Under A Stone-Grey Sky Part 1
Title: Under A Stone-Grey Sky [1/2]
Pairing: Massu/Shige
Rating: R
Word Count: ~18,000 in total
Notes: Historical AU.
Summary: The story of a lighthouse keeper's son and his best friend.
Under A Stone-Grey Sky
the landscape -
land, green-brown
sea, brown-grey
island, dull peacock blue
sky, stone-grey
The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse looms angrily over the shore, over rocky beach and rushing sea, a bulging building of steel that looks more like a rocket ship than the lighthouse of Masuda's distant past. Around the metal structure, jagged rock formations litter the shoreline and lay crooked in gravelly sand; they are stained with gull droppings and childlike chalk graffiti.
Seconds turn to minutes to hours as Masuda stares at this whitewashed modern stone tower, stark and prominent in this little town. This little town where modernity still doesn't seem to truly exist, to have a place.
After all, not much has changed in this town that Masuda has known for years, since the time he was born to the old man with an aching back that he is now. Old wooden buildings have been replaced with crumbling concrete and peeling paint, and the dirt roads have all been poorly paved. The village has expanded its boundaries a little; there are a few more groceries now in place of dirty roadside stalls, some overgrown soccer fields, a larger school. Telephone poles line most paths and most people around town have cell phones.
As far as Masuda can tell, that is about it. In this town, no other building is like the flashy and advanced technological construction Masuda sees before him. The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse just doesn't fit here. It stands out like a sore thumb, its sleek design contrasting sharply with the run-down houses scattered throughout the village and on the beach
but there it is anyway, a steel tower that strains toward a bright blue cloudless sky. Iron-framed windows of stainless glass panel the highest floor and an array of floodlights and flashing points illuminate the building. A lightning rod pierces the sky and gulls fly around the needle crying and shrieking.
This lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse is nothing like his lighthouse. Instead, it is unfamiliar and strange; but there is something about those shrill caws that resounds in Masuda's ears. To Masuda, it sounds familiar, comforting, a little like home (or what that used to be). He supposes that even though he cannot call this place his own anymore, at least he has that comfort.
So Masuda continues to stare at the lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse, standing at the edge of the beach where concrete just begins to encroach on sand. He taps his wooden cane on gravelly road in even rhythm and his legs tremble with his age. He briefly wonders if going down to the beach would be considered trespassing (even though that is ridiculous, because it is the ocean and everyone should have a right to the sea). Either way, as salt-wind rushes through his body with every deep and shuddering inhalation, as he looks down the length of rocky shore littered by stray cars and tourists to the immense metallic rod that so swiftly interrupts the shoreline, one thing becomes clear.
The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse has chased out the old.
~
Massu's first memory is on a rickety boat that creaks with each wave pulsing along wooden edges. He remembers lilting and rocking that slowly lulls him asleep, along with the beating sun overhead that makes him want to curl up into himself and close his eyes. Slippery beads of sweat linger overheated on his burnt skin and soak through his clothes as he shifts lazily in his seat. The boat reeks of the sea and of fish; the stench of sweat and salt lingers around them like a deep and sating drug.
And Massu remembers Shige.
This day on the sea is like all the others Massu remembers. The four them sit on the boat, two fathers and two sons. Massu's father with a gimp leg and laughing smile and Shige's father with skin stained brown and corded muscles cultivated by years working the sea. Shige and Massu stumblingly attempt to help haul in the day's catch, and when Shige isn't looking, Massu throws a gasping fish right at Shige's face.
This is the first memory Massu has of Shige, but it certainly isn't the last.
~
Massu's whole childhood ends up revolving around Shige and his family.
Their mothers are best friends. Together, they own a little clothing shop at the edge of town, one of a few in the village but arguably the most popular. The door is painted distinctively bright lighthouse red and known affectionately throughout town as The Red House. Massu's mother is said to have the nimblest fingers around while Shige's mother is claimed to have the keenest business sense, and together they are a perfect shop-keeping pair. They satisfy the wishes of all the ladies around town, with options for women of all sizes, ages, and fashion senses. With their brimming smiles and keen fashion sense, everyone in the village knows that to look good, that shop is the place to go. For the townswomen, The Red House is like a godsend, but Massu and Shige's mothers are just grateful they have business, and they constantly use their shop as an opportunity to teach the boys the importance of earning keep, of remaining humble and grateful for good fortune.
"You can't just take these things," Massu's mother chastises, when she catches Massu and Shige plotting what they could buy with the five-hundred yen coin they had found on the ground earlier that day. Massu's mother takes the coin from the boys and places it on the counter before she goes back to her cross-stitch.
"But we found it! It's not like we're stealing," Shige pouts. Massu nods his head in agreement enthusiastically. "Besides, it's only five-hundred yen."
"Five-hundred yen is enough to buy a whole bag of sweets," Shige's mother says mildly as she tallies purchases. Massu and Shige blanch; that was exactly what they were planning on buying. So instead of racing to the store like they had originally planned, they sit on stools in the fashion shop in silence, sweat dripping down their cotton shirts and making the threadbare cloth stick uncomfortably against their skin.
Eventually, Massu sighs, crawling off his stool to go and Shige follows dejectedly, but before they reach the door, Shige's mother clears her throat. "We may be inclined to let you keep the five-hundred yen if you save some sweets for us." Massu and Shige glance at each other and grin before running to the counter to grab the coin, but Shige's mother stops them, placing her hand firmly on the coin. "But you can't forget that money is most precious when you make it yourself."
Massu and Shige roll their eyes. "I know, mother," Shige whines. They are used to their mothers' spiel by now.
Meanwhile, Massu's mother laughs, "Appreciate this gift. Little fortunes like these don't come often enough." They sigh again and nod unenthusiastically; their mothers both laugh. Finally, Shige's mother gives them the coin. Without another word, they scramble out the store into the boiling sun and race to the general store.
Massu and Shige's relationship with their parents is characterized by lessons. After all, every day is an opportunity to learn, a lesson in itself, their parents say, though Massu and Shige quickly learn that the lessons they are taught vary depending on who is acting teacher. Their mothers are more optimistic in their approach. They talk about how life should be, and how to be a good person. Their fathers, on the other hand, tend to cut right to the chase. They tell them about how life really is.
The most simple lesson, and perhaps most relevant to Shige and Massu, is that friendships matter, no matter who the people are. Shige and Massu's fathers are living, breathing examples of that. As neighbors on the town's beach, with Shige's family in the fishing hut just down the shore and Massu's family in the lighthouse, it seems almost natural that Massu's father and Shige's father help each other out. Sometimes, when Massu's father isn't too tired, he goes out with Shige's father to reel in the day's catch or helps repair their leaky rundown hut. Other times, Shige's father keeps Massu's father company as they stay up late into the night to guide lone ships, or helps paint the lighthouse stark reds and whites, bright eye-catching colors that couldn't be missed from miles away.
Shige's father is the town scholar, but no one likes to call him that because he's a fisherman and that combination just does not compute. Either way, Shige's father is arguably the smartest man in town. He thinks swiftly, discerns appropriately, and his arguments are always backed with fact. Out on the sea, he spends a lot of time reading, which infuriates the elders because he's been known to get into some pretty heated disputes with them over their town policy, using logic that works only to anger them but is sound nonetheless.
There is no doubt that Shige is proud of his father, proud of his intelligence and proud of being the son of the smartest man in the village, but sometimes, Shige gets a little bitter. People just don't like to take his father seriously, claiming his fisherman occupation to dull his judgments. Shige really hates that.
"You're not stupid," Shige declares hotly, after he hears some kids call his father retarded. "Everyone knows you're the smartest! Why won't they all just admit it?" Shige kicks his chair and Shige's mother's angry exclamation rings through the kitchen. Shige looks a little sheepish but continues to huff. Next to him, Massu sits down, sips his chilled homemade apple juice and tries to appear calm.
Shige's father's eye twitches, but apart from that he gives no reaction. Instead, he shrugs, "Who cares if I'm the smartest if no one's going to acknowledge it?" Shige gapes and his father sighs, "Sometimes life isn't fair. Shigeaki, I'm okay with people refusing to think I know my stuff. As a fisherman, I guess I even expect it-"
"But it's not fair," Shige cuts in. He pounds his fist against the table for good measure, wincing as the shock reverberates up his clenched fingers.
"It's not," Shige's father agrees smoothly, "But…as long as you know and I know, isn't that enough? You just have to deal with what you have, deal with people, and just, learn to smile despite all that."
The conversation had ended there, partly due to the fact that Shige's mother had placed a plate of watermelon slices in front of them. But later, when Massu is slurping up watermelon juice from his palms and swiping sticky fingers at Shige's face, he can't help but be a little sad, can't help but think, is that all they can really do? Just deal?
Massu's father has lived his whole life with a limp, born with one leg a little longer than the other, and when he was young, the kids his age found a disturbing amount of joy in teasing him with insults and taunts. Gimpboy, they used to call him. Massu's father doesn't even like saying the word; when he tells Massu what they used to say, the trauma associated with the childhood jeers makes his voice tremble and hands shake. Nevertheless, Massu's father says it to Massu anyway. He says that even though he hated it, he ended up growing stronger because of them. He had pushed over those words and the hurt because that's all he could do, and by the time he took over the lighthouse, it was with pride.
Massu's father always hugs Massu close to his chest at this point of the story, and Massu is always reminded that the only opinion of himself that matters is his own.
Massu knows this, but every time he hears a stupid kid call out in regards to his father Lame old man or anything similarly insulting, something in his blood boils and his fist lashes out (and sometimes Shige's too if he's there, but Shige is crap at fighting so Massu usually has to beg Shige to stop trying). Either way, Massu usually walks home those days a little battered and bruised, angry and frustrated. When Massu's father sees him, all he does is clean Massu's wounds with a soft, knowing smile, hurrying so that they can avoid Massu's mother's all-knowing glare.
