B.L.T: Chapter 16

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Masato Kitazawa bought some beer at the convenience store and stepped outside. The night air was a little cooler than it had been during the day, but still heavy with humidity. The asphalt underfoot radiated its leftover heat, curling up around his feet in sandals.

After about twenty meters, the streetlights thinned and the darkness grew heavier. Walking along the road that followed the seawall, he heard the steady rush of waves pulling back from the shore on his right.

There were few cars, so the engine of each one carried on long after it passed by. When the road emptied of cars, people, even stray cats, the sound of the waves crept back closer again.

Kitazawa’s gaze slipped toward the dark sea. Light flickered between the swells, probably a boat out night fishing. Watching the wavering lights made his back itch with restlessness. He’d spent the whole day diving, and yet he wanted to go in again. A night dive. To see the phosphorescent plankton. They lit up when stirred by movement, when he had first seen the green glow tracing soft arcs along the motion of his own fins, he’d been struck with wonder that something so beautiful existed in this world.

Leaving the shoreline, he entered the town’s main street, lined on both sides with shops. A variety store, a dry cleaner’s, a liquor store, a stationery shop, all shabby little storefronts, most already shuttered before eight o’clock. The only place still lit was the diving shop run by the Yohei siblings, who lived in the house attached.

He slid open the aluminum door and stepped inside. Yohei looked up from the computer on his steel desk and murmured, “Ah, Masato.”

Yohei was twenty-eight this year. His face, tanned deep from diving all year round, never lost its color, not even in winter. He was lean, but strong enough to carry multiple scuba tanks, each weighing seventeen kilos.

Kitazawa dropped heavily onto the worn, cheap sofa and asked, “So? What do you think?”

“You mean that old guy you brought along?”

Omiya was past thirty, so from Yohei’s vantage point in his twenties, calling him an “old guy” was probably natural. Still, hearing it from someone else rubbed Kitazawa the wrong way.

“Think he’ll be okay?”

“Well, he’ll probably manage.”

Yohei scratched at his hair, brittle and straw-like from seawater, sun, and too many rounds of bleaching.

“But two days for the license, that’s gonna be rough. Physically, I mean.” He muttered it, then sighed.

“Yeah, I figured.”

“It’s not like being in your teens or twenties. By the end he was wobbling. If he’d had a more flexible schedule, a three- or four-day course would’ve been easier on him.”

“Doesn’t sound like he can take that much time off work.”

“Then it can’t be helped.” Yohei’s tone was matter-of-fact as he turned back to his computer screen.

Kitazawa got up from the sofa. “Take care of Omiya again tomorrow, okay?”

“Call him Omiya-san. He’s ten years older than you, even if you know him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kitazawa tossed back, half-heartedly, and stepped outside. As he walked the lonely sidewalk of the town’s old, shop-lined street, he recalled Yohei’s word: “wobbling.”

That evening, after the first day of lessons, Omiya had come back and collapsed on the tatami like a slug, completely limp. Kitazawa figured he was exhausted and let him be, but then the man didn’t stir at all. Worried he might actually be dead, Kitazawa had peered down at him, only to find him breathing steadily, brows deeply furrowed in sleep.

They had slept together plenty of times, but he’d never seen that face before. He had crouched by the pillow, touched between the brows as if to smooth the lines, and Omiya had stirred awake. “What?” he’d asked, giving Kitazawa a tired but somehow sensual smile.

“You were making a weird face while you slept.”

When Kitazawa said that, Omiya chuckled softly. Kitazawa had wanted to keep quiet about it, because it bothered him somehow, that even his half-asleep face could look sexy.

Leaving the main street behind, he turned down a narrow, single-lane road, nothing but pavement. Rice fields flanked both sides, already harvested, thick with the smell of straw.

From the second year of junior high until he graduated high school, Kitazawa had lived here, in this coastal town of Miyazaki Prefecture. There were only two convenience stores in the whole place, and he couldn’t buy the clothes or shoes he liked, but the sea was here.

He used to trail after Yohei, diving constantly on their days off. He preferred being underwater to being with friends. Back then, he thought it was just because he loved the sea, because it was beautiful, because there were sights here he couldn’t see anywhere else. But now he understood: it had been an escape. By throwing himself into it, he didn’t have to think about his family, those people who never looked his way, who felt more distant than strangers.

At last, his grandmother’s house came into view, a solitary home standing in the middle of the fields. She was seventy now, living alone. His grandfather had died soon after Kitazawa entered university.

Since then, his grandmother had been living in the detached house beside the main one. It was smaller and easier to use. During their stay in Miyazaki, Kitazawa and Omiya were using the larger, main house.

Quietly, Kitazawa slid open the heavy door with its embedded panes of old glass. He switched on the entryway light, slipped off his shoes, and stepped into the dim hallway. The floorboards groaned with every step.

