B.L.T: Chapter 04

Previous TOC Next

By the time the sky had turned into a gradient of blue and peach, Omiya exited the highway and took Kitazawa to a family-oriented clothing shop attached to a large supermarket, buying him a change of clothes and underwear. After that, they stopped at a small café along the coast and ate a plate of not, very-good meat, sauce pasta. A short drive later, the car pulled into a hotel parking lot.

Kitazawa wasn’t sure if it was a love hotel, but the flashy decorations at the entrance felt dangerously close to it.

Noticing how slow Kitazawa’s steps were as they headed to the room, Omiya looked back and gave a wry smile.

“I don’t have enough on me to stay at a proper hotel. Think you can put up with this?”

Kitazawa hated that he was even half-conscious of what that implied, so he overtook Omiya and entered the room ahead of him. He’d been curious what kind of place it would be, but there wasn’t anything particularly strange about it, just one large bed placed carelessly in the middle.

He rummaged around for the fridge, pulled out a cola, and sat down on the sofa. When he turned on the TV, a woman’s moaning suddenly filled the room, startling him. Flustered, he changed the channel, and the screen switched to the news.

“Why don’t you take a bath?”

Omiya said it without looking at him.

“I’ll go later.”

The sound of the shower reached him. It was distracting enough that he could hardly hear the TV. The thought that countless couples had probably done sexual things in this very room made him feel… strange.

While lying back on the sofa, he drifted into a doze, until the sensation of fingers touching his hair woke him. A man in a bathrobe was right there, so close it felt like he might be kissed. Kitazawa lowered his gaze.

“Hey…”

He spoke without looking up.

“You come to hotels like this a lot?”

He lifted his head slightly to look at him. Omiya gave a wry smile.

“And what would you do with the answer to that?”

“Just curious.”

Omiya sat directly on the carpet at Kitazawa’s feet.

“If you won’t think less of me, I could tell you.”

“Dunno.”

At that, Omiya raised both hands. “Forget it, then.”

“I’m the one here at the disadvantage. You ever had sex with a man before?”

Omiya inhaled sharply, as if the words caught in his throat.

“You’re full of dangerous questions today.”

Why was that? Kitazawa had an interest in people’s sexual histories, maybe, but he’d never actually wanted to know this man’s.

“On the train… why’d you groped me?”

“What would you do with the answer?”

“Dunno.”

Would anything even change if he knew? Even if he did know, he wasn’t going to do anything sexual with this man, and he didn’t want to. That much, he was sure of.

“It wasn’t the first time I’d seen you,” Omiya murmured.

“I’d noticed you before. Always on the same train. Thought there was a cute kid there. That day, by chance, we ended up so close. I was happy… and then I just… lost control.”

With a careless motion, Omiya pushed back his still, damp hair.

“I thought, someone like me would never get the attention of someone like you in my whole life. So just for that moment, I wanted you to be mine.”

“Even if it was wrong?”

“That’s right.”

“You were unfair.”

Kitazawa glanced around the room, then stood up.

“Where’d you put my underwear?”

…When he came out of the bath, Omiya was curled up on the far right side of the bed. Kitazawa jumped onto the opposite side.

“Already going to sleep?”

Through the sheet, he patted the man’s back.

“Tired. Gonna rest a bit.”

“Mm.”

While rolling around on top of the sheet and watching TV, Kitazawa started to get sleepy. His mind filled with all kinds of thoughts, but he didn’t want to think too hard about any of them.

When the air conditioning started feeling too cold, he slipped under the sheet. Inside was warm. It was nothing but the lingering trace of Omiya’s body heat, but lured by the comfort of that warmth, Kitazawa closed his eyes.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Kitazawa awoke to a strong restraint. It was dark all around, and he couldn’t make sense of what was happening, it was frightening. Then something touched his lips. Warm and damp… disgusting.

“Ngh, what the hell!”

No matter how he struggled, he couldn’t get free. The force pinning him down was unyielding, inescapable.

“Stop, stop it!”

“Keep still.”

Omiya’s muffled voice echoed in his ears. Fingers slipped under his bathrobe, touching bare skin. Warm and damp, a shiver ran down his spine.

“I said stop it! Let go, you idiot!”

