A few notes: Mamimi refers to Naota as "Takkun," as that is the name of the crazy caffeine cat, whereas Haruko calls him "Ta-kun," short for Taro. I think. Now, if I'm wrong about this, someone beat me over the head with a stick.
***
Titled, "Hope": Now Glow!
Another bite out of the apple. Crunch, chew, crunch, chew. A buzz as the guitar string was thrummed. It vibrated with deep sound.
Naota turned the page, taking another bite and flicking another string. "Titled, 'Black Guitar.' Titled, 'Flee the Machine.' Titled..." His voice was tired as he read aloud. "Samejima Mamimi, gallery opening on Thursday..." She had done well for herself. The art magazine had featured a short biography article, and he was hardly surprised that no one really knew where she lived or where she was at any given time. She sold her pictures and left. It was doubtful if she had any idea that a publisher created a gallery of all her original work. She never made copies, the article said.
He took another bite of his apple and nabbed a chord in the upper crook of his finger. He pulled and it made a low, pleasant hum. He had seen her, the other day. She stood under the bridge, cigarette held by one pouting lip, her hair slightly longer. She wasn't all that skinny, any more, but she seemed to wear more for practical than for looks. She wore a large sweater with some obscene word etched in black on the front and her old uniform's skirt. He wondered why she had worn the skirt. She rarely went to school anyway.
Naota set the magazine on the ground and stood. "Titled, 'Boy on a Hill,'" he murmured. His guitar had a special place, propped up against the wall in the corner, angled just so that he wouldn't see it as he slept. He leaned it against the plaster. She had taken one picture of him. There had been no words until she hit him, and he wondered if he had deserved it. She had certainly believed so until she kissed him, and suddenly he was not so sure. She had said the words, the ones that haunted his dreams.
'You're just a kid.'
An angry, frustrated yell. An apple soared out the window and split when it fell onto the asphalt below. Naota kicked the wall and fisted his hands in his hair. The wind, icy in its sensual touch, pricked his skin and nibbled with rough teeth. He was quiet, then. Anger melted away, he dropped his hands to his sides and staggered back to sit on his bed.
"I'm no kid," he muttered, his back hunching and his hair falling in front of his face. It had been enough years, now. Enough: He accepted, with salt--just enough--that eyebrows was right. He would never know, but he could still feel those flickers of glowing power, despite his dislike for neon lights, and he hoped. Always, but it faded, just as all things did. The hope faded, but the rest kept him awake at night. Middle school went, high school came, he suffered, and then it was gone. He knew not if it was seven, eight, nine, less or more. It was only time, any way.
Naota drew his fingers up beneath his shirt and he rid himself of it. He looked up and touched the wood between his bunk and the one above. He peeled them off and without forethought pressed them to his forehead.
"Titled, 'Masculinity.'" Snicker, snicker. He was very clever. Self-proclaimed, but clever any matter of it. He touched the glow inside himself and drew it out to fondle. It was real power, but it never let him use it.
"I knew you had it," she whispered. His ear twitched. "I knew you did. I came for it, once." Naota remained still, unfazed, when pale arms skillfully snaked around his waist. The fingers dabbled his skin. A movement of familiarity, but they reached for the glow, which he held just out of reach. Just out of reach forever, for both of them.
"But I couldn't have you yet," her lips grasped his earlobe. "He couldn't have me, there was nothing of him left, too much left behind and too much dropped along the way. But when I did have him it wasn't what I wanted. There was nothing to have and everything left behind, for it was everything I did have before I went after what was never there."
"Stop making sense," said the ice. Her eyes softened to his words. He sat stiff and his hope was cold beneath her fingers.
"But I came back," she insisted. Her grasp tightened. "Ta-kun." He flinched. "Ta-kun." A growl. "Ta-kun. Does it hurt you, Ta-kun? Let me make it better."
"It will never be better."
Naota shivered when he felt lips caress his cheek. They played so lightly on his skin and fiddled like artists of the bohemian shake, tasting him and his unchange, his glow, his hope. There it was again.
"You want it. Take it and leave," he forced out.
"Not any more," her lips murmured into his neck. "You would have been sad, so sad. You had hope, and life, and rock, but if I had shown you, you would have been so, so sad, because I can never keep you."
Her lips paused as her fingers dropped from his waist and found a lower occupation. She was pleased to know his words were the only controlled part of him. "Don't hate me."
"Don't do this to me," his hope pleaded, "because you will leave and it will be lonely again." His body pleaded differently.
"I don't want it because I cannot have it. I don't need it, I can't be reminded. I chased the false and left what mattered, and now it no longer matters because there's nothing left."
He took her hands away with his own and held them both in one grasp. He turned to take her chin roughly with his fingers. "Then you will want to stay," came his harsh response. Unexpected silence before the storm. His hand continued to hold hers tightly so his mouth could seek her warm, pale, exposed skin.
"Mm, Ta-kun," she croaked.
"Naota," he replied. "Doing what should have been done a long time ago. Make up for lost time."
"Glow!"
Inexperience was experience. Haruko had encountered lust, desperation, loneliness, and boredom, never new, never different, just a variation of neediness. Needy, so needy, everyone was needy and everyone needed exactly what it was that she assumed everyone needed. Love hurts, it hurts when there is no need or lust or desperation, no need but the need to hold and caress and be assured, once and again, that what was said so long ago is still alive. "Say it."
"I love you."
"Again."
"I love you."
She wanted to say more, but one hard look was enough to reach that place in the sky where all things culminate and the face of nothing shatters to be everything, or everything comes to nothing.
The lights had long gone out and the moon rose ever higher, flooding the room with silver. She slept. He had never seen her sleep, for the hyperactive rock star seemed to never sleep. But now she slept. The glow was there and it was a trivial thing.
"Titled, 'The Morning After.'"