A Wind to Wake Us
Title: A Wind to Wake Us
Pairing: Sengoku x Kirihara
Genre: drama, romance
Rating: R
Summary: a small compendium of mistaken hypotheses on the nature of human sexuality.
Feedback is loved. ♥ Pointing out of typos is appreciated.
pimped @ _tenipuri, because I fear I spam tenipuri_yaoi a bit too much.
~ A Wind to Wake Us ~
It had started out like all his other affairs. He had run into the former fellow tennis nut at the sleazy club he sometimes frequented when he was feeling lonely. A perfectly-defined back, clothed tightly in sheer dark green, stretched underneath a mop of vaguely familiar black curls. Sengoku found it cute somehow, that he hadn’t changed his hairstyle at all since junior high. Sengoku had bought him a drink or three, conversed a bit about the “old days,” and grinded up against him on the dance floor, the sweat dripping down their torsos making the already-tight shirts cling to their skin. An eager hand grabbed at the front of his pants, and Sengoku had known then that they had both come to this place seeking the same thing.
They had awoken the next morning, enveloped inside sheets smelling strongly of sweat and sex, with hangovers and pet names. In order to put up with the embarrassment of being called “Kiyo,” Sengoku had taken to calling him “cutie.”
Sengoku liked how small he felt cradled in his arms. In actuality, Kirihara wasn’t small at all; he may have been just slightly below the average height, but he still had a strong, masculine body that really couldn’t be called “cute” or “petite.” Not that that stopped Sengoku, with his broader shoulders and bulkier muscles, from doing so. The slightly-smaller man would growl and hiss at him like an animal.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyo,” Kirihara called from the bathroom, where he was washing his face in the sink.
“What is it, cutie?” Sengoku looked up from the magazine he was flipping through and leaned his head backwards over the couch, giving him full view inside the open door of the bathroom. He grinned inwardly, noticing that Kirihara was wearing his boxers - the silky ones with dice printed on them.
“Have you ever wanted to have sex in a graveyard?”
Sengoku blinked a couple of times before shifting his body sideways to give him a better view of his half-naked lover. “Um . . . no?”
Kirihara splashed his face one last time before patting it dry with a towel. “I’ve always thought it would be exciting, doing it on top of some huge family tomb,” he paused for a few seconds, then seemed to remember something. “Not my family’s, of course.”
Sengoku considered the macabre prospect. “I bet they’d appreciate the show.”
“Right?” Kirihara was getting excited by the idea, Sengoku could tell. “Plus, it’d be so . . . peaceful, you know? At night, I mean. Nice and quiet and dark, under the moonlight . . . it’d be almost-romantic, except then you’d remember that you’re surrounded by dead people. It’s like . . . a false sense of exhibitionism.”
Kirihara walked toward Sengoku and leaned over the back of the couch, pulling him into a demanding battle of tongues. Sengoku broke away after a few minutes, panting. “I love the way you think.”
“Is that a yes?” Kirihara smirked. Sengoku thought he had the cutest smirk.
“Was there a question?”
Kirihara laughed, except from his throat, a laugh could only ever sound like either a maniacal howl, or a girlish giggle, depending on the volume. This time it sounded like a giggle. “I guess not,” he whispered in Sengoku’s ear before stroking it with his tongue.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sengoku loved that animalistic side. It made the supposed-thrill of having an(other) affair that much more exciting. Kirihara was certainly slutty, but he was, above all else, a wild beast, cute but fierce, and also something of a tease. Sengoku would chase him, Kirihara would evade him, and it would continue like a twisted game of cat and mouse until Sengoku would finally corner him, hold him down, and fuck him good and hard, barely waiting until they reached the privacy of Kirihara’s apartment. They had to screw there, of course; Sengoku was, after all, having an affair.
He really should’ve sensed them from the start, the inconsistences from all his previous affairs. The pet names should’ve been the first indication, certainly, but there were others. It used to be a rare occurrence when Sengoku would spend the night with his lover, the two of them sleeping side by side; with Kirihara, it was a regularity. There was the foreign but heady feeling of jealousy that would bleed into his veins whenever Kirihara would talk about his past lovers. Above all else, however, Sengoku should have realized the significance in that creeping, unfamiliar emotion that was gradually eating him from the inside: guilt.
But Sengoku had become so caught up in the wild, raw thrill of it all, he had failed to notice any of these things until it was too late. He had dragged Sengoku onto the dance floor that first night, swinging about and feeling against him in a dance that was so primal, so atavistic, it had felt like they were channeling ancient aboriginal gods; and as though the rhythmic maelstrom was an archetype for them, he had proceeded to take over almost every aspect of Sengoku’s life with that same thrilling fervor.
And yet, before he knew it, the thrill had disappeared. He was no longer chasing Kirihara; Kirihara would come to him now, or Sengoku would go and find him waiting. At some point, the dance had ended and a relationship had taken over. Realizing this, Sengoku did the only thing he could think to do: he ran away. With the excuse that he had never been any good at serious conversation, he left Kirihara a brief note, so casual and aloof, it had pained him to write it. Deep down, Sengoku knew he was too afraid to face his demon, and had cowered out as easily as possible.
If Kirihara had wanted to, he could have easily tracked Sengoku down and confronted him. After all, he knew everything there was to know about Sengoku, from where he lived and worked, his work schedule, where he liked to hang out and a zillion other details, big and small, that only true lovers know about each other. Somehow, Sengoku had known the moment he folded up that note, that Kirihara would not, in fact, chase him. If there was one thing the man hated, it was his own desperation, and even though he still enjoyed causing others to feel it, he would never give in to such behavior.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyo?” Kirihara inquired softly, wondering if Sengoku was still awake.
