Night Garden: Complete Edition (ナイトガーデン 完全版).

Bright Garden

“Yes… Yes. All right, get in touch again. Yes, it’s fine.”

 

The first call to the landline in some time had concerned something entirely unexpected.

 

Replacing the receiver, Hiiragi let out a breath. It was not bad news. Nor was he particularly troubled.

 

No. Perhaps he was troubled. Undecided? What should he do?

 

Whenever he had something to think about, he still could not help looking down the corridor or upstairs. Unconsciously, he was searching for the person he ought to ask. Grandpa, what should I do?

 

“What relation would my great-aunt’s grandchild be to me?”

 

When he asked that during their lunch break, opening his packed lunch, it provoked an unexpected debate.

 

“What was it… A second cousin?”

 

“Isn’t that your cousin’s child?”

 

“No. Your cousin’s child is just your cousin’s child.”

 

“A hatoko, right?”

 

“Don’t they call them futa-itoko?”

 

“Never heard that one.”

 

“Hang on. By great-aunt, you mean your grandfather or grandmother’s older sister?”

 

“What? We’re starting there?”

 

“Um…”

 

He had not meant to start a family-relationship quiz.

 

Actually, sorry for bringing up something so complicated. Leaving the debate to them, he quietly occupied himself making tea.

 

“Basically, their parents are cousins, so they’re second cousins.”

 

Munakata settled it with a single remark.

 

“Hatoko and futa-itoko mean the same thing… So, what’s happened to this second cousin?”

 

“Oh. He rang yesterday. He’s a man, and he’s already married. They have a little girl…”

 

With their daughter starting primary school that year, they had bought a flat.

 

They signed the contract the previous year. Apparently, in cities, it was not particularly unusual for reservations to pile up while the site was still empty land, until every flat had been sold. Hiiragi had been astonished that someone would make a once-in-a-lifetime purchase without seeing the actual thing.

 

But he had been told that, unless they did, the floors and layouts they wanted would keep disappearing. After the many complicated steps—mortgage arrangements, a residents’ briefing, collecting the keys and moving—they had finally settled into their gleaming new home after New Year. Before long, however, their young daughter began complaining that something was wrong.

 

“Apparently, the skin round her eyes and on her hands swelled up. Her throat too.”

 

“Ah. Sick-building syndrome.”

 

It was apparently not that poor-quality paint or adhesive had been used.

 

Simply a matter of her constitution, or how it reacted to the place. Which meant there was nobody to blame and no compensation to claim.

 

“New houses can be rough even on adults. The smell and everything. You can tell all sorts of things haven’t dried out yet.”

 

“Exactly. I’d have thought airing it regularly and keeping it ventilated for a while might settle things down.”

 

“But now she seems frightened of the flat itself. Apparently, she bursts into tears just going near it.”

 

“Oh, poor little thing.”

 

“Right?”

 

Hiiragi had met his second cousin’s daughter—apparently there was no particular name for that relationship—at his grandfather’s funeral.

 

Before that, she had been a baby when his cousin brought her to show his grandfather. So, from her point of view, the funeral had practically been their first meeting. Yet she had immediately become attached to him, following him with cries of “Hiiragi! Hiiragi!”

 

She had been adorable. Merely imagining that little girl suffering like that hurt him.

 

“And?” Munakata prompted.

 

“Well… Um…”

 

For some reason, Hiiragi lowered his voice as he flaked the salted salmon on top of his rice.

 

“They asked if they could live at my house.”

 

“I see.”

 

They could no longer live in the new flat.

 

Even if they moved again, they would have to pay for two places until it sold, and there was no guarantee of getting a good price. Having replaced their furniture and appliances too, their savings were uncertain. Naturally, thinking of the future, they wanted somewhere as cheap as possible.

 

And naturally, they might at least ask a relative who lived alone, rent-free, in a detached house.

 

“Do they mean they want to lodge with you?”

 

“They seem happy with that… Not happy, like they’re doing me a favour. They just asked me to think about it.”

 

“But it isn’t exactly ideal for raising a child. Plenty of nature, sure, but not much choice of schools.”

 

“And spiders and centipedes.”

 

Hiiragi had mentioned that too.

 

The house was fairly old and needed all sorts of small jobs. Life here was completely different from life in town.

 

“His wife grew up in the countryside, so apparently she’s fine with that. She’s actually pleased about having a garden.”

 

“Well, needs must… What are you going to do? Knowing you, I feel like you’ll let them.”

 

“Hmm. Living together would be a bit…”

 

However well they knew each other, relatives and family were different.

 

He could not picture sharing a home with them at all.

 

“If I agree, I’m thinking I’ll move out and rent a studio somewhere. Do you know anywhere suitable?”

 

“What? So they’re neatly kicking you out?”

 

“It isn’t like that… That house is too big for one person. I’d already been thinking how much trouble cleaning it was.”

 

He commuted by moped, so being slightly further away would not matter.

 

He would continue living alone and occasionally visit to tend the garden. He had thought that would be a way for everything to work out. But the others tilted their heads.

 

“A studio round here…”

 

“There aren’t any, are there?”

 

“There are some, but not many, so the rents are high. You could end up paying more than you would in parts of Tokyo.”

 

“Oh…”

 

As he considered that, chopsticks in hand, someone said:

 

“Why don’t you become a lodger?”