"Hard, isn't it?" Massu's father asks, and Massu nods, hair bobbing forth and back with the motion. Massu's father smiles again, pats his head, and sighs, "That's life."
"That's it?" Massu asks a little incredulously.
Massu's father nods, fingers loosely curling into Massu's silken locks. "That's it," he says simply.
"Oh," Massu whispers, a little disappointed.
In retrospect, this is the most important lesson Massu thinks he has ever learned.
~
All that to say, Massu really loves Shige's family, almost as much as he loves his own. If anything, Massu thinks that their two families are really just one big family combined. Massu spends about half of his early childhood in Shige's hut, playing in Shige's room or eating rice in the kitchen. He goes fishing with Shige and his father, or spends time with them up in the lighthouse helping his own father. The two families often eat meals together, six bodies huddled around a table meant for four, or they sit outside by the fire pit, telling ghost stories that leave chills lodged in Massu's spine.
Massu is surrounded by close relationships; it is what their village prides itself on. Their village is a small cozy one by the seaside, with a crumbling one-room schoolhouse and dank Maplewood road-side stalls. There is a post office, a few restaurants and bars, a gambling house. Everyone knows everyone here, and while it can be bad for those with secrets to keep, mostly the proximity is a good thing that everyone learns to appreciate. Massu knows the names of everyone in the village, can pick out faces in a crowd. It's all just very comfortable, and it feels like home.
It isn't long before Massu and Shige meet other boys in their travels from the beachside to the town. They range from all sorts of ages, younger boys like Tegoshi and older boys like Nishikido and Yamashita and Koyama, who early on takes a special affinity to Shige. The in-town boys tend to do their own thing, but they're all nice, really. Nishikido and Yamapi tend to hang out with some other boys in town and practice catcalling at pretty ladies, and Koyama can usually be found at his mother's ramen house, which Shige frequents for the company and Massu frequents for the free gyoza.
Even though they each have their own lives, their own daily routines and closer friends, whenever they do meet up they always have fun. Sometimes they chuck stones at trees for target practice, or race to see who can collect the most clams in a minute, or run up the hill with all their might to find who is the fastest (Shige always loses). There is no end to their cavorting around town, and Massu likes these groups of boys. They make him happy.
But Massu could never imagine meeting them without Shige. Shige and Massu are attached by the hip, people say. And sometimes, that seems true. Whether Shige and Massu are off with the town boys or by themselves, they are always together. They see each other practically every hour of their lives. Nishikido once asked Massu curiously whether they ever got sick of each other, and Massu had just looked surprised, simply saying no. For Massu and his four-year-old self, there was never a need to get sick of Shige, and it's the same then as it is now.
If anything, being together is a thing of normalcy for the pair.
They catch crabs on sandy beaches, throw seaweed in each other's hair. Though their mothers tell them not to, together they sneak out for dips in the sea, swimming in water that chills their bones and makes them squeal. On days when the weather isn't conducive to swimming or when they just don't feel up to lazing around on the sand, they play around in the lighthouse. They scurry to the top of the lighthouse, take catnaps on the deck. They play soldiers, thieves and police, gods and heroes. They race up winding stairs, Shige with scuffed knees and Massu with matted hair. At night, they sit on the deck kicking their legs through the rails, watching the ships out at sea, wondering where they are going and why.
This is their life; and though they don't know much beyond their everyday lives, they're happy in the knowledge that they have each other.
~
The war begins for Massu in the bitter January of 1940.
Conquer the West rings throughout the town, patriotic words that have steeped into everyday conversations and knowledge. The people in their little village revel in the chance to finally be a part of something bigger, of Japan the nation, the stronghold. This great war is talked about everywhere, and Massu and Shige hear all sorts of news about it every day.
Even though Massu and Shige don't really know what war is, they've certainly heard plenty about it in school the past months, and they understand the gist. They know that war is glorious, that it is inevitable and only fought by the worthy. They know that war is about Japan winning and taking over the world. They see the articles that detail Japan's great triumphs, that gush on and on about Japan's brave fighters, brave spirit. With the rest of their town, Massu and Shige grow excited about the war, about their nation. After school, they rush to the beach to play. They play fighting games and shoot imaginary rifles; Massu cannot count the number of pretend-deaths he has had the past month alone (he also doesn't count the number of pretend-kills).
They believe in Japan, just as every Japanese citizen should.
But when Shige's father is drafted into the army, they do not see the glorious praise and honor depicted so brilliantly in the newspapers. In fact, they don't see much at all. Shige and Massu are kicked out of Shige's house the night the Katos hear the news. They pile onto each other with ears pressed tight against the hut's flimsy door, both straining to catch hushed conversation, but mostly all they can hear is a deathly still silence.
"What have we told you about listening in on conversations?" Shige's father says sternly, when he opens the door and the two tumble forward through the doorway. He opens his mouth to berate them further but one glance at Shige makes him stop.
"Congratulations, father," he says, breathless as he smiles.
Shige's father looks at him slowly before his eyes shutter and voice cracks. He squats down and pulls Shige toward him with a desperation that makes Massu squirm. Shige glances at Massu anxiously and Massu shrugs. Eventually, Shige's father loosens his grip and pulls back with a slow, semi-smile that somehow seems out of place.
"Thank you, son," he whispers raggedly.
Shige beams.
It doesn't take long before that smile slowly fades. In the next few weeks, Shige spends every extra moment of his time with his father. He goes fishing with his father early in the morning, does errands with him, reads with him by the fire pit outside of their hut. Massu overhears Shige's mother telling his own that Shige has even taken to crawling into their bed late at night to sleep next to his father. But Massu doesn't need to hear about these changes to believe it; he witnesses it firsthand. Suddenly there is no Shige to play with whenever he wants to; suddenly Shige has better things to do with his time. Massu understands, and he tries to get used to the sudden absence of Shige by himself, but one day, finally, Shige quietly knocks on Massu's bedroom door and the two of them tiptoe out to the beachside.
It is a week before his father leaves when Shige admits to Massu that he's scared.
"What if he never comes back?" Shige whispers after a long pause. He chucks a couple pebbles into the water and Massu lies on his back. His teeth chatter with the winter midnight air blowing around him, and he curses Shige in that moment. Massu pulls Shige's pajama pant-leg closer and Shige shifts; he can feel the warmth from Shige's thigh brush heat against his own. They must look a sight, Massu thinks, two boys in the middle of January, huddling together on the rocks beside the sea. Not that Massu and Shige would ever admit that, of course, because they are men.
Shige lies down next to him with an exhalation, bony shoulder digging into Massu's upper arm. Massu clicks his tongue and shoves Shige's shoulder gently. "Don't be stupid," Massu says, "He'll be back before we know it."
"But what if he doesn't?" Shige asks loudly, tone adamant. He turns to Massu and furrows his brow, frowns. "This is war," Shige says, voice lilting and questioning, as if he is just realizing the ugly potentiality that word represents.
"If you keep thinking like that, he really will die," Massu says sharply. Shige's eyes flash towards his and Massu uses the opportunity to glare, "So stop it," Massu swallows, "he'll be fine."
Massu slowly turns to his side, facing away from Shige's body. Across from him he sees shards of glass sticking out of the sand, glinting in the pale moonlight. The crystal-like reflections momentarily distract him, but he doesn't miss the way Shige's body seems to melt against him, the edge of Shige's hand warm and still at the contour of Massu's back.
Just when Massu's eyes are about to flutter shut from sheer exhaustion, Shige shifts. "Okay," Shige breathes. He tugs Massu's sleeve and helps Massu back up. "Let's go home," he says, and Massu blearily follows him back to the hut, collapsing onto Shige's futon without a word.
~
Japan Winter frosts over the village the day Shige's father leaves; able men leave the village in droves and in tears. They leave on a solemn Thursday morning, a morning like any other day usual and normal and deceptively ordinary. Dawn begins to encroach on the night's darkness, sunlight threatening to break and flood the village with bright light.
In the Kato hut, their mothers cry so Shige and Massu cry too, even though later, they claim that there was a lot of dust in the hut and naturally it got into their eyes. Shige is clinging onto his father like a vine wraps around a tree, and his shuddering breaths resound throughout the tiny room.
Massu glances at his own father, as he hobbles toward Shige's father with a forced smile and tears bright in his eyes. He then looks at that leg - that useless leg - and realizes that for once, his father's handicap may be more a blessing than a curse. Shige, who has by then given up on trying to choke back sobs, wails outright and Massu can only stare at Shige as he breaks down into tears, eyes bloodshot and voice hoarse. Massu swallows.
"I'll be back soon," Shige's father solemnly whispers into Shige's unwashed, matted wind-whipped hair. "I'll be back before you know it," he repeats even softer, "and then we'll go out to sea and I'll teach you how to properly catch a fish, okay?"
He doesn't promise and Shige doesn't ask him too. Even six-year-old Shige knows that hope at war is elusive at best. Eventually, Shige calms down and he looks his father straight in the eye. "Okay," Shige says bravely. "Don't take too long."
Shige's father's face finally crumples and his knuckles flash white as he grips onto Shige's tattered shirt. "I won't," he swallows.
And then before they all can fully realize it, he is gone, off to the war. For some reason beyond their six-year-old understanding, Shige and Massu grow up a little more that day.
~
The first thing Massu notices is the emptiness.
The village is small and hardly populated as is, so half the population leaving to fight in a somber war just makes everything seem all that quieter, so quiet and strange. The fruit and fish stalls that used to line the streets are largely empty, and the atmosphere is tense down these roads. All the few stall keepers do manage to acquire and sell is overpriced in this war economy, and the sounds of the market which used to be comforting are now ugly, are now filled with desperate housewives bartering and begging for the lowest prices possible. It is hard to stay cheerful when the corners of dirt streets where carefree people exchanged greetings are still, where gathering places that used to shake with the laughter of merry drunken men appear abandoned.
