Answer author: Sakiya Haruhi artist: Yamane Ayano translated by: suzume@LJ [tokyotwilight@gmail.com] Prologue The moment he let out a hoarse cry, his vision dissolved. He blinked, loosing a cold droplet that traced the curve of his flushed cheek, and though Hatano recognized these were tears, the arms to wipe them away were both wrapped around the broad, rocking back of the man above him. Even had they been free, with the firm, muscular hips driving rhythmically between his splayed legs and stoking the fever coursing through his body, he could afford his tears little attention. “Oh, oh—ah!” His voice rose in fitful, broken bursts, pitched high to a fawning tenor and dripping thick and cloying as honey from his lips. It was hardly the voice of a man past his thirtieth year, and the sound of it overwhelmed him with shame. But having recently learned that any attempt to restrain himself would only intensify the torture, he could not silence that tearful voice. “Could you… loosen up, a little more?” Mashiba breathed words into his ear. “You’re too tight.” His tone was deep and low, and yet glazed with a certain lascivious sweetness. He was five years Hatano’s junior but his cool composure showed nothing of it, and while this inspired an untimely feeling of frustration, Hatano could not deny that Mashiba’s voice mesmerized him. He fought to relax as he had been told but he could not ease the tension in his stiff, trembling legs, and spasms shook him helplessly each time Mashiba’s heat found leeway to slip further inside his body. “Having trouble…?” It was not only Mashiba’s voice but his physique and facial features, as well, that suggested he was Hatano’s senior; but between them, it was Mashiba who looked his age. Hatano’s face retained still some vestiges of boyishness, and his body was slender. The power in Mashiba’s chiseled, wild features seemed all the greater to Hatano when pinned beneath him, and even now he wavered on the verge of drowning in it, and had to steel himself. “Just, shut… up!” Mashiba gazed down at him, observing his callow reactions and twisting his full lips as if to suppress a smile, and Hatano cursed him inwardly. His claim that Hatano was “tight” was rather suspect. Mashiba’s erection pushed forward against lining so slick with lubricant, the unrelenting foreplay, and Mashiba’s fluids that Hatano could barely stand to listen to the sound of his movements. “No, no! Stop!” Mashiba’s teeth worried the fevered, sensitive lobe of his ear, sparking a current that burned in a wanton flush of lust from head to toe. The hot, solid length surged eagerly inside him, churning the sticky, creamy sensation between his legs, and something like a scream was torn from his lips. “Like hell it’s… ‘too tight’… Oh—!” Mashiba was pressing him bold and hard, and Hatano felt it—had learned to feel it—so strongly that it plucked the breath from his lungs. His ears rang with the pounding of his heart, and a bittersweet ache commanded the whole of his senses. Fluids of all kinds gushed from all over his body, until even the narrow ribbon of space that parted him from Mashiba seemed to have grown heavy with damp. A startlingly gentle tongue coiled around his nipples, flattening

against the hardened nubs and allaying their painful tingling. Compelled by an irrational anxiety that seemed to at once cast him down and heave him upwards, Hatano clung again to those brawny shoulders, and when the movement deepened the contact between them he let out a ragged gasp. The high bridge of Mashiba’s nose slid against his cheek. Mashiba moved as if to nestle tenderly up against him, bringing their lips together, and the mere brush of his long eyelashes as they grazed Hatano’s skin drew another gasp from him. Mashiba’s tongue twined wetly about his, and before Hatano was aware of it, his own had begun to wriggle in mimicry. By the time he came to himself his lips were slipping noisily against Mashiba’s, and the raw, lurid feel and pleasure of it wore again at the fraying thread of his consciousness. Defiant of his will, his flesh swallowed the man inch by trembling inch as if to savor the taste of him, indulging its own appetite for pleasure. By Mashiba’s tongue and by his sex, both seeking to satisfy some gluttonous lust, Hatano’s unfurled body was violated. “It really is tight.… I think you’re eating me alive,” Mashiba teased; for a man poking fun at others, he sounded rather on edge himself. But Hatano had been driven far past that edge already, and he was deaf to the hint of bitterness that lurked in the other man’s words. His rectum, which in the short span of six months had become more greedy than any woman, began preparing for the peak with an intricate pattern of convulsions. Hatano begged as he rocked his hips and sobbed as he tightened around him, his straining erection rubbing against Mashiba’s taut abdomen. “Feel good?” Hatano nodded his head frantically like a child in response to that simple, obscene question. His good sense and bashfulness reproached him, but if this ache within him was not relieved, he would be unable to bear the torment much longer. “Yes… yes, it does—more!” he pleaded, his voice fading to the faintest whisper, and Mashiba, knowing what it was he asked for, slowly rolled his hips in reply. “Ah!” Mashiba’s movements were subtle but precise. A staggering burst of pleasure arced through him, and he let out a lovely, shattered cry. His large, dark irises were dull and moist, their usual look of wholesome purity seduced from them and redone in hopelessly wanton colors. He had only half of his wits about him, and at times like this it was beyond even Hatano to subdue himself. “Oh, Ma… shiba—!” Breaths became sobbing cries as they shuddered from his lips, and he rocked the length of his body, willing Mashiba to do something, anything. “Oh—oh, no…!” The solid wedge of heat that had been grinding inside him began a lazy retreat, sounding crude noises with its departure, and powerful fingers stilled his hips when they swung upwards to pursue it. The space Mashiba had abandoned shivered with chill, bringing Hatano fleetingly to his senses. His muscles contracted in unsated loneliness, and he found his own body so obscene he might have wept. “W-Why did you pull ou—mm…” His struggling arms were duly captured, and his lips sealed. Mashiba’s thick tongue roamed the inside of Hatano’s mouth like a sentient thing, and his lips and teeth nibbled at him when he outstretched his tongue as he had been taught to do. But Mashiba neglected to touch him any lower, and he twinged in agonizing need. His entrance quivered with involuntary constrictions, miserably awaiting the other man’s heat. Something thin and rigid stretched the ring of pliant muscle and stirred inside, and Hatano sensed dazedly that Mashiba had entered a finger inside him. Frankly anything would

have done, anything tangible and hard that would touch where he ached. To Hatano, who felt he might have accepted even the most repulsive of objects, Mashiba’s practiced hands were more than welcome. His long, elegant fingers contorted in tortuous designs, and Hatano lost himself in the swell of desire that overtook him. “I’ve got you this loosened up, and you’re still clinging tight to my fingers. You’re a naughty man,” Mashiba ridiculed him. Hatano stiffened against him for an instant, and Mashiba, catching the older man off guard, bundled his fingers together and began thrusting them violently in and out of him. Hatano keened. “Anything would work for you, wouldn’t it? Right in here, as long as it can do this to you,” and Mashiba twisted his fingers about inside him while Hatano mutely shook his head. “Want to try a toy next time? A vibrating one. How about it?” “No, no… ah!” Hatano could not disguise the thrill of arousal that even Mashiba’s vulgar scorn elicited from his body. As Mashiba had once rather nastily described him, it appeared that Hatano really did have a “talent” for this sort of sex. He had no wish to admit it, but as hot anguished pangs of longing racked his limbs and set him writhing upon the sheets, Hatano conceded that it may be true. “No—no, never, I won’t…” “Are you kidding? Look how wet you are.” Mashiba’s grip closed firmly around Hatano’s erection, indeed slick and streaked milky-white with semen, and Hatano grimaced in shame. “No, no more—I can’t…” He shook his head with a fearful look in his eyes, and a dangerous shadow passed over Mashiba’s face. Oh, no… Mashiba leveled a displeased gaze at him, giving him a start, but Hatano’s bid to escape came a second too late. “Stop, no!” His face fiercely set, Mashiba dropped down into Hatano’s lap and, his fingers still probing behind, he literally sank his teeth into Hatano’s trembling penis. “That hurts—it hurts!” Hatano cowered in pain and fear as Mashiba nipped the side, until a soft tongue began to stroke circles over the offended area. “No, no—oh… oh, it’s melting…” Mashiba’s tongue swabbed back and forth repeatedly, and Hatano soon found his erection swollen to an angry red and made a toy inside of Mashiba’s mouth. Every muscle in his body was perfectly relaxed, and only his hips moved, snaking up and down in lewd, sinuous arcs. He could no longer even grasp what exactly Mashiba was doing to him. The length of him was enveloped in wet, cosseting warmth, and he melted willingly around Mashiba’s beautiful fingers as they fondled him deep inside. His lips could only spill sweet, gasping cries, one after another. “Ah—ah, no, I can’t…” Hatano’s hesitation lasted only as long as his presence of mind. As the night progressed, it was Hatano who immersed himself in the act. He abandoned himself to his senses, though he never intended to, and this intense sensuality, far from dampening a man’s desire, was in fact an uncalculated coquetry that lured him closer. “If not this, then what do you want to do?” Mashiba had at last raised his head to whisper to him; he captured Hatano’s offered tongue with his teeth, and Hatano shamelessly clung to Mashiba’s shoulders, begging urgently, “Just—just put it in, please, just—put it in…” Mashiba had been the one to drag Hatano’s true nature out into the open (though Hatano himself would just as well have remained ignorant of it), and yet there were times when Hatano’s

licentious flagrance seemed to unnerve him. Then, always, a flicker of irritation would pinch his face, and his long fingertips would tease with especial wickedness, as if to conceal his confusion. Tonight was no exception; Mashiba’s lovemaking was insistent and malicious. He pressed wanton supplications once and again from his partner’s lips, until finally he took up Hatano’s weight again, and Hatano wrapped his slim, quivering legs about Mashiba’s waist. “Ah, no—!” But Mashiba entered him only shallowly and would not move, and he met Hatano’s resentful glare with a thin smile. “What?” Hatano was all too familiar with that callous expression; he drew in a breath and lifted his hips, put a hand round Mashiba’s jutting erection, at once desirous and frightened of it, and moved to guide it inside him. But he could not get very far in this endeavor, because he was constrained beneath the other man and forced into an unsteady forward bend, and his limbs began to shake fiercely from the strain. Mashiba watched him with a rather cool, negligent gaze, but he did not appear to be enjoying the sight at all. “That’s enough.” Mashiba’s palm wiped the sheen of sweat and tears from Hatano’s cheek with unexpected gentleness. Hatano shied slightly in surprise, and Mashiba held him at the waist as he lowered himself flush against him, sliding smoothly inside. Hatano’s breath nearly caught in his throat: one thrust filled him with its long, thick heft all at once, alive with the electric pulse of Mashiba’s blood. He felt himself hurtling to climax when Mashiba’s fingers clenched the base of his erection, instantly damming the rush. “Nngh… ah, ah—!” Twice Mashiba pulled slowly out of him before easing himself in again, then began to snap his hips in short, quick, rocking movements that jostled Hatano against the sheets; and Hatano could hardly bear his embarrassment as his moans rose steadily in pitch. “What do you want me to do?” Mashiba asked, loosening his tormenting grip to avoid dousing the flames of Hatano’s desire, and Hatano spluttered a lisping cry: “Thr-Thrust—deeper, thrust…!” Mashiba’s tradition of coercion—say it, tell me—had taught him to recite these loathsome phrases. Once he had discovered that abiding his burning humiliation and speaking those sordid words would heighten his pleasure, such language had come to tumble off his tongue almost unthinkingly. “How’s this?” Mashiba said, laughing coldly, and deepened the lewd rhythm of his hips. Hatano let out a scream that sounded both of rapture and of piteous despair, and dug his nails into the back of the man swaying above him. “Oh, yes—there, ah, yes…!” Little now, he thought, could make a looser sloven of him than he had made of himself. This is no good at all, he snapped inwardly in cool disgust, even as his body was made to open wider and wider, and Mashiba conditioned him to his entry. Hatano’s swinging hips no longer seemed a part of him. His flesh, glutting itself hungrily on the stimulation, had become little more than a vessel to chase the hot, wet length that pumped in and out of him. He reeled with terror, as if he were teetering on the brink of an abyss, and scrabbled at Mashiba’s dark, sweaty skin. Though he knew it would be Mashiba who flung him down, to Hatano, frightened by this feeling of endless abasement, the sole support to cling to was Mashiba’s broad chest. “I—I’m coming…” “Tense up tight!”

Powerful arms held him at the waist, hands stroked his sweat-damp back, and just as something like relief unfolded within him, his body jarred against Mashiba’s and reached its climax. “Ah—!” came Mashiba’s breathless voice, and warm liquid began to pool steadily inside him. Hatano jerked his hips shakily, following the spurting wetness that filled his narrow entrance, and felt himself peak. That it was this moment that brought him the most pleasure, the moment he accepted within himself the seed and weight of a man he didn’t even know well enough to call a stranger, one neither he loved nor who loved him—there’s something wrong with me, he thought somewhere within the fog of his mind. * * *

Hatano asked him in a languid voice if he wouldn’t stay the night, and Mashiba shot a look of amazement in his direction. “Sometimes I wonder about your nerves.” “Oh? I just thought I’d ask, since it’s already late.” His body was cleansed of sweat and once again clad in the suit he had worn to Hatano’s doorstep, and his hair properly arranged, and his face turned to reveal a sharp, collected profile. He retained no hint of the scent of erotic spice that had filled Hatano’s nostrils only a few moments ago. “What I said was easily within the bounds of common sense.” “ ‘Common sense.’ ” Sarcasm briefly twisted his strong cheek, and he threw his reply down in a chilly monotone, “Such courtesy, even to the man who raped you and is forcing you to continue this kind of relationship.” Hatano, by now accustomed to Mashiba’s plain manner of stating unpleasant facts, puffed at his cigarette with his chin lolling lazily in his hands, and retorted equally flatly, “Well, if you’re so keenly aware of what you’ve done, why don’t you just cut it out already.” He could pass off the edge that had bled into his hoarse voice as post-coital fatigue, but still, he had been perhaps a bit too direct. Mashiba took in hand his leather briefcase, the fine sort carried by young, talented businessmen such as he was, and a fleeting bitterness stole across his face. Hatano’s casual glance found it for scarcely a second, however, before the tinge of swallowed pain was erased. Unlike Mashiba, who had finished a shower and was now smartly dressed, Hatano remained sprawled on his stomach upon the bed, the ripple of his spine jutting from his bare back. He was not putting on flippant airs; it was simply that the sex had been fierce tonight as always, and his body was sluggish and unable to move. The lukewarm heaviness of the air, a herald of the coming summer, made his body and especially his lower joints throb in exceptional pain, and Hatano reflected on the weight of his years. I feel so listless… His legs were numb, and between them, that worthless part of his body that Mashiba had seen fit to ravage ached something terrible; in light of the occasion, of course, it couldn’t really be helped. Besides, he decided irritably, it was much too late to be bashful about his grooming in front of Mashiba. This elite-looking man before his eyes probably knew his body better than he himself did. Mashiba’s body temperature was naturally high, so much so that his skin was hot to the touch, and yet Hatano shivered with the chill he created a few feet away from him. He found himself gazing at the young man’s figure, seeing nothing that suggested Mashiba had just passed

those same hours blending his senses and bodily fluids with Hatano’s. The elegant cut of Mashiba’s suit complemented his tall, muscled frame. Not even an echo of afterglow from their impassioned time together now lingered in the young, hard lines of his face. His features were a shade broader than most, with an air of roughness about them, but strangely they did not appear coarse or brutish; in fact, they had a polished glamour to them. Maybe it was the somewhat pale color of his irises, but although his creased eyelids framed eyes that were striking and beautiful in shape, they did not leave an impression of kindness. His expression was brittle and full of intellectual pride, and Hatano observed it with a pang of tragic pity. Mashiba always looked bitterly pained after sex. The emptier he made his face of emotion, the more vividly his stifled irritation and regret sprang to the surface. You don’t have to force yourself to mind an old man like me, if you’re going to look so tired about it.… But what a thing to say to one’s blackmailer (if only after a fashion), Hatano thought, a complicated knot of emotion in his breast. He even felt sympathy for the man, and pretending to exhale a mouthful of smoke, he let out an anguished sigh instead. There were too many unforgiven transgressions and too much resentment for him to accept Mashiba with open arms, but six months was a long time to share one’s bed with somebody, in any case. The act of joining the most private parts of their bodies had begun to forge some kind of bond between them, no matter how either of them might strive to keep strings unattached. Both of them were loath to admit to it, but it was Hatano who was as honest with his feelings as he was quick to resign himself to them. And as the cold edge of his demeanor softened, the subsequent hardening of Mashiba’s was, perhaps, a sort of inevitable reaction. “When’s next time?” he asked in a dry voice, that being as much now as he could do. “I’ll come again on Friday,” Mashiba replied in a similar voice, and there was nothing about him to inspire sadness—if anything he was haughty, and yet Hatano was again stung with pity, and he was silent then as he turned his eyes away from Mashiba’s retreating silhouette. 1 Shinjuku at night is steeped in drunkenness and alluring voices; it leaves an aftertaste of emptiness, as if it were suppressing something and forcing itself to be merry. Feeling as if they had stepped slightly outside the line that marked their peaceful every days, feeling high on this cheerful, frivolous rush, and thus a little lonely—it was on such a day that the two men first met each other. Always the same number of people left over at these reunions and after-parties, Yukio Hatano thought with a bitter smile. Or, the same types of people, he amended. The majority of those who remained were bachelors, and not out of any particular love for dalliance; they exhibited the loneliness of those who somehow had just never been chosen. The “single life,” words which seem to those in their twenties to be a pronoun for freedom, apparently take on a more disconsolate cast with the years. And it seemed to be only the men who endured the wretchedness of being unmarried; their female peers quickly abandoned the idea of marriage and seemed to be having a decently good time on their own, but there was no trace of that bright, lively attitude in this room. He was surrounded with unenthused, unremarkable faces—even those with families didn’t appear to be especially inspired to return home. Well, they’re the faces of guys spending their Friday night at a reunion party; figures they’d be a little unenthused. And plus… As if he were not one of them himself, he surveyed the

unrefined faces of the men around him and continued his train of thought. He had called it a reunion but it was a high school affair, and only for those who had come to Tokyo, so the number of attendees had never been high in the first place. And the word kenjinkai 1 was almost obsolete. They had found themselves gathering together out of the common loneliness of having just left their native rural Kyushu, but there was no small number of people who chose to cut all ties with their past selves as they became familiar with the city. It was, perhaps, inevitable that the gathering would become increasingly sparse as the years passed. There were already several in the group showing the signs of middle age around their bellies, and Hatano felt acutely the passage of time. The reality of his own age, which he often forgot because of his youthful face and slender build, was forced before his eyes. For Hatano, whose style and features hadn’t much changed since his career as a student, the one difference now would be the whiteness of his skin. In his hometown he had been constantly busy with club activities, and given his consequent suntan, had believed his skin to be darker than most Japanese. That, however, had simply been a byproduct of the powerful southern sun, and after ten and some years in the capital, he had discovered that he was, in fact, quite pale for a man. Time, which Hatano had so easily assumed was standing still, seemed to have been passing slowly by without his attention. Quietly he considered this, and deciding that not all things brought on by the passage of time were necessarily bad, he let a smile almost too mature for his childlike face play on his lips. The second after-party of the night was hosted in a slightly dilapidated bar in Kabukichou 2, Shinjuku, and the plump, dignified figures of the older men may have better befitted the venue. He himself, a man who from all outer appearances couldn’t have been past his late twenties, looked strangely out of place. They had reached the age when one must start shouldering the burden of his own “situation,” whatever that may be. Former friends, who had survived their youthful years with only a blurry understanding of the word “tired,” were approaching the age when every nook and cranny of one’s body knows well its subtle nuances; and in voices thick with alcohol, they now grumbled about their work or some other grievance, repeating the same tedious complaints. “Oh, really. That’s terrible,” was all their partner offered, but the friends, keeping right on with “My boss did…” or “My wife said…”, no longer cared if anyone was actually listening to their story or not, and so were not offended. The truly close groups of friends had taken off sometime around the middle of the first after-party, and while Hatano, who was not a salary-man, could offer them the compulsory grunts or nods indicating comprehension during a conversation, he could not respond to the sorrow of those bound by the chains of “the system.” Hatano was currently employed at a nursery school. He was what one might call a hofu 3, working at a private nursery managed by an acquaintance. His slight build, gentle face, and dark eyes that seemed large in comparison with his features, were not only popular with the preschoolers, but afforded him a warm reception from his colleagues, the female day care workers, and the guardians of the children. When working with children, a child-like face is, of course, better than commanding respect out of fear. He combed his fingers through his jet black hair, yet to be marred by even a single strand of gray, and thought to himself that his appearance was rather coming in handy now. It went without saying that working in a nursery was not the carefree, painless job it association of people from the same prefecture a red-light district 3 written with the kanji for “protect/support” and “father” (保父); a popular name for a man responsible for the care of children in nurseries, etc. [probably from hobo (保母), written with the kanji for “protect/support” and “mother”, meaning a day care worker in a kindergarten, nursery, etc.]
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might appear to be, but there was no need to push himself to “produce results” for a company, and he got along fairly well with his coworkers; given this, he considered himself blessed. Indeed, the several years he had once worked as a salary-man made him all the more grateful for his present conditions. It was true that all of this contributed to Hatano’s cheerful mood as he sat in that room, but it also wasn’t a bad feeling to immerse oneself in the buzz of external sound. He had never been the silent type, but neither was he the type to take initiative and offer a topic of conversation, and those who knew him had never been much bothered by it. Those like Hatano, who return to an empty room, and those like the former classmates before him, who return to a heartless wife—there was a loneliness to both of them, and the feeling coursing through those men was something like a longing for someone. * * *

