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Javi had always loved mountains.
He had climbed them in many countries, sometimes for the view, sometimes for the challenge, and sometimes simply because he liked the feeling of walking until the noise of towns and roads disappeared behind him. He had seen mountains covered in snow, mountains rising above dry land, mountains beside the sea, but the first time he came to Japan, something about its mountains stayed with him.
So he came back.
Then he came back again.
It was during one of those trips that he found the forest in Miyagi.
There was nothing famous about the path he chose that day. No summit he needed to reach, no view marked in his guidebook. He simply saw the trees and walked in.
The air smelled clean and green, filled with the scent of leaves and damp wood. Sunlight passed through the canopy in soft pieces, moving over the ground whenever the branches moved. Fallen leaves from the year before lay thick beneath his shoes, soft as a sponge when he stepped on them.
Javi liked it immediately.
He walked until his legs began to feel tired, then stopped beside a tall beech tree. Its trunk was straight and slender, its bark smooth and grey.
Without thinking, he put one hand against its trunk and leaned against it.
The tree moved.
Javi straightened. He stared at it.
Trees did not move away when people touched them.
He placed his palm against the bark again.
This time the leaves above him trembled.
A soft rustling travelled through the branches, almost like laughter.
Javi looked up. There was hardly any wind.
He stood there for a while, his hand still resting on the trunk.
Then he laughed at himself.
It must be the wind.
*
The next morning, Javi went back.
There were other places he had planned to visit. There were other paths in the forest. There was absolutely no reason to find the same tree again.
Still, he did.
He recognised the smooth grey trunk and the shape of its branches before he was completely sure he had reached the right place.
"Hello again."
He put his hand against the bark.
The leaves shook.
Javi froze.
Then he heard it.
A laugh.
Not leaves. Not wind. Someone was laughing.
"Hello?"
Nothing answered.
Javi walked around the tree. There was nobody there.
He looked behind the nearby trees, feeling increasingly ridiculous.
When he returned to the beech, he touched it again.
The branches trembled.
"Oh."
He stared at the tree.
Then, very slowly, he ran his fingers over the bark.
The leaves shook harder.
Javi grinned.
"Are you ticklish?"
The whole crown rustled.
*
He came back the next day.
And the next.
Sometimes he talked to the tree.
At first it was only because it amused him. Then it became strangely natural.
He told it where he had walked that day. He told it about mountains he had climbed in other countries. Once he told it about Spain, although halfway through he stopped and laughed because he had suddenly realised he was describing his home to a tree.
The tree listened.
At least Javi liked to think it did.
Then one afternoon he found someone standing beside it.
A beautiful young man.
He wore grey, and he stood beneath the canopy with his face turned upward, watching the sunlight between the leaves.
He was slim and delicate, with pale skin and soft black hair falling across his forehead. His face was almost too beautiful, with fine features and long dark lashes. Standing quietly beneath the green leaves, he looked strangely fragile, as if he belonged there more than any human could.
For one ridiculous second, Javi's first thought was that somebody else had found his tree.
"Hi."
The young man looked at him. He did not answer.
"Do you live around here?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"Where?"
The young man looked down. Then he pointed at the ground beneath his feet.
Javi laughed.
"Okay. Very local."
The young man only watched him.
Javi walked over to the beech and put his hand on its trunk as he always did.
The stranger flinched.
Javi stopped. He looked at his hand. He looked at the tree. He looked at the young man.
Slowly, experimentally, he touched the bark again.
The young man's shoulders drew in.
Above them, the leaves began to shake.
Javi stared.
"No."
The young man looked away.
Javi touched the tree again.
"Don't."
The leaves rustled wildly.
Javi started laughing.
"You are the tree."
The young man smiled faintly.
"My name is Yuzu."
It took Javi some time to understand that, to Yuzu, there was no contradiction.
*
Javi learned the word later.
Kodama.
A spirit living in a tree.
The word could also mean an echo.
Javi liked that.
Perhaps because that was how Yuzu had first seemed to him. Something hidden in the forest that answered when he spoke.
He kept coming back.
At first he thought he came back because he loved Japan and its mountains.
Then he thought perhaps he came back because he loved that particular forest.
It took him longer than it should have to understand that he was crossing half the world to visit one particular beech tree.
And the man who belonged to it.
*
Javi met different Yuzus in different seasons.
In spring, Yuzu seemed almost restless. New leaves covered his branches in pale green, and he laughed more easily. His skin looked soft and warm, and sometimes he wandered farther from the tree than Javi had ever seen him go.
In summer, he was strongest.
His canopy was thick and green, his body warm beneath Javi's hands. He could walk beside Javi for hours through the forest without looking tired.
Autumn made him quieter.
The leaves turned yellow and brown. Yuzu moved more slowly and sometimes sat beneath the tree without saying much at all.
One afternoon a leaf fell onto his shoulder. Javi reached over and picked it off.
Yuzu looked at it.
"It's mine."
Javi laughed.
"Yes, I know it fell from your tree."
Yuzu gave him a strange look.
Javi would only understand much later that he had said exactly what he meant.
It was his.
*
They kissed for the first time in late autumn.