“Yeah, cutie?” Sengoku cooed into the back of his neck, tightening his hold around the slightly-smaller body.
“Do you love your wife?”
The question took him by surprise, and his breath caught in his chest for a moment. “No,” he answered simply.
“Did you ever?” Kirihara sounded rather curious.
“I don’t know,” Sengoku felt a tinge of bitterness seep into his blood, and he suddenly wanted to leave. Except that leaving would mean going home, and he didn’t want to go home. He realized that Kirihara was waiting for him to elaborate. “I’m not sure I believe in romantic love,” and it pained him somewhat to say the words, but as soon as they left his mouth, he knew that they were the truth.
Kirihara didn’t respond.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was shortly after that, ironically enough, that Sengoku had come home to find someone else in bed with his wife. The only part of it that really shocked him was the fact that she had been so careless as to invite her lover home. Or perhaps she had been wanting to get caught. Either way, they were both finally given the excuse to escape from the dead-end marriage that had fallen into such a distinct nonexistence of communication, they had needed that one action to declare the marriage over. It might have gone on for years more, Sengoku realized, had that incident never occurred.
As it was, neither of them were really bitter, although she had insisted on keeping the house. Sengoku gave in easily enough - it’s not as if he ever really spent any time there in the first place. The divorce went smoothly, and Sengoku continued with his day to day life as if nothing had interrupted it.
His parents had been disappointed in him, and when he had told them he didn’t plan on ever getting married again, they were nearly inconsolable. But what about children? Sengoku had never wanted children. But what if you fall in love? Sengoku had laughed bitterly at that.
“If I fall in love,” he spoke with his usual happy-go-lucky, pompous air, but even over the phone, his mother could sense the hidden sadness underneath. “If I fall in love, then I’ll make sure not to propose until the morning after.”
~~~~~~~~~~
One thing Sengoku had to admit was that Kirihara’s bed always felt like home. The apartment itself was small but rather nice, lined with polished wood floors bedecked with imitation oriental rugs, with a huge ceramic bathtub that could’ve been a jacuzzi except that there were no jets, and a small bedroom that was half-taken up by Kirihara’s king-sized bed - a thick, soft mattress supported by an obsidian steel deco frame crowned in a black gossamer canopy. It was a late summer night, and the cool, crisp air that breezed in through the window put sensuous little goose bumps on the pale, lithe arm Sengoku was caressing lazily.
“Kiyo,” Kirihara sighed and shifted, flipping onto his right side so he could wrap an arm around Sengoku’s hip and nuzzle his face against Sengoku’s chest. Sengoku pressed his face into the head of messy, dark hair and inhaled Kirihara’s distinct but indescribable scent.
“Kiyo,” Kirihara repeated, sounding strained.
“Cutie?” Sengoku kissed the top of his head sweetly. A minute of silence stretched out as he awaited Kirihara’s question. A vehicle drove by outside, filling the room momentarily with insubstantial rays of light that moved across the room like a searchlight before disappearing entirely, as the sound of the motor faded in the distance, replaced by the soothing, familiar chirp of the cicadas.
“Never mind,” Kirihara whispered and wrapped his arm around him a little more tightly.
~~~~~~~~~~
When he had moved into his own apartment, or his “born-again bachelor pad” as he called it, Sengoku’s mind had drifted back to Kirihara. He was tempted to pick up his phone and invite him over, although he knew it would be impossible. Sengoku had been careless, like he always was, and there really was no going back this time.
Every so often, walking the crowded streets of various areas of Tokyo, Sengoku would see Kirihara’s face reflected in that of a complete stranger. He became a sort of shadow in Sengoku’s life, following him at odd times, the image of his face dark and vague in the mind’s eye. Over the months, his number of lovers grew and grew to new, impressive heights. Yet, they were so many, Sengoku knew, because they were so short. After Kirihara, not one of Sengoku’s “affairs” lasted more than a few nights.
They were male and female, and there were even a few that he had thought were one but turned out to be the other. It became so that Sengoku could only tell them apart by gender. The men all smelled like alcohol, tasted like cigarettes, and looked like Kirihara. The women smelled like perfume, tasted like wine, and looked like his ex-wife. After a while, the images began to mesh in his hazy mind, and they all started to look alike - one supreme being who seemed celestial, sacred, magnificent in the darkness of the night, but obscure and indistinct in the light of day.
Within a week, he would had completely forgotten their names, if he had even known them to begin with. He had to laugh one day when he realized it had turned into something of a subconscious schedule: Monday and Tuesday would usually be someone he knew, a coworker of sorts, or somebody he was friendly with at the bars or clubs. Wednesday, along with Sunday, were the only two nights he usually spent alone. Thursday was usually some cute young boy he picked up at one of the clubs. Friday, being pay day, afforded him a nice high-class prostitute from an upscale host club. Saturday was a mixed bag, often resulting in the most random of his lovers. Once he had even picked up a woman over twice his age; and considering he was nearing thirty, that was saying something.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Mmm . . . Kiyo?”
Kirihara had the obnoxiously cute habit of asking random questions while Sengoku was attempting to seduce him. Sengoku finished sucking what he hoped would turn into a nice big hickey on his chest and looked up. “Hmm?”