“Oh, excuse me.” For some reason he found himself crowding into the third after-party with the others, and as he was relocating, Hatano, who was considerably more drunk than he himself believed, bumped his shoulder against a man passing by. This kind of spectacle was far from rare on the neon-lit streets of Kabukichou; it was a challenge to attempt to traverse the milling throng of drunkards without bumping into somebody, and nobody took the time to be upset when it happened. So Hatano offered only those three slurred words as his brief excuse for an apology, and made to go on his way. However, the sound of a man toppling over and falling noisily to the ground hardly a second later arrested his departure. “Ah, are you all right?” The slack lines of his face, loosened by alcohol, stiffened for a moment, and he slowly lent his hand to the fallen man. “Ye-Yeah, sorry.” But having half-heartedly mumbled this, the man made no attempt of his own to stand. The gaze that flickered upwards was reddened with alcohol; nonetheless, his eyes left quite an impression. The bridge of his nose sloped down from between his clear eyes, and even the wayward strands of hair that had fallen forward about his face seemed somehow fitting. Hm, this is one handsome man. He was dressed in a striking formal suit, and half in admiration, Hatano thought without any trace of resentment that he was the kind of beautiful man who looked good in such clothing. The man let out a breath hot with alcohol, and beside him, a large paper bag he had probably dropped when he fell lay on its side. A package appearing to be a wedding present had tumbled out. “Oh, no. It’s supposed to be a symbol of a wish for a happy future…” This, compounded with the guilt of having been the one to bump into the stranger, spurred him to quickly bend down and pick up the fallen parcel, but the man, turning his vacant, reddened eyes on him, quietly mumbled, “Don’t mind it.” Hatano took the gift in hand, and sure enough, the kanji kotobuki 4 glittered on its face. He placed it in the bag and extended it to him, but the man, still planted firmly on the ground, did not even glance at it. “Either way… I don’t need it anymore.” kotobuki (寿) meaning “congratulations! long life!”; this kanji is associated with weddings (it is printed on gifts, wedding cards, wedding photo albums, etc.)
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“Well, yeah, a gift might not be all that useful to you, but…” As long as the man refused to accept it and stand up properly, Hatano couldn’t exactly leave either. This could be a bit of a problem, he thought, observing the stranger, but he wouldn’t stir an inch. Oh man… His face was faintly flushed but showed no abnormal signs, and though he spoke quietly his words were clear and firm; still, Hatano decided that the man was much drunker than his appearance suggested. It had gotten fairly warm recently, but the night winds retained their biting chill. Even the flush of intoxication would not shield from its effects; if he left the man collapsed here, he would certainly fall ill. “Just try and stand up. Come on, you’re ruining your nice suit.” “I’m sorry…” Judging by the air about him and the range of his voice, still distinguishable despite his drunkenness, Hatano guessed the man was probably several years younger than himself, and his own speech naturally fell into the patterns of a senior speaking to a junior. Laughing at himself for unconsciously using the voice with which he chided the children of his nursery, he gripped the man’s arm and pulled it forcibly. The drunk stumbled unsteadily to his feet, and as Hatano brushed the dirt from his clothes, he realized the man was actually quite tall. The soft, elegant color of his suit complimented his strong, swarthy face. He was a young, good-looking man, the type that kindled a faint flame of jealousy in a fellow male. All the more reason why the sight of him drowning in booze was pitiful, even laughable. “Hey, hey! Get a hold of yourself.” As if standing up straight required too much effort, his upper body swayed erratically back and forth, and Hatano could do nothing but laugh at the unpleasant absurdity of the situation as he again lent his hand to the man. He had no obligation to show kindness to a complete stranger, but he had also drunk quite a bit himself, and there was something bizarrely pleasant about the miserable state of this stylish young man. At the same time, a voice in his breast whispered that it was either his personality to help out dangerous-looking strangers, or else an occupational disease. Working as a hofu was hardly comfortable; it required the stamina to keep up with the children as they ran every which way, and despite his small frame and slender build, Hatano had no small confidence in his strength. Still, the evident disparity in their physiques, coupled with any drunkard’s characteristic habit of going completely limp, warned that supporting him for long periods of time would be difficult. So what do I do with this… Now that he had involved himself, he could not abandon him. As Hatano was puzzling over this predicament, someone called to him from behind. “Yukio! Hey, what’s going on?” It seemed his friends who had been walking beside him had noticed his sudden disappearance, and had returned to look for him. Hatano let out a sigh, and the man, his head bowed and one arm draped about Hatano’s shoulder, stiffened abruptly. “What are you doing, man? Who is that?” “Eh, I just bumped into him a second ago…” His friends let out cries of astonishment, and taking advantage of the situation, Hatano opened his mouth to say, “Sorry guys, but I…” when an anguished moan interrupted him. “He-Hey! Come on, please! Are you okay?” “My head… kind of…” He clamped one hand over his mouth, a grimace twisting his features. He seemed to

truly be in pain; tears were welling in the corners of his eyes. Thinking to himself, well that’s that, I suppose, Hatano drew in a deep breath and said, “Excuse me,” to his alarmed friends that had circled about him. “Go on ahead. I’ll come by later if I can.” He added that he wouldn’t have them ruin the party all because of him, and they replied with the perfunctory, “Take care,” before walking on. “Damn… It’s really cold.” Hatano had guessed the truth of the matter, but the readiness with which the man changed his demeanor inspired a brief, bitter smile. “Your name is Yukio, isn’t it.” Distracted by the distant flashes of neon, Hatano was startled by the unexpectedly clear voice that spoke into his ear. “Eh? Ye-Yeah, that’s my name.… Anyway, how do you feel? Are you sick?” Paying no attention to Hatano’s question, the man continued his own train of thought. “That’s the same name as someone I know.” “Huh?” “Today was his wedding ceremony, you see.” The forelocks of his hair fell smoothly forward, veiling his eyes and hiding his expression. The tone of his voice was superficially light, and yet the words were laced with cynicism. Though the event should have been a happy occasion, Hatano felt a curious malaise lingering about the crooked lines of his mouth. …could it be, he was in love with his friend’s bride? He may simply have been jumping to conclusions, but Hatano guessed that the man’s stormy mood had something to do with a love affair. And the next words, whispered on the end of a deep sigh, made him say, uh-oh, silently to himself. “I… I was dumped.” …oh, man. So I was right. And that was why he’d drunk himself alone into oblivion, while wearing this fine suit. His outer appearance was still somehow half-heartedly elegant, making the wretchedness of it all the greater. “I see. I’m really sorry about that, um…” “Mashiba. I’m Takaaki Mashiba. Here’s my card.” He may have been drunk, but his speech alone was perfectly clear. The gesture of removing the card from his breast pocket, however, was hampered by the fierce trembling of his fingers. The name of a corporation Hatano knew well was printed on the small piece of paper, and almost automatically he let out another sigh. Even a tall, handsome elite businessman with a deep voice that lingered in one’s ear had some issues in his life, apparently. His orderly profile was stiff, and behind the quivering of his full lips Hatano could tell he was gritting his teeth. “Well Mashiba, care to have another drink?” Why did those words spill from his lips? Hatano considered it mysterious himself, but as Mashiba’s eyes opened wide, giving his face an unusually childlike cast, he found himself with no regrets. “You need someone to listen to your complaints when you’re drinking hard, right?” This has got to be some kind of fate, Hatano thought with a smile. Looking back, Hatano had definitely noticed Mashiba’s awkward expression when faced with Hatano’s smile, had perceived something insecure and dangerous in the air around him. But, blinded by sympathy and alcohol, he could not possibly have noticed the strength in the arms of the man pretending to stagger beside him. Nor could he have imagined himself swept up in the violent cascade that was to shake

up his life in a scant few hours. * of black. There was a burning sensation at the tip of his nose, and quite a bit of time passed before he finally realized that this was because he had been thrown violently against the floor. It was very dark around him; he could hardly be sure whether or not his eyes were actually open. Probably due to having drunk heavily for the first time in ages, his ability to appraise the situation was rather poor. Thinking to assess the condition of the bump on his head, he attempted to move his arms, but found they were bound and wouldn’t budge. Just when he had begun wondering what the hell was going on and was feeling a little irritated, he heard a low, sharp voice. “Don’t move.” Huh? As his mind gradually cleared, he began to grasp the situation he was in. His hazy vision remained somewhat unreliable, but judging from the familiar wallpaper and furniture arrangement, this was the inside of his own apartment. He was in the one room he had left empty for guests, a room that seldom saw use. The lights had not been turned on, but the dim illumination that spilled in through the open door gave a semblance of definition to the contents of the room. But…, Hatano thought to himself, knitting his brows as he silently went over several things that didn’t seem to make sense. Like his own position, crumpled in the doorway with half of his body sticking out into the corridor; or how his chest felt terribly cold; or the tattered remains of his shirt, possibly responsible for the fact that he could not budge his arms. Or the heavy weight of the body bearing down upon him as if to pin him beneath. Who is—? “What—What’s…?!”At last he scrambled to move away, but the weight above him had settled firmly on his knees and Hatano could only manage to strike his throbbing head a second time against the floor. “Ow! What the hell—who are you?!” He had intended to deliver the words in his most furious voice, but the unfamiliar feeling of dread and pain that constricted his throat allowed only a feeble excuse for bravado. The voice that replied to his confused query held no suggestion of violence; rather, it was toneless and disinterested. “Takaaki Mashiba.… You don’t remember? I just gave you my business card, too.” He went to the trouble of announcing his full name, but of course there was no guarantee that it was real. Cursing in his mind, Hatano tried to puzzle through that word, “I just gave you…” with his aching head, but his memories were bleary at best. “What are you talking about? Why are you in my house in the first place?!” “Oh, man… You don’t remember that either?” Well, it didn’t really matter, the man who called himself Mashiba added, laughing in the back of his throat. Perhaps because of the bump on his head, no matter how hard he tried to piece together his memories of the night, he remembered nothing beyond gathering for a drinking party with friends at a bar in Shinjuku. He had probably drunk a considerable quantity. The aftertaste of alcohol in his mouth was something brutal, and his body suffered from the discomfort of those who are not yet entirely sober. * *

Hatano felt a vicious pain at the back of his head, and then his vision blurred in shades

What the hell is going on…? Meanwhile, his continued efforts to wriggle free only served to further twist the shirt that bound his arms, tightening the restraint. Breaking into a cold sweat, he gathered what information he could and came to the conclusion that he must have met this man at the bar. The word kaihou-doro 5 flashed into his mind. This man was most likely a burglar; he had pretended to hit it off with Hatano at the bar and, feigning friendship, offered to see him home. “No matter what you do… I don’t have any money!” Hatano groaned in agony, and the man who had stolen his freedom threw him a cruel smile. “I’ve no interest in that anyway.” The man’s exasperated tone of voice, as if to say, you still don’t get it?, set his nerves ringing with alarm bells. But even more upsetting were the man’s fingers, stealing across the skin of his bare chest. “What are you doing?” His fingers were long and trim. They felt incredibly cold, their iciness unbefitting the actions they were taking on Hatano’s body. Hatano swallowed hard, and anxious droplets of sweat began to streak the plane of his back. Words like “there’s no way…” and “what kind of joke is…”, all manner of these common phrases whirlpooled in his mind, but not a single one emerged from his mouth. The face of the man above him, previously indiscernible due to both the darkness of the room and the man’s looming position, materialized in Hatano’s vision as he adjusted to the lack of light. Much later, Hatano recalled that he probably would have been able to endure the whole ordeal without much terror, if only he hadn’t seen the light of brutality glazing those cool, impassive eyes. He tried to worm free with his lower body, but was quickly thwarted by arms much more powerful than they looked. With a brute roughness seemingly out of place in a man wearing such a fine suit, he held Hatano firmly down. “I—I’m… I’m a man!” No matter how young he looked, or how his childlike face belied his thirty years of age, or how his colleagues would tease him and call him, “cute,” his face was far from feminine. Besides, with half of his clothing now strewn about the floor, his gender went without saying. “I can tell that quite clearly,” Mashiba jeered back in his calm, quiet voice, and he reached up to remove his necktie. “Then why—“ The glossy band of cloth that had decorated the collar of his starched shirt was tightly bundled and shoved into Hatano’s mouth. His eyes shot wide open in surprise, and Mashiba promptly turned him over without much difficulty, forcing him to lie on his face. His slacks, the rough, casual wear he preferred, were stripped from him with shocking facility, and his breath, already obstructed by the now saliva-soaked necktie, came even more painfully with his escalating panic. This is crazy…! At this rate, he was really going to be raped. A horror unlike anything he had ever experienced in his thirty-two years raised goosebumps all over his body. As with all people, Hatano had experienced his share of the world, but in matters of sexual preference he considered himself exceedingly normal, and he had never had any contact with homosexuals. And yet. He was on the verge of being raped from behind by a man off the street. kaihou (介抱) “nursing; taking care of” and doro from dorobou (泥棒) “thief”; one who approaches a drunk man, pretending to help him, and instead steals money, etc.
5

“Mmph—!“ He writhed and twisted, but always he was pinned beneath the other man’s weight and could not break free. This was the difference between the plunderer and the plundered; crushed by frustration and his own helplessness, Hatano wondered, Why? Why had he wound up here to be manhandled by a stranger? Though it was the beginning of spring, it was yet early to turn off the heating. His knees, bare against the chilly flooring, chafed painfully, but the feeling barely even registered in his mind. His reckless thrashing only tired him faster, and he felt his strength to resist gradually seeping away. The alcohol had also begun to whirl rather unpleasantly inside him, and a headache coupled with a desire to vomit assaulted him in alternating surges. All the while, the hard palm of the man’s hand relentlessly explored the private parts of his body. “Just keep still and quiet.” Those cold fingers gripped him between his legs, and his terror spiraled to a peak. He could no longer summon any significant strength into his limbs, and his knees, shaking violently, were ready to buckle from beneath him. “If you struggle, you’re the one who’s going to be hurting.” He whispered the threatening words in a gentle voice, and Hatano felt something cool being smeared inside him. Something spilled from his open eyes, defiling his cheek with its passage. He had never imagined a day when he would weep because of this. It’s… too late. Bracing himself for the violation that was only seconds away, Hatano slowly shut his eyes, and could do nothing more. * * *

When Hatano opened his eyes the next morning, he was in his bed. Every last one of his joints grated jarringly, forcing him fully awake, and the echoes of pain in a place that should not have been hurting reminded him why. Wishing he could have never woken at all, Hatano let out a heavy sigh. “…ugh.” He stirred slightly, and was rewarded with a sudden spike of pain coursing through his body. Swallowing the cry that sprang to his lips, he took stock of the clotted stiffness of his skin and knew he had shed quite a lot of blood. He gave thanks that the day was a holiday. Saturday was not a standard off-day where Hatano was employed, although Sunday was; the other required weekly holiday was decided by rotation, each employee choosing his or her day off. Now more than ever, he was grateful for having anticipated a hangover after last night’s reunion and asking to be excused that day. Never would have thought I’d be using the time to recover from being raped. His laughter was laced with self-derision as he tentatively attempted to sit himself up. That last night’s events had been no dream was undeniable given the condition of his body, but as he rolled back the sheets and got a good look at himself, he was left speechless. Fuck…! He began to shiver, feeling chilled to the bone, but whether this was a product of anger or fear he knew not. It may have been both. He would have preferred nudity. As it was, his legs had been left bare, and the shreds of his shirt still clung half-heartedly to his scratched arms, the cuffs stained with what could only be blood. He raised his trembling fingertips to his chest, thinking to arrange what remained of the garment, and caught the scent of something sour. Judging by the characteristic unpleasantness of

the smell, he imagined he had vomited at some point. His pounding headache was not thanks to the alcohol alone; he must have struck his head when he had been thrown down the previous night. He hesitantly touched his hand to the back of his skull and discovered a curious bulge, the beginnings of a swelling bump. “Are you awake?” Hatano went perfectly rigid, his cheeks the color of ashes. The voice sprang upon him like a tripped mousetrap, and he cowered at the sound of it. “Why…” he whispered, overcome with shock, and his hoarse, rasping voice could have been a stranger’s. He hadn’t even considered that Mashiba might be there the next day. He kept motionless, too stunned even to coordinate a reaction, and the man smiled faintly as he approached the bed. An instinctive rush of fear seized Hatano, and though he made to spring up, this only refreshed the pain in his hips. He fell back onto the bed, groaning softly, and a hand touched his bare shoulder, raising goosebumps along his skin. Hatano didn’t clearly remember the details of what had happened afterwards. A horrible agony had assailed him, and something hard seemed to have been gouging out his insides, setting his stomach roiling with nausea. It went without saying that Hatano’s manhood had remained recoiled, showing no reaction of any kind. He also remembered reflecting rather stupidly on the marvel that a man at this age was experiencing the pain of deflowering. Unlike with a woman, rape resulted in no serious bodily injury to him, but he had been unable to endure the intense repulsion and sharp, piercing pain while still conscious. Now, even the sensation of that warm palm against his chilled shoulder sank him into terror. It was a pure, unadulterated fear of pain and violence. “You… Why… Why are you here?!” He stiffened his body, which no longer had even the strength left in it to shake off that hand, and, putting on the most fearsome show he could manage, intended to bark angrily at the man, but his bluff could not hide his trembling, and the voice he spoke in was feeble. In a tone thinly veiling his light laughter, Mashiba replied, “But you’re the one who invited me.” “Invi—?!” Rather than outrage at this unbelievable statement, Hatano’s face was still painted with shock when he lifted it to look at him, and Mashiba, noting his expression that was all but screaming, “You’re the one who conveniently misunderstood my intentions!”, laughed in the back of his throat. “ ‘Let’s go have a drink at my place,’ you said.” “Wha—!” Realizing his frivolous parrying of Hatano’s question was simply meant to taunt him, he cursed him, that bastard, in his breast. Rallying his willpower, he shrugged off Mashiba’s hand still resting on his shoulder, and glared at him squarely. “Just get out of here.” “Why?” “Why—? Do you even understand what you’ve done?!” This must be what they meant by a shameless criminal. His mind blazed red with anger. A pain began to stir in the pit of his stomach, like a flame searing him from within, and he knew he was genuinely furious for the first time in months. His rage so intense he could barely find the words to express it, ragged breaths were all that escaped his slender throat. “Why! Why did you do this?!” Mashiba did not reply to the tortured scream. He remained silent, offering neither

apology nor excuse, and Hatano did not notice that his face, which naturally left a hard, tense impression anyway, seemed to be tensing even more. Hatano’s headache had escalated thanks to his shouting, and the migraine forced a moan from his lips. Usually he was not the type to fall deep in his cups, but this time had apparently been too much. It probably hadn’t been a good idea to fall into the pace of the reunion and knock back that Japanese sake, either, which he had always been weak against. It would have been best if he could have just forgotten the whole thing; the fact that he remembered parts here and there of everything he didn’t want to remember made it all the worse. At least he remembered the meeting on the street, but the events that followed were beyond his recollection. Mashiba had said that Hatano himself had invited him home, but he had no idea what they had spoken about. All he knew was the terror when the man had bent over him, the pain he didn’t want to remember, the chill of the floor scraping against his cheek; all of these came back to him, as fresh and vivid as the night before, and his shoulders began to shake again. He also remembered a voice. “Why… Yukio…!” Hatano had been the one being violated, and yet Mashiba’s voice had been bitter with misery as he repeated that name, again and again. Somewhere in his vague memories, he recalled Mashiba telling him that he had the same name as his friend who had gotten married, and he looked up in surprise. He pinned the sharp-looking man before him with a penetrating gaze. “Was it because my name is Yukio?” Then another question left his lips. “The one who dumped you wasn’t the bride; it was ‘Yukio,’ wasn’t it?” Mashiba did not answer, but his eyelids, which trembled for a moment and then slid shut, spoke loudly enough. “What a joke,” he hissed under his breath, nearly spitting out the words. It would have been one thing if Hatano himself had been involved somehow. To be told that it was simply a coincidence of name… “Don’t you think… just because you were angry and wanted to lash out at someone, this is a bit much?” “Yes, I suppose so.” “You suppose…?!” There wasn’t a shred of remorse in that impassive voice, and though a flash of ire overtook him for a second, Hatano’s shoulders quickly sagged again, and he chose to swallow the words of protest that had risen in his throat. “Aren’t you going to curse me? ‘You rapist!’ or something.” “Even if I did, it wouldn’t accomplish anything.” His mind and body were exhausted, and he felt as if he had aged several years all at once. “I don’t know if you can call it ‘rape’ with men, but you’re aware of what you’ve done, I see.” This was even more unpleasant than a thug off the street, who would have at least left him to his own devices after the deed was done. “I would have preferred a burglar,” Hatano sighed. He slumped with fatigue, and his anger, left with nowhere to go, pricked like thorns into the walls of his stomach. Still, the faded smile did not vanish from his face, and he observed Mashiba, who made no move to exit, as if he were a curious object. Though this was most likely intentional, the other man made no attempt to engage in the conversation, nor did he try to flaunt the attitude that he thought nothing of hurting another human being. Hatano knew little about homosexual love, but the pain of being betrayed and discarded by a lover is blind to gender. Mashiba’s despair was not entirely beyond his understanding. But to lash out at a stranger and rape them just because they have the same name… That wasn’t something a human being should do. He wondered absently if Mashiba was one of

those ‘psychopaths’ he had been hearing about, people seemingly born without a conscience, who suffer from definite mental abnormalities. But he didn’t look crazy, Hatano thought to himself as he gazed at Mashiba’s pleasantly elegant face. At least, the voice that had called out his lover’s name, the name that Hatano shared, had been thick with a heartrending grief. Through the pain, Hatano had even a felt a kind of earnest sincerity in the desolate tone of that voice. What am I sympathizing with this guy for…? Having recovered from the worst of his confusion, he felt an unbelievable calm take hold of him. His initial panic had for the most part abated, replaced only by the pain which he felt more and more keenly with each passing moment of wakefulness. He came to the conclusion that Mashiba had performed an action that his own common sense did not permit him to comprehend; any length of conversation with a person he could not comprehend and who could not comprehend him would be futile, he decided, and moved to bring an end to the deadlocked situation. “I don’t really get what’s going on, but either way it was careless of me to let a stranger into my house. Of course, I never thought this would end up happening to me.” Mashiba’s eyes opened wide at the sound of that flat, weary voice. “You’re not angry anymore?” “It doesn’t matter what I say, you don’t care. It’s pointless. And I like to avoid pointless exertion.” Having said this, Hatano once again began to shiver. It’s oddly cold in here… Though he was indoors and snugly wrapped in bedding, lounging in a single tattered shirt without the heater running in early spring was hardly enough to ward off the chill. Still, the irregular fits of shuddering that crept along his spine may not be entirely induced by his temperature or mood, he thought as he wondered if he were developing a fever. He had a strong desire to change out of his clothes, but could not bring himself to do so while Mashiba was in view. The mere thought of baring his skin before this man was enough to make him cringe. He stroked the chafed skin of his arms weakly and repeated, “Anyway, just go home. I’ll forget all about this.” Perhaps it was impossible to forget, but Hatano knew well that even the most fierce and bitter of memories would eventually fade away. Of course his anger at having been raped remained, and to be honest, though Mashiba now seemed perfectly calm, he had no idea when the man might crack again. The possibility that he might be forced to suffer that awful pain and discomfort a second time left him petrified. His torn lower parts were numbingly heavy, and even compared to the previous night when he had been heavily drunk, he was sure he would be unable to put up any significant resistance. However, in the end Hatano was not a woman, and there was no fear of the secondary disaster of a sex crime, pregnancy. Besides, as someone who had originally had no contacts or ties with homosexuals, he did not feel any particular emotional damage. He was at heart a positive thinker; as a man neither strong, nor weak enough, to die when loneliness seemed about to crush him, this was how he had kept himself walking. Things one had lost, or which had faded into the past, could not be restored, no matter how one might lament them. There was no choice but to look to the future, and live on. “I feel sick. I want to sleep already. If you have any shred of conscience in you, then go away.” He could think of it as simply having been bullied. There had been plenty of young toughs with rowdy dispositions back home, and there had been times when he had been punched in the stomach until he vomited. This was just like one of those times. Repeating this to himself

forcefully, he drew the sheets over his head. “Hatano.” “This is enough, isn’t it? You’re satisfied now, aren’t you?! I want to sleep. Just get out.… Please, get out!” he yelled, raising his voice, but if Mashiba heard him he showed no sign of it. The springs beneath Hatano’s feet creaked dully. It seemed Mashiba had sat down on the side of the bed. “What are you doing?” Hatano peeked his face out and glared crossly at him, but Mashiba, his legs crossed, paid him no mind as he coolly lit a cigarette. “So you say you work as a hofu,” he began abruptly, acting as if he were unaware of the furious man lying beside him. When Hatano, visibly startled, asked him how he knew this, Mashiba laughed again, replying that Hatano himself had told him. “ ‘It must be lonely by yourself,’ you said. When I told you I was heartbroken, you said you’d comfort me, you know.” His way of speaking was mild, but there was something icy in his tone. The conversation was going nowhere, and Hatano cradled his head in his arms. Of one thing he was sure: the man was not lingering in the room for the purpose of apologizing. Is he… really crazy? He could not decipher Mashiba’s true motive, and this made him all the more uneasy. Judging by his albeit fragmented memories and the aching of his body, he knew a very intense, aggressive act had been forced upon him. If he had to take it again, he really might die. “I… I’ve comforted you enough, don’t you think?” he said in a weak voice, unable to manage a bluff, and Mashiba laughed lightly. Hatano had a bad feeling about this. “How cruel. Of course it’s not enough.” “ ‘Of course it’s not’? You—!” Hatano’s body went rigid, and the shameless man peered down at his face, speaking in a gentle voice. “I guess it’s because you’re not used to it, you were so tight. It wasn’t very… satisfying. You know?” He chuckled, an erotic expression on his face, but Hatano saw only the smile of a devil. “It just hurt for you, right?” “O-Of course it did! I’ve never been thrust into before!” Trying to escape from that persistent smile, he scooted back across the bed, but in such a narrow space there was nowhere to go but up against the wall. A large hand found a gap in his hopelessly tangled shirt and slipped beneath it. “Yes, that’s true, poor thing.” “Stop! Hey—Wait—Ah, give me a break…!” At last Mashiba’s palm brushed against his bare skin. Surely the owner of that hand had noticed how every hair on his body was raised, but he made no outward acknowledgment of it as he continued to stroke him. Hatano was cowering and could not move a muscle, not even to refuse his captor. Worse, even if he had wanted to wage a violent struggle, the combination of his fever and injuries made even the slightest movement painful. “Ah…!” Ignoring the fact that Hatano had locked his legs tightly together, Mashiba wedged his hand in against Hatano’s inner thigh, and Hatano felt it squirming forward with a clear destination. Finally those fingers wrapped around him, and Hatano, left with nowhere to run, could do nothing but beg. “Why… are you doing this?”

