(no subject)
title: take this sinking boat and point it home
author: chartre
rating: r
pairing: nishikato
summary: a simple touch, a momentary caress. of delicate fingertips and pressed lips on soft skin that will never stain.
notes: fictional. a three-am fic before i go away for another short trip. thanks to reuslurid for going through some parts of it for me! :) title taken from glen hansard's falling slowly.
Take This Sinking Boat and Point It Home
nishikato
A simple touch, a momentary caress. Of delicate fingertips and pressed lips on soft skin that will never stain.
Shige remembers innocence like it had just left him yesterday, before he had ever expected to find someone like that coming back at his doorstep one cold morning in the midst of spring. He’s dressed in almost ragged clothes with an equally ratty suitcase to match. He doesn’t recall so much of it all but it slowly becomes a clear thought, old memories tied in belts like school books when he was a kid, fishing in the small pond near the chicken coop, inconspicuous meetings in the old red barn out back.
He remembers, slowly, when the man at his door turns to meet him, familiar face and familiar eyes beneath a long fringe and he carelessly pushes his hair away from his face.
And then it all comes back to him within that same moment.
“Ryo.”
He smiles and sighs, relaxes his shoulders a little when he hears his name.
“Good god, you remember me,” he sounds relieved. Of course he does, how could he not. How could I not.
Shige is hesitant, but he lets him in wordlessly. Ryo nods his head with a slight smile, takes his suitcase and enters his apartment. It’s then when Shige is taken back, way, way, back…to the years when they had first kissed one summer night. The moon had been bright and high up; their fingers intertwining like crawling vines in a vineyard and the smell of grape is profound.
Shige thought he had fallen in love, then.
“How have you been?” Shige asks nervously when he sits him down in his living room, cups of warm tea between them and he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have asked that, he shouldn’t have asked anything at all when he sees the suitcase, the traveling clothes that are worse for wear, the expecting look on his face when their eyes meet across the quiet room. He sips his tea and waits for something to happen. Maybe there will be disclosure really soon, maybe it wouldn’t hurt anyone, either.
“My parents kicked me out of the house,” he says. “I told them.”
Shige swallows his tea hard. “Oh.”
“I have nowhere else to go, actually,” Ryo laughs.
No shouldn’t be an option, but Shige thinks about it. It’s a possibility in the real world: when he gets turned down in his first interview at the firm, when things just don’t go his way and when the weather doesn’t think it should be a bright and sunny day. No one is always right in this world, no one is always happy.
“There’s a spare room upstairs, maybe you could…”
There’s an immediate smile on Ryo’s face, and it’s telling he’s most grateful. “It’ll be just for awhile,” he explains, “until I’m stable enough to get myself a job and a place to stay.”
“But,” Shige stops him. The smile on his face doesn’t disappear just yet. “There’s something you should know.”
Shige remembers the times before they even had the chance to recall themselves in his head: quiet and warm nights, almost awkward gestures as they advanced weightlessly and cautiously, their lips meeting for the first time. They were only kids, barely out of their pre-teens and they were breathing hard against shoulders that pushed and pulled, falling in love, in places where they knew it felt good.
He shakes his head, avoids the gaze of the other when he says with a bit of a scoff, “You. You probably already know. What I’m going to tell you.“ And then when it’s quiet, Shige looks up, and the slightest hint of realization hits them both, hard on the head, and it’s almost unforgiving.
“Oh,” the smile on Ryo’s face slowly vanishes, but he stifles a laugh and Shige can tell it’s strained, more so when he says, “Damn, Shige. I’m happy for you.”
“I’m really sorry,” Shige stutters, looks away from guilt when he has the chance to. “We were just young, then.”
“Don’t be,” he says, “I was just expecting a little too much.”
“How did you find me?” Shige asks in his lowest voice, and all Ryo can do is smile sadly, lift his head slowly so that their eyes meet, and they share a short, remorseful and broken glance.
They sit down for dinner: good food, good light, a not-so-good atmosphere, however. Shige eats quietly to himself, eyes cast down on his food, hopes nothing comes up, no questions will be asked, nothing anything more awkward than this. It’s been awhile since he’s had a visitor other than-
“Your girlfriend?”
Shige drops his chopsticks on the table and coughs. “Sorry?”
“How are things with your girlfriend?” Ryo asks again in between the meal, his bowl almost empty. Shige picks his utensils up again and clears his throat.
“We’re okay.”
No, they’re not, they’re not okay. She almost wants to break up with him but he wouldn’t let her. They’re shaking at the brink of their relationship, and they’re almost falling.
“That’s good,” Ryo nods. Shige nods back, gets up from his seat and shuffles towards the sink.
“I’ll go to bed early today,” he tells him. “I’m a little frazzled. From work.” Shige thinks he needs to dignify his statement with that last thought.
Ryo greets him a good night, watches Shige run up to the second floor almost in a hurry.
Days pass by. Two weeks, and Shige has made no effort to make contact with the man living in his apartment, whatsoever. He quietly waltzes out of his way when they’re both at home and often thinks of ways on how to keep away from him without being too obvious on nights when he can’t sleep, and all he can do is lie down on his bed and stare up at the empty ceiling.
