Aguri vents his frustrations to Abbie

"Yeah, it's fine with me," said Abbie tentatively.

Aguri sat down on one of the benches with a bit of a thud. Aguri wasn't a terribly graceful guy to begin with, and it appeared that maybe he was a bit drunk as well. He took off his dark-rimmed glasses, cleaned them on his shirt, and put them back on. He ran his fingers through his dark, tousled hair and sighed. Loudly.

Abbie just stood there, a bit awkwardly. She was holding her dress against her chest, but it wasn't actually on. If she let go, she'd be naked above the waist. And perhaps more to her concern, Jake had vanished. Her focus was torn between looking for Jake (behind her? around her?) and looking toward Aguri to see what he might say or do.

"We met up at the club," Abbie offered. "Your name is Aguri?"

He let out a heavy sigh and nodded, his dark eyes meeting hers with a scowl. "Yeah," he responded gruffly. "Are you in the wedding party?"

"Not exactly," Abbie clarified. "I'm here with ... well, Staci is his cousin."

Aguri looked around. "Where is he now? Your husband?"

"We're not married. And I don't know. We were walking in the woods and came across this little cabin. So we thought we'd take a break from the chaos and spend some time here."

Aguri leaned back on his hands. "Me too. Get away from the crowd."

Abbie could tell he was upset, and despite feeling slightly uncomfortable being partially undressed, and despite not knowing where Jake was (why wasn't he reappearing around the side of the house yet? she wondered), she wanted to help him.

"You look kinda bummed out. What's going on? Wait, weren't you here with someone yourself?"

Aguri looked up at Abbie. "Yeah. My girlfriend. Kei."

"Right, I remember her. Tall, beautiful, exotic."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. She's great." Aguri scoffed, though it was unclear whether he was disgusted with himself or with Kei.

"Something happen?" asked Abbie, slowly lowering herself to a seated position on the other bench.

"Oh, we had a stupid fight. Stupid me, I do something stupid, then she says something mean, then I say something stupid, then she tells me to get away from her."

Concerned, Abbie leaned in to try and make stronger eye contact with Aguri. "Did you just ... break up?"

Aguri rose and paced around a bit. "No." He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, then a lighter from his pants pocket. He lit a cigarette and returned the rest of the pack to his jacket. "Not really break up, you know. We fight all the time. It's so dumb. I'm so dumb."

"I'm sure you're not dumb, Aguri," Abbie said, not sure at all.

"It's just what we do, you know? We fight, we get mad, we go off and ... oh, whatever." Aguri looked back at Abbie for a moment as his thoughts trailed away, then took a few steps away from her, smoking his cigarette.

"You go off and what?" Abbie asked.

Aguri chuckled a bit. "It happens every time we fight. It's just a routine now. So much tension."

Abbie nodded, still not sure what he was talking about. "So you have to clear the tension?"

"Yeah, clear the tension. That's what we do!" Aguri raised his voice a little, then calmed down just as quickly. "You know what the best way is to get rid of tension?"

Abbie smiled. "Tell me."

"Sex!" exclaimed Aguri. "One of these days, it's going to be the stupid move that fucks it all up, you know?"

Abbie was still trying to put the pieces together, but Aguri was a little incoherent in his description of what had happened. "So did you ... I mean, was your fight about sex?"

Aguri sat down on the bench next to Abbie and took a long drag on his cigarette. "No. It was not about sex. I'm saying that after we fight, we want to have sex to deal with our tensions. Except ... we get too mad and go off our separate ways."

Abbie nodded again, still not seeing the full picture.

"So we end up having sex, just with other people." He stood up again and paced some more.

"Oh!" said Abbie. "So you sort of half break up, go rebound by sleeping with someone, and then ... then do you get back together?"

Aguri turned back to her and nodded. "Yes, yes, that's what happens. We sort of half break up, then we go fuck some rando, and then we are clear-headed again, and then we get back together. Rinse and repeat."

Abbie considered this for a moment. "Kind of a rough time and place for that to happen, isn't it? I mean, someone else's wedding, big party, lots of people around."

Aguri came and sat next to Abbie again. "Kind of. Except I don't know." He shrugged. "If we're going to rebound with someone, might as well be surrounded by a lot of Staci's gorgeous friends, you know?"

Abbie smiled. She wasn't sure if he meant her or was including her under the heading of gorgeous, but she decided to accept it as flattery.

"So now you're wandering through the woods?"

Aguri finished his cigarette and stamped it out on the ground. "I guess? I was just walking, trying to clear my mind. But I don't know how to, like, meditate or do anything -- which is why I stay super tense until I fucking get laid or something, and then I can calm the fuck down and make peace with Kei again." He shook his head. "Just so stupid, you know?"

"No, it's not stupid." Abbie held her dress against her body with one hand and rubbed Aguri's back with the other.

"So you think it makes sense?"

Abbie looked away, and then back at Aguri. "Yeah, sure it does. You're all worked up. You say something you don't mean. You get hurt, Kei gets hurt, you kind of retreat. It's defensive. It's normal. You want to reconcile with her, but you're both too tense. So you need to let it go before you can find your way back together."

"You're like some kind of fucking genius, I don't even know who you are." Aguri stared at her in awe.

Abbie giggled. "I'm just ... me!"