Alt Dreams [One-Shots] (#73—'Stripping')

[brythain]

It always amazes me how your Jigoro can be both profoundly an impatient ass, and well, profound. That last line is oddly inspiring, (doubly so for readers who are familiar with your Jigoro!)

My Jigoro, the Family Accountant, a power player in his own right—who clowns around for his kids when he has to.

As always, your SPAG is impeccable, and your mastery of the form is awe-inspiring. The lines drip with humour, but also something real and removed - it's hard to put your finger on it exactly, but I find myself thinking that about much of your work. Your Jigoro comes across as someone who's rooted in tradition, but deep down, will always pursue what he thinks to be right and just. It's an odd balance, he's torn somehow between a nostalgia for the past and his own pride in what's right, like tradition versus an evolving world... As I said recently, your stuff often has me thinking about monuments, and what we leave behind... I'm sure it's a reflection of those themes that makes me curious about Jigoro as a character, (and your Mutou actually!).

Now, that is thought-provoking commentary indeed. Hmmm. Thanks very much! (And now I have to think about my Jigoro all over again—it's like asking a centipede which leg he moves first.)

[brythain]

This one's an extra story written for the 2019 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.

Victim: Downix
Prompt: Jigoro plans a Christmas surprise for his daughter and nieces this year.

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A Bear Discovers Christmas
being an excerpt from the secret sections of ‘The Autobiography of Hakamichi Jigoro’ (2008 Edition)

My name is Hakamichi Jigoro, and I am writing this in ink, using the traditional style. This is to make clear the difference between the document I am creating here and the one that is my official autobiography. The reasons for such a difference may become obvious to the discerning reader. If you are not so discerning, too bad.

(Editor’s Note: In this English edition, I have attempted to preserve the nuances and atmosphere of the original. Sadly, in Mr Hakamichi’s case, the potency of his words and the forcefulness of his directions with regard to editorial policy render such attempts challenging at the very least, and often impossible.)

*****

I have a daughter, and also, a son. They are the combined legacy of my attachment to the Satou clan—or to be precise, a specific clan of Satous originating from a line of seagoing merchants. Occasionally, they drag in some strays—we had a dog once, a cat who still manifests at awkward times, and various associates, one with alarmingly pink hair. We also have Satous of various lineages dropping in.

This is inconvenient, but it is fine with me. They need me more than I need them, because I am their main lifeline to the Hakamichi clan—or to be precise, the funding associated with a specific organizational structure managed by some elders who share my name. It is this organization that consumes most of my time and leads me to take extreme measures to disguise my brilliance under the cheap title ‘consultant’. Such is life. Loyalty to the clan outweighs loyalty to excessive truth-telling, I feel. But life is sometimes not as easy as it might be, and mine certainly has not been so.

Sometimes, despite the manliness of my outlook, I feel a twinge of discomfort. One of the major sources of this is the receipt of communications from my wife. She speaks to me from the other side of the sea, with sealed envelopes or mysterious electronic messages. They appear regularly, without preamble, and with the emotional force that only a very lovely woman can deliver—and even then, only if she was once married to you.

Thus it was that, in the bleak mid-November, I received this terse statement: “Hakamichi-san, you are to prepare and execute a Christmas surprise for Shizune, Lilly, and Akira.—M., at Kinross, Scotland.” Likely a fake location, of course, but this is ‘M’, and I have never had much of a choice in such matters.

A Christmas surprise? And one not involving my son Hideaki? I sat in a state of manly bafflement for minutes, first pondering if this were some euphemism for a darker act, then wondering about the nature of this Christmas thing, and finally considering how one might go about taking one’s daughter and nieces by surprise.

Clearly, something like a pit dug in the driveway under a layer of snow would be surprising. Akira’s little black car would vanish immediately, only to be discovered months later. That kind of story, of course, was worse than useless in an area of the country with no heavy snowfall in December. And even worse, Shizune might not forgive me, nor survive to forgive me. Then I would be saddled with a Hideaki undistracted by occasional female company. Furthermore, I like Akira. She is the manliest of ladies. In my mind, I struck this kind of surprise off my list.

Perhaps a surprise would be a hot air balloon suddenly inflating and taking them up into the clear Japanese air for a few hours. The mechanics of such an operation were trivial, to my thinking, and likely to be pleasantly amusing all round. The problem with sudden inflation, however, was that hot air balloons just do not behave that way. Also, I am for reasons of economic philosophy opposed to sudden inflation and precipitous deflation. ‘M’ and I used to have many pleasant discussions on related matters… but I digress.

Back to the problem at hand. Perhaps, to set an appropriate mood, one might resort to the influence of an appropriate colour palette. Instead of having hot water from one set of taps and cold water from another, we might have red water in the hot pipes and green water in the cold pipes, with random servings of snow. I knew an engineer who could set this up for a fee. On further reflection, considering he preferred blood in one set of pipes and formaldehyde in the other, I could see unpleasantness as an emergent phenomenon.

There was one avenue I was loath to pursue, and yet it was strangely appealing to me. Hideaki had not been mentioned as the potential recipient of surprises, and so it was within the rubric of the edict to co-opt him as a partner in paralegal endeavour. Nevertheless, the very appeal of the idea raised my hackles in wary suspicion. ‘M’ might have planted this path of least resistance in order for me to allow a European horse into my Asian city. Could Hideaki side with one of us against the other? Would he? I had my doubts, but I had no certainty.