Any man, if stimulated, will become erect, even against his own will. There was also the fact that it was morning, and as his member slowly stirred to life, Hatano had no choice but to feel the pleasure of it. Given his age, sleeping alone was no longer very distressing for him, but to be given such a firm reminder that he was a man at a time like this only depressed him further. “Uh, ugh…” But he was not turned on in the true sense of the word. He felt physiological lust surging within him, but the more hotly it raged, the cooler the chill that closed around his heart. He could have wept at his own wretchedness. Why was a man approaching his middle age, on the day following his rape by another man, having that same man take care of his morning erection? “Oh…” He fought back the urge to come, and his breath quickened. Knowing that he must appear to be enjoying Mashiba’s ministrations and hating himself for it, he squeezed his eyes shut, and the man masturbating him leaned in close to his ear to say something horrifying. “Go out with me.” “Wha… What—Ah!” His hips jerked upwards for a moment, and a thick, sticky fluid spilled out over them. At once they felt lighter, unable to refuse the sensation, and a numbness began to set over his upper legs. For that moment, he forgot about the discomfort of his pain and fever. “…ugh.” His shoulders heaved, exhaling a long breath, and Mashiba spoke again. “It just hurt for you last night, but if you get used to it, I can make you feel good.” “Why the hell would I get used to it?! Cut the bullshit out…!” Lacking the energy to sit himself up, he lay there cursing at the man, and Mashiba, never removing his sticky fingers from Hatano’s limp thigh, replied, “It must be hard, working with children.” The words were painted in a dozen shades of implication, and Hatano felt the blood drain instantly from his face. “You may not be a school teacher, but you still have a lot of responsibilities. I’m sure they speak to you very strictly about your behavior, eh?” “You—!” Could Mashiba be threatening him? His eyes shot wide open in alarm, and the man before him was grinning crookedly. His expression was frightening—but there was something to it that jarred in Hatano’s breast. Mashiba’s moist fingers crept on to his injured area, and he caught his breath in agony. “I’ll treat you. It’ll be bad to leave it like this.” There was something like concern in his voice, but Hatano scoffed at it inwardly. It was this man’s fault for doing strange things in the first place, that he had ended up like this. “Don’t touch me! I’ll do it myself…!” he growled acidly. Mashiba answered in a strangely cool voice, “That’s impossible. You’re lying down so you might not be able to tell, but you probably can’t even stand up right now.” Intuitively Hatano felt the muffled pain and regret cloaked by that calm, flat voice, and he remembered that voice calling out one name, miserably, over and over. What a sad guy. His resentment at Mashiba’s misdirected actions was not allayed, but the emptiness he had discovered looking closely into his eyes inspired a stirring pity in those who saw it, and Hatano, who knew such emotions all too well, could not suppress his feelings of sympathy. “Spread yourself open, wash the blood off, disinfect it and apply the medicine… Can you do that?” There was no way. Imagining the wounds on his inner parts nauseated him to the point

of anemia, and he shut his eyes in resignation. Mashiba’s fingers seemed to touch with the genuine purpose of assessing his injuries, and they caused him no more pain than necessary. He was not, it appeared, a sadist at heart, and Hatano was buoyed by this small relief. If I’m going to end up like this every time, I couldn’t stand it, he thought, and realized that he had already half-accepted the situation. He could not deny that he was a little desperate, as well. As long as that mild threat of blackmail remained, he had no power to refuse. “Do what you want,” he said simply in a quiet voice, and let his body go limp. His shirt was rolled aside, and as the man’s hands began to cleanse and treat the wounds of his lower body, Hatano steeled himself to feel nothing, telling himself the hands belonged to a doctor. He had no idea why Mashiba had asked him to enter a relationship, but it was most likely reckless proof of his self-abandonment. It wouldn’t be long before Mashiba got a hold of himself again, or else tired of him, and then the farce would surely end. He silently came to this conclusion, and decided to concede for now. He didn’t know what types homosexuals favored, but the standards for beauty couldn’t be all that different for men and women; in that case, he guessed that, putting his personality aside, the incredibly handsome Mashiba would be very popular. Hatano had never considered himself homely, but compared to Mashiba he was a 30-something-year-old man leaving something to be desired. While it struck him as pathetic, the knowledge that Mashiba wouldn’t bother with him for very long was his only support. One cannot cling to negative feelings for very long. In the end, they are nothing but a burden. All the more true if they are feelings born from the loss of something, Hatano thought, reflecting on himself. It was true that in his own case, though, they had happened to lead him to a will to live and a way to stabilize his life. It was yet early to look fondly back on them, but his memories had certainly begun to show the weather of time. He replaced in his mind the sharp pain resonating from his lower body with those memories, and opened his mouth. “Your name was Mashiba, wasn’t it?” He had held himself rigid during the application of the salve, and the moment those hard fingertips disappeared from inside him, he allowed himself to take a deep breath. “How old are you?” “Twenty-seven… I told you that last night,” Mashiba said, in a tone that indicated he thought the question was meaningless. Hatano himself didn’t know what had possessed him to ask. Still, it explained why insolent Mashiba bothered to use teineigo 6 when addressing him, though he certainly did not appear at first glance to be Mashiba’s senior. But Mashiba’s remark on the age of twenty-seven had brought his memories to mind, ones that even now choked the breath in his lungs. “Well, I told you I don’t remember.… So you’re five years younger than me.” “You said that before, too.” He exchanged casual words with Mashiba, but within his breast he whispered, really, and the curious coincidence struck him as funny. So it’s really been five years… “Hatano?” Perhaps thanks to the antipyretic he had taken, his consciousness had begun to waver drowsily. His eyelids grew heavy, and Mashiba’s voice drifted to his ears as if from far away. His voice, quietly calling his name, was very gentle, and the last thought to cross Hatano’s mind was, ah, if only he always spoke like that, he has such a soft voice…, before he sank into the arms of slumber. *
6

*

*

polite language, characterized by the use of –desu and –masu, among others; used to address those older than the speaker

The relationship that thus began in early spring showed no signs of flagging with the arrival of summer, despite Hatano’s predictions. Mashiba’s “go out” had meant, not surprisingly, as a sex friend, but from the second time onward he had been treated with exceptional care, and Mashiba had never again been violent enough to cause injury. At first, stronger even than his indignation had been his fear of Mashiba, who had turned his common sense and peaceful everyday life cleanly upside down in just one night. Nevertheless, he learned the strength of an embrace different from any woman’s, and he could not refuse the pleasure, almost like relief, conferred by another human’s warmth—something it seemed he hadn’t felt in years. And in this fashion, the relationship dragged on. He had even become used to the man appearing several times a week, as he was wont to do recently, to make love to him. He was somewhat bewildered at his own ability to adapt to this situation, but as long as he was unable to avoid it, what else could he do? The fact that his body had been the first to adapt had been one of the primary reasons he had accepted the relationship. Mashiba had slowly accustomed him little by little, opened his initially unyielding body until he had been completely transformed into Mashiba’s ‘woman.’ Mashiba had fed him some fairly fantastic lines, “I can make you feel good,” among them, but he had made good on his word; he was skilled at sex. Of course, taking into account Hatano’s age and job, their intimacy two or three times a week could be something of a burden. When he looked back at his past, Hatano saw that his relationships with women had always been rather ingenuous. These past five years, he had not even felt the heat of another body. That this did not inconvenience him in the least had often brought a bitter smile to his lips, at the thought that he was probably ‘dried up.’ And yet Mashiba’s lovemaking stimulated such a fierce pleasure in him that he almost wondered if he had been a latent homosexual. Being fondled, and impaled deeply by him, was enough to shatter any sense of order or reason he had to pieces. Feeling that wetness against his skin, losing himself with wanton abandon—sometimes he even felt as if Mashiba were violating his brain and ravaging his mind. When being taken from behind became enough to make him come, it had been a serious shock. Once he learned that all men feel sexual pleasure there anyway, he gave up on dwelling on the details. At any rate, no matter how long he might brood, Mashiba did not stop embracing him; and that this drove Hatano wild with pleasure was the inexorable truth. As always, after Mashiba had made thorough sport of his body, they exchanged one or two brusque words, and Mashiba turned his back on him. Finally Hatano heard the click of his front door shutting, and, letting out a deep breath, he realized he had been concentrating with extreme tension on tracking Mashiba’s retreating presence. He was exhausted in a dozen ways, and when he lit a fresh cigarette, the smoke seeping into his lungs made him feel faintly intoxicated. “What the hell am I tense for…?” he whispered, brushing aside his sweaty, disheveled hair with his fingertips. The quiet words echoed unexpectedly in the empty room, sounding as if they had been spoken in some alien voice, and he was startled for a moment. He lay there, swallowed by a post-coital mix of exultation and emptiness, and even the idea of dressing himself annoyed him. Having known no men other than Mashiba, he could hardly claim to be an expert in these matters, but he thought that sex between two men was quite hard in many ways. The pleasure was great, but the burden of the one receiving was heavy, such that he might be unwilling to move for two or three hours after the act.

Still clinging sluggishly to the bed, he thought of his relationship with Mashiba, which had now become a habit, and briefly considered that had they been acting out of love, he would not have had to feel this subsequent emptiness. “Then again, it started the way it did, so maybe not…” What a foolish thing to think about, anyway, he interrupted himself, smiling acidly. Sex that was just part of a deal, sex that would never express mutual feelings—the further he drowned in it, the more parched his heart became. They exchanged deep, fierce kisses that left his lips stinging, and yet never met each other’s eyes; and Mashiba stubbornly played the part of ‘bad guy,’ purposely exposing all of his own worst qualities; all of this was becoming too much for Hatano. Even in a strictly physical relationship, becoming familiar with one’s partner will inspire some degree of emotion. Hatano, whose personality had never been inclined to hold on to anger or malice for very long, preferred calm and gentle relationships with others. The constant stress of keeping alert, this strain of anxiety on his nerves, left him ill at ease. Of course, if the violence of the first time had continued, even gentle Hatano would probably have revised his outlook. “Then why…?” Why did Mashiba caress his body so tenderly? If he were really being used as an entertaining diversion, Hatano would have expected rougher treatment. The physical and emotional toll perhaps would have been several times greater, but he thought he might not have been so confused. Mashiba seemed to be forcing himself to spurn Hatano every time he turned his back on him, and ever since Hatano had recognized that ‘forcing,’ he had been unable to hate him. Mashiba’s speech and bearing had always been sharp, and Hatano had firsthand experience that when his emotions were excited, he was very unpredictable. He had a native sweetness, however, that could never belong to a true sadist; this Hatano had slowly appreciated not from their conversations, but Mashiba’s conduct in bed. Towards one who held his affections, Hatano imagined that Mashiba was an extremely sweet and passionate lover; and Hatano had glimpsed his profoundly gentle side in the tenderness of his lovemaking, a tenderness that was not entirely just technique. Lately, his curt behavior and cold expressions appeared to Hatano to be nothing more than his most desperate bluff, the obstinacy of a man purposely restraining himself from being gentle, unable to permit himself to become used to Hatano’s presence. Mashiba would square his shoulders and fire his most barbed words at him, but they only seemed to turn around and hurt himself. One could call it masochism. Though their conversations were short, Hatano could sense his strong, unrelenting pride when he spoke. He had a somewhat narrow, prejudiced perspective on the careers and positions in society of others, but that was to be expected of a man with the skill to conduct the frontline sales of a famous corporation. Hatano conjectured that, given the man’s nature, under normal circumstances Mashiba would not have forgiven himself these vulgar actions. To be cool, and to be cool-headed, are vastly different things, and Hatano was convinced that Mashiba was confusing the two. It looked as if these uncharacteristic actions were exhausting his nerves, and driving him into a corner. It must tire him out… He caught himself reflecting on the situation as if he were an outsider, and a smirk of self-ridicule curled the corners of his lips. No one would have begrudged Hatano his fury or spite towards Mashiba in this situation, but those emotions had arisen only once, on that first night. Mashiba had lashed out misguidedly, butting his embittered passion against him, but to return that same favor was something Hatano’s heart was rather too calm to do. The thought of returning inflicted pain with

more pain only increased his weariness. Hatano desired peace, even a superficial one; he had abandoned anger from the start. If he had no authority to put at end to it, he had no choice but to accept the situation. They both knew well that their bodies were incredibly compatible. In the first place, Mashiba had more or less molded Hatano’s body into its current form. His every reaction, even the way his voice rose, was doubtlessly already tuned to match the man’s preferences. At this point, there was little else to do but steel himself and consider Mashiba just another flavor of sex friend. Hatano himself was content with this justification, but he could not shake the feeling that it was Mashiba who stubbornly persisted in fixating on some facet of their relationship, unable to shelve it logically away as Hatano had. It was a hushed and tepid affair between them, but strangely enough it was not unpleasant. Of course, if he ever said so, that proud man would probably yell, “Don’t make a fool out of me!”, and to reply that he was sincere would only anger him more. He wondered where else there might be an idiot who, being blackmailed by the man who raped him, actually commiserated with the criminal. But still. I really think being gentle would feel a lot better than hurting someone… No matter how wrong the foot on which they had gotten off. That he entertained such thoughts at all meant that, in some complicated way, he had begun to harbor feelings for Mashiba; this he already knew. Why the hell did things turn out this way?, he asked himself, and this time the smile that ghosted across his face was bitter. Over and over he had been embraced by him, as if he were an outlet for the loneliness that haunted Mashiba without rest. The man probably had not yet realized that the very intensity of his passion betrayed that loneliness in words more incriminating than any he could speak. The column of ash had advanced almost to the base of his cigarette, nearly singeing his fingers, and as he crushed it in an ashtray, a few quiet words escaped beneath the sigh of his breath. “I wonder if Yuuko would be mad…” It had been a long time since the name of the woman who had been most precious to him had last passed his lips. When he recalled the beautiful woman who had offered him a family, given him the happiest gift of his life, and then disappeared, treasure and all, from before his very eyes, the old grating pain still tightened his chest. Remembering her was enough to strangle his breath, and he had thrown out anything that triggered his memories; still, no length of time had faded the vestiges of her left in his heart. He had a feeling that she would surely have smiled, and told him, “That’s just like you, Yuki.” First to Yuuko, now to Mashiba, Hatano was inevitably drawn to those with lonely eyes. Men or women who long for another, carrying the burden of their unfulfilled sadness—these people struck some chord within his heart, and he couldn’t help but hold them dear. If he could become the one to fill the voids in their lives, he felt as if he himself had been saved. “I mean, after all…” There was no other reason; Hatano himself was lonely. If he were the comfort of another, he felt as if he were needed, as if he were somebody necessary. Even if that comfort meant becoming somebody’s outlet. “I really don’t… want to be alone…” It was this side of himself that was the most indecent, he thought scathingly. He was lonely, so lonely, and the long desolate hours of the night were painful to pass alone. He knew only the personality, name, and body of the younger man, but he felt that he wanted to know just

a little bit more. He tried to imagine how captivating the lover had been who had inspired in Mashiba a passion so strong, even tearing a complete stranger apart had not been enough to allay it. A miserable ache accompanied the next beat of his heart, and somewhere deep within his pained breast, a thorn named Mashiba had lodged itself and would not come loose. But Hatano could not yet recognize that that ache had begun to take a shape that was no longer pity. He drew his brows tightly together, burying his face in his hands, and a sharp pain stung his fingertips. It was not unlike the sensation of digging his nails into Mashiba’s back, and Hatano quietly realized that he was hooked far more desperately than he knew. 2 In a voice tinged with irritation, Mashiba ended his phone call with the planning office and let out a deep sigh. “Um… some tea, sir.” Apparently frightened by his obvious ill-temper, one of the other employees, a woman hired only that year, slowly placed the cup beside him and departed. He muttered his indifferent thanks and drank a mouthful, but the astringent taste made him recoil. This was a cup of water that had been hastily boiled in an electric pot and dumped over tea leaves. It possessed neither aroma nor flavor, little more than colored hot water that grated on the tongue, and while he knit his brows and sipped it, the voice belonging to the one man he most wished to avoid addressed him from above. “Why are you so agitated? You’re scaring Ms. Eda.” Yukio Ikawa’s voice was deep and soft, the kind that would elicit admiring praise of its beauty from any and all who heard it. But to Mashiba now, the sound of nails clawing a chalkboard would have been far more soothing on his nerves. “What do you want, Ikawa-kachou 7?” he said, making no attempt to mask his displeasure at the promotion the man had received that year, but Ikawa seemed oblivious. “Judging by that look, you got into another argument about the delivery date, right? You’ve got it hard, eh?” he added, laughing, and Mashiba could only glare at that cheerful profile, his face a mask of astonishment. I guess I can’t dispose of things as cleverly and efficiently as you do. The words leapt into his throat, and he quickly swallowed them with a sip of the bitter tea. They were far too obvious, lacking the subtle edge of insinuation; he would gain nothing by saying them. “If you have no business with me, then please go away. I have to resettle the negotiation,” he said in a low voice, sighing, but the request had no effect; Ikawa even smiled. “You’re sure in a scary mood today.” The sight of that smile, lovely as a model’s and yet devoid of all emotion, plunged him further into depression—as if he didn’t already have a headache from attempting to settle a deal for the merchandise the company had foisted upon him. The planning development office had curtly rejected the shipping date, and it was left to him to gently break this news to the customer. He studied the number 7 speed-dial on the external-line telephone perched nearby on the desk. The man, a client of his for many years, was an arrogant one, and Mashiba would have to bow his head until he gave his assent. “Please excuse me, this is Mashiba from S Commercial.… Ah, thank you for the other day.” The call went through, and Ikawa cast an unreadable gaze in his direction as he
7

kachou (課長) : section manager; section chief

cheerfully recited the proper pleasantries. The office, situated such that the sun setting in the west shone strongly inside, was unaffected by the changing of the seasons, thanks to formidable air conditioning. The man before his eyes was indeed well-suited for such an inorganic atmosphere. His premium suit complemented his long arms and legs, and disregarding the ring adorning his left ring finger, had the effect of heightening his good looks. The sight of him, which not so long ago had set Mashiba’s heart fluttering within his breast, now registered as nothing more than a foreign object. We’re in different departments! If you have nothing to do, why don’t you drink some tea or something over there! He fixed Ikawa with a dangerous look, shooing him away with his chin, and Ikawa inclined his head in response with an expression of amused exasperation, but finally consented to leave. “My gravest apologies, but that may be difficult… Of course, I will make the arrangements immediately.” It would have been enough simply not to look, but Ikawa’s flashy figure in the corner of his eye insisted on drawing his attention. He was teasing one of the female employees, and Mashiba struggled to keep any hint of his irritation from curdling his voice on the phone. He was more tired than he should have been. What kind of nerves does that man have?! He managed to tie up his business over the phone, and the moment his finger depressed the hook, a heavy and bitter sigh left his lips. Ikawa, blessed with elegance, florid beauty, and a precise understanding of the effects these qualities had on others, was a man armed with both cleverness and the tricks to success. His promotion at the same youthful age as Mashiba to the star position of S Commercial, first division chief of the Head Supervision Department, no doubt owed more to his worldly skills than to his actual professional ability. S Commercial, a public general trading company, had a somewhat antiquated structure; it had been a family company ever since its establishment, and power from the chairman down was monopolized in the hands of relatives. Even a graduate of a famous university would have no choice but to ingratiate himself into the family clique if he wanted to climb the corporate ladder. The one other option would be to display a prowess that the higher-ups couldn’t ignore, but a man who turned away from the clique would find this path rather difficult. It was a company he had wished to enter, but Mashiba resented the fact that these old customs were not reformed. Of course, there were those who had battled their way up the ranks with their merits alone. Kamata, the chief of the fourth division of the Sales Department (the division to which Mashiba was assigned), was such an archetype. He was not an alumnus of a national public institution, and despite his staunch refusal to attach himself to any of the company factions, he had risen to his current position. This, coupled with his mild, calm disposition, inspired Mashiba’s respect and aspiration. That Kamata had been in charge of his training when he had first entered the company also most likely played a role. Following in Kamata’s footsteps, Mashiba had quietly attained a managerial position thanks to his hard work alone, and this seemed to have earned him Kamata’s good favor. Kamata, originally recruited from the planning department and assigned to sales, was not a particularly glib speaker. He was a neat, ordered man, not prone to outward displays of emotion, and these traits he shared with Mashiba. The two could not be called personal friends, but they understood one another. Kamata had surely had a hand in Mashiba’s assignment to his own division after Mashiba’s training period had ended. However, Mashiba’s old friend from college, Ikawa, who had heard all the same lectures from Kamata, had disliked his precise, strict coaching, and refused to work beneath him. Ikawa had been assigned to the head department,

just as he had hoped, and without a qualm he had chosen the easy route. This spring he had opened a family register with one of the female employees, a relative of the senior managing director. Indeed, it was as if a shortcut to the top had been prepared for him, and as long as he avoided any spectacular blunders, his future was secure. Though it meant betraying both himself and the lover who had been beside him since college for seven years, Ikawa must have coveted a high post in a famous corporation. A feat I never could have pulled…, he brooded, not quite in self-derision. Unlike Mashiba, who had never been attracted to women, Ikawa did not restrict himself to one gender. He was simply a hedonist. During their relationship he had cheated constantly, but even that willful freedom had endeared him to Mashiba. What he had learned from the wedding invitation that Ikawa had seen fit to send him in place of a proper break-up, was the wretched truth that the man who had been his lover for many years was much more shallow and egotistical than he had believed. On top of it all, Mashiba had been forced to give a speech as Ikawa’s best man. In contrast to the spite he had felt within him, he had kept a broad smile on his face, even exchanging jokes with the guests, and the very fact that he had pulled the role off so perfectly tortured him to no end. More than the betrayal itself, perhaps it was the realization that there was a fundamental difference in their values and views of life, a gap that could never be bridged, that was the shock. “Manager, here’s the sales report. Please circulate it.” “Right, will do.” A hand with colored nails offered him a clipboard, and he accepted it with an indifferent reply. His attitude was rather curt, but among the female employees, ever wary of sexual harassment from superiors, Mashiba was surprisingly popular. He harbored no hatred towards women, and thus felt no need for unnecessary pretenses. He merely had no physical interest in the opposite sex. “What is this depression…?” He flipped the pages of the report, skimming over last year’s figures. The recession’s only getting worse every year, he thought, burying his head in his hands. His job often required him to be out of the office, and frustrated with the impressive pile of documents in his inbox, he nevertheless began stamping them “confirmed.” He pulled out a cigarette to curb his rising irritation, unable to kick what he knew was a bad habit. “Mr. Mashiba…” Just as he was about to light the end, a modest voice at his shoulder arrested him. The woman who had served him the bland tea earlier was pointing to a sign on the wall: ‘No Smoking Inside the Department.’ “Oh, excuse me.” With a deep breath he roused himself from the chair and began walking towards the smoking area at the end of the hall. The anti-smoking sentiment on the rise in Europe and America had sparked a boom at home, and last month smoking had been banned anywhere within the building. This had proved difficult for a heavy smoker like Mashiba, who quickly became fed up with having to go to the smoking area every time he wanted a cigarette, and though he had attempted to give up smoking entirely, the endeavor had failed within three days. It was a nook at the end of the hallway, the summer sun blazing harshly through the fixed glass window. There was an ashtray installed in the small corner beside a vending machine. He sank into the dilapidated vinyl ottoman, and as he reflected on the wretchedness of his own habits, he finally held his lighter to his favorite poison. The man, also unable to quit, who had forced this vice onto Mashiba inadvertently came to mind, and it wasn’t the smoke emanating

from his Peace Light 8 that made Mashiba chew his bitter lips. His irrational relationship with Hatano had begun simply because Hatano shared his first name with Ikawa, and to be honest, he himself had never expected it to drag on this long. Mashiba’s recent epiphany that his will was far weaker than he had imagined had its roots in the night of Ikawa’s wedding ceremony. There was something wrong with me that day. Something grated in his lungs each time he traced the lines of his memories, something that had nothing to do with the strong cigarette in his hand, and, quietly but violently, Mashiba began to cough. * * *

