30: NICHOLAS

The sun was setting, and it was almost time for the team bonfire Coach had promised them, when Nicholas found Seiji.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he grumbled.

He felt aggrieved to find Seiji in their room, sitting on his bed and frowning at his screen, with a heap of his belongings laid out on his neatly tucked blankets. It was possible that Seiji was the only one still trying to write that essay. Nicholas had given up. He’d just run suicides until he died or whatever Coach wanted; he couldn’t say any more about his childhood.

“I don’t know why you would do that, Nicholas,” said Seiji. “Searching for your roommate is pointless. You literally know where they sleep, because you also sleep there.”

Nicholas shrugged. “Well, I wanted to talk to you as soon as possible.”

“Why?” asked Seiji. “People don’t tell me I’m an endlessly charming conversationalist.”

Nicholas grinned. “Yeah, and they’re not gonna start. Maybe I just wanna have a chat with a master criminal. You know, for my street cred.”

Seiji lifted his eyes to the ceiling. It wasn’t one of the fancy wedding-cake-looking ceilings like in the halls or some of the classrooms in Kings Row, but Seiji still liked to sigh and stare at the ceiling a lot. Nicholas just seemed to inspire this urge in him.

“I’m not a master criminal.”

“Oh man,” said Nicholas. “I feel all shocked and betrayed. But maybe not as shocked and betrayed as the weight lifters will.”

“I don’t know how everybody in Kings Row doesn’t realize this,” said Seiji, “but money can be exchanged for goods?”

Realization dawned, bright as the sun setting on the heap of not-actually-stolen watches in front of Seiji. Nicholas had known Seiji wasn’t a master criminal, but he hadn’t been sure about exactly how Seiji’s plan had gone down.

“You bought all those watches.” Nicholas was certain now.

“I consulted with my father to see if I could,” Seiji stipulated conscientiously.

“Yeah, I just bet you consulted with your father!” said Nicholas. “You must’ve spent hundreds of dollars!”

Seiji paused. “Approximately.”

“So you bought a huge pile of watches, and then you lied about seeing a stolen stash hidden in one of the students’ rooms, and you made sure Kings Row was buzzing with gossip so the students’ rooms actually got searched.… All before anybody actually checked with the jewelers to see if they were robbed.”

“Eugene mostly did the gossip part,” claimed Seiji. “I don’t gossip. It involves talking to several people.”

“Must have been slightly embarrassing for the school when the jewelers said they weren’t robbed. Must have been slightly embarrassing for you when they gave you back a pile of watches and you had to explain where you’d got them, and how they turned up in someone else’s room.”

When Seiji shook his head, Nicholas realized he’d underestimated Seiji. Probably, Seiji would be a great master criminal if he really wanted to be.

“I said I wished to donate the watches to a charity,” said Seiji. “My father suggested I should do this, so it wasn’t a lie. I believe the school authorities think those boys stole my charity watches as an unkind prank, and they are still in trouble. Though not expelled for stealing watches.”

He seemed faintly regretful about that. Seiji and Eugene had really taken a dislike to these guys. Nicholas wished he could remember anything they’d ever said, but when he tried to think back he only recalled a generalized Blah blah, don’t mind us, we’re jerk faces.

Nicholas whistled. “Gossip, misleading the authorities, and a pretend heist. Why’d you do all that?”

“It should be perfectly obvious why I did all that,” said Seiji.

“For me,” said Nicholas. “Because you thought those idiots hurt my feelings.”

Seiji glanced up, a look of pure horror on his face. “No! Of course not! I did it to win at teamwork.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas, disappointed.

Well, Nicholas was on the team, and he was the teammate Seiji and Eugene had been supporting, so he supposed that was the same thing. He cheered up.

“Do you want one of the watches?” asked Seiji absentmindedly.

“No, they’re yours!” Nicholas protested.

“I already have one,” Seiji objected in a crabby voice, as though Nicholas was being ridiculous. “Anyway, if you won’t take a watch, have this. In exchange for you getting my watch fixed. My watch is of sentimental value to me,” he added in a tone that suggested he didn’t know what sentimental value was.

He reached under his bed and shoved a package at Nicholas while Nicholas blinked at him in confusion. The package appeared to be pale-blue pajamas made of some stiff material, the same kind as Seiji’s. Nicholas gave the package a massive side-eye.

“Uh…,” Nicholas said. “Thanks?”

He didn’t want these and wouldn’t be wearing them. They looked as if they would be itchy and horribly uncomfortable to sleep in, but since Seiji wore them to bed and presumably liked them, he probably thought they were a good gift. Nicholas smiled down at Seiji’s bowed head, oddly touched.

“It’s fine,” said Seiji, stiff as the pajamas. “I’m sorry the prank wasn’t useful. Coach is right, I’m not particularly talented at teamwork.”

