There is a very expensive piece of technology sitting next to Shion's pillow. It looks like a closed book, but Shion remembers these computers. "Mom?"
"Yes, Shion?"
"Why is there a laptop on my bed?"
"Oh!" Karan comes down the stairs, wiping her hands on her apron. "A customer dropped that off! He had a tab going at the bakery and he said he could give me a laptop as payment! I told him his tab wasn't that expensive, but he insisted. I thought it could help you with you schoolwork."
Shion wonders to himself why someone would pay for bread with a laptop, then wonders if it has something to do with how friendly Karan is towards everyone. "Thank you, Mom. It'll help a lot."
He opens a few word documents and tests whether his neighbor's Wi-Fi will stretch all the way to his basement room. It does. Shion blinks at the search engine, then pulls his botany textbook towards himself and flips to a tree whose Latin name had stumped him recently. He starts checking whether his Latin guesses have been correct so far.
::
"What's that?"
Shion jumps and looks around. "Nezumi? What time is it? You shouldn't be here in the daylight, it isn't safe!"
"It's nighttime," Nezumi says. "It's almost eleven. What time do you think it is?"
Shion stares at the little clock in the corner of the computer screen. "Wow. Oh jeez. Where did all my time go? I have homework to finish."
"No you don't," Nezumi says. "You're working three weeks in advance. You're fine. Did you get stuck on Wikipedia?"
"No! Maybe," Shion says, trying to close the window.
"What the hell is a fraxinus? It sounds dirty," Nezumi laughs.
"It isn't! It's a flowering plant from the olive and lilac family!"
"You've honestly spent this whole time looking at plants? You haven't tried to look at… you know, anything else?"
"Well, I was on Google Translate for a while," Shion says, "but their Latin was terrible."
"Seriously. You haven't tried to look up anything more interesting?" Nezumi sits down next to Shion and grabs the laptop. "You're gonna need to charge this, the battery is in the red."
Shion looks around for the laptop cord and sees it coiled at the end of the bed. He has to hunt around the walls for an outlet close to his bed, then he plugs it in and turns to find Nezumi smirking at the computer screen.
"Did you lose my page?" Shion grabs the laptop and frowns at it. "What's this?" After a long pause, he slowly turns very red. "Nezumi… what… what did you look up?"
"I searched 'tits,' among other things," Nezumi says. "I had to wade through some bird pictures, but I did find those for you. We had to break in your new laptop!"
"What do you mean by that?"
Nezumi raises an eyebrow. "Were you not planning on surfing for porn?"
"This is porn?" Shion says, sitting down and starting to click through everything Nezumi has searched. "Wait, what are they doing?"
"You're serious. You have never seen this before." Nezumi stares at Shion with complete amazement, then hits the 'play' button. "They're having sex."
"Oh my goodness." Shion drops the laptop on the bed like it's suddenly burning him, then moves to close the lid on all the porn. Nezumi swats his hand away and hits a button that turns on the volume.
Gasps and moans fill the room, overlapping each other. Shion's shriek of horror is lost in the sounds of wet slapping. "Turn this off!"
"Why? You're just going to turn it back on later," Nezumi laughs.
"This is making me uncomfortable," Shion says, covering his ears. "What's he doing to her?"
"I can switch it up if you don't like this one," Nezumi says, clicking through his tabs. New noises take over the room, including the sound of an egg beater.
Shion tries to cover his eyes as well as his ears. "No, I don't like this. How do you even know about this kind of stuff?" Shion peeks through his fingers at Nezumi. "Have you done things like this?"
Nezumi starts scrolling, but he mercifully mutes the laptop. "No, nothing like this. This is kinky shit right here. I haven't done stuff like… that, for example." He turns the screen, grinning.
Shion moves to close the laptop again, but then pauses. "Like this? But… Have you had sex then?"
Nezumi is digging through the tabs again. He frowns at what he sees on the laptop screen, then turns it towards Shion once more. "Okay, now that's just unsafe unless you have a lot of lube. And I mean a lot."
Shion covers his eyes again. "How do you know that?"
Nezumi shrugs and flips tabs. "Okay, that's not your cup of tea. How about this?"
"I'm not looking anymore," Shion says. "Are you going to answer my question?"
"I'll answer your question if you look at this," Nezumi says. "Why are you scared? It's just porn."
"It's indecent," Shion says, pulling his hands away from his face and opening one eye a crack. "And if my mom found out—"
"Don't let your mom search your browser history," Nezumi says. "You're a teenage guy, she probably expects this."
"Don't say that," Shion says. "Please." He frowns at the screen. "How is that—"
"I told you, a lot of lube."
"What's lube?"
