Climbing (Pin, NC-17) [2/3]

[maayacolabackup]

PONDICHERRY

 

Jin loves beaches the most in the fall, when the sand is cool between his toes and the water of the ocean foams a chilled white as it laps at the shore.

 

He also loves how, as August ends, the beach slowly empties of visitors, leaving a clear shoreline, with no neon yellow umbrellas detracting from the crashing waves, and the seagulls resettle amongst the dunes. Jin loves how it feels like he doesn't have to share this slice of beauty with anyone, the autumn beach. It's his, and he knows that's selfish, but he doesn't really care.

 

It's late October now, and the beach is deserted, except for Jin and a few brave fisherman, who are sorting their nets and preparing to go out in the boat that waits for them a little ways out into the ocean. The boat's paint is chipped white, and reminds Jin of the boats in glass bottles, the ones on the shelves of collectors.

 

Reio used to make them, the little ships inside of bottles, during the awkward part of his adolescence when he'd had trouble making friends because somehow he'd always say the wrong thing.

 

Reio isn't like Jin, with fumbling hands and ungainly limbs that, more often than not, don't obey him. Reio has a steady grip, and his fingers don't shake as he constructs the tiny little boat using long tweezers and wires. Jin thinks it's absolutely fucking incredible that he can do something like that, even now, when Reio has followed in his footsteps and made plenty of friends, leaving ships in bottles as relics of his childhood.

 

The wind is a little chilly as Jin approaches the water, teasing his toes. His sneakers hang loosely in his hand, and he likes the lick of the waves against the skin of his feet.

 

Jin wants to jump into the water, but it's a fanciful wish, because he doesn't want to get sick and he doesn't particularly like to be cold.

 

Pondicherry is a city of churches, famous for those churches. Jin doesn't visit any of them. Instead he stays at the beaches, and stares at the stars every night.

 

The stars remind him of nights on the balcony, where he and Yamapi split a bottle of cheap convenience store wine, not bothering with glasses and just drinking straight from the bottle. The wine always burns Jin going down his throat in a way that beer doesn't, but it's hard to get Yamapi to drink beer when he's not at a club, because he's always whining about calories.

 

Yamapi is always looking up at the stars, Jin thinks. The moonlight makes his soft skin seem to glow as he gazes upwards, and Jin thinks that sometimes, Yamapi is just like an angel.

 

Yamapi always looks over at Jin every once in a while, face a little flushed from liquor, and his hand grazes Jin's and it makes Jin shiver. "I like being part of something bigger," Yamapi tells him, and Jin shoves the wine back into Pi's hands.

 

"I like being the biggest thing there is," Jin says haughtily, and Yamapi laughs.

 

"Your dream will come true if you keep eating so many doughnuts."

 

"Shut up and go eat a carrot stick or something." Yamapi laughs, always, and then returns his eyes upwards to the heavens.

 

Jin searches for wings, every damn time, but he never finds them.

 

He thinks about the star chart Lonnie gave him in Delhi. Eventually, the stars tell him to move on.

 

Pi, I think sometimes that I've lost my mind. It's not normal to run away from home and backpack around India, following star charts and wanting to run into the ocean in the autumn chill. Talk some sense into me, will you?

 

But the book doesn't talk back, and Jin is left feeling bereft under a beautiful endless sky.

 

The grass does feel a bit like downy feathers beneath him though, and maybe Pi is kind of here anyway.

 

***

KERALA

 

Jin rents a houseboat. In the middle of winter, the price is low, and Jin feels no guilt about spending winter on the icy sea. A gray fog rolls in over everything as winter sets in.

 

Kerala, at least the backwaters, is kind of like the Venice of India. The waterways serve as a sort of road, and even when the water starts to freeze a little, sight of boats cutting through the waves isn't a strange one.

 

Jin's houseboat is small, perfect for one person. The owner asks him if he'd mind looking after his dog, a tiny, scruffy thing that he can't take with him to his sister's house, where he plans to spend the winter.

 

Jin thinks about Pin, and agrees, because he wouldn't mind the company.

 

Pi, living in a houseboat is hard. Every day, I have to do maintenance work to maintain the boat. Also I have to cook for myself most days. I had to figure out how to go grocery shopping. I'm sure you can guess how that went. But I remembered how to sound out the eggplants, just like you taught me. So I guess that counts for something right?

 

I've been thinking lately that this trip has made me grow up a lot already. Was I taking you for granted? I don't think so, because I'm sure you know how important your friendship is to me. But today I was thinking about how I don't know how to cook, and how you cooked for me everyday, and never complained. I complained a lot, about everything.

 

I didn't leave because life wasn't good, is what I'm trying to say. I left because I'm missing something inside of me. Something that lets me appreciate the good things I have. Something that keeps me from feeling trapped.

 

Here in Kerala, the people live on the water. Everyday they sail around freely, going where they like, stopping where they like. Civilization and nature are combined. It's impossible to feel trapped here, I think. Maybe I can take a little piece of this serenity with me back to Tokyo. I promise I'll share it.