 

“What?”

 

“You know, the man who used to come and help the professor. He’s still living in that detached house at the foot of the mountain, isn’t he? Ask him to put you up.”

 

“Oh, then you could split the rent and bills. That sounds good.”

 

At the casual suggestion and agreement, Hiiragi hurriedly shook his head.

 

They knew nothing. Well, naturally. But recommending it so innocently almost made his face grow hot.

 

“No, that’s impossible.”

 

“Why? You might as well ask. Nothing to lose.”

 

“Oh. Aren’t you that close?”

 

“W-who knows?”

 

“What’s with the vague answer?”

 

They were very close.

 

He could say that. Yet in other respects, there were places where he hesitated more than he would with a distant relative. That was not simply Hiiragi being unnecessarily reserved. He thought Kazuaki felt it too.

 

Their distance could not be measured by a simple straight line connecting two points. They were more like celestial bodies following their own orbits. Sometimes they drew very close. Sometimes they moved so far apart that one could no longer see the other.

 

They never overlapped completely. That was no different between two men than between a man and a woman.

 

“Well, there’s no need to decide you’re lending out the professor’s house.”

 

“Exactly. It’s unfortunate for them, but don’t agree too readily. If you sympathise without thinking and trouble comes up later, relatives are more difficult than strangers.”

 

“You can be a bit carefree. Unguarded, you know.”

 

“Right…”

 

Was that how it was?

 

He glanced towards Munakata, who had not interrupted once since they reached the main subject. He merely sipped his tea at leisure. That night, Hiiragi took his computer and a small heater down to the basement library and looked at local property listings.

 

The desk and chair Kazuaki had used remained there. As he had been warned, there were few properties, and they were expensive. At the age of twenty-four, Hiiragi found himself confronted by the reality that rent cost a ridiculous amount.

 

When he worked out what life would look like on his current take-home pay, it was barely possible. Or rather, it looked likely to collapse. He was not particularly extravagant.

 

The garden let him have tools and fertiliser for his own plants. Apart from food and household necessities, he spent very little on clothes, shoes or entertainment. Even so, renting somewhere and supporting himself on his income would be extremely difficult. He had already reached the top of the pay scale available to him as a part-time worker. It probably would not rise further.

 

Oh. Somehow, he felt like a complete failure. Hiiragi leaned hard against the chair back and tipped his head backwards.

 

The bookshelves entered his vision upside down. Not that it made much difference which way he saw them, since they were empty. Apart from enough to fit on the shelves in his grandfather’s study, all the books had been taken somewhere else.

 

Hiiragi thought it better for them to reach people who needed them than remain here through sentiment. His grandfather had once told him that a book died when it ceased to be read. The books still in the house were encyclopaedias too old to give anyone, and dictionaries his grandfather had particularly loved, filled with underlined passages.

 

Grandpa had studied so much, made studying his work, married, had a child and built this house… He had been an impressive person. The realisation pressed home.

 

Every month, Hiiragi had given half his wages towards the household. That had been their arrangement. But after his grandfather’s death, his parents told him they were holding that money for him.

 

He discovered it had never been touched. It would be a lie to say the possibility had never occurred to him. Even so, it had been a small shock.

 

Like a child whose New Year’s gift money was being saved for him, he had remained an unformed grandson until the very end.

 

“Your grandfather was hardly going to depend seriously on your money.”

 

When Hiiragi complained that he could at least have told him, his mother sounded exasperated.

 

“But…”

 

“And that doesn’t mean you can simply use it however you like. He saved it because he thought it would help when you found something you wanted to do.”

 

So he did have some savings.

 

But slowly eating into them to continue living alone would be different from what his grandfather had hoped. Staring upside down into the depth of those empty rows of shelving made him dizzy. Perhaps it was partly the blood gathering in his head.

 

If the shelves continued on and on, they would eventually meet at a single point. Would his uncertainty and anxiety also converge somewhere they properly belonged? But it was not only himself he was anxious about.

 

The instant the person came to mind, his phone vibrated. He hurriedly straightened.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

A phone only Hiiragi would answer, yet Kazuaki called his name as though making sure.

 

He loved that first word unbearably. If possible, he wanted to see the face Kazuaki made while saying it. Unfortunately, that nuance belonged only to ordinary phone calls.

 

Even a video call would be different.

 

“…Good evening.”

 

“Are you well?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

When he told Kazuaki about the call from his second cousin, Kazuaki remained silent for a while.

 

Then he asked:

 

“Would they have suggested that if your grandfather were still alive?”

 

“Probably not… Why?”

 

“It feels a little as though they’re taking advantage. Seeing an opportunity because you’re in a weaker position.”

 

“I don’t think it’s like that…”

 

“Really? If your grandfather were alive, it wouldn’t have been an option, and they would have found another solution. Asking to borrow the house because you happen to be living there alone doesn’t give me a particularly good impression.”

 

“Hmm. He’s not that calculating. When you’re desperate, isn’t it natural to remember someone you could turn to? He said they’d pay for maintenance and property tax if they lived here.”

 

“That goes without saying.”

 

Only slightly, but his tone had sharpened.

 

Hiiragi hurried to smooth things over.

 

“Well, I haven’t decided yet. I might apologise and say no.”

 

“Which way are you leaning?”

 

“…I don’t know.”

 

“I see.”