Nevertheless, the townspeople try their best despite the war, despite their fear. Women and old men traverse as they always have, lightly gossip with each other about the local news, though their heads whip upwards at unexpected sounds, wary of loud noises and chaos. Children still run around avoiding homework in favor of having fun, but when airplanes fly overhead they flinch and duck for cover instead of gaze in awe, and when sirens around the village sound, they learn to crouch uncomfortably under their desks. Even though everyone does their best to live their everyday lives, to Massu, there is something essential missing, something that has been ripped out of their lives by fear of death and disaster. A common spark everyone had, a cheer unrivaled, something that never needed to be defined until now. Somehow, with the war having finally hit their hometown, having stripped the village of its men and good cheer, this thing was gone.
But what Massu really notices is Shige.
Because all Shige seems to notice, think about, breathe, is the absence of his father.
He doesn't talk much about it, if at all, but Massu isn't stupid. Shige is wilting away before his very eyes, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. Massu knows that the reason Shige spends his free time sitting quietly in his father's boat is because he misses him. Massu knows that Shige holes himself in his room, writing long letters to his father about the crabs they caught that day, the delicious mochi he ate with Massu, the jellyfish on the shore that nearly stung him. And when Shige isn't writing, Massu knows that he is reading and rereading the letters his father has sent to him, lengthy letters that detail a true soldier's life (carefully written, because Shige's father had warned them that with war comes extreme censorship), and not just the fluff that is posted in the local newspaper.
Shige shows him the first letter a week after he receives it. "Because we're best friends," Shige says softly, and Massu cocks his head in confusion. Nevertheless, after dinner, they clamber up the lighthouse steps to the top deck. The sun has yet to set but just in case, Massu lugs up a wicker-candle lantern and pulls it by them as they lay on their stomachs, folded letter tight in Shige's hand.
There is an intense quiet as Shige unfolds the letter. His hands are shaky, as if this is the first time he's read it, though Massu knows that can't be true, considering how worn the letter already looks, paper smudged, frail and bent. Shige hands it to Massu and Massu takes it without a word, breathing deeply.
He gets to the "Dearest son," before he stops, throat dry. Massu knows why Shige is doing this. He is doing this because they are best friends, and they had made a solemn best-friends pact months earlier to share everything with each other. But this-this feels like an unwelcome invasion of privacy. Even though it is Shige and Shige said it was fine, something about this feels uncomfortable, wrong. Massu starts to refold the letter.
"I can't read this," Massu says.
Shige glances at him, expression an odd mix of relief and alarm. "What are you talking about? I already said you could."
Massu shakes his head as he holds out the letter, "No, I can't. This is…this wasn't meant for me to read."
"But you're my-"
"And that's why it's fine," Massu huffs. "I'm telling you, you don't have to show me this. It's your letter."
After a long pause in which Shige stares and Massu tries to avoid said stare, Shige takes the letter back silently and puts it into its envelope. Massu rolls onto his back to look at the sky, the blue palette above them now blotched with both the faintest of reds and the deepest of purples. Eventually, Shige lies on his back next to him, and the two of them watch the sun set slowly beyond the lighthouse's peak.
"Remember the rhyme we used to say?" Massu says. "Land, green-brown; sea, brown-grey; island, dull peacock blue; sky, stone-grey…the sky looks a lot prettier than stone-grey now, doesn't it?"
Shige turns to him and his fingers are cold on Massu's shoulder; he feels it through the material, feels Shige's non-falling tears. "Thanks," Shige says softly, so softly that for a moment Massu thinks he almost imagines it.
But he doesn't, and instead Massu smiles, punching Shige's side in response as Shige laughs.
~
Eventually, and before Massu knows it, months have turned into years since that very first letter. Shige continues to eagerly go every month to the post office and he still holes himself in his room writing essay-length letters that talk about his life. But at the same time, slowly, Shige comes back to life, eager again about living his daily life, even if his father isn't right there beside him.
Though to Massu's dismay, he suspects that this rejuvenation of spirit has a lot more to do with school than with Massu.
In class, talk about the war is inevitable, and nowadays, hopeless. Because despite the teacher insisting that everything is fine, Massu's classmates cannot stop themselves from whispering to each other about how they may just not win after all. In the years that Shige and Massu grow up, listening to the underground gossip that cannot be quelled by their teacher, they understand a little more about the war now. They know that though war continues to rage on, it doesn't look like Japan can win. Massu and Shige know this. They have heard the rumors of America's vast weaponry and manpower, of Japan's growing losses and desperation. Massu and Shige are not stupid. They are better at listening in on adult conversations than their mothers think, and together they piece it together.
It is clear that the news really worries Shige. Shige may try to appear strong and unaffected, but Massu knows that Shige is always, constantly thinking about his father. And yet, despite this worry, despite the fact that he gets most of the rumors, the bad news, from classmates, there is at least one constant.
Shige always looks forward to school.
Massu doesn't get it.
"I want to know what's really going on. I want to be informed. I'd rather know than be ignorant about the whole thing," Shige says simply, when Massu asks.
Massu stares. "But it's school," he whines, as if that should be reason enough. Shige giggles knowingly as he slaps Massu's forearm with a light smack.
Frankly, Massu doesn't like school much. There is something about the place that makes Massu cringe. Initially, it's because he hates the stench of chalk. Massu really despises chalk, those annoying white screechy sticks. He also hates the powder of chalkboard erasers, which burns in his eyes and tastes bitter in his mouth.
And if he were honest, Massu knows that he is not learning anything that he'll actually use later in his life. He is never going to use the kanji learned in class while he operates the lighthouse, and arithmetic? It's a waste of time, really, and it should be a waste for Shige too, but for some reason beyond Massu's understanding (or maybe it makes perfect sense; this is Shige, after all), Shige shines in their one-room schoolhouse at the other end of town. When Massu draws shaky cartoon figures in the sides of his notepad, Shige always takes notes with steadfast attention and thorough detail. While Massu zones out and wonders whether they will be having gyoza for dinner, Shige asks detailed questions, solves difficult problems, and finishes all of his work with time to spare and with perfect marks.
They are two completely different and unrelated people in that classroom. Perhaps that is what bothers Massu the most. Perhaps this is why he really dislikes school. Though Massu can outrun Shige in a heartbeat and he can beat up anyone who is stupid enough to put up a fight, sometimes, just sometimes, when they sit in that stuffy boring classroom with their stuffy boring classmates and their stuffy boring teacher, Massu feels oddly…inferior. Unsure. Stupid.
But then, during recess, everything normalizes. They are eight and frail and fidgety, after all. The moment the clock ticks to recess time, Shige and Massu race outside and tumble in the grass. They pull weeds and talk loudly about pill bugs with the other boys (even though they are both afraid of them and refuse to admit it). Together, they belch and they giggle and stretch their eight-year-old limbs. And somehow, even though this is school and Massu hates it, being with Shige makes the experience a little better.
But when Shige asks, Massu says that the only reason he dislikes school is because of the fight. It is the only fight the two of them have in their childhood, the first crisis of their friendship, and it is stupid. It also happens, ironically, because of a girl.
One day when they are nine, Shige falls head over heels for the shy girl in the back, the one who doesn't say a word and lets the older girls take her things. She has thick-framed glasses, a snaggletooth, and an uneven crop of hair. Shige and Eriko have never spoken a word to each other, but for some reason, this doesn't seem to bother Shige. Either way, since Shige seems to think the world of her, Massu supposes he might as well like her too.
When Massu tells him the next day, Shige gasps, grabbing Massu by the collar and shaking it hard.
"You can't like the same girl I do," Shige says, abashed. "It's against the rules."
Massu pushes Shige away a little too hard and Shige stumbles to the ground. He winces and Massu winces too, but he bravely continues, "I can like whoever I want to like." Out of spite, he adds, "I bet she likes me more than you."
Shige glares. "I bet not," he says indignantly, jumping to his feet. "I'll prove it to you." He lunges forward and attempts to land a punch, but really, this is Massu versus Shige. There has never been much of a contest. Massu dodges it quickly, kicking Shige in the shin, who lets out a high howl. Shige pauses for a split second before he charges at Massu again, and Massu grunts upon the impact of Shige's shoulder jamming into his empty stomach.
Thirty minutes later, when the two of them confront Eriko with bruises and scrapes marking their tired bodies (Massu's shirt is soaked with sweat and Shige, well, Shige just looks injured), she flushes.
"Boys are gross," she says, before rushing out of the classroom and away from their nine-year-old selves.
Massu feels a part of him crumble like dust as they stand in front of her evacuated desk, shocked, even though he didn't even really like her all that much. He turns to Shige and crumble crumble goes something inside of him again. Shige looks distraught, like his world is over and nothing will ever be okay again. Massu wonders if that's how love is supposed to work. But if that's the case, then that is just lame. Massu hopes that love doesn't work the same way for him.
After a painful pause, Massu clears his throat. "We were too good for her anyway," he says loudly.
Shige nods dumbly. "Yeah," he mumbles in agreement.
"Girls are stupid," Massu says, finality clear in his voice. He turns to Shige and grabs him in a fierce man hug, chest bumping chest and elbows knocking into ribcages. "I won't ever leave you." Massu doesn't know where the corny words come from and he blanches, but after a moment, he realizes that he actually does mean them. He would never leave his best friend. After all, what kind of best friend move was that (besides the whole-liking-the-same-girl thing which was by now clearly a thing of the past)? "I solemnly swear."
They start walking back home and Shige scoffs as he tries to dust loose dirt off his clothes. "Idiot," he says simply, smiling, "I already know that."
That day they make a pact as men to never love another woman again.
It is also the day an officer clothed in regal uniform arrives at Shige's doorstep, and with averted eyes, hands his mother a thinly sealed envelope.
