[FIC] the cultural reconstruction center. pg-13. arashi, sho/jun au. 7711 words.
Title: The Cultural Reconstruction Center
Groups/Pairings: Arashi, Sho/Jun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Know your triggers.
Word Count: 7711 words
Summary: Sho and Jun are from two different worlds, but they keep colliding.
Notes: For the 2013 je-otherworlds exchange. View the original without footnotes here. First of all, thank you to piecesofalice! Your prompt led me to research not only the mods vs rockers era (it didn't work out, but boy was research fun), but also the jazz scene in general and also, more broadly, interwar Japan. I am a huge history nerd and this period is exactly the type that I love, so researching it was delightful and I got ridiculously detailed. Everything is as factually accurate for 1928 Tokyo as I could be using Google and Wiki. I have a few post-script notes with both vocab and links out if anyone finds themselves at all interested in the history of interwar Japan/jazz/life. And last but not least, I must thank my ever-trustworthy beta, phrenk, for making this a better story. ♥
Sho looks down at the piece of paper in his hand, reading over Kaito's handwritten directions for what seems the thousandth time tonight. "Look for the doorway painted in forest green," it reads. "It has an unpolished brass knocker and the words 'Cultural Reconstruction Center, established Taisho 13 [1]' in messy calligraphy down the left side of the wooden door." A boisterous group of young men bustle past Sho and hop gleefully through the entrance, and the faint strains of a free-styling brass section waft into the night air. This is the place, and Sho knows it, but he doesn't know what, exactly, lies beyond the doors.
"Real music, Sakurai-kun," Kaito had said to him. "Moga girls [2] with short hair who work at Ginza drinking Martinis, and men in suits playing the freshest tunes straight off the newest vinyls from America. You'll love it."
"You going to stare at the door all night or go in?" A voice behind Sho says, and a young man saunters past before Sho has a chance to turn. The stranger pauses to hold the door open for Sho, his black overcoat billowing out behind him, and then looks back at him. His features silence Sho even further with their immediate beauty, and he smirks. "Suit yourself," he says, and disappears into the club within.
A breeze rushes down the alley and shakes Sho from his stupor. He shoves Kaito's notepaper into his pocket along with his nerves and throws the door open, stepping over the raised threshold. The door closes behind him with a resounding 'thud'. There's nobody in the small hallway, but the music is louder, and a red velvet curtain hangs at the other end of the hallway. Sho propels himself forward, through the curtain and down the stairs beyond it, his heart thumping harder as the music gets louder, the rabble of voices becomes clear, and the clinking of glasses makes the hubbub glitter in the air.
Sho turns the sharp corner at the bottom of the staircase and, before he's ready, finds himself in the guts of the nightclub. It's midnight out on the streets of Tokyo, quiet save for the occasional rickshaw or yatai stand [3], but down here it's another world. The small space is cramped, filled elbow-to-elbow with young men and women buzzing with energy, thoroughly immersed in the heady atmosphere. It smells like perfume, alcohol, and sweat, but in an alluring way that Sho never expected to find pleasant.
A girl trips around the corner and lands smack into Sho's back. "Watch it!" she says without even looking at him, stumbling in her heels across to the dance floor. Sho knows he needs to move out of the entrance, but he has nowhere to go. There's nowhere to sit and nobody he recognizes, so the only thing he can do is head to the bar. He squeezes his way through the crowd, "excuse me" falling from his mouth every other second, but the words go unheard under the din of live music and exuberant conversation.
Sho orders a Manhattan from the bartender, whose neat tie and waistcoat are offset by the occasional rogue hairs falling from his slicked-back 'do, and leans on the edge of the bar to watch the band. If there was anything more different than what he and Kaito did, it's this. The musicianship he's used to at work is precise, perfect, and written down ahead of time. The sheer skill and talent needed to pull off the music that the quintet at the back of the room is is overwhelming. Sho's happy for the distraction when a stranger reaches over and pays for his drink, handing it to him with a broad grin.
Before Sho can say anything, the newcomer plants a hand on his shoulder and leans into his ear. "Aiba Masaki," he says in a raspy voice that tells Sho how long he's been at the club already. "You're here alone, do you want to come and sit with me and my friends?" The stranger - Aiba - motions to a booth on the edge of the room next to the stage with three other men sitting at the table. One of them is the arresting young man who had held the door for him.
On a night where everything is new and nothing makes sense yet, Sho knows the only way to enjoy himself is by saying "yes" to everything. He nods, and Aiba's face lights up with another grin. "Great!" Aiba takes his wrist, pulling Sho through the crowd as he navigates it without the slightest attempt at excusing himself, letting his free hand worm its way through the mess of people. Sho clamps down on his "excuse me"s and focuses instead on making sure his drink doesn't spill.
They arrive unscathed at the table moments later, and Aiba ushers Sho into the booth first, sitting down beside him, locking him in place. Sho finally takes a sip of his Manhattan as he surveys the table. Aiba leans in and gestures to the corner of the booth, where one young man is sleeping and one seems to have a scowl on his face. "The one sleeping is Ohno Satoshi. He'll wake up around two. Then there is Ninomiya Kazunari, and across from us"- Aiba gestures to the man Sho had seen earlier, who is once again wearing a crooked smile -"is Matsumoto Jun.
"Everyone," Aiba calls to the others, "this is -" He can't finish his sentence, though, and Sho cracks a smile. "Shit! I don't know your name!" Aiba exclaims, voice cracking with his own shock, his eyes widening.
Sho holds out his hand. "Sakurai Sho," he says, loud enough for Aiba to hear but not the others. Aiba shakes his hand enthusiastically. "Nice to meet you, Sakurai Sho-san! Everyone," he tries again, turning to the rest of the table, "this is Sakurai Sho-san! Please welcome him to the Cultural Reconstruction Center!"
Matsumoto nods his head, raising his glass of whisky. "Glad to see you made it through the door."
Sho feels his cheeks heat up and he reaches for a witty comeback, but Ninomiya leans forward onto the table, staring at him with curious - though vaguely threatening - eyes. "So, are you a fan of jazz, then, Sho-kun?"
The liberties Ninomiya takes with his name grates a little, but Sho doesn't say anything. He's been bullied before, and this isn't bullying; this is a test. Luckily, Sho's pretty sure he can pass. "I am," he says. "I'm originally from Kobe, and my father was friends with some Americans stationed there. They gave him a bunch of records they'd brought over as presents. Early rags stuff like Scott Joplin, through Original Dixieland and James P. Johnson. But since we've moved to Tokyo, mostly I've been listening to Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman, as well as some Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five." [4]
Ninomiya's eyes remain on him for a moment, and Sho takes another sip of his Manhattan to keep from squirming under the gaze, but doesn't break eye contact. Once Sho lowers his drink, Ninomiya nods once, decisively, and holds out his hand. "You can call me Nino. Welcome to the Cultural Reconstruction Center, Sho-chan."
Aiba wails about honorifics and politeness, but Sho ignores him and takes Nino's extended hand. "Nice to meet you, Nino."
Nino leans back into the booth and smiles, poking Ohno in the shoulder. "He's hopeless," he calls. "Falls asleep at midnight for a nap and doesn't sleep until morning once he wakes."
"Sounds like my grandfather," Sho replies.
Nino smirks, but it sparkles with far more danger than Matsumoto's. "Well, he is the grandfather of the group."
"And Matsujun is our grandmother," Aiba interjects, loudly enough for Matsumoto to hear, and it earns him a smack on the head.
Sho looks at the man across the booth with a question in his amused smile, and Matsumoto shrugs. "I've tried to tell him that reading isn't just for grandmothers, but he doesn't listen."
"What are you reading at the moment, then, Matsumoto-san?" Sho asks, trying not to smile too widely as though he's talking to the most arrestingly handsome person he's met in a while. Even though it's true.
"I'm going through my old copies of Shinshicho. Akutagawa has been my favorite author since high school, so when he died last year I thought I would revisit his early work." Matsumoto takes another sip of his whisky, the picture of serenity in the middle of a rowdy nightclub.
Sho almost swoons, but Aiba interrupts with a loud declaration of "boring!" and stands on the booth seat, stepping behind Sho to sit beside the sleeping Ohno and speak to Nino. "Well," Sho says, shifting forward, "I didn't think it was boring. You were a well-read teenager. When I was in high school my father was making me read Les Misérables." [5]
"In French?" Matsumoto balks, and Sho laughs at the reaction.
"He tried. I was studying French, but my level was nowhere near what he hoped it was. He finally gave up and bought the translation for me when it came out, but it's not exactly an easy read in any language." In Sho's experience, discussing Victor Hugo kills nearly any conversation, so he switches topics. "Have you studied French?"
Matsumoto shakes his head and finishes off his glass of whisky. "I finished journalism school a couple of years ago. I studied English, but not French. And even in English I couldn't go around reading Kipling or anything."
"Why would you want to?" Sho pulls a face, which earns him an honest laugh. He takes another sip of his drink and motions to Matsumoto's empty glass. "Come on, let me buy you another drink."
***
The sun wakes Jun the next morning, streaming through unfamiliar, tall windows, and he blinks against the ocular onslaught, untangling himself from bed sheets that don't smell like his. Memories of the night before rush to the front of his mind, and he finally manages to pry open his eyes as he sits on the edge of the bed. This isn't his apartment, it's Sakurai's, he realizes as his feet don't touch the ground. There is also a very good reason he's completely naked beneath the sheets, and it's very much related to the ache he feels all over his body, not just the back of his head where his hangover is beginning.
He pushes himself from the bed and looks around for his clothes, which he finds strewn in a careless pile at the foot of the bed, mingling with Sakurai's. He tugs his own threads free, pulling on his trousers before finally looking back at the bed. Sakurai is dead to the world, breathing deeply, and Jun watches his chest rise and fall for a moment before looking around at the room properly. He doesn't remember any of it from the darkness of the night before, and he realizes with a start that this is just the bedroom, and it's already nearly the size of his own little place.
There's a door in the far corner of the room that's ajar, revealing a tiled bathroom beyond it that Jun vaguely remembers. He turns around to find an open doorway facing the bed that leads out to the living room, which is larger than the bedroom, decorated in Western-style furniture. The focus of the room is the brand new His Master's Voice phonograph [6] standing tall beneath another ornate window that faces the couches and low table in the center of the room. There's another door on the opposite side of the room. Jun is pretty sure it leads to a kitchen or laundry room, but he doesn't investigate.
