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Chapter 15: Exeunt

There were refreshments after the performance in the gallery and it allowed the audience to meet the cast or simply for them to mingle amongst each other. Kai did not see his grandfather in the crowd and decided that the elder Hiwatari must have gone home, which meant Kai would have to be doing likewise via cab.

As always with parties, Kai stood in a corner, near a potted plant. His friends had jumped him in Brooklyn's dressing room. He had received their congratulations with not much enthusiasm and they must have sensed it because they told him they would see him at the party before leaving the room. After the door closed on them, Kai spent a long moment looking at himself in the mirror, not taking his Romeo costume off.

To Kai's eyes, the party was nothing but a moving mass of men in suits and women in evening gowns, holding their wine glasses by the top of the stalk, conversing and laughing politely. The chandelier seemed to mock him with their sparkling and nothing in the selection of gourmet finger food enticed his appetite. He would have loved to slip out when he had the chance, but he deigned to remain, he didn't know why.

The group of well-dressed men and women ahead in Kai's line of vision parted and through them came Brooklyn and Tyson. Romero was with them, introducing Tyson, supposedly the "town boy", to a few of those in that group. Tyson did not seem to have seen Kai as he raised a hand in greeting and received their praises with characteristic ease. However, Brooklyn spotted Kai by the plant and for a moment, Kai thought Brooklyn was going to send a glower his way.

Brooklyn turned away and said a few words to the people who were talking to Tyson. They smiled, nodded and moved away. As Kai watched, Brooklyn moved to stand behind Tyson, took the younger teen by the shoulders and, his eyes shielded behind a cover of fiery orange bangs, bodily turned Tyson until the bluenette was facing the direction in which Kai was standing. On seeing him, Tyson's eyes widened in recognition. Kai saw Brooklyn let go of Tyson's shoulders, before giving him a light push towards Kai. Then the senior turned and walked away, disappearing into the crowd like a shadow.

Tyson turned to look for Brooklyn but saw nothing of him even when he craned his neck and stood on tiptoe. Seeing the futility of it, he turned back and made a beeline for Kai. Kai wanted to make a run for it because he was sure he would not know what to say to Tyson, not after what happened that night and not before what was going to happen the next day. But he remained where he was and Tyson was soon standing in front of him, in the shirt and pants Kai had seen him in at the previous after-performance refreshment.

"Hey, Kai," Tyson greeted him quietly.

Kai found that he could not look Tyson in the eye. "Hey," he replied, focusing on a spot of carpet near Tyson's feet.

"Excellent performance today," Tyson went on unperturbed by Kai's behaviour. "Never knew you could act so well."

Tyson chuckled and took a sip of his Coke. Kai took the opportunity to look at Tyson and saw that Tyson was gazing out of the window nearest to them as if he was contemplating it. Kai followed his gaze for a moment before turning back to the bluenette.

"Hn," was all he said, though it came out a little softer than it normally would.

"I thought you were really going to kill Brooklyn," Tyson continued, turning back to Kai. "From the sound of it, that must have been some swordfight."

"Yeah," tried Kai to converse. "It was…good."

"Yeah." Then Tyson's eyes wandered to the window again.

They were silent after that, both aware that they were avoiding all the things that mattered, not addressing all the issues and questions their performance had raised—the kisses, the handholding and the touches; their feelings which had been revealed with great clarity in the span of the five acts. Yet, the way their conversation was going, they might as well have been strangers talking about the weather.

"I really like acting with you, Kai." Kai looked up at Tyson from the cup he had been turning in his hand. "We've never had real rehearsals but…I seem to know what your next move was going to be. It's not premeditated. It's like I'm psychic."

Kai exhaled what could have been the infant of a laugh.

"Freaky," he said, smiling down at Tyson. "I seem to feel the same way."

"Maybe, in your new school, you could join the Drama Club," suggested Tyson.

New school. The innocent words felt like…a cannon ball coming down onto his chest.

"Maybe."

There was another silence filled with words that could not be uttered and actions which never came into fruition beyond the imagination. They couldn't even look at each other properly.

Finally, in the bid to be helpful, somewhat, Kai said, "Tomorrow's Monday. Don't you have homework to do?"

Given what they had just been through, that was the lamest thing Kai could have said and once the words were out, Kai realised the implications of those words, how they must have sounded to Tyson. It alarmed him because the last thing he wanted was for Tyson to feel like Kai wanted him out of his hair.

"Oh yeah." And the hurt and disappointment Kai feared was just barely perceivable in Tyson's tone. "I have a report to write for Romero, about my experience in the Drama Club. It is due next week, though…" Catching himself, Tyson perked up and cried, "But I could start early!"

