Chapter Text
Epilogue.
Suguru.
January 26th, 2022.
It was twilight, nostalgia settling over the world like snow over the mountains.
The winter wind howled outside, weeping tales into a fleeting reunion of day and night, inside a humble home three hearts sat around a low table, warm under a quilt, as a lover peeled tangerines, splitting the sweet fruit into equal parts to share with his beloved and a child, wondering if this calm in him was an end or a beginning.
He was reminiscing a distant memory of his childhood, the present like an echo of the past, what had once been dreams of a yearning heart moulded into truth like a clod shaped into a home, a figure of a lover and a beloved and a child baked from the same lump of clay with gentle fingertips.
“Don’t cling to fairy tales, my boy,” his father had said to him one winter evening, “When comes the time innocence can no longer stand between childhood and heartache, face the world and write your own tale.”
Suguru had leaned back on his hands to look at his father, a quiet wonder on his lips, “What if it is not a good tale?”
“What if it is a good one?” his father had countered with a fond smile. “Remember, Suguru, whether good or not, it will at least be your own tale,” he had added in a gentle tone when Suguru had grown silent, stolen momentarily to his wonders of what would become of him in future, the loneliness of winter, his tale like the earth blanketed in snow, pale layers underneath which the whole story didn’t show.
“And if I want to live in someone else’s tale?” he had dared to speak of his heart’s quiet yearning in the end, reaching to the tabletop to pluck at the petals of a flower his father had carved out of tangerine peels.
His father had taken a sip of his tea before querying, “What do you mean by that?”
Suguru had lifted his shoulder in a slight shrug and muttered a sheltered admission, “What if I want to live in my beloved’s tale?”
His father hadn’t answered immediately. He had smiled and brought his gaze to his mother across the table. She had only smiled back at him, as though they had understood one another despite the absence of words.
“In true love,” his father had begun eventually, “That is not possible.”
Suguru’s heart had stuttered almost painfully in his chest. “Why?” he had only managed a quavered whisper, a bruising ache beneath his ribs, a quiet fear that the solitary winter would be everlasting.
“Because, in true love, you attain freedom, dear,” his father had explained gently, “A lover and a beloved’s tales will cross paths, as they are meant to, and it will feel as though they are living the same one tale, but that is only because their tales carry the same one feeling at their cores.”
“What feeling?” had been Suguru’s wispy wonder, the hope of his heart revealed through the quiet glistening of his eyes.
“Love,” his father had answered with an abiding smile, “Love through the knowledge that they are two separate selves who have built a home together by constantly striving to understand one another.”
Suguru had turned his hopeful gaze to his mother then. “Is that true, Mum?”
“Yes, darling,” she had spoken with a soothing lilt, “Remember, when you love, you bring freedom to the person you love, Suguru.”
“How?” had elicited Suguru, hope persisting in his voice.
“I don’t think I can tell you the answer to that, dear,” his mother had said to him, smiling kindly, “You will know when you fall in love and when you do fall in love, you should love in such a way that the person you love feels free. Your beloved should never feel like a bird held captive, perhaps loved but never allowed to spread its wings.”
The memory dissolved slowly at the rustling of trees outside, January’s wintry breath fogging the window as twilight turned into an early night.
Suguru returned to the sweet fragrance of tangerines in his home and found himself standing before his one true dream.
He looked to the blessings of spring blooming amid the bleakness of winter around him and finally understood what his parents had meant.
Love was creation, not only of self but another.
For it was in the act of loving, a lover and a beloved became real.
A self-perception through the reflection of another loving being.
A mutual realisation of,
This is you and this is I.
And this is us.
And though our tales may be separate, our paths are forever intertwined through the act of loving.
“I wish I could go with you,” was a child’s pensive whisper, one ruddy cheek squished into the fold of his arms over the tabletop.
It fully drew Suguru to the present, childhood nostalgia left to the winter sounds in the deepening night outside. He breathed in softly and looked from one cherished face to another around the Kotatsu with him.