 

Kazuaki was silent again for a little while.

 

“…It’s your decision. But what I dislike is the possibility that hearing about a relative’s difficulties has made you feel guilty.”

 

“What?”

 

“A relative, however distant, can’t live in the home they went to such trouble to buy. Meanwhile, you inherited an entire house from your grandfather and live there alone… It isn’t good for you to feel indebted because of that.”

 

He could not deny it.

 

Or rather, Kazuaki’s clear words revealed the identity of the vague discomfort that had been sitting inside him. How did Mr Fujisawa understand what he was thinking?

 

“Please don’t have negative feelings about the place your grandfather left for you.”

 

“Okay… Thank you.”

 

Sometimes, Hiiragi thought Kazuaki was kinder to him than he was to himself.

 

The realisation was slightly ticklish, but reassuring. Someone who was neither a parent nor a relative thought about him this much. Surely things would be all right.

 

“Your voice is echoing. Are you downstairs?”

 

“Yeah. Sorry, is it hard to hear? I’ll go up.”

 

He stood as he spoke.

 

“No, it’s fine. But you must be cold.”

 

“I’ve got a heater. I’m fine.”

 

Since he did nothing but make Kazuaki worry over the phone, Hiiragi held out his palms to demonstrate the warmth, despite not being visible.

 

“Well prepared.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

At last, he sensed a little smile.

 

But when he added that he had been looking at flats, Kazuaki’s voice acquired a subtle complexity again.

 

“So you are thinking in that direction.”

 

“I was just seeing what they were like. Looking at floor plans was quite fun… What have you been doing?”

 

He forced a change of subject.

 

It should not all be about him. Kazuaki had been away for work for about a week.

 

“I’m on Niijima at the moment.”

 

“What?”

 

Kazuaki was hardly the sort to make a joke about it, yet Hiiragi had to check.

 

He had said he was going to the office and meeting a few people. Hiiragi had assumed everything would take place in Tokyo.

 

“Niijima as in… The island?”

 

Was there somewhere in central Tokyo with the same name that Hiiragi simply did not know?

 

But Kazuaki readily confirmed it.

 

“Yes. In the Izu Islands. It’s a short flight. There’s plenty of greenery, naturally.”

 

Was that work too?

 

He almost asked, then stopped himself. Surely it could not be a private trip. Yet he could not bring himself to venture into what sort of work it was or why Kazuaki had gone there.

 

“There are probably plenty of plants you’d find interesting. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t recognise them. The ecosystem in a place like this must be distinctive… I was told sukashi lilies and beach morning glories bloom along the coast in summer and look beautiful.”

 

“Oh…”

 

Imagining the face Kazuaki had made while listening to that, still uninterested in plants, amused him slightly.

 

Had he managed a reasonable show of sociability? But what Hiiragi most wanted to know was what he had gone so far away to do.

 

“Will you be there a while longer?”

 

“Probably… It might take another week. I’ll call again.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Just before ending the call, Kazuaki returned to the matter.

 

“About the house. Please don’t rush your decision. If there’s anything on your mind, tell me.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Nothing about the situation had changed during their conversation.

 

Yet after hearing Kazuaki’s voice, the library’s silence and the night air felt terribly unfamiliar. The forty-ninth-day memorial was over. The inheritance procedures and sorting of belongings had been dealt with too. As the many dizzying matters surrounding death fell away like leaves, the reality that he lived alone emerged as a bare trunk.

 

His grandfather’s absence had no colour, shape or weight. Yet it steadily soaked into his skin. It was different from being completely alone.

 

Kazuaki was there for him. But that did not mean they were physically together all the time. Towards the end of the year, sometime after Hiiragi’s birthday, Kazuaki seemed to have begun working again.

 

He could not say for certain because he thought asking outright whether Kazuaki was making something again might put unnecessary pressure on him. Hiiragi could not begin to imagine which parts of his mind Kazuaki used, or how, to create a product. He wrote emails and discussed things on the phone.

 

Sometimes white sheets lay on his desk, covered with marks that might have been doodles or design ideas, drawn with a scattered quality unlike his usual manner. Sometimes he remained at the computer late into the night. Then the year changed. By late January, he was frequently leaving home to go into Tokyo.

 

It would have been impossible to think nothing in his life was moving. Pretending not to notice, Hiiragi felt terribly restless. Partly from simple anticipation.

 

What was he making? And partly from fear that, once Kazuaki properly began working again, he would no longer be able to continue living here. There seemed to be plenty of work requiring him to travel about, and he had never had any particular attachment to this place.

 

Now that his grandfather was gone and the library empty, it would be fair to say Kazuaki was remaining only for Hiiragi. Perhaps he intended to move. That faint fear had deepened during the call.

 

Because Kazuaki never once offered to let Hiiragi live with him. It was unfair to expect it without saying anything himself. Even so, part of him had been watching for Kazuaki’s response.

 

In the end, although Kazuaki had sincerely worried about him, living together had not entered the conversation in the slightest. Perhaps he was simply bad at sharing a home. But he had lived with that person.

 

Hiiragi pressed his cheek against the cold desktop. It was unfair, he found himself thinking. Not of Sei Nakarai.

 

Of Kazuaki, who had already experienced living with someone and deciding, as a result, never to do it again. There was no room for Hiiragi to enter that. Not that he could ever say so to Kazuaki.

