He’d done all this from time to time, but now he found he’d somehow grown sick of getting along so well with despair. He’d begun to feel that even that special humour that despair breeds was kind of empty. It was in fact quite scary to cross over to the far shore and leave despair behind, and Kita was disturbingly aware of feeling himself tumbling into the muddy depths of his own unconscious. Perhaps Yashiro intuited this, or perhaps it was just a passing remark, but as he wiped his face with the warm towel provided by the establishment, Yashiro said, “You’re a weird sort of guy, I must say.”
“I don’t mean that negatively,” he went on. “Hey, I make my living with the camera after all, and I’m used to relying on my own intuition. I’m pretty good at guessing right. I can at least look at a face and guess whether this is just an average guy or not.”
“I’m an average guy.”
“Anyone who says that about themselves has got to be weird.”
Kita twisted his head around and smiled. “Sure enough, we’re not going to get along, are we? It was a funny kind of meeting,” he said.
At this, Yashiro brought his prying face up so close that Kita could feel his breath, and said, “Look here. I’m not letting on what’s on my mind, you know.”
When Kita failed to take the bait, Yashiro tried to call his bluff. “You looked away just then, you know. See, you can’t meet my eyes.”
“Well anyone would want to look away if they were being stared at by your goggly deep-sea fish eyes.”
“Deep-sea fish eyes, that’s a good one,” Yashiro said jauntily, backing off, and he offered to pour Kita another beer. “Hey, companionship on the journey, kindness in life, as the saying goes. Let’s treat this like a once-in-a-lifetime chance, hey? They say that’s what keeps two people connected into the next life, after all.”
People who like proverbs and sermonizing will talk just the same whoever they’re speaking to. They probably talk the same way to themselves too. Yashiro opened his notebook and stared at the page where Kita had written his name. “Yoshio Kita, eh?” he murmured.
“I’ve gone pretty deeply into the science of names,” he said, “and yours is a really fine one, I must say. You’re a good man and full of joy, these characters say, right? You can sense the way your parents felt when they gave you this. Mind you, you’ll often find someone betrays the meaning of their name. All you have to do is just change your way of thinking a bit, and you’d have the life your name suggests, mind you.”
“I’d prefer you not to go messing about with my name please.”
“Oh come on, don’t be like that. If you don’t like it I’ll happily apologise. No, the fact is, I can’t help being interested in you. Besides, you’re a handsome guy.”
Yashiro seemed about to add, “I could be looking at my younger self.” Kita felt quite sickened. He clenched his stomach muscles to control himself.
“I can just tell. You’ve taken the sins of the world on yourself. But you don’t let on, do you? No, you sit there pretending nothing’s going on, and worrying about what crazy thing the other guy might suddenly spring on you. How old are you, by the way? You’d be around twenty-five I’d say. You can still pull the girls. Older ones, younger ones. Once you’re past fifty you don’t want older ones, you know. But at your age, you’ll still find some good women even fifteen years older. Life can change for you if you go around with a mature woman. And you can hang out with a girl in her teens without having to pay for the pleasure too. Boy, I envy you.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re envying.”
“Sure you do. You go at it hammer and tongs while you’re young and still have the books balance out in the end. Go ahead and have the time of your life, no regrets, that’s my advice.”
Did he really look like someone who wanted to be preached at like this? Surely all this amounted to a form of sexual harassment. An embarrassing memory from his high school years began to surface in his mind like a dead fish. Riding the train to school, he’d regularly had his bottom fondled by a middle-aged man with gold-rimmed spectacles who reeked of nicotine. The man had greying hair parted in the middle and pasted down with pomade, and always carried a briefcase tucked under his arm. He had the habit of sniffing his own fingers. He’d rub his fingers against Kita’s dusty school uniform, then greedily devour the faint scent left on his fingertips. He was never deterred by rush hour platform crowds or packed carriages. He’d push his way through the polite commuters, in dedicated pursuit of the bottom he was after, then press up close behind and use the train’s swaying to let his hand caress the bottom of his chosen darling as he thrust his half-erect penis against him. Young Kita had changed carriages to escape him, and taken later trains or earlier ones, but the man had always sniffed him out and was already there in wait for him, grinning. Kita had agonized over the problem. It was shameful enough for a girl to come out and accuse a man of feeling her up, but far worse for a boy to go looking for help because some parasitic middle-aged guy was getting off on your backside. But one day he finally made up his mind. He borrowed from the school’s Flower Arranging Club a little metal plate covered in spikes, used for pinning flowers in place at the bottom of vases, and bound it firmly onto his palm with a bandage. Then he lured the guy over. It turned out to be a more powerful weapon than he’d anticipated. “Urgh!” said the guy, giving a quick groan. Then, clutching his briefcase to his crotch, he scuttled off in defeat, glaring bitterly up at the gloating Kita.
There was something about Yashiro that reminded him of this guy. Whenever he spoke he touched Kita’s shoulder, or grabbed his arm, breathing heavily at him. Was he after Kita’s ass too? Or maybe he just liked being physical. True, men in Korea or Pakistan often went round together arm in arm or hand in hand. Brazilians and Russians went so far as to kiss each other. Maybe this was just their way of swapping unhappy stories and forging comfort and friendship between them.
Kita turned to face Yashiro, and asked with calculated bluntness, “Are you gay?” Beer in hand, Yashiro froze, his mouth open. Bingo, thought Kita, suppressing a grin and glaring at him.
“Well, I guess that’s one way to see things,” Yashiro replied with an innocent air. “If that’s what you’re after.”
“Are you crazy? No way!”
“Well in that case, don’t try to come on to me.”
“I’m not coming on to you. I was just a bit worried, so I thought I’d check.”
“What’s the point of worrying over stupid stuff like that? Anything’s possible in this world, after all.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“If some guy told you he’d kill you if you refused, you’d sleep with him, wouldn’t you?”