His feet press upon the cold marble floor lightly; therein, he slouches and walks over to the white fridge and its silver knobs. Inside the cool air that he cringes at, he finds two eggs and cradles them. He hits them against the counter and pours the yolk on the pan that he must have taken out the night before. He watches the clear liquid bubble and turn white and he waits.
Enters Jiroh. Like a scene in a play, the morning sun illuminates his presence, and his contours are dark as his body absorbs the light. His face is unreadable, but Ryoma knows those eyes would be filled with sleep. Soft and wide eyes with a soft bum and baby skin. He is wearing a white shirt that has been wrinkled over the night. It is not easy to conjure up hatred so early in the morning but Ryoma manages.
"Eggs?" The voice is a whine. Shut up, he thinks, but he only stirs the runny liquid, scraping the floor of the pan as to not make the washing unbearable. They do not have a dishwasher yet; it has been one week since the move.
"Ryoma-chan," and arms embraces his torso. He tries to wriggle away from them. "Ryoma-chan, we had eggs for the past week. We need a change." It is hard to whine when you are a twenty-five year old, and Jiroh manages. It is even harder to hear and tolerate it, which Ryoma perfects.
"Someone should go shopping then," he says.
"You!" The arms squeeze. They must mean warmth, but to Ryoma it only comes off as a threat that fleas give to dogs. Jiroh is a flea.
000
They do not sleep together. It is absurd, Ryoma had stated on the first night, and said that he will sleep alone than be crammed with three reeking bodies.
"But I need warmth," Jiroh had said with wide and fuckable eyes (to certain people, Ryoma thought) and twisted his hands together. "I need my pillow, or at least a stuffed animal." It is absurd, the way this man talks like a child, but in the eyes of others they must mean something, because Keigo said, "Of course you can sleep with me, Jiroh," and gave Ryoma a long-suffering look that conveyed a silent rebuke. Ryoma chose to ignore this.
From the start, Jiroh went down, something that Ryoma had never done and had explicitly said he would not do ("I don't enjoy sucking cock," he said over a cup of coffee, and Keigo almost spat his back out, managing, "I don't think that's the most enticing breakfast topic, Ryoma.") and he enjoyed moaning and crying, and Ryoma had watched, dispassionately, clothed still. He had left that particular scene.
There were other scenes too, where mostly he was the voyeur, not because he got a kick out of it, but this concept of sharing was not his area, not when he thought everything was over, he and Keigo could have settled down and fought for all eternity, but a new name and face made everything muddled. So he watched and created his distance, and his separate bedroom was only one of the many.
000
"I never see you," Wakashi says over dinner.
Their dinner is simple and hot and Ryoma had cooked it because Wakashi burns his toast and eggs. They have pasta stirred with olive oil and basil and he threw in some cold white cheese and sliced tomatoes on the side and everything tasted bland.
"Busy," he replies, after a careful mouthful, scraping his plate. "Stuff to do."
"You're never busy," Wakashi persists.
He shrugs, a surge of irritation passing over him. He is easily worked up these days, and he misses the times when he was young and nothing really bothered him.
"Are you writing?"
"No," Ryoma snaps, and his fork drops to the floor. He does not bother to pick it up; Wakashi hands him a new one from across the table. "Don't talk about that."
"Okay." Wakashi is good. He is good because: he is quiet, he does not talk about stupid topics, and he shuts up when Ryoma tells him to. Keigo has never done that, before or ever.
Ryoma does not apologize but he does stay for the night and lets Wakashi make popcorn and they watch horror movies together, Somewhere in the middle of the night Ryoma curls up to him and Wakashi wraps an arm around, like how Jiroh had done, only now Ryoma feels safer, warmer, and it is a body that does not stink of baby oil and lotion.
There is applied pressure on his forehead and it is soon gone. Ryoma rolls his eyes upwards and Wakashi's lips are brushing against his hair. He tilts his head up but Wakashi sees this and quickly focuses his attention to the screen again.
"Sissy," Ryoma says.
"You should call Atobe," is what Wakashi replies.
Ryoma frowns at that but Wakashi has retracted away again, and voices on the screen fill their silence.
