メロウレイン / Futtara Doshaburi Mellow Rain
Light
About two weeks before moving house, Hiiragi was clearing out the storage room. Broken appliances, unused furniture, an umbrella reduced to little more than its frame, old blankets.
He had been told he didn’t need to push himself to clear everything out, but since he had the opportunity, he intended to be ruthless and dispose of everything that needed to be thrown away.
It was his duty as a grandson.
There were layers of rubbish made up of things his grandfather had apparently shoved inside, thinking, "I’ll deal with this later," and then never looked at again.
It gave him a strange little glimpse into his grandfather’s personality, the way he had been remarkably careless about matters that didn’t interest him.
Perhaps all of it had been worthless to the man himself, but Hiiragi checked each thing just in case.
And, if he was honest, there was a slight treasure-hunt feeling to the task, so he was enjoying himself. He even found something as unusual as a hornet’s nest.
Someone in the neighbourhood had probably given it to his grandfather, and he’d been too polite to refuse.
Hiiragi imagined the old man lowering the corners of his eyebrows and saying, "Well, this is a problem,” and smiling behind his mask.
Then he spotted something covered by black cloth on one of the shelves.
It was about the size of a small printer. He brushed away the dust and lifted it. The weight immediately told him it was some machine.
He carried it into the corridor and removed the cover. Underneath was an aluminium case. Inside was something Hiiragi had never seen before.
“A projector?”
“Yeah. I think so. It’s got those reels you wind film onto. And I found these too.”
He rattled a biscuit tin. Inside the rusty container were several rolls of 8mm film.
“I asked my parents, and Dad said Grandad might have filmed things years ago.”
Apparently a tiny publishing company had commissioned a considerable amount of translation work from his grandfather and then failed to pay his fees.
As compensation, he had ended up receiving a camera and projector instead.
It was an absurdly specific story. There had been no camera in the storage room, so perhaps it had been thrown out or passed to somebody else.
“I don’t even know whether Grandad actually filmed these.”
“Didn’t you try projecting them?”
“I don’t know how. Besides, the film seems like it’s rotting.”
“Rotting?”
“Yeah. Don’t open that. It smells incredibly sour.”
Kazuaki opened the lid anyway and gave a faint grimace.
“I see.”
“It’s deteriorated because it was sealed up for so many years.”
He explained that it was called vinegar syndrome.
“Most of it’s melted and stuck together, so I suppose I have to throw it away. Does film go in ordinary rubbish?”
“…No.”
“No?”
“That’s not what I meant. Could I take a look at the projector?”
“Yeah.”
They returned to the storage room. Kazuaki compared the machine with the accompanying manual, testing various parts.
“Where’s the plug?”
“Over on that wall.”
He extended the power cord, plugged it in, raised the reel arms and experimented with several knobs.
“This might still work.”
“But the film itself is ruined.”
“Some of that might be salvageable too. Can I borrow it for a while? Until I know whether anything can be done, don’t throw the projector away.”
“Sure, but… you’re busy. You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“It’s fine.”
As he left, Kazuaki said, “I’ll be in Tokyo again for two or three days from tomorrow.”
“Right. I’m planning to stay at Munakata-san’s tomorrow too. His wife invited me over for dinner before I move.”
“I see.”
Kazuaki actually seemed relieved that Hiiragi wouldn’t be spending the night alone. And yet, while Kazuaki let Hiiragi stay at his home, he never stayed overnight at Hiiragi’s.
Except that one night during the typhoon. Apparently, relaxing too much in this house counted as failing to keep proper boundaries in Kazuaki’s mind.
Hiiragi sometimes thought, Come on, at this point, surely…But Kazuaki probably still thought of the place as Professor Ishidō’s house.
It was exactly the sort of loyalty Kazuaki would show. He respected what Hiiragi’s grandfather had treasured. Not really for the dead man’s sake. For Hiiragi’s.
“Kazuaki-san.”
“Mm?”
“This is a bit late to ask, but I haven’t helped with the new place at all. Is that really okay?”
It had been Kazuaki who encouraged him to continue working at the botanical garden until the very last moment. Hiiragi had taken him at his word. He had only visited the Tokyo flat they would live in once to look around; Kazuaki had chosen it, organised everything and signed the contract himself.
Really, Hiiragi should have helped with cleaning and everyday supplies. Instead, he had left everything to him.
“No.”
Kazuaki shook his head.
“You don’t need to worry. If anything, I’m the one who has a habit of deciding everything and completing it by myself. If you think something’s wrong, I want you to stop me.”