The whole place gives Jun the uneasy feeling that he's stepped into a world where he doesn't belong. He might have met Sakurai in a smoky underground club, but this is the reality that Sakurai lives in every day, and it's adorned with beautiful, expensive things. As proud as Jun is of his darning skills and his attention to personal hygiene, he knows he doesn't fit in here. He couldn't even be part of the furniture.
Jun pulls his shirt on, slinging his tie around his neck and throwing the rest of his layers on haphazardly, finding his shoes and socks at the doorway. There's a tugging at his heartstrings as he leaves the house as quietly as he can, but he doesn't hesitate as he pulls the door closed behind him. He doesn't know where he is, but he knows it's a long way from anything he recognizes, so he catches the first rickshaw he finds and heads to Nino and Aiba's apartment.
He pushes the door open to find Aiba, Nino and Ohno sleeping on two futons in the living room, Aiba having rolled off onto the bare tatami. He dumps his outer layers on the ground by the door and lies down on Aiba's futon, reaching over to tug his friend back onto the lumpy excuse for a mattress. Aiba stirs and rolls over lazily, flinging his arm over Jun's chest and mumbling groggy nonsense. Jun wonders if he should just talk to Aiba's sleeping form, but just as he takes a breath to do so, a small, round hand presses to his shoulder.
"How was your night?" Nino asks, and Jun smiles despite himself.
"It was good," Jun replies, understating the situation completely. Flashes of memories return to him: a starched shirt collar falling open, hot breath warming his neck, fingers dipping under his belt, the indescribable feeling of smooth planes of skin beneath him. He clears his throat and tries to shake off the thoughts. "Then I woke up."
Jun can hear the smirk in Nino's voice as he speaks. "What, lover boy not quite what you remembered in your altered state?"
Jun rolls his eyes and moves to face Nino, though Aiba's arm stays draped over his chest. "No, the opposite. He lives in Kagurazaka, in a house behind a ryotei, all decked out in Western furniture and huge rooms. It's twice the size of this place, and I didn't even see all of it." [7]
"What, he didn't even give you a tour?"
"I left before he woke up."
Nino's eyes widen. "What?" he squeaks incredulously, slapping Jun lazily across the face. Jun makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat and grabs Nino's wrist, his eyes threatening, but Nino doesn't seem to care. "You hooked up with a demonstrably rich, insanely hot guy who willingly spent the night in the Cultural Reconstruction Center - after arriving alone, mind you - and you just left him sleeping? Are you mentally ill?"
The facts laid out in Nino's typical calculating manner definitely makes the decision seem a poor one. "I was uncomfortable." It sounds weak even to his ears, and Jun doesn't bother escaping Nino's withering gaze.
"Could you find his house again?" Nino asks, and Jun can see the cogs in his mind spinning. Nino believes in the trickle-down theory of friend economics, and while Jun's sure that his happiness comes before potential gains, he also knows that Nino would be more than thrilled to have one of his friends find a rich significant other.
Unfortunately, the answer to Nino's question is no. "I don't know Kagurazaka at all, and I don't remember the name of the ryotei. I found a rickshaw quickly, too, so I didn't have time to get my bearings."
Nino sighs. "You're an idiot," he says, tugging his hand out of Jun's grip. "You'd better hope he turns up at the club again. Though why he'd want to after you ran out on him, I don't know." Jun frowns and doesn't say anything, because he knows Nino's right.
A growl emanates from behind Nino and Ohno's head appears, hair sticking up in all directions, eyes barely open. "Fate, Matssun," he says blearily, but with feeling. "The red thread of fate. Believe!"
Nino rolls his eyes and pushes Ohno's head back onto the futon. "Keep your eyes open," Nino says, ignoring Ohno entirely. "Not now, though. Get some sleep. I booked us a gig. Ohkura gets into town today, and he said he'd be our drummer for a show or two while he's here."
Jun wrinkles his nose. Aiba and Nino's Osakan friends aren't terrible, but they're complete scene snobs, without any reason. The whole reason Aiba and Nino moved to Tokyo was the mass nightclub closures, and while Tokyo's jazz scene isn't exactly thriving, at least it hasn't been shut down. Osaka had been forced underground, which is where Tokyo's resides, so as far as Jun can tell, they're on a level playing field now. The unfortunate lack of jazz drummers in Tokyo just makes it difficult for the four of them to make any steady money as a group.
Nino frowns and gently pushes Jun's face away before he can comment. Aiba's arm tightens around his chest and he mumbles, "Sleep," as he curls closer. Jun gives in, relaxing back onto the futon, quieting his thoughts as best he can.
***
It's been a couple of days since Sho woke to an empty bed, and he's no closer to forgetting about it than he was the moment he opened his eyes that morning. At first, he was confused. They'd spent what he'd thought was a very enjoyable evening together, yet Matsumoto had left without so much as a note. Since then, Sho wavered between wondering whether the night was quite as enjoyable as he remembered, and the sinking feeling that maybe Matsumoto didn't have the slightest interest in him. A couple of days later, he still can't forget the night, and he puts Matsumoto's disappearance down to embarrassment, because he just can't imagine there had been anything wrong with the evening. They'd even shared a bath before going to bed.
Sho is at work when he finally decides to see if he can find any information on Matsumoto or his friends. He and Kaito are in the canteen at the recording studio taking their lunch break, and Sho idly picks around his bento, taking tiny bites of everything as he watches Kaito inhale rice. "Say, Kaito," he starts, and his friend barely stops eating to look up at him. "Do you go to that nightclub often?"
Kaito shrugs, chewing most of what's in his mouth before answering. "Sometimes," he says. "Did you enjoy yourself?"
Sho smiles, but he can tell from Kaito's reaction that it's a little too telling, so he reels it in and nods. "It was fun," he says. "I was befriended by some musicians." It had come out, at some point in the evening, that Matsumoto played the double bass, Nino played the trumpet, Aiba was a saxophonist and the sleeping Ohno played the keys. It didn't really surprise Sho; after Nino's third degree, he was sure they were either musicians or incredibly intense fans.
"Did you tell them what you do?" Kaito asks, looking a little concerned.
"No." For the same reasons he'd worked out that they were musicians, Sho knew that he would be judged for being a commercial musician, even if he was a drummer for Nipponophone's new jazz subsidiary. [8]
Kaito looks relieved. "Kids in that club, they're great, but very insular," he says, confirming Sho's theory. "And if they knew who your dad was, well. Clearly they didn't find out, because your face is still arranged like it was last week."
Sho frowns. "What's my dad got to do with it?"
"They just won't see you as one of them," Kaito says matter-of-factly. "You might be able to get away with being a session drummer for Nipponophone because you're at least a musician, but most of them aren't in the scene for the money. They're either still at university studying to be something else, or they already work two jobs to prove to their parents they can live in New Tokyo. They won't appreciate you swanning in with all your money and power, playing tourist in their club. I don't even like you sometimes, Sakurai-kun, and you're my best friend."
It's a theme that plagues most of Sho's relationships, the fact that his father is a wealthy and successful politician. Sho's father was appointed to the Tokyo Reconstruction Board [9] because of his reputation in Kobe, and the name Sakurai Shun is not an unfamiliar one to anyone who can read a newspaper. Sho knows he's led a lucky life, but he tries not to let it cloud anyone's judgement of him - including his own. Still, he fears he finally has a reason for Matsumoto's disappearance.
"Cheer up," Kaito says. "It's not like they can smell it on you. Unless you're wearing that aftershave your dad's boss gave you."
Sho pulls a face and returns to picking at his lunch, deciding not to bother questioning Kaito further on Matsumoto and his friends. Sure, he'd never said anything about his father, money or job, but Sho's not completely unaware of how his house looks to others. It's not ostentatious by the standards of others of a similar station, but Sho knows it's obvious to anyone that he has money, just from the size and location of his house, let alone the way it's arranged and decorated. He and his father had been at dinner with Frank Lloyd Wright one night and asked for suggestions. In this context, the memory makes him cringe, and he's convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the reason Matsumoto left without saying anything.
Sho pushes away his lunch, feeling slightly ill. Even if he had thought there was a chance of finding Matsumoto again, he sees no point now. If Matsumoto had left because of Sho's obvious wealth and status, there's little Sho can say in his defence.
***
For a while, Jun does keep his eyes open. He's on the edge of his seat every time they visit the club, expecting every person that stumbles down the stairs to be Sakurai, and it ruins at least two weekends with nervous butterflies in the pit of his stomach, even though he tries his hardest to drown them. He even keeps his eyes open at work, as though Sakurai would have had any way to figure out that he worked in the mail room at the Yomiuri Shimbun, but of course, nothing comes of it.
Nearly a month after the first time he met Sakurai, Jun is sent on a work errand in Asakusa, and he finds himself marvelling at the reconstruction. He tries not to think about the earthquake except in abstracts, but the changes that have happened in just four years, and those that are still happening, make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He's all for modernization, and loves music, fashion, philosophy and art from the West, but sometimes he considers that not all changes work out. If the last few years have taught him anything, it's that nobody knows what's coming next. He just hopes it's good.
Lost in his thoughts, looking at a construction site that dwarfs a neighborhood temple next to it, Jun almost doesn't see the rickshaw that passes in front of him. His mind takes a moment to connect the dots, but he recognizes the person in the rickshaw, and he bolts after it. It hasn't gotten very far, and Jun catches up, running beside it as he looks to confirm his suspicions. Indeed, sitting there in the back is Sakurai, whose eyes widen as he notices Jun running. He calls for the rickshaw to stop, and so does Jun, leaning on the edge of the carriage, panting slightly.
"Matsumoto-san," Sakurai says, and there's no mistaking the smile on the edge of his lips, because it reaches all the way to his eyes. Jun's heart soars, but he still has to catch his breath, so all he does is return the smile. "It's been a while. I thought I'd never see you again."
"I thought so, too," Jun says as his breathing returns to normal. "I felt a little out of place, that day. I hope you'll forgive me."
