“Yep, this is where the magic happens. I’d give you a sample of our music, but we kind of suck.”
I laughed. How humble. He’d told me a little bit about his band. Skull Necklace was their name, and they played some kind of heavy metal. Seth hadn’t told me much more than that, but I’d sensed from the way he talked about them, he wasn’t exactly happy with the situation.
“Have a seat.” He pulled out his phone and fiddled with it. Lana Del Rey’s sultry voice filtered out through the speakers. I recognized the song, and Seth seemed impressed that I knew her.
“I mean, it’s Lana,” I said like we were old friends.
Seth settled down next to me on the couch with his arm stretched casually across the back of it while I tucked my hands between my knees and tried to keep my toes from tapping. Seth had a way of commanding the room, even in repose.
“So, what are you taking pictures of these days?” Seth asked. I couldn’t recall talking to him about my photography, though I’d shot a few pictures for the school blog at their request.
“Have you seen my stuff?”
He shrugged. “I must have seen you with your camera around school.”
“I’m getting more into portraits. Experimenting with different backgrounds and trying to focus on the attribute that sets the subject apart.”
Seth sat up to face me directly. “What sets me apart?”
I studied him with an artist’s eye. There was so much that set him apart: his nose, which steered a little to one side; his eyes, deep-set and coppery brown with thick, dark lashes; the point of his chin and a dimple on one cheek, both of which gave him an impish quality; the way he was looking at me right then, which caused my throat to tighten.
I took a risk and grabbed his hand, turned it over. I traced the infinity symbol on his wrist. “This is interesting. What does it mean to you?”
“Infinite potential. I do that sometimes…trace it like you just did, sometimes fast, sometimes slow. It calms me, like a fidget. It’s a route that never ends.”
His answers were even better than his questions, a real-life sphinx. For all that Seth could be, he was never boring.
I started to pull my hand away, and Seth curled his fingers to hold on. I stared at our fingers intertwined, encouraged by his gesture. “For your portrait, I’d put you behind a chain-link fence, like when I first saw you, with this by your face, maybe leaning your forehead against the back of your hand to create a little mystery. The best photographs leave the viewer wanting more.”
“Aren’t you a clever one?” Seth said with a smile, almost like he was proud of me. He let go of my hand, and my eyes drifted to his lips. I wondered if he might kiss me. I wanted him to, but I didn’t want to mess anything up.
“Do you have any other tattoos?” I asked, which was a flimsy cover for, I’d like to see more of your skin.
“Just this one.” He lifted the sleeve of his T-shirt to show off a detailed anatomical rendering of a heart on his shoulder. I admired the artist’s shading and how the heart molded around the shape of Seth’s muscle so that it almost looked like it was beating.
“How literal,” I remarked and he chuckled.
“You’re funny.” His eyes searched my face and landed on my mouth. “And you’re pretty.”
“Pretty?” I asked dubiously.
He shrugged. “Handsome, hot, whatever gender-conforming adjective suits you. When I look at you, I like what I see. And I want to see more of it.”
I glanced away, feeling intensely aroused and fearful that it might be blatantly obvious.
“Do you like that?” He turned my chin so that I’d look at him directly. “When I comment on your looks?”
I cleared my throat. I didn’t know what was normal between two guys who might be into each other; I only knew I wanted to please him. “I don’t mind it.”
He trailed one fingertip up my arm, giving me goose bumps and making me shiver in a most pleasurable way.
“Do you have any tattoos?” Seth asked, dipping in close so that his breath tickled my neck.
I shook my head. I’m only fifteen, I almost reminded him, but I stopped myself because I didn’t want our age difference to be a thing. “My parents would probably disown me if I got a tattoo.”
Seth wanted to know why, so I told him about the stigma surrounding tattoos in Japanese culture. My grandmother considered anyone with a tattoo to be a gang member or a criminal, and in some public pools and hot springs in Japan, people with tattoos were forbidden altogether. My parents were only slightly less discriminating. It definitely wouldn’t leave a very good first impression with them to see Seth’s tattoos. I didn’t tell him that last part, but Seth probably guessed at it anyway because he then asked me what my parents might think of him.