000
He is a translator now, sometimes a critic. His biography would state that he had scraped some awards, in which he has 'contributed to the wealth and resources of Japanese literature' and his Japanese translations of the English novels were 'supreme and clear-cut, without losing the essence of intentions and nuances the original author wanted to convey.' Whatever that meant.
[To translate a text is to immerse and suck out one's self and to succumb to the author's will. To read and interpret a text that is not your own; you will one day be devoured by it. ]
Is what his professors had once told him. To him it was just an occupation to pass the time, because he didn't need money, Keigo would pay for him, if not out of love then out of remorse and guilt, because Keigo was stupid and rich and had too much compassion inside of him. He would have made a terrible King; he would have starved all his subjects to death because he cared too much and his end would be met with the guillotine.
It is fun sometimes though, when Keigo mentions a brilliant author no one has heard of during dinner, and while everyone is too busy either being polite with absent-minded nods (business associates) or being funny bastards (high school reunions), Ryoma is the one who would say, "Well yeah, but Barnes should have won that prize a long time ago, "or "Binet is funny, but he sometimes generalizes too much, and that was his first novel." And a simple toss, "You should work more on your criticisms, monkey king," where he would resume eating and leave Keigo befuddled and amused, murmuring, "Well, who would have thought," making such dinners bearable.
000
"When's your next book coming out?"
They are in bed. Wakashi's hands are soft and Ryoma likes to touch them, press upon them lightly.
"Dunno. It's not my book, anyhow. Don't care."
"I just never see you at work these days."
"Haven't you heard? The economy's bad and translators are replaceable." He stretches out, his limbs taut with tension and relaxes a moment later. The sheets feel cool under him.
Wakashi doesn't speak. Ryoma wonders if this was how Keigo felt with Kabaji, all those years ago. There is solace in the fact that there exists a silent warmth within your dimension, and neither of you speak, but your presence floats and meanders.
Except that, unlike with Kabaji and Keigo, he wants something more.
"Why don't we fuck?" he asks, after empty minutes of silence.
"Why do you think?"
"We're lying in the same bed and we're not sleeping. We're not kids." Idiot, he adds silently and Wakashi hears that too.
"Maybe because you have Atobe." Another name is purposefully omitted, and Ryoma is enwrapped in hate, for a brief second.
"Atobe has Akutagawa," he snaps.
There is another brief pause and Wakashi says, more stiffly, "Maybe I'm not gay, Echizen."
He sits up. He is tired, Like everything these days, it comes to him in a sudden hit of spasm, as if his emotions are not controllable, as if he must experience his range of empathy in brief spans of time. He is tired of silence, lack of warmth, of worlds he thought he understood and never had. Or: he is just being dramatic, but the food he cooked was horrible and he wanted it to turn up nicely. He should stop making only eggs for breakfast.
"I'm going," he says, and plants his feet on the floor; his wrist is held captive.
"Wait," and Wakashi sounds tired too, but that is not his business, "Ryoma. It's complicated than that. Don't be stubborn."
Don't be a child, is what he should mean, but Wakashi is too nice, sometimes, that Ryoma wants to hold him and hit him only to kiss him all the better again.
"Of course you're not gay, Hiyoshi." He tugs his arm and his voice is dry and cold. "Heaven forbid."
"Don't play dramatics."
"Don't be like Atobe, you mean."
"No, I mean, just don't be dramatic. Don't," and in the darkness, Ryoma imagines those soft hands rubbing at tired eyes and trying to come up with words to console and comfort him. Wakashi thinks he is bad at making amends and he chooses his words with careful care. Wakashi is better than Keigo at making him feel human again. "Don't go." Today there are no fancy words strung together, but a hint of plea laces up stoic expressions. Ryoma stares out at the darkness.
"I'm sorry for the food," he says, and that is the first thought coming up.
"What food?"
"Dinner. Pasta. It was overcooked."
"Dinner?" and then realization. "That dinner was nine hours ago."
"It bugged me, okay?"
Wakashi lets out a soft sigh and a laugh. "Okay. But it was fine."
"Liar."
"Anything you cook is fine. Better than I would have."
"You cook good rice."
"In Japan. When I have a rice cooker."
"Will you cook for me when we go back?"
"Sure." Wakashi does not persist with the specifics, when is when, or any of the other stupid questions people would normally ask and Ryoma likes him all the more for that.
