Through the night we slept off and on, and every time I woke, he was still there. My mind remained relaxed, willing to trust whatever would unfold between us, but the night felt long like we had been transported somewhere and it wasn't the other world I had been expecting to find. As I hovered some hours in sleep and lucid dreaming, I tried to tell myself it was something I would come to get used to. As natural as being in the presence of Aki was, every time I thought about it, I was reminded of who he really was.
I opened my eyes to the darkness outside, and reached for my phone on the bedside table to check the time. "Two a.m." I said to myself, looking beside me to the empty space in the bed. The sheets were wrinkled, tossed to one side, evident that an occupant had been there. "Figures. Too good to be true after all." My attention was suddenly attracted to a shadow movement in the small night light on the balcony overhang. The door was open the tiniest amount, and if I strained to listen I could hear a voice. I stepped out of bed gently, pulling my discarded underwear up, and I realize there were clothes on the floor still that didn't belong to me. A black t-shirt, a wallet attached to a thick silver chain, black socks, a leather belt. I pulled a sweater over my head, peeking out the balcony door to investigate.
As I stepped into the dim light on the balcony, Aki glanced over his shoulder, smiling at me through his conversation. He tucked the phone between his cheek and shoulder, reaching for me with an outstretched arm. He tamped a cigarette out on the metal railing of the balcony, flicking it effortlessly over the edge. Tiptoeing, as if I could have interrupted his call with too much noise, I was overjoyed to see him. He opened his flannel shirt, placing me between his arms and wrapping both sides of the shirt around me. He held me firmly with one hand against my back, and I was able to lean my head onto his shoulder to rest there. I seemed to fit him like it was the most natural thing in the world, though it was the first time I had ever been so close to a man. My hands were on his skin underneath his flannel shirt, before I had even thought about asking permission or testing how far I was allowed to go. It was a strange thing to be self conscious of, considering the experience we had just shared, but I told myself I hardly knew him still. It was only him and I standing together on my little balcony, all the other lights in the building dark, and as long as it was only him and I together, I made the excuse that I could touch him as far as he would allow me to.
"And tomorrow I'm going to write the lyrics to Demo 29. I have some good inspiration." I listened closely to his side of the phone conversation, wondering who might be on the other end of the line at two in the morning, enjoying being pressed into the warmth of his body. "No, I haven't been home tonight. I went to a friend's place. She was? What did you tell her?" He laughed awkwardly, pausing as if to collect his thoughts and chose his words. "Maybe. Well, yes, I think so. So what? Tell her if you think it'll make her leave me alone. No, there is no video, she's not going to ask you for video proof. Fine, get some sleep, I'll be there in the morning to record."
He hung up the phone, tucked it into the back pocket of his jeans, and held me tightly with both arms. Against his shoulder I could feel how he dipped his head to involve more of himself in the chance to embrace me, and I felt his chest rise and fall with a deep sigh. He held me with some kind of desperation, like he had to experience as much of the moment as he could. I realized for the first time just how much of his life he lived that way. "That was Kota, my guitarist, wondering where I am finally."
"Where you supposed to be somewhere?"
"No, but it is unlike me not to be home when we're not working. Our friend Sato-san paid me a visit apparently and called the whole band because I wasn't at home."
I pushed his chest to lift my head, loosening his grip around my back. I wanted to look at his face when I spoke to him, to search for sincerity as I asked him questions. "Am I going to make problems for you?"
He brushed his fingertips across my cheeks, into my hair, and cradled my face with his hands. "You have already solved problems for me, not made them." He said. His expression was genuine from what I could read, but he sighed again, and I sensed tension in him. "But you have to know if you want to start something with me, my world is challenging."
"Start something?" I was surprised by his choice of words, looking for clarification and also feeling the need to test him again. "Like something casual while you're around home?"
His face changed as I watched, studying the way his expression morphed. His eyes began to dart back and forth between both of mine as if he couldn't believe what I had said. "No." He said, his voice serious and flat. "I told you, I'm not into that. Did you think I was just saying that?"
I looked away from his face burning holes through me, trying to get to my soul. The truth reflected in his whole demeanour when he spoke, when he looked at me, and in the back of my mind that tiny voice was telling me to relax. "Yes, I did, you're a famous rockstar. What are you doing in my apartment, sleeping in my bed?"
He released my face, his hands travelling down to my shoulders and around my back, coming to rest at the curve of my spine. "First of all, I was your first time and I didn't ask, so that's on me but I feel some responsibility to see you through the night." He spoke through a smile in a familiar way, speaking truthfully but lightheartedly. "You don't know me that well so I can't expect you to trust me just because I say so, but if you didn't trust me even just a little bit I don't think you would have let me have my way with your body like that."
