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This wasn't possible, of course. Hiro was trembling too much.
Tactfully, K said nothing, only bracing Hiro's hands one at a time between his knees as he used the bolt cutters. "Not too tight, plenty of room here, ah, that's it." The cuffs fell to the floor and Hiro kicked them savagely across the room. The humiliation of wearing them had burnt right into his soul.
They were sitting in the manager's apartment. The guitarist moved slightly and was surprised to feel a camouflage-patterned army jacket around his shoulders. He couldn't remember when K had draped it around him.
K tossed the cutters aside and dropped into an armchair, picking up a glass of vodka.
"What happened?" the manager demanded.
As he watched the vodka disappear down K's throat in a single gulp, Hiro thought numbly/He can be rattled? Nothing bothers K./
Reluctantly, the guitarist told him about Ayaka and Ryuichi.
"Damn," said K when Hiro finished. "You know what? I blame the brat. If you'd never met Tatsuha, none of this would have happened to you. You'd still be married. It's all Tatsuha's fault."
Hiro wanted to scream. "It was not," the guitarist replied. "I was just as blameable. If I hadn't played around with Tatsuha, Ayaka would never have divorced me, and I wouldn't have made an enemy out of Ryuichi. Tatsuha moved beyond me three years ago and I just wouldn't accept it. Fuck!" Hiro shoved his hair out of his eyes, grateful for the freedom to make the gesture. A little caked sand fell to the floor.
"Here." K went into the kitchen and came back with a refill of vodka for himself and a wet dishcloth. Kneeling in front of Hiro, he began to wipe leftover sand off the guitarist's face.
"Ryuichi was right. He hated me, but it was my own behavior that made him feel that way. Even so he tried to help me, and I never knew that. I just tried to steal his boyfriend." It was a struggle for Hiro to control himself and not break down in front of the manager. "I was such an idiot about Tatsuha that it cost me my marriage. I've really, really fucked things up. God, do you have anything that will help me sleep tonight?"
K gestured with the glass in his hand, tilting it slightly.
Hiro rested his elbows on his knees, bowing his head so his face was hidden. Though out of danger, he was still miserable and terrified. "Please. Something stronger," he whispered.
K watched him a moment. Then he put his glass aside and rose. When he returned, he had three pills in his hand. "Two sleeping pills," he said. "Plus a third for post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a new treatment. It hasn't been approved by the Japanese government, though they've begun using it in America. I had to smuggle my stash in."
/Nothing like post-traumatic stress disorder to turn you into a guinea pig./ Hiro snatched the pills from K's hand and swallowed them dry, then reached for K's glass of vodka to dislodge the mass in his throat. K bumped the guitarist's wrist aside. A moment later K returned from the kitchen with a cup of water.
For a second, Hiro hated him. "Give me your glass," the guitarist demanded.
"Sorry. Can't mix those pills with alcohol."
"Dammit, GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING GLASS." Hiro yelled. /I didn't even shout at Ryuichi like this, so why am I losing it now that I'm safe? How can I be saying this to K?/
They were both on their feet, now. Hiro was shaking.
K handed him the water and Hiro swallowed the liquid. "Please, K. Vodka. I'm DYING here."
"You'll live," K replied quietly. "Don't worry. The pills work fast."
"They'd fucking better work fast! Give me the bottle, dammit." /Where is it? Yes, his kitchen counter. Off I go./
He vaulted the back of the couch, but wasn't fast enough. K shot past him and had the bottle upside down and galooping into the sink before Hiro could grab it.
"Fuck you, damn you, fuck you," Hiro chanted, howling like a junkie deprived of his fix. He couldn't believe himself. /I've dissolved into this irrational shit./ "Give me a drink," Hiro repeated. "God, K. You're making me suffer worse than I ever have before in my life." The guitarist began to weep, all maudlin now. "You're worse than Ryuichi."
He was answered by a hiss, and the words, "I'm WHAT?"
