Answer: Chapter 3

“Ouch!”

As he fumbled awkwardly with the needle, Hatano wondered how many times now he had pricked his finger. He licked clean the bubble of blood that had welled up to the surface and wrapped the day’s third Band-Aid around the puncture.

The preschool was in a flurry of preparations for the annual song and dance performance before the children were excused for summer break, and costume-making had hit some snags. With the school already short of hands, duties like this were assigned without regard for gender or ability, and Hatano had been given his fair share of the load. With his days occupied with seeing to the children, he had found himself bringing more and more of this load home with him.

“They come straight to me whenever anything heavy needs moving. It’s not like I get menstrual leave or maternity leave, either.” He couldn’t resist a little grumbling as he worked the needle through and back to make a sloppy seam. “Won’t be my problem if they don’t like how it turns out.”

A sigh raised and lowered the stiff slope of his shoulders. He was terribly exhausted these days. Perhaps this was partly due to his age, but he suspected his involvement in a certain strenuous activity shouldered the brunt of the blame. The frequency of Mashiba’s visits had remained more or less constant, but as Hatano grew more comfortable, the number of ‘sessions’ per visit, and the duration of each, were clearly increasing.

“He’s sure got a lot of energy,” he mumbled absently, thinking back to his own stint in the corporate world. They had never held anything resembling a conversation, but from the odd word or two Hatano had gathered that Mashiba was a talented salesman, and he could only marvel at the man’s ability to perform his busy position in the office and still have it in him to have such intense sex.

“Tomorrow, huh.”

His eyes strayed to the calendar, confirming the date Mashiba had given him a few days before, and the clock beside it told him tomorrow would soon be today. Deciding he had best get some rest in preparation for his own ‘busy position,’ Hatano had just risen from his seat when the intercom rang.

“This late at night?”

He approached the front door with wary suspicion and peeked through the fisheye lens to find a startling face looking back at him.

Isn’t he a day early?

Hatano’s wide eyes stared stupidly at his unexpected visitor until the intercom rang a second time. The electronic chime shattered the midnight silence, and his fingers scrabbled hastily at the chain and swung open the door before the noise could disturb his neighbors.

“What’s going on? I didn’t know you were coming.”

“I’m coming in.”

Neatly ignoring Hatano’s inquiry, the tall man stooped beneath the door frame and strode inside. The fresh, cool air of a summer night and the glow of heat from Mashiba’s body grazed Hatano’s skin, and his heart pounded in his chest.

“What’s all this?”

Mashiba had invited himself into Hatano’s living room as if it were his own. He paused to loosen his necktie, and his eyes widened at the bolts of cloth and sewing kit strewn haphazardly at his feet.

“Costumes for the school performance. These are the ones I have to make,” he answered, careful to sound as casual as possible, but he could not deny the jittery thrill buzzing through him.

“Oh, it’s work.”

It was the now-familiar smell of him that set his heart fluttering, a blend of cologne and tobacco that whispered a thousand wanton nights into his ear. Because Hatano only ever saw him in the bedroom, Mashiba’s presence alone wove tapestries of sex in Hatano’s mind.

That was why he had always striven to conceal these crumbs of his personal life when Mashiba visited. Whatever bonds tied them began and ended in this room, and though it didn’t seem to weigh on Mashiba’s mind at all, Hatano could hardly bear to lay himself down to sleep in the same bed in which he gave himself to Mashiba. He believed he had more or less accustomed himself to Mashiba’s existence, but when the man took him by surprise like this and marched into the middle of his daily life, he once again seemed an alien presence.

“Wasn’t it supposed to be Friday?” he ventured, a complicated look on his face, and Mashiba seemed to detect the subtle hint of tension. He turned to him with an unreadable expression.

“I changed my mind.” His broad shoulders leaned forward, and Hatano flinched away from the arms that reached for him. “What, now you don’t want it?”

Hatano had all but forgotten the feeling of fear that made his jaw clench and his eyes bulge, but he recognized with some surprise that it was happening now. Mashiba was not his usual self, and Hatano regarded his sour frown with bewilderment. Mashiba’s manner towards him could never have been called relaxed, but Hatano had never seen him so tightly wound as tonight. Echoes of that first night began to sound in his ears and he couldn’t help but pull away, but Mashiba lunged after, forcibly folding him into his arms.

“Stop, wait a—”

Second, but the word was swallowed by Mashiba’s lips. He gritted his teeth against the warm tongue that sought to prise them open, and Mashiba jerked back to growl, “Let me do it, the hell’s your problem?”

The imperious demand raised his hackles but all he said was, “Please, I still have work to do. We can do this tomorrow.… Please.”

He had intentionally chosen his words so as not to provoke him, but Mashiba’s face twisted in fury.

“Why don’t you do your fucking work tomorrow instead!” he shouted, and his snarling volume had Hatano scrambling to cover the other man’s mouth with the palm of his hand.

“Stop yelling, I have neighbors! Fine, okay,” he yielded with a sigh, and Mashiba’s glaring eyes narrowed in resentment. “I’ll just go take a bath.”

He shifted to extricate himself from the man’s embrace, but Mashiba snagged his wrists and encircled him from behind. “Forget it.”

“Please, I’m tired,” he said, gently loosening Mashiba’s arms around his chest. “At least let me take a bath.” He spoke quietly, expecting his protests to be brushed aside, but instead Mashiba’s hands slid away. “I won’t take long.”

He wondered at the unusual reaction as he left the room. Did something happen?

The bathroom door clicked shut behind him and he heaved a sigh, puzzling over Mashiba’s strange behavior. He recalled the angry scowl on Mashiba’s face when his advances had been rebuffed, Hatano withdrawn and stiff against him—was it just his imagination that that scowl had looked so deeply hurt?

As if… A quick shake of his head dismissed the passing thought. He twisted the faucet to fill the bathtub and crouched down to wait, but the water refused to warm.

“Huh?”

That’s weird, he thought, until the wall-mounted panel for the water heater—more specifically, the button he had neglected to press—caught his eye, and he snorted.

“Guess him barging in here’s shaken me up more than I thought,” he groused under his breath, standing up again, when he heard the sound of the door opening.