"If we can't fuck," he says, "Can we kiss?"
The sound he hears this time is a laugh, and bed sheets crumble under their hands. Wakashi's smell of aftershave comes closer.
"Sure, why not," he says, and their lips touch and they are soft, chaste.
000
Keigo is a light sleeper and Jiroh is not. So Ryoma creeps up to the side of Keigo's bed, and pinches the nape of his neck lightly, and all too soon Keigo's eyes flutter and open and he grumbles, "What?"
Ryoma comes up to his line of vision and Keigo's eyes are more focused but his voice is still crammed with sleep and sullenness. "What, Ryoma," he repeats, quieter, "It's the middle of the night."
Ryoma doesn't answer to that; he merely straightens up and leaves the room, and he is sure that Keigo will follow. Soft footsteps made by slippers are soon heard, and he succeeds in leading Keigo out the door of the bedroom and into the hallway, where the light is dim and the moonlight pale and wane.
"Is there a point to this?" Keigo still looks a bit sulky, and his hair is mussed. "Or do you just enjoy waking people up and—"
Keigo talks too much. Ryoma walks up to him and feels the warmth of Keigo's body, preserved by blankets and Jiroh. He kisses him, mouth-to-mouth; Keigo tastes of staleness, of bitter musk, and a faint trace of mint. He tastes like dreams and night, if that even makes sense.
Keigo opens his mouth; it is a reflex, and soon they are kissing, hands grappling, and Ryoma tilts his head and Keigo's face crowds his vision.
Keigo looks puzzled when they part, but because he is Keigo he does not ask the absurdity of waking him up in the middle of the night only to kiss. "Hello to you, too," he says carefully, "What brought this on?"
"I missed you," he says; lies taste strange in his mouth. "We should fuck."
He does not sugarcoat words.
("I want to, Keigo," Jiroh would whisper, a small smile and a blush, "I really, really want to do it." Sex and fuck are not spoken, and only ambiguous pronouns replace lust. Everything is sweet and chaste, as if the act of thrusting and moaning could ever be called sacred. Ryoma merely watched that time too; Keigo's cock driving in and out of a red hole, slick and wet, Jiroh red facing and moaning who looks violated and crass, his blond curls plastered over his face. He didn't bother to look at Keigo's face. He is perched on the bed, observing. Keigo's hand swallowed his own; it had clasped his captive, and fingernails dug at his palm, later, there would be crescent marks and even blood, because Keigo wore his nails long.
"Ryoma-chan." Jiroh opened his eyes, slits, and Ryoma looked at him. Jiroh has not yet seen the hands. "Ryoma-chan, join us."
Ryoma thought, savage, fuck you, don't call me by false titles, I could fuck you and strangle you and do everything Keigo is doing right now, you fucking faggot. But he stayed silent, and Keigo did not rise to the jibe like other times and so that time, he stayed until the end.)
Keigo looks still, his slim contours are soft and wiry as he looks at Ryoma and he looks back. "Now?" he asks, and that is a logical question to ask, is it not? But he is impatient, logic does not work in the night.
"Yeah, now," he says.
000
Keigo smiles and he looks dashing, beautiful even. He can't think of possible descriptions; all he thinks of is fervor, how he would like to do something about the ache inside him, how he is gasping, his fingers blindly outstretched.
"I love you," Keigo murmurs. Keigo's voice is low and Ryoma likes low, husky voices ragged with smoke. He likes Keigo's voice, it pleases him to hear a steady beat, a gravity that pins him down.
"I know," he manages, and he can't bear to say it, but he cannot bear not looking at this man either. "You should."
"Don't you have something you want to tell me?"
There are hands now. Keigo has beautiful hands to go with that face, and his fingertips are cold as they trace out his shirt, his palm sliding down and stroking his waist down to his hipbone. It is a slow, even movement and Ryoma lifts his hips to unbuckle his jeans. Keigo presses him down again.
"No," Ryoma says. He still has his eyes open, so he can still observe Keigo looming. Keigo does not look disappointed, not yet.
"Common courtesy," Keigo reminds him, and his voice is laden with amusement, "Surely you know. I love you, and then?"