 

What Jin likes best about Kerala is the way he can see the fisherman floating past in the midday sun, when the waters are their warmest. He likes the way he can see the old piers leading out to overlooks of the Bay of Bengal.

 

From Jin's boat, he can see an old lighthouse. It's more of a speck in the distance, and Jin only knows it's a light house because it glows at night in a regular pattern, like he's seen in American movies. He asks around on land, and finds out that the lighthouse is located on a popular tourist attraction called Lighthouse Beach, located in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala. It's not incredibly far, so Jin rents a scooter to travel by land. It feels kind of like he's Indiana Jones, thanks to the vines and tree roots that grow out into the roads, and the vines, even in the winter, sport full leaves, as if they scoff at winter's chill.

 

When he reaches the Lighthouse, there are only a few tourists lingering outside. A really tall black guy, in his early forties, stops Jin as Jin stares up at the red and white striped lighthouse, admiring is simple paint and rustic beauty.

 

"Hey, I took your picture, just now." Jin looks at him, confused. "I'm a photographer, for a travel blog," he explains. "And I just took your picture."

 

Jin nods. It's fine. He's used to people taking his picture without his consent, when he's in a convenience store or when he's walking his dog or taking out the trash. It doesn't matter anyway, because pictures can say a lot, but they can also say nothing at all. "That's fine," Jin says, and smiles at the man.

 

"Now you'll be just a little Internet famous," the man jokes, and Jin thinks he sounds American, but he's not sure. "Do you want a copy of the photo?"

 

Jin pauses for a second, and then he nods. "Yeah, that would be nice," he says. "I'd like to give it to someone."

 

"Do you have an email?"

 

"No, not really. No computer," Jin says, shrugging. "I'm a backpacker. I'm staying here for awhile, though."

 

"So you have an address, then?"

 

Jin nods again, and scrawls down his current location for the man, who Jin learns is named Dean.

 

He and Dean eat lunch together, and Dean tries to convince Jin to write for his travel blog website. "Seriously, a Japanese guy wandering India alone for 6 months is an awesome story. Our readers would really love it."

 

Jin shrugs, and declines. "I really can't. Sorry. I don't like having my name on the Internet."

 

The man sighs sadly. "I get it, I guess. How long you planning to be out here?"

 

"Not a clue," Jin responds, smiling sheepishly. "I'm looking for something," Jin continues, fingers toying with his spoon, which sits in his still half-full bowl of egg soup.

 

"Finding yourself?" Dean knowingly smiles, and Jin smiles back.

 

"Actually, I think I had a mental breakdown." Dean bursts out laughing at that, and he slaps the table two times, his beard quivering with amusement. "But yeah, something like that."

 

When the photograph arrives at Jin's door in the hands of a fifteen-year-old boy wearing a delivery cap and shivering at the cold air, Jin is almost nervous to open the thin envelope. Candid pictures of him have never led to anything good, usually just his mothers sad little disappointed sighs over the phone and Kame's elegant brows lifted in disdain.

 

But Jin is pleasantly surprised. He thinks Dean was misleading when he says he took a picture of Jin, because this picture is more than just a picture of Jin. It's a picture of the lighthouse, too, and of the shoreline. It's also a picture of an endless sky. Jin loves it.

 

He tucks it into his little cloth book, after scrawling the date across the back, and he's pleased that it's almost exactly the same size, fits into the book like it's just another page. In a way it is.

 

I like pictures like this one, Jin writes on the next blank page, because it feels like I'm part of something bigger.

 

Winter in Kerala passes so slowly, Jin spending his days singing in his empty houseboat and scribbling song lyrics in the margins of his letters to Pi. The dog, who has some name he can't pronounce at all, curls up next to him when he lies on the bed, rubbing his wet nose against Jin's hand until Jin pets him absently, thinking about where he should head next. It's a cold that hurts, Jin thinks. In Tokyo, Jin sneaks into Yamapi's room at night, slipping under Yamapi's layers of quilts to cuddle against him, because Yamapi is so much warmer than Jin, because he's all muscular and buff and all these words that Jin doesn't really know because they've never really been used to describe Jin. Yamapi always makes this mewling sound when Jin's cold feet touch his calf, but even when he's deeply asleep, he always turns toward Jin anyway, and pulls Jin into his side, and Jin can feel the heat seep deep into him. Jin sleeps best in those cold winter nights, although the bed is always empty when he wakes in the morning, and Jin sometimes can't keep from shivering at the lack of warmth. They always pretend it hasn't happened, because they're best friends, and they're both dudes, but Pi always smiles at him a little brighter those mornings, and it's their secret.

 

Jin and Pi have always been closer than normal friends, anyway. Maybe that's why the winter seems impossibly long, and why Jin misses him so impossibly much.

 

And despite that, before Jin can blink, winter is ending, and the air warms, and Jin starts to see the signs of a blooming spring sprouting up all around him.

