When he’d been in the room before Summer had incidentally registered the tall, double-doored cabinet against the far wall, its outer finish made of polished, darkly colored rosewood. It hadn’t really sunk in as anything other than a liquor cabinet or a closed bookcase, but now its doors were open and he realized...
He’d been entirely wrong.
The interior of the cabinet had only two shelves, with the lower shelf protruding out further to form a ledge; the cabinet’s backing had been papered over with a delicate watercolor painting of a landscape, loosely written kanji pouring down the side in a story or message Summer couldn’t read. The top shelf was centered by a small golden statue of the Buddha, standing with his hand upraised and fingers parted, and flanked by two unlit white candles. On the bottom shelf was a bronze incense bowl, with two picture frames to either side. In one was a small scroll with more kanji, just a few simple characters and yet they seemed written with a sort of visual poetry that made every line of delicate black ink flow.
In the other was a photograph of a woman.
She was lovely in a delicate, willowy way, with a sort of haunting sadness to her high-cheekboned face and a way of looking to one side as if searching for some secret hidden just out of reach, her black hair swept up from her amber-gold face and knotted ornately behind her head.
Summer’s throat tightened, as he realized...
Oh.
He felt like he shouldn’t be here, all of a sudden.
Like he was intruding on something sacred.
And yet he drifted closer, drawn by that portrait of a woman, and wondered if somehow, somewhere, in some strange place...
She knew that she was still with Iseya even now.
Summer stopped in front of what he could only call a shrine, looking up at the gleaming shape of the Buddha, then at the woman.
I’m sorry, he thought. I’m... I’m sorry for wanting him so much.
“I was never raised Buddhist,” Iseya said softly at his back. “But she was. So out of respect for her memory, I placed her name in the butsudan to honor her and keep her.”
Summer looked over his shoulder. Iseya stepped out of the bathroom with a clean towel draped over his arm, a bottle of alcohol and a tin of some sort propped in the crook of his elbow. His gaze trained over Summer’s head, distant, before lowering to Summer, watching him inscrutably.
“I’m sorry,” Summer said. “I shouldn’t...have... I don’t know.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.” Iseya sank down to sit on the low, delicate wicker sofa. “Come. Let me have a look at you.”
Summer glanced back at the shrine again, and at the photo of Michiko Iseya.
Before pulling away, and settling to sit gingerly on the edge of the sofa, barely resting enough of his weight to dent the pillowy-soft cushion.
He didn’t belong here.
But Iseya’s touch jerked him roughly from his drifting thoughts, as an ice-cold, stinging-wet towel pressed over his bruise.
“This may burn a little,” Iseya warned, half a second too late, and Summer yelped, squinting one eye up.
“A little?” He hissed under his breath; he didn’t know what was worse, the pressure against the tender flesh, or the fact that the bitter-smelling alcohol soaking the towel burned. “Nngh...why does it sting so much? It’s a bruise; it didn’t even break the skin!”
“What exactly do you think happens to your skin on impact bruising?” Iseya said crisply; his head was bowed, focusing on Summer’s bruise, but he flicked a sharp glance up from under his brows. “Even if you don’t bleed from open wounds, your skin still suffers abrasions and microfissures. Which is why you need sterilization in the first place.”
Summer didn’t know what to say.
Especially with Iseya so close, both of them...barely wearing anything at all, thin pajama pants and body heat and Iseya’s arm brushing Summer’s each time he adjusted to dab at his side a little more, and Iseya touching him and yet it was only clinical, only necessity, and that shouldn’t ache so much but with that portrait looking over Summer’s shoulder, it just reminded him...reminded him...
He’d never really had a chance, had he?
He closed his eyes, trying to put the thought out of his mind.
Trying not to think, period, when having Iseya’s hands on him this way, being alone with him with this illusion of intimacy, hurt more than it should.
It was fine. He was fine. It was just...a boyhood infatuation that had flared to life again and led to him being rash, impulsive, over this strange kissing game.
He’d get over it.
He’d get over it, and respect Iseya’s need to keep his distance; respect his grief, and the memory of his dead wife.
Maybe they could be friends.
And that was okay.
He sucked in a breath through his teeth, though, as the cold-burning alcohol was replaced by something warm and thick; he opened one eye to a slit and watched as Iseya spread a thick, translucent golden salve onto the bruise, long fingertips coated in a glistening sheen and gently stroking it into Summer’s skin. A thick, heady smell rose between them, something like amber and musk with a tinge of vanilla. It felt nothing but slick at first, but slowly as it soaked in a deep burn spread into Summer’s flesh, absorbing with a soothing, pleasant heat that eased away both the sting of the alcohol and the throbbing pain of the bruise.
“What is that...?” he asked softly.
“Nothing much different from sports cremes,” Iseya murmured, voice distant, distracted. “A little menthol, a few things to cover the pungency of the smell.”
“You made that...?”
“Ah.” Iseya’s lips quirked faintly. “At one point I suppose I had a bit of a passion for herbalism. But at this point I don’t really keep my own plants anymore, other than in my office. If I need to make anything I get what I need from a local supplier.”
Summer blinked, then couldn’t help but laugh. “You mean my mother.”
“I do see Lily now
