Kai woke up in the evening. The nurse, at his request, raised the headboard for him again. And now he was sitting and playing with the phone.
“It’s so good that you can just press the keys like this and beat unreal monsters in a virtual game. The main thing is not to think.”
Now he didn’t want to listen to his thoughts. All this is nonsense. He needs to get well, this is his main goal.
There was a soft knock on the door. It was Toyami.
Kai shot him a quick glance, looking up from the phone screen and realizing that his breath was out of the way.
Toyami was wearing a combat military kimono in full feather. Two combat swords protruded from the left under the wide silk belt at his waist. A black kimono, worn on a white one, the stripes of which peeped out in a contrasting smell on the chest, effectively emphasized the beauty of its owner. His sleek black hair was slicked back, only a few thin strands falling over the eyes, which glittered with cold gray steel in their slightly slanted cut.
Toyami saw in Kai’s eyes that he impressed the guy and mentally thanked Kodji for such a hint.
“Hello! What are you doing?” Toyami asked, seeing Kai’s fascinated gaze on the phone screen.
“Hello. Here,” Kai showed Toyami a picture of a game with a fight. Toyami was ready to see anything on the phone, but not a game. He did not understand at all how one could play computer games. No, he admitted it when a person was fourteen, but at a later age … So now, seeing that Kai was playing a fight with monsters, he froze, not knowing what to answer.
Kai caught his breath after looking like this with Toyami and continued:
“Sit down, wait a minute, I’ll finish the game. You know, I just can’t get past this level, I’m constantly losing,” without distracting from the monitor, he continued to speak, “although no, a week ago I already reached the final, but here the artillery started working on us. I had to distract myself, if not for this, I would have been at the eighth level.”
Kai briskly pressed the buttons, obviously, this game completely distracted him from everything, so it seemed to Toyami. In fact, Kai was trying to focus on the game in order to restore the balance of mind that Toyami’s unexpected appearance had knocked out.
“There, now! Lost again,” he said dejectedly, putting his phone down.
“It’s my fault, I’ve distracted you.”
“No, not you, it’s just I can’t complete this level,” Kai finally forced himself to look once again at Toyami, sitting in front of him on the chair, “I’m sorry, you’re probably not interested.”
“I’m interested in everything. Look, I brought you everything you asked for.”
Toyami neatly laid out textbooks, notebooks, and pens on the bedside table. He then took out a box of chocolates and doomed handed it to Kai, thinking it was Kodji’s cute joke.
Kai perked up, taking the box, removed the wrapper from it, and looked inside with delight.
“I love candy with soft chocolate inside,” Kai slowly unwrapped one candy and, biting off half, closed his eyes.
Now his face expressed pleasure in the process of slowly absorbing the chocolate candy.
Toyami was even more confused: he thought it was a joke. Such a joke from Kodji. But no! Kai was chewing the candy slowly, and it was clear that he liked it.
“Do you like chocolate?”
“Yes. Did I disappoint you?”
“Why?”
“You are sitting with such a doomed face as if your world had collapsed,” Kai took another bite of the chocolate candy and licked his lips from the chocolate.
“No, I just don’t know anything about you at all,” Toyami saw it – those lips, the way Kai innocently ran his tongue over them like a child. A sweet wave rose inside the man and ran all over his body like goosebumps. Toyami realized that he was losing control of himself.
“Is it important to you?” Kai felt a strange tension in the air, he swallowed chocolate and nervously sucked in air.
“Yes!” Toyami slowly sat down on the bed, swords at his waist, dully hitting each other with a muffled sound.
Now Toyami was very close to Kai, who squeezed into the pillows and realized that he had nowhere else to retreat.
“Am I scaring you?” Toyami very carefully took Kai’s hand in his. “You have very beautiful hands. Fingers are as thin as musician’s ones.”
He brought his fingers to his lips and gently touched them.
Kai did not know, or rather, did not understand what was happening to him, what was happening in general, and how he should act. He felt Toyami’s warm lips on his fingers. His breath and gentle touch. Kai, fascinated, watched everything that Toyami did.
Toyami took Kai’s other hand, also brought his fingers to his lips. Again there was hot breath, from which for some reason goosebumps ran down the skin.
Kai knew he had to say something, but realized that he had forgotten Japanese. There was no suggestion in his head.
“Then I’ll say it in English,” he thought, trying to remember English.
“Don’t do that, please.”
“What did you say?”
Kai realized that he had said it in Russian.
Realizing the meaning of what Kai told him, Toyami replied:
“Is it unpleasant for you?”
“You don’t need to do this,” Kai finally remembered the Japanese.
“Why? After all, this is an ordinary tenderness. You are sick. I give you warmth. Are you not used to this?”
Kai was completely confused. Toyami’s words drove him to a dead end. Yes, he was not used to tenderness.
Toyami continued to touch his fingers with his lips, leaving kisses on them.
Then his face began to slowly approach. Kai wanted to push him away with his hand but realized that he was holding his hands.
Toyami slowly began to lower himself to Kai’s lips, at the last moment Kai turned his head to the side and felt Toyami’s hot breath at his ear.
“My dear, do not be afraid. Let me be by your side,” Toyami whispered.
“Toyami, I’m not so much sick not to plug you in the eye.”
These words and the tone in which they were uttered made Toyami sober, he straightened up, then released Kai’s hands and got out of bed.
“No – you are sick if you consider it normal to respond with rudeness to tenderness towards you. Are you even capable of feeling?!” Toyami looked desperately into Kai’s eyes, trying to see at least a drop of warmth in them.