As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. I had a cellarful of interesting books, dating back to other courses of study I had taken before meeting ‘M’. The keywords ‘green’, ‘almond’, ‘red-nosed’ and ‘decorative’ had come together in my mind. It only remained for me to find some purposeful combination that would make Christmas surprising for my daughter and nieces, and any friends they might bring with them. I smiled joyfully to myself, noting from a glance at a nearby mirror that this joyful smile might still be too intimidating to my neighbours. It takes all kinds to get along in this world.

Speaking of which, I knew a widow with a facility for working with ceramics, both in a material and a psychological sense. She might be willing to help out. I would of course not tell her everything, but I was confident that the project as described to her would win her approval.

***

“Young Hideaki, what is the name of the horny ungulate in that song?”

“I believe it is something like ‘Rudorf’, Father.”

“And he has a red nose?”

“I suspect he has Hokkaido in his ancestry, Father.”

“Son, are you attempting to deceive your progenitor? Hokkaido has none such.”

“Perhaps they swam over from Siberia, Father.”

Thus it is with the young scions of the Hakamichi clan. They vie to perform the most outrageous deceptions with a straight face, and thus grown into adulthood as full-fledged contenders for all manner of real-life leadership positions.

I nodded approvingly, and added ‘Rudorf, Red-Nosed Rangifer’ to my list.

***

Three days later, I met an old acquaintance in a curious tavern near Sendai.

“Mutou-san.”

“Hakamichi-san.”

Two men, both with manly deadpan faces. As always, I was astonished by the volumetric capacity of my very useful associate. Then, it was time for the serious business.

“It is well-behaved?”

“Very much so,” he replied, handing me a tastefully wrapped little box. “A small sample, from an old recipe.”

I accepted the container and deftly slashed the tape with the edge of my thumbnail. A brief moment to admire the neat packaging, and then I flipped the lid open.

“Hmm. It does indeed smell of almonds. Why is it green?”

“Do you not think it is a tasteful green?”

“Seasonal, if not preferable.”

“I do advise the use of ear-muffs this winter, Jigoro.”

“I shall take your advice into consideration, Akio.”

As always, we parted on good terms. Men who associate with that particular Satou clan tend walk in similar paths of destiny. It is like a very exclusive men’s club. With his help, I returned home with a truckful of greenly fragrant material.

***

My ceramics specialist was truly beautiful, I mused. It had become apparent over time that while I appreciated her beauty, and she appreciated my manliness, we had not entirely come together with a proper meeting of minds. A melancholy phenomenon, of course, but one occasionally found in the literature: not all geniuses get along as well as they should.

“The reindeer, they should be facing away from the driveway, Hakamichi?”

“Yes indeed, Madam Nishizume.”

Clearly, we had drifted away from any first-name acquaintance we might once had shared. Nevertheless, as I clinically juxtaposed the clean straight lines of my driveway with the elegant fluidity of her non-linear profile, I felt strangely stirred.

“This is unusual clay. Odd fragrance too. And how do you propose to fire the clay without a kiln?”

“Ah, well. I have on good authority a method involving sudden sharp compression.”

She looked dubiously at me. I found her golden eyes, almost green in their colouration, slowly penetrating my cerebral shielding. I looked back. A wisp of light brown hair curled down from her signature headscarf.

“You want me to make these things out of an unknown clay according to your direction but not see them through the firing stage?”

“It is meant to be a surprise.”

“I am sure it will be,” she said sardonically. Her tone scored marks in my sensibility and my hide, but I retreated behind my manly beard and held her gaze until she laughed and looked away.

Yes, lady-who-is-like-‘M’-but-not-‘M’, I said to myself, I am likewise certain of it.

***

“Father,” the young man said, “I find this ostentatious panorama of Western mythological figures most unusual for your excellent Japanese sensibilities.”

“Indeed,” I replied, secretly pleased at his attitude—although his sea-green hair dye job was somewhat galling to me.

“It is meant to be a surprise for the womenfolk?”

“Yes, my son.”

“But cousin Lilly will not be able to appreciate the visual spectacle.”

“True. I am sure, however, that her wonderful sister will be able to describe it in meaningful terms for her.”

“Yes, Father. Cousin Akira is indeed a wonderfully descriptive person. Especially when driving her car quickly through crowded traffic, or with a few beers in her.”

“Tsk. Do not be sassy and disrespectful with regard to esteemed Satou lady relatives.”

“I did not mean to express hurtful sentiments. I am sorry.”

“Your apologetic words are noted. We all forget ourselves at times. There is nothing to be sorry about.”

Morosely, we remained seated on the edge of the roof, looking down at the pagan deity ‘Father Christmas’ and his twelve reindeer and multiple forest spirits. And gifts. And, of course surprises.

I sipped my whisky, and the sprout sipped his caffeine-laden carbonated refreshment. I suspect we were both thinking of ‘M’. It was six days to Christmas, and according to the weather report, it was already frosty in Kinross.

