Vol 2 Chapter 3 (1/2)

A loud ringing sound made him squeeze his eyes shut Hirosue pulled his blanket over his head, but the bothersoot up and searched for the source of the sound He grabbed the alar how to turn it off, until the sound stopped by itself

The room was unfamiliar to his Matsuoka was curled up in a blanket at the foot of the sofa he had been sleeping on just earlier He wondered what thethere, and reht and they had eaten cake and drunk wine His h, and near the end, they were a complete blur

He peered at the clock and saas six in the

“Matsuoka,” he called, but there was no response No matter how many times he repeated the man’s name, it was no use He re Matsuoka when he was Yoko Eto Hirosue used to give hi up

“Matsuoka, wake up”

When Hirosue gave his shoulder a shake, Matsuoka’s eyelids finally fluttered and opened a crack

“Oh… ”

“I’ home now”

Matsuoka rubbed his eyes with both hands like a child and looked at the wall clock

“Oh, six o’clock,” he said “That should give you enough tiht?”

When Matsuoka set the alarm clock, it seeo back to his apartment Matsuoka was considerate even in the details

“Sorry about yesterday Looks like I got a little drunk,” Hirosue apologized

Matsuoka’s face relaxed into a sleepy grin “Don’t worry about it I had fun”

“Fun?”

Matsuoka gave a big yawn and propped himself up

“My first night of being thirty was such a ind of happenings Getting an e- cake… all that”

Matsuoka chuckled as if to re in your sleep, Hirosue”

“Huh? What was I saying?”

“I’ It was pretty funny” Matsuoka hunched his shoulders and grinned mischievously His face overlapped with Yoko Eto’s smile, and Hirosue felt his heart skip a beat Matsuoka bore barely any resemblance to Yoko Eto now; his hair and clothes were completely different froe caly to the surface

“Now I’m curious,” Hirosue insisted “Tell me”

“It wasn’t much We’ll just say it’s mine to keep to myself and enjoy”

“Oh, come on That makes me want to know even ly

“If you don’t go hoe”

Hirosue so It wasn’t wrinkled at all Perhaps Matsuoka had put it on a hanger for him

“Thanks for yesterday,” Matsuoka said “We should go out to eat sometime”

Matsuoka saw him to the door Hirosue’s shoelaces were loose, so he bent over at the doorway to tie them

“This happened before, didn’t it? Except in opposite positions,” he heard a voice say above his head

“Really?”

“When I still used to crossdress, reht in your apartment on your birthday? That’s what this reminded me of”

Hirosue recalled those bittersweet memories He had been in love with Yoko Eto, Matsuoka’s crossdressed forht holding her in his ars were different―coh it ith the same person In fact, Hirosue didn’t feel happy at all about his current situation

“See you, then” Hirosue dipped his head slightly and exited the apart air sliced his cheek As soon as the door closed behind hi at Matsuoka’s place trailed his like whether he would have tio home and shower

“Hirosue, wait a second!” He heard a voice call above hi He looked up to see Matsuoka leaning over the railing of the passage on the fifth floor

“I’ down Wait there for a second”

Hirosue stopped, wondering what could be thenot even a minute later

“I’ht you I found this left behind in the apartment It’s yours, isn’t it?”

Matsuoka was offering hi it in his coat pocket It must have fallen out at some point

“You can have it”

“Huh?” Matsuoka tilted his head

“Actually, nevercame back into Hirosue’s hands But even if he took it ho Hirosue offered the paper bag to Matsuoka again Matsuoka looked confused to have soht back at him

“What? What’s the matter?”

“It’s a cell phone strap You can have it, if you want”

“Cell phone strap?”

“I didn’t knohat kind you’d like And it’s cheap If you don’t like it, you can throw it away”

Matsuoka’s face practically glowed

“What?” he exclaiht this for me?”

“It’s really not much”

Wow, oh, geez, Matsuoka continued to gush under his breath as he carefully stroked the brown paper bag

“Can I open it?”

