(no subject)
title: the story goes
author: chartre
rating: pg-13
pairing: nishikato
summary: ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
notes: fictional. my first ever remix, of lightstylings' at sixteen; 1001 concisities. i'm afraid it's boring and lacks a rock n' roll ending, but i just hope i didn't kill anything in the process. D:
The Story Goes
nishikato
He is so young. Sixteen, and he thinks he could feel pity for him, but sixteen doesn't seem so long ago, and he sees himself doing better back in the day.
Ryo watches him move into the house, but just from the sidelines because it's not like he's the one who took him in. He doesn’t think he needs to be involved.
He watches him stand so awkwardly in the corner of the room like he doesn't know what to do next. The boy's aunt-his wife-doesn't pay much attention to him, doesn't pay any attention at all.
He watches him stumble around the place a lot in most of the silence because he never really talks, never really asks for anything at all. Ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
One day he overhears from his wife: the nephew's name is Kato Shigeaki, the poor boy from neighborhoods across with no family left (the wife says).
"His father's a criminal, his mother's lying in the hospital," she says and then curls an arm around his. Ryo kisses her and she giggles. He knows Kato Shigeaki is watching, he can see from the opening of the bedroom door, but Ryo digresses.
On days when the house is empty (when his loud wife isn’t home because she’s all that ever makes the house lived-in), Ryo sits on one side of the couch with a remote control in one hand, skimming through boring TV channels in the afternoon. The boy finally walks out from the confinement in his room and sits on the other side of the couch, watches whatever Ryo’s watching. His knees are up to his chin, arms tight around his legs.
“Shige,” Ryo says, “can I call you that?” the shorter the better, he thinks.
The boy turns to his side cautiously. He’s ever so still, Ryo notices, but he eventually nods slowly. “Okay,” he says in a soft voice, and Ryo thinks that this could probably be the first time he’s heard him say anything out loud, if not something barely audible.
Ryo tries to smile but he smirks instead, turns back to the TV and goes through the channels another time. “You can call me Ryo.”
It’s mostly because they’re family. It’s safe to call him by his first name, and being called uncle is just strange. Too much family is strange.
“Nishikido-kun,” Shige calls him one morning while they’re in the kitchen.
“Ryo,” he corrects him. “It’s Ryo.”
“Ryo,” Shige repeats. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d love some, Shige.”
They try to get by on their first year of living in one house. His wife is rarely home, mostly at work, and she comes home into his arms and towards bed. He knows Shige is watching if not listening to their love-making late in the nights, but he doesn’t think about it. Ryo just notices darker circles under his eyes every morning.
The sex starts to come to its end soon. Her health starts failing her, his wife, and Ryo feels as if he’s better off. He starts counting the days. It’s warmer this season, better sunlight and clear blue skies, the weather says. Shige gets a job somewhere, he hears from him during supper.
“Where do you work now?” Ryo tries to start a simple conversation at the table. Shige eats quietly to himself, stares at his food for most of the entire time. “It’s a small café. Near the church.”
Ryo nods and makes a thoughtful sound. His wife hollers for Shige from the next room, and she doesn’t stop her screaming for awhile.
Shige puts his bowl down on the table and pushes his chair back. “Excuse me.” Ryo watches him shuffle out into the next room. She scolds him for something Ryo can’t comprehend from the distance. Shige seems to take long, so Ryo decides to finish up and do the dishes instead. Shige comes back minutes later and Ryo doesn’t notice, not until he hears a chair drag from behind him.
“I cleared your bowl for you, I hope you don’t mind.”
Shige nods his head once and helps him dry the dishes. Words are scarce in between, so Ryo tries to make an effort. “So what did your aunt tell you?”
“I shouldn’t drag my feet around the house,” he says. “She told me to go get her medication, and then she told me to tell you to go get her when you’re done with dinner.”
“Oh,” Ryo sighs and looks up. They listen to the clatter of plates and bowls for the rest of the evening while they work.
At night, Ryo chances upon an opportunity when he sees Shige sitting on his bed next to the opened window, eyes closed. His knees are up to his chin again, arms around his legs like he’s possessive of them. Ryo opens his bedroom door completely and knocks. “May I come in?”
Shige is alarmed. He puts his feet down from the bed and sits on the edge of it. Ryo sits down beside him.
“It’s late, you’re not asleep?”
Shige shakes his head. “I’ll wake up later in the night, anyway,” he mumbles to himself. Ryo knows why.
“Your aunt isn’t doing any better, do you know that?”
Shige nods.
“Do you like your aunt?” Ryo also sees her preferential attention for the husband.
Shige shrugs, and rubs the back of his neck. “Why do you ask?”
Ryo shrugs too, and then smiles. “You’re a good boy, Shige,” he pats him on the shoulder and leaves his room a full minute later. Shige gets to sleep soundly that night, and Ryo notices it exceptionally the next morning. He smiles at him when they have their coffee, and to his surprise, Shige smiles back. Ryo burns his tongue for a second but tries not to show it.
Ryo feels as though he’s jinxed his wife, because days and weeks into the next season, she’s bedridden. They call the doctor, and he says she mostly needs her sleep. It’s serious, but they probably can save her. Probably, they say. Ryo sighs and sits down to watch more TV. Shige sits on the other side of the couch again, the habit inevitably hard to fall out of. This time, he sits comfortably, his feet on the floor and one arm on the rest. Ryo looks at him from his peripheral vision and pulls on one side of his lips. He feels some peace of mind.
His wife is often asleep, Ryo knows, Shige knows. They also both know Ryo has nothing else better to do now, because he knows he’s in this house mostly because of her. Shige just came into the picture one day. Ryo tries to find something interesting to do at home while Shige is away at work. He fails miserably hours later, and decides to read the newspaper instead, cover to cover. Shige comes home later, and finds Ryo waiting for him in the genkan.
