Dear friends,

This is not a casual article. Today I will post some parts of my book, or my story, the one I’ve been writing for 8 years and still I just can’t finish it.

Mr Saito is always my muse since I met him 2 years ago. And strangely he matches my Hiro. I’m still Hio, that Hio in my story.

There are 3 parts. Please enjoy!

Part 1: Aishuu 哀愁

“Honestly, Hiro, you have the potential to be my last love. If, somehow, in the future, if I can bring myself to open my heart to anyone again, I’m sure that your name will be the only one on that list. And that thought, that final certainty, already fills me with a strange kind of ache. It hurts.”

“What is it you’re hoping for from me, Hio?”

“I don’t know if I should hope for anything at all. I have no idea if right now I dare to hope. It’s the sheer vulnerability of it that stops me. If I don’t try to change, I’ll never know what the road not taken would have become. Will we ever regret having met years from now? What if this memory has faded into a faint photograph? Will you forget these few short winter days that we shared? And what if there were a spring, a summer, an autumn, and many more winters where I could sit right next to you like this? The only constant is change, and that knowledge is both beautiful and terrifying. I suspect that from the moment I met you. The quiet, the predictable orbit of my life has already shifted onto a different, more melancholy trajectory. And right now I’m saying all the most Shakespeare words I have known, to make this moment more remarkable.”

“Do you think you’ll adapt to this new course, Hio? Because I think that until the day I die, I will never regret having known you. There’s a poignancy to this moment, a gentle sorrow that comes from knowing it’s real. No matter what the future holds, I’ll always look forward to hearing your ‘Tadaima!’ when you arrive at my place. As if we were truly something meaningful in each other’s lives.” Hiro looked at me with the honest that felt less like a prelude to a confession and more like an acceptance of a shared, the bittersweet fate.

“And then we’ll do something incredibly cool to mark our existence. And then there will be mornings waking up alone, already missing the echo of you, counting down every second until we meet again. There will be times when we sit and foolishly eat cold tangerines while soaking up the cold wind, just like this. If I can open my heart one more time, if I can discard all my cowardice, if I can gather enough courage to love even if it means risking a heart-shattering wound again… If I can, that is how I will love you, Hiro. With a knowledge that the very intensity of the feeling makes its passing inevitable.”

Part 2: Call of the sea

After the Coldplay concert, the city felt too loud, too bright, too unbearable. Both Hiro and I desperately needed a place to lay our hearts bare, away from the chaos. I wanted to hear his story, and I knew he would listen to mine. It’s like a frank confession about why we both felt so strangely familiar to one another. It’s the continuation of the night when we first met, and that night we both cried till 4 in the morning.

“Hiro, I want a Gin tonic somewhere close to the water,” I suggested.

“You mean near the port? And tell me where the fuck can I buy you a to-go-Gin Tonic?”

“I just want to look at the sea at night. That vast, indifferent darkness feels more honest than the light right now. And you can buy Gin and Tonic separately, duh?”

“How about we just go to Yokohama? Or maybe catch a night train to Odawara and find a deserted beach, the one without even sand? We could rent a hotel or a tent, build a fire, and drink until morning!”

“Will the crazy sea take in two crazy people like us?” I was genuinely thrilled by his impulsive idea.

“I doubt the waves will wash us away. It might. And even if we get robbed, we have nothing but our internal organs to give. Plus, we are broke!”

And so, in that crazy, spontaneous moment, we actually went to the coast.

Part 3: The meant to be

We stood before the sea, at midnight, the wind biting and the cold seeping into our bones.

“Why did you come to Tokyo, Hio?” Hiro took his first sip of liquor, his breath clouding the cold air.

“I thought what I needed to find was in the Northeast. I just had this urge to go Northeast,” I said.

“Why specifically the Northeast, and why Tokyo?”

“I was searching for the Tien Yi (天醫, the Celestial Healer) star. I had gone through a terrible time, a period of such deep darkness and depression that I pictured my own death as the only release. But somehow, an instinctual part of me kept searching for a reason to live. I was genuinely wrestling with myself to abandon everything, or to find one more reason to exist. I read my own horoscope then. The Tien Yi promises compassion and refuge. It’s an ideal, a dream. That dream is the source of my Pathos.”

“My Osaka is also to the Northeast, you know. Weren’t you looking for refuge?” Hiro asked, his voice softer now.

I just smiled.

“I want to eat takoyaki and search for that person in the streets of Kyoto. I want to visit Honnoji Temple and Yasaka shrine to ask if Susanoo and Kushinadahime can help me find that person. I want to immerse myself in the ancient flow of Heian-kyo. In my dreams, I’ve lived there. I was a native of that land. And I thought I saw him there. Between dying with regret and dying without clarity, I hoped that in that place, in some quiet moment I would find someone ready to show me the same tolerance and protection I saw in my dreams. A dream that will likely always remain just a beautiful shimmering shiny impossible hope.”

“Hio, are you drunk? You’re saying these fantastical things with a seriousness I’ve never seen,” he teased, tapping lightly on my forehead before looking into my eyes.

“Hiro,” I said, the alcohol finally loosening my tongue entirely. “I really want to just look at your back. And maybe I want to touch it even more. And if you don’t stop me then I will ask your persmisiion to kiss you because I want to do it from the moment we met.”