by Mere Rain
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The Last Birthday Party
By Mere Rain
Their favorite holiday is going away. Will it take their friendship with it?
Since 1989, the birthday of the Emperor of Japan has been celebrated on December 23rd. But this is the last year; the Emperor is abdicating, and next year there will be no holiday.
For twenty-year-old Akihito, the holiday has always been special. It’s his birthday, too, and a perfect excuse for spending the entire day celebrating across Tokyo with his life-long best friend, Kenji. But now that they will no longer get the day off and will soon face adult responsibilities, will they drift apart? Or if Akihito confesses the secret love he’s held in his heart for years, will their closeness be ruined? One thing is certain: nothing will be same by the end of the day.
December 23, 2018
Tokyo
AKIHITO COULDN’T hear anything over the pounding in his head, but he knew that it had been the sound of gravel against the panes that had woken him, just as he knew before he staggered to the window that it would be Kenji waiting outside in the predawn dimness. The frigid air swept most of the cobwebs away. He made let-yourself-in motions at Kenji and inhaled deeply. As he moved to close the window, he saw a few dried soybeans on the sill. Kenji must have carried them from his house. That was his best friend, always planning ahead.
He put one in his mouth and held it on his tongue, imagining he could taste the salt of Kenji’s palm lingering on the bean.
By the time he had showered and dressed, Kenji had made tea and turned last night’s rice into ochazuke. His face did not show any of the aftereffects of debauchery. Probably he had stopped drinking as soon as Akihito was past noticing.
“Happy birthday, Tsugu.” It was a childhood nickname, left behind by everyone but his parents and Kenji.
“Are we late for the train?” he asked, forcing himself to swallow the rice.
“No, I allowed time for you to get up.”
Of course he had. Kenji knew him so well. All his life, everything about him except that one most important thing.
“Good call. Man, I’ve never been so drunk! I don’t even remember how I got home.”
The corner of Kenji’s mouth turned up. “How do you think?”
“No way, really? You didn’t have to carry me, did you?”
“Only up the stairs. You insisted you were going to sleep at the bottom. You were out cold when I put you to bed.”
“Thanks. You’re a pal.” He rubbed one foot against the sole of the other. Kenji must’ve taken his shoes off at the door for him too.
“You feel well enough to go, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll be fine in a bit. I wouldn’t miss it, not this last time.”
Stepping out the front door reminded him of the cold. He turned back for his jacket, but Kenji was already handing it to him.
Even this early there were lines for the train. They were too late to get seats, and as more and more people pushed into the compartment, they were squeezed until Kenji had his back against a window and Akihito was pressed tightly against him, chest to chest. He turned his eyes to the side, grateful that the window gave him something to pretend to be looking at instead of Kenji’s face.
It was worse (better) when the train left the station. Even as tightly packed as they were, their bodies moved against each other with the motion of the vehicle. Kenji’s breath was warm on his ear. Akihito wished he had grabbed the overhead ring instead of bracing himself against the window with one palm, so that it was almost as if his arm was around the other man.
“Are you okay?”
Akihito realized he had closed his eyes, and opened them. “Just—” His voice was hoarse. He cleared his throat. “Just a little queasy still. Don’t worry,” he added. “I’m not gonna hurl on you.”
“You should’ve taken off your coat.” The overcrowded car was stifling. Kenji had removed his coat before it became too packed, which wasn’t helping Akihito’s state of mind. He had only unbuttoned his, so he was both too hot and too close to Kenji.
“—try to get it off?” Kenji was asking. He managed, through a bout of squirming that was like torture to Akihito, to slide his hands under the front of Akihito’s jacket and push it off his shoulders.
“I don’t think there’s room to move it any farther,” he apologized in Akihito’s ear.
“It’s fine. We’ll be there soon. Thanks.”
Kenji’s arms around his shoulders were almost an embrace. He let himself pretend, just this once, for his birthday.
The crowd poured from the station into bright, clear early morning light. Akihito made Kenji pause for a photo in front of the iconic red facade of Tokyo Station’s Marunouchi entrance, two smiling young men with arms around each other’s shoulders. He had a photo of them in the same place, the same pose, from ten years earlier, taken by his mother; and one from five years before that, little boys holding hands as they stood between their mothers while their fathers lined up shots that would stand framed among both families’ photos in identical cramped apartments three doors apart.
Every year they had come here together to honor the emperor, whose birthday Akihito shared and after whom he was named, except for the first year of college when he had celebrated by doing cooler things with cooler new friends and then cried himself to sleep, aching with a longing that was closer to homesickness than to lust.
Unhurriedly, they followed the crowd toward the Imperial Palace. It was warm enough now to make the fifteen-minute walk pleasant.
He took pictures of them standing in line, pictures of them on the Nijubashi Bridge, pictures of them with the palace behind them, and pictures with the geometric skyline of office towers. He took a picture of Kenji’s face in profile watching the horse-drawn carriages pass in procession.