“No way. I could never…”
“My life won’t change much when we move to Tokyo. Yours is going to change completely. You don’t need to start worrying about every little detail already. Once spring comes, you’re the one who’ll have everything turned upside down.”
“You think so?”
“I do.”
“Let’s do our best.”
Kazuaki hugged him and left a kiss that barely touched his lips before going home.
He took the biscuit tin containing the sour-smelling film with him.
──── 📘📘 ────
Munakata had two sons in secondary school. Both loved horror and suspense films, which meant that whenever Hiiragi visited at the weekend, he inevitably got dragged into watching them.
When he had once told them he didn’t even own a television, they had cried:
“You’d die of boredom!”
Hiiragi had laughed, remembering that he once would have thought the same thing.
It wasn’t that he had come to dislike films. Watching one occasionally at somebody else’s house was still enjoyable.
“Hiiragi-kun, let’s watch this one tonight.”
“Sure.”
“Oi, leave him alone,” Munakata said, pretending to scold his sons.
“Hiiragi lives alone right now. You’ll scare him so badly he won’t be able to go to the toilet once he gets home.”
“Rude…”
Horror could frighten him while he was watching it, of course, but to Hiiragi it was like a roller coaster at a theme park. He didn’t carry the fear with him afterwards.
Centipedes and hornets were far more terrifying in any practical sense. Unfortunately, that night’s DVD was far too timely.
It was a foreign film.
The father of a family moved into a new house and discovered mysterious 8mm films in the attic. When he played them out of curiosity, they showed what appeared to be brutal murders that had once taken place in the house—
“Daaaad, Hiiragi-kun’s definitely scared.”
“He’s gone totally quiet.”
“What’s wrong? Want to live here until you move?”
“That’s not it!”
It wasn’t as though he seriously believed anything like that was sitting in his own house.
Even so, the next day when Hiiragi got home, he pulled out nearly ten of his grandfather’s photograph albums.
They began in black and white, showing his grandfather as a child, then gradually gained colour as he passed through secondary school and university.
His grandmother appeared. Then his father. And eventually Hiiragi himself. It was the first time he had looked at them since his grandfather died. The experience felt strange.
Hiiragi was already becoming accustomed to his grandfather’s absence. Sad as it was, that was one of the requirements of continuing to live.
And because of that, encountering his grandfather’s presence in something as vivid as a photograph, rather than in belongings or handwriting, shocked him by its immediacy.
He really existed this much.
Outside the west-facing window, the sun was sinking behind the mountains. The sunset burned so brilliantly red that Hiiragi was always half-worried it might scorch the ridge.
Trees stood silhouetted against the violent orange. Soon he would see this view for the last time. That was painfully lonely.
But close to their new flat in Tokyo there was a large park and an impressive shrine. It made him happy to think Kazuaki had probably searched for somewhere green specifically for him.
And then, one week before Hiiragi was due to leave, when most of the smaller rubbish had been cleared, and only the oversized items requiring professionals remained on his list, the house had begun to feel noticeably empty.
Kazuaki returned carrying that same tin.
“One reel looks as though it might have survived. I can’t guarantee it won’t catch in the projector, though.”
“Huh?”
Apparently he had carefully straightened it and even used an iron at extremely low heat as part of the restoration process. Hiiragi had half forgotten about the film amid the chaos of the clear-out.
Now he suddenly felt nervous.
“What’s wrong?”
“I was just thinking… is it really okay for me to watch it?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
“Grandad could be careless about some things, but he looked after memories properly. His albums are all arranged chronologically, and he even kept that terrible portrait I drew of him when I was little.”
“I’d very much like to see that.”
“Absolutely not.”
If a man like that had shoved something away under conditions he knew would cause it to deteriorate, perhaps it contained memories he did not want to revisit.
That worried Hiiragi.
Obviously it wasn’t going to turn out to be a cursed film, but still.
“Grandad died suddenly. If he’d had time to put his affairs in order, there are probably things I’ve seen that he would’ve preferred to throw away first…”
“I see.”
Kazuaki nodded.
“Sorry. You went to all that trouble fixing it.”
“No, it wasn’t much trouble. More importantly, I don’t think there’s anything on this that would be bad for either Professor Ishidō or you.”
“Oh. Then I’ll watch it.”
It wasn’t as though curiosity hadn’t been eating away at him.
“You’re sure?”
Kazuaki looked surprised at the abrupt change of mind.
“Yeah. If you think it isn’t something bad, then it isn’t. So it’s fine… Was that a strange thing to say?”
“…No.”
Kazuaki smiled.
“Shall we set it up?”
──── 📘📘 ────
They turned one wall of the living room into a screen and adjusted the sofa's position.
The projector was placed on a round stool that had been used as a step.
