The Day He Comes Back In His Suit, 2013 (2/2)
Title: The Day He Comes Back In His Suit, 2013
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sho/Jun
Word count: 13,400
Summary: AU. Sakurai Sho is lost and broken, weary of the past and his hectic Tokyo life. He finds his way back to his hometown to run away from everything. But is he really running away…or discovering a new path?
Part 1
Ohno finds him a few minutes later, smoking at the small courtyard beside their office.
“You okay?”
Sho’s mouth quivers. “Shit,” Ohno curses, more perceptive than anyone would ever guess. “Sho-kun-”
His hand trembles as he takes another puff from his cigarette. “I’m fine. I’ll just finish this stick.”
Ohno doesn’t say anything else, looking helpless as he goes back inside. Sho stands out there, the salty tracks on his face rubbed away, breathing the smell of damp earth in, as if to physically will himself to come back to it. When Matsumoto turns the corner, he takes one last drag. He stomps on the still-burning cherry on the ground until it goes out without much ceremony.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Matsumoto says. He’s in a v-neck shirt, a light sheen of perspiration on his neck the proof of his hour-long session with the client. The stark blueness of his shirt makes his brown eyes stand out, even behind the glasses. “Have another one?”
“Think so,” Sho says, as he digs into his jeans for his pack. He hands one to Matsumoto and lights it up for him. “I’ll go back inside and clear out the gear.”
Matsumoto sits down on the crude wooden bench, the fading sunlight casting an otherworldly sheen on his face. “Sit with me,” he says, eyes on Sho. “You’re shit at dismantling the tripods anyway. ”
Sho sits down. “Sorry for that,” he says.
He exhales, the smoke traveling carelessly along with the wind. “Apologizing again,” he says. “You’re allowed to be rude, you know. You’re allowed to feel things, say them out loud. Does it bother you that I just said you were shit at your job?”
Sho doesn’t know what it is, but something about Matsumoto riles him up. It might be his superior tone or his inconsistency-Sho can’t be sure. His hand dive into his pocket again and lights another cigarette.
“I thought you said I was shit at dismantling tripods. Not shit at my job.” His lungs ring at the prompt and unwelcome return of nicotine.
Matsumoto looks sideway at him. “Just checking if you’re listening. And no, you’re not shit at your job, although you did botch one of my tripods.”
“Well that has to be one of the more glittering job recommendations I’ve ever received.” Matsumoto laughs, actually laughs, and Sho is transfixed. Oh. He wonders how someone’s face can come to be so changed in one moment.
Matsumoto takes a long final drag on his stick and exhales. “Do you want to hear about the man I just shot, Sakurai-san?” He flicks the stub away, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“Do I?” Sho says.
Matsumoto looks at him. “Satoshi seems to be under the impression that you don’t understand what we do, and he’s worried.”
Sho can only shake his head, wondering if he’s overstepped his boundaries in any way, or acted unprofessionally. “Please, I’m fine. Don’t go to all the trouble for nothing, it’s just-it’s one of those days.”
Matsumoto only talks when Sho meets his eyes again. “I’ve shot many people’s portraits, and the thing is, their eyes only say two things. It’s only one or the other.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sadness or fear. Either or. That man earlier had eyes reeking of fear.”
“That’s not possible,” Sho says.
“Why not?”
“Not everyone is broken, not in the way you seem to think.” His voice doesn’t betray his doubts.
Matsumoto gives him a look. “Not everyone, sure. But everyone who comes to me, everyone who wants their picture taken, come because they don’t want to forget something important. I’m not saying everyone is depressed and broken, as you say, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who want to remember the exact moment when they decide something that can change their life. Because they’re tired of fear. Tired of being broken. I want to be there when they feel that.”
Sho stares at him, wrapping his head around Matsumoto’s explanation. “How they looked like when they are deciding it-that’s what they want me to capture. Like a tattoo.”
“To me it feels like you’re capitalizing on people’s feelings. You order people around as if they’re just props.” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself.
Matsumoto shrugs. “They come to us. There’s no blackmail or coercion involved, that’s the beauty of it. They want a different world for themselves.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“You’re asking the wrong question. The point is, I can’t look away, I see myself in them.”
“And where does Satoshi-kun come in?” Sho asks, truly curious, yet also unsure how to tread around a Matsumoto that seems to be in the mood for talking. A Matsumoto that he saw being the one photographed the last time by Ohno. He takes a puff from his cigarette, hoping his shaking hand isn’t too obvious.
Matsumoto stares him down. “What do you want to know?”
“Where…what does he contribute?”
“Satoshi just wants to make everything better for everyone. Somehow, we want the same things, but just say them differently. When we found out that when we put together our differences, the images become more powerful-and that was that. It's like he's always swimming around me and amplifying what I want to say. He senses things that I don't.” Matsumoto’s profile is thoughtful, always drawing Sho in. He turns towards him. “I’m boring you.”
Sho shakes his head as he unconsciously starts to think about Ohno literally swimming inside Matsumoto's head. “No. I just don’t get you,” he says, leaning forward on his knees as he kills the cigarette with his shoe. He remembers the fingertips on his wrist, hot like a brand.
“Why? Have you been trying to ‘get’ me?” Matsumoto asks, his face unreadable.
“It’s hard. I don’t think that’s entirely possible-getting you.” He wants to shut up, his pride pooling around his ankles in awkward swirls.
It feels like a long time before Matsumoto speaks up again. “I’m pretty simple,” he says, his voice soft.
Their eyes meet true and good, with no one buckling or looking away for the first time. Sho doesn’t know how audible his gasp is when Matsumoto places his hand on top of his resting one between them. It’s that fiery feeling again, and maybe it was a minute or five, but Sho takes his hand away, as if burned.
All his life, Sho has had no problem saying what was on his mind-except now. He licks his lips. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he swallows.
Matsumoto shakes his head, his eyes cooling. “There’s nothing to say.”
“I’m sorry,” Sho says, unable to help it.
“I told you, you’re allowed to say what you feel," he says, not unkindly. “Tell me what you’re thinking now.”
Still, with those orders, as if nothing happened. “It’s just-it’s new,” he says, breathing out, all honesty now that he’s caught in a corner.
Matsumoto’s face is indecipherable, just as it always is. After a moment, he turns towards Sho. “How do you feel about pasta vongole, Sakurai-san?”
“What?”
“Von-go-le.” The moles on his mouth only get more pronounced when he smiles.
“Vongole? Well, if it’s the clam dish like I think it is, then I only have good feelings towards it,” Sho says, his stomach tossing and turning. But he’s not hungry, not for food, not at that moment.
Matsumoto stands up. “You should let me cook for you one of these days.” Before Sho’s jaw completely drops, Matsumoto adds, “We can make a party out of it, I think it’s about time we had drinks together. I’ll invite Satoshi and Aiba-chan.”
“That’d be nice,” Sho says, feeling trapped all of a sudden.
“Great.” Matsumoto smiles at him and walks away, all steady and confident. Sho’s not sure he would be able to say the same thing for himself when he stands up.
*
Sho feels out of his element as he packs the wires and the plugs used in the shoot, the only things Matsumoto left for him to put away. Ohno is gathering his own materials, separating small brushes from the larger ones. When they finish, Ohno unearths a couple cans of beer from their small refrigerator. Sho welcomes the idea as he plops down beside Ohno on the couch.
The sound of the beer can popping open resounds in the air. “Sho-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you happy here?” Ohno asks, as he sips his beer. Sho looks up and meets Ohno’s eyes, which are serious yet, somehow, comforting. Like an older brother’s, even though Sho wouldn’t know how that felt.
He remembers what Matsumoto said earlier. “Well…it’s different here. But please don’t worry about me.” He smiles for good measure.
“I don’t want to pry, but I know you’re going through something,” Ohno says. Perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't talk much, but Sho feels as if he's been doused by cold water. Ohno has always been kind to him, if not open. “You don't have to talk about it.”
“It’s-I just want to be okay.” He’s never admitted it to anyone else. Maybe it’s the first time he’s admitted it to himself. Ohno only sips his beer.
“How is it different here?” Ohno asks, changing tack.
“Just…different.”
“Bad different or good different?”
“Good different.”
