Seasons Of Love
Credits for the haiku I used for this story, plus a few links to sites about Japanese poetry: please see cultural notes at the end.
He Says A Word
He says a word
And I say a word;
Autumn is deepening.
"Aya, don't be stupid." Yohji shoved the mug of tea towards his partner who sat opposite him at the kitchen table. "Here, you're wrought up now and annoyed, and perhaps I was a bit clumsy... look, I'm sorry."
Aya looked up at him, a cool, detached expression on his white face, a faint gleam shivering in the rhythm of his pulse over the single long earring he wore in his left earlobe. "Hai," he said quietly, "so you are."
Yohji swallowed hard, shifted uneasily on his chair. "I was drunk, Ayan. You... I mean, you haven't touched me in weeks, you won't tell me what's bugging you, so what the hell am I supposed to do?"
Aya bit his lip and dropped his gaze. He shoved the mug around in little circles, watching the tea slop and swirl. Yohji always made his tea too strong, letting it brew as though it were coffee. "I'm not as easy with words as you are," he said reluctantly.
Yohji shook his bleach-blond head, green eyes unhappy and nervous. "I didn't mean to hurt you. Please, Ayan. Why the fuck did you have to come at me with that damn sword of yours?"
Aya briefly touched the blackening welt on his cheekbone, an absentminded, wondrous gesture. "I thought... I saw..." Yohji kissing. Someone with long copper hair. Kissing deeply, barely round the corner from the Koneko, and the other man was fairly melting into Yohji.
Aya sighed and looked up to meet Yohji's gaze. "Instinct. I didn't think." He pushed the mug to the middle of the table and rose, reaching for the travel bag by the side of his chair. "I shall see you around, no doubt."
No One Travels
No one travels
Along this way but I
This autumn evening.
Aya stood outside the Koneko and shouldered his holdall. His back to the door, he looked over the night bright street, neon colours and the rush of cars through the rain, tyres whooshing through puddles and spraying cascades of false diamonds, splashing down into new pools of dirt water.
It was cool, the air sodden, and he pulled up the collar of his coat and ducked his head a little between his shoulders. Inside, Yohji sat at the kitchen table, alone and probably still staring vacantly into the mug of cooling coffee. Over, Aya had told him, we're done; I'm leaving.
Aya had accepted a solo mission, and Omi had been all too glad to see him gone. Neither had touched upon arrangements for Aya's return. It was not a good job, with very little information to go by, and much at stake – much money, much power, much in the way of a reputation for the target. It was wiser not to risk the entire team.
From what Aya gathered, Yohji had no idea. Omi had his ways. So Aya let Yohji believe whatever he wanted: that it was out of jealousy, or hurt, or their latest argument that had turned rather spiteful, with accusations hurled back and forth. Poisonous and deliberate like Omi's darts.
Aya adjusted the bag over his shoulder and began to walk, down the lightsoaked street, into the orange night of the city. He had not planned on returning. He would work the job, get paid and find somewhere to stay on his own. Where he could focus. Away from Yohji and his hunger for life.
Or he would not return at all.
And that was fine too.
Night And Once Again
Night; and once again
The while I wait for you, cold wind
Turns into rain.
The door clapped softly, startling Yohji from his trance. His mug toppled over and shattered on the floor as he flew through the hall, ripped his coat from the peg by the backdoor, and stormed out into the street.
Cars swishing past, cold colours playing on shiny bodywork, the chatter of passing people on their way from or to clubs and bars, seeking out entertainment for the night. The chill of rain and the breeze that drove spiky sharp droplets into his face and flapped his soaked hair about his head.
A short, slim figure rounded a corner at the bottom of the street and disappeared into the not-sleeping non-darkness. Yohji broke into a run. Reached that corner, bumped into a kissing couple, gasped a hasty apology, asked.
No, they had not seen anyone with bright crimson hair and a sword, and looked at him with a mixture of wariness, amusement and disbelief. Yohji spared himself a quick glance. He wore no shoes.
His jeans were drenched up to his knees from splashing through puddles. His soaking shirt hung out of the waistband, and his coat had slipped off one shoulder. The hem was spattered with dirt. Suddenly, he felt very cold. The chill spread from his chest into his limbs, making them heavy and slow. He longed to go home.