Kazuaki threaded the film through the machine with the efficient movements of someone handling familiar equipment.
Apparently he no longer needed the manual.
“It’s Single-8 film, so there may even be sound.”
“Oh.”
Hiiragi responded, although he had absolutely no idea what that meant.
A bright rectangle appeared on the white wall.
“Whoa.”
Kazuaki adjusted a knob, making the rectangle larger, then smaller.
“We should turn the lights off.”
“It’s probably very faded. If the room’s bright, the colours will wash out too much to make anything out.”
At last Hiiragi had been given a task he could definitely handle. He jumped to his feet and switched off the lights.
The illuminated frame became sharp against the surrounding darkness. Even though Kazuaki was doing all this for him, he still faithfully said:
“Thank you.”
“This should work.”
He loaded the film onto the reel nearest the lens and fed the end into the projector. The second reel began winding it in.
Clatter-clatter…
A surprisingly cute little mechanical sound.
The picture projected onto the wall was, just as Kazuaki had warned, washed pale as though it had been repeatedly bleached. Black specks flickered across it, making it difficult to tell what he was looking at at first.
Then—
A faint laugh.
A voice.
Burnt and scratchy beneath the noise, difficult to hear clearly, but unmistakably female.
“…Grandma.”
Hiiragi whispered.
His grandmother looked younger than she did in Hiiragi’s earliest memory of her. Perhaps his brain gradually learnt to compensate for the poor image quality, because the scene began to come into focus.
His grandmother was crouching down, blowing soap bubbles. Plants and flowers surrounded her. It seemed to be this very garden. And standing in front of her was Hiiragi.
His fluffy hair was darker than it was now, and he staggered beneath the weight of his oversized head, desperately reaching out with toy-like hands.
Apparently he was trying to catch the bubbles. Naturally, the moment he touched one, it burst.
He stared at his empty palm in confusion, then swung his barely controlled arm wildly through the air again.
When he realised nothing remained in his hand, he voiced his frustration in meaningless little noises.
“Seriously…”
Hiiragi covered his forehead. He could only have been about eighteen months old. Perhaps objectively it was adorable.
When the child was him, the complete absence of self-consciousness was mortifying, especially with Kazuaki sitting next to him. Then he heard his grandfather’s voice. It sounded delighted.
“Hiiragi is such a fool.”
Because his grandfather never appeared on screen, he must have been the one holding the camera.
“He’ll do it endlessly. Children that age are almost stupider than dogs and cats.”
“What did he just say?” Hiiragi blurted aloud.
Unusually, Kazuaki let out a quiet laugh.
“Isn’t he awful?”
“Professor Ishidō did have that brutally direct side to him. Although he rarely showed it around me.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
As if speaking for present-day Hiiragi, his grandmother gently scolded the man in the film.
“Jirō-san. You mustn’t call him stupid.”
“I’m jealous of him. He doesn’t yet know that some things in this world disappear the moment you touch them. That’s why he’ll keep reaching out, over and over.”
The film abruptly flashed white. In the next scene, his grandmother held Hiiragi in one arm while watering flowers.
“Irises,” she told him.
“It means rainbow, Hiiragi. Ah, look, there’s a rainbow here too. Can you see it? You can’t touch that one either.”
The image didn’t show it clearly, but the stream of water from the watering can must have formed a prism. Baby Hiiragi immediately began flapping his hands towards empty air again.
“Ah. It disappeared…”
Then his grandfather’s voice returned.
“Hannah, have you heard of a physicist called Feynman?”
“No. Why?”
“Apparently he once asked one of his students why Descartes had decided to study rainbows. The student answered that he wanted to understand their physical and mathematical mechanisms.”
As if he couldn’t care less, the baby chose that exact moment to let out a perfectly timed yawn, making both grandparents laugh. His grandfather continued.
“Feynman said Descartes studied the rainbow because it was beautiful.”
Then the film abruptly burned white again. After that, black stains spread across the image like spilt ink. Only a scraping hiss remained.
“…Ah. That’s it.”
Kazuaki stopped the projector.
“Looks as though this is the only section that can still be projected.”
The reel stopped turning. The room fell silent as though it had closed its mouth.
“Kazuaki-san… did you already know what was on it?”
“Not exactly. But if you stretch the film out and hold it to the light, you can make out some of the images.”
“I see… I wonder if the other reels had things like this on them too.”
“Possibly.”
“What a waste…”
Hiiragi sighed.
“If he’d looked after them properly, we might have been able to see loads of things.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that.”
“Huh?”
Kazuaki rested a hand on the projector.
For Kazuaki, the gesture was extraordinarily gentle.
