#17B: FIC: TO BE FOUND NEXT SUMMER ON A RIVERBANK (part II), PG-13
(Part I)
After trainings, Nino often cycled to Ohno’s place with Ohno’s arm curled around his waist and Ohno’s forehead pressed on his right shoulder, which he soon discovered was not so much a happy thing as it was a unique kind of torture, having Ohno warm against his back, his fingers idly clutching the fabric of Nino’s shirt. He never protested, though, because he suspected Ohno had fallen asleep; instead, he focused on avoiding any bumps on the road and tried not to shift too much as he cycled.
Ohno was working on some kind of assignment for school that had to be turned in after the holidays, but he never really talked about it; only made sketch after sketch, sometimes taking out his paints or oil pastels to do pieces that he showed nobody. Nino found himself spending more and more time in Ohno’s shed (which didn’t technically belong to Ohno but was so cluttered with his things that nobody else in his family had the faintest desire to set foot inside), just talking while Ohno fiddled about with clay and wire and paper, lots of paper. Sometimes Nino played his guitar and sang, and Ohno hummed along as he cut up fabrics and bits of cotton and turned them into pulp using an old blender. Ohno had a lovely voice even when he wasn’t trying, but whenever Nino stopped singing to listen Ohno would look up at him and say, “I want to hear Nino,” gentle but persistent.
Dinner with Ohno’s family was not so much an ordeal as it was an experience; even more so than dinner with Aiba’s (which normally involved copious amounts of mabo tofu, and some sort of mystery meat suspended in an otherwise delicious soup) - Ohno’s mother was the champion of the non-sequitur, and in between artfully maneuvering food into Nino’s bowl she regaled him with anecdotes of Ohno growing up that regularly bore little relation to the previous topic of conversation. Ohno’s father, on the other hand, mostly ignored the rest of the dinner table in favour of reading the newspaper, but looked up every now and then to inform them of the next day’s weather conditions, or read them articles on things like the proposal to shorten convenience store opening hours in Kyoto. Nino didn’t see Ohno’s sister very much; in between work and preparing to get married she seemed always to be rushing off, where exactly: Ohno wasn’t sure.
Amidst all of this, Nino was increasingly aware of how these moments were the result of an intricate combination of ifs - if Toma hadn’t gone to Okinawa; if Ohno hadn’t decided to return home for the holidays; if Sho hadn’t decided to take Ohno along to the rowing centre - it scared him sometimes, to lie in bed and think of how easily things could have been different, how possible it could have been for him to have never met Ohno in the first place, to have never felt this almost giddy gladness he now experienced every day. They fit, better than any of Nino’s friends had ever done, and Nino wasn’t sure if he was just being naive, but Ohno sparked within him a reckless belief that they could go on forever.
His sister seemed to sense this, unnervingly perceptive as only sisters could be, and, one evening after curry and a spontaneous three-way Tekken battle she stood at the door watching Nino say goodbye to Ohno, frowning slightly when Nino came back inside.
“What?” asked Nino, noticing her expression.
His sister smiled, and patted him on the shoulder. “I’ve been there before.”
“Been where?” asked Nino warily, but she had already wandered off to refrigerate the remains of the curry.
In the fifth week they started timing themselves for thousand-metre distances - it might have been an issue of endurance, Nino thought; they always seemed to lose concentration two-thirds of the way in.
“Aiba-chan, too fast,” Nino called for the second time, “Slowly... catch! Oh-chan, you’re washing out.”
They were straining; he could tell from their faces, especially Jun’s, and Sho looked like he trying to hide some serious discomfort.
“Keep it up! And now five strokes from the legs. All right, let’s go... catch!” Out of the corner of his eye Nino could see his grandfather cycling on the bank, unusually silent. “Together... catch! Keep that up and stay at thirty through the last spurt... and... catch!”
It was no good; even their rhythm was going, and Nino knew his calls were changing in pitch, unsettling the others further. He tugged lightly at the rudder string to adjust their direction.
“Slowly... catch! Last hundred!” He thought he glimpsed Sho wincing during the recovery. “Keep it up! Together... catch!”
The team with Toma had previously averaged at four minutes and fifteen seconds for a thousand-metre course, and at their peak the previous summer they had actually managed to break four minutes by some miracle that also ended in Sho spraining his back. This summer, though, they had spent a significant amount of time trying to adjust to Ohno, and while it felt like they had better swing than before, they kept clocking timings dangerously close to five minutes.
“Slowly.. catch!” Nino called, as they approached the finish, “And we’re done!”
