Certain people only wanted to be seen with Seiji after they realized what he could do on the piste. Seiji could always tell and always found it tiresome to endure their company. He couldn’t stand the pretending.
When a pair of German fencers cornered Seiji at the party, though, he let them. The alternative was facing Jesse. They talked about plans for the Olympics until the Germans left and Seiji had to brace himself and turn back to the group. His one comfort was that when he turned, Nicholas would be there.
He turned around, and Nicholas was gone.
“Where’s Nicholas?” Seiji asked sharply, instead of the casual, party-conversation remark he’d been planning to make.
“He left,” said Jesse, his eyes glinting, catching silver on blue in the party lights. “Which gives us an opportunity to talk. I think we should.”
“I should find Nicholas,” said Seiji.
He wanted an explanation. Nicholas had promised Seiji he would stay. But he hadn’t.
“I don’t get it,” Jesse told him. “You never had any use for the hangers-on.”
“Who are you talking about?” Seiji snapped.
Surely not Nicholas.
“Who else?” Jesse’s mouth twisted. “That boy. The one who’s always with you.”
Nicholas, a hanger-on? How odd. Seiji had taken people at Jesse’s valuation for years. It had never occurred to him before that Jesse could be comically wrong.
Seiji’s lip curled.
Jesse’s voice rose with outrage. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Sorry. I’ll stop looking at you. I’ll start looking for Nicholas,” Seiji said in a level voice. “I don’t think there’s any need for us to talk.”
“You’re right,” said Jesse unexpectedly, voice still confident, and Seiji blinked in surprise.
Jesse was like that. Always the same, golden and sure of himself, no matter what country they were in or what age they were. Seiji had always watched him, trying to learn that golden certainty the same way he learned fencing moves.
But Seiji had never been able to learn how Jesse could turn any situation to his advantage. He was always caught off guard when Jesse turned the tables on him.
Jesse put a hand on his arm. Seiji went still.
“Do you fence with that boy because he’s left-handed like me?” Jesse asked intently.
That made Seiji remember one fencing match in particular, where Nicholas had moved like Jesse, left-handed and lightning fast. It made Seiji recall, too vividly, how it felt to have a fencing partner who was a mirror of yourself turned quicksilver.
How it felt to have such a partner, and how it felt to lose one.
“Nicholas is nothing like you,” snapped Seiji.
“I know. I can fence. Which is what I came here to do. With you. Fence a match with me,” Jesse replied.
Seiji felt his insides twist with panic.
“I’m not going to fence you,” Seiji answered, keeping his voice even.
“Why not?” Jesse pursued. “Afraid you’ll lose to me? Again?”
Seiji’s answer was as fast, and as badly thought out, as one of Nicholas’s fencing moves. “No.”
“So you’ll fence with me.” Jesse smiled, a little relieved and a great deal triumphant. He was used to winning faster than this, but he was seeing victory in view now.
“Why do you want to fence with me, Jesse?” Seiji asked distantly. “So you can humiliate me in front of everyone? Again?”
Like Nicholas had been humiliated today. Seiji’s hand closed, as though on the hilt of a sword that was slipping from his grasp.
“No!” Jesse snapped. “That wasn’t—I didn’t—look. We don’t have to do it in front of anyone. We can sneak into the salle d’armes at night. Nobody will see.”
That was against the rules, Seiji wanted to protest, but then he thought of losing again in front of an uncaring audience. He wouldn’t argue for that.
“If nobody would see,” said Seiji, “why do you want to do it?”
“If you win a match,” Jesse responded, “you can ask for a reward.”
He knew that look. Seiji had seen Jesse close to victory a thousand times.
“What do you want, Jesse?” Seiji asked, feeling too much to show any of it.
“The same thing I’ve wanted all this time,” said Jesse. “I want you. If I win, you leave Kings Row. You come back with me and join the team at Exton.”
Seiji looked around for Nicholas, but he was nowhere to be found. Seiji felt extremely betrayed. Nicholas had offered to help Seiji in social situations. This was the worst possible social situation Seiji could imagine, yet Nicholas wasn’t helping him at all.
“You can’t force me to go to Exton.”
“I’m helping you!” Jesse told him. “I’m giving you the perfect excuse to leave. You were embarrassed when you lost to me? I saw you today. Nobody at Kings Row is on your level, and you know it. Kings Row is dragging you down, and I want to save you. I think you want it, too. Your pride just won’t let you admit it. So let me do you a favor, Seiji. You can keep your pride this time. You can have what you want. You can be on the winning team. You can even blame me. If you come back and be my partner again.”