“I didn’t have anything else better to do,” so he waits. Shige looks at him like he’s weird.
“You smell like coffee beans,” Ryo commends. Shige sniffs his cuffs and confirms it. “I’ll take a bath.”
“Have dinner with me first,” and so they do, eat dinner together. Shige’s aunt is suddenly awake, because they both hear her calling again. She screams like she’s frantic, and she doesn’t stop till Shige comes to the room. He excuses himself from the table again and rushes off. Ryo finishes his dinner and clears their bowls again. This time, Shige doesn’t come back. Ryo just knows when he hears the water running in the bathroom while he passes by in the corridor, the smell of coffee beans still lingering.
The next day, Ryo tries to amuse himself with his wife. He sits quietly in the room and watches her in her sleep. She is still, but Ryo is fairly entertained for the first half hour. For the rest of the day, he tries rearranging some furniture (but they all end up where they were in the first place) and surfing through channels on TV again (he thinks he’s gone through them fourteen times in the hour). He doesn’t leave the house just because he waits for Shige, and he’ll never know when he’ll suddenly come home early. Ryo tries to wait patiently, but patience doesn’t seem to work well with a bored Ryo.
Shige comes home later while Ryo’s in the tub. He hears the door and his shuffling and he finally wakes up from his nap. His fingers look like prunes, so he drains the water.
“I’m home,” Shige knocks on the bathroom door. Typical of him to stay quiet anytime, all the time (if not wise of him just so his aunt doesn’t suddenly wake up). Ryo acknowledges him with a grunt and grabs on a towel.
He steps out of the bathroom, steam everywhere and finds Shige walking towards his room.
“Dinner?”
“I already ate, thank you,” he says and walks in, closes the door soundly behind him. Ryo sighs, and drags himself into the kitchen. His wife stirs awake and starts screaming again. She’s probably heard the shuffling, and Ryo just laughs to himself. Shige isn’t shuffling the evening away, but he goes to her and gets a scolding in the bedroom anyway. Ryo finds some dusty old books on the table. He smiles and waits for the door in the other room to click open.
When it does, he sticks his head out of the kitchen doorway, and Shige sees him. Ryo nods, lifts a book in the air where they both can see. Shige smiles brightly and beams a little, walks off to his room again. Ryo sits down for dinner and a book to read. The nights are silent once more, but Ryo thinks to himself he misses a little noise (and a little shuffling, he must admit).
He finishes the first book some days later (and thinks he probably takes so long because of the lacking of things to read around the house) but he gets the satisfaction of the conclusion. He gets to do a little more around, too.
“You finally finished it?” Shige asks one day he sees the book already up on their half-empty bookshelf. Ryo has another book in his hand as he tears away from the page and towards Shige. “Sure did.”
“How was it?”
“Heartbreaking,” Ryo commends, sounds like he’s more of excited than sympathetic for the story, almost as if he sounds merciless. His tone of voice changes as he talks a little more in depth about it, and Shige is quite shocked.
They think and talk about tears and look back to those moments. “It’s pretty sad,” Ryo affirms.
He starts thinking about Shige. He thinks about his job, and then looks at himself. He goes through the newspaper one more time another day and picks the phone up. A few days later he gets a suit, and Shige commends him during breakfast.
“What is this for?”
“I decided to get myself a job.” There is no breadwinner, actually, they may have noticed for a long time now. They hear less from their aunt these days, Ryo tries his best to persuade her into silence, and she listens, just because it’s Ryo.
He leaves the house after Shige does, off to wherever he must be. Traveling salesman thing. He comes home later than Shige does, and now it’s his turn to wait for him to come home. Shige cooks supper for them both, and now they sit down together and talk for the entire time. No more awkward moments, no more bickering wife waking up in the middle of their conversations.
They do the dishes together again, alternating on washing and drying each night. They rest for the entire evening and Ryo thinks it feels nice. Exceptionally nice.
They talk about Ryo this time.
“Sold some things around. Mostly kitchenware, actually.”
“Housewives?”
“Definitely.”
They laugh a little, sit a little closer when they’re on the couch. The TV is off (it has been for weeks, actually) and they’re chatting the night away, jokes and petty stories.
“Do you miss them?” Ryo turns the attention elsewhere.
Shige is taken aback a little. Ryo watches him fidget uneasily before him. He thinks he’s watching too intently like it’s disrespectful, because he sees something in his eyes: something dark, something he doesn’t want to look back to.
“I’m sorry,” Ryo finally says, his voice just above the silence. “I should’ve have mentioned anything.”
Shige doesn’t move, just sits there with his fingers curled into the covers of the couch. “I’m sorry.”
Ryo thinks he’s not used to this. Shige isn’t used to being kept by others, but it’s probably something else now. His wife suddenly hollers, and they know she’s awake. Her voice is softer this time, but still notably loud. Shige doesn’t say anything and leaves the room. He comes back minutes later and tells Ryo she needs him. Ryo watches him go into his room before anything else, and then goes to see his wife. Later, he peeks out the corridor just to check if he’s come out, but it’s something he shouldn’t be expecting, he knows.
He tends to his wife for as long as he can, until they decide to finally bring her away somewhere else. Nurses delicately sit her down on a wheelchair while she talks away with what’s left of her strength. She tells Ryo all these things while she’s holding his hand (how she loves him so, how she hates the noises that Shige leaves in her dreams, and how much she wants to go to Roppongi with just him when she comes back from the hospital) and they all think she could talk her way into her grave.