Ryo, however, tries. He picks up the phone because he knows it’s always for Shige, and it’s always an excuse to call him out of his work room, to talk to him when there’s a chance. Nevertheless, when his efforts are found in vain, Ryo tries to find other ways to interfere with Shige when he’s not aware of it, and sometimes, Ryo is successful.
Though sometimes, Shige notices.
“You’ve never changed,” he tells him one time Ryo has done their laundry, and Shige is missing a sock. Ryo won’t tell him where it is. Shige remembers the time when Ryo wouldn’t tell him where he’s hidden his old toy robot. Shige was only nine. Ryo, twelve.
He smiles weakly and tries to get Shige to reminisce with him. “It’s hard trying to when you’re around.”
Shige sighs apologetically and averts his gaze again. I don’t think you’re even trying to.
“It’s in the last drawer,” Ryo points to the dresser in his bedroom, and then Shige disappears into the room. He remembers hiding Shige’s shabby toy robot because he had gotten him a new train set.
Shige comes back in the room, his missing sock in one hand, and a brand new tie in the other. There’s a matching “I know you did it” look on his face and it makes both of them somewhat expectant. “Ryo.”
“I thought you needed a new one,” he says, the smile inevitable on his face.
Some things, they never really change at all.
When young Shige came to visit the countryside for a few weeks, he met a young boy around his age. He found out that he was in fact a few years older than him, but that didn’t change the fact that he thought he was an attractive boy. Shige learned that he was quite different compared to all the other boys he’d met in the city, different compared to any other boy or girl he’d ever met.
Shige learned that his name is Ryo, and Shige fell in love with him.
When he found out how Ryo felt about him, Ryo took him to the old barn a few blocks from his house. The paint was almost washed out from the old woodwork, nothing but hay was inside and the doors creaked when Ryo closed them behind him, tucked his arms around Shige’s hips and kissed him. It was Shige’s first real kiss, wet and awkward, clammy palms on hot skin and the feeling was still so profound years later.
“Shige,” Ryo shakes his shoulder and prods him to wake up. Shige stirs awake. He finds himself at the kitchen table, fingers curled in a page of his textbook.
“You okay? It’s three in the morning. You were up all night studying,” Ryo whispers closely and pats on his shoulder. There’s a cup of hot coffee on the table and Shige can smell the fresh brew.
“What are you doing up at three?” Shige asks, rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. Ryo swats the newspaper with a hand and holds it closer to Shige’s face. Classified ads.
“Looking for a job.”
“At three in the morning?”
Ryo shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Shige closes the opened book on the table and sits back on his chair. “Can I ask you a question, Ryo?”
“What is it?”
“Why did you come here?”
A soft breeze passes them by in the kitchen when the silence settles.
Something happens in a few seconds, and Ryo rests his hand on Shige’s knee. “I missed you, Shige.”
Shige can’t help but remember everything he doesn’t want to remember. This is sheer contempt, Ryo staring at him with dark eyes, hair obstructing his vision, lips shining in the dark. This is sheer contempt, Shige tilting his head forward just so their faces touch, their lips brush and Shige can’t understand why he doesn’t pull back fast enough when Ryo advances him a little further.
“What’s wrong?” Ryo asks, runs his finger along the backside of Shige’s ear and then he flinches, takes his hand away from his face and brushes the other from his lap.
“Ryo, stop. Don’t. I. I can’t do this.”
“Why not?” Ryo’s voice turns low and stern. “We, we used to do this a lot.”
“That was back then, it was a long time ago,” Shige gasps.
For awhile, Ryo turns quiet. “It’s really over, isn’t it,” he sighs and stands back up. “It’s for the best… just. Just-”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Just get some rest.” He leaves the kitchen and marches back up to his room. Shige sighs to himself in the dark and holds his head down in regret, bangs his fists hard on the wood of the table.
He hates having to remember what he’s forgotten. He hates having to go through the careful minutes of life before he had realized what it had done to him in the years back, how he had fallen in and out of love with a boy who had held his promises for the sake of each other, only to learn that his efforts have been found in vain.
Before Shige left the quiet countryside, he held his tears back when Ryo put his arms around his neck, rested his cheek on his shoulder and they stayed like that for as long as time would allow it.
“You’re leaving soon.”
Shige swallowed. “I know.”
“Are you crying?” Ryo pulled back from his embrace and studied the fine contours on Shige’s face. He traced the shape of his eyebrows with his fingers, traced them down to his cheek, to his lips where his eyes lingered.
There were tears on his face when Ryo kissed him, softly and slowly just to savor the contact that may never happen again, at least not in the next few years to come. Shige steadied his grip on Ryo’s arms, his fingers shaking until Ryo held them with his own hands, and then he learned to relax a little more.
“Promise me you’ll come back soon.”
“Come find me in the city someday,” Shige told him minutes before they parted. It was a difficult goodbye, but they tried to stay strong. Shige looked back to the promise he had sworn to keep one more time, and then turned to tomorrow with the hope to fulfill it someday.
