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CHAPTER TWENTY
白熱
Hakunetsu
My mother never cared for the theatre. Passive consumption was not her style. But there was always a client or a silk buyer who would want to go see the famous Kabuki Theatre in Ginza before they talked business. He was always obligated to invite her family. I always knew when one of these excursions was to occur because Mother would say to a maid: see if something can't be done about that hair.
As the adults made pleasantries, I would gaze at their wives. Kimono was customary, as was getting your hair done by a hairdresser: their hair would be coiffed and pulled back to show their foreheads. If they were daring, they would have a red lip. The shy ones were my favourite, sometimes no taller than I, hiding behind fans and clutches, only wearing a thin sheen of powder to set off their skin.
Even the demurest of wives is chatty around a pretty child. "Have you ever seen a little girl with such round, pink cheeks?" Candy would appear from purses, hand pats, compliments. The curls were marvelled over, the long lashes, the little cupid's bow. I glowed, drinking in the attention.
Inevitably, a man would interrupt with: such features on a woman will be comely.
Or: a man likes a touch of childishness in his wife.
Or: you ought to watch her closely, Mrs Mashiro – a woman like that breaks hearts.
The magic was ruined then, as talks spiralled into politics. I was a resource that could not be squandered.
Despite my avowal not to be bought by Fujisaki riches, I allowed the housekeeper to help me into a kimono for Nadeshiko's sake. It looked like something Emi would wear. The pattern was traditional folk toys of balls and dolls and racquets and calico cats on a field of orange. It came with a pair of bright red socks.
My mother would have said that only a maiko would wear something so flashy. If she knew I was in a house of artist types, she would file a lawsuit.
Like everything else in this province, the Kabuki Theatre was ramshackle and plain. In those days, Tokyo was modern compared to the other provinces. It had all the headquarters, the embassies, the shopping, the news.
Even Osaka, Japan's second-largest city, was backwater and its accent bumpkin. Nadeshiko made a point to suppress her flat, broad Hiroshima dialect at school. She had no such convenience at home. Nothing brought me glee like mocking her use of the editorial we and her lilting, flat vowels.
"Good luck, Nadeshiko!" Amu had cried two hours previous, waving as Nagihiko and his father departed two hours early. "We'll see you afterwards."
"Breeeeaaaaaak a leeeeg!" I cried in a mockery of her singsong accent.
Nadeshiko frowned. It was easier to make a comedy production of the object of my affections than court her in earnest.
The snow made us late. To my surprise, Nagihiko's father was waiting for us outside the theatre. I think he had the notion of waiting for us by himself, to no avail; he was thronged with well-wishers and adorers.
"There you are!" he cried, disseminating them. "I am your guide tonight. Am I to understand that neither of you have ever seen Kabuki before?"
I had never met a celebrity so determined to live like a construction worker. He clutched four tickets in his hand. Chips of wood, not paper.
"I have," I said. "It was a long time ago."
"I haven't," Amu said.
We were ushered into the theatre by Nagihiko's father. The Kabuki Theatre of my childhood had been western style with balconies and folding seats. But this: this was a plain little room divided by a central walkway, full of cushions for sitting.
Oh, no.
No.
Seiza!
My knees screamed. I toppled sideways onto Amu's shoulder, as the lights went down.
In the semidarkness, Fujisaki Aoi IV's resemblance to an older Nagihiko was striking. In the odd half-light from a nearby lantern, he whispered from Amu's side that Nadeshiko was dancing Wisteria Maiden, a classic dance of the kabuki repertoire. A sake tray with an array of cups was passed around
A sharp strike on a drumskin indicated the beginning of the performance. To my surprise, I remembered the natural progression of a dance performance from that summer. It would go lights down, then drum, then flute, then shamisen, rising in cacophony. Then the vocalist's warbling.
Onstage, Nadeshiko's slim figure emerged — or rather, she must have, for I heard a collective soft gasp. She weaved through the black silhouettes of the audience member's heads before me like a butterfly through a thicket of trees. I stood up a little straighter. Nothing. I leaned my head to the side. The man in front of me fidgeted, and his head moved to block her again. My breath quickened, and I craned my neck. She was gone again, dancing downstage where I couldn't see her.
The shamisens and koto rose in volume, drowning out my thoughts. The average kabuki act is three hours long. This one was shorter, at two. It felt like five minutes. I took what I could from my poor view.
At one point, I leaned off my ankles, standing ramrod-straight on my knees. The audience had fallen deathly silent. Nadeshiko half-knelt but a stone's throw from where I sat, wisteria branch over her shoulder. The closed fan was clenched in her grip, and her eyes…
Were full of tears. Her face was twisted in anguish: not like when she was playing the demon, but like she was playing a helpless girl. I knew the expression well from wearing it on the inside of my heart for months. Her wrist tremored; lip trembled. Slowly, haggardly, she raised her eyes to the audience. I felt as though she was putting a dagger in my hand to kill her. Her knees buckled, and she fell to the stage and from my sight.
Before I could gather my bearings, a stirring rose up among the audience. Across the room, a man whooped. Another cried, "Like that!"
Fujisaki Aoi's mouth curved into a cold, satisfied smile when they shouted his kabuki guild's name. His wife's silhouette folded into the seat next to him. Amu watched the stage, entranced. I was the only one who saw them raise their glasses together; a toast to their own creation.
