level Japanese hospitality is. Because I've never, ever in my life encountered a waiter showing that kind of enthusiasm back home, even in a themed café.
"She is explaining the menu," Lily tells me, and now I'm noticing that the maid is speaking exclusively to her, realizing that it’s utterly pointless to explain anything to me directly. "Basically, if you order the shake, the maids are going to do a little dance for you."
"Wait, what?"
"If you take the shakes, the maids are doing a little dance for you," she repeats and rolls her eyes at me playfully.
"They're doing what?"
"Are you already getting to an age where you need a hearing aid?" She giggles and I narrow my eyes at her, the glare utterly ineffective as she just bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing as she continues to explain.
"With everything you get here, it will involve some kind of gimmick," she quickly explains. When I open my mouth to ask her about it, she motions for me to shush so she can continue translating. "If you take some kind of coffee, whether hot or cold, the maids will draw a little picture on it with caramel sauce or chocolate.”
The maid turns the page, and I perk up when I see pictures of food. Lily continues to listen to her.
"If you take the omelet rice, they will draw a little picture on it with ketchup," she continues explaining, but honestly, my thoughts are still reeling around the fact that whatever I order, it has some kind of action involved with it.
"Thank you," the maid says in English and shoots the both of us a bright smile before she hands us the menu and then walks off.
"God, Lily, please order me the thing with the least involvement," I tell her, and she bursts into laughter.
"But what's the fun in that?" She looks way too happy about my discomfort, and I shake my head at her. Maybe she’s right, I need to just roll with it. Then I notice she has her phone out and pointed at me and shoot her a glare.
"Don't you dare send this to Eve or my brothers," I order her, and she only shoots me a mischievous grin as she lowers it again.
"Blackmail material," she sing-songs with an eyebrow wiggle and puts her phone away. "So I've got good news and bad news." Her eyes are wandering over the rest of the café behind me, and I pinch the bridge of my nose yet again.
"The good news, yes, I can order you a coffee, and you're just going have to sit and smile while they draw you a little picture. But," she points to a table to our right, "they’re going to make you do a little dancey-dance." Her hands flutter through the air in an amateurish demonstration.
"A what?" I ask way too loudly, and I know I'm not subtle at all, but I turn around to look at what she’s talking about. Two tables away from ours, the patrons are following along their maid’s instructions. She’s doing some kind of movement with her hands, way too quickly for me to follow, then showing a heart with her fingers and waving it around, making the people on the table do it along with her.
My eyes widen and I shoot Lily a panicked glance. I can’t dance. I doubt I can even wrestle my fingers into that heart shape.
"Don't worry," Lily quickly assures me, reaching for my hand and giving it a condescending pat. "Even if you don't get it right at all, I'm pretty sure they won't say anything and embarrass you in front of the whole room."
“Please tell me they actually won’t.” Lily grins and I pinch the bridge of my nose.
“I’m just kidding. They won’t.”
"Thank fuck.” My shoulders sag in relief, then I narrow my eyes at her.
“But knowing you, you’ll make sure to get more blackmail material." She shoots me her most innocent look with wide eyes, and I shake my head at her. "Yeah, I knew it. Keep your phone away when that happens here, or I swear to God, Lily. You don’t want me to think of a revenge. "
"What?" Now it's her turn to narrow her eyes at me playfully.
"I'll think of something," I assure her. She leans back and crosses her arms in front of her chest.
"Alright, for now you have to ring that pretentious little bell." She nods towards the little bell standing on our table, and I sigh, noting that her hand is very close to her bag and she’s one hundred percent going to get a shot of me ringing that goddamn condescending bell.
"You should have talked me out of this," I mutter and bury my face in my hands.
"Why? I'm having way too much fun."
Without looking up, I blindly reach for one of the bells and shake it quickly, setting it down fast.
"You should have talked me out of this," I tell her again, as we walk out of the café, after having the most humiliating afternoon treat I’ve ever had.
"Oh, come on. You started to look like you were having fun by the end in there." She's teasing me, lightly tapping my upper arm. I rub my hand over my face once again before I reach for her hand with the other one.
"Nope, never stopped cringing, I’m sorry to say. But it was certainly an experience." Not exactly one I wish to repeat, but a tiny part of me is happy that I did it nonetheless .
