Chapter Three

Redressed in his lightly-wet kimono, he and Koji ate by the house's backdoor which was open wide into views of the river's reedy banks. Sipping sake and chatting together, he learned that the man was from a wealthy samurai family. From the start of his life, from the very moment of his birth, he had been trained to be a warrior, steadfast and loyal to his sovereign and to his emperor. And though he was young, he was experienced: after many battles throughout the countryside, he had survived while nearly all of his older and abler brothers had died. His parents had died, too, even his sisters were gone: when they were old enough they had been married off to other, allied clans.

And so, for the last few years Koji had been living alone.

Learning the man's history, on the spot Kohaku invented a story entirely of his own design. That his family hailed from an obscure, mountainside village. That his world, when he was much, much younger, had been overrun by rebellious armies. Most of his family had been killed, what remained had been scattered. At the end, the only relation he was certain survived and lived to the present was a sister who might or might not be married. He had been traveling along the roadway, heading into the neighboring province to be reunited.

And he needed the seal, it was the last and final remnant of his identity.

At length Kohaku sighed – he needed to find someone anyone –

"I don't like to be alone," the boy added, coyly looking up at Koji – looking and now, this time, not looking away. "I – I –"

"Yes, huh? What is it, Kohaku?" Koji asked in that velvet, silky voice that like all beautiful sounds hinted of indescribable sadness and longing.

Kohaku turned his eyes toward the stream, toward the distance where only the briefest suggestion of a cave could be discerned through the forestry.

"What's the matter? Huh? I understand, no one likes to be alone, you know."

"You've saved my life. You've been, like no other man, I've met." He shut his eyes, bowed his head and after a pause continued: "All of my life, the men I've met didn't treat me, well, I give the appearance of weakness, don't it? Femininity. Like I could be taken advantage of. But you're so nice." Again the pause and the shimmering of welling tears. "I shouldn't be saying things like this to a samurai, I could be killed."

The young man laughed, patting his kimono that though he stripped last night was still more than a bit moist. "Would I take your life so soon after saving it?"

After eternal, endless moments in which his eyes did not leave the distance, he confessed: "You're very beautiful, Koji." Koji blushed but Kohaku could not see it. "I didn't mean any disrespect, I –" but with an embrace from the side he was silenced.

"You are, too, Kohaku." Koji stroked Kohaku's locks, letting his hand, his fingers, fall onto and squeeze into the boy's shoulder. "I pity the men who've treated you so badly, that they'll never see what a good, decent person you are."

Now Kohaku blushed. He broke away from the far, distant visage and from the eyes, those eyes, that pierced even into his soul. He looked squarely at the samurai Koji.

"May I? Steal just a kiss –" and with a smile he leaned into the young man and kissed his cheek. He whimpered suddenly overwhelmed by a pleasure he did not think possible to feel from any other man. Against the warrior's ready and hardened shoulder he snuggled unexpectedly exhausted as if from orgasm. "You're more than beautiful."

Koji's eyes, too, welled as he stole a kiss from the youth's ear through his wild, unfettered hair. And he hugged, tight and close, drawing the boy into the warmth of his body.

"Maybe, I think, maybe I was lucky, too, Kohaku."

The pre-afternoon hours were spent walking about the village. Koji, adorned with his swords, pleasantly – informally – conducted the tour. Kohaku, secretly-armed with his dagger – paid as much attention as he could to what his guide was saying: his short-term memory served him well enough that day.

It was a small, impoverished town, as most of the towns were, but it was vivid with life and activity. And all along the way, from the river to the outskirts, Kohaku noticed the children. The children, it seemed, everyone ignored. He asked who they were and who took care of them. He was answered thus: that most of the younglings had been orphaned by the wars and that the women tried to look after them. Tried, for with all of the chaos, there was only so much that could be done. A few of the children, too, were so traumatized by being alone that they kept to themselves away from adults, away from other children.

Indeed, there was one, rouge and friendless, who appeared to be following them, watching them – the boy noticed but did not speak of it to the man.