 

Jin feels like a bear, who hibernates through a long winter, and is now awakening in the dawn of a new season.

 

It's time for him to move, anyway, and when Jin hands the keys back to the owner, and the dog licks his hand mournfully in farewell, Jin throws his winter coat into the trash, shoulders his backpack, and heads for the bus station.

 

***

KODAIKANAL

 

In the Ghat mountains Jin finds a beautiful and atmospheric village, called Kodaikanal. It's scenic-- there are gorgeous walking trails and bike paths, and the layout of the town itself is charming and wins Jin's heart quickly and surely.

 

But unfortunately, even though Jin stays awhile, he can't seem to find anything at all inside of himself here.

 

Pi, the fruits here are amazing. I want to share them with you, and watch you look all stupid with your face scrunched up while you get the juice all over your mouth. I miss your stupid face.

 

***

SHIMLA

 

Jin finds lodging with an old woman, around eighty years old who rents a room in her small house to long-term visitors. She doesn't speak English, but she understands a little, and Jin smiles a lot, so she seems to take a liking to him. She brings him goat milk in the mornings, and she takes to combing her fingers through his too long hair while they sit on the outside porch in companionable silence.

 

Shimla is peaceful in a way unlike anywhere else Jin has stayed. The air is clear, and there are less people, less...less. It feels like the sky is so big that it can swallow him whole.

 

Shimla is an agricultural place, and Jin can see it in every aspect of the architecture. Like Mumbai, there are lots of colonial style buildings mixed into the traditional Indian dwellings of the area. There's thick forest surrounding the city, and weaving through it too, like there's some strange combination of nature and man warring and yet existing in some perfect harmony.

 

Jin loves Shimla.

 

He finds his way to the Christ Church with help from his guidebook. It boasts impressive stained glass windows of a kind Jin has never seen before, made with arced glass that splits the light into tiny rainbows that dance and shimmer across the ground and play at his feet.

 

There's a young woman sitting in front of the church, hands folded as she sits cross-legged. She looks Indian, but something about here carriage screams foreign to Jin, after months of being surrounded with natives. He sits down next to her before he can even think about it.

 

"What are you up to?" Jin asks, and the woman opens her eyes, startled.

 

"I'm not looking for a date," she says, deadpan, when she levels her gaze on Jin, and Jin smiles back.

 

"I'm not looking for one either," he responds, and then mimics her pose, setting his hands face up on his knees. "But I am wondering what you’re doing?"

 

She looks at him considering, and then smiles tentatively. "It's lotus meditation," she says. "This ground is sacred, so it's thought of as a good place to seek internal balance through meditation."

 

"You sound skeptical."

 

"I'm not very spiritual," the woman says, and then she sighs. "I'm not very Indian, either."

 

Jin looks at her curiously, and she frowns. "My parents sent me here, to India, to 'discover my heritage.' I've explained time and time again that just because they're Indian, it doesn't make me any less English, but they keep repeating all the same catchphrases, like 'roots' and 'true self' and all these other things I do not give any fucks about." She tosses her braid over her shoulder impatiently. "So here I am. Talking to random Americans in churchyards while pretending to meditate."

 

"I'm Japanese," Jin says, amused. "And I have no idea why I'm in India, to be honest."

 

She looks at him again, eyes narrowed, and then her tiny frown transforms into an even tinier smile. "I'm Aarisha," she says finally, and Jin holds out a hand to her.

 

"I'm Jin," he offers, and her smile turns into a grin.

 

Aarisha, it turns out, is only in Shimla for a few days. But she introduces him to her grandmother, a snappish, sarcastic woman who demands to be called Silpa and keeps chiding Jin to sit up straight, much to Aarisha's amusement.

 

"She's a dance teacher," Aarisha says, "so you'll have to forgive her her posture ticks."

 

"What kind of dance?" Jin asks, and Silpa's eyes close in on him like a hawk, as if she can tell that it's not a throwaway question.

 

"You like dance," Silpa says, and it's not a question.

 

"Well, yeah," Jin says shyly, and Aarisha looks interested all of a sudden.

 

"What do you do, in Japan?" she asks, and Jin shrugs.

 

"Nothing, right now," Jin jokes. "I'm pretty sure getting on a plane and leaving for 8 months without warning is good grounds for firing."

 

He doesn't meet her eyes though, and somehow she knows to let it drop.

 

Silpa is still looking at him with her hawk-like eyes, reassuringly. "I teach Bnayangchu dancing," Silpa says, and then elaborates. "It's a form of dance that is unique to Shimla."

 

Jin read about it, maybe, in his guidebook. "I want to see," Jin says, and his throat is tight. Dancing. He misses it, misses the sound of the music, interpreting it with his body and moving in new ways, invigorating and fulfilling. He misses the drumming beat sitting in his joints and making them burn with the need to move.

 

Silpa's face relaxes then. "No," she says, laughing a little. "You want to do."

 

Jin looks at her in surprise, and she looks even more amused. "I know the face of someone who loves dance, Japanese boy."