But the fingers didn’t withdraw. Instead, his underwear was yanked down in haste. A hand caressed his backside, probing a part of him he could not believe was being touched.

“Stop, stop!”

He screamed at the top of his lungs and thrashed. He didn’t hesitate to hit or kick.

Before he knew it, he was on the bed, almost naked, crying alone. Omiya’s presence was gone. He didn’t know when he had left the bed, maybe when he’d been kicked, maybe when he’d been punched. He didn’t even know why he was crying. Was it because something so disgusting had been done to him? Because he’d been touched in a way that felt close to violence…?

Lifting his tear, streaked face, Kitazawa spotted the man sitting slumped in a corner of the room.

“You bastard!”

He shouted with all the force he could muster.

“Faggot, pervert! Just die already!”

For making him feel this way, for doing something to bring him to tears, there was no way to forgive him. Omiya stood sluggishly. Sensing him approach, Kitazawa instinctively backed away. But Omiya only picked up his own clothes from the sofa by the bed. He didn’t try anything further. The way the man started dressing gave Kitazawa a bad feeling.

“What are you gonna do?”

No reply.

“You’re just gonna leave me here? Go home without me?”

Still silent, Omiya pulled a few bills from his wallet.

“This is all I have. I’ll pay for the room, just go home on your own.”

“No way!” Kitazawa shouted.

“You’re really gonna leave me alone? I don’t even know where I am, and you’re gonna ditch me here?”

“I don’t want to be miserable anymore either,” Omiya murmured quietly. “What do you think I am? Some pervert who molested you on the train? Or just a convenient wallet to buy you lunch and whatever you want?”

A sharp pain stabbed at Kitazawa’s chest. His fingertips trembled.

“You keep making selfish demands because you know I can’t defy you. And even if I hate myself for it, I still can’t go against you.”

Omiya picked up his bag.

“I’ve done something stupid.”

What did that mean? Running off on a trip with a junior high kid? Or trying to make a move on him and getting rejected? In the dim room, the clock read six in the morning, but with no windows, there was no way of telling what the world outside looked like.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Kitazawa said.

Omiya stopped mid-step.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“So you’ll keep me here just because you don’t want to be by yourself?”

“If you don’t do weird stuff, you can stay.”

Omiya tilted his head.

“If you don’t do anything weird, then you can stay. Just… stay by me. I don’t want to be alone, I absolutely don’t.”

Tears welled up. Hating the thought of being seen like that, he lowered his head. Hearing footsteps approach, he looked up to find Omiya watching him. Fingers reached toward his hair, but Kitazawa slapped them away.

“Don’t touch me.”

He ordered it, stopping the man’s movement. Then Kitazawa touched Omiya’s hand himself, long, beautiful fingers. He touched his shoulder, then wrapped his arms around the man’s neck as he sat on the bed’s edge. He could smell the scent of a man. Breathing it in made him feel as if he were back in that familiar, comfortable room.

Just as ordered, Omiya stayed still and didn’t lay a hand on him.

“Hey… do you love me?”

If he said no in this moment, Kitazawa thought he might just die.

“Do you love me?” He asked again.

Omiya gave a low, pained groan.

“And what would you do with the answer? You’d make me say it, then what, pretend to be my lover? When you have no intention of it?”

Kitazawa pressed his face against Omiya’s neck, held his back tightly, and closed his eyes.

“I love you.”

The words whispered into Kitazawa’s ear were less a confession and more an outpouring of feelings that had nowhere else to go.

“Even if you’re selfish, careless, foul-mouthed, rough… mean enough to threaten people, and still, I love you. Enough to want you even if it means abandoning important work, even if I get fired, even if I have to trade away anything…”

He had never found a place even within his own family. But even if his parents had told him they didn’t want him, there was someone who gave him a place anyway. He didn’t need love. He didn’t want something like that. He just wanted kindness. To be cherished. He didn’t need anything tainted or suffocating.

So he kissed him. Over and over, as though clinging to solace, kisses that carried no other meaning, repeated endlessly.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Beyond the high guardrail, the sky gleamed. No, it wasn’t the sky. It was the sea. The sea was getting closer. Kitazawa leaned forward, staring out past the car’s windshield.

“I can see the ocean.”

