Fubar on a Friday Night. Cheap, strong drinks poured by the best bartenders in town; prim dudes and hot cowboys in assless chaps all dancing to Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know”; crowded photo booth; dark-side-of-the-moon lighting; and glitter on the floor. The never-ending boy party. Some things never changed.
Ryo smiled faintly. The bartender, catching his eye, smiled back. Ryo nodded yes to another drink and casually glanced over his shoulder.
Yep. There, in the shadowy corner, sat a willowy figure dressed in black. A riot of chestnut hair curled and tumbled around his pointed face, reminding Ryo of one of those Renaissance Madonnas. Or maybe he was thinking of the Dark Ages? Anyway, wild hair and scholarly specs and an untouched blood-red cocktail sitting in front of him.
Ryo turned his back and sipped his vodka martini. Maybe he would go over and speak to Kai. Maybe he wouldn’t. Probably he wouldn’t. A year was a long time—and this had been a particularly long year.
But that was love and it’s an ache I still remember…
It hadn’t been love, though. Maybe something that might, in different circumstances, eventually have turned into love. A silk worm that never got the chance to be a butterfly. Ryo shook his head at himself and lifted his drink.
He would finish this drink and go. The fact was, he felt a little…old for this scene. He’d only stopped by out of curiosity. And because it was Friday night and he had nowhere he had to be—which was sometimes a lonely feeling.
But I’ll admit that I was glad it was over…
Someone crowded in on his right, jostling Ryo’s arm. “Dude,” Ryo said, turning.
He found himself confronting Cousin Itt. Okay, more like a thicket, scented of Japanese Flowers. The thicket turned its head and Ryo’s heart skipped a beat as he found himself gazing into a pair of wide brown eyes behind severe-seeming spectacles.
“Sorry. I wanted to buy you a drink,” Kai said.
For a second or two Ryo couldn’t think of a response. He was surprised and flattered and, yes, thrilled that the Ice Princess should have defrosted to such a degree as to come and say hi. There was a time when—but that time was passed and Ryo didn’t have the same fondness for games.
“Two’s my limit,” he said. “I’m driving.”
Kai didn’t respond and Ryo couldn’t seem to look away. Kai’s eyes were outlined in purple-black and he seemed to be wearing false eyelashes. He fluttered them coquettishly. Ryo felt a smile pulling at his mouth.
“How’ve you been?” Kai asked. A small black star sparkled in his earlobe.
“Okay. Good.”
“I heard you lost your job.”
“I got a new one,” Ryo said. He could say it now without a pang.
“I’m okay, too. In case you’re wondering.”
Ryo had wondered. Many times. He said reluctantly, “I heard you lost your inheritance.”
“Yeah.” Kai’s lashes swept down and then up again. “I thought you would probably call me, but you never did.” Kai caught the bartender’s eye.
“I’ve got it,” Ryo said to the bartender. The bartender nodded.
“Thank you.” Kai propped his elbow on the bar. They were pretty much standing chest to chest, and it turned out to be harder than Ryo had thought to be this close to Kai and not touch him. The sultry eyes and velvety lashes were a turn on, no question. He liked the shining mane of hair, the winking jewel in his ear.
Was anything about Kai Tashiro not a turn on? Oh yeah. The mile-wide streak of crazy.
“What are you doing now?” Kai asked. “For a living. I mean.”
“I work for a firm of private investigators.”
Kai raised his eyebrows. He turned to sip his drink.
Ryo slid his card to the bartender. “Close me out.” The bartender assented.
Kai said, “Why didn’t you call, Ryo?”
The simple directness of that caught Ryo off guard. “Why didn’t you call?”
“Because you lost your job because of me. Because I nearly got you killed. Because you were walking out on me that night and the only reason you came back was to save my life.”
“Now you know why I didn’t call.”
Kai gazed at him gravely. He nodded, picked up his drink, drained it, and turned away from the bar. He walked with remarkable steadiness through the mash of laughing, talking, dancing men.