“It’s okay to say that you hate working with us,” Ohno says, a tiny dimple denting his skin. “We’re not very sociable, are we?”
Sho laughs and shakes his head. “Honestly. I don’t hate it.”
The whir of the fan and their tepid sips only punctuate the silence that gathers around them. “I know that you’re still thinking, Sho-kun, about that day,” Ohno says. Sho drinks his beer the wrong way.
“Satoshi-kun-”
Ohno cuts him off. “It’s important that you understand that he's complicated, but so easy too. To a fault.”
That confuses Sho, so he asks what Ohno means. “We didn’t know you would be coming around. He asked me to do it, and I was more than glad to. He wanted to preserve himself in time, the way he feels, because he knows it’s impossible.”
“What’s impossible?”
"He wants to see how he looks like from where he is, even though it's impossible. The intent is there, though."
Sho scrunches his brows. "I don't follow you."
"You know how when you reel in a catch, the more you resist, the less chance of you have of actually getting the fish?"
"Like it's better to follow the flow, kind of?" Sho is lost at the metaphor, but something about the sincerity in Ohno's eyes made him want to understand what he means.
Ohno smiles at him, that lopsided smile of his that revealed nothing. “The way he wants the world is more than other what people can take. I just do as I like but Jun, Jun is another thing. I taught him everything he knows but...he never stops pushing back. It’s tiring, actually.”
It dawns on Sho. “You have feelings for him,” he says, his voice uneven.
“He knows,” Ohno says, his eyes shaded from Sho's. “And that’s enough for me, what we create is enough. So don’t take it out on him.” That one feels like a slap.
"What-why are you telling me this?"
"Jun is testing the waters. Following the flow."
They down their beers. It’s too much conjecturing, too much art, too much left unsaid, too much for a single day, and Sho doesn’t press him for more. His head is aching.
*
He feels torn about it in the morning, as the morning sun encroaches on his half-opened eyelids. His conversation with Ohno meanders in his head, and it’s not the most pleasant thing to think about upon waking up. His life is beginning to take on a color that he can’t recognize. There’s grief-there’s always grief, it’s all he’s known for so long-but there’s also an image there that no amount of sleeping or rubbing can remove from his eyes and his consciousness. Already, he has memorized the smattering of moles on his lips, the particular curve of his mouth. He wonders how different it would feel.
Holy fuck, Sho. Get a fucking grip. Get up.
Sho knows that if he doesn’t, he might start thinking things that frankly, he finds frightening. And so he gets up, thankful that it’s the weekend and that he doesn’t have to go to work, because that presents a particular challenge to him. The smell of breakfast spurs on his motivation; he puts on a shirt and takes that first step back into normalcy. He needs to shake off the pretty way Matsumoto’s lips had curved when he enunciated his stupid fucking ‘vongole’. It feels like microscopic daggers in his heart, an irrational betrayal that makes him sick.
What, or rather, who, is waiting for him on the breakfast table makes his heart leap into his mouth.
“Surprise,” Nino says, his finger curled around a cup of coffee. “The look on your face tells me I’m right on time.”
“Nino,” Sho says.
He smiles. “Your mom has cooked omurice for me. Thank god you’re awake, you can finish it for me. She's now back to resorting to threatening to tell on me to my mother if I don’t finish my food, like we’re eight again or something.”
Sho crosses the threshold and sits down, unable to deny the relief blooming inside him. “You really came.”
He coyly puts his chin on his hand, looking at Sho. “I had to. You got me at ‘weird job’, and I have to admit that curiosity got the best of me.”
Sho doesn’t know what kind of expression he has on his face. “I-,” he starts.
“-I’m here,” Nino says, his eyes true and familiar. “Eat.” It’s the most comforting thing he has heard in months. Nino has always, always known when the floodgates are about to break. Sho gratefully takes his fill of omurice as Nino nurses his coffee, looking as comfortable and as at home as ever. When Sho is finished with his meal, he contentedly pats his stomach and burps. Nino laughs.
“What?”
“I never thought I’d ever say this, to you of all people, but you need a haircut and a shave. You look like a caveman.”
“I do?” Sho says, smiling, because he never thought he’d hear that from Nino either.
“Yes. The burping thing doesn’t help your case,” Nino says.
By that exchange alone, their Saturday is decided. Sho takes a quick bath, dresses up, and heads out with Nino to the barbershop they frequented as kids. He doesn’t admit it, but getting a haircut and a shave felt like what he needed exactly-a clean slate. When he looks into the mirror, he sees Sho. He sees a semblance of his old self, and somehow, he doesn’t look half bad at all, like he’s fine and well.
“Yes, yes, Sho-yan, we know you clean up well,” Nino says, “but is it really necessary stare at yourself like that?”
“Shut up.” And Sho, Sho watches himself laughing at himself. He needed this. He needed Nino.
*
They spend most of Sunday just lazing around at home, which suits Nino just fine. “So let me get this straight-Aiba-chan grew up? And now owns a café?” Nino asks, as he lazily drinks a bottle of cold oolong tea. “And you left your bike there?”
Sho sighs, fidgeting with the pillow on the couch. “Something like that. And yes, Aiba-chan grew up. But he’s still the same, you know? Cheerful.”
“I bet,” Nino says. “I’m not one to be proactive about socialization but we should go over to him soon. It’d be a blast. I’d give my left hand to remind him about his failed conquests with Becky-chan. Remember her? His heroic batting average meant zilch to that girl.”
Sho smiles. “Well, we could.” Then he remembers why he left so abruptly the last time. “Although I don’t know how to face him.”
Nino twists on his back, looking at Sho across the coffee table. “Why is that?”
The patterns on the living room ceiling suddenly look very interesting. “He knows about…about her. But not the entire story. And I still can’t talk about it, Nino. I can’t.”
Nino sits up, his expression softening. “Hey.”
“I know, I know,” Sho says. “It’s been two years, and that at this point I need to be able to face everything-”
“Sho-chan.” That gets Sho’s attention, and he looks at Nino, the one person from his old life that he can stomach. Stomach is a harsh word, Sho thinks, for Nino. Nino, who has walked him through everything, Nino, who never said anything during the nights that he couldn’t breathe through his ugly tears. Nino, the only person who understood what Sho lost.
“You don’t need to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about,” he says. “I know you’ve heard all the flowery bullshit about how you need to talk about it and let go to last you a century, but no. She’s yours to keep. Always yours.”
Sho blinks his eyes, feeling the familiar sting. “I moved away from Tokyo to get away from all that-but I know I need to let her go. I want to be okay. Okay again.”
Nino stands up and squeezes himself in beside Sho in the spacious one-seater. His voice is terribly gentle. “Only if you’re ready. Are you?”
Nino only burrows his way closer to Sho. When he tells Nino about Matsumoto, in his own, inadequate, clumsy, words, Nino doesn’t laugh. Nino only gathers Sho to him, to his small frame, carding through his hair as Sho talked. “You’re stronger than anyone I know,” Nino whispers, and Sho is grateful for Nino, so grateful that he's able to say things like that out loud, even though Sho's not sure if it's true.
They spend the rest of the afternoon curled comfortably around each other, watching nonsense television. Nino doesn't let go and Sho doesn't mind.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Sho knows that she will always be his to keep. But something about Nino reminding him about the fact makes it more apparent to him than it has ever been that she would hate him wasting away for her. That she would want him to move on and not stay stuck.
That she would want him to be okay too.
*
They ring the doorbell. The smell is especially captivating to Sho, who hasn’t tasted decent Italian in the few months that he’s left Tokyo. They’re not even inside the door yet, but the smell of fresh herbs and cooking gives Sho a bounce in his step. “Are you sure this is the address that your boss sent?” Nino asks, as they wait for somebody to come to the door.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Sho asks, confident because he spots the black motorcycle parked in the half-opened garage.
“I don’t know,” Nino says, “the herb garden is a little girly. With hand-sized picket labels, mind you.”
Sho is about to reprehend Nino when a beer-holding Ohno opens the door. “Sho-kun,” he says. “You cut your hair.” There is warmth there that Sho can only be silently thankful for. He smiles at Ohno.
“Satoshi-kun, this is Nino. He’s a good friend of mine,” he says. “Nino, meet Satoshi-kun, one of the people I work for.”