At twenty, Shige becomes a promising student at a prestigious law school. He falls in love with a girl he’s met sometime in the same year, tries to get her to move in with him (but so far things haven’t been progressing). When Shige turns twenty-one, things become complicated, and he forgets about the promise he’s held until innocence suddenly chooses to show up at his doorstep one spring morning.
“Can you leave?”
Ryo flips the magazine close and sets it on his lap. “Leave?”
“Just for today,” Shige rubs the back of his neck. “I invited someone over for dinner, and. And-”
Ryo chuckles. “It’s for your girlfriend.” He gets up and grabs his jacket. Shige stops him halfway through the door.
“I’d appreciate it if you stayed out a little longer. We could…”
Ryo doesn’t look back. He laughs, throws his jacket over his shoulder and leaves his house, closes the door behind him with a resounding thud.
He comes back to his apartment at one in the morning. Shige’s sitting at the living room in the dark, TV light illuminating his face while he watches this popular game show.
“How was it?” Ryo asks and sits inches beside him. Shige shifts his leg.
“Fine.” They only ended up having dinner together.
“You didn’t…?”
“No.” Shige replies almost immediately and it actually impresses Ryo a lot.
“You’re not going to ask her to move in with you?”
“Actually,” Shige lowers the volume on the TV. “I do. This is just a preparation for my plan.”
“A plan? You have a plan?” Ryo looks so amused; the ridiculous smile on his face tells it all. “You thought of a step-by-step plan on how to get her to move in with you.”
All Shige does is nod, and it gives Ryo every reason to tease him for it, but he doesn’t. “Guess that means I’ll have to find a job real soon, huh?”
The room turns noticeably quiet. Shige doesn’t turn at all, just keeps his eyes glued to the television screen but nothing is processing into his head. Ryo blurts out the answer to the next trivia first. “If she’s moving in, naturally I’ll have to move out pretty soon-”
“You don’t have to hurry, Ryo,” Shige tells him. “You don’t have to leave so soon. You can stay.”
Ryo turns the TV off. He grabs the remote and flicks it at the screen, and the living room is especially dark. Shige doesn’t quite catch on quickly with all that’s happening at the moment, so when he hears Ryo bend forward, and his hand shifts in the dark, Shige has not the slightest clue of what Ryo is thinking of-or in fact, doing.
“Ryo. What are you doing.” It only occurs to him when he feels a hand curl under the small of his back, warm breath on his cheek and he can tell their faces are this close.
“Ryo.”
Ryo is careful, he’s so careful when he presses himself on Shige, when he lets their lips touch momentarily and then he waits. When Shige doesn’t flinch, he knows he should run a thumb over his jaw line, nip on his bottom lip-and Shige will make a quiet sound in his throat, almost like a low hum. Ryo will only want to push himself further, shoulders touching and when he does, push himself, Shige doesn’t pull back.
He breathes his name, Shige, and pulls him back for another wet kiss. Ryo tilts his head, fits their mouths neatly in place and slips a hand over his collarbone through the buttons of his shirt, caresses the warm skin right under.
It happens quickly without notice: Shige half-lying, half-sitting on the couch with his shirt riding up to his belly, the buttons on his jeans coming undone and Ryo slides down to meet his face. He noses his cheek, slowly down to his neck and runs his fingers along the Shige’s side and it’s there, the beautiful arch of Shige’s back against his body.
“Shige,” Ryo whispers quietly into his ear and massages his jaw. “Shige.”
“Ryo,” he almost whines. A hand starts palming him through his jeans. “Ryo-”
He cups his face, pushes his tongue between insistent lips. Shige tugs onto Ryo’s shirtfront and he remembers, he remembers-
“Ryo,” he hums.
“Yes?” he caresses the skin on his belly, moves his hand a little down further and Shige gasps with the slightest hint of a moan in his throat.
“We have to. We have to stop,” Shige gasps, and he gasps again when Ryo takes him completely in his hand and squeezes.
“Let me, please,” Ryo presses kisses along the side of his neck, “Give me just one night.”
“No, it won’t be just one night, it’ll never be just one night,” Shige elbows him off and stands up, hand against his mouth and Ryo swears he hears sobbing. Shige doesn’t have the mind to look at him straight in the eye even if Ryo is forcing him to, and he just leaves, runs up to his room and locks himself there while all Ryo can do is sit in the dark and think about the times he’s already messed up in his life.
It’ll never be just one night, he says, it’ll keep happening and Shige knows that as-a-matter-of-factly. Ryo feels that it’ll just be one of those days again, those dark days in waiting and regret and this time he knows it’ll be right there in front of him, and he won’t get what’ll come to him soon.
In the morning, Shige stands at his bedroom door and listens for any subtle movement. When he thinks no one is out or up yet, he quickly runs down to the kitchen for breakfast and leaves for school immediately. Ryo sits quietly in his room, on the old and darned suitcase that’s been resting on the floor with clothes he’s already folded and placed inside over the previous night. He digs his fingernails into his hair and takes a second to rethink his next move and decides that he just shouldn’t.
He leaves the packed suitcase-still filled with all his belongings-behind the door and goes out for a short morning walk.