“Do you think men or women are more attractive?”
Sengoku blinked once and then smiled, leaning forward. “I think you’re more attractive,” he teased, then nibbled on a full, pouty bottom lip, soft and swollen.
Kirihara turned his head away. “I think men are more attractive,” he stated as if that decided the issue. Sengoku understood that he was expected to agree.
“Well, let’s see here . . .” his lips began a quick descent down the stout but slim body, tracing through curves and dipping into crevices his hands and lips had already memorized long before this. His tongue teased above the elastic band of underwear before pulling it down. “I do confirm that you are indeed of the male population,” he spoke in a formal, serious voice before sliding his lips down further, and Kirihara giggled at him before relapsing into moans.
~~~~~~~~~~
One fine day, Sengoku remembered why he used to call himself “lucky.” It actually wasn’t a very fine day at all, when it came down to it, as he spent the majority of it twiddling his thumbs anxiously as he awaited a fateful phone call.
One of his coworkers - a new girl in one of the lower departments, recent graduate from Tokyo University, a cute, enthusiastic young thing named Tomi - thought she was pregnant. Sengoku had kicked himself, quite literally, after she’d told him. He always used protection, he was good about these kinds of things, really, but that one night they had stumbled into his apartment and he hadn’t realized until they were both naked that he was out of condoms, and he had been far too aroused to stop at that point and she didn’t seem to mind, but OF COURSE she’d get pregnant from that one little slip-up, wouldn’t she? And Sengoku didn’t even really like the girl; sure, she was cute and funny, but the truth was she was a dimwit and, like all his lovers, he had barely spoken to her since that night. He swore loudly from the sofa in his apartment. Like hell he’d ever marry someone as bubbly and thick-headed as her . . . except now she might be pregnant with his god-damned child and he might have to marry her.
After stewing in his thoughts for a good 4-5 hours, Sengoku snapped. He reached for his cell phone and, in a moment of panic, dialed Kirihara’s number.
“The number you dialed may have been changed or disconnected-” the monotonous female recording droned into his ear, and Sengoku threw the phone against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut as it smashed into pieces.
Tomi had called his apartment a little while later with the blessed and holy news that she wasn’t pregnant, it had just been a false alarm, and why does his cell say it’s out of order, and by the way, does he want to have dinner tonight? Sengoku avoided the question about his phone, and politely refused the dinner; and just to make their relationship perfectly clear to her, he refused with the excuse he was having dinner with his girlfriend. A lie, obviously, and Sengoku honestly couldn’t care less about what sounded like restrained sobs coming from the other end of the line.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Hey, Kiyo,” Kirihara was illustrating once again why Sengoku liked to call him "the poster boy for ADD," standing in front of the dresser mirror and attempting to make sequins stick to his forehead with sheer willpower.
“There’s some duct tape in that drawer you know,” Sengoku snarked at him from across the room, reading a paperback in Kirihara’s bed.
Kirihara conveniently ignored the comment. “Have you ever heard any of the Ainu’s folktales?”
Sengoku lowered his book and blinked disbelievingly at Kirihara. ADD, indeed. “Umm . . .” he searched his mind, but came up blank. “Not off the top of my head? I haven’t learned about them since like, junior high.”
Kirihara apparently thought that licking the sequins would make them stick . . . and it did, for about five seconds. “The Ainu had this belief, or more like a theory, that human sexual organs were originally intended to be on the forehead.”
Sengoku wanted to laugh, but was floored at the absolute randomness of the statement. “Why the forehead?”
“To make sex easier,” Kirihara turned to face him, seeming to have officially given up his sequin venture. “They said that the otter, who was supposed to give the message to god or something, didn’t communicate it clearly enough, and that’s why sex organs ended up where they are.”
Sengoku wondered whether it was the folktale itself or Kirihara’s selective memory that resulted in that theory making absolutely no sense. “And . . .?”
Kirihara jumped onto the bed, wrapping his body around one of Sengoku’s legs. “Isn’t that weird to think about? If we had dicks on our foreheads . . . what would sex be like?”
Sengoku thought about it for a minute. “Well, with women it would be easier, right? Although it would be difficult to kiss without, you know, copulating. But . . .”
Sengoku started laughing and Kirihara furrowed his brows at him. “But what?”
“With us, it’d look like I was trying to stick my head up your -mmmff!”
Kirihara grabbed a pillow and smothered Sengoku’s face.
~~~~~~~~~~
It had been one year, five months, and seventeen days since Sengoku had last seen Kirihara.
The “Tomi incident,” as it came to be known, had changed him. He had begun experiencing an awareness he hadn’t expected: he was starting to feel old. He’d be turning 30 in a little over a month, and for the first time in his life, Sengoku was afraid of growing older.
Careless, brazen sexual encounters suddenly lost much of their appeal, although it wasn’t the pregnancy scare that dismayed him. It also wasn’t that sex no longer appealed to him; he still had the sex drive of a wild, ungelded stallion in heat. Sengoku was, quite simply, no longer interested in sexual partners; because even a one night stand, he reasoned, comes with a built-in relationship - and Sengoku did not want a relationship.
His one night stands became less and less frequent as the weeks rolled by, and when he did hook up with someone, he would insist on using a love hotel or, in a few extreme circumstances, a back alley. He arranged his encounters in this fashion so that he could leave immediately after the sex, and as such, he was often out the door within two minutes after orgasm.
