All My Loving_Yaoi Novel

by Mariko Hihara

  “That’s your diaphragm and abdominal muscles working. Your diaphragm borrowed power from your abdominal muscles to push up your lungs, which made you breathe out more air. When you inhale deeply after that, you can take in more air than before.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Orihara explained with a simple analogy.

  “It’s like a sponge. If you wring it well, it’ll be able to absorb more water than if you only wrung it a little.”

  Kento exhaled again like he was told. He pursed his lips and expelled the last bit of air from his lungs, then inhaled as deeply as he could. He felt his abdominal muscles working harder.

  “Consciously keep up the abdominal breathing, and soon you’ll get more used to using your diaphragm effectively.”

  Kento nodded enthusiastically at Orihara’s words.

  “You’re right, this is amazing! You have this scientific way of teaching. Guess it helps being a doctor!”

  “Actually, no,” Orihara said, laughing as he shook his head. “Remember I used to be on the track team? I learned abdominal breathing from my coach.”

  Kento looked at him with renewed admiration.

  “But still, you’re pretty amazing, Doctor.”

  “I suck at cooking, though,” Orihara added, and Kento burst into laughter.

  When Kento went to voice training classes the following week, he was complimented for the first time by his trainer, Hamanishi. This was a first triumph for Kento, whose singing had never been as good as his dancing.

  “The tension in your voice box is gone, and instead there’s more power in your abdomen. You’re headed in the right direction.” Hamanishi looked satisfied as he closed the lid of the piano, finishing their lesson.

  “Sound-collecting mikes at concerts will help, and tracks can always be adjusted in the recording studio, but either way, putting stress on your voice box wouldn’t have made you last very long.”

  Kento felt immensely proud of himself, but froze at Hamanishi’s next words.

  “You know, I was actually having second thoughts about recommending you. But if you keep up your singing and continue to improve, you’ll have no problem. It’s really a pity that you’ve hurt your leg.”

  “Are you talking about the audition?”

  “Yeah,” Hamanishi said, unfazed. “Well, Oka and Nishimura are definitely in, and I recommended Tomoya for his sugary-sweet voice. I’d say the results were good. I would have wanted one more person, though, to balance the sound.”

  He was right about Tomoya’s high, sultry voice. His dancing was average, but when it came to singing, he was a head above the rest. But Kento was astonished to know that Tomoya had already passed the audition. He hadn’t known until then. Tomoya had told him nothing.

  I know he probably kept it from me out of kindness. But it feels worse. It’s like he feels sorry for me.

  Kento’s spirits sank rapidly, when just moments before he had been itching to tell Orihara the good news. When he returned to the dorm and saw that Tomoya was home early for once, he found he couldn’t look the boy in the eye. He turned on his heel, went right back out of the dorm, and headed straight to Miyashita Clinic instead.

  “What’s the matter? You’re awfully early,” Orihara asked in surprise. He was still sitting in the consultation room.

  “Um, I just felt horrible about myself and I couldn’t stand being my room. Can I listen to some records at your place, Doctor?”

  “As long as you keep the volume down.”

  Kento turned the volume low enough so the sound wouldn’t reach the consulting room, then lay down on the sofa to lend his ear to the classical music.

  He picked “Finlandia,” which had been used in a movie, to cheer him up. The movie was about a gallant, unconquerable hero facing terrorists all by himself.

  Orihara eventually came to join him in the living room.

  “Doctor, I have good news and bad news. Which one do you want to hear first?”

  “Good news, of course.” Orihara laughed and sat down in the arm chair in front of Kento.

  “My voice trainer complimented my singing for the first time. It’s all thanks to you teaching me abdominal breathing. That’s the good news.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  Kento put the record sleeve on the table and sighed.

  “Remember I told you we were doing auditions at the agency for the new group that’s going to debut? My roommate Tomoya got in. He’s going to debut.”

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?” Orihara asked curiously. Kento thought about it.

