Masaomi made one suggestion after another and Misao felt like he had seen the real him. This was what he was like, living his life in the world outside. It wasn’t a surprise that he’d had trouble navigating the muddy waters of the brothel.
He felt again what a good person he was.
“What do you want to do?”
Misao gazed into the distance silently and Masaomi smiled at him.
Before he surrendered all control to Masaomi and let him decide what to do, there was one thing nagging at Misao that he had to clear up.
“First, I’d like to know,” Misao began, thinking it was one way he could find out if his fear was groundless or not, “Could I wash my face?”
Misao sat against the wash basin and drooped his head. Water poured fitfully from the faucet, which apparently didn’t work very well.
“Misao?”
He heard Masaomi call to him from the other side of the door.
Misao had asked to wash his face, and so had come to this bathroom that was connected to Masaomi’s room. He had been in there about twenty minutes.
When he didn’t answer, Masaomi said, “I’m coming in” and pushed the door open.
“What’s wrong?”
He rested his hands on Misao’s shoulders and bent down to look into Misao’s eyes, but Misao quickly turned away.
“Please don’t look at me.”
He spoke tersely, his head turned all the way to the side.
He was rejecting Masaomi, and thereby rejecting himself.
When they’d come to the room, Masaomi had said it was so Misao could wash his face—and he had been exactly right. When Misao saw himself in the mirror, his eyes were puffy and red; he was hideous. When he thought about how he had exposed himself, he just couldn’t face Masaomi anymore. The fact that he had shown this shame to Masaomi only made it worse.
“I’m—I look so pitiful. I can’t—”
He struggled to speak, as if all the air had been squeezed out of his body.
“It’s humiliating,” he managed.
“Don’t be silly,” Masaomi murmured, pained. He sat down across from Misao.
He laid a hand tenderly on one of Misao’s cheeks.
“I find you quite attractive right now. You need someone to take care of you, someone to protect you—it’s very seductive,” Masaomi confessed passionately.
But to Misao it only seemed like he had used his unabashed wailing to elicit Masaomi’s kindness.
That was all it had been.
Masaomi was the kindest person Misao knew, with great stores of pity. If he saw someone hurting, he wouldn’t be able to resist helping.
Masaomi looked like he was waiting patiently, but finally he gave a sigh of resignation and reluctantly took his hand from Misao’s cheek.
“I’ll have a separate room prepared for you, so you can spend the night there. I’ll have someone bring your food there as well.”
Masaomi started to stand up, but Misao caught his wrist without thinking. He met Masaomi’s startled eyes and when he looked up, he knew. He lowered his eyes again awkwardly, and shook his head.
It was only natural that Masaomi would tire of his selfishness. But Misao didn’t want to spend the night in a separate room. That was pointless. Today was his only chance.
Masaomi sat down again and covered Misao’s hands with his free one. Then he spoke very gently, saying, “Misao, I don’t want to hurt your feelings. Just look: the bed here is certainly large enough, but there’s only one. I’ve been thinking all night that I should have a room prepared for you. Of course, I’d like to eat together if you don’t mind, but that’s my own selfish perspective and you don’t have to do it. I don’t want you to feel bad.”
His suggestion overflowed with consideration, but that only made Misao dig in deeper.
“Together,” he pleaded, eyes shut. “I want to stay together until morning.”
That would be enough.
Just to stay by his side.
“All right.”
Masaomi nodded, his words escaping on a breath. Misao felt a tender pressure on his fingertips.
“We’ll stay together,” Masaomi whispered, kissing Misao’s fingers.
A sweet trembling began at the core of Misao’s body. As he struggled to contain it, he murmured, “But... please don’t look at me too much.”
He added this selfish request.
He felt Masaomi chuckle.
“We’ll get some ice and you can chill your skin. Don’t worry. You’ll be beautiful again by tomorrow.”
After that, the two had their dinner together. They didn’t talk much during the meal, but that was just Masaomi’s custom; during the after-dinner tea, he was animated and occasionally let out a refreshing laugh. Misao rejoiced in this hitherto unknown frankness and eventually forgot all about his face.
Still, he dressed in a lighter robe and pressed a bag of ice that the front desk sent up to his eyelids. But now it had become a sort of joke and he could laugh about it. Masaomi had done that for him.
He felt the ice break down into cold water on his closed eyelids.
Misao lay on the bed by himself, buried under a quilt.
Rain continued to fall outside the window.
