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The wooden floorboards of the porch are wet and slick, and above, rainfall patters high along the bamboo roof tiles. From the frame of the ceiling hangs a lone windchime that clinks whenever the breeze blows in. Its paper tail twirls gently on the wind, catching an indistinct melody. The design on the windchime’s glass is a splash of falling reds and blooming hues, of cascading autumn colors, and Akira had admired it for a few minutes when he first sat upon this porch and looked up to see it swaying. Within its colorful glass dome, the gleam of daylight is reflected.
Summers in Japan are humid and tiring with the occasional storms, but Akira has never experienced weather quite like this. He rests his weight on his hands and tips his head back. The light summer breeze is cool and damp on his skin. It smells of dew and earth and all other scents pertaining to the rain. The wet grass outside appears soft, pliant. In the distance, the lulling sound of a bamboo tube thudding against stone echoes across the garden.
The mansion is large and hollow, incomparably so, with too many hallways and rooms such that the entire place might as well be a maze. He's not really surprised that Shiki owns this place. He already knew that Shiki comes from a wealthy background. Akira has visited his main mansion back in the city before, albeit that one isn't as big, and it's more modernized. So the surprise isn’t that Shiki owns this mansion, but that he has two of them under his name.
Akira doesn't know anything about Shiki's family or where he comes from. Shiki doesn't talk about them. And Akira never asks, because he also has a family he never thinks or talks about. He wouldn’t be able to remember their faces or names even if he tried. So the feeling must be the same on both ends, even if their circumstances are different, and the two of them are like the dipping bamboo tube that echoes out a thud every so often, pulling back from learning too much about each other when the water is just at the tipping point: before the overflow. That’s the kind of relationship they have, if it’s one at all.
Akira hears the slide of the paper screen a few feet behind him. He turns his head away from the view and sees Shiki holding a plate in his hand. Shiki comes over to sit next to him on the tatami mat and sets down the plate on a small round table. He's wearing a yukata; same as Akira.
Shiki has prepared a platter of popsicles. They're neatly arranged in a circle. Akira picks one off the plate and looks at it. The popsicle is shaped in the wedge of a watermelon slice. Its red color is washed out, covered in frozen flecks.
Akira bites on the tip of the popsicle. The flavor is cool and refreshing on the palate, and the ice flakes chill his tongue. He nibbles on the popsicle while Shiki settles behind him. Shiki rests his chin upon Akira's shoulder and wraps his arms around him.
Akira lets him. He doesn’t really have the energy to shake Shiki off or shrug himself out of his hold. Maybe it’s the rain or the humidity. Maybe it’s the budding feeling of Shiki's warmth against his back. He doesn’t feel like doing anything. It's been raining the past three days, on and off. It’s monsoon season, which means that rain might come early in the morning and clear up by noon, and then in late afternoon there will be another shower to cool off the trees. Still, something about it makes Akira lethargic, like the passing of time itself slows down to a dreamlike rate, if only to relish the rain.
The familiarity yet unpredictability of the rain is a comfort to him. Akira can't pinpoint why. He ponders this as he chews on the popsicle. He doesn't mind the peace and quiet that rainfall brings. But he also doesn't mind the storms and thundering winds, the way the rain can roar for hours on end and soak the air with the smell of earth.
Akira finishes the popsicle in his hand and sets the stick down on the plate.
“…Why did you bring me here?” Akira asks.
“No reason.”
Akira tips his head slightly in Shiki's direction. “Just tell me.” He knows there’s a reason. Shiki doesn’t just do things for ‘no reason’.
He doesn't know why he knows that. It’s weird. He knows lots of things about Shiki that he shouldn’t, and he doesn't know things about him that he should. They've only known each for a few months but it's like he's known Shiki for a lifetime.
It's not in the sense that they know everything about each other. He doesn't know when Shiki's birthday is, if he has a last name, or what his hobbies are—if he even has any (unless you count riding a motorcycle). And in the same vein, Akira doesn’t talk much about himself to Shiki. But they know the sides of each other that nobody else does; the parts no one else wants to see.
When he and Shiki met for the first time, Akira had wondered if they had met before. It was the way Shiki was looking at him; how he said Akira's name. And he wonders now if Shiki had felt the same in that moment back then, if he felt like he'd known Akira a lifetime before they ever even met in front of that convenience store. Akira doesn’t believe in such things but how else can he frame it? They knew each other before they ever even met.
“Do you dislike it here?” Shiki asks.
Akira tips his head back. His eyes are focused on the patterning on the paper strip dangling from the windchime, painted in maple reds and sunset hues. “I never said that.”