Ryo looks back and sees Shige standing in the middle of the empty living room, and he thinks he looks so small amongst the space. Ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
Now they’re considerably alone in the house. They’re definitely sure of what will not happen in supposedly quiet evenings, and somehow Ryo feels as if it’ll be regrettable sooner or later. They decide to leave the books aside tonight, and turn the TV on. Ryo turns the volume up, but Shige tells him it’ll wake the neighbors up. Ryo just thinks he’s got way too much moral and respect, that Shige. He turns the volume down a little anyway, just above barely audible for both their hearing preferences.
Shige coughs and actually tries to start something between them. Ryo averts his attention from the TV and to him. He wishes he can turn the volume a little lower discreetly just so he can hear him better.
“I haven’t seen my parents in awhile,” he stutters.
Ryo tries to be gentle with his words, chooses them carefully in his head before blurting them out. “Did you ever want to see them?”
Shige stays quiet, and Ryo can tell he’s thinking.
“I’ll take you to them,” he insists, and suddenly the noise from the TV is blurred out unintentionally. It’s all in his head, he knows how these TV commercials scream words into heads of watchers all around just to get them to buy products. It’s something he’ll never do to customers when he’s at their doors, Ryo tells himself at the same time. It’s just rude.
Ryo takes him to visit his wife on a Sunday. They’re free on Sundays.
Ryo thinks it’ll probably that one time they both can make up, after all the negligence and pointless screaming (and by the looks of it, Ryo is certain it’s her fault, not his. Shige is a good boy, he really is). However, he tries not to hope too much.
Shige goes to see her, but that’s probably it because she’s asleep again. They don’t catch her awake, not for today, and so they go home ahead of schedule. Ryo sees a little depression in his eyes, but his thoughts may be betraying his eyes because he knows, Ryo knows he sees so much comfort and satisfaction in them. Ryo just smiles at the thought of it.
Ryo believes it’s that time of a certain period wherein all the good things fall right into place. He doesn’t know how or why it’s happened, but he gets good news from work and calls Shige and tells him he’s promoted. Shige congratulates him over the phone, and he can tell he’s absolutely thrilled for him. Ryo smiles over his words and feels proud of himself. He comes home and is greeted by Shige in the genkan. He gives him an envelope and congratulates him one more time. Now Ryo can even see his smile, and he feels even better. He steps into his slippers and laughs when he sees the contents of the envelope. He can tell Shige’s totally embarrassed, and he even apologizes for the lack of a promotional-gift. Ryo denies the lacking and commends Shige for the gift and the effort.
“Thank you, Shige,” he says and smiles jovially, no trace of shame or anticipating too much, because there is no such feeling in Ryo right now.
He goes to see him the following morning after calling off work. He gets his free coffee because it’s what’s said in the envelope that Shige has given him the previous night. He looks around his workplace and decides it’s good. No trace of shame or anticipating too much either, because Ryo doesn’t think of that, he thinks of the effort that Shige does, and the hint of color on his cheeks when they meet that morning, just because it’s elsewhere other than home.
Ryo sits down at the table nearest the brick wall and watches Shige from a close distance. There’s a newspaper rack behind him, but watching Shige seems so much better than reading whatever disaster has struck for the day or the previous. He’s brought a book just in case, but he thinks he can predict Shige’s next movements better than he can tell what’s on the next page of the story.
He watches him, and he notices that from time to time, Shige looks up from his work and looks at Ryo discreetly. He can’t help but smile once or twice their eyes meet, and Shige does the same, waves casually even when the chance strikes. Ryo just laughs when Shige stumbles around behind the counter, when he tries to get the bean grinder to work but it doesn’t, but just when he doesn’t expect it, it starts whirring like crazy. Shige will always look back at him during these times, and Ryo is just relieved to see him so careless like this, whatever his reasons may be.
Ryo believes it just gets better and better.
However Ryo also believes that these chain of good events never last long, and he knows they usually are preceded by something terrible. So when he finds out his wife finally goes, he decides that his period of good events has finally come to an end. Ryo accepts it and takes Shige to see her one last time, but they never know it would have to be their last. Ryo holds his breath as he watches her let go of hers, her eyes fluttering closed.
They see her again (after it’s final) in her funeral, when everyone is pressed in black clothing, and the sun is rather bright today. The day is hot, they all conclude, but Ryo feels as though it has started to rain. Shige stands beside him for support, Ryo’s fingers tight on his shoulder. Ryo doesn’t say anything the entire time, and no one really cries at the sunny funeral. Ryo thinks it’s all irony.
When it’s all over, they resume to where they last left off. Ryo assumes breadwinner and head of the household, and Shige continues working in his café, comes home smelling of coffee and it makes Ryo feel comfortable, makes him feel he’s not alone.
“You’re free to still live here, you know,” he suddenly says one day when his thoughts start to hesitate. Shige still calls him Ryo, more often now than Nishikido-kun before, but he starts to get the idea that it’s too familial. It’s familial being called by his first name, but it’s completely fine to call him with a considerable nickname. Ryo starts to think he’s losing it.
Shige just beams. He doesn’t smile, but he glows, and Ryo notices it. He notices it, and he gets a peace of mind, writes that down as a mental image in his head and it’s there, Shige, Shige and Shige. He relaxes a little, and goes over a few other things just to contain himself.
Shige sits him down at the kitchen table for tea and comfort. Ryo starts feeling better, starts to feel different, a good different. There’s suddenly something in the way they look at each other now, like it’s even more profound, like it’s easy telling secrets. Ryo approves of it, and watches Shige circle the rim of his cup with his finger.
Nothing much happens anymore after Ryo’s short, a-second-in-a-day epiphany of sorts. He still thinks of Shige, his job, and still looks at himself after, looks at where he’s standing and decides if he’s satisfied or not.
