Everything I wanted, all of it, was right here at this moment. “Shuumei, uh…” He was struggling to get the words out, trying to slow me down, but it only made my feelings more intense. Why would he use my name now, of all times? I was agitated. Excited. I felt like we were doing something…bad. Was his heart racing as fast as mine? Instead of asking him in so many words, I leaned down slightly, peering into his face, meeting eyes that shone bashfully. But his expression… He wasn’t against this, right…? He was definitely nervous, though; I could feel his wrist flinch in my grip. I leaned in, so close that I couldn’t even see his eyes. His lips were right there, just in front of me. Miya’s smell… “Ah…” My lips parted, and I was just about to kiss him…when we heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the other side of the door. “That’s too bad,” I whispered, my breath brushing Miya’s overheated ears. Then, as much as I hated to do it, I leaned away from him again. “That’s got to be…one of your family members, right?” he whispered back, like we were sharing a secret. “Yeah, probably. Let’s go inside,” I said. We were still taking our shoes off when we heard the key working in the lock. Oh, right—I’d left it unlocked. Outdoors. At school. I felt like everywhere I’d kissed him had been open, public places. (The one just now didn’t count, because it didn’t quite happen.) The lock rattled again and the door opened, and in came my mother. “Did you just get home? Is this your friend?” she asked. He was more than my friend, but I figured this wasn’t the time to bring it up. “Yeah, just got home,” I said. “Uh, um, thanks for having me,” Miya said. My mom looked at him, and I think she had an inkling of what was going on. “Oh, you’re the boy who came to visit when my son was ill,” she said. Doing customer-facing work had given her a talent for remembering faces, and she recalled Miyano’s right away. Of course, it probably helped that I didn’t have a lot of people over to the house. “Yes, ma’am. My name is Miyano.” “Well, welcome, Miyano. Sorry, I’ve got to get right back to work. I came up here to grab the shift schedule—I was working on it in the living room and then I just left it there! Shuumei, feel free to drink whatever’s in the fridge. But let me know if we run out of anything.” Even as she spoke she was bustling around, looking for her papers. “Okay,” was all I said. She sure took the wind out of my sails. I didn’t know if we’d had a good vibe going or, like, a weird one, but having someone burst in on you at a moment like that was unbelievably tiring. The one silver lining was that she didn’t, you know, catch us in the act. I glanced at Miya and we grinned at each other. “Wanna go to my room?” I said. “Yeah.” Now the family knew I had a visitor, and who knew who might show up next? I would have to keep my hands to myself. I had Miya wait in my room while I brought out the dessert I’d made that morning: a special parfait just for him. When I presented him with it, his eyes went wide. “Wait, you made this? Like, by hand? I mean—I’m not accusing you of lying or anything! Thank you very much!” Wow, he was really into this. “Well, enjoy!” Miya kept glancing at the paper bag he’d brought, looking uneasy. I’d been sure he wasn’t making me a parfait, so what was the problem? “Um… The stuff I made isn’t remotely on the level of a special parfait… Please don’t open it right now. Wait till after I go home, okay? I don’t think I could stand to…to compare it to what you’ve made me…” We didn’t have to compare anything! I was just happy to know Miya had put in that kind of effort for me. “What’s up? You sounded thrilled until a minute ago,” I said. “I just…got a dose of reality.” He didn’t look unhappy. More embarrassed, I figured. “I really wanna see what you brought me!” I said with a smile. “No, don’t! Please! Uh, but… I can tell you it tastes all right. So don’t worry,” he said. Which was it—a fail or not? He was so cute. “So you tried it, Miya?” “No, Tashiro did, and the guy who was helping the teacher…” I figured not, but it was sort of disappointing to hear it out loud. “Yeah? Gee, would’ve liked to have them all to myself…,” I said. Miya hid his mouth as if he were embarrassed. “Next time, I’ll save them all for you… Probably…” A little puff of air escaped me. I couldn’t help it: I laughed. “What do you mean, probably?” It was just like him to give a serious answer when it would have been easy—and fine—to laugh me off. “I mean, if we have another cooking lesson, maybe I’ll ask you to taste test for me. I was thinking during the ice cream-making thing on the school trip, it seems like when there’s only a few of us and I can watch other people work, I don’t screw up as much. The problem with home ec lessons is there’s no example to follow in our group, so I panic a little and start to just do whatever feels right…” “Ah, yeah. Easy to do when you’re not used to it,” I said. I was pretty sure there were actually a lot of people out there who