Sliding open the door and peeking into the living room, Kitazawa found Omiya, whom Yohei had called an “old guy”, asleep, using a folded zabuton as a pillow. He had barely eaten at dinner, worrying Kitazawa’s grandmother, and after moving over to the main house, he had lain down right away. His breathing was slow and steady, the kind that signaled a deep sleep.

Kitazawa sat down beside him and popped open a can of beer. That first sip when the body’s worn out, nothing tasted better.

When he’d invited Omiya to come along to Miyazaki, his boyfriend had nodded easily. “Sure,” he’d said. And when Kitazawa had added, Get your scuba license, let’s dive together, Omiya had looked surprised, but he’d still smiled and said, “Sure.”

Whenever Kitazawa asked for something, I want this, I want to do that, things that might easily be called selfish demands, this man accepted them with a light Sure.

That ease was a little frightening. He liked to depend on someone, liked being indulged, but if Omiya kept accepting everything so easily, then the one time he said no, the shock might be unbearable. Even though being refused was the most ordinary thing in the world.

After draining the can, Kitazawa lay down on his stomach beside the man sleeping like the dead, propped himself on his elbows, and touched his cheek. Gently, over and over. He noticed the small things: the lines at the corners of his eyes, the dryness of his lips, the tan that lingered on his face.

The master at their regular café had once said Omiya was in love with him, so he’d do whatever it took not to be disliked. Even this scuba license, maybe. He doesn’t care about it, but because I asked him to, he’s going along with it.

If that were true, Kitazawa felt guilty. But he wouldn’t ask outright. Because he wanted him to get that license. Because he wanted the two of them to dive together.

He pressed a fingertip against Omiya’s rough lips. The man’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly opened. He stared up at Kitazawa, dazed.

“Tired?” Kitazawa asked.

Omiya’s eyes narrowed in something like a smile. “A little… but it feels good.”

He lifted a hand and stroked Kitazawa’s cheek with the pad of his finger. His touch felt hotter than usual.

“I was really excited.”

“By me?” Kitazawa teased.

Omiya laughed out loud. “The ocean. It was so beautiful. I think I finally understood why you kept urging me to dive.”

“I knew it!” Kitazawa grabbed his arm with both hands. “It was gorgeous, right? Even though training’s only in the shallow parts, there’s still plenty of fish. If you go deeper, it’s even more amazing.”

Omiya, looking at him with an amused face, murmured, “This is bad.”

“What is?”

“Watching you like this, it’s really turning me on.”

The words he wanted to hear sent a spark flaring low in his body, making his hips restless. But still,

“I don’t mind, but you shouldn’t,” Kitazawa said.

“Why not?”

“Diving wears you out. For a beginner the gear’s heavy too. You’ve got tomorrow to get through, if you don’t save your strength, you’ll be completely wiped out.”

He wasn’t wrong. But with those hungry eyes fixed on him, he didn’t know how to resist. Omiya pulled him closer, and their lips met. Even fresh from the shower, he still smelled faintly of the sea. Kitazawa’s protests dissolved as the kiss deepened, thick and insistent.

“…Seriously, we shouldn’t,” he muttered against his mouth.

The words said no, but being held was warm, and the kisses felt good. His body heat was a little higher than usual, too.

“Just kissing…”

The plea came in a soft, spoiled voice, and Kitazawa let him have his lips again, and again. It was supposed to stop there. But soon Omiya’s hand had lifted Kitazawa’s T-shirt, his mouth closing hungrily over a small, sensitive nipple.

“Ah… nnh… I said stop…”

“I’m only kissing you,” Omiya’s voice carried a quiet laugh, his tongue flicking at Kitazawa’s small nipple.

“The tip of your chest… tastes salty.”

“…I showered.”

“I know. But still, somehow.”

As he kept sucking at Kitazawa’s chest like it was something delicious, Omiya suddenly grew still. The tension drained from his lips, from his body. Kitazawa thought at first he was being teased, then the soft sound of steady breathing gave him the answer.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…”

Falling asleep in the middle of this, who even does that? Kitazawa had finally gotten in the mood, and now he was left hanging. Cruel. He felt the urge to pinch Omiya’s nose shut in revenge, but looking down at that face, content, almost childlike in its sleep, he found himself both annoyed and unbearably fond. In the end, he couldn’t do a thing.

If you sleep on the tatami, you’re definitely going to wake up with sore joints tomorrow, Kitazawa thought, and slid in close beside the man instead.

The old house was wrapped in silence as night deepened. He remembered living here with his grandparents, and though he’d never thought of himself as unhappy back then, now… now he felt something fuller. With this gentle man, someone who loved him, who tried to share the same sense of the world, loneliness seemed like a thing he would never have to feel again.

The future was unknowable, but Kitazawa wished it all the same: to stay close, to grow old with Omiya, still together even when they were old men. Pressing his forehead against the shoulder that still carried a trace of the sea, he let out a small yawn.

THE END

 

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