After Ikawa’s wedding reception, Mashiba had felt his plastered smile beginning to crumble, and, slipping out with an appropriate excuse, he had gathered the many familiar faces he knew in Shinjuku and drowned himself in alcohol. His compassionate friends had comforted him and warned him against heavy drinking, but not a single one of their voices had reached beyond the turmoil in his heart. He drank, and drank, and still his throat was parched; no number of bottles was enough to drink himself into a stupor, yet his temper continued to worsen. Someone offered to see him home, unable to bear watching him in such a state, but he refused. Finally, under the pretense of getting some fresh air to clear his head, he stumbled outside and started walking. With neither direction nor destination in mind, his feet led him to the neon-lined streets of Kabukichou. Though it was part of the same Shinjuku entertainment quarter, the ambiance was somehow different from the Second District, and under ordinary circumstances Mashiba rarely had reason to visit. The cheap, vulgar lights and the pleasure-seeking atmosphere, he hated all of it. But what had troubled his mind far more were the shameless words Ikawa had whispered, still dressed in his white tuxedo: “I thought you would understand.” In the waiting room meant for the bride to change clothes for the reception, the bored groom had shown him an artless smile, as if nothing had happened, and the platinum band around his ring finger had gleamed as he brushed Mashiba’s hair. “A little playing around is necessary, don’t you think? There’s no reason why we can’t keep getting along from now on.” Nothing would change. He had been serious, and at that moment Mashiba had fully realized that he had never understood anything about Ikawa. He was a hedonist, skilled at sex, and often unfaithful; still, Mashiba had believed that the home to which Ikawa returned was with him, and so he had forgiven him. Even if someone else had captured Ikawa’s eye, if Ikawa had apologized, settled their relationship and properly said goodbye, it would have been painful but Mashiba would have let go. But Ikawa had not afforded him even that smallest of courtesies. Forget about “courtesy”; he had offered to do Mashiba the favor of adding him to his list of who-knows-how-many lovers. Mashiba had simply been deceived by the façade of a paper-thin relationship. When he thought of how he had been chained for years to such a thing, he could almost find it comical. His memories, his pride, what he had thought was love—everything of his had been shattered, and the world spun in circles before his eyes. He tottered unsteadily on his feet, ready to burst into laughter at it all, when a thin shoulder bumped against him. He crumpled in a heap on the ground, paralyzed by his own wretchedness, wishing only to disappear. He no longer understood what it was that was angering him, mortifying him, depressing him, and yet—
8

a Japanese cigarette brand

“Excuse me, are you all right?” A gentle voice tinged with surprise, and pale slender fingers suddenly appeared before his eyes. The man’s face was peaceful and kindhearted, his current expression one of distress. What an unremarkable man, was Mashiba’s haughty first impression as the stranger lent him his shoulder, and the words, “Just leave me the hell alone,” itched on the tip of his tongue. The man even retrieved his package and courteously returned it to him, and Mashiba was bewildered at himself for having walked this far with the gift still dangling from his hand. An unpleasant irritation burgeoned within him. Everything, absolutely everything conspired to aggravate him: Ikawa, who betrayed him; this man, with his easygoing face and pretenses of kindness; and his own pathetic self. Maybe if he destroyed everything, tore it down and crushed it between his fingers, he would feel refreshed. His eyes, downcast and void of expression, reflected only a world warped in shades of gray. An alarm bell was ringing in the back of his mind. Don’t do anything stupid, it warned, but the distant sound of a voice soon drowned it out, and it lapsed back into silence. “Yukio! Hey, what’s wrong?” The coincidence rekindled the stagnating emotions inside him, and his shoulders trembled imperceptibly with stifled laughter. Once he confided in Hatano that he had been dumped and appealed for his sympathy, Hatano was all too willing to lend his ear. Mashiba pretended to have found a kindred spirit in Hatano, and it was simple enough to lure the already drunken man even further into his cups. He feigned drunkenness himself at the counter of the bar and purposely initiated physical contact, touching the other man’s shoulder or thigh, and Hatano’s persistent failure to realize the disquieting behavior quickly alerted him to the fact that Hatano was not a man who harbored such feelings towards other men. One could even call him dull-witted. Or he may have been so dead drunk that he had not noticed Mashiba’s fingers brushing a mere hair’s breadth away from his groin; either case was a convenient one for Mashiba. In addition to the small talk, Mashiba gleaned information about Hatano’s occupation, as well as the fact that he lived alone and was, despite all appearances, actually five years Mashiba’s senior; however, most of this chitchat went in one ear and out the other. “We’re called child care workers, you know. That’s what they call us now, officially.” “Then you’re a kindergarten teacher?” As he interjected the requisite comments now and again to indicate he was following the conversation, Mashiba’s attention was focused on the contours of Hatano’s body, concealed beneath the folds of his plain, rather rustic clothes. “Oh, no. I work in a nursery.” “What’s the difference between a kindergarten and a nursery?” Perhaps he was the type who was exceedingly sensitive to cold weather. He wore several extra layers and a glance was not enough to gauge his proportions, but the slimness of his fingers and neck hinted at a delicate physique. “Ah, well, a kindergarten is an educational institution established by the Ministry of Education. In other words, it’s treated like a ‘school.’” He didn’t like them too meager, but now was not the time to be fastidious. Hatano’s single-edged eyelids framed large eyes, far too homely to compare with Ikawa, but not entirely unsatisfactory. “On the other hand, a nursery is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. It’s a facility to oversee the raising of children who lack the daily care they need. In other words, it’s a place parents can entrust their children to if there are some circumstances that

prevent them from raising them.” He took a swig of the cheap, acrid alcohol, and as Hatano chattered on with a candid smile on his face, Mashiba imagined him naked. “Are there requirements you have to meet?” “If you want to work in a kindergarten, you need a teaching license. There are requirements for child care workers at nurseries, too, but I haven’t fulfilled them yet. An acquaintance of mine is letting me work at a private nursery while I study.” His “back” was almost certainly virginal, so Mashiba couldn’t expect much of a response. Forcing himself into the small hole might only induce the man to constrict painfully around him. “You know I used to be a regular business man. But I quit and changed my job. I got a late start, and I’m not as young as I used to be, so it’s getting harder and harder to pick up new things…” He speculated about how it would feel to distort Hatano’s blithe face, see tears trace the curves of those serene cheeks, and he felt himself stiffen beneath his suit. “I can’t even fulfill the requirements until I’ve had at least three years of experience, so I guess I’m like an apprentice right now.” Hatano added that he really did like children, and gazing at his unclouded expression, Mashiba understood that this man was guilty of nothing. But he had said, “My name, Yukio, is written as, ‘Living in happiness!’” 9 as he laughed in a merry voice slurred with alcohol, and so Mashiba wanted to break him. He would slake this dark, bestial desire, regardless of the means. Veiling his treacherous thoughts with a smile, Mashiba affected rapt interest in a conversation that meant nothing to him. And all the while, hatred for his own limitless cruelty, and for Hatano’s oblivious ignorance, rankled in his breast. He imposed on the good-natured Hatano, taking advantage of his offer to put Mashiba up for the night to gain access to his home; and when Hatano moved to graciously prepare bedding for him, he all but crushed that good will beneath the heel of his shoe, coming upon him from behind and pushing him to the floor. The impact briefly robbed Hatano of his senses, and Mashiba tore the clothing from his body, practically reducing the articles to shreds. The older man began to thrash in protest, and as Mashiba restrained him, his conscience offered not a single word in determent. The lines of Hatano’s body were even finer than he had imagined, and his skin had retained its youthful tension. Mashiba’s vulgar lust welled up within him, and with only the barest of preparation for a body too exhausted to resist, he tore Hatano apart. Mashiba himself was no longer fully aware of his own actions. What the hell are you doing?, scoffed a voice somewhere in his mind, but he continued to move his hips as if to gouge into Hatano’s body, already wounded from the forcible coupling. He was not a heterosexual, but he had never considered himself a pervert. In a way, the event posed something of an identity crisis. To be honest, he would have preferred to remain unaware of the brutality that had lain within him. That was how ruthless his actions had been. The sensation of Hatano’s insides, even as he battered them, was warm. Slick with blood, they gradually accepted his strokes with slippery ease, yielding to Mashiba an intoxication close to rapture. For Hatano, who had never in his life even accepted a man inside him, it must have been agony. He had collapsed listlessly afterwards, regaining consciousness only to convulse and
9

幸生（ゆきお）

vomit several times. There was most likely internal damage, as well. Not surprising, considering that part of the body was not intended for such acts. Of course I was aware of something so basic. After the deed had been done and Mashiba had regained a semblance of composure, he felt a pang of regret—not in sympathy for the man he had persecuted, but at his own imprudent handling of the situation. A pity. Gazing upon the slender body he had wounded and defiled, he murmured this to himself, and a peal of laughter bubbled up into his throat. This man who loved children, peaceful and gentle by nature, this kind person who extended his utmost hospitality for a lovelorn stranger’s sob story—what a pity, that he should suffer such a fate. That his offering of good will should be so trampled underfoot. Recoiling from the smell, Mashiba wiped clean the vomit and bodily fluids. Those, too, were consequences of Mashiba’s actions, but the sight of them inspired neither guilt nor regret. A pity. You’re only going to keep being hurt by me from now on. With exceeding coolness, he reflected on how far he had fallen. He had one foot dangling over the precipice already; now that it had come to this, he would fall as far as the abyss would take him. Perhaps if he did, he would understand Ikawa’s feelings. What would Hatano do when he opened his eyes? Would he be afraid? Furious? Would he curse Mashiba bitterly, and weep? These dissolute musings of his imagination were strangely soothing to his overwrought nerves. Disdaining others was actually rather pleasant, he thought. He would give Hatano a taste of the wretchedness that had been forced down his own throat; and to the figure of himself, clinging to the scrap of kindness Hatano had afforded him, he allowed himself to shut his eyes. “Sorry about this, Hatano.” The cynicism he had intended lodged in his throat and the naked words slid past, sounding weak and insecure when he muttered them. Heard by no one, they faded swiftly away. Settled in front of an unconscious Hatano, his sunken eyes glaring brightly, Mashiba passed a sleepless night. What had been the cause of that abnormal arousal? He would swear on the vestiges of his honor that he had never before coerced a partner into such violent sex. The night had been one long spell of madness. There had been something inside him, something shrieking from amidst the rubble of his broken heart, and he had been desperate to stifle it. But with the inevitable coming of dawn, Mashiba realized one miscalculation: Hatano was far stouter than he had expected. His finely-sculpted face and petite frame belied an unbelievable iron nerve, and Mashiba felt almost cheated by the ease with which Hatano accepted the situation. Sex was accompanied by his grimaces of pain only the first several times; as his body became accustomed, he ceased even his token resistance. It was easy enough to observe from the atmosphere that Hatano had not originally held such preferences, and this left Mashiba all the more bewildered at the speed of his adaptation. When he visited Hatano’s home, the older man would open his door and permit his entrance with an attitude of disinterest, and every time Mashiba met him, every time he had sex with him, he walked away feeling as if he knew less about the man than he had before. His threat of “blackmail” had no actual potency. He had exposed his own identity in the form of the business card he had relinquished the night they had first encountered each other; it was indeed Mashiba who was at the disadvantage. All that remained, then, was the question of Hatano’s feelings, and this was the question that truly baffled him. Hatano would have been

perfectly justified in reviling him—Mashiba had practically engineered the situation such that he would be reviled—and yet curiously enough, they only became increasingly familiar with each other as time passed, and it was Mashiba who was the most perplexed by this. “What the hell is that guy thinking?” he muttered under his breath, and abruptly realized that thoughts of Hatano had begun to monopolize his spare moments. He scowled bitterly, his lips twisting around the cigarette still dangling from them. This galling irritation was nothing new, but he felt it was a subtly different tone from the displeasure that assailed him every time he crossed paths with Ikawa. Sensing danger in this train of thought, he devoted his considerable efforts to displacing Hatano from his mind, but not even a week had passed before he found himself standing at the front door of Hatano’s apartment and confining the unreadable man in the cage of his arms. He had tailored Hatano to his liking, and sex with him was good—this he would honestly admit. The extremely slender limbs had initially been a source of dissatisfaction, but Hatano’s pale, silken skin, and the foolish things he did when Mashiba’s teasing became unbearable, excited Mashiba’s arousal like nothing else. When the pleasure became too much for him, Hatano would cling to Mashiba’s shoulders, sobbing convulsively, and then Mashiba would be overwhelmed by a desire to be gentle, to indulge the man’s every entreaty. And each time, he would remember that he was forcing this situation upon Hatano, and he would clench a fist in disgust. “This is ridiculous…” The pain and the emotions he believed he had cast away still smoldered within him, and the time he spent with Hatano tortured him because it brought those undying embers to mind. It was simple enough to break off a relationship—he understood this logically, and yet six months saw him unable to broach the topic. Like the dregs in a wine bottle, disquiet roiled in the depths of his heart, its uneasy agitations becoming only more harried with time. In the end, he couldn’t even play a proper villain. Mashiba felt a tickle of laughter welling up at his own petty cowardice. His thoughts seemed to insist on leading him down paths he would rather not have traveled. Still, it was his own self, who felt no desire to end things with Hatano, that puzzled him the most. * * *

A glance at his watch told Mashiba it was later than he had expected. He recalled the stack of documents that had to be processed before the day’s end, and his already poor mood turned sour. “Time to head back…” Another of the heavy sighs that had recently become something of a habit passed his lips, and flattening the remainder of his cigarette in a flutter of ash, he began to stand when a pair of leather boots strode into his field of vision, obstructing his path. “Do you really have the time to be sitting here enjoying a smoke?” a voice addressed him from overhead, and the sound of it stirred a wave of nausea within him. Without lifting his gaze, Mashiba slowly rose from the chair. Ikawa was purchasing a can of coffee as he spoke, displaying no signs of discomfort or hesitation. “Hey, wait! You don’t have to make that nasty face.” The coffee was held out before him, and Mashiba spared the proffered can only a fleeting glance before brushing past the other man. He had barely taken a step towards the doorway when a hand closed around his arm.

“What do you want?” said Mashiba. The loose pressure of Ikawa’s fingers sent a chill racing down his arm, and his voice was icy as he shook himself free of the man’s grip. Somewhat taken aback, Ikawa stared at his own arm which had been so rudely rejected and knit his brows briefly in displeasure, but his face soon assumed its usual, charming smile. “It looks like there’s going to be a large-scale personnel reassignment, based on the results of this term’s earnings. Did you know about it?” That smile was indeed beautiful—it belonged to a man who fully appreciated the magnetism of his own appearance and character—but seeing it once again so closely, Mashiba recognized it for the elaborate performance that it was. “So it’s a restructuring 10. What about it?” Perceiving the foolishness of his self-conscious attempt to ignore Ikawa, Mashiba now confronted him with an unwavering gaze. But his eyes held no passion or determination; they observed Ikawa with exceeding coldness. Pinned by this gaze, Ikawa twisted his lips in ill humor. His glower betrayed his arrogant conviction that all men and women existed to serve him, and Mashiba was disgusted at the sight of it. “You’ve changed, Takaaki.” You have no right to say that to me, he thought, but decided against wasting the breath to say so aloud. Ikawa’s intimate use of his name had already aggravated him enough. “I don’t have time to make small talk with you,” he said impassively, hastening an end to the conversation, and Ikawa’s patchwork smile crumbled to pieces. “You don’t have to say things like that…” Ikawa furrowed his brow with a pained expression, his voice trembling slightly. But this, too, Mashiba knew, was another of Ikawa’s theatrical productions, designed to give him the advantage of a situation. “I’ll say things however I want. Do you have business with me or not?” He practically spat the words over his shoulder, and Ikawa pouted his lips and glared up at him in response. Is he an idiot? Was he unaware that his pretense of sulking only held sway over those who felt some vestige of affection for him? The whole farce suddenly struck Mashiba as incredibly ridiculous, and again a sigh escaped his lips. This Ikawa who now stood before him kindled not even the faintest emotional response; he could almost laugh at how he had avoided him, hadn’t even dared to meet Ikawa’s eyes, in fear that his emotions might waver. Mashiba himself was the grandest clown, for having allowed himself to be manipulated by this man, and for being wounded by a past love affair. The fact that those wounds had been the impetus for tangling himself in this swamp of a relationship with Hatano was enough to give him a migraine. He cast a deliberate scowl down at Ikawa, standing a full head above him, and Ikawa recoiled as if in trepidation. He had never been looked down upon with such disdain by his old lover before, and the hostility in Mashiba’s keen gaze seemed to have shaken him. He probably hadn’t the slightest clue what it was he had done. He was chained to the sweet memories of their relationship, feeling exactly as he had in the days when Mashiba had been at his beck and call. “Yes, there’s going to be a restructuring, but they’re not just laying people off. I hear the main idea is reassigning employees.” Despite having initiated the conversation, Ikawa was curiously reluctant to speak. Mashiba’s repeated prompting finally opened his mouth. “They’re saying the fourth division has been turning out amazing results, and several people have been elected as candidates for transfer to the head office.” The source of Ikawa’s news was most likely his wife’s father. The information was too detailed to have reached his ears via normal circuits, even given his position. Mashiba made this passing observation to himself, unmoved by the thought of Ikawa’s marriage. And now that he
10

リストラ (risutora) : when a company closes unprofitable departments and/or opens new departments

had perceived Ikawa’s true motivation for bothering to venture to this remote corner of the building, he again stifled a burst of laughter. “And what’s your point?” If Mashiba entered the same department as Ikawa, rivalry would be inevitable. His connections and web of influence had carried Ikawa up the company ladder, but he had never been a match for Mashiba’s practical business skills. This emotional appeal was doubtless Ikawa’s attempt to coax his cooperation early in the game. The shallowness of it all stirred Mashiba’s pity. According to the grapevine, Ikawa was sociable and shrewd, but his tendency to let simple deals slip through his fingers had earned him an unfavorable reputation among his peers in the same department. Unsavory rumors of his erratic mood swings were often on the lips of the female employees. Beginning in their days as students and continuing through their internship period, Mashiba had silently followed up on Ikawa’s slight mistakes. Consequently, at least on paper it had been Ikawa who had appeared more proficient, and that paper competence had reaped him an assignment to the head office and a wife. That may have been the reason Kamata had judged Ikawa so harshly. “It’s all well and good that you two get along, but don’t rely too much on each other,” he had warned him. At the time, Mashiba had been blind to the truth, and the admonition had aroused his antipathy. Now, he could appreciate the wisdom of his senior’s decision. “Well—I mean—We’ll be coworkers! I’m just glad I’ll be able to work with you again…” “What are you talking about?” he cut in, interrupting Ikawa before he could finish his sentence. In the first place, Mashiba’s reassignment wasn’t even guaranteed, and yet the man dared to make such shameless statements to his face. He threw him a weary glance. “It hasn’t even been decided yet, there’s no point in saying things like that now.” He flicked the wheel of his lighter and brought the flame to the tip of his cigarette. The familiar bitterness soaked into his lungs, and he enjoyed the faint intoxication as he continued dryly, “Even if it’s true, and I am transferred to the head office, I have no intention of cleaning up after you anymore.” In fact, he would expend all of his energy and resources to kick Ikawa into the dirt, crush him and ruin him utterly. Ikawa’s handsome face drained of blood, as if he had heard Mashiba’s unspoken addition. Having been closest to him, sponging the rewards of his hard work, Ikawa was well aware of Mashiba’s expertise and harshness. “Why…? Why are you being so cold?” Unaccustomed to being refused, he began to wheedle in a honeyed tone. “I never said that—I just want things to be like they were…” “Of course things can’t be like they were. What the hell are you thinking?” He glimpsed himself reflected in Ikawa’s moist, upturned eyes, and his lungs constricted the breath in his chest. It was a sensation wholly different from the vague aching he felt towards Hatano. Incorrigibly, Ikawa drew near and pressed his body against him, and Mashiba’s entire body stiffened in revolt. “You have a wife now. Shouldn’t you be more careful about what you do?” he said, eyeing the other man with contempt. But Ikawa had construed the words to suit his convenience. “Oh, so that’s how it is.” In the blink of an eye, the wounded, downcast lines of his face had rearranged themselves into a bewitching smile. The speed of the transformation stunned Mashiba to silence. “You’re jealous…?” The meaning of Ikawa’s words momentarily escaped him. As he stood there

dumbfounded, he found himself being thrust against the wall, and a shudder raised the goose bumps along his spine. “There was no reason for us to have been apart these six months.… You know I was waiting for you to call me?” What was this? Unable to grasp the true identity of what felt like an insect wriggling sickly between his legs, he asked himself again: What was this brazen, repulsive object brushing warmly against his lips? “Hey, it’s not like you hate me, right…?” “Get away from me!” A platinum ring glinted on one of the fingers that sidled up his thigh. His stomach churned, a chill convulsing his entire body, and he shoved aside the body draped over him. The pressure of the man’s lips lingered on his own, and he wiped his mouth roughly against the back of his fist. Perhaps stunned by the rejection, Ikawa only stared at him blankly. Mashiba’s shoulders heaved with a deep breath. “You, and I, are finished.” “Taka…” “And it’s about damn time you realize exactly why that is!” he snapped angrily, and Ikawa caught his breath. His expression twisted unpleasantly to match the crude words that left his lips: “So what, you’ve found yourself a boy toy?” What does that have to do with anything? Mashiba thought hopelessly, cradling his head in his hands. “How can you be so calm without me?!” “What kind of logic is that? This conversation is meaningless,” he added, turning towards the door again, when a vicious voice at his back gave him pause. “You think you can humiliate me like this? I won’t allow it!” Every laborious word he exchanged with the man was painful, but Mashiba faced him once more, delivering a retort like the killing blow of a duel. “Humiliate you? You don’t have any dignity left to be deprived of. It’s over,” he repeated, watching a black stormy anger flush Ikawa’s face. “If you want me to sleep with you, lose a little weight. That happy home life put a few pounds on you, eh?” Mashiba flung this most offensive of insults with a jeering grin. Ikawa had a predisposition to gaining weight, and he religiously followed a regimen to maintain his figure. In fact, Mashiba’s arms had grown accustomed to Hatano’s willowy shape, and Ikawa’s body now struck him as excessive. This sincerity was not lost on Ikawa. “You—!” Mashiba quickly lurched out of the path of a projectile, and the airborne object crashed into the wall with a clatter. Judging by Ikawa’s weapon of choice—the unopened can of coffee—Mashiba gathered that he was quite furious. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t sleep with you even if you asked.… I’ve already got my hands full.” His lip curled cruelly, and this time Mashiba did not look back. “You bastard…” the grating voice continued to curse him, but not one of the vulgar words penetrated the ice that had crusted about his heart. He returned to his seat, and his body drooped abruptly with fatigue. What kind of idiot comes back from a break more tired than when he left, he thought mockingly. Even so, he felt as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. That man no longer occupied even the smallest niche within him. As long as they served in the same company, it was fruitless to wish for him to

disappear; it would be enough to dispel him completely from mind. At this, Mashiba was forced to grimace at his own imprudence. If he had parted ways with Ikawa like this six months ago, Hatano would never have been involved. Even now, there was still time. Now that he had severed all ties with the cause of his past misery, there was no longer a need to “distract” himself with Hatano. All it would take is two words from me. “It’s over,” that’s all… Yet Mashiba knew he would likely never speak them. As he wondered at the inexplicable impatience that was once again seizing control of him, a sensation much like thirst parched his throat. At that moment, Mashiba knew only the simple truth that this craving could only be sated inside Hatano’s body. 3 “Ouch!” Fumbling awkwardly with the needle, Hatano wondered how many times now he had pricked his finger. He licked clean the bubble of blood that had welled up to the surface and wrapped the day’s third Band-Aid around the puncture. Costume-making for the pre-summer vacation oyuugikai 11 had hit some snags, and with the nursery already short of hands, duties like this were assigned without regard for gender or ability. Thus, he had been given his fair share of the load, and with his days occupied with seeing to the children, he found himself bringing more and more of this load home with him. “They certainly don’t hesitate to pass the grunt work over to me. It’s not like I get menstrual leave or maternity leave, either.” He couldn’t resist a little grumbling as the rough, patchy plane of fabric lengthened in his hands. “Not my problem if they complain about it when I’m finished…” A sigh raised and lowered the stiff slope of his shoulders. He was terribly exhausted these days. Perhaps partly due to his age, but he suspected his involvement in a certain strenuous activity shouldered the brunt of the blame. The frequency of Mashiba’s visits remained more or less constant, but as Hatano grew more comfortable, the number of sessions, and the duration of each, were clearly increasing. “He’s sure got a lot of energy,” he mumbled absently, thinking back to his own stint in the corporate world. They had never held anything resembling a conversation, but from the odd word or two Hatano had gathered that the man was an accomplished businessman. A wry smile twisted his lips. Amazing that he handles his busy position, and still has it in him to have such intense sex. “Tomorrow, huh.” His eyes strayed to the calendar, confirming the date Mashiba had given him a few days before. A glance at the clock told him tomorrow would soon be today. Deciding he had best get some rest in preparation for his own “busy position,” Hatano had just risen from his seat when the intercom rang. “Someone this late at night?” he said warily to himself, padding quietly to the front door and peeking through the fisheye lens. Isn’t he a day early?, he thought, startled into inaction. In the time it took for him to blink and consider a proper response, the intercom rang a second time. The electronic chime shattered the midnight silence, and his fingers scrabbled hastily at the chain and swung open the
11

oyuugikai (お遊戯会) : a program of music and plays, usually in kindergarten or elementary

schools

door before the noise could disturb his neighbors. “What’s going on, coming here all of a sudden…” “I’m coming in.” Neatly ignoring Hatano’s inquiry, the tall man stooped beneath the door frame and strode inside. The fresh, cool air of a summer night and the glow of heat from Mashiba’s body grazed Hatano’s skin, a fleeting electric spark that jarred and disoriented him. “What’s going on?” Mashiba paused in the living room and loosened his necktie, perfectly at home in Hatano’s apartment. His eyes widened at the bolts of cloth and sewing kit strewn haphazardly at his feet. “I’m making costumes for the oyuugikai. That’s my share of the work.” His voice was carefully modulated, but he could not deny that Mashiba’s presence filled him with a restless thrill. “Ah, it’s for your job.” It was the now-familiar smell of him that set his heart fluttering, a blend of cologne and tobacco that whispered a thousand wanton nights into his ear. There needed no other contact between them; Mashiba’s nearby presence alone wove tapestries of sex in his mind. Hatano had always strived to conceal these crumbs of his personal life when Mashiba visited—after all, any bonds that tied them began and ended in this room. It didn’t seem to weigh on Mashiba’s mind at all, but Hatano could hardly bear to lay himself down to sleep in the same bed in which he gave himself to Mashiba. He believed he had accustomed himself to Mashiba’s existence, but when the man took him by surprise like this and marched into the middle of his daily life, he once again seemed an alien presence. “Wasn’t it supposed to be Friday?” he ventured, a complicated look on his face. Mashiba sensed the subtle hint of tension, and turned an unreadable expression to him. “I changed my mind.” His broad shoulders leaned forward, and Hatano flinched away in surprise from the arms that reached for him. “You can’t just do that now.” Fear had ceased to find occasion to cloud his gaze these days, and his astonishment at himself warred with his bewilderment at Mashiba’s abnormal behavior. Mashiba’s manner towards him could never have been called gracious, but the thin, strained air about him tonight was markedly severe. Echoes of that first night began to sound in Hatano’s ears, and almost of its own will his body pulled away; Mashiba replied by attempting to forcibly fold him into his arms. “Stop, wait a—” Second, but the word was swallowed by Mashiba’s lips. He clenched his teeth against the warm tongue that sought to prise them open, and Mashiba parted from him long enough to growl, “Let me do it, the hell’s your problem?” The haughty imperative rankled in his breast, but Hatano only asked him for respite. “I still have work to do, we can do this tomorrow… please.” “Why don’t you do your fucking work tomorrow instead!” He had intentionally chosen his words so as not to provoke him, but Mashiba’s voice was rising to a furious pitch. Alarmed by Mashiba’s volume, his palm automatically rose to hover over the other man’s mouth. “Don’t start yelling, you’ll wake everybody up. Okay, already,” he yielded with a sigh, and Mashiba’s eyes narrowed in ill humor. “I’m going to go take a bath.” “Forget it.” Mashiba reclaimed his wrists when he shifted to extricate himself from Mashiba’s embrace.