Misao was thinking about a story that Masaomi had told him after dinner about a huge boat. Misao had never even seen a picture of one, let alone the real thing. He told Masaomi it made him want to ride on one, and Masaomi nodded, saying that one day he would.
Misao wondered, sad.
Even if he really could ride on a boat like that, Masaomi wouldn’t be with him.
Feeling a puff of sultry steam, Misao removed the bag of ice water from his eyes.
Masaomi had just gotten out of the bath and was wearing a light summer robe. He sat on the edge of the bed. Misao sat up, and Masaomi twisted around to look at him. He drew his face closer.
The sight of his wet hair surprised Misao.
“It’s back,” Masaomi murmured, his eyes twinkling, stroking around Misao’s eye with the back of his hand. “You’re as beautiful as ever.”
Misao looked away, gulping.
Masaomi pulled away and picked up the robe that lay folded on the pillow. He held it out to Misao. Misao took it dazedly and got out of bed.
He went into the bathroom, which was filled with white billows of steam.
He wiped the mirror off with a hand and checked his face, foggily reflected back at him. What sort of face was he making? It was vacant and dreamy.
But Masaomi had called him beautiful.
This might well be the first time he had ever felt happy to have his appearance complimented.
His hand trembled against the mirror. An unbidden wish coursed through his body.
He washed himself thoroughly, and before he left the bathroom he looked once more into the mirror and took a deep breath.
He opened the door.
His fingers were tense.
“Kobe? That’s much earlier than we planned. Incredible.”
Masaomi was at the claw-footed desk at the back of the room. He was sitting in a chair, his legs crossed, resting his elbow on the desk as he spoke on the phone. His back was almost completely turned to Misao like this, so he didn’t seem to have noticed that Misao had come out of the bathroom yet.
“Are you all surviving without me?”
Masaomi joked with the person on the other end. He was speaking more casually than Misao had ever heard him.
Masaomi barked with laughter.
“Hey, you’re not allowed to laugh. No, you’ve been a big help, thanks. I think it would be bad to force things.”
The first half of this exchange was lighthearted, but the second half was more subdued. There was a brief silence.
Misao had totally missed his chance to speak. Now it would look like he was eavesdropping and he didn’t like that. He felt so uncomfortable, he wanted to run from the room.
“I haven’t made any progress,” Masaomi continued tranquilly on the telephone. He switched the receiver to his other ear.
“No, I was just blundering about it, and”
Masaomi seemed to sense something behind him and turned his head in the middle of the conversation.
Misao raised his head slightly and looked at Masaomi apologetically.
“Sorry, I have to go.”
Smirking at the embarrassment on Misao’s face, Masaomi explained quickly to the person on the phone. He stood up and turned back to the desk.
“I’ll come say hello in Kobe before I head back to Tokyo. Make the offer before I get there. Right, thanks. Okay, bye.”
Masaomi hung up, then took a breath, as if shifting gears, and turned to Misao apologetically.
“Sorry. I didn’t notice you.”
“No, it’s my fault.”
Misao shook his head uncomfortably.
“I was talking to my younger brother. I left him in charge.”
Masaomi walked away from the desk as he explained. He moved to the bed and sat down. He rested his left hand on the bed, gesturing to his side, and looked up at Misao with a smile.
“Come here. I’ll dry your hair.”
Misao’s heart pounded.
He gave a slight nod, then went to Masaomi’s side. He sat down silently where the man indicated.
His throat was tight and his neck stiff.
Masaomi took the towel from around Misao’s shoulders and wrapped it around his wet hair.
“You have such beautiful hair,” Masaomi murmured, as he wiped the water away with the towel. His voice tickled at Misao’s ear. “It’s so straight and manageable.”
Misao’s mind was a blank, searching for some response to these kind words. In the end, he wound up not answering.
If Katsuragi ever saw him like this, he would toss his head back and laugh, unbelieving. He would say that Misao pretended to be a master of love, but he was actually mastered by it.
Despite the fact that he’d been born and raised in the brothel, Misao hid a morsel of purity inside himself and Katsuragi had seen through him. That was why he had always found Misao’s lascivious bravado so amusing.
The towel fell from his hair.
Masaomi touched Misao’s ear with a long finger to tell him he had finished. Misao shut his eyes at the feeling of Masaomi’s finger brushing over his skin.
He had always believed that a passionate gaze without control was something filthy.
But now...