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jewelledhours2009-03-03 03:48 am
binmusic.livejournal.com) wrote in jewelledhours2009-03-03 03:48 am
Entry tags:
[Broken Halves] Replay Replay Replay
Title : Broken Halves
Chapter : Five - Replay Replay Replay
Pairing : Ryo/Shige
Author :![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
binmusic
Rating : PG-13
Words : 3,752
Summary : As the relationship ends, Shige muses and explains.
A/N : It's the end! This is the final chapter of my first multi-chapter fic and I'm so grateful for those of you whom have stuck by me, reading and commenting on every chapter. I'm also sorry for the rather long wait between updates, I had a lot of trouble writing this and in fact the subtitle of this chapter, "Replay Replay Replay" is in homage to the song Replay by SHINee that helped me crank out this chapter. Also, this chapter is dedicated towhere_wordsfail and her awesomeness in recc'ing me that song and therefore saving me. I'd also be very happy if you all would give me some feedback about this story. Likes or dislikes, anything goes!
It stared fifteen months before he met Ryo-chan, and as Kato-kun explained to me, had little to do with love and more to do with lust. There were at least eight of them, men and women from different towns, each with a personality different from the one before. He remembers their names and addresses, a sort of occupational habit of his but those details are insignificant, and when he speaks of them again it's as numbers.
The first one was a pretty college student, vivacious and bubbly, and had long limbs and hair so black. It's easy to imagine them on campus, her tiny hand tucked into Kato-kun's blazer pocket and her petite frame against his taller one. But in the end it was desire for one another's bodies and the physical want of sex that brought them together and their relationship, if you'd even call it that, lasted for all of two dates. And the ten or so minutes each date lasted was barely enough for Kato-kun to get off from and he tells me that he's sure the feeling was mutual. The combination of his inexperience and their excitement was too much for any real pleasure to be had.
Numbers two and three are glazed over quickly. A housewife in her thirties, weary of her husband's busy working schedule and a sweet nurse that Kato-kun encountered once when he'd fallen sick in yet another unfamiliar town.
It's the fourth one that Kato-kun pauses at, his tone softening a little and scrunched face relaxing just enough for me to realize that this one might not be as insignificant as he described all the others as.
A fisherman from a town smaller than ours, number four, I soon discovered, was both the first man Kato-kun became involved with and the first he'd acknowledge developing feelings of some kind for. Three years Kato-kun's senior, he was the one that taught him the finer details of pleasure and pleasing. The important positioning of hands during and after intercourse, when to gently suck, how to withhold an oncoming orgasm for a heightened release and where to find the sensitive spots inside both a woman and man.
There were early morning trips out on his boat, before the rising of the sun and slow lovemaking with Kato-kun propped against the steering wheel in the main cabin, lips swollen and red from too many kisses, hips aching and toes curled from the unhurried and purposeful strokes. Kato-kun remained in town for close to half a year, hiding behind the word cousin and living for moments in empty cabins on the sea.
It ended abruptly, a closed door with locks he no longer had the keys to and a sold sign hanging off-skelter on the front lawn. The newly wed couple had left town three nights ago, moving across country to settle into their new home and Kato-kun was left behind, experiencing his first hollow welcome.
It's during this time in our conversation that I begin to see Kato-kun and I wonder if this is what drew Ryo-chan in the first place. The quiet desolation outlining Kato-kun's strong frame, and the not so apparent layering that has started to unravel.
I remember wanting to reach out at that moment and tell Kato-kun it was enough, I didn't need to know anymore. But I never did and Kato-kun continued his story.
Five, six and seven are irrelevant. More nameless faces and uninhabited sex had than Kato-kun would like to recount fully. Number eight, it turns out, is the one Ryo-chan finally makes known his opinion on.
A young man from America, number eight was first encountered on one of Kato-kun's trips to Kyoto. Blond hair and blue eyes, he was the stereotypical foreigner, halting Japanese and awkward phrasing both apparent. It didn't last long, three or maybe four good fucks before they parted ways, Kato-kun returning to our town and to Ryo-chan while the other returned home to his own country.
The day that Kato-kun returned to town is one that I can still remember fuzzily. For Kato-kun comes to town a handful of times a year, possibly four or less and each visit is separated by at least a couple of months, but it's not at all difficult to recall those moments. The one day I have in mind sticks out because whereas most of the time I'd return home from class to his familiar beaten car already in Ryo-chan's driveway, this was one of the only occasions I was actually home before he arrived.
