kazue, i fear that you tremble still. the way you did under the sand when i first met you. though the only eyes that could see you were mine, you feared even the presence of sand fleas. and you trembled. i do not ask that you keep my letters with you. but i ask that i may rest easy knowing you still touch some part of me.
love, hideo
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¶ the ocean kept you company
september 2nd, 1983—
his toes were frozen to the water.
it was a quiet day, but the sky was noisy with storm weather. however, kazue was not one to complain of hard-earned solitude.
he lied to his mother that school had taken a free day due to the precarious ways the winds kept changing direction, foreboding the arrival of heavy rains. but that wasn't true. the school's building could withstand the japanese rainy seasons.
kazue just hated how his classmates called him queer.
he inhaled the salty smell of the sea and smiled at how calm it made him. his eyes grazed across the sand, suddenly resting themselves upon a boy.
kazue blinked in surprise. he didn't realize that another presence had accompanied his own. he stayed quiet and watched this boy.
the boy's eyes were cold as they stared at the ocean and his school dress-shirt had been completely unbuttoned, so that kazue could see the indent of his thin, but soft stomach. his hair was so brown that it was blacker than the night and his arms hung at his sides as if he had just been carrying the world and had put it down for a second.
the boy turned to him with a dull look. "kazue itoh," he said, almost uninterested.
kazue furled his brows in confusion, "how do you know my name?"
"you are known amongst the second-years as the faggot," the boy answered. "everyone knows your name."
kazue bit his tongue in anger, "and I assume you know me as that as well."
"i do. but i don't believe you're what they say you are," the boy said.
his eyes seemed to dissect kazue's insides. "my name is hideo fujioka."
"i don't think i've heard your name before."
hideo shrugged, "i didn't think you would. we share no classes."
"are you a second-year?"
"yes, otherwise I wouldn't have known you as the faggot."
"you don't have to keep calling me that," kazue snarled. all peace had been shattered and he wanted to go back home.
hideo didn't respond immediately, "but you are queer. you are a deviant."
"i am not a deviant."
"but you're a queer?"
kazue glared at hideo, unable to understand what this boy wanted from him.
"why do you talk like this, fujioka?"
hideo sighed and closed his eyes, "because i hate giving power to them. those words. you are a queer just as i am japanese. why are words that describe our nature, our being, so vile."
"because you are proud to be japanese." kazue said darkly, "i am not proud to be queer."
"i'm not proud to be japanese," hideo smiled weakly. "we are a cold people."
"not all of us."
"how can you say that when you are known as the faggot at school? the boys would joke that you assault them with the way you ogled their bare asses in the locker rooms. but they're just rumors and i don't think you could do that to anyone."
kazue grinned, "you are a peculiar kid. you don't seem like someone who pays attention to rumors."
hideo's dull eyes suddenly became warm, but the color faded after a second.
"don't look at me like that, kazue itoh," he said quietly.
"like what?"
hideo stared at him with a strange sense of searching. "like you'd bed me right here in the sand."
kazue laughed the hardest he had in a long time, "that's arrogant of you to assume. you aren't anywhere near my type." but that was a lie.
just a little bit of a lie.
hideo was beautiful. pale and ghostly and nasty in nature, but beautiful.
"i would let you," the boy said.
"what?"
hideo walked closer to kazue until their eyes were mere inches away.
"i would let you bed me right here."
kazue was silent, his stomach churning. so this was curiosity. a half-baked boy standing so close that he could lick the sand off his bare chest.
the only sounds that could be heard were hideo's soft breathing and the whistling wind.
"you are strange," kazue sighed out, but he was shaking.
hideo's gaze flickered down to his lips. "may i take your shirt off?"
"why?"
"i want to know what you feel like. you look . . . squishy."
kazue had to stifle laughter. he was intrigued by the awkwardness of the request. he also found hideo alarmingly lovely.
he hesitated, but kazue eventually began to slowly unbutton his own shirt. he'd never shown anyone his body before. all the other boys at school were too disgusted by him to change anywhere near him.
perhaps he wanted to be seen. perhaps he ached for hideo to want him.
the other boy's eyes became soft as they rested on kazue's tanned stomach. something about exposed abdomens felt particularly intimate.
"is that flab?" hideo asked.
"no, that's skin, you bastard.you have no idea how to smooth-talk someone."
hideo's lips lifted at the corners, "arrogant of you to assume i'm trying to smooth-talk you."
kazue grabbed the back of hideo's head and pulled him so close that their breath spiraled as one column into the brisk air.
"saying you want to feel me..." kazue began, "that's bed talk. don't say it's not."
hideo was silent, his eyes wide and unsure. a strange look to be plastered on the face of someone like him, kazue thought.
"you want to know what it's like, don't you?" kazue swallowed.
"you want to know what it's like to touch someone. it's not me you are trying to sleep with. you are trying to sleep with someone willing. do not take me for a fool, hideo fujioka. i know the likes of boys who think only with their dicks."
kazue released hideo's head and stood up, satisfied to see that he was a good six inches taller.
"i'll see you at school, fujioka. but don't ask to touch me. i am not a street vendor you can buy sex from."
he left hideo fujioka alone on the beach as he walked away without looking back.
and only the waves kept him company—kept them company.
