22Warning: Cherry Blossoms in the starlight is about two guys. You must be over 18 or the equivalent legal age of adulthood in your country to read this story. You have been warned.
Two - Moving out
Ket's home was almost unsurprisingly in a river front warehouse, the massive red brick shell was split with huge windows that reached the length of the four storey building. Half of them were boarded up and the other half were freshly re-glazed. Ket pushed open a sliding steel door that split the good half from the boarded up half and wasn't even locked. Thirsk looked around the odd entrance hall wondering how on earth he had managed to forget this.
'How many people live here?'
'Mera lives on this floor, I'm up here,' he led the way up a set of steel mesh stairs on light feet, Thirsk followed with considerably less gusto. 'There is space for two more on the other side, but I didn't fancy any neighbours so I've just neatened them up until I find somewhere to move.'
'You converted this?'
'Sure, I'm a builder, I like interiors more than outsides, so in my spare time I do up old warehouses and sell them on, I'm waiting for planning permission on the one we were in last night.'
Ket dug his wallet out of his jeans and flashed it across a black pad on the wall next to yet another sliding steel door. A number touch pad lit up across the plastic and he tapped in a nine digit code.
'Dodgy neighbourhood,' Ket cut in as Thirsk opened his mouth to comment on what seemed like an excessively complex and secure key considering their location and the open door downstairs. Ket cocked a head over his shoulder and shot Thirsk a grin. 'Yer bitched about that yesterday as well; if the kids see a fancy lock they want to break it, so I keep the security inside, I worked hard for my flat-screen, ain't no punk ass kid going to get it from me on a whim.'
He slid the door open on well-oiled hinges and stepped through. Ket's house wasn't like anywhere Thirsk had been before, or at least remembered being. It looked like those fancy places you saw on TV. There were no internal walls just a big open space lit from all sides by the massive windows that had been visible from outside and ran straight into the floor where presumably they lit the home of the mysterious tattooist Mera as well. There was a second floor build across half of the room, reached by an open staircase made of oak beams that seemed to be floating in the air somehow. A massive bed was just visible and a single wall made from sixty's style glass bricks that Thirsk really hoped hid a bathroom, although a single wall still wasn't going to be much good in Thirsk's opinion. On this floor at the other end was split from the bulk of the room by a second 'wall' made from a very densely pack bookshelf and linked to yet another sliding door, this one made from steel and cream opaque glass. Thirsk had an odd recollection of another bedroom back there, and being creeped out by the fact the bookcase walls stopped at eight feet, leaving the rest of the twelve feet to the ceiling open to the air, and to the balcony above. To the left of the front door was a kitchen in the same vintage steel and wood style and a handful of battered leather coaches were arranged around a log burner and the hugest flat screen TV Thirsk had seen outside of electronics store. Beyond the river was just visible through the windows.
'There's another bathroom at the back,' Ket said as he pointed beyond the bookshelf wall and slid the door shut behind them. 'An' there's a toilet with actual walls just here, before yer start bitching.' Ket pointed off to the right, where a small series of rooms and storage was almost invisible.
'Why didn't you just build actual walls and save having three toilets?'
'For god's sake, it's a style. An' besides we all shit an' piss an' shower, why'd we have to pretend we don't?'
'So why didn't you stick by your guns and not have the third?'
'Because sometimes shit really stinks,' Ket laughed and tugged his grey shirt off over his head before padding up the floating wooden stairs on light feet. Beneath his top Ket's tanned skin was coated in an intricate pattern of tattoos; each blending seamlessly into the next as they dipped beneath the waistband of his jeans. He disappeared behind the glass wall that hid the upper floor bathroom from direct view and the sound of water echoed through the warehouse. A silhouette that wasn't that obscured appeared behind the glass and Thirsk turned back to the kitchen.
It was with was an odd sensation of dey-ja-vu that Thirsk turned the kettle on to make coffee, he found that he opened the right cupboard first time for everything. The odd sensation of knowing and not knowing was too much for him to handle as he waited for the other guy to finish in the shower. He sipped his coffee and padded round the room careful to keep his eyes down because he had a sneaking suspicion that there were a number of angles from which the upstairs bathroom was perfectly visible from down here.
Outside the day was grey, but the slowly warming sun was turning the riverside that vivid and almost luminescent shade of spring green as the last of the daffodils died. Thirsk went through to the back bedroom, running his eyes over the wall of books and checking for gaps, the wall was solid enough and the square panels of opaque glass were almost reassuring, but as he went into the bedroom he couldn't help but look up. The bookshelf and door stopped at about eight feet and the rest was empty space, Ket gave him a wave from the upstairs bathroom a towel tucked around his hips and a toothbrush foaming white at his lips.