One workless day, he calls his sister and invites her over. He feels a little hesitant because it’s not exactly his home, but then later realizes it already is, whether he’s sharing it with another or not. He buys some beer, they sit on the floor and talk some about day to day things, update each other with their lives. Ryo’s waiting for Shige, but it’s past the usual time and he starts to feel worried. He starts telling his sister about Shige, anyway.
By the end of the day, she thinks he’s a sweet guy, this Shige, but she pities him entirely because he’s still so young. Ryo tells her he’s nothing to worry about because he’s smart and independent for his age. Ryo saves him for her, and she leaves the house contented.
Shige comes home awhile later, his face pale and his eyes dark.
Ryo is worried, immensely worried, but he tries not to show it. Man up, he tells himself. “Where have you been?” his voice still shows some concern, and Ryo thinks it’s good enough.
Shige just shakes his head. Ryo takes it as something close to “I’m tired,” and he buys it just because he can’t hope on other things.
Ryo tells him he’ll prepare him dinner soon after bath. Shige just stands there and does nothing, and it gives Ryo time to notice how he looks unusually… weak.
He tells him he’s met with his sister, explains the bottles of beer on the floor and enlightens him on his plans of hooking her up with him. He thinks it’s a good idea because Ryo. Ryo can’t. But Shige, Shige can. He’s a good boy, he often tells himself that, and he deserves better than living with a widowed traveling salesman. But it’s difficult for Ryo, and the bottom thing about it is that the expression on Shige’s face suddenly changes from sullen to worse. The vulnerability is distinct on his face. Ryo tells himself he definitely isn’t well and he reaches out.
Ryo wants to scold him for not realizing his feverish burn, but he decides it’s not worth chewing out a tired Shige. He sends him off to bed at once, tells him he’ll still prepare him dinner (canned chicken soup because it always seems to work) and a towel and basin in a few minutes. While he stands at the doorway of his bedroom, Ryo thinks of his wife. He thinks of how she came to this end, how she started off in bed, in sleep, in silence.
Ryo shakes his head and closes the door behind him. He comes back soon with a tray of food and water. Shige’s awake, and Ryo tries to forget what he’s thought of earlier by taking care of the boy.
When Shige is well, he is greeted by the news that his mother has passed away. Shige is still when he finds out while Ryo tries to find it in himself to help him, comfort him, do just about anything. He feels guilty for having to tell him, thinks maybe he shouldn’t have told him too soon because now he’s worse than ever. Ryo has never actually seen this side of him and it’s terrible, he doesn’t know what to do with him. Ryo doesn’t understand these chains of events anymore, but he believes in the mystery of these things. Something good is bound to happen, and Ryo holds onto that.
He tries to keep a strong front and they go her funeral (and they all feel bad for having to dress significantly in black again in just a short span of time). Ryo notices an important man in shackles, and he is by far not mistaken when he decides it’s Shige’s father. Ryo steps aside and watches from the sidelines, and he remembers this from the fist time. He doesn’t think he needs to be involved, but he also thinks he should be.
Ryo sees Shige pull his head down while his father speaks to him. He suddenly raises his head and looks at Ryo, and it makes his father look, too. Ryo lifts his chin and tries to look presentable, doesn’t smile nor doesn’t approach. He tries to look professional, but it’s the thought that comes late: why the hell is he doing this?
When his father leaves, Ryo waits for a full minute before he comes to Shige. They leave shortly after they get to their business, and this time it’s Shige that stays quiet (however it’s not like he hasn’t been this entire time). When Ryo brings him home, it’s when he sees that Shige has definitely gone down bad. He stands at the genkan with stable tears and Ryo just looks at him because. Because he doesn’t think he can do anything.
And he feels awful.
Terribly awful.
It’s the first time they sit so close to each other on the couch. This time, there’s no space between them, and they’re both rather far away from the far ends of the couch. Ryo puts a hand over Shige’s shoulder, presses his cheek on his hair while they stave off sleep and depression with bottles and bottles of beer. Shige’s sitting back to when they had first met again, his knees to his chin but this time he’s buried his face into them while almost leaning towards Ryo’s neck. Ryo wonders how Shige’s ever felt for him when his wife died, wonders if he ever wanted to do this, just hold him tight and forget about everything else.
Ryo looks back to three years with a stranger-turned-friend-turned-something-in-between and looks into the next year. He doesn’t expect anything, Ryo never does. He waits for anniversaries to come and go, waits for Shige and then he finally turns significantly twenty. They celebrate it with much simplicity, and then they move on after that.
Ryo’s still waiting for that critical moment wherein something remarkably good will happen.
“I’m in love with you,” Shige says one day, no day in particular. Ryo thinks he’s quite courageous for saying something like that to him. It is, however, not the first thing that comes into mind. He admires Shige for saying it, but not as much as he does to Shige for… for nothing in particular at all.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes at once, and Ryo doesn’t acknowledge it as much as he has to his first words.
Ryo chooses his words again carefully, chews out the bitten end of his cigarette (and damn it’s bitter) before he throws it in the dirt. “It’s been four years,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
Shige affirms, and Ryo thinks he probably concludes this is where he should start crying because it’s never going to work out, despite all those things in between these four years because the ending doesn’t seem quite as valuable. Ryo watches Shige (for the nth time) fidget in his awkward stature, watches him fumble with his fingers. Their eyes don’t meet, but Ryo waits and watches. When they do, Ryo makes sure it stays there. He makes sure Shige can see everything before him, can remember the weight of this setting when Ryo kisses him, soft and slow just so it all ends and begins worthwhile for them.
