earthquakes
"with a tool of my own invention
i cracked my own resolve
weighed it in my hand
and struck myself hard
and i felt you creep in
to freeze and expand..."
--Erin McKeown
He has a glass of water in his hand because he doesn't let himself drink alcohol. He can't remember now when he made that decision; something declared in college years, if he got started once then he wouldn't stop ever. Cause and effect, if and then. Old habits, unlike old friends, are hard to kill.
The water is cold, so he supposes he can't have gotten it that long ago, but he can't remember that either. There is a little bird-woman chattering at him, her face beaky and vapid and frail, and he is trying to listen to her and still look for both the clock and a face. Two faces.
He wants to leave. He wants to go home because his head hurts, in that way that his head doesn't really hurt but he'd tell people that because he wants to go home, and does it matter which way it began? Games of cause and effect, if and then. If his head hurts, then they will leave. If they leave, then he will be able to breathe and think again. Simple. His mind is what hurts.
But that isn't true either.
The chattering bird-woman asks him if he's married. She's nearly as tall as he is; he still notices these things. He smiles absently, the shy smile of a much younger man, and taps his glass with one scarred finger.
A lot can happen in fifteen years. A baby can become almost an adult. Buildings can be built. Walls can be torn down. People can change; people are always doing that. Time can eat its own tail until it loses track of where it began.
And sometimes, people can forget things. Some people.
They are commented upon, little though they notice, when they come into the room together. If he thought of it, he would suppose they are indeed striking, if only in their contrast. The one, tall and broad and fair, seeming out of place in suit and tie as he nearly bubbles out of himself with energy. Everything is exciting; everything is new. People find this admirable, and smile when he enters the room because they can't help themselves.
And the other: perpetually the other. Slim and small, taller than most of the women at least, but not by much. Dark hair that always seems to have plans of its own; long by now -- probably too long -- but still tumbling into his eyes where it isn't gathered into the short tail at his neck, scattered with the threads of the thin white blaze that is beginning to broaden with time. Thin adolescent gawkiness long since refined into a precise, willowy grace. The same wide, wary eyes, startling violet.
Every time he happens to catch himself in a mirror, he is surprised -- alarmed by his adulthood. Who are you? he wants to ask, sometimes. Where did I go? But it's part of getting older, he guesses, and he says nothing. He always thought age to be the least of his worries.
It has been said of them, not while they were present, that the one sometimes behaves like the survivor of a serious earthquake, and that perpetual other always behaves like the survivor of a holocaust. He would probably not dispute this if he knew.
The one, the other. Glasses are raised, and he tries to smile into the bright light, tries to disappear unseen behind the beaming star of this show. And then he looks up, and finds a smile for him alone.
People make him nervous; it is much the way a tank of restaurant lobsters must unnerve a vegetarian. Normally the two of them don't come to things like this, the parties and dinners and other excuses to go be somewhere else, but there was really no way out of it tonight. It's for the award, of course.
He told Keiichi once that it seemed to him like all the things they had to say about it should have started with "Once upon a time..." They all seem to think it's a fairy tale. Maybe it is. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lost his family to earthquakes. But rather than let this get him down (chin up! depression is not civic-minded behavior!), he grew up to build stronger, better buildings, to protect people from earthquakes. And then one hit one of his buildings, almost directly from below. There were 326 people in it at the time. There were 326 survivors. Then the city finally noticed him (after the fact, but who can be bothered before?) and gave him a piece of metal tacked to a piece of wood to remind him what a great person he was, as part of Tokyo's general bureacratic policy that no good deed must go unpunished. And they lived happily ever after, we assume, though we can't talk about that part since there aren't any queers in fairy tales. Keiichi laughed when he heard it, but not in any way that said he understood. That was all right. He has a feeling Keiichi doesn't understand him a lot of the time. Usually, it's better that way.
He puts his glass down, and finds his fingers wet. From the condensation, he knows intellectually, though it seems like he hasn't ever noticed before tonight. The bird-woman is fluttering at someone else now, an he is uncomfortably glad. Too much, too much all at once.
Once, he supposes he could have told her, I was in love, and it almost killed me. Literally, actually -- though that was for something else besides the love part. I think... I can't remember anymore. It was a long time ago; but I guess maybe you can understand how it soured me on the idea of eternal romance.
You always hurt the ones you love, he'd say. That's true -- true as anything. And I'm too tired to hurt anyone, anymore.
