EIKONOGRAPHIA
—o—
The portrait hanging at the top of the stairs has filled him with a vague sense of both mystery and shame ever since it was hung there two years ago, an early present for his sixteenth birthday. The fifteen-year-old boy immortalized in it is the very image of Russia's ancient royalty, with his secretive smile and heavy-lidded eyes and flaxen hair that gently frames a face fair as Lomonosov china. The gold thread that embroiders the model's clothing shines like real gold from the canvas, and even in the dark of the manor the light reflected in his blue eyes and on his slightly-parted vermilion lips never fades.
As he feels the darkness slowly consume more and more of him, he finds it harder to relate to that boy in the portrait, even though that boy is himself. Despite the growing distance between them, however, he remains attracted to the image as though searching within it for something he never knew when he lost. Something in that portrait draws him in like an icon, hidden within a dark chapel yet radiant with its own internal light. It is such a light in the pursuit of which he always finds himself, and such a light which always manages to just escape his grasp. How the portraitist captured what he could not within his own self, he wishes he knew.
It is fair to say that it was the proverbial stage, this world Nekozawa Umehito of the Ouran Peers School black magic club was born into and miscast by his aristocratic looks and name into a leading role he knew he could never fill. Since before he can remember he has wanted nothing more than to hide in the quiet and the dark behind the curtain, far from the spotlight; but the boy in the portrait, if he feels the same way, gives no indication of his discomfort, and rather seems to be peering curiously out at the audience that waits for him. It must be a trick of the brush, is all he can say, because Nekozawa knows his transformation was complete long before he ever sat for that portrait.
Perhaps it started with something as simple as realizing the fragility of a shadow on a clear day, constantly on the move as it shied from the sun's rays in order that it might continue to exist. That constantly moving shadow was himself, never given a chance to rest until the sun went down and the dark surrounded and comforted him like the proverbial womb, blacking over all his burdens, all that was unpleasant or difficult, and making all uniform.
After all, it is only in the dark that the candle's flame really shines, bravely throwing its own twisted shadow upon everything it is able as though aware of its own evanescence, in defiance of its own evanescence. Like the plum blossoms of his namesake, which only glow so brilliantly because they have no competition but the bare winter branches.
Somewhere inside him is that same flame, he knows, like the light that shines behind the eyes of icons, or reflects off a cat's retinas. It shone behind his own eyes once, even if he could not see it until an outsider put it to canvas.
—o—
Like a flicker of light where none should exist, it was the sound of a piano playing that drew him to the third of the high school's music rooms, which should have been unused, on that last day of his first year when the scattering plum blossoms were giving way to spring's brilliant colors.
Silent as a cat, he slipped inside the grand double doors, into a room frosted like a cake in rose-colored molding and black marble inlay. He came as himself, without the dark wig which hid the boy in the portrait from his classmates. The room was dim and his presence went unnoticed, the lights off and curtains pulled closed around all but one of the windows.
And through that one whose curtains were drawn back, the rays of the afternoon sun cast a net of golden light over the polished black lid of the grand piano that stood before it. At the keyboard, also caught in that net, sat his underclassman Suou Tamaki, playing a gentle melody Nekozawa recognized instantly. Beethoven's fifth piano concerto, the "Emperor" concerto. The middle movement, the adagio.
It was a fitting choice for the already-dubbed prince of the incoming first-year class, but if that same thought had occurred to Suou as well he did not show it. His poise over the piano was anything but self-conscious. His back relaxed, his legs casually bent toward the pedals, his head tilted just slightly, he gave himself completely to the music that was formed beneath his fingertips. From the shadows Nekozawa watched them tenderly stroke the keys, descending down the keyboard one over the other before alighting ever so gently on that next high note like a fresh inhalation of breath to start the process again. Each note fell on the ears as soft and cool as a drop of rain. No matter how much one trained himself to the notes on a page, it was quite another matter to make an instrument truly sing, and Suou's talented fingers knew instinctively just how much pressure was necessary to do just that. Though hardly anyone would ever know just how well he played, to those few who had the fortune it was clear how naturally the music came to him, how effortlessly.
