THEN
I started going to Seth’s house in the afternoons after school. My best friend Sabrina had marching band practice pretty much every day. Mai was always hitting the books to stay at the top of her class, or else she had a function for one of her many student activities. Columbia wasn’t easy to get into, even for the valedictorian. Any time she had left over, she devoted to her boyfriend Terrance, who was probably second in their senior class but accepted his position behind my sister with grace. My parents didn’t get home from work until at least six, which left a whole four hours unaccounted for.
What’s that expression? Idle hands are the devil’s playthings. My hands were idle.
Most of the time Seth’s band was there with him. They called it “rehearsing,” but they ended up arguing a lot, mainly Seth and the drummer Dylan, who had graduated from Hilliard the year before and was taking classes at Austin Community College. Dylan also had a shit job—his words—at a gas station and was always arriving late or sometimes not at all.
The first time I showed up, Dylan shot me a dirty look and said, “Who’s the kid?”
I froze where I was standing, still gripping the shoulder straps on my backpack. Seth invited me—rather, insisted I come “directly after school”—but apparently he didn’t clear it with the rest of his crew. I glanced toward the street thinking maybe I should leave.
Seth looked me up and down slowly like it was his personal pleasure, smirked, and said to Dylan, “That’s Hiroku Hayashi.”
The bassist, Mitchell, gave me a nod. He was a senior at our high school and Seth’s best friend, I assumed, since I usually saw the two of them together between classes and at lunch. I think they also rode to school together. Mitchell was a quiet, contemplative kind of guy who mostly kept to himself. Seth used to say whenever drama arose, Mitchell’s like Paul, and Paul doesn’t get between ya’ll.
“What’s he doing here?” Dylan asked with a snarl. I didn’t know the answer to his question, so I chewed on my lower lip and glanced between him and Seth.
“Looks like he’s going to do his homework.” Seth motioned me to the couch as if introducing me to an unfamiliar piece of furniture, then glared at Dylan, challenging him to say otherwise.
“What are you, like, thirteen?” Dylan asked.
“Fifteen,” I answered. Predictably, my voice cracked.
“I don’t like other people around while we’re rehearsing,” Dylan said.
“You’re going to have to get over your performance anxiety if we’re ever going to play out. Hiroku’s our first groupie.”
Mitchell grinned a little at that. I took it to mean I was expected to stay. Dylan glared at me and did an aggressive drumroll sequence that sounded a little uneven to me. I set my backpack at my feet and figured I might as well crack open my books because my homework wasn’t going to do itself. Seth brought over a pair of noise-canceling headphones and gently crowned my head, taking the time to tuck the hair behind my ears for me. His forefinger traced the outside of my ear as he leaned down and whispered, “Trust me. You’re going to want these.”
I tried to keep an open mind about their music, but Seth was right about them sucking. They were all noise and no organization. They were so bad that I went home that night and listened to actual metal music to make sure it wasn’t just me.
I went to their band practice a few more times over the next couple of weeks. Mitchell would say what’s up to me or at least nod in my direction, but Dylan refused to acknowledge my existence. Perhaps to aggravate Dylan, Seth doted on me—made sure I had something to drink and snacks, interrupted their practice to ask me what I was studying or reading—but he never acted like anything other than a friend or an overprotective older brother, which confused the hell out of me because I thought we were at least going to mess around. I didn’t have the courage to mention it to Seth, so I was left to obsess about what our interactions meant to him and generally overthink things.
One afternoon after his bandmates had packed up and left, Seth asked me what I thought of Skull Necklace. I was sitting on the plaid couch, which was by now an old friend, and Seth was cleaning up. He kept things pretty tidy on account of his mother not wanting to trip over all the cords when she needed to do laundry. I got the sense that he and his mom lived more like roommates than family. The couple of times I’d seen her, it was only in passing, and she seemed annoyed by the band’s presence but not enough to actually say something. Seth once said she suffered from a chronic case of wanderlust, but had the good fortune of a trust fund thanks to some distant relative who’d struck oil back in the day—just enough to pay the bills, not enough to go hog wild.