Koji was beautiful and for the first time in a long time Kohaku felt a mighty, heavy guilt. There was a terror and horror. There was a taste of something fundamentally wrong with the business in which he was engaged. Something like a sense of right and wrong – a conscience – something, suppressed and long-denied, like the memory of the face that refused to die and fade way. Could it be that it was evil? But how could it be evil? It was an act of pure devoted love!

Yet, as he kissed those lips, those eyes – within the darkness between the huts where human sight did not penetrate – he trembled for he could not stand the thought. As he held those hands, so soft, so gentle and alive with warmth – across the shadowy gulfs of time when they seemed to be alone inside the world – he shivered for he could not bear the idea.

The things that would be, done, to – to – to that man.

Were Koji just another man, just another face without a voice, without a name, Kohaku would not have been so conflicted. Spending all of that time with him, though, the anticipation of the moment, the inevitability of the moment, became evermore present and unbearably anxious.

It was too late, what could be done? His soul, his life, was it not the price to pay for his loyalty? He volunteered for the job he was duty-bound to complete.

And the eyes – there was no corner of this world into which those eyes could not see!

Kohaku would have to act and act soon.

Kohaku and Koji returned to the house and to the stream by the house. Sitting amid the shadows cast by shrubs and overgrowth, they threw stones into the water while last-night's children played within the current. Even the lonely, drifty boy joined the pack, catching and releasing the silvery fish that swam too close to the reedy banks.

"Would you be my samurai?" Kohaku asked almost through whisper, as if he wished the man would be unable to hear. "Protect me, Koji?"

"Huh?" Koji smiled looking back.

The boy noticed that through the man's masculine face there were traces of a very subtle, feminine appearance.

"I mean, if you came along with me, who would know? Who would care?"

Koji smiled and paused. Kohaku turned away from him, from the children and to the distance where memories of the past night and thoughts of the impending doom swirled like a miasma. His heart was heavy and he reminded himself, again and again, to be strong. That he had to be strong. That he could be strong.

And was he not strong? – when the shard was taken out of his neck it was the strength of his will that saved him, it was the power of his love that preserved him.

He was perfect, flawless and he would not fail; he could tear away his heart yet he could not fail.

"It isn't very far, where I have to go," Kohaku explained. "If you come with me, I would be safe. And if you come with me, I return with you, to be yours. After you saved me, it would make sense that I would be your loyal servant. Who would ever guess? Who would ever suspect?"

"Your mind is ripe with schemes and plots, huh, like a woman's mind. Wonder," Koji teased, playfully tickling Kohaku, who tried and failed to stifle laughter, "sure you're not a woman?" The young man reached into the kimono between the boy's legs – Kohaku pressed Koji's hand against his genitals, intensifying their skin-to-skin contact. He squeezed the youth's flesh, feeling his tightening sack, stroking his growing erection. He gasped, growing firm and aroused, too, succumbing to the excitement overwhelming to his senses.

They kissed; they hugged falling into each other's bodies as discretely as they could beneath the cover the foliage afforded.

Quickly, they recomposed themselves as the playing of the children became louder and more feverish.

"I've fallen in love with you," the boy confessed within his mind.

While Koji pondered, Kohaku stood. With his eyes he followed the path of the river from the house to the cave and to the eyes. To those eyes that stabbed into him with a force he was not only powerless to resist but unwilling to defy.

He was resigned to the eyes and to the destiny they beckoned – and he was running out of time.

So, while the samurai watched and thought, the would-be servant approached the children. He talked to them, asking them what sort of games they liked to play. And he helped them as they molested the fish unlucky enough to draw near into their hands.

There was a side of Kohaku that pointed to earlier days of happiness, when he was full of the vigor and life of a child, with untainted and pure love and sometimes, every now and then, that side resurfaced.

"And what about you?" he asked of the child, the one who kept distance. "I know. It's nice to be alone and away from people." He whispered: "Especially from adults. Adults don't ever, really, understand, do they?"

The youngling seemed to smile.

Yes, the methods did not fail.