 

Jin's face breaks into a smile. "Yes ma'am, I do, ma'am."

 

Silpa looks down at her hands, and studies the henna there. Jin thinks it's fresh, and it's a warm rust color against her light brown skin. "I have free time every day at one in the afternoon," she says. "You will be on time, and you will listen carefully. You will not complain. Am I clear?"

 

Jin wants to hug her. "Yes ma'am," he replies, and his heart sings.

 

Silpa is a strict teacher. On the first day, she spends hours teaching Jin how to hold his hands and fingers, how to turn his wrists just so to create the perfect silhouette, how to hold his arm at the right angle, to say the right thing with his index finger and thumb. After the first day, Jin's forearms ache like he's just spent hours typing at the computer, or browsing message boards to see if anyone's called Kame fat lately so he can chew them out anonymously.

 

But it's nothing compared to the way his body aches when Silpa starts teaching him the deliberate, calculated movements of Bnayangchu, where he has to hold complicated and painful positions for long periods of time, wearing weighted bells on his ankles and upper arms.

 

His first lesson, he falls every single time he tries a new position, and he doggedly gets back up and tries it again and again until he figures it out, until he finds the balance. Every time he falls, Silpa looks at him like she thinks he is about to quit, but he refuses to quit, because Jin wants to know, wants to find the beauty in this kind of dance, and the beauty in himself  to perform it.

 

That night, Jin calls his mother from a phone in the touristy part of Shimla, while a mixture of natives and foreigners walk to and fro talking in loud voices.

 

"Jin, is that you?" says his mother in a rush as she answers the phone. "Baby , it's been three months."

 

"I know," Jin says. "I'm sorry."

 

"I love you so much Jin. I wish I knew where you were."

 

"I'm safe," Jin answers, and his mother sighs.

 

"Jin, the news thinks you've killed yourself and Johnny is covering it up. Or that you got drunk and murdered a hooker or something."

 

Jin frowns. "I don't drink anymore," he says in reply, and his mom chuckles.

 

"Well, I guess one good thing came out of this."

 

Jin smiles. "I love you, mom," he says. "Tell Reio and Dad I said hi, okay?"

 

"Jin, call Pisuke," Jin's mom says hesitantly. "He's really... You should call him."

 

"I can't," Jin answers. "If I talk to him... Just tell him I said hi to him too."

 

When Jin hangs up, his shoulders feel heavy, and not just from dance.

 

Jin knows if he talks to Pi, he'll give up. He'll hear Pi's voice and fold, go home before he figures anything out, because he misses him more than he thought it was possible to miss anyone.

 

Pi, I started a traditional Bnayangchu dance class today. It's hard as shit. I want to quit already, but my teacher thinks I will, so you know that means my stubborn pride is getting me into trouble again. I'm also growing vegetables...

 

Jin writes everything he would have said to Pi if he called him on the phone tonight. It fills over ten pages. He sleeps a little easier, then.

 

When he goes back to Silpa's house the next day, thighs bruised and arms like jelly, for more, Silpa is much warmer to him, as if she has more respect for him, and her criticism is more helpful, in a way that makes Jin feel like he's one her over.

 

After two months, Jin feels like the bells have become an extension of his ankles. It still hurts, but the old woman he stays with, who teaches Jin how to make all kinds of traditional Shimla cuisine, makes the poultice with large leaves that she rubs on Jin's painfully tight muscles and leaves plastered to him in the night, and when he wakes up in the morning, the pain is duller, manageable. He thanks her by tending her garden. Her arthritis seems pretty bad, so he weeds the vegetables and waters them early in the evening before the sun sets.

 

Sometimes Jin imagines what Ryo would say if he could see Jin now, with Jin's long hair and tanned splotchy skin and watering peppers in the early evening. He figures Ryo would tease him pretty epically, but Pi would just put his large hand on the back of Jin's neck and tell him he's such a good guy, because Pi has a mile wide soft spot for old ladies, and also because Pi really believes in caring well for vegetables.

 

Pi would really like the old woman's garden, because it's filled with organic vegetables and plants, and because she's really careful about the environment, not wasting water and allowing Jin to use exactly as much as the vegetation needs to flourish.

 

Jin becomes used to this way of life pretty quickly, and sometimes he feels like this kind of life is appealing. He thought he'd miss alcohol and partying and noise, but there's catharsis in the quiet. Jin misses Pi, but Pi is quiet too.

 

There's a rental shop in the part of Shimla where Jin is staying. He passes it everyday as he walks back and forth from Silpa's house, arms and legs like lead from hours of practice. Jin has been a dancer his whole life, practically, over ten years of dancing every single day for hours at a time, but seven months in India has changed the conditioning of his muscles, so Jin can walk or even run for miles, but dancing leaves him sore and tight, knots across his body that fill him with both pride and chagrin. But Jin feels less tense than usual today, and a moment's curiosity leads Jin to wonder exactly what the shop is renting.