“Yeah…”

Omiya’s voice carried none of the excitement that he himself felt.

“Want to get out and take a look?”

He spoke as if gauging Kitazawa’s expression.

“I do!”

Omiya smiled, muttering, “Guess I have no choice.”

The car exited at the nearest interchange, descending a gentle, looping slope.

The sea that had been visible from high above vanished as soon as they reached the lower ground.

But within five minutes, a sign for “Sekikuni Beach” appeared, and the number of cars increased.

Once they hit the coastline, the road was a string of vehicles headed for the swimming beach. Omiya slipped into a newly vacated spot along the seawall parking spaces.

When they stepped outside, the blazing sunlight scorched Kitazawa’s head and face.

“I’m hungry.”

Grabbing Omiya’s right hand, he pleaded. They hadn’t eaten since morning; his stomach growled loudly.

This morning, after waking up from crying, kissing, and holding each other, he’d thought about the discomfort of sleeping tangled up with someone, and the unexpected comfort of that warmth. Watching Omiya sleep, Kitazawa had felt a strange sensation. It had been a long time since he’d fallen asleep beside his mother, yet it was the same sweet sense of safety seeping through his whole body.

He reached out and touched Omiya’s hair. It felt alive, like petting a dog. Maybe that woke him, because Omiya’s eyes opened. He stared, steadily. With his gaze met, Kitazawa suddenly felt awkward and looked away. But then an arm pulled him in, holding him close.

 

Kisses didn’t bother him anymore. They had kissed so many times, it was as natural as holding hands. Fingers stroking through his hair, arms wrapping around him, the roughness of a cheek pressed against his own, it felt primal, almost animal, as though some instinctive form of affection.

Kitazawa knew Omiya wasn’t going to leave him. To prove it, after paying the hotel bill, the man had gotten on the expressway heading south. There were no words, but every so often Omiya would glance back at him, just looking.

They ate curry at a crowded beach shack. In his white shirt and black slacks, slurping ramen in front of Kitazawa, Omiya looked out of place among the shorts, and T-shirt crowd wandering through the shop.

After leaving the shop, they walked. Kitazawa envied the people swimming, they looked like they were having so much fun.

Omiya headed straight for the car. Kitazawa didn’t like that, so he grabbed his arm.

“Hey, I want to swim.”

Omiya tilted his head.

“You don’t even have a swimsuit.”

“So what?”

Still holding onto Omiya’s hand, Kitazawa led him across the crowded sand.

“Hey, what are you—”

Dragging the unsteady adult along, Kitazawa pulled him all the way to the water’s edge. He kicked off his shoes and, still fully clothed, dove into the sea.

People might have been staring, wondering what the hell he was doing, but he didn’t care. The water felt amazing.

When he turned back, Omiya was standing alone at the shoreline, staring at him like someone left behind. Kitazawa waded back, grabbed his arm, and hauled him to the edge before giving him a good shove.

“Whoa—”

Falling backward, Omiya was swallowed headfirst by the incoming wave. Laughing loudly at the sight, Kitazawa suddenly found his ankle seized, Omiya’s face was genuinely angry. The next thing he knew, he’d fallen the same way, the sea baptizing him in cold water.

Omiya grinned at the sight, so Kitazawa retaliated by splashing him. The return splash was at least twice as strong.

Like a pair of preschoolers, they tumbled and grappled in the surf. Kitazawa actually kicked him in earnest; Omiya, in turn, used his greater size to shove Kitazawa under again and again. Dodging and circling each other, they drifted farther from shore, until Kitazawa realized the bottom was gone beneath his feet.

He flailed, and the man who had chased after him caught him.

In the water, Kitazawa clung to him like a monkey. Their eyes met, and he was kissed. There were fewer people here than on the sand, but still, there were people. Kitazawa turned his face away, only to be kissed again.

“I don’t want to do this.”

“Then I’ll just leave you here.”

Omiya said it with bold certainty. Being left behind would be bad… he might drown.

“People are watching. I don’t like it.”

“No one here knows who we are.”

“But—”

“Even if they saw, they’d forget right away.”

A deep, hungry kiss made Kitazawa falter. He tried to break away, but was caught and held fast by adult strength. The taste of his lips was harshly salty.