The look on Sakurai's face is a mixture of relief and happiness, and Jun doesn't need to hear anything more from him to know he's forgiven. Sakurai nods, though, and then motions to the rickshaw. "Would you like to join me for lunch? It's my day off."
Every fiber of Jun's being wants to say yes, but the lone, logical part of his brain knows he needs to keep his job more than he needs to accept this invitation. "I'm actually working right now," he confesses, his face reflecting the displeasure he feels saying it. "But come to the club tonight. I'll be there from nine."
Sakurai's smile breaks into a grin and he nods. "Very well. I'll see you there."
Jun returns the smile and runs with the giddy feeling it gives him, reaching to press his hand to Sakurai's arm. "I'm glad I ran into you," he says, meaning every word.
Sakurai puts his hand over Jun's and nods, his thumb curling over to brush the palm of Jun's hand. "Me too," he says, thumb stroking along the line in Jun's palm that runs from the heel to the center. "I'll see you tonight."
Jun pulls his hand away begrudgingly and watches as Sakurai tells the driver to continue, waving as they shove off. Jun stands there for a moment, watching as the rickshaw disappears down the street, cradling the hand that Sakurai had touched. He looks down at the hand and recalls the palmistry Aiba tried to teach him once.
"This one," Aiba had said, tracing the exact same spot, "the center line, it runs from the bottom of your hand straight up. This one is most important, Matsujun. It's the line of fate."
***
Later that evening, Sho is standing in his bedroom, looking at the clothes strewn on his bed. He doesn't usually mind dressing himself, but tonight it seems to matter more than usual. He still has hours before he has to leave, but his nerves haven't settled since his meeting with Matsumoto, and he has to get rid of them somehow. There's a knock on the door, tearing him away from a decision between waistcoats, and Kaito is standing in his doorway, looking pressed and neat and ready for -
"Oh shit," Sho curses.
"That's a nice way to greet your best friend," Kaito says, moving past Sho's immobilized body and wandering over to the HMV, pulling the needle onto whatever record was in there. The sounds of King & Carter fill the room as Sho closes the door, finally, and he turns just as Kaito takes a seat on the couch. "You're not exactly dressed for this dinner, Sakurai-kun."
The dinner that Sho had forgotten about was unmissable. The head of Nipponophone [10] had returned from a stay in the United States that had apparently firmed his resolve to promote their new jazz arm despite what had happened in Osaka, and had invited all the department heads of the jazz subsidiary to dinner. And, because of his father, Sho had also been invited. Sho had only agreed on the condition that Kaito would also attend - mostly for moral support, but Kaito also recognized the opportunity to gain more recognition amongst the higher-ups, even if it meant getting his best suit fixed up for the occasion.
"I forgot," Sho says, distraught. "What's the time? I haven't even bathed today, shit shit shit."
Kaito smirked. "You'd better get a move on, we should leave in about half an hour."
Sho barely has time to think about what he's going to wear (all he knew was he had vetoed the jazz director's suggestion of his formal kimono), let alone how he's going to let Matsumoto know he would be late. He rushes out of the apartment with Kaito in tow, tying his shoelaces and bow tie in the rickshaw, vowing to leave the dinner as soon as politeness allows him.
***
"When did you say you'd meet him?" Ohno mumbles. His speech isn't slurred, but it's getting there. They're staring down midnight and Jun doesn't want to carry Ohno home, so he's drinking both drinks in front of them to delay Ohno's nap time.
Jun scowls and unceremoniously dumps the rest of Ohno's whisky into his glass. "There was no time," he says, swallowing a healthy mouthful of alcohol. "I said I'd be here from nine."
Ohno makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and picks up his empty glass. "That was a long time ago," he says, tipping the glass back and waiting for a drop to hit his outstretched tongue. "Are you going to wait any longer?"
Part of Jun wants to stay. The look on Sakurai's face when Jun had stopped his rickshaw had been nothing but encouraging, and there's no reason Jun can fathom for him to not turn up. Of course, another part of him feels like this is just cosmic retribution for leaving Sakurai alone on their first encounter, but he's trying not to focus on that. The mystery has worn off, though, and all Jun is left with is frustration. He's been waiting for three hours, and there's no tune the band could play, no words Ohno could give him that would change the sinking feeling in his stomach.
Eventually, Jun shakes his head. "Come on, grandpa," he says, knocking back the rest of the whisky. "Let's go get something to eat and go home."
Ohno perks up at the mention of food. "Yatai ramen?"
Jun smiles and grabs his overcoat. "Sure."
There's a ramen stand at the entrance to the alley the club is on, and it stays open long into the night for just such patrons as Jun and Ohno. They know the owner well, and Ohno rather indelicately regales him with Jun's story, which gets him not just a sympathetic frown, but a complimentary bottle of hot sake. By the end of their noodles, Jun is feeling a much better about the situation, though far less steady on his feet.
Ohno holds up surprisingly well with a decent feed, and they hold hands as Ohno leads Jun out towards the main road without too much swerving, though he occasionally forgets to tell him about post boxes and electricity poles. There's a missing brick in the sidewalk at one point, and Jun trips, only to be caught by someone who is definitely not Ohno.
Jun gets to his feet, apologizing already, but when he looks up he immediately stops babbling. The person whose arms he fell into belong to Sakurai, who grins down at him, amused. For a moment, Jun is stunned into not saying anything, but then he remembers he's meant to be angry at Sakurai. He pulls himself upright and untangles his hand from Ohno's, straightening his shirt and jacket and attempts shooting daggers at Sakurai with his eyes.
"Jun-chan, is this -"
"Yes!" Jun cuts off Ohno. "Sakurai." He knows he sounds melodramatic, but he doesn't care. "Where were you? It's…" he pulls out his pocket watch and blinks at the blurry numbers on the face, "I can't read what time it is because I'm extremely drunk, but it's very late!"
The smile on Sakurai's face fades, and for some reason he bids someone goodbye (Ohno, Jun realizes later) before apologizing. "I'm sorry, Matsumoto-san," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I forgot that I had a dinner with the head of our company. If they had been any other plans, I would have canceled them."
Jun has a hard time focusing on Sakurai's words, but mostly because he doesn't really care what the excuse is. Being angry is too difficult when all he wants is to be out of the street and somewhere they can take off all their clothes. Jun huffs, and hopes it sounds like anger. "I suppose I can forgive you."
Sakurai smiles, stepping forward and taking Jun's elbow. "Let's go," he says, steering Jun towards the main street.
"I'm not going back to your place!" Jun blurts, and Sakurai looks a little wounded. Jun shakes his head and presses a finger to Sakurai’s chest. "No, I mean. Come to my place."
***
After eating and drinking with his superiors for nearly four hours, Sho is quite drunk, but not nearly as drunk as Matsumoto. Sho spends most of the rickshaw ride over in silence, only half-listening to Matsumoto ramble about his every thought process through the night, paying more attention to the city as it passes them by. The streets get narrower and bumpier, and eventually Matsumoto asks the driver to stop.
"We're not far now," Matsumoto says as Sho joins him after paying. He seems a little less pickled after all the cool night air in his face, though still happily drunk as Sho takes his arm.
Sho looks around as they make their way down the narrow street. The street lights are few and far between, but he can see that most of the buildings are low-ceilinged, ramshackle shops that are boarded up for the night. "What's this neighborhood like during the day?"
Matsumoto sighs wistfully and looks around. "Bustling. Vibrant. It's mostly old people who have lived here for eons. Most of the shops sell artisan goods, and there's an old man and his son who run a coppersmith at the other end. They all live in their shops. My place is down a tenement alley; it used to belong to an older couple, too. They didn't make it through the earthquake, and their son didn't want the reminder. I was in the son's journalism class before and… well, my parents didn't make it, and neither did our house, so I bought this place from him with some of the money they left me."
Sho's heart aches in the way it does every time he hears a story of the earthquake - an uneasy mix of detachment, having lived so far away at the time, and sadness for the whole city and its inhabitants. He never knows what to say, wanting to empathize but being totally unequipped to do so, his own emotions wrapped up in his father's role in the restoration.
"It's nice," Matsumoto says a moment later, and Sho immediately feels guilty for not considering what might have been going on in the other man's head. "It might not be very modern, but it's home for me now. When they rebuilt some of the damage around here, I got a new toilet and a gas stove. I still have to go to the bathhouse, but it's just down the road and pretty cheap." [11]
Sho has made the mistake before of trying too hard to connect with people over the earthquake, and he feels lucky he didn't open his mouth to say anything this time. While Sho's sure there's more to Matsumoto's story, he's not really telling a story about the earthquake. He's just answering Sho's question. "I can see how my house would have made you feel out of place."
Matsumoto grins over at him as they turn down an alley. "Now it's your turn," he says, leading Sho down and around the alley until he stops in front of a sliding door with a wooden block at eye level with 'Matsumoto' carved into it. There's a simple lock on the door, but Matsumoto doesn't produce any keys, just opens it with a flick of his wrist. He pauses, turning back at Sho with a slightly apprehensive look on his face. "It's very basic."
Sho smiles encouragingly. "It's your home, so it's fine," he says, stepping in a little closer, his smile breaking into a grin as he notices the hitch in Matsumoto's breath.
"Fine," Matsumoto says on an exhale. "But I warned you." He turns, then, and slides the door open, stepping into the tiny, one-person genkan. Sho peers in as Matsumoto removes his shoes and it is, indeed, basic.
The main room is maybe six tatami, a tiny little space with walls covered with posters, photographs, postcards and letters. Matsumoto steps through to let Sho in, revealing more of the room. The back wall has a bookshelf that reaches all the way to the ceiling, stacked with books and magazines, the lowest shelf piled with vinyls and old newspapers. Beside the bookshelf is a large double bass in its case, and in the other corner, a Victor V phonograph. The floor is still covered with a futon and blankets, and a low table with today's Yomiuri Shimbun and a notepad with handwritten scribbles all over it blocks the closed door to the toilet.
"It's not much," Matsumoto says, reaching to close the door behind Sho. "But it's home, for what it's worth."
Sho removes his shoes and steps over the threshold of the genkan, which reveals the open kitchen area to his right. On the left are cupboards for clothes and futons and a hat rack, where Matsumoto is hanging his overcoat. Sho divests himself of his own coat and hangs it as well, reaching to take Matsumoto's hand and pull him close. "It's just like you," he says, sliding one hand beneath Matsumoto's jacket, resting firmly in the small of his back. "Filled with interesting things I want to know all about."
