You were wiser when you were younger, but now you are old, and sentimental, and when the offer is made - as it is one cold day in winter, after a few drinks with mutual friends - you clutch at it like a lifeline.
He holds you afterwards, and to your horror it is the holding that you need more than anything. You count under your breath until he speaks quietly and nudges you away. You count the limits of his kindness and cruelty in seconds and heartbeats, then you stern your features and raise your head and nod and it is over. You part ways quickly, and do not look back.
Your wife laughs at you that evening over dinner, asks you lightly about your friend from before, and when you express confusion she points towards her head and says you know, that one and you pause for just long enough before saying that one? he's fine, I think and the subject is dropped. You do not think she guesses. You're not certain you would mind if she does.
The offer is made again less than a month later. You do not bother feigning resistance; the chase isn't what provokes him, and you lack the energy to pretend. His kisses are cool and his hand smooths your hair back into place after you remove your tie. You do not say his name.
It becomes a habit to accept the offer. It is not love that drives you, you tell yourself. It's familiarity, or a settling of old scores, or the need to complete something left unfinished. Still, you do not think of the habit as an affair, and when your wife says the word out loud one night it sounds so absurd that you laugh. She doesn't weep. When she asks if you are in love with him, you cannot voice your glib answer, and when she leaves you sit alone in your kitchen and feel numb.
News travels quickly enough, and friends call to take sides. Some are sad, some are confused, some are angry, and you find it hard to track which is which. One calls and sounds so understanding that it cracks the ice a little, but you do not fully explain yourself even so. He does not call, and you do not expect it. Day to day life continues. You do not take the personal time off you are offered; you attend patients who must have heard rumours and who flinch a little at your touch, but you maintain professionalism.
Weeks pass, and you start to feel concern, but you do not dwell on the issue.
One day you leave your office and he is there, waiting for you as if everything is normal. You cannot detect anything unusual in the offer he makes, and his kisses are as cold and distanced as ever. When he speaks and pushes you away, his kindness has lasted no longer than usual. You wonder if he has heard. You part as always, without looking back.
He is there again a week later, and then again a few days later, and then he is there every day. It is stifling, too much and too reckless, but you cling to him every time as if you will drown without him.
"Tomorrow," he says quietly on the street one day afterwards, and he speaks so infrequently afterwards that you nearly do not hear him, "I can't be here. Don't wait for me."
You pause, and do not look back. You will not ask.
The next day is terrible. A young patient accuses you of inappropriate conduct, and because everyone has now heard of your affair, your deviancy, your protests are met with disbelief. You are not fired; they cannot do so without due process. Your reputation, however, will never recover, and that night you do finally allow yourself to cry for the ruin that is your life.
You pack your belongings, place them in storage, and take some time off. You travel; you visit friends in Tokyo and Osaka and Hokkaido. One of them offers to try to sell your house for you, and is perhaps a little startled that you accept his offer so swiftly. You call the hospital and give notice, and they offer only token protests. You think about what you will do next, but your savings are sufficient that the question is not urgent.
You are in Chiba, on the beach, when a smiling man you recognise from years ago greets you and asks you to come for a drink. You wonder if he is trying to seduce you, but when he introduces one of the barmaids as his girlfriend you relax somewhat, and indulge yourself in idle reminiscing. Much later, he admits that he has heard about your marriage ending. You shrug and he laughs and says that you are hardly the first man to find himself in such a situation, and he names a few people from your mutual past as examples. None of them surprise you, particularly. It is reassuring.
You sleep on a futon that night, too drunk to return to your hotel, and are only mildly disappointed that your smiling friend does not try to kiss you once you are alone in his place. You do not think you would welcome it, especially, but the lack leaves you restless.