“I don’t know.” Seth’s brow wrinkled as if he knew I was holding back. “Do you want to meet them?” I asked.
He looked away so that I couldn’t see his eyes. “It’s probably best if I don’t.” I wanted to argue that point, but I kind of agreed with him. Not only because of his image, but also because my parents might pick up on the chemistry between us. I didn’t know how they would react to me telling them I was gay. I was their only son, and there was more pressure on me than on Mai to carry on our family name. My mother would probably be heartbroken and try to hide it for my sake. My father might never speak to me again.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have any tattoos,” Seth said, interrupting me from my worrisome thoughts. He drew one fingertip along the shape of my face. “You have beautiful skin. I wouldn’t mark it up with something as common as ink.”
“But you have tattoos,” I pointed out.
He nodded. “I’m a rock star wannabe. It’s part of my look.”
I liked that he was able to make fun of himself. And I appreciated his ability to shift a difficult conversation into something more lighthearted and fun.
“A piercing might be nice,” Seth said into my ear as though he were going to lick my lobe. I inclined toward him instinctively.
“Am I your Barbie?” I teased in a voice threaded with lust.
“Do you want to be?”
I swallowed tightly and said nothing. Maybe.
Seth stood abruptly. A wash of cold air flooded me, and I felt his loss desperately. He crossed the room and pushed a button so that the garage door shuddered and groaned to a close. A floor lamp bathed the room in a warm glow. He was setting the mood. I was in his clutches, and quite honestly, there was nowhere else I wanted to be.
“A little privacy,” he said and strolled back toward the couch. His movement had a feline quality about it, a sinewy grace. To watch him was to want him.
“Are you comfortable?” he asked. I nodded slowly. I was tracking his every move as if I could anticipate what he might do next. Seth reached for my hand and pulled me up so that we were standing nose to nose. I was shorter than him but not by much.
“I like you, Hiroku.” He tucked a loose lock of hair behind my ear. My cheek turned toward his hand instinctively. His callused finger traced the shape of my lips, and they parted, ready to receive him. “You like me?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded, breathless and dizzy. My blood was rushing south, and my mind was abandoning all reason. I was completely failing at playing it cool.
He pulled me toward him, even though I was already leaning in his direction. He brushed his lips against mine, soft as a feather. Tasting me. With a purr and a smile, Seth drew me in again, closer this time, and kissed me with his tongue. He gave our kiss the same singular attention he’d given to our conversations. He knew what he was doing, and I only needed to part my lips a little wider to allow for his exploration. Even as it was happening, a part of me couldn’t believe this was real.
Kissing Seth was like diving into the deepest, darkest water and being numb to all other sensory input, except for him—tasting his tongue, smelling his skin, caressing his muscles, feeling the stir in my groin and the deep ache that r
esulted. A moan accidentally escaped me, and he pressed his erection against my hip, so I’d know he wanted me too.
When we finally surfaced, he pulled away and eyed me with a lazy smirk. “How was that?”
I touched my lips as if waking from a dream. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
Seth beamed. “Have you ever kissed anyone before?”
I shook my head and shied away from his prying eyes, embarrassed to admit it.
“What a pleasure it would be to corrupt you.” He sighed like he was giving up on me, but there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. His pupils were huge and hooded with lust as he focused on my every blink and swallow.
Corrupt me, I thought while I stared at his lips, hoping they might bless mine again and soon. The longing he inspired in me was one I’d never known before; it consumed me.
“You’re so young,” he said sadly as if I’d already broken his heart.
“I’m not that young,” I argued. He smiled again and kissed my forehead.
“I’ll be patient,” he promised and pulled me down to the couch.