They had been sitting beneath the beech for a long time. Javi had returned after months away, and Yuzu had listened while he told him about another mountain, another country, another view that Yuzu would probably never see himself.
"Do you miss me when I'm gone?" Javi asked.
Yuzu did not answer. A few months meant nothing to a tree.
Before Javi, Yuzu had known spring, summer, autumn and winter. Humans came into the forest and left again. Sometimes they returned. Usually they did not.
He had never thought about the time between.
Javi leaned back against the trunk.
Yuzu looked at him.
"You're leaning on me."
Javi immediately sat up.
"Sorry."
Yuzu was quiet.
"I didn't say move away."
Javi looked at him.
Yuzu moved closer instead.
Javi leaned toward him, then stopped.
Yuzu watched him.
"Why did you stop?"
"I don't know if I'm allowed."
Yuzu closed the remaining distance himself. He pressed his lips to Javi's. He had seen humans do this before, couples who came into the forest together.
Above them, the autumn leaves seemed a little redder than before.
*
Winter frightened Javi.
He had seen snow in more places than he could count. Snow itself did not frighten him.
Yuzu did.
Most of the leaves were gone, but a few dry brown ones still clung to the branches. Its bare branches reached into the pale winter sky, and when Javi finally found Yuzu beside the trunk, his face was white as porcelain.
His lips were so pale they seemed almost transparent.
Javi touched his cheek. It was cold.
"You're freezing."
Yuzu looked at him sleepily.
"It's winter."
"Yes, I know it's winter."
Yuzu closed his eyes again.
Javi took his hands. They were just as cold. He rubbed them between his own palms.
"You're still cold."
"It's winter."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Yuzu looked confused, then opened his eyes. Something in his sleepy expression changed.
"Go."
"What?"
"Go back to the house."
"I'm fine."
"You're cold."
"So are you."
"It's different."
Javi did not move.
Yuzu's voice became sharper.
"Javi. Go."
"I'm not leaving you here like this."
"I can stay outside in winter. You can't."
Something in the way he said it made Javi stop arguing.
Yuzu had seen humans stay in the forest during winter before.
People who had lost their way. People who had not brought enough clothing. People who became tired and sat down because they thought they only needed to rest.
At first they shook from the cold. Later they stopped shaking. They became sleepy. Then quiet.
Yuzu had watched snow cover them.
Spring came. They did not wake.
Years passed. Leaves fell and softened and disappeared, and what had once been a person returned to the same earth as everything else.
"Humans who don't go back to their houses in winter become part of the forest," Yuzu said.
Javi was quiet.
"Is that bad?"
Yuzu shook his head.
"Then why are you worried about me?"
Yuzu did not answer.
There was nothing terrible, to him, about becoming part of the forest. Everything returned eventually. Leaves, animals, people. Nothing truly disappeared.
But he did not want that for Javi.
Javi loved places Yuzu had never seen.
He loved mountains and roads and cities and oceans. Every time he returned, he brought another story with him, and Yuzu liked listening to the way his voice changed when he spoke about something beautiful.
"You like it out there," Yuzu said.
"I like it here too."
"That's not the same."
"How do you know? You've never been out there."
"Because you always come back with stories."
Javi said nothing for a while. Then he took off his scarf.
Yuzu frowned.
"I don't need that."
Javi wrapped it around his neck anyway.
"Keep it until I come back."
Yuzu touched the scarf.
"Until when?"
"Spring."
Javi leaned down and kissed him.
Winter Yuzu's lips were almost without warmth.
The kiss was short.
When Javi stepped away, Yuzu was still looking at him.
"I'll come back in spring."
For most of Yuzu's life, spring had simply come.
That winter, for the first time, he waited for it.
*
When Javi returned, the beech was covered in new green.
He saw that before anything else and felt the tightness in his chest disappear.
Then he walked closer.
And stopped.
His scarf was tied around the trunk.
At almost exactly the height where he had wrapped it around Yuzu's neck.
Javi stared at it.
"You said I could keep it."
He turned.
Yuzu stood behind him, looking much more awake than he had in winter. There was colour in his face again, and his lips were pink.
Javi pointed at the tree.
"I didn't mean the tree."
Yuzu frowned.
"What's the difference?"
Javi laughed so hard he had to put one hand against the trunk.
Yuzu immediately flinched.
The new leaves shivered.
Javi looked at him.
Then at his hand.
"So when I do this..."
"Don't."
Javi rubbed the bark gently.
"Javi."
The leaves shook harder.
"Is that the wind?"
"Stop it."
*
Years passed.
Javi continued to travel.
He never stopped loving mountains simply because he loved Yuzu. Yuzu never asked him to.
Javi brought photographs instead.
Mountains covered in snow. Lakes surrounded by rock. Forests that looked nothing like Yuzu's. The sea.
Yuzu stared at that one for a long time.
"You've never seen it?"
"No."
"It's big."
Yuzu looked at him.
"Bigger than the forest?"
"Much bigger."
Yuzu looked back at the photograph.
Javi smiled.
"I'll bring you another one next time."
There was always a next time.
That became the shape of their life together.
Javi left.
Javi returned.