~
Missing in action.
The letter is formal, in black ink, short and to the point. Shige's father is missing in action, and there is little chance that they will find him.
Missing in action. Massu never thought he'd hate a phrase, but on that clear April day, as they gather in the Katos' stiflingly hot kitchen and sit shock still in the stuffy enclosure, Massu decides right then and there that he hates those three little words. Missing. In. Action. Three words that are so innocuous on their own, so simple, so ordinary, but when strung together, only cause the tears that stream down Shige's mother's cheeks and the blank glassy expression plastered on Shige's face. His own knotted stomach clenches and unclenches with each breath he takes.
And Massu hates it.
For hours the five of them sit in the hut kitchen. Shige and his mother, and the Masuda family (which, in that cramped room, is glaringly intact when compared to the Katos). Abruptly, Shige walks out of the kitchen without a sound and Massu wordlessly follows him. They tread outside and head towards the beach; by then the sun has already set and it's just them and an endless, bone-deep darkness. There's a hint of moonlight, a mere sliver, that stretches along the shore and stars dot the sky, emitting light weak and dull to Massu's eyes, but mostly it is just dark, dark and chilly. Wind ripples in their pant legs and pulls roughly against their shirts.
At first Massu thinks Shige is going to sit on the rocks like they normally do, but this time Shige walks determinedly past them, shallow steps leading them both to the wooden boat overturned by the hut. The boat that they have known all their lives, his father's boat, worn and dusty, awaiting the day its master would return and it would once again go out to sea.
"I'm going out," Shige says loudly in the beach quiet.
Massu swallows. "Okay."
Shige reaches out to begin pulling the boat but his hand pauses, fingers barely grazing wood before he tugs his hand away, as if electrified.
"What is it?" Massu asks, alarmed.
An unidentifiable noise chokes in Shige's throat, and he almost gargles with the effort to stay calm, eyes squeezing shut. "He was going to teach me how to fish," he finally says, voice wobbly and in adolescent high pitch.
Then he collapses, nearly crashing to the ground as he crouches into a tight ball, his breaths shuddering and overly loud, and he holds his head in his hands, fingers interwoven tightly amongst locks of greasy hair, nails short and torn. With a slow breath, Massu squats carefully in front of him and picks idly at a few stray strands of wild grass.
And next to Shige's trembling form, he waits.
But there is only so long two nine-year-old boys can stay crouched, and finally, Massu's slowly jellifying legs threaten to collapse from underneath him. Thankfully, Shige, who seems lost to the world, actually notices. He makes a move to stand, cringing upon the realization that his thighs burn and it hurts, and Massu laughs a little, to which Shige flashes Massu a baleful glance. He stumblingly straightens up and flinches as a keen numbness rests in his thighs.
They both trek awkwardly with chicken-bent legs back to the hut, groaning and wincing, attempting to shake feeling into their stubborn limbs. And then they walk into the hut, past the kitchen where their parents are still huddled, and in Shige's futon they fall fast asleep.
Later, Shige will cite this as one of the best things Massu has ever done for Shige as his best friend. Massu doesn't get it. It's not like Massu did anything, after all. All he had done was stoop next to Shige and pluck gnarled grass growing loosely in the sand. And all he knows is that the next day he had woken up with the sorest thighs and an agonizingly aching back, groaning like an old man.
But apparently, this was enough for Shige.
~
Two years after Shige's father is declared missing (a casualty of war people whisper, gossip, cry, but to Massu there is nothing casual about it), the war ends in relative silence.
There's an atomic bomb somewhere in their nation, Japan. Then another.
And then, supposedly, the war is over.
Massu thinks war is simple. In war, no one escapes unaffected. There are prisoners of war, there are heroes, and there are losers. Japan is one of the losers. This fact is unavoidable, especially in Massu and Shige's seaside town where the remnants of war seem to linger everywhere.
There are those who are reminded of war by the sudden influx of America, by the numbers of American soldiers stationed throughout Japan to keep the peace, by the onslaught of American products that hit the markets with astonishing force. And others will never forget the war cheers, songs, and newsreels that, though quickly removed by the government, remain burned into the retinas of the everyday Japanese citizen.
For Massu's and Shige's family, war lingers in their daily lives with the absence of Shige's father.
But there's no changing it; life goes on, as Massu's mother says. Life goes on and changes and pain fades and people stay together or part. They survive.
~
Flash forward to awkward, gangly teenage years.
Shige's mother puts everything she has into The Red House, working double time and impressing all with her newfound stamina. And Massu's mother takes it in stride, continuing to create elegant yet trendy modern clothes (postwar clothes, everyone jokes), as they line up outside The Red House to buy them. No one talks about the ever present bags under Shige's mother's eyes and the eternal downside curve of her lip, which people eventually begin to think is natural.
Shige studies with the same smooth, increased determination as his mother. And likewise, no one mentions the worry line creased tightly on Shige's forehead or the angry glint that sometimes gleams in his eyes when he thinks no one is looking. Though he has quit school along with all the other kids his age (because in that one-room schoolhouse, there is nothing more to learn past age fifteen), Shige continues on his endeavor to learn; most of his time is taken perusing the few books available at the small bookstore on the north side of town. The owner of the bookstore is Nishikido's old man, so once Nishikido tells his father that he knows Shige, Shige becomes welcome to the bookstore anytime. And even though shy at first, Shige gladly accepts Nishikido-san's invitation. Eventually, it comes to a point where Shige daily abuses that privilege and Nishikido-san complains laughingly that he sees Shige more than any of his sons.
Meanwhile, Massu, who has also quit school like everyone else, begins learning the art form of keeping a lighthouse.
It's hard work, is the first thing Massu learns. Not that Massu did not already know this from looking at his dad's weary back as he watches carefully over a dark and dead sea, but observing his father and practicing what his father does are two very different things. He learns about signals, about how to communicate with ships from far distances, how to maintain the equipment up in the lighthouse tower.
Most importantly, he learns what it means to be a lighthouse keeper.
The first time Massu stays up all night with his father, his father yells at him on six separate occasions to wake up because a ship could be coming any moment. Massu stands rigidly straight, blearily wiping at his eyes, and he nearly collapses from the unfamiliar feeling of staying up so late.
That night, no ships come into range and Massu is a little annoyed.
"What is the point of staying up all night and watching the sea if there aren't any ships?" Massu asks in aggravation, stumbling after his father down twisting flights of stairs.
Massu's father glances behind him to look at Massu before smiling in an odd, serene sort of way (the same listen-and-learn smile that Massu has grown to love and hate throughout the years). "The point is that one night, there will be a ship and it will need guidance. The one night you choose to doze off may be the night a ship veers dangerously off course."
Massu rolls his eyes and his father chuckles softly, "Us lighthouse keepers, we're…we are just-in-case people, Takahisa. Our job is to be there just in case. It isn't glamorous, that's for sure, but someone has to do it, right?"
All Massu knows is that he's never felt so tired in his life (though later he admits that the pep talk may've given him the energy to stay up the next night and only fall asleep twice).
~
As Massu and Shige grow up, from boys to men as they proudly say, as they find their teenage selves and do what they have to do, they spend less and less time together. That is an inevitable fact, and one that everyone notices, especially their parents.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that they are still best friends. They may have a little more acne and talk about girls with giggles and lewd gestures, but they are still two thin and awkward seaside boys. They still swim in the sea among rocks and forests of seaweed when Shige is back from the bookstore and Massu has just woken up before his nightly shift. They still go up on the deck and fall asleep on freshly mopped wood. They still catch crabs and fish and sea stars.
They are still them, Shige and Massu, and when Massu looks at Shige and sees him sprawled out beside him, hair in his face and drool sliding down his cheek, it's then Massu thinks - we're going to be just fine. Leave it, Massu, leave it.
~
But sometimes, he still wonders if this could actually last. Shige was meant for better things, greater things beyond their tiny village, and Shige and Massu both know it. He was meant to be a rich college student, to discover cures for the common cold, to find a way to fly into space. That's what Shige's mother always said, and something the village just sort of knew instinctively. They hadn't seen a boy like Shige, frankly, since Shige's father. Shige is inquisitive, curious, always questioning the world and how it works, looking beyond the everyday ordinary to think about what makes life the way it was.
Massu has always known that Shige was meant for more. He just wonders when Shige would realize it himself.
~
Shige begins to dream about the world beyond their village at the crisp and tender age of seventeen.
"I want to explore the world," Shige admits, floating leisurely amidst a forest of fresh seaweed.
Massu sighs happily, throwing a clam onto Shige's stomach, "So do I. Where should we go first?"
Shige laughs lightly, "Tokyo. I mean, we're Japanese. Shouldn't we visit our capital at least once in our lifetimes?"
"We can do better than that," Massu says. "Korea!"
"Canada. No wait, London."
"India. The Congo!"
"Antarctica!" And then they break down into giggles, and the next hours are spent rattling off all the places they can think of. The USA. Romania. Australia. Paris. Osaka. Argentina. Mount Everest. The North Pole. Each suggestion is a little more impassioned, a little more impossible and ludicrous than the last, but they all also sound so exotic and new and amazing that it even excites Massu.
"That would be so cool if we could actually go," Massu muses, after they finally run out of places.
Shige smiles wistfully, "Yeah, wouldn't it?"
Massu doesn't know then; how could he? He doesn't have prophetic powers. When Shige's mother calls them to come into the hut for watermelons - "with salt", she says, and Massu has always loved eating watermelons with salt, they taste so much tangier, so sweet - he promptly forgets the majority of their conversation. He doesn't know that that's the end of life as he knows it, that everything's going to change. He just knows this hour, this moment, of sitting beside Shige dipping his watermelon into salt and giggling when the juice explodes at the side of Shige's mouth; he just knows that he's sitting with Shige, and things aren't going to change quite yet. They're going to be this happy always.