Shige kisses him back, and Ryo decides that this is the moment he’s been waiting for.
author: chartre
rating: pg-13
pairing: nishikato
summary: ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
notes: fictional. my first ever remix, of lightstylings' at sixteen; 1001 concisities. i'm afraid it's boring and lacks a rock n' roll ending, but i just hope i didn't kill anything in the process. D:
The Story Goes
nishikato
He is so young. Sixteen, and he thinks he could feel pity for him, but sixteen doesn't seem so long ago, and he sees himself doing better back in the day.
Ryo watches him move into the house, but just from the sidelines because it's not like he's the one who took him in. He doesn’t think he needs to be involved.
He watches him stand so awkwardly in the corner of the room like he doesn't know what to do next. The boy's aunt-his wife-doesn't pay much attention to him, doesn't pay any attention at all.
He watches him stumble around the place a lot in most of the silence because he never really talks, never really asks for anything at all. Ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
One day he overhears from his wife: the nephew's name is Kato Shigeaki, the poor boy from neighborhoods across with no family left (the wife says).
"His father's a criminal, his mother's lying in the hospital," she says and then curls an arm around his. Ryo kisses her and she giggles. He knows Kato Shigeaki is watching, he can see from the opening of the bedroom door, but Ryo digresses.
On days when the house is empty (when his loud wife isn’t home because she’s all that ever makes the house lived-in), Ryo sits on one side of the couch with a remote control in one hand, skimming through boring TV channels in the afternoon. The boy finally walks out from the confinement in his room and sits on the other side of the couch, watches whatever Ryo’s watching. His knees are up to his chin, arms tight around his legs.
“Shige,” Ryo says, “can I call you that?” the shorter the better, he thinks.
The boy turns to his side cautiously. He’s ever so still, Ryo notices, but he eventually nods slowly. “Okay,” he says in a soft voice, and Ryo thinks that this could probably be the first time he’s heard him say anything out loud, if not something barely audible.
Ryo tries to smile but he smirks instead, turns back to the TV and goes through the channels another time. “You can call me Ryo.”
It’s mostly because they’re family. It’s safe to call him by his first name, and being called uncle is just strange. Too much family is strange.
“Nishikido-kun,” Shige calls him one morning while they’re in the kitchen.
“Ryo,” he corrects him. “It’s Ryo.”
“Ryo,” Shige repeats. “Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d love some, Shige.”
They try to get by on their first year of living in one house. His wife is rarely home, mostly at work, and she comes home into his arms and towards bed. He knows Shige is watching if not listening to their love-making late in the nights, but he doesn’t think about it. Ryo just notices darker circles under his eyes every morning.
The sex starts to come to its end soon. Her health starts failing her, his wife, and Ryo feels as if he’s better off. He starts counting the days. It’s warmer this season, better sunlight and clear blue skies, the weather says. Shige gets a job somewhere, he hears from him during supper.
“Where do you work now?” Ryo tries to start a simple conversation at the table. Shige eats quietly to himself, stares at his food for most of the entire time. “It’s a small café. Near the church.”
Ryo nods and makes a thoughtful sound. His wife hollers for Shige from the next room, and she doesn’t stop her screaming for awhile.
Shige puts his bowl down on the table and pushes his chair back. “Excuse me.” Ryo watches him shuffle out into the next room. She scolds him for something Ryo can’t comprehend from the distance. Shige seems to take long, so Ryo decides to finish up and do the dishes instead. Shige comes back minutes later and Ryo doesn’t notice, not until he hears a chair drag from behind him.
“I cleared your bowl for you, I hope you don’t mind.”
Shige nods his head once and helps him dry the dishes. Words are scarce in between, so Ryo tries to make an effort. “So what did your aunt tell you?”
“I shouldn’t drag my feet around the house,” he says. “She told me to go get her medication, and then she told me to tell you to go get her when you’re done with dinner.”
“Oh,” Ryo sighs and looks up. They listen to the clatter of plates and bowls for the rest of the evening while they work.
At night, Ryo chances upon an opportunity when he sees Shige sitting on his bed next to the opened window, eyes closed. His knees are up to his chin again, arms around his legs like he’s possessive of them. Ryo opens his bedroom door completely and knocks. “May I come in?”
Shige is alarmed. He puts his feet down from the bed and sits on the edge of it. Ryo sits down beside him.
“It’s late, you’re not asleep?”
Shige shakes his head. “I’ll wake up later in the night, anyway,” he mumbles to himself. Ryo knows why.
“Your aunt isn’t doing any better, do you know that?”
Shige nods.
“Do you like your aunt?” Ryo also sees her preferential attention for the husband.
Shige shrugs, and rubs the back of his neck. “Why do you ask?”
Ryo shrugs too, and then smiles. “You’re a good boy, Shige,” he pats him on the shoulder and leaves his room a full minute later. Shige gets to sleep soundly that night, and Ryo notices it exceptionally the next morning. He smiles at him when they have their coffee, and to his surprise, Shige smiles back. Ryo burns his tongue for a second but tries not to show it.
Ryo feels as though he’s jinxed his wife, because days and weeks into the next season, she’s bedridden. They call the doctor, and he says she mostly needs her sleep. It’s serious, but they probably can save her. Probably, they say. Ryo sighs and sits down to watch more TV. Shige sits on the other side of the couch again, the habit inevitably hard to fall out of. This time, he sits comfortably, his feet on the floor and one arm on the rest. Ryo looks at him from his peripheral vision and pulls on one side of his lips. He feels some peace of mind.
His wife is often asleep, Ryo knows, Shige knows. They also both know Ryo has nothing else better to do now, because he knows he’s in this house mostly because of her. Shige just came into the picture one day. Ryo tries to find something interesting to do at home while Shige is away at work. He fails miserably hours later, and decides to read the newspaper instead, cover to cover. Shige comes home later, and finds Ryo waiting for him in the genkan.