“Please, I’m tired.” Mashiba’s arms had encircled him from behind, and he gently loosened them. “At least let me take a bath.” He spoke quietly, expecting his protests to be brushed aside, but instead Mashiba drew his hands away. “I won’t take long.” He wondered at the unusual reaction as he left the room. Did something happen? Mashiba’s peculiar behavior remained on his mind as he shut the bathroom door, heaving another sigh. Mashiba’s face, twisting with anger when Hatano stiffened in refusal of the arms that reached for him—was it his imagination painting that face in pained, unhappy colors? No, there’s no way… A quick shake of his head dispelled the thought that had briefly come to mind. He twisted the tap, but the water running into the bathtub refused to warm. “Huh?” Strange, he puzzled, until the wall-mounted water heater—more specifically, the button he had neglected to press—caught his eye. He smiled dryly. “Looks like his sudden visit’s shaken me up more than I thought,” he groused under his breath, rising to his feet, when the click of a door opening caught his attention. “What is it now?” He turned to face the entrance. “Still…” He caught his breath, his voice breaking off mid-sentence. Mashiba towered into his field of vision, framed in the doorway with the look of a cornered animal, his glittering eyes glaring directly at him. Hatano cowered away from that sharp, cold gaze, shuffling steps carrying him backwards across the wet tiles, but the slick surface stole his balance and one foot slid wildly out from beneath him. “Hey!” His arm shot out reflexively, fingers scrabbling for a surface to catch on, but instead his elbow knocked into something, sending a whip of pain lashing across his forearm. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable impact, when his back collided abruptly against something solid. “Be careful, idiot!” Mashiba’s livid voice joined the chilly spray raining down from above. He had left the water running, and his flailing elbow must have activated the shower head. He remembered to take a breath; his heart was pounding out a furious rhythm. “O-Oh, sorry. Thanks…” The arms that had arrested his fall and kept him from tumbling to the floor did not withdraw, even after Hatano had righted himself and straightened up. Their silent, easy weight about his hips suddenly became the whole of Hatano’s sensory perceptions, and the agitated hammering in his chest quickened. “Mashiba… you’re getting wet.” The cold jets of water had made short work of their clothes. It may have been summertime, but drenched clothing was never a pleasant experience. “Could you… let me go?” Still, though he felt the sodden chill sapping his body heat, that small, faint request was his only effort to remove himself from Mashiba’s arms. The wet, heavy fabric of Mashiba’s shirt clung to his skin, mapping the sensual contours of his muscles. He truly was an attractive man, Hatano thought. Light seemed to pool in his clear, vivid eyes; alone, they had the adorable shape of a young pup’s, but a single motion of the eyebrows shaded them with a feral, lupine wildness. There was something uncertain and dangerous in his eyes tonight, but Hatano saw only the fierce, determined frown of a child on the verge of tears. “Why?” Perhaps it was because of that drop of water, spoiling the careful arrangement of Mashiba’s hair as it trickled down, but Hatano thought then that he mustn’t avert his eyes from the man’s face.

“Why don’t you get mad?” Hatano’s upturned gaze remained mutely upon him, and he continued with mounting irritation, “Why do you just let me do whatever the hell I want?” The rather belated question was both abrupt and frank. Maybe because you’re blackmailing me? The retort perched on his lips, but both of them had silently conceded by now that there was much more to it. Mashiba had finally given voice to words that should have been spoken long ago—that was all Hatano thought of it. Should their relationship actually be exposed, it was not Hatano, an employee of a privately-managed nursery school, but Mashiba who would sustain the greatest damage. Why, then, was he willfully shutting his eyes to a reality that a second’s sensible consideration would make clear? This was Mashiba’s question. “Why don’t you start cursing at me? Get angry!” “The shower—the water’s pretty cold, so…” he began lightly, but Mashiba interrupted with a groan. “I don’t get you—You know that’s not what I’m talking about!” His rising voice was deep and low, unmistakably a man’s, yet somehow with a childish timbre to it. Hatano was reminded of a child, spoiled and sulking when he couldn’t have his way, and a surreptitious smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. Ah, so that’s why. No matter what unreasonable requests were made of him, what reckless demands forced upon him, the reason he had never been roused to genuine anger was most likely this: the moment he had first set eyes on Mashiba, there had been something terribly childlike about him. “I don’t feel like getting angry,” he returned calmly, unruffled in the face of Mashiba’s passion, and though he thought it somewhat selfish of the man to look wounded at that, his arms leisurely rose to crook about the plane of Mashiba’s shoulders. “Nothing to be done about it. That’s the way it is.” Even as his tongue formed the words, Hatano felt as if for the first time he understood why he couldn’t help forgiving Mashiba—what else could he do with this oversized child? He knew not the disappointment and frustration of failure, and thus neither what it meant to be hurt; Hatano found this about him even endearing. Children make mistakes; they know well their aberrant behavior, but are unable to resist that infant call to mischief. Adults, then, exist to forgive them their mistakes. He, too, had once been a child, and he too forgiven, while gritting his teeth on the shame and regret of the young. “You’ll catch a cold like this,” he said, soft as a sigh, a thinly-veiled invitation that sent a shiver rippling across the shoulders beneath his fingertips. The tips of their noses close enough to brush, he peered at Mashiba’s face. Framed as it was by his dripping bangs, wild and disheveled, it shattered his usual impression; he seemed much younger and more helpless. Never before had he taken this initiative, leaning forward to nibble gently on the other man’s lips. Another shiver racked Mashiba’s body, and those beautiful eyes tapered as they watched him. The sight struck him sweetly, curving his lips into an unconscious smile. They had never exchanged a kiss but for demanding, forceful plunders of his mouth; Mashiba was skilled, but his kisses were a mirror of his disposition, fierce and aggressive. The feather-light caress Hatano now let fall upon Mashiba’s pallid lips might have been that antipode. There are other touches, the kind touch that cradles a lonely child, for instance, and Hatano felt a curious desire to teach this to his weary-faced tyrant. Having had enough of the persistent cascade of cold water, he pressed the taller man to the wall beside the shower head and reached for the control panel, fingers working quickly to raise the temperature. Heated water soon began to pour across their shoulders. All the while, the mild, loose kiss continued. He drew his lips near and nipped with his teeth, never firmly enough

to injure, and the flushed tip of his tongue would dart out slightly, just long enough to stroke the wet, fading teeth marks. Quiet and warm, the kind of thing that passed between intimate lovers. It was Mashiba who made noise, a faint moan trapped within his throat, and the sound of it smoldered inside Hatano, filling his blood with fever. Mashiba’s long arms took firm hold of his hips, irritated by Hatano’s coy tongue which loitered stubbornly inside his own mouth; one of Mashiba’s hands captured Hatano’s chin, forcibly changing its position to deepen the angle between them, yet the lead remained with Hatano. A long moment passed, and Mashiba could do nothing but receive that sweet offering. “This kind of thing isn’t bad either, huh?” Eventually their breaths began to come short and they parted, but an anxious, impatient kind of aftertaste lingered on their lips and their fingertips wavered in the space between them, drifting across an arm, a back, a cheek, grazing skin only to fall away. Seemingly pacified by Hatano’s soft, amorous whisper, Mashiba only nodded his head in agreement. The bathroom was steeped in a curious air that coiled about their waists, too indefinite to be lust but achingly sweet, and he was torn between the desire to simply immerse himself in it and to boil it down into something hot and real. “Want me to do it some more?” He combed the wet forelocks of Mashiba’s hair up with one hand, pressing his lips to the smooth brow revealed beneath, and Mashiba’s arms about him tightened almost painfully. He twisted slightly in the embrace, enough to crane his neck and look into Mashiba’s pleading eyes, shining with unshed tears. A sharp, formless pain, like pricking a finger just lightly enough to fail to break the skin, coursed through him. Ignorant of the fact that his own eyes were rimmed with the same wetness, he brought the two of them even closer, and every breath he exhaled was swallowed in the other man’s throat. And now, Hatano thought, for the first time they had gone under, pulled beneath the surface by the reasonless impulse each had felt in the other, and they lusted for each other with great, simple purity. * * *

It was no easy task to peel off those drenched layers of clothing, but Mashiba patiently and lovingly busied himself with divesting Hatano of his attire. The naked body that was slowly unwrapped before him was no stranger to his eyes, but even his intimate familiarity did not dull the edge of admiration inspired by the older man’s youthful, glowing complexion. Ever since the first night, when with that single-minded hurtful purpose he had forced himself upon him, Hatano’s willowy frame, roped in lean cords of muscle, everything necessary and nothing in excess, had him bewitched. A spare handful of scratches and bruises were scattered across his body, the inevitable legacy of days spent keeping pace with coltish children. Long outdoor hours, especially in this season’s baking sunshine, had tanned the exposed strips of his skin—his wrists, the nape of his neck. This only made the creamy alabaster of the rest of him all the more startling, emerging in patches from the shade of his stripped articles of clothing; the contrast of this paleness beside the darker tone gave Mashiba an erotic thrill, as if he were forcibly tearing the veil from some concealed secret. It was distinctly different from the constructed beauty of men and women like Ikawa, who deck themselves in the trappings of their sense of aestheticism. Hatano’s body was a svelte thing built on a slight frame, but it gave an overall impression of balance; his warm manner of breathing, even his way of life, seemed to be reflected in it. And when Mashiba was able to undo the ties, unfasten everything about Hatano and lay

it all bare before him, he felt as if he were being released from the grip of an inexplicable agony. His palm was splayed on Hatano’s ivory skin, now tinged a faint blushing red, and a calm, quiet kind of comfort traveled the nerves of his hand. Though he felt like a young boy discovering the warmth of another’s body, his practiced fingers moved almost of their own accord, tracing the paths they had learned with comfortable precision. Blood had not yet circulated back into his chilled fingertips, but his cold touch seemed to have a stimulating effect; Hatano was unusually docile and sensitive. His large dark eyes were lowered, long lashes fluttering now and then as if to displace the droplets of water that clung to them. When Mashiba brought his lips near, Hatano drew back, shocked by the tender gesture, but his arms soon followed, holding the slighter man fast against him, and Hatano’s breath fell softly over the nape of his neck. “…ah!” The small voice that escaped with his breath tickled the hairs along the back of Mashiba’s neck as it slid into his ear, exciting his senses, and he clenched his jaw, a dam against the flooding tide of arousal. He stole a glance at Hatano’s face, barely a hair’s breadth from his own, and drew in a quick, sharp breath. That face had always struck him as a modest and plain one, but the single-fold eyelids and fine bridge of the nose were, upon closer inspection, actually rather handsome. In fact, his features were balanced in such harmony that they didn’t appear remarkable at all. This was probably a consequence of the man’s lack of appreciation for his own appearance, as well. “What’s wrong?” came a somewhat dazed inquiry. They had undressed no further than the waist, yet Mashiba had stayed his hand. Hatano’s head rested low against his chest, and as it turned slowly upwards Mashiba saw himself reflected in those wet, black eyes. A brief, piercing pain lanced through his left breast, and Mashiba suffered its passage with blank surprise. An emotion he had thought forever forgotten, rotted away to all but nothing, was welling up inside him, and behind his impassive composure the gears of his mind whirred with upset panic. This is impossible… He noticed that the tips of Hatano’s fingers, placed lightly on his chest, were terribly thin, and this trivial realization was enough to make it difficult to breathe. “Mashiba?” The voice produced by that slender throat was not low, nor possessed of a jarring unpleasantness. Its somewhat hoarse cadences seemed to coil and twine about the ear, gentle and honeyed as the kisses he gave. This thought brought a sudden flush to Mashiba’s cheeks, and before it could be detected he pressed his face against the lean, angular peak of Hatano’s shoulder. “Hey, what is it?” No reply could have moved his tongue to speak. He buried the small body away in his arms and crushed him near. This can’t be happening… There had been an expression of peace and innocence on Hatano’s face, one Mashiba had never seen before, and he had found it incredibly beautiful. He made a mental attempt to ridicule himself for this mawkish sentiment, but his efforts only blew air into the balloon of bitter feelings inside him. Hatano had begun to writhe within his grasp, and he flexed his muscles to restrain him. He both feared and longed to take a second look at Hatano’s face. He expected the moment he looked upon it again would be the moment that decided some critical change inside him, but he could not bring himself to action.

“I can’t… breathe…” It was this statement of protest, accompanied by the weak prickle of nails digging into his back, that drove him to move. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered, startled by Hatano’s breathless panting, and hastily loosened his embrace. Hatano thrust him away, though not ungently, and stood a few steps apart, apparently oblivious to the fact that Mashiba had offered him his first words of apology. “Think about what you’re doing with all that muscle, honestly. I think I’ll have bruises,” Hatano said, massaging his upper arms where Mashiba’s hands had clamped viselike around them. His skin, reddened by the heated jets of the neglected showerhead, bore no bruises, but pale white stripes recorded the shape of the fingers that had held him captive. “Well, I guess it’s all right,” he added finally, diligently rubbing and stroking at those stripes, and Mashiba watched with a certain degree of displeasure as they gradually faded from view. The sour, painful swell of his emotions had grown beyond his command, leaving him at a loss. Hatano inclined his head as if in waiting, and a long moment passed as Mashiba fumbled for an appropriate reaction. “If we’re not going to do it, I’m getting out of the bathroom,” Hatano said softly, the passion beginning to cool from his face. “Ah, wait—” No sooner had Hatano spoken than he pivoted on his heel, poised to exit the room. Mashiba snatched at his elbow to keep him, and when Hatano spun around, Mashiba abruptly found himself staring into his eyes. The assault of a fresh stab of pain, several times more intense now, tautened the muscles of his face. Hatano’s posture, torso twisted round with his displaced shirt clinging in wet folds to his arms, made the lithe, graceful curve of his hips all the more pronounced. Mashiba detained him in silence, and the earnest, questioning gaze Hatano turned upon him held neither surprise nor aversion. Still unable to formulate an answer, he settled for capturing Hatano’s slim wrists and drawing them close. One hand rose to brush aside the sodden weight of the man’s bangs, hanging low and heavy across his brow, and Mashiba discovered that his fingers were shaking rather violently. He swept the veil from those eyes and his heartbeat skipped, a pang of regret mingling with relief as Hatano lowered his gaze in anticipation of a kiss. “Mm…” Hatano’s lips had absorbed the moisture in the air, leaving them soft and pliant, and spurred by an obscure sense of dread Mashiba covered them with his own. His tongue stole forward, mimicking the movements of Hatano’s earlier kiss, and he was rewarded with the other man’s tongue curling about his own with a gentleness far sweeter than he had expected. He didn’t understand what was happening; he had never known a kiss like this. The sliver of space between them, the shape of their lips—all of these sensory perceptions were lost to him. The only sensation that remained was one of being swept away by the roll and swell of endless waves. Those viscid, sinuous motions recalled the tangle of pleasure and relief he felt when he entered Hatano’s body, and an overwhelming sense of intoxication lifted him to ecstasy. “Oh—Nngh…” The sound of Hatano’s choked voice brought the outside world slightly back into focus. His eyelids slid open, just enough to discern the contours of Hatano’s half-naked body locked in his arms. Their waists were practically glued to each other, not a single pocket of air to come between them, and far from blunting the edge of his desire, it sharpened it all the keener; Mashiba thought he must be going crazy. Through Hatano’s khakis he gripped the curve of the man’s hip, not quite small enough to be spanned by his palm, and his fingers dug shallow furrows. The drenched fabric exposed the outline of his underwear beneath, and when Mashiba moved his hand to trace over those lines,

Hatano thrashed fiercely. He wrenched his lips away with a gasp and a lovely cry spilled from them, proof enough that a single kiss had excited them both beyond all reason. A warmth burgeoned in Mashiba’s breast, and he realized it was a sense of gratification at Hatano’s abandon. He kept both of his hands working, the reach of his erotic massage flirting with the border of intimate territory. His teeth nipped countless times at Hatano’s earlobe, coaxing out cries far closer to sobs. Hatano slowly began to refine the agitated twitching of his hips into a sensuous rhythm. The mere sight of him, typically content to pursue his pleasure with almost careless neglect—the sight of such a man being ravaged by a passion beyond his control was enough to drive Mashiba to the edge. He did find this fact wretched and shameful, but even so, it was too late for such thoughts. No one but the two of them stood in the sanctuary of that room, in any case; and given that both of them were feeling smothered by the same unbearable heat, Mashiba could find no reason to keep up appearances. “This place, here…” Whether the huskiness of his voice was a consequence of not having spoken for several minutes, or of the mounting desire quickly spiraling out of his reach, Mashiba had no way of knowing. His fingers glided along the seams, pausing above the small place that he always made admit him inside. “…want me to lick it for you, until it’s dripping wet?” he asked, mauling it with rough, obscene hands, and Hatano thrust his hips forward as if unable to bear it. “N-No, stop—!” He shook his head wildly in denial, but his arousal straining against Mashiba’s thigh betrayed him. A sheen of tears gleamed over his eyes and his cheeks blushed brightly, lips parted around a succession of heaving, labored gasps. “You liar,” Mashiba teased, his words laced with an amorous sweetness he hadn’t even thought himself capable of, and Hatano jumped in his arms as if jolted by an electric shock. He wrenched his head backwards, and Mashiba’s teeth lightly grazed the nape of his neck before skimming across his collarbone to his chest. He listened to the pleasant sound of Hatano’s sobbing breath as his mouth fastened around a hard nipple, and the sensation of the reddened nub stiffening on his tongue stirred the heat inside him. “No, there’s—different, something’s different…” Hounded by Mashiba’s ministrations, which were thorough to the point of obstinacy, Hatano pleaded for reprieve in a slurred, lisping voice Mashiba had seldom been able to elicit from him before. Hatano’s coaxing manner of seeking his partner’s indulgence pleased Mashiba even more than it surprised him. He braced the other man against the tiled wall and dragged his sopping khakis and underwear down the slope of his hips, and the merest tickle of Mashiba’s fingertips as he set about undressing him forced high, shrill cries from Hatano’s lips. Finally all that remained was the shirt plastered to Hatano’s back; it was a nuisance, but the cuff buttons Mashiba had failed to undo had caused the cloth to twist about Hatano’s forearms, and it would not be simple to work it loose. The rolls of fabric wound about his wrists and ankles seemed to have awoken unhappy memories; Hatano began to strain against his binds, and Mashiba took pity on the furrows that deepened in Hatano’s brow. Without thinking to, he bent to kiss his forehead, and Hatano took a shallow breath before crumpling against him. “I won’t hurt you,” Mashiba said quietly. It had the ring of an excuse, but he wanted to set him at ease, and Hatano responded to the whisper with a little nod of his head. His small stature made the gesture seem to Mashiba a terribly brave one, and he held Hatano steady as he freed at least his ankles from the bunched shackle of his pants.

“What about… you?” Prompted by Hatano’s sensual voice, Mashiba cast aside his remaining garments, as well. His swarthy browned skin, and his erection, were bared beneath the bathroom lights, inviting Hatano’s entranced gaze. Hatano’s lips were slack and colored with lust, and each breath that passed between them enticed his touch. Mashiba flipped the lid of a bottle of body soap, his free hand stroking Hatano’s hipbones when they bucked forward, and began coating it inside him, wondering at the lack of resistance. His clustered fingers slipped easily through Hatano’s yielding entrance, the penetration intensifying the man’s needy trembling, and when he spread those fingers apart Hatano’s legs nearly buckled, thick milky fluid welling from the head of his penis. Hatano’s muscles convulsed in unremitting spasms around Mashiba’s fingers as they burrowed slowly, slowly deeper into him, his chest rising with voiceless pants. That part of his body, reconstructed by Mashiba to accept even the more aggressive solicitations, did not appear to be satisfied by tonight’s mild, gentle stimulation. “Nn—Ma-Mashiba…!” The tears rimming Hatano’s eyes threatened to spill over his cheeks at any moment, and Mashiba knew well what those eyes entreated. Still, loathe to extract his fingers from that snug, tight sensation, he made no move to end it. “Ah, no more, no more…!” The wet, vulgar sounds of the soap bubbles slick against his hand inspired ever more lewd cries from his partner. Hatano impatiently reached out a hand for Mashiba’s erection, but found himself thwarted by the twisted knots of his shirt that bound his arms. His back had begun to twitch with every spasm of exhalation, and Mashiba cradled him with his free arm, giving no recess to the probing exploration being conducted by the other. Hatano clung needily to the enveloping arm. “What is it you don’t like?” “Yo-Your fing-fingers—ah!” Mashiba gouged Hatano’s entrance mercilessly, churning the soapy foam inside, and Hatano screamed, no longer able to bridle his tears. “Why don’t you like them?” “You keep twi-twisting them arou… ah, ah—!” He interrupted Hatano’s appeal with a deep thrust of his plundering fingers, his strokes thorough and relentless, and Hatano was weeping before Mashiba abruptly withdrew them again. Hatano looked up at the sudden retreat with an expression of uneasy anticipation, and Mashiba bestowed a light kiss upon him before taking the shower head in hand. “I’ll wash the soap away. Turn around and spread your legs,” he ordered in his most level voice, and though Hatano’s tacit obedience grated on his nerves, he was more angry with himself, for the ironfisted kind of sex he had forced upon his partner. Mashiba directed the lukewarm spray over Hatano’s backside, and each time he dug another handful of the foam out from inside him, Hatano shuddered and gave a sweet cry. His back, plastered in wet cotton, bobbed up and down before Mashiba’s eyes. “No more…! Aren’t you… done yet?” Hatano appeared to be suffering from the intensity of his pleasure, and strained breaths poured from his lips. The lustful rhythm of his thrusting hips was seemingly beyond even his own control. Mashiba resisted the temptation to bury himself immediately into the heat that his fingers had so fully tasted, and instead stroked the shapely curves offered before him. “N-No…” He curled one hand loosely around Hatano’s length as his tongue roamed the expanse of the other man’s skin, and Hatano raised a feeble voice and twisted away. “I… I

can’t…” Mashiba spread his legs further apart and let his fingers trail a path around Hatano’s constricting entrance as he knelt down. “Feel like you’ll come right away if I touch you? I better stop then,” he teased, releasing Hatano’s swollen member. Hatano hastily turned around and, finding Mashiba poised inches away from his exposed bottom, started with alarm. He began to struggle in panicked protest, flailing his arms and legs. “Wha-What are you doing—ah!” “Watch it!” Hatano slipped and lost his balance, but Mashiba’s muscular arms extended to secure him before he could tumble to the floor. Aiming for the moment Hatano exhaled a sigh of relief, he lifted the man’s limp waist and settled him on his hands and knees. “See, right here…” Hatano’s hips had been hoisted high into the air, and a shameful blush colored his entire body. He struggled to straighten his position, but his palms slid across the surface of the tiles and his efforts proved fruitless. “I told you to stop that, ah… don’t do that—” Fingers wedged into his moist cleft, and his complaints ended in a hoarse croak. “If I kiss you right here, like I kissed you before… it’s damn good.” “Oh, oh!” Mashiba’s vulgar whisper was a gust of wind fanning the flames of his arousal, and before Mashiba had even truly touched him, Hatano burst. His limbs trembled jerkily as he soiled the tiles, and Mashiba’s tongue painted a glistening trail on his pale skin. He knew it was likely best to give him time to recover, but Hatano’s bud quivered needily and he ached to sate it with an even deeper sensation. Splaying his fingers on either side Mashiba parted the supple flesh, and when his lips pressed against him with a small wet noise, Hatano began to thrash with wild, frenzied motions. He had reacted similarly the first time he had come solely from back stimulation. Mashiba suspected he was frightened of the changes occurring in his body. “No, no! Don’t…!” His tongue, slick with saliva, stabbed into the small hollow, and at long last Hatano’s arms, which had been bearing the weight of his torso, collapsed. He slumped forward, burying his face in the slack ring of his arms, and with each movement of Mashiba’s tongue his hips swayed dancingly. The sight of that involuntary undulation was incredibly lewd, and Mashiba gripped his painfully rigid erection in one hand, his fist a clamp against the rising urge to release. “And you were so tight the first time, too.” Mashiba embedded his fingers inside him, and at once Hatano’s inner walls closed around him with impatient gratitude. Hatano had certainly lost much of his restraint, and when Mashiba thought that he himself had seduced this wanton lover out of a man who had been ignorant of homosexual sex, a dark and savage emotion crawled up the length of his spine. “Your favorite spots are here and… here.” He thrust in his index and middle finger to the knuckle, scissoring them, and the tip of his middle finger repeatedly grazed his target. Perhaps unconsciously Hatano swung his hips to match the angle of contact, as if he could not endure the small motion of Mashiba’s fingers. “Maybe I should lick you as I do it, huh?” His teeth sank lightly into the small rounded flesh before him, lodging a third finger inside as he did so, and Hatano looked back over his shoulder, visibly unnerved. “No-No more, no more,” he begged between what might have been pants or sobs. “No