Ryo shook his head. He was still shaking his head as he hurriedly signed his bill, pocketed his card, and followed Kai out of the club.
The sidewalk was empty. Ryo looked up and down the street. There was no sign of Kai. Well…hell.
Cigarette and voices drifted from the patio. He turned and saw Kai standing in the shadow of the building, watching him.
“Practicing your ninja skills?”
Kai said, “I was wondering how serious you were about catching me.”
“I’m willing to meet you halfway, but I’m not going to chase after you again.”
Kai said slowly, “But you just did.”
“Because what I said to you wasn’t true. Or fair. I lost my job because I deserved to lose my job. I did that without any help from you. Just like I nearly got myself killed. That wasn’t your fault. I made a lot of mistakes last year. I didn’t read Torres correctly. Not completely, anyway. So it would be just as fair to say I nearly got you killed. And as for the reason I left that night…”
“I was stupid.”
“I left because I didn’t want to turn into another Torres, forcing my way into your life, hurting you—”
“You weren’t. You didn’t. Ryo.” Kai sounded like he was in pain.
Ryo said with a flicker of humor, “If I’d realized how fast you were going to open that door, I wouldn’t have waited for gang bangers to show up.”
Kai crossed the pavement so that he was within arms’ reach again. “Ryo, can’t we go somewhere and talk?”
“Talk?” Ryo said doubtfully.
Kai, mimicking Ryo all those months ago, said, “Well, we don’t have to talk.” He tilted his head back. His smile was challenging, but it was wistful, too.
Ryo wanted to kiss him, but that was probably not wise. Instead he laughed. “Maybe we do, after all.”
“Good. You’d better drive. I’m a little drunk.”
“Where am I driving us?” Ryo wished the idea of driving somewhere, anywhere, with Kai didn’t make him so happy. But it was no use pretending. The stars suddenly seemed brighter, the night less dark.
“To your place.”
“Okay,” Ryo said slowly, “but it’s not what you’re used to.”
“Oh, RyOh.” Kai sighed.
That was the last thing he said. He was quiet as they walked to Ryo’s car. Quiet on the short drive. Quiet when Ryo let them into his apartment.
Fortunately the place wasn’t too much of a mess. There were breakfast dishes in the sink and a stack of newspapers on the coffee table and a few extra pairs of shoes scattered around, but it wasn’t too bad.
Kai moved around the front room, studying the framed photos on the shelves, checking out Ryo’s CDs and his Netflix rentals. “Harakiri?”
Ryo smiled self-consciously. “Yeah.”
“Did you like it?”
“I haven’t watched it yet. I work a lot of hours.”
Kai nodded absently and continued to prowl. “I’m living in Westwood now.”
“I’d heard.” No surprise there. The surprise would have been if he’d gone on living on Armacost Avenue.
Kai moved on to the dining alcove, stopping to examine the silk painting Obaachan had given Ryo when he was a little boy. Plum blossoms with Mount Fuji in the background.
“Have you been to Japan?” Kai asked.
“Not yet. You?”
“Oh, yeah. Lots of times. I was there in December for Comiket. We should go sometime.”
“Sure.” Ryo laughed. Kai looked surprised. “Er…would you like something?” Ryo asked. “Coffee? Water? Alka-Seltzer?”
“Jasmine tea?”
“Seriously, dude?”
“Water,” Kai said. Adding with a flash of his old imperiousness, “With a slice of lemon if you have it.”
“I don’t.” But God help him, he’d be stocking lemons and jasmine tea from now on in case Kai ever decided to drop by again. So much for his resolve not to reopen these old wounds. Ryo poured water and ice in a glass and brought it to Kai who was now sitting on the sofa. Kai drank half the glass of water and then leaned back. He had taken his glasses off. His eyes looked huge and shadowy.
“This will work better if you sit beside me.”
“Whatever you say.” Ryo sat down on the sofa.
Kai moved closer to him. “And if you put your arms around me.”