“I didn’t have anything else better to do,” so he waits. Shige looks at him like he’s weird.
“You smell like coffee beans,” Ryo commends. Shige sniffs his cuffs and confirms it. “I’ll take a bath.”
“Have dinner with me first,” and so they do, eat dinner together. Shige’s aunt is suddenly awake, because they both hear her calling again. She screams like she’s frantic, and she doesn’t stop till Shige comes to the room. He excuses himself from the table again and rushes off. Ryo finishes his dinner and clears their bowls again. This time, Shige doesn’t come back. Ryo just knows when he hears the water running in the bathroom while he passes by in the corridor, the smell of coffee beans still lingering.
The next day, Ryo tries to amuse himself with his wife. He sits quietly in the room and watches her in her sleep. She is still, but Ryo is fairly entertained for the first half hour. For the rest of the day, he tries rearranging some furniture (but they all end up where they were in the first place) and surfing through channels on TV again (he thinks he’s gone through them fourteen times in the hour). He doesn’t leave the house just because he waits for Shige, and he’ll never know when he’ll suddenly come home early. Ryo tries to wait patiently, but patience doesn’t seem to work well with a bored Ryo.
Shige comes home later while Ryo’s in the tub. He hears the door and his shuffling and he finally wakes up from his nap. His fingers look like prunes, so he drains the water.
“I’m home,” Shige knocks on the bathroom door. Typical of him to stay quiet anytime, all the time (if not wise of him just so his aunt doesn’t suddenly wake up). Ryo acknowledges him with a grunt and grabs on a towel.
He steps out of the bathroom, steam everywhere and finds Shige walking towards his room.
“Dinner?”
“I already ate, thank you,” he says and walks in, closes the door soundly behind him. Ryo sighs, and drags himself into the kitchen. His wife stirs awake and starts screaming again. She’s probably heard the shuffling, and Ryo just laughs to himself. Shige isn’t shuffling the evening away, but he goes to her and gets a scolding in the bedroom anyway. Ryo finds some dusty old books on the table. He smiles and waits for the door in the other room to click open.
When it does, he sticks his head out of the kitchen doorway, and Shige sees him. Ryo nods, lifts a book in the air where they both can see. Shige smiles brightly and beams a little, walks off to his room again. Ryo sits down for dinner and a book to read. The nights are silent once more, but Ryo thinks to himself he misses a little noise (and a little shuffling, he must admit).
He finishes the first book some days later (and thinks he probably takes so long because of the lacking of things to read around the house) but he gets the satisfaction of the conclusion. He gets to do a little more around, too.
“You finally finished it?” Shige asks one day he sees the book already up on their half-empty bookshelf. Ryo has another book in his hand as he tears away from the page and towards Shige. “Sure did.”
“How was it?”
“Heartbreaking,” Ryo commends, sounds like he’s more of excited than sympathetic for the story, almost as if he sounds merciless. His tone of voice changes as he talks a little more in depth about it, and Shige is quite shocked.
They think and talk about tears and look back to those moments. “It’s pretty sad,” Ryo affirms.
He starts thinking about Shige. He thinks about his job, and then looks at himself. He goes through the newspaper one more time another day and picks the phone up. A few days later he gets a suit, and Shige commends him during breakfast.
“What is this for?”
“I decided to get myself a job.” There is no breadwinner, actually, they may have noticed for a long time now. They hear less from their aunt these days, Ryo tries his best to persuade her into silence, and she listens, just because it’s Ryo.
He leaves the house after Shige does, off to wherever he must be. Traveling salesman thing. He comes home later than Shige does, and now it’s his turn to wait for him to come home. Shige cooks supper for them both, and now they sit down together and talk for the entire time. No more awkward moments, no more bickering wife waking up in the middle of their conversations.
They do the dishes together again, alternating on washing and drying each night. They rest for the entire evening and Ryo thinks it feels nice. Exceptionally nice.
They talk about Ryo this time.
“Sold some things around. Mostly kitchenware, actually.”
“Housewives?”
“Definitely.”
They laugh a little, sit a little closer when they’re on the couch. The TV is off (it has been for weeks, actually) and they’re chatting the night away, jokes and petty stories.
“Do you miss them?” Ryo turns the attention elsewhere.
Shige is taken aback a little. Ryo watches him fidget uneasily before him. He thinks he’s watching too intently like it’s disrespectful, because he sees something in his eyes: something dark, something he doesn’t want to look back to.
“I’m sorry,” Ryo finally says, his voice just above the silence. “I should’ve have mentioned anything.”
Shige doesn’t move, just sits there with his fingers curled into the covers of the couch. “I’m sorry.”
Ryo thinks he’s not used to this. Shige isn’t used to being kept by others, but it’s probably something else now. His wife suddenly hollers, and they know she’s awake. Her voice is softer this time, but still notably loud. Shige doesn’t say anything and leaves the room. He comes back minutes later and tells Ryo she needs him. Ryo watches him go into his room before anything else, and then goes to see his wife. Later, he peeks out the corridor just to check if he’s come out, but it’s something he shouldn’t be expecting, he knows.
He tends to his wife for as long as he can, until they decide to finally bring her away somewhere else. Nurses delicately sit her down on a wheelchair while she talks away with what’s left of her strength. She tells Ryo all these things while she’s holding his hand (how she loves him so, how she hates the noises that Shige leaves in her dreams, and how much she wants to go to Roppongi with just him when she comes back from the hospital) and they all think she could talk her way into her grave.
Ryo looks back and sees Shige standing in the middle of the empty living room, and he thinks he looks so small amongst the space. Ryo watches him and then turns his attention to his wife, but it's not like he forgets about the boy in the house.