'Pervert,' he mouthed around the white foam and Thirsk rolled his wayward eyes and looked back at the bedroom that he had apparently spent Saturday night in. Sure enough the shirt he'd left home in on Saturday morning was looped over the back of a chair next to the bed. The faded blue backpack he'd had since high-school was drying over the radiator, a small voice in the back of his head told him he was happier not remembering what it had smelt like before it had been washed. The fact that he'd clearly been here before and couldn't remember was possibly the most surreal feeling he'd ever encountered.
'I'm done,' Ket called down; the sound carried easily despite the pretence of walls. Thirsk kicked his trainers off and tugged the wife beater over his head wincing as it caught on his stiches and again as it dragged along the wounded skin of his freshly inked arm. He went through to the bathroom and turned on the shower, glancing up and over his shoulder just to check that Ket was indeed gone from the upstairs bathroom. But the space beyond the glass balcony was empty and Thirsk tugged off the rest of his clothes, sighing as he got under the spray, it felt like it had been months since he'd had a good shower and felt properly clean.
He washed the tattoo gingerly, probably with more care than he gave the ridiculous scar that ran down his skull. He wasn't sure what was going to be more embarrassing to explain at work, the fact that he'd gone out drinking an ended up in A and E or that he'd come home with a tattoo as well as stiches. Out of the shower he scrubbed his cotton mouth teeth, no longer surprised to find his own toiletry bag next to the sink.
'Knock, knock,' Ket's voice came from the other side of the glass brick partition that separated the small bathroom from the bedroom area and Thirsk shot round, his hands checking the towel around his hips as his eyes checked that the other guy wasn't peeping. Ket was leaning against the glass on the other side of the wall, his back pressed to the opaque bricks.
'We already had this conversation, homophobe,' Ket muttered when Thirsk took a touch too long to answer. 'Yer not that hot,' he laughed, fed up of waiting and stuck his head round the side of the glass. 'I brought yer paracetamol,' he chucked a packet of pills in Thirsk's direction and Thirsk just managed to pull them from the air before they connected with his forehead. 'An' yer need to take these for the cut on yer head,' he strode into the room, freshly dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that showed of his more ink than skin arms, and nudged a container of pills that had Thirsk's name on them. 'I figured yer didn't remember, also…' he tugged out a tube of nappy rash gel, and pressed it against Thirsk's chest with a wry grin. 'Yer need to put this on your new tat' twice a day, or it'll probably crack an' look generally shit an' Mera will never tattoo yer again.'
'What are you my mum? And I have no intention of getting another tattoo.'
'Whatever, that's what they all say.'
Thirsk dropped the cream into the top of his bag with no intention of putting the stuff anywhere near his skin. Reluctantly he took two paracetamol and the couple of prescription pills from the plastic tub washing them down with the dregs of his now lukewarm coffee.
Ket watched through narrowed eyes, then rolled them. With surprising speed and strength he stepped forwards and grabbed Thirsk's tattooed arm in one hand, with his other he fished the nappy rash cream out from the top of Thirsk's wash bag and drove a stumbling Thirsk backwards.
'I did not sit in A an' E for six hours an' listen to yer bitching an' wining like a girl for another six for yer to end up with a patchy piece of shit on your arm,' Ket was deadpan as he pressed Thirsk back against the wall of the shower; pinning him against the glass with his shoulder against Thirsk's breastbone and his hips between Thirsk's. Ket's reflexes were much faster than Thirsk's and he proceeded to squeeze half the tube in a white snake along the dark scabbed ridges of Thirsk's new tattoo before Thirsk even clicked what was going on.
'Get off me,' Thirsk growled his free uninjured arm coming up to try and peel Ket away from him, but despite being a couple of inches shorter than Thirsk Ket was much stronger and he didn't shift.
'Stop being a pussy. So yer girlfriend left yer an' everyone thinks yer boring, yer got wasted an' got some ink yer now don't want, big fucking deal. Yer stuck with it. So at least have a good tattoo to remind yer what an ass yer are, rather than a piece of shit yer couldn't even be bothered to look after.'
Beneath Ket Thirsk stopped struggling. He stared at the smaller man's portrait, as Ket rubbed the bitterly cold thick cream into the scabs with swift clinical movements. Thirsk slumped back against the wall, the drive gone out of him, stolen by the words of this guy who really did seem to know all the details of the shit that was going on in his life.
Ket took his weight of Thirsk's chest, meeting his eye briefly, clearly unimpressed and unsympathetic.
