The Winter Quarters

by Anna Veriani

  “And?” Hiro prompted.

  “I have every reason to be happy,” Kai finished.

  Hiro didn’t point out that he’d said a lot but hadn’t answered his question. They were silent for a good long stretch after that. The inn was an hour’s drive south, in Kaga. Once the province of great samurai and priests, it was now better known for winter strawberries and hot springs.

  The drive was mostly rice paddies, bare in the winter, and in the backdrop was the staggering and immense presence of Mount Haku, one of the Sanreizan, the three holy mountains of Shintoism. It was snow-peaked, immensely white on a day when the air was crisp and unusually clear. Hiro wondered if Kai felt the view deep in his bones like he did.

  When Kai finally spoke up again, he didn’t say anything Hiro would have predicted. “When did you get engaged?”

  The question caught Hiro off guard. He actually thought about it for a moment, wondering how he could have forgotten something like that, before he barked out a laugh.

  “Wha—” Kai started.

  “Ah, man. What’s happened to you?” It felt good to speak English. It’d been a long time since he’d needed anything except the standard tourist phrases, but the words were coming back to him easily. “I said I got engaged and you believed me?”

  This earned Hiro a punch to the arm, which he barely felt. “What didn’t you lie about, you kook?”

  “All the important stuff,” Hiro said. “I miss you, and my inn is your inn, et cetera, et cetera.” He grinned. “You really thought I’d meet someone and not tell you?”

  It was true his parents had hired a matchmaker on his behalf. It had led to an awkward hour-long meeting he had never told Kai about. He’d felt so ashamed—not of being gay, but of it being a problem for him, an obstacle even while Kai dated a man on international television. He felt like Kai might think it was quaint.

  The meeting weighed heavily on him for a week as he imagined the old matchmaker placing her notes about him next to some strange woman’s file, considering the odds that two of her clients might spend the rest of their lives together.

  Being straight was the presumed default state of the heir to a family inn. Hiro had never had to confront the possibility of being queer before that moment, finding it easier to imagine he could happily pair with a woman once he was required to.

  Kai’s newest episode aired that Friday. In the show’s weekly intro, Kimi and Kai waved at the camera in slow motion, James Duffy’s ring sparkling on Kai’s finger. Hiro despised that ring. It was too glittery, like something expensive made to look cheap. It had triggered something in Hiro; he’d gone back to work, hauling sacks of rice into the kitchen. His father was at a counter, sniffing lined-up decanters of sake. Hiro set down a rice bag on the counter.

  “Papa-san,” Hiro had whispered.

  “Where’s your mother?” his father said obliviously. “My nose is nothing compared to hers.”

  “Papa-san, I think the matchmaker is a waste of our money. I’m gay.” Shaking hard, Hiro grabbed a knife and slashed open the bag so its contents would pour into a bucket below. But he’d forgotten to set up the bucket; he hadn’t even finished hauling in the last sacks of rice. The rice poured out, ricocheting off the floor like clattering hailstones. The sound almost drowned out his father’s inarticulate, strangled reply.

  Hiro hadn’t met someone. He had wondered if he’d get closer to finding a partner once his parents knew, but so far all coming out had gotten him were a few tense, whispered conversations with his mother and an awkward, stiff exchange of formalities whenever he worked with his father. It was almost like he’d never really come out.

  But there was a reason Hiro had said he’d gotten engaged. It was a dumb reason, and he regretted it now, but it seemed like it could serve as a natural segue at the time.

  “I’m gay, actually.” He cringed. It seemed like a segue at the time. Now it just seemed ridiculous he hadn’t told Kai everything ages ago.

  “Wow. I, uh….” Kai cocked his head. “How long have you known for?”

  “Not long,” Hiro admitted. He didn’t know how to explain it to someone who had never questioned his sexuality before—how Hiro had gone through his whole life only being attracted to men, predominantly to Kai, and it had still never dawned on him he wasn’t straight.

  “Oh. Good. I was scared you thought you couldn’t tell me.”

  Hiro snorted. “I tell you everything. I just came out to my parents.”

  “Well, congratulations,” Kai said. “On coming out, I mean.”