***

My house appears small, for its frontage is limited and squeezed between that of its neighbours. This is by design. The rest of the house is far larger than can be seen from the road. And up on top is my sensor array, the visual-wavelength scopes of which were trained that Christmas Eve upon the North-South highway that snakes for four hours down from Sendai. Or at least, a fair bit under four hours, considering how Aki-chan was known to drive that dangerous little car of hers.

I had made arrangements for her to drive in by the rear-facing driveway, which is long and has a lovely view, banked on one side by hills and with a little water and woods on the other side. The area also has the advantage of being screened somewhat from the neighbouring houses. And I had made sure that the neighbours were mysteriously away on holiday travel, anyway. Surprises all round.

Speaking of which, the sprout was looking up at me quizzically. “Father, I have seen little evidence of a stunning surprise, as you described it. While it is true that the visual spectacle of twelve large northern ungulates and a very fat Western spirit-father might win a prize even in Tokyo’s Harajuku district, and certainly in Sendai’s Ichibancho, any special features completely escape me. Although Madam Nishizume’s baubles do enhance the look, of course.”

“Patience, my son,” I said fondly, ruffling his adorable mop of hair. “Patience is a virtue amongst the samurai folk, and the mark of a man.”

“You once said knowing when to strike is the mark of a man.”

“There are many things in life which are the marks of a man. The more marks you accumulate, the more manly you are.”

He nodded once, in decisive acceptance. This moved me, but of course I did not let him see it. Instead, I turned to my Hibiki 30-Year and took an appreciative sip of that nectar.

A green light went on, and automatic tracking locked on. “You see, sprout? They have turned off the highway and will be here in seconds.”

“In a one-horse open sleigh, those strange lyrics say, Father.”

To show that I appreciated his joke, I replied, “More like 300 horses in a black Lancer Evo X.”

“Aki-chan will be riding 300 black horses when she comes?”

We passed the time in innocent and cheery banter until the yellow light lit. I opened the gates. We had, by that time, visual acquisition of Akira’s black Lancer with its piercing white beams in the gloaming. The car had been heavily modified; I had seen to some of those modifications myself, and had referred to the blueprints in my preparation for the evening. At this range, I could see at least four silhouettes.

A smile was creeping across my face. It itched my beard. The sprout noticed.

“Father, they are entering the driveway.”

“Yes, my son. Fix your gaze upon Rudorf, if you will. Make sure your ear-muffs are secure.”

“Yes, Fa— ”

In the beautiful golden lights, one reindeer’s nose lit up in bright red as I pressed the trigger. I imagined ‘Father Christmas’ circling the world, visiting every child in every house.

“—ther. Oh, what a surprise, they’ll all be like Shizune for a while.”

The sprout had always been a quick thinker. And Akira would be shaken but not stirred, as she had always preferred.

END
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[NuclearStudent]

As usual, your Jigs chooses to sound fun of himself. But all things are part of the ten thousand, and so on.

elegant fluidity of her non-linear profile

I stopped to think about this phrase for a few minutes. It is, probably deliberately, the least appealing way I've ever heard anybody describe a beautifully rounded face. Blursed prose, as expected from Brythain.

I have almost no idea how I'm complicit in this. The daydreaming on how to vex others is the most likely candidate. The crack about the hot air balloon is another, slimmer possibility.

As always, thank you for your work.

[brythain]

This one's a story written for the 2020 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.

Victim: Retrograde
Prompt: Rika and Saki being cute. Yuribait optional.
(I'm sorry, this story is not that kind of story.)

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Twain


SAKI

“English homework again?”

Hisao groaned and raked his long fingers through his mud-tinted mid-morning hair. “Yeah. It’s like the foreign language of a foreign language. How can the plural be said in so many different ways?”

Saki demurely twirled a lock of her own golden honey-brown hair. Her eyes sparkled mischievously, large pools of dark light that seemed to lure Hisao’s gaze far away from the treachery of the English.

“They love counting the ways. For everything. It’s in their literature, Hisao.”

She sat down next to him and leant in. He felt strangely naked as the warmth of her shoulder nestled into his ribs. Powerless, he let her rifle through his textbooks.

“Aha,” she said. “This one. Read.”

Haltingly, he read, in oddly flat English. “How do I… love… thee? Let me count the ways.”

“Yes?” He could hear the purr deep in her slender throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a pulse there.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he muttered, forcing the words out of his mouth, knowing there were better things he might be doing with his mouth. The book twitched in his hands, as if it too felt disappointment.

“Hmm?” She sounded distracted, maybe disappointed.

“How do I love the what? What is it he doesn’t know he loves?”

“Thee. There are two Es there. So you pronounce it ‘th-ee-ee’.”

“You do? But why? And how does it change the meaning of ‘the’?”

“It means ‘you’ in some old dialect. She’s saying, ‘How do I love you?’ the old way.”

The comfortable citrus-honey scent of her was rising up in his nostrils. “Ah, I see,” he said, not seeing much at all.

“No, you don’t. But you will.”

Somehow, Saki had come between him and the elusive words. He put the book down. His hand found far fewer buttons than he expected. Half a giggle emerged from her throat, and then turned into a gasp. Playfully, she licked him on the tip of the nose.

Several books cascaded to the floor. They would lie there a while longer.


RIKA

“English homework again?”