A pink flush touches Matsumoto's cheeks, and Sho leans in quickly, catching his lips in a firm kiss. Matsumoto makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat, but relaxes under Sho's touch a moment later, fingers reaching to tug at the knot of Sho's bow tie. It unravels easily, and Matsumoto reaches for the buttons of Sho's waistcoat, but Sho pulls back from the kiss, hands resting on Matsumoto's waist.
"I'm glad you found me again, Matsumoto-san," he says, because he needs to say it now, before the alcohol leaves their systems and the sun rises on another day. This might not be their first encounter, but it's far more real.
"I should have never left you in the first place," Matsumoto says with a smile, grabbing the V of Sho's waistcoat and pulling him close again. "Call me Jun, though."
Sho returns the smile and reaches up, sliding his hand along the nape of Jun’s neck, enjoying the way the locks of soft hair feel between his fingers. "It's nice to meet you, Jun-kun. I'm Sho."
***
Jun wakes to an empty futon the next morning, and a rush of panic propels him from groggy half-sleep to awake and upright in a second. He finds Sho sitting in his trousers at the low table in the corner of the room, reading yesterday's newspaper, a plate full of bright red strawberries in the middle of the table. His heart slows to normal, though it skips a beat as Sho looks up and smiles at him.
"Strawberry?" Sho asks, proffering one.
Jun gathers some sheets and moves to sit beside Sho, biting the offered strawberry. He pulls the stem free and smiles as he chews. "Please don't tell me you went out there shirtless."
Sho laughs and closes the newspaper. "As tempting as it was to shock your neighbors further, I didn't. But when I got back I felt incredibly overdressed." He leans in and steals a kiss. "What are you doing today? Do you have work?"
Jun shakes his head and swallows the strawberry. "No work, but after lunch I'd planned to jam with the guys for a bit. Would you want to come along?" It sounds silly in his head - why would someone want to watch four guys jam for an afternoon? - but he lets the invitation stand.
"Sure," Sho agrees with a shrug. "Do you have a drum kit?"
The question comes a little out of left field, so Jun answers it without thinking. "Well, yeah, we just use the Reconstruction while they're setting up for the night, and they have one there. But nobody plays the drums."
Sho grins. "I do."
Jun's eyes widen involuntarily. "What?" His heart beats a little faster and his mind races. The four of them have been looking for a drummer ever since they met, and good jazz drummers are hard to come by. Jun isn't entirely sure his ears are working. "You're a drummer? Well - but - I mean, for starters, where do you keep your kit? Don't tell me there was another wing to your house behind that door in the living room?"
Sho laughs a little and shakes his head, though his expression changes the next moment to something unreadable. "No, that's just the kitchen and washroom," he says, and takes a breath, hesitating before he continues. "I, um. I don't keep a drum kit in my house. I'm actually a session drummer for Nipponophone's jazz department, so I don't really need one at home. My own drum kit is in my old room at my parent's house, though, if I really wanted to use it."
The information comes at Jun with such speed that he barely processes how nervous Sho sounds. It all makes sense, of course. The house comes from money, and the money comes from parents and an enviable job, and suddenly Sho's world makes a lot more sense. Jun's mind settles, and he finally notices that Sho seems embarrassed, and a little sick. "You look like you're going to throw up," he says flatly.
"No, I'm just… I just don't want you to think…" Sho struggles to find the words - or maybe he knows them and just doesn't want to say them - so Jun endeavors to help.
"What I think," Jun says, "is that we've got different stories, that's all.” It doesn’t quite seem enough. He thinks about his friends, and the way they came together; there’s no rhyme or reason to their friendship, but it’s always felt right. “This generation, we don't make sense, and we don't know where we're going next. All we've got is where we've come from and where we want to go, and I think you and I are headed in the same direction. That's all I'm asking for right now."
Sho’s face clears instantly, and he smiles. "I think you might be right."
***
Later that day, Sho follows Jun to the club, where the others are already messing around on their various instruments. He can't deny his nerves; Jun might have been fine with his reveals earlier in the day, but Ninomiya's jazz knowledge test rings in his ears as they cross the room to the stage. Aiba and Ohno seem unfazed at Sho's presence, but he catches Ninomiya eyeing him as he clears the spit valve on his trumpet.
"Brought your boyfriend, then, Jun-chan?" Ninomiya inquires, though he's looking at Sho as he speaks.
"Who I brought," Jun replies as he unpacks his double bass, "is a professional jazz drummer."
"Wait, what?" Ninomiya does a double take, looking first at Jun and then back at Sho. His flustered expression breaks the cover he'd built for himself, and Sho can't help but smile.
"I work at Nipponophone," Sho says, stepping onto the stage, sliding past Ninomiya to get to the drum kit.
Ninomiya doesn't say anything, but Aiba is enthusiastic. "You're going to play with us, Sakurai-kun?"
Sho shrugs as he adjusts the seat. "I heard you were looking for a drummer."
"I hope you can keep up with us," Ninomiya finds his wit again, but it doesn't really cut.
"I do believe you're the ones who have to keep up with me," he replies, taking a seat and removing the spare drumsticks from the top of the bass drum. To put a point on it, he goes right into his favorite embellishment on an inverted line as a challenge. Ninomiya watches him carefully, and the first to take the bait is Ohno, fingers tickling the piano keys to match Sho's syncopated rhythm. Jun is next, walking out a bass line to match perfectly, which finally draws Aiba's saxophone into the mix.
Ninomiya still looks unconvinced, but Sho knows the rest of it sounds good, so he takes the line and switches it smoothly, and the others follow. It's not showing off, it's working together, which is all jazz has ever been about for Sho. He smiles and simplifies his line back to the hi-hats, beckoning the reticent trumpeter with his free hand. "Come on, Ninomiya," he calls as Ohno bursts into a rolling melody, "I won't judge you."
The cracks in Ninomiya's resolve finally widen to break it apart, and Sho knows he's won when Ninomiya's shoulders fall. "Fine," he calls back. "But I thought I told you to call me Nino. Read the mood, will you?"
Before Sho can say anything, Nino bursts into a powerful tune, riffing off of Ohno's, and the five of them finally get into full swing. Sho brings the bass and snares back into the mix, feeling a little light-headed from the ease with which they've fallen into this jam. He hasn't improvised in years, but even though he's never heard these four play before, he's slipped right into their sound. Sometimes it just works, and Sho suddenly feels at home behind this unfamiliar, well-loved drum kit. [12]
Sho looks over at Jun after a while and catches his eye. The last two days have been a blur - and it's only been two days - but this feels nothing but right to Sho, and he hopes he's not the only one who feels that way. Jun grins, and the expression mirrors the feeling soaring in Sho's chest, bolstering it to fly higher. Sho knows he’s been lucky with lots of things in his life, but this is the luckiest he’s felt in a while. Though they’d both made missteps, fate brought him back to Jun. Right now, with the beat of a promising new quintet flowing through him, Sho knows they’ll walk whatever path lies ahead together.
***
FOOTNOTES (click number to return to story)
1. The Taisho period began in July 1912; Taisho 13 refers to 1924, the year after the 1923 Kanto Earthquake (hence the name of the club).
2. This is a little redundant, but "moga" is short for "modern girl" (モダンガール, modan gaaru), which came about in the 1920s to describe Westernized young women. Think working-class flappers.
3. Rickshaws were fairly popular until the 1930s, and Yatai are mobile food stands, which are still alive and well today.
4. Here's the Wiki article on Jazz, and the one on Japanese Jazz. I mostly used references from here, and about.com. I used American release dates because I figured, like, Sho has connections or something?
5. You have no idea how long I spent looking this shit up. Here's all you ever need to know about Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. And yes, I did spend time looking up the earliest Japanese translations of Victor Hugo and Rudyard Kipling, which you can do at the National Diet Library OPAC.
6. I'm thinking of something like this. Imagine that, brand spanking new. And here's all you ever wanted to know about the history of phonographs/gramophones.
7. I don't remember how I came across it, but Kagurazaka even today is a center of traditional culture, and in the early 1900s was home to geisha houses and ryōtei, which are exclusive restaurants. Pretty sure it's always been a snazzy place to live.
8. This one caused me a lot of headache, but in the end I'm pretty sure that Nipponophone is what I'm looking for. Today, it's called Nippon Columbia, but in 1928 it would have been Nipponophone. I remember reading somewhere that JVC/Victor had a jazz arm early on, so I'm sort of transposing that information, though I have no links for that one.
9. I swear this was a real thing but I couldn't find the links back. Read more about the 1923 Kanto Earthquake aftermath and reconstruction here and here.
10. At the time, the president of Nipponophone was not a Japanese dude, it was Fredrick W. Horn, hilariously enough. I chose to ignore this.
11. If you're ever in Tokyo, check out the Shitamachi Museum near Ueno Park. I imagine Jun's street as just like this area - an old section of the city that somehow survived the earthquake.
12. And here's all you ever needed to know about jazz drumming and jazz bass lines.
OTHER LINKS
"100 Views of New Tokyo" 1928-1932. Some great prints of art deco-style art from this period.
Re-Imagining the Taishu and Tokyo in 1920s Japan. Abstracts for presentations about interwar Tokyo and the middle classes.
Modern Japanese Literature. Wiki page about modern literature, where I got the name Ryūnosuke Akutagawa from, as well as learning about other movements of the era.
The Age of the Middle Class. A super interesting read about the rise of the middle class in interwar Japan.
The Art of the Japanese Cocktail. This is really a book review, but it's a book I wanna read! The history of cocktail making in Japan.
Portable Music Players from the 1920s/30s, and the Original Cameraphone. Just like it says, and amazingly freaking cool. Thought about giving Sho one of the alarm clocks, but it was an unnecessary detail.
Jo Conversions. Ever needed to convert into tatami mats? Now you can.
Toilet Guru: Japan. This was a phenomenal discovery.
Japanese Newspapers. Just where I sourced the name of the newspaper that Jun works for. The Yomiuri Shimbun was one of the first newspapers for the common man, and is still running today.