  “…Maybe.” Then, he gave a deep sigh again. “Yeah. You’re right. It’s good news. It’s my heart that’s bad.”

  “Your heart?” Orihara leaned forward and peered into Kento’s face. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, remember I said I was feeling horrible about myself? I’m just jealous of Tomoya. I’m such a kid, aren’t I? I wonder why I can’t just congratulate him when he deserves it.”

  As Kento sat dejected, Orihara smiled and gently took his hand.

  “You know what? Not everyone in the world is like Mother Theresa or Gandhi. Adults get jealous, too. So there’s nothing wrong with your heart.”

  “Yeah, but…” Kento irritably pulled his hand away from Orihara’s, then crossed his arms behind his head and flopped back onto the sofa. “That’s not it,” he said. “Tomoya didn’t tell me. That’s what gets to me. It’s like he feels guilty about it. If he saw us as equals, he wouldn’t do that. He’s probably doing it because he feels sorry for me.”

  Orihara’s eyes crinkled into a smile behind his glasses. Then, he turned aside and lapsed into thought.

  “Does feeling guilty really make you unequal?” he murmured.

  “Doesn’t it? If it was me, I’d tell my friends I got the audition and I’d ask for their support.”

  “Well… I don’t think Tomoya kept it a secret from you because he felt sorry for you. Maybe he didn’t want you to get jealous and hate him for it.”

  Orihara turned his gaze back to Kento, and he spoke with a sincere and definite tone.

  “When Tomoya saw you in pain at night, he didn’t turn a blind eye. That proves he cares about you.”

  Kento was in awe at how forgiving Orihara could be. But when Orihara said it like that, the more true it began to sound. His words penetrated straight to his heart.

  “Alright,” Kento said as he thought. “I’ll tell Tomoya this: I’m a little jealous, but that’s because I’m a normal person, and I’m not Mother Theresa, and that it’s normal and it doesn’t mean that I hate him. Does that sound alright?”

  Orihara smiled. “That sounds perfect,” he said brightly.

  Chapter 6

  The quiet nights that Kento spent with Orihara had become a strange source of comfort that he had never experienced before. Sometimes, Orihara would tutor him. Other times, Kento found himself wanting to talk about his family and his childhood.

  One night while they were listening to records, the topic turned to their families.

  “My mom and dad both went to N. University. I think I was able to get into this school because of their connections.”

  Kento’s mother and father were college sweethearts who had first met at N. University and gone on to get married. Ikuto, his father, had been in the Film Arts department aiming to become a photographer; his mother, Hisae, had been in Fine Arts. Right after getting married, the two had gone on a globetrotting trip. Kento was born soon afterwards, but the two took him along and continued their travels.

  “That was quite daring of them, wasn’t it?” Orihara said with an air of amazement.

  “Really? I can’t tell. Mine is the only family I’ve known,” Kento said indifferently.

  “I’m sure it must have been difficult flying with you when you were still a baby,” Orihara mused out loud.

  “Actually,” Kento said, and began a story that he had heard from his mother. “Apparently, one way to make me fall asleep ri
ght away was to make me listen to rock, especially heavy metal. I must have liked it since I was born if it was enough to be my lullaby.”

  Orihara only widened his eyes in bewilderment.

  Sometimes, Kento talked about the many countries he visited with his parents. He once talked about his trip to Peru. His mother had fallen in love with the beautifully-dyed fabrics there, which led to her beginning her studies in textiles.

  “Lake Titicaca was so unbelievably blue. They said it’s because the sky is blue and the air is thin. Apparently if you go high enough, it’s indigo like in space.”

  “That’s right,” Orihara nodded quietly as he perused a medical book on the sofa. “There’s less dispersion of light when the air is thinner, and you see more shades of blue, which have shorter wavelengths.”

  Many reeds grew in Lake Titicaca. The indigenous peoples would use them to weave baskets as well as ships, houses, and all manners of things.