“What do you want?” he started, turning to face the entrance, “It’s only been—”

He choked mid sentence. Mashiba towered into his field of vision, framed in the doorway with the look of a cornered animal, piercing stare locked onto him. Hatano cowered away from that sharp, cold gaze, stumbling backwards across the wet tiles, but one foot slipped wildly out from beneath him and he pitched backwards with a yelp of alarm.

“Ah—!”

“Hey!”

His arm shot out reflexively in a desperate bid to catch himself, but instead his elbow knocked into something, sending a tingling whip of pain down to his wrist. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact, when his back collided in midair with something solid.

“Be careful, fucking idiot!”

Mashiba’s livid voice joined the chilly spray raining down from above. His flailing elbow must have turned the knob to divert the still-running water to the shower head.

He breathed a shaky sigh of relief, heartbeat galloping in his chest.

“Ye-Yeah, sorry. Thanks…”

He was sprawled in a bizarre position across the man, caught mid tumble, but Mashiba’s arms did not retreat even once Hatano had righted himself. Their silent, easy weight around his waist suddenly became the whole of Hatano’s sensory perception, and the hammering of his heart picked up speed.

“Mashiba, you’re getting wet.” The cold jets of water had made short work of their now drenched clothes. It may have been summertime, but there was nothing pleasant about it. “Could you… let me go?”

Even as the streaming water sapped his body heat, that faint request was his only effort to remove himself from Mashiba’s arms.

The soaked fabric of Mashiba’s shirt was plastered to his youthful skin, sensually mapping the contours of his strapping muscles, and once again Hatano was keenly aware of how truly attractive a man Mashiba was. His eyes commanded attention, bright and bold; alone, they had the darling shape of a young pup’s, but a single motion of the eyebrows shaded them with a feral, lupine wildness. There was something dangerous in his eyes tonight but Hatano couldn’t help but see the resemblance to a little boy screwing up his baby face, on the verge of tears.

“Why?”

Perhaps it was because of the rivulets of water that ruined the neat sweep of Mashiba’s hair and trickled down his face, but a voice inside of Hatano told him he mustn’t look away.

“Why don’t you get mad?” Hatano only continued to gaze steadily up at him, and he continued with mounting irritation, “Why do you just let me do whatever the hell I want?”

The rather belated question was both abrupt and to the point. Maybe because you’re blackmailing me? The wisecrack perched on his lips but both of them had silently conceded by now that something more was at play, and this censure from Mashiba was, frankly, long overdue. Should their relationship be exposed, in reality it was not Hatano, an employee of a privately owned preschool, but Mashiba who would sustain the greatest damage. Why, then, was he choosing to shut his eyes to this blatantly obvious truth? This was what Mashiba was asking him.

“Why don’t you scream at me?… Get angry!”

“Look, this water is really freezing,” he said placidly, and Mashiba groaned.

“I don’t get you! That’s not what I’m talking about!”

His snapping voice was deep and low, unmistakably a man’s, and yet somehow it had a childish timbre to it. Hatano again saw the little boy, petulant and sulky when he couldn’t have his way, and a surreptitious smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

Oh, so that’s why.

No matter what unreasonable requests were made of him, what reckless demands forced upon him, the reason he had never been roused to genuine anger was most likely this: the moment he had first set eyes on Mashiba, there had been something terribly childlike about him.

“I don’t feel like getting angry,” he returned calmly, unruffled in the face of Mashiba’s fierceness, and though he thought it was selfish of Mashiba to look wounded at that he reached up for him anyway, wrapping his arms around the taller man’s shoulders. “It is what it is, and that’s that.”

Hearing his own words aloud, Hatano felt as if for the first time he understood why he couldn’t help forgiving Mashiba: what else could he do with this oversized child? He had never known the disappointment and frustration of failure and so he had never learned how to be hurt, and Hatano found this clumsiness endearing. Children are meant to make mistakes, after all. They can’t resist that infant call to mischief as they know they should. Adults, then, must exist to forgive them their mistakes.

He, too, had once been a child, and he too forgiven, while gritting his teeth on the shame and regret of the young.

“You’ll catch a cold like this,” he whispered, soft as a sigh, a thinly veiled invitation that drew a twitch from Mashiba’s broad shoulders. The tips of their noses were close enough to brush as he peered at Mashiba’s face. His dripping, disheveled hair clung to his brow, making him look so much younger and more helpless that Hatano could hardly believe it was the same man.

For the first time Hatano led a kiss, leaning forward to nibble gently at the other man’s lips. He felt Mashiba shiver against him again, and wrinkles gathered in the corners of his beautiful eyes as he squinted. Hatano was smitten by the adorable display, lips curving into a smile of their own accord. Every kiss before had been a one-sided plunder of his mouth; Mashiba was skilled, but his kisses were a mirror of his disposition, fierce and aggressive. The sweet, feather-light caress Hatano now bestowed upon Mashiba’s pallid lips could have been that antithesis. There were other, softer touches—the embrace that cradles a lonely child, for instance—and Hatano felt a curious desire to teach this to his weary-faced tyrant.

Exasperated by the persistent cascade of cold water, he pressed the taller man to the wall beside the shower head and reached for the control panel. His thumb jabbed the button to raise the temperature, and moments later hot water began to spray their shoulders. All the while, their slow, easy kisses continued. He would dip forward and nip with his teeth, never hard enough to injure, and then the flushed tip of his tongue would dart out, just enough to stroke the faint, wet indentations. Quiet and tender, the kind of kiss shared between intimate lovers, and it drew a thready moan out of Mashiba. That small sound catching in his lover’s throat lit a fever in Hatano, scalding him hotter than the shower spray at his back.

His tongue flirted coyly at the entrance of Mashiba’s mouth but never trespassed, until finally Mashiba snatched his waist for leverage and tilted his head, forcing a new angle to deepen the kiss. Still, the initiative somehow remained with Hatano. A long moment passed, and Mashiba could do nothing but receive that sweet offering.

Finally their breath began to come short and they parted, but they hovered close to one another, both restless, unsatisfied. Their hands fluttered back and forth in the space between them, drifting across an arm, a back, a cheek, grazing skin only to fall away to somewhere else.