Groups/Pairings: Arashi, Sho/Jun
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Mentions of the 1923 Kanto Earthquake. Know your triggers.
Word Count: 7711 words
Summary: Sho and Jun are from two different worlds, but they keep colliding.
Notes: For the 2013 je-otherworlds exchange. View the original without footnotes here. First of all, thank you to piecesofalice! Your prompt led me to research not only the mods vs rockers era (it didn't work out, but boy was research fun), but also the jazz scene in general and also, more broadly, interwar Japan. I am a huge history nerd and this period is exactly the type that I love, so researching it was delightful and I got ridiculously detailed. Everything is as factually accurate for 1928 Tokyo as I could be using Google and Wiki. I have a few post-script notes with both vocab and links out if anyone finds themselves at all interested in the history of interwar Japan/jazz/life. And last but not least, I must thank my ever-trustworthy beta, phrenk, for making this a better story. ♥
Sho looks down at the piece of paper in his hand, reading over Kaito's handwritten directions for what seems the thousandth time tonight. "Look for the doorway painted in forest green," it reads. "It has an unpolished brass knocker and the words 'Cultural Reconstruction Center, established Taisho 13 [1]' in messy calligraphy down the left side of the wooden door." A boisterous group of young men bustle past Sho and hop gleefully through the entrance, and the faint strains of a free-styling brass section waft into the night air. This is the place, and Sho knows it, but he doesn't know what, exactly, lies beyond the doors.
"Real music, Sakurai-kun," Kaito had said to him. "Moga girls [2] with short hair who work at Ginza drinking Martinis, and men in suits playing the freshest tunes straight off the newest vinyls from America. You'll love it."
"You going to stare at the door all night or go in?" A voice behind Sho says, and a young man saunters past before Sho has a chance to turn. The stranger pauses to hold the door open for Sho, his black overcoat billowing out behind him, and then looks back at him. His features silence Sho even further with their immediate beauty, and he smirks. "Suit yourself," he says, and disappears into the club within.
A breeze rushes down the alley and shakes Sho from his stupor. He shoves Kaito's notepaper into his pocket along with his nerves and throws the door open, stepping over the raised threshold. The door closes behind him with a resounding 'thud'. There's nobody in the small hallway, but the music is louder, and a red velvet curtain hangs at the other end of the hallway. Sho propels himself forward, through the curtain and down the stairs beyond it, his heart thumping harder as the music gets louder, the rabble of voices becomes clear, and the clinking of glasses makes the hubbub glitter in the air.
Sho turns the sharp corner at the bottom of the staircase and, before he's ready, finds himself in the guts of the nightclub. It's midnight out on the streets of Tokyo, quiet save for the occasional rickshaw or yatai stand [3], but down here it's another world. The small space is cramped, filled elbow-to-elbow with young men and women buzzing with energy, thoroughly immersed in the heady atmosphere. It smells like perfume, alcohol, and sweat, but in an alluring way that Sho never expected to find pleasant.
A girl trips around the corner and lands smack into Sho's back. "Watch it!" she says without even looking at him, stumbling in her heels across to the dance floor. Sho knows he needs to move out of the entrance, but he has nowhere to go. There's nowhere to sit and nobody he recognizes, so the only thing he can do is head to the bar. He squeezes his way through the crowd, "excuse me" falling from his mouth every other second, but the words go unheard under the din of live music and exuberant conversation.
Sho orders a Manhattan from the bartender, whose neat tie and waistcoat are offset by the occasional rogue hairs falling from his slicked-back 'do, and leans on the edge of the bar to watch the band. If there was anything more different than what he and Kaito did, it's this. The musicianship he's used to at work is precise, perfect, and written down ahead of time. The sheer skill and talent needed to pull off the music that the quintet at the back of the room is is overwhelming. Sho's happy for the distraction when a stranger reaches over and pays for his drink, handing it to him with a broad grin.
Before Sho can say anything, the newcomer plants a hand on his shoulder and leans into his ear. "Aiba Masaki," he says in a raspy voice that tells Sho how long he's been at the club already. "You're here alone, do you want to come and sit with me and my friends?" The stranger - Aiba - motions to a booth on the edge of the room next to the stage with three other men sitting at the table. One of them is the arresting young man who had held the door for him.
On a night where everything is new and nothing makes sense yet, Sho knows the only way to enjoy himself is by saying "yes" to everything. He nods, and Aiba's face lights up with another grin. "Great!" Aiba takes his wrist, pulling Sho through the crowd as he navigates it without the slightest attempt at excusing himself, letting his free hand worm its way through the mess of people. Sho clamps down on his "excuse me"s and focuses instead on making sure his drink doesn't spill.
They arrive unscathed at the table moments later, and Aiba ushers Sho into the booth first, sitting down beside him, locking him in place. Sho finally takes a sip of his Manhattan as he surveys the table. Aiba leans in and gestures to the corner of the booth, where one young man is sleeping and one seems to have a scowl on his face. "The one sleeping is Ohno Satoshi. He'll wake up around two. Then there is Ninomiya Kazunari, and across from us"- Aiba gestures to the man Sho had seen earlier, who is once again wearing a crooked smile -"is Matsumoto Jun.
"Everyone," Aiba calls to the others, "this is -" He can't finish his sentence, though, and Sho cracks a smile. "Shit! I don't know your name!" Aiba exclaims, voice cracking with his own shock, his eyes widening.
Sho holds out his hand. "Sakurai Sho," he says, loud enough for Aiba to hear but not the others. Aiba shakes his hand enthusiastically. "Nice to meet you, Sakurai Sho-san! Everyone," he tries again, turning to the rest of the table, "this is Sakurai Sho-san! Please welcome him to the Cultural Reconstruction Center!"
Matsumoto nods his head, raising his glass of whisky. "Glad to see you made it through the door."
Sho feels his cheeks heat up and he reaches for a witty comeback, but Ninomiya leans forward onto the table, staring at him with curious - though vaguely threatening - eyes. "So, are you a fan of jazz, then, Sho-kun?"
The liberties Ninomiya takes with his name grates a little, but Sho doesn't say anything. He's been bullied before, and this isn't bullying; this is a test. Luckily, Sho's pretty sure he can pass. "I am," he says. "I'm originally from Kobe, and my father was friends with some Americans stationed there. They gave him a bunch of records they'd brought over as presents. Early rags stuff like Scott Joplin, through Original Dixieland and James P. Johnson. But since we've moved to Tokyo, mostly I've been listening to Jean Goldkette and Paul Whiteman, as well as some Louis Armstrong and his Hot Five." [4]
Ninomiya's eyes remain on him for a moment, and Sho takes another sip of his Manhattan to keep from squirming under the gaze, but doesn't break eye contact. Once Sho lowers his drink, Ninomiya nods once, decisively, and holds out his hand. "You can call me Nino. Welcome to the Cultural Reconstruction Center, Sho-chan."
Aiba wails about honorifics and politeness, but Sho ignores him and takes Nino's extended hand. "Nice to meet you, Nino."
Nino leans back into the booth and smiles, poking Ohno in the shoulder. "He's hopeless," he calls. "Falls asleep at midnight for a nap and doesn't sleep until morning once he wakes."
"Sounds like my grandfather," Sho replies.
Nino smirks, but it sparkles with far more danger than Matsumoto's. "Well, he is the grandfather of the group."
"And Matsujun is our grandmother," Aiba interjects, loudly enough for Matsumoto to hear, and it earns him a smack on the head.
Sho looks at the man across the booth with a question in his amused smile, and Matsumoto shrugs. "I've tried to tell him that reading isn't just for grandmothers, but he doesn't listen."
"What are you reading at the moment, then, Matsumoto-san?" Sho asks, trying not to smile too widely as though he's talking to the most arrestingly handsome person he's met in a while. Even though it's true.
"I'm going through my old copies of Shinshicho. Akutagawa has been my favorite author since high school, so when he died last year I thought I would revisit his early work." Matsumoto takes another sip of his whisky, the picture of serenity in the middle of a rowdy nightclub.
Sho almost swoons, but Aiba interrupts with a loud declaration of "boring!" and stands on the booth seat, stepping behind Sho to sit beside the sleeping Ohno and speak to Nino. "Well," Sho says, shifting forward, "I didn't think it was boring. You were a well-read teenager. When I was in high school my father was making me read Les Misérables." [5]
"In French?" Matsumoto balks, and Sho laughs at the reaction.
"He tried. I was studying French, but my level was nowhere near what he hoped it was. He finally gave up and bought the translation for me when it came out, but it's not exactly an easy read in any language." In Sho's experience, discussing Victor Hugo kills nearly any conversation, so he switches topics. "Have you studied French?"
Matsumoto shakes his head and finishes off his glass of whisky. "I finished journalism school a couple of years ago. I studied English, but not French. And even in English I couldn't go around reading Kipling or anything."
"Why would you want to?" Sho pulls a face, which earns him an honest laugh. He takes another sip of his drink and motions to Matsumoto's empty glass. "Come on, let me buy you another drink."
***
The sun wakes Jun the next morning, streaming through unfamiliar, tall windows, and he blinks against the ocular onslaught, untangling himself from bed sheets that don't smell like his. Memories of the night before rush to the front of his mind, and he finally manages to pry open his eyes as he sits on the edge of the bed. This isn't his apartment, it's Sakurai's, he realizes as his feet don't touch the ground. There is also a very good reason he's completely naked beneath the sheets, and it's very much related to the ache he feels all over his body, not just the back of his head where his hangover is beginning.
He pushes himself from the bed and looks around for his clothes, which he finds strewn in a careless pile at the foot of the bed, mingling with Sakurai's. He tugs his own threads free, pulling on his trousers before finally looking back at the bed. Sakurai is dead to the world, breathing deeply, and Jun watches his chest rise and fall for a moment before looking around at the room properly. He doesn't remember any of it from the darkness of the night before, and he realizes with a start that this is just the bedroom, and it's already nearly the size of his own little place.
There's a door in the far corner of the room that's ajar, revealing a tiled bathroom beyond it that Jun vaguely remembers. He turns around to find an open doorway facing the bed that leads out to the living room, which is larger than the bedroom, decorated in Western-style furniture. The focus of the room is the brand new His Master's Voice phonograph [6] standing tall beneath another ornate window that faces the couches and low table in the center of the room. There's another door on the opposite side of the room. Jun is pretty sure it leads to a kitchen or laundry room, but he doesn't investigate.
