by Yusuke Kishi
However, they seemed to look extremely generously upon even the most intimate same-sex acts. So apart from a few people, everyone defaulted to a homosexual relationship.
They crested the hill and lay down on a field of white clovers to talk. I hid in a clump of bushes twenty or thirty meters away and watched, not daring to breathe.
It appeared that Satoru told a joke, as Shun threw his head back and laughed, showing pearly white teeth.
Satoru stared for a second, then suddenly threw himself on top of Shun. For a while, they didn’t move.
I couldn’t see them clearly from my position, but I had no doubt that they were kissing. Satoru held Shun tightly. For a moment, Shun simply lay there. Finally, he returned the embrace and began playing with Satoru’s body, trying to flip him over so that he would be on top. Satoru resisted. They struggled, but Satoru had the advantage. Shun finally gave up and slumped back onto the ground with the expression of a girl who was resigned to her fate.
Seeing this, Satoru went completely mad. He pinned Shun to the ground and kissed him passionately on his lips, cheeks, throat, and neck.
I flushed just seeing this and started running my hands over myself unconsciously. I didn’t know whether it was because of how affectionate Satoru was being with Shun or because I wanted to be in Satoru’s position. Whichever it was, or maybe because I was the odd one out, my heart burned unbearably in my chest.
Satoru traced his fingers lovingly over Shun’s lips. Meeting no resistance, or perhaps getting carried away, he stuck a finger into Shun’s mouth and made him suck on it. Shun allowed such a rude imposition with a generous smile, but still nipped Satoru’s fingers with his teeth from time to time.
Caught up in the heat of the moment, I leaned forward a bit too far. As Shun raised his head to pretend to bite Satoru’s hand, I felt him notice me for a split second.
With a start, I withdrew into the shadow of the bushes. But he had probably seen me. I thought I would die of shame. I stayed hidden for a while, but decided that I would look one more time to check on the situation.
Satoru was lying on top, trying his best to pull Shun’s pants off. An enraptured look came over his face as he uncovered Shun’s thighs, as perfect as if carved from pure white marble. Then, as though handling a small animal, he gently began rubbing Shun’s penis.
Shun laughed and squirmed as if he were being tickled, but didn’t really resist.
I guess I only imagined him noticing my presence.
Without standing up, I turned and crept away. If I kept watching, I’d go crazy.
I had a pretty good idea of what was going to happen anyway. Earlier I had accidentally seen two boys from team three making love with each other.
At that time, I had observed out of simple curiosity. It was obvious that the two were too sex-crazed to notice anything else. They lay on top of each other in opposite directions, each with the other’s penis in his mouth. Occasionally, it went so deep into their throat that even I felt like throwing up. But it didn’t seem to be enough for them. Obviously, as boys, they couldn’t have sex the proper way, but it didn’t stop them from trying. The sight of their penises thrusting violently reminded me of minoshiro mating.
I had zero interest in seeing Shun and Satoru engage in such a stupid act.
Feeling miserable, I left the area. I wanted more than anything for someone to comfort me. One person came to mind.
I went looking for Maria after I got back to town and found her at home on the back porch. Thankfully, all her family members seemed to be out, but there was still an annoying third wheel. Mamoru.
“Saki, what’s wrong?” she asked in a bright, clear voice.
In the past two years, Maria had grown into a young woman with beautiful arched eyebrows, sparkling eyes, a straight, perfect nose, and expressive mouth who carried herself with confidence and determination. The only thing that hadn’t changed was her flame-red hair.
“I just suddenly wanted to talk to you,” I said, smiling at her while throwing Mamoru a cold look.
Mamoru avoided my gaze and slid out of sight.
Maria sat on the veranda, swinging her feet off the side. Mamoru sat a little distance away, concentrating on drawing Maria. He wasn’t drawing with pencil and paper like we did in Harmony School. Instead, he had a wooden board spread with a thin layer of white clay and was using his cantus to draw with powdered stones such as garnet, fluorite, beryl, cordierite, and columbite.
