B.L.T: Chapter 05

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By the time the long holidays of Golden Week had passed, May was already halfway over. Today, the midday heat had been high enough that, even for a short time, the store’s air conditioning was switched on. If it was already like this now, the electricity bill was going to be no joke, he thought. But around six o’clock, when the sun went down, it cooled considerably. And then, instead of the temperature itself, it was the density of people that raised the warmth inside the store.

From here on out, the Kouchido Bookstore, Ikenami branch, a nationwide chain, would be busy. In the daytime, the place was so empty it almost felt lonely, but after school let out, students, and after work office workers, crowded the aisles. Although the branch was small in scale, it was located in an area densely packed with junior highs and high schools, so sales were decent enough.

Yusuke Omiya, manager of the Ikenami branch, was thirty-three this year. Five years ago, he had quit the company where he worked, spent about half a year drifting, and then started a part-time job at a bookstore. It had been meant as a stopgap, but the manager at the time had taken a strong liking to him, persuaded him into going full-time, and from there his title rose step by step until he became store manager last year. Among the branch managers, someone as young as he was rare. Considering he’d joined mid-career, he had been fortunate. The pay was low, the overtime heavy, the days off few, but the work he did now had meaning and was genuinely interesting.

Glancing toward the register area while restocking products, Omiya saw the steadily lengthening line of customers waiting to pay. He couldn’t stand to watch any longer and stepped behind the register. “I’ll help with wrapping,” he said, and the employee beside him, Hagiwara Hiroko, now in her second year at the company, looked visibly relieved and nodded.

Pasting a sales smile onto his face, inwardly thinking please say no, he asked, holding a hardcover book, “Would you like a cover for this?” The young man before him, seemingly in his mid-twenties, muttered a curt “Yes, please.” Suppressing his disappointment at the extra step, he set about wrapping it.

Even just helping with the wrapping quickly cleared the right-hand register, which in turn caused the customers from the left line to spill over, and within a few minutes, there was no one left waiting.

“I’ll leave the rest to you.”

Leaving those words with the two at the register, Omiya went back to restocking. He noticed that the stack of movie tie-in novels he’d piled high on the table earlier had already sunk into a sizable hollow, and hurried to the storeroom to fetch the remaining stock. He’d predicted that sales would spike again with the film’s release and had ordered an extra sixty copies, but even those looked like they’d sell out fast.

Suppressing the urge to tell a customer, who was rolling up a magazine like it was his own property, “You do know that’s for sale, right? You’re going to buy it, of course,” he walked past. By chance, his gaze fell on the register counter. The lines from earlier had vanished as if they’d been a lie, and beyond it, Hagiwara and the part-timer, Masato Kitazawa, were chatting happily together.

If it wasn’t directly work-related, he preferred staff to keep idle talk to a minimum, and when there were few customers, the basic rule was to close one of the two registers. He’d thought they would stop talking soon enough, but their conversation was so lively that a young woman seemed to be hesitating to step up to the counter. That decided it for him.

“Hagiwara-san, please keep the chatting to a minimum.”

He made the reminder gently, so as not to offend. Hagiwara quickly shrugged her shoulders and said, “Sorry about that.” The part-timer beside her, Kitazawa, also fell silent immediately. Omiya had the feeling Kitazawa was staring at him, but he pretended not to notice and stepped into the back room that doubled as a storeroom and office.

The small room held two cheerless office desks, a set of navy blue guest sofas, and, against the wall, small piles of unsold monthly and weekly magazines. Some of them were close to their return deadlines, so the remaining stock and sales figures had to be checked and return slips filled out soon. Even so, magazine checks had become easier. Ever since a magazine-only corner had been set up near the register, shoplifting had dropped sharply.

With the remaining-stock checklist in one hand, Omiya compared the numbers against the sales figures on the computer screen. Everything was going smoothly until he stumbled over a fishing magazine, one copy short. The word “shoplifting” floated to mind, but who would take such an unassuming title? Just in case, he recounted the stock and found one copy tucked between two women’s monthlies.

