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“Come drink with me.”
Normally Miyoshi would have. He would have plopped down next to them, poured Saku a drink, waited for them to pick it up before pouring his own. He would have talked with them, laughed with them, and when Saku passed out on the tatami, he would have tucked them into sun-kissed futons. After all, it was not that often that Saku needed his company.
But today Miyoshi froze. His mind struggled to catch up with his eyes, his thoughts racing with his heartbeats.
To ask them why they were dressed like this would be rude. He should be glad, really, to see Saku paying attention to their appearance for once, and he was the one who bought those clothes for them in the first place.
The deep v-neck silk dress was an impulse purchase. With a new paycheck in his pocket and the fleeting joy of literary success on his mind, Miyoshi found himself staring at a silk-clad mannequin at the department store, mesmerized by the soft champagne glow and twinkling rhinestones. For a second, he wondered what Saku would look like in the dress.
The thought appalled him. To have such fantasies of the person he respected the most in the world! He turned around to escape before his mind could wander further, only to be waylaid by a smiling sales girl. Five minutes later, Miyoshi walked out of the department store with a paper bag.
He kept the dress at the bottom of the drawer. Along with the matching silk stockings and velvet gloves, both of which he purchased in a similar daze soon after.
Somehow Saku found them. Found them, put them on, and sat there waiting for him while the silky fabric hugged the soft curves of their body, the night breeze caressing their exposed skin.
“Come drink with me.”
Miyoshi sat down and stared at the floor.
Then came the sound of sake cascading into tiny cups.
“Miyoshi.”
Now he truly had no choice. He thanked them, head still lowered, and held his cup with both hands. He took a gulp and almost choked on the lukewarm liquid.
Saku cleared their throat.
“Why don’t you come closer?”
His trembling hand almost spilled the drink as he crawled over. Finally Saku seemed content, and the two sipped in silence, their eyes both fixed on the dancing shadows of the trees in the yard.
Saku told him once that when they were little, a maid thought it would be funny to spook them by casting monstrous shadows on the wall. The plan worked. Saku fainted and became bedridden with a fever for a week. Months later, they still believed that ghosts were after them, a fear that could not go away with the maid fired.
Miyoshi smiled. The air was chilly against his sake-warmed cheeks—the evening gust was gaining speed, and the tree branches swayed to and fro in the moonlight.
It was at that moment that Miyoshi heard it—the clear, lovely sound of handmade glass, crisp even against the wind and steadfast in its resonance.
The wind-chime, he thought, with the summer almost over, he would need to put it away soon.
When he looked up, Saku’s face was right next to his.
They said his name again, but he could not hear it, for he was drowning in the golden whirlpools of their eyes. The next thing they said, however, shot through his body like lightning.
“Would you like to see her?”
He was going to say something, but his breath caught in his throat, and his head began to spin. Something bright was burning behind his eyes, swallowing up the dark nooks of his mind and leaving him stranded on an island made of light. He felt the excruciation, too, of the dead forced back to life and the nameless given names again, so much that he bent over choking as he clawed at his own throat.
Suddenly the pain was gone. Instead he felt warmth. The liquid kind of warmth that embalmed memories in amber, the honey-scented warmth of overflowing tenderness. He opened his eyes and found himself on a beach.
Saku was there, too. They were walking next to him and complaining about something that he could not hear. He watched their delicate fingers gingerly hold their robes up from wet sand. He could also feel the smile on his lips.
But they were not alone. Someone else was there, trailing behind and calling out to them when they wandered too far. It was a sweet voice, full of life, filled with delight, one that belonged to someone floating above the clouds far beyond his reach.
He was unable to turn around.
“Miyoshi—”
He stopped. Hearing his name felt like a stab in the chest.
“The tide is about to come in—” the same voice warned gently before it scattered in the wind.
Miyoshi woke up gasping. He saw the ceiling, and soon Saku’s face came into focus.
His head was in their lap.
He sprung up and blurted out incoherent apologies, which trailed off after he looked into their eyes.
The realization sank in.
He remembered what he had lost.
Before he knew it, he was on top of them and his hands were around their throat. Yet their expression remained calm. In their eyes there was almost a distant curiosity, as if they found his fury amusing and his suffering delightful.
Miyoshi wanted to squeeze until Saku’s legs were kicking and then limp under him, but his hands had lost their strength, so he watched his fingers slither down and hook onto the thin shoulder straps.