The sake hit Amu worse than me. We stumbled out of the theatre two and a half hours later on watery legs, Amu moreso. Excited people exited the doors through a detached pane of glass. The lights of the ships in the harbour looked less like Fujisaki Aoi's eyesore and more like a thing of soft, sparkling beauty. My eyeballs tingled.
Nagihiko's father roared in delight when his son met us.
"Nadeshiko!" he bellowed with arm slung around the Dragon's skinny shoulders. "My girl! Show them how it's done!"
"Oh, Father!" Nagihiko said warmly, face smudged with chalky white. "You've been drinking!"
Nagihiko had washed the red off his lips and the black off his eyes, but a touch of the pigment remained, giving him a naturally pretty look. He was in the aubergine kimono I liked again, hidden under a padded coat. The air around him shimmered like he was blessed. I smiled.
"Rima, what are you staring at?" Amu giggled in my ear.
"Whassat?" I mumbled.
"Your father was pushing sake on your schoolmates the whole performance," Tsubaki sniffed, but she couldn't have been so disapproving – she had brought the sake tray over. "You did well."
Nadeshiko bobbed a bow, cheeks pink. "I don't deserve your praise."
"You took my advice."
"Dinner!" Aoi shouted over the din, whirling on us. Amu stumbled, and I caught her arm. "We said we'd take a few members of the troupe back with us, some friends... It might get cozy."
A few meant twenty or so. The once-airy Fujisaki hearth was now lined elbow-to-elbow with theatre spods. Amu and a costume director sat on either side of me. I now understood the housekeeper's frenetic energy. Nagihiko was out of my sightline, kitty-cornered away by well-wishers praising him.
I wish I knew if it was deserved, for I hadn't been able to see anything. Amu was also effusive, as she always was.
"Beautiful," she gushed right along with the actors and musicians. "You looked like you were really crying."
"She was!" said a nearby man. "I don't know how she did it, but it was a tear! It marred her eye makeup."
"And the kimono!"
"Beautiful. We were lucky to get it on loan."
"Let's eat!" Fujisaki Aoi interrupted us, picking up his chopsticks at the arrival of warm noodles. "The last night of the year isn't getting any younger."
Through my drunken headspin, I became aware that we were the youngest women there, still rouged and primped at the height of availability. This caught the interest of the men who were interested in that sort of thing. We were asked after, and our whole tale of the earthquake regaled to much oohs and aahs by Nagihiko's mother.
"I have friends in Kobe. Suppose the lines are down?"
"A bad omen—! So close to the New Year!" a geisha exclaimed. I smiled drily behind my hand. Nadeshiko would concur. She didn't even know about the well-water or the Yamabukis.
"And unaccompanied, too…"
"They got unlucky, then," said a rig operator. "For most of Hyōgo, it was minor."
"I think we were very lucky," Amu replied, cheeks pink, "That we could rely on the generosity of the Fujisakis."
I stayed quiet, though I made an mm noise to be polite.
"Here, Hinamori-san," someone said, pouring her another cup. "Another for both of you."
My dizziness was wearing off. "Thank you."
"One more cup, and we can get a smile out of Mashiro-san," the boy from the night before said. "Demure buds bloom the brightest."
"Or they die on the branch," I said, tilting my head back. He glanced around, confused.
"Let's liven this up," a man announced. "Let's play a game."
"Go on without me, I'm too old," Tsubaki said demurely, getting to her feet. It must be nice to be old.
"Which game?"
"Suggestions?"
"Shiritori."
"Shuttlecock."
"I wanna play dice."
"Oy, I'm not teaching girls how to gamble. What is this, a mobster house?"
"One Hundred Poets," Tsubaki suggested, despite sitting out. I remembered Naghiko's rattling of poetry, and paled.
"Oh, A Gathering of One Hundred Ghost Stories, please!" Nadeshiko begged.
"Veto." Amu raised her hand.
I laughed. The room emitted a soft oh-hh.
"Oh, she laughed," the boy from earlier said, but he sounded disappointed. Another younger man rifled in his kimono, and the clink of money changed hands. "Who did it?"
For making me laugh, Amu was designated the honour of picking what we were subjected to. All our choices involved either in-depth knowledge of the Japanese language or hand-eye coordination.
"I'm too old as well." In the things I thought I'd never say category: "I'm going to go sit with sensei."
"Rima, noooooo," Amu said, hugging my arm. "Nooooo, I was gonna do shuttlecock."
Amu, athletic when she wanted to be, would pick shuttlecock. Aoi got to his feet in a very big flurry of excitement.
"I have paddles," he said. "Wait."
They had his face on them. From Kabuki promotions. I swallowed my snarky comment.
Amu and I lost, mostly due to my weak arm and lack of coordination.
"It's the sake," said an observer, laughing. "You made sure to get them drunk before you played them."
"In fact," Nadeshiko said behind her sleeve, "Mashiro-san plays better than when she is sober."
I hit the shuttlecock particularly hard out of spite. I aimed it at Nadeshiko's head. Instead, it flew directly into Aoi's unattended drink. The man himself had vanished. The shuttlecock bobbed in the sake.
At that moment, Tsubaki shushed us all.
"Listen," she said, softly. "The one hundred and eight bell chimes of the New Year."
Out on the harbour, we heard the tolling of the deep bell of the closest shrine out on the sea. We all went very still. I counted the rings. Three, four, five. Six. Seven. Across Japan, every Buddhist temple would ringing in the New Year.
