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solongsun April 8, 1970: the day of the Ten-Roku gas explosion, and the day that 22-year-old Ruki attempts to end his life. Less than two weeks later, he finds himself committed to the Yamauchi Hostel, a psychiatric hospital in the Kyoto hills. Kept on a ward with a number of other ill young men, Ruki is sometimes frightened and sometimes enthralled by his new friends – and none more other than the 'untreatable' Kyo, whose hospitalisation hides a legacy of dark secrets...
Ruki wasn't sure if there'd been a time in his life where he'd ever felt so miserable.
It was a different kind of sadness to how he'd felt back in Osaka; back then, it had sort of felt as though he was half-asleep all the time, and that everything was sucking far too much energy out of him. He almost wasn't sure if he had even felt sad; just sort of constantly cold, and tired, and lonely. He had felt as though part of him was already dead, and the rest of him just had to catch up.
Now, it was a different matter. He was keenly aware of how alive he was, how alive and how stuck, his heart beating and his lungs working pointlessly day after day, pumping out more carbon dioxide to poison the heavy air of the sanatorium. It seemed stupid that his hair should still be growing and that he still had to cut his fingernails, and that the calendar was rolling through the days until his next birthday. He felt so alive that he was lonely, because the rest of the world felt dead.
He hadn't spoken to Kyo since that afternoon in his room; he'd found his painting supplies left in a neat pile next to his bedroom door, and that was the extent of their interaction. For his part, Kyo seemed to have taken the hint. He was doing as much as he could to stay out of Ruki's way, and the result was that the only ever saw each other in group therapy and at mealtimes. Ruki never came across him in the TV room or the music room, and he figured Kyo must be spending all of his free time in his own cramped, claustrophobic bedroom.
It made him feel uncomfortable, like there was something broken inside of him and the sharp pieces were sticking into him, but he didn't know what to do about it.
The thing was that he missed him. He missed the weird calm that came over him when they were quiet together, and the nervous excitement he felt when they spoke or touched; he missed the wry twist Kyo's lips would do when he found something funny, and the huge way he yawned, like a cat. Most of all, he missed having Kyo's deep brown gaze on him, and the way he seemed to be able to look at things more intensely than most people, as if he was seeing more than everybody else; Ruki missed being the sole focus of that still, solemn, somehow comfortable stare. It hurt to think of how that stare had changed over the months they'd known each other; how lately, when Ruki thought about it, it had felt warmer.
He missed it all.
Kai's birthday was October 28, and Aoi seemed to have entered some kind of frenzy. Ruki wasn't sure which nurse he had sweet-talked to get the balloons, but he spent almost the whole morning blowing them up and tying them, balancing on the arms of chairs and on windowsills, his skinny white feet bare, whilst he looped their strings around light fittings and beams and curtain rails; even the bars on the windows didn't escape his feverish attention. He worked until the TV room felt to Ruki like it was full of grossly inflated nodding heads, their multicoloured cheeks squeaking by one another faintly. Outside the day was damp and gusty; the wind made a mournful sort of sound around the building and every few moments it threw another handful of loose raindrops at the windows.
Poised precariously on the windowsill, one pale foot supported by Die's cupped hands, Aoi shot Ruki an appraising glance.
'You look like shit,' he said matter-of-factly.
'You have fucked up feet,' Ruki mumbled in retaliation.
'I have great feet. Die, aren't my feet great?'
'They're fucking heavy,' the redhead said between gritted teeth, and Aoi rolled his eyes.
'None of me is heavy. You are just shitty and weak because you never eat. And Ruki, you do look like shit, seriously. What's up with you?'
'Nothing's up with me. I just...I haven't been sleeping that well recently.'
'Trouble in paradise?' Die asked sagely, his arms taut with the effort of keeping Aoi aloft, and Ruki sighed.
'It's nothing.'
'Come on,' Aoi scoffed, 'You and Kyo are acting like you're allergic to each other. I should know; my parents pulled that shit for years. From the time I was thirteen until I left home, they were never even in the same room together.' He shrugged, tying his last balloon and hopping deftly to the floor. 'What's happened with you two, anyway?'
'Nothing's happened.'
'Bullshit. You two were following each other around like a little lost puppy. Cuddling in the music room. And, uh, I don't know, remember when we all got in deep shit playing music for him when he was in the isolation room?'