A Dead Chrysanthemum
A dead chrysanthemum
and yet – isn't there still something
remaining in it?
Yohji dropped his coat by the threshold and walked past it without another thought. Someone would pick it up, sometime, and hang it up on the peg where it belonged, next to Omi's cuffed denim jacket and Ken's tracksuit top.
He lurched up the stairs and slunk down the hall to his bedroom. Past Aya's door. He paused, laid his hand onto the doorknob, reluctant now that the room was deserted. The room he had entered often, without thinking or asking because he had been at home here more than at his own place.
Usually, he had been welcome. Softly, he pressed the door open and stepped in, hesitating by the threshold, something brushing against his shoulder. He turned to see what it was: a small bag, the size of two fists, sewn neatly of raw silk the hue of Aya's skin, and suspended from a drawing pin driven into the frame of the door.
Yohji lifted his hand to touch the thing. It felt soft, textured, smooth with tiny nubs of broken threads patterning the weave. Inside, something rustled faintly, and the odour of dried chrysanthemums rose, clinging to his fingers and pricking his nose.
Aya observed most of the traditional festival days. He had hung the bag up on the ninth day of the ninth month and left it there, to be replaced with iris blooms on the fifth day of the fifth month. Yohji stroked the charm. Aya's skin, Aya's scent, Aya's love. Aya, woven of silk...
He felt nothing but a dead flower, crumbling under his fingers.
Harvest Moon
Harvest moon:
Around the pond I wander
And the night is gone.
Omi and Ken were laughing and drinking. Yohji, sitting at the kitchen table, looked up from time to time over the rim of his green glasses and smiled at their antics. They were on their second bottle of sake, and had wormed a pack of cigarettes out of him, and really, he knew he should stop them.
Yet, they seemed happy, playing some of Omi's heavy metal tunes – somewhat mutedly in respect of Yohji who had complained a little that the racket would rupture his eardrums if they left it thumping at full power.
So he was watching them, over his glasses and the slim volume of poetry from Aya's bookshelf, and felt a strange heaviness settle into his chest. Calm, and borrowed happiness, gleaned from their cheerful lust for life.
They had collected him from the park earlier where he had gone to sit on a bench by the small pond, a still place though it lay almost in the centre of the vast area of meadows and trees in the middle of the city. A respite from life that seemed to break, wash over, and well back from the green castle like the tide might wash over a rockpool.
The moon had hung low and large, shrouded in smog, its colour a sallow white, mirrored in the dark water of the pond. A breeze had whispered through the reeds that grew on the banks. He had not wanted to leave. There would be no fresh chrysanthemums in the house this year, and he had come to hate them in the shop.
No Sky
No sky
No earth – but still
Snowflakes fall.
Wrapped into a grey yukata, with nothing but geta on his feet, Aya sat on the frozen ground at the edge of the pond. He was crumbling up crusts of stale bread and tossing them to the lone swan that had been unwise enough to try outwaiting the winter. Perhaps, Aya mused, it had not found the strength to fly for warmer places.
It was snowing. In the small house, with a small garden that surrounded the tiny pond, Aya had made his new home: a rack for his katana, a futon, a kettle and a bowl, a pair of chopsticks. His working gear meticulously tucked away in a large box under the kitchen counter, along with the computer that he would check for mail every evening.
He chose his jobs carefully and preferred to pick the times when he would work, too. The city was but a layer of fog in the distance, across an expanse of grey sea. His little house on the hillside had cost a fortune for the space that surrounded it.
Snow had been settling since the day before, on the frosty ground, the glittering edge of the pond, the layers of ice Aya had broken so the swan could keep swimming around among the shards. Snow lay on the branches of the pine tree that shaded the house, and on the bamboo in the garden.
The cold did not hurt him: the thick flakes barely melted on his skin. It was still snowing, a dense, wet curtain that hid heaven and earth, a soft futon on rock-hard soil, a frosty caress. Dawn had risen in deep silence. The day was white and still, as though even time had died.
The Year's First Day
The year's first day
Thoughts and loneliness;
The autumn dusk is here.
Aya pulled off his gloves, put the katana onto the kitchen counter and bent to tug off his assault boots. He shrugged off his coat, unzipped the teflon vest and rid himself of tee-shirt and black military pants. He stuffed the clothes into the washing machine and then set to painstakingly wiping down the stuff he could not wash.