“Um… sure”

The strapsound as it dropped fro into Matsuoka’s hand What had looked decently tasteful at night now looked even ht

“Hey, it looks slick,” Matsuoka ren”

Matsuoka looked happy, but to Hirosue, it see like it to be polite He couldn’t stand being there any longer

“I’ll be going, then”

“Thanks, Hirosue See you”

Hirosue kept walking without turning back once Every time he remembered Matsuoka’s overjoyed face, he was pricked frootten a proper present, he thought I shouldn’t have given hiift

In the train, he sat down across fro hoht Theout that he had been talking in his sleep MatsuokaHe felt quite eht that Matsuoka had seen him drunk and passed out

That night, he had begged Yoko Eto to stay against her will, and had held her in his arht He had been so happy to have that slender and beautiful body close to hi, and he had ended up not catching a wink of sleep that night Perhaps Matsuoka had felt the same way he did

His chest suddenly tightened when he remembered those happy days Yoko Eto and Matsuoka were the same person, but there was simply no way he could convince hioatee, as a man no matter how you looked at him, was the same person as the woman whom he had worshi+pped like a Goddess Perhaps it wasn’t that he wasn’t convinced―perhaps he didn’t want to be convinced

He didn’t hate Matsuoka as a man He could also tell that Matsuoka cared for him devotedly and deeply Hirosue didn’t deny that so But nowhere could he find the same sort of passion towards Matsuoka which he had harboured towards Yoko Eto

Hirosue’s vague resistance towards Matsuoka remained, yet if he was invited, he still went out to eat with Matsuoka He didn’t want to use a lie as an excuse to refuse, and besides, he didn’t have to be conscious about his and Matsuoka’s positions as long they didn’t talk about work

Hirosue began actively looking for a job, and on weekdays he took a few hours off work to be interviewed by a number of companies he had set his eyes on The head clerk accepted his irregular work schedule without complaint when Hirosue explained truthfully what he intended to do Instead, Hirosue went to work on weekends tothe week As a result, more often than not, he had to turn down Matsuoka’s invitations

Despite his efforts, each and every interview he attended resulted in rejection His lack of qualifications and his age―being in his est obstacles ‘If only you were in your twenties’―he didn’t kno many times he had heard those words tumble from the lips of his interviewer

That day during work, he got a call from a company he had been interviewed for Hirosue was a fir his work from his private life, and he never sent personal e- work hours But the situation he was in didn’t afford hirabbed his cell phone and hastily ran out into the hallway ―The neas one of rejection The call hit him the hardest, especially since he had been quite confident about his interview After that, he found it hard to focus on his work at all

Hirosue returned to his apart depressed, and found that a letter had come in the mail A pretty stamp with the Chinese character for “celebration” was pasted on the envelope The mailer was shi+mizu, a childhood friend fro invitation Hirosue reone back to his hometown for the new year, shi+irlfriend

There was a writtenmarried How about you?’ it read Last new year, he had met up with shi+mizu and told hiood for a man like hi of asking her to marry him

“Lucky you,” shi+irlfriend at the time One year later, here he was in this state, and his childhood friend was now set to get married How ironic it was

The following evening after receiving the invitation froot a call froift, which had been out of stock for a while due to its popularity, had finally arrived His brother had called to thank him as well as to catch up Eventually the topic of Hirosue’s childhood friend came up in their conversation

“Say, remember shi+ married, huh?”

“Yeah I got an invitation” Hirosue talked to his brother in the phone while walking to his apartment from the bus stop

“I reirl you wanted to marry”

“I told you, she broke up with ain and again, even though he didn’t want to discuss it He was starting to get sick of it

“Aren’t you dating anyone right now?” his brother asked

“No,” Hirosue said shortly He couldn’t be bothered to give a proper answer “It’s not that si someone new” His brother apparently picked up on his irritable mood

“What’re you so pissed off about?” he grumbled, then suddenly said, “Hey, are you sure you aren’t setting your standards too high?”

“I’m not”

“But you said your ex-girlfriend was pretty, right? As they say, it takes three days to tire of a beauty1 If the girl has a great personality, who cares if her looks are so-so?”