“Hey, Nino,” Ohno smiles, shaking his hand. He ushers them to come in. “Beer?”
“I gather this isn’t the cranky one,” Nino whispers to Sho, as he allows himself to be separated from Sho, on Ohno’s insistence that Sho’s guest should have a cold bottle of Kirin right then and there.
“Jun-kun is in the kitchen,” Ohno says, as he and Nino walk towards the outdoor patio. Nino can only give a helpless half-smile to Sho. “Later, Sho-yan.”
Sho finds himself alone in the living room. It doesn’t have many accoutrements apart from a long, L-shaped couch and a simple coffee table-the focal point of the room is the stark white wall filled with about a dozen blown-up black and white pictures. Sho doesn’t have to look closely to know that it’s Matsumoto’s work. He follows his nose towards the heavenly smell, turning left at the end of the living room to find Matsumoto in the kitchen, an apron tied neatly on his back.
His footsteps on the wooden floor give him away. “Sakurai-san,” Matsumoto says, turning around with a welcoming smile. “You came-ah, fuck.” The clatter of the steel pot is deafening. Matsumoto quickly picks it up.
“You okay?” Sho is a little unnerved by the uncharacteristic clumsiness. That, and the clatter of the steel pots sounds exactly like his pounding heart.
“I’m fine,” Matsumoto says smoothly, combing his hair back and placing the pot back on the stove. “You got a haircut.”
The way Matsumoto considers him makes Sho stuff one of his hand shyly inside his jeans. “Ah, well, the rough look didn’t suit me after all.”
“You’d be surprised at just how much ‘rough’ suits you,” Matsumoto says, his lashes fanned out against his cheeks as he turns towards the shallots on the chopping board. The ringing doorbell saves Sho from having to reply. “That’d be Aiba-chan,” Matsumoto says, looking at his watch.
“I hope we didn’t come too early.”
“We?” Matsumoto asks, as he chops the shallots with a deft hand.
“Oh, I hope it’s okay, I brought along a good friend from Tokyo who came to visit,” Sho says, reddening. “I wanted to message you about it but thought it would be overkill?”
Matsumoto wipes off a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. “No, you’re right. Of course it’s fine.”
“OMIGOD PITCHER NUMBER 3, NINOMIYA! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE JUNIOR HIGH! HOW! YOU’RE SO TINY!”
Sho winces. “That would be Aiba-chan referring to the good friend I brought along.”
“Aiba-chan’s baseball co-captain?”
“You were listening,” he says, genuinely surprised. Matsumoto looks up at him and grins. “Um, I brought wine,” Sho murmurs, steadying himself on the island counter. Grins are not to be trusted, Sho thinks. Grins are evil.
“What? You didn’t have to,” Matsumoto says, as he bends down to turn up the heat on the stove.
“No such thing. Where should I place them?” He sounds surer than he feels.
“Just place them there,” Matsumoto says, pointing to a fancy wine cooler. He looks at Sho after he deposits the wine bottles. “Thanks. Feel like helping?”
And it’s just hard, so hard to look at Matsumoto directly when he has that smile on his face-it’s a smile that’s both all-knowing yet so achingly young. It does something to Sho. “I feel like it’s my duty to warn you beforehand that my skills in the kitchen aren’t top-notch.”
“Just remove the rosemary from the stem and chop it finely. I promise it doesn’t require comprehensive culinary experience,” Matsumoto says, patting the space beside him. Sho walks towards him and takes the knife from his hands. Matsumoto overlooks his first attempts and when it seems like Sho can go on without cutting a finger, Matsumoto leaves him alone. From his peripheral vision, Sho sees the sure way Matsumoto sautés the shallots and his barely affected expression when the pan briefly flames up when he pours the white wine in. Is there anything he’s not good at? Sho wonders.
When Matsumoto places the clams on top of the spaghettini, all Sho could say stupidly is, “Ah! Clams!”
Matsumoto tosses the pasta with superhuman ease and grins-again, with that grin-and says, “Vongole.”
It’s the space between that moment and when Matsumoto grins and when he plates the dishes when Sho thinks, with air rushing in his head and his heart marching faster than ever that maybe, maybe.
*
The dinner set-up outside on the patio is pleasant and almost summery, a rare commodity in Hokkaido. Nino is seated in between Ohno and Aiba-Ohno’s eyes are crinkled and he’s doubled up in silent laughter at the tales of Nino about Aiba when they were younger, while Aiba is whacking Nino on the head as if no years have passed at all. The banter between Aiba and Nino are the centerpiece of the supper, fueled by the flowing white wine.
Sho is only too relieved to not carry the burden of conversation. He’s usually much chattier, especially when there’s good food dancing happily in his stomach and wine to top off his supper sophistry, but he’s been pretty much distracted the whole night.
“And I swear, Becky-chan called him the worst boy on the planet after screaming her head off,” Nino says, to Ohno’s chuffing. “A bouquet of gummy worms with a real one thrown in!”
“Aw, it was a mistake okay?” Aiba laughs.
“That’s horrible, Aiba-chan,” Ohno says.
Aiba shakes his head as he tries to stop laughing. “I was doing a scientific experiment on fertilizer for science class. I swear I just laid that bouquet beside the plant for two seconds!”
It’s the way Matsumoto’s fingertips tap rhythmically on the table, following the beat of jazz music playing on the speakers, and the way it works around a camera, preserving a moment between friends, fingers so deft and knowing.
“So, what do you do in real life, Ninomiya-san?” Matsumoto asks.
“Not that I have a fake life,” Nino says, “but I get by in my real life by directing plays.”
“So you play a director?” Matsumoto replies, his brow arching up.
Nino’s lips curl dangerously into a smile. “This one’s sharp, Sho-yan.”
Or the way Matsumoto drinks so slowly from the flute of white wine, lips misted in alcohol afterwards.
“Did you really just bring out a fresh tuna from that cooler?” Nino asks, his voice high. “And you’re really scaling it here, on the table.”
“Out in the open seas, they call him Captain “Blue Eye” Satoshi,” Aiba says, drunk.
“Aye,” Ohno responds. “Laddie with a pale complexion as yours need a lot of protein, and that, I have, fresh bounty from the sea!”
“What,” Nino says, his voice slurring. “How can you have a blue eye? You’re as Japanese as Aiba-san’s Chinese.”
”For the millionth time!” Aiba shouts.
Perhaps it’s the way he looks at Sho, right at that moment when he’s about to laugh. The way it feels more intimate than a secret. “I’ll get us more wine,” Sho says.
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Matsumoto says, looking at Ohno slapping away at Aiba, who is trying to get a slice of tuna before everyone else.
“Well, I’m still fine. You look fine too,” Sho says, cheeks heating up. “I need to take a piss.”
“You know where the toilet is?” Matsumoto asks. “Just go upstairs and turn left.”
Sho swears at his clumsy conversation and opens the sliding door, crossing the living room as best he can. Perhaps he lied somewhat about being fine. It’s not that he is drunk, or getting drunk, but the slight tipsiness is something he is beginning account for. He finds the toilet easy enough and does his business, but he pauses in the corridor to take a break at the thoughts swimming in his head, assaulting him from every front. Deep inside, he knows he can get down to the bottom of things if he wants to.
“Hey,” Matsumoto says, as Sho tries not to look terrified at his sudden appearance in the hallway.
“Oh. Hey.” His pulse spins out of control, and he wonders if he’s not the only one who can hear it.
“Thought you lost your way or something,” Matsumoto says, his voice, companionable as it has been the whole night.
Sho shakes his head. “Just catching my breath.”
“Let's go get that bottle of wine,” he says.
It’s within that limited space where Sho takes in Matsumoto-the carefree, tousled hair, the horn-rimmed glasses which, Sho now realizes, makes him look more severe than he actually is, the easy elegance of his white shirt and jeans-and think that no, it’s real. That it’s not about him being powerless, but it’s actually him being open and claiming power from that vulnerability. It feels like a revelation. “Jun?”
Matsumoto pauses and turns around. “What did you just call me?” The edge on his voice isn’t lost on Sho.
“Jun,” Sho says. The sharp intake of breath from Matsumoto translates to goose flesh on Sho’s arms.
“I’m still your boss,” Matsumoto says, and for the first time, it’s his voice that’s wavering.