Aoi leant back against the wall, his expression somehow disappointed. 'At least try to cheer up before the party tonight. Take a shower or something,'
'I already showered.'
'Well, you've still got major bedhead, so it looks like it didn't work too well.'
'I didn't want to get my hair wet.'
'Well, get it wet. Seriously. Even I don't fancy you right now.'
Tired and unhappy as he was, Ruki still found it in him to blush at that. Glaring at the two of them, he got to his feet, running a self-conscious hand through his hair: it was sticking up a bit. Had he showered that morning? He couldn't honestly remember. Every day felt the same, and it suddenly felt so completely unreasonable that the world at large could expect him to do all these things over and over, day after day – brush his teeth and wash and eat.
He just wanted to do everything once and be done with it.
When he walked in, the bathroom was already full of steam and the sound of water pattering against the tiled floor. Ruki clutched his towel uncertainly, unsure whether it was good manners to call a greeting or not, and whilst he was dithering the water clattered to a stop. He stepped back instinctively, his shoulder blades knocking against the bathroom wall, and he felt his heart seem to falter in his chest as the shower cubicle door opened: there was a great billow of steam and in the middle of it was Kyo, his skin wet and flushed from the heat of the water, a towel wrapped loosely around his hips. As soon as he saw Ruki he compulsively grasped at it, as if it was about to fall; he yanked it tighter and gave a slight nod, his eyes fixing themselves firmly on the floor.
Miserably, Ruki clutched his own towel to his waist in a messy bundle, trying to hide the way Kyo's body made him feel. A deep, hot flush seemed to be going through his skin even whilst inside he still felt sick and sad: was that even possible? He could feel his dick stirring between his thighs but it didn't make him feel turned on: it just made him feel tired.
Walking quickly, keeping his head down, he went into one of the empty cubicles and locked the door firmly behind him. He leant against it and closed his eyes for a long moment before starting to take his clothes off: he knew Kyo was still out there. He could hear footsteps pacing back and forth; he heard the sound of a tap running pointlessly into one of the sinks; he heard something like a fist hitting a wall and gave his own hair a harsh tug, bringing tears to his eyes. He bit down on his lower lip hard.
Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, he dropped his T-shirt onto the floor and stepped out of his pants and underwear. His cock was half hard and he rubbed his hand over it, his other hand clenching itself into a fist so tight he could feel his fingernails biting into his palm.
Kyo's body. He couldn't help it: his first thought upon seeing him hadn't been what Kyo had told him and the lonely new distance between them; it had been the towel around his waist. Wanting him to take it off; wanting to see what was underneath it. Ruki made a soft sound in the back of his throat, his arm starting to move faster as he stroked his dick harder; he could hear the sound of his hand moving over himself, a skin-on-skin sound, and blindly he reached out for the tap connected to the shower, turning the water on full blast to try and drown out the noise. Lukewarm spray splashed over his thighs and he lowered himself to the floor, sitting up with his legs loosely bent and spread, his breath coming harder: the image of Kyo seemed to be seared on the backs of his eyelids; the water dripping down that lithe, chiselled body, the lines and angles of him like something drawn with a pencil, the way his hair stuck damply to the back of his neck. Collarbones; the defined little muscles in his abdomen; the hollow of his throat and the sharp line of his jaw above it; his shoulders, his arms, hands, lips, eyes. He wondered how it would be if Kyo was touching him; he wondered what it was like when Kyo touched himself. Did he do it in the shower, or in all those lonely hours spent alone in his room? Did he feel like he was losing control of himself the way Ruki did; did he think about men, did he ever think about Ruki the way Ruki thought about him? He wanted to know how Kyo would look grasping his own cock; how he would look licking and sucking Ruki's cock; he wanted to know how Kyo would feel fucking and fingering him – Ruki stifled a little whimper, his hand fisting the head of his dick desperately and his hips jerking up against his palm. His free hand reached out of its own accord and slammed against the cubicle wall as he came, his hips bucking desperately and his cum spurting all over his own hand and the shower floor, where it mixed with the water and washed away. Panting, he watched it.
He felt more exhausted than ever, and he dragged himself under the spray to wash.
'Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...'