He gathered up the magazines for return, prepared them for shipment on tomorrow’s delivery, and glanced at the clock, it was already past eight-thirty. From this hour on, the number of students would dwindle, and he wouldn’t have to keep such a wary eye on the comic shelves. Most shoplifting involved single-volume manga, and teenagers were the culprits in every store.

It would have been better to do the stock and sales checks during the slower hours of the day, but today the phone had kept him far too busy. A customer-ordered title still hadn’t arrived even after Golden Week, prompting a “Still not in?” complaint. Delayed arrivals were common enough, but when he’d first asked the publisher, they’d said there was stock and it would ship within a week. Three weeks later, he’d inquired again, only to be told it had already been sent. But the book never arrived. Searching and searching… it took an hour and a half before he discovered it had been sent to another branch.

Just recalling the whole ordeal made his shoulders slump. Deciding on a short break, Omiya brewed a single cup of coffee in the pot. He was sitting on the sofa, sipping it, when the door swung open without so much as a knock. Kitazawa, the part-timer, stepped in holding a plastic bottle of soda. Omiya glanced up at the clock again. Letting him take a break at this time meant the register wasn’t too busy. To avoid seeming unnatural, Omiya moved from the sofa to an office desk, he thought being too close might make the younger man self-conscious.

Kitazawa, however, showed no sign of caring. He dropped heavily onto the sofa, cracked open the bottle, and took a swig. Then, with a sigh as if the world were ending, he pulled a cigarette from the breast pocket of his checkered shirt. In moments, the office was thick with the scent of his smoke.

 

He stood at around a 170 centimeters (5’7”), neither tall nor short. Omiya had thought his skin was pale, but glimpses of his neck and chest revealed a faint sunburn. His short hair was mostly black but shaded toward a deep brown. His face was small, his nose well-shaped, his jawline slender. He should be turning twenty this year, yet he still couldn’t quite shake a boyish air, thanks in large part to his unusually large eyes. When he smoked, it looked oddly like a child doing it, a jarring mismatch. And yet, in the moments when he wore that languid, faintly melancholic expression, there was an undeniable allure, an almost dangerous kind of charm.

Neither child nor fully adult, he scattered that unique, in-between aura around him without restraint. It was no wonder that the female staff, whether full-time or part-time, all called him “cute.”

He gave a small yawn, stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray, raked a hand through the hair at the back of his head, kicked off his sneakers, and drew one knee up onto the sofa. Then he reached for the bottle again…

Before Omiya realized it, he had been sitting there with a coffee cup in hand, watching the profile of the younger man through the narrow space between the computer and the piles of paperwork. He quickly averted his gaze and drained the now-lukewarm coffee. By the time he had done so, the fifteen-minute break was over, and Kitazawa slipped quietly out of the office.

The locker room was too cramped, just a row of lockers without space for chairs. There was a break room for employees, but that was shared by men and women, and at the insistence of the female staff, smoking was banned there. Which meant, if one wanted to smoke, the office was the only option. At first, there had been an unspoken agreement that smoking was to be done outside the shop. But after a customer complaint—“The staff look cheerful in the shop, but it leaves a bad impression to see them smoking at the back entrance”—the rule had changed. Smoking outside was strictly prohibited; if one wanted to smoke, it had to be in the office. Since clients were often received in that room, and smoking there couldn’t be restricted, ashtrays had long been kept on hand. The result was inevitable.

Kitazawa always came to the office during his breaks to smoke. The first time Omiya saw him do it, it had startled him. Kitazawa was a university student, there was nothing strange about it, if one thought about it logically. Later, he reflected on why it had struck him so deeply, and realized it was because the impression of that boyish, naïve image from junior high school still lingered so strongly in him. Even though Kitazawa had grown, even though his appearance had changed, what he still saw inside him was that fifteen-year-old boy.

At first, whenever Kitazawa came to the office to smoke, Omiya would make an excuse to step out. He thought being alone together would be awkward. But as Kitazawa came to the office every break, regardless of whether he himself was there or not, it dawned on him that he wasn’t being considered at all. After all, if the man who had once been infatuated with him was now the manager of the bookstore, Kitazawa clearly hadn’t cared, otherwise he never would have chosen this place to say, “I’d like to work here.”