"One hundred and eight times, for each of the earthly sufferings," the geisha said, raising her glass and clinking it with the rig operator's. "To a pure conscience in the Year of the Tiger."
"Cheers," the Dragon said, sipping. "And may the Tiger finish the war with ferocity."
Murmurs of concurrence. Perhaps it was the mention of the war that pushed the festivities long past the tolling of the bells. One or two nodded off. Amu leaned on my shoulder. I roused her, softly.
"Let's go to bed," I said. "Our train is tomorrow."
"Oh," said Amu, groggily. "Where's Nadeshiko?"
Nowhere to be found. One by one, the Fujisaki family was vanishing. Tsubaki loyally remained, making low conversation with the geisha.
"Bed," I repeated, hauling her to her feet. I decided it would be easiest to find our room by circling back around the veranda, now covered. After peeking through the rice paper enough times, I saw a room that dimly resembled ours. Amu fell face-first onto the entirety of the futon, face still made up. I was not up to the task of taking my makeup off. I settled for wetting my handkerchief and wiping most of the powder off my face.
"Oh, and Rima?" Amu said, muffled.
"Yes?" I said, getting into bed.
"Happy New Year."
One truly never knows how much they have drunk until they are lying down with their eyes closed. I was in the backseat of an automobile driving in breakneck circles. My head spun, and I lurched.
"Happy New Year," I mumbled, dizzy.
We made it. The bells had rung my temptations away. Our train was tomorrow. Tomorrow! I would see my mother. I wouldn't have to visit a shrine. I could see Emi and grandmother. I could eat langue de chats.
My heart sunk. I would grow up. I had just rung in my last New Year as a child. Amu and I had lived through seventeen years, now. 1938 loomed full of strangers.
Toilet. I stumbled out of bed more sober than I got in. I likely had smudges of mascara under my eyes. I was still in the pretty kimono the Fujisakis had loaned me, having been too drunk to take it off.
It would be foolish to take it off now that I was going back into the cold. In old Japanese houses, the toilet was a separated outhouse, located at one of the corners. I could open the storm-shutter and see the promising wood hut.
I came back freezing, but relieved. The air smelled like it was going to snow. There was something romantic about the early hours of the night, when nobody was awake.
Only the light was on, behind the rice-paper next to the toilet. Two figures were whispering: Nagihiko and a woman.
I paused. I closed the outhouse door. I crept closer, trying to keep my sandals from clacking too loudly on the grate. I could barely make out any of the words. I pressed my ear against the gap at the bottom of the door, frustrated.
Nagihiko's voice was rough and guttural. I had only heard him like this once. I squinted and cocked my head. I realized it was father, not son.
"… saw them there, tonight, at the show?"
"Of course," Tsubaki's voice whispered back. "They're making sure you're behaving. You need to be more careful. Please."
Once is a fluke, but thrice was a habit. I was developing a penchant for eavesdropping on the Fujisakis through screens. I ought to have stopped. I ought to have walked away. My compulsion to take what intelligence I could kept me rooted to the spot. It was then I should have known.
"We behaved," Aoi laughed on the other side of the screen. "It was a production of Wisteria Maiden, not an anti-war producti— ow." A hiss of pain. I froze, sure his wife had struck him.
"Hold still," Tsubaki whispered something I could not hear. "I haven't wrapped the dressing yet."
Their voices resumed, too quiet to hear. The swish of fabric, and the intimate whisper of lovers. My legs begged me to flee. I closed my eyes, like this would help me hear better.
From the mother, sudden: "He knows. I do not know how, but he knows. Or suspects. … The diplomat's ball."
More whispers.
"After all these years?"
"I slighted his pride," Tsubaki said in a slow, measured voice that indicated she had lots of time to think about it. She avoided his name like a death taboo, but even the way she said his pride made me nervous.
"Back then… I thought only of earning enough to support myself. … I was a child… thought it was enough for him to patronize me while my heart wandered."
"Not for a man like Yamabuki. … thinks he can force women to love him out of duty. He thought you belonged to him."
"… all so long ago."
"Longer to fester," Aoi said. "The product of our transgression gets to look his daughter in the face."
"I was with child when I left. Nadeshiko might have been his. I thought he would have spared her— if only because maybe…"
"… But not Nagihiko. The seed of suspicion is there. … Even if she was… loved her like my own. Do you hear me? She was my daughter. Buried under my family name, even if she cannot have anything el..."
Whispers.
"Our only son." Tsubaki's voice broke. A choked sob. "After Nadeshiko, who could ask me to lose our only s—! …"
A creak on the veranda behind me. My knees cracked as I shot up. I whirled around, hair hitting the screen. I was blinded. A pinprick of light swam and clouded my vision.
My eyes adjusted to the night. The light was an oil-burning flame. The flame was a handheld lantern. The lantern was held by a thin, white hand. I raised my eyes, aghast, to see Nagihiko's moonlike face swimming above it.
His parents had stopped speaking. The light behind me had extinguished.
Nagihiko said, "You're up late."
I pulled my kimono tighter around me. The winter was not as silent as I thought. Drunkards stirred within the house. The lights on the warships in the harbour twinkled, and I was certain even now, there were night-guards keeping watch.
I squirmed. The remaining sake made me feel excessively slow and stupid. I looked down on the ground, trying not to make it obvious I was eavesdropping on his parents.