Now they’re considerably alone in the house. They’re definitely sure of what will not happen in supposedly quiet evenings, and somehow Ryo feels as if it’ll be regrettable sooner or later. They decide to leave the books aside tonight, and turn the TV on. Ryo turns the volume up, but Shige tells him it’ll wake the neighbors up. Ryo just thinks he’s got way too much moral and respect, that Shige. He turns the volume down a little anyway, just above barely audible for both their hearing preferences.
Shige coughs and actually tries to start something between them. Ryo averts his attention from the TV and to him. He wishes he can turn the volume a little lower discreetly just so he can hear him better.
“I haven’t seen my parents in awhile,” he stutters.
Ryo tries to be gentle with his words, chooses them carefully in his head before blurting them out. “Did you ever want to see them?”
Shige stays quiet, and Ryo can tell he’s thinking.
“I’ll take you to them,” he insists, and suddenly the noise from the TV is blurred out unintentionally. It’s all in his head, he knows how these TV commercials scream words into heads of watchers all around just to get them to buy products. It’s something he’ll never do to customers when he’s at their doors, Ryo tells himself at the same time. It’s just rude.
Ryo takes him to visit his wife on a Sunday. They’re free on Sundays.
Ryo thinks it’ll probably that one time they both can make up, after all the negligence and pointless screaming (and by the looks of it, Ryo is certain it’s her fault, not his. Shige is a good boy, he really is). However, he tries not to hope too much.
Shige goes to see her, but that’s probably it because she’s asleep again. They don’t catch her awake, not for today, and so they go home ahead of schedule. Ryo sees a little depression in his eyes, but his thoughts may be betraying his eyes because he knows, Ryo knows he sees so much comfort and satisfaction in them. Ryo just smiles at the thought of it.
Ryo believes it’s that time of a certain period wherein all the good things fall right into place. He doesn’t know how or why it’s happened, but he gets good news from work and calls Shige and tells him he’s promoted. Shige congratulates him over the phone, and he can tell he’s absolutely thrilled for him. Ryo smiles over his words and feels proud of himself. He comes home and is greeted by Shige in the genkan. He gives him an envelope and congratulates him one more time. Now Ryo can even see his smile, and he feels even better. He steps into his slippers and laughs when he sees the contents of the envelope. He can tell Shige’s totally embarrassed, and he even apologizes for the lack of a promotional-gift. Ryo denies the lacking and commends Shige for the gift and the effort.
“Thank you, Shige,” he says and smiles jovially, no trace of shame or anticipating too much, because there is no such feeling in Ryo right now.
He goes to see him the following morning after calling off work. He gets his free coffee because it’s what’s said in the envelope that Shige has given him the previous night. He looks around his workplace and decides it’s good. No trace of shame or anticipating too much either, because Ryo doesn’t think of that, he thinks of the effort that Shige does, and the hint of color on his cheeks when they meet that morning, just because it’s elsewhere other than home.
Ryo sits down at the table nearest the brick wall and watches Shige from a close distance. There’s a newspaper rack behind him, but watching Shige seems so much better than reading whatever disaster has struck for the day or the previous. He’s brought a book just in case, but he thinks he can predict Shige’s next movements better than he can tell what’s on the next page of the story.
He watches him, and he notices that from time to time, Shige looks up from his work and looks at Ryo discreetly. He can’t help but smile once or twice their eyes meet, and Shige does the same, waves casually even when the chance strikes. Ryo just laughs when Shige stumbles around behind the counter, when he tries to get the bean grinder to work but it doesn’t, but just when he doesn’t expect it, it starts whirring like crazy. Shige will always look back at him during these times, and Ryo is just relieved to see him so careless like this, whatever his reasons may be.
Ryo believes it just gets better and better.
However Ryo also believes that these chain of good events never last long, and he knows they usually are preceded by something terrible. So when he finds out his wife finally goes, he decides that his period of good events has finally come to an end. Ryo accepts it and takes Shige to see her one last time, but they never know it would have to be their last. Ryo holds his breath as he watches her let go of hers, her eyes fluttering closed.
They see her again (after it’s final) in her funeral, when everyone is pressed in black clothing, and the sun is rather bright today. The day is hot, they all conclude, but Ryo feels as though it has started to rain. Shige stands beside him for support, Ryo’s fingers tight on his shoulder. Ryo doesn’t say anything the entire time, and no one really cries at the sunny funeral. Ryo thinks it’s all irony.
When it’s all over, they resume to where they last left off. Ryo assumes breadwinner and head of the household, and Shige continues working in his café, comes home smelling of coffee and it makes Ryo feel comfortable, makes him feel he’s not alone.
“You’re free to still live here, you know,” he suddenly says one day when his thoughts start to hesitate. Shige still calls him Ryo, more often now than Nishikido-kun before, but he starts to get the idea that it’s too familial. It’s familial being called by his first name, but it’s completely fine to call him with a considerable nickname. Ryo starts to think he’s losing it.
Shige just beams. He doesn’t smile, but he glows, and Ryo notices it. He notices it, and he gets a peace of mind, writes that down as a mental image in his head and it’s there, Shige, Shige and Shige. He relaxes a little, and goes over a few other things just to contain himself.
Shige sits him down at the kitchen table for tea and comfort. Ryo starts feeling better, starts to feel different, a good different. There’s suddenly something in the way they look at each other now, like it’s even more profound, like it’s easy telling secrets. Ryo approves of it, and watches Shige circle the rim of his cup with his finger.
Nothing much happens anymore after Ryo’s short, a-second-in-a-day epiphany of sorts. He still thinks of Shige, his job, and still looks at himself after, looks at where he’s standing and decides if he’s satisfied or not.