K's face was red, his nostrils flaring. /What did I just say? I can't remember. He's upset about something. He's hurt. I've hurt K./
/Forgive me,/ Hiro mouthed. /Forgive me for losing my honor, for destroying Tatsuha's life, for destroying Ayaka's, for hurting my daughter, and now you, K. I've lost all my honor. I must apologize to K./
The guitarist fell down, striking his forehead on the floor. Everything seemed to flare red, then turn fuzzy white, and he wallowed on all fours. /Why am I down here, facing K's toecaps? Oh, I'm begging. At least I think I'm down here to beg, but why am I so weak all of a sudden? No, I remember./
Feebly, he tried to bow to K, to make his apology.
/What's this? Someone's hauling me up by the arms, and now he's lifting me./
The guitarist tried to shove K away, but his whole body was going numb. K's eyes were bloodshot, soft with pity and drunkenness.
"Poor bastard," K said as he carried his burden down the hall towards a bed.
/Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me,/ Hiro mouthed over and over. His lolling head bounced past an upside-down photo of Michael Winchester in a sailor suit, and this interested him strongly, for some reason. /Who put him in those clothes? Hiro tried to say. /Were you trying to humiliate him for life?/
Instead, he passed out.
All perfectly justified.
He'd lost all. Everyone he loved, his honor. At some point, he thought he screamed in his sleep, yelling that he'd sinned, that he must suffer as penance. An ancient samurai sword lifted high over his head and flashed down.
Hiro woke. He was alive, and the only thing that stabbed him was daylight, knifing him cruelly in the eyes.
But something was strange. He could barely remember the last twenty-four hours. Intellectually, the events were there. Emotionally, they were distant. What had happened?
He'd parted from Ayaka. He grieved over this separation, but he'd known it was coming.
He'd enraged Ryuichi. /Nothing new there. I've been pissing him off for weeks, probably years. I'm surprised he didn't try to murder me a long time ago./
He'd had one night with Tatsuha. No regrets, exactly as Tatsuha had promised.
But it would always be filled with regrets.
He'd lived three years without the monk. It hadn't killed him. Hiro supposed he could go on living without Tatsuha some more. But that one night with Tatsuha was all he would ever have, unto eternity.
Hiro rolled over and faced the blinds, mourning.
/I. AM. SUCH. A. WORLD-CLASS. FUCKUP. Furthermore---aw, fuck it./
He looked around. He was lying in a strange bed.
/Bad./
He'd done this before, the strange bed thing. A faint noise of breathing alerted him.
/Worse,/ thought Hiro. /I can't remember a date, I can't remember sex, if any. I can't remember a thing./ He turned his head slightly on the pillow. The other occupant was facing away.
/Big shoulders. Very big. I guess that rules out a woman. Is this someone I know, or did I pick up a guy in a bar? He's blonde. God, please don't let it be Eiri Yuki. I wouldn't do something that stupid, now would I?/
He pushed the sheet down and felt cold. A worried inspection revealed that he was naked, as was his bedmate.
/Okay. I'm not going to panic. I'll just find my clothes, put them on, and sneak out. Not very gentlemanly, but practical./
The other occupant rolled over on his back and gave a slight twitch of his nose.
"Fuck," said Hiro aloud. "Panic time." He flew out of the bed and was snatching madly at the scattered clothes, trying to find ones that fit. "I'm sorry to leave in such a hurry, K," he said, shoving a leg into a pair of jeans and hoping they were his. "But this is a very compromising situation and I've got to go."
"Muh?" replied K, waking to the commotion. Shirts and jackets were flying around on chairs as Hiro searched frantically for his missing wardrobe. K threw aside the sheet and rose, scratching his chest in a very masculine, been-woke-up-too-early-in-the-morning-and-had-a-slight-hangover sort of way.
It must have been all that sheer Americanness that sent Hiro into shock. Every inch of K was on display. Big, brawny, blonde---all the B adjectives. It was quite overwhelming. "Thank you for last night for whatever that was," said Hiro wildly, hopping into a sock, "I'm sorry that I can't remember. I have to be leaving for our morning practice, and I---."
The manager snorted and knotted a terrycloth bathrobe around himself, halting the guitarist with a hand on the shoulder. "We didn't do anything, you dumb musician," K growled.
"I'm sorry, I apologize."
"For what?" K replied irritably.
"For offending you. I didn't mean to imply anything." Hiro was buttoning up his shirt so fast he accidently fastened all the holes a notch off. "I don't remember how I got here."
