More than anything, Kento wanted to spend the three-week spring break from March to April with Orihara. He wanted to spend time with the man and make him see that he was an adult. Spring break was the perfect opportunity.
“I’ll only be able to visit for a week, but is that okay? I have a lot of things to do to prepare for high school, so I want to stay back for spring break.”
His mother again took his words at face value. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “You’re already going into senior high. I guess I’m in no place to refuse that.”
After confirming the dates of his exam break, she said, “I’ll mail you the airplane tickets,” and hung up the phone. Kento flopped down on his bed and thought. I know. I’ll buy lots of souvenirs to please him. London is a sacred land for Beatles fans. I’ll be able to share more common interests with Orihara.
The next day, Kento told Orihara he was going to London in two weeks.
“My mom keeps nagging me to go. I’ll only be gone for a week, but when spring break rolls around, I’ll come to visit you. Wait for me.”
“The week after next?” Orihara gazed at the calendar on the wall. He was silent for a while, but eventually nodded.
“What do you want me to bring back? Beatles merchandise? Oh, I know, I’ll take a photo on the crossing.”
“Abbey Road,” Orihara smiled. “I can’t wait.”
Chapter 8
February in London was still in the midst of winter. Although there was not much snow on the ground, thick clouds covered the sky and the temperature hardly rose during the day. Kento’s traveller’s guidebook had said it was warmer than Tokyo, which was hard to believe.
“It’s especially cold this year,” said his mother, Hisae, who had come to pick him up at the airport. She pushed her shivering son into her red Rover Mini.
During the six months that Kento had not seen her, Hisae had highlighted her short hair with green and pink strands. Kento gaped at her in surprise.
“What do you think?” Hisae said proudly. “Makes me look young again, doesn’t it?” She wore an outfit of patch-worked jeans and a fleece sweater. Hisae’s small stature made it easy for her to be mistaken as a younger woman. Many people believed her off-the-bat when she jokingly introduced Kento as her younger boyfriend. For a while, Kento was fully occupied with the task of correcting her every time.
Hisae worked for an apparel company in a district of London called Camden Town. The company was as startup run by a group of young up-and-coming designers. They designed clothes, hosted fashion shows, and took commissions for patterns.
Hisae’s job was in textiles, which involved designing colours and patterns for fabrics. The design studio was a small brick townhouse, with three floors and a half-basement. Contrary to the classical-looking exterior, the interior was outfitted with silver and white in a simple and modern style. The simple interior brought out the vibrant colours of the folklore-style clothes on display.
Many of the workers were young, energetic women, and Kento instantly became the centre of attention. When Hisae proudly informed them that he belonged to a talent agency in Japan, they were not surprised.
“It makes sense. Kento is adorable,” they said.
There was a neverending line of older women who offered to take Kento on a tour of London in place of his busy mother. That day, Kento had finished shopping for souvenirs for his friends and was hanging about his mother’s workplace when a gaggle of women came to surround him.
“Kento, where do you want to go? The London Eye? Buckingham Palace?”
“What about the British Museum? The Tower of London?”
Kento wasn’t interested in any of those.
“I want to walk barefoot across the zebra crossing on Abbey Road.”
The cover of the Beatles’ album, named Abbey Road, featured the four members walking across the zebra crossing. Paul was the only one walking across it barefoot, and Kento wanted to imitate him.
When Kento said so, one of the pattern-makers, a huge Beatles fan, widened her eyes.
“Are you a Beatles fan, too?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Wow!” The woman, whose name was Audrey, excitedly took Kento’s hands in hers. “The Beatles are the British saints of the twentieth century. Saint Paul, Saint John, Saint George, and Saint Richard.” She winked at him, her red hair in dreadlocks. When Kento effortlessly sung two or three songs for her, she gave him an enraptured smack on the cheek.
“The great thing about the Beatles is that their lyrics are just as good as their music. Their songs are like hymns to me,” she said, playfully crossing herself. Kento chuckled at her exaggerated analogy but went along with her conversation.
“People say that as long as I know Beatles’ songs, I have all the English I need.”
“Absolutely. Their songs have everything.”
An ardent Beatles fan, Audrey took Kento around London to visit many locations associated with the Beatles. They got off the tube at Tottenham Court Road Station, and without even batting an eye to the nearby British Museum, they headed for the Soho district.
Located between Regent Street and Bond Street on 3 Savile Row was the headquarters of Apple Records, the record label that brought the Beatles to the rest of the world. The company itself, however, was no longer there.
With a view of Regent Park to their right, they boarded the bus and hurried to Abbey Road. When they arrived at the famous zebra crossing, they already found a group of young men, unsurprisingly, crossing it barefoot despite the cold weather.
“I want to cross, too. Audrey, can you take a picture for me?” Kento pulled off his sneakers. The cars running along the road seemed accustomed to such behaviours of Beatles fans, and slowed down to stop in front of the crossing.
After safely finishing their photoshoot, Audrey took Kento to the EMI studio nearby. Just the thought of the vast number of albums recorded in this very place made Kento’s whole body tremble with awe. Lastly, they visited Madam Tussauds wax museum, where wax sculptures of the four Beatles members were displayed.