“I know,” Sho says, emboldened by his reactions. “But I like your name. I want to call you by your name.”
Matsumoto closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sakurai-san, do you know what you’re doing?”
It’s a heady mix of frustration and impatience. He takes Matsumoto by the cuff and slams him against the wall-the way Matsumoto grunts in surprise feels like a jolt of life to Sho. They’re close now, too close and soon, not close enough. Matsumoto’s eyes are wide, and Sho just wants to jump into that brownness. “You’re afraid,” Matsumoto says, his mouth dangerously close to Sho’s, their breathing slowing down to match the other’s.
Sho gives up the fight. “I’m attracted to you.” The moment he says those words, it feels like a relief, but he quakes, quakes in place.
Matsumoto stares at him. “You say that like it’s a death sentence.”
Sho lets go of his shirt, feeling his strength wavering.
“But you-you and Satoshi-kun,” Sho says, honest in a pinch. He can’t keep it in; he has to be sure. “I can’t compete with that.”
Matsumoto’s gaze is a minefield. “I would never ask that of anyone, especially of you,” he whispers, his indignant sincerity staring Sho in the face. “We only work together. He means the world to me, but nothing more. Not like that.”
“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Sho says.
“I don’t want to hear that from you,” Matsumoto says. “I want you.”
“I’ve never been-,” Sho mumbles, in embarrassment and desire, “-you’re the first-”
Matsumoto reaches out for his face with a hand, the warmth transferring to Sho. “Do you want me back?”
When Sho meets Matsumoto’s eyes again, he knows there can be no other answer. “Yes.”
“Then kiss me.”
And it’s that simple. Sho couldn’t have imagined how soft Matsumoto’s lips are, how gentle he is, how kissing him back feels like drinking from life itself-no, this can’t be wrong-and he trembles. Matsumoto’s hands claim his head gently, hands touching the shaved part of his undercut, a touch more sensual than anything Sho can remember. “I like your hair,” Matsumoto whispers, and Sho finds his hips and pushes him back against the wall, getting closer, tongues meeting in sparks, breaths irregular and running alongside each other.
Sho does not stop shaking, can’t stop, the geography of Matsumoto’s slim hips and his strong arms around him are all too new, too intoxicating. He kisses him, moves against him. He wants more. “Tell me what to do,” Sho whispers. He sounds helpless to his own ears, and he doesn't care.
Matsumoto’s glasses get all fogged up. He inhales when Sho takes them away, placing them on the console table beside them. “Place your hand inside my shirt,” he says against Sho’s skin. Sho kisses him as he rucks his shirt up, not hating the firm planes that he finds there, warm, smooth skin taut against hard muscles that moved against his hand.
He races his hand to his nipple, ghosting his fingers over it. “Pinch it,” Matsumoto says, and Sho follows, follows hard. He feels Matsumoto almost keel over in a gasp, blood blushing on his face, and it’s all Sho can do but marvel at a man almost coming apart on his fingers.
“Jun,” Sho says, and Matsumoto claims his neck, kissing a spot so reverently, hands creeping in the small of his back, long, male fingertips skimming his bare skin. Sho sighs into Matsumoto’s hair. For a long while, they just stay tangled there, upright, breathing together, touching.
“You,” Matsumoto says, meeting Sho’s eyes as he tenderly brushes Sho’s hair to his ear.
“Tell me what to do,” Sho pleads, catching Matsumoto’s hand with his own and guiding it to his lips.
“Matsujun?” They spring apart when Aiba rounds the corner, his eyes unsteady but wide as he realizes the situation. “Sorry.” He backs away as quickly as he came, disappearing from sight in an instant. It feels like an eternity until they hear the sliding door shut close.
Matsumoto leans his head on the wall, hand shuffling through his hair. “You okay? Sorry.”
“Not your fault, ” Sho says, still reeling in his heartbeat. “Don’t apologize.” Matsumoto reaches out for a kiss, answering and not questioning, never wavering. Sho finds that blood remembers where to go, that all doubts evaporate off his skin with every hushed, shared breath.
“Monday,” Matsumoto says, “go to the studio on Monday afternoon. Wear that stupid suit you were wearing the first time you came in.” Sho caves in to another kiss-"okay"-"but it's not stupid"-and to the smile against his own. He knows that he will cave in for so much more.
He chooses to.
*
He leaves Nino sleeping on his bed. Sho couldn’t sleep more than the two hours that he got after drinking more wine last night, after what happened. His head is racing, even in the pre-dawn stillness. The barest hint of sunrise peeks out from the sides of the curtains as he enters the kitchen.
“Mom,” he says, hugging his mother from the back. She’s already having tea and reading a book.
“Sho,” she says, pleased at the affection. “Up so early? Where’s Nino?”
“Upstairs,” Sho says, taking the seat in front of her. They settle into a familiar silence as his mother pours some tea for him and heats up some miso soup on the stove. When he finishes with the simple yet nourishing meal, Sho feels a little calmer than he had been feeling.
“Something about you is different,” she murmurs, reaching out for his hand across the table. No matter how long they don’t see each other, his mother always knows just by looking. Sho clasps her hand in his. He thinks for a good long while about what he wants to say.
“I will always love her-”
“Sho,” his mother says, heart already breaking.
“-but she would want me to be happy, right?” Sho says. “Keiko would.”
She takes him in, considering him. “Keiko-chan would have wanted you to do whatever you want, whatever it takes, to be happy. She would’ve said so with no second thoughts and perhaps a slap on the butt.” Her grip tightens, holding fast.
“Mom,” Sho says, eyes blurring.
“Live.”
*
The bike ride to the office is something out of a dream-he doesn't remember ever biking with a tie on. In the future, he will remember the smallest details about this ride: his leg muscles burning pleasantly, his parched throat, the way he takes extra care not get rust on his cuffs. When he enters the office, all the equipment is ready to go. He feels silly wearing his suit and tie, but when he sees the look on Matsumoto’s face, he knows that it's worth it.
“Hey you,” Matsumoto says, his hand on his hip. “Come here.”
“Hi.” Sho walks shyly towards Matsumoto, trying to preserve any shred of dignity that he has left. Matsumoto drags him gently by the lapels. The kiss that lands on his lips is sweet and lingering-Sho doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to the way it makes his heart jump out of his chest. “I missed you,” Matsumoto says.
“Me too,” Sho says.
The way that Matsumoto looks at him feels necessary yet so unnerving. Matsumoto's hands stray down from his neck to his throat. He straightens Sho's tie. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” It’s the truth. The short time he’s spent away from Matsumoto, he’s understood that Matsumoto didn’t ask for this as an artistic conquest or a notch on the bedpost. If everything that he believes to be true about Matsumoto Jun after the time he’s spent with him, then he knows that he can’t say anything greater than doing this for him.
“Okay.” Matsumoto gently lets go of him. The expression in his eyes changes, shifting subtly into one of concentration, if not cold focus.
“Stand there,” he says, his voice assuming that tone that Sho has heard so many times but never for him, until today. He follows him silently, standing against a white backdrop where a simple black stool is placed. Sho wonders how answering a random job ad can lead to a day like this, the absurd consequences of little choices that slowly add up. “Sit.”
The whole office is quiet, except for Matsumoto, who is pacing around making final adjustments. When he finally stops behind the camera, it’s as if Sho’s heart stills.
“Look at me.”
And Sho, Sho realizes then, even at that first command, that it’s the other way around. That he wants to be told what to do, that under Matsumoto’s words, he is fully present in time, and all of him and all that he’s been through, all of it Matsumoto holds with awe and care in his hands. He realizes that in this space, he can get to the core of his grief, that he can sit here, in front of a man who just wants to bear witness to Sho, a Sho who is breathing, feeling.
That moment when Sakurai Sho decides to live, captured, all raw and imbued with the fear that nothing will be as crystal clear as this moment-it’s Matsumoto’s gift to him.
He's terrified.
He lets go.
Juntoshi
The Day He Comes Back In His Suit, 2013
Oil and Acrylic on Panel
8 x 5 feet
Description: Photographed man in a suit with tears flowing down his cheek. Oil-painted tree on the background, anatomic hearts, clams, spaghetti, and blood at his feet.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sho/Jun
Word count: 13,400
Summary: AU. Sakurai Sho is lost and broken, weary of the past and his hectic Tokyo life. He finds his way back to his hometown to run away from everything. But is he really running away…or discovering a new path?