 

He had thought loving each other meant being able to talk about anything. Perhaps it was the wrong comparison, but he had never seen his own parents being hesitant with one another. Would Grandpa laugh if he heard?

 

Or be exasperated? Sometimes, a night alone stretched long like an evening shadow, drawing Hiiragi further from morning. So he tried as hard as he could to think of pleasant things.

 

The seasons waiting for the plants. He loved something in spring, summer, autumn and winter. Yet spring’s brilliance was special.

 

They would plant masses of bulbs with the volunteers, prepare to illuminate the cherry blossoms and hold a gardening market. There would be special exhibitions of orchids and the wildflowers growing on the mountain. Apricot, Japanese pieris, Japanese cornel and wasabi.

 

So many flowers Hiiragi loved would bloom. Children from the primary and lower secondary schools at the foot of the mountain would come for outings and sketching trips. Visitor numbers would rise sharply. Until the little heater ran out of paraffin, he kept thinking about the bright garden, keeping himself warm.

 

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Three or four days later, Munakata called him over.

 

“Hiiragi. A moment.”

 

“Yes?”

 

He had been organising a list of seeds to donate to a university botanical garden they worked with.

 

“Shall we take a walk?”

 

Clearly, there was something particular he wanted to discuss.

 

Had Hiiragi done anything recently that warranted a telling-off? Following with a little apprehension, he watched Munakata enter an area of natural woodland that preserved the mountain’s original vegetation. A fir and a muku tree stood there, their branches having touched and eventually joined completely. These were what people called “joined branches”, something exceptionally rare between different species.

 

Seeing things like that always made Hiiragi think how free plants were. Even unable to move or speak, they lived lives far beyond the reach of humans’ petty ideas. Munakata patted the fir’s trunk. Still facing away, he asked:

 

“What happened with that?”

 

“The question of lending my house to my second cousin?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I’ve put it on hold. Everyone advised me not to rush.”

 

“I see.”

 

Had he perhaps been looking for a flat for Hiiragi?

 

Just as Hiiragi began thinking how much trouble that would have been, Munakata spoke deliberately.

 

“Listen, Hiiragi.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Why don’t you study floriculture properly at university?”

 

“What?”

 

It took him completely by surprise.

 

How did that connect with the question about the house?

 

“Where’s this suddenly coming from?”

 

“I’ve been thinking it for years. That it’s a waste. However hard you work here, there are plenty of duties I can’t let you handle simply because you aren’t a permanent employee. And I can’t reward you properly in your wages either.”

 

“As far as that goes, I…”

 

Saying he had no dissatisfaction whatsoever would have been a lie. But he worked here knowing and accepting the circumstances.

 

Before he could say that, Munakata turned and interrupted him, unusually forceful for someone so easy-going.

 

“Because it is a waste. I don’t care about academic credentials, but properly structured study is never wasted. I’m about to say something unfair, so I hope our relationship will let you forgive it… Your grandfather must have thought the same. He must have intended to say it one day. But he’s gone, so there’s nobody left to say it except me. That’s why I’m saying it. Correspondence school or whatever it takes—get your upper-secondary qualification and go to university.”

 

His expression was not merely serious. It was almost frightening enough to make Hiiragi shrink.

 

He could tell this was not an idea Munakata had come up with yesterday. But being told so suddenly only confused him, when he already had so much on his mind. Hiiragi pressed a palm to his forehead.

 

“But… Floriculture would mean an agriculture department or something, right? A university like that within commuting distance of here…”

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

The tone grew sterner.

 

“It isn’t about where. What matters is what you do. Don’t narrow your path by tying yourself to this place.”

 

“Does that mean…”

 

The corners of his mouth lifted although nothing was funny.

 

“You’re telling me to leave this job?”

 

“…Yes. You should leave here for a while and go into a different world. The one thing I refuse to do is keep you here and let your potential waste away.”

 

Munakata had resolved to say it precisely because he genuinely cared about him.

 

Hiiragi understood that in his head, yet a resentful protest escaped.

 

“Isn’t that cruel?”

 

“Perhaps it is, if you put it that way. But I believe what I’m telling you now will absolutely benefit you five or ten years from now. If that turns out to be a lie, your grandfather can kill me in the next world. Whatever that would mean.”

 

“…What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Bringing up his grandfather was unfair.

 

Yet this time, Hiiragi really did laugh at the idea of dying again in the afterlife.

 

“Sorry to throw all this at you. But I thought if I let this moment pass, I might never say it… Think about it.”

 

With a light pat on Hiiragi’s shoulder, Munakata walked away.

 

Hiiragi vaguely looked up at the two branches, crossed and joined. Even when he pushed firmly against the trunks, those deeply rooted trees did not move. He did not consider them restricted or bound. Then what about himself?

 

He had thought he had put down reasonably good roots. But Munakata had made him realise that might be a childish assumption. You need different soil. Different water. Different light.

 

If he ignored that and remained here, five or ten years would pass while he wasted the possibility called youth, keeping the same thin, impoverished roots. For a plant, those might be only a few years. For Hiiragi, they were not.

 

It was the first time he had let himself in with the spare key while Kazuaki was away. Even though he had been told to come and go freely, he felt reluctant. Calling or emailing while Kazuaki was working, before he had made any sense of his feelings, would probably be a nuisance. At least he wanted somewhere that held Kazuaki’s presence, where he could think seriously about his future.