  Hiro slowed down as they ventured onto an unpaved road crammed between two massive fields. He turned to Kai, and they exchanged mutual grins. His stomach felt fluttery, whether from embarrassment or relief, he wasn’t sure.

  “And congratulations on your Big D,” Hiro said.

  Kai snorted. “Try big pain in my ass.”

  “I imagine a Big D would be.”

  Another punch in the arm.

  “You’re going to leave bruises if you keep it up,” Hiro said.

  “I’m a terrible guest already.” Kai rubbed Hiro’s arm as if to wash the pain away, and a thousand nerve endings caught fire throughout Hiro’s body. When Kai spoke next, it took a moment for Hiro’s jumbled brain to process the question. “Were your parents upset when you told them?”

  “They told me they don’t have a problem with it,” Hiro said.

  “That’s great!”

  “As long as I still get married,” he finished.

  “To a guy, you mean?” Marriage equality had been passed three years ago, long enough for Hiro’s parents to accept it was now a thing in Japan. But not long enough for them to want a gay heir.

  “Probably not,” said Hiro. “I mean, I won’t marry a woman, but I have to get married, and they just can’t picture how the inn could be run with two men in charge, so….”

  It was like this weird equation none of the Asadas had managed to solve yet. It was a touch trickier than balancing their books, and unlike the accounting, this was a problem they would avoid as long as they could.

  “My parents want to retire soon,” Hiro said. “Need to retire soon. Which means passing the inn on to their heir. Who is me. Who is gay. Who is the heir. To an inn that’s been passed on to a man and his wife for a thousand years.”

  “Jesus. Can anyone prove that, though? How do you really know for sure the inn’s always been run by a husband and wife?”

  “Kai, I know who my ancestors are,” Hiro said flatly. Some devout Shintoists believed their ancestors’ spirits resided on Mount Haku. It certainly towered over Hiro in a convincing way.

  “Must be nice,” Kai said softly.

  Hiro flinched. Kai’s American grandparents had passed away when he was a boy living in Japan, and his Japanese grandparents hadn’t spoken to him since Kimi left to become famous in America. He rarely spoke to his father. Kai’s family had two people in it and no traditions. Maybe there was nothing holding him back, but there was nothing holding him in place, either.

  He reached out to squeeze Kai’s shoulder. The squeeze turned into a rub at the last minute. Kai leaned into it until Hiro’s hand fell away, and they continued down the road, the radio playing more Christmas songs.

  THE Asada Inn and Hot Springs was a mythical place locked somewhere deep in Kai’s memory. Some of his softest recollections were from the Asada family’s palace of rooms, playing hide-and-seek with Hiro among the hundreds of doorways and corridors. Falling asleep to the plucking of Hiro’s grandma’s shamisen music and sneaking sips of plum wine when none of the adults were looking. It’d been a long time since he’d felt that kind of quiet contentment. He’d almost thought he’d made it up, but as Hiro pulled into the long driveway, it all came flooding back.

  A moss-grazed cobblestone pathway led up to the heavy wooden outer doors of the inn, and the trail was lit by flickering lanterns as the sun slowly sank to the bottom of the distant rice paddies. Late-autumn leaves speckled the ground like
dustings of linseed and copper. After they parked, Hiro led the way through the entrance, where they took off their shoes.

  “I’m home,” Hiro called in Japanese.

  The inn must have had at least a hundred guests, but Kai felt like they were alone in a little village. The inn’s entryway was minimal, leading to a lobby sparsely decorated with hanging scrolls. He nudged his feet into a pair of indoor guest slippers.

  On the wall above the reception desk were several framed photographs of the Asada family. One of the pictures was of Hiro and Kai when they were kids, in cotton yukata, Hiro’s arm wrapped around Kai’s shoulders. Hiro’s front teeth were missing, classic cute.

  “Profiting off my legacy, I see.” It was always weird when people took his picture in their pizzerias and ice cream parlors, determined to attract customers just because he’d once occupied the space.

  “What’s that?” Hiro asked, and Kai froze.

  If he hadn’t frozen, he probably could have thought of some lie to cover up his misstep, but it was too late. Hiro read it on his face.