On days when they’re both at home, the mornings are spent trying to avoid each other, the afternoons awkwardly trying to get along without making much contact and the evenings looking back to each fruitless day and merely stealing glances from the other (because clearly, there isn’t anything else better to do).
If Ryo needs money for grocery shopping (because even if things are shaken up, he still takes care of Shige) he’ll leave him a note on the kitchen counter and Shige will find it lying there in the morning. If Shige is tired from school and already lacks the initiative to eat, Ryo will prepare him something hot, and Shige will wake up to the smell of something delicious and home-made.
And if Ryo thinks Shige needs a new something-just out of the love and care he’s felt for him over years and years now-he’ll opt to do their laundry and hide one of his socks again. Shige will always find it in the bottom drawer of his dresser with something new, be it a new watch, a tie, even the new CD of his favorite artist just because Ryo knows he never has time for leisure.
It all becomes a simple habit. What had been awkward now becomes normal, figurative communication becomes their means of contact and they get used to the silence in the house, almost so that talking to the other becomes quite uncomfortable.
“I’ve invited my girlfriend over for dinner again,” Shige says, dresses in a clean and pressed shirt.
“Are you going to pop the question this time?” Ryo comes over to him and reaches for his collar, fastens last button on properly and then rests his hands on top of Shige’s chest. “Good luck.”
Shige slips his hands away and returns to the mirror. Ryo turns and closes the door behind him, the saddest smile on his face when he takes his jacket and leaves the apartment in mere moments. He tells himself he’ll stay out longer this time.
Shige’s girlfriend comes over his house promptly. She’s dressed perfectly for a simple home-made dinner, pretty black dress, her hair worn long over her shoulders and her eyes glistening when Shige greets her with a peck on the cheek and tucks his arm around her waist.
In a sudden instant, something happens, and then something goes terribly wrong.
Ryo starts to consider dating other people. He sees a pretty young girl at the convenient store where he buys himself a six-pack, and as if it’s totally unexpected, she checks him out. Ryo thinks about it once, and then twice, and finally decides that the feeling isn’t mutual enough. It’s probably desperation, he tells himself, cracks his first can open and takes a long swig out of it. He debates over staying out until three and he simply wins himself over with shameful sympathy.
He’s a jobless man living out of the bowl of another who can’t love him back the way he does and Ryo thinks it’s about time he gives up and moves on. The suitcase is waiting behind the door of his room-or what seems to be his room. No one has to know where he’ll disappear to because no one simply cares. If he leaves now, maybe no one will notice, maybe Shige won’t notice.
Ryo takes in another long drink and holds his head up high and exhales, leans his back against the wall while he waits for a miracle to happen in the next few hours.
At three in the morning, Ryo throws his fourth can and takes his next one, pops it open with a prolonging fsss. Before anything more, a hand snatches the drink out of his. Ryo looks up and tries comprehending as to why a red-faced Shige is standing there in front of him.
“You shouldn’t be drink crap like this at three in the morning, it’s not good.”
“Says who?” Ryo scoffs, eyelids almost heavy.
Shige doesn’t discriminate the question with an answer when he takes a sip out of the can, and then throws it away in the garbage.
“I was waiting for you to come home.”
“So you came out to look for me?” Ryo grins. “You’re so sweet.”
“Ryo,” Shige calls, his voice in a low audible whisper. “I broke up with my girlfriend.”
“…what?” his mind doesn’t grasp the words out fast enough with the alcohol in his head, but Ryo tries to manage a word at a time. “Is that why your face is red? She hit you, didn’t she.”
Shige covers his face with a hand and sighs. “I broke up with her earlier today. I didn’t think our relationship should continue anymore.”
Ryo licks his lip and savors the lasting taste of the alcohol. Shige starts to shift nervously in front of him. “I saw that your packed your things already.”
The half-drunken man regains his consciousness, his eyes growing wide.
“You’re leaving?”
“I didn’t think you wanted me around anymore.”
Shige looks sorry. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything like that,” he says almost defensively, his voice raising. “And if I implied anything, I’m really-”
“Shh, shh, not so loud…! My head is…” Ryo winces his eyes and rests his head back on the wall behind him. Maybe this would be a good chance to hurl everything nasty into his face-figuratively.
“I. I want you back.”
Suddenly the thought of that good chance disappears from Ryo’s head, and he forgets he’s ever even thought about it.
“I want you back,” Shige mutters again and Ryo is picking each and every word up carefully in his ears, and it almost feels like soft and beautiful music. “I want you back.”
There’s a sudden, slow, and warm caress of skin on Shige’s arm. Ryo steps forward and tilts his head a little with a slight smile. “I was really thinking of leaving you, you know.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” his voice is shaking, Shige’s voice is shaking. “Stay with me.”
Ryo chuckles, feels Shige’s hands on his chest when they move a little close, closer, and he recalls this familiar and casual grace, the same one with that awkward boy he had loved from years back.