The portrait didn’t just look like Maria, but also managed to capture her spirit. Even I had to admit that he had an amazing talent.
Mamoru had lost his mother to typhoid fever when he was young, and seemed to view Maria as a surrogate since both had red hair, a rare trait in our town. According to Satoru, red hair was never an Asian trait, so Mamoru’s mother and Maria’s possibly mutual ancestors must have come from a distant country many generations ago.
From what I remember, Mamoru became attached to Maria right after we entered Sage Academy. But even now, during puberty, he showed no interest toward his own sex, no matter how many cute boys approached him. He lived in the westmost village of Oakgrove while Maria lived on the eastern coast in Whitesand. Even so, Mamoru took a boat to meet Maria at her house every morning. Although his devotion was touching, at our age, relationships with the opposite sex was a huge taboo, so Mamoru had to use drawing as an excuse to visit her.
He was always with Maria and paid no attention to anyone else. As for Maria, she seemed moved by his affection and the two of them gradually grew closer. Actually their relationship looked more like one between a master and her loyal dog.
But since I was universally recognized as Maria’s lover, Mamoru’s life was sometimes rather depressing.
“Hey, let’s go for a walk,” I said, hinting that I wanted to be alone with her.
“Okay, sure,” she smiled understandingly.
“Alright, we’re gonna go for a bit…Mamoru you should take a break.”
Mamoru looked miserable at the prospect of Maria and I going off alone.
“Thank you, it’s beautiful. I love it,” Maria said, taking a quick look at the painting.
Mamoru’s face lit up with joy for a second. He was always dead silent in front of me. Maybe he was embarrassed to let other girls see how devoted he was to Maria. Since he was always so quiet, I had gotten into the bad habit of completely forgetting his existence around Maria.
We walked to a small boat anchored on the river. It was one of the town’s communal boats, painted with a blue dolphin on the side, which anyone could use as long as they returned it to one of the designated docks when they were done.
I pushed off with my cantus. As we glided over the water, Maria untied her hair and let it fan out in the breeze.
She put her arms around my neck and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
Her gentle voice nearly brought me to tears.
“Nothing, really. I just wanted to see you.”
She knew it was a lie, but didn’t press further. Maria ran her fingers through my hair, untangling all my worries along with it.
We were heading for a little hill overlooking the Hamasaki sand dunes that was surrounded by bushes and provided perfect secrecy. In Harmony School we would often spend the afternoons there when the weather was nice. Back then, I was the first to suggest taking off our clothes, but Maria was the one who bravely stole a kiss from me as we lay naked together.
After docking, we raced up the dunes. I was worried that someone may have discovered our hiding spot since we hadn’t gone there for a while, but thankfully it looked untouched.
Although I knew for sure that we were completely hidden from view, we still made a check of our surroundings before taking off our clothes. At first I felt a little embarrassed, but our laughter as we slowly undressed each other made me feel like I had returned to my innocent childhood days.
It wasn’t quite yet summer, so the air was a little chilly. We rubbed the goosebumps on each other’s a
rms.
“Saki, your breasts have gotten bigger,” Maria suddenly grabbed me from behind.
“…that tickles,” I squirmed away.
She chased after me, putting her hands all over my body. At some point, she managed to take off my bra.
“Ugh, stop,” I couldn’t stand the feeling and crouched on the ground, arms around my knees.
“What are you talking about? Isn’t this what you want? That’s why you came to me, right?”
I laughed, shook, and writhed under her relentless attacks. It was a fine line between happiness and suffering, loving caresses and torture.
“Well. Since I haven’t seen you for a while, I need to inspect your body properly. What’s changed since the last time? Have you fully developed?”
“Enough. You don’t have to…!”