The whole place gives Jun the uneasy feeling that he's stepped into a world where he doesn't belong. He might have met Sakurai in a smoky underground club, but this is the reality that Sakurai lives in every day, and it's adorned with beautiful, expensive things. As proud as Jun is of his darning skills and his attention to personal hygiene, he knows he doesn't fit in here. He couldn't even be part of the furniture.
Jun pulls his shirt on, slinging his tie around his neck and throwing the rest of his layers on haphazardly, finding his shoes and socks at the doorway. There's a tugging at his heartstrings as he leaves the house as quietly as he can, but he doesn't hesitate as he pulls the door closed behind him. He doesn't know where he is, but he knows it's a long way from anything he recognizes, so he catches the first rickshaw he finds and heads to Nino and Aiba's apartment.
He pushes the door open to find Aiba, Nino and Ohno sleeping on two futons in the living room, Aiba having rolled off onto the bare tatami. He dumps his outer layers on the ground by the door and lies down on Aiba's futon, reaching over to tug his friend back onto the lumpy excuse for a mattress. Aiba stirs and rolls over lazily, flinging his arm over Jun's chest and mumbling groggy nonsense. Jun wonders if he should just talk to Aiba's sleeping form, but just as he takes a breath to do so, a small, round hand presses to his shoulder.
"How was your night?" Nino asks, and Jun smiles despite himself.
"It was good," Jun replies, understating the situation completely. Flashes of memories return to him: a starched shirt collar falling open, hot breath warming his neck, fingers dipping under his belt, the indescribable feeling of smooth planes of skin beneath him. He clears his throat and tries to shake off the thoughts. "Then I woke up."
Jun can hear the smirk in Nino's voice as he speaks. "What, lover boy not quite what you remembered in your altered state?"
Jun rolls his eyes and moves to face Nino, though Aiba's arm stays draped over his chest. "No, the opposite. He lives in Kagurazaka, in a house behind a ryotei, all decked out in Western furniture and huge rooms. It's twice the size of this place, and I didn't even see all of it." [7]
"What, he didn't even give you a tour?"
"I left before he woke up."
Nino's eyes widen. "What?" he squeaks incredulously, slapping Jun lazily across the face. Jun makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat and grabs Nino's wrist, his eyes threatening, but Nino doesn't seem to care. "You hooked up with a demonstrably rich, insanely hot guy who willingly spent the night in the Cultural Reconstruction Center - after arriving alone, mind you - and you just left him sleeping? Are you mentally ill?"
The facts laid out in Nino's typical calculating manner definitely makes the decision seem a poor one. "I was uncomfortable." It sounds weak even to his ears, and Jun doesn't bother escaping Nino's withering gaze.
"Could you find his house again?" Nino asks, and Jun can see the cogs in his mind spinning. Nino believes in the trickle-down theory of friend economics, and while Jun's sure that his happiness comes before potential gains, he also knows that Nino would be more than thrilled to have one of his friends find a rich significant other.
Unfortunately, the answer to Nino's question is no. "I don't know Kagurazaka at all, and I don't remember the name of the ryotei. I found a rickshaw quickly, too, so I didn't have time to get my bearings."
Nino sighs. "You're an idiot," he says, tugging his hand out of Jun's grip. "You'd better hope he turns up at the club again. Though why he'd want to after you ran out on him, I don't know." Jun frowns and doesn't say anything, because he knows Nino's right.
A growl emanates from behind Nino and Ohno's head appears, hair sticking up in all directions, eyes barely open. "Fate, Matssun," he says blearily, but with feeling. "The red thread of fate. Believe!"
Nino rolls his eyes and pushes Ohno's head back onto the futon. "Keep your eyes open," Nino says, ignoring Ohno entirely. "Not now, though. Get some sleep. I booked us a gig. Ohkura gets into town today, and he said he'd be our drummer for a show or two while he's here."
Jun wrinkles his nose. Aiba and Nino's Osakan friends aren't terrible, but they're complete scene snobs, without any reason. The whole reason Aiba and Nino moved to Tokyo was the mass nightclub closures, and while Tokyo's jazz scene isn't exactly thriving, at least it hasn't been shut down. Osaka had been forced underground, which is where Tokyo's resides, so as far as Jun can tell, they're on a level playing field now. The unfortunate lack of jazz drummers in Tokyo just makes it difficult for the four of them to make any steady money as a group.
Nino frowns and gently pushes Jun's face away before he can comment. Aiba's arm tightens around his chest and he mumbles, "Sleep," as he curls closer. Jun gives in, relaxing back onto the futon, quieting his thoughts as best he can.
***
It's been a couple of days since Sho woke to an empty bed, and he's no closer to forgetting about it than he was the moment he opened his eyes that morning. At first, he was confused. They'd spent what he'd thought was a very enjoyable evening together, yet Matsumoto had left without so much as a note. Since then, Sho wavered between wondering whether the night was quite as enjoyable as he remembered, and the sinking feeling that maybe Matsumoto didn't have the slightest interest in him. A couple of days later, he still can't forget the night, and he puts Matsumoto's disappearance down to embarrassment, because he just can't imagine there had been anything wrong with the evening. They'd even shared a bath before going to bed.
Sho is at work when he finally decides to see if he can find any information on Matsumoto or his friends. He and Kaito are in the canteen at the recording studio taking their lunch break, and Sho idly picks around his bento, taking tiny bites of everything as he watches Kaito inhale rice. "Say, Kaito," he starts, and his friend barely stops eating to look up at him. "Do you go to that nightclub often?"
Kaito shrugs, chewing most of what's in his mouth before answering. "Sometimes," he says. "Did you enjoy yourself?"
Sho smiles, but he can tell from Kaito's reaction that it's a little too telling, so he reels it in and nods. "It was fun," he says. "I was befriended by some musicians." It had come out, at some point in the evening, that Matsumoto played the double bass, Nino played the trumpet, Aiba was a saxophonist and the sleeping Ohno played the keys. It didn't really surprise Sho; after Nino's third degree, he was sure they were either musicians or incredibly intense fans.
"Did you tell them what you do?" Kaito asks, looking a little concerned.
"No." For the same reasons he'd worked out that they were musicians, Sho knew that he would be judged for being a commercial musician, even if he was a drummer for Nipponophone's new jazz subsidiary. [8]
Kaito looks relieved. "Kids in that club, they're great, but very insular," he says, confirming Sho's theory. "And if they knew who your dad was, well. Clearly they didn't find out, because your face is still arranged like it was last week."
Sho frowns. "What's my dad got to do with it?"
"They just won't see you as one of them," Kaito says matter-of-factly. "You might be able to get away with being a session drummer for Nipponophone because you're at least a musician, but most of them aren't in the scene for the money. They're either still at university studying to be something else, or they already work two jobs to prove to their parents they can live in New Tokyo. They won't appreciate you swanning in with all your money and power, playing tourist in their club. I don't even like you sometimes, Sakurai-kun, and you're my best friend."
It's a theme that plagues most of Sho's relationships, the fact that his father is a wealthy and successful politician. Sho's father was appointed to the Tokyo Reconstruction Board [9] because of his reputation in Kobe, and the name Sakurai Shun is not an unfamiliar one to anyone who can read a newspaper. Sho knows he's led a lucky life, but he tries not to let it cloud anyone's judgement of him - including his own. Still, he fears he finally has a reason for Matsumoto's disappearance.
"Cheer up," Kaito says. "It's not like they can smell it on you. Unless you're wearing that aftershave your dad's boss gave you."
Sho pulls a face and returns to picking at his lunch, deciding not to bother questioning Kaito further on Matsumoto and his friends. Sure, he'd never said anything about his father, money or job, but Sho's not completely unaware of how his house looks to others. It's not ostentatious by the standards of others of a similar station, but Sho knows it's obvious to anyone that he has money, just from the size and location of his house, let alone the way it's arranged and decorated. He and his father had been at dinner with Frank Lloyd Wright one night and asked for suggestions. In this context, the memory makes him cringe, and he's convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the reason Matsumoto left without saying anything.
Sho pushes away his lunch, feeling slightly ill. Even if he had thought there was a chance of finding Matsumoto again, he sees no point now. If Matsumoto had left because of Sho's obvious wealth and status, there's little Sho can say in his defence.
***
For a while, Jun does keep his eyes open. He's on the edge of his seat every time they visit the club, expecting every person that stumbles down the stairs to be Sakurai, and it ruins at least two weekends with nervous butterflies in the pit of his stomach, even though he tries his hardest to drown them. He even keeps his eyes open at work, as though Sakurai would have had any way to figure out that he worked in the mail room at the Yomiuri Shimbun, but of course, nothing comes of it.
Nearly a month after the first time he met Sakurai, Jun is sent on a work errand in Asakusa, and he finds himself marvelling at the reconstruction. He tries not to think about the earthquake except in abstracts, but the changes that have happened in just four years, and those that are still happening, make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He's all for modernization, and loves music, fashion, philosophy and art from the West, but sometimes he considers that not all changes work out. If the last few years have taught him anything, it's that nobody knows what's coming next. He just hopes it's good.
Lost in his thoughts, looking at a construction site that dwarfs a neighborhood temple next to it, Jun almost doesn't see the rickshaw that passes in front of him. His mind takes a moment to connect the dots, but he recognizes the person in the rickshaw, and he bolts after it. It hasn't gotten very far, and Jun catches up, running beside it as he looks to confirm his suspicions. Indeed, sitting there in the back is Sakurai, whose eyes widen as he notices Jun running. He calls for the rickshaw to stop, and so does Jun, leaning on the edge of the carriage, panting slightly.
"Matsumoto-san," Sakurai says, and there's no mistaking the smile on the edge of his lips, because it reaches all the way to his eyes. Jun's heart soars, but he still has to catch his breath, so all he does is return the smile. "It's been a while. I thought I'd never see you again."
"I thought so, too," Jun says as his breathing returns to normal. "I felt a little out of place, that day. I hope you'll forgive me."