At midmorning the Imperial Family appeared. They waved their paper flags and shouted “Banzai!” with the rest of the crowd. They signed the Greeting Book and let themselves be swept away from the palace. He caught Kenji’s arm and stopped him long enough to take a picture of them leaving, with the gate behind them. Kenji gave him a quizzical look.
“It’s the last time, after all,” Akihito said, pretending to look at something on his phone.
“We’re only skipping next year,” Kenji reminded him. “We’ll have the Emperor’s Birthday again in 2020.”
“But in spring! It won’t be the same.” How childish it would sound to whine that his birthday wouldn’t be special anymore.
“Well, we better make the most of the day, then.” Kenji tucked his hand through Akihito’s elbow. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”
The traditional morning-after bowl of shijimi miso took care of the last vestiges of Akihito’s hangover. They wandered like tourists around the familiar sights of Chiyodo, taking pictures of each other in front of fountains and pretending to read informative placards.
“The birthplace of Nippon Dental University,” Akihito announced seriously, walking around the obelisk.
“Dentistry is an important and valuable profession.” Kenji nodded. He had a great poker face, much better than Akihito. He had been the straightest of straight men to Akihito’s clowning, all the way through high school. Everyone had been shocked that slacker Akihito had gotten into a school as highly ranked as Hibiya. Only his parents and Kenji knew how hard he had studied to make those test scores, and not even to them had he admitted that he was only doing it to continue attending the same school as his studious best friend. He had failed to make it into the same
college and tried to tell himself he would have more fun on his own, partying and forgetting about what was really just a schoolboy crush.
“You aren’t planning to become a dentist, are you?” he asked with exaggerated horror.
Kenji laughed. “Why not?”
“Looking in peoples’ mouths all day? Gross.”
“Okay, not a dentist. So what are you planning to do after college?”
“Ah, come on. I dunno.” Akihito scuffed at the pavement with the toe of a shoe. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“You don’t have to think about it today,” Kenji relented immediately. “It’s your birthday. What do you want to do next?”
Akihito sighed. “You think I should think about it, don’t you?”
“Well, we’re grown-ups now.”
“No, you’re a grown-up. I’m just someone who can legally drink.”
“I suppose you can put off officially being an adult for three more weeks,” Kenji offered.
Until Coming of Age day, he meant. “You’re taking part in the Seijin Shiki? Of course you are.”
“Of course I am. My mother already ordered my hakama.”
“You’re even wearing hakama? God, you’re so old-fashioned.”
“You can wear a suit if you want.”
“I wasn’t planning to do it at all. Under half the people our age bother.”
“I know. They were talking about it on the news.”
“And come on—me, accepting the responsibilities of adulthood? What a joke! It wouldn’t mean anything to me.”
“I know, Tsugu, but it does mean something to me, and it won’t be the same if my best friend isn’t there with me.”
Akihito felt his eyes suddenly threatening to fill with tears. “Ah, fine, fine, I’ll do it. I’d better, otherwise you’ll grow up and leave me behind with the kiddie toys.” He intended it to sound like a joke, but instead it came out sounding the way he felt. Sad. Scared.
Kenji stopped walking. “I’ll never leave you behind, Tsugu,” he said seriously. “I love you.”
The words he had longed to hear for so many years were a bittersweet ache, equally pain and pleasure. The desire to confess and throw his arms around his friend was so strong that he felt himself sway toward Kenji.
“I love you, too, man,” he said, and punched Kenji on the shoulder. “Let’s go get a drink! We’ll toast to being almost-grown-ups!”
They stopped at the first bar they came to and ordered sake.
“Sake is the right thing for toasting to being old,” Akihito confirmed.
“But it’s your birthday,” Kenji objected. “We have to drink to that first.”
“I can’t toast myself, you know.”
“I have prepared a few brief remarks,” Kenji announced, putting on a prissy voice and pretending to adjust his tie. It was an imitation of their middle school headmaster—an imitation that had frequently been performed by Akihito while other classmates snickered and his best friend looked on disapprovingly. It was so unexpectedly out of character for Kenji that Akihito burst out in a guffaw, embarrassingly loud in the mostly-empty room.
“Ahem,” Kenji continued the impersonation. “If I could have your attention, young gentleman.” Raising his glass and dropping the affected tone, he continued, “A very fortunate twentieth birthday to my favorite person in the entire world, the source of all my happiest moments and best memories, who taught me the value of laughter and saved me from being even more boring and priggish than I am. May you have many happy returns of the day, and share as many of them as you want with me. Akihito, I love you. Kanpai.”
“Kanpai,” Akithito muttered, too choked up to think of an eloquent response. He swallowed and set his glass down, moving it in small circles with his finger in order to avoid eye contact. “Thanks. That was, um…. For the record, I never thought you were boring.”
“You only called me that like a hundred times.” Kenji sounded bemused.
“I was a kid. I didn’t mean it. I just… wanted you to do everything with me.”
“I wanted to do everything with you. I just had homework.” He gave a short laugh. “Quite an epitaph, huh? Maybe I’ll have that on my grave marker, ‘But I’m not done studying.’ You can burn my report cards with me.”