He so effortlessly drew me in, made me laugh, made me believe him, and I recognized that he was transparent intentionally. He didn't have to impress me, and he didn't act a different way in order to try. He wasn't putting on a show for me, and if I hadn't have been impressed by him as a real person, he wouldn't have pursued me. "Also because I wanted to let you." I said. "And I wanted to trust you."
"And I want to be part of your life." His statement was firm. "Let's get some sleep, I don't want to interfere with your school day tomorrow."
He took my hand and led me back inside, careful to close the balcony door behind us. The spring air was still warm despite the darkness, but the room held an atmosphere I didn't want to let escape into the night. He shrugged off the flannel shirt, letting it fall to the floor to join the pile of his other clothes, and reached for the hem of my sweater. I allowed him to gently pull it over my head and be discarded as he backed me into the bed, still in my underwear. As I laid to rest on one side I watched as he stripped himself of his jeans, and I saw for the first time that the entirety of one thigh was also tattooed. The room was too dim to decipher the patterns of ink, and I pointed.
"I didn't see that one earlier."
He looked down at his leg where I was pointing, almost as if he had forgotten there was a tattoo there at all. "You were focused on other parts of me." He said in that playful way I was becoming familiar with. "I told you if you wanted to see more, you'd have to get my pants off. I think we both didn't realize just how easy that would turn out to be."
He crawled heavily onto the bed, settling beside me, closely, and slipped an arm under the pillow my head rested upon to become closer still. His arms were enveloping, and immediately I felt safe within their grasp. He was becoming familiar quickly, which both pleased and scared me. I could feel the tension melt from his body.
"When I woke up and you were on the balcony, I thought you'd left." I said softly, relaxing into his hold.
"Why would I do that?" His voice matched the softness in mine, as if he had set the tone for sleep.
"Aki?" He opened his eyes to look at my face, not showing in the slightest if he was annoyed with my constant instigation of conversation. Saying his name aloud to address him was unbelievable. So quickly, I had been able to drop every honorific and recognize the intimacy between us, but just two nights before, I was saying his name to myself as I read about him on the internet and looked at pictures of him in stage makeup. "I might need you to spell this out for me. I know you already said you want to be part of my life, but what does that mean?"
He raised himself on an elbow again, his gaze on me like he knew exactly what I meant to say without asking any more questions. "I want to be with you." He said simply, as if it was the easiest thing in the world to say. "I didn't expect to get here so quickly with you, but here we are, we already took a leap, so I'm not going to try to slow it down now. I hope you invited me in tonight because you had an idea that you want to be with me too."
I could feel my heart swell and quicken in pace, and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I felt I was on the edge of that world I had always wanted, looking down on it as if I was on a diving board and all there was left to do was jump. "Yes, I do." I said, and he smiled in that way that was suddenly becoming so familiar. "I just wasn't expecting this in my life right now. I'm surprised. And I'm even more surprised it's you."
His smile widened as he rolled to his back, turning his gaze back toward me as I watched him. "I wasn't expecting this right now either. But these days I live my life in the moment, and I can't pass you up just because I wasn't expecting you."
"Good night." His voice was low, almost a whisper. "Wake me when you need to get ready in the morning."
The sun was barely breaking on the horizon when we set out on the short walk to school. I had woken wrapped in his arms, held against his body like I was something already so precious to him, and it was a strange but comforting sensation. I had slept so deeply, though a stranger was beside me, sharing my bed with me, and somehow it felt good, and right. Aki grasped my hand with excitement as we walked, and I could tell he was holding back a childlike happiness. As we passed the same Lawson convenience store as always, he pushed me slightly to signal that he wanted to go inside. I let his hand slip out of my hold as he made his way with purpose to the hot coffee machines. He looked back to me as I walked slowly, my eyes scanning the isles with lunch in mind, and held up a paper cup. I smiled and nodded, watching as he looked so content pressing the buttons on the machine and watching the coffee as it filled the cups. He absently shook a paper sugar packet between his fingers. Seeing him wearing the same jeans and flannel shirt that I had witnessed discarded on my bedroom floor the night before gave me a feeling that I knew every secret he ever kept, and I realized I was no longer imagining being let into his world.
We slowed our walk as we reached the entry gates to my school, and I stood in front of him, unwilling to let go of his hand. He held his coffee cup out to me. "Hold this." He said, and I took it from him without a second thought as to why he would ask. He curled his fingers in the collar of my uniform shirt, using a firm grip to pull me close as he leaned down to place a kiss on me. When we parted he used the hold he had on my collar still to keep me in place, staring into my eyes as if to drink in the way I looked to recall through the day we would be apart. "I'm going to be recording with the band today. I'll text you the address, can you come meet me after school? We'll get dinner."
I nodded with some reservation. "You sure you don't want to use this as your chance to never call me again?" I heard myself as if from far away, wondering why I let the thought slip out.
"Did you not listen to anything I said last night?" His tone was lighthearted, joking. He took his coffee cup back out of my hand. "Have a good day, okay? I'll see you later."