Kitazawa had always been somewhat oblivious, even inconsiderate, in that way. Remembering this made his own attempts at carefulness feel absurd. Omiya stopped interrupting his work just to leave the office when Kitazawa arrived. And it was then, for the first time, that he realized, Kitazawa carried himself so naturally, as if there weren’t anyone else there at all. The one who had been overly conscious of the situation had been himself.

Inside the shop, it wasn’t difficult. As long as there were others around, he could look at Kitazawa, speak to him, treat him simply as another part-time worker. But the moment it was just the two of them, he never knew how to address him. The wall he felt rise between them was, in no small part, the fact that Kitazawa had once rejected him so harshly.

Earlier, at the register, he had chosen to help Hagiwara, the full-time employee. Hagiwara was quicker at both the register and the wrapping. But if he had been free of bias, he would have helped Kitazawa, the inexperienced part-timer. He hadn’t done so because he didn’t want Kitazawa to think he was using the excuse of “helping” as a way to get closer.

It was the same when he had to admonish them for chatting. He hadn’t called him by name because he didn’t want it to look like he was still holding a grudge over being rejected, singling Kitazawa out for petty retaliation.

When he decided to hire Kitazawa, he hadn’t imagined it would gnaw at him this way. The more he told himself not to be conscious of it, the more awkward his actions became. Five years was too short a time to erase it all; the wound had taken root in his chest, deeper than he had realized.

If only he could have been disillusioned by the changes in Kitazawa’s appearance. But no, he still cared. He cared so much that he hesitated over even a single word.

…A love so consuming he had once been ready to throw everything away for it, had indeed thrown everything away for it, and still it hadn’t been fulfilled. A love like that was not something that could simply be forgotten.

◇:-:◆:-:◇

Kouchido Bookstore closed at 10 p.m., but if there were still customers inside, it wasn’t possible to lock up right on the dot. Usually, a closing announcement paired with the usual background music was enough to make people leave, but every now and then, there’d be a stubborn one.

That night, even fifteen minutes past ten, a fat man in his mid-twenties was still standing there with a blank expression, reading as if nothing had happened. Omiya approached him with a calm voice.

“Sorry, but we’re closing now…”

The man lifted his face from the book, tilting his head as if only just realizing the time. Without the slightest hint of embarrassment, he muttered, “Ah, right,” slid the book back onto the shelf, and walked out.

No sooner had he gone than Hagiwara, counting change at the register, bristled in indignation.

“That guy, he did the same thing yesterday. Hung around for twenty minutes after closing and didn’t even buy a thing. Honestly, the worst.”

“Really?”

Yesterday had been Thursday, Omiya’s day off. Apart from New Year’s and the occasional inventory check, Kouchido Bookstore stayed open year, round. Since weekends were busy, Omiya had chosen Thursday, when customers were fewer, as his regular day off.

“I’m telling you, it’s every day with him. Standing there without a shred of shame, reading those erotic magazines. Hey, manager, let’s just tie up all the magazines with string from now on. All of them.”

“If we shrink-wrap them, it’ll be twice the work.”

Hagiwara bit down hard on her pink lips, sulking. Just then, Kitazawa came by with a mop in hand.

“Finished cleaning.”

“Thanks. You can head out,” Omiya said, but before Kitazawa could answer, Hagiwara leaned over the counter, cutting in with an eager “Hey, hey.”

“You saw that fat customer too, right? The absolute worst.”

“Ah… yeah.”

He glanced at Omiya, then muttered quietly,

“…That guy might actually be a problem.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t answer Hagiwara’s question. Instead, he met Omiya’s eyes again, one of those loaded looks he’d been giving all evening, the meaning of which Omiya couldn’t grasp. Eventually, Kitazawa let out a small, resigned sigh.

“…I’m heading home.”

He disappeared down the hallway.

“What do you think he meant? Manager, do you know?” Hagiwara asked, but Omiya had no idea either.

Even though she’d gone to change a little later, Hagiwara came out of the break room almost at the same time as Kitazawa. She flashed a bright smile toward the counter where Omiya stood.

