Honestly, this changed nothing at all. I cared about this person very much, and Richard likewise cherished me. That’s why I could say I loved him very much, and that’s all there was to it.
“You have a point,” I said. “Nothing would change.”
“Then why did the question make you so anxious? You were only asking if we would maintain our status quo, were you not?”
You’re not wrong, but that doesn’t mean you should say it. Even though Richard was British instead of Japanese, I had assumed he would understand the full nuance the phrase “object of my affection” carried. He did—brazenly so—and for that, I was immensely gratified. He threw me a bone there, and I appreciated it.
“So, is that a yes?”
“Yes, and I am still baffled as to why you would seek my permission to maintain the current state of our relationship. Be that as it may—yes. You may treat me as the object of your affection.”
I had never heard a yes so soft, so accepting, in my life.
With that, Richard prompted me to ask the other favor I had started to bring up. I did want to say it, but I knew I really shouldn’t. My intuition told me now wasn’t the right time. I needed to grow a bit first—at least as a jeweler.
I said as much to Richard, who gave me a small smile in response. “Very well,” he said, and he didn’t press the issue further. Thanks, I thought. Had he not backed down, I had full faith Seigi Nakata’s marshmallow-like defenses would have crumbled.
We had done enough today. Richard had accepted the title of object of my affection, and that was enough to make me happy. Truth be told, I was hoping for a little more besides, but I knew that could wait for later down the road. When I had grown as a person.
The night sky in Sri Lanka was full of stars. Looking up from the provincial mountain town of Kandy, the sky’s black curtain was speckled everywhere with pinpricks of light, save for the black outline of the jungle below. Even through the mosquito nets, I could see the stars twinkling in clear relief. There was nothing to blot out the starlight.
“Uh—uaaah.”
“What was that? That was awfully loud for a yawn.”
“Nothing. Forget about it.”
Honestly, I had been about to start talking. But I stopped. Some things were best kept hidden. It was just a small wish of mine. A really trivial one. As if making a wish on an imaginary falling star, I said a little too loud, “I wish my ‘rightful place’ would be right next to you.”
There was no response from Richard. I had expected him to laugh, so I turned my head and found him staring back at me in disbelief.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Nothing at all. Or…well, perhaps there is. Where, dare I ask, did that come from…?”
“It’s what you said earlier! People and things always leave for their rightful place. So, all I was doing was hoping my rightful place winds up being right next to you. Richard? Hey, Richard?”
“Look. A shooting star.”
“Whoa! You should have told me earlier! Where’d it go?! Oh, never mind. There will be other ones.”
I looked up at the sky through the mosquito nets. Shooting stars were distant celestial objects. I had seen plenty of them, of course, through the glass panes of my window sans mosquito nets. But never through the nets.
If Richard said he saw a falling star, there must have been one. His voice shook a little as he said it, but I believed him. He would never have made me look up just so I wouldn’t see his face. Besides, even if that was all it was, I still wanted to find a shooting star. So I looked up. For some reason I couldn’t quite explain, I felt like I wanted to cry.
The quiet sobbing that followed lasted an eternity. However, by the time I looked over at Richard, his face was composed. He might have blown his nose once or twice, but I had heard and seen nothing. This man was as beautiful as ever, but at this exact moment, it was perilous for me. His beauty was more sublime than any shooting star.
“…I couldn’t find any,” I said.
“Perhaps another time, then.”
“Yeah.”
Although this was the tropics, the air cooled off quick once the sun went down. A task awaited us in the morning—not part two of the party, but breakfast for all of the guests. Maybe it was time for us hosts to call it a night.
I started to get up and suggest we go inside when I stumbled. The hem of my fancy sarong was caught in something. I turned to see what it had snagged on and saw a pale hand tugging at my clothes, like the hand of a child trailing their parent in a department store.
I sat back down and asked what Richard wanted. He picked up the tea tray that the mint tea had come from and dropped it in my lap with a crash. Was he trying to weigh me down, like with a heavy stone?
“Sit. Don’t leave yet.”
“…You didn’t need to pin me down, you know. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Indeed?”
“Yeah.”
I inhaled a lungful of Sri Lankan night. The air was humid, insects fluttered out past the mosquito nets, and Richard was beautiful. Best of all, it was thrilling to have someone I cared about tell me, “No, stay. Stay here with me.” As I sipped my now cool cup of mint tea, I mused that I should give the white sapphire in my safe at home a good polishing.
Just as I thought to myself how nice it would be to stay here for a few more minutes making small talk, I heard a lonely howl from the house. Jiro. Good boy, Jiro, who had been patient with us all day, no matter how many times Joachim accosted him with a petting attack. He may only have been a mutt, the kind you saw everywhere in Sri Lanka, but to me he was my one and only pup. I called him over, and he wriggled into the gap between Richard and me, begging us both for pets.
“Who’s been a good boy all day? Who has? Who has?” I said as I rubbed him all over. Jiro’s eyes grew happy, and he whined again. He twisted and rolled in the little gap between us like a wild animal taking a dust bath. What a cute critter.
And yet…
I wondered if I would have to keep leaving Jiro all on his own. Probably so, I thought. An idea I had been pondering earlier crossed my mind, and I looked up. “Richard?”
“Yes?”
“I have something very important to discuss with you.”
A tense look stole over Richard’s pale face. A few moments later, he said, “Go right ahead.” His expression was unreadable.
He was just too beautiful. It made me reel. Why was he so beautiful to me lately? Or did I have it backward? Why did Richard’s beauty pierce a hole in me and lodge deep in my eyes these days? Saul once said his beauty grew stronger every day like magic, and I couldn’t have agreed more. But that aside…
“Hey, Richard, what if…”
“Yes?”
“…What if we got another dog?”
Jiro growled as if he didn’t like that idea. Richard stared at me dumbfounded, before smiling at me with the glee of a child.