Far more widely known was his charm, and this came with the same natural ease as did playing. Could the two art forms really be separated where Suou was concerned? Those same hands that danced over the keys could make a third-year girl sigh simply by sweeping through the air just so. And just as he coaxed such beautiful music from the piano, so could he coax whatever reaction he desired from whomever he desired with but a few well-chosen words, if not merely a glance. Beauty followed him in all things, attracted like a butterfly to his perfection and grace.
Not that the same was beyond Nekozawa's capacity. Suou's flawless skin and well-proportioned features, his golden hair that was illuminated by the bright afternoon sunlight glinting off the piano's lid were not unlike his own, his violet eyes that remained downcast and his lips that were curved into a serene smile no more expressive or persuasive than Nekozawa's had the potential to be. Yet Nekozawa found himself strangely envious of Suou as he watched him playing in that brilliant light, and shared in his underclassman's secret.
The one time the real Suou was allowed to come out and play.
Passionate chords gave way to delicate trills that sent little shivers up Nekozawa's spine as they rose to a tenuous peak, then descended again into a measured variation on the main theme, whose lilting triplets waltzed round one another playfully, dreamily—like his two hands that glided up and down the keyboard, brought close to one another by the melody but never close enough to touch.
Like the two of them who had spent part of their summer together in the Nekozawa estate on the shore the year before, out of their parents' convenience and nothing more—one on the sand, the other in the caves that dotted the rocks. Only when it rained were they brought together in that room with the grand piano and the books and the bay windows; but once there, though strangers to one another, they kept boredom at bay for hours with witty banter about this trivial subject or that—Nekozawa was never able to quite remember the particulars.
What he did remember clearly was how easily Suou had charmed him without even trying for it—like the poet Catullus had found himself charmed by his Licinius—with his gentle, magnetic smile and glowing words. They had captured Nekozawa so completely he had found himself awake and restless in the middle of the night yearning for sunrise when he might be able to speak to Suou again—and who could argue that that was most unlike him? To Nekozawa that seemed the thinking of a man who had been jinxed.
But the fact remained he would not find Suou in the dark.
If he were honest with himself, he would find it was that which he envied Suou—not that Suou had been given such grace by Nature, but that he embraced that grace as who he was and fully became the charmer. That was something Nekozawa could not do. And though he would be loath to change places with Suou, still he envied what was to him the other's greatest strength.
The boy in the portrait with the light behind his eyes . . .
He had been Suou all along.
With that realization, Nekozawa's breath left him like a candle blown out, and the music took on an irrevocable note of melancholy to his ears. He did not belong there. That tender playing and the world it belonged to was a heaven out of which he had thrown himself years ago, and suddenly he could stand to be reminded of that fact no longer. Telling himself the song would soon draw to a close, he made to excuse himself as quietly as he had come.
It came to a hasty end before he could get very far, and Suou called out to him waggishly.
"Nekozawa, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"
Caught himself, Nekozawa stopped and turned, and played along. "What wouldst thou have with me?"
"Good King of Cats," Suou said as he approached, "nothing but one of your nine lives."
And so saying he rested his arm against the pillar on which Nekozawa leaned, a lazy smile on his lips as he gently swept the hair out of the other's eyes. No sooner had those fingers that had caressed such music out of the piano as still echoed in his mind caressed Nekozawa's temple, still cool from the ivory, than the palm of that hand glided down to lightly pillow his jaw, as though holding up his face to bathe in the brilliant light of Suou's gaze that could make any young woman feel as singular as the last in the world, and as desired as Aphrodite herself.
Except Nekozawa was not a young woman, and he wilted under that brilliance that was so wasted on him, turning his eyes away like one shies away from the sun's glare. He felt the heat rise to his cheeks at being scrutinized and adored by Suou like one of his princesses, and could swear Suou must have felt it through his palm. Nekozawa gave himself away; but he had resigned himself to the inevitability of that character trait long ago.
Suou let his hand fall. But he did not lower his gaze, nor back away.
"Join me," he said. "I'm starting a host club and I want you in it."
His voice was smooth as ripples lapping at a lake shore, to which Nekozawa could only reply a stiff, "What would that entail?"
