Kou-kun and I get used to each other. 

We spend almost all our waking hours together and soon it becomes nights as well, though nothing more serious than hugging happens. I slowly drop my guard and fall into a happy cycle of writing and spending time with him.

It doesn’t last as I’m brought back to reality when Kou answers my cell phone one day. There is a brief exchange before I snatch the thing away from him and put it to my ear. I had forgotten that Sai took Japanese in school…

“Sai?” I breathe, trying to slow my pounding heart.

My daughter shrieks something incomprehensible into the phone. I can tell that she’s angry. 

I’m sure she never expected me to mourn for a long time. She knows that my life with her father was complicated, but I can tell it hurts her all the same. I feel bad, even though I know that she wants me to move on.

“Who answered the phone just now? Did you pick up a younger guy? Oh my God! What are you thinking?” I hear as I hold the phone away from my ear, making a face. “What the hell, mum!”

“I didn’t ‘pick him up,’” I say with exasperation. “He’s the original owner of the house. He’s visiting. I thought it would be polite to invite him in.”

“Maaaaaaaaaam! What if he’s like a perverted creep or something?” she yells.

You have no idea…I think to myself.

The perverted creep in question leans against the door frame eyeing the phone with distaste, his thick brows smashed together in a frown. I wave at him and smile.

We chat for a bit longer, but I can see that Kougetsu is on the verge of bursting.

“Sai...I’m hanging up…” I say, trying to hold back my laughter as my seductive ghost wraps his arms around me from behind. “Kougetsu!” I chide as he snatches the phone out of my hand and throws it onto the table.

A moment later he pulls me down onto his lap, running his hands under my shirt, and kissing the nape of my neck.

“Hey…wait…”

“No,” he says very clearly.

Huh?

I sit up, twisting to look at him.

“Are you beginning to learn English..?” I ask. “Man, you’re just naturally talented, aren’t you? I wouldn’t be able to survive outside without Mariko and yet, here you are…” I sigh.

I’m about to say something else, but his patience runs out and he simply shuts me up by putting his tongue in my mouth. We don’t talk for the rest of the night as we were busy doing other things.

I stop him just short of the actual thing.

I go through two rounds of ‘uhms’ and ‘ohs’ trying to explain why we can’t, before giving up because it’s just too embarrassing. I hide under the bed sheets until he gently reaches in to pat my back. I can tell he isn’t quite understanding my meltdown, but he’s awkwardly trying to comfort me anyway. I’m so embarrassed that I cry.

Somehow, I manage to convey to him that we can continue physical intimacy as long as it doesn’t involve actual coitus. I’m working on gathering the courage to go to the konbini. At the latest, I promise that it will only be one more week.

A few days later, wearing shades and a face mask, I manage not to explode in front of the convenience store clerk while making my embarrassing purchases. I try to think of Yashiro-san to make myself feel better, but I’m still red when I exit.

---

I decide it’s do or die tonight.

Kougetsu has been waiting for me. I’m full of nerves, even though it’s not my first time and we’ve kissed and touched each other a fair bit before now. Actually, that’s a lie…I’ve touched everything on his body except that…

Kneeling on the bed facing him, I take the essentials and put them down between us, explaining what they are. Although he seems nervous and excited, he remains gentle and goes at my pace. When we finally remove each other’s clothing, I show him what to do. 

My face gets hot, and I feel a little bit weird. He makes a slight sound, letting his breath out a bit as he cups my hands over his flesh as I help him put on the condom. Before I can react, he is laying me down under his body.

I stare up into his face, and I don’t realize that I’ve teared up until he wipes the corner of my eye with his thumb.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever wanted to be connected with someone as badly as I do at this moment.

Not surprisingly, we don’t leave the bedroom for a week.

We eat in bed, make love, sleep, make love, bathe, make love in the bath, and so on. 

At one point, we stop eating... and this might have continued for an unknown amount of time, except I wake up to find Mariko peering down at me with a horrified look on her face.

I’m so surprised my soul escapes out of my ears and I become a rock.

“Sensei! You can’t sleep like this! You’ll fall ill!” she scolds, gesturing to the open sliding door. The garden air is creating a breeze that stirs everything in the room.