“Then stop making such a fuss.”
Akira sighs and is about to reach for another popsicle when Shiki's hand comes up to his jaw. Akira follows the motion of his hand and turns his head to meet Shiki halfway. When he does, Shiki’s lips are on his.
“What was that for?” Akira asks when Shiki pulls away.
“No reason,” Shiki says. Except this time the answer is right there, in the way he looks at Akira.
The rain has let up by the time the following morning comes.
Akira still hasn't gotten used to waking up like this. Sleeping on the floor is different from sleeping on a bed, but the futon provides a comfortable level of cushioning. And he's finding that it's not that bad. His back and neck are adjusting. He has two months to adjust and it hasn't even been a full week yet.
In autumn they'll return to the city.
The room is shaded and soft with daylight that's been turned ambient through the paper screens. Akira glances over to Shiki's side of the futon, only to see it empty. The covers on his side are already neatly pulled up to the corners. Akira sits up.
The bedroom is incredibly spacious, in a barren, solitary sort of way. There are few furnishings or decorations. It lacks personality, but that doesn't bother him. His own apartment is the same way. He has little regard for material possessions.
Akira gets up and makes the futon. Then he slides the paper wall and peeks his head outside.
The bright haze of summer hangs heavy, coated in daytime blue. It’s incredibly humid. Akira pulls his head back inside where it's cool and dim, and he closes the paper screen, shutting out the humidity. Then he leaves the bedroom in search of Shiki.
The hallway is long and wide and Akira's bare footsteps are soft on the wooden flooring. He still doesn't know his way around but he knows that this hallway connects from the bedroom to the main room. When he arrives at the main room and slides the paper screen aside, he finds Shiki preparing breakfast and making the table. Akira sits down and waits.
Breakfast this morning consists of a bowl of soup, rice, tamagoyaki, and fish, all freshly prepared. Akira silently picks at his food with his chopsticks. There's air conditioning inside so they don't have to deal with the relentless, tiring heat, at least not while they eat.
After breakfast, when the dishes are done, Shiki disappears into one of the rooms and reemerges with a basket tucked under one arm.
“Where are you going?” Akira asks when Shiki crosses to the other side of the room, toward the garden.
“To hang laundry.”
Akira watches Shiki slide the glass door open. He gets up and follows Shiki afterward. He feels like he should make himself useful somehow.
Outside, the air is thick and hazy with heat, and it blooms with the aroma of dew. There are cicadas nearby, hidden in the shade and chirping amidst the trees, and notes of birdsong drift high in the air, light and cheery. A few butterflies pass by. They perch atop some flowers, balanced on the end of a petal, and their wings shutter lazily, laid out as if to bathe in the sun.
Akira doesn’t fare as well as the butterflies. Only minutes after being out in the sun, he already has beads of sweat forming on his skin. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. The loose folds in his clothing are damp with sweat and his hair prickles under the glaring sunlight. He isn’t one to complain though, so he says nothing. Especially when he sees Shiki carrying on unbothered by the heat, pinning the ends of a white sheet to the clothesline while it billows and puffs in the wind. Akira doesn’t want to fall behind—to be left behind by him, so he picks up more damp clothes from the laundry basket to hang on the clothesline.
(He doesn’t know why he thinks that. Why would Shiki leave him behind? He doesn’t know. It’s that oddity again. He knows things that he shouldn’t, and doesn’t know the things that he should, and ever since he's met Shiki, nothing’s been the same. They met each other in spring, at the tail end of winter, but maybe they’ve known each other since long before that; since autumn, a lifetime ago, and it’s only now during summer, when the season is in the middle of experiencing a monsoon, does he realize this.)
It’s the heat. The summer heat has turned his thoughts all hazy.
Akira clumsily pins a shirt to the clothesline. He’s never done this before. He doesn’t line-dry his clothes because his apartment doesn't have a balcony, and there's not enough square feet inside to set up a drying rack. So the best he can do is go to a coin laundromat and have everything done by machines.
Shiki’s suddenly behind him, unpinning the shirt Akira just put up. “You should shake them out before hanging them,” he says. He makes it flap in the air before smoothing the shirt back onto the clothesline.
“Why?” Akira asks.
“It reduces the wrinkles.”
Akira’s not sure if Shiki finds any amusement in his ignorance, but Shiki drops the subject and, apparently having said all he has to say, goes back to hanging up sheets on his side. Akira turns and also resumes hanging up the laundry, silently reminding himself with each piece to shake out the wrinkles. He wipes one bead of sweat off the side of his face when it becomes too distracting on his skin.