The look on Sakurai's face is a mixture of relief and happiness, and Jun doesn't need to hear anything more from him to know he's forgiven. Sakurai nods, though, and then motions to the rickshaw. "Would you like to join me for lunch? It's my day off."
Every fiber of Jun's being wants to say yes, but the lone, logical part of his brain knows he needs to keep his job more than he needs to accept this invitation. "I'm actually working right now," he confesses, his face reflecting the displeasure he feels saying it. "But come to the club tonight. I'll be there from nine."
Sakurai's smile breaks into a grin and he nods. "Very well. I'll see you there."
Jun returns the smile and runs with the giddy feeling it gives him, reaching to press his hand to Sakurai's arm. "I'm glad I ran into you," he says, meaning every word.
Sakurai puts his hand over Jun's and nods, his thumb curling over to brush the palm of Jun's hand. "Me too," he says, thumb stroking along the line in Jun's palm that runs from the heel to the center. "I'll see you tonight."
Jun pulls his hand away begrudgingly and watches as Sakurai tells the driver to continue, waving as they shove off. Jun stands there for a moment, watching as the rickshaw disappears down the street, cradling the hand that Sakurai had touched. He looks down at the hand and recalls the palmistry Aiba tried to teach him once.
"This one," Aiba had said, tracing the exact same spot, "the center line, it runs from the bottom of your hand straight up. This one is most important, Matsujun. It's the line of fate."
***
Later that evening, Sho is standing in his bedroom, looking at the clothes strewn on his bed. He doesn't usually mind dressing himself, but tonight it seems to matter more than usual. He still has hours before he has to leave, but his nerves haven't settled since his meeting with Matsumoto, and he has to get rid of them somehow. There's a knock on the door, tearing him away from a decision between waistcoats, and Kaito is standing in his doorway, looking pressed and neat and ready for -
"Oh shit," Sho curses.
"That's a nice way to greet your best friend," Kaito says, moving past Sho's immobilized body and wandering over to the HMV, pulling the needle onto whatever record was in there. The sounds of King & Carter fill the room as Sho closes the door, finally, and he turns just as Kaito takes a seat on the couch. "You're not exactly dressed for this dinner, Sakurai-kun."
The dinner that Sho had forgotten about was unmissable. The head of Nipponophone [10] had returned from a stay in the United States that had apparently firmed his resolve to promote their new jazz arm despite what had happened in Osaka, and had invited all the department heads of the jazz subsidiary to dinner. And, because of his father, Sho had also been invited. Sho had only agreed on the condition that Kaito would also attend - mostly for moral support, but Kaito also recognized the opportunity to gain more recognition amongst the higher-ups, even if it meant getting his best suit fixed up for the occasion.
"I forgot," Sho says, distraught. "What's the time? I haven't even bathed today, shit shit shit."
Kaito smirked. "You'd better get a move on, we should leave in about half an hour."
Sho barely has time to think about what he's going to wear (all he knew was he had vetoed the jazz director's suggestion of his formal kimono), let alone how he's going to let Matsumoto know he would be late. He rushes out of the apartment with Kaito in tow, tying his shoelaces and bow tie in the rickshaw, vowing to leave the dinner as soon as politeness allows him.
***
"When did you say you'd meet him?" Ohno mumbles. His speech isn't slurred, but it's getting there. They're staring down midnight and Jun doesn't want to carry Ohno home, so he's drinking both drinks in front of them to delay Ohno's nap time.
Jun scowls and unceremoniously dumps the rest of Ohno's whisky into his glass. "There was no time," he says, swallowing a healthy mouthful of alcohol. "I said I'd be here from nine."
Ohno makes a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat and picks up his empty glass. "That was a long time ago," he says, tipping the glass back and waiting for a drop to hit his outstretched tongue. "Are you going to wait any longer?"
Part of Jun wants to stay. The look on Sakurai's face when Jun had stopped his rickshaw had been nothing but encouraging, and there's no reason Jun can fathom for him to not turn up. Of course, another part of him feels like this is just cosmic retribution for leaving Sakurai alone on their first encounter, but he's trying not to focus on that. The mystery has worn off, though, and all Jun is left with is frustration. He's been waiting for three hours, and there's no tune the band could play, no words Ohno could give him that would change the sinking feeling in his stomach.
Eventually, Jun shakes his head. "Come on, grandpa," he says, knocking back the rest of the whisky. "Let's go get something to eat and go home."
Ohno perks up at the mention of food. "Yatai ramen?"
Jun smiles and grabs his overcoat. "Sure."
There's a ramen stand at the entrance to the alley the club is on, and it stays open long into the night for just such patrons as Jun and Ohno. They know the owner well, and Ohno rather indelicately regales him with Jun's story, which gets him not just a sympathetic frown, but a complimentary bottle of hot sake. By the end of their noodles, Jun is feeling a much better about the situation, though far less steady on his feet.
Ohno holds up surprisingly well with a decent feed, and they hold hands as Ohno leads Jun out towards the main road without too much swerving, though he occasionally forgets to tell him about post boxes and electricity poles. There's a missing brick in the sidewalk at one point, and Jun trips, only to be caught by someone who is definitely not Ohno.
Jun gets to his feet, apologizing already, but when he looks up he immediately stops babbling. The person whose arms he fell into belong to Sakurai, who grins down at him, amused. For a moment, Jun is stunned into not saying anything, but then he remembers he's meant to be angry at Sakurai. He pulls himself upright and untangles his hand from Ohno's, straightening his shirt and jacket and attempts shooting daggers at Sakurai with his eyes.
"Jun-chan, is this -"
"Yes!" Jun cuts off Ohno. "Sakurai." He knows he sounds melodramatic, but he doesn't care. "Where were you? It's…" he pulls out his pocket watch and blinks at the blurry numbers on the face, "I can't read what time it is because I'm extremely drunk, but it's very late!"
The smile on Sakurai's face fades, and for some reason he bids someone goodbye (Ohno, Jun realizes later) before apologizing. "I'm sorry, Matsumoto-san," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "I forgot that I had a dinner with the head of our company. If they had been any other plans, I would have canceled them."
Jun has a hard time focusing on Sakurai's words, but mostly because he doesn't really care what the excuse is. Being angry is too difficult when all he wants is to be out of the street and somewhere they can take off all their clothes. Jun huffs, and hopes it sounds like anger. "I suppose I can forgive you."
Sakurai smiles, stepping forward and taking Jun's elbow. "Let's go," he says, steering Jun towards the main street.
"I'm not going back to your place!" Jun blurts, and Sakurai looks a little wounded. Jun shakes his head and presses a finger to Sakurai’s chest. "No, I mean. Come to my place."
***
After eating and drinking with his superiors for nearly four hours, Sho is quite drunk, but not nearly as drunk as Matsumoto. Sho spends most of the rickshaw ride over in silence, only half-listening to Matsumoto ramble about his every thought process through the night, paying more attention to the city as it passes them by. The streets get narrower and bumpier, and eventually Matsumoto asks the driver to stop.
"We're not far now," Matsumoto says as Sho joins him after paying. He seems a little less pickled after all the cool night air in his face, though still happily drunk as Sho takes his arm.
Sho looks around as they make their way down the narrow street. The street lights are few and far between, but he can see that most of the buildings are low-ceilinged, ramshackle shops that are boarded up for the night. "What's this neighborhood like during the day?"
Matsumoto sighs wistfully and looks around. "Bustling. Vibrant. It's mostly old people who have lived here for eons. Most of the shops sell artisan goods, and there's an old man and his son who run a coppersmith at the other end. They all live in their shops. My place is down a tenement alley; it used to belong to an older couple, too. They didn't make it through the earthquake, and their son didn't want the reminder. I was in the son's journalism class before and… well, my parents didn't make it, and neither did our house, so I bought this place from him with some of the money they left me."
Sho's heart aches in the way it does every time he hears a story of the earthquake - an uneasy mix of detachment, having lived so far away at the time, and sadness for the whole city and its inhabitants. He never knows what to say, wanting to empathize but being totally unequipped to do so, his own emotions wrapped up in his father's role in the restoration.
"It's nice," Matsumoto says a moment later, and Sho immediately feels guilty for not considering what might have been going on in the other man's head. "It might not be very modern, but it's home for me now. When they rebuilt some of the damage around here, I got a new toilet and a gas stove. I still have to go to the bathhouse, but it's just down the road and pretty cheap." [11]
Sho has made the mistake before of trying too hard to connect with people over the earthquake, and he feels lucky he didn't open his mouth to say anything this time. While Sho's sure there's more to Matsumoto's story, he's not really telling a story about the earthquake. He's just answering Sho's question. "I can see how my house would have made you feel out of place."
Matsumoto grins over at him as they turn down an alley. "Now it's your turn," he says, leading Sho down and around the alley until he stops in front of a sliding door with a wooden block at eye level with 'Matsumoto' carved into it. There's a simple lock on the door, but Matsumoto doesn't produce any keys, just opens it with a flick of his wrist. He pauses, turning back at Sho with a slightly apprehensive look on his face. "It's very basic."
Sho smiles encouragingly. "It's your home, so it's fine," he says, stepping in a little closer, his smile breaking into a grin as he notices the hitch in Matsumoto's breath.
"Fine," Matsumoto says on an exhale. "But I warned you." He turns, then, and slides the door open, stepping into the tiny, one-person genkan. Sho peers in as Matsumoto removes his shoes and it is, indeed, basic.
The main room is maybe six tatami, a tiny little space with walls covered with posters, photographs, postcards and letters. Matsumoto steps through to let Sho in, revealing more of the room. The back wall has a bookshelf that reaches all the way to the ceiling, stacked with books and magazines, the lowest shelf piled with vinyls and old newspapers. Beside the bookshelf is a large double bass in its case, and in the other corner, a Victor V phonograph. The floor is still covered with a futon and blankets, and a low table with today's Yomiuri Shimbun and a notepad with handwritten scribbles all over it blocks the closed door to the toilet.
"It's not much," Matsumoto says, reaching to close the door behind Sho. "But it's home, for what it's worth."
Sho removes his shoes and steps over the threshold of the genkan, which reveals the open kitchen area to his right. On the left are cupboards for clothes and futons and a hat rack, where Matsumoto is hanging his overcoat. Sho divests himself of his own coat and hangs it as well, reaching to take Matsumoto's hand and pull him close. "It's just like you," he says, sliding one hand beneath Matsumoto's jacket, resting firmly in the small of his back. "Filled with interesting things I want to know all about."