more, I’m scared…” His eyes, glazed with tears, seemed more darling then to Mashiba than they had ever before, and he leaned forward to ladle those tears with his tongue. His stiff arousal brushed against Hatano’s thigh, and both of them shivered. “Ma-Mashiba, Mashiba!” “What is it? What’s wrong?” He pulled his fingers free and embraced Hatano from behind, nestling Hatano’s back against his chest. Hatano’s bottom squirmed hungrily in his lap, and Mashiba pressed his length, heated by the same maddening temptation, up against him. The slightest nudge provoked a lustful cry, and Hatano’s entrance contracted vainly, trying to draw him inside. Mashiba kneaded the soft white mounds with both of his hands as he ordered Hatano to speak. “Come on, tell me what you want to do.” “Ah, put it—put it in…” “Put what in?” he baited him, and though Hatano unexpectedly gave him an honest reply, Mashiba was not satisfied with sign language. He hovered behind him, maintaining their modest degree of contact and taking pleasure in Hatano’s miserable writhing, until Hatano finally voiced his desire in the obscene words used by immature children. Hatano seemed to be vulnerable to this kind of verbal intimidation. Mashiba’s persistent bullying appeared to actually arouse him, as well. For a man whose character and conduct had been infallibly normal, Hatano had accepted his own debauchery quite readily. He was a size smaller than Mashiba, and his outward impression was a quiet, gentle one, but his spirit was incredibly supple and flexible—and from that, Hatano drew great strength. “Shit—feels good…!” And being inside of him, immersed in that pressure tight and yet yielding as liquid velvet, cleared Mashiba’s mind of all its concerns and reduced him to his most primal male impulses. This might be what they call a body meant to be loved, a thought briefly surfaced through the crimson haze that had fallen over him. That tender enveloping sensation was a physical embodiment of Hatano’s personality; it forgave unreservedly, and constantly threw Mashiba off balance. He rolled his hips with each deep upward thrust and withdrawal, and Hatano began to tense and relax in time to his rhythm. In sharp contrast with his usual rough, careless manner of speech, honeyed and childish moans now fell from Hatano’s lips. Mashiba slackened his pace, prolonging each stroke in an attempt to solicit more of such cries, and Hatano besought him in a strangled voice, “No-Not like that! Harder, do it as hard as you can…” His slender neck twisted as he turned around, revealing his dark tearful eyes; and those erotic words; and his slick heat, coiling around Mashiba in entreaty; Mashiba imagined his body temperature had suddenly blazed several degrees higher. “O-Oh! Don’t make it… any bigger…!” With blunt candor Mashiba’s member had swelled even further inside him, and though Hatano once again lowered his gaze from Mashiba’s, Mashiba was contented with the sweet echoes in his ear of the cries he had extorted. “It doesn’t… hurt at all, right?” he whispered in a high, thin voice, and Hatano replied faintly that it felt good. Relieved that Hatano seemed to have surrendered his ability to sustain any kind of proper thought process, Mashiba drove his body forward in a final stroke to carry Hatano to the edge. Hatano, intoxicated as he was on the pleasure Mashiba granted him, would most likely be deaf to anything he said now; and the moment Mashiba realized this, he found that words

were already on his lips. “You’re kind of… cute, you know that?” Hatano only moaned. “I can see exactly how much you’re enjoying this.… It’s strange.” Because you’re not my type at all. It’s weird. “There’s something wrong with me…!” “Ah—!” Hatano constricted tautly around him, and the muscles of Mashiba’s abdomen quivered with small convulsions. He withstood until the last possible second, and as he pulled out his seed burst in milky rivulets onto Hatano’s shuddering back. Hatano was emptying his own desire in fitful spurts onto the tiles, and Mashiba grasped the other man’s shaking length with one hand, pumping out the last drops for him. “Ah… ah…” Hatano’s body had crumpled to the floor, and when Mashiba eased him upright, fierce, sensuous breaths fell against his chest. A rush of lust surged insatiably inside him, and he wondered at its origin. For the past six months he had regularly had sex with Hatano to accustom his body to the act, but for the most part those encounters had been a simple disposal for his natural urges. He had never felt this prickling ache deep within his breast before. Mashiba softly kissed Hatano’s loosely parted lips and Hatano, still reeling in the afterglow, reciprocated with the sweet caress of his tongue. Mashiba twined his own around Hatano’s, and as their tongues slipped against each other, his rekindled desire smoldered in the pit of his groin. “…bed.” Hatano, who looked to be similarly affected, skimmed his fingertips sensually along the arm that supported him. “Yeah,” he consented, in an alluring voice that was more breath than words. After they had rinsed themselves clean, Mashiba propped Hatano onto his feet, and as he guided Hatano’s tottering steps across the room, he was startled by the gentleness of his own arms. But this thought, too, had flown from mind by the time dark wet stains had begun to form upon the sheets; Mashiba had lost himself, absorbed in devoted pursuit of the trembling warmth that lay within his arms. * * *

Hatano’s primary concern upon awakening the following morning was how to extricate himself from the arm slung around his hips. The broad, warm chest snug against his back was certainly comfortable, but lying naked together with legs intertwined embarrassed him terribly. Excepting that day they had met each other on the streets of Shinjuku, this was the first time Mashiba had spent the night after sex. And they had never slept beside each other like this, skin pressed to bare skin, ever before. Anyway, I’ve got to get up. According to the clock, it was still early morning, which left Hatano with ample time before he would be expected at work. The school was five minutes away by bicycle, a convenience Hatano very much appreciated. Mashiba, on the other hand, had a commute to the office ahead of him, which Hatano calculated to require near an hour. He would likely need a shower, as well, meaning he couldn’t afford to lounge much longer in bed.

Who am I, his wife? Hatano caught himself in the midst of these gallant considerations with a stir of discomfort, and he elbowed Mashiba’s long arms aside with pointed indelicacy before sitting upright. The rude gesture roused Mashiba, who groaned softly as he came awake. Residual drowsiness slackened the lines of his face, and that unfamiliar expression startled Hatano. Mashiba’s eyes, half-hidden behind heavy lids, were dreamy and unfocused, and his features, still lulled with sleep, were gentle; but most novel was the sight of his face bathed in sunlight, which Hatano had never seen. Even spotlighted in the clear white light, Mashiba’s limbs, sprawled in relaxed symmetry, lost none of their beauty. In fact, the healthy bronze tone of his skin seemed to deserve no less than the pure bright glow of morning. Hatano’s gaze remained captivated by Mashiba, who had not yet brought himself entirely out of sleep, and the other man blinked two or three times before mumbling hoarsely, “Huh?” The silliness of this first word from Mashiba’s mouth drew a quiet chuckle from Hatano. Mashiba noticed the expression and squinted one eye for a moment, but this only emphasized his bleary air of a man not fully awake, and Hatano laughed again. Lounging the morning away naked struck him as foolish, and Hatano fished underwear and a suitable shirt from the dresser in the bedroom before swiftly dressing himself. Mashiba lay dazed upon the bed, apparently unable to grasp the situation, and Hatano asked him obligingly if everything was all right. “What…?” “The time. Don’t you think you should at least take a bath? Look,” he added, pointing at the clock he himself had checked moments ago, and Mashiba’s face underwent a comical transformation. “Shit!” He propelled himself out of bed, and as Hatano extended a bath towel to him, he debated whether or not to inform him of the mussed disarray of the hair on the back of his head. Seeing that Mashiba was striding towards the bathroom, Hatano silently decided the problem had been resolved. A far greater cause for concern was Mashiba’s suit, which had lain wet and neglected overnight. That it was unusable today went without saying; whether or not dry cleaning could salvage it was, frankly, somewhat suspect. “Anyway, this should be good enough for today.” Hatano’s one-size-fits-all white shirt would be sufficient, but Mashiba’s height and girth rendered most of Hatano’s clothes inutile. As he was mulling over this new dilemma, a sudden recollection sent him into the depths of his closet, where he had tucked away a pair of slacks given to him as a gift from an acquaintance. The color and style were presentable but they were the wrong size. He had intended to exchange them but never quite found the time, and unable to bring himself to toss out a present, they had long served as lining at the bottom of a drawer. “As for the jacket… he’ll be okay without one.” A coat was beyond his ability to provide, and Hatano was thankful that it was summertime. He delivered the assembled outfit to the bathroom, and just as he had expected, various articles of clothing lay strewn about the floor in a flagrant tableau of the previous night’s activities. He discovered Mashiba, the towel wrapped around his waist, seemingly at a complete loss as to what to do, and the sight of his handsome face flustered with confusion sent Hatano into peals of hearty laughter. “There’s nothing funny about this.” Mashiba made a show of disappointment at Hatano’s unreserved chortling, but unlike in bed, a half-naked man in a sunlit bathroom did not cut a very impressive figure.

“I thought this would happen. Here you go.” Hatano blinked away tears of laughter as he handed Mashiba the change of clothes, and urged him to dress quickly. “It’ll take about an hour to get to your office from here, including walking. Better hurry.” Surprisingly enough, Mashiba seemed to become bewildered when confronted with unexpected turns of events, and this was both amusing and endearing to Hatano. Or rather, in his history of heedless and impulsive actions, it was likely that this was his first blunder. His cheeks were colored with discomfort, as if the word “failure” were inscribed there, and at length Hatano, his body bent with irrepressible laughter, heard the violent slam of the bathroom door. “Ah, that was hilarious.” The fit of laughter had not wholly left him as he washed his face, and after shaving what little beard he had, he made for the kitchen. Now if he prepared breakfast for him, Hatano guessed he would be able to see Mashiba’s look of unhappy reluctance, but the idea of doing so felt strange to him and he decided against it. It was Hatano’s morning custom to light a fire beneath his kettle, which he vastly preferred to electric pots, and recline, newspaper in hand, in the living room while the water boiled. There was no reason why the presence of an intruder should disrupt this tradition. He was aware that this conviction was a product of his irrationally insistent desire to “carry on as usual,” but to this he pointedly shut his eyes. Of course, no matter how he might try to occupy his thoughts elsewhere, the sewing tools abandoned from yesterday evening and the belongings which were clearly not his own—a briefcase and envelope embossed with a company logo—were scattered about the room. All the more immediate was the memory of their skin pressed close together, naked limbs entwined throughout the night. Just as he thought he could relax, the feel of Mashiba’s leg, which had been wedged between his own less than an hour ago, returned to dominate his senses with frightening realism. Yesterday was really amazing… His memories of the night after they had moved to the bed were blurred and indistinct. He could predict only that he had all but passed out at the end. After Mashiba’s slick heat had entered his body Hatano had been repeatedly driven to climax, until even his awareness of his own actions had deserted him. I wonder how many times we did it.… Though he was unable to remember with any clarity, the intermittent images that remained brought a red flush to his cheeks. His hips were numb and heavy, and the listless torpor of his arms and legs was many times worse than was typical, but if Hatano were to speak only of his mood it was a curiously pleasant one. Around the time Hatano had grown abashed at his own blushing cheeks and unfurled the morning paper to hide them, Mashiba appeared with his hair still wet and a rather complicated expression on his face. “Hey, um…” The clothes Hatano had supplied seemed to fit him properly. Despite having been folded away for several years, the cloth sported few creases. Mashiba’s reputation would suffer no injury, Hatano thought with relief. “I’d like to use a hair dryer and some gel.” “Washroom, closet on the right. The razors are in there, too.” Their gazes met for a moment before sliding simultaneously away from each other, and they exchanged a curt, practical conversation. “There’s also a disposable toothbrush you can use if you want to.” “…okay.” Something resembling sweetness permeated the awkward air between them, and though neither of them yet wished to acknowledge it, both of them knew it was irrefutable.

The kettle whistled shrilly, signaling that its contents had boiled. As he prepared his usual cup of strong green tea, he thought it nasty to serve only himself, and after a brief hesitation he poured a guest teacup, as well. When Mashiba reappeared, his hair neatly arranged and the morning’s pathetic look wiped away, he had transformed into an unassailable young executive. Unable to forget what he had witnessed earlier, Hatano couldn’t resist finding that disparity amusing. “What?” Mashiba grumbled unhappily at Hatano, whose lips had curved upwards at the sight of his face. He appeared to be slightly embarrassed; his tone was low, but it lacked force. “Glasses?” he continued suddenly, eyes widening in wonder. Indeed, thin metal-framed glasses perched on Hatano’s nose as he smoked a cigarette and thumbed through the paper. “Hm? Oh, yeah, I just wear them for reading,” he replied without removing his attention from the page unfolded before him, and one finger poked out from behind it to indicate a teacup. “Drink it before it gets cold.” A stolen glance revealed Mashiba once again completely taken aback, and Hatano gritted his teeth to quell his laughter. Mashiba seated himself across the table, his broad shoulders sagging as if in boredom, and Hatano found this terribly adorable. Looking at him now, Hatano could appreciate that Mashiba was actually a very expressive young man. The gentle expression he now bore was reminiscent of the open, unaffected face he had revealed earlier—though that, too, was no doubt just one of his many faces—and Hatano could no longer deny that the sight of that expression delighted him. “Would you rather have had coffee? Although I only have the instant kind.” Mashiba, perhaps for sensitivity to hot foods, had been sipping his tea somewhat slowly, but he shook his head at Hatano’s question. “You’re very good at making tea, Hatano.” Hatano was considerably startled to be addressed by name instead of the usual “hey” or “you,” but Mashiba himself seemed to think nothing of it, and with great effort Hatano concealed his discomposure. “No better than average. These aren’t even expensive tea leaves.” “It’s been a long time since I drank something that actually tasted like tea.” His words rang strangely sincere, and Hatano laughed again. “Ha-ha, girls these days can’t even make a decent cup of…” At last he lifted his head, and the tail of his sentence lodged in his throat. Mashiba’s gaze was leveled directly at him, and though those light-colored eyes betrayed Mashiba’s puzzlement and discomfiture, they held none of the blunt rejection or coldness they once had. Entranced by the mysterious look in Mashiba’s fair amber irises, Hatano was temporarily speechless. “Um… better watch the time.” “Oh, yeah.” Even after turning away, he sensed Mashiba’s gaze lingering on his cheeks. Hatano’s eyes traced the text of the articles in the society section but failed to read a single word, and harried by the uncomfortable suspicion that Mashiba would perceive his distraction, he rearranged his legs. His skin prickled hotly beneath the persistent gaze. “What is it?” he prompted Mashiba, affecting nonchalance. “Thanks for the clothes.” The answer was short and earnest. “Hm, well, don’t be late,” he returned vaguely, continuing to study the paper even as Mashiba rose to his feet. A large palm abruptly filled his vision, and his glasses were plucked away. “Hey!” He made an attempt to reclaim them, but a combination of his shorter reach and the fact that Mashiba was standing made the effort a futile one.

“You don’t usually wear them. Why?” Hatano had made a show of being angry, but Mashiba’s amber eyes lowered to mere inches from his own and their beauty took his breath away. “Give them… back.” “Can you see my face?” Why do our conversations never quite seem to mesh, Hatano wondered in mild amazement. “You have to get to work, don’t you?” “Is the reason your eyes always look a little wet because you’re near-sighted?” Of course, discontinuity was the natural consequence of Mashiba’s one-sided insistence and his own evasive responses, but even so… “Look, are you listening to a word I’m saying?” “I could say the same to you,” Mashiba retorted immediately, and before he could react Hatano found himself enfolded in Mashiba’s arms. His lips were tapered sharply in contentious irritation, and Mashiba caressed them with his own in a gesture of surprising tenderness. They rubbed their closed lips together, indulging in each other’s softness for a short while before their tongues met and twined loosely between them, and their kiss tasted of mint. In spite of himself Hatano nearly burst into laughter, but Mashiba, who was experiencing the same taste, did not reproach him with words. Instead, he worked Hatano’s tongue lovingly with his teeth, and almost at once the bubble of laughter escaped as a labored moan. Mashiba slid his tongue smoothly back and forth along Hatano’s in a gesture that sought more to confirm or to verify than to deepen any carnal pleasure. After last night’s fierce and relentless debauchery, this kind of kiss could no longer even kindle a spark. The palm of Mashiba’s hand followed his contours, tracing his body with none of his usual arousing intent. His touch was like that of a child, accustoming himself to something unfamiliar with his hands. Their kiss unraveled with the same quiet serenity, and while Mashiba nibbled at Hatano’s wet lips, Hatano caught Mashiba’s left wrist and silently indicated his watch. Mashiba’s features relaxed into a disconcerted smile, and slowly, gently, he hugged Hatano to him. Ah, see, I knew it. The circumstances that had brought the two of them to this point, and the stances they each had taken—all of these were forgotten, erased by the comfort of Mashiba’s shy embrace. “Doing things gently feels so much better…” “Eh?” The words had slipped inadvertently from his mouth, and Hatano dismissed them with an easy, “Just talking to myself.” “If it’s hard… on your body, I won’t do anything more, so…” Mashiba loosened the tension in his arms and turned his gaze upon him, intense but unbarbed; and Hatano was forced to admit a prickling of fearful unease as Mashiba murmured, “So see me again, today.… Meet with me.” “Mashi—” As if he were afraid to hear the answer, the man had no sooner made his first, quiet entreaty than he thrust Hatano away, and without a word he had fled from the room. “But I told you, I have costumes to make,” Hatano muttered, watching Mashiba’s back disappear through the doorway. In truth, he was relieved; he had not wanted the color of his face, dyed bright red by Mashiba’s unbecomingly naïve whispers, to be noticed. “Guess I should take a bath.” He couldn’t dispel the feeling that Mashiba’s scent was clinging to his body. Whatever embarrassment this inspired, however, was shortly eclipsed by his embarrassment that the thought had even occurred to him in the first place, and Hatano’s cheeks darkened several

shades. Despite there being no one present to observe him he began a hasty retreat to the bathroom, but a thin, flimsy object underfoot caught his attention. “Huh?” It was the envelope that had lain beside Mashiba’s briefcase. “Oh, what an idiot. A grown man shouldn’t be leaving things behind.” It was proof of how flustered Mashiba had been—likely not because of the time, but because of the words he had blurted out. In that soft voice, filled with achingly tender emotion. “Oh, damn.” The man acting belatedly innocent after having committed a rape, and the man who finds this innocence rather cute—which of them was the worse? Hatano smiled as he considered this, and given that he was already contriving a means to deliver the envelope, he couldn’t help teasing himself. “I guess we’re just birds of a feather.” 4 How many years had it been since he had sprinted in a suit? Mashiba’s brow was beaded with sweat by the time he burst into the office, and as if in concert his coworkers and junior colleagues turned their curious faces towards him. “Strange for you to be late, eh, Mashiba?” “Well, you know…” He returned his neighbor’s greeting with a wry smile, and reviewed the day’s schedule on the white board. In the morning I need to get confirmation for those estimates—oh, and today was the day to hand in that report, and this afternoon… Oh! His eyes focused on the soto-mawari 12 schedule, and at once Mashiba felt the blood drain from his face. He thrust his hand into his briefcase and fumbled hastily through its contents, but there was no trace of the papers that had been in his possession only yesterday. Shit. I must have forgotten them. He was scheduled to visit a client that day, and those papers contained the data he had meant to show in a presentation; without them, there was very little he could hope to accomplish. Mashiba grimaced at his own thoughtlessness and considered first telephoning Hatano’s home, but he didn’t need his watch to tell him that Hatano had likely long past left for work. His only viable options were either to have the planning department print another copy of the materials, or else to take the two-hour round-trip to retrieve them from Hatano’s house. It’s already ten o’clock… His appointment was set for one o’clock that afternoon, though perhaps if he contacted them now to explain that there would be a slight delay, he could return in time. His face remained impassive, betraying none of the frantic workings of his brain as he struggled to maneuver a way out of his present situation. “Excuse me, is Mashiba from the fourth division here?” He had received a summons on the internal line. Mashiba snatched the receiver, irritated at the intrusion into an already hectic day. “Yes, this is Mashiba.” It was the front desk. “A gentleman named Hatano has brought something for you.” “What?!” Startled by this unexpected development, he quickly replied that he would be right there, and replaced the phone on the hook. Mashiba, a man who so rarely suffered anything to perturb his cool composure, raced in a flurry of motion from the room, and in his wake came an anonymous mumble, “I think I’ve seen two very strange sights today.”
“outside work” ; when an employee conducts business outside of the office, for sales or negotiations with outside parties, etc.
12