As I was talking, Maria ran her soft fingers up and down my body. Her fingers were so nimble it felt as if there were a thousand hands touching me.
“Hm. Such a beautiful body. Not an extra ounce of fat anywhere, and so soft.”
“U-uh. Are you done? It’s your turn now…”
“Mm, I’ll let you look as much as you like later. But I still need to check your sensitivity.”
She went on like this for thirty minutes. I laughed and begged her to stop until I was completely out of breath.
“Amaaazing. You actually enjoy all this teasing don’t you. Your entire body is responding to the pleasure.”
I couldn’t even come up with words to deny it. I glared accusingly at her through bleary eyes.
“Heh, how cute,” Maria smiled at me, her face only a hair’s breadth from mine.
She slowly pressed her lips against mine. Aah. How do I describe this softness? Until then, I had kissed a number of boys and girls, but never felt anything like this before. For many people, their mouths tense up if they’re nervous or if they’re consciously trying to control it, but Maria’s lips were like marshmallows, slowly enveloping my own. Just this was enough to melt me, but then she parted my lips and slipped her tongue in my mouth. This raw sensation always gave me goosebumps. She explored my mouth, running her tongue over the backs of my teeth, the insides of my cheeks, and finally, my tongue. Our senses melded together, touch with touch, taste with taste.
I gave myself up to her completely; all I wanted was to remember the sensation of her tongue. Maria’s every move was an expression of her own desires, and soon I would be expected to reciprocate.
The two of us lay entwined, knees bumping against knees, hardened nipples pressed against each other.
She slid her hand below my stomach, lightly stroking the soft hair, then moved down farther. I was embarrassed that she would feel how wet I was and tried to pull away. It was a fruitless attempt, of course.
“Oh? Why are you so excited?” Maria asked innocently, as if she didn’t know that it was entirely her fault.
“U….uun,” I tried to protest, but no words came out.
Without waiting for an answer, she reached a finger into me. Into every girl’s most sensitive area, a little bump no bigger than a pearl. She teased it with gentle circular motions, and my mind went blank. I had melted to the very core of my body.
Time passed, flowing thickly like honey. Maria and I forgot about the rest of the world, lost in our intense lovemaking. For the second half, I took charge, rendering Maria speechless, tears flowing down her face as she writhed with pleasure.
Our actions were not considered taboo, but one thing that was strictly prohibited was penetration. At the end of every term, the school nurse would check to make sure that all the girls were still virgins. If the hymen was discovered to be broken, the student would be questioned, and if the reason was that it was caused by impure heterosexual intercourse, she would be expelled.
At that time, there wasn’t anyone around us who had been forced to leave school for this reason. There was only a rumor that it had happened to a girl about seven years ago. It was said that she was never seen again after that incident, but like many of Satoru’s stories, there was no source for the legend, so its legitimacy was questionable.
After we were done, Maria and I lay back on the sand, covered in sweat. I suddenly remembered something the false minoshiro had said. In order to rid the society of violence, we had decided to change the structure of our society to one based on love, like the bonobos…
Since that summer, many of the things central to our lives started to go slightly awry. But these warnings were ignored as we were busy struggling with all the changes in our bodies caused by puberty.
What exactly was the first sign? I can’t remember, but there seemed to be a general feeling of unease and unexplained irritation. Maria was plagued with frequent headaches, and I often felt nauseous when I was tired. Everyone else also had some sort of physical discomfort though we all thought they were nothing more than growing pains.
Meanwhile, one relationship was the first to meet its demise.
I found out when I happened to come across two people in town.
Shun was walking quickly along the path next to the canal with Satoru chasing after him. What caught my attention was Shun’s attitude. It was considerably more distant than the last time I had seen him with Satoru.
“Hey, give me another chance,” Satoru touched Shun’s shoulder but was brushed away coldly. “Shun, what’s wrong?” his voice carried clearly on the wind. He sounded almost embarrassingly flustered.