Pairing: Massu/Shige
Rating: R
Word Count: ~18,000 in total
Notes: Historical AU.
Summary: The story of a lighthouse keeper's son and his best friend.
Under A Stone-Grey Sky
the landscape -
land, green-brown
sea, brown-grey
island, dull peacock blue
sky, stone-grey
The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse looms angrily over the shore, over rocky beach and rushing sea, a bulging building of steel that looks more like a rocket ship than the lighthouse of Masuda's distant past. Around the metal structure, jagged rock formations litter the shoreline and lay crooked in gravelly sand; they are stained with gull droppings and childlike chalk graffiti.
Seconds turn to minutes to hours as Masuda stares at this whitewashed modern stone tower, stark and prominent in this little town. This little town where modernity still doesn't seem to truly exist, to have a place.
After all, not much has changed in this town that Masuda has known for years, since the time he was born to the old man with an aching back that he is now. Old wooden buildings have been replaced with crumbling concrete and peeling paint, and the dirt roads have all been poorly paved. The village has expanded its boundaries a little; there are a few more groceries now in place of dirty roadside stalls, some overgrown soccer fields, a larger school. Telephone poles line most paths and most people around town have cell phones.
As far as Masuda can tell, that is about it. In this town, no other building is like the flashy and advanced technological construction Masuda sees before him. The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse just doesn't fit here. It stands out like a sore thumb, its sleek design contrasting sharply with the run-down houses scattered throughout the village and on the beach
but there it is anyway, a steel tower that strains toward a bright blue cloudless sky. Iron-framed windows of stainless glass panel the highest floor and an array of floodlights and flashing points illuminate the building. A lightning rod pierces the sky and gulls fly around the needle crying and shrieking.
This lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse is nothing like his lighthouse. Instead, it is unfamiliar and strange; but there is something about those shrill caws that resounds in Masuda's ears. To Masuda, it sounds familiar, comforting, a little like home (or what that used to be). He supposes that even though he cannot call this place his own anymore, at least he has that comfort.
So Masuda continues to stare at the lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse, standing at the edge of the beach where concrete just begins to encroach on sand. He taps his wooden cane on gravelly road in even rhythm and his legs tremble with his age. He briefly wonders if going down to the beach would be considered trespassing (even though that is ridiculous, because it is the ocean and everyone should have a right to the sea). Either way, as salt-wind rushes through his body with every deep and shuddering inhalation, as he looks down the length of rocky shore littered by stray cars and tourists to the immense metallic rod that so swiftly interrupts the shoreline, one thing becomes clear.
The lighthouse-that-isn't-a-lighthouse has chased out the old.
~
Massu's first memory is on a rickety boat that creaks with each wave pulsing along wooden edges. He remembers lilting and rocking that slowly lulls him asleep, along with the beating sun overhead that makes him want to curl up into himself and close his eyes. Slippery beads of sweat linger overheated on his burnt skin and soak through his clothes as he shifts lazily in his seat. The boat reeks of the sea and of fish; the stench of sweat and salt lingers around them like a deep and sating drug.
And Massu remembers Shige.
This day on the sea is like all the others Massu remembers. The four them sit on the boat, two fathers and two sons. Massu's father with a gimp leg and laughing smile and Shige's father with skin stained brown and corded muscles cultivated by years working the sea. Shige and Massu stumblingly attempt to help haul in the day's catch, and when Shige isn't looking, Massu throws a gasping fish right at Shige's face.
This is the first memory Massu has of Shige, but it certainly isn't the last.
~
Massu's whole childhood ends up revolving around Shige and his family.
Their mothers are best friends. Together, they own a little clothing shop at the edge of town, one of a few in the village but arguably the most popular. The door is painted distinctively bright lighthouse red and known affectionately throughout town as The Red House. Massu's mother is said to have the nimblest fingers around while Shige's mother is claimed to have the keenest business sense, and together they are a perfect shop-keeping pair. They satisfy the wishes of all the ladies around town, with options for women of all sizes, ages, and fashion senses. With their brimming smiles and keen fashion sense, everyone in the village knows that to look good, that shop is the place to go. For the townswomen, The Red House is like a godsend, but Massu and Shige's mothers are just grateful they have business, and they constantly use their shop as an opportunity to teach the boys the importance of earning keep, of remaining humble and grateful for good fortune.
"You can't just take these things," Massu's mother chastises, when she catches Massu and Shige plotting what they could buy with the five-hundred yen coin they had found on the ground earlier that day. Massu's mother takes the coin from the boys and places it on the counter before she goes back to her cross-stitch.
"But we found it! It's not like we're stealing," Shige pouts. Massu nods his head in agreement enthusiastically. "Besides, it's only five-hundred yen."
"Five-hundred yen is enough to buy a whole bag of sweets," Shige's mother says mildly as she tallies purchases. Massu and Shige blanch; that was exactly what they were planning on buying. So instead of racing to the store like they had originally planned, they sit on stools in the fashion shop in silence, sweat dripping down their cotton shirts and making the threadbare cloth stick uncomfortably against their skin.
Eventually, Massu sighs, crawling off his stool to go and Shige follows dejectedly, but before they reach the door, Shige's mother clears her throat. "We may be inclined to let you keep the five-hundred yen if you save some sweets for us." Massu and Shige glance at each other and grin before running to the counter to grab the coin, but Shige's mother stops them, placing her hand firmly on the coin. "But you can't forget that money is most precious when you make it yourself."
Massu and Shige roll their eyes. "I know, mother," Shige whines. They are used to their mothers' spiel by now.
Meanwhile, Massu's mother laughs, "Appreciate this gift. Little fortunes like these don't come often enough." They sigh again and nod unenthusiastically; their mothers both laugh. Finally, Shige's mother gives them the coin. Without another word, they scramble out the store into the boiling sun and race to the general store.
Massu and Shige's relationship with their parents is characterized by lessons. After all, every day is an opportunity to learn, a lesson in itself, their parents say, though Massu and Shige quickly learn that the lessons they are taught vary depending on who is acting teacher. Their mothers are more optimistic in their approach. They talk about how life should be, and how to be a good person. Their fathers, on the other hand, tend to cut right to the chase. They tell them about how life really is.
The most simple lesson, and perhaps most relevant to Shige and Massu, is that friendships matter, no matter who the people are. Shige and Massu's fathers are living, breathing examples of that. As neighbors on the town's beach, with Shige's family in the fishing hut just down the shore and Massu's family in the lighthouse, it seems almost natural that Massu's father and Shige's father help each other out. Sometimes, when Massu's father isn't too tired, he goes out with Shige's father to reel in the day's catch or helps repair their leaky rundown hut. Other times, Shige's father keeps Massu's father company as they stay up late into the night to guide lone ships, or helps paint the lighthouse stark reds and whites, bright eye-catching colors that couldn't be missed from miles away.
Shige's father is the town scholar, but no one likes to call him that because he's a fisherman and that combination just does not compute. Either way, Shige's father is arguably the smartest man in town. He thinks swiftly, discerns appropriately, and his arguments are always backed with fact. Out on the sea, he spends a lot of time reading, which infuriates the elders because he's been known to get into some pretty heated disputes with them over their town policy, using logic that works only to anger them but is sound nonetheless.
There is no doubt that Shige is proud of his father, proud of his intelligence and proud of being the son of the smartest man in the village, but sometimes, Shige gets a little bitter. People just don't like to take his father seriously, claiming his fisherman occupation to dull his judgments. Shige really hates that.
"You're not stupid," Shige declares hotly, after he hears some kids call his father retarded. "Everyone knows you're the smartest! Why won't they all just admit it?" Shige kicks his chair and Shige's mother's angry exclamation rings through the kitchen. Shige looks a little sheepish but continues to huff. Next to him, Massu sits down, sips his chilled homemade apple juice and tries to appear calm.
Shige's father's eye twitches, but apart from that he gives no reaction. Instead, he shrugs, "Who cares if I'm the smartest if no one's going to acknowledge it?" Shige gapes and his father sighs, "Sometimes life isn't fair. Shigeaki, I'm okay with people refusing to think I know my stuff. As a fisherman, I guess I even expect it-"
"But it's not fair," Shige cuts in. He pounds his fist against the table for good measure, wincing as the shock reverberates up his clenched fingers.
"It's not," Shige's father agrees smoothly, "But…as long as you know and I know, isn't that enough? You just have to deal with what you have, deal with people, and just, learn to smile despite all that."
The conversation had ended there, partly due to the fact that Shige's mother had placed a plate of watermelon slices in front of them. But later, when Massu is slurping up watermelon juice from his palms and swiping sticky fingers at Shige's face, he can't help but be a little sad, can't help but think, is that all they can really do? Just deal?
Massu's father has lived his whole life with a limp, born with one leg a little longer than the other, and when he was young, the kids his age found a disturbing amount of joy in teasing him with insults and taunts. Gimpboy, they used to call him. Massu's father doesn't even like saying the word; when he tells Massu what they used to say, the trauma associated with the childhood jeers makes his voice tremble and hands shake. Nevertheless, Massu's father says it to Massu anyway. He says that even though he hated it, he ended up growing stronger because of them. He had pushed over those words and the hurt because that's all he could do, and by the time he took over the lighthouse, it was with pride.
Massu's father always hugs Massu close to his chest at this point of the story, and Massu is always reminded that the only opinion of himself that matters is his own.
Massu knows this, but every time he hears a stupid kid call out in regards to his father Lame old man or anything similarly insulting, something in his blood boils and his fist lashes out (and sometimes Shige's too if he's there, but Shige is crap at fighting so Massu usually has to beg Shige to stop trying). Either way, Massu usually walks home those days a little battered and bruised, angry and frustrated. When Massu's father sees him, all he does is clean Massu's wounds with a soft, knowing smile, hurrying so that they can avoid Massu's mother's all-knowing glare.