We made out for the rest of the afternoon, heavy petting that was somewhere between second and third base, doing everything just short of pulling out our junk and slapping it around. I came in my underwear just from our grinding, and even though I tried to hide it, I think Seth knew because after that he pulled me on top of him and petted my hair.
“Will you stop by again tomorrow?” he asked dreamily. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“Yes,” I said like an eager puppy, ecstatic that he wanted me back. He tilted my chin so that I would look at him.
“This is the beginning of something remarkable.”
“You think so?” I was skeptical. And clueless.
“I know so. I can feel it.”
Remarkable, Seth had said.
And it was.
NOW
My therapist Dr. Denovo tells me I should write all of this in a journal—Seth and my relationship and what it means to me.
Meant to me.
I think the suggestion is Dr. Denovo’s gentle way of telling me that I’m failing at therapy. It’s not his fault. Doc’s a good guy. He wants to help me. It’s just when I’m sitting across from him in our one-on-ones, him in his scholarly wingback chair, me on the old, tired crying couch, trying to talk about Seth, I get all emotional and clam up. Or I only half-explain things.
I hate that. I’d rather say nothing at all than say the wrong thing.
Besides, how can you put into words the way a person makes you feel? How they can make you see things about yourself and the world in a way you never saw before? How, in just two years, they can transform you into a completely different person?
Dr. Denovo says there’s a lot of shame surrounding addiction. He says, we live in a culture of vicious shame. I like the way that sounds. A vicious shame. Sounds like the title to one of Seth’s suicide songs. In any case, I think it’s Dr. Denovo’s way of telling me this isn’t all my fault.
The journal, at least, gives me something to do. The antidepressants keep me up at night, and my roommate here in New Vistas must be on something that makes him tired because he’s always sleeping. He snores a lot too. Sounds like a rusty scale the way it climbs to a crescendo and tapers off, then silence for a beat before it begins again. I try to match my breathing with his to see if it will help me fall asleep, like counting sheep. It doesn’t work though. And every time I change positions to try and get more comfortable, the waterproof material that encases the thin mattress of my bed makes this really depressing noise.
That’s my current soundtrack: my roommate’s snoring, reminding me I’m a failure at sleeping, punctuated with the crinkle of cheap plastic.
I’m crawling the walls in here.
But I’ve written quite a bit so far, and if I angle myself just right, there’s enough light coming in through the murky window to see my handwriting. Sometimes just the exercise of writing soothes me. Like a meditation, I’ll write my name in cursive, Hiroku Hayashi, tracing the loop-de-loops across the blue lines until suddenly the page is full.
Honestly, most of the time it’s not my name I’m writing.
It’s his.
THEN
I started going to Seth’s house in the afternoons after school. My best friend Sabrina had marching band practice pretty much every day. Mai was always hitting the books to stay at the top of her class, or else she had a function for one of her many student activities. Columbia wasn’t easy to get into, even for the valedictorian. Any time she had left over, she devoted to her boyfriend Terrance, who was probably second in their senior class but accepted his position behind my sister with grace. My parents didn’t get home from work until at least six, which left a whole four hours unaccounted for.
What’s that expression? Idle hands are the devil’s playthings. My hands were idle.
Most of the time Seth’s band was there with him. They called it “rehearsing,” but they ended up arguing a lot, mainly Seth and the drummer Dylan, who had graduated from Hilliard the year before and was taking classes at Austin Community College. Dylan also had a shit job—his words—at a gas station and was always arriving late or sometimes not at all.
The first time I showed up, Dylan shot me a dirty look and said, “Who’s the kid?”
I froze where I was standing, still gripping the shoulder straps on my backpack. Seth invited me—rather, insisted I come “directly after school”—but apparently he didn’t clear it with the rest of his crew. I glanced toward the street thinking maybe I should leave.
Seth looked me up and down slowly like it was his personal pleasure, smirked, and said to Dylan, “That’s Hiroku Hayashi.”