"I can never sleep after a performance," Nagihiko seemed determined to fill my cold silence with chatter. "My heart races. I play it in my head, over and over. The sake doesn't make me sleepy, either. Did you get lost on the way back to your room?"
My mouth opened. The muscles in my throat flexed. Nagihiko looked at me.
"I never thanked you," he added. "For the temari ball. I... I had not considered you were capable of making something so beautiful."
"You've been avoiding me, Nagihiko."
My throat worked. It was a passive-aggressive statement, designed to indicate that I had noticed. The Nagihiko of my imagination would look down in guilt, shame, despair – he would beg for my forgiveness to the veranda. He might cry. I thought he might not have to say anything at all, so long as he was sorry.
"You are cruel," Nagihiko said. "Was I so unkind to you?"
The wind howled off the inland sea. The chill settled somewhere under my kimono.
Nagihiko took a step closer to me. The overhang's shadow passed over his face. The muscles in his cheek moved as his jaw clenched.
"What," I said, "The blithering devil are you talking about?"
"You are a good liar," Nagihiko said, "But not that good. What have I done to make you treat me this way?"
Self-introspection was not my strong suit.
"You are talking delusional nonsense," I said. "Weren't you so unkind to me? You've barely spoken to me since summer. You favoured Amu over me, used me, insulted me, without a thought in the world."
"Hush."
"I trusted you," I found my voice, "And you-"
"Hush!"
A lantern-light bobbed on the other side of the storm-shutter. My anger subsided, bubbling at a simmer. The light faded and vanished down the hallway.
Nagihiko turned on me, face pinched. It was like staring at fish guts. I wanted to scoop him into my arms and put him back together again, even though I had cut him open.
"If you had confided in me, that day," he said, quieter but rehearsed. "If you had told me how you felt, I would have said yes. I would have said yes a thousand times over."
"You aren't making any sense."
"Last summer, I called on you with the intent of asking your father to let me marry you."
I dropped into freefall. The veranda went blurry, but I kept my footing.
"You've lost your mind," I was now alarmed. "You're insane."
"If I'm insane, you made me this way," Nagihiko's knuckles trembled on his chest. I couldn't look anywhere else. A snowflake fell on his wrist and melted into nothing.
"It was foolish of me, I know. A boy's impulse. I know now that you have no father I could ask anyhow. But if you wanted me, I would have found a way."
"You don't want to marry me," I said helplessly. "You're mistaken."
"For months. Maybe years. You have never been a friend. You were always something else. You kept me strung on, suspended on twisted hope, misinterpreting signs. You were right to reject me. I am no man yet. I may never be. I have no fortune or title or breeding that could tempt a woman of your station. But then, for you to stay close and look at me like that – tell me how I could stand it?!"
The image of him falling to his knees in front of me blazed itself across my eyes. Utau had warned me. Amu had begun to guess. Blinded by jealousy, I had not entertained that Nagihiko was in love with me.
There was too much standing in his way. I was illegitimate with a foreign father. I was cold and stoic at the best of times. My time here would have shown him what poor wife material I truly was. I was a mother's nightmare, better-suited for concubinage than bearing children.
He must know he reached for someone difficult to win. He reached anyway.
"I ought to kill you," I croaked around the ball wedged in my throat.
Nagihiko barked a laugh. "You already have."
A tear rolled down his cheek. I caught it on my finger. It stopped, still and shining. The elder Fujisaki's conversation vanished. All that was left was the hard, firm thought that he was too precious to be discovered, too precious to lose.
Slowly and tentatively, Nagihiko's hand closed on my wrist.
He was mine if I wanted him. Months. Maybe years. Nadeshiko taunting me on a train, Nagihiko on his knees in my bedroom, Nagihiko at my bedside, Nagihiko pining where I couldn't see him. In spite of it all, mine. Mine if I asked. Mine a thousand times over.
As I stood there, my mother was picking my suitor. I did not want to marry anyone. I did not want to do anything. I wanted to exist on this veranda forever, in suspension.
I would say no. I would reject him kindly.
My hand disobeyed. It caressed his cheek like a lover.
"If I confide in you..."
Nagihiko leaned forward, brow furrowed.
"If I confide in you, would you say yes to me still?"
His grip on my wrist tightened, and then released. He stared at me with wet eyes, lips parted. He was going to turn his back on me. He would call me a cold-blooded harpy, a creature that could not love. I would be saved. I would return home to the unsatisfying life I had resigned myself to.
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely.
Hot tears pricked my eyes. I reached for him. We intersected in the snowfall, kimonos tangling together into a chaotic quilt. His body collapsed into mine. I took him in with all the strength my arms could give me. My head fit under his chin. His arms fit around my waist. We closed the gaps between us and sank to our knees on the edge of the porch.
I couldn't stop grabbing fistfuls, trying to keep him close. I was nervous, terrified. I was elatedly happy. I was so giddy I thought I would faint. I closed my eyes, and the world tilted until I was floating in space, anchored by the thump of Nagihiko's heartbeat. The world constricted to hold only the two of us. I was living somebody else's bizarre, romantic life. Or maybe I was just living my own, which I did not do often.
I suppose we may have spent several sunlit years there, wrapped up in each other like skeins of silk. I held onto him for so long that I forgot where he ended, and I began. We were a living, breathing organism, warm to my touch, fragile as a moth's wing.
"Oh, Rima," he said in that deep voice, right in my ear.