Part 1
Ohno finds him a few minutes later, smoking at the small courtyard beside their office.
“You okay?”
Sho’s mouth quivers. “Shit,” Ohno curses, more perceptive than anyone would ever guess. “Sho-kun-”
His hand trembles as he takes another puff from his cigarette. “I’m fine. I’ll just finish this stick.”
Ohno doesn’t say anything else, looking helpless as he goes back inside. Sho stands out there, the salty tracks on his face rubbed away, breathing the smell of damp earth in, as if to physically will himself to come back to it. When Matsumoto turns the corner, he takes one last drag. He stomps on the still-burning cherry on the ground until it goes out without much ceremony.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Matsumoto says. He’s in a v-neck shirt, a light sheen of perspiration on his neck the proof of his hour-long session with the client. The stark blueness of his shirt makes his brown eyes stand out, even behind the glasses. “Have another one?”
“Think so,” Sho says, as he digs into his jeans for his pack. He hands one to Matsumoto and lights it up for him. “I’ll go back inside and clear out the gear.”
Matsumoto sits down on the crude wooden bench, the fading sunlight casting an otherworldly sheen on his face. “Sit with me,” he says, eyes on Sho. “You’re shit at dismantling the tripods anyway. ”
Sho sits down. “Sorry for that,” he says.
He exhales, the smoke traveling carelessly along with the wind. “Apologizing again,” he says. “You’re allowed to be rude, you know. You’re allowed to feel things, say them out loud. Does it bother you that I just said you were shit at your job?”
Sho doesn’t know what it is, but something about Matsumoto riles him up. It might be his superior tone or his inconsistency-Sho can’t be sure. His hand dive into his pocket again and lights another cigarette.
“I thought you said I was shit at dismantling tripods. Not shit at my job.” His lungs ring at the prompt and unwelcome return of nicotine.
Matsumoto looks sideway at him. “Just checking if you’re listening. And no, you’re not shit at your job, although you did botch one of my tripods.”
“Well that has to be one of the more glittering job recommendations I’ve ever received.” Matsumoto laughs, actually laughs, and Sho is transfixed. Oh. He wonders how someone’s face can come to be so changed in one moment.
Matsumoto takes a long final drag on his stick and exhales. “Do you want to hear about the man I just shot, Sakurai-san?” He flicks the stub away, his eyes trained straight ahead.
“Do I?” Sho says.
Matsumoto looks at him. “Satoshi seems to be under the impression that you don’t understand what we do, and he’s worried.”
Sho can only shake his head, wondering if he’s overstepped his boundaries in any way, or acted unprofessionally. “Please, I’m fine. Don’t go to all the trouble for nothing, it’s just-it’s one of those days.”
Matsumoto only talks when Sho meets his eyes again. “I’ve shot many people’s portraits, and the thing is, their eyes only say two things. It’s only one or the other.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sadness or fear. Either or. That man earlier had eyes reeking of fear.”
“That’s not possible,” Sho says.
“Why not?”
“Not everyone is broken, not in the way you seem to think.” His voice doesn’t betray his doubts.
Matsumoto gives him a look. “Not everyone, sure. But everyone who comes to me, everyone who wants their picture taken, come because they don’t want to forget something important. I’m not saying everyone is depressed and broken, as you say, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who want to remember the exact moment when they decide something that can change their life. Because they’re tired of fear. Tired of being broken. I want to be there when they feel that.”
Sho stares at him, wrapping his head around Matsumoto’s explanation. “How they looked like when they are deciding it-that’s what they want me to capture. Like a tattoo.”
“To me it feels like you’re capitalizing on people’s feelings. You order people around as if they’re just props.” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself.
Matsumoto shrugs. “They come to us. There’s no blackmail or coercion involved, that’s the beauty of it. They want a different world for themselves.”
“What’s in it for you?”
“You’re asking the wrong question. The point is, I can’t look away, I see myself in them.”
“And where does Satoshi-kun come in?” Sho asks, truly curious, yet also unsure how to tread around a Matsumoto that seems to be in the mood for talking. A Matsumoto that he saw being the one photographed the last time by Ohno. He takes a puff from his cigarette, hoping his shaking hand isn’t too obvious.
Matsumoto stares him down. “What do you want to know?”
“Where…what does he contribute?”
“Satoshi just wants to make everything better for everyone. Somehow, we want the same things, but just say them differently. When we found out that when we put together our differences, the images become more powerful-and that was that. It's like he's always swimming around me and amplifying what I want to say. He senses things that I don't.” Matsumoto’s profile is thoughtful, always drawing Sho in. He turns towards him. “I’m boring you.”
Sho shakes his head as he unconsciously starts to think about Ohno literally swimming inside Matsumoto's head. “No. I just don’t get you,” he says, leaning forward on his knees as he kills the cigarette with his shoe. He remembers the fingertips on his wrist, hot like a brand.
“Why? Have you been trying to ‘get’ me?” Matsumoto asks, his face unreadable.
“It’s hard. I don’t think that’s entirely possible-getting you.” He wants to shut up, his pride pooling around his ankles in awkward swirls.
It feels like a long time before Matsumoto speaks up again. “I’m pretty simple,” he says, his voice soft.
Their eyes meet true and good, with no one buckling or looking away for the first time. Sho doesn’t know how audible his gasp is when Matsumoto places his hand on top of his resting one between them. It’s that fiery feeling again, and maybe it was a minute or five, but Sho takes his hand away, as if burned.
All his life, Sho has had no problem saying what was on his mind-except now. He licks his lips. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he swallows.
Matsumoto shakes his head, his eyes cooling. “There’s nothing to say.”
“I’m sorry,” Sho says, unable to help it.
“I told you, you’re allowed to say what you feel," he says, not unkindly. “Tell me what you’re thinking now.”
Still, with those orders, as if nothing happened. “It’s just-it’s new,” he says, breathing out, all honesty now that he’s caught in a corner.
Matsumoto’s face is indecipherable, just as it always is. After a moment, he turns towards Sho. “How do you feel about pasta vongole, Sakurai-san?”
“What?”
“Von-go-le.” The moles on his mouth only get more pronounced when he smiles.
“Vongole? Well, if it’s the clam dish like I think it is, then I only have good feelings towards it,” Sho says, his stomach tossing and turning. But he’s not hungry, not for food, not at that moment.
Matsumoto stands up. “You should let me cook for you one of these days.” Before Sho’s jaw completely drops, Matsumoto adds, “We can make a party out of it, I think it’s about time we had drinks together. I’ll invite Satoshi and Aiba-chan.”
“That’d be nice,” Sho says, feeling trapped all of a sudden.
“Great.” Matsumoto smiles at him and walks away, all steady and confident. Sho’s not sure he would be able to say the same thing for himself when he stands up.
*
Sho feels out of his element as he packs the wires and the plugs used in the shoot, the only things Matsumoto left for him to put away. Ohno is gathering his own materials, separating small brushes from the larger ones. When they finish, Ohno unearths a couple cans of beer from their small refrigerator. Sho welcomes the idea as he plops down beside Ohno on the couch.
The sound of the beer can popping open resounds in the air. “Sho-kun?”
“Hmm?”
“Are you happy here?” Ohno asks, as he sips his beer. Sho looks up and meets Ohno’s eyes, which are serious yet, somehow, comforting. Like an older brother’s, even though Sho wouldn’t know how that felt.
He remembers what Matsumoto said earlier. “Well…it’s different here. But please don’t worry about me.” He smiles for good measure.
“I don’t want to pry, but I know you’re going through something,” Ohno says. Perhaps it's the fact that he doesn't talk much, but Sho feels as if he's been doused by cold water. Ohno has always been kind to him, if not open. “You don't have to talk about it.”
“It’s-I just want to be okay.” He’s never admitted it to anyone else. Maybe it’s the first time he’s admitted it to himself. Ohno only sips his beer.
“How is it different here?” Ohno asks, changing tack.
“Just…different.”
“Bad different or good different?”
“Good different.”
“It’s okay to say that you hate working with us,” Ohno says, a tiny dimple denting his skin. “We’re not very sociable, are we?”