“This isn’t so bad either, mm?”

Mashiba only gave a little nod in response to Hatano’s soft, sultry whisper, the wind apparently knocked from his sails. Something too fragile to be lust but achingly sweet was coiling in their guts, and the atmosphere in the bathroom was a curious limbo, both of them torn between warring temptations to simply immerse themselves in the feeling, and to boil it down into something hot and real.

“Want some more…?”

He combed the wet forelocks of Mashiba’s hair up with both hands, pressing his lips to the smooth brow revealed beneath, and Mashiba’s arms around him tightened in a crushing embrace. He twisted slightly, enough to crane his neck and find Mashiba’s pleading eyes looking back at him, shining with unshed tears. A sharp, formless pain, like a needle pricking the palm just short of breaking skin, coursed through him. Ignorant of the tears rimming his own eyes, he brought the two of them even closer, and every breath he exhaled was swallowed in the other man’s mouth.

And now, Hatano thought, for the very first time they were consumed by the reasonless impulse each had felt in the other, and their lust for each other had never been so simple and so pure as in that moment.

* * *

It was no easy task to peel off those sopping layers of clothing, but Mashiba patiently and lovingly busied himself with divesting Hatano of his attire. The naked body that was slowly unwrapped before him was no stranger to his eyes, but familiarity did not dull his admiration of the older man’s youthful, glowing complexion. Hatano’s slender frame roped in lean cords of muscle, everything necessary and nothing in excess, had had him bewitched ever since the first night, when with that single-minded hurtful purpose he had forced himself upon him.

A handful of scratches and bruises were scattered across his body, the inevitable result of days spent keeping pace with coltish children. Long outdoor hours, especially in this season’s baking sunshine, had tanned the exposed strips of his skin, his wrists and the nape of his neck. This only made the creamy alabaster of the rest of him all the more erotic as it emerged from underneath his stripped articles of clothing, and Mashiba shivered at the dark fantasy of forcibly exposing the hidden whiteness of his nudity. It was distinctly different from the constructed beauty of men and women like Ikawa, who deck themselves in the trappings of their aestheticism. Hatano’s body was a svelte thing, built on a slight frame but well-balanced, and Mashiba could see his warm manner of breathing, even his way of life, captured in the shape of that body.

And if he could just unravel everything about Hatano and lay it all bare before him like this, he had the feeling that this inexplicable knot in his chest would come loose.

He placed his palm against Hatano’s ivory skin, now tinged a faint blushing red, and a lush, cozy pleasure traveled up his hand. Though his heart felt like a young boy discovering the warmth of another’s body, his practiced fingers moved almost of their own accord, roaming the paths they had learned with precision. Blood had not yet circulated back into his frozen fingertips, but the cold touch seemed to add an edge to his foreplay; Hatano was unusually docile and sensitive. His dark doe eyes were lowered, straight lashes fluttering now and then as if to displace the droplets of water that clung to them. When Mashiba dotted them with a kiss, Hatano drew back as if shocked by the tender gesture, but Mashiba held the smaller man fast against him and Hatano’s breath puffed softly over his shoulder.

“—ah!”

The little voice that escaped with his partner’s gasp tickled the hairs on the back of Mashiba’s neck as it slid into his ear, sending a shocking spike of arousal through him, and he ground his molars together to dam the flood. He stole a glance at Hatano’s small face just inches from his own and caught his breath. He’d never thought anything more of that face than small and plain, but the single-fold eyelids and delicate slope of the nose were, upon closer inspection, actually rather handsome. If anything, Hatano’s features came together so well that their harmony didn’t stand out at all. The man’s utter lack of appreciation of his own appearance was likely another contributing factor.

“What’s wrong?” Hatano prodded him, sounding somewhat dazed. Mashiba had gotten as far as unbuttoning their shirts, baring their chests to one another, and then gone stock still. The top of Hatano’s head only reached his chest, and as Hatano slowly turned his face upwards Mashiba saw himself reflected in the wet sheen of those dark, dark eyes. The sight speared him straight through the heart, and he accepted the flash of pain with stunned surprise. An emotion he had thought forever forgotten, rotted away to all but nothing, was welling up inside him, and behind his composed exterior the gears of his mind whirred in upset panic.

Impossible…

He noticed that the tips of Hatano’s fingers resting lightly on his chest were terribly thin, and even this trivial realization had him struggling to breathe.

“Mashiba?”

Perhaps due to the slenderness of his throat, Hatano’s voice was certainly not low, but there was nothing grating or unpleasant about it. Its husky undertone seemed to coil and twine about the ear, gentle and honeyed as the kisses he gave.

This thought brought a sudden blush to Mashiba’s cheeks, and before it could be detected he buried his face into the bony slope of Hatano’s shoulder.

“Hey, what’s up with you?”

Nothing could have moved his tongue to answer. Hatano’s slim body fit so easily inside his arms and he squeezed the man close with all his might.

This can’t be happening…

There had been an expression of peace and innocence on Hatano’s face, one Mashiba had never seen before, and he had found it incredibly beautiful. Unbelievable, he attempted to ridicule himself for the sentiment, but his self-mockery tasted so bitter that he shied away from it.

Hatano had begun to writhe within his grasp, and he flexed his muscles to restrain him. He both feared and longed to take a second look at Hatano’s face. He predicted that the moment he did would bring about some decisive transformation inside him, and he wavered, paralyzed.

“I can’t… breathe…”

It was Hatano’s wheezing protest and the weak prickle of nails digging into his back that finally brought an end to his ambivalence.

“I-I’m sorry!”

He jolted into action at the strangled sound of Hatano’s voice, hastily loosening his embrace. Hatano separated himself with a light but firm shove, apparently oblivious to the fact that Mashiba had spoken his first apology.

“Think about what you’re doing with all that muscle, ugh.… I think it’s going to bruise,” Hatano said, massaging his arms where Mashiba’s hands had clamped viselike around him. His skin, flushed red in the heat of the running shower, bore no bruises, but pale white stripes recorded the shape of Mashiba’s fingers. “Well, it looks okay.”