Later, showered and dressed into a plain blue yukata, he settled by the sliding doors to the garden with his katana on a rag in his lap, a jar of grinding paste, and a soft cloth to polish the blade. The sharp, sweet aroma of incense filled the house. On the small altar – a tray in a corner of the single living and sleeping room – he had neatly set out his new-year offerings:
Two rice cakes.
Two pine-scented incense sticks.
Two sprigs of bamboo.
A couple of paper cranes.
Aya bunched the cloth, scooped out some of the paste and smoothed it down the steel in long, even motions. Outside, snow was melting, dripping from laden branches and trickling in rivulets underneath heavy layers of whiteness. Aya pressed down hard, fingernails whitening at the edges, the nail itself pink.
The steel shone silver, light playing over it, rimming the razor sharp edge. The cloth was rusty red. Aya wiped the remnants of the paste from the blade and sheathed the sword, setting it aside carefully before stepping out into the garden to feel the heaviness of thawing earth under his bare feet.
No Blossoms
No blossoms and no moon
And he is drinking sake
All alone!
In jeans and a stained green tee-shirt, Yohji sprawled on his back on the tatami in Aya's room. By his side lay the cuffed book with poems, a crumpled packet of cigarettes with only one left, and his lighter. The room stank of tobacco smoke and stale sweat.
The futon was rumpled, the crisp white sheets Aya preferred replaced with wildy patterned ones in red and green. The white linens drying on a line on the roof of the Koneko. Yohji had his eyes closed, his glasses perching on the tip of his nose, slightly askew. He held on to a bottle of sake, caressing its slim neck, pumping it slowly with his curled-up hand.
Between his spread legs stood an almost full ashtray, ash sprinkled around it like vestiges of snow on the pale green straw of the mats, and a sake cup. From the shop downstairs floated Ken's voice, talking with customers. From down the hall thumped Omi's music; he was doing homework.
Yohji propped himself up on one elbow and put the bottle to his mouth to take a long swig, unbothered about cup or decorum. He shivered as the heat of the drink ran through his veins, liquid fire to quench the chill inside him and throw light into the darkness. He plopped back, his head nudging against the mats, eyes drooping shut, brain sloshing into oblivion.
He was too far gone to hold on, and gave up the bottle to the firm tug that wound it from his fingers. "If you have to get drunk," a cool voice said close to his ear, "you should at least be viewing the cherry blossoms."
Temple Bells Die Out
Temple bells die out.
The fragrant blossoms remain.
A perfect evening!
Yohji kept his eyes screwed shut. Tried to hold on to this dream that made him want to weep like a child, to the aroma of pine needles and steel that washed over him, parting the fog of alcohol and tobacco and the odours of neglect.
Hold on to those small, hard hands that dragged him up by the shoulders and pressed him against a slim, firm body, nestled his tousled head against a bony shoulder and smooth, hot skin. He tried to wrap his arms around this vision, and found that he could cling to it.
Solid, warm. Aya.
"You need some fresh air," he heard Aya say and shook his head. Nonsense. Dreams had no right to give orders, let alone in this slightly strained, annoyed tone that was Aya's privilege alone. The arms around him tightened, muscles bunching, hands tugging, hauling him up.
"Dammit, Yohji, open your eyes already, or we'll both fall down the stairs." And Yohji drew a deep breath to pacify his lurching stomach and cracked open one eye, then the other. To meet the glare of purple contacts, thin lips pulled up in a slight sneer, flushed cheekbones, crimson hair.
In the park they settled under the cherry trees by the pond. From the shrine at the far end wafted the thin sound of bells. Petals, pale and pink, drifted to the green ground like snow in summer, settling like lace on the dark stillness of the water.
"I missed you," Yohji murmured, his head in Aya's lap.
"I know," Aya said, holding out his hand to catch a petal.
Covered With The Flowers
Covered with the flowers,
Instantly I'd like to die
In this dream of ours!
"Will it always be like this?" Yohji said into the warmth of Aya's crotch. He lay in the grass, stretched out on his stomach, breathing in and soaking up the familiar aroma of passion and heat, of life and dying. Greedy, insatiable, his arms round Aya's waist, long fingers linked firmly behind the small of Aya's back, and clawing into dark fabric over white skin.