It was early autumn and Kato-kun's chunky scarf was wound loosely around his neck, the ends so long they dragged along the sidewalk. The motion of checking my watch then is one that I somehow remember and I can still tell you that the hands were both located opposite one another, big one at five while the smaller sat promptly at eleven. It took a while of staring at Kato-kun unpacking his trunk for me to realize that something was different. I figured it out moments later, Ryo-chan, who has so far always been a curbside presence during these moments with a scoff or lazy insult, was missing.
If Kato-kun noticed, he didn't show it. Instead he picked up his duffel bag and without knocking, had let himself in with a key he withdrew from his back pocket. I remember running to my bedroom window in hopes of catching a glimpse of the two of them together. Kato-kun's returns to the town, I will admit, were days that I found myself looking forward too, they were almost always filled with heavy moans and passionate murmurs. And more often than not, Ryo-chan and Kato-kun could be found mid-orgasm on the couch or sometimes even propped against the tiled bathroom walls.
As I sat on the edge of my bed, hand slack and ready, it seemed that day would be an exception to their regular routine, it was apparent that Ryo-chan was not in the house, much less available to entertain and provide me with some release. I watched as Kato-kun busied himself in the kitchen, randomly chopping carrots and the occasion onion.
It didn't occur to me that I was still half-naked with my hand curled around my now mostly limp member until my mother wandered into my room, announcing it was dinner time. All it took was her flailing at me and yelling "Put that away!!" for me to completely lose it. I'd like to tell you that it was embarrassing having been caught jacking off by my mother, but that was hardly the first time and after that she came up with a code of some sort, having me hang a red baseball cap on the door if I was planning to be otherwise occupied. Needless to say, having my mother set up a system so she'd know when I was busy with myself disturbed me more than the thought of getting off of my next-door neighbor and his boyfriend.
Ryo-chan didn't return until late that night and by then I had forced two quick and rather sloppy handjobs on myself in hopes of alleviating some of tension from arguing with my mother. Dinner was cooked and already waiting for Ryo-chan when he entered and instead of being surprised by Kato-kun's presence, he just grabbed a pair of chopsticks and settled down to eat. I fell asleep that night, mind focused mainly on the previous shoguns of Japan but awoke to sounds I was by then accustomed to.
I didn't have proper time to start anything before they finished. And so I waited for them to launch into another round, as they normally would with a flip of bottom and top positions, but it seemed Ryo-chan wasn't up for another going and there went my chance at excitement yet again.
I never knew then that behind the drawn shades Ryo-chan had pushed Kato-kun's lowering hands away nor did I know that his response to Kato-kun's biting kisses was a telling, "I thought I was only good for fucking. Go get your kisses elsewhere."
To this day I am still sure that Kato-kun never thought Ryo-chan would find out about his escapades with the others. Nor do I think that he considered his sleeping around with them as cheating on Ryo-chan. For Kato-kun, sex and love were separate things, opposites in a way and most definitely not mutually exclusive. And for someone like Ryo-chan, while I can't be sure that sex and love meant the same to him, I can guess that for him, sex was more like an extension of love. Not the same either but connected in a way they didn't for Kato-kun.
I you haven't figured out by now, Ryo-chan was what many would call a virgin before he met Kato-kun. And I don't mean in terms of him being new to sexual endeavors with men, I mean it in regards towards both males and females. As far as I can recall, none of the girls Ryo-chan dated ever spent a night over his house. And as I've mentioned, Ryo-chan is the type of person with old-fashioned morals and gentlemanly to such a state that all grandmothers and parents would approve of him immediately. I can only remember a handful of times I saw him holding hands with a girl, and barely any examples of him publicly displaying his affections besides a kiss to an ex's cheek or an occasional goodbye hug.
I'm not sure what it was about Kato-kun that enraptured Ryo-chan so, but I don't believe Kato-kun transformed or changed Ryo-chan like the others in town think. Ryo-chan's not the sort of person one can just mold to fit. But I do believe that knowing Kato-kun helped Ryo-chan to realize things about himself and his life that he wouldn't have known other wise.
Standing inside what was once Ryo-chan's and is now Kato-kun's house, I felt oddly reminiscent and it only took one look at Kato-kun to realize he was feeling the same. Holding three empty boxes between the two of us, we made our way to the center of the mostly empty living room. Kato-kun broke the silence first.
"Anything you want?"
I shook my head rather quickly without looking around. It wasn't the lack of trinkets to choose from, it was just the feeling that taking any one of them would somehow be against Ryo-chan's wishes that stopped me.