“I’ll think about it,” he says and then he leans a little forward, curls a finger into the belt loops of Shige’s pants and pulls him even closer.
author: chartre
rating: r
pairing: nishikato
summary: a simple touch, a momentary caress. of delicate fingertips and pressed lips on soft skin that will never stain.
notes: fictional. a three-am fic before i go away for another short trip. thanks to reuslurid for going through some parts of it for me! :) title taken from glen hansard's falling slowly.
Take This Sinking Boat and Point It Home
nishikato
A simple touch, a momentary caress. Of delicate fingertips and pressed lips on soft skin that will never stain.
Shige remembers innocence like it had just left him yesterday, before he had ever expected to find someone like that coming back at his doorstep one cold morning in the midst of spring. He’s dressed in almost ragged clothes with an equally ratty suitcase to match. He doesn’t recall so much of it all but it slowly becomes a clear thought, old memories tied in belts like school books when he was a kid, fishing in the small pond near the chicken coop, inconspicuous meetings in the old red barn out back.
He remembers, slowly, when the man at his door turns to meet him, familiar face and familiar eyes beneath a long fringe and he carelessly pushes his hair away from his face.
And then it all comes back to him within that same moment.
“Ryo.”
He smiles and sighs, relaxes his shoulders a little when he hears his name.
“Good god, you remember me,” he sounds relieved. Of course he does, how could he not. How could I not.
Shige is hesitant, but he lets him in wordlessly. Ryo nods his head with a slight smile, takes his suitcase and enters his apartment. It’s then when Shige is taken back, way, way, back…to the years when they had first kissed one summer night. The moon had been bright and high up; their fingers intertwining like crawling vines in a vineyard and the smell of grape is profound.
Shige thought he had fallen in love, then.
“How have you been?” Shige asks nervously when he sits him down in his living room, cups of warm tea between them and he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have asked that, he shouldn’t have asked anything at all when he sees the suitcase, the traveling clothes that are worse for wear, the expecting look on his face when their eyes meet across the quiet room. He sips his tea and waits for something to happen. Maybe there will be disclosure really soon, maybe it wouldn’t hurt anyone, either.
“My parents kicked me out of the house,” he says. “I told them.”
Shige swallows his tea hard. “Oh.”
“I have nowhere else to go, actually,” Ryo laughs.
No shouldn’t be an option, but Shige thinks about it. It’s a possibility in the real world: when he gets turned down in his first interview at the firm, when things just don’t go his way and when the weather doesn’t think it should be a bright and sunny day. No one is always right in this world, no one is always happy.
“There’s a spare room upstairs, maybe you could…”
There’s an immediate smile on Ryo’s face, and it’s telling he’s most grateful. “It’ll be just for awhile,” he explains, “until I’m stable enough to get myself a job and a place to stay.”
“But,” Shige stops him. The smile on his face doesn’t disappear just yet. “There’s something you should know.”
Shige remembers the times before they even had the chance to recall themselves in his head: quiet and warm nights, almost awkward gestures as they advanced weightlessly and cautiously, their lips meeting for the first time. They were only kids, barely out of their pre-teens and they were breathing hard against shoulders that pushed and pulled, falling in love, in places where they knew it felt good.
He shakes his head, avoids the gaze of the other when he says with a bit of a scoff, “You. You probably already know. What I’m going to tell you.“ And then when it’s quiet, Shige looks up, and the slightest hint of realization hits them both, hard on the head, and it’s almost unforgiving.
“Oh,” the smile on Ryo’s face slowly vanishes, but he stifles a laugh and Shige can tell it’s strained, more so when he says, “Damn, Shige. I’m happy for you.”
“I’m really sorry,” Shige stutters, looks away from guilt when he has the chance to. “We were just young, then.”
“Don’t be,” he says, “I was just expecting a little too much.”
“How did you find me?” Shige asks in his lowest voice, and all Ryo can do is smile sadly, lift his head slowly so that their eyes meet, and they share a short, remorseful and broken glance.
They sit down for dinner: good food, good light, a not-so-good atmosphere, however. Shige eats quietly to himself, eyes cast down on his food, hopes nothing comes up, no questions will be asked, nothing anything more awkward than this. It’s been awhile since he’s had a visitor other than-
“Your girlfriend?”
Shige drops his chopsticks on the table and coughs. “Sorry?”
“How are things with your girlfriend?” Ryo asks again in between the meal, his bowl almost empty. Shige picks his utensils up again and clears his throat.
“We’re okay.”
No, they’re not, they’re not okay. She almost wants to break up with him but he wouldn’t let her. They’re shaking at the brink of their relationship, and they’re almost falling.
“That’s good,” Ryo nods. Shige nods back, gets up from his seat and shuffles towards the sink.
“I’ll go to bed early today,” he tells him. “I’m a little frazzled. From work.” Shige thinks he needs to dignify his statement with that last thought.
Ryo greets him a good night, watches Shige run up to the second floor almost in a hurry.
Days pass by. Two weeks, and Shige has made no effort to make contact with the man living in his apartment, whatsoever. He quietly waltzes out of his way when they’re both at home and often thinks of ways on how to keep away from him without being too obvious on nights when he can’t sleep, and all he can do is lie down on his bed and stare up at the empty ceiling.