“No, you were right, you’re crushing it,” said Nicholas.

“Maybe the definitions for success and failure are different in your lexicon, Nicholas.”

“I don’t know what lexicon means,” Nicholas informed him. “Nobody knows lexicon means. Why would you use that word?”

It was amazing how Seiji could go from concentrating on his paper to rolling his eyes at the ceiling again without even accidentally looking at Nicholas on the way.

“What I mean is, you didn’t require defense from these students. So pranking them, however generally objectionable they were, was pointless.”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Nicholas. “It was like the trust falls we did that one time.”

“The trust falls we all failed at?” asked Seiji. “Yes, it was remarkably similar.”

“No,” said Nicholas. “Not because of that. This time, the trust falls worked. This time, I know that if I was in trouble or whatever, my teammates would come help me out. Because you came this time.”

There was a pause. Seiji put away his papers. Nicholas waited, wondering if he would get ordered to his side of the curtain for being an idiot.

“Do you know…,” said Seiji. “Sometimes I have the oddest thought that there might be something to be learned from you, Nicholas.”

This was news to Nicholas, but he liked the sound of it.

“Oh yeah? Do you wanna copy my legendary speed in fencing?” Nicholas asked, beaming.

Seiji rolled his eyes. So much eye-rolling happened in their room, and Nicholas didn’t foresee that changing anytime soon.

“This isn’t about fencing.”

“Who are you?!” Nicholas exclaimed. “What did you do with the real Seiji!”

“There would be no point in trying to learn anything about fencing from you. Stop persisting in the delusion you are good at fencing. You’re very bad at fencing, Nicholas. I can’t stress that enough.”

Nicholas admitted: “Maybe it is the real you, after all. C’mon, we have to go to Coach’s bonfire. It’s gonna be totally fun; we’ll roast marshmallows.”

“I’ve spoken to you about sugar and empty calories.”

“Yeah, and I’ve spoken to you about how they’re awesome,” said Nicholas. “Hey… since we’ve had such a good day, with you being fantastic at teamwork and everything, now would be a great time to take down the shower curtain, am I right?”

Seiji climbed off his bed to stand protectively in front of it. “We’re not taking it down!”

“Aw, but—”

“No!” said Seiji.

Nicholas made a sad face.

Seiji made a martyred sound. “All right,” he conceded in the tone of one sorely tested, and he moved the shower curtain roughly a third of a foot away from the wall.

Then he stood there with an expression indicating he was fighting the urge to twitch the curtain back into place.

“Let’s open it a bit more than that,” Nicholas proposed. “What if we opened it halfway?”

“Have you heard the phrase ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’?” Seiji inquired.

“Nope.”

“How strange,” said Seiji. “You’d think someone would’ve mentioned the saying to you since it was clearly made up about you.”

He gave Nicholas a severe look, then gave the shower curtain a stare, so Nicholas was aware that if the shower curtain was moved even a fraction of an inch farther open, Seiji would know, and there would be consequences.

“Hey, Seiji?”

Seiji was still squinting at the shower curtain.

“Seiji!”

“I won’t move the curtain, Nicholas.”

“I wanted to say… thanks for being a great teammate,” said Nicholas. “Sorry the weight lifters lifted you.”

“That was the worst part,” Seiji agreed.

He put on his raincoat. Then he located a spare raincoat he had, for some reason, and fixed Nicholas with a stern and cold glare until Nicholas gave up and wore it to stop Seiji’s fussing.

Raincoat on, Nicholas glanced from the opened shower curtain to the pile of watches on the bed.

“Seiji. Hey, Seiji. Seiji, I just had a thought. No problem at all if not, obviously, but I thought it might be cool. If you agreed that it would be cool?”

“What is it now?” asked Seiji in a weary tone. “We’re going to be late for our social engagement.”

Nicholas asked shyly, “Do you maybe… wanna be best friends?”

“Oh my God,” exclaimed Seiji. “No!”

He gave a put-upon sigh, and shepherded Nicholas out the door of their room in case they were late for their social-engagement-slash-totally-fun-bonfire.

“You act like you don’t even know what words mean,” Seiji continued reproachfully. “Best implies that someone excels at an activity. It should be perfectly obvious that I am not practiced at being friends and cannot be expected to excel.”

“But I think you’re good at it already,” argued Nicholas, prepared to be stubborn about this.

Everyone said Seiji was a fencing prodigy. It made sense he would be a prodigy at other stuff also.

“Your standards are appallingly low,” said Seiji. “Probably due to your deprived childhood.”

“Yeah, maybe so, but I still think you’re great at it,” Nicholas persisted. “So even if you’re bad, I don’t mind! Let’s do it.”

Chad of the weight-lifting bros had been walking past them, humming a tune, but his head seemed to spin around 180 degrees without his rather thick neck moving at all. The tune ended.