  “Not profiting,” Hiro said softly. “Obaachan put it up. She misses you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kai rushed. “I know your family would never—”

  “Hiro?” An old woman shuffled into the room, her gray hair elegantly tied up. She wore a navy kimono with a beige obi to match the season.

  “Obaachan,” Hiro and Kai said simultaneously. A burst of affection swelled in Kai’s chest. This was the woman who had given him endless sweets and chastisements when he was a boy. One time when he tried hiding behind an antique Kutani vase during hide-and-seek, he ended up shattering the whole thing. He’d thought he’d be banned from the inn forever. Instead Obaachan made him sweep up the priceless shards, and together they’d never told a soul.

  “Kai-kun!” she said. “Welcome home.”

  She reached for a hug. She smelled like tea leaves and incense. Kai hadn’t spoken Japanese in a long time, but it came back to him as he told her how good it was to see her again.

  She held up a finger, shushing him.

  “Not another word until you’ve had some tea.” She clutched his hand, her own frail and wrinkled, and led him away. Kai glanced back to make sure Hiro was following them.

  They all bowed to the guests they passed as they made their way to a tatami room. It led to the central garden. They stepped outside and exchanged their indoor shoes for waiting wooden sandals. Kai put out his arms to balance himself on the stepping-stone rocks that led to the tearoom, not wanting to crush the delicate moss that blanketed the garden.

  The great tea room smelled like the clean rice straw of tatami mats, like fresh grass in the midst of an oncoming winter. In the center of the room was a small sunken hearth where charcoal was lightly smoldering, and sitting at its edge was—

  “Okaasan.” Kai rushed to Hiro’s mother without thinking.

  It’d been too long. Her black hair was streaked with gray, and thick smile wrinkles creased around her eyes and cheeks. She held his face in her hands.

  “You must be tired,” she said, revealing her charmingly crooked teeth. “Sit down.”

  There was never any choice but to listen to Hiro’s mother. She was the Okami, the mother of the inn, the guests, the Asada family. And Kai.

  The four of them settled around the hearth as she poured tea. They chatted away, Okaasan handling the beverages and sweets. Kai focused on her movements, utterly relaxed by her soft, precise way of handling the kettle and Wajima lacquerware.

  “It’s almost New Year,” Obaachan said after two cups of tea. “Will you be doing hatsumoude with us?”

  Hatsumoude was the first visit to a Shinto shrine of the New Year. Kai was surprised she would ask; it was such an intimate, familial event.

  “Thank you,” Kai said, “but I’ll have to be in New York before then.”

  Obaachan raised her tea to her lips, looking unimpressed. “So you’ll be spending New Year the way you did last winter?”

  Kai hesitated. Could she hear his heart stammering?

  “I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said carefully. He looked helplessly at Hiro, who gave him an equally helpless look back.

  Kai hoped she didn’t mean what he thought she meant. Last year he had possibly gotten very drunk, partially naked, and made out with strangers like it was the summer New York Pride Parade instead of a freezing rooftop party in Manhattan. Possibly camerapeople had filmed him the entire time in a special live episode, capturing him making out with another guy amidst sloshing champagne and a background of silvery city fireworks.

  The garden pond trickled outside, a winter bird singing lowly.

  “You should eat soba and relax this holiday,” she said. “If you need to get drunk, we have enough sake for you.”

  Oh God. She meant exactly what he thought she meant. Where was the sinkhole he needed to swallow him up whole?

  “I’m sorry,” Kai said, meaning sorry I’m a walking sack of city sin and a definite disappointment to you. “I have to go back to work.”

  Obaachan opened her mouth to say who knew what, humiliating him further, but Hiro’s mother pretended not to notice and quickly broke in, “You should spend New Year with your boyfriend. However you celebrate, you should be with the ones you love.”

  “Mama-san,” Hiro said patiently, “Kai’s relationship with the casino heir is fake.”

  “You don’t have a partner?” She sounded devastated. “When will you get married? You’ll adopt children, won’t you?”

  “So you want Kai to marry a man, but not me?” Hiro blurted. He said it all so quickly, and then there was another stretch of tense silence.