I’m in complete shock and I’m surprised to find that I’m dressed in my short sleeve teddy bear nightie in a bed that has clean sheets. It takes a moment for that to sink in and I realize that Kougetsu has put a stop to the madness by bathing me and putting me to bed... and thankfully he’s aired out the bedroom…

Thinking about the smell of sex, I turn beet red. I groan and cover my face. How could I forget that Mariko has emergency keys…?

“I couldn’t get a hold of you for six days! You weren’t answering your phone…I was concerned,” Mariko chides, reading my mind. “It’s a good thing I came. You look exhausted! Please, please mind your health while you are working!”

I give a bark of something that might have been laughter, but I jerk my head at Mariko’s sharp exclamation.

Kougetsu walks in off the deck holding a basket full of clean sheets, looking handsome in a yukata and smelling like pine and sunshine. He smiles at me and then immediately sets the basket down, bows to Mariko, and then there is a rapid-fire exchange of Japanese that I don’t follow, but Mariko is blushing to the roots of her hair.

“Sensei…you didn’t say that you had such a nice neighbour! Ikeda-san says that you’ve been very busy and he’s been looking after things so that you can rest!”

I can tell that she is scandalized, but too polite to say anything. I covertly glare at Kougetsu who only smiles smugly.

“Busy? Yes…you could say that I’ve been busy…” I mutter, trying not to think about what kind of ‘busy’ I’ve been in the last few days. 

Kougetsu kneels down, pretending to be diligent with the laundry.

“Well, I won’t intrude any further! Let me know if there’s anything you need here,” Mariko nods and hastily excuses herself. I only start breathing again when I hear the front door shut.

Then I groan and pull the quilt over my head, squirming.

Kougetsu unburies me and wraps me in his arms, grinning down at me.

“Argh!” I say. “There’s no way that Mariko won’t think we’re lovers now.”

As if to confirm it, he kisses the top of my head. It’s obvious that he’s delighted by the idea.

We might have started to make love again except my stomach makes a loud protesting noise, which makes Kougetsu laugh.

I’m mesmerized by it. It’s the first time I’ve seen him bathed in sunlight, laughing with his head thrown back, and his hair in his eyes.

Lying on the bed, I hold my arms up to him. I must look anxious to him. From the change in his expression, I know he feels it too. We don’t get out of bed for another few hours and by that time, he has to carry me as I can’t feel my legs. I’m so hungry that my stomach wraps around my backbone.

---

We spend the next few weeks memorizing every part of each other’s bodies with our hands.

His fingers pause on the oddly elliptical birthmark on my chest and I can’t read his expression.

“Does my body bother you?” I ask shyly, as he strokes his fingers over my round belly and the stretch marks. I’m a little embarrassed at the untidy rolls of flesh on my forty year old, slightly overweight body.

He sits up a little, lying on his side with his head propped on his hand. His face becomes serious, though his eyes are twinkling.

“No…I like it,” he says. “It tells me you’ve had a good life. You’ve known the joy of raising a child, you haven’t experienced hunger, and the skin of your hands show that you’ve never had to do hard labour. All these things are good….I’m glad because you’ve been loved and cherished up till now.”

Somehow, I find his words deeply arousing. Not in a sexual sense, but they give me a deep unspeakable joy, and tears well up in my eyes.

He cares for me that much…even if he wasn’t part of my life then, that I was happy means something to him.

I pull him down and nestle against his chest. Although his body is warm (whoever heard of a warm ghost?), I can’t hear his heartbeat. The silence of it frightens me, reminding me that I’m in the embrace of the unnatural. Things that go against nature don’t last…all things return to balance…

How much time do I really have with him?

My fingers slide down under his robe, and he grabs my hand, startled. Then he rolls on top of me, kissing my fingers.

“Again…?” he chuckles. “My lover is so bold…”

I squirm under his intense gaze, but there are tears standing on my eyelashes.

“I need you…” I say, trying not to sound desperate. “Please…”

“I’m right here,” he says, gathering me in his arms.

“I’m scared…Please hold me…” I beg.

I know this desperation, this anxiety, is no good, but I can’t help wanting to feel the safety of his body combining with mine. 

Gentle as always, Kougetsu loves me with the tenderness and patience of understanding, reassuring me with his body. Even if his words can’t reach the dark cold spot inside my heart, at the very least, he tells me with his fingers, his hands, his eyes, and the sound of his breath catching in joy, that I’m the only one he cares about.