Seiji cast Chad a wary glance, but when he made no sudden movements, Seiji relaxed and returned to scolding Nicholas.

“No!” said Seiji. “Stop bothering me about this. I’m not ready.”

As they made their way down the back stairs, Chad lunged. Seiji sped up to get out of the way, but Chad was actually reaching for his teammate.

Nicholas, who hadn’t been expecting to be grabbed, was halted by Chad’s inexorable grip. It was instantly clear that if he tried to struggle free, both his shirt and his new raincoat would rip at the seams.

Chad’s face was unusually serious. “Couldn’t help but overhear what you were talking about with my man Katayama back there.”

“Uh,” said Nicholas. “Okay?”

“You should wait until you’re both emotionally ready, bro,” Chad told him in a stern voice.

Nicholas nodded uncertainly. Chad gave him an encouraging thump on the back that almost knocked Nicholas to the ground. Then he ran after Seiji, down the stairs, out the double doors, and into the woods. Nicholas glanced over his shoulder before plunging in among the trees and saw Kings Row waiting behind him, fancy windows blazing in the dark, as if someone had finally left a light on to guide him home.

Chad was right, Nicholas decided. He probably shouldn’t bring up being best friends again for a while, not until Seiji’d had a chance to think it over.

Maybe Seiji would be ready next week?

Maybe Nicholas should wait until they’d won the state championship. Seiji was bound to be in a good mood then.

The woods were awesome, dark and deep, like in the poem his English teacher had gotten Nicholas to read. Nicholas was pretty sure that’s how it went.

Coach had found a grove and taught them how to build a bonfire as a team, which largely meant that Harvard and Eugene did fine and the rest of them had various issues. Nicholas felt it wasn’t fair to blame him for not being good at making fires. The teachers at all his old schools had been extremely clear that Nicholas shouldn’t set fires.

“But if we’re allowed to play with lighter fluid at Kings Row, that’s cool, Coach,” Nicholas said, and Coach sent him to sit on a log with Aiden, who was mysteriously in his fencing gear and wrapped in one of the stripy woolen picnic blankets.

Since the jerk had so much confidence, Aiden was able to make the picnic blanket look like something he’d chosen to wear on purpose. He was staring into the carefully constructed pyre of branches as the flames began to catch, but he nodded to Nicholas as he sat down, in a more companionable way than he usually did.

“Before you arrived, we heard Eugene’s tearful confession of his crimes,” said Aiden. “Actually, Coach had to pretend vigorously that she couldn’t hear. You were having some trouble with various Kings Row idiots?”

That almost sounded like concern. But ha ha, who was Nicholas kidding? This was Aiden.

“Whatever,” said Nicholas. “Who cares what idiots say? And they didn’t say anything you haven’t said.”

Aiden nodded, pulling his picnic blanket close under his chin. His green eyes caught firelight, and Nicholas saw the moment his mouth twisted, about to say something nasty Nicholas planned to tune out.

Then Aiden didn’t say it after all.

“It’s possible…,” Aiden conceded, “… that I tend to go somewhat too viciously after other people’s vulnerabilities so that nobody ever has the chance to go after mine.”

“Oh, is that why you talk so much?” Nicholas asked. “Huh.”

“Even cool, rich, devastatingly handsome people have feelings, Nicholas,” drawled Aiden.

“Sorry, who are we talking about again?”

Aiden laughed. Nicholas smirked, kind of pleased with himself for amusing Aiden. After all, Aiden was older and a teammate and everybody else thought Aiden was seriously awesome.

“I know I have made fun of you frequently, for many good reasons, especially your hair,” continued Aiden. “I may have also mentioned your socioeconomic status, which you can’t help but could hide better, by having—just for example—some knowledge of how to dress or even basic—”

“What?” said Nicholas. “Speak up. Enunciate, as Seiji would say. Can’t make out what you’re babbling about.”

“Anyway… sorry,” Aiden told him.

Nicholas caught Aiden’s eye. “That’s okay, Aiden.”

Aiden raised a single brow, because he was annoying and able to do that. It made him look cool and ironic. “Oh, that you heard?”

“Yeah,” said Nicholas. “That, I heard.”

He smiled at Aiden. After a moment, Aiden smiled back.

“Just don’t fall in love with me,” warned Aiden. “I’ll only break your heart.”

“Oh no,” said Nicholas. “It’s gone again… what was that…?”

Aiden snorted and shook his head, sparks dancing in the smoke reflecting gold and red shimmers in the loose strands of his hair. Nicholas could almost see what all the fuss was about.

Not really, though.

Because Nicholas was watching Aiden, he noticed when Aiden cast a single glance through the spark and smoke at Harvard, now sitting with Coach and Eugene across the way.