weren’t very good cooks—even more so in high school. I thought it was really proactive of Miya to try to overcome that now. He was such a hard worker. “I really enjoyed cooking with you, though, Sasaki. I’d like to do it again. Even if I’d prefer to work alone on Valentine’s Day or White Day…” Yeah. When he put it that way, I realized that just the two of us baking together, no particular reason, no particular event, was actually pretty special. It was the sort of thing we probably never would have done if we weren’t boyfriends. “Yeah? I enjoyed baking with you, too, Miya.” “Well, anyway… Open this later, okay?” Hesitantly, he held out a pretty little box, and I took it. He’d obviously gotten the box specially to hold his gift to me, and that made me happy, too. “All right, sure,” I said. “Thanks, Miya.” I placed the box of cookies by the parfait on my low table. It wasn’t exactly the smoothest trade—it reminded me of before we were dating. “Feels a lot like last year…,” Miya said with a hint of a smile. I smiled back and agreed with a nod. Namely, it felt like the somewhat forced exchange of Valentine’s Day chocolates we’d shared a little more than a year before—the sort of thing that might look like a trope in a BL story, if you were feeling cynical. I knew how stereotypical it seemed, and at the time it was clear Miya didn’t feel the same way about me, so I never expected him to give me something in return on White Day. Sure, it had been after class, but coming to a senior classroom in order to give something to someone took courage, in my opinion. “Last year, it was this passive thing,” he said. “Like, I just thought I wouldn’t quite feel right if I didn’t give you something. This year, I wanted to be more deliberate about it. Valentine’s Day didn’t seem like enough. So I decided to take advantage of White Day…” However much he regretted last year, it couldn’t be as much as I did. “Yeah, I just gave you some random snacks I had lying around. I wanted to make up for that, and here we are,” I said. “Okay, but…this is really too much. Mind if I take a picture? I’d like my mom to see this.” “Sure, go ahead. You might be interested to know that this parfait doesn’t include any of the ingredients you told me were off limits, Miya.” Miya was leaaaaning to get his phone in the right spot, looking for that perfect shot. Maybe he was trying to avoid any shadows. He looked from above, then from the side, then diagonally. I waved, thinking maybe I was in the shot, too. “Sasaki, you’re blurry. You— Wait. This doesn’t use any sugar, eggs, flour, or butter? How is that even possible?!” I’d thought he might be surprised, but he surpassed my expectations. “I used some products that include those, but I didn’t add any myself. I figured that counted.” “Counted! I just, uh, I only wanted to keep you from making cookies. You know, something to tie your hands…” Tie my hands, huh? “Ha-ha. I thought that might be the case. But I figured if I could make the whole thing without gelatin, I might as well skip the other stuff, too. It took me a few tries. Like I said, there’s sugar in the liqueur and some of the other base ingredients, but, you know. Give it a try.” Miya picked up his spoon but gave the parfait a funny look. “Liqueur…?” It was so cute the way he parroted me. I felt a rush of the warm fuzzies. “It’s a kind of alcohol. Sweet stuff,” I said. Miya took a bite, then blinked. “Wait… So you mean, this sponge-cakey part—?” “That’s a brownie. I used ten-grain rice, coffee liqueur, coconut oil…and instead of wheat flour, I used rice flour and almond powder.” At the bottom of the glass, I’d placed cream and brownie so that they made a sort of tiramisu. Then, I’d tucked in some sauce with a yogurt base, over which I’d layered berry jelly to give it some body. I’d topped it all off with a “cocoa stick” made of a spring roll wrapper and unsweetened cocoa powder. “I don’t think it’s that sweet, but maybe you will,” I said. The different layers interacted nicely with each other, and other than the cocoa stick, they were all varying degrees of sweet. I was afraid that if I backed off too much on the sweetness, the flavor would end up muddled and not very dessert-like. “Not at all! It’s delicious. I don’t really taste any alcohol, though…” He really seemed to like it, munching away as we talked. He especially seemed happy with the brownie, which was thick and soft. “You want a nice, spiked dessert?” I said, thinking that maybe I should have tried to get some of the flavor of the liqueur to stick. I hadn’t known him for that long, after all, and he had said he liked the flavor of alcohol. Maybe a tiramisu with a good dash of rum? “Oh! That’s not what I—er, but I admit, it sounds interesting…” “Ha-ha! That’s what I’ll do next time, then. And you can let me know how it tastes, Miya.” Neither my family nor I liked alcohol very much, so anything I made like that would be exclusively for him. “Okay. Yeah… I think I’d like that.” His eyes were shining, and down by the