“Nothing. I just want to be alone for a while,” he said flatly.
“I know it’s my fault. Please…” Satoru grasped Shun’s shoulders.
“Your fault? For what?” Shun smiled coldly.
“I…”
Poor Satoru looked totally lost. This was the first time in my life I actually sympathized with him and felt slightly revolted by Shun.
“Satoru, isn’t it time to end this farce of a romance? I’ve had enough of being your doll.”
Satoru looked dumbstruck. “O-oh. I understand. From now on…”
“You don’t understand anything. Having you follow me around the clock is suffocating. I want to be alone. So we should go our separate ways from now on. Goodbye,” Shun said quickly, pushing Satoru aside and coming in this direction.
The expression on his face shocked me. The cold smile was gone and replaced with a look of agony that twisted his features. The next second, he became aware of my presence. All emotions drained from his face as he hurried past, pretending not to see me.
Satoru was still frozen to the spot. I wanted to call out to him, but decided not to.
Why? Questions whirled around in my head. Why did Shun have to act so cruelly? He was always the kindest and most considerate one in our group. And from what I had accidentally seen, he still was. He was obviously suffering.
But when I saw Shun at school the next day, he didn’t look particularly disturbed. On the other hand, Satoru was visibly hurt. Anyone could tell just by looking that he had been dumped. But once in a while, he still snuck hopeful glances at Shun. It was painful to watch.
A few days later, another bad omen appeared.
At that time, all our practical courses at Sage Academy were based on each student’s aptitude. Although the general technique for using cantus was the same, there were hundreds of levels of difficulty, from simple force exchange to something as advanced as cold fusion. Most of the class was somewhere in the middle, though there were some students who were able to tackle much harder techniques.
Shun’s progress was far ahead of the group. He was working on hatching a chick from its egg in under two hours, an incredibly difficult task since it normally takes an egg twenty-one days to hatch. In other words, he had to use his cantus to speed up the development of something he couldn’t even see by a factor of 250.
To be given permission to use cantus directly on a living being requires not only technical skill, but also recognition of outstanding character. In other words, there were incredibly high expectations for Shun in the f
uture.
Unexpectedly, Satoru was also part of the advanced group. His talent was in reflecting and manipulating light, and his task to create a mirror out of thin air was one of the most difficult skills behind Shun’s. I’ve mentioned this before, but creating a lens out of a vacuum to magnify a distant image was something on the level of Shisei Kaburagi. Satoru’s technique of using water vapor in the air to create a wall to reflect light was considerably easier than that though.
On the other hand, the skill I was working on was reasonably difficult, but much more boring. I had to fuse together a broken glass vase. Maria was working on full-body levitation, making her the center of everyone’s attention. Mamoru was…actually I can’t really remember what he was doing.
“Saki, check it out.”
I looked up and saw an amorphous silver mirror floating a meter in front of me, reflecting my expression of intense concentration.
“Isn’t it kind of distorted?” I said shortly.
Satoru, who had been expecting me to praise him, gave me a sulky look. “No way, it’s perfectly flat.”
“My face isn’t that sunken in.”
“What? Isn’t it your heart that’s distorted here?”
With that snide remark, Satoru retreated. The mirror melted into thin air. After that, every time I wanted to talk to Satoru, I noticed him sneaking closer to Shun, watching him from behind.
I thought Satoru was still blindly in love with Shun, but it seemed that he at least understood that there was no chance of them repairing their relationship. He shook his head sadly and walked toward Rei, a short boy from team five, who smiled flirtatiously at him. Rei had liked Satoru for a while, but never made a move because of Shun. Satoru created another mirror and Rei, the class narcissist, began admiring his own reflection and making cute faces like a girl.
During all this, Shun concentrated on his project, ignoring his chattering classmates. In front of him was a simple egg stand with a single chicken egg on it. Everyone knew about the difficulty of his assignment and gave him a wide berth.