“Where’s Penny Lane?” he asked Audrey.
“It’s not here,” she said. “Penny Lane” was the name of another famous Beatles song, and like Abbey Road, was named after a street. But this one was located in Liverpool, a port town where the group grew up. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the time to travel all the way there today.
“Next time, you should bring your friend along. I’ll take you both,” Audrey said. Kento vowed to one day travel to London and Liverpool with Orihara.
When his short trip came to an end, Hisae drove him to Heathrow Airport. She sighed as she watched Kento look at his boarding time in anticipation.
“Kento, you’ve found someone special, haven’t you?”
When Kento blushed in response, Hisae pinched his cheek.
“You know a chick is ready to fly away from its nest when it’s found someone more special than its parents. I guess I should start preparing to let you go, too.”
Within the very same day of his return from London, Kento barged into Miyashita Clinic with his souvenirs. He had only been away for one week, but he ached to see Orihara. To see him, to hear his voice.
The clinic was still open for consultations, but he burst in through the door anyway, fumbling in haste to change his shoes to slippers.
“Welcome home,” said Nurse Nakagawa with a wave from the reception desk.
“I have a souvenir for you, too, Mrs. Nakagawa. Perfume from a store that Princes Diana used to buy from.” Kento gave her a box wrapped in pretty paper. “Where’s the doctor?”
Without even waiting for an answer, he stepped inside.
“Oh?“
The person at the consultation desk was not Orihara. It was a portly elderly gentleman. He looked up from reading a thick medical book, took the glasses off his white head and perched them on his nose as he looked back at Kento.
“You must be Kento, am I right?”
“Where’s
Yuri?” Kento was so stunned, he called Orihara by his first name.
“Yuri went back to the university. I’m Miyashita. I’ve come back to work.”
“Gone back…” Kento finally remembered that Orihara had been here as a substitute for his uncle.
“When?”
“Last week.”
That was right after Kento had left to London. What did it all mean? Was his return sudden and unplanned? Kento was rooted to the spot in confusion.
“When was it decided?”
“Didn’t Yuri tell you he was going back to the university? That’s strange. My discharge from the hospital was decided quite a while ago.” Miyashita tilted his head in perplexity.
“I brought souvenirs for Yuri. Where would he be? Would I be able to catch him at N. University?” Kento asked, pretending not to be as agitated as he was.
“He works at N. University Hospital, but he’s not there right now,” Miyashita answered. “He said he’d be relocated to a hospital in Shimizu immediately.”
“Relocated?”
Miyashita explained to him that N. University had several other affiliated hospitals, and medical staff were relocated in turns.
“When is he coming back?”
“Oh, he’ll be away for one or two years at least.”
“No way…” Kento was at a loss for words. Miyashita looked at him with pity and tilted his head again.
“That wasn’t very nice of him to leave without telling you.”
Kento stared at his feet.
“Well, Shimizu is not that far,” Miyashita said encouragingly, “Why not visit him there?”
Why hadn’t Orihara told him? No doubt it was because he didn’t see Kento as a grown man and an equal. Or did he want to write off everything that had happened between them as a mistake? Even what happened that night?
Kento bit his lip and turned away.
“Yuri has told me a lot about you, Kento,” Miyashita gently said behind him. Kento Yamashiro is a precious friend of mine, and he comes here to play guitar because he can’t in his dorm, he had told Miyashita. If he comes when I’m not here, I want you to let him in.
“But…” Being called a precious friend didn’t bring much joy to Kento, who had hoped he would see them as something more.
“Goodbye,” he managed to force from his lips before leaving.
Once he got back to his dorm, Kento crawled into bed and closed his eyes. His buoyant feelings had quickly deflated like a pierced balloon. He had planned to spend a lot of time with Orihara over the spring break. He had wanted to tell Orihara everything he had seen and heard in London.
He must think nothing of me. Fine. If he’s going to give me the cold shoulder, I’ll just forget about him. But there was no way he could. Those gentle hands which had visited him in the night; those slender fingers pressing the strings of the guitar; his gentle eyes as he nodded and listened to Kento’s stories. Every scene appeared vividly before his eyes.
And then, his sad eyes when he had cried in Kento’s arms.
I’ll never forget you. No matter what happens.
By the second day, Kento was already dying to play guitar again. He had second thoughts about going back since he had left the clinic rather angrily, but his desire to play guitar won out. Somehow, it felt like playing the guitar would keep his connection to Orihara alive.
After school, he visited Miyashita Clinic and shyly poked his face into the consultation room.
“Good to see you,” Miyashita greeted him with a smile. “Play to your heart’s content. I’m quite enjoying this, too. I feel like I’ve gotten myself a grandson.”
Kento played the guitar in the living room just as he had with Orihara, and the memories of the man’s voice, expression, and body language all came flashing back to him. He used his pick to strum the strings while he sang “All My Loving” in a quiet voice.
“You know, Kento, real Beatles fans purposely play this part wrong.” The gentle voice resonated deep in his ears.
“Why’s that, Doctor?”