"I think Ryo-chan left them here for you Kato-kun," I hesitated to say, cringing at the crack of my own voice at Ryo-chan's name.
He smiled wryly at me and reached for one of the many clay sculptures that lined the makeshift shelves. "It's not like he's here to make sure I get them."
Kato-kun held what seemed to be a miniscule vase tightly clenched in his left hand and after two full breaths he dropped it, letting the object fall and break into three distinct pieces that probably could be glued back together but wouldn't.
That was the only evidence of Kato-kun's frustration I ever saw. Half-way through wrapping an old grandfather clock in newspaper, I realized that the clock itself was actually running on correct time. It wasn't that I expected a clock to be timed incorrectly, but the fact was that such a clock in Ryo-chan's possession should somehow be faulted and as far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with the mantel clock at all.
As I moved onto the other left-behind objects, I realized the same for all of them. The radio I could've sworn once had a crooked antenna now had two straight metal rods in its place. And the piles of books that I knew for sure used to be missing covers and half-ripped were all newly bound and almost all had plain leather covers with their title and author etched into them.
It soon became apparent to me that the remaining items in the house either belonged to what was once Ryo-chan's collection of dilapidated babbles or were sculptures that he made with Kato-kun somehow in mind.
I found two almost exact models of what looked suspiciously like Kato-kun's briefcase and later stumbled across a sculpture of two faceless men standing side by side, one faced forward and the other faced backward with their hands entwined between them. It seemed to me as a significant symbol of their relationship and somehow I knew it wasn't meant for me to see. I rolled it up carefully in the newspaper and placed in between the stack of books.
I made my way upstairs where I found Kato-kun sitting at the edge of Ryo-chan's childhood mattress, still covered in its bright yellow Pikachu bedspread. Next to him laid a mid-sized desk calendar with colorful dots and words scribbled into almost every tiny box.
"Kato-kun? Are you alright?" I finally asked after minutes of standing in the doorway.
"A week in Okinawa before I was due for another visit here. He waited three months for me. I was supposed to be back five months ago, and now I'm two too late."
"Why didn't you come back earlier than Kato-kun? Not that any of us expected you back at all though, the baker and my mother had a bet going about whether the two of you were really over. And by the fourth month, most of us were convinced it was."
Kato-kun's hand reached for the calendar and he gripped it tightly as looked up at me almost angrily, "What did you think?"
Instead of answering, I glanced at the words that I now recognized to be in Ryo-chan's scripts. "Nara departure", "Arrival at Nagano" and "Two weeks at Hiroshima" were all words that I could make out.
"I didn't think Ryo-chan would stop waiting."
"Funny, neither did I."
Kato-kun ran his hands absently over the marked surface, the sweat on his hands blurring the ink with every swipe until the dates and words bled into one another, indiscernible.
"I should've known the difference between our last fight and the others before that. I thought he only needed a few months to cool down as usual, we're always arguing."
"You were gone for a long time Kato-kun."
He smiled quietly to himself before continuing, "I quit last month. I had to drive cross country to Kyoto and drop off my unsold merchandise before coming back here. I just didn't think he'd stop waiting."
By nightfall we had most of the house packed away. Kato-kun insisted I stay for dinner and for once I knew that even my mother would've agreed to let me.
Dinner was simply packaged soba that Kato-kun managed to find hidden in the freezer and miso soup he made quickly as the noodles defrosted. Between noisy slurps of the buckwheat, Kato-kun attempted numerous times to engage me in conversation, asking after my mother, my schoolwork and even inquired if I was currently dating any girls.
I remember smiling ruefully and telling Kato-kun in response that quite frankly I didn't think it was girls I wanted. Kato-kun had stilled then, chopsticks awkwardly held so that the noodles dangled dangerously off the tip.
"You think you're gay?" He asked, eyes briefly meeting with mine.
"It's-I mean, well I-I'm not sure." I stuttered, words jumbled and voice stricken at the suddenly serious atmosphere.
"That's something you need to be sure of." He finally said quietly and I felt then it was meant as more of a warning and not disapproval.
An awkward and suffocating silence filled the space left behind by Ryo-chan, who as this point surely would've made some kind of remark about Kato-kun being a hypocrite or an old stiff.
Moments later I tried to laugh it off, "Uh well no need to worry Kato-kun. My mother's been lining up girls for me lately. A few months worth of blind-dates will put anyone off girls right?"