 

However—

 

“Um…”

 

He did not understand the heating controls built into the wall.

 

What if he pressed things at random and broke something? But after riding his moped through the early-spring night wind, he was very cold. He shivered for a while. Finally unable to endure it, he resorted to borrowing the bath.

 

As he sat soaking with his knees drawn up, his rigid thoughts gradually began to loosen. Study, then go to university. Kazuaki had once said that was all there was to it.

 

He had said there were endless choices too. Hiiragi had simply been looking away. He wanted to become a properly independent adult. One day, he wanted to work with seeds and seedlings himself.

 

But he wanted to keep working here. Wanted to stay near Kazuaki. Wanted to help his second cousin. Those wishes remained tangled, but probably the most realistic plan was to return to his parents’ home for a while. Work part-time and study for his upper-secondary qualification, then go to university.

 

Even contributing towards household expenses, it would be cheaper. For tuition, he could somehow manage with the money his grandfather had saved. The house here would become available, and his parents would be pleased. It would also solve the problem of distance if Kazuaki moved to Tokyo.

 

If he chose the biggest change—leaving his present job—it was not a bad path. But the thought of changing everything about the life he had led for nine years made him terribly anxious. He did not know how much entrance-exam preparation would sink in at this point. Once he left, he could not simply turn back.

 

Above all, leaving the little enclosed garden where he had lived so comfortably frightened him. He really was sheltered and pathetic. Thinking too hard made his head feel more likely to boil than his body, so he stood.

 

He pulled out the plug and listened vaguely to the water draining with a gurgle. Another sound joined it. The front door opening.

 

Perhaps it was wishful thinking making him hear things. He opened the shower curtain a narrow crack and waited. Eventually, the bathroom door opened too.

 

Kazuaki stood there, looking surprised—or rather, bewildered.

 

“Oh. Welcome home… Sorry, I borrowed the bath without asking.”

 

He could not admit that he had failed to work out how to turn on the heating. It was too embarrassing.

 

“No, that’s perfectly fine… I just didn’t expect you to be in the bathroom.”

 

He added, with effortless ease, that he was pleased, then washed his hands at the basin.

 

Hiiragi waited behind the curtain. Because he had forgotten to put a bath towel within reach. Fetching one naked with Kazuaki there was embarrassing. Even after doing things that went far beyond simply being naked, it was still embarrassing.

 

Would that unfamiliarity wear away one day until he no longer minded?

 

“Hiiragi. Do you need a towel?”

 

Kazuaki asked when he remained where he was.

 

“Oh. Yeah.”

 

“I’ll bring one.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

Pretending to be calm, Hiiragi held out only his hand.

 

Without warning, he was embraced through the curtain.

 

“Whoa!”

 

A ridiculous cry escaped him.

 

“Wh-what?”

 

Through the water-repellent polyester, he could sense Kazuaki laughing behind him.

 

“You’re so obviously nervous…”

 

“I can’t help it! You came back out of nowhere!”

 

“Yes.”

 

“…You said another week or so.”

 

He did not understand why he made it sound as though he had not wanted Kazuaki home.

 

But Kazuaki seemed to understand perfectly.

 

“I wanted to come home, so I hurried.”

 

Whenever they moved, the curtain rustled between them, irritating and frustrating.

 

Hiiragi wanted to hear only his heartbeat.

 

“I’m home.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I want to touch you more.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Yet the next instant, those arms smoothly withdrew.

 

This time, a bath towel was gently offered over the edge of the tub.

 

“But today, there’s something I want you to see first.”

 

“What?”

 

“Dry yourself and come through before you catch a cold.”

 

With that, Kazuaki readily left.

 

Only moments ago, Hiiragi had wanted to be alone because he was embarrassed. Now he almost wanted to stamp his feet. What was he supposed to do with this anticipation?

 

That Kazuaki was not deliberately teasing him made it all the more frustrating. When he went into the living room dressed, a large suitcase lay open like a split fish. For someone just back from a journey, Kazuaki’s clothes and belongings were astonishingly neat, organised in separate pouches.

 

Yet one section was conspicuously empty. Hiiragi shifted his gaze and found something like a translucent cocoon on the counter. It was so thoroughly wrapped in bubble wrap that he could not see what was inside.

 

Kazuaki lightly touched Hiiragi’s hair to check how dry it was. Sometimes, if he had been careless, he was ordered to dry it again. Today, Kazuaki apparently compromised. He looked slightly dissatisfied, but nodded without comment.

 

Then he began removing the many layers protecting the object. Gradually, a faint green showed through. What finally emerged was a transparent olive-green drinking glass.

 

“Glass?”

 

“Yes. It’s made from kōkaseki, a stone found in only a few places in Japan, including Niijima.”

 

“Oh. So that’s why…”

 

“Yes.”

 

The glass was thick and substantial.

 

Around its lower half, it seemed to wear another thin layer of glass, shaped into silhouettes of trees. Viewed as a whole, it formed a circle of green shadow pictures. Kazuaki took mineral water from the fridge and poured it in.

 

A sparkling, fresh-green shadow appeared on the counter. The living brightness of the mountain, which Hiiragi knew so well.

 

“…Amazing. It’s so beautiful.”

 

His own limited vocabulary frustrated him.