Mashiba’s attention was again drawn to the thinness of Hatano’s fingers as he diligently stroked over those stripes. The marks he had left behind were fading before his eyes, and he hated to see them disappear. He stood there at a loss, heart heavy with bitter longing, and Hatano cocked his head at him, a puzzled furrow in his brow.

“If we’re not going to do it, I’m getting out of the bathroom,” Hatano murmured when he failed to elicit a reaction, the passion cooling from his face.

“No, wait—”

No sooner had Hatano spoken than he pivoted on his heel, making for the exit, and Mashiba scrambled to catch his elbow. He looked back over his shoulder, and Mashiba realized too late that he would be gazing directly at the other man’s delicate features. That spear lanced his heart again, so much sharper than before, and he felt his face warp with pain.

Hatano’s shirt had sagged under its own waterlogged weight, tangling around his arms, and his torso was twisted backwards, emphasizing the supple curve of his hips. Mashiba detained him in silence, and Hatano peered at him with neither surprise nor aversion. His eyes held only an earnest question, and unable to formulate an answer, Mashiba settled for capturing Hatano’s narrow wrists and pulling them close. One hand rose to sweep the sodden curtain of the man’s hair out of his eyes, and Mashiba discovered that his fingers were shaking violently. His heart lurched at the full impact of Hatano’s unveiled gaze, and a pang of regret mingled with relief when Hatano’s eyelids lowered in anticipation of a kiss.

“Mm…”

The humidity in the bathroom had left Hatano’s lips soft and plush and Mashiba slotted his own over them, spurred by an inscrutable sense of dread. His tongue stole forward, mimicking the movements he had learned from Hatano’s earlier kiss, and he was rewarded with the other man’s saliva and tongue curling about his own with far more tenderness than usual.

He didn’t understand what was happening; he had never known a kiss like this. The sliver of space between their skin, the shape of their lips—all of these sensory perceptions were lost to him, and what remained was only the sensation of tumbling along to the slick, glossy undulations of their lips. The suction of Hatano’s mouth, the way he enveloped and massaged his tongue, brought nearly the same mix of pleasure and relief that Mashiba associated with entering Hatano’s body, and it intoxicated him to dizzying ecstasy.

“Oh, mm…”

The sound of Hatano’s needy moans brought the outside world slightly back into focus. His eyelids cracked open to reveal his arms, locked tight around Hatano’s half-naked body. Their hips ground against each other, both of them hard and aching, and far from dampening the passion of the moment, his lucid observation only made him hungrier.

I must be going crazy.

He gripped the swell of the man’s clothed hip, the roundness not quite small enough to be spanned by his palm, and his nails dug into Hatano’s chinos. The drenched fabric exposed the outline of his underwear beneath, and Hatano thrashed fiercely when Mashiba traced over it with his fingertips. He wrenched his lips away with a gasp and a lovely cry spilled from them, sweet assurance that Mashiba was not the only one inflamed beyond all reason by a mere kiss. A warm glow burgeoned inside him, and he realized that apparently the sight of Hatano like this brought him happiness.

He kept both of his hands kneading at Hatano’s buttocks, the erotic massage edging towards intimate territory. His lips nipped over and over at Hatano’s earlobe, coaxing out cries far closer to sobs.

“Oh, oh—!”

Hatano slowly began to refine the erratic twitching of his hips into a sensuous rhythm. Just the sight of him—a man typically half-indifferent to his own careless pursuit of pleasure, now being ravaged by a lust beyond his control—was nearly enough to make Mashiba come. He would call himself despicable, but he’d heard the word from himself so many times already that it had lost its sting. In any case, there was no one else but the two of them in the sanctuary of that room, and as long as the burning fever inside them was pulling them both in the same direction, Mashiba could find no reason to waste a second on propriety.

“Right here…”

Whether the rasp in his voice was a product of his long silence, or of his sordid desires, Mashiba had no way of knowing. His hand glided along the seam of Hatano’s pants, pausing above that small entrance that he always made admit him inside.

“…want me to eat you out, nice and wet?” he asked, grinding a finger against it obscenely, and Hatano bucked his hips to escape.

“N-No, stop—!”

He shook his head wildly in denial, but his erection straining against Mashiba’s thigh betrayed him. A sheen of tears gleamed over his eyes and his cheeks blushed brightly, lips parted around a chorus of labored moans.

“You liar,” Mashiba teased, surprising himself with how his voice dripped syrup and sex, and Hatano jumped in his arms as if the words were an electric shock. He wrenched his head backwards, and Mashiba’s teeth grazed the nape of his neck before skimming across his collarbone to his chest. His ears greedily drank in the sound of Hatano’s sobbing breath as his mouth fastened around a hard nipple, and the sensation of the reddened nub stiffening on his tongue, and the sight of its twin jutting out for his attention, pumped all his blood south.

“Stop, something’s, something’s different…”

Hounded by Mashiba’s merciless foreplay, Hatano pleaded for reprieve in a slurred lisp that Mashiba had never heard from him before. He sounded helpless, vulnerable, like he wanted Mashiba to take care of him, and that delighted Mashiba even more than it surprised him. He braced the other man against the tiled wall and dragged his sopping khakis and underwear down his legs, and even the brush of Mashiba’s fingertips as he set about undressing him had Hatano mewling. Finally all that remained was the shirt plastered to Hatano’s back; it was a nuisance, but the cuff buttons Mashiba had neglected to undo had caused the fabric to twist around Hatano’s wrists, and it would not be simple to work it loose.

The rolls of cloth wound about his wrists and ankles seemed to have awoken unhappy memories; Hatano began to writhe against his binds, and Mashiba took pity on the deepening furrows in Hatano’s brow. On instinct he bent to kiss the center of his forehead, and Hatano took a shallow breath before crumpling against him.

“I won’t hurt you,” Mashiba said quietly. It had the ring of an excuse but he wanted to set him at ease, and Hatano responded to the whisper with a little nod of his head. His small stature made the gesture seem to Mashiba a terribly brave one, and he held Hatano steady as he at least freed his ankles from the bunched shackle of his pants.

“What about you?” prompted Hatano in a sensual drawl, and Mashiba peeled off the last of his garments as well. His swarthy skin, and his erection, were bared beneath the bathroom lights, inviting Hatano’s entranced gaze. Hatano’s lips were slack and colored with lust, and each breath that passed between them enticed his touch.

