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solongsun Sitting on that verge with you and knowing: I used to be somebody, and now I'm someone else.
Your fingertips brushed mine on the grass, and I knew that it was - not perfect. But it was okay.
After all, life is life.
July 2016: I watched your eyes grow fat and rich on starlight.
On the road. It always sounds more romantic than it really is, doesn't it? We sat next to each other on some highway-side grass verge, breathing in the exhaust fumes and desert air and working out our various cramps in the velvet night; not talking, just looking. The sky was thick, thick black, true black in a way I didn't think I'd ever seen it back home.
On the road; on a highway. For no particular reason, you leant back on your hands and laughed.
On a highway. Sunlight pouring over the aisle and your toes against the window, tapping to whatever tunes you found there, on a highway – heading west. Passing by some deer bones.
Hypnotised by sunstroke.
'What's funny?' I asked.
'Oh, I don't know. Travel delirium. Too much time on the bus. Aren't the stars big out here?' You smiled. 'I can't remember the last time we sat together like this.'
I pretended not to understand.
'You know,' you said. 'Just – sitting together, and there's nothing that we have to talk about. Nothing to be arranged or decided or discussed – no business, I mean. Nowhere to be.'
You couldn't remember, but I could. I remembered because it was back when we were young and poor and hopeful; back when our limbs were more joint than muscle and I can still picture us blinking at the world through clumsy, too-long haircuts – back when we still had secrets to keep and tell. When we still whispered together.
'We're busy people,' was what I said instead of all that. Strangely, sitting under the great vast sky with you, it didn't really feel true any more.
On this day fifteen years ago:
'Yuu! Yuu, they're saying—'
Your hot, jack and ginger breath tickling against my ear. I suppressed a shiver and pushed you back, holding you firmly by the elbows, a neat arm's length away. My arm's length, not yours. Undeterred, your tenacious limbs sought me out.
'What are they saying?' I asked bluntly, my voice irritated in a way that I didn't feel inside.
The air smelled like a mid-city summer and, every time the door opened, a live house fug: car exhaust, cigarette smoke and bodies.
'They're letting this set run over!' you said, a hint of panic in your voice, 'They're kicking us off the bill; they're saying it's because they overbooked but it's not.'
You hardened your voice just slightly at the last minute, clenching your fists into tight little balls. I could see the humiliated flush rising in your cheeks – your teeth tracing old bite marks on your young, soft lips. Your eyes wider than normal and filmed over with frustrated tears. I wish I had known what to say to comfort you. I wish I had known a lot of things.
'It's not fair,' you said angrily, scuffing your toes hard against the floor.
'Taka...'
'Well, it's not. We're twice as good as those – hacks on the stage right now, and—'
'They've been together for about five times as long as we have. Do you expect it to be fair?'
My voice came out unnecessarily harsh, and you swiped the back of your hand over your eyes abashedly.
'I just – we just deserve to play, that's all. We've been practising so hard, and I just – I really thought—'
'I know.' I took a slow sip of my beer to wash down my own sick disappointment, but it stuck in my throat like tar.
Did you know how much I loved you then? Sometimes I feel like I must have tried too hard to hide it; putting you down, and pushing you away – sometimes I feel like you must have known.
'It's all right,' I said stiffly, 'We'll get our chance. Give it a year and we won't be caught dead in a place like this.'
You nodded obediently, rapidly unfurling towards what you had identified as my softer side. I made a fist against the brick wall behind me as you leant your beautiful head on my shoulder. Your breath was hot and light on my neck. I stared at the pavement; counted paving stones and the cracks between them.
The drone of the city shielded us; the night screened us. If I could have taken you into my arms and held you close the way I'd wanted to...
But I stayed still and squared and tensed, hard as stone under your tangled hair and smooth cheek, and together we listened as the band inside finished one song and crashed unceremoniously into another. You gave a soft snort of laughter, but it wavered at the end. You curled your fingers into the fabric of my shirt, down at the hem where I suppose you thought I wouldn't notice.
'Yuu,' you whispered.
Did you feel me freeze? Your shoulders dropped and you nuzzled your head into a more comfortable position.
'Yuu, I hate those guys.'
'Where's everybody else?' I asked lamely – sounding uptight, I always sounded uptight these days. I sighed softly and closed my eyes.
'You've not been keeping track of us all?' you teased, but I couldn't smile at that. It was never my job, herding us together, and it was never yours either – we'd been so close, once, we'd never needed it.
I couldn't figure out how it had gotten to be this way, because hadn't we all used to be friends? Back in the old days, wouldn't I have known instinctively where everybody would have split off to?
Wouldn't we all have been together?
'I guess they'll be around,' I heard myself saying. 'It's only a ten minute break. They can't go far.'
Back in the old days, not a day would go past when I wouldn't talk to at least one them. We had been friends. Best friends.