Hisao chuckled, absent-mindedly flicking a lock of wayward mud-brown hair away from his face. “Sometimes I ask myself why I bother. A Japanese scholar should study Japanese literature.”

“This one loves you because you bother.”

After all these years, it still gave him pause. Rika had always been direct in sentiment, if not expression. Not blunt, but nevertheless as heart-stopping as a stiletto.

She sat across the table from him, her waist-length platinum-white hair neatly braided as usual. From experience, he knew there were five strands in that complex pattern—it had been three when he’d first met her.

With the light behind her, her gaze seemed hooded, like a flame in a lantern. She’d closed her mouth in that half-pout that normally meant, “This person has more to say but she’s not saying it yet.”

He grinned, because there’d otherwise be too much tension in the quiet air between them. “Is that really why you love me?”

Earnestly, but perhaps half in jest, she leaned forward, closing the space. He felt her slender hands on his open palm. Her eyes flared, enormous and fiery in his vision. “This one loves you because this one is bothered to love you. And you?”

The words came to mind, tumbling out from the old attic in his head:

I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

He’d spoken them aloud, unwittingly. She was holding his hand now, and they were standing, with the table in their way. For different reasons, both of them knew all the words. But even the last words of that poem didn’t bother them.

A little breathlessly, Rika sat down on the table and swung her long legs over. “What is love, Nakai-san?” she said softly.

Hisao groaned. “Something I thought I’d never find again.”

A couple of books fell to the floor. He’d never been very good at handling text.


EPILOGUE

You, the reader, probably shouldn’t read this. But it is true nevertheless, even if it does spoil the tale somewhat. And you’ll be sad. Yet, what’s written is written.

Good stories often have three parts. Sometimes, they are only two parts with a hinge, like a door and its frame. But the hinge is what links the door to the frame and makes it useful. Saki Enomoto had worked with Shizune Hakamichi for some years before Shizune became Student Council President. And Rika Katayama, to her considerable surprise, had become Shizune’s successor due to the machinations of her friends Aoi and Keiko. One of Rika’s teachers had suggested she speak to Saki about the famously difficult outgoing President. So it went.

“Many thanks, senior lady, for precious and useful advice about Shizune.”

“It’s not a problem. I like you, Rika. I do want you to succeed.”

“If there is anything this junior can do… ?”

“Well, this junior can do anything, apparently. But I was thinking about one thing I can’t do right now, and perhaps you can help.”

“Certainly. This person is ready to serve.”

“Oh, it’s not that kind of service. I just need you to look out for a friend of mine. He’s not been the same since we broke up.”

“This skinny pale girl is nothing like… ”

“… a buxom, warm, dead girl?”

“… ”

Saki, still pretty despite her disease, grinned. “Thank you, Rika. I’m confident he’ll be the better for it.”

END

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[brythain]

This one's an extra story written for the 2020 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.

Victim: ProfAllister

Prompt: “If these walls could talk”—choose a location/fixture of the KS setting (e.g. mural, rooftop, Rainbow Wizard, track shed, gardens, Aura Mart); over the course of some time period (day, month, year, more?) what does this location/fixture “see”?

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Something Arrives, Something Leaves

Trees don’t store memories the way squirrels do. There’s a squirrel. Here’s a squirrel. They go in one direction, then another. Towards the sun. Away from the sun. Towards the water and the soil. Away from them. It’s the way squirrels are. I always know when there’s a squirrel. My leaves are moved. My nuts are grabbed. There is life in and out of me.

I know when there are humans. Their vibrations are different. They last longer than squirrels and the air they send from inside themselves is different. There are different chemicals, ones that you don’t normally find. If you live long enough, you learn to tell which humans are which. Squirrels? They don’t live long enough to be very different—but I can tell when they are.

I have four memories for you, summer and winter, springtime and harvest. If you can tell which is which and when is when, then you’ll have a human story. If not, then it’s a tree story, a sorry story or a glorious one. Light and water, air and soil, they are what life is to me, but that’s not directly true for you.

How are you getting these words? Ah, well. Some humans last long enough to understand trees.

*****

There’s a male human. Testosterone and oil. A thousand types of chemicals that can’t be masked. He walks, the weight of his roots pressing down as if under heavy rain. In his hands is a burden, mineral, sealed, lightning-struck silicates. I savour ash and defeat, loss and despair.

He digs, I feel the earth shift between two large roots. He digs deep enough that when the earth returns, nobody will find the glassy cyst he buries. Salt falls in small organic droplets from his face. If you turn to the sea, as some of my branches do, you will feel something akin—but not alike.

He speaks, low vibrations. “We did not know you,” he says. “It was not long enough. And now you are gone, and she is leaving.”

Humans, like trees, they leave. Our leaves fall. Their falls leave.

He replaces the shifted soil. He pats it down, a few little thumps. He moves a rock, heavy enough that the carbon dioxide puffs out from him in clouds. It must be a marker. Humans do that. They move clay and stone until it makes them feel better.

*****

Two humans come. One is the suspiciously light female one, and one is another and male. It is dandelion season. The little weeds will dust the land with small weedlets in a while, whenever the winds blow. It is a pleasant time.

I recognize the light female. She’s like a flower, all stalk and hardly any leaf. She has a name for me. She has a name for all of us, a light sonorous vibration that she uses to tell herself which of us she touches, and which of us touches her. She passes like a ghost amongst us.