  “That’s where my mom learned to dye fabric.” Kento and his family had been so smitten by the place that they had ended up living there for half a year. “That’s why I was a year late going into primary school.”

  Orihara looked convinced. “Ah, now I see why.”

  “I learned how to play a flute called a quena,” Kento said casually.

  Orihara watched him with interest.

  “You’re pretty mysterious, you know.”

  “Huh? How?” Kento looked up from where he was sitting on the floor.

  “No, never mind. Tell me more about your trips.”

  “Are my stories interesting?” Kento looked at him curiously. They had been everyday experiences for his family.

  “Yes. Very interesting. Normal people wouldn’t be able to experience all of that,” Orihara replied with a smile. “I feel like I’ve become the king in The Arabian Nights. I get to sit here and hear all these stories from a different world.”

  Kento burst out laughing. “I’ll tell you as many stories as you like. Are they really that unusual? It’s all normal stuff to me.”

  Kento’s father moved to New York City shortly after Kento began primary school, and began doing most of his work there. Ikuto then went on to become an exclusive photographer for National Geographic. His mother, Yasue, decided after much debate to live apart from him.

  “She said she wanted me to go to primary school in Japan,” Kento added. But on extended breaks, such as during the summer, he and his mother would go to New York to visit his father. That was where Kento first encountered hip hop dance and fell in love with it.

  When Yasue invited him to come along with her to London, Kento was torn at first. In the end, he chose to stay with Sion Promotion and continue dancing.

  “I don’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.” Kento made a dubious face and looked up at Orihara. I certainly wasn’t asking for my leg to get hurt, but I still was able to meet him. His parents had always been ones to take problems in stride, and often said that bad luck often brought good luck. He figured this was probably what they meant.

  “What’s wrong? Now you’re all quiet. Did you start missing your mother and father?” Orihara said with a smile. Kento blushed.

  “It’s not like that,” he protested. “Stop treating me like a kid.”

  The numerous vinyl records were simply stuffed in a disorderly fashion into the rack. Kento didn’t need another excuse to offer to sort them out. As he went through them, he found that most of them were classical music records, apart from a few Beatles LPs.

  “Oh, those are mine,” Orihara said to a very surprised Kento.

  “Yeah, I figured as much.”

  Orihara chose one out and put it on the turntable. “Songs back then used to be really short, including the Beatles’. They were all about two minutes or so, so they’re finished before you know it.”

  “Are you a Beatles fan?” Kento asked as he gazed at the now-legendary album cover.

  “Well… a friend of mine in high school loved the Beatles, and I guess he kind of rubbed off on me. His father, on the other hand, was a Beatles fanatic, in the real sense,” Orihara said to him. “Anyway, I even bought a guitar so I could practice.”

  “What? You can play the guitar? I thought you’d be the serious type who only cared about studying.”

  Orihara looked mildly offended. “I told you, didn’t I? I was an athlete until tenth grade. I’m a varsity boy at heart.” He then chuckled a little at his own words. “I guess that makes me weird for playing guitar, then, doesn’t it?”

  After some begging on Kento’s part, Orihara dug out his guitar from storage. It wasn’t the electric guitar that Kento had expected, but a common acoustic guitar.

  “It’s not electric?” Kento said in slight disappointment. Orihara smiled wryly.

  “This one’s called a flat top. I hear kids these days start right off-the-bat with electric, but this type of guitar is your most basic one.”

  No one at Sion Promotion was part of a serious band, since the agency was geared to promoting pop idols. Kento had never even held a guitar before. He gazed inquisitively at the guitar that Orihara was holding.

  “Can you play for me?”

  “I’d have to change the strings first.” Orihara’s eyes narrowed nostalgically as he dusted the guitar off with a cloth. “But I don’t really play anymore.”

  Kento was struck with an idea, and he proposed it loudly. “I’ll play it, then! Teach me!”

  Orihara beamed again. “Sure. I don’t have any use for this anymore. You can have it, Kento.”