My math textbook was open next to me with my homework on my lap. I pretended like I hadn’t heard Seth’s question because of the headphones, but really, I didn’t want to answer him. Seth came over and took them off, asked me again with a little more steel in his voice, “What do you think of Skull Necklace, Hiroku?”
The intensity of his gaze unsettled me. I’d learned to keep my expression neutral or else have to deal with my father using my emotions against me. Most people accepted my act of indifference and moved on. But Seth was like that dinosaur in Jurassic Park nudging the electric fence with its nose in order to find its weak spot, only in this case the fence was my psyche.
I didn’t want to tell Seth the truth. Besides, who was I to judge what constituted good musicianship? It wasn’t my medium and metal wasn’t my bag. And yet, something told me that if I lied, Seth would see right through me and maybe even think less of me. That would be devastating.
I tried for something neutral instead.
“I don’t really listen to enough metal to judge either way.”
Seth sighed and shook his head slowly. Deliberately. To convey to me his deep disappointment in my nonanswer, just as I’d suspected. Seth was a performance artist first, which made him very good at conveying his emotions, but I picked up on his subtleties too. There were at least a hundred variations to his tone of voice, and I understood every one of them, even when I pretended not to.
“Put your homework away, Hiroku.”
I knew I had displeased him and felt a bit chastened by his command, but I did as I was told. I’d failed at whatever job I was supposed to be doing while listening to his band rehearse, even though he’d never given me an assignment.
Seth moved my backpack so he could sit down on the ground in front of my knees in an almost supplicant position. He rested his forearms on my thighs and looked up at me imploringly.
“Why don’t you want to tell me what you really think?” he asked. His tone was beseeching, and his eyes were large and luminous. He looked almost hurt by my reticence. To think I had caused him pain distressed me to no end.
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” I said earnestly. Those were the hardest words to get out. I was so afraid he’d be mad at me.
He smiled. Then he laughed. Then he reached up and caressed my face. He hadn’t touched me since that first hookup there in his garage, which was weeks ago. The suspense of not knowing what he wanted from me—what I was to him—was killing me. That brief contact elicited a Pavlovian response from me, an aching that was both physical and existential.
“I only want your honest opinion,” Seth said. “You don’t have to hide anything from me, so tell me what you think.”
Seth wanted the truth from me—the absolute truth—and anything less would personally offend him.
It took me a moment to collect my courage. I wanted to break it to him as gently as possible. Artists were delicate creatures. I knew that about myself. I started with the most obvious problem. “It seems like Dylan isn’t always on the beat.”
Seth laughed again. It wasn’t a joke, but I was glad he found it funny. “Okay, what else?”
“Mitchell could be a little more creative with his bass line.” That was a vast understatement. The kid played, like, two notes, over and over.
Seth nodded enthusiastically. “Go on.”
I sighed. This was the hard part because it was a critique of his performance, and I knew he took himself pretty seriously. “I don’t know if this is the right musical genre for you. Your voice is really beautiful when you’re not screaming. And you’d be able to do more with the stage without the guitar.” Some singers were able to use their guitars as a kind of prop in their performance, but for Seth, it anchored him to one spot and prevented him from moving around freely.
“You’ve been paying attention,” Seth said like he was proud of me. He patted my knee. “This is all really good feedback. Just the kind of thing I needed to hear.”
I exhaled, hoping he meant what he said, and he wasn’t just trying to make me feel better.
“You’ve been so good to sit here so quietly and let us abuse your ears. Without a single complaint.”
“It wasn’t that bad.” That was a lie. It was that bad.
“I want to reward you.” He smiled with a flirtatious curl to lips. My eyes went wide as his hands scaled up to the button on my pleated khaki pants, ironed by my mother earlier that week. Seth rested his hands on my crotch, which was quick to respond to the gentle pressure. I glanced up to the sidewalk, where anyone passing by could see us.