"My name?" I shivered.
"My apologies." Mortified. "Mashiro-san."
I could have hit him. Instead, I pulled his face into my shoulder, leaning on his hair. The loose strands got in my mouth. Nagihiko's hairline smelled like a mix of camellia oil and sweet wax. I traced my nose down it. I smiled. I was a fool. I was the embodiment of a clown, and I didn't care. Anybody could have opened the door to the veranda and seen me curled up on his lap, his head on my shoulder, and I would have burst with pride.
As I swayed against him, the gravity of what I agreed to sank in.
What existed between us didn't mean anything. Even holding him where I could be caught was improper. For Nagihiko and I to have done the thing properly, it ought to have gone like this:
He should have been legally be a man, so we wouldn't have known each other at all. A mutual acquaintance would ask my father (now present) if he was an acceptable match. I would have been provided a grainy photograph that wouldn't have shown off his high cheekbones, his straight eyelashes, the dimension at the corners of his mouth. Sanjō would be the go-between, or the mother of Utau, a distant acquaintance. We would have had a few dinners, an outing or two, to see if we liked each other. An hour alone, if our parents were progressive. He would have sent a letter with a formal offer. After a week of deliberation, I would have given my assent. He would have charmed me on my marriage bed, and I would have fallen in love with him all over again.
Instead, we had fumbled around behind the backs of our families like rats in a gutter. Every step of the way had been done incorrectly. I was almost impressed.
"We shouldn't," Nagihiko seemed to have the same thought, and pulled away. "This isn't…"
The cold rushed to fill his absence. I wanted to kiss him.
"I don't want anyone else," I said hollowly.
His hands caught my face, and his haori slid off. He put it around my shoulders, using the pretence to clench it too tightly around me.
"It isn't up to you," he reminded me. Snowflakes clung to his lashes like the goose bumps to his neck. He had never looked so tantalizing. "Your mother, and mine…"
"You're Nadeshiko," I said, recklessly. Every particle in my being cried out for him. "The daughter of a kabuki actor. What is there for you to take from me?"
His lips stopped moving. The lantern reappeared, distant but clarifying behind the screen. My heart quickened.
"Where can we be alone?"
"Mashiro-san."
"Not my name."
"Rima."
"I won't let you deny me."
He didn't. Instead, his hand found mine. He brought me to my feet. We walked together into the snow-laden trees. With one last look at the veranda, he weighed his guilt. It lost. He squeezed my hand. We walked faster.
I left everything behind and followed him. Whoever's boy this was, leading his lover through the woods, I was going to steal him.
Like his mother, he picked his way over a path half-remembered under the snow. He ducked and wove around the rocks and outcroppings in a hypnotic dance from boyhood. Taking me under the arms, he lifted me over a log lying in the path.
Then we were before a little fairy-house. Nagihiko walked me around the side, hand trailing its side. I wondered if it was the bathhouse. It couldn't be. It was too mossy and too diminutive, as though built for a child. It blended into the trees so spectacularly that I might have missed it, had Nagihiko not been with me.
I would later learn it was a free-standing tea house, built purposefully away from the bustle of the main house. In normal circumstances, we ought to have washed our hands before going in. I should have taken off my shoes nicely.
But it was the middle of the night, and everything was sleeping under the snow but owls. I had already committed so many wrongs that ritual seemed laughable. Nagihiko opened a tiny crawlspace in the corner of the exterior screen, and put his entire head in. He vanished through it.
A pair of white hands emerged the other side, lovingly.
"It's warmer inside."
It was warmer on the other side, but only just. There was no furniture but four tatami mats. The centre hearth was unlit. My teeth chattered as I crawled towards him.
Nagihiko took the lid off his lantern and tilted it towards the coals. I said, "Won't your mother see the smoke?"
His eyes were black. "Let her."
In the low light of a smouldering lantern, the shadows on his face were darker and warped. His cheekbones were longer, eyes dangerous.
A little flame sputtered to life on the coals. I turned his jaw to face me. He looked down at me obediently.
Even now, my mind was racing. I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to talk to him for days, maybe months, maybe years. I wanted to know everything: when did he know, and how long? To weep that I couldn't marry anyone, not now, not when I wanted to live and have him be a part of it. To explain with urgency how much Marimo had terrorized me, how I had watched Nadeshiko's ponytail move in class, how badly, painfully, I had wanted her even when I wished I didn't.
"What are you staring at?" Nagihiko asked me in a voice high and reedy, blushing like Nadeshiko.
I looped my arms around his neck, leaning us both into the warmth of the burgeoning fire. I pulled him with me as I flopped against the tatami mat.
Nagihiko braced on top of me. For a moment, I thought he was going to cry. Then—
"It was like you saved me," he said thickly.
"From what?"
"Everything. Myself, maybe."
"I wanted to," I whispered. "Even now, I want to."
His eyes moved down to my mouth. I was conscious of how I must look: spread out between his braced hands, undone hair spilling over the mats. Open, languid. Small, easily manoeuvred, lips parted, eyes wanting.
"You don't know what you're doing," he said, softly.
"Suppose I don't," I said lazily. The firelight softened him, leaving little dancing flecks of ruby-red on his hair. It poured onto my shoulder, tickling my face.
"I'm not going to do anything to you. I swear it."
"You won't do anything to me," I repeated the lie. I reached for him. "It's cold, Nadeshiko. Keep me warm."