The others immediately slumped in their seats, Sho reaching round with one hand to rub surreptitiously at his back.
“Ji-chan, time?” called Jun, pulling off his beanie and depositing it into his lap.
On the bank, Nino’s grandfather considered his stopwatch for a long moment. “Four minutes fifty-five,” he called, to their collective groans.
“Good job, everyone,” said Nino anyway, even though nobody responded except Ohno, who gave him a terse nod, exhaustion written all over his face.
“Sho-kun’s not all right,” Jun announced.
“Back’s a bit sore,” admitted Sho, looking guilty.
“And when he says it’s a bit sore he means that it hurts like crazy,” said Aiba, glancing round at him.
“We’ll rest a bit here, and then head back,” said Nino. “Just try to keep it balanced for now.”
“Is everything okay?” asked Nino’s grandfather over the megaphone.
“We’re stopping by the berth,” called Nino, “Sho-kun hurt his back.”
“You’ve got to be more careful,” Aiba was telling Sho, “Don’t overdo it.”
Nino turned back to the others. “Shall we, then? Okay, Sho-chan, keep us balanced. Aiba-chan, you too. Bow pair, let’s go; ready... row!”
Slowly, hesitantly, Ohno and Jun began to move, and Nino kept a hand on the rudder string to steer them properly. “No hurry, we’ll just head back like this,” he said, while Sho clutched at his oars and looked stricken.
When they got out of the boat Sho was bent in pain, and Nino’s grandfather spent a few worried minutes questioning him about the injury while the others carried the scull back to the boathouse.
“We’ll break for half an hour while I find someone to take a look at this,” said Nino’s grandfather, gesturing for Aiba and Ohno to help Sho back to the rowing centre. He turned to Nino. “Start them on the ergs if I’m not back by then, but we won’t do the heavy tens today.”
“So just segmented rowing, and then cool down,” confirmed Nino. “Should we check the rigging later?”
“I was thinking of that,” said his grandfather, giving him a brief smile as he turned to go. “Good work today, Kazu.”
Only Nino and Jun were left with the boat, which still needed to be washed down and returned to its rack. “Sho-kun takes it so seriously,” murmured Nino as he watched the others heading up the slope.
“We all do,” said Jun sharply, running water over the oars while Nino laid out the rags. “And it makes me wonder why, sometimes.”
“Why what?” asked Nino warily. There was something in Jun’s serious expression that suggested that he had a point to make, and Nino was quite certain he wouldn’t like it.
“Why we train so hard when there’s clearly no intention of putting it to use,” said Jun.
“But we do put it to use,” said Nino. “You know, something called ‘rowing’?”
“And yet we keep timing ourselves,” countered Jun, “As if we’re competing with something.”
“Personal best?” Nino offered blithely, even though he knew what Jun was getting at.
“You know as well as I do that Sho-kun isn’t working so hard just for the sake of his personal best,” Jun continued, dogged, “And you know we’d work ten times harder if we were actually preparing for a race.”
“We’re not good enough,” said Nino flatly, now with no trace of humour. “And I don’t play to lose.”
Jun made a tch sound in irritation. “Who does that? Of course we’d want to win, even if it means coming in last at first. I think - and I think the others do, too - that we should compete, should keep pushing ourselves-”
“Then why don’t you?” asked Nino, his voice cold as he turned on the hose and began to spray down the hull of the boat. “Nobody’s stopping you.”
“Do you honestly think we could enter a race with a coxswain who so plainly doesn’t care?” demanded Jun.
“I do care,” snarled Nino, rounding on Jun.
To his credit Jun didn’t even blink. “Prove it, then,” he said.
“Bastard,” said Nino. Then, “Fine. We’ll ask the others.”
“Fine,” said Jun.
“And we can’t just train in summer.”
“That much is obvious.”
“It’s also going to be hell.”
“Of course; do you think I’m stupid? Don’t answer that.”
After the others had finished their training Nino and his grandfather stayed behind in the boathouse to see if the boat could have been the cause of Sho’s injury. Sho had insisted it was just a pull, but they both recognised the need to make sure that nothing would contribute to his back problems becoming chronic.
“I was thinking about positions,” said Nino’s grandfather while they were examining the footstretchers and seats, “We should decide on a new order.”
“Aiba-kun should still be stroke, though,” said Nino. Aiba could generally be relied on to set the pace for the rest of them.
“That’s for sure,” said his grandfather, “But the other three...”