“Should we…um…close the door?”
Seth smiled but didn’t answer. He slowly unbuttoned my pants and slid down the zipper one tooth at a time. He pulled down the band on my underwear and my thickening cock flopped out unceremoniously. I was super self-conscious about it, never having been one of those kids to get naked in front of others or compare dicks like some of the guys I knew. Seth’s eyes widened at the sight of it, his pupils dilated, and his attention focused solely on me.
“Uncircumcised,” Seth said like it was an exotic food he’d never tried before.
“Yeah,” I said uneasily, worried he might think it was weird. “Not really a thing in Japan…so my parents never...um…” It was difficult to converse with my junk hanging out there like that and Seth eying it up like a cake pop. I didn’t want to blow my load before we even got started.
“I like it. You’re full of surprises, Hiroku Hayashi.” He licked his lips. I swallowed tightly, and my eyes darted around to see if anyone was watching us. “Relax,” Seth sang like a lullaby. “You’re going to like this, I promise.”
Seth gripped the waist of my pants and tugged until I lifted off the couch a little so that he could pull them all the way down to my ankles. Anyone walking by would have seen me like that, pale thighs and all, completely exposed, but I didn’t care as much as I thought I would. Seth was in charge. I ceded control to him.
With his fist, he pulled back my foreskin and licked all around my head like he was catching the melted cream on an ice cream cone before it dripped. The crown of my dick was so sensitive that I curled a little bit into it, tightening my abs and gripping the tops of my thighs. Seth seemed to like my response and tested out different techniques to see what kind of reaction they elicited from me. All of it shook me, never having experienced a sensation even close to what Seth’s mouth and tongue could accomplish.
Waves of pleasure rippled through me, causing my body to twitch and shudder involuntarily as I watched him work. Like an artist. There was nothing hurried or sloppy about it. I liked the way my dick filled Seth’s mouth entirely, his cheeks hollowing out when he sucked, the strong column of his throat straining against my length. His wide lips were flush with color as he stole glances up at me to see if I was enjoying his efforts. The smile on my face must have been a mile wide. The moaning was beyond my control.
Then he popped off and nuzzled his nose at the base of my balls, inhaled deeply. I didn’t want to know what I smelled like down there. I hadn’t showered since the night before, and it was sure to be funky. I squirmed a little and he only spread my knees farther apart.
“Delicious,” he murmured and licked all around my balls while pumping my cock with his fist in a slow and syncopated rhythm, like he knew if he went too fast, I’d be done for, and he wanted to draw this out for as long as possible. I pressed back into the couch so that he’d have better leverage. That was my only contribution.
He rose up a little higher on his knees and dug his hands under my ass, squeezing hard enough for it to be painful, but his mouth was back on my cock, and it canceled out any other sensation. He kneaded me from the back and swallowed me in so deep, it felt like I was in his esophagus.
“Oh my God, Seth,” I rasped and followed it with a string of nonverbal enthusiasms. Not knowing what to do with my arms, I lifted them over my head. Seth glanced up and stopped long enough to tell me to take off my shirt. I did it without a second thought. If his neighbors across the street were home, they were getting a show. Seth moved one hand from my ass to my chest where he latched onto my nipple and pinched hard. It was pleasure mixed with pain and even though it was new to me—all of it—it was as if Seth knew I needed both to understand what he was doing completely. That desire for both ends of the spectrum, and everything in between, was what cemented me to him. It was probably the same for him.
I bucked into his mouth, and he took me in all the way down. After a few more thrusts, I came in his throat. It was such an intense and fleeting pleasure. Like a meteor burning up in the earth’s atmosphere. My dick spasmed against the roof of his mouth, and his teeth came down just far enough to graze my tender skin. He didn’t apply pressure, just made it seem as though it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.
