Once I was fully cleaned, he turned to Yasu and cleaned him as well. It was soothing to watch him run the soapy cloth across his chest, just as he’d done with mine. It was like Itsuki was in a trance both times, like he couldn’t focus on anything else until both of us bore no marks of the evening. Not that I wanted to dispose of the evidence of what we’d done.
I took the showerhead from Itsuki as soon as he was done washing Yasu and made him turn around. If he was content to make sure that we were all cleaned up, the least I could do was make sure that he was taken care of as well.
Itsuki’s hair was silken to the touch as I worked the shampoo and conditioner through it. By the time I was done, he was swaying on his feet as if he were about to fall asleep.
“Come on, princess. Let’s get you into bed,” I said as I wrapped him in a fluffy towel and led him to his room.
I wanted to question things again. Like if we should be staying the night or not, but didn’t people who were in relationships just do that?
Yasu didn’t seem to have the same hesitations I did as he crawled onto the bed behind Itsuki and tucked him against his body. It wasn’t like Itsuki gave me much more time to think about it as he reached out and took my hand.
“You better not even think about leaving.”
I smiled and crawled onto the bed in front of him, and somehow this felt perfect.
“You all seem oddly... happy? Not that there’s anything wrong with being in a good mood, but it’s such a change from where we were not even a week ago.” Riku twirled on the stool behind his drum set as he watched the rest of the band.
Tatsuki shrugged his shoulders, not realizing that Riku wasn’t talking to him. “I don’t know. I feel about the same. Nothing’s changed for me.”
A drumstick went flying across the room, hitting him in the shoulder. Tatsuki glared at the drummer as he rubbed the sore spot. “What the hell was that for?”
“Because I was talking about the other three, you idiot.”
Tatsuki looked at me, Yasu, and then Itsuki before shrugging again. “Itsuki is always happy. If anything, sure, at least Yasu and Ryosuke aren’t fighting anymore.”
I wanted to laugh because he was being oblivious. Not that it was a bad thing. We hadn’t exactly talked about how we would talk about our relationship with the other two members of the band, other than it would do more harm than good to keep it a secret.
If they had asked, we’d tell them. There wasn’t a rush to announce anything formally unless we needed to. The only person we saw it being a real issue with was Toshi. Yasu mentioned that he was afraid to tell his sister after what he’d walked in on.
Because, yeah, he’d finally told us all about that. How he’d felt so fucking betrayed by the one person who should have had our backs.
The day after the show, we’d all sat around Itsuki’s apartment and talked about it. He wasn’t ready to go home and face her, so he’d been bouncing back and forth between mine and Itsuki’s place since. We were both trying to convince him to just talk to her, and it was sort of shocking that she hadn’t shown up at thestudio. Though maybe she knew when her little brother needed his space.
It had been over a week, and while that issue still wasn’t resolved, things between the three of us were stronger than ever. It wasn’t only about the physical. The nice part about having Yasu stay at my place every so often was that he got to understand me better. We’d done a lot of talking about the past and where we’d come from. While his family had always been accepting of his choices, mine hadn’t. I’d been on my own for longer than I should have been.
I’d also learned that while Yasu lived with his sister, their parents lived in Fukuoka. They’d wanted the best for their children and sent them to school in Tokyo so that they could have the best chance at the careers they wanted. When Yasu mentioned he wanted to pursue music, they had his back. It worked perfectly with Reiko’s desire to be in some sort of management position.
I’d also gotten to learn a lot more about Itsuki. Because while I’d been spending a lot of time with Yasu, I’d been spending a lot of time with him as well.
Itsuki was an only child, and his parents hadn’t been too happy to hear about his musical dreams. He’d grown up in Tokyo, and meeting Yasu in high school had been a dream come true for him. Ever since he’d graduated and left home, he’d never looked back. He was his own person, and while he didn’t always feel comfortable in his own skin, he knew who he was and wasn’t afraid of it.
I looked back at the other two band members who were still studying us closely. “I’m a ray of sunshine. You assholes just haven’t had the pleasure of meeting me at my best, yet.”
That got both Riku and Tatsuki laughing as we started practicing our next song.
Chapter 36
Itsuki
It had been two weeks since the show, and it was another night spent at Ryosuke’s tiny apartment. We sat on his futon and ate convenience store food as we talked about all the things we wanted to do over the summer. There’d be a short break in our tour, and I wanted to go to the beach while Ryosuke insisted we try to climb Mt. Fuji. I wasn’t the sporty type, and while everyone seemed to want to do it at least once in their lives, I didn’t have that desire.
“You know what I think I should do?” I asked, taking a bite of the onigiri I’d just unwrapped. “Especially now that I know I can dye my hair, I think I want to go blond.”
Both Yasu and Ryosuke stared at me because I knew it was one of the most random things I could have said. I was in one of my moods again where I didn’t feel one hundred percent about my body.
While I’d been honest with both of them about having those moments, I hadn’t gone into detail about just how far that went.There were days that I didn’t completely feel like a boy, but not quite a girl either. It was a headache because while I knew some things, Japan was a lot further behind the rest of the world on that. You were either one or the other, and not both.
There wasn’t a clear-cut definition in my head. I should be able to be whatever the hell I felt like, but I struggled on how to voice that.