 

Inside, the shop is clean and well kept. The countertops are wooden, but not old, and Jin can see specialized packs, and these metal walking sticks gathered in corners.

 

"Ah, it's our resident foreigner," says the man behind the counter, and he smiles at Jin. He is missing one of his front teeth, but his smile is still kind of beautiful to Jin, who is starting to learn to appreciate all sorts of beauty.

 

"What's all this for?" Jin asks. "Certainly not for hiking. You shouldn't need all of this just for hiking."

 

"Well," says the man. "That would certainly be true for hill hiking, but these are the Himalayas; without the right gear, you're risking serious injury."

 

"I see," says Jin, and then he runs his hand along a walking stick that seems about right for his height.

 

"Do you have an interest in hiking?"

 

"Picked it up recently," Jin replies distractedly, eyes trying to discern the use of the different tools and protective items in the shop.

 

"You might enjoy a sunrise hike then," the man tells him with a softer smile. "They say you can see your true self in the Himalayan sunrise."

 

"My true self?" Jin licks his lips. They are dry, and so he takes out his small tub of cherry lip balm, and rubs a bit across them. The smell is comforting, as usual, and Jin wonders how Pi can calm him down, even after eight months of silence, across an ocean.

 

"You seem like you're looking for something," replies the man, tapping his fingers absently on the countertop. "Like you've been searching."

 

"I have," Jin admits, then pushes his hands in his pockets like he's nervous, only he's not nervous, he doesn't think. "Lately I think I might just be looking for a goddamn cigarette."

 

The man laughs, and Jin shrugs. "Well, just remember, young man," and Jin smiles because he's twenty-seven and he feels a little bit like a boy somehow. "The things we seek are quite often closer than we think." Then he grins, this Cheshire grin that makes Jin feel like he's talking to a sage. "And they are always where we least expect them to be."

 

Jin swallows, and pulls his hands out of his pockets, fumbling for his wallet. "I think I'd like to go on that sunrise hike," Jin says.

 

His guide up the mountain, who greets Jin in front of the rental store at about two in the morning, is named Keshev. He looks about twenty, by Jin's reckoning, and he seems disgustingly cheerful. Jin's eyes are heavy, and he mostly grunts in response to Keshev's queries about where he's from and what he's doing in India until about an hour later. Jin's changed a lot since he arrived in India, but he'll never be the sort who wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning.

 

The hike is more arduous than Jin is expecting, and as the air becomes less and less oxygenated, Jin is thankful all over again that he's quit smoking. Keshev guides him easily through narrow muddy steps and dangerous rock slopes, and laughs at Jin when he starts huffing under the weight of his backpack about and hour and a half into the hike.

 

"Non-natives can't take the low oxygen," Keshev tells him, before patting him on the back. "But with this hike, I think you can make it." Jin nods and adjusts his pack, as Keshev practically runs ahead of him to gauge the safety of each path before running back and taking Jin up the easiest or clearest one. "Besides, at least it's early. Around noon the monkeys come out," Keshev says teasingly, dragging a smile out Jin for the first time that morning. When Keshev sees the expression, he cheers a little.

 

They are passed by natives, leading yaks and carrying bags that probably way upwards of fifty kilos on their backs, while the animals bear even more weight. Jin feels stupid with his red face and heaving chest, next to these unruffled old men and women who seem to making the climb with ease, carrying much more than him.

 

"Don't feel bad," Keshev tells him. "They've been doing this their whole lives, so of course it's easier for them."

 

Finally, Keshev makes an excited squealing sound, and points ahead of them about five meters. "There's our last slope, Jin. Can you do it?"

 

Jin smiles, and takes a deep breath. "Yeah," he replies in a harsh exhalation.

 

And soon, they reach the peak of the mountain, one of many peaks in the area, and Jin is looking out across the most amazing view he's ever seen. The sky is turning purple from the deep black of night, like a curtain is lifting on Shimla right in front of Jin's eyes. "Welcome to Jakhu."

 

"Mother Nature is always our greatest architect," Rohit had told him those months ago in Mumbai, as they looked out into the Gateway of India, and Jin remembers it clearly, how he felt then. He feels it now too, the majesty of the world, where it's untouched by man, and he feels so small, so insignificant, and yet like he's a part of something so incredible and huge and wondrous.

 

The air is thin, and Jin inhales anyway, taking in the smell of melting snowcaps in the late May heat, and the scent of gentle spring vegetation blowing up from below. It's cold, but Jin doesn't really feel anything beyond the rays of the sun as it appears on the horizon, illuminating the path he and Keshev had taken up the mountain, and somehow illuminating Jin's soul too. His mind is clear, here, at this small peak. There are no worries, no clouds, and Jin realizes, all over again, how lucky he is to be alive.

 

He reaches into the front pocket of his backpack, and as light creeps across the ground, pulls out his tiny book. It's almost full now. Maybe thirty pages of blank paper remain, and Jin lightly brushes the fabric cover. It's worn, now, and frayed at the corners from being stuffed into bags and pockets. The spine is cracked too, from repeated opening and closing.