But today, she is like a squirrel. She leads the male past the flowers. She tosses her head like a dandelion. She goes one way, and then another. The male exudes confusion and delight. They clasp and twine, unclasp and release. The scent of them is very different from the scent of the weeds, but is as full of the impulse to make new life.

She says more than she is speaking, and so does he. She climbs a rock, like a flower that sprouts madly from a cliff. And in the fresh and breezy air, she says she cannot find the words. But he can. And they do.

*****

Two humans come. They are slender ones, with much hair. They are celebrating the imminence of sprouting in a quiet time. The air is warm.

“This is my secret place,” the male says. Ethanol vapour is released. By both of them. They vent, they shed petals and reclaim them. It is not really their place, but I am the sharing kind. I know colleagues who will poison the soil around them so that others cannot take root.

The young male will come to this place again, many times. He will be heavier, he will never be this light again. She is joyful. She will only return one more time. Over the years, I will see the young male as an old male. And I can tell you how many rings I have that span his life.

She is carrying seeds. She will one day be carrying nothing. Humans sometimes grieve when this is so. It releases their salts, I hope it makes them feel better.

*****

One human comes. It is a female. She is like a naked stem with curly roots. “Tree, you must have a name,” she says. She always does this. She likes us to be different, to have a different vibration for each season. The light she reflects is what she calls ‘red’. It is rare to find humans here whose topmost leaves are red.

I know she will be sad before she will be happy. In my memories is a place, a ring that tells me she was joyful, and that she climbed towards the sky, with the wind blowing her sudden branches around. I have memories of her finding a rock placed by a burdened man. In those memories, she calls me a sad name.

She has so many names for things, and yet cannot name the thing that gives her the greatest joy. And that is all right, because the young male she will have brought can tell her what it is.

*****

One day, the humans do not come again. It is what most of this existence has been like for me. But in my rings I have their stories, like little sharp spikes of salt and metal. I don’t have the words for what they are, but they are not squirrels, and I love them differently for it.

END

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[Feurox]

Utterly beautiful! Cannot get over how well you fuse what is a man-made symbolism with a more 'natural' spiritual world. Tremendous!

[brythain]

Utterly beautiful! Cannot get over how well you fuse what is a man-made symbolism with a more 'natural' spiritual world. Tremendous!

You're very welcome. These few years have made us all see things in new and different ways.

[brythain]

This one's an extra story written for the 2020 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.

Victim: EuroBeatJester

Prompt: It's pretty common for graduating students to go back the first year or two for their school's festivals. Write a story about your favorite KS couple (Hisao x any of the girls) going back to visit Sendai and Yamaku for Tanabata the year after they've graduated.

Note: EBJ knows this girl far better than I do, so compromises have had to be made, for which I apologize most sincerely—forsaking all others, cleaving only unto her, so to speak. I’m still learning to fly.

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Returns

“Hisao?” she murmurs, her throaty voice somehow both matter-of-fact and alluring at the same time. It’s as if she’s taking me for granted and also asking shyly and sincerely for my attention. I have never been able to fully solve the enigma that she is, and believe me, I have tried for a very long time.

I turn, still struggling with my jacket and wondering about the silly idea of a bowtie.

“Do you like this?”

I take a moment. There is too much to see, and yet not enough. Part of her is the woman I’ve known thus far: honey-coloured hair, expressive eyes, a determined but somehow delicate jaw, a figure that is slight but with significant presence. And part of that presence is both enhanced and concealed by a dark maroon traditional gown, with finely wrought sea-dragons in gold thread.

There’s a sea-dragon’s head atop her deadly-looking blackwood swordstick too. Or at least, it would be a swordstick if it weren’t a cane, or the bow for a stringed instrument, or a staff of power. I have fantasies too, as does she.

I surreptitiously take a deep breath, attempting nonchalance while looking desperately for words. “Not an orange and red yukata?” I say, carelessly.

It’s not a question, and she knows it. “One shouldn’t repeat oneself, unless it’s a matter of training by repetition, Mr Nakai.”

“Well, gold on maroon is quite similar. But it’s nice, and I like those dragons.” I wasn’t ever very good at snappy repartee, and I’m blessed that she doesn’t mind doing the sarcastic put-downs which I, in turn, don’t mind.

This time, however, of the many times we’ve done this, she half-grimaces and half-pouts. Then, she disappears into the depths of her wardrobe.

I start thinking of a more traditional yukata myself. Perhaps the whole tuxedo thing is putting her off her game. I do have an old grey one that I once borrowed, and I’m sure that…

“Nakai?” she says, her voice oddly flat, summoning my attention peremptorily.

How many yukatas can a girl have in her wardrobe? It beggars my imagination, and I once thought I might have a chance of writing fantasy novels. I turn again, awkwardly, with my jacket half-off.

Deep blue fabric, with the charcoal ghosts of trees, each tree with small dragonflies and summer pennants. At her waist, you can see a distant harbour, with a single ship waiting for its crew. Damn.

“A ship about to sail?” I say, no trace of humour in my voice—rather, I’m a little shaken because of what it might mean.

“I have an ancestor who was an admiral. He helped to found the Imperial Navy.”