“It’s simple. After his wife died, Professor Ishidō couldn’t bear to watch them anymore. Photographs are one thing, but moving images with her voice would have felt too alive. But he couldn’t throw them away either, so he hid them away. Perhaps he thought that with enough time, he might eventually be able to watch them again.”
Kazuaki looked at the silent reel.
“But in the end, he never could.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I fell in love with you,” Kazuaki answered.
“That’s why I understand now.”
“And you taught me something too. That sometimes understanding something doesn’t require a mechanism or a logical reason.”
Hiiragi said: “Show me again.”
Kazuaki rewound the film.
His grandmother’s smile.
His grandfather’s voice.
The way they said, Hiiragi.
Right. Grandad sounded like this. This was how he talked. I never meant to forget. But I already am. That voice had called his name every single day.
The small fragment of the past that had barely survived the passing years played again. And again. Hiiragi kept asking:
“One more time.”
Eventually he stood unsteadily, walked towards the wall and reached out.
His shadow fell across his grandmother.
Across his infant self. Faded happiness shimmered across the back of his hand.
He couldn’t touch it. Some things disappeared if you touched them.
Present-day Hiiragi knew that now.
Grandad. Maybe I’m still stupid, but I do understand. I understand that it also means something can exist even when you can’t touch it.
The film ended.
White light filled the wall.
“We should stop.”
Kazuaki stood behind him and rested a hand on his shoulder.
“If we play it too many times, it’ll deteriorate further. We can transfer it to DVD and give your parents copies. I’m sure they’ll be happy.”
“Yeah…”
Tears overflowed and wouldn’t stop.
“Sorry. Maybe it really was too soon for you to see this.”
“No.” Hiiragi shook his head.
“I’m glad I saw it.”
“I’m glad I could see it here, while the house is still mostly the way it was.”
“I really am happy…”
“It’s just… it makes me lonely because it makes me want to see them one more time.”
Thank you.
I’m all right.
Goodbye.
That was all he wanted to tell them.
Even the ache of carrying an impossible wish would eventually wear smooth and fade.
Kazuaki guided Hiiragi back to the sofa and silently held him around the shoulders. Hiiragi cried easily, as though excess water stored inside his body were draining away.
When he finally stopped, he felt strangely refreshed.
“…Want something to drink?”
“No. Stay here.”
“All right.”
“Stay until tomorrow morning.”
Kazuaki moved back just enough to stare at him.
“Was that… a dangerous thing to say?”
“That isn’t the problem.”
“Then can I say something even worse?”
“Go ahead.”
“…I want to.”
Hiiragi used the exact words Kazuaki had once said.
“I really want to. Tomorrow morning or tomorrow night isn’t good enough.”
Kazuaki answered: “Neither is it for me.”
They closed every gap between them and kissed. It was slightly like their first night. And completely different.
Kazuaki sucked firmly at his lips, stroked Hiiragi’s tongue with his own, and slowly tilted his body backwards until Hiiragi was gently pressed into the sofa cushions.
The weight of him.
His warmth.
His smell.
Hiiragi’s heart raced.
“Mm… nn…”
They changed angles, pausing only for quick breaths before kissing again, as though dissolving into one another.
While Kazuaki devoured his mouth, his hands devoured Hiiragi’s skin.
“Mm—ah…”
One hand slipped beneath his clothes and quickly found his nipple.
Perhaps because crying had stripped away the membrane over his emotions, Hiiragi’s responses were more urgent than usual.
His heart raced as excitement swelled, as though he were sprinting along a slope without knowing whether he was running up or down.
“Mm…”
Kazuaki’s fingers would stroke gently with the pads, then suddenly pinch. The sensation pricked through him like sweet needles from both the inside and the outside, drawing sounds from his throat.
Still biting softly at Hiiragi’s lips, Kazuaki moved his hand lower. He felt him through the front of his jeans, then unfastened his belt so he could touch the obvious hardness without thick fabric in the way.
Soon Hiiragi’s lower body was completely bare. He was embarrassed to have his arousal openly exposed beneath Kazuaki’s gaze, yet he wasn’t even allowed to close his legs. His knees were folded back.
“Ah…”
Kazuaki stroked his fully erect cock while running his fingers over the exposed entrance behind it.
“Ah… no…”
The dry touch there initially produced an uncomfortable pulling sensation, but intense pleasure was being created so close beside it that Hiiragi’s body didn’t tense.
Between the slow strokes of his cock, fingers that knew exactly how to handle him circled the rim, patiently waiting for the resistance within to soften.
“Mm… ah—!”