 

Yet he had no other words. As he looked, his eyes naturally softened and narrowed. The green shifted like sunlight drifting through leaves. Surely he could look at it for ever without growing tired.

 

“This is a prototype glass, but I’m thinking of having lampshades and paperweights made too.”

 

“Oh. I can’t wait to see them. If Grandpa were alive, he’d definitely buy them.”

 

“I’d be happy if he did.”

 

Kazuaki cupped Hiiragi’s cheeks in both hands.

 

“It’s something like my memory of meeting you for the first time.”

 

“What?”

 

“The weather was good. The sunlight was bright, and your eyes were green… I wondered whether I could somehow give those things a shape and preserve them. Then it came naturally. Even though I’d been so empty.”

 

When he was thanked, Hiiragi slowly shook his head.

 

He had done nothing. Kazuaki had not been empty. It had always properly existed within him.

 

He had merely lost sight of it. What existed within Hiiragi?

 

“Kazuaki.”

 

The name left him without conscious thought.

 

It was the first time. Realising that made his face grow hot. Kazuaki looked into his eyes, puzzled by the sudden change, which embarrassed him further.

 

Even so, he said what he needed to say.

 

“I’m leaving here. Going down from the mountain. I’m leaving the botanical garden.”

 

Kazuaki’s eyes widened faintly, but he listened without interrupting.

 

“I’m going to university. I’ll study plants there. I don’t know what I’ll do afterwards, but I’m leaving this place.”

 

“I see.”

 

“But when I’m frightened, will you help me?”

 

“Of course.”

 

He was held tightly.

 

“Hiiragi. Let’s live together.”

 

“…Really?”

 

“I wouldn’t lie about something like this.”

 

“I know, but… I was thinking I might go back to my parents’ for now.”

 

“No.”

 

Kazuaki said it clearly.

 

“Because I make you worry all the time?”

 

“No.”

 

His fingers slipped into Hiiragi’s hair, softened and tired by the damp.

 

“Because I can’t bear it. I want you there all the time, as though it’s only natural. I want to see your face every day. I want to be with you every day. I hate thinking of you alone in that empty basement, or living with somebody else… Perhaps that’s the worst wish of all.”

 

A faint tremor travelled from his fingertips into Hiiragi’s hair.

 

Ah. He was frightened. What if he shut someone away again?

 

What if it broke? Hiiragi certainly felt the frustration of wanting to say he was different from that other person. But more than that, he was happy Kazuaki had wanted him despite his fear.

 

Hiiragi was frightened of setting out on a new path because he could not completely trust himself either. There was no one-hundred-per-cent guarantee. That was why, however many attempts came before it, the first step mattered.

 

Hiiragi put his arms firmly around Kazuaki’s back.

 

“I love you.”

 

Come to think of it, perhaps that was the first time he had properly confessed it too.

 

“I love you most, Kazuaki. So you’re the person I’ll be with most.”

 

There would be plenty of things love alone could not solve.

 

But without even love, nothing could begin. Seeds waiting to sprout. Second hands trying to tick. They existed properly within both of them.

 

“Thank you.”

 

The trembling left Kazuaki’s fingers.

 

────────────────────────────────

 

Still holding Hiiragi’s hand, Kazuaki led him into the bedroom. They sat side by side on the bed and exchanged a light kiss. While Hiiragi’s attention was on their lips, Kazuaki’s hand moved round his neck and slipped through the shallow neckline of his top, touching his bare back. A helpless sound escaped him.

 

“Ah…”

 

After a moment’s surprise, Kazuaki smiled.

 

“Your back’s sensitive?”

 

“Huh? No… I’m not really sure…”

 

The fine hairs at his nape rose. Beneath the thin layer of ticklishness lay some other sensation, but he could not identify it clearly.

 

What exactly did Kazuaki mean by “sensitive”, anyway? While he was considering that, his spine was stroked upwards from below, and his back arched. It felt as though a bundle of faint electric currents had been buried in that hollow.

 

“Whoa…”

 

He lost track of his body’s centre and went weak.

 

Kazuaki laid him face-down and pushed his top up beyond his shoulder blades. A discovery: having his whole back looked at was surprisingly embarrassing. Perhaps because he rarely saw it himself.

 

“Stay still.”

 

“O-okay.”

 

Both Kazuaki’s hands slid over the exposed skin, stroking and rubbing, then tracing with his fingertips. As though trying to take the thickness, curves and texture of the flesh along the bones from his hands into his mind.

 

It was not overtly sexual. The delicacy of his touch made words such as massage or healing seem more appropriate. Yet merely knowing those were Kazuaki’s hands, that it was Kazuaki’s warmth touching him, made Hiiragi feel something almost unbearable. His skin seemed covered in a layer of pleasure like static electricity. Whenever Kazuaki’s hands swept it one way or another, his shoulders drew in.

 

“Ah, no…”

 

The faint touch of hair made the skin behind his ear shiver. Following it, lips sucked between his shoulder blades.

 

“Mm!”

 

Short, firm kisses were carefully planted there.

 

He discovered that his body contained a very uneven collection of sensors. A slight change of position subtly altered what he felt, drawing a differently coloured breath from him each time. Kazuaki’s caresses were meticulous, as though he were making an accurate map of Hiiragi. Once he reached his lower body, the differences became unmistakable.