"Natsu-chan!" I spun around as Aki retreated, giving me a slight wave and a smile before disappearing from my view. Hina was walking quickly toward me, waving over her head as she often did. I returned her wave, and suddenly everything felt as normal as it had only a few days before.
"Good morning Hina-chan." I said, but refrained from any other greeting as I saw the expression she wore.
"Don't." She said shortly. "Who was that? Was he the friend you were talking about?"
"You saw?" She nodded firmly, and I felt as though she knew something more than she was letting on. "Yes, he is who I was talking about. I guess you could say he's more than a friend."
"Were you planning on telling me ever?"
I clutched the cup harder, knowing it was better to answer her questions rather than dodge them. "It's really kind of new still. I was going to tell you, I was just making sure there was something to tell."
Hina forced her hand around my arm in a sort of link that looked friendly, but she was preventing me from going anywhere without answering all her burning questions. We walked slowly to the school doors. "He walked with you to school though, that's really sweet. Does he go to school around here too?" She spoked in a hushed tone, keeping the conversation between us.
"He doesn't go to school, he's got a good job, and he's older." I laughed, playing along, convinced she was asking routines questions because she was genuinely interested.
"What's his name?"
I paused, but my mind couldn't come up with an answer to give her. I felt hesitation to say his name aloud, wondering if she would catch on, and wondering how much of my secret I wanted to give away.
"I knew it." She said, without giving me a chance to answer. "I knew he looked too familiar. That was Aki from Guardian, wasn't it?" Her voice was a fierce whisper, as if she wanted to scold me and keep anyone else in earshot from understanding what our conversation was about.
"How could you even tell?" I asked, not denying her accusation. "He looks so different on stage."
She took a few steps quickly to make her way in front of me, grasping both of my arms. "First of all, I can't believe it, and you have to tell me everything later. Second, Aya Sato has been going around school saying some girl she's never seen before has been hanging out with Aki since the band has been back in town and cramping her style."
My phone vibrated in my blazer pocket, and I reached in to read the message, blocking out the sound of Hina's voice. The message was an address, signed with a heart, the sender saved in my phone as Hasegawa Akira. I smiled to myself as I looked over the message, unconcerned until Hina's voice became too loud to continue ignoring.
"You better be careful. Sato-san sounds like she's focused on revenge. Her and her group of friends are terrors. You're lucky she doesn't know who you are, so all you need to do is keep it under wraps."
I pressed my phone against my chest, concealing the message. "Do you know her? I met her for the first time yesterday. I was on my way to meet Aki and she confronted me with a group of girls."
Hina's face was serious as she looked at me. "You already met her?" I nodded slowly, as she seemed to be waiting for confirmation so she understood perfectly. "And she already saw you with Aki?" I nodded again, becomming aware that the seriousness in her face was not to be ignored. "Natsu-chan stay away from her. Avoid her completely. And make sure Aki knows."
I drifted through the day in a dream state, my feet feeling as if they were barely touching the ground as my thoughts were running over the previous few days. I was captive with the contentment of having somehow been chosen to share time with a man I had seen for the time on a stage in a crowd while he sang and stole my attention, and eventually ended up also stealing my heart under the cover of night. I wondered how it was that for years I lusted for a glimpse into another world outside of my mundane life, and suddenly was so sinlessly given entry to it.
I snuck away from the school when the last bell rang, making my way through the crowd of students as eager as I was to leave quickly, avoiding saying goodbye to Hina or anyone else. I had reached the gates and reached to search for my phone in my pocket as I walked, and the concrete came to meet me as I felt my feet being swept from under me. I threw my hands out to brace my fall, feeling the sting as my palms scraped the ground with my forward momentum. My vision was spinning but I threw my gaze around to identify what had caused me to fall.
"I thought I warned you." I heard a voice from above me as I tried to reposition myself on my hands and knees, my head still spinning. A blow to my ribs sent me tumbling over to my side on the ground, and I squeezed my eyes shut, wrapping both arms around myself. A hard hand on my shoulder rolled me to my back and I saw black shoes on both sides of me preventing any escape. I blinked my eyes open, trying to make them focus as a face bent over me, and another hand grabbed my chin. As my vision came back into focus, I recognized the face belonged to Aya Sato. "I don't know who you are or where you came from, but stay away from Aki. He belongs to me." A rough slap across my mouth forced my cheek to the ground as my head turned.
As quickly as it had come, my offender left. I lay on my back on the ground, wondering why no one was coming to help, trying to catch my breath. I touched a hand to my face and my fingers came away from a tender spot with blood. She must have had a ring on, I thought. I forced myself to sit up, looking down at myself, a smear of dirt on my shirt where she kicked me. I took a deep breath to test myself, then reached for my phone again. I checked the address in the message from Aki, and replied. "I'm on the way now, meet me outside?"