I’m not expecting that, which is a lot better than what I thought it might be. I nod respectfully as her voice takes on imperious tones of its own. How can such a soft voice sound so large?

*****

It takes a while to get there. In the summer, we make visits, and our visitations cover much ground. The journey from Kichijo-ji, in Tokyo, to Yamaku takes a fairly long time, even for comparatively young travellers. We always look out from the windows of the train, as the stars flash by in the evening and the traffic soars both ways on ribbons of light and concrete and steel.

“Enomoto?” I tug at the strings of her attention.

“Yes, Hisao?” she replies.

“Did you ever think you could love someone forever?”

“Well, I always think I could love you for the rest of my life, if that counts.”

That’s the bittersweet part. There are now treatments that can prolong the inevitable for people like Saki, and my condition in most people can be managed for a significantly long time and perhaps even a normal life.

But who are we kidding?

I smile at her. “That’s enough, you know.”

“It’s never enough,” she whispers, and places her head gently against my shoulder, releasing the tension slowly, as if gradually entrusting her weight to my strength.

As we go up to Sendai, we can see the eastern seaboard and the lights of fishing vessels beginning to return in the evening. She’s next to the window, as always, and sunset is behind her, lighting up the warm amber tones in her freshly trimmed locks.

She sighs a little at the extra warmth, and I hold her closer, the layers of fabric rustling under the movement of my hands. She reaches back, and I feel a spark of warmth as she rubs against me.

The light falls just right, illuminating the outline of her breasts for a moment before the sun falls away from us. I have fond memories of Tanabata.

There will be a car waiting for us at Sendai. There would be. My life-partner has somehow always been one to make long-term plans. I don’t question this very much. It’s just the way she is, Saki Enomoto, the one and only.

*****

By the time we arrive, she’s cheerful again. We’re at Sendai Station, and the evening sky is still bright and cloudless; sunset this year should be at around 7 pm, they say.

“I wonder who’ll be here this year? Maybe someone unexpected. If it were someone unexpected, who do you think it’d be?” she chatters on, leaning slightly on her sword-cane while we walk from the platform.

“You can’t think about the unexpected because it is unexpected. You can only do two things: prepare for everything and prepare to absorb damage.”

That’s a rude interruption, but sometimes, interruptions can be interesting. I look up and to the left at the source. It’s a familiar voice, and really one I hadn’t expected.

“Kenji!”

I hail him as positively as I can under the circumstances, adding, “How have you been? Where have you been?” This question-barrage thing is something I swear I have picked up from Saki.

“It’s the drinking train, you know, the carriage which the whisky manufacturers sponsor? Moves smoothly down your throat, gets you to places that you’d like to be. If you drink enough, they give you a free ride. It’s a neat conspiracy, but I have them on the rocks.”

I shake my head, just as I spot a twinkle in Saki’s demeanour. “What are you wearing, Mr Setou? It’s very summery and full of happiness.”

“Aha, you like it? Damn! I thought women didn’t go in for this kind of thing. I need to engineer new designs for my antifeminist camouflage prints.”

I take a good look at him. He’s wearing a lemon-yellow yukata, with little red-brown ornaments which I realise are actually slices of salami, whisky bottles, and cherries. It’s something you wouldn’t notice unless you looked carefully. But what Saki’s looking at is that scarf, striped red-yellow-green and apparently unchanged and unwashed since the days we were in high school together.

Then again, perhaps it’s the overall effect. His spectacle lenses are as opaque as ever. I used to wonder a lot about how blind he really was, but now, as he saunters along with us, I’m quite sure he isn’t blind at all.

*****

When we reach the school gates, the black iron has given way to garlands. The gates are wide open, and summer lanterns hang from the trees. The school grounds are decorated more lavishly than the former student council had ever dreamt possible. I wonder where Aoi found the funds. Probably pale Rika’s insanely rich family, or green-haired Keiko’s extremely charming wheedling and deedling (as we used to say).

We pass through the game stalls, the food stalls. I see a fish-catching game, and whisper to Saki, “Coffee filter.” It triggers a surprised giggle which I savour, an in-joke which we can share while Kenji ponders the significance of caffeine in his web of conspiracies. Our juniors are way too busy having their own lives to notice us as we climb the hill so that we can book a spot to watch the fireworks later.

“I still say the rooftop is better. You can see for miles around. Besides, I like that place, always have been drawn to it. And it has proper seating. Up in the woods, you get the moonlight shadow all around you. Creepy.”

We’ve outvoted him, and he’s still a bit unhappy about that.

“Well, Mr Setou, you can always go off on your own, you know. An independent spirit like you, surely that’s a possibility?”

The spectacles tilt slightly. “Ever the pawn of the global feminist conspiracy, Enomoto. If I went up there on my own at night, on this night of all nights when fireworks are exploding in the sky…” his voice trails off as he takes the time to shudder a little. “Well, it might not go so well for me. I might be taken out by a stray runner or a one-armed boxer. And nobody would hear the sound of my demise.”

I look at Saki. That word, ‘demise’, it has an effect on her most times. Tonight, however, she just has a wry and somewhat wistful look on her face as she replies to our paranoid acquaintance.

“Kenji, just remember that you’re wearing your yukata right over left.”