Kato-kun didn't answer at first and just stared at me, not blankly but still somewhat expressionless as if he suddenly couldn't see past me. I hesitantly went back to my still near full bowl of soba and took a tentative slurp, careful to keep my eyes away from Kato-kun. Around my third mouthful, he spoke.
"My father used to think I was queer, the fact that I sometimes admired how a male classmate looked so handsome or that I'd rather hang out with the head of my year after class instead of dating girls like my brother did."
Kato-kun's eyes were glazed over, I couldn't tell if they were from tears but it was the pointed concentration in them that I noticed instead.
"I was the oldest of four, two boys and two girls. I overheard my father telling my mother once when he thought we were all asleep that he'd rather I died in the womb if I was going to be sticking my penis where it had no business being. I don't remember being gay then, or maybe even if I was, I didn't know it. But hearing my father tell his wife that having a gay son was worse than having no son, it made up my mind for me. From that moment on, I decided I liked men. That the hard lines of a male body, the wide expanse of back muscles and the husky baritones of a man would do far more for me than a slim waist and perky breasts. I was sixteen.
Three months later I dropped out of school without telling my parents and went to work at the combini across from the street from my father's job. I worked the 10 am to 6 am shift, exactly one hour after he started and got off from work. Not once in the seven months I worked there did he realize I was less than thirty feet from him.
He was killed one day while crossing the street from the company building, and I read in the papers afterwards he was headed for my combini to buy a birthday cake for his eldest son's birthday that night.
After his death, we got a pretty severance package from the company, along with their sincerest apologies and condolences from anyone who worked with him. Apparently while my father was a crap parent, he wasn't a bad friend. The money lasted us for less than a year, the burial and wake itself had cost more than 1/4 of what we were given. My mother left her job of seventeen years as a housewife to be a cleaning lady, washing the floors and windows of the rich and famous in Roppongi.
My two sisters, fourteen and ten, both stopped attending school. My mother could no longer afford to educate all four of us. And like the good Japanese mother, she could only choose to send her two sons instead.
I left thirteen months after the funeral. I couldn't be what they expected me to be. The eldest son, and head of the household. Those were roles that I knew I could never be. My mother probably knew that I'd be leaving before I even decided. I found an envelope with a family picture and about two thousand crumbled yen notes covering my sneakers the night I was leaving. I took the picture but left the money. I had what I earned from the combini and I also had a job lined up. The next day I received my car and briefcase along with the first box of merchandise I was to sell. "
It took a while for me to notice that Kato-kun was done talking now and was back to eating his soba noodles. Slurping loudly as if he hadn't just given a twenty minute soliloquy at the dinner table. Unsure of if I was supposed to also pretend nothing happened or if I was expected to respond, I nervously thumbed my glass of water.
By the time I properly processed all that Kato-kun had said, it was late and time for me to go back home. Halfway to my house, he called out to me.
"Hey, take this. I can't be sure he'd want you to have it, but I do. And don't worry, it hasn't been used before."
And with that he tossed something rather heavy to me and gave me a wave of his hand before closing the door. Two steps later, I realized that the object Kato-kun just gave me was in fact a brand new tatami mat.
Kato-kun left two days after that and I haven't seen him since then. I was there to help him load the boxes into his already full car and I stood two steps away from the curb as he drove off with his right hand hanging out the window and tapping a rhythm of some kind against the metallic door.
It's been two years since then and curiosity has gotten the best of me several times. I typed both Kato-kun and Ryo-chan's names into the search engine at school a few times. While nothing has come up for Kato-kun so far, Ryo-chan's named is often found in the headlines of art magazines and newspapers. It seems he's more than a budding artist now, having held a string of successful exhibitions in Ginza, Shibuya, Kyoto amongst other cities.
I've seen pictures of him and he looks good, a little thinner than I last saw him, and more than a few creases line his face but he still looks like the Ryo-chan that I've known my whole life. None of the articles contain any personal information about him, if anything there is a short blurb explaining that the artist is quite shy and prefers to keep his life private and separate from his work. There is one somewhat recent article that I printed and clipped to my corkboard. And there are two sentences highlighted in bright green.
"Nishikido Ryo-san, a rather introverted young artist, is rumored to be dating and found the love of his life. When asked for a response, he answers, 'I love him and he loves me. For now, that's enough."
I'm leaving town tomorrow, headed for the airport first thing in the morning. I still hope for two things, that one day Ryo-chan might answer a knock of his door to find Kato-kun in his black suit and worn briefcase attempting to sell him some knickknack, and that maybe there will be a day in the near future where I'll come across a headline with their smiling picture underneath it.