The size difference produced a clumsy mess of arms, nothing like on the veranda. We were content to be close and alone, cradled in the darkness. If I squeezed my eyes shut and hugged his waist tight, I could pretend we never had to be parted. I am sure now that we didn't even know how to hold each other, never mind anything else. It had the air of play-acting something one has heard of second-hand.
I barely knew what to do with him now that I had him, except marvel at how he was crafted. I stroked my hand down his back. Round his waist. They settled on his hip, feeling the jut of bone under my palm. He sighed. His soft breath on the side of my neck was more thrilling than it had any right to be. Then I moved to the curve of his thigh, where the muscle tensed up. I knew what he looked like under it, His lips grazed my ear, something hot skimming it. I pressed my legs together, prickling with excitement.
In the struggle, Nagihiko's haori was abandoned under me. My robe slid off. She kissed my exposed shoulder. I rewarded her by wriggling free of the sleeve. Her mouth traced wet circle after circle down the length of my arm. I thought I might be shaking.
"Are you cold?" she murmured against my palm. Another kiss. I wasn't. Sweat was pearling on the back of my neck, but my arms were chilled. I was cold, but deliciously warm, every muscle in my body aching.
I raised my eyes to hers. They gazed back at me, unmasked and bright. Deliberately, I fit my leg between hers and pulled her to me. Her kimono hiked up and her mouth dropped open in shock.
Whatever she felt was shared between us, a nervous shudder against the unclothed areas of my body. Her back arched and her kimono fanned out around her. She dove for my neck, rolling me back against the firelit floorboards. Pursed lips touched my cold skin, bringing blood back to the surface. My head rolled to the side and my arms dropped next to my head, opening my body for her. The empty kimono sleeve tangled itself under my back, pulling the body with it, exposing my left breast to the freezing winter air. I shivered again as the nipple stiffened.
"Stop me," she whispered in that sweet, high voice against my neck. "Say no."
I kissed her. She moaned in protest, mouth opening on mine. Mouths locked together, I put Nadeshiko's hand over my breast, holding it there. My ears were thudding. The hint of her teeth grazed my lip, skin on skin on skin. I wondered how Americans could have ever screened this in moving pictures, when it felt like this. When it looked like this.
I broke the kiss, just to see if she would follow. She did, seeking my mouth out again. I was giddy on the mere idea that she couldn't have enough of me. The kissing turned softer, deeper. Her tongue worried at my lips, and I parted, letting her explore me. Her hands kneaded me and gave the occasional squeeze, turning me to mush.
I know now that lovers speak to each other, murmur in each other's ears, politely apologize when something pinches. We were terrified to speak, like we were on holy ground. If I even so much as whispered is this alright, we would wake the sleeping gods beneath the earth and be wracked apart. She took kiss after kiss after kiss from me instead, hovering over me every so often to watch my face for hesitancy.
I doubt there was any. Something in Nadeshiko's dainty manner brought out something impudent in me. I was dimly aware of moving against her, as though watching from outside myself. I threw my head back, pulling her hair to keep her on me.
Her hand slipped inside my kimono, caressing my thigh through silk. I guided her hand to the overlapping fabric of my under-robe. I parted it. She brushed the bare skin of my thigh. Her hand stayed there, testing the give of my skin, like she was evaluating me.
I rolled her over so we were facing each other. My breath was coming fast, hard, in little huffs of air. Insistently, I parted my kimono and kicked it up my leg. Her tapered fingertips skimmed the fine hairs on the back of my thigh. The air inside the innermost robe was humid hot, sticky like summertime. I sighed, squirming. She grazed the back of my knee. Then, the top of my leg. Her hand made played northwards to my throbbing centre, closer and closer. Every movement brought forth a tickling, warm heartbeat below my navel, faster and hotter than I had ever been able to summon on my own.
Enough of her teasing. I grabbed her wrist, groping to her long fingers as though trying to find something in the dark. Her eyes narrowed at me in a smiling laugh. Her hand moulded obediently however I moved it. I pressed her fingers against damp curls, down to slick, hot flesh that parted all too easily. I felt myself overflow and flushed.
Nadeshiko was bright, wild, like I had shown her something out of her wildest dreams. Her finger worked up against where the nerves were sensitive, sliding easily back and forth. I was incensed. Likely insane. Nobody had ever touched me outside of myself. It was strange. Foreign. Stronger and more vivid because I didn't expect it. The rocking rhythm resumed, gentle but insistent. My mouth dropped open; eyes lidded.
"You're so cute," her voice in my ear, breath tickling. The finger drew away. I almost moaned in protest and rocked into her hand, chasing my quarry. I loathed being called cute. But when Nadeshiko called me so in the cradle of our bodies, with patient longing in her eyes, I felt glowing and special, like when the ladies would compliment me at the theatre. Only better.
Words never came easy, but her fingertip gently worrying the sensitive flesh eked a sound in my throat. I could tell she wanted more of it, because every time I hummed, she doubled down. Her ankle crisscrossed mine, rubbing my leg as her finger traced a lazy oval. Her hand was wet. My lips were wet. I felt brimming with something I could not sate, except by getting more. More.
My breath came faster. I stretched, first an arm, then a leg. Pinpricks ran up my spine, followed by spasms of delight. Any thought of what was proper, what looked dignified, what looked pretty left my head in favour of getting myself closer to white-hot euphoria.
"More," I whispered.