After the maid took our order, the lights in the room dimmed, and all of a sudden, what must have been at least ten maids started dancing through the café, animating all of us to join them, which we did more or less enthusiastically. It was peer pressure at its best.
When it was time to sit back down, our drinks were already there. Turns out it wasn't just one maid who drew a cute little cat into my coffee, but five more were standing around her as she did it, clapping and cheering, and making me feel way too old and way too pretentious.
"And there are people who go there often?" I ask Lily and raise my eyebrow.
"I mean, yeah." She nudges me with her elbow. "You might find it cringe as hell, but there are people who actually have fun at these."
"You mean the whole being called master or prince thing? Or do they like doing the little dances?"
"I mean, probably both?" Her eyebrows scrunch together as she thinks. "I mean, there must be a reason the whole ‘Sir’ and ‘Master’ calling is such a thing in the kinky scene; ‘Prince’ and ‘Princess’ is not such a different concept." She shrugs, but I grimace, suddenly seeing the whole experience in a whole new light that I never wanted to see it in.
"Oh God." I groan, all too happy when the elevator announces itself. Finally, I will be able to escape.
"Why? Not your thing, Daddy?" She starts cracking up when she sees my expression .
"Don't you dare," I scold her playfully. "I've been half of a dad for half of my life. Definitely not Daddy material. In fact, I'm happy to not get called that in the foreseeable future."
"You were?" She raises her eyebrow and cocks her head curiously.
"My parents died sixteen years ago, so I’ve been raising my siblings for almost half my life,” I remind her, and she looks at me, shocked.
"Oh Adam. I’m sorry. You told me, fuck, I didn’t realize you were that young when it happened."
"Thank you," I tell her. "I’m trying not to think about it too much. It happened. It sucked. I survived. And I love my siblings. So, yeah. It changed the trajectory of my life, but it could have gone worse. I'm happy with where I am now, and I'm happy with where my siblings are now.”
Am I happy to have had to step in as a father figure? Well, hell no, and I definitely don’t want to be called ‘Daddy’. But still, I'd do it all over again.
"That's very noble of you," she says. "Speaking of your brothers, I heard you tell Eve something about Akihabara?"
"You listening in to my conversations now?" I grin when an adorable blush tints her cheeks and run my hand through my hair. "Yes, I did. I have no idea where Akihabara is, but Reed demanded for me to go and shop merchandise for him or I won’t get the jet for the flight back."
"Ah, so your brothers are good blackmailers as well,” she points out and I grin. Now that she’s saying it, I guess she’s right, they are.
“Anyways, I've been meaning to go," she says and crosses her arms in front of her chest. "They have a shop I'm interested in going to." There's a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, and I narrow my eyes at her, trying to make her tell me.
"Is that so?"
She hums without elaborating, and we step out of the elevator. "You might like it. You should totally go there with me."
"How intriguing," I say, and both of us take a deep breath as we step into the thankfully cool summer air just as Lily begins to grimace.
"It's going to rain soon."
The word hasn't even left her mouth when suddenly the heaviest of rain showers comes down, soaking the two of us within seconds.
"Well, fuck," Lily says and drags me after her until we’re back at the entrance of the building, under a small roof. "Now I'm all wet."
I turn my head to her slowly, and when she meets my gaze, I wiggle my eyebrows at her. She slaps my upper arm playfully but starts laughing.
"Naughty!"
I pretend like her weak slap hurt, while her eyes dance down the street. She didn’t bring an umbrella either. I guess we could make a run for it, try to get to the nearest store to buy an umbrella, but at this point I doubt even that would help. If it weren’t for our phones, I’d take her hand and just walk through the rain, but they’re kind of important.
"I'll tell you naughty." She nods to the other side of the street, and I follow her gaze to a red neon sign I can’t quite read from here.
"What do you think about staying at a love hotel until the rain dies down?"
"Love hotel?" I raise my eyebrow at her. Honestly, I’d go wherever she wanted with her, but the name intrigues me.
"A hotel you can rent by the hour," she explains, and a grin starts to spread on her face as realization dawns on mine.
"You know what? That sounds perfect."
We grin at each other, and then quickly run across the street.