“Manager, thanks for your work today.”

Kitazawa followed with a perfunctory, “Good night,” giving a small bow.

Hagiwara was twenty-four, five years older than Kitazawa, but the two walking side by side didn’t look mismatched. That alone made something faintly irritating stir in Omiya’s chest.

When they reached the store’s entrance, Hagiwara suddenly exclaimed, “Ugh, the rain’s gotten worse.”

“I didn’t bring an umbrella.”

Tilting her head in mild distress, she listened as Omiya told her, “There’s one in the office locker you can use to get home. It’s something a customer left behind, so make sure to bring it back next time you come in. It’s old, so I doubt they’ll want it, but just in case they do, we’ll need it here.”

“Got it,” she replied cheerfully, then turned to Kitazawa. “Hey, Kitazawa-kun, did you bring an umbrella?”

When he shook his head, she said, “I’ll go grab one for you,” and disappeared into the back office. She returned with a displeased look.

“There was only one.”

“It’s fine. I’m going the opposite way anyway,” Kitazawa said easily, without a hint of regret.

But Hagiwara didn’t seem satisfied.

“Still, it’s pouring out there. Oh, I know, your apartment’s pretty close to here, right? I could swing by your place first before heading home.”

“That’s okay. It’d be out of your way.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Hagiwara’s kindness seemed almost calculated. From the start, she had taken a real liking to Kitazawa. Normally, whenever Omiya asked her to train a new part-timer, she would complain, “Teaching the ropes to someone who’s just going to quit soon is such a pain,” but with him, she had volunteered herself as his mentor without hesitation. Maybe because of that, Kitazawa was friendliest with Hagiwara out of everyone in the shop.

Leaving the two of them by the entrance, Omiya said, “Wait here a moment, okay?” and went into the office. From the bottom drawer of his desk, he took out his own spare umbrella. Then, standing before the two who were still lingering at the store’s doorway, he held it out.

“You can use this one too. I’ve got others I’ve forgotten here and there.”

Kitazawa glanced briefly at Hagiwara, then took the umbrella with a quiet, “Thank you, sorry for the trouble.” That should have settled the matter, and yet, as they were leaving, Hagiwara’s face held just the faintest trace of disappointment. Seeing that expression, Omiya felt an unexpected sense of relief, one that he found a little unpleasant in himself.

After they left, Omiya locked the shop’s front door, carried the day’s cash to the office, and made his final sales check. Subtracting the change he had prepared in the morning, the numbers matched perfectly. Confirming again that there was no mistake, he put all the cash into the safe. The click of the lock always made him feel that the day’s work was truly over. He took his bag, turned off every light except the ones in the hallway, and stepped out. In the darkness, the sound of the rain seemed even louder in his ears.

He went out through the back door and locked it, standing under the eaves to stare absently at the downpour, like a bucket overturned from the sky. Spray from the raindrops exploding on the pavement crept slowly into his shoes. If the rain had been lighter, he might have wished for it to stop, but this heavy, relentless downpour made him feel he might as well surrender to it.

It had been a lie when he’d said he had other spare umbrellas. He had the feeling Kitazawa wouldn’t have accepted it otherwise. The subway station was about ten minutes walk from here. He could buy an umbrella at the convenience store along the way, but there was no avoiding getting wet in the meantime. He considered staying overnight in the office, but the thought of the emptiness settling over him like a heavy lid made him abandon the idea.

In the end, Omiya called his boyfriend, Tanimoto Chihiro. He didn’t really believe that his selfish, willful lover would come all the way to pick him up, but he held onto a faint hope. The phone went straight to voicemail, and without leaving a message, Omiya switched it off. Taking one deep breath to steel himself, he stepped out into the rain.

…Since graduating high school, there had only been a handful of times he had run at full speed. Now, sprinting through the rain, he should have been miserable, but instead, some strange, inexplicable thrill began to spread through his body. Perhaps because of that, even when he burst into the convenience store dripping wet and felt the stares of the clerk and other customers, he didn’t feel embarrassed.