"I wish," Ryoma says, and here he succeeds in unfastening his belt and pulling down Keigo's body towards him so that they were pressed together, "You would shut up and fuck me."
Keigo's eyes are impossibly close now and his lips hover with a smirk. Ryoma does not read into them because today he has decided he will not play mind games and that he will be fucked or be the one fucking he doesn't care which. All he knows is that today there will be no soft declarations of love because what he wants is his carnal lust and desire to be fulfilled and those are the easiest of all to be granted nowadays.
"Perhaps we should wait for Jiroh," Keigo drawls, and retracts his hand slowly. Ryoma doesn't know what Keigo is thinking, and suddenly the room that had seemed so warm is now emitting a foreboding chill. "I've never seen you this eager before."
He had, before: when there were no complications, but Keigo never talks about those days.
"No," Ryoma snaps, too quick and in haste, and tries to even out his voice again, "I want you to fuck me."
"You can fuck Jiroh." Keigo's eyes narrow now, and those hands are losing him.
"I can fuck him later."
"Jiroh, you mean."
"Yes," he hisses, "Yes, Jiroh. I can fuck Jiroh later."
"Or you could fuck Jiroh first." Keigo is enjoying this. Ghost names that hover. Jiroh is sleeping in the other room now, like a baby, complete with the baby fragrance he always uses, cuddling with warmth he believes he is entitled to have.
"You want me wake him up?"
"It's almost dawn. I know how the both of you are light sleepers." The smirk does not fall off and looks sinister.
"I want you to fuck me now."
Keigo never looks lost. Lost is not the word that he would use, but he falters. "You don't," he says, "We didn't do this for months." Was censoring vulgarity contagious?
"I want to do it now!" Repetition of words makes him sound like a petulant child.
"You don't. You're just tired." Keigo sighs and leans back, and he feels stupid, half naked and aroused. "I need a mood for this."
Ryoma yanks him back to him and Keigo goes down, surprisingly easy. He snarls and lets himself up, reversing positions: Keigo is now on his back, and Ryoma pins him, and this feels strange, because he likes to be pinned and lazy, letting Keigo kiss him, touch him, caress him. Keigo's smirk is no longer there and he looks impassive.
"I'll suck you off," he says, and his voice, was that his voice? It sounds grating and whiny. "You never told me you liked it that much."
Keigo narrows his eyes, or, he imagines. "I like it just as much as anyone would."
"You should see your face. I'll take one for you, if you want."
"Did you just wake me to be insulting?"
"No." He still has Keigo beneath him, and while Keigo shifts, uneasy, he doesn't actively throw him off. He is still wearing his robe. "I told you, I wanted sex."
"You don't like giving blowjobs."
"Yeah."
"I don't like getting them from you, then."
"That's awfully considerate of you," he sneers.
Keigo stares back at him blandly. "Get off," he says, quiet and menacing.
When he looks at Keigo sometimes, he has aged. There is still that tilt of his hair, ridiculous, fluffed-up hair and there are those eyes that were still grey and blue. Then he looks at the face: Keigo's cheekbones are more prominent, his lips drier. His face has gotten sharper, as with time everything becomes hard and slick with no warmth. Those are the eyes that he is looking into right now: glassy plains of ice. He meets them and takes the step down. He loosens his grip and gets off the bed.
With that step he feels drained. He stares at the white walls enclosing them, his feet firmly planted back on the floor, as Keigo sits up. He feels those eyes upon him, but he doesn't meet them. Instead he hears small feet trod up and down towards the hallway and up this room.
"I wish," he says, "you'd tell me what you want sometimes."
He leaves before Jiroh enters the room, with his sleepy soft eyes.
000
"Wakashi." This is a phone call and he is on a payphone and he doesn't know what the fuck he is doing in the middle of the afternoon. He is broke and tired and sad. He tries to light a cigarette. "Where are you?"
"At my aunt's." Silence. "Why?"
"When are you coming back?"
"By eight. Ryoma, why?"
He closes his eyes. He feels old and weary. Gravity and air presses down upon him. "Can I stay at you house?"
"Now?"
"Yeah, now. I know your code." Pause. "That okay?"
"…The house isn't cleaned."
"Fuck clean," he says, louder, and it must have been heard over the plastic walls, because people walking by now look at him, unnerved, "I don't care about…" He trails off.