“Lie down,” he said and climbed on top of me. I was still naked with my pants around my ankles, shoes still on, as he mounted me, fully clothed. He held my wrists against the arm of the couch and dry humped me without any concern except for his need to get off as quickly as possible.
“I could—”
“Shhh…” he whispered in my ear. “Later.”
He rutted against me until I felt his cock pumping out his load. He sang my name like an aria, then collapsed on top of me, still pinning my hands to the couch for a long while before finally climbing off. He walked over to a pile of dirty clothes waiting to be washed, pulled out a T-shirt, and wiped himself off before buttoning up again. Seth never wore underwear, and the fact that he could be so cavalier about it always fascinated me, but I think it was more a function of not wanting to do laundry on a regular basis than anything else.
I stood and started to yank up my underwear when he interrupted me by pressing his groin against mine and laying his palms flat against my ass cheeks. His fingertips slowly curled inside my crack, which lifted me a little onto my toes. My face flushed from the sudden rush of desire, and nipping at its tail was embarrassment. That was an area of my anatomy I hadn’t explored and didn’t fully understand just yet.
“This is mine,” Seth said, squeezing a little roughly. “One of these days. Me before anyone else. Understand?”
I nodded obediently. He had me in a weak moment, yes, but I also didn’t think twice about answering. It didn’t occur to me that making that promise to him was kind of unusual or that my virginity wasn’t something I owed to him at all.
He tugged up my pants the rest of the way, fastened the button and pulled up the zipper with so much intent it was practically religious in its ceremony. He kissed me again, slow and sweetly. “No shame, Hiroku.”
I nodded as a great sense of relief washed over me. For all of my questions, both spoken and unspoken, Seth had the answers.
Skull Necklace only lasted for a couple of more sessions before Seth had had enough of Dylan’s bullshit, and I don’t even mean his barely passable skills as a drummer.
It started when Seth tried to sing an actual melody, something that wasn’t straight-up screaming. Dylan didn’t like it. And rather than give constructive feedback, he said Seth sounded like a faggot. When Seth challenged him on that, Dylan tried to walk it back.
“Come on, man, you know I didn’t mean it like that. You sound like a pussy. Is that better?”
I could see Seth thinking about his next words or perhaps letting the suspense build. He liked to control the room, no matter how inconsequential. He was good at it too. I took off my headphones for this exchange. I didn’t want to miss a single word.
“That’s not better,” Seth said. “And in fact, it’s worse because you are now insulting women as well as faggots.”
Dylan made a face. “Don’t get all politically correct on me, Seth.”
Seth glared at him with disgust. “Quite frankly, Dylan, I’m tired of dealing with your bullshit, both professionally and personally.” Dylan rolled his eyes and flipped him off in response, so Seth continued, “And that’s why I regret to inform you the band is moving in a different direction.”
Dylan laid his drumsticks on the snare. “The hell does that mean?”
“You’re out of the band.” Seth pointed in the direction of the street. “So pack up your shit and get the hell out.”
Dylan looked to Mitchell for backup—I think the two of them were friends—but Mitchell only shrugged. “It’s his garage, man.”
Dylan threw a little hissy fit, raging about how shitty Seth was as a front man, comparing his performance to a limp dick, saying his own geriatric grandmother could do a better job, etc. etc. It went on for a while and devolved into some pretty petty shit. Then Dylan’s gaze fell upon me. “Is this because of something that little faggot said?”
Seth glanced over at me as if just remembering I was there. He actually smiled, kind of like a maniac, and his whole countenance suddenly came alive. It was like his entire body had been electrified. Seth grabbed the cymbal from the drum kit, tore it off the base and threw it like a Frisbee into the driveway. It rolled a little and clattered against the concrete, creating more or less the desired musical effect, and then went silent. Seth had already grabbed another drum and was trying to yank it from the kit, but it was screwed down tightly, so he started dragging the whole thing out of the garage and onto the driveway. It made a noise like fingernails against the chalkboard. Once there, Seth proceeded to kick at the bass drum with a loud thunk, thunk, thunk…
Dylan was shouting about that being his drum set and Seth was going to pay for it while Mitchell and I tentatively watched the scene unfold from the safety of the garage. I had the sense of mind to ask Mitchell if this was normal behavior for Seth, to which he replied, “Not really, but it sure is hilarious.” He then pulled out his e-cigarette and started vaping. It smelled like cherries. Mitchell was trying to quit smoking cigarettes, which meant he was always vaping.
