Part I -- The Soul and Spirit of Kiku Heaven
Chapter Two: Hitoshi's story
When the character of a man is not clear to you look at his friends.
Stop staring at me like that! It is not polite and speaks volumes of yourselves, not to mention you make your thoughts so obvious that you would be stripped of any advantage in a hypothetical argument.
I could make some allowances and be merciful to your quick judgment since you know nothing of me even though you think you know something. But I will let you in a little secret: [ Warning: intense male love follows]
something is nothing, but everything can be something. If you don’t see the difference there is nothing I can do to help you. Or, perhaps there is. What if I tell you about Norihiro’s dreams all these years, night after night, starting with the very first one we moved to Kiku Heaven? I had gone to the bed early that night but I woke up in the small hours to find him sleeping while both our parents were missing. I bet you know this part of the story, don’t you? But do you know about his nightmares, his frightening little screams, his shivering that makes his body shaking from head to toes? They started that night and never ceased all these years, not once. Can you calculate the number of nights I have stayed awaked, listening to his delirious sleep talking and wiping the sweat off his face? Do you have any idea how much I have been suffering waiting for the day he will talk to me, face to face under a blindly bright sun, not through his nightmares? Can you imagine what he would tell me, if he did? Yes, of course, I can always talk first, tell him all I know or, better, all I have heard him saying in his sleep, and scare him so much as to make him disappear into the thin air. Ask yourself: what purpose would that serve? I am saying it again: stop staring at me like that. If I am indeed guilty of a crime this is lust and no other. I fell for Shinobu-kun the moment I saw him. I kept saying to myself it was lust that led our paths, but deep inside I knew it was more than that. Shinobu-kun was a very gifted and tender person, kind and thoughtful than most I know, agreeable and generous, sharing his possessions and knowledge with others, offering his assistance in any possible way, at any given time.
Yoshinori-kun, his brother, was equally kind and thoughtful, very happy and playful, but he changed after his first, and very short, relationship. It was entirely my fault.
Shinobu-kun moved with his father and brother to Kiku Heaven a few months before Norihiro and I left for University, but I had not had the chance of meeting him… until early in the summer, a hot day at the end of the semester when I went downtown alone leaving Norihiro and his chronic depression back in the campus. He was in his late teens, lively and surprisingly polite for his age. We shook hands… and stayed like that for a few seconds more than two people just met would normally have done. Yoshinori-kun must have felt embarrassed because he went to entertain himself in the dance sphere leaving us alone.
Although I was sure Shinobu would join him, he didn’t. He stayed with me instead, chatting about his family, his application to the University, how excited he made him the prospect of becoming a student, and also about Yoshinori’s experience with Aliens: he was abducted by a huge UFO two weeks ago! Wasn’t it amazing? (You are amazing, Shinobu-kun). After a while he suggested we should take a photo to celebrate our acquaintance.
To this day, he has kept them hung on the wall of his bedroom next to those of his brother. (Was I so important to you, Shinobu-kun?)
I took them for dinner to New Age, a new Japanese restaurant recently opened in downtown. Yoshinori said he didn’t like shushi, but I think he was lying: he was jealous of his brother showing interest in someone else for once. I said nothing. I could perfectly understand the special bonds created between siblings who loved and deeply cared for each other. The dinner was on me, I had made it clear right from the start, but when we finished and I was about to call it a night and drive back to Campus, Shinobu-kun, adorable Shinobu-kun, insisted, “You should come home to meet our father. I’m sure he will want to thank you personally for your kindness.”
He drove us back to his house and introduced me to his father, Kato. Nomura-san was nothing but the mature image of his adorable son in an adult’s body. He had done an excellent job with his boys, they both adored him.
It didn’t take me long to feel comfortable and after a while Shinobu-kun and I were sitting on the sofa talking like old friends while his father and brother had already fallen asleep upstairs. Shinobu-kun trusted me, completely, from the very start. It was his nature, his kind nature, to trust people and look for the best in them. Maybe he was just innocent… but no. He confined in me, he spoke of his intimate relationship with Kadajo, a relation that did not last, yet, he had no regrets at all. “I knew there was no future, I knew about Count Fei and didn’t run away. Was it stupid of me?” He gave out a bitter laugh and lowered his head almost embarrassed. He was definitely adorable and I was dying to kiss him, but I caught myself feeling mad with Kadajo for taking advantage of Shinobu-kun; my anger clouded my vision and couldn’t reach his lips. “Why there are so many shadows in your eyes, Hitoshi-san? It’s not because of what I said about Kadajo-san, it's something else, right?”
I wasn’t prepared for this kind of intimacy, not ready to talk about my deepest thoughts and myself, not with Shinobu-kun. This has always been Norihiro’s “field” … speaking of which, I suddenly realised I hadn’t talked to him since I left, I hadn’t even called him to say I would stay out till late. How did I let him spend the night alone? Yet, it was painful to separate from Shinobu-kun…
I couldn't go back yet. I found shelter at Stephen’s, who greeted me with a big smile on his sleepy face. We didn’t know each other very well, but there are times strangers offer a level of comfort friends cannot, and this was definitely one of these times.
Stephen: Don’t feel embarrassed or shy away from telling what troubles you, Hiroshi-san. Believe it or not, I have first-hand experience of these things. My father. Hahaha. But he’s a wonderful man, I have great respect for him. Now, please, tell me: why you look so unhappy? What has happened?