Having just finished a quick fuck in a cheap hotel room, Sengoku was getting dressed, being careful not to look at the naked woman still lying in bed. He could feel her eyes on him, and prayed silently that she wouldn’t say or try anything unnecessary, like ask for his phone number. He finished tying the laces on his shoes and stood up to leave.
“Who is he?”
Sengoku was so startled by the question he forgot his resolve not to look at her, and turned to stare her in the face. She was lying there, still naked with a sheet draped over her, and was now smoking a cigarette. Her lips were curled in a light smirk and she looked as if she were reading his mind, her eyes boring holes into his own.
“Excuse me?” Sengoku’s voice was raspy.
“I could tell you wanted a man,” she said matter-of-factly, flicking ash off the end of her cigarette into a plastic yellow ashtray. “I was just wondering if it was one man in particular, or are you just some poor, confused queer in denial?”
Sengoku opened his mouth, but couldn’t find a decent response.
“Ah . . .” she took a long drag, blowing smoke at the ceiling, “I thought so. You love him?”
Sengoku raised his eyebrows at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” she laughed. “Love him, I mean. Maybe you should tell him? You seem so lonely, poor thing.”
Sengoku glared at her for a few moments before turning around and swiftly walking out the door. He closed it roughly behind him, her condescending laugh echoing irritatingly in his skull.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Akaya.”
Sengoku wrote the name down, but thought it looked too strange, too foreign, and decided to cross it out. He wrote “cutie” in its place, but then crossed that out as well, as it didn’t seem right. He got a new piece of paper and wrote “Kirihara” across the top.
“Kirihara,
Sorry cutie, but the show is over. The wifey is beginning to suspect and it’s probably about time we broke this off. It’ll just be for the best if we don’t see each other anymore. Sorry I didn’t get to tell you this in person.
Ja - Kiyo.”
He stopped by the apartment at a time he knew Kirihara would still be at work, and left the note along with the key Kirihara had given him a few weeks before in an envelope and pushed it underneath the door.
On his way out of the complex, one of Kirihara’s neighbors smiled at him and said hello, but Sengoku acted as though he hadn’t heard her. He kept his eyes focused ahead of him, and never looked back.
Sengoku invited one of his coworkers out to a bar after work with the sole intent of getting plastered off his ass, and his coworker - a supervisor whom Sengoku considered one of his best friends - had accepted the invite enthusiastically. Laughing drunkenly at the semi-crowded bar, they had been teasing each other back and forth when his supervisor had jokingly called him “Kiyo.”
Sengoku stilled, his expression turning cold. “Please don’t call me that,” his voice was polite, but firm.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sengoku saw Kirihara for the first time in one year, six months, and three days, standing alone and looking bored beside the dance floor of a new club that had recently opened in Shibuya. Sengoku had stared at him, unnoticed, for a good ten minutes before their eyes met across the dance floor.
For a few moments, time had stopped and suddenly Sengoku couldn’t hear any music or see any flashing lights, it was only Kirihara’s eyes, wide and unreadable, peering into his soul from forty feet away. Then, the moment was shattered, as Kirihara looked away, stared around dazedly for a few seconds, turned, and walked toward the exit.
The muscles in Sengoku’s legs twitched restlessly, but he felt as if his feet were superglued to the floor. He silently screamed at them to move, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists at the overwhelming anxiety building quickly in his chest. Finally, someone bumped into him by accident, and he was pushed forward a couple steps. The person reached out to touch his arm and apologize, but Sengoku was already gone.
He ran out of the club in time to see Kirihara being pulled away in a taxi. Sengoku swore loudly, causing some passing pedestrians to eye him nervously and distastefully. He leaned against the wall of the building, took a deep breath, and made his decision. He walked back to the subway station, hoping Kirihara’s address was still the same.
Kirihara opened the door almost immediately after Sengoku knocked, and Sengoku knew he’d been expecting him to follow. This made him smile sadly, reminding him of the games they used to play. Kirihara took one look at him and walked away, leaving the door open. Sengoku entered, closed the door gently behind him, removed his shoes, and followed Kirihara's footsteps into the cozy, familiar living room of the apartment he’d been missing for too long.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyoooo . . .” Kirihara sang tunelessly, as he crept up behind Sengoku and pinched his behind.
“Hey!” Sengoku snapped, almost burning himself on the hot pan in which he was currently cooking a stir-fry.
Kirihara slipped his hands down the front pockets of Sengoku’s jeans and rested one side of his face between Sengoku’s shoulder blades. “Sorry.”
Sengoku was surprised to hear him actually sounding apologetic. “It’s okay,” he shrugged and set the pan back on the stove, shutting the burner off. He slowly backed up a few steps, not wanting Kirihara to accidentally burn himself. He reached down, gently pressing his own hands against Kirihara’s through the denim of his pants. “Did you need something, cutie?”
“You,” Kirihara answered softly.
Sengoku chuckled, running his thumbs over Kirihara’s thin, bony wrists. “And what to you need me for?”
Kirihara turned his head so his face was pressing against Sengoku’s back. “Nothing in particular. Just you.”
Sengoku felt more than heard the words, traveling into his back and reverberating up his spine, as Kirihara finished them with a delicate kiss through his shirt, causing Sengoku to shiver slightly.
“You already got me, don’t you?”
The feeling of a smile pressed against his back made Sengoku’s own lips curve identically.