When Ohno had joined them they had simply put him in Toma’s position, but it was evident from the start that it was only a temporary arrangement. Bow required a rower with technique that Ohno simply didn’t have, no matter how fast he picked up on things. “It makes sense for Sho-kun to be bowman,” said Nino slowly, “And to have Ohno-kun be number two and Jun-kun three.”
“I thought so too,” said his grandfather, nodding seriously, and Nino couldn’t help but feel pleased at his approval.
They found nothing amiss with the boat, and any fine adjustments to the rigging would have to be made with Sho around to test it, so they decided to pack up and head home. It was only when they had reached the pickup that Nino finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Ji-chan, do you think we could win, if we competed?”
His grandfather paused in the middle of taking out his keys. “It depends on how much you’re willing to train,” he said carefully. “But it’s not impossible to get placed.”
“Okay,” said Nino.
“I thought you didn’t want to compete,” said his grandfather.
“I didn’t,” said Nino.
“And now?”
“And now I don’t know.”
“You’re the cox, you know,” said his grandfather, unlocking the door of the pickup and climbing in.
Nino smiled wryly as he got in on the other side. “Somehow people keep telling me that.”
“You’ll be going back to Kyoto when term starts, won’t you?”
They were in Nino’s room that evening, with Ohno collapsed on his bed playing New Super Mario Bros. He hadn’t even taken out his sketchbook when he had entered the room, just made a bee-line first for Nino’s DS and then the nearest soft surface, leaving his art bag lying somewhere near the door.
Ohno didn’t answer, so Nino had no choice but to climb onto the bed and prod him a couple of times. “Hey,” he said, rolling on top of Ohno and pressing his chin into his shoulder in a way he knew would hurt. “I asked you a question.”
“Mmm,” said Ohno noncommittally, currently occupied with making Mario leap over a parade of nokonokos. He’d been like that for the past few days, coming in late for trainings and sometimes leaving early, not exactly irritable but rather more distracted than usual. A visit to Ohno’s place on a Monday night had yielded an empty shed as well, and Ohno’s mother hadn’t been sure exactly where he had gone. A studio, most likely, she’d told Nino, handing him some apples for the journey back.
“We’re thinking of entering a race,” said Nino, wriggling off Ohno’s back and sandwiching himself against the wall. “In December.”
“Ah, minus world,” murmured Ohno, moving his face closer to the screen of the DS. Nino couldn’t quite decide whether he was ignoring him on purpose or if he was genuinely absorbed, but either way it was a lost cause for now. Instead, he let Ohno rest his head against his arm when his neck got tired and gave pointers that Ohno did not follow, the two of them lying there comfortably in a not-cuddle until Ohno (and Nino’s left arm) fell asleep.
He looked tired, thought Nino, and between the bits of gunk perpetually under his fingernails and the paint marks on his elbows and arms it was easy to deduce that he was working on something huge. It was now more than ever that Nino realised how much Ohno seemed to drift through life; with him appearing almost to vanish a little as some other project took him away from them, Nino could imagine how he could have ended up enrolling at an art school in Kyoto or taking up fishing in Niigata, stumbling into theatre companies and boating clubs and boys like Nino almost entirely by accident.
And this, too, would end, he was sure, even as he got off the bed as quietly and gently as he could to send Ohno’s mother a quick mail (he’s at my place... thanks for the apples) and turn off the lights. It was this knowledge, as well as the way Ohno breathed so steady and still in the darkness of Nino’s room on that hot summer evening, that made Nino forgo the extra futon and slip back into his bed, never mind what his mother said in the morning.
Some time in the middle of the night he thought he heard Ohno whisper, “Kazu-chan,” and possibly even press a kiss to his temple, trembling fingers threading through his hair, but when he woke up the next morning he was alone, sunlight streaming in from the window and his grandfather already starting the engine of the pickup.
Ohno missed that practice and three more after, sending Nino brief mails that didn’t make much sense, about emergency appointments and getting extra slots at the studio. He almost never responded to any of their replies, and when they’d tasked Sho with going over to check on Ohno he found that Ohno was pretty much never home. (What Nino didn’t mention was that he had already sat through two awkward dinners with Ohno’s parents after being found hanging around outside their gate.)
In the meantime, Nino’s grandfather had signed them up for a Christmas Regatta against other amateur teams, which meant that they were training doubly hard to make the most of their time before the holidays ended. Nobody mentioned the question of who their last rower would be - they didn’t have time to, really, in between the ergs and the rowing and the weight training they were doing. Most practices ended in weary silence, with them taping up blistered hands and shuffling out the door.