  “Yay!” Kento grabbed Orihara’s hand in delight and shook it vigorously. His hand was softer and smoother than he’d expected, and it was a long time before Kento untwined his fingers from Orihara’s.

  When Kento visited Orihara again the following week, a brand-new guitar was sitting on top of the stereo system in the living room.

  “Is this??” Kento approached with wide eyes and cautiously reached out to touch it.

  “I felt bad making you play my old guitar,” Orihara said to him with a smile as he came back from the consultation room. “And it’ll be easier for me to teach you if I play along.”

  “You’re going to teach me?” Kento exclaimed, pouncing on Orihara. Orihara teetered as he lost his balance, and they both toppled on top of each other onto the sofa. Orihara was more slender and soft than he’d imagined, and Kento blushed in agitation.

  “S-Sorry.”

  “You really seem to grow taller by the day,” Orihara laughed as he crawled out from underneath Kento. “We were about the same height when we first met, but now you’re a whole head taller.”

  “And you’re skinny like a girl, doctor,” Kento said in a teasing tone, trying to disguise the fact that he was flustered. This time, Orihara blushed.

  “Keep talking like that, and I won’t teach you.”

  “Wait, I’m sorry! I really am! Can you still teach me?”

  Kento’s desperate tone appeared to restore Orihara’s mood. He smiled as he passed a book to Kento.

  “You don’t mind using my old learner’s guide, do you?” Kento was given a book called Guitar for Beginners. He flipped through it. A simple set of notes ran along the staff. Kento looked at it and pouted.

  “They’re not Beatles songs?”

  Orihara looked at him with exasperation. “You won’t be able to play those right off the bat.”

  Underneath the staff was another staff, but this one had six lines. Instead of the black note heads, the stems were numbered with digits from 0 to 4.

  Kento knew notation well enough to sing from them, but he’d never seen notation like this before. He anxiously looked up at Orihara.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s called tablature. It shows you how to press the string down.” Orihara told him that the numbers on 0 to 4 indicated the fingers used to press the strings down.

  “Oh, okay. So finger 1 would be my index finger, and finger 2 would be my middle finger.” Kento touched
the strings with each.

  “What’s 0?”

  “It means ‘open string’, which means you don’t hold it down.”

  “Uh-huh…” Kento looked dubious. Orihara smiled gently at him.

  “Don’t worry. Once you learn the patterns for holding down the strings, you’ll be able to play in no time.”

  Orihara walked around the sofa, where Kento was sitting, to stand behind him. He started by teaching him how to hold the guitar.

  “Good. Align the groove in the guitar with your right knee, like that.” Once he taught Kento how to hold it, he also slung the shoulder strap over his shoulder. “Wearing the strap while you sit will help keep the guitar still,” he said. Next, he went on to teach him how to hold the strings down with his left hand.

  “You’ll have to start by memorizing the basic chords. The groups of chords are called chord progressions. You can play any song if you know the chord progression.”

  Kento blanched when he saw the notations, labelled with letters like C and G.

  “But there are so many!”

  “Don’t sweat it. Just use your fingers and let your body do the memorizing. If you can remember complicated dance moves, you should have no problem with this. These are just your fingers.”

  Orihara’s gentle encouragement helped Kento recover somewhat from being on the verge of giving up.

  “As long as you’re going to teach me.” When he turned around to look over his shoulder, there was Orihara’s face at close range, his gentle eyes looking back at him.

  “Don’t worry. I’m here with you.”

  The same gentle voice echoed in his ears, the one that had whispered to him that night when he was in bed groaning from the pain in his knee.

  “Yeah. I’ll try my best.”

  Thankfully for Kento, he had a good ear to begin with, and he quickly improved at guitar.

  “Your fingers are so long. Makes me envious,” Orihara said with an impressed air, seeing Kento get better and better at each practice session.

  “Your fingers are long, too,” Kento said. It was true, but Orihara’s palm was smaller. Kento had been quick to master the difficult barre chord ? using the left index finger to hold down all six strings at once.