"I put you to bed 'cause you passed out. I didn't want to leave you alone in your condition, so you didn't get your own bed. You were still covered with sand, so I took your clothes off and, ah, wiped you down." K seemed a little embarrassed.
"Was I drinking? Then I apologize for inconveniencing you, K."
"No, you weren't. Your buttons are in the wrong holes."
"Oh. Yeah. K, are you sure everything was---completely proper last night?"
"I'm certain," K replied wistfully.
This was Hiro's second great shock of the morning. It was like being drenched in a cold shower, turning his flesh all goosebumps, then getting a bucket of hot water in the face just as he reached for a towel. He turned white and red alternately.
"K," Hiro said.
"Yes?"
"Are you---do you wish---it had been otherwise?" Hiro asked, staring.
K didn't reply until Hiro finished the buttons. "What do you know about me?" K asked.
"You're my manager," Hiro replied, wondering where the hell this was going.
"Did you ever have any inkling that I once had---briefly---very briefly---an affair with a person of my own gender?" K didn't mention that it had been with Ryuichi.
Hiro gave him a fish-eyed look. "No."
"Okay," K replied awkwardly. "I guess we're even. I didn't know that you'd had an affair with Tatsuha until a few weeks ago."
"Yeah," said Hiro. "I---I guess we are even on that score." Both he and K glanced away from each other, studying walls.
Hiro frowned. "Did you mind?" he asked abruptly.
"What?"
"Did you---mind---having an affair with another man?" Hiro thought he felt brave enough, so he turned back.
"No, though he was the wrong guy. He told me so himself."
"And you broke it off?"
"Yeah."
"It's very broad-minded of you to tell me all this, K," said Hiro, backing slowly away. "Don't get me wrong, I don't have any prejudices against that kind of thing because Shuichi's my friend and all---."
"And because you've done it yourself."
"---true, there is that. So!" Hiro slapped a tabletop and accidently knocked a small box to the floor. "Crap, I'm sorry, I've spilled the contents." He tried to pick up scattered items, and didn't even notice the Kumagoro decal on top of the box.
"Hiro, don't---!"
Too late, Hiro straightened, holding a handful of sexual supplies. "I'm so clumsy this morning," said the guitarist as he tried to smile, "I can't imagine why I haven't wrecked your furniture." He didn't notice what he was packing inside the box until he was nearly finished. Then his face froze.
Hiro slammed the lid shut and found Kumagoro's pink face beaming up at him between his fingers.
"That was a present," said K. "Someone gave it to me as a joke, now that I'm single."
"Then it was---a rather cruel joke," Hiro replied.
"Yeah," K agreed ruefully. "But the giver was trying to hook me up with someone I've been very fond of for a long time."
K studied a wall again. Despite himself, Hiro's eyes became fixed on the manager. "Fond?" the guitarist prompted.
"Fond. Friendship, admiration, affection, sex, life, the universe, everything." K sighed. "It's all a jumble. I've never gone out with this person even once, so I don't know how to describe the relationship."
Hiro swallowed. "Unrequited love is the old-fashioned term."
K was still studying the wall. "That's correct, but only if you know it's completely unrequited." He glanced at Hiro.
The guitarist nodded and gave his manager another fish-eyed look. "True. You'd have to know that for certain." Hiro made a half-grab for his nearby leather jacket and missed completely.
"Hiro," said K.
"Um?"
"Would you like to go out on a date?"
"With whom?" Hiro asked after a pause. His heart began to pound.
"With a friend."
"I could---go anywhere with a friend, I suppose."
"Would you go out on a date with a friend even though it might mean ending up with a lover?"
Now that the question had been asked, Hiro was almost paralyzed. He stole a look at K. The American was waiting.
"I can't tell without knowing what this lover would be like."
"You've known him quite a while," K observed.
"Not that way."
"All right. You deserve a sample." K began to unknot his robe.
"Wait a minute!" Hiro shouted. K moved closer, and Hiro found himself backing into a wall. "K! Please. You're still my manager and this is very, very weird," Hiro pleaded. "Wait a second, dammit."
"You know what?" said K. "I have the idea that you'd do better with this, if you start things first."
