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Asahi was lost. He was standing by a vending machine in the underground station, his back against a large concrete pillar. Behind him, swathes of clear plastic blocked out large portions of the station. The map had taken him to this spot, directing him to an exit which would take him to the mall, where Kisumi was waiting. He zoomed in. The map made no sense, even after rotating it so the arrow around his pin was pointing in the right direction. For the first time, Asahi cursed his country’s love of Google Maps and its inability to cope with different levels and floors. He’d just flown back from a championship in Singapore, where the residents told him of an alternative navigation system, which had not had this issue. It was a long flight, and his head had a dull ache to show for it. He refreshed the app again. The pink circle bearing Kisumi’s face disappeared.
His phone buzzed.
Don’t move, I’m coming to get you, wrote Kisumi. Can’t wait to see your face again :)
Kisumi arrived some minutes later. It was like a scene from a movie, the tapered edges of his face appearing haloed in the dust-filled air, where he stood a head taller than most of the people in the crowd.
Kisumi stopped in front of him. He was biting back a laugh.
“I’m sorry,” said Kisumi. “I should have suggested we meet outside. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” said Asahi, rubbing his eyes. They felt hot and prickly. “It’s just the dust.”
“Okay,” Kisumi nodded. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Gesturing towards the exit, he took Asahi’s hand in his and tucked them both in his pocket. The trembling moved up Asahi’s arm and into his chest.
Kisumi took them up the escalator, down a narrow walkway lined with tiny stalls for churros and custard cream buns, at the end of which was a glass door which opened onto the street level. They entered another door, back into the mall, onto the old ground floor. The door opened into a maze of brightly lit shelves, metallic blue and red boxes filled with skin creams and compact powders. The ceiling was open. They could see exactly which floor they were on. Asahi’s posture relaxed, awash with embarrassing relief.
They checked the map, then made their way to the correct floor. Three floors up. On the escalator, Kisumi stopped and turned to look at him, standing one step below. Kisumi brushed at his hair, and Asahi recalled the first time he saw his sister do this as a teenager, with some middle school boyfriend they had long since forgotten about. The intimacy of it was sudden and surprising. He had thought he would be embarrassed to display such public affection, and yet now that he was in her shoes — or her boyfriend’s, he supposed, it was Kisumi who was in her shoes — it felt utterly ordinary, there was nothing more natural than to behave as if they loved one another, as was the truth, though they had only been together a few months.
They stepped onto the next escalator.
Kisumi was appraising him.
“You look really good,” said Kisumi. “I’m glad I insisted on meeting. That jacket suits you.”
Asahi felt his face grow hot. “Thanks, you have beautiful taste.”
He leaned against the handrail, the black brushes at the base of the escalator parting around his jeans.
“And thanks for replacing my suitcase, it really made the trip so much easier.”
Kisumi waved the comment away. Asahi caught his wrist, then locked their fingers together.
“So what are we getting for Sousuke?” he asked.
Kisumi hummed.
“I was thinking a knife, or some new pots and pans. I did some research, I think these will do.”
Kisumi took a small notebook from his coat pocket and opened it to the middle, where he had sketched the products he wanted and made notes of the model number and size.
“But if they don’t have these, I’m happy to go to the basement and look for some novelty ingredients, I think he’d appreciate those.”
Asahi leaned closer, careful not to let his nose leave a grease stain on the paper.
“These are amazing,” he said. “Have you ever drawn something for Sousuke?”
They got off on the fourth floor. Kisumi walked towards the shelf, bowed his head politely at the shop attendant and showed her the sketches, inspecting the other silver blades mounted in glass cabinets at a leisurely pace.
“I did, when we were little,” Kisumi replied, when Asahi joined him. “But I feel like I’ve outgrown that now that we’re all adults. I ought to buy him something.”
Asahi nodded. This gave him an odd and unsettled feeling. He went to sit on the chair, saying nothing as the shop attendant returned with the items Kisumi requested. At the counter, she wrapped the knife and the pot both in delicately printed tissue paper, then tucked them into thick paper bags with cream colored letters and black ribbons. Asahi took the bags from Kisumi in silence, as they descended towards the basement, trailing a short distance behind him and pretending to peruse the spices and browse for recipes they might be good for, and making the occasional comment about whether or not Sousuke was likely to use it.
