No Ordinary Love by Kenya Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

days were as comfortable as possible. For that, I owed her everything.
    Grandmother needs someone around her.
    Nothing was more tragic than dying alone. I would never wish kodokushi on anyone. Thousands of cases of lonely deaths occurred every year. My nephew owned a company that specialized in cleaning out the apartment of these people, who’d passed away by themselves. Their deaths had gone unnoticed for so long that most were just mummified corpses. They called them kodokushi stains.
    That won’t be my grandmother, not with Reika there.
    I looked after her son as she tended to my kin. Reika feared her son would fall prey to the new phase spreading across our country. Hikikomori was the name people labeled many youth who’d become recluses within their apartments. These hermits even included young kids who remained in their parents’ homes after adulthood and refused to leave. Not that these missing million didn’t bring in any income, many earned top online degrees, held remote jobs that they could do within the privacy of their bedrooms, and kept a pretty decent income to rival their parents.
    Shin will be something, but not Hikikomori.
    The kids never left their homes. That was what worried the elder population. The youth experienced no face-to-face social interaction. Computers were their playground, their homes the only thing that mattered overall. Sun and the fresh air one could only breathe within nature was nothing to them. And with all of that came the fact that real sex and grandchildren would not come with that sort of lifestyle.
    Alarm ensued.
    Many could see their family lines deteriorating right before their eyes.
    What has happened to my city? Thousands of people dying alone in their apartments and no one knows they’re gone for months. The younger generation remaining caged in their homes, refusing to go out and experience love and life. What is my fate?
    “Have you met someone yet?” I asked.
    Shin continued to stare at the ground. “Yes, but she just thinks I’m weird.”
    “That’s a good thing. It makes you unique and separates you from the crowd. Being odd is what gives you power.”
    He bowed. “Is that how you will get Ms. Palmer?”
    The boy was smart. I didn’t deliver gifts to women, especially flowers, in the middle of the night. It would’ve hurt my delicate reputation as the Dragon. Those scaled beasts didn’t romance, they snared what they desired and did their best not to kill them.
    I pierced Shin with my gaze. He didn’t look at me directly, but had to know I was staring at him.
    “Don't tell anyone about her,” I said.
    He remained silent. His quiet displayed more respect than any of his bows. Silence was time to reflect on the conversation at hand. It told me that he’d not only heard what I said, but took it seriously. The space between us remained hushed, except for the noise of scattered traffic and rustling branches.
    I gazed up at the apartment’s patio where I saw Nyomi put the plant outside. “What did she say when she opened the gift?”
    “She didn’t do it in front of me, but she was a bit annoyed at the letter.”
    “What did she say?”
    “That the letter wasn’t a question, but an order.”
    I smirked. “Okay. You’ve done good. Go see your mother. I’m sure she needs help. Mothers always do.”
    He bowed and skated away.
    Getting in my car, I glanced at my phone again. I’d be fifteen minutes late. Father would be mad. Knowing him, I was confident that he would make me wait outside his hospital room for an hour before seeing me, just to show me and everyone else who was really in control.
    Sometimes I wish you would just die.
    The thought made me grip the steering wheel hard.
    No. Don't say that. Let Father play his sick power games. Lucky for me, I have something to read while I wait.
    Still sitting in the car, I tapped Nyomi’s book. Like the work, the cover was unique. A man I assumed to be her father sat in an American judge’s gown on the