“Hey, wake up.”
Shaken roughly on the shoulder, Masamichi jerked up with a start.
In front of him was Shino’s grumpy face.
“Whoa, Shino. You startled me. My heart’s beating like mad. Where am I…?”
Seeing that he was lying on a bed that was much larger and fluffier than his bed at home, Masamichi paused for a moment and then said, “Oh.” Then, as he gathered his wits, he continued, “Ah, right. We came to a hotel for a little rest…and I fell asleep, huh?”
Masamichi looked around the room, patting his chest with the palm of his hand to calm his still-thumping heart.
They were at a hotel near Kyoto City Hall that was quite unlike the inn they’d stayed at the previous night.
Apparently, Shino had asked Henri to arrange their lodgings in Kyoto while Masamichi was stretched out on his back with heatstroke from his bath.
It wasn’t as luxurious as the hotel they’d stayed at in London, but the spacious room was furnished with simple, elegant items in a classic Kyoto-style setting.
Realizing that the lights were turned on in the room and he could see through the large window that it was completely dark outside, Masamichi quickly apologized to Shino.
“Sorry, it’s already nighttime. I was going to lie down for a bit, but I can’t believe I left my master alone and snoozed away.”
“You can say that again.”
Shino looked appalled as he sat on his bed, but he didn’t appear as offended as Masamichi had feared.
“That Tokifuyu often made excuses for his long naps, saying people got sleepy after being in the sun, but I suppose there was a shred of truth to it. To think that my servant would be the same way.”
“That might be true. It was before three o’clock when we came to our hotel. We spent quite a while on the riverbank, so maybe the heat got to me. Are you okay, Shino?”
“Don’t compare me with your everyday specter. Sunlight is nothing to me. I had nothing to do in particular, so I lay down beside you and breathed in the chi that you were discharging defenselessly.”
“Y-you did that here?”
“I tapped lightly on your chest with the palm of my hand, just like you once did to me, and you started mumbling happily in your sleep and gave off very good chi.”
“H-hey… What do you think you’re doing…?!”
Masamichi blushed.
When they first met, Masamichi desperately refused Shino’s attempt to suck out his chi by having sex with him. As an alternative, he suggested sleeping in the same bed and nothing else, so he could offer Shino his chi.
Since then, Shino would call him to his room whenever the mood struck, and they would sleep together under the same covers.
At first, Masamichi had been stiff and nervous. But Shino always told him stories from the past so he could relax and release quality chi.
He was delighted to hear Shino tell stories about his late master, Tokifuyu, and about the previous owner of Bougyoudou and his wife in his unique matter-of-fact tone, and sleeping with Shino was becoming a secret pleasure of his.
Masamichi was embarrassed, even after months had gone by, to hear that Shino had been sleeping next to him without his knowledge and replacing the chitchat with something like lulling a child to sleep.
Disregarding Masamichi’s embarrassment, Shino put on the cardigan he had taken off and got on his feet.
“It’s time. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Dinner. Perhaps anticipating your interest, Yoshida reserved a table along the Kamo River for us.”
“Yoshida? Oh, Henri! He not only arranged for this hotel but also made a dinner reservation for us?”
“He said dinner was on him. I had no intention of accepting his charity, but I decided to relent, since he said he still hadn’t thanked me enough for what I did for him five years ago.”
Masamichi wanted to point out that he should be saying “thank you” instead of “I decided to relent,” but it was meaningless to say that to a specter. He decided to give Henri a thank-you call later.
“Are you going to sit on your bed forever? Come on, let’s go.”
By the time he said “Let’s go,” Shino had walked a considerably long distance from Masamichi.
“Coming! Oh, where did I put my shoes?”
Dismayed, Masamichi pondered the fact that he always seemed to be in a hurry, as he shoved his feet into the sneakers that were next to the bed, grabbed his bag, and chased after Shino, who had already left the room.
About three hours later—
They were sitting at a table at one of the restaurants on the nouryou-yuka along the Kamo River.
Masamichi had assumed that the restaurant they went to would have low tables and cushions, but it had tables and chairs and served full-course French cuisine.
Each part of the course would be brought to them at a leisurely pace, and they’d listen to the hustle and bustle from the other restaurants around them while they enjoyed the night view across the river and the cool breeze.
