Work Text:
I’ve always thought moving to the country would solve everything. I longed for my hometown— the poet’s furusato, sung by every other man in the library. I missed the roar of the river as it emptied into the sea, when it was clear, and when it was turbulent. I liked to cast line and eat fresh catch on its sides. And the fish got tastier as we traveled down stream, to the ocean.
“Let me take you there,” I told Arishima one day.
He was a surprisingly good swimmer. We didn’t catch anything, our line snapped, but we laughed. I took us to a small food shack instead, a place that wasn’t there when I lived there. Actually, I didn’t recognize anything. This hometown of mine had changed so much, I was just as much of a tourist as Arishima. He followed obediently anyway, a bit awed, as I bluffed my way with the regional dialect. We returned right after, riding with crusted clothes, smelling strange and drawing glances on the train.
“Won’t you take me to Hokkaido?” Arishima smiled an accepting smile, but “only if we bathed before travelling”. River water wasn’t good enough for aristocrats, I suppose. We didn’t stay anywhere that day, so we had washed our bodies in the “clean” part of the river, where the water ran strong and plant matter didn’t sit. You could still feel the silt though, and all the loose dirt carried away by the current. We dried out in the sun, and I pitched a fire too. I was cold, but our clothes were dry, and he felt warm. We should stay longer, next time. It would be nice if we lived there too, pulling weeds and netting fish. As my body warmed with his, I was really convinced the only two things I needed to carry on with life was nature, and him. Let’s live out here! The land will provide us with everything, I wanted to say.