“Wha-at? I would never…”

He scowls and turns away, towards the men’s dorms. He’ll find his way up there and down again, through the mysterious methods of the dedicated conspiracy theorist. He and his drinking!

I sigh, only to find Saki doing the same. She grins. “It’s always fun to tease people, but with Kenji, I never know if he gets the joke and doesn’t like it, senses there is a joke and doesn’t quite get it, or is just annoyed that we’re not listening to him.”

“Yeah, back when he was always hanging around my room, he was always annoyed that nobody was listening to him. He should be used to it by now.”

Immediately after saying that, I feel a little regret. Things change, people change, life goes on. Being cruel to someone by reflex, that’s just mean. We should be getting better as time passes, I reflect.

She playfully smacks me on the back of the head, as if she can read my mind. “Come on, Mr Nakai, we have a few flights of steps and some rough ground to cover before we get to our place. If Shizune and Misha or some other people get there before we do, I shall be most unhappy.”

*****

“This isn’t the roof,” I gesture.

“No, it is not.”

“This is indeed the creepy spot crazy Kenji mentioned. I didn’t think he was telling the truth.”

“You, of all people, Nakai, should know that there’s nothing to be afraid of up here,” she chuckles, softly and elegantly.

I sense that she’s probably right, and she wants this to be good, and I’m just being my old stubborn self. It’s amazing how much difference one year can make.

This is a dense part of the woods on the hill behind the ladies’ dorms. A little cobbled path leads up like a particularly lazy serpent, deeper into the woods. I worry about Saki’s footing, while noting that there’s no reason for that sort of anxiety, really.

We follow the path upward, and eventually, the woods thin out. We’re looking far down over a bend in the river, and a bit further away, the old harbour of Sendai Bay. It’s a beautiful view, with darkness like ink and orange lights like streaks of lava.

I rest my head on her shoulder as I clasp her from behind. My heart echoes with a fire that has been burning for many months.

“There’ll be fireworks, Hisao. Remember last year? We had some of our own.”

I can hear her grinning in the dark. I’m about to reply, but I’m silenced when Saki turns around out of my grip, and a finger is planted against my lips, shushing me. Saki’s eyes are two deep pools, drinking in all the light around us, and staring straight into mine, just as they did last year.

She reaches down for me as my left hand finds itself drifting into the folds of her yukata. I can feel her nipple swelling as I wish I had warmer fingers. She carefully puts her cane down.

There’s a lot less material between us than there was last year. We’ve learnt a lot since then. We find a spot in the shadow of the trees, and I warm my other hand on her right hip for a while.

We’ve hardly any breath left to catch. I don’t think I’m breathing as my hand moves down between her legs. There’s a moment when neither of us remembers to breathe.

Fabric moves, slides, flutters. I feel her take me in, already wet, her weight somehow adjusting as I find her tightness almost too much.

A rain of fire erupts above us. The fireworks are beginning. There are several explosions of flowers and stars and the salt air of the sea. The ships come into the harbour. The concussions climax to one last roar in the heavens. And as above, so below.

When she began to fold her yukatas right over left, it broke me. But our love never went away. Kenji might never figure it out, but we have. There is life after death, and there’s a lot of it.

END

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[brythain]

This one was written for the 2021 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister.

Victim: Lap

Prompt: A blizzard strikes just before winter holidays, and although most students have already left for the winter, a few are trapped at school together, trying to make the best of a bad situation. So, what do Hisao and his sweetie (your choice) get up to?

=====

Inflourious Basterds

“Mom’s stuck way out. She’s just going to park her beautiful butt at a capsule hotel and wait for it to blow over.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Hisao, stop even hinting at dirty thoughts! Pervert. Hmph!”

Hisao stretched, feeling his lower back click slightly. How was he expected to not have a reaction to his girlfriend talking about a beautiful butt being blown over? Especially her mother’s beautiful butt, which Emi was inheriting. Nope, he told himself, not saying anything.

Emi’s death stare drilled into him.

“Ouch!” he said involuntarily. Casting around desperately for a change of subject, he yelled, “Turkey!”

“Turkey?” Emi sat up, the blanket gracefully falling from her shoulders to her hips. “What are you talking about?”

Her eyes were almost crossed in confusion, Hisao noted. Her nose was wrinkled, rather cutely. And her nipples were hardening in the cold air…

He closed his eyes. “Turkey,” he repeated. “Kenji’s away and the fridge has a frozen turkey in it. I thought it might be a good cooking project.”

“Hisao, I’m not great at cooking.”

“It might be fun.”

“Do we have anything to cook with it? Do you know anything about cooking a turkey? Do you roast it, stew it, what?”

“We still have a gas oven in the pantry. And I think there must be some other things in there: breadcrumbs, stuffing, something. Kenji has a stash.”

“Ooh, it’s cold!” Emi gasped, as the chill finally got to her. She dived back into the blankets, and encountered quite a bit of Hisao.

“Argh! Your hands are cold!”

“Too late!”

=====

“So, how does this work?” Emi mused, absent-mindedly rubbing her bottom.

“First, you’re supposed to take out the giblets and clean the insides.”

She looked skeptically at him, all the while thinking how adorable he looked staring blankly at a grubby piece of paper.

“Where’d you get those instructions?”

“Kenji.”

“Kenji?!”