Oh, how beautifully the flowers of spring had flourished under the tenderness of love.
Coming into their true colours as the bluebird’s resplendent wings remained unclipped.
As though to love another as he were was to reteach one his loveliness.
“Come here, little starling, sit with me,” beckoned Suguru and lifted the corner of the quilt to welcome Megumi to his side. “Tell me, are you afraid that we are going away for a bit?” he queried gently once the child had crawled across the futon laid over the tatami and tucked himself under the familiar fold of Suguru’s arm.
Megumi rested his temple above Suguru’s steadily rising breast and snuggled further into the warmth of the quilt. “No, not like I used to be,” answered the child almost meditatively, “Dr Yoshino says it is okay to feel afraid and to speak of my fears with Ruru and you, but I really am not. I know you will come back for me. You always do.”
Suguru felt a memory return to him, one he knew would remain inscribed on his heart despite the passage of time.
Satoru had been away for a championship and it had been Suguru’s first time taking Megumi to his appointment at Shinshu University Hospital’s Mental Health Clinic for Children. His heart had felt suspended in charmed sleep as he had waited in one of the armchairs in front of the office of Megumi’s therapist, silently counting the minutes that had draggingly ticked by.
Satoru had explained to him what to expect, but the bruising ache that unfailingly stirred in Suguru’s chest seemed to never heal no matter how many times he had witnessed sorrow take the golden stars in Megumi’s eyes hostage. It had used to make him feel helpless, but Suguru himself had gotten better with it as the child’s mangled heart had slowly started to heal.
He had risen from the armchair when the door had eventually reopened and Dr Yoshino, a woman with soft brown eyes and a kind smile, had escorted teary-eyed Megumi outside.
“Toutou,” the child had croaked wetly when his gaze had fallen upon him, tottering toward him in haste. “You waited.”
Suguru had lowered himself into a crouch on the floor and cradled Megumi’s tear-stained face in his hands. “Of course, I did,” he had murmured soothingly to him and kissed the child’s forehead. “You have been so brave, my little heart. Now let me dry your eyes, and then we will go home.”
Megumi had risen to the tips of his toes to hug him and the soft ache in Suguru’s chest had slowly ebbed away to yield the place to the familiar warmth.
Suguru allowed the present to reclaim him from his thoughts once again, the child’s soft breaths above his heart’s dwelling a blessing like the moonlight restoring the stars in the midnight blue sky.
“Always remember that, yeah?” Suguru said and dipped his chin to place a kiss on the crown of Megumi’s head. “And if you do feel afraid call us. If neither of us is able to answer, talk to Grandma or Grandpa, promise?”
Megumi tilted his head slightly to look up at him, a steady hum of reassurance on his smiling lips, “Promise.”
Suguru felt a spring of incomparable warmth bloom in his chest. He cradled gentle fingers through the child’s hair and drew his tender gaze to Satoru, a warm cup of tea held in his snow-white hands. “Our little starling is all grown up now,” he observed to him and Satoru only nodded in return, his beautiful lips curled in a soft smile over the rim of his cup.
Lovely beyond poetry.
The warm touch of glorious pink along his pale cheeks like the only blessing a lover’s heart possessed.
Indomitable and everlasting.
All these years and Suguru had yet to find a word to match his loveliness.
Except beloved.
Beloved was still the only adjective through which he dared to limit Satoru’s beauty to a language.
Every night Suguru’s heart went to sleep with a song of praise for his beloved on its lips.
It awoke with the same hymn, too.
For the word beloved had long become synonymous with Satoru’s name to him.
“I will still miss you,” a soft admission was spoken into the quiet lull of night.
“We will miss you, too,” Satoru said with an abiding smile and placed the cup on the tabletop to reach over and flick Megumi’s nose affectionately. “More than anything, Mimi.”
“We will be back before you know it,” inserted Suguru his gentle reassurance, “Four weeks will pass in no time.”
It had been difficult for Megumi at first.
