Alone Together
The stark yellow line down the middle of the road glared against the gaping darkness. Thanks to specks of debris, its irregular consistency flickered through my peripherals, reminding me that we were moving at speed. The road, paved in black asphalt, wound and weaved through the avenue of piney sentinels, who watched us from the fringe eerily like they knew our secret—we were somewhere we shouldn't be.
We may still have been cloaked by woodland, but we were on a road in Mortal territory about ten miles away from the Compound. Hayashi didn't seem remotely concerned; he sped way over the limit, though at least he kept his eyes on the road. Anxiously, I messed around with the car's stereo, one hand twisting the knobs, trying to find a station that wasn't static, and the other clung white-knuckled to the passenger side door. When I asked why the Jeep didn't have seat belts, Hayashi dryly explained that it was a getaway vehicle. The rough ride would have been fun in any other circumstance, but I felt like I'd been kidnapped. I still didn't know where we were going. His answers to that question were frustratingly vague.
After another five minutes on the road, I resigned to listening to the silence and mused out of the window.
The dead, soothing silence of the road coaxed my nerves towards peace, but I was barely able to savour the newfound looseness in my shoulders before Hayashi turned off the asphalt and back onto the rough terrain of a woodland track. My grip on the door bar threatened to shatter the plastic in my fist, and the yelp I let go of earned a hearty chuckle from my driver.
"Ha! Skittish puppy." Hayashi teased, to which I scowled.
"Grrr. Would you just tell me where we're going?" He didn't answer. His devious smile and the way his eyes burned into me made my hips tense. "Woah, Hayashi! Watch the track!" I spluttered frantically; his attention had been distracted for an alarmingly long fraction of time.
With a quick adjustment of his wrist on the steering wheel, Hayashi diverted us from our collision course with a crowd of pines. He navigated another sharp corner that kept us on the track. But within minutes, the trees disappeared, and the Jeep was out under the moon, tearing up the chalky ground and churning up dust behind us. We ground to a halt, and Hayashi disembarked as the dust settled. As he grabbed his black canvas bag from the Jeep's rear bench, I hesitantly climbed down from the passenger seat and scoped the area—we were too far away from the cover of the trees for my liking.
I was still looking around when his hand coiled my wrist to coax me away from the car. I moved under his influence without putting up as much of a fight. The small clearing framed by pines and mountainous hills lay under a sheen of rolling fog that was warm and damp around my calves. Some yards further, the mist cleared, and Hayashi diverted my attention to a pool of bubbling cyan water—a hot spring.
"The Natives call the water here 'big medicine'. I call them Onsen and agree that they are a great healer." He said, dropping the tailgate and canvas bag into the truck bed. "The warm water will help your leg and keep all your muscles loose. You own too much tension, Nate."
What he did next did nothing to ease my tension. He unlaced his boots, slipped them off, and placed them, along with his socks, in the back of the Jeep. Then stripped off his jacket—it was obivous where this undressing was going; he intended for us to bathe… alone… together.
When he pulled his charcoal sweater over his head, my eyes homed in on the shape of his bicep and the line it made in his [tan] skin, how feathery and fine the black smattering of his underarm hair was, and how the hair that gathered between his pectorals was of the same soft texture. I wrote off my interest in his body down to being so different from mine. Hayashi was so lithe and elegant. His edges were much smoother than my own. His strength was concentrated in delicately refined musculature rather than hulking ripples.
The texture of my hoodie's cuff suddenly became fascinating as I kneaded them between my fingers and palm, staving off my unnatural urge to touch him. When he'd stretched, the notion to rake my fingers down his ribs and taking hold of his waist and hips made my stomach tighten into a knot. The twitch I felt against the fabric of my boxers caused the knot to churn in disgust. How base and vile my inclination was reminded me of what a disappointment I was.
Another stronger twitch came when Hayashi unceremoniously slipped his pants off along with his underwear. I couldn't sway my gaze from him, though, and watched even as I squirmed inwardly, disgusted by my arousal. When he stood upright, revealing his nakedness unashamedly, innocently, even, he clocked where my eyes wandered too, betraying my sickness. I met his eyes and was about to apologise, beg for mercy, and for him to take no offence, perhaps even pity me and my persuasion.
