Chapter Four
The evening Kohaku cooked dinner.
"I thought about what you said – and we can do it. All I have to do is talk to the men of the company," Koji explained, tweezing his chopsticks between his fingers.
Amid the sepia lamplight, the wooden tools resembled the steel blade of Kohaku's weapon – he blinked as he served the food trying, begging, to get the image out of his mind.
Feeding himself with the earthy implements, the man added: "And, you know, I promised myself I'd marry anyone who cooks like this. You really do have a way with food, don't you?"
The boy laughed, kissing the young samurai warrior and then drew back. He was tearing seeing his lover alive: young and with the whole, entire world ahead. A world that would be denied to both of them forever.
It never occurred to Kohaku just how utterly unfair the task ultimately proved.
"What is it, Kohaku?" Koji asked with a tone that betrayed true and genuine affection.
"I," he stammered, wiping away tears that threatened to reveal more, much more than what mere words unfolded. "I can't remember ever feeling this happy."
There was the Kohaku he was and the Kohaku he wanted to be. Until that moment, that instant, he did not know a difference between the two. He knew what he was and for as far as he remembered he was content, willing and able, to do his duty. He prided himself in his work and in the satisfaction felt by a job well done. And he had so much to be proud of! Where others, wiser and older than he failed, the boy remained steadfast and happy – no, eager! – to be of loyal service. He outlasted them, his rivals, the strong and the powerful, by his wits and by his love. His love. Love that protected him from what mankind would be shocked and destroyed by: things seen and done, inhuman and demonic.
It was the sort of unconditional, blind, love only a child was capable of.
He believed the situation would be that way, always: it did not change and he did not change. Indeed, why would anything, anywhere be different? He wanted to be what he was and there was no alternative – until now –
Resist, fight, Kohaku – you know you know better!
But – though he could resist, he could not win against the flow of time – change could be inevitable. And the purpose behind the exercise, the secret, hidden agenda known only to him, was it not to initiate himself fully into the world of men? Yes, leaving behind the realm of children, the love would be altered; it would be shifted in subtle yet profound ways.
What he was, what he wanted to be, could the two exist intertwined?
There's only room for one destiny, Kohaku!
What changed? What was it, what could it be that was different this time?
The face did not upset him, after all, it was just an image, a dream.
The man, Koji, was different. He could feel him, touch him – love him and be loved back. Be loved back! Suddenly, thoughts of initiation and he trembled and shivered out of the fear of it.
The cruelty, to be teased by a fragment of heaven amidst a torrent of hell.
He cried, not because he was happy – no, no – because he realized what he found in Koji's hands, what he discovered in his voice, what he felt in his eyes, it was something he could not have. He wondered if it were not so because it was something he did not deserve to have. It was a guilt, whose source he could not fathom, that clung onto his already heavy, burdened heat. And at the end he thought, as he felt again the shard-shaped scar, if it would not have been easier to have been conquered by true and final death.
"I love you," the young man whispered, intoxicated by the bluntness of the words, as the skies succumbed to deeper and darker red hues.
Kohaku smiled, blushed, as he helped the man lay back upon the mat.
"My samurai, I love you isn't enough. It just isn't enough. It doesn't describe how much I love you; it doesn't express how much my love for you hurts me. You are such a good, kind man –"
And I cannot do this to you, he continued on in his mind.
"Let me do this for you, Koji –"
The youthful stranger untied Koji's obi and opened his kimono. Already he was met by an erection throbbing and aching to be touched. Kneeling between his lover's legs, he hovered above the sight of it – the hairless, dark and vulnerable, flesh – and cradled the parts fully within his hands. He massaged the balls, cupping and bouncing them, as the flesh of their sack tightened and roughened. He kissed the cock's length, up its front, over its soft, puffy tip, down its back. He suckled its head, pulsing and hot within his lips, as he teased its foreskin with tongue.
Koji gasped and begged but the boy kept on going with his slow, methodic pace, tasting and savoring every part of his lover's most sensitive, most intimate skin. He wanted the flavor of it to be seared into his memory. And he studied, with the patient, keen eyes of a predator, its shape and form, taking note of its colors, its textures and all of the tiny, little details glistening, as they were, with his saliva. He wanted to recall everything, every sense of him, felt that night forever, eternally.
He said, aloud, what a gorgeous thing it was: how warm, how alive.
Again Kohaku eased the young man's cock into his mouth, onto his lips. He suckled while his fingers curled about its foreskin, his hands stroked its sheath back and forth, up and down. Tightening his grip and increasing his speed, he worked at its reddish, exposed head as if he were devouring it – and Kohaku enjoyed how it caused Koji's involuntary, exaggerated passions to intensify.
Koji held onto the man's shoulders as the pleasure coursing through his body surged and heightened, as he shook and shivered. He gasped, tearing and grunting, the carnal urge to climax becoming harder and harder to resist. Suddenly, he bucked and held his body very, tightly still. Suddenly, it seemed, the world, too, was still.
The boy took Koji out of his mouth. He stroked the underside of the cock's head about its eye-like slit and he watched, satisfied and absorbed, as the slight touch impelled his lover to erupt his seed into the air, onto his own tight and clenched stomach. Wincing, fragments of sounds akin to pain echoed from the man's lips to Kohaku's ears as he kissed the shaft, feeling as it was pulsating with every squirt and squirm. And when the ultimate display of masculinity was complete, the flesh spent and soft, he kissed the balls in their sack, it skin now relaxed and loose. He snuggled against the cock, brushing it against his cheeks, feeling its contradiction of silky smoothness and rough hardness. Then, with a lingering, gentle caress, the boy cleaned up Koji and gave him a deep, long kiss that just did not seem to want to end.
Exhausted by the orgasm and the love of Kohaku – a profound, bottomless love – Koji fell into a sleepy, groggy state. The younger, feminine lover encouraged it, whispering sweet words and tucking the older, masculine warrior into the mat. He kissed all over his sweaty, clean-shaven head and bid him goodnight.
It was Kohaku's wish that Koji remain like that, perfect and flawless, in his mind forever.
"Sleep well," he struggled to utter the words. "Live, my samurai, live."
And very silently, he stalked out of the house, into the lengthening, late evening.