The bassist, Mitchell, gave me a nod. He was a senior at our high school and Seth’s best friend, I assumed, since I usually saw the two of them together between classes and at lunch. I think they also rode to school together. Mitchell was a quiet, contemplative kind of guy who mostly kept to himself. Seth used to say whenever drama arose, Mitchell’s like Paul, and Paul doesn’t get between ya’ll.
“What’s he doing here?” Dylan asked with a snarl. I didn’t know the answer to his question, so I chewed on my lower lip and glanced between him and Seth.
“Looks like he’s going to do his homework.” Seth motioned me to the couch as if introducing me to an unfamiliar piece of furniture, then glared at Dylan, challenging him to say otherwise.
“What are you, like, thirteen?” Dylan asked.
“Fifteen,” I answered. Predictably, my voice cracked.
“I don’t like other people around while we’re rehearsing,” Dylan said.
“You’re going to have to get over your performance anxiety if we’re ever going to play out. Hiroku’s our first groupie.”
Mitchell grinned a little at that. I took it to mean I was expected to stay. Dylan glared at me and did an aggressive drumroll sequence that sounded a little uneven to me. I set my backpack at my feet and figured I might as well crack open my books because my homework wasn’t going to do itself. Seth brought over a pair of noise-canceling headphones and gently crowned my head, taking the time to tuck the hair behind my ears for me. His forefinger traced the outside of my ear as he leaned down and whispered, “Trust me. You’re going to want these.”
I tried to keep an open mind about their music, but Seth was right about them sucking. They were all noise and no organization. They were so bad that I went home that night and listened to actual metal music to make sure it wasn’t just me.
I went to their band practice a few more times over the next couple of weeks. Mitchell would say what’s up to me or at least nod in my direction, but Dylan refused to acknowledge my existence. Perhaps to aggravate Dylan, Seth doted on me—made sure I had something to drink and snacks, interrupted their practice to ask me what I was studying or reading—but he never acted like anything other than a friend or an overprotective older brother, which confused the hell out of me becau
se I thought we were at least going to mess around. I didn’t have the courage to mention it to Seth, so I was left to obsess about what our interactions meant to him and generally overthink things.
One afternoon after his bandmates had packed up and left, Seth asked me what I thought of Skull Necklace. I was sitting on the plaid couch, which was by now an old friend, and Seth was cleaning up. He kept things pretty tidy on account of his mother not wanting to trip over all the cords when she needed to do laundry. I got the sense that he and his mom lived more like roommates than family. The couple of times I’d seen her, it was only in passing, and she seemed annoyed by the band’s presence but not enough to actually say something. Seth once said she suffered from a chronic case of wanderlust, but had the good fortune of a trust fund thanks to some distant relative who’d struck oil back in the day—just enough to pay the bills, not enough to go hog wild.
My math textbook was open next to me with my homework on my lap. I pretended like I hadn’t heard Seth’s question because of the headphones, but really, I didn’t want to answer him. Seth came over and took them off, asked me again with a little more steel in his voice, “What do you think of Skull Necklace, Hiroku?”
The intensity of his gaze unsettled me. I’d learned to keep my expression neutral or else have to deal with my father using my emotions against me. Most people accepted my act of indifference and moved on. But Seth was like that dinosaur in Jurassic Park nudging the electric fence with its nose in order to find its weak spot, only in this case the fence was my psyche.
I didn’t want to tell Seth the truth. Besides, who was I to judge what constituted good musicianship? It wasn’t my medium and metal wasn’t my bag. And yet, something told me that if I lied, Seth would see right through me and maybe even think less of me. That would be devastating.
I tried for something neutral instead.
“I don’t really listen to enough metal to judge either way.”
Seth sighed and shook his head slowly. Deliberately. To convey to me his deep disappointment in my nonanswer, just as I’d suspected. Seth was a performance artist first, which made him very good at conveying his emotions, but I picked up on his subtleties too. There were at least a hundred variations to his tone of voice, and I understood every one of them, even when I pretended not to.
Hiroku Page 2