"Hard, isn't it?" Massu's father asks, and Massu nods, hair bobbing forth and back with the motion. Massu's father smiles again, pats his head, and sighs, "That's life."
"That's it?" Massu asks a little incredulously.
Massu's father nods, fingers loosely curling into Massu's silken locks. "That's it," he says simply.
"Oh," Massu whispers, a little disappointed.
In retrospect, this is the most important lesson Massu thinks he has ever learned.
~
All that to say, Massu really loves Shige's family, almost as much as he loves his own. If anything, Massu thinks that their two families are really just one big family combined. Massu spends about half of his early childhood in Shige's hut, playing in Shige's room or eating rice in the kitchen. He goes fishing with Shige and his father, or spends time with them up in the lighthouse helping his own father. The two families often eat meals together, six bodies huddled around a table meant for four, or they sit outside by the fire pit, telling ghost stories that leave chills lodged in Massu's spine.
Massu is surrounded by close relationships; it is what their village prides itself on. Their village is a small cozy one by the seaside, with a crumbling one-room schoolhouse and dank Maplewood road-side stalls. There is a post office, a few restaurants and bars, a gambling house. Everyone knows everyone here, and while it can be bad for those with secrets to keep, mostly the proximity is a good thing that everyone learns to appreciate. Massu knows the names of everyone in the village, can pick out faces in a crowd. It's all just very comfortable, and it feels like home.
It isn't long before Massu and Shige meet other boys in their travels from the beachside to the town. They range from all sorts of ages, younger boys like Tegoshi and older boys like Nishikido and Yamashita and Koyama, who early on takes a special affinity to Shige. The in-town boys tend to do their own thing, but they're all nice, really. Nishikido and Yamapi tend to hang out with some other boys in town and practice catcalling at pretty ladies, and Koyama can usually be found at his mother's ramen house, which Shige frequents for the company and Massu frequents for the free gyoza.
Even though they each have their own lives, their own daily routines and closer friends, whenever they do meet up they always have fun. Sometimes they chuck stones at trees for target practice, or race to see who can collect the most clams in a minute, or run up the hill with all their might to find who is the fastest (Shige always loses). There is no end to their cavorting around town, and Massu likes these groups of boys. They make him happy.
But Massu could never imagine meeting them without Shige. Shige and Massu are attached by the hip, people say. And sometimes, that seems true. Whether Shige and Massu are off with the town boys or by themselves, they are always together. They see each other practically every hour of their lives. Nishikido once asked Massu curiously whether they ever got sick of each other, and Massu had just looked surprised, simply saying no. For Massu and his four-year-old self, there was never a need to get sick of Shige, and it's the same then as it is now.
If anything, being together is a thing of normalcy for the pair.
They catch crabs on sandy beaches, throw seaweed in each other's hair. Though their mothers tell them not to, together they sneak out for dips in the sea, swimming in water that chills their bones and makes them squeal. On days when the weather isn't conducive to swimming or when they just don't feel up to lazing around on the sand, they play around in the lighthouse. They scurry to the top of the lighthouse, take catnaps on the deck. They play soldiers, thieves and police, gods and heroes. They race up winding stairs, Shige with scuffed knees and Massu with matted hair. At night, they sit on the deck kicking their legs through the rails, watching the ships out at sea, wondering where they are going and why.
This is their life; and though they don't know much beyond their everyday lives, they're happy in the knowledge that they have each other.
~
The war begins for Massu in the bitter January of 1940.
Conquer the West rings throughout the town, patriotic words that have steeped into everyday conversations and knowledge. The people in their little village revel in the chance to finally be a part of something bigger, of Japan the nation, the stronghold. This great war is talked about everywhere, and Massu and Shige hear all sorts of news about it every day.
Even though Massu and Shige don't really know what war is, they've certainly heard plenty about it in school the past months, and they understand the gist. They know that war is glorious, that it is inevitable and only fought by the worthy. They know that war is about Japan winning and taking over the world. They see the articles that detail Japan's great triumphs, that gush on and on about Japan's brave fighters, brave spirit. With the rest of their town, Massu and Shige grow excited about the war, about their nation. After school, they rush to the beach to play. They play fighting games and shoot imaginary rifles; Massu cannot count the number of pretend-deaths he has had the past month alone (he also doesn't count the number of pretend-kills).
They believe in Japan, just as every Japanese citizen should.
But when Shige's father is drafted into the army, they do not see the glorious praise and honor depicted so brilliantly in the newspapers. In fact, they don't see much at all. Shige and Massu are kicked out of Shige's house the night the Katos hear the news. They pile onto each other with ears pressed tight against the hut's flimsy door, both straining to catch hushed conversation, but mostly all they can hear is a deathly still silence.
"What have we told you about listening in on conversations?" Shige's father says sternly, when he opens the door and the two tumble forward through the doorway. He opens his mouth to berate them further but one glance at Shige makes him stop.
"Congratulations, father," he says, breathless as he smiles.
Shige's father looks at him slowly before his eyes shutter and voice cracks. He squats down and pulls Shige toward him with a desperation that makes Massu squirm. Shige glances at Massu anxiously and Massu shrugs. Eventually, Shige's father loosens his grip and pulls back with a slow, semi-smile that somehow seems out of place.
"Thank you, son," he whispers raggedly.
Shige beams.
It doesn't take long before that smile slowly fades. In the next few weeks, Shige spends every extra moment of his time with his father. He goes fishing with his father early in the morning, does errands with him, reads with him by the fire pit outside of their hut. Massu overhears Shige's mother telling his own that Shige has even taken to crawling into their bed late at night to sleep next to his father. But Massu doesn't need to hear about these changes to believe it; he witnesses it firsthand. Suddenly there is no Shige to play with whenever he wants to; suddenly Shige has better things to do with his time. Massu understands, and he tries to get used to the sudden absence of Shige by himself, but one day, finally, Shige quietly knocks on Massu's bedroom door and the two of them tiptoe out to the beachside.
It is a week before his father leaves when Shige admits to Massu that he's scared.
"What if he never comes back?" Shige whispers after a long pause. He chucks a couple pebbles into the water and Massu lies on his back. His teeth chatter with the winter midnight air blowing around him, and he curses Shige in that moment. Massu pulls Shige's pajama pant-leg closer and Shige shifts; he can feel the warmth from Shige's thigh brush heat against his own. They must look a sight, Massu thinks, two boys in the middle of January, huddling together on the rocks beside the sea. Not that Massu and Shige would ever admit that, of course, because they are men.
Shige lies down next to him with an exhalation, bony shoulder digging into Massu's upper arm. Massu clicks his tongue and shoves Shige's shoulder gently. "Don't be stupid," Massu says, "He'll be back before we know it."
"But what if he doesn't?" Shige asks loudly, tone adamant. He turns to Massu and furrows his brow, frowns. "This is war," Shige says, voice lilting and questioning, as if he is just realizing the ugly potentiality that word represents.
"If you keep thinking like that, he really will die," Massu says sharply. Shige's eyes flash towards his and Massu uses the opportunity to glare, "So stop it," Massu swallows, "he'll be fine."
Massu slowly turns to his side, facing away from Shige's body. Across from him he sees shards of glass sticking out of the sand, glinting in the pale moonlight. The crystal-like reflections momentarily distract him, but he doesn't miss the way Shige's body seems to melt against him, the edge of Shige's hand warm and still at the contour of Massu's back.
Just when Massu's eyes are about to flutter shut from sheer exhaustion, Shige shifts. "Okay," Shige breathes. He tugs Massu's sleeve and helps Massu back up. "Let's go home," he says, and Massu blearily follows him back to the hut, collapsing onto Shige's futon without a word.
~
Japan Winter frosts over the village the day Shige's father leaves; able men leave the village in droves and in tears. They leave on a solemn Thursday morning, a morning like any other day usual and normal and deceptively ordinary. Dawn begins to encroach on the night's darkness, sunlight threatening to break and flood the village with bright light.
In the Kato hut, their mothers cry so Shige and Massu cry too, even though later, they claim that there was a lot of dust in the hut and naturally it got into their eyes. Shige is clinging onto his father like a vine wraps around a tree, and his shuddering breaths resound throughout the tiny room.
Massu glances at his own father, as he hobbles toward Shige's father with a forced smile and tears bright in his eyes. He then looks at that leg - that useless leg - and realizes that for once, his father's handicap may be more a blessing than a curse. Shige, who has by then given up on trying to choke back sobs, wails outright and Massu can only stare at Shige as he breaks down into tears, eyes bloodshot and voice hoarse. Massu swallows.
"I'll be back soon," Shige's father solemnly whispers into Shige's unwashed, matted wind-whipped hair. "I'll be back before you know it," he repeats even softer, "and then we'll go out to sea and I'll teach you how to properly catch a fish, okay?"
He doesn't promise and Shige doesn't ask him too. Even six-year-old Shige knows that hope at war is elusive at best. Eventually, Shige calms down and he looks his father straight in the eye. "Okay," Shige says bravely. "Don't take too long."
Shige's father's face finally crumples and his knuckles flash white as he grips onto Shige's tattered shirt. "I won't," he swallows.
And then before they all can fully realize it, he is gone, off to the war. For some reason beyond their six-year-old understanding, Shige and Massu grow up a little more that day.
~
The first thing Massu notices is the emptiness.
The village is small and hardly populated as is, so half the population leaving to fight in a somber war just makes everything seem all that quieter, so quiet and strange. The fruit and fish stalls that used to line the streets are largely empty, and the atmosphere is tense down these roads. All the few stall keepers do manage to acquire and sell is overpriced in this war economy, and the sounds of the market which used to be comforting are now ugly, are now filled with desperate housewives bartering and begging for the lowest prices possible. It is hard to stay cheerful when the corners of dirt streets where carefree people exchanged greetings are still, where gathering places that used to shake with the laughter of merry drunken men appear abandoned.