Though there were no verbal expressions of assent, the men and women present silently professed their earnest agreement. There indeed was Hatano, standing in the lobby with the envelope in hand. Catching sight of Mashiba dashing towards him, he raised his free hand in greeting. “Here you go, you forgot this.” “Hatano, why did—what about your work?” “I took part of the day off,” he replied easily. “You really saved me. I’m sorry I made you take off work.” Mashiba riffled urgently through the envelope’s contents, and found the complete presentation materials inside. His shoulders rose in a sigh of relief, and Hatano furrowed his brow. “It’s not a big deal for me to miss the morning, but these are papers for a presentation, aren’t they? Sorry, I looked at them a little. I’m an outsider so I figured it’d be okay. How could you forget them?” he added, chuckling. He was dressed in straight-leg jeans and a cotton shirt, the sort of ensemble rarely seen in this business district. “Ye-Yeah, it’s not a problem if you looked at them.” His bangs, ever unruly, swept lightly across his forehead, passing him off all the younger; a first glance could take him for a student. “I’m really sorry.” “Don’t worry about it.” Hatano graced him with a broad, guileless smile, and Mashiba’s heart leapt wildly in his breast, throwing him into a hidden panic. He discovered that he was abnormally conscious of his own fingers as he extended them to accept the envelope, and this feeling of honey-sweetness, which even his happier days with Ikawa had never inspired, bewildered him. “Well, I’ve got to get going.” “Oh, right. Take care. And, uh,” he bowed his head, “really, thank you.” “Forget about it.” Hatano gave him another easy smile, clear and bright as the morning sky, and for a second Mashiba was in thrall. Unconsciously, he relaxed the corners of his lips. The glances they exchanged all but attested the intimate mood of the morning had been no illusion, and rather shyly he averted his eyes. However, a disagreeable man chose that moment to stride into sight, and Mashiba twisted his handsome features into a grimace. “Is something wrong?” Hatano asked, startled by the sudden transformation. “Oh, nothing.” Ikawa, cutting a slim, graceful figure in his suit, was clearly moving towards them, and Mashiba leveled a glare in his direction, unable to mask his tart displeasure. “Mashiba, what…” “Takaaki, so this is where you were.” Just when Hatano would have pressed him further, Ikawa addressed him with a smile playing on the edges of his lips. Taking Ikawa’s arrival as his cue, Hatano excused himself and turned to leave, only to find Ikawa barring his passage. His curious gaze shifted back and forth between the flashy stranger, who exuded a dangerous air that belied his mild expression, and Mashiba, who made a curt irritated sound with his tongue, his grimace unrelieved. “What do you want?” “He a friend of yours? Come on, introduce him to me!” Ikawa continued, cleanly ignoring Mashiba’s question. Hatano was presented with a smile and a “nice to meet you,” and he did not fail to appreciate the impudent gaze Ikawa cast down his nose at him. He spared a moment’s glance up at Mashiba as if to gauge his opinion of the situation, but the other man only

maintained his stiff silence, unable to offer an answer to the questioning look in Hatano’s eyes. Ikawa was regarding Hatano with an appraising eye; he had likely already recognized that Hatano was the reason Mashiba had his “hands full,” as Mashiba had stated a few days earlier. Surely he wouldn’t do anything foolish in the office, but for a man who had always engaged in petty maneuvers to benefit himself, Mashiba knew perfectly well how brash and thoughtless Ikawa could be. What the hell is he trying to accomplish… Ikawa had framed their encounter as a coincidence, but Mashiba did not doubt for a second that he had seen Mashiba rush by and deliberately followed him to the lobby. Though they worked on the same floor, their desks were well separated, and it was unsettling to think that Ikawa was monitoring his movements so precisely. The previous day’s quarrel had bruised Ikawa’s wretched pride—this was clearly the reason for his persistence towards a man he himself had dumped, and it was enough to give Mashiba the chills. He also did not wish to disoblige Hatano by involving him any further, as if it weren’t enough that he had forcibly dragged the other man into a tangled mess of a relationship, and all because of the miserable breakup with Ikawa. That had been purely Mashiba’s own selfishness; Hatano was blameless. Though he was not so simple-minded as to believe all that he had coerced from Hatano would be forgiven, still those thin fingers that had gently held him the night before had kindled a desire to, if it were possible, reconsider from the first the terms of their relationship. In fact, he had requested Hatano meet him again that night with the intention of apologizing for his cruelty and, if Hatano would have it, to entreat him for the right to face him squarely and properly. Now, the sight of Ikawa thrust before him his own pettiness in dreaming up so convenient a scenario, and he could do nothing but gnash his teeth behind bitter-tasting lips. Hatano, though he must have found Mashiba’s behavior peculiar, betrayed no such sentiment with his quiet smile and social pleasantries. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is Hatano. Unfortunately I’m not carrying any business cards right now.” He accepted the proffered card from Ikawa and his eyes paused briefly on the full name printed there, but looked up again as if he thought nothing of it. He knows… Feeling a curdling chill in the pit of his stomach, Mashiba cast a sidelong glance at the petite man next to him but could read nothing from his profile. What were his thoughts, confronted with the man who shared his name and who had been the catalyst for Mashiba’s violent assault? “So he’s the guy,” Hatano stated in a voice audible only to Mashiba, a somewhat pitying look in his eyes. The utter lack of reproach in his tone only agonized Mashiba all the more, but this agony, too, he had called upon himself. He nodded his head slightly in affirmation. Ikawa, unaware of Mashiba’s private hesitation, inspected Hatano from head to toe in insolent appraisal, and let out a snort of laughter. “Excuse me, but what exactly is your profession?” “Ikawa!” Mashiba raised his voice in protest. Hatano frowned momentarily at the graceless question but, as if to rebuke Mashiba’s outburst, fixed a piercing stare on Ikawa before replying, “I’m a hofu.” “Oh, a hofu? I see, that makes sense.” It was unclear what exactly “made sense” about it, but there was no mistaking the disdainful ring to Ikawa’s chuckle. He was the kind of man preoccupied with brand names; he accepted no values or lifestyles apart from his own, and Mashiba sensed with no small displeasure which rank Ikawa’s estimation had assigned to Hatano. His expression tightened into

a fierce, distinct scowl. Ikawa had probably contrasted himself, an employee of a firm recognized across the nation, with Hatano and his more modest occupation; and Mashiba, who was no less guilty of having on occasion practiced this same kind of unconscious discrimination, felt as if his own foul ugliness were being exhibited before him, and he was almost sick with it. “Hatano, if you don’t hurry you’ll be late for the afternoon shift.” Mashiba interposed himself between the two men, as if to shield Hatano from Ikawa’s unpleasant glare. “Yeah, you’re right,” Hatano said, nodding in assent with his usual calm. His gaze was direct, cool and clear as water, and Mashiba found his equable composure in the face of such disrespect all the more attractive. However, even affable Hatano must have felt piqued by this display of enmity from a man whose acquaintance he had only just made. A hint of challenge darkened his eyes, and when he spoke it was in a voice both light and laced with a suggestive allure that Mashiba himself had not known Hatano capable of. “Okay, I’ll see you again… later.” This simple handful of words drained the blood from Ikawa’s face. Mashiba’s inward surprise was followed by dry amusement; Ikawa was a striking character and his tongue was vicious but Hatano, far from shying away, matched him with a bold disdain that Mashiba found quite heartening. “Yeah, later,” he replied with a fawning undertone that Ikawa could not have failed to notice—indeed, it was precisely because Ikawa would notice that Mashiba relaxed his expression into a broad smile. For his part, Hatano seemed to have properly interpreted this gesture and his eyes, again soft and placid, creased wryly as if to say, you’re helpless. “Hey, wait a minute!” Ikawa was clearly of the opinion that nothing had been settled, and in flagrant disregard of the attention he might draw, he forcibly seized Hatano’s arm as the other man made to withdraw. “Hey!” “How long have you been with Takaaki?” Mashiba’s attempt to check him was neatly brushed aside, and Ikawa questioned Hatano with a vulgar expression on his face. Though he spoke in a whisper, it was far too explicit a question to be posed in an office lobby surrounded by passersby, and Mashiba was appalled. “What business is that of yours? Let go of me,” Hatano returned dispassionately, unmoved. His words were quiet but pronounced, and they seemed to rob Ikawa of his thunder. “‘Business?’” he echoed with pointed lewdness. “You’re going too far, Ikawa!” Mashiba growled, but if he heard Ikawa did not acknowledge it. His fingers still wrapped around Hatano’s arm, he continued, “Oh, it’s very much my business. We go way back. Of course I’m curious about his,” indicating Mashiba with his chin, “new partner.” His brazen impudence left Mashiba speechless. “You—You little…!” he cried out finally, lunging forward. “Mashiba!” Hatano snapped, staying him with a curt, sharp reproval. He turned to Ikawa, heaving a thoroughly disgusted sigh. “Ikawa, right?” “Yes, that’s my name.” “I don’t know what kind of relationship you’ve got with Mashiba,” he began, brisk despite his calm tone, “but I don’t see a single reason why I should have to answer any of your questions.” Seemingly unnerved by the unexpected force in Hatano’s limpid eyes, Ikawa’s only

response was a low groan in the back of his throat. “Think I can leave now? Hofu are too busy to be sticking around and taking crap from rude people who can’t even see when it isn’t the time or place for their actions,” Hatano said flatly, and Ikawa turned a shade paler at the scathing words. “Wait a second,” he pressed, flinging off all pretense of composure, “are you talking about me?” “Who the hell else would I be talking about?” Hatano threw back, growing rather belligerent himself. “Hey—Hatano!” Mashiba cut in, alarmed by Hatano’s lack of restraint. “What?!” Hatano fixed a glare on him but appeared to quickly realize that, though the details of their conversation were not audible, the stormy mood around the three of them had begun to attract attention. He glanced testily around for a moment before closing his mouth with an air of dissatisfaction, as if it galled him to hold his tongue. “You can’t start arguing, too.” “I’m sorry.” Mashiba placed his hand soothingly on Hatano’s thin shoulder, and the familiar body heat warmed his palm. Hatano recomposed himself at this contact, as well, and after letting out a short breath he gave a small smile. It was a trifling exchange but Ikawa sensed in it a wall that kept him firmly outside, and the lines of his face set stiffly. He gritted his teeth and scowled. Mashiba, catching a glimpse of this crooked expression, felt himself chill to the core, mingled with an abhorrence of himself for having been the lover of such a shallow man. Am I a complete idiot? Incapable of managing a proper break-up, he had dragged Hatano into all this for his own selfish designs, and to top it off he couldn’t even get this pathetic scene occurring in his own workplace under control. Determined, if nothing else, to get Hatano out of there, Mashiba took a breath to speak. “What are you doing here, Mashiba? Ikawa, too!” What finally broke the rancorous three-way deadlock was a stern rebuke from behind. “You’ve got everybody staring at you! Get back to your desks. Mashiba, you’ve got an appointment at K Corporation at two o’clock, don’t you? Are you ready?” “Kamata-buchou 13…” Ikawa grimaced at finding himself the object of that sharp-eyed gaze, and Mashiba felt a complicated kind of relief. “Please excuse me, I’ll start preparing immediately.” Most likely one of the passersby had reported to Kamata that there seemed to be a quarrel in the lobby. He was a man in his forties but his height surpassed even Mashiba’s, and he possessed a force of character that was overpowering. He exerted a pressure that was not entirely due to his rank and title; it was in large part a product of his tall stature and his almost inorganically handsome face. “You’re going to be spending the day over there, so do what you need to do.… Huh?” Ikawa had never been comfortable dealing with Kamata, a man who relied on no connections and, accordingly, afforded no one special treatment. He clucked his tongue and seemed resolved to beat a hasty retreat. Casting a final look of loathing in Hatano’s direction, he was about to turn on his heel when Kamata’s surprised exclamation froze him mid-step. “Hey, is that you, Hatano?”
13

buchou (部長) : the director, head of a division, department

Kamata’s features, noble but coolly severe, were normally relaxed in a loose kind of placidity. Now, however, his voice had shed its chronic monotone and risen with pleasure. “Hatano, that is you! So you’ve been doing all right!” “It’s been a long time.” Hatano, on the other hand, returned the greeting softly, reluctantly, his smile tight with something like bitterness. Ikawa’s eyes were open wide and Mashiba, too, was visibly puzzled, unable to grasp the situation. It was the first time he had ever seen such an expression on Kamata’s face. The number of employees who had witnessed such an intimate expression, much less a smile, could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. “Is he an acquaintance?” And if Hatano truly were acquainted with Kamata, Mashiba thought it odd that he had made no indication of recognizing Mashiba’s place of employment. “I’m the one surprised at you. I had no idea you two knew each other,” Kamata said, looking by turns between the two of them. Mashiba abruptly found himself expected to answer his own question, and for a moment he floundered for a proper response. It was Hatano who came to his rescue. “It’s just a coincidence, actually. We met each other at a bar. You could say we’re drinking friends.” Hatano? Mashiba could detect nothing unnatural in Hatano’s mild tone, which only deepened his confusion. They had never discussed personal matters in any great depth, but the Hatano that he had come to know in the past half year was a man of unexpected candor and magnanimousness, a man who lacked affectation. That he had brought himself to make such cutting remarks to Ikawa had certainly been a shock, but the act had become him. Mashiba thought in blank amazement that it was this Hatano before him now, whose lips let slide lies with such easy grace, who seemed a stranger. “How do you know Hatano, buchou?” “Oh, right, of course. None of you know about it.” Perhaps his interest had been piqued; in the end it was Ikawa who raised the question, and Kamata’s reply left Mashiba in mute astonishment. “Hatano had been working here until five years ago. Went out just as you two came in, I guess. He did some damn good work. He might have been your boss, if he’d stayed.” “What?!” “Kamata, you’re exaggerating,” Hatano said, flashing the same bittersweet smile, but it was a well known fact among the company’s employees that Kamata was not the kind of man to dole out empty flattery. In other words, his statement was quite likely the truth. Ikawa appeared to be reeling from the jarring truth behind the man he had so contemptuously dismissed; his cheeks were ashen, and he said not a word. Mashiba himself was struck by a different segment of the conversation. “It really has been a long time. Egi and I talk about you now and then. The last time we saw each other was the second anniversary of Yuuko’s death, wasn’t it?” “I apologize for not keeping in touch. I heard that you were kind enough to visit her grave a little while ago.” Kamata alluded to strangers whose names Mashiba had never heard before, and Hatano answered him in his quiet, serene manner; this exchange thrust both of them suddenly far out of Mashiba’s reach. There wasn’t room for him to put in a single word. The way Hatano had deliberately wiped all expression from his face at the sound of the name “Yuuko” weighed on Mashiba’s mind, though he couldn’t very well ask him about it now.

The words “second anniversary of her death” bothered him terribly but he didn’t know why. Most of their time together over the past six months had been devoted to sex, and to say that they knew each other would be a hard sell. It was Mashiba, if anyone, who deserved reproach given all that had happened; he could scarcely blame Hatano for never having said that he had once worked at S Commercial, or that he knew Kamata. Mashiba’s intuition told him only one thing: the reason Hatano had left this company must lie with the woman named Yuuko. “Egi misses you, too, you know. Show him your face every now and then, won’t you?” Kamata said, fond affection in his eyes and voice, and he wrapped an arm around Hatano’s slight shoulders. Though the man probably had no ulterior motives, Mashiba’s vision swam with an ugly jolt, and he realized that he was jealous. “Yes, I’ll try.… I really need to be going now. I apologize for disrupting your work.” “Oh, of course, sorry for keeping you. Take care—and I mean it, come ‘round and visit sometimes.” “Yeah,” Hatano agreed with a dip of his head, and turned an unreadable smile to Mashiba. “Well, sorry for interrupting.” “No, no problem.” Hatano’s gaze was clearly directed towards him, and yet his eyes were the distant, mysterious color of the far-away. “And I’d come down here to give you two a warning, too.… Well, get on back already.” An inexplicable sense of loss set Mashiba’s feet trembling. If Kamata (sounding uncharacteristically embarrassed) hadn’t spoken up, he might have taken Hatano into his arms right then and there. “You didn’t even know?” Ikawa jeered, but his malicious ridicule failed to elicit a response. To Mashiba, he had simply ceased to hold any meaning. He spat out a few more grating noises, but it seemed to have dawned on him that Mashiba had excised Ikawa’s very existence from his mind, and he departed without a further word. Oblivious even to this, Mashiba stood as if paralyzed. Hatano’s slender back bobbed, step by step, away from him. He did not look back. And yet this morning, when Mashiba had held that body against him he had been sure that he had caught hold of something certain, something tangible— Hatano, what the hell…? He had finally resolved to be sincere with him, and now it was as if everything had been thrown off balance, as if it were all too late; for a long moment, Mashiba could not bring himself to move. * * *

Mashiba passed the remainder of the day with a half-hearted listlessness. He was drained of the drive that had propelled him through the morning, and when the hands of the clock released him from his duties, he set about hauling himself home. Kamata had managed to carry them through the afternoon’s presentation; alone, Mashiba had little confidence in his ability to have negotiated an agreement. Not that he, still a greenhorn by society’s standards, even commanded such authority, but he should have at least made himself useful in a supporting role. Mashiba’s practical contributions, however, ranged from nearly leaving the office without the materials Hatano had been kind enough to deliver, to giving explanations which were in direct contradiction to his own data. “Wherever your head was, it wasn’t in there,” was the whole of Kamata’s brusque remark, spoken with their first steps out of their customer’s lobby. Though the words chilled him,

he was amazed to find the greater part of his concern occupied not with chagrin at the day’s dismal performance, but with curiosity about Kamata’s relationship with Hatano. “I’m very sorry.” “Is something on your mind? I always told you to keep your private life out of the office.” The stern and blunt reprimand left Mashiba speechless. He bowed his head, grinding his teeth behind the tight, pale line of his lips, and Kamata gave a short sigh. “Well, what’s done is done. Do you have anything to do right now?” His promise to Hatano sprang to Mashiba’s mind and held his tongue, but after a second he shook his head slowly and replied that he did not. If he met Hatano now, in this state of mind, he had no idea what he might blurt out. A dangerous kind of instability had knocked him off balance, and even a guarantee that this would not dissolve into violence was beyond him. Kamata gave his brooding subordinate a moment before extending his invitation. “If you’ve got the time, how about a drink?” “Eh?” He knew Kamata did not mean to treat him to a beer as consolation for his failures; the man had never been the type to indulge others with lukewarm displays of appreciation. Mashiba knew him well, knew that Kamata spoke little comfort and little reproach at times like this, choosing instead to bear the consequences of those failures himself, in silence. “I had no idea you and Hatano knew each other.… Could you tell me what he’s been up to these days?” There it was again: that hint of a smile so unfamiliar to Mashiba. He had bottled away his jealousy, swallowed it down into his gut, and it seethed there now like acid. Still, Kamata knew something of Hatano that he did not, and he ached to know.… “Sure, I don’t mind.” His salesman’s smile fit him like an old glove. “I didn’t have any plans, anyway.” “Welcome!” Kamata had settled on a cozy little bar whose faded indigo noren 14 bore the name 15 Idaten . The pair brushed the flaps of the curtain aside, and Kamata addressed the youthful, unshaven shopkeeper, “Just send us what you’ve got.” “Do you come here often?” Mashiba asked. “Yeah, a friend of mine told me about this place. They make some great nimono 16.” A long-haired young man delivered appetizers and chilled sake to their table, and for several minutes they continued a harmless exchange of small talk. “By the way,” finally Mashiba broached the subject, setting an open invitation to his boss on the table. It was clear that each had something to say to the other. “You were asking about Hatano, but I don’t actually know him that well.” “Oh, really,” Kamata returned in a monotone. He appeared to lose himself briefly in thought. “You’re years apart, and you have completely different personalities. How are you two friends?” he asked, a man well acquainted with the natures of both men in question. Mashiba steeled himself somewhat. “We met by chance about half a year ago,” he answered smoothly. “I was drunk and fell down in the middle of the street, and Hatano took care of me.” noren (暖簾) : traditional Japanese fabric dividers, rectangular curtains usually with one or more vertical slits 15 Idaten (韋駄天????????guardian??deity??of??monks??and??monasteries??and??a??god??of??the??kitchen??also??the??Indian??deity??Skanda 16 nimono (煮物) : simmered dishes ; foods cooked in a boiling broth
14

This much, at least, was the truth, and he spoke easily. He would be hard put should Kamata probe further, but the other man showed no inclination to pry. “I thanked him, and since then we just started going out for drinks once in a while.… So the only thing he’s up to that I could tell you about is making costumes for an oyuugikai.” His deliberate attempt at humor seemed to have the desired effect; the stiff edge of Kamata’s expression relaxed slightly. “Well, that’s enough. As long as he’s doing all right for himself… So it was true. I’d heard he was working as a hofu,” Kamata said rather laconically, and drained his sake. “That was quite a surprise today,” Mashiba began, moving to refill his boss’ cup. He was wary of his own desperate impatience, and he took special care to maintain a cool, level tone of voice. “I’d never heard anything about Hatano working with us, or that you knew each other.” Kamata withdrew his cup, offering only a word of thanks before lapsing once more into silence. The implied question hovered in the air between them, unanswered. Next to appear was a plate of salted mackerel and Kamata began to spear pieces onto his chopsticks, his face preoccupied with a peculiar hesitation. Mashiba wondered if perhaps he had taken too direct an approach, but Kamata was a close-mouthed man in any case. He made a formidable opponent, and to extract any significant information from him would be a feat. Better this than trying some petty trick and putting him on his guard. The sight of Kamata so persistently quiet left Mashiba horribly uneasy, though he could not say if this disquiet was merely another face of his eagerness to know about Hatano, or in fact some kind of premonition. It was the first time he had felt this malaise towards Hatano, and if he allowed this opportunity to slip through his fingers, he feared he would never discover its true source. He was attracted to him, to Hatano, whose aloof air he had failed to disturb no matter how he had abused and scorned him, and Mashiba had only just realized this—or possibly had only now ceased to turn a blind eye to his feelings. Whichever it was, he could no longer ignore his very pressing and very personal interest in Hatano, but his memory of Hatano’s face, gone pale for a heartbeat at the sound of the name “Yuuko,” stirred a vague unrest in him. There was no denying that he had become a coward; he could not bring himself to ask Hatano directly, did not think he could bear to be faced with the clouded smile Hatano had shown Kamata. How delightfully self-serving, he ridiculed himself, but he was not unaware of the inhumanity he had dealt Hatano in the past, and this may have been the reason he wanted to shed whatever light he could on the matter before facing the other man. “This isn’t… really something for me to say, but…” Kamata was no man to fall prey to leading questions, thus the direct approach, but it was not until the wet glass lip of a fourth bottle of sake gleamed between them that Mashiba’s efforts bore fruit. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pry,” Mashiba said, and a sudden smile creased Kamata’s sober face, as if he recognized the token apology for what it was. Mashiba’s chopsticks dipped into the deep-fried flatfish and he deliberately refused to look the other’s way, as if to warn Kamata that he could expect no retreat. “You must have heard a little of our conversation back there.” He was feigning a calmer man’s composure, but the thrill of anticipation seized his body and underneath the table, his knees trembled for a fleeting moment before he tensed his muscles and stilled them. “Yes, something about the second anniversary of Yuuko’s death.” Kamata fell silent once more at this, and Mashiba did nothing to goad him. The flatfish was a tasteless weight on his tongue, and he forced it down with a cold mouthful of sake. “Yuuko, she’s…” Kamata sighed wearily, gaze downcast, and lowered his cup. When he

spoke, it was with a soft and wrenching voice. “She’s Hatano’s deceased wife.” Mashiba’s heart lurched to a stop. Deceased? “And Egi was my kouhai 17 in high school. He’s Yuuko’s father.” His mind was wiped blank, still reeling from shock, but something in what he was being told didn’t add up. “Uh, wait, wait a moment. How old was Yuuko?” “She passed away five years ago, and she was… twenty-eight, I think, at the time.” “But—you said Egi was your kouhai.” Kamata was currently in his early forties, placing him at thirty-seven or thirty-eight at the time of her death, and Egi, his high school kouhai, would have been even younger… “She was his adopted daughter. They were more like brother and sister, actually. I don’t know the details myself, but seemed like there were some—circumstances…” The slight lowering of his voice belied Kamata’s professed ignorance; he knew, but Mashiba had no inclination to nose about in Egi’s private affairs. “I see.” Whatever the case, a man did not adopt a daughter only ten years his junior without substantial reason. Decorum, however, forbade an inquiry, and Mashiba said nothing—in fact, it was the least of his concerns. He had the sinking feeling that he mustn’t listen to another word, and a queer tension stiffened his spine. “She was like a little sister to me, too. Sweet girl. That’s why I introduced Hatano.” But Kamata continued in his slow staccato, speaking as if from a great distance, and the man’s peaceful expression filled Mashiba with helpless misery. He had initiated the conversation; he could scarcely put a stop to it now. The shaking in his knees grew violent. “He was going through some tough times. Lost his father right when he left for college… hear his mother passed two years later.” This was the first he was hearing of Hatano’s past, and the bands that had closed about his chest tightened. His breath came hard and shallow. “Both of them had this—longing for a family, and with Egi and I never having gotten married, well… we couldn’t give them that kind of ‘home.’ ” Mashiba’s heartbeat hammered furiously, beating a feverish drumbeat against his ribcage, and sweat trickled in steady rivulets down to moisten his collar. He thought nothing; there were only facts, falling from Kamata’s lips in frank procession and sinking leaden into his mind like stones to the bottom of a lake. “Two of them always looked a little lonely. But Yuuko, she was such a sweet girl, and Hatano was a good man. I was really happy for them when they decided to get married. Thought that now, things’d be all right for them.” Kamata’s voice had thickened slightly, as if something had caught in his throat; with his gaze lowered to his lap Mashiba could not be sure, but he supposed that the man’s shrewd eyes were rimmed with tears. He tasted bile rising on the back of his tongue, and his tremulous fingers fumbled shortly with a cigarette. The far end smoldered red in his hand, and when he exhaled the smoke stung his eyes nastily. “Wh-Why did Yuuko,” he began, sighing smoke, and found that he did not recognize the cracked voice that rasped finally from his throat, “pass away?” There was no answer. “Kamata?” “Taking one of these,” he said, and drew a cigarette from Mashiba’s pack before
17

kouhai (後輩) : one’s junior

Mashiba could admit or deny him. He drew the smoke deeply into his lungs and answered slowly, quietly, “She was in an accident.” Kamata spoke an emptiness that set the hairs along Mashiba’s back on end, and his shoulders rose and fell in convulsions he could no longer master. “Had their new baby in her arms when it happened. Driver who hit them had fallen asleep at the wheel…” The course of the day had loosened Kamata’s hair from its rigorous combing and it hung now disheveled across his brow; and while this ought to have made him appear younger, the grimace of remembered pain that twisted his features for an instant aged him terribly. An aching in Mashiba’s eyelids reminded him that he was staring, that his eyes were fixed wide open, but he could not blink. He had brushed his bare hands against another man’s wounds, and he was sorry for it. What… But keener than his regret— “Hatano was out on business with me at the time. Real excited, they’d just bought a new condo. He was smiling, talking about how she and the baby were looking after the house while he was gone. And there, very next day…” —was the acute realization of exactly how selfish were the emotions he was imposing upon Hatano. “Then, Hatano was…?” The unfinished sentence dangled in a heavy silence. A sudden urge to scream clawed madly up his throat, threatening to burst into sound, and Mashiba crushed it with the heel of his palm. Kamata tossed off another cup of sake and, in his hoarse, quavering voice, brought his aching memories to his lips. “He couldn’t make it to her in time. Egi saw her off alone.” Mashiba’s throat was working beneath his hand, swallowing repeatedly against a searing pain that had little to do with the alcohol he had consumed. What have I done? More sake had accompanied each interlude in the conversation, and Kamata appeared to have drunk himself well into his cups. Mashiba suspected that even now, he could not move past his grief at Yuuko’s death. And Hatano—what of him?, Mashiba wondered, and an ugly noise rumbled low in his throat. Kamata had told him the plain facts of the matter, and nothing more; it sounded to Mashiba rather as if he were striving to say nothing that smacked of the sentimental regarding Hatano and Yuuko. But Mashiba pictured the couple all too vividly: a young man and woman, dealt such mean luck where others had been so readily blessed with family; yearning bitterly for happiness, and their groping hands at last fastening upon one another, only to be wrested apart—the poignant tragedy of it, the sorrow. And contrition, to have been the one left behind. Was that limpid, steadfast look in Hatano’s eyes something tempered within him, born the moment she had slipped from his reach? Mashiba sensed intuitively that this was not far from the truth. Hatano was a man once dead; it had taken him as surely as it had taken Yuuko. “He was just a shell of himself after that,” Kamata continued, bearing out Mashiba’s hunch. “It wasn’t just problems concentrating at work, he stopped sleeping… even went for counseling at one point, it got so bad.” Kamata was no longer addressing his audience; he seemed to be immersed in memory. The breath to stop him, to silence him, flew to the tip of Mashiba’s tongue but he shuddered and