Looking around, Ruki had to admit that Aoi had done a good – albeit slightly weird – job. Dinner had passed uneventfully, with almost no mention of the party, but now here they all were in the TV room with the lights turned out, sat around in a circle on the floor, their faces looking young and flushed in the flickering light from the candles on Kai's cake. The record player had been dragged in and the birthday boy had been forcefully steered into the room by Aoi, his hands placed precisely over Kai's eyes as he marched him along.
'Happy birthday dear Kai...'
Smiling shyly, Die's face looked even gaunter than normal in the candlelight; it was hard to look at. Up close, Ruki thought, the two of them looked just as tired as each other, and Die kept running a self-conscious hand through his hair.
'Happy birthday to you!'
They applauded, the sound pathetically small with so few of them, and Kai made to blow out the candles but Aoi flung out an arm, catching him in the chest.
'Wait,' he said bossily, 'You have to make a wish first.'
Hugging his knees to his chest, Kai smiled shyly: 'I don't know what to wish for.'
'Are you kidding? Wish that you get the fuck out of here.'
'Wish that the food gets better.'
'Wish for them to start letting us sleep later than half past fucking seven.'
'Wish for The Beatles to get back together,' Die said, clicking his fingers excitedly, and Kai frowned. It was a look so foreign on his face that it made Ruki blink; Kai almost didn't look like himself any more.
'What?' he said.
Instantly, the smile slipped from Die's face, and he cast a worried sort of look at Aoi. Quietly, Kai got to his feet and flicked the lights on, resuming his place in their circle with a confused look on his face.
'The Beatles aren't together any more?' he asked softly, and Aoi sent Die a furious look.
'They're not,' Uruha said, filling the silence, 'Sorry, Kai. They broke up back in April, I think.'
'They'll get back together,' Die said quickly, 'Wish for something else, Kai. Wish for, I dunno...wish for their next record to be a really good one, or something.'
'But there won't be another record,' Kai said, still sounding bewildered. Slowly, he moved his glance between every member of the group sat around him, trying to read the truth from their faces.
'There will,' Aoi said soothingly, making a violent gesture at Die behind his back, 'I promise. It's not like they're dead.'
'No,' Kai mumbled, the strange look still on his face, 'No, I guess not.' He shook his head as if trying to clear it, 'But mum and dad were going to take me to see them live. We have tickets. I mean, we have the tickets already. There's...it's a matinee...at the Budokan.' He glanced wildly around the group again, as if expecting any of them to deny it, 'We're going to take the car on the ferry, and we're going to drive up to Tokyo early, to have a proper visit, and...'
Reflexively, Ruki's hands curled into fists; something about Kai seemed to be unravelling. The skin around his eyes was getting very red, and he was gesticulating with shaking hands as he spoke, but the worst part was how unsure he sounded about what he was saying; when he looked around at them all again, he appeared almost scared.
'Kai,' Die said desperately, 'It's okay. They'll do the show.'
'It's raining on the way there,' Kai said suddenly, forcefully, 'It's really raining hard. It's really – it's really raining hard.'
He swallowed hard, pressing his hands over his ears briefly. 'I'm sorry,' he said in a strained voice, 'I feel – really confused. We'll get the ferry over to the mainland, and...the car can go on the boat.'
'It's a joke,' Aoi suddenly burst desperately, 'Just a stupid joke. Die's just joking. The Beatles are definitely still together. They'd never break up! Die's just being an idiot. You're such a loser, Die,' he added, glaring at his friend; the redhead hastily plastered on a smile.
'Yeah, sorry. I was just kidding. It was a stupid joke.'
'Me too,' Uruha said suddenly, 'Only joking.'
There was a very tense silence. Kai's eyes jumped from Die to Aoi to Uruha as he chewed on a knuckle uncertainly, and Ruki watched the expression on his face waver. He was making a choice, Ruki realised: he knew the truth as well as they all did, but he was choosing to believe them; to believe the lie. Forcing himself to believe them. Slowly, a smile perked his lips back up again.
'That was such a stupid joke,' he said, his voice just a little weaker than normal, 'I'm going to wish that their next album comes out tomorrow.'
Taking a great lungful of air, he blew all the candles out in one go.