Ryo, however, tries. He picks up the phone because he knows it’s always for Shige, and it’s always an excuse to call him out of his work room, to talk to him when there’s a chance. Nevertheless, when his efforts are found in vain, Ryo tries to find other ways to interfere with Shige when he’s not aware of it, and sometimes, Ryo is successful.
Though sometimes, Shige notices.
“You’ve never changed,” he tells him one time Ryo has done their laundry, and Shige is missing a sock. Ryo won’t tell him where it is. Shige remembers the time when Ryo wouldn’t tell him where he’s hidden his old toy robot. Shige was only nine. Ryo, twelve.
He smiles weakly and tries to get Shige to reminisce with him. “It’s hard trying to when you’re around.”
Shige sighs apologetically and averts his gaze again. I don’t think you’re even trying to.
“It’s in the last drawer,” Ryo points to the dresser in his bedroom, and then Shige disappears into the room. He remembers hiding Shige’s shabby toy robot because he had gotten him a new train set.
Shige comes back in the room, his missing sock in one hand, and a brand new tie in the other. There’s a matching “I know you did it” look on his face and it makes both of them somewhat expectant. “Ryo.”
“I thought you needed a new one,” he says, the smile inevitable on his face.
Some things, they never really change at all.
When young Shige came to visit the countryside for a few weeks, he met a young boy around his age. He found out that he was in fact a few years older than him, but that didn’t change the fact that he thought he was an attractive boy. Shige learned that he was quite different compared to all the other boys he’d met in the city, different compared to any other boy or girl he’d ever met.
Shige learned that his name is Ryo, and Shige fell in love with him.
When he found out how Ryo felt about him, Ryo took him to the old barn a few blocks from his house. The paint was almost washed out from the old woodwork, nothing but hay was inside and the doors creaked when Ryo closed them behind him, tucked his arms around Shige’s hips and kissed him. It was Shige’s first real kiss, wet and awkward, clammy palms on hot skin and the feeling was still so profound years later.
“Shige,” Ryo shakes his shoulder and prods him to wake up. Shige stirs awake. He finds himself at the kitchen table, fingers curled in a page of his textbook.
“You okay? It’s three in the morning. You were up all night studying,” Ryo whispers closely and pats on his shoulder. There’s a cup of hot coffee on the table and Shige can smell the fresh brew.
“What are you doing up at three?” Shige asks, rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. Ryo swats the newspaper with a hand and holds it closer to Shige’s face. Classified ads.
“Looking for a job.”
“At three in the morning?”
Ryo shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep.”
Shige closes the opened book on the table and sits back on his chair. “Can I ask you a question, Ryo?”
“What is it?”
“Why did you come here?”
A soft breeze passes them by in the kitchen when the silence settles.
Something happens in a few seconds, and Ryo rests his hand on Shige’s knee. “I missed you, Shige.”
Shige can’t help but remember everything he doesn’t want to remember. This is sheer contempt, Ryo staring at him with dark eyes, hair obstructing his vision, lips shining in the dark. This is sheer contempt, Shige tilting his head forward just so their faces touch, their lips brush and Shige can’t understand why he doesn’t pull back fast enough when Ryo advances him a little further.
“What’s wrong?” Ryo asks, runs his finger along the backside of Shige’s ear and then he flinches, takes his hand away from his face and brushes the other from his lap.
“Ryo, stop. Don’t. I. I can’t do this.”
“Why not?” Ryo’s voice turns low and stern. “We, we used to do this a lot.”
“That was back then, it was a long time ago,” Shige gasps.
For awhile, Ryo turns quiet. “It’s really over, isn’t it,” he sighs and stands back up. “It’s for the best… just. Just-”
“I’m really sorry.”
“Just get some rest.” He leaves the kitchen and marches back up to his room. Shige sighs to himself in the dark and holds his head down in regret, bangs his fists hard on the wood of the table.
He hates having to remember what he’s forgotten. He hates having to go through the careful minutes of life before he had realized what it had done to him in the years back, how he had fallen in and out of love with a boy who had held his promises for the sake of each other, only to learn that his efforts have been found in vain.
Before Shige left the quiet countryside, he held his tears back when Ryo put his arms around his neck, rested his cheek on his shoulder and they stayed like that for as long as time would allow it.
“You’re leaving soon.”
Shige swallowed. “I know.”
“Are you crying?” Ryo pulled back from his embrace and studied the fine contours on Shige’s face. He traced the shape of his eyebrows with his fingers, traced them down to his cheek, to his lips where his eyes lingered.
There were tears on his face when Ryo kissed him, softly and slowly just to savor the contact that may never happen again, at least not in the next few years to come. Shige steadied his grip on Ryo’s arms, his fingers shaking until Ryo held them with his own hands, and then he learned to relax a little more.
“Promise me you’ll come back soon.”
“Come find me in the city someday,” Shige told him minutes before they parted. It was a difficult goodbye, but they tried to stay strong. Shige looked back to the promise he had sworn to keep one more time, and then turned to tomorrow with the hope to fulfill it someday.