corner of his mouth there was just a bit of chocolate. I knew he couldn’t see it. I should wipe it away… I reached out but then stopped. “What is it?” Miya asked, giving me a perplexed look. Perplexed and adorable. How I wanted to touch his face. If we were boyfriends…maybe that was all right? I leaned forward, my face getting closer to his. His shoulders trembled. Hesitantly, but almost reflexively, he closed his eyes. I aimed for the corner of his tightly closed mouth—and licked the chocolate away. “Yikes!” Yeah, that would be surprising. But also very cute. I chuckled in spite of myself. “Kinda BL-esque, right?” I said. He’d probably closed his eyes expecting a kiss, but I was just cleaning the chocolate off his face. I’d seen all sorts of moments like this one in the books I’d borrowed from him. “I admit I’m a little surprised. I didn’t think you would do something like that, Sasaki… I didn’t mean to shout.” “Ha-ha… Did you like it?” I asked, a bit teasingly. He couldn’t quite bring himself to meet my eyes. “I didn’t not like it, but that could mean… Like, if I didn’t want that, it would make you sound like some kind of pervert, but otherwise… I sound like some sort of BL character…” “And what do you want it to mean?” I suspected that he didn’t want me to press the subject, but I did anyway. “Sasaki… Are you making fun of me?” He finally looked at me, simultaneously critical and annoyed. I knew he wouldn’t give me that look unless he was comfortable, and a smile made its way onto my face in spite of myself. This time Miya looked properly pouty—I guess he didn’t like me grinning at him. I’ll bet he never expected me to pull a stunt like something out of a BL book, a teasing quasi-kiss like that. But here I’d licked him—he was obviously thrown by it, and maybe he didn’t know how to answer me. Maybe he was on the alert, knowing he might send us down that particular path depending on how he responded. It probably didn’t help that he realized he’d had a part in making me this way with his BL. “Sorry. Yes, I was teasing you,” I said, feeling like I shouldn’t push him any further. Even so, I couldn’t keep a small smile off my face. I tried to hide my mouth. “Sure… It’s fine,” Miya said, then went back to finishing off his parfait. “Oh yeah. I wanted to give these back to you before I forgot,” I said, handing him a couple of manga I’d finished reading. I had stashed them on the sideboard by my bed. “Sure, thanks.” Miya took them, but he seemed to have something else on his mind. I looked where he was looking—he was checking out the shelf under the sideboard. Maybe the album, which was sticking out a little, had caught his eye. “What, this thing?” I said. “This is my graduation album. Wanna take a look?” “Can I?!” Ah, the enthusiasm with which he bit! Very cute. “Yeah, sure.” I was smiling already. Smiling seemed to be all I did when Miya was around. I never wanted to miss a single thing he did—it was all so adorable and really brought home how much I loved him. Miya put the manga on my desk and took out the album, opening it gingerly. At first he’d given me a look like he wanted me to join him, but soon he was completely absorbed in looking at the photos of my class; he didn’t look up again until he reached the end of the book. He was like a kid sucked into a photo-hunt puzzle. “There aren’t a lot of pictures of you in here, Sasaki,” he said. Ah, so he was hunting—for me. Was that why he hadn’t looked up? Because he wanted to find the “answer” on his own? Maybe that was just my affection for him talking. “Ha-ha! Yeah, I tended to duck photos. But somehow I ended up in charge of the album our third year.” “Huh… I’m a little surprised. But now that you mention it, I do recall you carrying a camera at the culture festival.” So he remembered that! “Yeah. They figured I must have time to kill since I wasn’t in any clubs or on any committees. Didn’t give me any choice about being on the album team. Forced labor!” “Forced labor?” Miya laughed and looked back at the photo album. “Oh!” He sure took me by surprise. It sounded like he’d found something. But what? “What’s up?” I said. Miya was looking at a page of photos from when I was a second-year. “I found a super-rare Hirano!” he said. “With b-b-black hair!” He pointed at the picture, looking at me. “Oh yeah. That’s from the closing ceremony of our second year. Boy, that takes me back. He was back to blond by the time the new semester started, though.” “In just the blink of an eye, huh?” Wait, but—hadn’t Miya been with Hirano before I got there that day? “I seem to remember you taking a bunch of photos, Miya.” And acting all chummy. “Hirano deleted them all later.” He sounded pretty bummed about it. “Ahh…” Now I was sorry for laughing. Was Hirano really that against being seen with black hair? Wasn’t that a tiny bit childish? “Hey, maybe he’ll go with black hair for college,” I suggested. “Yeah, maybe…! Wait! I’ll text Hirano later and see if maybe he can come back to visit as one of the Disciplinary