By the time they finish hanging all the laundry, the butterflies have all flown away. The flowers remain undisturbed except by the wind.
Akira sits on the porch where it's shaded and looks at the view. The white sheets are billowing and he can see the hollow of a mound where the wind is caught between fabric. Everywhere else, the garden is filled with summertime green and particles of daylight. There are stones inlaid with the ground and patches of moss growing over the dirt. One tree in particular stands out in the garden with its long, thin branches and wispy leaves that droop overhead, held up only by the weight of its own trunk.
Shiki is putting the laundry basket back inside, so Akira is alone for now. He fans himself with a wooden hand fan and looks up at the windchime. With each sway, a twinkling note plays in the air, pleasant and light, the breath of a melody.
He isn’t alone for long. When Shiki comes back, he sits beside Akira and presses a soft drink can to Akira's neck. Akira nearly jumps from the sudden cold but doesn't. He takes the can from Shiki, maybe a little too quickly.
Akira rubs the cold spot on his neck with his hand. His face feels hot from being caught off guard like that, but he can blame it on the humidity. The fan hasn't done much to cool him down.
He lowers his hand from his neck and pops open the metal tab of the can. Then he takes a sip.
The ride to the town is a quiet one, or as quiet as a motorcycle can be.
It's a slow ride. There isn’t any traffic, but the only thing separating the road from the grass is a path of dirt. Out on the terrain, long stalks of grass cover the fields, and even farther in the distance, there are thickets of evergreens pointing toward the sky.
Shiki’s mansion is apparently out in the middle of nowhere, which sounds nice on paper, but it means the nearest town is about a half-hour ride away, and because they need to buy more groceries, that's what they spend their afternoon doing.
It’s humid outside, but the heat isn’t so bad when the wind is blowing in his face like this, Akira thinks. Shiki isn’t going as fast as he usually would, but it’s still fast enough that Akira can feel the wind in his hair. They pass by ponds and rivers, and at some point, the path widens and turns from dirt to pavement, and they’re no longer surrounded by grass but instead flanked by stone walls. The walls are lined with trees and the trees are filled with white blossoms that furl, unfurl in the wind. A continuous shower of petals float down from the treetops, carpeting the stone pavement.
The motorcycle slows down once they reach their stop, and Shiki shuts off the engine. They both dismount the motorcycle and Akira watches as Shiki leads it a little astray from the path, but not really out of plain sight. Shiki doesn’t seem too worried about the possibility of his bike getting stolen, so Akira doesn’t let it worry him, either. And Shiki still has the key with him, so it should be fine.
It’s a nice-looking motorcycle though. Akira doesn’t know anything about the price tag on it or the manufacturer, but if anything, he guesses the model of Shiki’s bike can be considered avant-garde in the same way high fashion is considered to be in a completely different realm from the everyday clothes that people normally wear. Flashy but functional, in a way that seems entirely fitting for Shiki.
Still, Shiki's motorcycle looks wildly out of place, like it’s been transported back in time, too technologically advanced and sleek in this rugged environment. They had traveled all the way from the city to the countryside by motorcycle. It was a sudden, spur-of-the-moment decision and Shiki had given Akira less than a day to pack and prepare.
“Get ready,” Shiki had said to him. “We’re leaving tonight.” And that was all the forewarning Shiki gave him.
He hadn’t told Akira where they were going at all, or for how long. Instead, the only information he told Akira was to pack sparingly.
Akira had protested at first. He wasn’t going to drop everything and leave with Shiki to some unknown destination just because Shiki told him to.
The way Shiki was acting so demanding and evasive, it made Akira think that Shiki was running from law enforcement or something (all those times he should’ve gotten tickets for speeding finally catching up to him), and that he was going to leave everything behind.
“Come with me or not. It’s your choice.”
Some choice. Akira remembers turning those words over and over in his head.
But maybe, it was the fact that Shiki was willing to take Akira with him, and that was all the choice Akira needed.
The two of them are still a fair distance away from the town. They walk the rest of the way there, and the buzzing heat has reached an all-time high, insects flitting about. The trees provide some shade from the sun, and Akira looks up at the leaves and their subtle movements, the varying shades of green to them, filtered through the glow of sunlight.
Next to the path they’re walking on, there’s a small stream running through a bed of cobblestone. The sunlight skims the surface of the water, and the water is clear enough to reveal the fish swimming along the current, their thin bodies appearing almost shapeless underneath the rippling water.