Chapter : Five - Replay Replay Replay
Pairing : Ryo/Shige
Author :
binmusic Rating : PG-13
Words : 3,752
Summary : As the relationship ends, Shige muses and explains.
A/N : It's the end! This is the final chapter of my first multi-chapter fic and I'm so grateful for those of you whom have stuck by me, reading and commenting on every chapter. I'm also sorry for the rather long wait between updates, I had a lot of trouble writing this and in fact the subtitle of this chapter, "Replay Replay Replay" is in homage to the song Replay by SHINee that helped me crank out this chapter. Also, this chapter is dedicated to
where_wordsfail and her awesomeness in recc'ing me that song and therefore saving me. I'd also be very happy if you all would give me some feedback about this story. Likes or dislikes, anything goes! It stared fifteen months before he met Ryo-chan, and as Kato-kun explained to me, had little to do with love and more to do with lust. There were at least eight of them, men and women from different towns, each with a personality different from the one before. He remembers their names and addresses, a sort of occupational habit of his but those details are insignificant, and when he speaks of them again it's as numbers.
The first one was a pretty college student, vivacious and bubbly, and had long limbs and hair so black. It's easy to imagine them on campus, her tiny hand tucked into Kato-kun's blazer pocket and her petite frame against his taller one. But in the end it was desire for one another's bodies and the physical want of sex that brought them together and their relationship, if you'd even call it that, lasted for all of two dates. And the ten or so minutes each date lasted was barely enough for Kato-kun to get off from and he tells me that he's sure the feeling was mutual. The combination of his inexperience and their excitement was too much for any real pleasure to be had.
Numbers two and three are glazed over quickly. A housewife in her thirties, weary of her husband's busy working schedule and a sweet nurse that Kato-kun encountered once when he'd fallen sick in yet another unfamiliar town.
It's the fourth one that Kato-kun pauses at, his tone softening a little and scrunched face relaxing just enough for me to realize that this one might not be as insignificant as he described all the others as.
A fisherman from a town smaller than ours, number four, I soon discovered, was both the first man Kato-kun became involved with and the first he'd acknowledge developing feelings of some kind for. Three years Kato-kun's senior, he was the one that taught him the finer details of pleasure and pleasing. The important positioning of hands during and after intercourse, when to gently suck, how to withhold an oncoming orgasm for a heightened release and where to find the sensitive spots inside both a woman and man.
There were early morning trips out on his boat, before the rising of the sun and slow lovemaking with Kato-kun propped against the steering wheel in the main cabin, lips swollen and red from too many kisses, hips aching and toes curled from the unhurried and purposeful strokes. Kato-kun remained in town for close to half a year, hiding behind the word cousin and living for moments in empty cabins on the sea.
It ended abruptly, a closed door with locks he no longer had the keys to and a sold sign hanging off-skelter on the front lawn. The newly wed couple had left town three nights ago, moving across country to settle into their new home and Kato-kun was left behind, experiencing his first hollow welcome.
It's during this time in our conversation that I begin to see Kato-kun and I wonder if this is what drew Ryo-chan in the first place. The quiet desolation outlining Kato-kun's strong frame, and the not so apparent layering that has started to unravel.
I remember wanting to reach out at that moment and tell Kato-kun it was enough, I didn't need to know anymore. But I never did and Kato-kun continued his story.
Five, six and seven are irrelevant. More nameless faces and uninhabited sex had than Kato-kun would like to recount fully. Number eight, it turns out, is the one Ryo-chan finally makes known his opinion on.
A young man from America, number eight was first encountered on one of Kato-kun's trips to Kyoto. Blond hair and blue eyes, he was the stereotypical foreigner, halting Japanese and awkward phrasing both apparent. It didn't last long, three or maybe four good fucks before they parted ways, Kato-kun returning to our town and to Ryo-chan while the other returned home to his own country.
The day that Kato-kun returned to town is one that I can still remember fuzzily. For Kato-kun comes to town a handful of times a year, possibly four or less and each visit is separated by at least a couple of months, but it's not at all difficult to recall those moments. The one day I have in mind sticks out because whereas most of the time I'd return home from class to his familiar beaten car already in Ryo-chan's driveway, this was one of the only occasions I was actually home before he arrived.