Except he knows he isn't, and he never can be. And after all, it wouldn't be fair to tell anyway.
Something yielding prods his arm; he jumps, and turns to look. It's his coat.
"Wanna get out of here?" Keiichi asks brightly, and he is sad behind his smile.
Wet earth, ironically, feels cleaner than most anything else in the world. He lets it roll between his fingers as it slides off the trowel. He should have the third batch of violets in the bed by lunch. Ahead of schedule; good. The show has to be open in a week. Or something like that. The good thing about work is that work is always the same.
The greenhouse is cool and moist, a carefully arranged forest of flowers and shrubs. People will probably always need flowers, especially in Tokyo. And he likes them. Really, he just likes growing things, a give and take between flower and earth, a giving back of life to both the soil and the plant. A little like love. He supposes that from him, gardening is what passes for an apology.
The violets are taking better than he'd expected, better than the lilies. He talks to them, softly, as he moves between the rows. They're easier to talk to than people, much easier. Once, I was in love...
He gets tired easily, and the air is thick and wet.
"I'm sorry."
"Hey, it's not like you dragged me out. Nothing but old men and politics. Boring."
"I don't mean to be such a nuisance."
"You're not a nuisance."
"You know what I mean."
"Are you okay? You look tired."
"Yes. No. I don't know. I mean... I am tired."
"You should get some sleep, when we get home. Sorry if I've been keeping you up at night!"
"It's... not really that kind of tired."
"...No. It isn't. I know."
Beat.
"Do you ever look out the window, and wonder..."
"What?"
"Do you ever wonder what all those people out there are doing? What they're all thinking about? Think of all the apartments we're passing every minute... how many of them are out there? Millions, right? What do they all do, all the time? What do they think about? Are their problems all like... like ours, do you think? Any of them? Maybe some of them have problems we couldn't even guess at. Maybe they're suffering in some way we can't imagine..."
"Well... I don't know. I guess it could be. But I think when you get right down to it, everybody pretty much has the same problems. We're all human, right?"
"...Yeah. I guess. ...But do you ever think about it?"
"Sometimes, sure. Sometimes."
"You do?"
"Yeah."
Beat.
"I'm sorry. I really am. Maybe you should just go out without me from now on."
"I don't want to go out without you. It wouldn't be much fun."
"I'm not much fun when I'm brooding, either."
"You don't have to be fun. You just have to be Kamui."
"I don't think I'm very good at that either, anymore."
Silence.
"...Sorry. I guess I'm talking too much."
"No, I don't mind. I was just thinking..."
"Thinking what?"
"I... don't remember."
"My fault again! Sorry!"
"No! -- no. It isn't. I'm... I'm just tired. That's all."
"Is it?"
"...Yeah. I think so."
Beat.
"We're home, Kamui."
"I know."
"I love you."
"I know. I love you too."
"Are you -- "
"I'm fine. I'm... fine."
Cause and effect. They lean in the doorway between the narrow kitchen and the living room, soundless, hands and mouths at work. It is familiar as death, a comfortable response to an uncomfortable stimulus: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It's what they mean by backlash. (Old habits are hard to kill.) Just another way of striking, he thinks, and it makes his heart sick; there is love in it, he knows that, but some nights everything hurts. Probably he won't sleep tonight. He will lie by the window and watch the stars revolve, and look for the ones that should be missing but never are. He will close his eyes and find himself unable to stop seeing.
His hands are long and graceful and adult. In an adult sort of way, they untangle the knot in his partner's tie, take buttons one by one like steps down, down, down. Kissing, melting. His hand is warm on warmer skin, ridged with its thick scar like a cranny cut in wet earth.
If you do something for the city, then the city will do something for you.
They interviewed Keiichi for the newspaper, and they all fell half in love before it was done, with his earnest energy and his ebullience; Keiichi is like that. He was more than honest with the reporters, so sincere it hurt. They printed only glittering praise, and Tokyo made a silent promise to make Segawa Keiichi a very wealthy man by the age of thirty-five. He was, predictably, not overly impressed with this. Hey, it's just money, right?
"Why did you choose to pursue this line of work?" they asked, and he needed no time to think out his answer. His eyes were sadder than their usual flashbulb-bright selves, but no less dazzling, and filled with life.
"I just think everybody has a right to be safe," he said.
Framed in the darkened doorway, a smile.