There are moments where they have to cross a river through a series of stepping stones, but those moments are few and far in between, and the water is shallow enough that it's not really a big deal if they just step through the water itself, but that doesn't stop Shiki from grabbing Akira's arm and saying, Watch your step.
There's no danger of Akira falling into the water. But he lets Shiki pull him along anyway.
At the town, they wander along the path. Or at least, Akira is wandering. Shiki walks like he knows where he’s going, even if he actually doesn't, but that's how he is. That’s how it’s always been between them.
They spend the rest of the afternoon entering various shops and looking at what goods those shops have to offer. The stores are propped up by walls of faded wood and held together with shabby roof tiles. Nonetheless the buildings still manage to look homely, in a quaint sort of way.
By the time they finish looking around and getting groceries, it's raining.
The rain starts light at first, but when they reach the place where Shiki's motorcycle is parked, it’s already pouring. Shiki has a convenient compartment in his motorcycle where they can store the groceries, so that's where they put the bags.
On the way back, they pass by the area with the stone walls and fluttering petals again. The rain shower has wetted the pavement and the fallen blossoms are a smear of white on the stone, clumps of loose petals drowning in rain puddles.
Akira watches the world fall behind while the motorcycle pulls forward. Even though they were just here a few hours ago, traveling on this very route, the same scenery looks different when it's raining, shaded in misty blue, so he looks at everything anew; the grassy fields and the evergreen trees; the ponds and the lakes, like it's the first time again.
By the time they finally get back to the mansion, the rain has quieted but it hasn't fully left yet. The leaves in the trees and garden plants are still shivering under the weight of rainwater, and a patter echoes high along the roof tiles of the mansion.
Akira immediately peels off his shirt, grateful to have it no longer clinging to his skin. He tosses it aside and lets it lie limply on the tatami mat, a soggy mess. His own hair is drenched and still dripping at the ends and he wipes the wet locks out of his eyes with his hand. He’s sure there’s a towel around somewhere, whether it be in the bedroom or the bathroom.
Before he can get up and go searching for it, something soft and thick lands on top of his head. Akira reaches up and pulls it off his hair. A towel. He turns around and looks up at Shiki, who’s already drying his own hair off.
Shiki is still wearing his drenched clothes and Akira’s stare lingers on him.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable like that?” he asks. It’s a genuine question.
Shiki lowers the towel from his hair. “Do you want me to take them off?” His voice is low and he seems amused.
“That’s not what I was asking about.” It really wasn’t. He doesn't know why Shiki has to make it sound so weird.
Akira withdraws from the conversation and looks to the rain outside as an escape. Maybe Shiki's tolerance for wet clothes is higher; Akira doesn’t know. He focuses on himself and squeezes the water from his hair; lets the dampness seep into the fuzziness of the towel.
Afterward, he pats himself dry wherever his skin still feels wet, which is almost everywhere.
Shiki heads to the bathroom to wash himself first. Akira's fine with that; he already feels nearly dried off from the rain and he can wait a while. He lets the towel drape over his neck and shoulders and looks outside through the glass door pane, seeing into the garden.
By nighttime the rain has evaporated, and what's left is the dewy aroma of earth, lingering on the lush summer leaves.
The two of them are lying on the porch. Shiki has his arm tucked under his head like a pillow. His other hand is tracing imaginary lines in Akira's hair, the tips of his fingers, wandering. Akira's hair is still damp from the bath he just took but the cool night air is helping it dry.
The night is alive with the buzzing of crickets and the flickering of fireflies. Akira watches the slow, flashing glows of the fireflies as they fade in and out of view. They're drifting unabashedly close to him and Shiki. Akira follows one with his eyes and then holds a finger up when it comes close enough. It lands delicately atop the tip of his finger, its firelight blinking at a standstill.
“What are you thinking about?” Shiki asks him. He’s looking at Akira, and Akira looks back at him. He’s used to looking at Shiki’s face under the moon, but now, the fireflies let him see his features in a new light. The shade is different but the softness is the same.
I had this thought, he might tell Shiki, that we knew each other before we even met.
Instead, he turns his head and looks back to the swarm of fireflies and their yellow haze in the dark.
“It’s pretty,” Akira says, and lets the lone firefly drift off his finger.
He doesn’t mean the fireflies.
He lowers his hand from the air and it settles somewhere near Shiki’s hand, maybe deliberately, because their hands touch. And then Shiki grabs it and holds Akira's hand in his own. Their hands press together, and the lines that crease their palms are like the veins on autumn leaves.