Committee’s old members!” Old members of the Disciplinary Committee coming back? There was a novel idea. Then again, for as prominent a leader of the committee as he’d been, Hirano was surprisingly dedicated to doing whatever he felt like, so maybe he could pull it off. “You could text him right now. I don’t mind,” I said. It wasn’t like it would take much time. It was just an off-the-cuff remark as far as I was concerned, but Miya suddenly looked serious. “Huh? No, I— I’m with you right now… Later is fine,” he said, sounding more and more embarrassed as he talked. What should I say? I wondered. This was a total ambush. Did he really prioritize me like that? I mean, show me a guy who wouldn’t be caught off guard to hear something like that. I clenched my fists hard, to stop myself from reaching out for him. I mean, like a lover. Much as I hated it, I couldn’t do that, not when my family might come home at any time. I also didn’t want to be the reason Miya felt down. “Oh, uh, right now is fine, really,” I said. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’d probably even feel better if I was here when you were making a date like that.” “Feel better…?” He looked confused. I guess it hadn’t crossed his mind that I might get jealous. “Er, never mind. The point is you can text him right now. Better to do that sort of thing right when you think of it, so you don’t forget.” I didn’t want Miya fretting about it, so although it was a little painful, I hid any jealousy and encouraged him instead. I wouldn’t be able to pull anything, you know, out of line while he was texting Hirano, so that would be a plus for me. It didn’t matter if someone might suddenly appear—with too much time on my hands, eventually I might not be able to restrain myself. I decided to grab some drinks from the fridge. Sugarless iced tea for him, an apple juice that happened to be there for me. Hirano, who despite his looks was a pretty diligent guy, texted back right away, so sure enough Miya was typing out another message to him. “Oh, thank you,” he said as I handed him the drink. “No problem.” I wasn’t sure what to do with myself, so I decided to crack open one of the BL comics that was still sitting on the desk, even though I had technically just given them back to him. I’d meant to give him the rundown on my reactions, but I’d ended up only talking about the one book; we hadn’t talked about this one. “I’d feel better if I was here.” Real nice. I was frustrated by my own peevishness. I knew I didn’t have to worry about Miya and Hirano. I’d just apologized to Hirano for using him to get a conversation going—and now I was using him to keep myself under control. I guess at this point it’s not such a big deal to talk about Hirano. He’d said it was fine, after all. If I let my thoughts run away with me like this, they would never stop. Wouldn’t it be weird to actively avoid talking about a mutual acquaintance? Not to mention a pain in the neck. “Thanks for being patient, Sasaki.” “You guys set a date?” I asked. Miya smiled but not very happily. “He said he’s not sure. He doesn’t know what his college schedule looks like yet, and he’d have to get permission to be on our campus, so he has to talk to the teachers.” I hadn’t seen Hirano since graduation, but it sounded like he was as unexpectedly rules-abiding as he had always been. “He’s a real Type A, that one,” I said. “Yeah, Hirano doesn’t seem like the kind to give a half-hearted answer, huh?” Miya agreed. He mumbled something about how forthright was the word for that sort of thing, sounding almost impressed. “Uh-huh. But neither are you, right, Miya?” “Hmm… I guess, maybe. But me and Hirano, we’re totally different people.” “True enough,” I said. I wondered if this counted as using him as a subject of conversation but decided it didn’t matter. “Oh yeah. What did you think of that book, Sasaki?” The book, which I had been flipping through trying to jog my memory, was mostly about the sort of stuff that happened in everyday life. I liked the touching acts of kindness and the comedy, which took the form of delightful dialogue between the characters. “The jokes were definitely funny. I liked that,” I said. “Yeah, you have to chuckle, right? It’s super laid-back and a lot of fun, so I think it would be perfect for people who don’t read a lot of BL. If only I could get them to read it…” It was a BL title, so yes, there were some of those scenes, but all of it took place within the scope of normal life. “I appreciate how it’s really, you know, down-to-earth,” I said. “The way it feels like real life is great. I don’t want to burst out laughing—just a chuckle is fine.” “I know, right?! And the way the jokes are built on our sense of the ordinary, the way you can laugh because the main characters have all these familiar qualities. And the tempo is great—there aren’t any flowery turns of phrase or cutting one-liners, but it’s still riveting… It can be thought-provoking sometimes, but it’s never in-your-face about it. It