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“How do you know?”
It was a simple enough question, Touya thought. But he wondered if Ogata-san was perhaps too drunk to really know what it was he was asking. So it had been an easy thing, politely excusing himself for the night without answering the man, dashing out into the wet December night.
He pulled the collar of his coat up close to his ears, trying to keep out the cold slushy rain, watching for an empty taxi as he made his way to the subway station, a ten minute walk.
How do you know?
How does anyone know, he wondered, trying to avoid the deeper puddles on the sidewalk. He passed a couple standing under an awning, close together as they stared at the holiday display in the department store window. Touya wondered if it was easier to keep warm, holding hands like they were, their faces reflected in the glass, shyly peeking at one another with timid smiles.
Did they know?
A taxi slowed up ahead and pulled to the curb. Touya rushed toward it, his arm raised. But the light in the windshield turned green as an elderly man stepped slowly toward the open door, his companion holding to his arm, her steps small and delicate. There was something about her manner that made it easy to still see her for the charming young girl that she had once been. She paused to say something to the man before bowing her head, his touch gentle on her cheek as he answered her.
Did they know still?
Touya walked on looking for another taxi.
A door swung open and music and heat spilled out into the night. Touya paused uncertainly as two young men stumbled out onto the sidewalk, arms over each other’s shoulders, laughing.
“Come to my place tonight,” one said, suddenly serious, shifting his arm to the other’s waist to keep him from tumbling into the street.
“That again?” the other asked laughing still, turning in his friend’s loose embrace.
“Until you say yes, yes.” There was something terribly vulnerable about the man that reminded Touya uncomfortably of himself, of the time when he had first confessed his confusing feelings to Shindou. He became very still, unaccountably rude he knew, listening for the other’s reply.
“You’re a persistent one.”
“About you, yes.” The man turned his companion around fully so that they were standing face to face. “This time, say yes.”
The other sighed loudly, looking away, up at the neon signs hanging over a row of bars further down the street and Touya saw the hopeful expectation fade from the other man’s face as he let his friend go.
“Later, okay? Ask me later,” the other said, taking the man’s hand, pulling him along down the street to another bar, a place where a bright sign spelled out “Swing Away” in neon letters over a door along with an animated neon baseball bat. Touya watched the bat first swing left and then swing right.
When would they know?
The rain came down harder just as Touya finally hailed a cab, opting for the expensive ride all the way to their apartment in Shinjuku. It was very late and he was tired of being cold and wet.
The apartment was for the most part dark and Touya toed off his shoes at the door, ignoring the umbrella propped next to the coat rack. It had been a stupid fight anyway, arguing about who should take the only umbrella that morning, one Shindou had not yet lost.
Touya thought about how he had left then, angry, insisting that it wasn’t going to rain anyway, as he awkwardly worked at taking off his coat, thoroughly drenched, dripping and stubbornly clinging to the rest of his clothes. He frowned, realizing that there wasn’t very much that he was wearing that wasn’t completely soaked to the skin. He decided he could at least pull his socks off, arranging them artlessly over his shoes, before heading toward the light that was still on in the kitchen.
Touya used the towel he found hanging over the back of a chair to pull out the foil container of curry rice he discovered in the broiler, the spicy stew for the most part, dried and hard. He threw it out in the trash along with the ramen he found in a bowl on the stove, the noodles soft, an indistinguishable brown gooey mess.
The small white cake on the table was for the most part whole, missing only the strawberries and fruit that had once decorated the top. Touya’s stomach suddenly rumbled, awakened by the smell of food and he was tempted to taste it. But he grabbed the cake instead, taking along the forks that had been laid out on the table next to two plates.
He walked quietly toward the bedroom, carefully carrying his bounty, stepping around the goban they kept next to the couch, seeing that it was empty, the two bowls of stones standing ready for play.
Later, he thought.
The bedroom door had been left opened a crack and Touya eased it open more, letting the light from the kitchen fall softly over the bed. Shindou was sleeping, his legs and arms tangled in the bedclothes, his fair hair fanned out over the pillow like the rays of a rising sun.
He was, in ways too innumerable to count, a beautiful man. Body and soul.
He was also loud, crude, stubborn and sometimes too crazy and difficult to live with…
And that’s when Touya knew.
When.
And how.
And knew that it would probably be a forever kind of thing.
He sat on the bed’s edge, leaning close so that he could gently touch Shindou’s warm cheek.
“I love you,” he said.
“You’re back,” Shindou murmured.
“Yes, I’m back.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thank you,” Touya said before leaning down to accept a sleepy kiss.
- owari -
Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love, time is eternity.
~Henry Van Dyke