“She was pretty, but I didn’t fall in love with her for her looks”

She was beautiful, but that wasn’t all She was teentle; she had her own firm opinions, and she wasn’t afraid to speak up when she had to―she had that strict side about her, too

Thea guilty jolt in Hirosue’s stoe of Yoko Eto in Matsuoka’s se; Yoko Eto and Matsuoka were, after all, the same person

A doubtful question flitted across his heart He had not fallen in love solely with Yoko Eto’s looks Her doll-like beauty hadn’t been the only thing he was attracted to But if it wasn’t her face―if he had been drawn to her heart―then asn’t he able to see Matsuoka, as essentially Yoko, romantically? ―Hirosue arrived at the same place he had arrived at dozens of times when he asked himself this question It was because Matsuoka was a man

“Do you plan to be alone forever?”

His brothers’s voice dragged Hirosue out of his thoughts and into the present

“Not really, but…”

“If you’re going to get est you do it soon I don’t want to sound like our old man, but if you have kids past forty, you’ll hit retiree of majority”

He was being told precisely what he was dreading to hear

“…I know that”

“But personally, I think staying single is a choice, too As long as you have a solid living foundation and you’ve got money saved up for retirement”

At the last urative blow to the stohter It was painful to be told to build a solid living right after getting a layoff notice

Hirosue’s utters even after he arrived back at his aparto out to buy soot an e-mail from Matsuoka Matsuoka’s work had finished early, and he ondering if Hirosue would like to go out for dinner Hirosue figured that being alone would only fill his head with unneeded worries Since he felt like drinking, anyway, he answered that he would go

When Hirosue arrived at theirspot at the station, Matsuoka was already there He was standing off in a corner of the ticket stands, staring intently at his cell phone Dangling from his silver phone was the cheap cell phone strap that Hirosue had given to hiuilty

That day, on Matsuoka’s request, they went to a quieter restaurant instead of their usualizakaya It was a little pricier, but the tables were neatly sectioned off, and the chatter wasn’t as clamorous

“Did you have a bad day today?”

Hirosue, who had been distractedly prodding his jijim, lifted his head Perhaps Matsuoka had noticed that his responses sounded absent-minded

“Not really”

“Alright I was just wondering You seem kind of down”

“I’hter The earlier conversation with his brother lingered stubbornly in his head It wasn’t like he didn’t want to get married; he just didn’t have someone that kind of person in his life

“Say, you’re going to work on your days off a lot lately, aren’t you?”

Hirosue’s weekends were consumed by work to make up for the time taken off on weekdays for his job search All the interviews he had shuffled his schedule around for had ended in miserable defeat Labour without rewards only increased his exhaustion He fell into a spiral of self-loathing with every refusal I’h

“It’s just really busy since we have toan offhand excuse since he couldn’t bring himself to say the truth

“Then ood time to say this, but… are you free next Saturday and Sunday?”

After his most recent refusal frohest hopes, Hirosue had gotten sick of sending in CVs and attending interviews, and had stopped his job search altogether As such, he had folloeekend off like he usually did

“Is there so on?”

“I ondering if you’d want to go to the hot springs,” Matsuoka said, glancing up at him furtively

“Hot springs?” Hirosue tilted his head

“There’s this hot spring resort I’ve been wanting to go to It’s about a three-hour drive froht and relax, or if you’d rather not, we can just make it a day trip Oh, and I’ll drive”

The hot springs sounded like an attractive idea Hirosue liked large baths to begin with He wanted to relax and forget, even for a short ti e that nagged hi the night, did that mean he hadthose kinds of expectations? But he was also willing to go on a day trip, so perhaps he had no ulterior motives

As Hirosue continued to contemplate, Matsuoka hesitantly spoke up

“…If it bothers you to be with o to the baths at different times,” he said

If Matsuoka was seeking consent for soether, it was unlikely that he was expecting sex, or anything of that sort

Hirosue’s fears that Matsuoka would try to make advances on hiet of uncertainty was ree of scene

“A trip wouldn’t hurt once in a while, I guess”