The child would make himself sick with worry whenever either of them had to leave for longer than a few days.
An old fear worming itself into his little heart to whisper promises of loneliness instead of soft tunes of lullaby.
It had slowly, but steadily gotten better over the years. Still, the approaching Winter Games would be the first time the two of them would leave together since they had moved into a well-loved home in one of Nagano City’s traditional districts a little over three years ago, a secluded house only a few minutes walk from Zenkoji and a short drive to Nagano City Olympic Memorial Arena which housed the country’s very first speed-skating oval, where both Suguru and Satoru trained.
It had been an impulsive decision despite the mutual knowledge that they both had longed to start a home together, every cluttered space of their separate apartments shared with the other, a reflection of coexistence between a beloved and a lover.
“I wish we lived in a home together,” had been Megumi’s quiet confession after the guests had left an intimate birthday party they had organised for the child at Satoru’s place.
Satoru and Suguru had brought the blue and lavender in a reunion above the child’s head.
Suguru had smiled at him. Satoru had smiled back.
And a week later, they had stood in the dining room of a house that would soon become a home to them, long-breathing and restful.
“This is home,” had whispered Megumi with a soft hitch in his voice, tears of quiet delight glistening in the child’s starry eyes as he had soaked the cosy place in.
“Yes,” Suguru had told him, one warm hand in Megumi’s and the other in Satoru’s. “This is home, the three of us.”
“We are finally home,” had been Satoru’s decisive murmur and they had been home ever since.
A place of sweet familiarity they had built together over the years.
Home, indescribable yet so tangible.
Megumi shifted slightly under the quilt, a muffled yawn accompanying his words, “I can still spend the next weekend at Yuuji’s house, right?”
“Of course, Grandma knows,” Suguru assured him with a touch of fondness and glanced at where their suitcases were lined up against the wall. “Eso will pick you up after school on Friday. Just don’t forget your essentials bag like Yuuji did last weekend.”
The children had been inseparable since their reunion on Yuuji’s birthday in the spring of the same year they had met at the Olympics, so much so that they had ended up going to the same elementary school near their training facilities and the sleepovers alternated every other weekend had become a long-standing tradition since the first term of school.
“Be good for Grandma and Grandpa, okay?” Satoru added lightly and took a sip of his tea.
The child had charmed Suguru’s parents with his endless wit and thirst for knowledge and it had taken the elder couple no time to consider both Satoru and Megumi as their own, redesigning one of the two guest rooms as Megumi’s bedroom and replacing the bed in Suguru’s old room with a bigger one to carve out a permanent place of belonging for them in their home.
The first time Megumi had referred to his parents as grandparents would always remain a fond memory in Suguru’s heart. It had tumbled past the child’s lips unconsciously while introducing his family to Yuuji on his birthday. No one had remarked on it for fear of making the boy feel self-conscious, but his father had started to weep tears of joy while Mimiko and Nanako, perched on Satoru’s lap, had poked fun at him.
“Don’t be silly now,” his mother had chastised when Suguru had asked if Megumi could stay with them while the two of them went away for the Olympics. “Of course, we want our grandchild to stay with us, Suguru.”
And it had been decided as easily as that despite the long drive his parents would have to make to drop Megumi off at school and then pick him up afterwards every day.
“Always am,” Megumi muttered petulantly and borrowed deeper into Suguru’s side.
Satoru stuck his tongue out at the child, who in turn rolled his eyes in ersatz annoyance.
All the while Suguru felt a smile of utter adoration come into full bloom on his face.
Whenever he thought he could not love them more than he already did, his heart would prove him otherwise.
And Suguru loved them ever more fondly every time.
“Can I take my new camera?” roused Megumi after a brief lull of quiet, glancing between them as he sought permission.
It had been their gift to him for his ninth birthday last month, a film camera the child had instantly fallen in love with, soft gasps of awe falling off Megumi’s lips as he captured all that he found interesting now a familiar accompaniment of their getaways at the Joshin’etsu-kogen National Park or Myoko-Togakushi Renzan National Park on their off days.