"Lu-bri-ca-tion," Nezumi sighs, enunciating every syllable. "Do you want me to spell it for you? I don't know the Latin root…"
Shion isn't listening. He's staring at the screen as if mesmerized. After a few moments, he tilts his head to one side. Then he turns very red and pulls his knees up to his chest. "Are you going to tell me how you know about this?"
"I mean, I've done some of this," Nezumi says.
Shion looks away from the laptop at that. "Really? With whom?"
Nezumi shrugs again. "I don't know all their names."
Shion quietly says, "All?"
"It's just sex," Nezumi says. "You… you do know how that works, right? Has Karan talked to you about that?"
"I mean… I know the theory," Shion says. "She talked about changing bodies a lot. And feelings. And… the mechanics."
"Okay, so she didn't tell you anything useful. Got it."
"I know about anatomy!" Shion insists.
Nezumi opens a new tab. "Okay, this is your education I guess. Let's start at the beginning. This," he types something into the search bar, "is the missionary position, the most boring and pretty much the least pleasurable position."
"There are different positions?"
"Yeah, hold on." Nezumi searches again and pulls up a Wikipedia page. "Here, this is your homework. It's academic enough to hold your interest, I think. It's called the Kama Sutra. It's not always completely physically possible but it's a good starter guide."
"Where did you hear about the Kama Sutra?"
"It's kind of the standard textbook," Nezumi smirks.
"What do you mean, standard textbook? Did you take classes?"
"I learn more by doing." Nezumi turns the computer's sound back on.
Shion stares at his knees. "Oh, right." There is a silence between them, broken only by the moans and the smacking noises and, again, the egg beater. Then Shion looks up. "What's it like?"
"Jeez, someone's curious today," Nezumi says, hitting mute again. "It's okay, I guess. It depends."
"Depends on what?"
"The circumstances."
"What do you mean? What circumstances does this happen under?"
"For you? None, apparently." Nezumi turns the laptop towards Shion again. "Don't actually try this with a carrot, you will have problems getting it out."
"How did it get in— You didn't answer my question!"
"I don't need to, this isn't about me. Now, if you're gonna do this kinda thing, you're gonna need condoms. You know what a condom is, right?"
"I know I need them…"
"They're really important, you need to know more about them than just theory. Can you even get those in No. 6, or are they controlling your sex life as well?"
"I think I can get them, but I don't really have any plans to—"
"Don't you have plans to get lunch with that girl next week?"
Shion blushes furiously. "Safu? We're… we were just friends! I haven't seen her in four years!"
"You've grown up a lot since then," Nezumi points out. "You're not a little kid anymore. You have to start worrying about this kind of stuff. If you have trouble getting condoms here, let me know and I'll smuggle some for you and that chick."
"I'm not going to sleep with Safu!"
"You say that now, but just wait. Your mom told you about the feelings, right?" Nezumi is grinning.
"Hormones and stuff? Yeah."
"Good, you know about how stupid all those brain chemicals make you then. Just don't make any sudden decisions. Don't do anything you don't want to."
"Why would I do that?"
"I taught you to fight with a knife to keep bullies from hurting you. Those skills can come in handy in other situations as well. At least, I tried to teach you to fight. Do you even own a knife?"
"We have bread knives and butter knives. Nezumi, I don't ever want to have to hurt someone."
"Better them than you. I guess you'll be safe as long as you don't come to West Block."
Shion blinks. "Oh. Um. Yeah. Are… are you saying things are dangerous in West Block in… that way?"
"West Block's dangerous in a lot of ways. Do you guys have any food upstairs? I'm hungry. That's why I came over in the first place."
"Has something happened to you, Nezumi?"
Nezumi stares at the computer for a moment, eyes unfocused. "Shion, I'm allowed to have a personal life that doesn't involve you."
Shion stands suddenly, almost whacking his head on the top bunk, and goes upstairs without another word. His breathing isn't entirely normal, jerking every now and then as if he's crushing down some sadness. When he comes back with a loaf of bread and some cheese, Nezumi has shut down the laptop. They eat together in silence. Nezumi does not stay the night.
::
The next night the window is shut, but Nezumi can see the dim glow of the computer and he picks the lock on the window anyway. He leans in through the window, then pauses when he hears heavy breathing.
"Shion, what are you doing with your laptop?"
"HOLY SHIT NEZUMI, GET OUT!" The laptop slams.
"What were you doing?"
"Oh my god…"
"What were you doing, Shion?"
"Leave, please."
"I don't feel like leaving. I walked all the way from West Block and you're going to kick me out, just because I caught you—"
"Shut up!"
"I'm not leaving. I'm sleeping here."
"Fine. Fine. Just… give me a minute to clean up."
There is a bark of laughter. "How long was that computer on?"
"Nezumi!"
"All right, all right. …What kind were you watching?"
"I-I'm not going to answer that."
THE END