Then he saw Aiden swallow and look away. A look flitted across Aiden’s face, swiftly gone as the shadow of a night bird on the forest floor. Nevertheless, the sight of it made Nicholas bite his lip.

Had Aiden and Harvard had some kind of fight? Was Aiden acting like a halfway okay person purely because he’d alienated the only one who’d put up with Aiden for so long? Weren’t friends meant to be forever?

Coach’s gaze swept around the entire team assembled around the bonfire. Panic and guilt instantly filled Nicholas’s heart and stopped him from worrying about Aiden. Seiji edged toward Nicholas so they could be in trouble together.

“Hands up, who has completed their essays?” said Coach.

Nicholas made a face at the bonfire. Nobody lifted their hand, so at least they were all failing as a team. That was a bright side!

Nicholas opened his mouth to point this out. Seiji elbowed him heavily in the ribs. There was something about the nudge that made Nicholas believe if he tried to speak, Seiji would shove him right into the bonfire.

Nicholas decided to be tactfully silent.

“I’m about to suggest an amazing bargain to you all,” Coach announced. “If you succeed at this small task, you don’t have to write your essays.”

Aiden stirred as if he were going to protest but decided not to. Nobody had shoved him, so Aiden must be figuring out tact on his own.

“I wish each one of you to nominate the person you believe to be the best teammate. I want you to be strictly honest,” Coach stipulated.

“Harvard,” said Aiden at once, to exactly nobody’s surprise.

Harvard looked up from his intent contemplation of the fire. “Aiden,” he said quietly, and he and Aiden exchanged a smile. It was only a small smile, but somehow it had more warmth than the bonfire.

Nicholas felt comforted by that smile. He was suddenly certain that whatever had gone wrong between them, it could be fixed. That best friends, as Nicholas had hoped, were forever.

After Harvard and Aiden spoke, there was a long silence, in which there was only the crackle of flames and the rustle of leaves in the night wind.

“Seiji. And Eugene,” Nicholas said at last, since it didn’t seem like anyone was going to talk unless he did. “They’re really cool and great teammates. Always, but especially today.”

Eugene darted around the bonfire to give Nicholas a fist bump. Nicholas was getting to like fist bumps, since it meant they were true bros.

“Nicholas,” Seiji decided. “I appreciate his advice on certain subjects. Eugene is also helpful occasionally, though he shouldn’t give me bad information about social situations, which are not my forte.”

“Heavens,” drawled Aiden. “I had not noticed that about you, Seiji. At all.”

He winked at Seiji, so it didn’t seem to be a malicious joke. A muscle twitched near Seiji’s mouth, which might have been a gesture toward a smile.

Eugene reached out with hope for a fist bump. Seiji waved him away irritably.

“You saw what happened with the weight lifters earlier. Do you think I am in the mood for more physical contact today?”

“Understood, bro,” said Eugene, lowering his fist. “Catch you tomorrow, on another righteous teammate day! I think you’re all the best, bros!”

Instantly his fist shot back up in position. Seiji gave Eugene a betrayed look.

“It’s a reflex, bro,” Eugene assured Seiji. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Seiji made a grouchy sound and moved closer to Nicholas for protection from fist bumps. Aiden seemed judgmental of them all, as if he thought he was so much cooler than they were. Oddly, Coach was smiling, and Harvard looked as though he knew why Coach was smiling. That kind of specialized knowledge was probably why Harvard was captain.

“Did we get the right answer?” Nicholas hoped.

“You did,” said Coach.

“But we nominated different people,” Seiji pointed out.

“You talked about your teammates, and not yourselves. Boys, you are ridiculous, impossible, and in the eyes of all sane people, practically past hope,” said Coach. “But I’m proud of you.”

They hadn’t even done much fencing lately, but that still felt good to hear. Nicholas wasn’t sure any grown-up had ever been proud of him before. Coach raised her can of root beer in a toast. She dimpled in Nicholas’s direction.

“Here’s to the wondrous bond of unity, kid.”

Nicholas returned her grin and raised his can to toast her back.

“You proud of your team, Captain?” asked Coach, winking at Harvard.

“Always,” said Harvard.

The fire burned merrily on, shining bright as a trophy in the dark of the woods. Nicholas made a grab for the big bag of marshmallows, despite Seiji’s attempts to foil him. He fought for possession of the bag while Harvard brought Aiden a drink from the cooler and Eugene protested loudly: “Watch the fire! Bros, I’m concerned you’re gonna actually fall into the huge roaring fire.”

“Would you not describe it as a broaring fire, Eugene?” asked Aiden, and the sound of their laughter was louder in this sheltered grove than the hissing of flames or the surging of the wind.

On a night like this, at a golden moment like this one, Nicholas could almost believe his own and Coach’s dreams might come true.

They might all be winners in the end.