So be it.
All it took was a simple pull. Years of self-restraint, yearning, obsession—everything slipped off with the silky fabric.
His mouth was on their breasts, sucking and biting as hard as he could. His nails dug into their soft skin. He could feel Saku’s chest heave and tremble, but no moan came out of their mouth no matter how hard he pinched.
Miyoshi hated their silence. He wanted to hear them scream and beg for forgiveness. He wanted to tear them apart so he could put them back together the next day. His erection was unbearable—he needed to be inside them now. He reached down and pushed his fingers into them. Their body jolted. The warmth was pleasant, but they were nowhere wet enough, so he leaned down and pressed his lips between their legs.
The Yoshiwara trips paid off. Within seconds they were squirming and gasping, their thighs pressed tight against his ears, and soon came the first moan of the night. He glanced up and saw that they had a hand over their mouth. Their eyes met his, then they looked away in panic. A blush was spreading across their face and down their neck.
He unbuckled his pants. Saku’s eyes widened the moment he pushed the tip against their entrance. Did they think that he would never actually do it? Was it different from what they expected? They must have known about his attraction—had it never occurred to them that one day he might just take them like this?
They cried out as he rammed his entire length into them.
He watched with fascination how their small breasts bounced with each thrust. They tried to cover their face with their forearm, so he grabbed their wrists and pinned them over their head. All they could do was close their eyes so that they did not have to look into his.
But Miyoshi knew that pleasure was spreading across their body; he could feel it, too. They were wetter with each thrust, and their body had warmed up to his touch. After all, physical pleasure always came naturally to them.
He grabbed their ankles and bent their legs over their head. The deeper thrusts began to chip away Saku’s defenses, and soon their little gasps became moans. Tears rolled down their cheek—was it pleasure? Or was it shame?
Miyoshi would like to think it was shame, and he needed to see more. He wiped the tears off their face with his thumb. Then he got up and took their hand.
Immediately they understood what he wanted. Those slender fingers began to stroke his cock, yet they held their head low, so he pushed their chin up and forced them to look at him.
He wondered what he was looking for. He already knew that they were sorry—terribly sorry—so sorry that they let him use their body and demand things that even Yoshiwara girls would refuse. Both of them knew that this charade—this makeshift costume—would never make up for robbing him of his light, his only anchor in the world, and all they could do was soothe his burning soul with their frail body, one orgasm at a time.
Did it mean that he could fuck them whenver he wanted from now on?
He placed his hand on the back of their head. Moments later, lips painted red covered the tip of his dick. Waves of pleasure washed over him.
When did they learn to do this? On nights when he was out drinking with Kaji? Or during his short trips away from Shikaku Town? Was it Haku, Sai, or Ryuu? What about Chuuya or Ishikawa—that little son of a bitch was always eyeing them when he thought Miyoshi was not looking.
Why did it even matter? These men, men that Saku could befriend, love, but not really see—they made him weary, as if each relationship or fling spelled disaster, each heartbreak an assault on what little remained of Saku’s psyche. He told himself that he simply did not want to see Saku being hurt again. They had enough hurt in their life.
Yet he was hurting. Even now, after he remembered her—her eyes, her sighs, her tears.
Saku. Drunken Saku lying in a black alley. Angry Saku yelling at him for throwing them into the bath. Ecstatic Saku squealing after Haku finally wrote them back. Saku. Nii-san. The person that was more important than his own life.
Once again he struggled to breathe. Moments later, he came hard in their mouth.
Saku wiped their smudged red lips with the back of their hand.
Suddenly Miyoshi’s knees gave out under him. He dropped to the floor and flung his arms around their slender torso like a drowning man clutching onto the figurehead of a ship. They cradled him in their arms, one hand gently stroking his back, and whispered something into his ear.
It was only then that Miyoshi tasted the tears in his mouth.
“Oh.”
Saku appeared surprised, but there was no protest as Miyoshi pinned them down onto the bathroom floor.
“I…I am sorry, nii-san.”
“It’s alright, Miyoshi. You don’t have to say that every time.”
“Still, I…”
“Shhh…”
Soon the two lovers settled into their usual rhythm. Lovers, in the sense that one of them was in love with ghosts, the other in love with everyone and no one. Such was the Shikaku Town romance.