Second Chances

Part 4

Why did he do it? Hira twisted his fingers nervously the whole way home. He shouldn't have given Kiyoi his new number! He shouldn't have... 

What if he called him? He was being sucked back into his spell, back down the dark tunnel where nothing else mattered but the shining god, the most beautiful man that was Sou Kiyoi. He could feel it, the almost obsessive need to pick up his camera and capture everything that made him Kiyoi.

Every thing that made him shine, that made him beautiful, so others could appreciate his god like beauty. 

IT WAS WRONG! It wasn't wrong to be with a man, Hira knew that, but it was wrong to put them on a pedestal, to think of them like a god. 

He couldn't help it. He was so low, below even the dirt that he walked on. He was worthless. Next to Kiyoi, he didn't even have reason to breath the same air. Kiyoi had every right to kick him, beat him... even kill him for loving him. 

It was so wrong! He scrunched up his nose, sniffing. There was no way he would cry on the train. He jumped as his phone rang. OH MY GOD! He shrunk into his seat, hiding. He had never been so embarrassed since leaving high school. His phone never rang after 8 p.m. so he hadn't put it on vibrate.

He took it out and looked at the display. What the hell was Kiyoi calling him now? They just saw each other! Carefully, he answered and whispered, "I am on the train. I will call you back."

Cheerfully, Kiyoi replied, "You better." 

He bowed his head in apology to his fellow passengers and sighed. Was he trying to kill him from being a social pariah? If so, he was doing an incredible job. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Kiyoi stared at the phone, in shock. Why had he called him, knowing that he was still on the train? Confirmation of the right number? He didn't understand his motives any more, only his desire to be with Hira. 

To drown in his eyes again, to feel them watching his every move. To have the sensations build inside his body, those tingles deep within. Fuck, he had it bad. He flopped down on the small futon, in his lonely one room apartment and screamed softly, "Fuck!"

It was nothing like Hira's home. Hira lived in an ancestral house. Wide open floor plan, with tatami floors, and a huge garden. During high school, after he had lost his first competition, and HE had been ostracized, it had been Hira who had rescued him. He had spent a lot of time at Hira's home, just the two of them. 

They never spoke about anything, but he knew then, that Hira loved him. Why else would he take care of him like a spouse? He cooked for him, had his favourite beverage always there... even did his homework, if he felt lazy. Kiyoi had waited and waited for a confession, prepared and practiced his acceptance speech in the mirror, but nothing ever changed.

He was too shy to tell Hira that he had been scouted by a modeling agency. He might have, if Hira had properly confessed. 

But it never happened. Instead, the first of his many CF's were published in a magazine and his classmates went overboard. Hira withdrew, and went back to silently watching him with those big, beautiful eyes.

The invitation to visit his house never came again. But out of all of the scrutiny he received, the only attention he had ever craved was Hira's. 

Deep inside, he knew he was being an complete asshole, pushing Hira this way. He still remembered the far away look when Hira confessed to being left behind by his parents. He had felt that abandonment, deep in his soul. It didn't matter how old you were, whether it was five or six, like he had been or 17, like Hira, YOU needed someone close to love you.