“You’re pushing them too hard,” he heard his mother telling his grandfather, while he sat in the kitchen pouring tsuyu on his egg-covered rice (courtesy of his sister, who found it hilarious) and feeling as if his limbs were about to fall off.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” his grandfather replied, “If they want it badly enough they’ll stick with it.”
And they did want it badly, all of them did - Nino knew that Sho was using the ergometers at school when he couldn’t make it to the rowing centre, and Aiba and Jun were putting in more extra hours than any of the summers before. What he was shocked to discover, however, was that Ohno was going for practices with Nino’s grandfather whenever he had time.
“He’s working as hard as any of you,” said his grandfather, when Nino asked.
“Isn’t he going back to Kyoto?”
His grandfather shrugged. “If he wants to train, I’m not going to stop him. He has a good attitude.”
Nino sent Ohno mails every now and then, filled with random reports on weather conditions and their training progress in place of all the things he actually wanted to say - friends from nichidai say hello, read one of them; another said: 4.15 today you’d better be around when we break 4; and a third: raining (-へ-).
And then, after they’d finished stowing the boat one evening, Nino got a reply: are you guys still practicing?
No, we just finished, he mailed back, glancing around at the others. “It’s Ohno,” he told them.
“Call him,” said Sho.
Ohno answered almost immediately. “If you guys are done, you can just go home,” he said to Nino. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Wait, are you coming over now?” asked Nino.
“I am, but you guys can leave if you’re already done,” said Ohno, “I just thought I’d check in case I could make it in time.”
Aiba was hovering at his shoulder when Nino hung up. “He’s coming over?”
“And he’s been training by himself this entire week?” asked Sho, awed.
“Yes, but he says we don’t need to wait for him if we’ve finished,” said Nino.
They considered this for a long moment, before Jun grinned and said, “Who is he kidding?”
“I hope you don’t mind, Ji-chan,” said Nino to his grandfather, “But we’re going to wait for him.”
One and a half hours later, Sho was telling them about the dream he’d had the night before.
“I graduated,” he told them, “And Aiba prepared a huge dinner for us. No, I mean huge,” said Sho, eyes widening comically. “There were giant edamame beans, and giant crabs, and giant daikon-”
“That’s crazy,” said Aiba, “Why would I do something like that?”
“Giant grapefruit,” Sho continued, “Giant omelettes.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you, actually,” said Jun.
“Well...” said Aiba, “If I did it there would definitely be a giant squid.”
“Because no graduation dinner party would be complete without one,” said Nino, glancing over at the door for what seemed like the hundredth time and realising, with a jolt, that Ohno was standing there gaping at them. “He’s here, you guys!”
“You’re late!” called Aiba, as Ohno walked towards them, uncomprehending. “What were you doing!”
“Why are you guys here?” asked Ohno.
“We were waiting for you,” said Sho, beaming. “Let’s do it!”
“Wait, why did you wait for me-” Ohno began, but Aiba was already forcing him onto the nearest ergometer.
“Come on, sit, sit!”
Sho patted Ohno on the shoulder with a satisfied look on his face, “No, no, it’s okay, you can feel moved.”
Ohno was grinning now, mostly in disbelief. “Wow, I...”
“Feel free to cry,” suggested Nino from the other side.
“Yeah, you can cry now,” said Jun, laughing, “Come on, start crying.”
“Or we could start training,” said Nino’s grandfather, “That’s what we came here to do, after all.”
At nine o’clock at night, the boathouse was quiet but for the whirring of the ergometers and his grandfather’s calls of, ‘row... catch’. They had just finished a full day’s training and had another one ahead of them, but as they started on the ergs Nino realised with startling clarity that there was something that made sense about the five of them rowing together, some mysterious logic in that long line of ifs that now culminated in this moment. He cast aside this thought to focus on the solid rhythm of their rowing, experiencing, for possibly the first time in his life, what it might be like to feel complete.
“I want you to see something,” said Ohno that night, when they had been the only two left on the back of the pickup after Nino’s grandfather had dropped off Jun and Aiba.
“What is it?” Nino had asked, and Ohno had given him a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it.
“You’ll find out,” he had told Nino, smiling in the darkness as the pickup stopped on Sho’s street.
Which was how Nino found himself at a gallery in Shirokane the following evening, confronted by the large CLOSED sign at its entrance. He was about to call Ohno when a young lady came up behind him, pushing a large trolley stacked high with boxes.