After getting in the water with their clothes still on, Omiya bought him a T-shirt and shorts at a beach shack. They changed, got back in the car, and the journey resumed.

Once the highway’s scenery flattened into a monotonous blur, drowsiness overtook Kitazawa and his thoughts began to drift away.

He awoke to the smell of the sea, and to a body leaning over him, lips pressed against his own. Kitazawa opened his eyes.

“Where are we?”

“Parking area. We’re already in Miyazaki. We’ll get off at the next interchange.”

Another kiss. The embarrassment of being seen had been washed away by the lingering high from the ocean. Fingers tangled roughly in his hair.

“Let’s just go somewhere.”

A whisper against his ear.

“Somewhere we don’t know. Just the two of us.”

The trembling voice met a cool detachment in Kitazawa’s mind. If they went somewhere together… then what? What would they even do?

He pushed back against the weight leaning over him.

“I want to go to my grandma’s place.”

Omiya smiled, but didn’t bother to hide the faint sadness in his expression.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Just before reaching his grandmother’s house, Omiya stopped the car. He offered to take him all the way to the front door, but Kitazawa refused. Before he got out, Omiya kissed him once more. He held Kitazawa’s hand tightly, reluctant to let go.

“When will you be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Send me a message on my phone. I’ll call you back.”

Kitazawa didn’t answer with a “yeah.” It seemed to bother Omiya, because he pressed the question several more times, but in the end Kitazawa never gave him an answer. Even after he got out of the car and started walking, Omiya’s car didn’t move. No matter how many times Kitazawa looked back, he was still there. Before Omiya’s car could leave, Kitazawa was the one to turn the corner. The car was no longer in sight.

Relieved, and yet with a faint ache in his chest, he walked the dusty road under the relentless chorus of cicadas. I’m never going to see that man again. I don’t think I will… That was what Kitazawa thought.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Once the brief interview with the part-time job applicants was over, Omiya set the file he’d been holding down on the table.

“The position was for one person, so we’ll consider it on our end, but there’s no guarantee both of you will be hired. We’ll contact you by phone tomorrow.”

Since that day they parted ways on a street in Miyazaki, Kitazawa hadn’t seen him, nor had he called. Over summer break, his parents divorced, and Kitazawa ended up living with his grandparents in Miyazaki. His life flipped over completely, as if turned inside out.

At first, after arriving in Miyazaki, he half-expected Omiya to come looking for him. He shouldn’t have known where his grandmother’s house was, and yet Kitazawa had the feeling he’d find it anyway. The man who had lingered so long in the corner of his memory had, with the passage of time, been reduced to something as small as a pebble by the roadside.

A reunion with that man, turned pebble. To say he felt nothing would be a lie. He remembered the sound of cicadas from that summer, even the smell of the apartment room. It was painfully nostalgic.

The man carried out the interview as if they were meeting for the first time. What does Omiya think of me? Kitazawa wondered. Has he forgotten? Perhaps. After all, they’d known each other for less than a month.

There was a knock at the door, and a clerk came in carrying coffee. Omiya let out a small “Ah,” then told the girl, “Take it away. They’re both about to leave.”

After that, they were ushered out of the office as if being chased away. The man beside Kitazawa frowned in annoyance, muttering, “At least let us drink the coffee. Stingy. What’s with ‘we’re both leaving’ anyway?”

Kitazawa turned on his heel, letting the swell of nostalgia carry him back down the hallway. The urge to ask wouldn’t stop. He returned to the office door. But even if he confirmed it now, what would it change?

“Are you here for the part-time job interview, by any chance?”

It was the same clerk who had brought the coffee earlier. When she asked, “What’s the matter?” Kitazawa, caught off guard, lied: “…I think I left something behind during the interview.”

Apparently satisfied with that answer, the girl said, “Ah, I see,” and opened the office door for him. The room was empty. Having claimed he’d forgotten something, he felt compelled to keep up appearances, pretending to search around the sofa and table. The clerk crouched down to help.

“What did you forget?”

“Uh… well… my keys. My keys.”

He searched for a while, but of course there was no way to find something that wasn’t there. As he was doing so, the office door swung open wide.

“Hagiwara, so this is where you were.”

It was Omiya’s voice.

“Mitsui’s been looking for you, he’s got a question about that book order from last week.”