'Turn around,' Ket barked, expecting resistance, but Thirsk just hauled his weight back onto the balls of his feet and slumped head forwards against the glass, his forehead resting against the cool surface. Ket had expected some kind of opposition from the new Thirsk that had woken up this morning, or at least a sarcastic joke about his sexual preferences from yesterday's less homophobic version of Thirsk, instead the guy just did as he was told and Ket rubbed the moisturiser into his odd friends shoulder and neck feeling weary and confused.
The tattoo was a good one, a design Mera had been working on for months and had just been waiting for someone to ink it on. Yesterday Thirsk had seemed so sure of his decision, his eyes lighting up when he saw the design and even more so when the epic session was finally done and the intricate black and grey sleeve had been finally complete between the swollen red tissue of his skin. Ket rubbed the cream into skin that still felt warm to the touch, the ridges of colour just discernable beneath his fingers as he worked it into his spine. It was healing well, and knowing Mera would be beautiful when it was fully healed. Ket's fingers lingered on the silent Thirsk's neck.
'Maybe yer should make a doctor's appointment,' Ket mumbled as he finished and screwed the lid back on the metal tube. He scrubbed the leftovers against the densely tattooed skin at the small of his back, and his hands felt oddly hot and twitchy despite the cold cream.
'If it happens again I will,' Thirsk sighed and seemed to straighten as he turned back around. 'I'll get dressed and get out of your hair.'
'Yer not in my hair,' sighed Ket, annoyed to have to go through all of this again. 'I offered yer the spare room yesterday, ain't no point it sitting here empty an' you spending your money on a hotel.'
'You've done enough.'
Ket suddenly realised that was the problem, he'd looked after this guy, and now suddenly he was worried that Thirsk was going to run off and slit his wrists over a girl who was clearly a shit and a beautiful tattoo.
'Probably, but don't be a twat about it an' accept some help when yer need it, idiot,' Ket turned his back on the other guy and marched out of the bathroom, not giving Thirsk a chance to argue. 'Stay here for a couple o' weeks, if that lass of yours doesn't see sense by then yer can look for somewhere to stay,' Ket called out as he padded across the open plan living room and then the sound of a kettle boiling hissed through the huge room.
Thirsk stayed where he was. He let his head loll back against the glass, then jerked forwards in pain as he remembered the stitches. He looked down at the ink on his arm, admiring the fine piece of work. If it had been drawn on paper it would have been art, but on his skin it was transformed into a status symbol for the kind of guys who definitely did not work in accountancy. It seemed to shimmer under the thick coat of moisturiser Ket had worked into his skin. Thirsk gave his shoulder an experimental roll, not particularly surprised to find that it felt much better already. He recalled Ket's back as the other guy had gone up the stairs shirtless, it had been more ink than skin, his arms too, which probably meant the guy knew what he was talking about where tattoos were concerned.
With a final sigh he ran his hands over his new buzz cut and went back through to the bedroom. As he pulled his jeans back on he wondered at the irony that he had managed to exchange a pushy girlfriend for a pushy gay guy. He saw a pile of plain T-shirts in a selection of grey and white and assuming they were donated from Ket pulled one over his head. He winced at the way the cotton caught on every scab.
'I thought gay guys were supposed to be camp and feminine,' said Thirsk as he made his way back into the living area and slumped on one of the low leather sofas that looked like they'd been rescued from a skip. He sunk into the chair until his knees were nearly at the same level as his shoulders.
'Oh? I'm sorry to shatter your carefully crafted stereotypes, would yer prefer it if I spoke like this?' Ket asked, forcing his voice into an overly high and ridiculously camp tone that just sounded like the joke it was supposed to be. 'Would you like some tea darling? I've just got out the china?' he snorted and dropped a chipped mug onto the stack of wooden pallets that passed for a coffee table.
'For a start I'm bi; not that that should make any difference. One o' the most effeminate men I know is happily married to a lovely lass for five years, she plays football twice a week and he does the cleaning. There is nothing to say I have to act like a girl just because I like guys, just like there's nothing to say yer can't have a tattoo just because yer a bore from accounting.'
'Well I'll probably be fired tomorrow when they see my head and arm.'
'Pah, they can't fire yer for cutting yer head, same as they can't for getting a tattoo, keep it hidden, dun give them an excuse to lay yer off an' yer'll be fine.'
'You mean like skipping work because I couldn't remember what day it was?'
'Exactly,' Ket snorted and flicked the TV on, some kind of property renovation program flashed up and Ket slid down the puckered leather, balancing his tea on his chest with a satisfied grin on his face. 'I love this shit, best part o' a day off.'