“Are you going in?” she demanded, standing on tiptoes to glare at him over the topmost carton. “Do you mind helping me open the door?”
Nino obliged, and she barreled past him, talking the entire time. “I know I should be using the back entrance, but they were unloading the lorry right in front of the access ramp and honestly, I haven’t got the time to sit around waiting for Yoshino’s fifteen statuettes to be painstakingly transported into the building - wait,” she paused, turning round to look at Nino. “My phone’s vibrating, could you help me take these inside? Just leave them near the front.”
The passageway led straight to a large exhibition area, which was currently filled with the sounds of drilling and frantic putting up of platforms and flats. Some of the pieces were already being installed in the completed portions of the room, and from another door a group of assistants was carrying in a succession of crates and boxes. And above it all, suspended from the ceiling, was something else altogether.
It was a huge structure, shaped entirely from wire such that it twisted and flared and curled in on itself, and as Nino walked round under it the shapes seemed to change, intricate at each turn. From where Nino was now standing he could look into the hollow formed under the sail-like exterior, and saw that the wires within were pulled taut and smooth in long curves that seemed to recall a boat’s hull.
“It’s pretty amazing, isn’t it?” said the girl from earlier, materialising at his shoulder. “Untitled; wire and paper pulp from cotton and linen. The guy who did it is a bit of a lucky bastard.”
“Is he?” asked Nino, unable to take his eyes off it. The sheets of fibre stretched across the frame were mottled with blues and greys and whites, almost resembling the surface of the water just after dawn, and nearer the inside, they were bleached white and shot with strands of silver.
“From what I’ve heard,” the girl told him, with the conspiratorial air of someone with a good story, “He’s so talented that when he told his university professor that he wanted to quit art school a month ago, his professor made a deal with him - if he could convince the owner of the gallery to commission a piece for this exhibition, he would let him leave.”
“Wow,” breathed Nino. Its powerful lines seemed to capture perfectly the feelings of vastness, of speed, that Nino had only always associated with being on the water. As he changed position, it looked almost like a bird, all blue-and-white glory suspended mid-flight. “And this is it.”
“I guess he’s not going back to school,” said the girl, shrugging. “Fancy dropping out and getting exhibited as a reward...” she trailed off as her phone flashed and buzzed in her hand again. “I, on the other hand, am not so lucky,” she said, answering the phone with a chirpy “Kimura-san?” before mouthing thank you to Nino and hurrying off.
It was a bad idea to stand around, Nino decided, after almost being run over by three men bearing a large plaster model of a convenience store, turning round and walking straight into Ohno.
“You’re here,” said Ohno, looking relieved, before catching Nino by the wrist and pulling him out of the path of a cart loaded with what might have been four of Yoshino’s fifteen statuettes. “It’s a bit chaotic.”
“Tell me about it,” said Nino. “It’s not every day you have to avoid being crushed by a plaster Lawson on wheels.”
Ohno grinned. “Mind you, that Lawson holds deep cultural meaning.”
“I can only imagine,” said Nino. “What’s going on?”
Here Ohno looked uncomfortable. “I need to ask you about something,” he said slowly. “Well- it’s better if I show it to you first.”
“Okay,” said Nino, curious.
He followed Ohno through a succession of partitioned-off rooms, each filled with a range of contemporary pieces, from watercolours of old streets to a wall full of photographs of craters.
“It’s a pretty mixed exhibition,” said Ohno, as they passed an installation piece involving a trampoline and a number of hand-sewn animal cushions, “My professor knows one of the organisers, so he asked me to contact her.”
“Cool,” said Nino, distracted by how animated Ohno seemed in this environment, how he beamed as he paused to look at someone affixing colourful prints to a large board, or stopped to stare at a mobile displaying casts of the artist’s face.
“She wasn’t so keen on my clay figures,” Ohno was saying, “So she asked me to bring some of my other work, and, well...”
They stopped at a small corner partitioned off by a flat. “Here it is.”
SATOSHI OHNO, read the cloth banner pinned to the top of the wall, NINE.
“I thought it was important that you saw this first,” said Ohno seriously, stepping away from Nino.
Beneath the banner were nine framed sketches arranged in two rows of five and four; some were done in pencil and others in charcoal, but all of them captured, in Ohno’s sharp, bold lines, a single subject. A boy crouched by the water with a look of discontent; a boy, focusing intently on something in the distance; a boy, asleep. A boy grinning, something quick and sharp in his expression; a boy hunched in the bow of a boat, face partially obscured by another person’s shoulder.