Nevertheless, the townspeople try their best despite the war, despite their fear. Women and old men traverse as they always have, lightly gossip with each other about the local news, though their heads whip upwards at unexpected sounds, wary of loud noises and chaos. Children still run around avoiding homework in favor of having fun, but when airplanes fly overhead they flinch and duck for cover instead of gaze in awe, and when sirens around the village sound, they learn to crouch uncomfortably under their desks. Even though everyone does their best to live their everyday lives, to Massu, there is something essential missing, something that has been ripped out of their lives by fear of death and disaster. A common spark everyone had, a cheer unrivaled, something that never needed to be defined until now. Somehow, with the war having finally hit their hometown, having stripped the village of its men and good cheer, this thing was gone.
But what Massu really notices is Shige.
Because all Shige seems to notice, think about, breathe, is the absence of his father.
He doesn't talk much about it, if at all, but Massu isn't stupid. Shige is wilting away before his very eyes, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. Massu knows that the reason Shige spends his free time sitting quietly in his father's boat is because he misses him. Massu knows that Shige holes himself in his room, writing long letters to his father about the crabs they caught that day, the delicious mochi he ate with Massu, the jellyfish on the shore that nearly stung him. And when Shige isn't writing, Massu knows that he is reading and rereading the letters his father has sent to him, lengthy letters that detail a true soldier's life (carefully written, because Shige's father had warned them that with war comes extreme censorship), and not just the fluff that is posted in the local newspaper.
Shige shows him the first letter a week after he receives it. "Because we're best friends," Shige says softly, and Massu cocks his head in confusion. Nevertheless, after dinner, they clamber up the lighthouse steps to the top deck. The sun has yet to set but just in case, Massu lugs up a wicker-candle lantern and pulls it by them as they lay on their stomachs, folded letter tight in Shige's hand.
There is an intense quiet as Shige unfolds the letter. His hands are shaky, as if this is the first time he's read it, though Massu knows that can't be true, considering how worn the letter already looks, paper smudged, frail and bent. Shige hands it to Massu and Massu takes it without a word, breathing deeply.
He gets to the "Dearest son," before he stops, throat dry. Massu knows why Shige is doing this. He is doing this because they are best friends, and they had made a solemn best-friends pact months earlier to share everything with each other. But this-this feels like an unwelcome invasion of privacy. Even though it is Shige and Shige said it was fine, something about this feels uncomfortable, wrong. Massu starts to refold the letter.
"I can't read this," Massu says.
Shige glances at him, expression an odd mix of relief and alarm. "What are you talking about? I already said you could."
Massu shakes his head as he holds out the letter, "No, I can't. This is…this wasn't meant for me to read."
"But you're my-"
"And that's why it's fine," Massu huffs. "I'm telling you, you don't have to show me this. It's your letter."
After a long pause in which Shige stares and Massu tries to avoid said stare, Shige takes the letter back silently and puts it into its envelope. Massu rolls onto his back to look at the sky, the blue palette above them now blotched with both the faintest of reds and the deepest of purples. Eventually, Shige lies on his back next to him, and the two of them watch the sun set slowly beyond the lighthouse's peak.
"Remember the rhyme we used to say?" Massu says. "Land, green-brown; sea, brown-grey; island, dull peacock blue; sky, stone-grey…the sky looks a lot prettier than stone-grey now, doesn't it?"
Shige turns to him and his fingers are cold on Massu's shoulder; he feels it through the material, feels Shige's non-falling tears. "Thanks," Shige says softly, so softly that for a moment Massu thinks he almost imagines it.
But he doesn't, and instead Massu smiles, punching Shige's side in response as Shige laughs.
~
Eventually, and before Massu knows it, months have turned into years since that very first letter. Shige continues to eagerly go every month to the post office and he still holes himself in his room writing essay-length letters that talk about his life. But at the same time, slowly, Shige comes back to life, eager again about living his daily life, even if his father isn't right there beside him.
Though to Massu's dismay, he suspects that this rejuvenation of spirit has a lot more to do with school than with Massu.
In class, talk about the war is inevitable, and nowadays, hopeless. Because despite the teacher insisting that everything is fine, Massu's classmates cannot stop themselves from whispering to each other about how they may just not win after all. In the years that Shige and Massu grow up, listening to the underground gossip that cannot be quelled by their teacher, they understand a little more about the war now. They know that though war continues to rage on, it doesn't look like Japan can win. Massu and Shige know this. They have heard the rumors of America's vast weaponry and manpower, of Japan's growing losses and desperation. Massu and Shige are not stupid. They are better at listening in on adult conversations than their mothers think, and together they piece it together.
It is clear that the news really worries Shige. Shige may try to appear strong and unaffected, but Massu knows that Shige is always, constantly thinking about his father. And yet, despite this worry, despite the fact that he gets most of the rumors, the bad news, from classmates, there is at least one constant.
Shige always looks forward to school.
Massu doesn't get it.
"I want to know what's really going on. I want to be informed. I'd rather know than be ignorant about the whole thing," Shige says simply, when Massu asks.
Massu stares. "But it's school," he whines, as if that should be reason enough. Shige giggles knowingly as he slaps Massu's forearm with a light smack.
Frankly, Massu doesn't like school much. There is something about the place that makes Massu cringe. Initially, it's because he hates the stench of chalk. Massu really despises chalk, those annoying white screechy sticks. He also hates the powder of chalkboard erasers, which burns in his eyes and tastes bitter in his mouth.
And if he were honest, Massu knows that he is not learning anything that he'll actually use later in his life. He is never going to use the kanji learned in class while he operates the lighthouse, and arithmetic? It's a waste of time, really, and it should be a waste for Shige too, but for some reason beyond Massu's understanding (or maybe it makes perfect sense; this is Shige, after all), Shige shines in their one-room schoolhouse at the other end of town. When Massu draws shaky cartoon figures in the sides of his notepad, Shige always takes notes with steadfast attention and thorough detail. While Massu zones out and wonders whether they will be having gyoza for dinner, Shige asks detailed questions, solves difficult problems, and finishes all of his work with time to spare and with perfect marks.
They are two completely different and unrelated people in that classroom. Perhaps that is what bothers Massu the most. Perhaps this is why he really dislikes school. Though Massu can outrun Shige in a heartbeat and he can beat up anyone who is stupid enough to put up a fight, sometimes, just sometimes, when they sit in that stuffy boring classroom with their stuffy boring classmates and their stuffy boring teacher, Massu feels oddly…inferior. Unsure. Stupid.
But then, during recess, everything normalizes. They are eight and frail and fidgety, after all. The moment the clock ticks to recess time, Shige and Massu race outside and tumble in the grass. They pull weeds and talk loudly about pill bugs with the other boys (even though they are both afraid of them and refuse to admit it). Together, they belch and they giggle and stretch their eight-year-old limbs. And somehow, even though this is school and Massu hates it, being with Shige makes the experience a little better.
But when Shige asks, Massu says that the only reason he dislikes school is because of the fight. It is the only fight the two of them have in their childhood, the first crisis of their friendship, and it is stupid. It also happens, ironically, because of a girl.
One day when they are nine, Shige falls head over heels for the shy girl in the back, the one who doesn't say a word and lets the older girls take her things. She has thick-framed glasses, a snaggletooth, and an uneven crop of hair. Shige and Eriko have never spoken a word to each other, but for some reason, this doesn't seem to bother Shige. Either way, since Shige seems to think the world of her, Massu supposes he might as well like her too.
When Massu tells him the next day, Shige gasps, grabbing Massu by the collar and shaking it hard.
"You can't like the same girl I do," Shige says, abashed. "It's against the rules."
Massu pushes Shige away a little too hard and Shige stumbles to the ground. He winces and Massu winces too, but he bravely continues, "I can like whoever I want to like." Out of spite, he adds, "I bet she likes me more than you."
Shige glares. "I bet not," he says indignantly, jumping to his feet. "I'll prove it to you." He lunges forward and attempts to land a punch, but really, this is Massu versus Shige. There has never been much of a contest. Massu dodges it quickly, kicking Shige in the shin, who lets out a high howl. Shige pauses for a split second before he charges at Massu again, and Massu grunts upon the impact of Shige's shoulder jamming into his empty stomach.
Thirty minutes later, when the two of them confront Eriko with bruises and scrapes marking their tired bodies (Massu's shirt is soaked with sweat and Shige, well, Shige just looks injured), she flushes.
"Boys are gross," she says, before rushing out of the classroom and away from their nine-year-old selves.
Massu feels a part of him crumble like dust as they stand in front of her evacuated desk, shocked, even though he didn't even really like her all that much. He turns to Shige and crumble crumble goes something inside of him again. Shige looks distraught, like his world is over and nothing will ever be okay again. Massu wonders if that's how love is supposed to work. But if that's the case, then that is just lame. Massu hopes that love doesn't work the same way for him.
After a painful pause, Massu clears his throat. "We were too good for her anyway," he says loudly.
Shige nods dumbly. "Yeah," he mumbles in agreement.
"Girls are stupid," Massu says, finality clear in his voice. He turns to Shige and grabs him in a fierce man hug, chest bumping chest and elbows knocking into ribcages. "I won't ever leave you." Massu doesn't know where the corny words come from and he blanches, but after a moment, he realizes that he actually does mean them. He would never leave his best friend. After all, what kind of best friend move was that (besides the whole-liking-the-same-girl thing which was by now clearly a thing of the past)? "I solemnly swear."
They start walking back home and Shige scoffs as he tries to dust loose dirt off his clothes. "Idiot," he says simply, smiling, "I already know that."
That day they make a pact as men to never love another woman again.
It is also the day an officer clothed in regal uniform arrives at Shige's doorstep, and with averted eyes, hands his mother a thinly sealed envelope.