“No, no!” Akihito wasn’t sure if he was rejecting the thought of Kenji dying or the suggestion that he ought to have studied less. “I didn’t want…. Well, okay, I did sometimes get sick of hearing ‘Why can’t you get good grades like your friend?’ and ‘Why can’t you stay out of trouble like Kenji?’ but I wanted you to keep doing well. I was proud of being friends with someone so, so perfect.”
Kenji looked genuinely surprised. “I wasn’t perfect.”
“Yes, you were. You still are perfect.” Akihito felt his cheeks flush as the words slipped out.
“I didn’t get you a birthday present,” Kenji countered.
They had exchanged gifts every year from age one, although of course those first board books and toy animals had been picked out and paid for by their mothers.
Akihito was surprised and a little hurt, but replied lightly, “Okay, fine, you’re not perfect.”
“No, I—I wanted to get you something really special for twenty, but I couldn’t think of anything that seemed right. Nothing seemed like… enough. We’ll get something today, okay? I’ll give you anything you want.”
Akihito bit the inside of his lip, hard, to keep any of the images that flooded his mind from showing on his face. He tasted blood and washed it down with the last of the sake.
“Get drunk with me,” he said.
“We did that last night.”
“Nah, but you weren’t really drunk.” And Akihito had gotten so wasted he hardly remembered the night at all. “We’ll bar hop and have one drink at each place. Whoever’s soberer can say when to stop.” Even he could see the flaws in this plan, but Kenji didn’t make his usual protestations about practicality, frugality, health, or the risk of displeasing their parents.
“If that’s what you want to do, Tsugu.”
“I’ve never seen you drunk,” he realized.
“I only turned twenty last month,” Kenji reminded him, as if he couldn’t remember his best friend’s birthday after a lifetime. Kenji was so law-abiding he had refused to drink till he was legal. Akihito had been getting drunk with classmates since he started college, but never with Kenji. He felt suddenly sad about this, as if he had wasted his virginity on someone he didn’t care about. (Which was also the case.)
“Well, we’re both legal now, so come on! It’ll be our last my-birthday Emperor’s Birthday party. Just the two of us, like when we were kids.”
“I already said yes,” Kenji reminded him.
“Yeah, but I want you to have fun too! I’m trying to get you into the partying spirit.”
“I always have fun with you. Stop worrying.” Kenji rose, collecting his coat from the back of his chair.
“Yeah?”
“Anyway, I’m the one who does the worrying.”
“Hey, I worry!” Akihito protested mock-indignantly as he followed his friend to the door.
“Yeah?” Kenji stopped so abruptly that Akihito almost ran into him. Kenji caught his arm above the elbow to steady him. “About what?”
He couldn’t remember what he had been going to say. He couldn’t think about anything but the warmth of Kenji’s hand on his arm, which was ridiculous because they had touched each other tens of thousands of times and surely he should be desensitized by now. But he wasn’t.
“Oh, you know,” he answered weakly. “The future.”
Kenji gave his arm a slight tug, too gentle to be called a shake. “I thought we already agreed not to worry about that today.”
“Right,” Akihito agreed, a little breathlessly. “No worrying today. I won’t if you won’t.”
“I’ll do my best,” Kenji promised. “More drinking, less worrying. Where do you want to go first?”
Akihito reached for his phone, then changed his mind. “Let’s just walk and see what we find.”
It was sunny and almost warm. The people they passed on the street looked happy and relaxed. Kenji was telling him about a poem he had read in English and how he couldn’t translate it into Japanese because too many of the words had double meanings.
“Do you think you would like poetry if you hadn’t been named after a poet?” Akihito interrupted. Kenji had been trying since they were twelve to get his best friend to appreciate poetry. It had worked, but Akihito hadn’t let on because he didn’t want Kenji to stop reciting them for him.
“Yes.” Kenji thought about it. “Maybe I like poetry because I’m the son of the kind of parents who name their kids after poets.” Kenji’s mother was a university lecturer in literature. Akihito’s mother watched romantic dramas. His father watched sports. Kenji’s parents said television was a waste of time that the boys should use for studying. The families’ friendship had been based on proximity and shared babysitting.
Sometimes it scared Akihito, thinking about how easily Kenji could have not been part of his life.
Kenji was pointing at a small sign that promised handcrafted beverage creations and magnificent rooftop views.
“Two thousand yen cocktails and a dress code?” Akihito asked doubtfully.
“We’re toasting to being grown-ups, remember? And we meet the dress code. Nearly.”
They took the elevator to the top floor. There was a view, not magnificent but pretty nice, and a bar that was shiny, and no smell of spilled beer. The place was almost empty: three middle-aged women murmuring together at a table and two younger women in suits sitting separately at the bar. The bartender was also a woman, who nodded when Kenji gestured at a table near the window.
“What do you want?” Kenji asked him.
“I don’t know my grown-up drinks. Surprise me.”
The surprise was something pink with a flower in it. When Akihito pretended to give him the evil eye, Kenji said, “I picked it because…. You’ll see. If you don’t like it, we can swap.”
