"You may be right, I may be crazy,
But it just might be a lunatic you're looking for."
--Billy Joel, "You May Be Right"
Somewhere around the seventh month, they found themselves going out more often, but not quite making it to the restaurants they planned to visit. More often than not, they'd spend a good ten minutes trying to decide where to eat, and then one of them would say something faintly suggestive or a warm look would pass between them, and they'd be stumbling across the threshold of someone's apartment trying to get their clothes off as fast as possible.
Several times, they didn't even reach the bed.
It was yet another unspoken rule that, once they'd both gone inside an apartment, neither of them would leave until morning. They were only late to work twice, and nobody at the office really seemed to notice or care.
Between the guilty looks they exchanged over the time clock at work and the long drift of afterglow, something exquisitely strange happened: they got used to one another.
Tatsumi slept face-up, and rarely moved once he had drifted off; once something woke him, he didn't go back to sleep unless he was actually forced to stay in bed. He never hit the snooze button on his alarm clock, and he kept his glasses at the far end of the bedside table, so he would have to get out of bed in order to retrieve them.
Watari slept face-down, literally on top of Tatsumi regardless of whether or not he had in fact been on top of him while they were very much awake. No matter how much coffee he drank, no matter how much sleep he'd had, he was incapable of functioning before nine-thirty a.m. at the earliest. He liked to stay up late and get up later, and he could never remember where he put his glasses.
They learned, in subtle shifting and quite a lot of trial and error, how to share a bed so that they didn't wake up in a tangle of cramped limbs. They learned how to prod one another awake in the mornings, and how exactly they fit into one another's clothes.
Summer had already blazed into autumn, and autumn was mellowing into a chilly November.
On some nights, they lay awake and talked in the dark.
They ended up at Tatsumi's apartment on a long, blue Friday night; half of the evening was a slow blur of heat and teasing. Once it was finished, once they lay lazy and loosely draped against each other, quiet settled in comfortably like a flock of tired birds.
"Do you think the neighbours heard us?" Watari asked at last.
"They might have heard you."
"Oh, ha ha, very funny. Nobody likes a smart-ass."
But you do, Tatsumi thought, before he could stop himself.
There was another long moment of lull.
"We should go to Kyoto next weekend."
Tatsumi blinked, and managed to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Why?"
"To see the gardens. I haven't been in a while, and it'd be a real shame if I let the bad times have the whole city, you know?"
He thought of the last time he'd been in Kyoto; he thought of the misery he'd felt near the heart of a fire, and the death throes of an old love reflected in the slender blade of a sword. He thought of the things that hadn't been said, and the things that had, and the terrifying moment of knowing that someone else's hands on his collar were all that held him back from falling.
He thought of a single lucid moment, grey but faintly brown with drifting maple leaves, when he'd half listened to Watari describing having grown up there. He thought of faint and watery highlights of colour on his memory, and of the flame colours in his dreams.
Nobody wants to take it back, but you do.
"Yes," he murmured. "You're right."
But it just might be a lunatic you're looking for."
--Billy Joel, "You May Be Right"
Somewhere around the seventh month, they found themselves going out more often, but not quite making it to the restaurants they planned to visit. More often than not, they'd spend a good ten minutes trying to decide where to eat, and then one of them would say something faintly suggestive or a warm look would pass between them, and they'd be stumbling across the threshold of someone's apartment trying to get their clothes off as fast as possible.
Several times, they didn't even reach the bed.
It was yet another unspoken rule that, once they'd both gone inside an apartment, neither of them would leave until morning. They were only late to work twice, and nobody at the office really seemed to notice or care.
Between the guilty looks they exchanged over the time clock at work and the long drift of afterglow, something exquisitely strange happened: they got used to one another.
Tatsumi slept face-up, and rarely moved once he had drifted off; once something woke him, he didn't go back to sleep unless he was actually forced to stay in bed. He never hit the snooze button on his alarm clock, and he kept his glasses at the far end of the bedside table, so he would have to get out of bed in order to retrieve them.
Watari slept face-down, literally on top of Tatsumi regardless of whether or not he had in fact been on top of him while they were very much awake. No matter how much coffee he drank, no matter how much sleep he'd had, he was incapable of functioning before nine-thirty a.m. at the earliest. He liked to stay up late and get up later, and he could never remember where he put his glasses.
They learned, in subtle shifting and quite a lot of trial and error, how to share a bed so that they didn't wake up in a tangle of cramped limbs. They learned how to prod one another awake in the mornings, and how exactly they fit into one another's clothes.
Summer had already blazed into autumn, and autumn was mellowing into a chilly November.
On some nights, they lay awake and talked in the dark.
They ended up at Tatsumi's apartment on a long, blue Friday night; half of the evening was a slow blur of heat and teasing. Once it was finished, once they lay lazy and loosely draped against each other, quiet settled in comfortably like a flock of tired birds.
"Do you think the neighbours heard us?" Watari asked at last.
"They might have heard you."
"Oh, ha ha, very funny. Nobody likes a smart-ass."
But you do, Tatsumi thought, before he could stop himself.
There was another long moment of lull.
"We should go to Kyoto next weekend."
Tatsumi blinked, and managed to unglue his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Why?"
"To see the gardens. I haven't been in a while, and it'd be a real shame if I let the bad times have the whole city, you know?"
He thought of the last time he'd been in Kyoto; he thought of the misery he'd felt near the heart of a fire, and the death throes of an old love reflected in the slender blade of a sword. He thought of the things that hadn't been said, and the things that had, and the terrifying moment of knowing that someone else's hands on his collar were all that held him back from falling.
He thought of a single lucid moment, grey but faintly brown with drifting maple leaves, when he'd half listened to Watari describing having grown up there. He thought of faint and watery highlights of colour on his memory, and of the flame colours in his dreams.
Nobody wants to take it back, but you do.
"Yes," he murmured. "You're right."