Like every group, each of us had our place. Yutaka was our sunny one, our cheerleader and our glue, sticking us together and nagging gently, cooking for us like a mother, his smile as pure as a child's. Akira was our joker, our jock, a boy-next-door heart inside a rockstar's body; Kouyou was his partner in crime, our flirt, lanky and dangerous – doe-eyed and smelling of alcohol, a lingering threat of a flood that we shored up against over and over, dragging him back from the edge; all those places that drew him so fascinated.
I was the deadbeat older brother type, the stoner, swatting Akira away when he called me a beach bum and keeping to the back in pictures. A classic fuck up, even when I was successful.
You...
What can I say about you?
What else do you do but come tripping in late – always late, a serial offender – our strange kid, knocking us back with your oddball charm and wearing your heart on your sleeve like it's the newest fashion. Laughing at your own weird jokes, fucking around with your hair, shooting spiky insults at bands you deemed lesser; always running your mouth off; always getting in trouble; always needing help. We all wanted the same thing, but you wanted it the most.
Of course, these can't have been the opinions I would have had of you all back then. Back before I gave up trying to understand you all, I thought only the best. Fourteen years ago Akira would have seemed cool; Kouyou would have looked like a party drunk, not a morning, noon and night drunk; Yutaka's sunny optimism would seem sweet, and not a necessary shield to all the filth and boisterousness of touring, or the antidote to being stared at for hours on end.
The only thing that hasn't changed, I guess, is you.
Still everyone's best friend. Still your own best friend. Sometimes, you even bounce around between us and talk like everything is still just exactly as it was.
It makes me a little bit sad, sometimes. It makes me a little angry, too. We know well enough that the secret to keeping sane in our insane world is privacy and personal space; it's not knowing enough about each other, I guess, that has saved us. Sticking to the fringes; not getting too involved.
But I can't tell you how grateful I am.
On this day seven years ago:
Our studio had long, low, squashy sofas and a squat coffee table of some blond wood veneer that was peeling back at the corners. On one sofa Kouyou was sleeping in a strangely still and attentive kind of way, as if he was having some dream that demanded his utmost attention; his eyebrows were slightly furrowed and his lips twitched with the beginning of a scowl.
You were quiet and pale over a fifth cup of coffee, running your hands through your hair absent-minded. The coffee was black and over-stewed and so bitter I wondered how you could stand to drink it.
'Tired?' I asked stupidly, and you shot me a chastened smile.
'Remember when we used to stay out all night?' you asked ruefully. 'I wonder where those days went.'
You held off saying what we were both thinking: that back then, we had searched the night for the life we were now living – searching for something to do; something to die for. It bothered me that you were still looking.
I tried for a smile.
'I don't suppose you've got some sweet young thing back at your apartment right now, have you?'
'Oh, sure. They never leave.'
If it was meant to be a joke, it failed miserably, and you looked quickly down at the table. I watched you give you hair a sharp tug, like a sober-up slap, but my mind was miles away: you at nineteen, the first time we ever met – a skinny, laughing teenager, throwing shadows in your own firelight. Running from the police and climbing trees, and then dressing up in your black clothes and make-up, one of us at last, on your bruised knees in front of some smug record exec.
His hands in your hair and your nails digging crescent patterns into the leather sofa.
You pushed us forward by years in just a few hours of sweat and lube and cum over your tongue, but my heart hurt.
You and your nervous energy and distracted eyes at twenty, an animal feeling the beginnings of an earthquake in the water – humming like you'd been humming forever. Jittering. Laughing too hard.
You at twenty-seven and in front of me now, head bowed and knees spread apart like an adolescent, and looking so pale and so tired and so faraway that I wanted to say – no, please stay here.
But that would have been stupid. You might have asked me what I meant and I wouldn't have been able to answer you.
Touching your hand would have been stupid, too.
Dangerous.
No matter how hard I strived to keep my thoughts of you strictly PG, I ached to simply do something soft, or make some tender gesture towards you.
'Chin-up,' I said lamely. I made a fist and let my knuckles brush your shoulder.
You laughed and set your chin in your hand and said of course your chin was up, where else would it be.
'It's pretty great being here,' you said, smiling at me. You shifted a little awkwardly and sort of nudged my elbow with yours, 'Thanks, Yuu.'
'Thanks?' I repeated bluntly, 'For what?'
'I don't know,' you shrugged, 'For sticking with us. For making good music with us.'
'Don't be stupid,' I said automatically, and I had to stop my hand from reaching for yours. I had to stop it, because...
Because you were the only friends I ever had.
Because sometimes there's a cup of coffee or tea left out for me, gone mostly cold, and I know it's a token from Kouyou to show that he's in mourning for my stupid heart.