Orihara had smiled at his question. “This song’s in their second album, called With the Beatles. There’s a mistake in the recording.”
Then, Orihara had leaned over his shoulder from behind him, their cheeks almost brushed up against each other.
“Do it like… this. Yes, very good.”
He remembered staring at Orihara’s profile and his pronounced features, feeling a strange pain in his heart that he did not understand. No doubt by that time, he had already begun to be attracted to Orihara. Back then, they had only been nebulous feelings of affection. If he had known what they meant… he could have turned around and touched those lips. On one occasion, in fact, he had turned around too quickly and bumped lips with Orihara.
“Whoa, sorry for kissing you,” Kento had apologized in a flustered way. Even then, Orihara had only smiled and forgiven him.
And he gently poised his fingers over mine and taught me. Kento was almost sure that Orihara had feelings for him. I’m sure he loves me even a little. After all, he hadn’t gotten angry when their lips touched by mistake. If he had hated Kento, he would probably have reacted with disgust.
That’s right. And we’ve done way more than kissing. He said afterwards that he’d gotten carried away, but no matter how carried away he got, he’d never be able to do that with someone he hated. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing. I really do love him.
He was sure that Orihara loved him back, even just slightly. Perhaps they were not romantic feelings, but even that was enough.
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you
He thought of Orihara as he sang. It was a while before he realized that Miyashita was listening intently beside him.
“It’s been such a long time since I heard the guitar,” he said with awe.
“Why’s that?”
“Yuri also quit playing guitar when he quit running.” Miyashita gave a grunt as he lowered himself into the armchair in front of Kento, and gazed at Kento with a reminiscent look.
“I’m surprised he even taught you the guitar.”
“Uh-huh.”
After playing a few more songs, a thought popped up in Kento’s mind. What if he asked Miyashita about Orihara? He was Orihara’s uncle after all, and they had even lived together. Kento didn’t want to seem nosy by abruptly bombarding him with questions, so he decided to get close with Miyashita first.
“Dr. Miyashita, do you mind if I start coming here all the time again?” he asked nonchalantly.
“Not a problem. Come anytime,” Miyashita said.
Miyashita was very fond of music, and he and Kento soon grew close over the course of his visits. However, all the vinyl records that Miyashita owned were classical, apart from Orihara’s Beatles records. Kento suggested that he listen to other music as well.
“I’ll lend you some CDs,” he offered. Miyashita did not own a CD player, so Kento brought in his own stereo from his dorm. “I have another one back in my room, so you can keep this here,” he assured the man.
Kento thought long and hard before choosing a Southern All Stars album, thinking it would probably be palatable for someone who was familiar with The Beatles.
“I think you’ll find this music alright,” he said as he pressed play. Miyashita appeared to bode well with the ballads.
“I want to hear more,” he said. Kento decided to lend him another CD.
“Is this one Southern All Stars, too?” Miyashita asked.
“You should listen to different stuff,” Kento advised. “You’ll get behind the times if you don’t listen this type of music.”
Miyashita adjusted well to J-pop. “This ‘Love Machine’ song is quite energizing,” he said as he sat on the sofa with headphones on, bobbing his plump body back and forth. Kento almost burst out laughing.
“Right? It feels even better to sing it,” Kento said. “We should go karaoke
sometime!”
The incident happened one Sunday after Kento had started spring break. He was eating an early dinner with Miyashita when Nurse Nakagawa came back to visit after taking Saturday off.
“I just got back,” she said, taking a large box out. When they asked, she told them she had gone on a family trip to Hakone.
“Where did you stay?”
“At F Hotel.” The historical luxury hotel was a mix of East and West; it looked like a Japanese temple or shrine on the outside, but the rooms were outfitted in Western style.
“I remember you telling me that the apple pie here was amazing, Doctor, so I brought some back as a souvenir.”
“That’s where John Lennon and Yoko Ono stayed, right?” Kento said, showing off the knowledge that he had gotten from Orihara. Nakagawa nodded and said she had gotten to see the hotel guestbook.
“Apparently, so did Helen Keller and Charlie Chaplin,” she added.
After dinner, Kento decided it was a good time for them to tuck into the souvenir. He made some tea and called Miyashita over from the living room, where he was reading a book.
“It’s been such a long time since I had apple pie from here.” Miyashita took a bite as soon as he sat down at the table. “Delicious,” he hummed. “All of us went there together once, when Yuri was still young. But we haven’t gone back since.”
“A family trip? Was his older brother there, too?”
Miyashita gave him a quizzical look. “Of course,” he said.
“Well, weren’t Yuri and his brother having trouble getting along?” Orihara’s older brother had been on his mind, and Kento decided to ask about it. “One night when I was here watching the house while he was gone, his older brother called and told me Yuri always pretends to be out.”
Miyashita sighed. “I’m only telling this to you because it’s you. Yuri and his brother, Keigo, are not related by blood.”
“He’s not Yuri’s real brother?”
Miyashita grunted somewhat reluctantly. “I guess I should give you the whole story,” he said finally, and began his explanation. “Yuri’s mother is my younger sister.”
All My Loving_Yaoi Novel Page 8