The scary moment dispelled, the party finally became more relaxed; Aoi turned on the record player and a nurse moved forward with the bluntest knife Ruki had ever seen in his life to cut the cake and pass it around. It was covered in white icing and sandwiched together with strawberry jam, but Ruki only managed one mouthful; it felt like he was eating cardboard or rubber or something manufactured and inedible; plastic, plaster, wallpaper paste. He swallowed with great difficulty and put his plate down, counting himself bitterly in good company with Die, who wasn't eating anything either despite Aoi's frequent jabs and gestures. The other man was getting so animated he seemed in danger of doing himself an injury, and finally, a miserable expression on his face, Die took a forkful of cake. He chewed it for a long time, a helpless sort of look in his eyes, and as soon as Aoi's attention was diverted he leapt nimbly to his feet and darted away into the bathroom.
Kyo wasn't there, of course. Ruki hadn't entertained much hope that he would be; he didn't even think he wanted to see him. His stomach turned shamefully at the memory: the way Kyo had looked at him, and then looked at the floor. The resigned, almost satisfied look on his face, as if Ruki had acted exactly as he'd expected – exactly as he'd deserved.
Next to him, Uruha was dissecting his cake into perfect cubes, his face a perfect mask of concentration. Ruki watched listlessly as he arranged them into a little regiment, each cube a neat centimetre apart and every loose crumb swept painstakingly into a tidy pile which Uruha periodically pinched together with his fingers and deposited back onto the cake plate. One of the balloons popped unexpectedly, making them all jump. Die returned from the bathroom, and Aoi gave him a look of such deep hurt that Ruki felt it inside his bones.
That was the feeling that stuck to him: the sickness within them and without them, all around them, invading the air they breathed in like a foul miasma. What was the point of having a party when Shinya was rubbing at his forehead and looking worried, when Uruha was fumbling with fallen crumbs of cake; when Die looked like a skeleton dipped in pale wax and Kai's face kept lapsing back into dreadful uncertainty and Ruki himself felt like he wanted to go to sleep for about a hundred years?
And yet still they kept on; they ate cake, they made jokes. Die put on a new single his father had sent him from a business trip to Atlanta, Georgia – a place where it was so hot, the accompanying letter had explained, even the earth looked red – called Bad Girl by somebody Ruki hadn't heard of called Lee Moses; it was rough and gravelly and when Aoi and Die danced to it, they really danced. Their bodies seemed to be all over the room at once, and whilst Aoi had his eyes closed and a strange smile on his lips, Ruki wondered if he was the only one who had caught the look of total and utter panic in Die's eyes.
I'm so fucked.
It was all over him, a signal he was broadcasting loud and clear, and Ruki realised that he wasn't the only one who could hear it – everybody could. It was just that they'd been hearing it all along. They were used to it.
All in all, it wasn't much of a party. Aoi danced until he was sweating, occasionally dragging Kai or Uruha or Ruki up to join him, but he didn't seem to be getting much enjoyment out of anything; when ten o'clock rolled around and the nurse on duty started pointedly taking away the cake plates and casting little looks at the record player, he flopped down on the floor looking exhausted. His chest rose and fell deeply as he caught his breath, and when he caught Kai's eye he gave him a small smile.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I shouldn't have tried to throw a birthday party in a shitty place like this.'
Kai shook his head. 'That's not true,' he said, 'It was a really nice party. And...' he hesitated, biting his lip as the nurse turned off the record player and began rolling up its long power cord, 'Thank you. I'm really glad we did this. All of us together. Kyo too, even though he's...' he gestured lamely down the corridor and smiled sweetly around at them all. 'I'm really glad that we're all friends,' he said finally.
There was a small silence after that, but a better one; Uruha placed a careful hand around Kai's elbow, and Die let his head flop onto Kai's shoulder, and Aoi stretched out a leg and gave Kai's ankle a soft kick. Feeling weird, like it was somehow important, Ruki reached out and placed his hand on Kai's back.
Sadly, somehow, they smiled at each other, and Kai gave his head a soft shake.
'Ruki,' he said, 'Do you mind if I keep my radio on tonight? I'll keep it quiet and under the covers.'
'Sure. It's your birthday, Kai; you can do anything you want.'
'Thanks. I just really want to listen to some music tonight.' With that, he got stiffly to his feet. 'Good night,' he said to the room at large. 'I'm going to bed now. I'm so tired. It's amazing how tired I am.'
He left a quiet room in his wake, interrupted only by the sound of the duty nurse straining to lift up the record player until, clucking his tongue softly, Aoi got to his feet to help her.