Sho laughs and shakes his head. “Honestly. I don’t hate it.”
The whir of the fan and their tepid sips only punctuate the silence that gathers around them. “I know that you’re still thinking, Sho-kun, about that day,” Ohno says. Sho drinks his beer the wrong way.
“Satoshi-kun-”
Ohno cuts him off. “It’s important that you understand that he's complicated, but so easy too. To a fault.”
That confuses Sho, so he asks what Ohno means. “We didn’t know you would be coming around. He asked me to do it, and I was more than glad to. He wanted to preserve himself in time, the way he feels, because he knows it’s impossible.”
“What’s impossible?”
"He wants to see how he looks like from where he is, even though it's impossible. The intent is there, though."
Sho scrunches his brows. "I don't follow you."
"You know how when you reel in a catch, the more you resist, the less chance of you have of actually getting the fish?"
"Like it's better to follow the flow, kind of?" Sho is lost at the metaphor, but something about the sincerity in Ohno's eyes made him want to understand what he means.
Ohno smiles at him, that lopsided smile of his that revealed nothing. “The way he wants the world is more than other what people can take. I just do as I like but Jun, Jun is another thing. I taught him everything he knows but...he never stops pushing back. It’s tiring, actually.”
It dawns on Sho. “You have feelings for him,” he says, his voice uneven.
“He knows,” Ohno says, his eyes shaded from Sho's. “And that’s enough for me, what we create is enough. So don’t take it out on him.” That one feels like a slap.
"What-why are you telling me this?"
"Jun is testing the waters. Following the flow."
They down their beers. It’s too much conjecturing, too much art, too much left unsaid, too much for a single day, and Sho doesn’t press him for more. His head is aching.
*
He feels torn about it in the morning, as the morning sun encroaches on his half-opened eyelids. His conversation with Ohno meanders in his head, and it’s not the most pleasant thing to think about upon waking up. His life is beginning to take on a color that he can’t recognize. There’s grief-there’s always grief, it’s all he’s known for so long-but there’s also an image there that no amount of sleeping or rubbing can remove from his eyes and his consciousness. Already, he has memorized the smattering of moles on his lips, the particular curve of his mouth. He wonders how different it would feel.
Holy fuck, Sho. Get a fucking grip. Get up.
Sho knows that if he doesn’t, he might start thinking things that frankly, he finds frightening. And so he gets up, thankful that it’s the weekend and that he doesn’t have to go to work, because that presents a particular challenge to him. The smell of breakfast spurs on his motivation; he puts on a shirt and takes that first step back into normalcy. He needs to shake off the pretty way Matsumoto’s lips had curved when he enunciated his stupid fucking ‘vongole’. It feels like microscopic daggers in his heart, an irrational betrayal that makes him sick.
What, or rather, who, is waiting for him on the breakfast table makes his heart leap into his mouth.
“Surprise,” Nino says, his finger curled around a cup of coffee. “The look on your face tells me I’m right on time.”
“Nino,” Sho says.
He smiles. “Your mom has cooked omurice for me. Thank god you’re awake, you can finish it for me. She's now back to resorting to threatening to tell on me to my mother if I don’t finish my food, like we’re eight again or something.”
Sho crosses the threshold and sits down, unable to deny the relief blooming inside him. “You really came.”
He coyly puts his chin on his hand, looking at Sho. “I had to. You got me at ‘weird job’, and I have to admit that curiosity got the best of me.”
Sho doesn’t know what kind of expression he has on his face. “I-,” he starts.
“-I’m here,” Nino says, his eyes true and familiar. “Eat.” It’s the most comforting thing he has heard in months. Nino has always, always known when the floodgates are about to break. Sho gratefully takes his fill of omurice as Nino nurses his coffee, looking as comfortable and as at home as ever. When Sho is finished with his meal, he contentedly pats his stomach and burps. Nino laughs.
“What?”
“I never thought I’d ever say this, to you of all people, but you need a haircut and a shave. You look like a caveman.”
“I do?” Sho says, smiling, because he never thought he’d hear that from Nino either.
“Yes. The burping thing doesn’t help your case,” Nino says.
By that exchange alone, their Saturday is decided. Sho takes a quick bath, dresses up, and heads out with Nino to the barbershop they frequented as kids. He doesn’t admit it, but getting a haircut and a shave felt like what he needed exactly-a clean slate. When he looks into the mirror, he sees Sho. He sees a semblance of his old self, and somehow, he doesn’t look half bad at all, like he’s fine and well.
“Yes, yes, Sho-yan, we know you clean up well,” Nino says, “but is it really necessary stare at yourself like that?”
“Shut up.” And Sho, Sho watches himself laughing at himself. He needed this. He needed Nino.
*
They spend most of Sunday just lazing around at home, which suits Nino just fine. “So let me get this straight-Aiba-chan grew up? And now owns a café?” Nino asks, as he lazily drinks a bottle of cold oolong tea. “And you left your bike there?”
Sho sighs, fidgeting with the pillow on the couch. “Something like that. And yes, Aiba-chan grew up. But he’s still the same, you know? Cheerful.”
“I bet,” Nino says. “I’m not one to be proactive about socialization but we should go over to him soon. It’d be a blast. I’d give my left hand to remind him about his failed conquests with Becky-chan. Remember her? His heroic batting average meant zilch to that girl.”
Sho smiles. “Well, we could.” Then he remembers why he left so abruptly the last time. “Although I don’t know how to face him.”
Nino twists on his back, looking at Sho across the coffee table. “Why is that?”
The patterns on the living room ceiling suddenly look very interesting. “He knows about…about her. But not the entire story. And I still can’t talk about it, Nino. I can’t.”
Nino sits up, his expression softening. “Hey.”
“I know, I know,” Sho says. “It’s been two years, and that at this point I need to be able to face everything-”
“Sho-chan.” That gets Sho’s attention, and he looks at Nino, the one person from his old life that he can stomach. Stomach is a harsh word, Sho thinks, for Nino. Nino, who has walked him through everything, Nino, who never said anything during the nights that he couldn’t breathe through his ugly tears. Nino, the only person who understood what Sho lost.
“You don’t need to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about,” he says. “I know you’ve heard all the flowery bullshit about how you need to talk about it and let go to last you a century, but no. She’s yours to keep. Always yours.”
Sho blinks his eyes, feeling the familiar sting. “I moved away from Tokyo to get away from all that-but I know I need to let her go. I want to be okay. Okay again.”
Nino stands up and squeezes himself in beside Sho in the spacious one-seater. His voice is terribly gentle. “Only if you’re ready. Are you?”
Nino only burrows his way closer to Sho. When he tells Nino about Matsumoto, in his own, inadequate, clumsy, words, Nino doesn’t laugh. Nino only gathers Sho to him, to his small frame, carding through his hair as Sho talked. “You’re stronger than anyone I know,” Nino whispers, and Sho is grateful for Nino, so grateful that he's able to say things like that out loud, even though Sho's not sure if it's true.
They spend the rest of the afternoon curled comfortably around each other, watching nonsense television. Nino doesn't let go and Sho doesn't mind.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Sho knows that she will always be his to keep. But something about Nino reminding him about the fact makes it more apparent to him than it has ever been that she would hate him wasting away for her. That she would want him to move on and not stay stuck.
That she would want him to be okay too.
*
They ring the doorbell. The smell is especially captivating to Sho, who hasn’t tasted decent Italian in the few months that he’s left Tokyo. They’re not even inside the door yet, but the smell of fresh herbs and cooking gives Sho a bounce in his step. “Are you sure this is the address that your boss sent?” Nino asks, as they wait for somebody to come to the door.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Sho asks, confident because he spots the black motorcycle parked in the half-opened garage.
“I don’t know,” Nino says, “the herb garden is a little girly. With hand-sized picket labels, mind you.”
Sho is about to reprehend Nino when a beer-holding Ohno opens the door. “Sho-kun,” he says. “You cut your hair.” There is warmth there that Sho can only be silently thankful for. He smiles at Ohno.
“Satoshi-kun, this is Nino. He’s a good friend of mine,” he says. “Nino, meet Satoshi-kun, one of the people I work for.”
“Hey, Nino,” Ohno smiles, shaking his hand. He ushers them to come in. “Beer?”