Two days later, he shows up, sitting at a table in the cafe next to your hotel. You offer to buy him a coffee, but he declines and you take him up to your room instead, past your cheerful landlady and through the shared courtyard. He kisses you a little more forcefully than usual once you are alone, and you smile to yourself as you picture the calls and enquiries that would have led him to follow you here. Your heart is light enough that you say his name, once, reverentially, at the crucial moment.
He holds you for only a very few moments afterwards, and then wrenches himself away with a curse. It's startling, but you steady yourself and give him the level gaze he expects from you.
"You," he says with anger in his voice, and then he calms too, and his eyes are hard and cold. "Are you ever coming back?"
You shake your head, though in truth it's a decision you hadn't made until this moment.
"Then where?"
"Nowhere yet." You are still naked, and you pull the sheet over yourself self-consciously. He watches you, his eyes no softer, and you wonder how much he resents you for forcing him to act, to show that he cares enough to look for you. You choose your words carefully. "I can go wherever I'm wanted."
He sits, then, cross-legged, on the tatami mat. He is still naked, but he has never been self-conscious. "Your house?"
"Being sold, I hope." This - talking - is not entirely unprecedented, but it is unusual. "My wife may divorce me soon, though, and perhaps she will ask for it."
"Ah." He leans back. "Your job?"
"I left. There was talk."
"I have a house. Not too fond of it, though."
You've never been to his house, but then you suppose he never went to yours either. You're not even certain his was in the same city.
He comes back to sit next to you on the futon, and he kisses you again, and you suffocate the words you want to say to him. This time, he catches your wrists and covers your mouth and so you do not say his name, though his eyes seem darker and softer and more expressive than ever.
He leaves abruptly once it is over, allowing you barely seconds of affection to cling to, and you wonder if you will see him again.
Your smiling friend puts you in touch with another mutual friend, now living in Kyushu. This one, tall and bespectacled and cordial, interviews you politely and offers you a job at the hospital he works in. You consider it for a while, then decline. You crave change now.
You cross the sea instead, following your childhood dreams, and go to Europe. You spend months as an observer in hospitals there, your journal publications in English and Japanese opening doors for you. It is fascinating. You go to bed with men twice - once in London, and once in Madrid - and ignore the sensation of betrayal that accompanies it. You are not yet divorced, and you tell yourself that your guilt is that of a married man. One man falls asleep afterwards, and you evict him from your hotel room in the morning with as much polite disinterest as possible. The other - slim, athletic, charming and nearly white-blond - is startled when you clutch at him afterwards for comfort, and extricates himself with a laugh and a joke. You do not seek out men for sex again; you cannot trust yourself not to revisit the past.
On your return to Japan, you find that your wife has allowed the house to be sold and has sent divorce papers for you to sign. She does not want much; a small amount of capital and her share of your joint pension scheme, and you sign it over to her gladly. You seek out a job; you move from palliative care to pure research, after some consideration. It suits you well.
He arrives on the day your final divorce notice arrives. It sits between you on the kitchen table in your new apartment in Tokyo; he has perused the paperwork and now his coffee cup is atop it, leaving a dark stain you're certain is deliberate. A saucer has been pressed into service as an ashtray; you're not sure when he re-developed the habit, but you cannot bring yourself to raise too much of an objection.
"Well," he says, his smile nearly as crooked as his tie, "you're a free man. What now?"
You think about Europe, and other men, and Chiba and Kyushu and Osaka and then you smile at him. "Freedom is over-rated."
"Is that right?"
You hold out your hand, and he takes it, his eyes lit with amusement. "But you can choose your cage."
"How poetic." He finishes his cigarette, and then his coffee, and then stands up. "I chose mine long ago. Come to bed."
You stand up too, and start to follow him. A thought strikes you, and you pause to remove your glasses, leaving them on top of the divorce papers. It's not like they ever served as much more than an extra mask anyway.
Besides, Yagyuu's always hated them on you.
Author's note:
This was written in one evening while in a very strange mood.
I'm not entirely sure how it ended up being second-person, but that's how it goes sometimes.