stays with you in the best way.” I hadn’t heard Miya talk so much for a long time. It was adorable. “Uh-huh,” I said. Speaking of chuckle-inducing charm… “I’m sure there’s gonna be a drama CD of this one, and I can’t wait! I’m so curious what the dialogue will sound like with real voice actors doing it. At first, I thought all the stories in this book were separate, but then right at the end of the third one, there’s that moment where you realize there’s a through line to the entire book, and I loved it. The stories are all interesting on their own, but suddenly you see what was happening in the background, and the world feels so big! Man, it’s great…” He finally paused, then drained his entire iced tea in one swig. I guess his throat was dry. “Want some more? I’ll bet that parfait left you parched,” I said. “Not at all! It was all that talking I just did… You sit here, Sasaki.” I’d been trying to sit as far from him as I could manage, but it didn’t look like he’d noticed. I was already halfway to my feet by the time he stopped me, but I sat back down. “By the way, are you and Hirano and the others going on a graduation trip or anything?” A graduation trip? “Hadn’t even thought about it,” I said. It didn’t seem like anyone in our class had. Interesting. Did we all look that close in the eyes of the underclassmen? I mean, I wouldn’t say we weren’t close, but I wasn’t friends with Hirano the way I think Miya was imagining, so the idea hadn’t occurred to us. I wasn’t even sure which “others” Miya had in mind. “Oh… Tashiro made it sound like he was going on a graduation trip with the upperclassmen. I just thought maybe, in high school and all, maybe graduation trips got really wild and…I mean, that maybe everyone went on one.” I had to assume that Miya didn’t realize that hearing about this, my first thought would be that I would be perfectly happy to go on a trip with him. I couldn’t swing it this year, in terms of my schedule, and anyway, it was too early for us to be taking an overnight trip together. Maybe next year, then. When Miya graduated. “Hmm. Nope, nothing like that on my calendar,” I said. “Oh, is that because you have to help with the store?” Miya smiled, observing that we seemed to be busy with a lot of customers. That sort of thing made me even happier than if he had complimented me personally. “Yeah, kind of, but I just don’t really like having to go along with a group.” I could see myself now: I would sneak away and do my own thing. My friends, who knew I was like that, didn’t invite me to go on trips. “Really? I feel like you’ve always been keeping pace with me, investing in my interests…” Miya looked puzzled again, and again I felt oddly embarrassed. “Well… You’re the only exception, Miya.” He looked downright solemn at that. “Thank you very much,” he said. What was going on here? He seemed like he was really thinking hard about what I’d said. “Ha-ha. I guess that’s how it goes with the one you love. Or maybe you fall in love because you feel that way? Even I’m not sure which comes first.” I did know that there was only one person who had introduced me to these feelings. The more time I spent with Miya, the more I felt like I was discovering myself. I wouldn’t say I, you know, learned kindness and loyalty at his feet or something, but I felt like the kindness and loyalty he shared with me took root in me. I suddenly realized I wasn’t quite looking at him; I was too embarrassed. I made myself look back at him and discovered that he was staring at the floor, his hands on his chest. Wait… What? “Wait… Hold on a second. Please. I’m over my limit for today,” Miya said. “What limit?” I asked. He flushed faintly. “W-well, like…” “Yeah?” I said, urging him on, and Miya slowly looked at me. “I guess, like, the number of times I thought how cute you are, Sasaki. Or, like, maybe my feelings have overheated? Something like that…” He was having trouble putting it into words. His eyes settled on me, then flitted away again in embarrassment. It was like he was stealing little glances at me, even though we were right next to each other. “I’m so full of these feelings. It’s too much…” Who could hear that from their boyfriend and not want to grab him in their arms? “It’s not going to get any better,” I said. I think Miya could feel me going for the hug, because he raised his eyes to me. “Um… When I heard what you said about Tashiro, I couldn’t help feeling sorry. I wished I’d offered to go on a graduation trip with you. I mean, I know maybe we couldn’t actually do it… So I was sort of relieved when you said you weren’t going to go anywhere…” I heard his voice, right by my ear: Sorry. I hugged him gently. He felt so small against me. “’Cause you want me all to yourself?” I asked, and I could hear the honey in my own voice. Suddenly I felt like I was someone else. “Yeah.” This time, Miya didn’t apologize. “Can I kiss you? Just once or twice.” “Hah! I’ve heard that line before.” Miya snickered, and then he closed his eyes.
Chapter 28
24 min read