"Greedy," she whispered back. "I'll take care of you."
Wasn't she already? But then she exhaled against my ear again, tongue gently licking the tip of my earlobe, once, twice. A bite. Sucking. My toes curled. I hugged her neck.
She might know what she was doing more than me, after all. Whoever she had learned this on made me jealous, hot and full of anger. Were there others? I grabbed her head between my hands.
"Please," I said.
She laughed. The teahouse was full of heat now, fire roaring in the grate. The backs of my knees were cool from sweat, under-robe forming a puddle. Nadeshiko was teasing me. She kissed the tip of my cold nipple and then the underside. Bliss. My kimono parted further, and her eyes lowered to the gap. She looked so completely ravishing on all fours between my legs that I could have eaten her.
I squirmed. She took so long to touch me that I expected her to take longer. I thought she would kiss my thigh, circle me, tease me. She didn't. The silky warmth of her mouth enveloped my womanhood all at once. My legs tensed, toes curled. I became one with the floor.
"Oh," I breathed.
A smacking noise. She looked up, demure, lips wet. "Like that?"
I pushed her head back down on me as way of answer. Nadeshiko smiled smugly into my hair. The pressure moved, wandered, flicked up. With every move, the aching intensified, burning hot, rich. She lapped and then turned her mouth to the side, lewd, like she was kissing – I clenched – purring something I couldn't hear. Only I had seen her like this, I realised. I wanted to be the only one who saw her like this, who she wanted to pleasure, who she wanted.
I closed my legs around her head, pushing against the hot wetness. Whenever her lips broke contact, the air was piercingly cold, making my hair stand on-end. I had lost all self-preservation. I lost. I was wanting, and I was begging.
"Mine," I whispered.
"Yours," she moaned and then sucked where the nerves were sensitive, eliciting a hiss from between my teeth. "All yours."
She held me apart, face buried. She had been rehearsing a delicate dance before, but not anymore. She sluiced whatever she could reach, mouth wide open, head bobbing. I was swollen, delicate. The gnawing in my stomach was a hunger, louder in my ears.
More. I needed more. Harder. I took what I wanted out of her, and she responded by going lighter, gentler. I put two fingers right at my cleft and pulled upward, revealing more of me to her tongue. She stopped wandering, bracing on my legs. It was a maddening back and forth, hard, then soft, then harder. I found myself helpless at her beck. If she stopped now, I couldn't say no. I couldn't.
I couldn't.
I broke, back arching. My body rewarded me by magnifying the rasp of her tongue into intolerable pleasure, singing against me like a koto-string. I pressed against her mouth, exhaling ragged from the base of my throat.
I fell back against the floorboards. I refilled my lungs with oxygen. My skin was tickling, sensitive. She was still licking, and my leg jerked from overstimulation.
"Oh," I gasped. "Stop."
"Mm?"
"Done." I shied from her mouth.
"A-ah-" another wet noise as she pulled her face away. My cheeks were hot. I beckoned, lazy and spread-eagled. She had a meek expression on, like she had been caught with her hands in something she shouldn't.
She said she wouldn't do anything to me. She hadn't. At least, nothing I had not already figured out for myself. But it left me on my back, thrumming with delight: and nothing had gone in. That was key, of course. I found I loved her more for it, that she hadn't tried.
Nadeshiko crawled up to join me, slithering an arm round the back of my neck. I fell into her, exhausted. From my sleepy haze, a thought:
"And you?" I asked, sleepily. My hands strayed to whatever stayed out of my reach. Despite knowing nothing, I instinctively knew what arousal looked like in her, red-eyed and pursed lips and the delicate way she handled her groin. I pressed up against her with morbid fascination, caressing the weight behind her kimono.
Nadeshiko let out a sob in spite of herself, grinding into my hand.
"Oh, don't," she begged. "Don't, please."
My hand withdrew. Hypocritically, she pulled me back. When Nadeshiko blushed, it always blotted from the red rims of her eyes to the tip of her ear. Even the firelight, I could see her full lips quivering. Her slim hip was digging into my stomach in a gentle thrusting motion. My mouth watered. I pushed against her leg and was rewarded with a shuddery moan.
She shied, burying her face in my neck. "I don't want to do anything to you," she repeated.
I assented with an 'mm.' Her ear was warm and soft under my teeth. She jerked with pleasure when I bit it, squeaking into my shoulder. Climax warmed me into action, impelling me to reward her.
"But I want you," she gasped, as I clambered on top of her. "Oh- d-don't-"
She pulled my knee between her legs. I threw myself on her, cheek resting on her chest. The warmth of her skin radiated through it, down the length of her body where we were pulled flush. I testily rolled my hips and admired with thinly veiled delight as she bucked uselessly under me.
Again. Her hips lifted off the tatami and she stiffened against me, eyes half-shut, mouth open. The silk layers whispered between us with every shift and thrust. The yawning urge returned to me, something fluid rolling down my leg. I could feel the breath leaving me, my legs giving out. Getting purchase on her was exhausting. I wheezed.
"Let me."
I let her roll my body over, still panting.
She handled me like a dollmaker would something fragile and breakable. A cool palm covered my eyes, sinking me into darkness. My knees were pushed together, then worked back against my chest. My ankles fit on either side of her neck.