~~~~~~~~~~
~FIN~
~~~~~~~~~~
Pairing: Sengoku x Kirihara
Genre: drama, romance
Rating: R
Summary: a small compendium of mistaken hypotheses on the nature of human sexuality.
Feedback is loved. ♥ Pointing out of typos is appreciated.
pimped @ _tenipuri, because I fear I spam tenipuri_yaoi a bit too much.
~ A Wind to Wake Us ~
It had started out like all his other affairs. He had run into the former fellow tennis nut at the sleazy club he sometimes frequented when he was feeling lonely. A perfectly-defined back, clothed tightly in sheer dark green, stretched underneath a mop of vaguely familiar black curls. Sengoku found it cute somehow, that he hadn’t changed his hairstyle at all since junior high. Sengoku had bought him a drink or three, conversed a bit about the “old days,” and grinded up against him on the dance floor, the sweat dripping down their torsos making the already-tight shirts cling to their skin. An eager hand grabbed at the front of his pants, and Sengoku had known then that they had both come to this place seeking the same thing.
They had awoken the next morning, enveloped inside sheets smelling strongly of sweat and sex, with hangovers and pet names. In order to put up with the embarrassment of being called “Kiyo,” Sengoku had taken to calling him “cutie.”
Sengoku liked how small he felt cradled in his arms. In actuality, Kirihara wasn’t small at all; he may have been just slightly below the average height, but he still had a strong, masculine body that really couldn’t be called “cute” or “petite.” Not that that stopped Sengoku, with his broader shoulders and bulkier muscles, from doing so. The slightly-smaller man would growl and hiss at him like an animal.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyo,” Kirihara called from the bathroom, where he was washing his face in the sink.
“What is it, cutie?” Sengoku looked up from the magazine he was flipping through and leaned his head backwards over the couch, giving him full view inside the open door of the bathroom. He grinned inwardly, noticing that Kirihara was wearing his boxers - the silky ones with dice printed on them.
“Have you ever wanted to have sex in a graveyard?”
Sengoku blinked a couple of times before shifting his body sideways to give him a better view of his half-naked lover. “Um . . . no?”
Kirihara splashed his face one last time before patting it dry with a towel. “I’ve always thought it would be exciting, doing it on top of some huge family tomb,” he paused for a few seconds, then seemed to remember something. “Not my family’s, of course.”
Sengoku considered the macabre prospect. “I bet they’d appreciate the show.”
“Right?” Kirihara was getting excited by the idea, Sengoku could tell. “Plus, it’d be so . . . peaceful, you know? At night, I mean. Nice and quiet and dark, under the moonlight . . . it’d be almost-romantic, except then you’d remember that you’re surrounded by dead people. It’s like . . . a false sense of exhibitionism.”
Kirihara walked toward Sengoku and leaned over the back of the couch, pulling him into a demanding battle of tongues. Sengoku broke away after a few minutes, panting. “I love the way you think.”
“Is that a yes?” Kirihara smirked. Sengoku thought he had the cutest smirk.
“Was there a question?”
Kirihara laughed, except from his throat, a laugh could only ever sound like either a maniacal howl, or a girlish giggle, depending on the volume. This time it sounded like a giggle. “I guess not,” he whispered in Sengoku’s ear before stroking it with his tongue.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sengoku loved that animalistic side. It made the supposed-thrill of having an(other) affair that much more exciting. Kirihara was certainly slutty, but he was, above all else, a wild beast, cute but fierce, and also something of a tease. Sengoku would chase him, Kirihara would evade him, and it would continue like a twisted game of cat and mouse until Sengoku would finally corner him, hold him down, and fuck him good and hard, barely waiting until they reached the privacy of Kirihara’s apartment. They had to screw there, of course; Sengoku was, after all, having an affair.
He really should’ve sensed them from the start, the inconsistences from all his previous affairs. The pet names should’ve been the first indication, certainly, but there were others. It used to be a rare occurrence when Sengoku would spend the night with his lover, the two of them sleeping side by side; with Kirihara, it was a regularity. There was the foreign but heady feeling of jealousy that would bleed into his veins whenever Kirihara would talk about his past lovers. Above all else, however, Sengoku should have realized the significance in that creeping, unfamiliar emotion that was gradually eating him from the inside: guilt.
But Sengoku had become so caught up in the wild, raw thrill of it all, he had failed to notice any of these things until it was too late. He had dragged Sengoku onto the dance floor that first night, swinging about and feeling against him in a dance that was so primal, so atavistic, it had felt like they were channeling ancient aboriginal gods; and as though the rhythmic maelstrom was an archetype for them, he had proceeded to take over almost every aspect of Sengoku’s life with that same thrilling fervor.
And yet, before he knew it, the thrill had disappeared. He was no longer chasing Kirihara; Kirihara would come to him now, or Sengoku would go and find him waiting. At some point, the dance had ended and a relationship had taken over. Realizing this, Sengoku did the only thing he could think to do: he ran away. With the excuse that he had never been any good at serious conversation, he left Kirihara a brief note, so casual and aloof, it had pained him to write it. Deep down, Sengoku knew he was too afraid to face his demon, and had cowered out as easily as possible.
If Kirihara had wanted to, he could have easily tracked Sengoku down and confronted him. After all, he knew everything there was to know about Sengoku, from where he lived and worked, his work schedule, where he liked to hang out and a zillion other details, big and small, that only true lovers know about each other. Somehow, Sengoku had known the moment he folded up that note, that Kirihara would not, in fact, chase him. If there was one thing the man hated, it was his own desperation, and even though he still enjoyed causing others to feel it, he would never give in to such behavior.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyo?” Kirihara inquired softly, wondering if Sengoku was still awake.