Mashiba flipped the lid of a bottle of body soap and began coating it deep inside him, his free hand stroking Hatano’s hip bones. The lack of resistance startled him. His clustered fingers slipped easily past Hatano’s loose entrance, the flesh trembling hungrily around him, and when he spread those fingers inside him Hatano’s legs nearly buckled, thick milky fluid dribbling from the head of his penis. Hatano’s chest heaved wordlessly as Mashiba burrowed slowly, slowly deeper into him, enjoying the ripple of his muscles contracting over and over again. Mashiba had remade this channel in his own shape, conditioned it to accept even a fairly aggressive pace, and it seemed that tonight’s sort of gentle stimulation was no longer satisfying.

“Mm, Ma-Mashiba—!”

The tears rimming Hatano’s eyes quivered, ready to spill over at any moment. Mashiba knew full well what those eyes entreated but the snug pressure hugging his fingers felt too good to stop.

“Ah, that’s enough, enough…!”

The crude squelch of his hand churning slick soapy foam escalated in time with Hatano’s lewd cries. He made a desperate grab for Mashiba’s erection but the shirt knotted around his arms seemed to thwart his reach, and his slender back began to spasm with every exhalation. Mashiba cradled him with his free arm, the other still occupied with his relentless fingering, and Hatano latched onto him like a barnacle.

“What don’t you like?”

“Yo-Your fing-fingers—ah!”

Mashiba gouged open the ring of Hatano’s entrance and Hatano screamed, tears trickling down his cheeks.

“Why don’t you like them?”

“You keep ro-rolling them arou—ah, ah!”

Mashiba interrupted his appeal with a deep thrust of his plundering fingers, rotating them roughly until he had Hatano weeping, and then just as suddenly he withdrew. Hatano looked up at him with a mix of anxiety and hope, and Mashiba pecked him on the lips before taking the shower head in hand.

“I’ll wash the soap away, turn around and spread your legs,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. Hatano’s mute obedience galled him, but most of his anger was for himself, for the months of ironfisted sex that had trained Hatano that his will was law.

Mashiba directed the lukewarm spray over Hatano’s backside, and every time he scooped another handful of the foam out from inside him Hatano shuddered and gave a sweet cry. His back bobbed up and down before Mashiba’s eyes, the wet cotton of his shirt clinging like a film.

“Aren’t you done yet…?”

Hatano panted harshly for breath, tense with overstimulation. His hips pumped back and forth in a graphic pantomime of sex, the man seemingly powerless to control himself. Mashiba resisted the temptation to bury himself immediately into the heat that his fingers had so fully tasted, and instead stroked the shapely curves offered before him.

“N-No, mm—”

He wrapped a loose hand around Hatano’s length as his tongue roamed the expanse of the other man’s skin, and Hatano choked feebly and twisted away.

“I-I can’t…”

Mashiba knocked his legs farther apart and let his fingers draw circles around Hatano’s fluttering hole as he knelt down.

“Going to come right away if I touch you? I better stop then,” he said, releasing Hatano’s engorged erection. Hatano jerked his head around to find Mashiba poised inches away from his exposed bottom, and he started in alarm.

“What?!” He erupted in a flurry of movement, arms and legs flailing in panicked retreat. “What are you doi—whoa!”

“Watch it!”

Hatano’s foot slipped for the second time, but Mashiba’s muscular arms shot out to catch him before he could tumble to the floor. He huffed a sigh, going limp with relief, and Mashiba took advantage of his distraction to lift up the man’s waist and settle him on his hands and knees.

“See, right here…”

Hatano realized that he was staring at the floor with his bottom hoisted high in the air, and a rosy blush bloomed across his face and chest. He scrabbled to right himself but his palms slid across the wet surface of the tiles, struggling and getting nowhere.

“I told you to, stop, ah… no, don’t—!”

Mashiba wedged his fingers into his soaked cleft, and Hatano’s complaints dwindled to a hoarse croak.

“I’ll kiss you here like we were doing before… make it so good for you.”

“No, n—ooh!”

Mashiba’s dirty promise seemed to crack through him like a whip, and before he could even make good on it Hatano was bucking in orgasm. His limbs shook violently as he soiled the tiles, and Mashiba’s tongue painted a glistening trail on his pale skin. He ran the risk of overstimulating him right away but Hatano’s bud quivered for his touch, and he was eager to teach his body a deeper, more intimate pleasure.

Fingers splayed on each cheek, Mashiba parted the supple flesh, and the smack of his lips kissing him in between set Hatano thrashing like a man possessed. He had reacted similarly to his first prostate orgasm; Mashiba suspected he was frightened of the changes occurring to his body.

“No, no, do-don’t lick—!”

He let saliva pool on his tongue before he stabbed it into the small hollow, and Hatano’s elbows buckled, torso collapsing to the floor. He hid his face away in the ring of his arms, and with every flick of Mashiba’s tongue his hips swayed like a dance. The sight of that involuntary undulation was intensely arousing and Mashiba’s hand darted down to squeeze his painful erection in his fist, keeping his own climax at bay.

“And you were so tight the first time, too.”

Mashiba reinserted his fingers and Hatano’s inner walls wrapped around him with impatient gratitude.

He’s become such a slut.

Hatano hadn’t even known how to take a man inside him, and Mashiba had turned him into this. Just the thought sent a flare of dark passion crawling up his spine all the way to his nape.

“Your favorite spots are, here, and… here.”

He thrust in his index and middle finger to the webbing and scissored them, his knuckles working the rim while the tip of his middle finger grazed his prostate. Hatano swayed his hips to match the angle of contact, as if even that little rub of his finger was too much; Mashiba doubted he was even aware he was doing it.

“Maybe I should use my tongue while I finger you, huh?”

His teeth sank lightly into the small rounded flesh before him as he added a third finger, and Hatano choked out a sob, looking over his shoulder with wide, frightened eyes.

“No-No more, no more, no more… I’m scared…”

His eyes, glazed with tears, seemed more darling then to Mashiba than they ever had before, and he leaned forward to ladle those tears with his tongue. The motion dragged his erection along Hatano’s lean thigh, and both of them shivered.