Ryo snorted but he complied. He was happy to comply, happy to put his arms around Kai again. It felt good to hold him, cradle that lanky length. Kai moved still closer and wrapped his arms around Ryo, putting his head on Ryo’s shoulder. Burying his head, in fact.
When he didn’t move, didn’t speak, Ryo’s smile faded and he put his lips to Kai’s ear. “All right, Kai-chan?”
Kai nodded. After a minute he asked in a muffled voice, “You’re not seeing anyone, are you?”
“No. Of course not.”
Of course not? Really? What was sadder, the fact that it was true or that he admitted it so easily? Ryo shook his head inwardly, but the fact was, sitting here with his arms full of the bundle of bones and hank of hair that was Kai, he was happy again for the first time in a year.
“Me neither,” Kai muttered. “I haven’t been with anyone since you.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Ryo said, but he said it gently because it was clear that it had been a tough year for Kai, too.
Kai swallowed and his whole back moved. He was so thin. Of course he was always thin. One of Kai’s hands rested on his shoulder. Ryo scrutinized the plum-painted nails. Kai wasn’t biting his nails anymore, so that was a good sign, right?
Kai said, “I thought you meant those things you said that night. I thought if I gave you time. Gave you space.”
“I…couldn’t,” Ryo said. He didn’t know how to explain it without further hurting Kai. For months he had lived those terrible life and death minutes on the rooftop over and over again. He’d questioned his every thought, every action in the days leading up to the gun battle. And long before the official inquiry was over or even the proceedings for his dismissal from LAPD, Ryo knew he’d fucked up. Fucked up about as badly as you could. The only comfort was he hadn’t gotten Kai killed. Maybe he’d even kept Kai alive. But two other men, Mickey Torres and his younger brother, had died on that rooftop. And the third shooter had wound up paralyzed. Ryo had done that. The responsibility was his. Maybe not all his, but he had a lion’s share of the blame.
And even if he could have somehow shrugged aside his guilt, he was never going to forget those final moments, watching a mortally wounded Mickey Torres lifting his hand up and caressing Kai’s hair before letting himself fall to his death. Blood Red Butterfly. How the hell did anyone compete with that? And who would want to? Ryo was just an ordinary guy. He could only offer an ordinary love. The From This Day Forward In Sickness And In Health Would You Like Takeout Tonight? kind of love. And he didn’t have a lot of experience at that either.
Kai said, “And then I thought maybe if I wrote you.”
Ryo angled his head to try and see Kai’s face. He brushed down the cloud of hair. “Did you write me?”
“Lots of times. But I could never get it right, the things I needed to say to you.”
“What did you need to say to me?”
Kai slanted a sideways look beneath those ridiculous lashes. “I love you.”
Ryo felt winded. That was almost too much. Certainly more than he’d let himself hope for. On the occasions he’d let himself fantasize, he’d always pictured himself wooing Kai, courting him, and never getting any further than the occasional I think I’d rather be with a dude who would risk his job to keep me from being murdered.
It wouldn’t have been enough, and it was one more reason he hadn’t tried to contact Kai. He didn’t have energy for or interest in those kinds of games anymore.
He had been silent too long because Kai’s expression changed, grew remote. “You don’t feel the same now.”
“It isn’t…I never expected…”
Kai shielded his face against Ryo’s shoulder. One day, when he looked back on this moment, was this going to be funny or unbearably sad? Ryo didn’t know. His stomach was knotted in a way that had not been familiar for twelve months.
“I didn’t know my grandfather when I came to live with him,” Kai said suddenly. He was still not facing Ryo. Ryo could hear the hard, fast beat of his heart and realized that Kai was scared to death and talking before he had a chance to change his mind. “I’d never met him. I didn’t know any of my mother’s family. But I tried to be what he wanted. He was all I had left. My only family. I wanted him to…”
“That’s natural,” Ryo said.
“I wanted him to love me,” Kai said more clearly. “I wanted to be worthy.”
Ryo’s eyes prickled. He closed them tight. “You are worthy.”