"Start things?"
"Yes. You take the first step and just kind of---familiarize yourself with the territory."
"Wait a moment," Hiro replied shakily. He shut his eyes. "Give me a moment. All right." The guitarist reached out and began to undo K's robe. When he had it open, he gazed for a long moment.
"Go ahead," K urged.
Cautiously, Hiro moved a hand across K's chest, feeling the texture of his skin, the light covering of short blonde hairs, stroking across the firm muscles. He explored further, moving down the ribs and easing towards K's abdomen.
"Sorry," Hiro said, lifting his hand away. "I went too far."
"That's all right." They both glanced down. "That sort of reaction was inevitable."
They waited a moment, Hiro's hands resting on K's shoulders. "I don't think you should touch me like that again," said K. "I can't control everything today."
Hiro nodded wordlessly and swallowed.
"So now you know me a little better," K said. "What do you say?"
The guitarist was standing so close he could smell the warm scent of K in his nostrils. He glanced down again. It was oddly touching to watch this man struggling to fight his strong sexual arousal and obviously losing. Somehow, this was arousing in itself.
Hiro looked back up. The echo of feeling was there inside his body, unmistakable in its mimicry. For a long moment he gazed into K's anxious eyes. "Yes, Mr. Claude K. Winchester. As strange and sudden as all of this is to me, I'll go out with you."
"Thank you, God," said K fervently. "One last thing, Hiroshi. I promise. I won't make you regret it."
Tatsuha was no longer on the couch. The vase of roses was gone, too. Ryuichi opened the door to the bedroom. Tatsuha was in his pyjamas, lying on top of the bedspread with a pair of plushies, his eyes closed in sleep. The singer glanced at the clock. His trek had taken so long that it was now well after midnight. It seemed that Tatsuha had tried to stay up for him, but had finally dozed off.
Exhausted, the singer moved to stand over the bed, gazing downwards with a face of utter misery.
The next second he was thrown to the floor, the sword knocked out of his hand. Ryuichi looked up and saw a Buddhist monk standing in a defensive posture, the sword unsheathed and lifted high overhead.
"Don't try that on a monk who knows ken-jutsu," Tatsuha warned.
Ryuichi rose to his feet. "I wasn't going to hurt you, Tatsuha," he replied softly.
"What did you do to Hiro?" Tatsuha cried. "Is he dead?"
"No. He's with K."
Tatsuha sucked in his breath. "Did you hurt him?"
"Only his emotions. Tatsuha, think. If I left him unhurt, how can you imagine that I'd ever hurt you?"
Slowly, the monk lowered his sword.
"I believe Hiro and K have made the first step and are now involved with each other. I'm sorry."
"What!?"
Tatsuha's shock was painfully obvious to the singer. Ryuichi sat down on the bed, massaging his aching calves. "That was my solution. K's been in love with Hiro for years, and I've known about it for a long time. He needed a nudge, as did Hiro, so I gave them one." Ryuichi looked up. "I did make Hiro promise to---leave you alone."
Tatsuha glanced at the floor. "You're serious about Hiro and K?"
Ryuichi nodded. "If Hiro could be attracted to one man, then I knew he had the potential to be attracted to another. It's one of life's most cruel realities. I'm sorry, Tatsuha."
"You don't need to apologize," replied Tatsuha, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. He lay the sword aside on a table.
"Tatsuha?"
Ryuichi was holding out a silver leaf. "Do---do you still want it?" he asked hesitantly.
Tatsuha blinked at him. "Of course I want it. Why shouldn't I?"
"You didn't give it away, then?"
"No. Did you find it under a chair?"
Ryuichi's face fell into his hands and he clutched the leaf painfully tight between his fingers. "This was our worst fight, wasn't it?"
"Ryu?" Tatsuha asked uncertainly. "Ryu!" The monk knelt by the singer's feet and put his arms around his boyfriend's waist.
Ryuichi lifted his hands away. "Never again, Tatsuha? Promise me?"
Tatsuha laid his head on the singer's lap, feeling Ryuichi's dirty fingers stroke his hair with great gentleness. "Never again," Tatsuha replied, taking the leaf from his boyfriend. "There's only you, Ryuichi. Only you."
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