 

When Kazuaki sucked near his tailbone, Hiiragi involuntarily buried his face in the pillow. There was a faintly guilty chill in the instant when skin, lulled by the softness of those lips, tightened beneath their sharp suction. His own breath gathered among the feathers and grew hotter. Kazuaki lightly touched the back of his head.

 

“You’ll suffocate. Look this way.”

 

When he refused, still buried in the pillow, Kazuaki said:

 

“How strange. You were boldest the first time.”

 

“…That was different!”

 

Hiiragi turned to object.

 

“I was desperate… I thought if I hesitated or got scared, you’d stop, Mr Fujisawa…”

 

“Oh. Back to my surname?”

 

“Um…”

 

“Besides, I’m not a man with that much self-control.”

 

A hand pressed his shoulder, turning him onto his back. Then lips descended onto his chest.

 

“Ah…”

 

As his nipple was played with, a plainly excited sound finally escaped.

 

The sweet thorns carefully planted along his back had travelled everywhere through his blood. His nipples were already red and faintly hard. Wrapped in a saliva-wet tongue, they swelled further. When they could grow no tauter, their tips throbbed with an ache that almost wanted pain. Not soft caresses. A definite stimulus strong enough to wound.

 

“Mm, no, ah…”

 

A fingernail scraped as though teasing that blood-filled expectation, and his hips lifted.

 

At that moment, Kazuaki loosened the front of his jeans, which he wore without a belt. He became aware of a fullness far denser and more urgent than that in his nipples. Stroked against its curve, held only lightly, it jerked and pulsed with pleasure.

 

“Mm…”

 

After lowering Hiiragi’s clothes to his knees, Kazuaki stretched up to seek his lips. Hiiragi offered his tongue to the one entering his mouth.

 

While their mouths joined deeply, he restlessly rubbed his legs together and pushed away the obstructing clothes. The sensitive tip had begun to grow wet, drawn on by the indecent sounds between their mouths. Kazuaki’s fingers circled it, sometimes drawing short, sticky threads from the tiny opening as though making him acknowledge his own wet arousal.

 

Hiiragi thought he would be brought to climax like this, while they kissed. Instead, Kazuaki suddenly raised himself and made him bend both knees.

 

“…No!”

 

Realising his intention, Hiiragi’s legs stiffened.

 

“Hiiragi, relax.”

 

“I can’t. No. I can’t. No…”

 

It was treated so casually as a reasonably common act. Yet even through his limited sources of information, he was sure he had heard that not everyone actually did it.

 

“There’s no need to be embarrassed.”

 

“But I am!”

 

He meant it.

 

Yet Kazuaki smoothly stroked the top of his foot and whispered with a gentle smile:

 

“Then I want to see you being embarrassed too.”

 

If he opened his mouth, he felt the fire of his shame might escape with his breath.

 

He shook his head silently.

 

“I love you, Hiiragi. I want you to let me do all sorts of things.”

 

“…That’s unfair.”

 

No fire came out.

 

Even when his legs were opened wide, he could no longer resist. Nothing had been done to him yet. His love alone made him unable to oppose Kazuaki, and even the frightening nature of that left him dazed. Because his penis had remained hard all along.

 

Despite his frightened mind, it waited impatiently for the pleasure Kazuaki would give him.

 

“Ah… Ah…”

 

Would it feel like this to be thrust inside fruit so ripe it was nearly falling, fermentation held just short of rot?

 

That was what Hiiragi thought when he was taken into a warm, slick mouth.

 

“No—ah, mm…”

 

His knees kept trying to close restlessly, only to be stopped by Kazuaki’s body between them.

 

He needed to move somehow and distract himself. Concentrating solely on this overwhelming pleasure felt likely to drive him out of his mind.

 

“Ah… Ah…”

 

Lips fitted closely around him and stroked his arousal up and down. One moment, he was swallowed deeply into the mouth; the next, a tongue explored him within that small hollow.

 

Remaining sane was impossible. His penis continued spilling some of its simmering heat, its pulse growing faster and stronger.

 

“Hiiragi.”

 

Tracing the sensitive seam beneath with his tongue, then licking the tip whose colour betrayed its gathered blood, Kazuaki asked:

 

“…Are you embarrassed?”

 

“Yeah…”

 

Hiiragi squeezed his eyes shut and nodded repeatedly, then added:

 

“But… It feels good.”

 

“Yes.”

 

He could not see, but he felt that Kazuaki was smiling again with the expression he loved.

 

He had thought sex would be something more furtive and damply shadowed. Of course, perhaps it did have that side too. Yet even as everything grew concentrated and intense, something within it became clear. That was why Kazuaki could show him such a gentle, sweet expression.

 

“Ah, no… Ah…”

 

He was sucked hard, as though Kazuaki were trying to draw out desire itself from somewhere far deeper than the semen gathered within him.

 

The arousal heated beyond his ability to manage could not withstand it. Writhing even at the brief sensation of milky fluid rising through his body, Hiiragi came fiercely. The almost explosive climax scattered invisible fragments. Each time they seemed to fall onto his skin and evaporate, his sweating body trembled.

 

“Mm!”

 

“Hiiragi… May I do more?”

 

Kazuaki’s tongue ventured further behind his penis. It wetted the still-resistant opening, then long, skilful fingers slipped inside as it softened.