Satoru nodded, a soft grin lifting the corners of his lips as he remarked, “How else are you going to show us what new wonders you have discovered when we are back?”
The midnight sky of Megumi’s eyes seemed to house thousands of delighted stars in that moment. “Thank you,” sighed the child with an elated smile into the soft fabric of Suguru’s sweater.
“Of course, baby,” Satoru said, gaze softened with warmth his heart held for the child, and reached over the table again to gently pinch Megumi’s ruddy cheek.
The room descended into a peaceful lull afterwards, three content hearts eavesdropping on each other’s soft breaths as the trees continued to rustle outside.
Suguru briefly closed his eyes, reminiscing the time he had only been able to glimpse where home was in his dreams, how he had yearned to be a lover and a beloved.
And how, after many years, he wanted to be nothing except what he already was.
This was home.
The three of them.
And the loneliness of winter he had always feared was a distant, very distant memory of a small child.
He was starting to teeter on the edge of sleep when a somnolent voice whispered, “Toutou.”
Suguru opened his eyes to look at the child. There was a faint sign of the faraway approach of dreams in the slow flutter of Megumi’s lashes. “What is it, little starling?” he toned in a soft hum, a drowsy smile on his lips.
“Would you tell us a tale?” was Megumi’s familiar request, a tradition they had grown into unconsciously, to end the evening with a poem or a tale.
Something Suguru had only dared to yearn for in his dreams.
A longing his father’s words had awoken in his heart long ago.
“Cold evenings of winter are for home, Suguru,” he had said to him once, “And tales shared with your loved ones.”
It was no longer a dream now.
And the truth of life was much lovelier than any dream.
For he had found himself exactly where he had always yearned to be.
At home on a winter evening, with his loved ones, about to tell a tale.
“Have I told you a tale of The White Butterfly?” Suguru asked after a moment of reflection and opened his arm to silently beckon Satoru to his side, who rose with the joy of the sea coming home to shore and tucked himself into Suguru’s awaiting embrace, the three of them snuggled under the warmth of the shared quilt.
“No,” Megumi shook his head and implored sleepily, “Please tell. I want to hear.”
Suguru drew a soft breath and in a lulling hush began the tale he had used to love growing up, “An amiable old man named Takahama, who lived in a little house behind the cemetery of the temple of Sozanji, became very ill one summer day, so ill that he sent for his sister-in-law and her son. They both came and did all they could to bring comfort to the solitary man during his final hours. While they watched, Takahama fell asleep, but he had no sooner done so than a large white butterfly flew into the room and rested on the old man’s pillow. The young man tried to drive it away with a fan, but the butterfly came back three times, as if loathing to leave the suffering man’s side.”
“But why chase it?” was Megumi’s faint wonder to himself, “White butterflies are good, are they not? Grandpa once said they symbolise a bridge between our individual selves and the infinite or the divine.”
“Yes, they represent enlightened consciousness,” Suguru lovingly smiled down at the child and resumed the tale with a soft cadence to his voice, “At last Takahama’s nephew chased it out into the garden, through the gate, and finally into the cemetery beyond, where the butterfly lingered over a woman’s tomb before mysteriously disappearing. Upon examining the tomb, the young man discovered there was the name ‘Akiko’ written on it, together with a narration of how she died when she was only eighteen. Though the tomb was covered with moss and must have been erected fifty years previously, the boy saw that it was surrounded with flowers, and that the little water tank had been recently filled.”
“It was her,” was a sheltered realisation uttered by Megumi’s lips.
“When the young man returned to the house he found that Takahama had passed away. He told his mother what he had seen in the cemetery. ‘Akiko?’ murmured his mother. ‘When your uncle was young, he was betrothed to Akiko. She died of consumption shortly before her wedding day. When Akiko left this world, your uncle resolved never to marry, and to live ever near her grave.’”