“What-” Nino began, but the words caught in his throat. He couldn’t turn around to face Ohno, could only continue looking at the portraits, all precisely drawn, beautifully rendered - a boy with his face partially obscured by shadow, expression tentative; a boy by the window, mouth curving into a smile; a boy, head thrown back in genuine laughter. And the last: a boy, asleep again.
It was as if the drilling and the clatter around them didn’t exist anymore - all Nino could hear was his heart pounding painfully in his chest, because there was no mistaking those eyes on that narrow face or the curve of the boy’s jaw; the marks on his chin and on his cheek and the way his brows quirked in a silent question. And the thought that Ohno had drawn these, drawn him, had stolen these moments and committed them deftly, reverently to paper, made something twist and flutter in Nino’s stomach, made him unable to do anything but stand there, trying to remember to breathe, to remember that Ohno was going to leave, to remember not to hope.
After what seemed like an eternity, Nino swallowed, and said, “You must have been really bored.” His attempt to sound casual, however, was ruined by the tremor in his voice.
Ohno was standing behind him now, one hand hovering above the small of his back, stopping short of actually touching Nino. “I suppose,” he said quietly. His face was hesitant in the glass. “Do you mind?”
Nino swallowed again, took a couple of breaths. “I thought you were drawing boats.”
“I was,” said Ohno, “But this was something else. I didn’t think they’d be exhibited.”
He had to go, had to somehow not be near Ohno - but when Nino tried to leave he stumbled directly into Ohno’s arm, and with Ohno’s right hand fisted in his shirt and the other at his shoulder to steady him it was impossible not to glance up at his face and see that he looked distressed, almost hurt in his confusion.
It was impossible, now, not to lean in a little, not to bring his own hand up to brush his fingers against Ohno’s jaw, their faces so close that Nino was trembling from the proximity, pulse panicked.
When Ohno kissed him Nino let out a breath like a sob, pressing back against him. They were used to each other’s touches, tangle of limbs on a cool evening, catching each other’s hands as they walked to the boathouse, but this was different; this was Ohno’s slightly chapped lips against his, this was Ohno’s hand clutching harder at Nino’s back, his tongue sliding along Nino’s lower lip, not quite bold enough.
“Nino,” whispered Ohno against his mouth, “Kazu-chan.”
And then Nino shifted his hand up to cup the back of Ohno’s neck, kissed him deeply and urgently like he’d been meaning to do all summer until he was dizzy from disbelief and joy, the fact that this was happening a winding ache in his chest.
“You’re leaving,” said Nino, when they pulled apart.
Ohno blinked at him in surprise, his mouth still wet, fingers still digging sharply into Nino’s shoulder.
“But you’re leaving,” Nino repeated, and their third kiss was slick and messy and Ohno had a hand in Nino’s hair, tugging him closer until their teeth clicked, but it didn’t matter because Ohno was doing something with his tongue that made Nino shudder, gasp a little into his mouth.
When Ohno finally pulled away his breathing was painfully loud, and Nino was also suddenly painfully aware of two people standing at the partition.
It was the girl from before, Nino noticed with rising panic, and a tall, imposing-looking woman who looked decidedly unamused.
“Kimura-san,” said Ohno, hurriedly disentangling himself from Nino.
“Oh my goodness,” said the girl, glancing at the portraits and then pointing at Nino, “You’re the original.”
“Hi,” said Nino awkwardly, stepping away from Ohno and attempting to put his hands into his nonexistent pockets.
“Well this is embarrassing,” said Kimura-san, voice clipped.
They stood there, frozen for a moment like errant schoolchildren (which they might well have been, from the way Kimura-san was staring them down), before Ohno said, “This is Nino,” gesturing vaguely in an attempt to break the silence. “A friend.”
“The friend,” said the girl, in awed tones.
“That much is evident,” said Kimura-san, and seemed, in the long pause that followed, to be schooling herself to ignore Ohno’s transgression. “While I’m sure you have a lot of catching up to do, Satoshi, the technicians want to ask you a few questions about positioning the lights.”
“They do?” asked Ohno, and out of the corner of his eye Nino could see him attempting to wipe his mouth surreptitiously with the back of his hand.
Kimura-san’s voice was like ice when she said, “They seem worried that the paper might burn.”
“Ah, right,” said Ohno, “That would be a problem.” He gave Nino a quick look that either meant, thank goodness or get out of here before she blows, trailing off after Kimura-san.
“Wow,” said Nino, after they were gone.