“Yeah, cutie?” Sengoku cooed into the back of his neck, tightening his hold around the slightly-smaller body.
“Do you love your wife?”
The question took him by surprise, and his breath caught in his chest for a moment. “No,” he answered simply.
“Did you ever?” Kirihara sounded rather curious.
“I don’t know,” Sengoku felt a tinge of bitterness seep into his blood, and he suddenly wanted to leave. Except that leaving would mean going home, and he didn’t want to go home. He realized that Kirihara was waiting for him to elaborate. “I’m not sure I believe in romantic love,” and it pained him somewhat to say the words, but as soon as they left his mouth, he knew that they were the truth.
Kirihara didn’t respond.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was shortly after that, ironically enough, that Sengoku had come home to find someone else in bed with his wife. The only part of it that really shocked him was the fact that she had been so careless as to invite her lover home. Or perhaps she had been wanting to get caught. Either way, they were both finally given the excuse to escape from the dead-end marriage that had fallen into such a distinct nonexistence of communication, they had needed that one action to declare the marriage over. It might have gone on for years more, Sengoku realized, had that incident never occurred.
As it was, neither of them were really bitter, although she had insisted on keeping the house. Sengoku gave in easily enough - it’s not as if he ever really spent any time there in the first place. The divorce went smoothly, and Sengoku continued with his day to day life as if nothing had interrupted it.
His parents had been disappointed in him, and when he had told them he didn’t plan on ever getting married again, they were nearly inconsolable. But what about children? Sengoku had never wanted children. But what if you fall in love? Sengoku had laughed bitterly at that.
“If I fall in love,” he spoke with his usual happy-go-lucky, pompous air, but even over the phone, his mother could sense the hidden sadness underneath. “If I fall in love, then I’ll make sure not to propose until the morning after.”
~~~~~~~~~~
One thing Sengoku had to admit was that Kirihara’s bed always felt like home. The apartment itself was small but rather nice, lined with polished wood floors bedecked with imitation oriental rugs, with a huge ceramic bathtub that could’ve been a jacuzzi except that there were no jets, and a small bedroom that was half-taken up by Kirihara’s king-sized bed - a thick, soft mattress supported by an obsidian steel deco frame crowned in a black gossamer canopy. It was a late summer night, and the cool, crisp air that breezed in through the window put sensuous little goose bumps on the pale, lithe arm Sengoku was caressing lazily.
“Kiyo,” Kirihara sighed and shifted, flipping onto his right side so he could wrap an arm around Sengoku’s hip and nuzzle his face against Sengoku’s chest. Sengoku pressed his face into the head of messy, dark hair and inhaled Kirihara’s distinct but indescribable scent.
“Kiyo,” Kirihara repeated, sounding strained.
“Cutie?” Sengoku kissed the top of his head sweetly. A minute of silence stretched out as he awaited Kirihara’s question. A vehicle drove by outside, filling the room momentarily with insubstantial rays of light that moved across the room like a searchlight before disappearing entirely, as the sound of the motor faded in the distance, replaced by the soothing, familiar chirp of the cicadas.
“Never mind,” Kirihara whispered and wrapped his arm around him a little more tightly.
~~~~~~~~~~
When he had moved into his own apartment, or his “born-again bachelor pad” as he called it, Sengoku’s mind had drifted back to Kirihara. He was tempted to pick up his phone and invite him over, although he knew it would be impossible. Sengoku had been careless, like he always was, and there really was no going back this time.
Every so often, walking the crowded streets of various areas of Tokyo, Sengoku would see Kirihara’s face reflected in that of a complete stranger. He became a sort of shadow in Sengoku’s life, following him at odd times, the image of his face dark and vague in the mind’s eye. Over the months, his number of lovers grew and grew to new, impressive heights. Yet, they were so many, Sengoku knew, because they were so short. After Kirihara, not one of Sengoku’s “affairs” lasted more than a few nights.
They were male and female, and there were even a few that he had thought were one but turned out to be the other. It became so that Sengoku could only tell them apart by gender. The men all smelled like alcohol, tasted like cigarettes, and looked like Kirihara. The women smelled like perfume, tasted like wine, and looked like his ex-wife. After a while, the images began to mesh in his hazy mind, and they all started to look alike - one supreme being who seemed celestial, sacred, magnificent in the darkness of the night, but obscure and indistinct in the light of day.
Within a week, he would had completely forgotten their names, if he had even known them to begin with. He had to laugh one day when he realized it had turned into something of a subconscious schedule: Monday and Tuesday would usually be someone he knew, a coworker of sorts, or somebody he was friendly with at the bars or clubs. Wednesday, along with Sunday, were the only two nights he usually spent alone. Thursday was usually some cute young boy he picked up at one of the clubs. Friday, being pay day, afforded him a nice high-class prostitute from an upscale host club. Saturday was a mixed bag, often resulting in the most random of his lovers. Once he had even picked up a woman over twice his age; and considering he was nearing thirty, that was saying something.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Mmm . . . Kiyo?”
Kirihara had the obnoxiously cute habit of asking random questions while Sengoku was attempting to seduce him. Sengoku finished sucking what he hoped would turn into a nice big hickey on his chest and looked up. “Hmm?”
“Do you think men or women are more attractive?”