“I gather this isn’t the cranky one,” Nino whispers to Sho, as he allows himself to be separated from Sho, on Ohno’s insistence that Sho’s guest should have a cold bottle of Kirin right then and there.
“Jun-kun is in the kitchen,” Ohno says, as he and Nino walk towards the outdoor patio. Nino can only give a helpless half-smile to Sho. “Later, Sho-yan.”
Sho finds himself alone in the living room. It doesn’t have many accoutrements apart from a long, L-shaped couch and a simple coffee table-the focal point of the room is the stark white wall filled with about a dozen blown-up black and white pictures. Sho doesn’t have to look closely to know that it’s Matsumoto’s work. He follows his nose towards the heavenly smell, turning left at the end of the living room to find Matsumoto in the kitchen, an apron tied neatly on his back.
His footsteps on the wooden floor give him away. “Sakurai-san,” Matsumoto says, turning around with a welcoming smile. “You came-ah, fuck.” The clatter of the steel pot is deafening. Matsumoto quickly picks it up.
“You okay?” Sho is a little unnerved by the uncharacteristic clumsiness. That, and the clatter of the steel pots sounds exactly like his pounding heart.
“I’m fine,” Matsumoto says smoothly, combing his hair back and placing the pot back on the stove. “You got a haircut.”
The way Matsumoto considers him makes Sho stuff one of his hand shyly inside his jeans. “Ah, well, the rough look didn’t suit me after all.”
“You’d be surprised at just how much ‘rough’ suits you,” Matsumoto says, his lashes fanned out against his cheeks as he turns towards the shallots on the chopping board. The ringing doorbell saves Sho from having to reply. “That’d be Aiba-chan,” Matsumoto says, looking at his watch.
“I hope we didn’t come too early.”
“We?” Matsumoto asks, as he chops the shallots with a deft hand.
“Oh, I hope it’s okay, I brought along a good friend from Tokyo who came to visit,” Sho says, reddening. “I wanted to message you about it but thought it would be overkill?”
Matsumoto wipes off a bead of sweat trickling down his forehead. “No, you’re right. Of course it’s fine.”
“OMIGOD PITCHER NUMBER 3, NINOMIYA! I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE JUNIOR HIGH! HOW! YOU’RE SO TINY!”
Sho winces. “That would be Aiba-chan referring to the good friend I brought along.”
“Aiba-chan’s baseball co-captain?”
“You were listening,” he says, genuinely surprised. Matsumoto looks up at him and grins. “Um, I brought wine,” Sho murmurs, steadying himself on the island counter. Grins are not to be trusted, Sho thinks. Grins are evil.
“What? You didn’t have to,” Matsumoto says, as he bends down to turn up the heat on the stove.
“No such thing. Where should I place them?” He sounds surer than he feels.
“Just place them there,” Matsumoto says, pointing to a fancy wine cooler. He looks at Sho after he deposits the wine bottles. “Thanks. Feel like helping?”
And it’s just hard, so hard to look at Matsumoto directly when he has that smile on his face-it’s a smile that’s both all-knowing yet so achingly young. It does something to Sho. “I feel like it’s my duty to warn you beforehand that my skills in the kitchen aren’t top-notch.”
“Just remove the rosemary from the stem and chop it finely. I promise it doesn’t require comprehensive culinary experience,” Matsumoto says, patting the space beside him. Sho walks towards him and takes the knife from his hands. Matsumoto overlooks his first attempts and when it seems like Sho can go on without cutting a finger, Matsumoto leaves him alone. From his peripheral vision, Sho sees the sure way Matsumoto sautés the shallots and his barely affected expression when the pan briefly flames up when he pours the white wine in. Is there anything he’s not good at? Sho wonders.
When Matsumoto places the clams on top of the spaghettini, all Sho could say stupidly is, “Ah! Clams!”
Matsumoto tosses the pasta with superhuman ease and grins-again, with that grin-and says, “Vongole.”
It’s the space between that moment and when Matsumoto grins and when he plates the dishes when Sho thinks, with air rushing in his head and his heart marching faster than ever that maybe, maybe.
*
The dinner set-up outside on the patio is pleasant and almost summery, a rare commodity in Hokkaido. Nino is seated in between Ohno and Aiba-Ohno’s eyes are crinkled and he’s doubled up in silent laughter at the tales of Nino about Aiba when they were younger, while Aiba is whacking Nino on the head as if no years have passed at all. The banter between Aiba and Nino are the centerpiece of the supper, fueled by the flowing white wine.
Sho is only too relieved to not carry the burden of conversation. He’s usually much chattier, especially when there’s good food dancing happily in his stomach and wine to top off his supper sophistry, but he’s been pretty much distracted the whole night.
“And I swear, Becky-chan called him the worst boy on the planet after screaming her head off,” Nino says, to Ohno’s chuffing. “A bouquet of gummy worms with a real one thrown in!”
“Aw, it was a mistake okay?” Aiba laughs.
“That’s horrible, Aiba-chan,” Ohno says.
Aiba shakes his head as he tries to stop laughing. “I was doing a scientific experiment on fertilizer for science class. I swear I just laid that bouquet beside the plant for two seconds!”
It’s the way Matsumoto’s fingertips tap rhythmically on the table, following the beat of jazz music playing on the speakers, and the way it works around a camera, preserving a moment between friends, fingers so deft and knowing.
“So, what do you do in real life, Ninomiya-san?” Matsumoto asks.
“Not that I have a fake life,” Nino says, “but I get by in my real life by directing plays.”
“So you play a director?” Matsumoto replies, his brow arching up.
Nino’s lips curl dangerously into a smile. “This one’s sharp, Sho-yan.”
Or the way Matsumoto drinks so slowly from the flute of white wine, lips misted in alcohol afterwards.
“Did you really just bring out a fresh tuna from that cooler?” Nino asks, his voice high. “And you’re really scaling it here, on the table.”
“Out in the open seas, they call him Captain “Blue Eye” Satoshi,” Aiba says, drunk.
“Aye,” Ohno responds. “Laddie with a pale complexion as yours need a lot of protein, and that, I have, fresh bounty from the sea!”
“What,” Nino says, his voice slurring. “How can you have a blue eye? You’re as Japanese as Aiba-san’s Chinese.”
”For the millionth time!” Aiba shouts.
Perhaps it’s the way he looks at Sho, right at that moment when he’s about to laugh. The way it feels more intimate than a secret. “I’ll get us more wine,” Sho says.
“I don’t know if that’s wise,” Matsumoto says, looking at Ohno slapping away at Aiba, who is trying to get a slice of tuna before everyone else.
“Well, I’m still fine. You look fine too,” Sho says, cheeks heating up. “I need to take a piss.”
“You know where the toilet is?” Matsumoto asks. “Just go upstairs and turn left.”
Sho swears at his clumsy conversation and opens the sliding door, crossing the living room as best he can. Perhaps he lied somewhat about being fine. It’s not that he is drunk, or getting drunk, but the slight tipsiness is something he is beginning account for. He finds the toilet easy enough and does his business, but he pauses in the corridor to take a break at the thoughts swimming in his head, assaulting him from every front. Deep inside, he knows he can get down to the bottom of things if he wants to.
“Hey,” Matsumoto says, as Sho tries not to look terrified at his sudden appearance in the hallway.
“Oh. Hey.” His pulse spins out of control, and he wonders if he’s not the only one who can hear it.
“Thought you lost your way or something,” Matsumoto says, his voice, companionable as it has been the whole night.
Sho shakes his head. “Just catching my breath.”
“Let's go get that bottle of wine,” he says.
It’s within that limited space where Sho takes in Matsumoto-the carefree, tousled hair, the horn-rimmed glasses which, Sho now realizes, makes him look more severe than he actually is, the easy elegance of his white shirt and jeans-and think that no, it’s real. That it’s not about him being powerless, but it’s actually him being open and claiming power from that vulnerability. It feels like a revelation. “Jun?”
Matsumoto pauses and turns around. “What did you just call me?” The edge on his voice isn’t lost on Sho.
“Jun,” Sho says. The sharp intake of breath from Matsumoto translates to goose flesh on Sho’s arms.
“I’m still your boss,” Matsumoto says, and for the first time, it’s his voice that’s wavering.