~
Missing in action.
The letter is formal, in black ink, short and to the point. Shige's father is missing in action, and there is little chance that they will find him.
Missing in action. Massu never thought he'd hate a phrase, but on that clear April day, as they gather in the Katos' stiflingly hot kitchen and sit shock still in the stuffy enclosure, Massu decides right then and there that he hates those three little words. Missing. In. Action. Three words that are so innocuous on their own, so simple, so ordinary, but when strung together, only cause the tears that stream down Shige's mother's cheeks and the blank glassy expression plastered on Shige's face. His own knotted stomach clenches and unclenches with each breath he takes.
And Massu hates it.
For hours the five of them sit in the hut kitchen. Shige and his mother, and the Masuda family (which, in that cramped room, is glaringly intact when compared to the Katos). Abruptly, Shige walks out of the kitchen without a sound and Massu wordlessly follows him. They tread outside and head towards the beach; by then the sun has already set and it's just them and an endless, bone-deep darkness. There's a hint of moonlight, a mere sliver, that stretches along the shore and stars dot the sky, emitting light weak and dull to Massu's eyes, but mostly it is just dark, dark and chilly. Wind ripples in their pant legs and pulls roughly against their shirts.
At first Massu thinks Shige is going to sit on the rocks like they normally do, but this time Shige walks determinedly past them, shallow steps leading them both to the wooden boat overturned by the hut. The boat that they have known all their lives, his father's boat, worn and dusty, awaiting the day its master would return and it would once again go out to sea.
"I'm going out," Shige says loudly in the beach quiet.
Massu swallows. "Okay."
Shige reaches out to begin pulling the boat but his hand pauses, fingers barely grazing wood before he tugs his hand away, as if electrified.
"What is it?" Massu asks, alarmed.
An unidentifiable noise chokes in Shige's throat, and he almost gargles with the effort to stay calm, eyes squeezing shut. "He was going to teach me how to fish," he finally says, voice wobbly and in adolescent high pitch.
Then he collapses, nearly crashing to the ground as he crouches into a tight ball, his breaths shuddering and overly loud, and he holds his head in his hands, fingers interwoven tightly amongst locks of greasy hair, nails short and torn. With a slow breath, Massu squats carefully in front of him and picks idly at a few stray strands of wild grass.
And next to Shige's trembling form, he waits.
But there is only so long two nine-year-old boys can stay crouched, and finally, Massu's slowly jellifying legs threaten to collapse from underneath him. Thankfully, Shige, who seems lost to the world, actually notices. He makes a move to stand, cringing upon the realization that his thighs burn and it hurts, and Massu laughs a little, to which Shige flashes Massu a baleful glance. He stumblingly straightens up and flinches as a keen numbness rests in his thighs.
They both trek awkwardly with chicken-bent legs back to the hut, groaning and wincing, attempting to shake feeling into their stubborn limbs. And then they walk into the hut, past the kitchen where their parents are still huddled, and in Shige's futon they fall fast asleep.
Later, Shige will cite this as one of the best things Massu has ever done for Shige as his best friend. Massu doesn't get it. It's not like Massu did anything, after all. All he had done was stoop next to Shige and pluck gnarled grass growing loosely in the sand. And all he knows is that the next day he had woken up with the sorest thighs and an agonizingly aching back, groaning like an old man.
But apparently, this was enough for Shige.
~
Two years after Shige's father is declared missing (a casualty of war people whisper, gossip, cry, but to Massu there is nothing casual about it), the war ends in relative silence.
There's an atomic bomb somewhere in their nation, Japan. Then another.
And then, supposedly, the war is over.
Massu thinks war is simple. In war, no one escapes unaffected. There are prisoners of war, there are heroes, and there are losers. Japan is one of the losers. This fact is unavoidable, especially in Massu and Shige's seaside town where the remnants of war seem to linger everywhere.
There are those who are reminded of war by the sudden influx of America, by the numbers of American soldiers stationed throughout Japan to keep the peace, by the onslaught of American products that hit the markets with astonishing force. And others will never forget the war cheers, songs, and newsreels that, though quickly removed by the government, remain burned into the retinas of the everyday Japanese citizen.
For Massu's and Shige's family, war lingers in their daily lives with the absence of Shige's father.
But there's no changing it; life goes on, as Massu's mother says. Life goes on and changes and pain fades and people stay together or part. They survive.
~
Flash forward to awkward, gangly teenage years.
Shige's mother puts everything she has into The Red House, working double time and impressing all with her newfound stamina. And Massu's mother takes it in stride, continuing to create elegant yet trendy modern clothes (postwar clothes, everyone jokes), as they line up outside The Red House to buy them. No one talks about the ever present bags under Shige's mother's eyes and the eternal downside curve of her lip, which people eventually begin to think is natural.
Shige studies with the same smooth, increased determination as his mother. And likewise, no one mentions the worry line creased tightly on Shige's forehead or the angry glint that sometimes gleams in his eyes when he thinks no one is looking. Though he has quit school along with all the other kids his age (because in that one-room schoolhouse, there is nothing more to learn past age fifteen), Shige continues on his endeavor to learn; most of his time is taken perusing the few books available at the small bookstore on the north side of town. The owner of the bookstore is Nishikido's old man, so once Nishikido tells his father that he knows Shige, Shige becomes welcome to the bookstore anytime. And even though shy at first, Shige gladly accepts Nishikido-san's invitation. Eventually, it comes to a point where Shige daily abuses that privilege and Nishikido-san complains laughingly that he sees Shige more than any of his sons.
Meanwhile, Massu, who has also quit school like everyone else, begins learning the art form of keeping a lighthouse.
It's hard work, is the first thing Massu learns. Not that Massu did not already know this from looking at his dad's weary back as he watches carefully over a dark and dead sea, but observing his father and practicing what his father does are two very different things. He learns about signals, about how to communicate with ships from far distances, how to maintain the equipment up in the lighthouse tower.
Most importantly, he learns what it means to be a lighthouse keeper.
The first time Massu stays up all night with his father, his father yells at him on six separate occasions to wake up because a ship could be coming any moment. Massu stands rigidly straight, blearily wiping at his eyes, and he nearly collapses from the unfamiliar feeling of staying up so late.
That night, no ships come into range and Massu is a little annoyed.
"What is the point of staying up all night and watching the sea if there aren't any ships?" Massu asks in aggravation, stumbling after his father down twisting flights of stairs.
Massu's father glances behind him to look at Massu before smiling in an odd, serene sort of way (the same listen-and-learn smile that Massu has grown to love and hate throughout the years). "The point is that one night, there will be a ship and it will need guidance. The one night you choose to doze off may be the night a ship veers dangerously off course."
Massu rolls his eyes and his father chuckles softly, "Us lighthouse keepers, we're…we are just-in-case people, Takahisa. Our job is to be there just in case. It isn't glamorous, that's for sure, but someone has to do it, right?"
All Massu knows is that he's never felt so tired in his life (though later he admits that the pep talk may've given him the energy to stay up the next night and only fall asleep twice).
~
As Massu and Shige grow up, from boys to men as they proudly say, as they find their teenage selves and do what they have to do, they spend less and less time together. That is an inevitable fact, and one that everyone notices, especially their parents.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that they are still best friends. They may have a little more acne and talk about girls with giggles and lewd gestures, but they are still two thin and awkward seaside boys. They still swim in the sea among rocks and forests of seaweed when Shige is back from the bookstore and Massu has just woken up before his nightly shift. They still go up on the deck and fall asleep on freshly mopped wood. They still catch crabs and fish and sea stars.
They are still them, Shige and Massu, and when Massu looks at Shige and sees him sprawled out beside him, hair in his face and drool sliding down his cheek, it's then Massu thinks - we're going to be just fine. Leave it, Massu, leave it.
~
But sometimes, he still wonders if this could actually last. Shige was meant for better things, greater things beyond their tiny village, and Shige and Massu both know it. He was meant to be a rich college student, to discover cures for the common cold, to find a way to fly into space. That's what Shige's mother always said, and something the village just sort of knew instinctively. They hadn't seen a boy like Shige, frankly, since Shige's father. Shige is inquisitive, curious, always questioning the world and how it works, looking beyond the everyday ordinary to think about what makes life the way it was.
Massu has always known that Shige was meant for more. He just wonders when Shige would realize it himself.
~
Shige begins to dream about the world beyond their village at the crisp and tender age of seventeen.
"I want to explore the world," Shige admits, floating leisurely amidst a forest of fresh seaweed.
Massu sighs happily, throwing a clam onto Shige's stomach, "So do I. Where should we go first?"
Shige laughs lightly, "Tokyo. I mean, we're Japanese. Shouldn't we visit our capital at least once in our lifetimes?"
"We can do better than that," Massu says. "Korea!"
"Canada. No wait, London."
"India. The Congo!"
"Antarctica!" And then they break down into giggles, and the next hours are spent rattling off all the places they can think of. The USA. Romania. Australia. Paris. Osaka. Argentina. Mount Everest. The North Pole. Each suggestion is a little more impassioned, a little more impossible and ludicrous than the last, but they all also sound so exotic and new and amazing that it even excites Massu.
"That would be so cool if we could actually go," Massu muses, after they finally run out of places.
Shige smiles wistfully, "Yeah, wouldn't it?"
Massu doesn't know then; how could he? He doesn't have prophetic powers. When Shige's mother calls them to come into the hut for watermelons - "with salt", she says, and Massu has always loved eating watermelons with salt, they taste so much tangier, so sweet - he promptly forgets the majority of their conversation. He doesn't know that that's the end of life as he knows it, that everything's going to change. He just knows this hour, this moment, of sitting beside Shige dipping his watermelon into salt and giggling when the juice explodes at the side of Shige's mouth; he just knows that he's sitting with Shige, and things aren't going to change quite yet. They're going to be this happy always.