A Thin Line Between Lust and Love

Arguing with Myself

           It had been some time since the holidays and it seemed like things had calmed down both within the city and between Shuuichi and Kiyoni. The two have spent more time together including movie nights, window shopping trips, more train hopping, and platonic lunch and dinner dates. Vibes were more on the friendly side but there would be flirty moments on occasion.

On one particular day, Shuuichi was trimming a marijuana branch to make some hemp out of it. Another one of his many attempted projects with the plant. As he diligently worked, he couldn't help but notice Kiyoni calmly vibing in her own world. He had given her a sizable bud of one of his hybrid strains to smoke with and Kiyoni has been on cruise control ever since.

If anyone didn't know any better, one would think Kiyoni had taken a trip back in time to the days of Woodstock the way she was going. Rocking a pair of bell-bottoms, a halter crop top, and her hair in a semi-tamed afro due to the greenhouse's humidity, Kiyoni swayed to and fro to the tunes of music from Kendrick Lamar's Black Panther album with her mental state as high as the kites that used to fly at the historical music festival.

"I take it this song is of some significance to you," Shuuichi hinted.

"Poverty! Jealousy! ...Negativity..." Kiyoni sang along before inhaling another dose of the green, "Go away...far away. I'll never forget the hype surrounding the movie."

"Movie?"

"Black Panther. Ah, the memories."

"Care to share?"

"Okay, so...it was my final year of high school when the movie was released. Since I was a part of my school's black student union, it was imperative that we go see it...and we did. Made it a big deal too. So we watched some videos on YouTube from others from around the world concerning the movie and got the idea to follow along. We all went home and grabbed any and everything even remotely African. If others like us cosplayed at the movies, so did we. I had my hair like it is now, wore...an Ankara dress I bought at a music festival with a pair of jeans because it was cold that night. My mom and brother came with us too. Oh, we were so lit.

"To my surprise, there was already a sizable amount of people in costume at the theater. I'm sure it was bigger in Tokyo but whatever. So we got to the movie theater and two of us came up with the idea to make a video of us dancing. I'm telling you, Suu'chi, when we wanted to make a statement, we made a statement. If anyone didn't think that black people lived in Japan, better yet, were going to see Black Panther, a movie made for black people by black people...in Japan, we had to prove them wrong."

"So what did you do?"

"What do you think," Kiyoni pulled out her phone and showed the video of her dancing with her classmates and family in the very movie theater where the infamous film played. There, they danced directly in front of the movie display in as much African garb they could bring and wear.

Moves such as the shaku shaku from Nigeria, the gwara gwara from South Africa, kwangwaru from Tanzania, and dances from the African diaspora were all the themes of the night. The Ikeda siblings showed out when doing the gwara gwara. It was a fun night.

Shuuichi noticed Kiyoni's mannerisms as she told her story and watched the video. He could tell she missed her happier days and the times when she felt complete with her family by the way she smiled and by how teary-eyed she was. It again begged the question as to how and why Kiyoni became a succubus. It also made Shuuichi wonder why no one else was able to talk about Kiyoni's brother while she could understandably talk about him for hours.