“Ma-Mashiba, Mashiba!”

“What? What’s wrong?”

He pulled his fingers free and embraced Hatano from behind, nestling Hatano’s back into his chest. Hatano’s bottom squirmed hungrily in his lap and Mashiba bumped the head of his penis against his hole, blood boiling with the same urgency. Every tiny nudge forward made Hatano sing for him, and his entrance contracted vainly, trying to swallow Mashiba inside.

“Say it,” ordered Mashiba, kneading the soft white mounds of his buttocks with both hands. “Come on, tell me what you want.”

“Ah, pu-put it, put it in!”

“Put what in?” he baited him, and to his surprise Hatano answered him candidly, but Mashiba would not be satisfied with vague pronouns like ‘that.’ He rocked his head against his entrance but penetrated him no farther, taking pleasure in his miserable writhing until finally Hatano whimpered his desire using the naughty language giggled by children on the playground. Dirty talk like this seemed to push his buttons, and for all his sniveling it was plain enough that he liked it when Mashiba overstimulated him too. For a man whose character and conduct had been so normal, Hatano had accepted his own debauchery with relative ease.

He was a size smaller than Mashiba, and he appeared to be quiet and serene, but his spirit was endlessly flexible. That was what made him strong.

“Shit—you feel so good…!”

And being inside of him, cradled tight in that tunnel of silk and velvet, blanked Mashiba’s mind and reduced him to his most primal male impulses. This might be what they call a body meant to be loved, the thought briefly surfaced through the crimson haze that had come over him. That tender embrace was a physical embodiment of Hatano’s personality; it allowed his every trespass, and constantly knocked him off-kilter.

He rolled his hips with each deep thrust and pull, and Hatano began to tense and relax in time to his rhythm.

“Oh, mm, ye—ah, it’s too… there, yes!”

He would never have believed it was the same brusque Hatano crying out for him now, sounding so young and so needy. Mashiba relaxed his pace, prolonging each stroke to coax more of those noises out of him, and Hatano wailed through his tears, “No-Not like that! Do it harder, faster…!”

His dark, shining eyes looking back at him, slender neck twisting; that salacious plea; and his slick heat, coiling around him just begging to be ravaged; all of it had Mashiba’s body temperature blazing a degree or two hotter.

“N-No, hey, don’t make it bigger…!”

Mashiba felt the blood pulse between his legs in blunt appreciation and Hatano’s gaze flicked away again, but he was satisfied with the sweet echoes of Hatano’s cries in his ear.

“It doesn’t… hurt at all, right?” he whispered in a high, thin voice, and Hatano mumbled back a dazed, “Feels good.” Complex thought processes appeared to have deserted him, and with a pang of relief Mashiba drove forward to carry Hatano to the edge. The man was too drunk on his pleasure to hear a word he said, and he’d barely completed that thought before he found himself blurting out, “You’re kind of… cute, you know that?”

“Mm, mm—”

“I can see exactly how good you’re feeling.… It’s so weird.”

Because Hatano wasn’t even close to his type.

How strange.

“I’ve got to be crazy—hngh!”

“Ah—!”

Hatano constricted eagerly around him, and the muscles of Mashiba’s abdomen spasmed in quick little twitches. He held it in until the very last second before pulling out, and his seed burst in milky ropes onto Hatano’s shuddering back. Hatano was emptying his own release in fitful spurts onto the tiles, and Mashiba grasped the other man’s bobbing length in one hand, milking the last drops for him.

Hatano’s body had crumpled to the floor, and when Mashiba eased him upright his hot, gasping breath fanned across his chest. To his stunned bewilderment Mashiba felt his penis throb in a valiant effort to get hard again. For the past six months he had had sex with Hatano at least once every few days to habituate him, but it had never been more than an outlet for his libido. He had never felt this sharp prickle of pain deep in his breast before.

Mashiba kissed Hatano’s loosely parted lips and Hatano, still reeling in the afterglow, reciprocated with the sweet caress of his tongue. Mashiba curled his own around Hatano’s, and as their tongues twined together his rekindled desire smoldered in the pit of his groin.

“Bed…?”

Hatano’s eyelids were heavy with the same lust, and he skimmed his fingertips sensually along the arm that held him. “Yeah,” he breathed in invitation, more sigh than voice.

After they had rinsed themselves clean, Mashiba propped Hatano onto his feet and guided his tottering steps across the room, startling himself with how gently he handled him.

But that could not have mattered less to Mashiba by the time their dripping bodies made wet outlines upon the sheets; he was lost, absorbed in devoted pursuit of the trembling warmth that lay within his arms.

* * *

Hatano’s first thought upon awakening the next morning was how to go about extricating himself from the arm slung around his hips. The broad, warm chest snug against his back was admittedly cozy, but lying legs intertwined without a stitch of clothing was far too embarrassing.

It was the first time Mashiba had spent the night after sex since the day they had met. And they had never slept entangled like this, skin pressed to bare skin.

Anyway, I’ve got to get up.

According to the clock it was still early morning, which left Hatano with ample time before he would be expected at work. The school was five minutes away by bicycle, a convenience he very much appreciated. Mashiba, on the other hand, had a commute to the office ahead of him, which Hatano calculated to require near an hour. He would likely need a shower, as well, meaning he couldn’t afford to lounge much longer in bed—

Who am I, his wife?

Hatano caught himself ever so gallantly plotting the man’s itinerary for him, and the uncomfortable realization spurred him to elbow Mashiba’s long arm aside and get out of bed. The brusque gesture of course roused Mashiba, who groaned as he came awake. Hatano glanced down to find an unfamiliar expression on his face, languid with residual sleep, and he started in shock. Mashiba’s half-lidded eyes were dreamy and unfocused and his features were soft, but most novel of all was his face bathed in sunlight, a sight Hatano had never seen. Even spotlighted in the clear white light, the relaxed sprawl of Mashiba’s shapely body lost none of its beauty. If anything, the healthy bronze of his skin seemed to deserve no less than the pure bright glow of morning.

Hatano’s fascinated gaze was fixed on Mashiba as he stirred in drowsy confusion. He blinked twice, three times, before mumbling a gravelly, “Huh?”