 

Pi, today I hiked a small mountain in the Himalayas. Do you know that I've only seen three sunrises in my life? The first two were with you. Do you remember, when you were fifteen? I'll never forget it. The third was today. Right now, as I write, I'm watching the sunrise at the peak of a mountain. The skyline is slowly appearing, as the night fades away. One day, I am going to bring you here, I swear it. But for now, I'll just pretend you're here, and that we are sharing this amazing vision, because it's the only way I can keep how much I miss you from hurting so much. I didn't realize how much a part of my everyday you are, for some reason. I guess, in a way, you are here, because you're somehow with me, everywhere I go. I suppose that's the power of our friendship. We're together, even when we are apart. Do you miss me as much as I miss you?

 

Jin pauses, and looks back out at the dawn, as it turns from red to gold. I'm worried that I won't ever find what I'm looking for, Pi. I'm scared. Why isn't this sunrise enough?

 

It takes them three hours to descend the mountain, and Jin slips and cuts his hands and laughs and answers all of Keshev's questions.

 

When they part, in front of the rental shop, and Jin goes inside to return his gear. The man is smiling at him again, and Jin doesn't even notice his tooth.  "How was the hike? Find anything?"

 

"Yes," Jin says, "But I found even more questions. I need answers more than I need questions."

 

"That's not true at all!" The man runs a cloth over one of Jin's borrowed walking sticks, the metal returning to gleaming under his gentle ministrations. "Questions give us a reason to keep living. What would be the point in life if we had all the answers?"

 

Jin bites his lip, chewing it between his teeth in thought. "I wish it was so easy for me to accept that," Jin replies, and the man shrugs.

 

"You are young. You'll learn."

 

Jin smiles warmly at the man, and resettles his pack on his back. "Thank you, for everything."

 

"You're welcome," the man says, before he turns around, and Jin wanders back out onto the street.

 

Jin's body hurts even worse at dance class the next day, Silpa frowning and correcting his form at every moment, until Jin thinks he might collapse.

 

"I want you to perform with my other students," she says to him, after he completely humiliates himself for four hours under her strict eye. "At the next festival. Before you leave."

 

"What makes you think I'm leaving?" Jin asks, flabbergasted.

 

"Of course you will leave," Silpa says. "The thing you're looking for-- it's not here, Jin. And so you must go on. But give me another month."

 

"I'm not a performer."

 

Silpa laughs at him, like he's just told a great joke. "I knew you were a performer from the moment I laid eyes on you," she tells him, and Jin grimaces. "No one but a performer, who knows the true value of practice, would have been able to get back up as many times as you did after that first class."

 

Jin runs his hands through his hair. It's too long now, falling to mid back, and it hangs between his shoulder blades. He takes the band around his wrist, and uses it to tie the hair up in a knot. He pushes himself off the ground and stares at Silpa seriously. "Okay," he says. "Let's go again."

 

Silpa presses a hennaed palm to his shoulder, and frowns. "Work hard, Jin. You deserve the feeling that comes from working the hardest you've ever worked."

 

"You sound like my mother," Jin answers, and then sighs. "I'm ready."

 

"No you aren't," Silpa chides. "No one is ever ready. But we all make it through, anyway."

 

When Jin performs the Bnayangchu dance at the Rhyali festival, while the people of Shimla bow their heads and give thanks to the rain gods, celebrating saplings and growth, he feels like he is flying. If you had asked him, years ago, if you would find him wearing silk and dancing the traditional dance of a people not his own, under the heavy monsoon rains of late June, he wouldn't have believed it.

 

It's perfect, actually, to feel the raindrops hit his face, to feel the paint run down his skin, leaving his cheeks dewy and clean in it's wake. It's perfect, and his soul feels light. To find this kind of joy in performing is something Jin has lacked for many years, even when he freed himself from the costumes and the gimmicks of Johnny’s KAT-TUN, in order to produce his own vision. Even then, he hadn't felt this kind of freedom, the pressure to be successful was so high. But now, he's performing for himself, and he wants to do well, not because he has to, but because he really, really wants to prove to himself that he can, that he can pick himself up from the floor over and over and over again and dance, for the love of dance. There won't be an award if he does it all right, and there won't be an interview on Music Fighter or a bigger paycheck come his next contract renewal. There won't be thousands of fans, or meaningless sex with girls from the after-party.

 

But what there will be, what there is, is Silpa, smiling at him, taking his face between her wrinkled hands, wiping the raindrops from his heavy eyelashes, and pressing their foreheads together while she beams at him. "I knew you could do it, Jin," she says, and Jin finds himself thinking: "I knew I could do it, too."

 

And yeah, there won't be any of that other stuff, and Jin, after all this, might never have that again. But maybe this is better.

 

The old woman that Jin stays with cries when he kisses her cheek at the door the next morning, and she runs her hands all across his face as if she's trying to memorize the feel of him. He smiles at her, and takes her hands in his own, squeezing them tight.