Sengoku blinked once and then smiled, leaning forward. “I think you’re more attractive,” he teased, then nibbled on a full, pouty bottom lip, soft and swollen.
Kirihara turned his head away. “I think men are more attractive,” he stated as if that decided the issue. Sengoku understood that he was expected to agree.
“Well, let’s see here . . .” his lips began a quick descent down the stout but slim body, tracing through curves and dipping into crevices his hands and lips had already memorized long before this. His tongue teased above the elastic band of underwear before pulling it down. “I do confirm that you are indeed of the male population,” he spoke in a formal, serious voice before sliding his lips down further, and Kirihara giggled at him before relapsing into moans.
~~~~~~~~~~
One fine day, Sengoku remembered why he used to call himself “lucky.” It actually wasn’t a very fine day at all, when it came down to it, as he spent the majority of it twiddling his thumbs anxiously as he awaited a fateful phone call.
One of his coworkers - a new girl in one of the lower departments, recent graduate from Tokyo University, a cute, enthusiastic young thing named Tomi - thought she was pregnant. Sengoku had kicked himself, quite literally, after she’d told him. He always used protection, he was good about these kinds of things, really, but that one night they had stumbled into his apartment and he hadn’t realized until they were both naked that he was out of condoms, and he had been far too aroused to stop at that point and she didn’t seem to mind, but OF COURSE she’d get pregnant from that one little slip-up, wouldn’t she? And Sengoku didn’t even really like the girl; sure, she was cute and funny, but the truth was she was a dimwit and, like all his lovers, he had barely spoken to her since that night. He swore loudly from the sofa in his apartment. Like hell he’d ever marry someone as bubbly and thick-headed as her . . . except now she might be pregnant with his god-damned child and he might have to marry her.
After stewing in his thoughts for a good 4-5 hours, Sengoku snapped. He reached for his cell phone and, in a moment of panic, dialed Kirihara’s number.
“The number you dialed may have been changed or disconnected-” the monotonous female recording droned into his ear, and Sengoku threw the phone against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut as it smashed into pieces.
Tomi had called his apartment a little while later with the blessed and holy news that she wasn’t pregnant, it had just been a false alarm, and why does his cell say it’s out of order, and by the way, does he want to have dinner tonight? Sengoku avoided the question about his phone, and politely refused the dinner; and just to make their relationship perfectly clear to her, he refused with the excuse he was having dinner with his girlfriend. A lie, obviously, and Sengoku honestly couldn’t care less about what sounded like restrained sobs coming from the other end of the line.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Hey, Kiyo,” Kirihara was illustrating once again why Sengoku liked to call him "the poster boy for ADD," standing in front of the dresser mirror and attempting to make sequins stick to his forehead with sheer willpower.
“There’s some duct tape in that drawer you know,” Sengoku snarked at him from across the room, reading a paperback in Kirihara’s bed.
Kirihara conveniently ignored the comment. “Have you ever heard any of the Ainu’s folktales?”
Sengoku lowered his book and blinked disbelievingly at Kirihara. ADD, indeed. “Umm . . .” he searched his mind, but came up blank. “Not off the top of my head? I haven’t learned about them since like, junior high.”
Kirihara apparently thought that licking the sequins would make them stick . . . and it did, for about five seconds. “The Ainu had this belief, or more like a theory, that human sexual organs were originally intended to be on the forehead.”
Sengoku wanted to laugh, but was floored at the absolute randomness of the statement. “Why the forehead?”
“To make sex easier,” Kirihara turned to face him, seeming to have officially given up his sequin venture. “They said that the otter, who was supposed to give the message to god or something, didn’t communicate it clearly enough, and that’s why sex organs ended up where they are.”
Sengoku wondered whether it was the folktale itself or Kirihara’s selective memory that resulted in that theory making absolutely no sense. “And . . .?”
Kirihara jumped onto the bed, wrapping his body around one of Sengoku’s legs. “Isn’t that weird to think about? If we had dicks on our foreheads . . . what would sex be like?”
Sengoku thought about it for a minute. “Well, with women it would be easier, right? Although it would be difficult to kiss without, you know, copulating. But . . .”
Sengoku started laughing and Kirihara furrowed his brows at him. “But what?”
“With us, it’d look like I was trying to stick my head up your -mmmff!”
Kirihara grabbed a pillow and smothered Sengoku’s face.
~~~~~~~~~~
It had been one year, five months, and seventeen days since Sengoku had last seen Kirihara.
The “Tomi incident,” as it came to be known, had changed him. He had begun experiencing an awareness he hadn’t expected: he was starting to feel old. He’d be turning 30 in a little over a month, and for the first time in his life, Sengoku was afraid of growing older.
Careless, brazen sexual encounters suddenly lost much of their appeal, although it wasn’t the pregnancy scare that dismayed him. It also wasn’t that sex no longer appealed to him; he still had the sex drive of a wild, ungelded stallion in heat. Sengoku was, quite simply, no longer interested in sexual partners; because even a one night stand, he reasoned, comes with a built-in relationship - and Sengoku did not want a relationship.
His one night stands became less and less frequent as the weeks rolled by, and when he did hook up with someone, he would insist on using a love hotel or, in a few extreme circumstances, a back alley. He arranged his encounters in this fashion so that he could leave immediately after the sex, and as such, he was often out the door within two minutes after orgasm.