Hitoshi: I met someone... someone who stirred strange, intense feelings in me… last night… first time in years Norihiro didn’t dominate my thoughts…
Stephen: Did you…
Hitoshi: If I slept with him? No. I didn’t even kiss him. I wanted it, but couldn’t.
I didn't say anything else. Much to my relief Stephen did not make more questions either. He understood, I knew he understood, and I will be forever grateful to him and his kindness for making us some tea and coming to sit next to me in silent sympathy. This is how true friends should be, I thought: sitting next to each other listening their thoughts and the silence around them. …Just then I remembered Kadajo and the very thought caused waves of anger threatening to drown me. How dared he? How he could do such thing to Shinobu-kun, to adorable Shinobu-kun?
... ... ... ... ...
(I liked to think I was driven by pure lust that became an obsession to make him mine. Truth is I was head over heels for Shinobu-kun, but when we came to a turn where one man’s happiness would mean another man’s disaster, I became his shitsuren, his unrequited love. This was the word Shinobu-kun used to call me before breaking my heart into thousand pieces.)
We are no more than candles burning in the wind.
Once I regained my posture and temper I took up in painting and spent a whole month drawing, day and night, and selling the pitiful fruits of my labour. The sofa in the living room became my bed. There was another room on the third floor but it felt safer to stay downstairs. It was closer to the door. I was not ready to go back to my old self. Shinobu-kun called and sent e-mails everyday. The thought of his forthcoming appearance in the campus paralysed me. A lot was happening in the students’ neighbourhood, but I did not care. End of summer found me being showered with Norihiro’s love and attention, a rather uncomfortable situation. He never asked any questions about that night, but we both knew there was a hindrance blocking our way back.
One day I let him convince me to go downtown, to swim and have dinner together. I was praying Shinobu-kun wouldn’t be around. To my greatest disappointment he wasn’t. [What does this say about Hitoshi?]
However, the annoying old hag appeared out of the blue and started yelling at me while we were eating. She is seriously mental and I have no sympathy for her condition.
If there was a slight chance of getting into a good mood it disappeared within a second. We decided to leave, but the old hag followed us screaming hysterically out in the open, Come back to teach you manners, you shameless brat! Shameless? Sure. We talk about a scandal of monumental proportion: I am in my swimsuit. Sue me!
“Kiss me”, asked Norihiko once we got into the car. I did, but it felt strange after two months without having been kissed or touch each other’s hand, not once. I closed my eyes and tried to put my feelings into motion; I thought of Shinobu-kun, my adorable Shinobu-kun… it didn’t work. What was I thinking? It wasn’t the breath of my adorable Shinobu-kun but of my suffering Norihiro that burned my cheek letting out a delicate fragrance of green tea and jasmine. “Did you begin chewing gums again?” I asked starting the car. “Yes. I’m trying to quit smoking. Didn’t you notice?” I hadn’t.
I had spent night after night hoping to see Shinobu-kun in my dreams but not once did I make it. Except the night Norihiro and I came back from downtown...
I dreamed we were living in my father’s house and we had got a beautiful little boy, but the boy had a constant worrying look in his eyes.
He spent the days sitting on the bank of the river flowing a little further from our house, his eyes fixed on the water, lost in his thoughts. One day I asked him what he was thinking all the time he spent sitting there.
My boy hesitated at first, but then he said to me: “Otousan, today I felt asleep for a few minutes and you appeared in my dream… You were injured and half-blind; your yukata was torn in many places and splashed with mud and blood. You were going forward but each step you made took you back, and back, and back, till you were covered in darkness and I could hear your voice no more. The sight frightened me so much that I woke up by my own sobs and cries...
The moment I opened my eyes, still half-dreaming, half-awaken, I suddenly knew that I’m here to give you love and save that part of yourself that wants to remain truthful to your heart. Call me Shinji, Otousan, and hold my hand.” He burst into tears and his little fragile body shook violently. “I know we are nothing but two lonely souls in the chaos of this endless cosmos”, he continued in a feverish manner, “two souls destined to die very soon if our hearts remain in the well of sorrow for too long.
"That’s why I’m telling you to hold my hand and love me, Otousan. Please, let us get out of the well. I’m your Shinji. I can show you the way."
My watch showed twenty past seven in the evening. I had lost the first class of the semester… My feet felt numb, my lips refused to make a sound, my hands were shaking. That dream was close to a nightmare if anything. I tried to bring Shinobu-kun’s face in my mind -- in vain. Despite the numbness I managed to make a few steps and answer the doorbell; to my surprise Shinobu-kun’s smiling face stood at my doorstep. Was he my Shinji?
I must have looked really pitiful, for he didn’t deny me when I grasped him and hold him tightly in my arms; he didn’t run away when I kissed him. Everything about me cried Despair, and yet I was the happiest man on earth. Such happiness should look like a sin to heavens, for mortals cannot experience happiness without punishment. They could punish me tomorrow, but tonight I would accept their gift and allow myself disappear in my overpowering lust for adorable Shinobu-kun.
// TO BE CONTINUED //
* Otousan is the respectful and polite form of “father” in Japanese.
Technical notes: Shinobu is a tweaked version of Ueki Rei’s Terry @ SimsCave