A sitting cushion was folded and under my lower back. I opened my mouth to ask what she was doing. A wet hand. My thighs parted, then closed. Slick, wet pressure all over the still-sensitive skin, rubbing raw. I inhaled, head lolling back. Firm flesh nestled against my belly – not in me – throbbing hot, almost velvety.
I opened my eyes, lashes brushing Nadeshiko's palm. Friction against my thighs as she began to thrust. Her fingernails dug into my knees, and I wanted to see her face so much it hurt me, sweet and anguished and aching for release.
"Good?" a feminine whisper.
"Yes," I said, dazed. I didn't know how my thighs could have gotten this slippery – or I did, but could not believe it. I felt along the side of my leg until I reached for her hand. I tiptoed down to where my thighs parted, where she was moving.
"Here?" I whispered to the darkness of her hand, making a loose fist around the head. She moaned again, and it made me move my hips down on her, pushing my knees together. The fire roared higher, and she let out a choked cry. My heart beat in tune with my fingers squeezing swollen flesh. Nadeshiko moved faster, and I sunk into a strange half-dream. I was awake but not asleep, in darkness but alive with feeling. My body was sleepily aroused all over again. I got wetter. The hand removed itself from my eyes.
Nadeshiko's eyebrows pulled together, pretty lips open. Her eyes were nearly closed. Her kimono gaped to expose her long, white neck and fine line of her collarbone. I gripped tighter, and she hugged my knees to her chest, gasping. The corner of her mouth lifted in a beastlike snarl. Harder. Faster, like she was trying to ruin me.
"Good," I panted.
My inexperienced hands did what I would have done to myself, stroking wherever I could. She was too far gone to stop me. Her face twisted, and she bit back another sob.
"Oh‑"
She threw herself into the confusing knot of our hands and limbs. Our kimonos tangled into a chaotic temari ball. She matched my pace wildly like she was back in a dance, hitting every cue, strings of hair obscuring her face. Princess Sarashina shook off the repression of her disguise to bare her teeth at me, bone-white. The thrusts grew shallow, wanting, needy. And I wanted it.
"Go ahead."
She jerked. Nadeshiko lost herself somewhere beyond the embrace of my legs. Her eyes were empty. She forced herself on me, hips twitching, then quivering.
"Ah —! AH!"
Fluid rushed to fill the gaps between my fingers. With a shudder and tremble of her lip, she pressed her face into my knees. Her forehead was a bright, flaming red. I lay there, dampened and soiled, drinking her in. Drips went over my knuckles, like when I squeezed a fruit too hard.
Her face looked contrite enough to beg me. She groped within her obi and pulled out a fistful of kabuki blotting paper. She pulled herself from my thighs. I let her clean the both of us to alleviate her guilt.
We stood up together, on shaky footing. Like a lady, I daintily put my arm back into my kimono sleeve. Nagihiko reached for me. He re-dressed me so my flushed, sweaty skin was covered, re-tying my obi firmly so my kimono lay smooth. When he had finished fixing me up, there was no evidence whatsoever that I had been tampered with.
For a while, we stared at each other, mulling over what had passed between us. My stomach was sticky, legs weak. His hands lay on my shoulders, and mine on his chest. He was still breathing a little heavy, eyes lidded. He tucked a loose curl behind my ear. Then he turned to dump snow on the hearth, dousing it. The fire sizzled and hissed, exhaling steam.
I followed his downturned lashes with my eyes. I wanted to share his warmth for the rest of the night. I wanted to sleep knowing he would be there when I woke up. There were no futons here; my spine was already aching with discomfort. I pouted.
"Stay with me," Nagihiko said softly, reading my expression.
"Amu," I said.
I thought his face might fall, remembering that we shared a futon in the guest room. Surely, he would notice. But Nagihiko only smiled coyly.
"Amu's drunk," he said, taking me in his arms. "And will sleep until noon."
"It sounds to me," I said, "Like you'll justify anything."
He kissed my forehead. I giggled as he put me back into his haori.
After the warmth of his skin, the walk back through the night snow was intolerably cold. As a people, the Japanese scorned internal heating and large grates. We made do off small hearths, living eternally in fear that our wood dwellings would catch fire. We bundled ourselves in layers that did absolutely nothing. I pressed myself against Naghiko, teeth chattering.
I only eased my shivering when he got me inside the storm-shutter. I untied my obi and outer layers. We fell into bed together. I wondered how long I could make these few hours before daylight pass as slowly as possible.
"Mm." He wrapped his arms around me and rested his head on my breast. A strip of eye was visible through my would-be lover's eyelashes, watching me.
Sleep lapped at the edges of my vision, slow but sure. The world swung, suspended in the black pearl of a room. I remembered that Nagihiko could not sleep.
"Wake me," I said, "When the sun rises."
"Then," he replied, "I will beg Amaterasu to dawdle."
#LOVEWINS #HAPPYNEWYEAR #HOLYSHIT
Nagihiko is so corny... Tadase come get your boy he's scaring the hoes
I really wish Nadeshiko's sex ed wasn't limited to 19th century shunga woodblocks.
Special award goes to all the Anonymouses on tumblr dot com for calling Nagihiko's cryptic, Japanese pseudo-marriage offer way back in Chapter 10. I really thought I was being slick but alas, my readership is clever and used to reading between the lines for their Rimahiko fix
"Oh so is this the end tsuki no kimi?" unfortunately no. Actually. We are um. Halfway through.
Once again I am so sorry for ruining everyone's childhood. i, uh. I love y