He bought a vinyl umbrella and some bread, paid, and was just about to leave when someone came in. Out of habit, he shifted naturally to the right to let the customer pass, always putting the customer first, no matter the situation. Occupational reflex. The man, head slightly lowered as he entered, suddenly lifted his face.

The moment their eyes met, Omiya froze in place.

The man stopped and murmured in a slow, drawn-out tone, “Huh?”

Why was he here, when he should have gone home? Omiya’s mind plunged into sudden panic. Those large eyes looked him over from his drenched head to his soaked toes, finally coming to rest on the vinyl umbrella in his right hand. Embarrassment surged up inside him, making his cold, wet body burn all at once.

“Didn’t you have an umbrella?”

At his perfectly reasonable question, Omiya felt his cheeks stiffen.

“Ah, I thought I did, but… guess I was mistaken.”

“Hmm.” Kitazawa gave a little tilt of his chin. “In that case, sorry for borrowing it.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. See you.”

Omiya slipped past him and out of the store. The moment of relief lasted only a second, Kitazawa followed him out, stepping up beside him under the shop’s eaves. Trying not to be aware of him was impossible. Omiya cast a quick sideways glance at his profile. Their eyes met.

“Weren’t you here to buy something?”

“Forgot.”

Kitazawa said it without the slightest hesitation.

“You came all this way in this rain, just to forget?”

“Doesn’t that happen sometimes?”

“Not to me.”

Omiya was about to open the newly bought vinyl umbrella when, huh? It wouldn’t open. No matter how he tried, it stayed tightly shut, as if under some spell. As his fumbling grew frantic, a loud, unreserved laugh rang out beside him.

“You have to take it out of the plastic first.”

Looking closer, Omiya saw the umbrella was still sealed inside a narrow plastic sleeve.

“Pretty clueless, huh?”

…It felt like his back was on fire.

“That vinyl umbrella, go return it to the store.”

As Kitazawa spoke, he held something out toward him. A black folding umbrella. One he recognized, his own, the one he had lent him earlier.

“That’s…”

“Oh,” Kitazawa murmured. “I was going to give it back, but the store was already dark. So I figured I’d stop by the convenience store, and there you were.”

“You didn’t have to rush.”

“Felt like you might not have an umbrella. Just a hunch.”

He could laugh his head off at him for being clueless, yet still bother to come out in the rain to return it. Omiya wondered if now was the time to thank him. While he was still debating, he urged, “Go on, return it,” and he went back inside. The clerk gave him a faintly annoyed look as he handed over the vinyl umbrella.

When he stepped outside again, Kitazawa was still there.

“You know that guy Hagiwara mentioned? The one still reading after closing hours, I think it’s actually a problem.”

Omya’s eyes searched his face.

“You didn’t notice?”

“Notice what?”

“He had his left hand in his pocket the whole time, fiddling with something. I’m telling you, I’m pretty sure he was touching himself.”

Omiya’s jaw dropped. The idea that someone could stand there, in the middle of a store, using the merchandise as porn in broad daylight, it was beyond comprehension.

“I mean, I didn’t want to believe it either, but his hand was moving in a way that made it hard to think otherwise. I bet a few of the people around him noticed too. Flipping through books is one thing, but having him touch them after that? Nah. Hagiwara’s a woman, so it’s hard for her to bring something like that up.”

“R, right.”

He stumbled over his words, unable to hide his agitation.

“Not just her, any of the women here would have a hard time handling it. Next time I see him, I’ll say something myself.”

“Like what?”

Kitazawa narrowed his eyes, the picture of innocence.

“‘Please save that for after you’ve made your purchase, in the privacy of your own home,’ maybe?”

The sarcasm left him speechless. Kitazawa grinned.

“Kidding, kidding. But wouldn’t it be fun to say that, just once?”

Kitazawa glanced back at him, shrugged lightly.

“If I keep talking like this, you’ll start hating me again.”

Wasn’t it more likely that Kitazawa was the one who’d get fed up first? The question stayed unspoken as he opened the black umbrella and walked off into the rain.

“…Um.”

He stopped and turned back, waiting silently for Kitazawa’s next words.