Kai’s eyes were cold and detached from everything.
Toyami waited, then bowed slightly and left the room.
Kai waited for his footsteps to subside in the corridor, and only then leaned back on the pillow. He was shaking with a small shiver. He reached out for a bottle of water. He drank greedily.
“What happened to me?” Kai listened to himself, “What is it? Did I like what he was doing? I clearly haven’t recovered yet. This is the effect of drugs! Toyami, you’re a preoccupied nutcase! “
***
Entering his tent, Toyami saw Kodji lounging on his couch watching TV. At his arrival, he jumped up and rushed to him.
“So how did it go?” Kodji asked excitedly.
“Fine,” Toyami snapped.
“That is, everything is bad! Tell me what has happened.”
Toyami walked nervously, then poured himself a whiskey and drank it in one gulp.
“I could not restrain myself, he drives me crazy! I so want to touch him, to his lips! You see, I don’t even want anything more! Let him only allow to kiss, hug, touch!” Toyami drank more whiskey. “Don’t think I’m an idiot. I’ve understood everything, what you were talking about. But understand me too! Everything just darkens in my eyes when I feel him next to me. Do you understand this?!”
Toyami poured more whiskey and drank it in one gulp.
“I understand you,” Kodji said sadly in his voice. “Did you scare him again?”
“I guess. I do not know. I did not do anything! Or rather tried it. But he doesn’t feel anything. Nothing!”
“Drink! It will help you. Tomorrow we’ll go to him together. Okay?”
“Yes.”
***
The following evening, there was a knock on Kai’s ward. Kodji and Toyami entered. Kai tensed at first, but he trusted Kodji, and his presence brightened up the incomprehensible situation between him and Toyami.
“Are we distracting you?” Kodji looked at the textbooks lying on the blanket, and the notebook in his hand, in which he animatedly was writing something when they came.
“No, I’ll continue later,” Kai closed the notebook and put it aside.
Kodji leafed through it with interest, then looked at Kai.
“Chemical chain, are you really keen on this?”
Since Kodji studied at the medical school, he also knew chemistry well. Finding common ground in this, they began to speak. Kodji knew that talking about abstract topics would help remove the wall Kai had erected again.
Toyami was just watching the conversation.
Then the conversation smoothly turned to military topics.
In the next hour, Kodji managed to remove Kai’s distrust and they talked like old friends about everything.
There were times when Kai smiled when he remembered funny incidents from military life with Kodji. Then Toyami kept his gaze on him and admired his smile. Kai felt this look on himself, he was embarrassed and averted his eyes to the side, again not knowing how to behave.
“You have such versatile knowledge and interests: medicine, chemistry, physics,” Toyami finally entered the conversation.
“It’s all from one area. How can you be a military man without knowing the human anatomy,” answered Kai.
“You want to say, to kill a person without knowing his anatomy,” Toyami continued his thought.
“Not only to kill, but also to know the degree and complexity of the wound and provide medical assistance in time,” Kai looked at Kodji, “so I’ve studied anatomy and medicine well, and chemistry is one of the components of medicine.”
“Do you want to become a doctor?” Toyami asked.
“I used to want to become a surgeon.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t want to.”
“Why?” Toyami looked at Kai’s pensive face.
“I don’t like blood. I don’t want to see it anymore,” Kai replied.
The pain with which Kai said this silenced everyone. There was an awkward silence. Kodji broke it first:
“They’ll come for you tomorrow,” he said a little sadly, “after dinner. We will say goodbye to you today. Tomorrow we’ll go to another headquarters, we won’t be able to see you off.”
Kai listened in silence, knowing that he didn’t have much to say.
“Can you give your phone number? After all, you often visit Kamrat, can we go to lunch together?” Koji asked.
Kai realized that it was worth saying this, no matter how unpleasant the topic was to him. But he had to say it!
“I want to say, we should not cross anymore and, moreover, meet,” seeing their dumb question, he continued, “I do not date men, and I do not sleep with men,” Kai said it coldly and calmly. “I think you and I have different interests. I do not want to continue our communication.”
“Do you sleep with men or did you sleep with men? These are two different things,” Toyami, sitting on Kai’s bed, grabbed him by the shoulders and slowly began to bring him closer to him, “before giving up anything, maybe it’s worth trying?”
Kai put his hands in front of him and rested on Toyami’s chest.
“Toyami, let him go! Do you hear! He’s wounded!” Koji understood that now Toyami would completely lose control of himself.
“Lucky you. Not now. I’ll wait!” Toyami abruptly pushed Kai away from himself, then got up and left the room.
Kai was sitting pale, eyes downcast, nervously fingering the edge of the blanket with his fingers.
“Kai, don’t be offended by him. You’ve misunderstood everything. I really just want us to be friends. But your answer hurt Toyami, so he behaved like that.”
“I’ve said everything. I’m sorry. You’d better leave too,” Kai said this without looking up, fiddling with the blanket in the same way.
“Okay. I understand. Get well.”
Realizing that he won’t hear anything more from Kai, Kodji also left the room.
Kai leaned back on the pillow. He looked at the ceiling.
From the street came voices, someone’s joyful laughter, exclamations. A light breeze slammed the sash of the window, Kai flinched in surprise. The sound rang out sharply, and then silence fell in the room. The closed window no longer allowed to hear people on the street so clearly. It seemed to Kai that the void was slowly creeping out of the corners of the room and filling it. It became difficult to breathe.
“It’s too quiet here. Too quiet…”