“All right.” Seiji pulled his arm free of Jesse’s grasp. “I’ll fence with you. And if I win, I want something, too.”
Jesse drew closer. “Tell me.”
“If I win, you never suggest me coming to Exton again. I stay at Kings Row, and we fence you at the state championships. And that’s how it is between us.”
“That’s what you want?” Jesse blinked. “Fine!”
“Fine,” Seiji said in a tight voice. “Excuse me.”
“Seiji,” Jesse called. Seiji glanced over his shoulder to see Jesse shining golden by moonlight, as though no harsh words had been spoken between them. Serenely confident, Jesse said, “I’m looking forward to winning.”
Seiji wanted to snarl back that he would win, but that felt like committing himself to yet another match, this time with words. That would feel like letting Jesse win over and over again.
“Do you know something, Jesse?” Seiji asked. “You talk too much.”
Then he turned and left the party. He made for the house where he and Nicholas were staying, but he didn’t have to go that far. Nicholas was leaning against the fence that served as a perimeter for the training grounds, hands stuffed in the pockets of his ripped black jeans, his face moody.
“Why did you go?” Seiji asked coldly. “You said you wouldn’t.”
He wanted Nicholas to explain himself, but as soon as he spoke, he felt like he’d said too much. He wasn’t like Jesse, who could use conversational feints. Whenever Seiji spoke, he left himself open for attack. Showing he cared was like begging to be disarmed.
“I don’t see how leaving could embarrass you, Seiji,” said Nicholas mystifyingly. “Your old pal Jesse was being a jerk, and I didn’t want to stay at the stupid party. So I left. What’s the big deal?”
“Why would you care what Jesse says to you? You never care what other people say to you!” Seiji exclaimed. “Is there some reason that Jesse’s different?”
A strange silence followed, broken only by the sigh of the sea wind. There was an expression on Nicholas’s face that Seiji found disturbing. Nicholas never looked that way. It was like seeing an open book slammed shut.
“Is there a reason, Nicholas?” Seiji asked, much more quietly. “If there is, tell me.”
It might have been the closed-off look on Nicholas’s face, changing it so much from the face Seiji was used to, or the way his hair was swept back tonight. It might have been simply an effect of how disturbed Seiji was. For a moment, it was like seeing Jesse’s face superimposed over Nicholas’s. The coloring was different, but the determined tilt of the jaw, the shape of the furious mouth, seemed for an instant exactly the same.
Nicholas couldn’t be like Jesse. If Nicholas was like Jesse, Seiji would have to stay away from him. Seiji’s stomach turned over, sick and unsettled, and he found himself scared of what Nicholas might say.
“No,” said Nicholas at last. “There’s no reason.”
Only it sounded to Seiji as though Nicholas was lying. There was the same bitter resentment in Nicholas’s brown eyes as there had been the day they had actually come to blows. Seiji wanted, with sudden ferocity, to hit Nicholas again.
“Then why did you go?” Seiji demanded.
“Why do you care if I went away?” Nicholas riposted.
Panic filled Seiji’s ears with the roar of the sea. He thought again of losing that match to Jesse, being alone after and staring down at his empty hands.
“I don’t care,” he said desperately. “I don’t. It’s just, you said you would stay.”
“Why should I? You were busy talking to those fancy European fencers. You turned away and left me to get insulted by those Exton boys.”
Had Jesse hurt Nicholas? Jesse could do that sometimes, unthinking and confident in his own superiority in a way that crushed the people around him. But surely Nicholas wouldn’t let himself be crushed by anything. Seiji found he’d come to rely on that.
Seiji said, low, “I didn’t mean to turn away from you. I was thinking of Jesse.”
“You were thinking about Jesse?” Nicholas’s voice was bitter. “Yeah, that fits. You always are. Why are you even at Kings Row?”
“What?” Seiji whispered.
“What happened that made you decide not to go to Exton?” Nicholas asked. “If that’s where you actually want to be, why aren’t you at Exton with Jesse already?”
Seiji couldn’t talk about it. He wouldn’t talk about it. He didn’t know why Nicholas would ask. He didn’t know why Nicholas made him so angry, even angrier than Jesse did. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… Seiji didn’t want to be a fool again. He didn’t want to be disarmed.
“Great question,” Seiji snarled. He pushed past Nicholas and walked on into the dark.