“I don’t dislike you.”

Omiya gave a strange smile.

“You don’t have to force yourself. I think it’s fine if you do.”

“I’m really not forcing anything.”

His large eyes, peering at Omiya from under his brows, stayed fixed on him.

“Whenever I go into the office, you leave in a hurry. Not as blatantly now, but even when it’s just the two of us, you act like I’m not even there. You won’t meet my eyes, you never speak to me.”

“That’s…”

“You’re weird.”

Kitazawa gave a short laugh, then turned his back and walked away. Soon, he was out of sight, but Omiya couldn’t bring himself to move from in front of the store.

A burst of noisy voices from some young passengers behind him jolted him back to himself. His whole body had gone cold, trembling from a chill that seemed to bite right into him. Even on the train, he didn’t sit, still thinking about the way he’d been called “weird.” The words he couldn’t say then rose up inside him now, along with the same excuse over and over: It can’t be helped. Even if I act a little weird, it can’t be helped. Kitazawa could say that only because he was the one who had done the rejecting. For Omiya, who had been the one left behind with his feelings, the sense of resentment lingering between them wasn’t weird at all.

Kitazawa had said Omiya disliked him. He had mistaken a guarded attitude for outright hatred. Which meant there was at least enough feeling on his side to not want to be disliked, enough to feel put out by it. But if Omiya were to be perfectly honest, “Just act normal” was an impossible demand.

He had been hurt. He had lost things in visible, concrete ways. If that was childish, then so be it, but to claim he bore no grudge would be a lie. If he had never met him, if he hadn’t thrown himself into indulging a junior high student’s whims at the expense of his own job, he never would have had to hand in his resignation. He had told a fourteen-year-old, in all seriousness, that he loved him. He had begged him to be his boyfriend. Just remembering the awkward, almost laughable figure he had cut back then left a bitter taste in his mouth.

After about twenty minutes swaying on the train, Omiya exited the station, its lights dimmed for the night. The rain had stopped. Puddles still dotted the streets here and there, catching faint glimmers in the dark. Five minutes walk brought him to his apartment building, new construction, well-situated, close to the station, with a large supermarket and a fitness club nearby. Even as a store manager, it was well beyond what his salary should afford. Without splitting the rent with his boyfriend, he never could have lived there, nor would he have wanted to.

He took the elevator to the seventh floor, pulled out his keys in front of his door. After hearing the click of the lock release, he turned the knob. The door opened just ten centimeters before stopping dead, the taut chain glinting from the inside.

“Chihiro. Hey.”

No answer from the crack. Thinking he might be asleep, Omiya rang the intercom again and again.

“You’re noisy. Can’t you wait a minute?”

An irritated voice came from deeper inside. Omiya stopped pressing the button. Hugging his rain-soaked, chilled shoulders, he stood there waiting for the door to open. From the time he’d heard the voice to the sound of the chain finally coming undone, about fifteen minutes passed. The moment the chain moved, Omiya shoved the door open roughly.

In the entryway stood Chihiro in a bathrobe, pushing his damp bangs back with lazy irritation.

Omiya’s eyes fell on an unfamiliar pair of shoes. They were too large for Chihiro’s small feet, even for a man. His irritation had nowhere to go now but up. Without a word, he headed straight for the bedroom.

Just as he’d expected, there was a younger man in there, hastily retying a rumpled necktie. Mid-twenties, maybe. When the man met Omiya’s gaze, his face froze.

"Would you leave? I want to get changed."

The man slipped out of the bedroom as if fleeing. The air was thick with the after-scent of their engagement, a peculiar, raw musk that made Omiya’s stomach churn. He pulled a change of clothes from the closet and went straight to the bathroom. He took his time washing, then changed into sweats. He’d thought that a shower and some time alone might cool his anger, but instead his mind kept turning things over, and the gloom only deepened.

Feeling the dryness in his throat, he headed to the kitchen. Over the counter, he saw Chihiro in his bathrobe, lounging on the living room sofa with a beer in hand. He must have noticed Omiya, but didn’t bother to turn around. His composed profile carried no trace of guilt. Omiya took a bottle of mineral water from the fridge and drank a mouthful.