“Oh,” Megumi sighed almost wistfully, “She never left him either, did she?”
“For all these years, he remained faithful to his vow, and kept in his heart all the sweet memories of his one and only love. Every day Takahama went to the cemetery, whether the air was fragrant with summer breeze or thick with falling snow. Every day he went to her grave and prayed for her happiness, swept the tomb and set flowers there. When Takahama was dying, and he could no longer perform his loving task, Akiko came for him. That white butterfly was her sweet and loving soul,” Suguru drew the tale to its end with a soft exhale and the room seemed to lapse into a prolonged lull of peace as the wind outside continued to weep melancholy tales into the night.
Suguru glanced down at the child tucked into his side when Megumi’s head lolled limply against his arm, onyx strands of wayward hair falling back to reveal a dreamy smile on the boy’s face. He had fallen asleep, wandering into the land of dreams with a memory of Suguru’s softly uttered tale.
It was Satoru who breached the quiet in the end. “Do you think there is a lifetime where they get to live a long life together?” was his pensive wonder.
Suguru turned his face to smile gently at his beloved. “Who is to tell,” he said, “Maybe we are them now, in this present, living the love story they didn’t get to live. Maybe every lover is a reincarnation of another. The butterfly is also a symbol of rebirth after all.”
There was a slight shine to Satoru’s eyes as he returned Suguru’s gentle smile. “I like that,” he toned in a quiet hum, “It means we are together as long as there are lovers in the world.”
Suguru removed his arm from Satoru’s waist and held his hand out to him.
“Give me your hand, love,” he requested with a lasting smile of tenderness and Satoru shifted slightly under the quilt to place his hand in the warmth of Suguru’s palm. “Do you feel this heartbeat?” Suguru asked, pressing his beloved’s hand to his heart.
Satoru seemed to listen to the steady hum of his heartbeat. “I do,” he affirmed eventually.
“Buddhists say eternal life comes from letting go of the self. I think love is no different, eternal love is knowing self is impermanent, but love itself is not,” confessed Suguru the tale of his heart, “And I want you to always remember one thing, Satoru, one thing that I want you to carry with you onto ages of ages. I love you no matter what becomes of us. Even if there is a place somewhere in time, where we are not a lover and a beloved, I want you to remember that even in that life, I love you and my heart holds no other dearer to it. For the self may be impermanent, Satoru, but my love for you is not.”
And it was the truth, the only one in the universe.
A tale tested by fate across lifetimes.
Lovers could be lost, but through love, they would be eternal.
“Time may separate us as lovers,” Satoru spoke with a ruptured breath, “But it will never separate our love.”
“Yes,” Suguru confirmed and a memory seemed to return to him. “Do you remember what I told you four years ago?”
“Kiss me,” Satoru whispered with a beautiful smile, “And we shall be free?”
“Yes,” Suguru breathed in the hairbreadth of space between their yearning lips, “Kiss me, Satoru, and we shall become lovers from eternal life.”
Satoru stroked a strand of hair behind Suguru’s ear. “No matter what becomes of us,” he brushed a confession along Suguru’s lips, “I love you sorely.”
And then, Satoru kissed him with the reverence of a lover to a beloved.
A beloved to a lover.
And Suguru finally knew what this calm in him meant.
Not an end, but a beginning.
For he was a storyteller whose tale was only in the making.
[XXIV Olympic Winter Games.
Beijing, China.
February 20th, 2022.
Miracles on Ice: Japan’s Gojo Satoru and Getou Suguru rewrite the history of their respective sports.
Gojo Satoru successfully defends his figure skating men’s singles Olympic title at Beijing Winter Games, becoming the first man since Dick Button in 1952 to win two consecutive Olympic gold medals in figure skating.
Getou Suguru takes home his fourth Olympic gold medal by helping Japan to defend the men’s 1500 metres short track title as well as the Team Pursuit title, becoming the first (and thus far, only) speed skater to successfully defend two Olympic titles in one Winter Games for two consecutive times.]