The dopey announcement brought Hatano a little smile, and when Mashiba noticed the expression and squinted a bleary eye at him, it only widened into a grin.

Standing around naked in broad daylight was beginning to feel rather stupid, and he fished underwear and a random shirt from his bedroom dresser before tugging them on. He turned back around to find Mashiba in his same groggy position upon the bed. Reality had apparently not caught up with him yet, and Hatano decided to give a helpful push.

“Shouldn’t you be getting up?”

“Huh?”

“It’s getting late. You should at least take a shower. Look,” he added, pointing at the clock he himself had checked a moment ago, and Mashiba’s face underwent a comical transformation.

“Shit!”

He shot up and leapt out of bed, and Hatano held out a bath towel as he debated whether or not to inform him of the impressive case of bed hair on the back of his head. Mashiba was already striding off towards the bathroom, and Hatano decided the problem would resolve itself.

The greater cause for concern was Mashiba’s suit, which had lain wet and neglected overnight. That it was unusable today went without saying, and even a good ironing might not be enough to salvage it.

“This should be good enough for today,” he muttered to himself, pulling out a one-size-fits-all shirt in white, but the rest was more difficult. Mashiba was too tall and too broad for Hatano’s clothes to be passable. As he was mulling over this dilemma, a sudden recollection sent him into the depths of his closet, where he had tucked away a pair of slacks given to him as a gift by an acquaintance. He’d rather liked the color and cut but unfortunately they were the wrong size, and procrastination had cost him the exchange window. Unable to bring himself to throw away a gift, he had stashed them away to collect dust in his closet.

“As for the jacket… he’ll be fine without one.” That was beyond his ability to provide.

It’s a good thing it’s summer.

He delivered the assembled outfit to the bathroom and sure enough, their discarded clothes lay strewn about in a flagrant tableau of the previous night’s madness. He discovered Mashiba in the center of it, towel wrapped around his waist and looking at a complete loss, and the sight of his handsome face so flustered with panic had Hatano cracking up.

“There’s nothing funny about this.” Mashiba glowered as the peals of Hatano’s unabashed laughter bounced off the walls, but unlike in bed, a half-naked man in a sunlit bathroom did not cut a very impressive figure.

“I figured this would happen. Here you go.” Hatano blinked away tears of laughter as he handed Mashiba the change of clothes. “Get dressed quick. With walking it’ll take about an hour to get to the head office from here. Better hurry.”

Mashiba’s surprising ineptitude at handling unexpected events was both amusing and endearing. Or rather, this was likely the first time that blindly acting on impulse had landed him in trouble. His cheeks were colored with discomfort, and Hatano could practically read the word ‘blunder’ written across his face. A fresh fit of giggles bubbled up Hatano’s throat, not quite drowning out the sound of the bathroom door slamming shut behind him.

“Ohhh, that’s too funny.” He was still chortling to himself as he washed his face, and after shaving what little stubble he had, he headed to the kitchen. He toyed with the thought of going all out and making the man breakfast, just to see his uncomfortable reaction, but something about it felt peculiar and he dismissed the idea.

It was Hatano’s morning custom to light the stove under his well-used kettle, which he vastly preferred to electric ones, and recline in the living room, newspaper in hand, while the water boiled. There was no reason the presence of an intruder should disrupt this tradition. He did recognize that this conviction was born from an irrational desire to cling to routine, but he pointedly chose to ignore it.

But no matter how intently he went through his everyday motions, the living room was sprinkled with reminders that this was no ordinary morning. His sewing tools lay abandoned from yesterday evening, and there was an envelope embossed with a corporate logo and a briefcase that certainly did not belong to him. More palpable still was the memory of skin pressed close together, naked limbs entwined throughout the night. Mashiba’s leg had been wedged between his own less than an hour ago, and the instant he started to relax, its phantom weight and warmth returned with shocking realism.

Last night was kind of intense…

He didn’t have a clear picture of what had transpired; his memory was a blur after they had relocated to the bed. In fact, the only part he could guess was that he had all but passed out at the end. Whatever had occurred, once Mashiba’s slick heat had entered his body Hatano had been in a constant state of climax, whether he ejaculated or not. He had barely been aware of his own actions.

How many times did we do it?…

Even without a clear picture, the fragments that remained were enough to bring a red flush to his face. His pelvis was numb and heavy, and the sluggish lethargy in his limbs was many times worse than usual, but if Hatano considered only his mood it was a curiously pleasant one.

Around the time Hatano had grown abashed at his own blushing cheeks and unfurled the morning paper to hide them, Mashiba appeared with his hair still wet and a rather unreadable expression on his face.

“Hey…”

The clothes Hatano had provided seemed to have fit him well enough, and the fabric was surprisingly wrinkle-free despite having been folded away for several years. Mashiba’s reputation would suffer no injury, Hatano thought with some relief.

“Can I borrow a hair dryer and some gel?”

“Bathroom, closet on the right. Shaver’s in there too.” Their gazes met for a moment before sliding simultaneously away as they exchanged their curt, practical conversation. “There’s also a disposable toothbrush, use it if you want.”

“…okay.”

Something like sweetness permeated the awkward air between them, and though neither of them was ready to acknowledge it quite yet, both of them knew it was irrefutable.

A shrill whistle erupted from the kettle, signaling that its contents had boiled. As he prepared his usual cup of strong green tea he thought it nasty to serve only himself, and after a brief hesitation he poured a guest teacup, as well.

When Mashiba reappeared, hair neatly arranged and without a trace of the morning’s sorry floundering, he had transformed into an unassailable young executive, but Hatano wouldn’t soon be forgetting what he had witnessed earlier. The disparity tickled him, and a smile twitched the corners of his lips at the sight of Mashiba’s face.

“What?” Mashiba grumbled, but he sounded more embarrassed than angry; his voice was low, but it lacked any real punch.

Suddenly his eyes opened wide, as if in curiosity.

“Glasses?” he muttered, almost to himself, and indeed, thin metal-framed glasses perched on Hatano’s nose as he smoked a cigarette and thumbed through the paper.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I just wear them for reading,” he replied without removing his attention from the page, and he poked one finger out from behind it to indicate the teacup. “Drink it before it gets cold.”