bore the sickening rush, because he must, he must listen— “He quit his job three months after her funeral. Everything just went out of him. He moped for a while… but I’ll tell you something, Mashiba—a man’s still got to eat. “Heartless, isn’t it?” Kamata said then, and the comment that had not been meant for him at all rang like an indictment in Mashiba’s ears. He had misunderstood the nature of Hatano’s strength. Hatano was not invulnerable, nor was he simply tough and flexible. Old wounds had cut him so deeply that other scrapes and scratches had become tolerable. Perhaps they no longer even registered as pain. A spasm of constriction wrung another croak from Mashiba’s throat, and the effort of controlling a mounting urge to vomit distorted his vision. Kamata’s face dissolved into a blur, and Mashiba could only cling doggedly to the sound of the other man’s voice. “He finally got that family he’d always wanted… then he lost it all in a year, and he was falling apart with no one to help him. Not me, not Egi, we couldn’t do a damn thing.… Next thing we knew, he’d picked himself back up, all on his own.” “His own?” Mashiba’s chest was heaving now, but those words had caught his attention. “Showed up at my door, shrunk thin as a scarecrow, told me he’d decided to be a hofu. Couldn’t have been easy for him, but you know he said—he told me he’d take good care of those kids, said he’d do it for the one he’d lost…” Kamata gulped in a breath, and one hand rose to cover his face. “Said it—it was the third time he’d had to see someone go, said that… he was used to it now…” Mashiba crushed his palm to his mouth and leapt to his feet. “Ex—Excuse me,” he blurted out, or tried to; he was uncertain the sounds he made had been intelligible. He could spare no concern for the discourtesy of abandoning his boss in the middle of their drinks. Something foul had settled like dregs at the pit of his belly, and he thought only of expelling it from his body. He hurtled into the restroom, and no sooner had he flung the lid from the toilet than he was regurgitating the contents of his stomach. What… Again and again he retched above the toilet bowl, and his abdominal muscles curled and twisted as if to cramp. Tears sprang to his eyes, snivel dribbled from his nose, and every last pore exuded a film of sweat that clung clammy to his skin. What have I done… Hatano—a gentle man who bore such profound, crippling pain and yet had endured, had risen above it. And what had he done to that man? What had he forced upon him? He had found himself wrapped around the little finger of a piddling idiot, and fancied himself heartbroken; he could not stop weeping for the shame that burned within him now. Doing things gently feels so much better, Hatano had whispered once quietly in his arms, and the memory weighed heavily on his mind. How many battles had Hatano braved, with only that small, helpless back for a shield? “—tano!” He wanted to die that very instant. Might his death serve as some semblance of an apology to Hatano if he were to perish now, in this agony? The very breaths he drew as he stood there were abominable. The likes of himself should never have laid a hand upon Hatano. What had he ever truly seen of the other man, that he should have looked down at him with contempt? That same contempt raked across him now, and he bowed in humiliation. His distress must have

appeared to those clear, earnest, beautiful eyes as little better than a child’s tantrum, he thought, and a lancing pain edged the chagrin that coursed through him. “Hatano…!” He was an utter fool. What folly he had wrought! Now, now at last, though it was shameless to wish so, he knew: he did not want to part with Hatano. This was nothing vague or tentative; he was irresistibly attracted to him. The revelation came and passed like a knife inside of him, and in its wake the certainty that he must not see Hatano again. He would never be able to grant him the kind of happiness or stability he desired. He could love him, but he could not become his family. No. He needed only to stifle this wretched wailing of his heart, and then someone could appear to give Hatano a family again. Some kind-hearted woman; someone who was not him. No, no—no! The mere suggestion of Hatano making love to a woman lit a blistering fury inside him. Mashiba was painfully aware of his hopeless romanticism and jealous disposition, though one would guess neither from looking at him. What right did he have to be jealous?, he derided himself. And then he thought again of the softness, the infinite tenderness of Hatano’s smile, and could think nothing more; squatted in a round huddle there on the restroom floor, he cried. Hatano would probably accept him as he was—had, perhaps, already done so, long ago. But despite this, or precisely because of it, he should not take advantage of him, not this man, whose great kindness sprang from such great loneliness; should not embroil him in volatile emotions that might one day drift and fade. He wished fiercely to snuff out the sordid hopes of his heart (if I could only—), and found he could not. In the grip of cutting pain, Mashiba thought with great clarity that he loved Hatano. Until Kamata grew worried and came round to call for him, he could do little else but weep at his own foolishness. 5 Hatano received Mashiba’s long silence with both resignation to the inevitable, and an agitated gnawing of worry, and once again he found himself passing the quiet, lonely nights of six months before. Their trysts had always been sporadic, but Mashiba had never once set a date and failed to show. Ever since the evening after Hatano had delivered Mashiba’s documents and bumped into Kamata, however, there hadn’t been so much as a word from him. Nearly two months had passed. His clumsy foray into costumery was finished, and the sweltering blaze of summer had spent itself and abated. Even the city sky seemed crisper, grander, vaulting an endless autumn blue overhead. Mashiba’s embrace, and the whisper of his voice, “meet with me,” on their last morning together had sown hope’s painful seeds faintly, unmistakably, inside him. The earnest sincerity punctuating his words, and his bashful look—the first to ever come across Mashiba’s face: all these had seemed to Hatano heralds of some change to come. They were heralds he did not want to doubt. Judging from his expression the conversation with Kamata had startled Mashiba terribly, and Hatano had assumed that the night would bring him armed with a host of questions to his

doorstep. Though he appeared complicated, Mashiba was a straightforward man. Hatano had expected that the curiosity shown so plainly upon his face would, in time, be put into words and posed to him, and Hatano was prepared to give Mashiba the answer. Two emotions had quickened simultaneously inside of him the instant Kamata had spoken Yuuko’s name: apprehension, that Mashiba had at last heard her mentioned, but also a wish to share his past with him anyway, and Hatano had realized that he had committed his heart to Mashiba even more deeply than he had known. But Mashiba had not come. The restless fluttering within his breast had been Hatano’s sole company that night, and though he had persuaded himself that Mashiba must have been occupied with the appointments Kamata had spoken of, “…cher?” then could he not have condescended to place a single phone call the next day?, he had contended—and a fact had dawned on Hatano. He had never noticed it until that very moment but, although they had exchanged telephone numbers, neither Mashiba nor Hatano had ever actually dialed the other. Engagements had always been made by spoken agreement, and their nights of intimacy had never been long apart. “Teacher?” The telephone was a curious device. It was a communications tool, no more and no less; but slip the timing, and the receiver becomes an exceedingly difficult thing to lift. Hatano himself had become a textbook case of this phenomenon, today being the latest addition to a string of days spent agonizing in front of the telephone, and night no longer put him so soundly to sleep. But there was one other reason for his fitful rest— “Teacher, I have to go potty.…” “Huh?!” An urgent tug on his sleeve brought him round with a start, and he faced a young boy on the verge of tears who stood beside where he sat at his desk, squirming and rubbing his legs together. Hatano blinked aside the remnants of his reverie to find himself inside the nursery school. It was nap time, and a glance around the room took in the nursery children sprawled on all sides, their breaths rising and falling in a strong, steady rhythm. “Oh, I’m so sorry! Come on, let’s go to the bathroom,” he said in a soft undertone, stooping to lift the boy, Yuu, into his arms. It was a small blessing that Yuu was a relatively reasonable child. If he had soiled his pants and started wailing, the other children would have woken at once. Not good, not good, he chastised himself as he straightened, his gaze sweeping up past his colleague in the opposite corner. The woman’s face crinkled into a grin—you were napping, too?—and Hatano deflected the silent jibe with a tight smile. “Okay, time to go pee-pee.… There you go, good job.” Yuu emerged from the toilet, and Hatano put him once more to bed before returning to his desk. The day care teacher’s journal still lay parted to where he had opened it, and the pages yawned, perfectly blank as they had been when naptime had begun—he consulted the clock—now quite some time ago. He was ashamed to think of just how utterly his absentminded brooding had engrossed him. His shame was all the more, given the particular thought that had flitted across his mind only a second before Yuu had called for him. I can’t let myself go on like this… Hatano pressed the backs of his hands firmly against the slight flush in his cheeks. To

phrase the matter bluntly, he was suffering from sexual frustration. Mashiba had ignited a flame inside of him that would not be doused, and regardless of his own will, his body could no longer maintain the calm it had possessed before it had known Mashiba. His imagination strayed, and a mere fantasy became a shiver of electricity that rippled through him, forcing a soft gasp from his lips. That same moment, the timer to wake the children sounded its shrill alarm, and he started in his chair. “Okay, everybody, time to wake up!” chimed the blithe voice of his colleague, still in her twenties, and with valiant effort Hatano retrieved his pen and turned his scattered attention to the journal. But neither the monotonous scratch of pen tip on paper, nor the lengthening columns of ink that appeared in its wake, managed to dispel Mashiba from his mind, and he left the nursery that evening with a homework assignment tucked under his arm—the journal, his report still unfinished. Hatano’s sleepless nights carried on. For a time he held to his rationalization that Mashiba was pressed at work. Hatano had firsthand experience of the dizzying pace at S Commercial, a pace made still more hectic for employees posted under Kamata; and if anything, it was incredible that Mashiba had sustained such frequent visits for so long. But the same tired reasoning rang ever more hollow with each passing day, and what drained from his conviction became fuel for his mounting anxiety. The existence of Ikawa, who had glowered at him that afternoon in naked hostility, posed a threat to Hatano. Slim and tall, with the beauty of a model, Ikawa had left the impression of a man who carried himself with an inborn air of gorgeous glamour, a man who appreciated that in a world divided into winners and losers, he belonged to the winning side. Despite his intentions otherwise, Hatano had found himself taking up the gauntlet thrown down by the other man because he had recognized the obvious fixation on Mashiba in Ikawa’s gaze. Mashiba had regarded Ikawa’s warped expression with a show of annoyance and distaste, but Hatano had little assurance that the show had been genuine. He was ignorant of the changes that had taken hold of Mashiba’s heart and, given the way things had started between them, he could only assume that should the spark between Ikawa and Mashiba rekindle, Mashiba would have no further use for him. Oh, and how fervently he had once wished for Mashiba to grow weary of him! There’s fickle for you. A sneer of self-disparagement crept across his face, even as lust seethed hot and unsated between his thighs. The thought of masturbating at his age was too miserable to bear, and with his uncertainty and suspicions of Mashiba on an upward spiral, he could turn nowhere for release. Had Mashiba indeed at last tired of him? Or, had he and Ikawa…? For each odious image that he banished from his mind, his wicked imagination spun a dozen more in its place, and with each night that passed came another painful tightening of the knot that had formed in his chest. Desire smoldered in every recess of his body, pooling thick as honey inside of him. Even his working hours could bring him no relief; like a bitch in heat, he was driven mad with his longing, until finally the director of the nursery had asked if he wasn’t feeling well. Yuuko, it looks like I’m pretty hopeless. His breath left him in a glum sigh, and Hatano made a silent apology to his late wife. The despair that had taken him after the deaths of Yuuko and his child remained still

vivid in his memory, but it had never plunged him into such pensive rumination. Quite the opposite, he had shied from the anguish of remembering, going so far as to cast away every photograph and article that had belonged to his lost family. He had devoted himself to this purging with lunatic diligence, while Egi had only looked sadly on, making no move to stop him. But what neither Egi nor Kamata had comprehended, nor indeed Hatano himself at the time, was that Yuuko and Hatano had been bound largely by ties that were not those of romantic love. Hatano had known, by Yuuko’s own admission, that she had been in love with her adoptive father, Egi. Hatano had been the one to tell her that he did not mind, even so; that they should marry. He had loved Yuuko, without question. He had shared his bed with her, and their child had been most darling to him in the world. He surmised, though, that even this had been subordinate to the longing for a “family,” that distant stranger that had deserted both their doorsteps so long ago. In fact, sex with Yuuko had been frightfully insipid. Their relations prior to marriage had been perfectly chaste, and the first signs of pregnancy had followed fast on the heels of the ceremony. Once they had discovered the child in her belly, Hatano could not recall even a single kiss between them. They had cared for each other with deep and tender affection, but their love had been more like that between brother and sister than between lovers. He had been proud of his beautiful wife. The days spent at her side had been warm and placid, and he had hoped for the two of them to share all of their days to come. She had shown him the utmost of kindness, but her manner had never lost its hint of reserve. Thank you, Yuki. I’m sorry. It had been mostly on the days of their visits to Egi that she would withdraw slightly from him and treat him gently, as if to fill the distance she had opened, and Hatano had swallowed a pang of pity for her. He had known that her gaze bore the weight of a love that would never be requited, and he had seen no reason for apologies. He had loved the woman in love with Egi. The fierce fire in her eyes that had never lit for him had struck him as beautiful and passionate, even sensual. He knew, and thus, he had once told her, she needed neither apologize nor constrain herself out of regard for him; and in reply she had called him by the nickname that was hers alone, and held him to the soft pillow of her breast. “Let’s be happy together, Yuki,” she had said, and said again, and he had been at a loss to decipher the loneliness that had tinged her eyes. Why, he had wondered, had she woven such words with such sorrow? Yet now, that wistful echo seemed to claw at his own chest. The notion was a vague one, but since meeting Mashiba, Hatano had begun to wonder if perhaps Yuuko had not wanted him to forgive her love for Egi; if she had wished he would sweep her heart away, demand that she put Egi out of her mind and love only him; and if she had known all along that the feelings he had harbored for her had not been those of a lover—if her keen intuition had perceived the truth to which he himself had been blind, and if that had in fact been the reason for her exceeding tenderness. Otherwise, he could not account for the jealousy he now felt of Ikawa, or his fixation on Mashiba. Not once had the sight of Yuuko’s gaze upon Egi, or the sight of Egi himself, actually unbalanced him. There had been only the helpless misery of her unanswered love; he had felt nothing else. He had lost his parents, then Yuuko and his child had vanished from his side, and there had been a period when it had broken him, but he had gathered the tattered pieces of himself and found his footing again. Loss, after all, had been no stranger to him, and what he had told Kamata, that he was “used to it now,” had not been mere bravado but a fact of sorts. I’d had a feeling it would end like this, sooner or later, he had thought to himself, and,

unable to forgive himself for it, had lapsed into a psychosomatic illness which he had at last put to an end by accepting a dispassionate conclusion: his family luck had always been hard, and there was nothing to be done for it. But Hatano felt strongly that to lose Mashiba held a meaning far different from the absolute separation that had parted him from others before. Perhaps it stemmed from Mashiba’s fierce intensity. No other man or woman had ever become as intimately involved with him as Mashiba, and this overwhelming lust had only caught aflame because Mashiba had been the one to kindle the spark. His eyes, hooded in pain and grief, had cried out in yearning for somebody, and Hatano had been drawn to him; in this, at least, Mashiba and Yuuko were alike. But… The critical difference lay in that he had wished for Yuuko to remain as she was, in love with Egi—but his wish for Mashiba was to see that fierce-eyed gaze focused upon him. He wanted his body, and his heart. “Mashiba,” he sighed, sprawled sleepless across the bed, and the sound of the man’s name slipping from his tongue triggered a familiar spike of heat between his thighs. The urge was keener now than ever before, and tears slowly rose to his eyes. Did Mashiba feel nothing of this? He had sought Hatano with such demanding passion. Or had he already found somebody else? “Oh…” Hatano fought to turn his thoughts away from Mashiba’s lovely eyes, or sharp, bold features, or the deep, sweet tones of his voice; but the afterimage of his broad shoulders, rocking back and forth as they had so many times before upon that very bed, flashed across his closed eyelids. “Mashiba…” He knew not which to curse first: his own lewd and shameful body or Mashiba for making it so, and his teeth dug cruelly into his lip. “Damn it…” Still, no matter how hotly his fever burned, the idea of comforting himself was so abjectly wretched that he could not bring himself to lift his hand in relief. The autumn moon waxed and waned outside his window and in the end there had been no word from Mashiba, until one day on an impulse Hatano pressed Kamata’s number on his phone’s keypad. The silence had stretched unbroken for far too long, eroding what hopes Hatano had preserved, and the task had at last grown so daunting that he dared not contact Mashiba himself. “So, you finally gave me a call!” Kamata’s delighted voice greeted him through the receiver, and Hatano felt a small sting of compunction. He must at least hear some recent news of Mashiba, deplorable a motive as it was, and the last resort he could turn to was Kamata. “I’m sorry I didn’t call for so long.” His telephone call had found not only Kamata on the end of the line but Egi as well, and as the two men traded the phone back and forth between them, Hatano heard in their voices how warmly they cared for him, and he bowed his head in apology. “That you, Yukio? Damn fool, how have you been! Come around and say hello once in a while! You know I’m at the shop.” The coffee shop that Egi managed was where he had first met Yuuko. Memories had long kept him away, until he had grown too embarrassed by his own absence to dare visit, but Egi greeted him in his usual rough-spoken manner and Hatano felt as if he were being forgiven. “Yes, I will… when I can.”

“So, you’ve let some of that weight off your shoulders now.” It was the first time Hatano had given him an affirmative answer, and Egi’s laughter was light and easy. “I know, being reminded of her must be hard for you, but… it’s hard for us, too, Yukio, to be forgotten,” he said, and Hatano could only reply that he was sorry. As a young man he had been treated by both Kamata and Egi with the fondest of kindness, and it seemed that even now they were willing to embrace him again, their affection undiminished. He recalled his blustering, self-important insistence that he was alone with wry ridicule. How comical he looked now! He did not make a sound, but the mood he projected through the phone seemed to carry the sentiment across. “You better come by, hear me?” Egi pressed emphatically before relinquishing the phone to Kamata. “Whose phone does he think this is? Make sure it’s a day I’m here, too, Hatano!” Hatano chuckled. “All right, I’ll stop by soon.” Kamata breathed a sigh of content at Hatano’s laughter. “By the way,” he began, changing the subject, “you’re good friends with Mashiba, aren’t you?” He paused for a heartbeat. “Has he come down with some serious disease?” “Huh?!” Kamata’s tone was grave, and Hatano’s heart twinged sharply at the word “disease.” His former boss was sober to a fault; Hatano knew very well that he was not the type to crack nasty jokes about something like this. “Ha-Has something happened to him?” “You don’t know?” “I haven’t heard from him at all recently.…” “I see,” Kamata said, sounding rather surprised by the desperate rush of Hatano’s voice. “He’s still coming in to work, but he’s lost his drive and he looks like hell.… This was quite a while ago, but—oh, it was the day you came into the office, actually. We went out for drinks later that night, and he got sick and threw up while we were out.” “He did?” So that explains why he never came. Some measure of relief consoled him, but it was small comfort from his mounting alarm at the two months that had passed without word from Mashiba. What if, as Kamata had said, he were truly ill— Dark fears gripped him, and a chill crept along his spine. “Hatano?” The lengthy pause had turned awkward, and the suspicious probing of Kamata’s voice jarred Hatano from his thoughts. “Uh—yes, excuse me, I’m here. I’m just worried,” he spoke loudly and quickly, scrambling to fill the silence. “It’s Saturday tomorrow—the office will be closed, right? I’ll go check up on… Ah, I don’t have his address.” “I can fix that. Hang on a second, I’ve got it written down in my planner.” Kamata read off Mashiba’s address, adding directions to the nearest train station, while Hatano jotted down notes with an unsteady hand. The nub of his pen slipped and skidded on the paper, and he realized how badly the news had shaken him. “Um, thanks a lot. I’ll call again.” Hatano closed the conversation with hurried urgency, and if Kamata sensed something amiss, he chose to go along without comment. “Sure. Let me know if everything looks okay.” “I will. See you later.”

Despite his strict divorce of business and personal relationships, Kamata had entered Mashiba’s address in his private planner, an act which attested surprising affection for his junior. It was something to be glad for, both for Hatano, who held Kamata in high esteem, and for Mashiba himself—or so he reasoned, but he could not deny the sour knot of resentment that had lodged in a corner of his heart. “I’ve got it bad, don’t I,” he said aloud with a touch of derision. His state of mind would spare no one the nettle of his jealousy, not even Kamata. His gaze lowered to the scrap of paper at his fingertips. He had told Kamata on the phone only moments ago that he would pay Mashiba a visit tomorrow, but his mood was not nearly so leisurely. The hands of the clock pointed to just after nine in the evening. If he left for Mashiba’s now, he could easily make the journey there and back again before the trains stopped for the night. “Well, I’m worried about him,” he murmured to himself, but his lips had barely finished shaping the words before they twisted into a wry smile. Even now, with all that had happened, he was groping for an excuse. No, it was not worry. Worry he could allay with a phone call and a polite inquiry—not to mention this uninvited intrusion would likely do an ailing man more trouble than service. He simply wanted to see him. I’ll just go get a look at his face, then I’ll be on my way. He made brief preparations to leave the house and reached again for his phone before thinking better of it. The why eluded him, but his gut warned that a phone call would only serve Mashiba as an opportunity to run away. “Time to go.” Hatano softly hastened himself to shake free of his hesitation, and with his head held high he set out for Mashiba’s door. * * *

Meanwhile, illness was of course far from Mashiba’s worries. His resolution to tear himself from Hatano had consumed his waking hours with such tormented brooding that waking hours were now the only he had left. Even his dedication to his work had deserted him, and his half-hearted distraction had become reason for both concern and annoyance to all around. Fate had afforded him one small mercy: because Kamata had caught him vomiting over the toilet at Idaten, his boss had apparently chalked up his poor performance to poor physical condition. It was kinder judgment to be deemed a man incapable of managing his own health than a fool who’d lost his spirits to lovesickness. Mashiba’s condominium was designed for bachelors and it was not as spacious as Hatano’s. In retrospect, he thought, the layout of those rooms had been meant for Hatano’s departed wife and child. His heart took up its obstinate aching, and he drowned it in alcohol. Mashiba had never been one to hold his liquor well, but as long as Hatano occupied his mind he could find no solace in drunkenness. Each drink served only to churn the nausea that roiled in his stomach until he retched and exhausted his strength, and then, at last, he could shut his eyes and slip into darkness. Even the prospect of a lover to divert his attention did not motivate him. It would not be Hatano—that alone snuffed out his drive as surely as the pinch of fingers on candlewick. “I’ll be an alcoholic at this rate.” Black contempt shadowed his eyes and he curled his lip as one hand swirled the contents of his glass. The surface of the liquid inside had risen successively closer to the brim with each

pouring of the bottle. He had never known that he possessed such pitiful, unmanly character. There wasn’t a shade in him now of the bold and unassailable man he had long trusted himself to be; he had been reduced to a thing fit only for disdain, for repulsion. And the less that he dared show his face before Hatano, the bleaker his mood became. Contrary to his preconceptions he was actually rather fragile and prone to depression, a dear lesson learned from his past with Ikawa. If nothing else, he told himself in flippant abandon, at least now he had realized it. He longed to hold Hatano, to capture that unbounded gentleness in his arms. It was not merely for lust; his fingertips remembered the curious sensation of soft curves on Hatano’s spare frame, and he ached to bask in the warmth of his body. Just as fierce as his longing, however, was his admittedly selfish dejection at the lack of contact from Hatano. It seemed to him a stinging affirmation that when all was said and done, he had only strong-armed Hatano into a mockery of a relationship to which Hatano had had no choice but resign himself. Several times he had thought he would call him, if only to hear the sound of his voice, but not once had the phone begun to ring before he had hung up for fear that his restraint would fail him. He felt as if he were experiencing for the first time what it meant, how it felt, to be “madly in love.” There really isn’t any logic to it, is there, he mused with casual detachment. In the weeks and months that lay ahead, if he managed to cobble himself back together and pick himself up again, and at that time, if Hatano were happy— Could I bring myself to go see him? His thoughts idled in silly reverie, and he couldn’t decide whether to cry or to laugh. “I still can’t let go,” he muttered, embarrassed even to speak the words, and he tucked a cigarette between his lips and inhaled. Stabbing pain erupted down the length of his throat, seared raw from alcohol, and smoke lodged there like a mouthful of barbs, strangling him into a fit of coughing. “Ugh!” His head spun dizzily in a surge of vertigo. How badly he wished for Hatano, that even the hallucination of him would do! There was an acrid burning sensation at the back of his nose, and his throat wrung another cough from him. Was this racking pain in his chest the fault of his stubborn cough, or Hatano? The last coherent thought his mind put together before the haze of liquor dimmed his wits was this foolish bit of nonsense.