Here's the last chapter. I'd make a sequel but knowing me I'd never get it done... Thanks for reading!

Eiri woke up late into the afternoon after that morning's escapade to find himself alone in his motel room. Sighing rather vocally, the novelist curled up in the sheets again to heed the cold from the air conditioner which he still hadn't turned off. He wished Shuuichi was still beside him to keep him warm, but he had no reason to stay, he was a hooker, he'd been paid and was free to take off after the fact. There wasn't a trace of the younger man in the room aside from coital fluid and the taste of his kiss Eiri tried so hard to savor.

Eiri opened his eyes. This morning seemed like it had been ages ago, but looking at the clock it had only been some nine hours since. Rolling onto his back, Eiri stretched and his back readjusted with a satisfactory pop. Sitting up he decided it would be a good time to contact the garage and to get some food. He'd imagine how many missed calls he had, incessantly blinking on his mobile phone still sitting in the passenger's seat of his rental car. Though loathing having to face his monotonous routine, it was nice to have escaped the world for a few hours short of a day.

Scanning the room for his clothes, Eiri noticed that on the bed side table there was a fat stack of bills neatly arranged next to the lamp with one lone cigarette atop the swollen pile. Picking up the stack a small piece of paper flittered to the floor, which the blonde reached down for and retrieved.

May our paths cross again.

Short and sweet and clichéd to the core, Eiri placed the torn scrap of paper back onto the nightstand along with the cigarette. Counting the bills he discovered that all the money he'd tossed in a careless rage was there in his hands, and upon further inspection of his wallet, so was the money he'd given to Shuuichi up front. Astonished, he put the money back into his wallet which then made way into his pocket after Eiri had packed and gotten dressed.

Opening the door, Eiri paused in the frame to look at the note again in his before pocketing it. Placing the cigarette between his lips, he fished his lighter out of his pocket and lit up. Exaggerating his first drag, the novelist had wished he had this when the brunette was lying satiated in his arms. After smoking the cigarette to the filter, Eiri flicked the butt into the dirt parking lot and called the garage to come pick him and his car up before checking out at the front desk.

The bell rang as he entered the small room, beckoning the inn keeper who emerged through the cloth curtain from the back. "Enjoyed your stay?" she asked, accepting the key from Eiri's hand, and hooked it back onto the wall behind her. Signing out in the musty old book on the desk, he pushed it back across the desk to her and reached into his pocket for his wallet, taking the note out with it. Staring at the note once more before handing her a few bills to pay for his stay, he looked her in the eye and answered her: "Immensely."

Her smile grew larger, her eyes squinting to accommodate the grin. "Well I'm very relieved to hear that. Take care, hon." Eiri nodded and left the small lobby out onto the front deck. He stood there again, leaning against a support beam waiting for the tow truck to come and every once in a while his glance shifted towards a certain spot on the deck to his left littered with cigarette butts.

Keeping the brief note close as if sacred, Eiri planned to someday get himself lost again in this precise expanse of nowhere, in hopes to see a particular young man at least one last time.