Because of waking up on the tour bus with a blanket thrown over me that wasn't there when I first fell asleep.
'Thanks yourself,' I said awkwardly, 'We got here together.'
There was no way on earth that I could have told you how I would have given it all up just to do it again.
Similarly, I couldn't have told you that I was living a lie because I loved making music, but to my great shock there was something that I loved even more than that.
What a stupid mistake.
I closed my eyes and it was fourteen years ago, and when you nestled into my shoulder so trustfully, I never let you go.
On this day one year ago:
When my doorbell rang at eleven thirty, it could only have been you. Of the select group of people with the code to my building's front door, you were the only transient likely to drift in during the night. I knew already. Perhaps that's the only reason I answered.
Whilst lights in other windows started to flicker off, you took off your shoes and held up a plastic shopping bag full of canned beer.
'It's not cold or anything,' you said, 'but drink with me.'
'Oh, I was actually working on something—'
'You can still work.'
You gave me the kind of smile to which there is no argument.
A few minutes later I was slumped uncomfortably on my own couch, drinking room-temperature beer and watching as you fooled with the stereo and drank two for each one of mine, taking short, swift gulps between bursts of chatter. I don't know what we talked about. The same old things? Did you shake your head at my clutter, peer at my collection of films, sweep your fingers over the spilled musical notes in my papers?
You did all those things, drinking quick and quiet, and after five beers you said—
'It's all right if you touch me.'
And the awfulness of me sitting like stone, head bowed, and not knowing what to say as you settled yourself carefully next to me.
'I think that you've wanted to,' you said gently, 'And I'd like you to now. Tonight.'
The horror of me asking you why.
I've flinched a thousand times.
'Don't ask me that,' you whispered, and tucked your hair bravely behind your ear. 'You don't have to, I...I just wanted to...check.'
I said, 'I want to.'
And you smiled a little sadly and shifted a little closer and put your arms gently around my neck. Your cheek grazed mine and you whispered, 'Let's pretend it's 2002 and I'm still young and beautiful.'
There was a lot I could have said to that, if I had been a stronger man.
But I'm Yuu. The deadbeat older brother type, the stoner, the classic fuck-up.
So instead, I just let your lips kiss mine.
Sitting on that verge with you and knowing: I used to be somebody, and now I'm someone else.
Your fingertips brushed mine on the grass, and I knew that was – not perfect. But it was okay.
After all, life is life.
On this day one year ago:
I pushed you back against the sofa, my lips forging a new trail, a treasure map, over the heated skin of your neck, your throat, your collarbones. You grabbed my face, kissed me hard. You took off your T-shirt and shrugged as if to say, do you like me?
It killed me that you would even have to ask, and I unzipped your jeans.
Mumbled something stupid about how I'd wanted this for a really long time.
You smiled against my skin and slipped your hand easily inside my underwear, a shock of your warm fingers – smoother than mine, no calluses – against my warmer skin, and laughed softly as I buried your face, shy at being hard already.
'Don't hide from me,' you breathed, just the hint of tease in your voice, trailing one careful finger over the tip of my cock – 'A big guy like you.'
I felt myself flush and shook my head just lightly, forehead slipping down to rest against your chest, tongue flicking over a pert tan nipple on the way. You stilled beneath me, and because of that, I dared to kiss it.
I wondered how I could ever consider spending my life with anyone but you.
'I—'
Your quick hand stopped me, your thumb rubbing a breathless pattern over my cock.
'Shh. I know.'
'For years, though,' I said desperately, a crack in my voice, and you kissed my forehead.
Said, 'Show me.'
For the first time since stepping off the plane in this strange new world, sitting next to you under the cold, faraway stars, I realised that the air smelled like July again. It smelled like live house smoke and sweat and it smelled like the suffocating humidity of our studio, the steaminess of the windows at the end of the day; smelled like beer in cans and your skin, and your hair, and your dizzying closeness and softness and realness; smelled like a flesh and blood fantasy, flushed with heat and lust on a sofa in my memory.
Your cock in my mouth.
Panting my name and crying it over and over.
Playing dangerous games. My sweetest friend.
'You know, I've really liked it,' you said suddenly, 'These past fourteen years.'
I love you, Takanori.
That won't change.
I've liked it too.
'Here's to fourteen more.'
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From:
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Anyway, thanks a lot for commenting. I was a bit nervous about this one, I don't know why.
Cheers! :)
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The only thing that sweetens it up for me is the decision that the strong friendships you can have with people might be equally as important as having a romantic relationship with just one person. Obviously the ideal would not be having to choose, but...
I actually wrote this a while ago, after I was mulling over the phrase 'just good friends'. It sort of seems to be that there's no JUST about being good friends; good friends are really rare and special. So it kind of came out of that?
I don't know, man. Anyway! Sorry for rambling and thanks for reading!
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