“I know,” Sho says, emboldened by his reactions. “But I like your name. I want to call you by your name.”
Matsumoto closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Sakurai-san, do you know what you’re doing?”
It’s a heady mix of frustration and impatience. He takes Matsumoto by the cuff and slams him against the wall-the way Matsumoto grunts in surprise feels like a jolt of life to Sho. They’re close now, too close and soon, not close enough. Matsumoto’s eyes are wide, and Sho just wants to jump into that brownness. “You’re afraid,” Matsumoto says, his mouth dangerously close to Sho’s, their breathing slowing down to match the other’s.
Sho gives up the fight. “I’m attracted to you.” The moment he says those words, it feels like a relief, but he quakes, quakes in place.
Matsumoto stares at him. “You say that like it’s a death sentence.”
Sho lets go of his shirt, feeling his strength wavering.
“But you-you and Satoshi-kun,” Sho says, honest in a pinch. He can’t keep it in; he has to be sure. “I can’t compete with that.”
Matsumoto’s gaze is a minefield. “I would never ask that of anyone, especially of you,” he whispers, his indignant sincerity staring Sho in the face. “We only work together. He means the world to me, but nothing more. Not like that.”
“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Sho says.
“I don’t want to hear that from you,” Matsumoto says. “I want you.”
“I’ve never been-,” Sho mumbles, in embarrassment and desire, “-you’re the first-”
Matsumoto reaches out for his face with a hand, the warmth transferring to Sho. “Do you want me back?”
When Sho meets Matsumoto’s eyes again, he knows there can be no other answer. “Yes.”
“Then kiss me.”
And it’s that simple. Sho couldn’t have imagined how soft Matsumoto’s lips are, how gentle he is, how kissing him back feels like drinking from life itself-no, this can’t be wrong-and he trembles. Matsumoto’s hands claim his head gently, hands touching the shaved part of his undercut, a touch more sensual than anything Sho can remember. “I like your hair,” Matsumoto whispers, and Sho finds his hips and pushes him back against the wall, getting closer, tongues meeting in sparks, breaths irregular and running alongside each other.
Sho does not stop shaking, can’t stop, the geography of Matsumoto’s slim hips and his strong arms around him are all too new, too intoxicating. He kisses him, moves against him. He wants more. “Tell me what to do,” Sho whispers. He sounds helpless to his own ears, and he doesn't care.
Matsumoto’s glasses get all fogged up. He inhales when Sho takes them away, placing them on the console table beside them. “Place your hand inside my shirt,” he says against Sho’s skin. Sho kisses him as he rucks his shirt up, not hating the firm planes that he finds there, warm, smooth skin taut against hard muscles that moved against his hand.
He races his hand to his nipple, ghosting his fingers over it. “Pinch it,” Matsumoto says, and Sho follows, follows hard. He feels Matsumoto almost keel over in a gasp, blood blushing on his face, and it’s all Sho can do but marvel at a man almost coming apart on his fingers.
“Jun,” Sho says, and Matsumoto claims his neck, kissing a spot so reverently, hands creeping in the small of his back, long, male fingertips skimming his bare skin. Sho sighs into Matsumoto’s hair. For a long while, they just stay tangled there, upright, breathing together, touching.
“You,” Matsumoto says, meeting Sho’s eyes as he tenderly brushes Sho’s hair to his ear.
“Tell me what to do,” Sho pleads, catching Matsumoto’s hand with his own and guiding it to his lips.
“Matsujun?” They spring apart when Aiba rounds the corner, his eyes unsteady but wide as he realizes the situation. “Sorry.” He backs away as quickly as he came, disappearing from sight in an instant. It feels like an eternity until they hear the sliding door shut close.
Matsumoto leans his head on the wall, hand shuffling through his hair. “You okay? Sorry.”
“Not your fault, ” Sho says, still reeling in his heartbeat. “Don’t apologize.” Matsumoto reaches out for a kiss, answering and not questioning, never wavering. Sho finds that blood remembers where to go, that all doubts evaporate off his skin with every hushed, shared breath.
“Monday,” Matsumoto says, “go to the studio on Monday afternoon. Wear that stupid suit you were wearing the first time you came in.” Sho caves in to another kiss-"okay"-"but it's not stupid"-and to the smile against his own. He knows that he will cave in for so much more.
He chooses to.
*
He leaves Nino sleeping on his bed. Sho couldn’t sleep more than the two hours that he got after drinking more wine last night, after what happened. His head is racing, even in the pre-dawn stillness. The barest hint of sunrise peeks out from the sides of the curtains as he enters the kitchen.
“Mom,” he says, hugging his mother from the back. She’s already having tea and reading a book.
“Sho,” she says, pleased at the affection. “Up so early? Where’s Nino?”
“Upstairs,” Sho says, taking the seat in front of her. They settle into a familiar silence as his mother pours some tea for him and heats up some miso soup on the stove. When he finishes with the simple yet nourishing meal, Sho feels a little calmer than he had been feeling.
“Something about you is different,” she murmurs, reaching out for his hand across the table. No matter how long they don’t see each other, his mother always knows just by looking. Sho clasps her hand in his. He thinks for a good long while about what he wants to say.
“I will always love her-”
“Sho,” his mother says, heart already breaking.
“-but she would want me to be happy, right?” Sho says. “Keiko would.”
She takes him in, considering him. “Keiko-chan would have wanted you to do whatever you want, whatever it takes, to be happy. She would’ve said so with no second thoughts and perhaps a slap on the butt.” Her grip tightens, holding fast.
“Mom,” Sho says, eyes blurring.
“Live.”
*
The bike ride to the office is something out of a dream-he doesn't remember ever biking with a tie on. In the future, he will remember the smallest details about this ride: his leg muscles burning pleasantly, his parched throat, the way he takes extra care not get rust on his cuffs. When he enters the office, all the equipment is ready to go. He feels silly wearing his suit and tie, but when he sees the look on Matsumoto’s face, he knows that it's worth it.
“Hey you,” Matsumoto says, his hand on his hip. “Come here.”
“Hi.” Sho walks shyly towards Matsumoto, trying to preserve any shred of dignity that he has left. Matsumoto drags him gently by the lapels. The kiss that lands on his lips is sweet and lingering-Sho doesn’t know if he’ll ever get used to the way it makes his heart jump out of his chest. “I missed you,” Matsumoto says.
“Me too,” Sho says.
The way that Matsumoto looks at him feels necessary yet so unnerving. Matsumoto's hands stray down from his neck to his throat. He straightens Sho's tie. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”
“I want to.” It’s the truth. The short time he’s spent away from Matsumoto, he’s understood that Matsumoto didn’t ask for this as an artistic conquest or a notch on the bedpost. If everything that he believes to be true about Matsumoto Jun after the time he’s spent with him, then he knows that he can’t say anything greater than doing this for him.
“Okay.” Matsumoto gently lets go of him. The expression in his eyes changes, shifting subtly into one of concentration, if not cold focus.
“Stand there,” he says, his voice assuming that tone that Sho has heard so many times but never for him, until today. He follows him silently, standing against a white backdrop where a simple black stool is placed. Sho wonders how answering a random job ad can lead to a day like this, the absurd consequences of little choices that slowly add up. “Sit.”
The whole office is quiet, except for Matsumoto, who is pacing around making final adjustments. When he finally stops behind the camera, it’s as if Sho’s heart stills.
“Look at me.”
And Sho, Sho realizes then, even at that first command, that it’s the other way around. That he wants to be told what to do, that under Matsumoto’s words, he is fully present in time, and all of him and all that he’s been through, all of it Matsumoto holds with awe and care in his hands. He realizes that in this space, he can get to the core of his grief, that he can sit here, in front of a man who just wants to bear witness to Sho, a Sho who is breathing, feeling.
That moment when Sakurai Sho decides to live, captured, all raw and imbued with the fear that nothing will be as crystal clear as this moment-it’s Matsumoto’s gift to him.
He's terrified.
He lets go.
Juntoshi
The Day He Comes Back In His Suit, 2013
Oil and Acrylic on Panel
8 x 5 feet
Description: Photographed man in a suit with tears flowing down his cheek. Oil-painted tree on the background, anatomic hearts, clams, spaghetti, and blood at his feet.