“Kenji. Wait, it says here that that’s already been done, this is a hollow turkey. Do you know how to baste a turkey?”

“Let me see that!” She grabbed the paper from him, wondering what the hell they’d gotten into, or perhaps what hell they’d got to.

Hisao released the paper a fraction of a second too late, and now each of them had half the instructions, torn down the middle where Kenji had obligingly penciled a line between two columns.

“There are four tubs in the fridge,” Hisao read slowly. “They contain panko and egg substitute, and flour, and spiced salt.”

“Rub the spiced salt in tub #4 into the turkey until evenly salty,” read Emi.

Hisao rummaged around inside the fridge. “Erm, these tubs are all over the place. There are eleven tubs with numbers like 3.1 on them.”

Emi shrugged. “Maybe he… oh, right, here he says that he diversified his holdings into separate tubs so that if one went bad the others would survive.”

“I think he ran out of tubs. There are some tubes here too. Does it say ‘tubs’ or ‘tubes’.”

Emi tapped her titanium toes on the tiles. “His handwriting is very small, Hisao.”

“Hrrrm.” Hisao continued rummaging. At least, he thought, Kenji had been decent enough to label all the plain white plastic containers. Although Emi was perfectly right about the small writing.

In the end, he dumped all the containers out on the table, more or less arranged by number.

=====

“Pretty tasty, though it’s a bit weird,” she said, daintily licking up breadcrumbs and eyeing the huge plate of leftovers. “Mom might like some.”

“Weird? What do you mean?”

“Kind of an ethereal lemony taste. Feels a bit familiar, although I don’t know why.”

“I think we did everything right. Maybe it’s like lemon chicken, except that this is a lemon turkey recipe. Let me look at your half. Perhaps we should’ve taped them back together.”

“Yeah. But it’s a good meal. I feel energetic again, Hisao! Mum won’t be in till tomorrow earliest, we can do lots of things before then!”

“Hmm. Yes! We can do whatever we want!”

Emi grinned fetchingly.

Except for one thing, Hisao mused. The now reassembled instructions he was reading said, “And don’t use the lemon lube, it looks just like the oil/mayo mixture.”

END

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[brythain]

This one was written for the 2022 Secret Santa project initiated by ProfAllister. Apologies for extreme lateness. My cat died in late 2022 and this piece failed to get written for a long time.

Victim: ProfAllister

Prompt: Several cast members are somewhere isolated (e.g., snowed-in cabin). Perhaps against their better judgment, they decide to play a strip game (e.g., strip poker). Halfway into the game, there's a knock on the door.

=====

Stripping

It was yet another Yamaku winter. The dorms were mostly empty at this time of year, and the roads had been closed because of frost. In some parts of the school, groups of students isolated themselves, for activities that perhaps were best done without the overt knowledge of the authorities—or of other students.

“This is a stupid game.”

“Well, when Kenji explained it to me, it sounded like fun.”

“Hisao, we’re playing a game that Kenji invented?”

“Sort of. Your turn.”

“More oil.”

Miki squinted, her posture awkward. Her tanned skin was beginning to glow, and though she wasn’t going to say it, it was rather exciting. She gave the long tube another half turn.

“Aaarhhh,” sighed Suzu. “How is it that life can’t be this relaxing all the time?”

Click. “Oooooh,” said Hisao, his voice trembling. “Almost there.”

“Y’know, I bet Kenji taught you this because blind people are really good at it once they get started. It’s hard to do it with only one proper hand, though. But since you people aren’t used to that, I have a clean —” Miki wiggled a furry pipe-cleaner suggestively and then gave a little gasp of satisfaction. “ — advantage, me.”

She turned to Hisao, who closed one eye and bent over to look at what her nicely lubed fingers were doing.

There was a knock on the door. Suzu, her concentration total and intense, let out a faint grunt, but her rhythm never faltered. Miki, no stranger to lawbreaking, closed her eyes, her lips showing the slightest shadow of frustration. Hisao, not the most reliable partner in any illegal act, groaned, “Coming!”

The door opened.

“Good evening, I couldn’t help but overhear you mention differently-sighted people. Also, there’ve been intermittent and slightly irritating sounds.”

“Hello, Lilly!” Hisao said brightly, with an underlying frisson of indefinable guiltiness.

“What exactly is this game that Kenji has been teaching you? Do you think I’d be good at it?”

“Aaaaaaaaah,” moaned Suzu. “Yesssss!!” She ran her fingers along the instrument of destruction. “Sooooo good!”

Hisao looked up at Lilly, his eyes wandering down from her clear blue eyes to her long slim fingers. “It’s probably illegal, we had to borrow these things from Kenji and you’ve spoilt my timing anyway. I can teach you.”

The blonde girl wrinkled her nose slightly, but she held her hands out anyway. He grasped her wrists tenderly.

“Can you feel this knob? Before you use it, you have to check that this is empty and you have to make sure you’re safe…”

Lilly gasped at the sudden contact and what she felt in her delicate hands.

“Let me introduce you to the M16A1, and welcome to Kenji’s one-handed stripping and cleaning challenge.”

END

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[Serviam]

"more oil"
...I've watched enough TTS to know where this goes--
"strip and clean an M16A1 one-handed"
--and nope, cue the American Oil Jokes.