The clerk, apparently named Hagiwara, hurried out into the hall. Omiya shot Kitazawa a brief glance, then, wearing an expression as unreadable as ever, asked, “What’s going on?”

“I thought I’d forgotten something and was looking for it. But it looks like I was mistaken.”

The lie came smoothly. The man’s eyes held the look of someone sizing up something suspicious. It took just a little courage to speak again.

“Oh, by the way, I’m not bad with coffee anymore.”

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

“Is that so.”

He lowered his gaze in a single, smooth motion.

“You can relax, I won’t be hiring you for this job.”

“Huh? Really?”

It was Omiya’s turn to look surprised at Kitazawa’s reaction.

“You wanted to be hired?”

“Yeah.”

He gave a wry smile.

“If you were hired, you’d have to work under me. You wouldn’t like that.”

“Not really. I mean, even you wouldn’t sexually harass me at work, right?”

With that one remark, Omiya’s face instantly darkened.

“I always thought you were an inconsiderate kid, but you haven’t grown a bit.”

His voice had a sharp edge to it. Kitazawa shot back something equally abrasive.

“Still gay, then?”

Omiya glared at him, clearly angry. Kitazawa ignored it and kept talking.

“So why are you running a bookstore? Weren’t you working somewhere else before?”

“I got fired, kept skipping work to go along with some foolish kid, ruined two business partnerships in the process. So I switched jobs.”

…Their runaway trip to Miyazaki, Kitazawa had been on summer break then. But as an adult, Omiya couldn’t possibly have been on vacation. Even when he’d met him at that rundown station, he’d kept saying “work, work.” At the time Kitazawa had thought him heartless, but he hadn’t imagined it had turned into that big a mess.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I never thought I’d hear that from the very person who made me go through all that. Go home. I never want to see you again.”

The tall figure walking away looked the same as ever, and for a moment Kitazawa felt a faint pang. He regretted the harshness of his own words, harsher still for being a poor attempt to cover his embarrassment, and yet, he found himself wanting to talk to him one more time.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

The next day, Omiya called Kitazawa on his cell phone. In a businesslike tone, he curtly said, “Regarding the part-time job, unfortunately, we’ll have to pass.” The call felt like it could end at any moment, so Kitazawa hurried to speak. Not seeing his face made the hesitation a little easier to overcome.

“Weren’t you happy to see me? I was happy. But you weren’t, were you?”

Omiya was silent for a moment.

“I don’t understand why you would say you were ‘happy.’ You never contacted me again, because you disliked me, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t that I disliked you that much.”

Even if vague, it was an honest feeling, not a lie.

“You can say whatever you like now. At first, I didn’t regret having to quit the company in the slightest. I honestly believed that once summer vacation was over, you’d still be there by my side. I didn’t realize I was only being toyed with.”

“I wasn’t toying with you.”

Omiya fell silent.

“So, what is it you want me to say?” His tone was irritated. “Would you be satisfied if I said I loved you, that I was glad to see you?”

“Do you still love me?”

“Of course not. I’m not exactly desperate for company either.”

Something churned inside his chest. A raw, unpleasant feeling rushed through him like a surge from an underground spring.

“So you’re still gay, huh?”

Without waiting for a response, Kitazawa hung up. Yes, Omiya owed him nothing, and it had been Kitazawa himself who ran away back then. Even the words “I love you” held no eternal power. They fade, vanish easily. And yet such uncertain things are spoken boldly, as if carrying some grand justification.

The phone rang. He let it go, and it cut off after about fifteen seconds. Thinking it must be him, Kitazawa checked the call history. A voicemail had come through. When he played it back, Omiya’s voice filled the line.

“This is Omiya of Kouchido Bookstore. If you are truly serious about working part-time here, then please contact me by tomorrow morning. I assure you, I will not interfere with your work at the shop in any way. That is all.”

…Such a careless man. That was why his junior-high self had been able to take advantage of him. It struck him as funny, and he let out a small laugh. The self from back then, and the self he was now. Maybe, just maybe, he could understand what it was that he hadn’t been able to grasp back then.

…Or maybe it was better not to know at all, he thought. Yet, he listened once more to the recorded voice of the man.

END ARCH 1

Previous TOC Next