"I called your cell about an hour ago. Didn’t you notice?"

His lover finally turned, tilting his head with a "Did you?" His hair, a beautiful shade of brown that fell to his shoulders, was just a little too light, a color that could easily cheapen a man’s look if he weren’t careful. But with Chihiro’s pale skin and androgynous, refined features, it suited him perfectly. His narrow eyes were now framed by glasses, though he usually wore colored contacts the same shade as his hair. With his tall nose and almost foreign, looking face, many mistook Chihiro for half-Japanese. Even his occupation, a "graphic designer", felt like some stylish accessory attached to the glittering man.

"Maybe you didn’t notice because you were busy enjoying yourself."

The barb was obvious, and Chihiro’s expression clouded with irritation.

"You’re a nasty man."

Omiya slapped the counter hard.

"And who’s making me nasty? How many times do you think this makes now?"

He paused briefly.

"Don’t you have the slightest inclination to control yourself, or at least to keep it from me?"

Chihiro muttered, "You’re such a hassle."

"And what right do you have to complain? You can’t even satisfy me by yourself."

Omiya strode forward until he stood over his boyfriend.

"If you’re dissatisfied, say it, use words. You don’t have to drag men into our home just to rub it in my face."

"Bored."

The word slipped easily from those well, shaped lips.

"Sex with you is always the same. You’re home late every night, so we can’t even go out to eat together. I told you before we moved in, I hate boredom more than anything."

Omiya shrugged and spread his arms.

"I’ve been trying, in my own way. But I can’t help coming home late, that’s work. I spend all day with you on my days off, don’t I?"

"That’s only one day a week. My week has seven days, you know."

The longer they talked, the hollower it felt. Chihiro’s cheating wasn’t new. They’d been living together for two years, and sometime after the first year, he’d started secretly seeing other men. Omiya had been busy with work, and Chihiro’s behavior toward him hadn’t changed, so he’d told himself it was just "play" and let it slide. But the "play" had gotten more extravagant, until eventually Chihiro was bringing men back to the apartment they shared.

The first time Omiya had run into one of Chihiro’s flings at the apartment, it had blown up into a huge fight. But when it happened again, and then again, the shock and fury of that first time dulled into a weary, "So it’s this again."

It had been Omiya who fell first. He’d spotted Chihiro in a club where men with the same tastes gathered, and thought he looked like someone he once knew, the junior high boy who had turned him down. He’d vaguely imagined that if that boy grew up, he might look like this. Now, he found it strange he’d ever thought so, he couldn’t see a single true resemblance between them.

Back then, Chihiro had a middle-aged lover, a man in his forties, yet that didn’t stop a steady stream of admirers from circling him. Omiya hadn’t thought he stood a chance, but he approached anyway, and when, against all odds, Chihiro turned his way, the joy had been almost dizzying. He cherished him, even found his unreasonable whims strangely endearing.

When they decided to live together, Omiya had gone into it knowing that love between men rarely lasted long, yet with the resolve to stay by his side for as long as possible. The first year had gone well. But around the start of the second, he began to catch glimpses of Chihiro’s waning enthusiasm.

He no longer waited up for Omiya’s late returns. Even on the weekends, when Omiya pushed himself to go out for Chihiro’s sake instead of relaxing at home, Chihiro seemed less and less amused. It was natural for the fever of romance to cool with time, and Omiya had assumed things would eventually settle into a comfortable rhythm. Instead, the relationship was only picking up speed, rolling downhill into steady decline.

"No matter how hard I try, I can’t make more time for you than I already do."

That was simply the truth.

"And about sex… I’ll try to think about it more, but I, I just don’t like the kind that comes with pain."

Chihiro was turning thirty this year. Three years younger than Omiya, he was far more experienced, and skilled in bed. Omiya, on the other hand, was the type to stay with one partner for a long time, with so few lovers in his past that he could count them on his fingers. For him, their current sex life was perfectly satisfying. Chihiro, however, seemed dissatisfied. He complained that the gentle, repeated caresses of Omiya’s hands were boring, and sought sharper stimulation. But no matter how much his partner was aroused, Omiya had always disliked any sex that might leave marks on a body.