It was early autumn and Kato-kun's chunky scarf was wound loosely around his neck, the ends so long they dragged along the sidewalk. The motion of checking my watch then is one that I somehow remember and I can still tell you that the hands were both located opposite one another, big one at five while the smaller sat promptly at eleven. It took a while of staring at Kato-kun unpacking his trunk for me to realize that something was different. I figured it out moments later, Ryo-chan, who has so far always been a curbside presence during these moments with a scoff or lazy insult, was missing.
If Kato-kun noticed, he didn't show it. Instead he picked up his duffel bag and without knocking, had let himself in with a key he withdrew from his back pocket. I remember running to my bedroom window in hopes of catching a glimpse of the two of them together. Kato-kun's returns to the town, I will admit, were days that I found myself looking forward too, they were almost always filled with heavy moans and passionate murmurs. And more often than not, Ryo-chan and Kato-kun could be found mid-orgasm on the couch or sometimes even propped against the tiled bathroom walls.
As I sat on the edge of my bed, hand slack and ready, it seemed that day would be an exception to their regular routine, it was apparent that Ryo-chan was not in the house, much less available to entertain and provide me with some release. I watched as Kato-kun busied himself in the kitchen, randomly chopping carrots and the occasion onion.
It didn't occur to me that I was still half-naked with my hand curled around my now mostly limp member until my mother wandered into my room, announcing it was dinner time. All it took was her flailing at me and yelling "Put that away!!" for me to completely lose it. I'd like to tell you that it was embarrassing having been caught jacking off by my mother, but that was hardly the first time and after that she came up with a code of some sort, having me hang a red baseball cap on the door if I was planning to be otherwise occupied. Needless to say, having my mother set up a system so she'd know when I was busy with myself disturbed me more than the thought of getting off of my next-door neighbor and his boyfriend.
Ryo-chan didn't return until late that night and by then I had forced two quick and rather sloppy handjobs on myself in hopes of alleviating some of tension from arguing with my mother. Dinner was cooked and already waiting for Ryo-chan when he entered and instead of being surprised by Kato-kun's presence, he just grabbed a pair of chopsticks and settled down to eat. I fell asleep that night, mind focused mainly on the previous shoguns of Japan but awoke to sounds I was by then accustomed to.
I didn't have proper time to start anything before they finished. And so I waited for them to launch into another round, as they normally would with a flip of bottom and top positions, but it seemed Ryo-chan wasn't up for another going and there went my chance at excitement yet again.
I never knew then that behind the drawn shades Ryo-chan had pushed Kato-kun's lowering hands away nor did I know that his response to Kato-kun's biting kisses was a telling, "I thought I was only good for fucking. Go get your kisses elsewhere."
To this day I am still sure that Kato-kun never thought Ryo-chan would find out about his escapades with the others. Nor do I think that he considered his sleeping around with them as cheating on Ryo-chan. For Kato-kun, sex and love were separate things, opposites in a way and most definitely not mutually exclusive. And for someone like Ryo-chan, while I can't be sure that sex and love meant the same to him, I can guess that for him, sex was more like an extension of love. Not the same either but connected in a way they didn't for Kato-kun.
I you haven't figured out by now, Ryo-chan was what many would call a virgin before he met Kato-kun. And I don't mean in terms of him being new to sexual endeavors with men, I mean it in regards towards both males and females. As far as I can recall, none of the girls Ryo-chan dated ever spent a night over his house. And as I've mentioned, Ryo-chan is the type of person with old-fashioned morals and gentlemanly to such a state that all grandmothers and parents would approve of him immediately. I can only remember a handful of times I saw him holding hands with a girl, and barely any examples of him publicly displaying his affections besides a kiss to an ex's cheek or an occasional goodbye hug.
I'm not sure what it was about Kato-kun that enraptured Ryo-chan so, but I don't believe Kato-kun transformed or changed Ryo-chan like the others in town think. Ryo-chan's not the sort of person one can just mold to fit. But I do believe that knowing Kato-kun helped Ryo-chan to realize things about himself and his life that he wouldn't have known other wise.
Standing inside what was once Ryo-chan's and is now Kato-kun's house, I felt oddly reminiscent and it only took one look at Kato-kun to realize he was feeling the same. Holding three empty boxes between the two of us, we made our way to the center of the mostly empty living room. Kato-kun broke the silence first.
"Anything you want?"
I shook my head rather quickly without looking around. It wasn't the lack of trinkets to choose from, it was just the feeling that taking any one of them would somehow be against Ryo-chan's wishes that stopped me.
"I think Ryo-chan left them here for you Kato-kun," I hesitated to say, cringing at the crack of my own voice at Ryo-chan's name.