After experiencing a truly elegant dinner, Masamichi finally finished the last of his coffee and a small baked sweet and rubbed his belly, which was a step or two beyond full, as it had been the previous night.
“Wow, that was good. These last two days, I’ve been pampered too much. If it weren’t for you, Shino, I doubt that I would have ever known traveling like this. I mean, this is my first time at a nouryou yuka, and it’s also the first time that I have tasted truffles and sea eels. I don’t know about those truffles, but was that sea eel a fried dish?”
“Deep-fried.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Gee, it was good. Crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. They cooked that sea eel by making small cuts in the bones to make it go down smoothly, right? There are so many different kinds of delicious foods in the world.”
Shino tossed a petite madeleine into his mouth and said gruffly, “You know too little about everything.”
“Ngh. I can’t say anything about that. I’m still ignorant, just like I was before, but since I met you, I’ve been experiencing things I never came across before in my life. I sometimes wonder…what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met you…if that car hadn’t run me over that day,” Masamichi said, tossing a tiny cake into his mouth and discovering that it was a warm and surprisingly rich banana cake.
Shino sniggered.
“No matter how much effort you made, you wouldn’t have gotten into college. Disappointed, you would have gone back to your hometown, found that your family had left its farming business, and given yourself up to despair trying crazy things and failing at everything, or resigning yourself to what was handed to you. That’s about it. It certainly isn’t hard to imagine.”
“…I was thinking along those lines, but you didn’t have to make it that clear. I think my heart’s starting to ache.”
Masamichi looked at Shino, sitting across from him. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see the ground from his position, but it had to be the riverbed site where Tokifuyu had fallen to his death.
“Tokifuyu defeated you during the Heian period, and he made you his personal apparition. Then, for some reason that I can’t fathom, he sealed you in a jar and buried you in the ground. And…a thousand years go by, the jar broke during construction work, and you were set free.”
Pressing his lips to his coffee cup, Shino furrowed his brows and stared at his servant as the young man abruptly began to summarize what had happened to him to date.
Masamichi continued talking, using his fingers to count off the points he mentioned as he retraced his master’s history.
“Then, you were able to take on a human form again, and you met Daizou and Yoriko, started living with them, and inherited their store. Then I was almost killed in a hit-and-run accident on a street that you happened to be passing by… It’s strange and moving to think that the fact that we’re together like this now is the result of an amazing series of events.”
“…Is that how it seems? Listen, what has occurred has occurred, nothing more. Humans always want to find the causes and effects and reasons for things they have experienced, but what meaning is there to that?”
Masamichi picked up a small meringue, put it in his mouth, and slowly let it melt as he thought. Then he opened his mouth again to speak.
“No matter how hard I try to think about it, I can’t figure out how or why these things have been happening. But…I want to be grateful for everything that has happened. I’m not happy at all about that hit-and-run, but if that’s what it took for me to meet you…”
“Yes?”
Masamichi took a sip of coffee, as if organizing his thoughts, then put the cup back on the saucer and looked straight at Shino.
“I’m so happy to have met you, Shino, that I can say I’m glad I had that accident. I’m truly pleased to be with you now. That’s how I feel.”
It sounded like a confession—of friendship or love—and Masamichi’s round cheeks turned bright red. Shino, on the other hand, looked at him suspiciously.
“You’re what? You’re glad you fell to the rank of a servant? You’re really a natural-born servant, aren’t you?”
“That’s not what I mean! Sure, I have some thoughts about being a servant, but still, you saved my life. I can’t find any other way to repay you for that besides being your servant.”
“That’s true.”
“You give me food and lodging, let me experience various things with you, allow me to meet different people, and I’ve gradually gotten to know you better… That certainly isn’t falling to the rank of a servant in my book. I’m very fulfilled and happy now, and it’s all thanks to you.”
Shino stopped talking back to him coldly, and the corners of his mouth turned downward in a frown.
After living with him for six months, Masamichi had come to understand that the sullen look on Shino’s face was actually an expression of slight embarrassment.
If he were dealing with a human, he could say, “You know what I mean?” and let his words hang in the air, but Shino couldn’t—or wouldn’t—accept that, since he was a specter.
So, since they were on the road and could spend a good amount of time together, he decided to work up his courage and take another step forward to express his honest feelings.