One workless day, he calls his sister and invites her over. He feels a little hesitant because it’s not exactly his home, but then later realizes it already is, whether he’s sharing it with another or not. He buys some beer, they sit on the floor and talk some about day to day things, update each other with their lives. Ryo’s waiting for Shige, but it’s past the usual time and he starts to feel worried. He starts telling his sister about Shige, anyway.
By the end of the day, she thinks he’s a sweet guy, this Shige, but she pities him entirely because he’s still so young. Ryo tells her he’s nothing to worry about because he’s smart and independent for his age. Ryo saves him for her, and she leaves the house contented.
Shige comes home awhile later, his face pale and his eyes dark.
Ryo is worried, immensely worried, but he tries not to show it. Man up, he tells himself. “Where have you been?” his voice still shows some concern, and Ryo thinks it’s good enough.
Shige just shakes his head. Ryo takes it as something close to “I’m tired,” and he buys it just because he can’t hope on other things.
Ryo tells him he’ll prepare him dinner soon after bath. Shige just stands there and does nothing, and it gives Ryo time to notice how he looks unusually… weak.
He tells him he’s met with his sister, explains the bottles of beer on the floor and enlightens him on his plans of hooking her up with him. He thinks it’s a good idea because Ryo. Ryo can’t. But Shige, Shige can. He’s a good boy, he often tells himself that, and he deserves better than living with a widowed traveling salesman. But it’s difficult for Ryo, and the bottom thing about it is that the expression on Shige’s face suddenly changes from sullen to worse. The vulnerability is distinct on his face. Ryo tells himself he definitely isn’t well and he reaches out.
Ryo wants to scold him for not realizing his feverish burn, but he decides it’s not worth chewing out a tired Shige. He sends him off to bed at once, tells him he’ll still prepare him dinner (canned chicken soup because it always seems to work) and a towel and basin in a few minutes. While he stands at the doorway of his bedroom, Ryo thinks of his wife. He thinks of how she came to this end, how she started off in bed, in sleep, in silence.
Ryo shakes his head and closes the door behind him. He comes back soon with a tray of food and water. Shige’s awake, and Ryo tries to forget what he’s thought of earlier by taking care of the boy.
When Shige is well, he is greeted by the news that his mother has passed away. Shige is still when he finds out while Ryo tries to find it in himself to help him, comfort him, do just about anything. He feels guilty for having to tell him, thinks maybe he shouldn’t have told him too soon because now he’s worse than ever. Ryo has never actually seen this side of him and it’s terrible, he doesn’t know what to do with him. Ryo doesn’t understand these chains of events anymore, but he believes in the mystery of these things. Something good is bound to happen, and Ryo holds onto that.
He tries to keep a strong front and they go her funeral (and they all feel bad for having to dress significantly in black again in just a short span of time). Ryo notices an important man in shackles, and he is by far not mistaken when he decides it’s Shige’s father. Ryo steps aside and watches from the sidelines, and he remembers this from the fist time. He doesn’t think he needs to be involved, but he also thinks he should be.
Ryo sees Shige pull his head down while his father speaks to him. He suddenly raises his head and looks at Ryo, and it makes his father look, too. Ryo lifts his chin and tries to look presentable, doesn’t smile nor doesn’t approach. He tries to look professional, but it’s the thought that comes late: why the hell is he doing this?
When his father leaves, Ryo waits for a full minute before he comes to Shige. They leave shortly after they get to their business, and this time it’s Shige that stays quiet (however it’s not like he hasn’t been this entire time). When Ryo brings him home, it’s when he sees that Shige has definitely gone down bad. He stands at the genkan with stable tears and Ryo just looks at him because. Because he doesn’t think he can do anything.
And he feels awful.
Terribly awful.
It’s the first time they sit so close to each other on the couch. This time, there’s no space between them, and they’re both rather far away from the far ends of the couch. Ryo puts a hand over Shige’s shoulder, presses his cheek on his hair while they stave off sleep and depression with bottles and bottles of beer. Shige’s sitting back to when they had first met again, his knees to his chin but this time he’s buried his face into them while almost leaning towards Ryo’s neck. Ryo wonders how Shige’s ever felt for him when his wife died, wonders if he ever wanted to do this, just hold him tight and forget about everything else.
Ryo looks back to three years with a stranger-turned-friend-turned-something-in-between and looks into the next year. He doesn’t expect anything, Ryo never does. He waits for anniversaries to come and go, waits for Shige and then he finally turns significantly twenty. They celebrate it with much simplicity, and then they move on after that.
Ryo’s still waiting for that critical moment wherein something remarkably good will happen.
“I’m in love with you,” Shige says one day, no day in particular. Ryo thinks he’s quite courageous for saying something like that to him. It is, however, not the first thing that comes into mind. He admires Shige for saying it, but not as much as he does to Shige for… for nothing in particular at all.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes at once, and Ryo doesn’t acknowledge it as much as he has to his first words.
Ryo chooses his words again carefully, chews out the bitten end of his cigarette (and damn it’s bitter) before he throws it in the dirt. “It’s been four years,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
Shige affirms, and Ryo thinks he probably concludes this is where he should start crying because it’s never going to work out, despite all those things in between these four years because the ending doesn’t seem quite as valuable. Ryo watches Shige (for the nth time) fidget in his awkward stature, watches him fumble with his fingers. Their eyes don’t meet, but Ryo waits and watches. When they do, Ryo makes sure it stays there. He makes sure Shige can see everything before him, can remember the weight of this setting when Ryo kisses him, soft and slow just so it all ends and begins worthwhile for them.
Shige kisses him back, and Ryo decides that this is the moment he’s been waiting for.