He smiled wryly at me and reached for one of the many clay sculptures that lined the makeshift shelves. "It's not like he's here to make sure I get them."
Kato-kun held what seemed to be a miniscule vase tightly clenched in his left hand and after two full breaths he dropped it, letting the object fall and break into three distinct pieces that probably could be glued back together but wouldn't.
That was the only evidence of Kato-kun's frustration I ever saw. Half-way through wrapping an old grandfather clock in newspaper, I realized that the clock itself was actually running on correct time. It wasn't that I expected a clock to be timed incorrectly, but the fact was that such a clock in Ryo-chan's possession should somehow be faulted and as far as I could tell, there was nothing wrong with the mantel clock at all.
As I moved onto the other left-behind objects, I realized the same for all of them. The radio I could've sworn once had a crooked antenna now had two straight metal rods in its place. And the piles of books that I knew for sure used to be missing covers and half-ripped were all newly bound and almost all had plain leather covers with their title and author etched into them.
It soon became apparent to me that the remaining items in the house either belonged to what was once Ryo-chan's collection of dilapidated babbles or were sculptures that he made with Kato-kun somehow in mind.
I found two almost exact models of what looked suspiciously like Kato-kun's briefcase and later stumbled across a sculpture of two faceless men standing side by side, one faced forward and the other faced backward with their hands entwined between them. It seemed to me as a significant symbol of their relationship and somehow I knew it wasn't meant for me to see. I rolled it up carefully in the newspaper and placed in between the stack of books.
I made my way upstairs where I found Kato-kun sitting at the edge of Ryo-chan's childhood mattress, still covered in its bright yellow Pikachu bedspread. Next to him laid a mid-sized desk calendar with colorful dots and words scribbled into almost every tiny box.
"Kato-kun? Are you alright?" I finally asked after minutes of standing in the doorway.
"A week in Okinawa before I was due for another visit here. He waited three months for me. I was supposed to be back five months ago, and now I'm two too late."
"Why didn't you come back earlier than Kato-kun? Not that any of us expected you back at all though, the baker and my mother had a bet going about whether the two of you were really over. And by the fourth month, most of us were convinced it was."
Kato-kun's hand reached for the calendar and he gripped it tightly as looked up at me almost angrily, "What did you think?"
Instead of answering, I glanced at the words that I now recognized to be in Ryo-chan's scripts. "Nara departure", "Arrival at Nagano" and "Two weeks at Hiroshima" were all words that I could make out.
"I didn't think Ryo-chan would stop waiting."
"Funny, neither did I."
Kato-kun ran his hands absently over the marked surface, the sweat on his hands blurring the ink with every swipe until the dates and words bled into one another, indiscernible.
"I should've known the difference between our last fight and the others before that. I thought he only needed a few months to cool down as usual, we're always arguing."
"You were gone for a long time Kato-kun."
He smiled quietly to himself before continuing, "I quit last month. I had to drive cross country to Kyoto and drop off my unsold merchandise before coming back here. I just didn't think he'd stop waiting."
By nightfall we had most of the house packed away. Kato-kun insisted I stay for dinner and for once I knew that even my mother would've agreed to let me.
Dinner was simply packaged soba that Kato-kun managed to find hidden in the freezer and miso soup he made quickly as the noodles defrosted. Between noisy slurps of the buckwheat, Kato-kun attempted numerous times to engage me in conversation, asking after my mother, my schoolwork and even inquired if I was currently dating any girls.
I remember smiling ruefully and telling Kato-kun in response that quite frankly I didn't think it was girls I wanted. Kato-kun had stilled then, chopsticks awkwardly held so that the noodles dangled dangerously off the tip.
"You think you're gay?" He asked, eyes briefly meeting with mine.
"It's-I mean, well I-I'm not sure." I stuttered, words jumbled and voice stricken at the suddenly serious atmosphere.
"That's something you need to be sure of." He finally said quietly and I felt then it was meant as more of a warning and not disapproval.
An awkward and suffocating silence filled the space left behind by Ryo-chan, who as this point surely would've made some kind of remark about Kato-kun being a hypocrite or an old stiff.
Moments later I tried to laugh it off, "Uh well no need to worry Kato-kun. My mother's been lining up girls for me lately. A few months worth of blind-dates will put anyone off girls right?"