 

“Ah, no…”

 

Feeling Kazuaki’s body within his own possessed a living immediacy nothing else could match.

 

Hiiragi was happy that his body permitted everything Kazuaki wanted. And that he himself was permitted exactly as much. The fingers advancing as though feeling their way found the place that overwhelmed him from behind his belly. They worked at it as fondly as someone scratching beneath a cat’s chin.

 

“Ah—no…”

 

The pleasure that had almost escaped his control finally became completely unmanageable.

 

The opening below tightened around the fingers in openly pleading movements. Whenever that sensitive point was rubbed, the lining twitched with longing. As though forgetting his release moments earlier, Hiiragi’s penis arched and pulsed again.

 

“No… Ah…”

 

His inner walls contracted of their own accord to hold back the fingers trying to withdraw.

 

As though reproving that response, Kazuaki worked the shallower part with small movements back and forth.

 

“Amazing… Until so recently, your body knew nothing.”

 

“How’s that?”

 

“Ah, no!”

 

The fingers were pushed firmly to their bases again. His whole lower belly ached with sensation.

 

“But I’m glad if I’ve ruined you. Thinking I’m the one who did it makes me unbearably happy.”

 

His ruined body, holding that hot, tight wetness inside, had gone soft everywhere.

 

The moment Kazuaki’s tip touched between his yielding legs, joy and desire stirred through him. Entry was smooth. The place that ought naturally to reject such a mass gladly took in the projecting head and raised veins.

 

Because joining deeply would bring Kazuaki nearer. Let them hold each other more firmly.

 

“Ah, ah…”

 

It was no longer a matter of which particular place felt good.

 

The lining rubbed by Kazuaki’s tightly held body as it moved in and out had itself become undisguised pleasure. The sounds of intercourse striking his ears without pause, the sheets rippling beneath him—everything in this room was part of sex. Of course, so was Kazuaki, repeatedly thrusting Hiiragi upwards and greedily taking the same pleasure.

 

He understood his breathing. Understood his heartbeat. Understood that Kazuaki cherished him.

 

They could not remain joined as one like those branches. Yet from now on, they would come together like this again and again. By day and night, they would be close, entwine. Not only their bodies.

 

Not only their hearts.

 

“Ah, ah… Mm, ah…”

 

Hearing a voice that seemed close to tears made Hiiragi want to cry too.

 

He felt sad, aching and happy. Even the mingled feelings he held for Kazuaki were stirred by their rhythm until he no longer understood them. All he understood was love. The penis he held so closely went rigid once, then released heat in several sob-like pulses.

 

“Mm!”

 

He received every last part of it. In the relief of being held tightly, Hiiragi spilled his own desire too.

 

“Will you promise me one thing?”

 

Kazuaki’s face was unusually serious.

 

“Yeah. What?”

 

“When we move, stop riding your moped.”

 

“What?”

 

“I think we’ll be living within Tokyo’s twenty-three wards. There’s so much traffic. It frightens me.”

 

But it was convenient, Hiiragi thought.

 

Even so, he nodded. It would be different from the mountain. There would be trains and buses. More than that, he enjoyed thinking they could walk together.

 

Through the town where they would live, on sunny days and rainy ones. Then he could tell Kazuaki the names of the roadside trees and the flowers growing beside the river. Kazuaki might immediately forget, saying they did not interest him.

 

Still. They would walk slowly. Come to think of it, there was something Hiiragi wanted to ask.

 

“Will someone else name those glasses and things again? Like ‘wabisuke’?”

 

“I’ve decided on the name myself this time.”

 

Drawing Hiiragi’s whole body close, Kazuaki spoke in the quiet voice of a shared secret.

 

“Night Garden.”

 

“Here, then… I’ve written down lots of little things, but they’re mostly easy to grow, so I think they’ll be fine with fairly ordinary care. It might actually be better not to get too rigid about following every word.”

 

When Hiiragi handed over the notebook in which he had written everything he could think of about tending the garden, his second cousin’s wife held it carefully against herself.

 

“Thank you. I’ll do my best.”

 

“It’s nothing grand enough to need that much effort.”

 

“Anyway, Hiiragi, are you sure you don’t want me to drive you to the station?” his cousin asked.

 

“Yeah. I’ve called a taxi… Oh, looks like it’s here.”

 

A car was approaching beyond the gate.

 

“If you’ve forgotten anything, we can send it to the address you gave us, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

A small hand tugged at the hem of his shirt.

 

“Hiiragi, come and visit whenever you like.”

 

“Now, then.”

 

His cousin hurriedly corrected her.

 

“This was Hiiragi’s home first!”

 

“It’s fine,” Hiiragi said, smiling. “…I’ll come and visit.”

 

On his way out, he checked the letterbox.

 

Another letter had arrived. The kind of letter he had once hesitated over, then fed into the shredder. Hiiragi opened his holdall. The photograph frame from his grandfather’s study peeped out.

 

He put the envelope inside. He intended to write back and include his new address. Although he had not yet thought of anything to say.

 

Kazuaki was waiting in the taxi.

 

“Are you ready?”

 

“Yeah… Sorry, could we go, please?”

 

The car turned and began descending the slope.

 

Hiiragi looked back and waved goodbye to the new occupants. The weather was beautiful. The house and garden he and his grandparents had loved receded into the distance, bathed in light.