Once outside, the crisp autumn air seeped into their clothes. Asahi handed the bags to Kisumi, then wrapped the pink wool around Kisumi’s neck. Kisumi was looking at him very directly.
“Asahi,” he said, in a small voice. “Have I upset you?”
Asahi crossed the two ends of the scarf behind Kisumi’s back and brought them back up to the front.
“No,” said Asahi. He tucked one side of the scarf in the loop to make a smaller hole, then threaded the other end through. “I’m being stupid.”
“You’re not being stupid,” said Kisumi.
Asahi laughed. “I haven’t even said what I’m upset about.”
“Aha,” said Kisumi. “So you are upset.”
Asahi finished the knot and stepped back, then forward again, moved the scarf to the right. He looked up, a little sheepishly.
“I didn’t like what you said about outgrowing making gifts for people.”
The scarf didn’t look right. He moved it to the left.
“It felt, I don’t know, condescending? I know lots of people who have to be creative for gifts, and people really appreciate them, like Haru has done the paintings for Makoto’s apartment. Not everyone can afford a thirty-five thousand yen Dutch oven.”
He stopped, then pressed the scarf against Kisumi’s chest.
“Sorry,” he said.
“Don’t be,” said Kisumi, holding Asahi’s hands in place. “I wasn’t talking about Haru, I was talking about how I feel I’ve outgrown it for me, personally.”
He zipped up Asahi’s jacket.
“But that really is a very good idea. And I miss drawing, it’s different when it’s not perfectly scaled and measured sketches of buildings.”
He pulled the straps of the paper bags up on his shoulders.
“Tell you what, let’s make a card for Sousuke and sign it together.”
Asahi put his hands in his pockets, but he could feel himself brightening. “What about the cards you’ve already bought?”
“Forget about them. You’re right, it would be nice to have something more personal. And it would be like old times for him and me.”
“Okay,” said Asahi. “But I should warn you, I’m really shit at anything artistic.”
The market was quiet. Through the frosted glass on the roof above, light was beginning to dim. On the top floors of the shopfronts, the sky was reflected in the windows in dark shades of green and orange, almost brown. Their shadows were blue.
Kisumi yawned.
“Last night was fun, huh?”
Asahi blushed. It sounded salacious when Kisumi put it that way. In reality, they had attended a private view at the gallery, hosted by Sousuke’s girlfriend, and afterwards, they had gone home and watched nine or ten episodes of a dating show. They had put it on with the intention of winding down, but it had had the opposite effect of bringing out excitable commentary about the dresses, the games, the miscommunications, and the contestants’ ages and professions, which they were forbidden to disclose on the island. The two of them had fallen asleep on episode twelve, and when the summer sun woke them on the couch that morning it was already eight o’clock, and Kisumi’s television had turned itself off.
“We should get you a coffee,” said Asahi, yawning himself. “There’s a convenience store five minutes away, if you just need to snort caffeine so you don’t crash.”
“No, the apartment viewing is in ten minutes, so if I go and walk back it’ll be cutting it too close,” Kisumi replied. He was checking his phone. “The potential buyer is almost here anyway.”
Asahi looked around. Several units down was a shop with a glossy black panel stretched above the doorway, marked with large white letters and a yellow coffee bean.
“How about that one?” he said.
Up close, the paint on the facade was uneven, browning in patches from damp. The logo was dated and the frosted film on the windows was peeling. One of the white letters on the illuminated sign was dimmer than the rest. The doors slid open smoothly, but the sound it made when a customer walked out was crackly and muffled. The air smelled of sugar and grease, and beneath it the dark, acidic smell of roasting beans.
“Um,” said Kisumi. “I think I might be okay.”
He yawned again.
“It looks kind of, um—”
“Cheap?” said Asahi, nudging Kisumi with his elbow. “Cheap doesn’t mean it’s bad, babe.”
He linked their arms together.