"If you’re still unhappy, if you really can’t stand it… maybe we should break up."

Chihiro’s cheek twitched. In the two years they’d been together, this was the first time Omiya had ever said the word “break up.” He had vowed never to say it. But repeated betrayals had drained him, anger had given way to sheer fatigue.

"I don’t think this is something we need to redraw lines over. Fine, starting today, we’re just roommates, and we don’t interfere in each other’s lives."

Despite the tightness in his face, Chihiro tossed the words out with disarming ease.

"You think I want to be saying this?"

"You’re the one who said we should break up!"

Chihiro stomped his foot in frustration and stormed out of the living room.

Omiya sank into the sofa Chihiro had just vacated and cradled his head in his hands. This wasn’t sadness, not the romantic kind. The jealousy, the hate, he had spent all of that during their last argument over Chihiro’s cheating. Now he didn’t want to think at all. If only he could truly hate Chihiro to his core, it would be easier. But because some part of him still loved him, the failing relationship only weighed heavier.

He heard the sound of rain. Pulling back the curtain, he saw that it had started again, though it should have stopped. He thought of him, the man who had called him “unnatural.” If things with Chihiro had been good, if he’d felt fulfilled, at the very least, if this had been a year ago… would he have been so conscious of that man when he showed up at the part-time job? Would he have been able to dismiss it as a closed chapter?

But there was no point in hypotheticals. The truth was, things weren’t going well with his lover, and he was thinking about Kitazawa.

Omiya lay down on the hard sofa. The apartment had only one bedroom and one bed. And he wasn’t the kind of man who could sleep easily in a bed where, just moments ago, Chihiro had been having sex with another man.

When Omiya had first started seeing Chihiro, he’d heard what the regulars at their usual bar were saying: “It’ll never last.”

Everyone seemed to know better than he did how quickly Chihiro bored of things.

Even so, Omiya had clung to the hope that he might be Chihiro’s last partner.

What was that hope based on? He couldn’t say. Looking back now with a cooler head, he could admit that he didn’t have much in the way of personal charm, nothing that would hold Chihiro’s attention for long.

Dwelling on it too much only sank him deeper into gloom.

He shut his eyes, but there was no chance of sleep. A faint chill crept over his skin, maybe because of the rain outside.

When he stepped into the bedroom, Chihiro was curled up in the bed, asleep.

As Omiya took a blanket from the closet, a small voice mumbled, “You’re going to sleep out there?”

He ignored it and left the room.

In the darkened living room, he wrapped himself in the blanket on the sofa. He’d barely been lying there ten minutes when the soft creak of a door opening reached his ears. Quiet footsteps approached.

Keeping his eyes closed, pretending to sleep, he felt a sudden, light weight pressing down on his stomach.

“…What are you—”

The blanket pulled away from his head, and something warm and damp touched his lips. Fingers slid through his hair, and Chihiro, already in the mood, tangled his tongue with his. Omiya shoved him away roughly.

“Stop it. I’m not in the mood tonight.”

But even pushed back, the lean body clung to him, a hand slipping under his sweatshirt. When Chihiro’s fingers closed around him, his body reacted in spite of himself.

Burying his face against Omiya’s groin, Chihiro licked his penis with eager attention.

Even after he was fully hard, Omiya stayed still, and Chihiro climbed astride him, moving his hips.

“Ah, hha… ah—”

The bathrobe slipped from his shoulders, exposing the narrow line of bone. Pale brown hair swayed as he moved.

Some detached part of Omiya watched all of this with strange clarity, even as pleasure built. He answered Chihiro’s clinging-kiss, hungry mouth with slow, measured lips, thinking all the while about how this man could kiss anyone, as many times as he wanted, even right after cheating, without a trace of guilt or hesitation as he straddled his lover’s hips.

If it was only about filling the emptiness, he didn’t need to call himself a boyfriend. He wasn’t Chihiro’s pet cat.

That thought sharpened as release neared; his back tensed, and Omiya held his breath.

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