After he had got changed, Katsumi sat on the edge of Taka's bed, feeling slightly light-headed, and tried to work out just what the social protocol for his situation was. No doubt about it, he was way too used to living alone where it really didn't matter if you got dressed after taking a bath or not. Obviously Taka would have found his behaviour a little… odd. The man had totally different standards. He didn't leave his flat in a mess in the mornings when he went to work, he was normally fifteen minutes early for meetings and things instead of five minutes late, he dressed discreetly, spoke quietly and had never pestered Koji to tell him about his sex life.
Why Taka had been so flustered Katsumi didn't know. Their relationship so far may have been almost totally platonic but that didn't mean they were never going to… do anything. So he'd probably have to see Katsumi without his clothes on at some point. That thought made Katsumi blush. God. Why? Okay, so he was one of the most experienced virgins in Tokyo, but that didn't change anything, he'd never actually got much beyond second base with his girlfriends because he normally got bored with them long before that. Okay, so he had problems committing to a relationship. Well, before all this stuff with Taka he'd never really found anyone he wanted to commit to.
His father would not be happy about Takasaka. Actually, his father would probably try to murder him. He'd attempted to persuade Katsumi into an arranged marriage a couple of years back and he had said an emphatic no way. He still secretly hoped that his son would come round to his way of thinking and settle down with some rich girl (to hell with that, Katsumi had thought. He was eighteen and you were only eighteen once). A kind of modern marriage alliance. That was another of the reasons why Katsumi wasn't actually on speaking terms with his father at the moment.
If he'd thought the arguments they'd had over high school were bad, it would be nothing compared to what his family would have to say about his sexuality (his grandfather was already throwing a fit over his dress sense which he thought was effeminate). Katsumi had to fight back a fit of giggles over what his uncle would say if he found out about his relationship with Takasaka. He'd probably just view it as a conflict of interests. He wouldn't be impressed but he couldn't afford to worry too much considering what his number one star was getting up to in bed these days…
Oh, great. Here I go again. Harping on about Koji's sex life. It wasn't like he envied Koji. Izumi was a psycho anyway and Katsumi had never really been an advocate of the free love Koji had practised so assiduously since he was what, eleven? Katsumi really didn't know if he believed that Koji had lost his virginity aged eleven to Akihito's girlfriend. It sounded implausible but it was just the kind of lame-ass thing Koji had made his name doing. There was being a flirt and then there was just being a slut.
Judging that he had given Takasaka long enough to calm down, take some pills, check his blood pressure and call his analyst, Katsumi got off the bed and walked over to the door, pausing to pick the discarded bathrobe up on the way there. He guessed Taka would probably feel happier if he wore it as well.
***
"Are you hungry?" Takasaka asked solicitously a short while later.
Taking advantage of Takasaka's absence to finally get a decent look at the flat, Katsumi came to the conclusion that it was hardly prime real estate but the view was okay. He wondered if he should attempt to pester his uncle into raising the man's salary so he could afford a slightly better flat, although Taka-chan would as like as not have dumped all the excess money into his pension plan or his health insurance or something similar.
***
From the kitchen door, Takasaka surreptitiously watched Katsumi who appeared to be on the verge of falling asleep again. It wasn't often he could manage it what with the fact that Katsumi barely ever seemed to stand still long enough for that. Part of him-a part that he didn't like to acknowledge having-felt quietly exultant. He'd long wanted to ask the boy back to his flat but had never managed to work up the nerve to do so, but Katsumi's flu had given him the perfect excuse. It wasn't like he was going to catch it, after all. It was his flu after all, which he had passed on to Katsumi. The rational part of him told him not to think like that.
Plus there was the added incentive that Katsumi didn't really know what he was doing most of the time at the moment so he could get away with far more than… No, no, no! A pained expression flitted across Takasaka's features. He had not just thought that. That was NOT why he had decided to look after him. It was because he was sick and probably wouldn't have coped on his own. Not because he was going to use the flu as an excuse to try to get to know him better.
Still, Takasaka couldn't deny he was lonely. The last person he had managed to have a sort-of semi relationship with was a bored bargirl from Asakusa, who had eventually got fed up with his irregular working hours, his nervousness and habit of taking his job home with him both in the literal and metaphorical sense of the word. That relationship had ended almost two years ago and he hadn't exactly looked hard for another since it ended. Then there'd been Katsumi. Katsumi was sweet, but he was, after all, a boy… a boy he'd known for a long time.
Four years… no, longer. He hadn't realised it at first, but he'd seen Katsumi around before he really knew who he was. He'd just been "the boss' nephew" at that stage. He'd had conversations with the boy on a couple of occasions. Once he'd helped him look for a stuffed rabbit belonging to his little sister. Madoka, he presumed. The little girl who had died aged thirteen. He hadn't really thought much of the events for a while afterwards and he had been unable to connect the dark-haired child he'd met on those few brief occasions with blonde Katsumi, until a chance comment by Takafumi Yoshiya had led to Katsumi revealing that he dyed his hair…
Sighing, Takasaka turned and walked back into the kitchen. This was something he'd just have to sort out by himself…
***
That night, Takasaka sat up late in the living room, attempting to do some of the work he had taken home with him in order to assuage his conscience at leaving work so early. He'd thought that what with Katsumi sick, he would be likely to go to bed early, thus giving him three or four hours in which to work at home before he went to bed himself.
He had, after all, got to sort out a particularly tricky (but not, unfortunately, singular) problem Koji had left the company in by failing to turn up at an advertising photo-shoot a few days prior. Takasaka had finally managed to persuade the company not to sue for time wasted, promising another shoot in a few days' time when the schedule allowed. The company had been very reasonable, but had pointed out that they had a deadline to meet and that they would need the shoot in the next few days. Takasaka had agreed-only trouble was that at the time they had arranged the shoot Koji was supposed to be doing an interview for television, which would mean rescheduling that at the expense of some of the rehearsal time Takafumi had been pushing for. The end result was everyone had gotten angry and he got another tension headache.
Sighing, he put down the pen he had been toying with in his attempt to draw up a revised schedule, which would somehow satisfy everyone's needs (there just had to be some way to get Koji to stay at work a bit later!) and decided, just like that, to go and check on how Katsumi was.
He gently opened the door to the bedroom and hesitated whilst his eyes became accustomed to the dimmer light. Once they did he made out the figure of Katsumi, who lay on one side in the bed, the sheets barely covering his pale body. He was crying in his sleep, and it pained Takasaka that he had no way of working out why- and in the morning Katsumi would be unlikely to remember the dream. Seeing him like that, though, made him feel absurdly protective and strangely sad. Why is he crying? Don't cry. Takasaka moved over to sit on the edge of the bed, then reached over and brushed Katsumi's tangled hair out of his face, an absurdly intimate gesture and something he would never have felt able to do had the boy been awake-partly through his own inhibitions, partly because Katsumi awake would have wondered what the hell he was doing.
Katsumi gasped and murmured something softly. "Mother…"
"Mother?" Takasaka realised he'd spoken aloud. What about Katsumi's mother? He had never heard him mention his mother whilst awake. Then again, despite his talkative nature, he seldom, if ever, spoke about himself, preferring to concentrate on other people's problems. Takasaka remembered Katsumi saying that no one really gave a damn about his problems…
Well he did give a damn about his problems. What the hell kind of a relationship were they having here if Katsumi didn't even feel able to talk about the things which bothered and upset him? He'd get Katsumi to open up to him if he died in the attempt.