A pink flush touches Matsumoto's cheeks, and Sho leans in quickly, catching his lips in a firm kiss. Matsumoto makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat, but relaxes under Sho's touch a moment later, fingers reaching to tug at the knot of Sho's bow tie. It unravels easily, and Matsumoto reaches for the buttons of Sho's waistcoat, but Sho pulls back from the kiss, hands resting on Matsumoto's waist.
"I'm glad you found me again, Matsumoto-san," he says, because he needs to say it now, before the alcohol leaves their systems and the sun rises on another day. This might not be their first encounter, but it's far more real.
"I should have never left you in the first place," Matsumoto says with a smile, grabbing the V of Sho's waistcoat and pulling him close again. "Call me Jun, though."
Sho returns the smile and reaches up, sliding his hand along the nape of Jun’s neck, enjoying the way the locks of soft hair feel between his fingers. "It's nice to meet you, Jun-kun. I'm Sho."
***
Jun wakes to an empty futon the next morning, and a rush of panic propels him from groggy half-sleep to awake and upright in a second. He finds Sho sitting in his trousers at the low table in the corner of the room, reading yesterday's newspaper, a plate full of bright red strawberries in the middle of the table. His heart slows to normal, though it skips a beat as Sho looks up and smiles at him.
"Strawberry?" Sho asks, proffering one.
Jun gathers some sheets and moves to sit beside Sho, biting the offered strawberry. He pulls the stem free and smiles as he chews. "Please don't tell me you went out there shirtless."
Sho laughs and closes the newspaper. "As tempting as it was to shock your neighbors further, I didn't. But when I got back I felt incredibly overdressed." He leans in and steals a kiss. "What are you doing today? Do you have work?"
Jun shakes his head and swallows the strawberry. "No work, but after lunch I'd planned to jam with the guys for a bit. Would you want to come along?" It sounds silly in his head - why would someone want to watch four guys jam for an afternoon? - but he lets the invitation stand.
"Sure," Sho agrees with a shrug. "Do you have a drum kit?"
The question comes a little out of left field, so Jun answers it without thinking. "Well, yeah, we just use the Reconstruction while they're setting up for the night, and they have one there. But nobody plays the drums."
Sho grins. "I do."
Jun's eyes widen involuntarily. "What?" His heart beats a little faster and his mind races. The four of them have been looking for a drummer ever since they met, and good jazz drummers are hard to come by. Jun isn't entirely sure his ears are working. "You're a drummer? Well - but - I mean, for starters, where do you keep your kit? Don't tell me there was another wing to your house behind that door in the living room?"
Sho laughs a little and shakes his head, though his expression changes the next moment to something unreadable. "No, that's just the kitchen and washroom," he says, and takes a breath, hesitating before he continues. "I, um. I don't keep a drum kit in my house. I'm actually a session drummer for Nipponophone's jazz department, so I don't really need one at home. My own drum kit is in my old room at my parent's house, though, if I really wanted to use it."
The information comes at Jun with such speed that he barely processes how nervous Sho sounds. It all makes sense, of course. The house comes from money, and the money comes from parents and an enviable job, and suddenly Sho's world makes a lot more sense. Jun's mind settles, and he finally notices that Sho seems embarrassed, and a little sick. "You look like you're going to throw up," he says flatly.
"No, I'm just… I just don't want you to think…" Sho struggles to find the words - or maybe he knows them and just doesn't want to say them - so Jun endeavors to help.
"What I think," Jun says, "is that we've got different stories, that's all.” It doesn’t quite seem enough. He thinks about his friends, and the way they came together; there’s no rhyme or reason to their friendship, but it’s always felt right. “This generation, we don't make sense, and we don't know where we're going next. All we've got is where we've come from and where we want to go, and I think you and I are headed in the same direction. That's all I'm asking for right now."
Sho’s face clears instantly, and he smiles. "I think you might be right."
***
Later that day, Sho follows Jun to the club, where the others are already messing around on their various instruments. He can't deny his nerves; Jun might have been fine with his reveals earlier in the day, but Ninomiya's jazz knowledge test rings in his ears as they cross the room to the stage. Aiba and Ohno seem unfazed at Sho's presence, but he catches Ninomiya eyeing him as he clears the spit valve on his trumpet.
"Brought your boyfriend, then, Jun-chan?" Ninomiya inquires, though he's looking at Sho as he speaks.
"Who I brought," Jun replies as he unpacks his double bass, "is a professional jazz drummer."
"Wait, what?" Ninomiya does a double take, looking first at Jun and then back at Sho. His flustered expression breaks the cover he'd built for himself, and Sho can't help but smile.
"I work at Nipponophone," Sho says, stepping onto the stage, sliding past Ninomiya to get to the drum kit.
Ninomiya doesn't say anything, but Aiba is enthusiastic. "You're going to play with us, Sakurai-kun?"
Sho shrugs as he adjusts the seat. "I heard you were looking for a drummer."
"I hope you can keep up with us," Ninomiya finds his wit again, but it doesn't really cut.
"I do believe you're the ones who have to keep up with me," he replies, taking a seat and removing the spare drumsticks from the top of the bass drum. To put a point on it, he goes right into his favorite embellishment on an inverted line as a challenge. Ninomiya watches him carefully, and the first to take the bait is Ohno, fingers tickling the piano keys to match Sho's syncopated rhythm. Jun is next, walking out a bass line to match perfectly, which finally draws Aiba's saxophone into the mix.
Ninomiya still looks unconvinced, but Sho knows the rest of it sounds good, so he takes the line and switches it smoothly, and the others follow. It's not showing off, it's working together, which is all jazz has ever been about for Sho. He smiles and simplifies his line back to the hi-hats, beckoning the reticent trumpeter with his free hand. "Come on, Ninomiya," he calls as Ohno bursts into a rolling melody, "I won't judge you."
The cracks in Ninomiya's resolve finally widen to break it apart, and Sho knows he's won when Ninomiya's shoulders fall. "Fine," he calls back. "But I thought I told you to call me Nino. Read the mood, will you?"
Before Sho can say anything, Nino bursts into a powerful tune, riffing off of Ohno's, and the five of them finally get into full swing. Sho brings the bass and snares back into the mix, feeling a little light-headed from the ease with which they've fallen into this jam. He hasn't improvised in years, but even though he's never heard these four play before, he's slipped right into their sound. Sometimes it just works, and Sho suddenly feels at home behind this unfamiliar, well-loved drum kit. [12]
Sho looks over at Jun after a while and catches his eye. The last two days have been a blur - and it's only been two days - but this feels nothing but right to Sho, and he hopes he's not the only one who feels that way. Jun grins, and the expression mirrors the feeling soaring in Sho's chest, bolstering it to fly higher. Sho knows he’s been lucky with lots of things in his life, but this is the luckiest he’s felt in a while. Though they’d both made missteps, fate brought him back to Jun. Right now, with the beat of a promising new quintet flowing through him, Sho knows they’ll walk whatever path lies ahead together.
***
FOOTNOTES (click number to return to story)
1. The Taisho period began in July 1912; Taisho 13 refers to 1924, the year after the 1923 Kanto Earthquake (hence the name of the club).
2. This is a little redundant, but "moga" is short for "modern girl" (モダンガール, modan gaaru), which came about in the 1920s to describe Westernized young women. Think working-class flappers.
3. Rickshaws were fairly popular until the 1930s, and Yatai are mobile food stands, which are still alive and well today.
4. Here's the Wiki article on Jazz, and the one on Japanese Jazz. I mostly used references from here, and about.com. I used American release dates because I figured, like, Sho has connections or something?
5. You have no idea how long I spent looking this shit up. Here's all you ever need to know about Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. And yes, I did spend time looking up the earliest Japanese translations of Victor Hugo and Rudyard Kipling, which you can do at the National Diet Library OPAC.
6. I'm thinking of something like this. Imagine that, brand spanking new. And here's all you ever wanted to know about the history of phonographs/gramophones.
7. I don't remember how I came across it, but Kagurazaka even today is a center of traditional culture, and in the early 1900s was home to geisha houses and ryōtei, which are exclusive restaurants. Pretty sure it's always been a snazzy place to live.
8. This one caused me a lot of headache, but in the end I'm pretty sure that Nipponophone is what I'm looking for. Today, it's called Nippon Columbia, but in 1928 it would have been Nipponophone. I remember reading somewhere that JVC/Victor had a jazz arm early on, so I'm sort of transposing that information, though I have no links for that one.
9. I swear this was a real thing but I couldn't find the links back. Read more about the 1923 Kanto Earthquake aftermath and reconstruction here and here.
10. At the time, the president of Nipponophone was not a Japanese dude, it was Fredrick W. Horn, hilariously enough. I chose to ignore this.
11. If you're ever in Tokyo, check out the Shitamachi Museum near Ueno Park. I imagine Jun's street as just like this area - an old section of the city that somehow survived the earthquake.
12. And here's all you ever needed to know about jazz drumming and jazz bass lines.
OTHER LINKS
"100 Views of New Tokyo" 1928-1932. Some great prints of art deco-style art from this period.
Re-Imagining the Taishu and Tokyo in 1920s Japan. Abstracts for presentations about interwar Tokyo and the middle classes.
Modern Japanese Literature. Wiki page about modern literature, where I got the name Ryūnosuke Akutagawa from, as well as learning about other movements of the era.
The Age of the Middle Class. A super interesting read about the rise of the middle class in interwar Japan.
The Art of the Japanese Cocktail. This is really a book review, but it's a book I wanna read! The history of cocktail making in Japan.
Portable Music Players from the 1920s/30s, and the Original Cameraphone. Just like it says, and amazingly freaking cool. Thought about giving Sho one of the alarm clocks, but it was an unnecessary detail.
Jo Conversions. Ever needed to convert into tatami mats? Now you can.
Toilet Guru: Japan. This was a phenomenal discovery.
Japanese Newspapers. Just where I sourced the name of the newspaper that Jun works for. The Yomiuri Shimbun was one of the first newspapers for the common man, and is still running today.