At twenty, Shige becomes a promising student at a prestigious law school. He falls in love with a girl he’s met sometime in the same year, tries to get her to move in with him (but so far things haven’t been progressing). When Shige turns twenty-one, things become complicated, and he forgets about the promise he’s held until innocence suddenly chooses to show up at his doorstep one spring morning.
“Can you leave?”
Ryo flips the magazine close and sets it on his lap. “Leave?”
“Just for today,” Shige rubs the back of his neck. “I invited someone over for dinner, and. And-”
Ryo chuckles. “It’s for your girlfriend.” He gets up and grabs his jacket. Shige stops him halfway through the door.
“I’d appreciate it if you stayed out a little longer. We could…”
Ryo doesn’t look back. He laughs, throws his jacket over his shoulder and leaves his house, closes the door behind him with a resounding thud.
He comes back to his apartment at one in the morning. Shige’s sitting at the living room in the dark, TV light illuminating his face while he watches this popular game show.
“How was it?” Ryo asks and sits inches beside him. Shige shifts his leg.
“Fine.” They only ended up having dinner together.
“You didn’t…?”
“No.” Shige replies almost immediately and it actually impresses Ryo a lot.
“You’re not going to ask her to move in with you?”
“Actually,” Shige lowers the volume on the TV. “I do. This is just a preparation for my plan.”
“A plan? You have a plan?” Ryo looks so amused; the ridiculous smile on his face tells it all. “You thought of a step-by-step plan on how to get her to move in with you.”
All Shige does is nod, and it gives Ryo every reason to tease him for it, but he doesn’t. “Guess that means I’ll have to find a job real soon, huh?”
The room turns noticeably quiet. Shige doesn’t turn at all, just keeps his eyes glued to the television screen but nothing is processing into his head. Ryo blurts out the answer to the next trivia first. “If she’s moving in, naturally I’ll have to move out pretty soon-”
“You don’t have to hurry, Ryo,” Shige tells him. “You don’t have to leave so soon. You can stay.”
Ryo turns the TV off. He grabs the remote and flicks it at the screen, and the living room is especially dark. Shige doesn’t quite catch on quickly with all that’s happening at the moment, so when he hears Ryo bend forward, and his hand shifts in the dark, Shige has not the slightest clue of what Ryo is thinking of-or in fact, doing.
“Ryo. What are you doing.” It only occurs to him when he feels a hand curl under the small of his back, warm breath on his cheek and he can tell their faces are this close.
“Ryo.”
Ryo is careful, he’s so careful when he presses himself on Shige, when he lets their lips touch momentarily and then he waits. When Shige doesn’t flinch, he knows he should run a thumb over his jaw line, nip on his bottom lip-and Shige will make a quiet sound in his throat, almost like a low hum. Ryo will only want to push himself further, shoulders touching and when he does, push himself, Shige doesn’t pull back.
He breathes his name, Shige, and pulls him back for another wet kiss. Ryo tilts his head, fits their mouths neatly in place and slips a hand over his collarbone through the buttons of his shirt, caresses the warm skin right under.
It happens quickly without notice: Shige half-lying, half-sitting on the couch with his shirt riding up to his belly, the buttons on his jeans coming undone and Ryo slides down to meet his face. He noses his cheek, slowly down to his neck and runs his fingers along the Shige’s side and it’s there, the beautiful arch of Shige’s back against his body.
“Shige,” Ryo whispers quietly into his ear and massages his jaw. “Shige.”
“Ryo,” he almost whines. A hand starts palming him through his jeans. “Ryo-”
He cups his face, pushes his tongue between insistent lips. Shige tugs onto Ryo’s shirtfront and he remembers, he remembers-
“Ryo,” he hums.
“Yes?” he caresses the skin on his belly, moves his hand a little down further and Shige gasps with the slightest hint of a moan in his throat.
“We have to. We have to stop,” Shige gasps, and he gasps again when Ryo takes him completely in his hand and squeezes.
“Let me, please,” Ryo presses kisses along the side of his neck, “Give me just one night.”
“No, it won’t be just one night, it’ll never be just one night,” Shige elbows him off and stands up, hand against his mouth and Ryo swears he hears sobbing. Shige doesn’t have the mind to look at him straight in the eye even if Ryo is forcing him to, and he just leaves, runs up to his room and locks himself there while all Ryo can do is sit in the dark and think about the times he’s already messed up in his life.
It’ll never be just one night, he says, it’ll keep happening and Shige knows that as-a-matter-of-factly. Ryo feels that it’ll just be one of those days again, those dark days in waiting and regret and this time he knows it’ll be right there in front of him, and he won’t get what’ll come to him soon.
In the morning, Shige stands at his bedroom door and listens for any subtle movement. When he thinks no one is out or up yet, he quickly runs down to the kitchen for breakfast and leaves for school immediately. Ryo sits quietly in his room, on the old and darned suitcase that’s been resting on the floor with clothes he’s already folded and placed inside over the previous night. He digs his fingernails into his hair and takes a second to rethink his next move and decides that he just shouldn’t.
He leaves the packed suitcase-still filled with all his belongings-behind the door and goes out for a short morning walk.