“Don’t worry, she’s not really mad,” said the girl.
“I hope not,” said Nino, who had at one point feared bodily harm.
“And you,” said the girl rounding on him, “You didn’t say anything just now,” she said accusingly. “The whole entire time.”
“Sorry?” asked Nino, nonplussed.
“Just now, when were looking at his piece.” She rolled her eyes when Nino merely stared at her. “You probably thought it was really funny that I was going on about how he was a lucky bastard, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“His piece,” she said, jabbing a finger exasperatedly in the direction of the entrance, “When we were talking about the wire structure - wait, you didn’t know?”
“That was Ohno’s?” asked Nino, with dawning realisation.
“Oh my goodness,” said the girl for the second time, “You didn’t know?”
“He neglected to mention it,” said Nino.
Ohno was still trying to explain to the lighting technicians that it would be all right for the spotlight to not be pointing directly at the paper when Nino found him, and when he was finally done Nino grabbed him firmly by the arm and pulled him out into the passageway.
“Is it true?” asked Nino, barely able to get the words out. “Is it true that you quit school?”
Ohno looked perturbed, but nodded.
“What on earth for?”
“I had a semester left,” said Ohno. “And I figured I could be doing something else. And then I got the commission.”
“That’s just one piece,” said Nino, “You can’t just-”
“I can,” said Ohno calmly, “And Kimura-san says that there are people who are already considering commissioning other things.”
“But have they offered yet?” demanded Nino.
“Actually, they really wanted to buy my sketches,” said Ohno, “But I said they’re not for sale.”
“That’s... nice to know,” said Nino, not particularly keen to have any of those hanging on someone else’s wall. He felt a bit cheated, somehow, cheated and delighted and maybe more than a little bit in awe of Ohno, who had done those sketches and made that magnificent… thing that was now hanging in a proper art gallery.
Nino didn’t ask Ohno why he hadn’t mentioned this before; he didn’t need to - in Ohno-logic it had probably made sense not to say anything until it was something Nino could see rather than have Ohno describe, something Ohno had wrought with his own hands between those long hours out on the water, twin labours of love in that short summer. “Congratulations, by the way,” he said, finally, “It’s amazing. All of it.”
“I’m glad,” said Ohno, grinning.
“So you’re not going back to Kyoto?” asked Nino after a pause.
“No,” said Ohno. “I’m not.”
“Seriously?”
“Don’t we have a competition in December?” asked Ohno.
“Please tell me you didn’t decide to stay because of the boat club,” said Nino, so relieved that he was quite prepared to kiss Ohno again in the passageway. Or hit him for not telling them earlier.
“Well, there’s also the fact that the theatre company closed down,” said Ohno, leaning against the wall.
“You’re kidding,” said Nino.
Ohno shook his head. “No, really, that’s why I came back to Tokyo in the first place. No summer rehearsals.”
Nino couldn’t stop smiling as he crouched down on the floor next to Ohno. “Wait till you meet Toma,” he said, marvelling at how, some point along the way, that configuration of ifs had somehow turned into becauses. “I’m sure you’ll get along famously.”
The first regatta in which they got placed happened the following winter. By then they, too, had rowing suits (black and neon yellow) and custom-designed oars (that Ohno had spraypainted one afternoon), both of which Nino had to admit he was becoming rather fond, and a team name, courtesy of Toma.
“Stay focused,” said Nino, as they sat in their starting positions. “For the start dash, row the first five strokes from your legs. Remember to concentrate on your legs. Start using your arms around the fourth stroke, then ten strokes with all your strength. After that, we’ll take the pitch from 28 to 25, and we’ll continue at that speed. Got that?”
The others nodded, their attention trained solely on Nino.
“Row hard,” said Nino, as the announcer finished reading the teams. (...and in Lane 5, Keio University.) “We can do this.”
The umpire was glancing across the water to make sure they were ready. “Attention... Attention--”
“Go!”
Their start dash was perfect, and they sped ahead of most of the others with little effort. “Looking good,” Nino called, “Take it slow! Together... catch!”
He knew from experience, however, that the start dash wasn’t enough; already the Keio team in lane five was gaining on them. “All right, ten strokes full power,” he called, “Let’s go! Slowly... catch!”
Aiba at stroke was setting the pace marvellously, but even at that speed, lane five was coming up next to them, and from the corner of his eye Nino could see lane two approaching as well. “Keep it up!” he called, “Slowly... catch! Perfect!” Lane two was dropping behind slightly now. “Now concentrate on your arms only, in three, two, one... catch! Together... catch!”