Sometimes they kissed beneath the tree. Sometimes they did not.
Sometimes they simply sat side by side, their shoulders touching, Yuzu's head resting against Javi.
They looked at the same slope, the same trees, the same patches of sky between the branches.
One day Javi said, "You've seen this before."
"Yes."
"Hundreds of times?"
"Not with you."
Javi turned his head toward him.
Yuzu did not understand why that made Javi's eyes look suddenly wet.
*
Yuzu noticed the changes before Javi did.
Humans changed quickly.
When they first met, Javi had long, thick curls. One year he came back with them cut short.
Yuzu stared.
"What?"
"Your hair."
"I cut it."
Yuzu continued staring.
"It grows back," Javi said.
But it never grew back quite the same way. The curls stayed shorter.
Years later, Yuzu found the first grey among them. Then there were more.
Lines appeared beside Javi's eyes, especially when he laughed. His face changed little by little. He began to take longer rests when he walked uphill.
Once, when he stood after sitting beneath the tree, he put a hand on his knee.
Yuzu watched him.
"What?" Javi asked.
"Nothing."
But Yuzu understood.
Yuzu himself still looked much the same.
Javi complained about this.
"You're cheating."
"At what?"
"Getting old."
Yuzu did not understand how anyone could cheat at getting old.
He was getting older too. Just differently.
Yuzu had been young when Javi first put his hand against his smooth grey trunk, only just reaching the age when a beech tree could begin to flower.
Javi had been young too.
It took Yuzu years to understand that those two things did not mean the same.
*
One autumn, many years after their first meeting, Javi climbed the familiar path more slowly than before.
His curls were short now and threaded with grey.
He sat beneath Yuzu's tree and stayed there for a while, catching his breath.
Yuzu sat beside him.
Without thinking, he put his head on Javi's shoulder, exactly as he had done so many times before.
They watched the forest. Neither of them needed anything to happen.
Then something small fell from the branches and landed on Javi's leg.
He picked it up.
"What's this?"
Yuzu looked.
"Mine."
Javi laughed.
"Everything that falls on me is yours."
Yuzu took it from him and turned it between his fingers.
It was a small beechnut.
"My first."
Javi stared at him.
"Really?"
Yuzu nodded.
Javi looked up into the branches, then back at the tiny nut.
"So you're finally a grown-up."
"I've been older than you since we met."
"Not in tree years."
Yuzu frowned.
Javi laughed.
Later they found a few more among the fallen leaves.
Javi gathered them in his palm.
For a moment he imagined taking them home. He could keep one. Perhaps he could plant one.
Perhaps, somewhere far away, something of Yuzu could grow in Spanish soil.
He looked at the small nuts in his hand. Then he crouched and placed them carefully back among the leaves.
Yuzu watched him.
"Didn't you want them?"
"I did."
"Then why did you put them back?"
Javi brushed a leaf away from one.
"They belong here."
Yuzu became very quiet.
Javi did not know that, many years before, Yuzu had made the same choice.
Yuzu wanted Javi. But Javi did not belong to the forest.
So every time Javi left, Yuzu let him go.
*
Yuzu knew how this story would end.
He knew it in the simple way trees know winter will come.
Javi's hair would become whiter. His steps would become slower. One year the path might become too difficult for him.
And someday there would be a spring when Yuzu woke and did not hear the familiar voice.
No "Hello again."
Perhaps he would wait through summer.
Perhaps autumn would come.
Perhaps another winter.
Javi would not return.
Yuzu would remain.
His tree would grow another ring, then another. He would flower again. He would bear fruit again. New leaves would open where old ones had fallen.
Once, the thought of a few decades would have seemed like almost nothing.
Now he knew better.
Javi sat beside him, older than the man who had first walked into the forest, his short curls grey at the temples.
Yuzu rested his head against his shoulder.
Neither of them spoke.
Sunlight passed through the leaves and moved slowly over the ground.
It was the same view they had watched so many times.
And it was not the same.
Yuzu had once known only seasons.
Spring came. Summer passed. Leaves fell. Snow covered the earth.
Then Javi came, and suddenly there were days worth remembering.
The day a man with long curls put his hand against his trunk and made him laugh.
The day he returned.
The first kiss beneath autumn leaves.
The winter scarf.
The first spring Yuzu had ever waited for.
The years when Javi left to see the world and always came back with stories.
The quiet afternoons when they did nothing except sit together and look at the same forest.
Someday, Yuzu knew, Javi would become a memory.
But not yet.
Javi's shoulder was warm beneath his cheek.
His hand found Yuzu's and held it.
Yuzu closed his eyes.
Yuzu did not know how many springs were still waiting for him.
Perhaps there would be hundreds.
Perhaps one day these years would seem very small beside everything that came before and after them.
But Yuzu did not think so.
There would always be these years.
The years when someone came back.
The years when Yuzu learned that leaving was not the same as being lost.
The years when a tree learned to wait.
They might become only a small part of his long life.
But Yuzu knew they would always be the brightest.
And when they were gone, he would not need to remember them.
Years from now, when many more tree rings had grown around them, the years with Javi would still be there, deep in the heart of his tree.