Kazuaki closed his hand around him so that his thumb pressed exactly along the sensitive seam beneath the shaft, rubbing firmly from root to tip.
Hiiragi could feel the blood vessels swelling and the passage carrying his arousal growing thick.
“Open.”
“Ah…”
A fingertip teased the tiny slit at the head, and as though obeying Kazuaki’s demand, clear fluid welled out.
More and more gathered and spilt across his lower stomach until it eventually ran towards the place where Kazuaki’s fingers moved behind him.
Even the feeling of his own fluid trickling over his skin sent pleasure through his nerves.
“Mm—ah… no…”
A slick finger pressed into him and began directly stroking the sensitive tissue inside.
“…Ah!”
Then suddenly it drove all the way in and firmly rubbed the small knot buried deep within him. Hiiragi’s lower body jerked like a fish. Semen shot out almost immediately.
“Ahhh…!”
His hips remained suspended for several seconds before dropping back onto the sofa. At the same moment, three fingers spread him wider.
“No… wait… that’s not fair…”
Once Kazuaki’s hands had awakened his body, Hiiragi was unstoppable.
The base of his cock throbbed painfully from having just come, yet the stimulation pouring through him from inside immediately began building him up again.
His inner walls accepted the moving fingers so easily it felt as though his organs and bones had melted away.
“Ah… Kazuaki-san…”
“…I’m going to put it in.”
Kazuaki pushed a cushion beneath his hips and brought Hiiragi’s knees up towards his chest. Their bodies were joined directly in his field of vision.
“Ah… no…”
He thought he didn’t want to see it. Yet Hiiragi couldn’t close his eyes. When Kazuaki’s tip touched the trembling entrance, it seemed like some secret signal.
The muscles slowly opened, twitching as though eager to swallow his hardness and heat without fear. In time with the movement, Kazuaki’s cock pulsed and released a clear bead of moisture.
“No… wait, it’s going in…”
“Yeah.”
The fingers holding Hiiragi behind the knees tightened.
“It’s inside—but let me go deeper.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Kazuaki asked while teasing him from inside with only half his length inserted.
It felt as though someone had thrust a hand directly into the centre of Hiiragi’s pleasure. His spine threatened to turn to liquid.
“Ahh…”
“You always let me.”
“All the way to the deepest, softest part of you.”
“Ah… no… because…”
“Because?”
“No!”
Kazuaki still hadn’t pushed further, but he leaned over him, subtly shifting the angle of what was already inside.
Hiiragi cried out.
“Ah…!”
“Hiiragi?”
“Because… it feels like I’m going to come in some really strange way…”
Kazuaki drew a long breath.
“What?”
“…You really shouldn’t say things like that so defencelessly.”
“What—ah!”
Kazuaki thrust into him completely in one hard movement. Hiiragi suddenly felt like prey that had just handed its predator permission to finish him.
“You’ll make me want to see you do it.”
“No—ah, ah, don’t, there…!”
Kazuaki began moving without restraint, every deep thrust finding Hiiragi’s weakest place with frightening accuracy.
“Ah… ah… ah…”
Deep in his belly.
Deep inside his head.
Or perhaps the place didn’t truly exist anywhere.
It felt as though honey-filled bubbles were bursting one after another whenever his body was shaken, melting Hiiragi further and further.
“Ah… no… mm, mm…”
“Hiiragi…”
“Ahh…”
With each movement inside him, the friction grew wetter.
It was probably Kazuaki’s precum spilling with his excitement, but Hiiragi couldn’t shake the humiliating sensation that his own body had somehow become wet for him.
And yet the opened entrance seemed delighted by the obscene sounds and smooth movements, eagerly drawing him back inside.
“Ah… Kazuaki-san… I—I can’t…”
“…Mm.”
The pleasure Hiiragi thought could grow no further somehow swelled another level, filling him so densely that nothing else could exist.
“Ah—ah…!”
“Hiiragi…”
The instant Kazuaki reached his limit inside him, Hiiragi came too, his body contracting almost like a sob. The hot release pulsing deep inside brought a burning ache to his most sensitive place.
“Mm!”
Before he could recover his breath, his lips were taken again. Kazuaki was still inside him, and with short, heavy movements began regaining his hardness. The joined flesh remained overheated and helplessly sensitised.
“Ah…”
Kazuaki sucked at Hiiragi’s still-hard nipples through his shirt, then grazed them with his teeth. With both hands he gripped Hiiragi near their joined hips, wanting him with almost hungry intensity.
“Ah…”
And every time Kazuaki whispered, “I love you,” light bloomed behind Hiiragi’s tightly closed eyelids.
Like the garden that day, when his grandmother had held him in her arms and smiled.