Sho swore as the Keio team overtook them, but Nino wasn’t worrying about that. “Slowly... catch! All right, five strokes full power... slowly... catch!” Three quarters through, and lane one was starting to gain speed. “Three from the legs! All right, let’s go! Together... catch! Slowly... catch! One more... catch! Keep that up and stay at thirty through the last spurt!”
They were breathing hard, almost gasping with each stroke, but their rhythm was near-perfect as they cut swiftly through the water. “Slowly... catch! Looking good!” A quick glance to the left revealed that lane three was now half a boatlength behind, but lane one, surprisingly, was almost matching their pace. “All right, last spurt! Catch!” Nino called, trying to keep them together and going strong. “Together... catch! They’re cheering for us! Catch!”
Lane three had dropped behind, but now it was a matter of staying ahead of lane one for the last five strokes. “Last hundred! ” Nino called, “Together... catch!”
“We’re done!” Their bowball slid past the finish line almost exactly the same moment as lane one’s. “Good job, everyone,” said Nino, “That was brilliant work.”
Over at the bank, the Nichidai rowers had lined up to cheer for them, joined by Toma and various other family members, including Ohno’s mother, who had given Nino an extra blanket for his legs, and Nino’s, who had delivered her customary umeboshi before the race. They were shouting now, together with Nino’s grandfather, waving wildly and yelling that they had gotten placed.
A huge crowd had assembled that morning because some idol group had decided to enter in the men’s eight category, which didn’t concern them apart from the fact that there were two hundred excited fans and a film crew obstructing their way back.
“Keio came in first,” said Nino’s grandfather, as they stood near the stands waiting for the results to be announced. “But we’re not sure about second or third place.”
“It was too close,” said Toma, “We couldn’t tell at all.”
In the meantime, Nino was attempting to pull on Ohno’s parka over his yellow one. “They’d better hurry; I’m freezing to death here,” he grumbled. “We should only race in summer.”
“I’m perspiring,” said Aiba helpfully, prompting a glare from Nino.
“You should get some of those thermal satchets next time,” said Sho, crouching down next to Nino. “Or, alternatively, find a way to gain weight.”
“That would slow down the boat,” mumbled Nino from underneath the parka, which he was now wearing over his head.
“Common misconception,” said Jun.
“Does anyone have change?” asked Ohno, returning empty-handed from the vending machine. “I realised that I don’t have enough.”
“I think he does it on purpose,” said Sho, as Toma fished around in his pockets for coins, “Considering that he’s the only one who’s earning an income at the moment.”
“Although he spends it all on art materials almost immediately after,” Aiba countered, “And then Nino has a heart attack.”
“Life is hard,” agreed Nino morosely, watching Ohno wander off to buy him a hot drink. Between cram school and Ohno’s preparations for a group exhibition, they only really got to meet at trainings or on the odd evening. Sho’s graduation, in the meantime, was impending, and Aiba and Jun were already planning something (the ostrich egg was already secured, as was the giant daikon).
The camera crew filming the crowd a bit earlier on now wandered over to the four of them for a brief interview, evidently having gotten enough footage of hyperventilating young ladies.
“How long have you been rowing?” asked a programme AD as the cameraman hovered in front of them. “Are you from the same school?”
“We’re an amateur team,” said Sho, looking absolutely composed, “But we’ve been rowing for years now.”
“Right. Are you waiting for the results of your race?”
“Yes,” said Nino crabbily, face obscured under the shadow of Ohno’s parka. “If not I would be inside, getting warm.” He perked up significantly, though, when Ohno returned bearing a can of warm milk tea.
“This is our captain,” said Jun. “Mainly because he’s the oldest.”
“Am I?” asked Ohno as he settled down next to Nino, looking curiously at the camera but seeming to think nothing of it.
“Do you have any words of encouragement for a team that’s been rowing for only three months?” asked the AD. “From one team to another.”
“Enjoy rowing!” said Aiba.
The cameraman turned towards Ohno. “And what about you, captain?”
“The water’s good today,” said Ohno, after some consideration. “So is the weather. That should be enough.”
“And now the results for the men’s coxed quad,” said the announcer. “In third place--”
The men’s eight teams chose that moment to appear, prompting a wave of excited shrieks from the supporters in the stands.
“--- second place,” continued the announcer,
“Lane four - Arashi.”
♪Kiseki - Ninomiya Kazunari
the end
(Notes & A Glossary)