  “Your tea is so delicious, Okaasan,” Kai complimented quickly, sipping loudly from his cup.

  She smiled at him, ignoring Hiro completely. As she reached for her matcha jar to make a fresh cup, she said, “Maybe one day Duffy-san can come visit for tea.”

  “YOU know,” Hiro said, back in his element now that he was away from his mother, “I don’t think anyone has booked the Winter Quarters for thirty-five days straight in years. It’s like proper touji.”

  “Touji?” Kai didn’t recognize the word.

  “Hot spring healing—like farmers used to do during the off-season to get rid of their fatigue.”

  “Oh. Yeah,” Kai said. “I guess this is touji.”

  He led Kai down the hallway, carrying a cotton yukata for Kai to wear after he bathed in the hot springs.

  The Asada Inn had four separate kinds of luxury rooms, divided by seasons. The Spring Quarters were alight with cherry blossom paintings; the Summer Quarters were filled with open-air verandas and low croaking frogs; the Autumn Quarters were all warm colors and maple leaves. They walked for several minutes until the pale wood turned dark and the lighting dimmed. The hallway had glass walls, revealing the winter gardens outside. An indoor koi pond led the way to their quarters; the gleaming-scaled fish swam in languid circles, brought in from the cold. It was just as Kai remembered.

  “Oh, wow,” he breathed when Hiro slid open the door for him.

  The main room of the Winter Quarters was massive and spacious. In its center was a kotatsu—a heated table—and a large plaid blanket was draped over it. Kai couldn’t wait to stick his feet under the blanket and luxuriate in the warmth, curled up on some of the many cushions that dotted the floor. There was also an antique cabinet of stained hinoki wood, filled with bottles of sake and plum wine.

  “It’s all yours,” Hiro said. “Your bedding will be put out in the evening.”

  Kai wasn’t sure what it was—a minute change in Hiro’s expression, a slight flicker of his lips. “What’s wrong?”

  Hiro slid the door shut. “I know you said your relationship with James Duffy isn’t real, but I was wondering if maybe you… broke up with someone? Or something?”

  “Huh?”

  “You booked the room for two people. I kind of assumed I’d be picking up another person up at the
station, but….”

  Kai blinked. “Oh—Hiro! I thought I told you. I mean….” He looked away. Now that he could actually see Hiro in person, it was so obvious that the inn, however luxurious, was Hiro’s place of work. Kai’s cheeks burned. “I thought you could stay here. That was a dumb idea, wasn’t it?”

  “Here?” Hiro asked.

  “With me,” Kai said. Cleared his throat. “I just thought I might get lonely. But I was being selfish, and it’s—”

  “Whoa,” Hiro said. “You’re not selfish, Kai. I want to stay with you.”

  “You do? Really?” Kai almost melted with gratitude.

  “I’ll still have to work, but this way we can spend more time with each other,” Hiro said. “You don’t have to pay for my booking, though.”

  “It’s nothing,” Kai said. “Seriously.”

  They had a silent conversation with their eyes. Kai told Hiro he was so disgustingly rich that a single booking of the best room at the inn wasn’t going to affect his finances. Hiro acknowledged Kai’s enormous wealth and agreed the deal was fair.

  “Let’s test out the bath?” Hiro said. “You get your own private showers and hot spring, you know.”

  “I didn’t want anyone recognizing me while I’m naked,” Kai admitted.

  Hiro snorted. “That’s the most American celebrity thing you’ve said since you got here. I’m going to keep a running list.”

  Chapter Two

  KAI’S dressing room featured towels, extra yukata, a vanity, and lounge chairs to relax in post-bath. Through a heavy glass door was a small shower room, which led outside to the onsen. The shower room was dimly lit and tiled with sandstone. Kai froze as he peered through its door. The showers had small stools to sit on, right next to each other.

  “You haven’t gotten shy like most American men, have you?” Hiro reached for his jeans zipper. Kai just gawked. Hiro’s arms were thick and muscled, forearms hairy. He had a light dusting of hair on his chest, too, and well-defined abs. It was all very nice.

  “Of course I’m not shy,” he said, just to be stubborn. He made quick work of stripping out of his clothes, leaving them in a bin on a large shelf.