 

Life is full of goodbyes, Jin thinks to himself, and then he imagines Pi's tense face when he comes home too late without calling, that slowly melts into amused resignation that Jin will never change. Jin imagines sitting down on the couch next to Pi, and laying his head in Pi's lap, while Pi twists strands of Jin's hair together and says 'welcome home,' and Jin realizes life is also full of 'hello's, too.

 

***

GINGEE

 

Gingee is a quiet village. It's not a large city, and it's not crawling with tourists, although the reason he's here is because he heard about it from a tourist.

 

Jin arrives in Gingee on an overcast day. It's still rainy season up here in the east, and he relishes this last bit of protection for his skin, which he knows will soon begin its summer burning.

 

The first thing Jin does, before entering the city, is stop at the temple in the hills, where the older woman on the train had told him there was something fascinating to see.

 

"If you go in the early part of the day, you can see the sacrifice," she had told him. "It's quite amazing to see."

 

"Sacrifice?" Jin asks, with gulp, feeling uncomfortable. He eats meat only because he doesn't think about where it comes from and watching some kind of sacrifice doesn't sit well with him.

 

The woman can see the trepidation in his face, and she cackles. "Oh no, silly boy, not a death or anything like that. It's a sacrifice of vanity. The people praying at the temple sacrifice their hair."

 

"Their hair?"

 

"Oh yes," the woman says. "They do it for a lot of reasons. As thanks to the gods for the recovery of an ill child, or as a show of devout willingness to sacrifice vanity. Some do it as prepayment for a future wish." The woman tosses her own dark tresses over her shoulder. "Wouldn't catch me doing it, but it's a really cool thing to see."

 

Jin does go and see. He feels strange, with his own long hair, hanging down awkwardly to mid back, watching women give theirs to the gods, as priests shave their heads on the stone temple steps. The hair falls around them, like a ring of raven feathers, silky and dark and shining.

 

When he leaves the temple, his own hair feels heavy, too heavy.

 

He gathers it in his hands, and his fingers tangle in it, relishing the slide of the firm and healthy strands between his hands. Then he bites his lip, and reaches into the pocket of his pants. Inside is a utility knife, a bit dull but perfect for trimming the tether ropes on a houseboat, or for slicing small vegetable vines in a garden. He grabs a front piece of his hair, and before he even thinks about it, he's cutting it away.

 

It takes him ten minutes to cut all the long strands, to feel the savaged remains of it on his head, uneven and short, so short, shorter than it's been since he was a young child.

 

Jin pulls all the pieces of hair on the ground slowly. As he does, he thinks about why he's done it. "I'd like to figure out the thing I'm missing," Jin whispers into the air, and the air seems to whisper back. He walks back into the temple and drops the hair on the edge of the steps. No one notices him come or go, really, but Jin hasn't done it for them. He's done it for himself.

 

His head feels light, like it's floating on his neck. His neck feels bare, too. Jin feels really exposed, like there's nowhere to hide anymore. His hair was like the red curtain, and now the stage has been revealed, and Jin is the only person waiting in the wings. The show must go on, Jin knows.

 

Over the next few days, Jin finds himself constantly running his hands through his unevenly shorn hair. He catches a glimpse of himself in glass window, while he eats lunch one day, and he's surprised. It doesn't look as bad as he'd thought it must look, at least in the front, even though Kame would totally have a heart attack if he saw it, and Pi would probably cry at the loss of his favorite place to lose his hands. Koki would probably give him a high five if they still talked to each other, but they really don't. Koki never quite forgave Jin, for a lot of things.

 

Jin spends his birthday lying on his back on the top of a lonely hill. He's slept most of the day, so it's almost night by the time he finishes his climb. Still, there's enough light to write. I made a sacrifice at a temple the other day. After I did it, I made a wish. Sometimes I think it's impossible to wish for things, because there's no way the universe can hear your prayers like that. I've thought that my whole life. But when I did that, it felt right. Not religious at all, just something I felt like I needed to do. There are other things I need to do too. I want to see you. I'm starting to realize that waking up and knowing you'll be there makes life more bearable. More like a gift than like a chore. I never thanked you for that, but I will.

 

Jin's twenty-eighth birthday is nothing like his twenty-seventh, which he spent surrounded by pounding music and women, by alcohol and cigarette smoke weaving like a net across the ceiling of the club, while he updated his twitter from his cell and somehow managed to delete them anyhow, to his manager's relief.

 

Pi had taken him home that night in a taxi. Jin was mostly asleep the whole trip, but when he got back to the apartment Pi made him stay awake and drink cup after cup of water, making jokes and keeping Jin's attention with funny little stories about Ryo failing with women. Jin tilted his head onto Yamapi's shoulder. The world swam in front of his eyes but Pi was in perfect focus despite that, his angular features burning themselves into Jin's retinas as Jin struggles to stay awake long enough that it won't hurt to be awake tomorrow, when Jin has hours of work. Pi's hand runs a soothing pattern against Jin's back, his nails tickling the skin as he smiles gently, amused by Jin's hiccups.