A stolen glance revealed Mashiba looking once again utterly confounded, and Hatano stifled a hiccup of laughter. Mashiba seated himself across the table, his broad shoulders sagging as if in boredom, and Hatano found this terribly adorable.

Looking at him now, he could appreciate that Mashiba was actually a very expressive young man. This, too, was no doubt just one of his many faces, but his features now were soft, unguarded, and Hatano finally acknowledged the bloom of happiness he felt at the sight of it.

“Did you want coffee instead? I only have instant.”

Mashiba, perhaps wary of burning his tongue, had been slowly sipping at his tea, but he shook his head at Hatano’s question.

“No, no. You’re very good at making tea, Hatano.”

Hatano was quite startled to be addressed by name instead of the usual ‘hey’ or ‘you,’ but Mashiba himself seemed to not even have noticed the slip, and with great effort Hatano schooled his features.

“No better than average. These aren’t even expensive tea leaves.”

“This is the first thing I’ve drunk that actually tastes like tea in a while,” he groused with heartfelt sincerity, and Hatano couldn’t help another snicker.

“Ha ha, girls these days can’t even serve a decent cup of…” His gaze flicked up absently only to discover Mashiba staring directly back at him, and his next word lodged in his throat. Hesitation and bewilderment wavered within Mashiba’s light-colored eyes, but they held none of the blunt rejection or coldness they once had. The lovely pale amber of Mashiba’s irises entranced him and for a moment Hatano’s mouth went slack, lost for words.

“U-Um… better watch the time?” he blurted, turning away.

“Oh, yeah.”

Hatano’s eyes traced the text of the articles in the society section but failed to read a single word, and he could feel Mashiba’s gaze lingering on his cheeks, as if the man could see through his sham. Uncomfortable, he switched the cross of his legs to distract himself but Mashiba did not look away, and his skin prickled hotly.

“What?” he prompted finally, giving his best impression of nonchalance.

“Thanks for the clothes,” said Mashiba, short and earnest.

“Sure, well, don’t be late,” his brain fumbled an awkward reply, and he continued to study the paper even as Mashiba rose to his feet in his periphery. A large palm abruptly filled his vision, and in the next second his glasses were plucked away.

“Hey!” He made a swipe for them, but Mashiba’s reach was longer than his even standing side by side; seated, his fingertips came nowhere close.

“You don’t usually wear them. Why?”

Hatano tried to maintain his angry front, but Mashiba ducked his head to bring his amber eyes mere inches from his own, and their beauty took his breath away.

“Give… Give them back.”

“Can you see my face?”

Why can’t we ever have a normal conversation?, Hatano sighed internally. “Aren’t you going to work?”

“Is the reason your eyes always look a little wet because you’re near-sighted?”

Of course, a normal conversation would require Mashiba to stop forging on bull-headed, and himself to stop dodging the subject.

“Look, are you even listening to a word I’m saying?” he grumbled, exasperated.

“Are you?” Mashiba retorted immediately, and before he could react Hatano found himself enfolded in Mashiba’s arms. Their little argument had left his lips pouting, and Mashiba caressed them with his own with surprising gentleness. They indulged in their closed mouth kiss, enjoying each other’s softness for a short while, until on some unspoken cue they parted their lips together and their tongues met to twine loosely between them, still tasting of mint. Hatano nearly burst into laughter in spite of himself, but Mashiba, who was experiencing the same taste, did not reproach him with words. Instead, he worked Hatano’s tongue lovingly with his teeth, and almost at once the bubble of laughter escaped as a labored moan.

Again and again their tongues slid across each other, seeking more to make certain of something than to deepen any carnal pleasure. After last night’s fierce and relentless debauchery, a mere kiss would not even kindle a spark.

Mashiba’s palms traced the contours of his body with none of their usual arousing intent. His hands were like those of a child learning an unfamiliar object by touch. Their kiss unraveled with the same placid ease with which it had begun, and Mashiba pecked at Hatano’s lips to wipe away their sheen of saliva. Hatano caught Mashiba’s left wrist and silently indicated his watch, and Mashiba looked back at him with the smallest hint of a troubled smile. Slowly, gently, he hugged Hatano to him.

Ah, see, I knew it.

The circumstances that had brought the two of them to this point, and the stances they each had taken—all of this was forgotten, erased by the comfort of Mashiba’s shy, uncertain embrace.

“Doing things gently feels so much better.…”

“Eh?”

He hadn’t meant to murmur it aloud, and Hatano dismissed the slip with an easy, “Just talking to myself.”

“If you… need a break, we don’t have to do anything, so…” Mashiba loosened his embrace slightly and gazed down at him, eyes intense but without their cold barbs. “So see me again… today.”

There was no denying the swoop of fearful, hopeful nerves that came over him as Mashiba spoke. “Mashi—”

As if he were afraid to hear the answer, the man had no sooner made his first, quiet entreaty than he thrust Hatano away, and without a word he had fled from the room.

“But I told you, I have costumes to make,” Hatano muttered, watching Mashiba’s back disappear through the doorway. In truth, he was relieved; the ill-fitting innocence in Mashiba’s whisper had flushed his face a bright red, and he was glad for it to go unnoticed.

“Guess I’ll take a bath.”

He’d only rolled out of bed, and the feeling of Mashiba’s scent clinging to his body made it impossible to relax. More embarrassing still was the fact that he was thinking about Mashiba’s scent in the first place, and Hatano’s cheeks burned even hotter. Despite there being no one present to judge him he began a hasty retreat to the bathroom, but a thin, flimsy object underfoot caught his attention.

“Hm?” It was the envelope that had lain beside Mashiba’s briefcase. “Oh, come on. He’s too old to be forgetting things at home.”

It was proof of how panicked Mashiba had been. Likely not because of the time, but because of the words he had blurted out.

And because of his own soft voice, and all the achingly sweet emotion inside of it.

“Oh, man.”

The man who had raped him to start and now was acting like a shy schoolboy, or the victim who found this rather cute—which of them was the worse? Hatano thought it over with a smile, already planning out how to deliver the envelope, and he gave himself a little snort.

“I guess we’re just both a mess.”