Thirsk shook his head and turned his gaze to the view from the windows beyond the massive TV.
'I should go and get some stuff if I'm going to be staying here.'
'This is over in forty, then I'm all yours.'
'You don't have to come,' Thirsk scowled at Ket who hadn't shifted his gaze from the run down cottage that was being auctioned off.
'I know, I want to meet your bitch though.'
Thirsk just shrugged and drank his tea, which was just how he liked it, another oddity to go with the surreal events of his weekend so far.
...
'Nice pad,' said Ket as he pulled his shinning back Toyota pickup outside the immaculate semi in one of the nicer suburbs on the edge of town. His car looked thoroughly out of place amongst the German hatchbacks and minivans.
'Her parents put up the deposit, I just pay rent to help her with the payments.'
'An' who does the garden?' Ket asked, casting an eye over the perfectly cut lawn and the array of flowers and shrubs.
'Me, Stella picks though, her house after all.'
'Cleaning?'
'Shared,'
'Cooking?'
'Why does it matter?'
'Just curious, she's in right? Working nights this week?'
'You have no idea how weird it is that you know so much about me when I don't remember telling you.'
'It's not much better this end, my friend, shall we?'
Thirsk sighed and slid out of the passenger side. Saturday still felt like a dream; he'd cooked Stella breakfast in bed – poached eggs and smoked salmon – and woken her with a cup of tea and a kiss. Like he had done most Saturday's for the three years they'd lived together in this house. She had eaten it in silence, an odd scowl leaving deep creases between her eyebrows as she did, her deep brown eyes not meeting his. When she had finished she'd told him he wasn't what she wanted anymore, that he was dull and boring and tainting her life with the same monotony of his. She'd asked him to move out, and after an hour of futile pleading he had left with a few essentials and gone to the pub to drink himself into the stupor that had started his odd friendship with the guy now stood by his side.
Thirsk fished his keys from his pocket and hesitated with them half way to the lock, instead he balled his fist around them and knocked.
Stella pulled the door open with a peeved look on her face; as if somehow she had been hoping he wouldn't return for the rest of his belongings.
'Why aren't you at wo…' Stella trailed off, her eyes widened in shock as they caught on his buzzed head and the jagged line of stiches then further as they saw the still healing tattoo that emerged from the sleeve of the shirt he'd borrowed from Ket.
'What the hell, Thirsk.' Her hands darted forwards and wrapped over his ears pulling his head forwards to check the scar. She ran an appraising finger over the work and Thirsk winced and pulled his head back.
'When I said you were boring I didn't mean you to do… this…' her pretty face had a combination of guilt and pity. As Thirsk watched her he realised that the latter had been there for years whenever she looked at him and he hadn't even noticed.
'I didn't do it for you Stella, I fell over.' By Thirsk's side Ket snorted at the understatement. 'Can I get some more of my things?'
'Who stitched up your head?'
'Someone in A and E, not someone I knew,' Thirsk couldn't remember but he'd checked the name that had signed of prescription, and it hadn't been one he recognised. Stella was a maternity nurse so they didn't mix much with the accident and emergency team, thank god. And if she hadn't heard anything in work last night that probably mean no one had recognised him.
'I called yer on Saturday, yer didn't seem so bothered then?' Ket cut in from where he was lounging against the porch wall, his thick arms crossed across his chest.
'Who the hell are you?' Stella snarled but her face dropped as she suddenly remembered the ten missed calls from Thirsk; she'd assumed they were him begging her to take him back.
'Ket, the Good Samaritan who picked yer boy out o' the gutter, can we pick up some o' his stuff already, I'm missing Homes under the hammer for this shit.'
'What the hell, Thirsk,' Stella repeated herself. 'You're a grown man, don't try and guilt me into taking you back with some sorry tale of your pathetic-ness and a ridiculous tattoo, what is work going to say?'
'I'm not trying to guilt you into anything Stella, can I just get some clothes and my bike so I can actually get to work tomorrow.'
She continued to scowl – switching her glare between Thirsk and Ket – until eventually she stepped to one side.
Ket followed Thirsk into the hallway and cast a disparaging glance around the truly uninspired décor of the house Thirsk had shared with Stella.
'No wonder you don't get minimalism,' he muttered under his breath. Thirsk shot him a warning glance and Stella shot him another steely glare.
'These are antique's,' she snipped.
'Nope. Just 'cause it's old doesn't make it an antique, an' you've got too much shit designed for a big place in this diddy house.'
Stella's mouth dropped open at Ket's harsh appraisal and Thirsk suppressed a snort of laughter.