“Plus, beggars can’t be choosers. I don’t think this buyer is gonna be too impressed if you fall asleep during the viewing. How will your uncle ever trust you to do business again?”
Kisumi laughed.
Inside, the shop was lined with wood laminate, which was too orange to look realistic. They ordered the house blend, which was dispensed from the machine with an uneven, mechanical sound and delivered to them in lidless cups, clear and flimsy with the logo printed on, ice clinking in the dark, fragrant liquid. Kisumi went to sit in the booth while Asahi picked up his order, two hashbrowns and a piece of battered chicken. He set the tray down on the table. It wobbled.
“Eat up,” said Asahi.
They bit into the hashbrowns with a crunch. They were hot, Asahi dropped his jaw to make space between the potatoes and his tongue while trying to keep them in his mouth. He exhaled, blowing at them from the inside. He looked up, Kisumi was doing the same. It made him laugh. Asahi picked up his cup, which was sweating along the outside, and downed a mouthful of coffee. He couldn’t feel his tongue.
Kisumi took a sip of his coffee, held it in his mouth, then put the cup down. He brought it up again, close to his nose, and took another sip. His eyes widened.
“The acidity in this,” said Kisumi, smacking his lips. “It’s plum.”
He took another sip.
“And I think some sort of floral note.”
Asahi laughed.
“See,” he said. “I told you cheap doesn’t always mean bad.”
“I mean it’s not great, either,” said Kisumi, laughing. “But it’s really not bad at all.”
When they got up to put their trays away in the corner, Asahi saw the keychain hanging by the till. A white coffee cup, with a smiley face and tiny legs. Beside it, there was a QR code. Scan to register for our loyalty scheme and get a free keychain!
“Aw, how cute,” said Kisumi. “It kind of looks like you, with the little smile and big, dangly feet.”
Asahi pretended to look affronted.
“Dangly? You grew up playing basketball, you’re the one who’s dangly.”
“We can both be dangly,” Kisumi shrugged. “Anyway, it’s clearly not a dealbreaker. I seem to recall you finding me very hot and attractive last night.”
Asahi coughed, lightly stepped on Kisumi’s foot. He was typing on his phone. “I seem to recall you finding me hot and attractive last night,” Asahi mumbled.
“Shit,” Kisumi cursed. “He’s here. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
Kisumi squeezed his hand on the way out, brushed his lips against his cheek.
“Have fun at practice, love you, bye!”
Several moments passed as Asahi stood stunned by the dirty trays, chicken wrapper half in his hand and half in the flap going into the bin. He turned around, laughed again, a giddy bubbling sound, to no one in particular. He tossed the wrapper. The shopkeeper winked at him.
The next time they saw each other, he gave Kisumi the keychain.
The platform was congested. For ten minutes, Asahi had been stuck at the bottom stair of the underground station, inches away from the back of an elderly man’s faded green barn jacket. It smelled strongly of piss and flavored cigarettes. Kisumi had offered to pick him up, citing Asahi’s supposed fatigue from the championships he had participated in the day before, but Asahi insisted that he was perfectly capable, that it was a means to explore the city and to live as one of its residents might, the last thing he wanted was to be an obnoxious tourist. Besides, although he did not say this out loud, Kisumi had a habit of wanting to make things as frictionless as possible for Asahi, less through any conscious choice than through his assumption that certain creature comforts were a given. It was easy to accept, most of the time — it was a relief not to concern himself with such things as transportation and taking his bags to the lobby — but often he found himself uncertain what to do with the mental and physical space these comforts freed up, which was worse than the niggling doubt that perhaps he was taking advantage of Kisumi’s generosity.
Stand back, train approaching. Mind the gap between the platform and the train.
Hordes of passengers spilled out onto the platform, and Asahi found himself pushed onto the carriage. A woman stood between him and the metal handrails, so when the train ground to a stop with a screeching sound, he bumped into the baby carriage behind him. Before he could apologize, the crowd jostled him onto the platform and the air cleared, somewhat. He made his way to the exit.