 

"Just a little longer, birthday boy," Pi had whispered, and Jin had curled a hand around Pi's bicep.

 

When Jin thinks about his last birthday, something unidentified coils in the pit of his stomach. Something he's been feeling lately every time he thinks about Pi, something he doesn't understand, thinks maybe he can't begin to comprehend yet. Something he might be scared to look deeper into, if he's honest with himself.

 

The next morning, Jin and a man named Ashwin, who Jin met eating potato dumplings outside a food stall on the way to climb a fortress hill recommended in his guidebook, tackle the 900 foot hike to Gingee fortress together.

 

Ashwin has a wide, cheerful face, and a bright smile. He looks a bit like Tegoshi, but minus the deviousness and phony pleasantness, so Jin likes him immensely more. He's a newlywed too, so their conversation as Jin gets more and more winded, tends to keep circling around to Ashwin's new wife.

 

They're almost to the top, now, and Ashwin is talking about the moment he knew he was in love. Jin is interested in love, longs for it sometimes in an abstract way. He writes love songs, and it makes him happy to see people in love, too. "I knew she was the woman for me. It wasn't something major, or anything. Just one moment, I saw her pouring coffee at the counter, and I thought to myself, 'I could wake up to this every day for the rest of my life.' It's that feeling that you could keep searching forever, go on adventures and do millions of things without her, but it's her that you'll always want to come home too." Ashwin blushes, and scratches the back of his head anxiously. "You ever feel like that, man?"

 

Jin starts to say no, he really does. But then he thinks back to the day he left, where Pi stood at the counter and made him his coffee. He thinks about the notebook in his backpack, filled with things he wants to share with Pi, and he thinks about how he's afraid to even call Pi because the sound of his voice will make Jin want to run home and be folded up in Pi's big warm arms. He thinks about the smell of Pi's sheets in the winter, when Jin is too cold to sleep alone, and he thinks about the soft way Pi's skin gives under his touch when Jin rubs his shoulders after a long work out. He thinks about the way Pi's eyes, not expressionless at all, light up excitedly when Jin fails at cooking, or the way his eyelashes flutter when he's too tired to stay awake.

 

He thinks about how all he wants, some days, is to go home to Pi, and that he can't really imagine coming home to someone else. Jin feels that thing, that weight that's been sitting in the bottom of his belly, uncoil and climb up his insides, and wrap itself around his heart.

 

In some ways, Jin thinks hiking might be a metaphor for Jin's life. He has to climb up the rocky hills of his own obliviousness, and from the peak he can see the truth spread out below him, so clear now that he has the whole picture.

 

Jin and Ashwin survey the view from the peak, the fortress next to them. Jin sits on one of the stone squares at the perimeter to catch his breath, either from the climb or from the force of realization, he's not really sure which. "Is that love?" Jin asks, and his hands grip the stone hard.

 

"I think so," says Ashwin, smiling down at Jin, his dimples pronounced. "If it's not, then it's something better."

 

Jin thinks about Yamapi's crooked ugly teeth, and how he tries to make Pi laugh hard enough that he forgets about them, because Pi is gorgeous when he laughs long and loud, like he doesn't care what anyone thinks of him.

 

Jin needs to capture this feeling in a jar, so he can look at it through the glass and analyze it or something, but the feeling is too large, too massive to fit inside of a jar, and maybe too massive to fit inside of Jin either.

 

It's obvious, now that he's thinking about it, that how he feels about Yamapi is not anything he feels for anyone else. He's always known that, in a way, but he'd never considered...

 

Ashwin leaves him to explore the fortress, and Jin sits and stares out on the village below him. It's getting late.

 

There's one page left in his book.

 

Pi. Today I climbed a giant hill up to a fortress. At the top of the fortress, I finally figured out something huge. Somehow without you, I muddled through. That's a lie, because I figured it out because of you. It's always because of you, isn't it? Do you feel that way too? Like there's a thread that connects us? I wonder how long I've been unable to live without you. The only reason I'm okay here is because I have this miniature you, right here with me. You. It's because of you that I was able to get through this.

 

Jin's on the last page of the book, and he's out of room. He squeezes the words thank you onto the very bottom of the page, and then he closes the book. It feels hot in his hands, like it's burning him.

 

When he descends, and he's back in the main part of town, the first thing he does is find a post office. He takes the little frayed book and shoves it into an envelope before he can think about it. He scrawls Yamashita Tomohisa across the top, and their address in Tokyo. His hand shakes, but it's legible, the English letters neat if a little blurry.

 

After he's sent the book, sent it to Pi, so Pi can feel like he's been with Jin as much as Jin has felt Pi has been here with him this whole time, Jin feels light as clouds, or air, or like he can soar now, because this heavy load has been lifted from his chest, and he is Sisyphus suddenly freed. The air is a little sweeter too, but that might just be because Jin is in love.


Darjeeling