The rules of Camp Menton forbade the younger trainees going off grounds, so Seiji went to the farthest point that was permitted, at the edge of the trees by the sea. He stood there alone for a while. Once it got dark, Seiji trailed back through the lemon trees. Then Seiji’s first stroke of luck of the day occurred, and he ran into his captain.
Harvard was walking and staring at the ground, with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie, but when he saw Seiji, he smiled. The captain had a nice smile, steadying as a hand on your elbow.
“Are you looking for someone, Captain?”
“I was looking for my team,” said Harvard. “How’s camp so far, Seiji?”
“It’s fine,” said Seiji.
It wasn’t a lie. Seiji had enjoyed practice bouts against fencers who were on his level. Camp Menton itself was fine. The problem wasn’t the camp; it was that Seiji was in the worst group, and Jesse was a witness to Seiji’s humiliation.
He wasn’t going to complain to Harvard about that. They were a team, and his captain had done nothing wrong.
“How’s Nicholas?”
“I assume he’s fine,” said Seiji. “I haven’t spoken to him since he lost the match against Bastien. I told him he’d embarrassed himself, and I left.”
Seiji was familiar with the type of pause that followed. It was the type of pause that happened when someone wanted badly to tell you that you’d made a social error.
“Uh… maybe you hurt Nicholas’s feelings by telling him he was embarrassing. Nobody feels good right after losing a match.”
Seiji frowned. “I hurt Nicholas’s feelings?”
When Seiji risked a glance up at Harvard, he didn’t look as if he were judging Seiji. He looked earnest, in the same way Harvard did back in the Kings Row salle when he was instructing Nicholas on a move and very much wanted him to listen.
Seiji was glad to have Harvard as his captain, even though Harvard needed to work on his low lines. He would rather have Harvard as his captain than anybody else.
“Sometimes our friends can hurt us worse than anybody,” the captain said, his voice very soft. “Your opinion matters to Nicholas. He doesn’t want to embarrass you.”
“Then he needs to get better at fencing!”
Harvard sighed. “He’s getting better every day. And you’re helping him get better. But when you lose a match or—or something else important to you—sometimes you feel bad, and you want your friends to be there for you.”
When you lose a match, sometimes you feel bad. In Seiji’s experience, that wasn’t true. Usually, when Seiji lost a match, even if he was frustrated by failure, he could appreciate the opportunity to learn by fencing a worthy opponent.
Except… there had been that one match, when he’d lost against Jesse. He hadn’t felt frustration or appreciation then. What he’d felt had been too many emotions, too tangled and hot and terrible to name, tangled like a ball of live wires in Seiji’s chest.
Would he have wanted Nicholas to be there for him, the day he lost to Jesse? Obviously not at the time, as he hadn’t known Nicholas, and he didn’t enjoy strangers.
But if he had known Nicholas, perhaps that might have been all right. He wouldn’t have been by himself in the empty hall afterward, still in his fencing whites, staring down at his empty hands.
“Just something to think about,” said Harvard, then he guided Seiji toward one of the picnic tables, where Nicholas, Bobby, and Dante were all assembled, even though it wasn’t a mealtime. “Hey, here you all are. Looking good, everyone.”
Seiji was thankful the captain had complimented the others. Seiji couldn’t have done it. Bobby was dressed in a top adorned with red-apple and white-star sequin patterns, which was very colorful, but colors generally suited Bobby. Dante looked much the same as usual, though he’d tamed his dark wavy hair a little.
Nicholas was the problem. He looked extremely strange. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a non-uniform blazer over it, and he was holding his body stiffly as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted the blazer to touch him. Worse than that, he’d turned his hair into a bizarre, rigid sculpture. Usually, Nicholas’s hair fell into his face in a soft brown messy swoop, but now it was pushed off his face in a flat shape. This made him not seem like Nicholas at all.
If Seiji had hurt Nicholas’s feelings when Nicholas lost his match, immediately telling Nicholas he looked awful was probably not the move. He sat down silently on the bench beside Nicholas instead. Dante and Bobby were on the other side of the table, so maybe Nicholas had saved this seat for him.
Bobby beamed at the compliment. “Thanks, Harvard! We heard the trainees mingle after dinner and got dressed up to make a good impression.”
Seiji glanced uneasily down at his own clothes. Perhaps he was the one who’d gotten things wrong.
“I look the same as usual.”
Nobody had told him this was a formal gathering. He could go and put on one of his suits if it was required, as it was with certain drinks receptions, but nobody else was wearing a suit.
“Yeah, so you look cool already,” said Nicholas.
“Mmm,” said Bobby, going bright red.
Seiji edged closer to Nicholas. He wished Bobby didn’t dislike him so much. It made everything very awkward.
“We’re making get-well cards for Eugene,” Nicholas told him, nudging pencils and paper Seiji’s way. “Wanna draw one?”
Seiji gave some thought to what Eugene would like best on his card, and he drew a careful picture of protein shake ingredients, with a list by the side to show that the drawing was accurate. He folded the picture and wrote, Recover soon. Then he considered the matter some more and added Bro, because Eugene would like that.
Bobby and Dante squinted doubtfully as though they thought Seiji’s card was weird.
“Oh, cool card,” said Nicholas, hanging all over him in the way Nicholas did, which Seiji didn’t dislike. “Eugene will be into it.”
“That’s what I thought.” Seiji was pleased to be vindicated.
Harvard had sat down to make a card as well. “Good effort earlier, Nicholas.”
“I lost, like, really badly,” said Nicholas with a touch of gloom. “Everyone’s laughing at me.”
“They’re stupid, then,” said Harvard. “So what if you lost? I’m sure I’d lose against Bastien, too. You were brave enough to try.”
Bobby and Dante admired the card Harvard was making Eugene. “That’s such a nice message!” Bobby told Harvard.
So Seiji took this opportunity to talk quietly to Nicholas.
“When you lost the match earlier today…,” said Seiji, “was that—bad?”
“It wasn’t good,” said Nicholas. “Like, literally nobody thought I did well.”
“No, I mean… what I said. I was thinking, I should have offered more constructive criticism. I might have started by explaining to you what you did wrong.”
Nicholas shrugged. “Yeah, you could’ve done that.”
“You did practically everything wrong,” Seiji explained. “I wasn’t sure where to start.”
“Yup, total disaster,” Nicholas agreed easily. “Still, I’ll do better next time. Every match is an opportunity to learn.”
Seiji nodded. “I think so, too.”
“Right,” said Nicholas. “It’s chill.”
They were both chill. That was good. Beyond the safety of the picnic table, though, there were twinkly lights being turned on. The air was filled with the scent of garlic bread and the rich savory smells of beef bourguignonne and chicken chasseur. After dinner the gathering would begin, and soon Jesse would come.
“Since you don’t speak French”—Seiji cleared his throat—“you should stay beside me.”
“Yeah, I will.”
Seiji hesitated. “Promise you’ll do that.”
“Sure,” said Nicholas. “I promise.”