Having just finished a quick fuck in a cheap hotel room, Sengoku was getting dressed, being careful not to look at the naked woman still lying in bed. He could feel her eyes on him, and prayed silently that she wouldn’t say or try anything unnecessary, like ask for his phone number. He finished tying the laces on his shoes and stood up to leave.
“Who is he?”
Sengoku was so startled by the question he forgot his resolve not to look at her, and turned to stare her in the face. She was lying there, still naked with a sheet draped over her, and was now smoking a cigarette. Her lips were curled in a light smirk and she looked as if she were reading his mind, her eyes boring holes into his own.
“Excuse me?” Sengoku’s voice was raspy.
“I could tell you wanted a man,” she said matter-of-factly, flicking ash off the end of her cigarette into a plastic yellow ashtray. “I was just wondering if it was one man in particular, or are you just some poor, confused queer in denial?”
Sengoku opened his mouth, but couldn’t find a decent response.
“Ah . . .” she took a long drag, blowing smoke at the ceiling, “I thought so. You love him?”
Sengoku raised his eyebrows at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” she laughed. “Love him, I mean. Maybe you should tell him? You seem so lonely, poor thing.”
Sengoku glared at her for a few moments before turning around and swiftly walking out the door. He closed it roughly behind him, her condescending laugh echoing irritatingly in his skull.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Akaya.”
Sengoku wrote the name down, but thought it looked too strange, too foreign, and decided to cross it out. He wrote “cutie” in its place, but then crossed that out as well, as it didn’t seem right. He got a new piece of paper and wrote “Kirihara” across the top.
“Kirihara,
Sorry cutie, but the show is over. The wifey is beginning to suspect and it’s probably about time we broke this off. It’ll just be for the best if we don’t see each other anymore. Sorry I didn’t get to tell you this in person.
Ja - Kiyo.”
He stopped by the apartment at a time he knew Kirihara would still be at work, and left the note along with the key Kirihara had given him a few weeks before in an envelope and pushed it underneath the door.
On his way out of the complex, one of Kirihara’s neighbors smiled at him and said hello, but Sengoku acted as though he hadn’t heard her. He kept his eyes focused ahead of him, and never looked back.
Sengoku invited one of his coworkers out to a bar after work with the sole intent of getting plastered off his ass, and his coworker - a supervisor whom Sengoku considered one of his best friends - had accepted the invite enthusiastically. Laughing drunkenly at the semi-crowded bar, they had been teasing each other back and forth when his supervisor had jokingly called him “Kiyo.”
Sengoku stilled, his expression turning cold. “Please don’t call me that,” his voice was polite, but firm.
~~~~~~~~~~
Sengoku saw Kirihara for the first time in one year, six months, and three days, standing alone and looking bored beside the dance floor of a new club that had recently opened in Shibuya. Sengoku had stared at him, unnoticed, for a good ten minutes before their eyes met across the dance floor.
For a few moments, time had stopped and suddenly Sengoku couldn’t hear any music or see any flashing lights, it was only Kirihara’s eyes, wide and unreadable, peering into his soul from forty feet away. Then, the moment was shattered, as Kirihara looked away, stared around dazedly for a few seconds, turned, and walked toward the exit.
The muscles in Sengoku’s legs twitched restlessly, but he felt as if his feet were superglued to the floor. He silently screamed at them to move, grinding his teeth and clenching his fists at the overwhelming anxiety building quickly in his chest. Finally, someone bumped into him by accident, and he was pushed forward a couple steps. The person reached out to touch his arm and apologize, but Sengoku was already gone.
He ran out of the club in time to see Kirihara being pulled away in a taxi. Sengoku swore loudly, causing some passing pedestrians to eye him nervously and distastefully. He leaned against the wall of the building, took a deep breath, and made his decision. He walked back to the subway station, hoping Kirihara’s address was still the same.
Kirihara opened the door almost immediately after Sengoku knocked, and Sengoku knew he’d been expecting him to follow. This made him smile sadly, reminding him of the games they used to play. Kirihara took one look at him and walked away, leaving the door open. Sengoku entered, closed the door gently behind him, removed his shoes, and followed Kirihara's footsteps into the cozy, familiar living room of the apartment he’d been missing for too long.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Kiyoooo . . .” Kirihara sang tunelessly, as he crept up behind Sengoku and pinched his behind.
“Hey!” Sengoku snapped, almost burning himself on the hot pan in which he was currently cooking a stir-fry.
Kirihara slipped his hands down the front pockets of Sengoku’s jeans and rested one side of his face between Sengoku’s shoulder blades. “Sorry.”
Sengoku was surprised to hear him actually sounding apologetic. “It’s okay,” he shrugged and set the pan back on the stove, shutting the burner off. He slowly backed up a few steps, not wanting Kirihara to accidentally burn himself. He reached down, gently pressing his own hands against Kirihara’s through the denim of his pants. “Did you need something, cutie?”
“You,” Kirihara answered softly.
Sengoku chuckled, running his thumbs over Kirihara’s thin, bony wrists. “And what to you need me for?”
Kirihara turned his head so his face was pressing against Sengoku’s back. “Nothing in particular. Just you.”
Sengoku felt more than heard the words, traveling into his back and reverberating up his spine, as Kirihara finished them with a delicate kiss through his shirt, causing Sengoku to shiver slightly.
“You already got me, don’t you?”
The feeling of a smile pressed against his back made Sengoku’s own lips curve identically.
~~~~~~~~~~
~FIN~
~~~~~~~~~~