Kisumi’s apartment — his uncle’s, Kisumi insisted — was in a strange, alternate-universe version of London. It was dense with skyscrapers. A guy from the local team had told him everything in it was fake. It seemed real enough to Asahi. The summer air was thick and static, a stale breeze blew up his sleeves from the canal. Asahi could see why it looked fake — it looked nothing like the brown brick houses around the hotel where his team were staying — but it reminded him of Tokyo and felt a little more like home. He made his way over the metal bridge, which rattled deafeningly and bounced beneath his feet. An Egyptian goose landed on the water. Once across, he walked along the river to an imposing building, all glass windows and many stories tall.
Kisumi buzzed him in. Through the window, he could see out to the city center, landmarks standing up like needlepoints in the distance. They talked for a while, Asahi with his feet up on the couch while Kisumi plated some things he had bought from the bakery that had just opened not far from here. They tasted just like the cream puffs back home, Asahi commented. There were lots of Asian immigrants here, Kisumi replied.
Kisumi sat beside him on the couch and pulled Asahi’s head onto his lap. He began stroking it, and for several minutes they stayed this way, talking about the properties Kisumi’s uncle was going to sell there, and when Haru would move in with Makoto, and Asahi’s eczema, and Sousuke’s suspicious interest in his childhood friend.
“So you noticed it too!” Asahi exclaimed, propping himself up on his elbows. “But of course you did, you’re so perceptive. I thought I was seeing things.”
“I thought the whole point of genius is that you see patterns that others don’t,” laughed Kisumi. “But no, this is definitely weird and suspicious.”
This struck Asahi as particularly endearing. Pushing himself up further, thumbing at Kisumi’s jaw. The air outside was blistering hot, but inside, the air conditioning was on, and when Kisumi began removing articles of clothing from his body, Asahi thought he might have shivered.
Afterwards, sat against the headrest of Kisumi’s very wide bed, texting screenshots of occlusive eczema creams to Haru and asking if he could please check Asahi’s suitcase to see if he had left it at the hotel, he was at Kisumi’s and would need it after he showered.
Ask your rich boyfriend to get you some, came the reply.
After several minutes, the heavy pattering sound of shower droplets against bathroom tiles diminished into silence, and Kisumi emerged in the doorway, squeezing a towel over his curls in sections with one hand, the other holding a paper bag. He came to sit on the bed. Asahi folded his legs.
“So, I’ve discovered that 3D is an entirely different art form than 2D,” said Kisumi. “And that I am, to quote you, extremely shit at 3D.”
Kisumi laughed.
“But I hope you like it.”
Asahi took the paper bag. In it, wrapped carefully in pink tissue paper, was a white, slightly misshapen mug, wearing a lopsided smile and bug-eyed expression, two large feet sprouting at the base.
“It’s like the keychain I gave you!” Asahi brought the cup close to his chest. “I love it, thank you. Did you make it?”
Kisumi nodded.
“Check the bottom.”
At the base of the cup, painted in large pink characters, was Kisumi’s name.
“Aw, you signed it!”
“No, hold on,” said Kisumi.
Asahi heard the soft padding of his slippers fade out as he moved to the kitchen before he returned, holding an identically deformed mug. Kisumi sat down, turned the cup so Asahi could look at its base.
“This one says your name,” said Kisumi. He was sitting too far away, his body turned towards the door. It was unlike him. When he turned to look at Asahi again, his expression was a familiar one, the look he got when Asahi let someone cut ahead of him in line or was bouncing his sister’s baby on his knee and making him laugh.
“Congratulations,” said Kisumi.
“But I didn’t win,” said Asahi.
Kisumi shrugged. “I made these ages ago, I wasn’t going to care about the outcome. You’re always a winner to me.”
Asahi put the mug down on the bedside table and closed his hand around Kisumi’s wrist, crawling towards him gracelessly. He planted his feet on either side of Kisumi with a thump.
“I love them,” he said, firmly, bringing his nose right up to Kisumi’s. “I don’t care if you think they’re shit, I love them.”
Kisumi laughed.
“What happened to outgrowing hand-made gifts, mister I-ought-to-buy-him-something-now?”
Kisumi laughed again, brought both his hands up to cup either side of Asahi’s face.
“Somebody told me it’s the thought that counts.”