“Fuck you and your homophobia,” Seth shouted, getting his combat boot caught in a tear in the bass drum and ripping the plastic to get it back out. “I should sue you for the emotional distress of having to listen to you stutter your way through every goddamned drum line. You can’t even play ‘Enter Sandman’ without fucking it up.”
Dylan called him a host of homophobic and misogynistic slurs. It looked like the two of them might come to blows with Seth shoving a much larger Dylan and saying, “fight me, you punk.” Dylan seemed to consider it, but Seth had a lunacy about him that probably scared Dylan. I’d never seen it before, and I didn’t know how much of it was an act and how much of it was real. It was a little bit scary how quickly it escalated.
With a final “fuck you,” Dylan heaved what remained of his drum kit and threw it into the back of his truck. He peeled down the street while laying on his horn the whole way.
Seth stalked back toward the garage, pausing to tap my chin lightly as if to reassure me he wasn’t having a psychotic break. Then he looked at Mitchell and said, “The band is going in a new direction. Are you in?”
Mitchell didn’t even hesitate. “Totally.”
“Even if our new name is Seth Barrett and His Seven Flaming Faggots?”
Mitchell chuckled. “We’re going to need a few more members to pull that off.”
Seth told him the band was on hiatus until he discovered their new sound, and Mitchell left soon after for his shift at Sunoco. I offered to go as well, thinking Seth might need some time to cool off, but he told me to stay.
“You’re my muse,” Seth said. “I want you with me all the time.” Then he played me a few melodies he’d been tinkering with on his guitar. I didn’t know much about composing songs, but I offered feedback where I could. Then, like it was nothing, he asked me if his outburst had scared me.
“Not really,” I lied.
He stopped playing and glanced up, searching my face for untruths. “It didn’t?” he asked with a note of surprise. Perhaps even disappointment.
“Well, maybe a little,” I admitted.
Seth grabbed my hand. The sharp calluses on his fingertips tickled my palm. “I lost my temper, but I’d never act that way toward you.”
“That’s good,” I said, and then after a moment’s thought, I asked, “Why do you feel like you need to tell me that?”
“Because you looked a little freaked out by it.”
I thought I’d been playing it so cool, but Seth was able to read my most subtle expressions. “My family doesn’t do emotional outbursts,” I told him. “Well, except my dad, and that’s more like a throwing knife to your heart. In my house, it’s more of a sit-and-stew-on-it-type situation.” My specialty was sulking and giving people the silent treatment. When my dad pissed me off or hurt my feelings, I could go days without speaking to him.
“I don’t want you to stew on anything with me. I want to know every single thought that goes through your head, no matter how big or small.”
I wondered if that was true, so I decided to test it. “Did I break up the band?”
Seth laughed, full-bellied, head thrown back. He had such a lighthearted and sprightly quality about him when he was amused, like Kitsune, the trickster fox who could shapeshift into human form in order to pull pranks on unsuspecting humans. When Seth finished, he looked me dead in the eye and said, “Yes.”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. I felt really bad about it. “That was never my intention.”
Seth shrugged. He didn’t seem broken up about it at all. “We’ll build another band together, without any dickheads or homophobes. Maybe we can even get a drummer who can keep a beat.”
“That should be a prerequisite.”
Seth smiled and shook his head ruefully. He was really quite beautiful. His imperfections came together in a most perfect way. “Whatever you say, Yoko.”
Despite his ribbing, my chest expanded a little because Seth had said we’d build the band together. I loved the way that word sounded coming from his lips.