'How dare you?'
Ket just shrugged, 'luckily for yer and me life would be boring if we all liked the same thing.' He cast a quick look down over Stella's Marks jeans and baggy jumper combo then up to her pretty face that was made otherwise ugly by the outrage painted over her features.
'Stop it, Ket,' Thirsk mumbled. He recognised the signs that Stella was about to explode into anger so he grabbed the other guy by the shoulder and tugged him up the stairs.
'Wow man, how did yer deal with that for six years? …and this.' Ket turned his eyes to the bedroom which was done in cream and pale baby blue, a single wall of floral wallpaper behind the faux antique bed. Floral pillows that matched the curtains filled the top half of the bed, and twee china figurines occupied every sideboard and dresser except for the one done up like a princess's dressing table. Thirsk just shrugged, he'd hated it when they had first moved in, but over the years he'd just come to accept it and now he hardly noticed it. He pulled his gym bag and another rarely used satchel from the spare room and went about emptying his wardrobe into the two bags.
Ket eyed the bed, thought about sitting on it, then decided against it. Not because he could see the precision with which it had been made, but because he thought it might contaminate him.
'Need anything from downstairs?' Ket asked after he'd finished running his eyes over the creepy figurines.
'Coat, and my bike, my furniture is all in storage,' Thirsk trailed off as he remembered the conversation with Stella when she had suggested they store his stuff rather than sell it. Encase they moved to a bigger place she'd said, but now he wondered if that had really been why.
'Well mate, you've been walked all over like an idiot, but I cannot tell yer how glad I am that none o' this shit belongs to yer,' he kept his voice down just encase Stella was around, and grabbed the two satchels, swinging them over his shoulder with casual ease. 'I'll put these in the truck, go get yer bike.'
Ket bounced down the stairs, all remnants of his hangover gone. Thirsk still felt like shit, but that could have been hangover, head injury, tattoo or just the general shitiness of this situation. Coming back here was like being given oxygen after slow and prolonged asffixation. As he followed Ket down the stairs he saw the house he'd lived in with fresh eyes. Stella was on every wall, her paintings, her photos, her furniture and figurines. Even his coats and shoes were shut away under the stairs. He shoved said items into a plastic bag and chucked it back by the front door for Ket. Then he went through to the kitchen.
Stella was sat at the breakfast bar. Her back was to him as he came into the room, and she was staring out at the garden with a mug clasped between her thin fingers. Thirsk paused by the backdoor, his eyes caught on the beautiful tattoo that was now part of him; a tattoo that Stella would never have allowed. She said he was boring, but she was as uptight and straight laced as they came, and he wondered what she wanted.
'I'm going to leave my stuff in storage for a bit, I'll take your name off the lease,' he muttered.
'I thought you might fight for me a bit more.'
Thirsk sighed, 'I'm not going to beg Stella, I have some pride left.'
'Who's that guy? He seems like trouble,' Stella finally turned around to look at him, there were no tears but her eyes seemed a bit red. Thirsk kept Ket's sexual preferences to himself. He found himself wondering what it must be like to get judged for daring to dress different and like your own gender.
'Just a guy who took me to A and E, you can check my record, he signed on as my next of kin when he couldn't get hold of anyone else.'
'He lied you mean,' she snapped.
'Well who else was going to come?'
'So he had nothing to do with that thing on your arm?' he eyes darted down to the black and grey design on his left arm.
'Actually his cousin did it.' The truth about his memory loss floated on the end of Thirsk's tongue and he considered telling Stella that he couldn't actually remember meeting the guy. But he knew Stella would call her brother and probably get him locked up in a mental institute before he could flee from the scene.
'See, I told you, you always bow to peer pressure, Thirsk,' he suppressed a chuckle at the irony of that, he'd been bowing to her preferences on lifestyle for three years, but now it was someone else she had a problem with it.
'Call me if you want to talk, Stella. But don't worry about me, I'll be fine,' Thirsk pulled the back door open and padded to the rear of the garden to fetch his bike. Stella watched him through the window, and he gave her a brief wave as he disappeared down the side of the house.
'That the last of it?' Ket asked as Thirsk dropped his bike into the bed of the pickup, he spied the bag he'd left by the door and nodded.
'More or less,' Thirsk said as he glanced at his watch, it had taken a depressingly short amount of time to remove his life from the place that had been his home for three years.
'Brilliant, we might catch the last half o' Escape to the country.'
'Has anyone ever told you you're very odd,' Thirsk commented as Ket put the truck in reverse and drove the pickup back into the centre of town.