Aya remained silent. He caught fluttering petals and wove them into Yohji's mussed hair, smoothing the wiry blond strands along his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. Exploring amber skin anew with calloused fingers, stroking firmly, gently, pinching a bit and watching the faint blushmarks fade.
"I must be fucking dreaming," Yohji concluded, pressing his nose a bit deeper into the dark nest he had made for his face. Aya allowed himself a small smile, because Yohji could not see him now – sitting crosslegged with Yohji's face buried in his lap – or himself, lanky frame encased in jeans and tee, covered by a scattering of petals. Like a sacrifice. Aya shivered and cupped the blond head, a small, protective gesture.
"I'd like to stay like that," Yohji murmured and stirred a bit, trying to turn, but Aya clamped his hand over Yohji's neck, holding him in place, lacing the other hand through his bleached hair, a soothing, monotonous motion.
"Then do," said Aya.
"Forever," Yohji wondered,"would I have to die for that?"
Aya made no reply.
In All This Cool
In all this cool
Is the moon also sleeping?
There, in the pool?
They stayed out until the gates of the park were closed and the moon rose into the orange gloom of the city night. Aya bent down to Yohji. "Are you asleep?" Receiving no answer, he settled his hands on Yohji's shoulders and let his head sink to his chest.
In the reeds that seamed the still water sang a chorus of frogs. Now and then, soft splashes betrayed a fish hunting for small insects on the water surface, and silver rings would spread from where it had burst from its element.
"We should leave now," Aya said, surprised at the softness of his own voice. Startled when Yohji stretched, yawned and caught one of his hands, wrapping long, wire-scoured fingers around short, sword-hardened ones. He rolled onto his back and looked up at Aya.
Who did not hide his smile this time, or the darkness that remained in his eyes, or the chill that touched his heart when he met this gaze brimming with hope and affection and so much tenderness, it made him burn inside. He was afraid of this kind of pain, for he had found that it could break him. Something Yohji would never understand.
"We can sleep here," Yohji pleaded and bedded that small hand against his broad chest. Aya could feel the thumping of Yohji's heart, could see it in the vein at his neck, in the heat of his eyes, his smile, nervous, longing. So much longing… Yohji lifted Aya's hand and pressed it against his cheek. "Even the moon's sleeping here. Look, in the pool."
Yohji's skin was warm and dry, like sunbaked rock. Aya shifted, Yohji reached out for him, helping him to settle by his side, drawing him into his arms in the long, cool grass that in the morning would be drooping with dew, and they would both be soaked and shivering and cold to the marrow.
Aya wound his arms round Yohji's shoulders, and Yohji folded around him, entwining long legs with shorter ones, red hair the pillow for his chin, the nest for his fingers to settle in, letting his warmth soak into chill limbs and a frosty soul.
"Is it really sleeping?" Aya said against his chest, his heartbeat, his breathing. "The moon?"
Yohji pressed him a bit closer still.
"Hai, Ayan, and dreaming. Like us."
The End
Notes:
The haiku I used for this story were written by classical masters of the form:
(Takahama Kyoshi) - He Says A Word
(Basho Matsuo) - No One Travels
(Shiki Masaoka) - Night And Once Again
(Takahama Kyoshi) - A Dead Chrysantemum
(Basho Matsuo) - Harvest Moon
(Hashin) - No Sky
(Basho Matsuo) - The Year's First Day
(Basho Matsuo) - No Blossoms
(Basho Matsuo) - Temple Bells Die Out
(Etsujin) - Covered With The Flowers
(Ryusui) - In All This Cool
I like these sites about Japanese poetry (if the links don't come through here, try typing in the search terms I gave at the beginning of each line,or put the dots into the links):
Haiku for People, at www toyomasu com
Kobayashi Issa, a searchable database, at www webusers xula edu
Hyakunin Isshu, one hundred poems, at www etext lib virginia edu
Festival days, at www taisei ac jp
Aya, woven of silk – one possible interpretation of Aya's name; another could be a kind of orchid, or water lily; there are a number of sites that list Japanese names with their meanings – just search for Japanese names AND meanings.