I’m slowly losing my mind.

---

Kougetsu wants to know everything about me.

One day, looking at the pictures on my phone, he asks about Sai.

“She’s my daughter. She’s nineteen and just moved away from home to go to school this year.”

“What is the character for her name?” he asks, curious.

I reach out and write the kanji in his palm and his face clears.

“Just before I found out I was pregnant with her, I had a dream. I dreamt that I walked into a room with sunshine coming through the windows and there was a little girl with her back to me sitting at a desk. As I came around, I saw that she was painting with an old style brush. She turned to look at me and even though I couldn’t see her face, I felt happy. I woke up when she said ‘Mama’…”

“So you named her Sai, for paint,” he finishes smoothly.

I nod.

“She’s studying to be a designer at a good school.”

“You must be very proud of her,” he says, smiling.

“Yes, I am,” I laugh.

—

Kou eventually tells me about himself.

“I was adopted into the Ikeda household. The Lord found me as an infant wrapped in a silk brocade blanket just outside the village during the first spring bloom. He thought I might have come from a noble family, but there was no letter left with me. Only the brocade.”

“Born out of wedlock then?” I ask, curious.

Kou shrugs.

“Whatever the reason, my parents abandoned me and the Lord raised me like his own son. I worked hard to repay that kindness, but I’m ashamed to say I fell in love with his daughter. Perhaps he would have allowed a marriage, but she was supposed to marry out of the house to solidify an alliance with another family. Her brother was an ambitious man and when the Lord died, her brother had me beaten and thrown out…”

I feel my face shift into a frown as a surge of pity and jealousy twists my gut.

“What happened to her…?” I ask softly.

Kou’s expression becomes shuttered.

“I came back too late. She cursed her brother and the entire Ikeda family and then committed suicide. They had a priest build the garden over us in such a way as to trap the resentment of her soul. He had me buried alive with her as a living sacrifice to keep her soul from enacting her revenge…”

He points to the bell on the cord tied to his ankle.

“The bell prevents me from leaving this place.”

I’m so shocked, I can’t even speak.

“I’ve been alone with the guilt of it…until you came back.”

“Until I…came…?”

I stare up at his face, resisting the meaning that he is implying.

“No,” I say.

“Yes,” he says softly. He reaches out and touches the birthmark on my chest. My heart pounds under his fingers.

“I don’t believe you!” I want to shriek, but it comes out hoarsely, barely above a whisper.

“You don’t have to…but Mio, I’ve always recognized what’s mine.”

He leaves me to mull this over and doesn’t appear in front of me for a long while. I refuse to accept what he’s told me, but my resentment and anger is slowly replaced by the emptiness of missing him. I call for him once or twice to see if he’s there, but he doesn’t appear.

After a few weeks, I finally go into a panic, thinking he’s left for good, but he catches me running out the house, blind with tears and clasps me tight in his arms as I break to pieces. 

I’m lost. I’m hurt. I hate it. 

“Why?” I scream.

I hit Kou in a fury, beating my fists as hard as I can, and I howl into his chest until he has to carry me into the house. He soon realizes that my state can’t be soothed by reason. He rips my clothes off and I scratch my nails down his back and sink my teeth into his skin.

We dive off the deep end and drown ourselves in an ocean of despair. Clinging to each other as hard as we can. What we feel is so savage and broken, we can’t put it into words.

“Mio…” he cries hoarsely into my ear. “Mio!”

We push each other so hard that we are covered in bruises, but we still refuse to let go. It doesn’t end even when I lose consciousness, and I wake over and over again to find myself still moaning under him.

The next time I wake up, he’s asleep, having finally exhausted himself. I try to untangle my limbs, but find myself in an embarrassing situation.

“Kou…?”

“Hmmn…?”

“Get out…”

“...the bed…?”

“No…” I say flatly, trying not to blush so ferociously.

He opens his eyes and that’s not the only part of him that wakes up.

I grunt, partly in pain, partly in embarrassment.

“Here,” he says softly, grinning. I shriek as he shifts me in his arms and then stands up. My legs inadvertently tighten around his waist, making things worse.

“W-Wait…no!” I gasp, wanting to cry.

“Let’s go to the bath,” he says, with a smirk that makes me want to punch him in the face. I shiver with every step, torn between pain and pleasure.

Despite my meltdown, I forgive him.