Kai was still speaking in that quick, rough way. “Everything he asked, I did. Everything. I changed my name. I gave up my father’s name so that I could make Ojiisan happy. He wanted me to be Japanese and so did I want it, if that would make him love me. I thought he did love me in his own way.”
Ryo nearly said, “You don’t have to tell me anymore.” But he realized in time, the point was not his hearing it. The point was Kai saying it.
“Everything was okay. Mostly. But then…when I turned seventeen, I realized that something really was wrong with me. Different, I mean. Not wrong. But I thought it was wrong.”
Now they were getting to it. Ryo had figured it must be something like this. “You realized you were gay.”
“And I thought I would find a way to change that. So. So Laurel and I ran away and got married.” Kai shuddered. “It was horrible. Not Laurel, but the whole…thing. It was a mistake. It was such a bad mistake. And I knew I wasn’t going to change. That I couldn’t change. It was a relief when they found out. Ojiisan and Laurel’s parents. They annulled the marriage.”
“And around that time you wrote Blood Red Butterfly?”
Kai sat up and looked at Ryo in surprise. “That’s right. How did you know that?”
“You told me you wrote the first volume when you were seventeen.”
“Oh. Yes, that’s right. I began writing the stories and putting them online. And people liked them. I got a contract with a publisher. And that gave me the courage to tell him…tell Ojiisan that I was gay.”
“I bet that didn’t go well.”
“No.” Kai was silent for so long Ryo thought perhaps that was the end of the story. That was okay. He felt he had heard what he needed to. He understood now why it was hard for Kai to trust anyone, including Kai.
Kai drew a deep breath and said briskly, “So I tried again to be what he wanted. And I kept trying. And then finally I wondered why he couldn’t love me as I was. And why I did love him when he wanted me to be everything I wasn’t.”
“And somewhere in there you tried to get back together with Laurel.”
Kai’s smile was wry. “Yes. Can you believe that? After that…after that crashed and burned, I knew I couldn’t be anything but what I was. And Ojiisan and I made our agreement. Which I did try to keep, though he’ll never see it that way.”
“And now that’s all over?”
Kai nodded slowly.
“And how do you feel about that?”
“Like the fever broke.” Kai’s smile was rueful. “All I wanted for so long was to win the war between us. To beat him at his own game. Make him give me what he promised. But now I see he can’t change who he is anymore than I can. Anyway, the thing I really wanted from him wasn’t the money. So I made a deal with Laurel. When…the time comes, I won’t contest Ojiisan’s will provided she gives me visitation rights to Kenji.”
“And she agreed to that?”
Kai nodded. He gave Ryo a sideways look. “I’ve been seeing him a couple of days a week for the last six months.”
“That’s…wow. I don’t know what to say. I think it’s great, though.”
“Yeah.” Kai sighed. “But I can see why maybe you’re not so sure how you feel about me. I come with baggage.”
“Yeah,” Ryo said. “I’m thinking the full set of luggage complete with carry-on containers. You know what, this time you’re not scaring me off.”
“I don’t want to scare you off. That’s the last thing I want. That’s why I thought if I explained, maybe you’d remember what you liked about me.”
Ryo brushed the curls back from Kai’s forehead. “I remember exactly what I liked about you. The same things I love about you.”
Kai flushed. His mouth quivered. He said earnestly, “I know you think there was more between Mickey and me, but you’re wrong.” His eyes gazed steadily, solemnly into Ryo’s. “I knew right from the start you were the one for me, Ryo-chan. I knew the night you told me your darkest secret.”
“What darkest secret?” Ryo said, uncertainly.
Kai leaned forward and, breath warm against Ryo’s ear, whispered, “Your early training in the art of ikebana.”
Ryo laughed. He was still laughing as his mouth found Kai’s. Kai’s lips parted sweetly, smiling beneath his own.
It was a tentative kiss at first; shared laughter, shared breath, shared wonder. It warmed, strengthened, and love swelled, stretched, spread between them like a butterfly unfurling gossamer wings.