A sigh and voices are heard. Maybe some yelling. "You know how I don't like it when everything's impromptu." He imagines Wakashi adjusting his glasses. "Is there anything wrong?"
"No, nothing. I just need to see you."
"You saw me last night."
"I know. I need to see you again."
"And I'm not there."
"Or your house. I need to see your house."
"Off limits, Ryoma."
"You gave me your code. What do you mean it's off limits?"
"You haggled for it."
"I haggled for it?"
"I…" A pause, sigh, and Ryoma imagines Wakashi's lips lighting a cigarette, even though Wakashi would never smoke. "Look, don't call when you're in a mood. I don't want to fight."
"I'm not looking for a fight."
"You want a hug." Why does everyone sound tired nowadays? He thinks that there is something in him that infects tiredness, a languid feeling of nonchalance and apathy. "I don't…I can't deal with that right now."
"You're at your aunt's."
"With the kids. In Brighton. It's not in London."
"I was thinking," Ryoma juts in, "We should go to Paris."
There is more silence and Ryoma has to laugh, a weary laugh. "I was just joking, Wakashi. Mada mada da ne."
Wakashi answers, "Haven't heard that in a long time."
That slip comes off so easily that he freezes. It is a remnant phrase of the past that does not belong with him anymore. He stares at passengers, the red telephone booth across from him, buses, people: anything that would deviate him from his own reflection.
"Ryoma?"
"Yeah," he says, "Yeah, you're right, I was being a dick. As always."
"That's not what I meant."
"Have fun with the kids," he says, and hangs up.
000
He comes home and eats a stale brioche. He searches for jam or butter but nothing is to be found, so he boils a cup of coffee instead and eats the bread, cold and thick.
He chews without appetite, an automatic endeavor to survive, geared towards human, basic needs.
Keigo comes home first; in his prim suit and neat tie, he looks as sharp and untouchable as ever, and Ryoma tries to picture him naked. It doesn't arouse him.
Keigo looks at him, him eating the bread. "That's been there for a week," he says, scrunching his nose, "We could go out tonight, if you're so hungry."
Ryoma stares at him. Keigo is thin now: they are all so thin. Three people living under the same roof who all don't know how to cook. He looks down at his own wrist and he could see the jutting bones of his hands and elbows. It is not a pretty sight.
"I'm not," he says, and takes the finishing bite. "It's fine."
"Yes, well, I'm famished," Keigo mutters, "And heaven knows Jiroh's been whining about the monopoly of eggs."
"They're good for you," Ryoma snipes, almost immediately.
"And they are so bland." Keigo sighs, but it is an amused tolerance that he displays. "We were planning to go out anyhow. Where did you head off so early in the morning?"
So they do not discuss things: just as they do not discuss so many things. They do not discuss about last night because they have failed something somehow; they do not discuss Jiroh when he is not in the room; they do not discuss where this will lead; or, Keigo does not discuss the life he wants to have that may or may not include him. And so he does not discuss whether he wants another presence in his life that Ryoma once mistook to be theirs.
"A walk," he says, and stares down at his wrists again.
"You should come for dinner. You haven't eaten much lately either."
"Been busy." And because this conversation is going nowhere, he makes a break for it. "And I have dinner plans. Have fun with Jiroh."
He leaves before he can get an answer.
Today is hot. Today is foggy. Today is brimming with people and tourists everywhere that Ryoma savagely wishes they would all die. He wishes that he could disappear and float away and be absorbed by nothing. He wishes he could be nothing so he could feel null.
He is not a fighter. Or, he used to be a fighter before he realized that it was fruitless and everything was meant to be disillusioned, and so he gave up. There was a time when he believed that by giving everything up he could gain everything, and that was what defined the Pinnacle of Perfection. But life was not tennis because tennis was made with two people and an obstacle. Life did not end with six sets and the endgame was not another person. Once Jiroh entered the picture, the delusion that tennis rules could be applied in life was void in its meaning. And so he cannot fight for something he does not understand.
He stands in the middle of Waterloo Bridge and see the trains pass and under, the Thames slowly flows. He stays there until the sun sets and the lights flicker on, one by one, until night sets in and people become blurred blackness.
Then he heads off.
000
tbc