The Lonely Egotist (MewGulf AU)

🌞Chapter 18🌻

FLASHBACK
🌞🌻

The Full Moon was outside the city, just like the Half Moon had been. Green was much more predominant there than I had expected.

There were, of course, potted plants here and there around the front desk and in the halls leading to the guest rooms, but then I was led to the room with the most plants, and it was like standing in the middle of a real jungle.

"This is amazing. It must be hard taking care of all these plants." I observed practically, without thinking. Someone as lazy as me would kill all of this in no time.

"I lease the plants, so it's not a problem. Once a week, a professional comes to take care of them. And once a month, they're transferred to a new pots."

"Huh." I didn't know you could lease plants. I could just go back home and be surrounded by a disgusting abundance of greenery if I wanted and not to go to all the trouble of paying to rent plants.

The room was full of fresh greenery. The sofa and bedspread were a dark brown. A cork-colored carpet covered the floor. The room was centered around soothing earth tones. There must have been a ton of alpha waves or negative ions in the air, becaue the room was simply bursting with a sense of relaxation.

"But I've been wondering, who designed these hotels for you? If you don't mind my asking."

I was a little late, but since I was asking a business-related I decided to be polite.

"First and I come up with the basic ideas, then we consult with a designer," Mew tossed off an easy answer, rubbing the leaf of a large pachira tree.

My eyes widened. Is that what they were doing with me? After I'd been beating my head agaisnt a wall for a week after receiving Mew's request?

"Then could you give me some of your basic ideas? 'Harmony' is a little too vague, don't you think? I'm having trouble getting started."

"No, this time we decided to leave it all up to you, Gulf." My request for input was immediately denied.

I was glad they were willing to trust me, but I would have preferred something a little more concrete to draw inspiration from.

"Well, I've had some ideas. Take a look."

I took several sheets of paper out of my bag, the images I had printed at the office. There was one overall new and several shots from different angles.

Mew gazed at the images seriously. Something about the intensity of his stare made me nervous.

"This is awful."

Mew let out a long sigh and shoved the pictures back at me.

"Would you rather look at the models? I have my computer with me!"

"No, there's no need. I've seen quite enough."

He didn't need to see the better quality images to decide that this was unusable.

It was just a preliminary sketch, so I didn't expect to get it one hundred percent approved. I wasn't that cocky, but I wasn't expecting that strong rejecrion either.

"What don't you like about it? You have to be more specific or I can't change it."

If I let him just toss my ideas aside with a sneer, then what were all my days of suffering worth? I asked myself angrily. I took a step closer and Mew looked down at me expressionlessly.

"It's not a bad way to arrange a room. It would be fine for an inn or a restaurant that's trying to look classically 'Japanese'." Mew said coolly, holding my head in both hands. "But what I asked you for is not a traditional inn. I'm going to put it simply, I need a place where people can have sex. Look at this room. And you remember the other rooms you saw? Compare this to what you drew here. What's the difference?"

Mew was more serious than I'd ever seen him before. He was staring at me, his eyes glinting. The other rooms I saw---and this room. What was the difference between them and my idea?

He probably didn't mean anything obvious like the dominant theme. It had to be something more fundamental. I scoured every corner of my brain and I had no idea. I grit my teeth against my bitterness and asked for help. "Please tell me, sir. I don't know."

Mew nodded grandly and started to explain.

"First off, don't you think a tatami room like you want would be a bad idea? Not everyone's going to be nice and have sex on the bed. As the manager, I see tatami and I think about the cost of replacing it everytime someone had sex. I can't allow it."

"Oh."

He had a point. The tatami was more appropriate for an inn.

I had made an equation in my head, where tatami expressed harmony, and I suspected I had been too simplistic, but the problem Mew mentioned had never occurred to me at all. I felt like my eyes were opened.

"Like I said, the design itself isn't bad. There's something warm and comforting about it."

"Thank you." That was all I could say to his compliment, which ordinarily would have made me very happy.

I now realized that the floor here and the foam flooring at Half Moon were both very easy to clean. Mew had gone to all the trouble of giving me a tour, and I had seen all these things firsthand, but I had never understood what I was seeing. That was a major failure for a creator.

I could push some of the responsibility for that onto Mew though, since he had switched from professionalism to animal lust halfway through the tours. I felt dejected. Mew's hands, still gripping my head, combed through my hair.

"There, there. You can show me your weaknesses," he whispered with a smirk, slowly bringing his lips to my own.

Uh-oh. If I didn't get out of here, it would happen again. I sensed the danger, but my arms and legs were like lead and refused to move.

"Oh, what's wrong? Are you that sad?"

Mew punctuated his words with several of the barest kisses. How could his kisses always be so tender?

"Hey in there---I'm coming in, okay?"

Even when his tongue dove into my mouth and intensified the kisses, my body refused to move the way I wanted it to. It didn't actively respond to Mew, but it didn't resist either.

FLASHBACK END

TBC