"Keeping your coeds entertained with your attentive presence, delighting in all things beautiful, letting them worship you as the prince you are," Suou tempted him. Like Christ was tempted with the promise of all the material realm and its pleasures for his kingdom. "It's simple, really." And it was all there ripe for Nekozawa's picking.
If he only said the word.
"I can't, Suou." Shame stayed his gaze as he murmured, "You know I can't."
"Why not?"
Elegant disappointment clouded Suou's violet eyes. Even in that affectation—for that was all that it was, wasn't it?—he displayed the refined, masculine sensitivity necessary for the role of a Prince Charming. And still he wondered why Nekozawa with his weak voice and gloomy disposition could not bring himself to join such ranks? "Maybe I'll incur the Romanov curse for my temerity," Suou said, "but I think you're wasting your pedigree."
So that was all the invitation was? It was only as one prince, one masquerader to another that Suou asked his support? And for a moment Nekozawa had been worried his underclassman had caught a glimpse of that elusive spark within his eyes.
Uncertain whether to be disappointed or relieved, he did not answer.
"Come on. You know how much I could use you. There's nothing keeping you from joining us."
If he only put his will to it, in other words, adoration would follow him as easily as it did Suou. If he could but put aside his childish fears and enter that garden of earthly delights of which that music had shown him a brief glimpse, he could stand beside Suou as brother in arms in his comedy, his conspiracy of manufactured affection and female wish-fulfillment.
But merely the thought of being surrounded by young women whose attentions were solely for him gripped Nekozawa with an inexplicable fear so strong he had to fight the urge to take a step backwards. If just the thought could affect him that much, was his problem really such a simple matter of will-power?
"Actually," he said, "there is a reason I can't accept."
"And what is that?"
"A conflict of interest. I'm thinking of starting my own club."
He was not sure from where that profession had come, but now that the words were out it seemed only appropriate that he would do so. Something somber and occult perhaps—the plan was unfolding itself rapidly in his mind—a fitting foil to Suou's frivolousness.
Yet Suou's lips remained parted as though ready at any moment to rebut, sure he had heard wrong, waiting for the punch line of the joke.
It would never come. The fact was they resided in two different worlds, which they had chosen for themselves perhaps without consciously being aware of it—and those worlds were too different to ever hope to intersect. Suou's was as full of color and splendor and air as a ceiling fresco of the gods in the cumulus-clouded heavens and would always be that way, just as Nekozawa had no choice but to remain in that dark, two-dimensional world of the icons with their secret, hidden light. A vast gulf separated them from one another. If Suou did not recognize that by now, then there was very little Nekozawa could do to make him understand.
"Is that how it's going to be, then?" Suou's voice dropped to a whisper, his brows furrowing; but whether his distress was real or just another stage direction in his script, even Nekozawa did not know him well enough to tell. "Are we destined to be rivals from here on out?"
Nekozawa looked away. Somehow that was easier than stating the obvious.
"Isn't there anything I can say to make you change your mind?"
"I'm sorry," Nekozawa said and turned to go.
He did not see the smile slowly spread across Suou's lips as something resurfaced in his mind, but when he spoke again his words stopped Nekozawa in his footsteps more effectively than any physical restraint.
"What was it Catullus said? 'Now, don't be rash—don't reject our prayers, we implore you, precious, lest Nemesis make you pay for it.'"
As Nekozawa slowly turned, Suou finished with a noble air that was perhaps a premonition of his host self:
"'She's a drastic goddess. Don't provoke her.'"
A smile tugged at the corners of Nekozawa's own mouth that quickly broadened into a grin. If he could see himself as Suou was seeing him at that moment, as he brushed past Nekozawa to take one of the handles of the grand double doors, no doubt he would have recognized the boy in the portrait; and he might have finally understood what that boy had been looking at with such curious longing in his eyes.
As things were, all he saw was Suou Tamaki holding the door to the third music room cracked open for him.
Notes: The translation of the quotation from L (50) Catullus ("Now don't be rash . . .") is by Guy Lee (1990).
"Good King of Cats" etc. are of course from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene One.
"Eikonographia" is the Greek from which the word "iconography" comes.