On days when they’re both at home, the mornings are spent trying to avoid each other, the afternoons awkwardly trying to get along without making much contact and the evenings looking back to each fruitless day and merely stealing glances from the other (because clearly, there isn’t anything else better to do).
If Ryo needs money for grocery shopping (because even if things are shaken up, he still takes care of Shige) he’ll leave him a note on the kitchen counter and Shige will find it lying there in the morning. If Shige is tired from school and already lacks the initiative to eat, Ryo will prepare him something hot, and Shige will wake up to the smell of something delicious and home-made.
And if Ryo thinks Shige needs a new something-just out of the love and care he’s felt for him over years and years now-he’ll opt to do their laundry and hide one of his socks again. Shige will always find it in the bottom drawer of his dresser with something new, be it a new watch, a tie, even the new CD of his favorite artist just because Ryo knows he never has time for leisure.
It all becomes a simple habit. What had been awkward now becomes normal, figurative communication becomes their means of contact and they get used to the silence in the house, almost so that talking to the other becomes quite uncomfortable.
“I’ve invited my girlfriend over for dinner again,” Shige says, dresses in a clean and pressed shirt.
“Are you going to pop the question this time?” Ryo comes over to him and reaches for his collar, fastens last button on properly and then rests his hands on top of Shige’s chest. “Good luck.”
Shige slips his hands away and returns to the mirror. Ryo turns and closes the door behind him, the saddest smile on his face when he takes his jacket and leaves the apartment in mere moments. He tells himself he’ll stay out longer this time.
Shige’s girlfriend comes over his house promptly. She’s dressed perfectly for a simple home-made dinner, pretty black dress, her hair worn long over her shoulders and her eyes glistening when Shige greets her with a peck on the cheek and tucks his arm around her waist.
In a sudden instant, something happens, and then something goes terribly wrong.
Ryo starts to consider dating other people. He sees a pretty young girl at the convenient store where he buys himself a six-pack, and as if it’s totally unexpected, she checks him out. Ryo thinks about it once, and then twice, and finally decides that the feeling isn’t mutual enough. It’s probably desperation, he tells himself, cracks his first can open and takes a long swig out of it. He debates over staying out until three and he simply wins himself over with shameful sympathy.
He’s a jobless man living out of the bowl of another who can’t love him back the way he does and Ryo thinks it’s about time he gives up and moves on. The suitcase is waiting behind the door of his room-or what seems to be his room. No one has to know where he’ll disappear to because no one simply cares. If he leaves now, maybe no one will notice, maybe Shige won’t notice.
Ryo takes in another long drink and holds his head up high and exhales, leans his back against the wall while he waits for a miracle to happen in the next few hours.
At three in the morning, Ryo throws his fourth can and takes his next one, pops it open with a prolonging fsss. Before anything more, a hand snatches the drink out of his. Ryo looks up and tries comprehending as to why a red-faced Shige is standing there in front of him.
“You shouldn’t be drink crap like this at three in the morning, it’s not good.”
“Says who?” Ryo scoffs, eyelids almost heavy.
Shige doesn’t discriminate the question with an answer when he takes a sip out of the can, and then throws it away in the garbage.
“I was waiting for you to come home.”
“So you came out to look for me?” Ryo grins. “You’re so sweet.”
“Ryo,” Shige calls, his voice in a low audible whisper. “I broke up with my girlfriend.”
“…what?” his mind doesn’t grasp the words out fast enough with the alcohol in his head, but Ryo tries to manage a word at a time. “Is that why your face is red? She hit you, didn’t she.”
Shige covers his face with a hand and sighs. “I broke up with her earlier today. I didn’t think our relationship should continue anymore.”
Ryo licks his lip and savors the lasting taste of the alcohol. Shige starts to shift nervously in front of him. “I saw that your packed your things already.”
The half-drunken man regains his consciousness, his eyes growing wide.
“You’re leaving?”
“I didn’t think you wanted me around anymore.”
Shige looks sorry. “I didn’t say that. I didn’t say anything like that,” he says almost defensively, his voice raising. “And if I implied anything, I’m really-”
“Shh, shh, not so loud…! My head is…” Ryo winces his eyes and rests his head back on the wall behind him. Maybe this would be a good chance to hurl everything nasty into his face-figuratively.
“I. I want you back.”
Suddenly the thought of that good chance disappears from Ryo’s head, and he forgets he’s ever even thought about it.
“I want you back,” Shige mutters again and Ryo is picking each and every word up carefully in his ears, and it almost feels like soft and beautiful music. “I want you back.”
There’s a sudden, slow, and warm caress of skin on Shige’s arm. Ryo steps forward and tilts his head a little with a slight smile. “I was really thinking of leaving you, you know.”
“I don’t want you to leave,” his voice is shaking, Shige’s voice is shaking. “Stay with me.”
Ryo chuckles, feels Shige’s hands on his chest when they move a little close, closer, and he recalls this familiar and casual grace, the same one with that awkward boy he had loved from years back.
“I’ll think about it,” he says and then he leans a little forward, curls a finger into the belt loops of Shige’s pants and pulls him even closer.