Kato-kun didn't answer at first and just stared at me, not blankly but still somewhat expressionless as if he suddenly couldn't see past me. I hesitantly went back to my still near full bowl of soba and took a tentative slurp, careful to keep my eyes away from Kato-kun. Around my third mouthful, he spoke.
"My father used to think I was queer, the fact that I sometimes admired how a male classmate looked so handsome or that I'd rather hang out with the head of my year after class instead of dating girls like my brother did."
Kato-kun's eyes were glazed over, I couldn't tell if they were from tears but it was the pointed concentration in them that I noticed instead.
"I was the oldest of four, two boys and two girls. I overheard my father telling my mother once when he thought we were all asleep that he'd rather I died in the womb if I was going to be sticking my penis where it had no business being. I don't remember being gay then, or maybe even if I was, I didn't know it. But hearing my father tell his wife that having a gay son was worse than having no son, it made up my mind for me. From that moment on, I decided I liked men. That the hard lines of a male body, the wide expanse of back muscles and the husky baritones of a man would do far more for me than a slim waist and perky breasts. I was sixteen.
Three months later I dropped out of school without telling my parents and went to work at the combini across from the street from my father's job. I worked the 10 am to 6 am shift, exactly one hour after he started and got off from work. Not once in the seven months I worked there did he realize I was less than thirty feet from him.
He was killed one day while crossing the street from the company building, and I read in the papers afterwards he was headed for my combini to buy a birthday cake for his eldest son's birthday that night.
After his death, we got a pretty severance package from the company, along with their sincerest apologies and condolences from anyone who worked with him. Apparently while my father was a crap parent, he wasn't a bad friend. The money lasted us for less than a year, the burial and wake itself had cost more than 1/4 of what we were given. My mother left her job of seventeen years as a housewife to be a cleaning lady, washing the floors and windows of the rich and famous in Roppongi.
My two sisters, fourteen and ten, both stopped attending school. My mother could no longer afford to educate all four of us. And like the good Japanese mother, she could only choose to send her two sons instead.
I left thirteen months after the funeral. I couldn't be what they expected me to be. The eldest son, and head of the household. Those were roles that I knew I could never be. My mother probably knew that I'd be leaving before I even decided. I found an envelope with a family picture and about two thousand crumbled yen notes covering my sneakers the night I was leaving. I took the picture but left the money. I had what I earned from the combini and I also had a job lined up. The next day I received my car and briefcase along with the first box of merchandise I was to sell. "
It took a while for me to notice that Kato-kun was done talking now and was back to eating his soba noodles. Slurping loudly as if he hadn't just given a twenty minute soliloquy at the dinner table. Unsure of if I was supposed to also pretend nothing happened or if I was expected to respond, I nervously thumbed my glass of water.
By the time I properly processed all that Kato-kun had said, it was late and time for me to go back home. Halfway to my house, he called out to me.
"Hey, take this. I can't be sure he'd want you to have it, but I do. And don't worry, it hasn't been used before."
And with that he tossed something rather heavy to me and gave me a wave of his hand before closing the door. Two steps later, I realized that the object Kato-kun just gave me was in fact a brand new tatami mat.
Kato-kun left two days after that and I haven't seen him since then. I was there to help him load the boxes into his already full car and I stood two steps away from the curb as he drove off with his right hand hanging out the window and tapping a rhythm of some kind against the metallic door.
It's been two years since then and curiosity has gotten the best of me several times. I typed both Kato-kun and Ryo-chan's names into the search engine at school a few times. While nothing has come up for Kato-kun so far, Ryo-chan's named is often found in the headlines of art magazines and newspapers. It seems he's more than a budding artist now, having held a string of successful exhibitions in Ginza, Shibuya, Kyoto amongst other cities.
I've seen pictures of him and he looks good, a little thinner than I last saw him, and more than a few creases line his face but he still looks like the Ryo-chan that I've known my whole life. None of the articles contain any personal information about him, if anything there is a short blurb explaining that the artist is quite shy and prefers to keep his life private and separate from his work. There is one somewhat recent article that I printed and clipped to my corkboard. And there are two sentences highlighted in bright green.
"Nishikido Ryo-san, a rather introverted young artist, is rumored to be dating and found the love of his life. When asked for a response, he answers, 'I love him and he loves me. For now, that's enough."
I'm leaving town tomorrow, headed for the airport first thing in the morning. I still hope for two things, that one day Ryo-chan might answer a knock of his door to find Kato-kun in his black suit and worn briefcase attempting to sell him some knickknack, and that maybe there will be a day in the near future where I'll come across a headline with their smiling picture underneath it.
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