Kai lowered his eyes to the carpet again. "Yeah, you could."

He saw Tyson's feet take a step back. He looked up into Tyson's smile.

"Keep in touch, ol' pal," Tyson said, giving him a light punch on a shoulder before turning around and walking away.

Kai watched Tyson's back disappear into the crowd. He stood there a moment longer before he pushed himself off the wall, wove through the crowd, stepping out of the theatre where he got into a cab which was waiting at the taxi stand and was taken home.

On usual Monday mornings, Kai would be out of his bed early and he would actually throw in a few rounds of bicep curls with his weights, a hundred crunches and about the same number of push-ups before he headed into the shower to wash off his morning sweat. Then it would be his usual bland breakfast, a cup of coffee and a walk to school.

There was always something strange about those rare Monday mornings where you wake up and you do not go on with your usual routine to start off the week. Kai completed his usual workout routine and showered, but there was no uniform hanging on the handle of his wardrobe door. For a bleary moment, shirtless, towel-clad Kai thought the maid forgot about it, but then he saw his traveling case at the foot of the wardrobe and it dawned on him that that day was not a normal Monday. That day was the day he was going to leave.

He had told his friends not to meet him to say goodbye or anything and they had understood. He had not told Tyson the same thing but Tyson…must have understood enough from their conversation the day before to not bother Kai about something as petty as goodbyes. The morning was oddly silent and for an even odder second, he thought he heard Tyson's voice calling him from below his window. He looked and saw no one. Not even the gardener who was always there trimming the rose bushes.

Kai dressed in his usual outfit: his T-shirt, pants, belt, jacket and his usual white scarf. The outfit was not far off from the one he wore to watch Tyson's first performance, the one where he saw Brooklyn kiss Tyson. Brooklyn. Kai could not help but think about the senior and his actions the day before, how Brooklyn had pushed Tyson towards him, as if it was a final act of sacrifice on the senior's part. Kai could not help but chuckle humourlessly. What use was such an abdication if Kai was going to leave?

He could have told Tyson that yes, they could keep in touch. However, even his friends were apprehensive about suggesting it. He thought that it was for the best that Tyson and himself kept things apart. Maybe when they meet again, they could pick up where they left off just as they had before, after Tyson's sudden return. Yet, at the back of his mind, he understood that they were not kids anymore, that things had changed between them. Tyson was no longer the silly kid who used to scare people with boogers and Kai was no longer the silly kid who smooshed Tyson's face into the dirt on an almost regular basis. Every thing that was spoken between them, every touch of their skin, every look they shared was electrified with hopes and desires they never knew they could sire.

Being alone in a room, one was bound to think damaging thoughts, so Kai took himself out of the room and wandered around the mansion he was not going to see once he stepped out of the door and into the waiting car.

Kai would have preferred to avoid that room, the sitting room, but as it was with a lot of things regarding Tyson, his body possessed a mind of its own and he soon found himself standing in front of it. The door was ajar, so he pushed it open to let himself in.

He could just make out the shape of the chairs against which Tyson and himself leaned whenever they were reading the play together underneath the white shrouds. The same white shroud was stretched like a drum skin over the small table which had once supported all of Tyson's chocolate and tea-time indulgences. The carpet was still spread below them and Kai couldn't help removing a shoe to rub the sole of his foot against it the way Tyson liked to do whenever he came over. The carpet was still luxuriant and Kai could have sworn that it was still warm from Tyson's bum. Why, if Kai listened hard enough, he could hear Tyson's stupid jokes and the tinkle of his laugh.

Kai caught himself and immediately put on his shoe with another humourless chuckle. Everywhere he looked in the room, he saw the ghosts of Tyson, as if the younger teen was dead when in truth, it was Kai who was leaving, and it was his ghost which would haunt this room, the college hallways down which he had walked unchallenged, his books under his arm, his hands in his blazer pockets. But it was only Tyson he saw everywhere; echoes of Tyson, shadows of Tyson—ghosts, which he knew would not leave him no matter what the distance he tried to put between them.

The room was getting too eerie for him to stay in any longer. He had to leave.

When he was about to turn around, something in the east side of the room caught his attention. It was a door. That ought not to be anything strange because Kai was not unaware of its presence all the time he had lived in the mansion. Except that the door was always locked, apparently on Voltaire Hiwatari's order. What was strange about the door then was that the door which was always locked was actually gaping open. Anybody would be drawn by it simply by that fact alone.

Kai turned back and made for that door. He stopped in the threshold. The room was as large as the sitting room he had just come from, only it was less sparse. Bookshelves lined the walls and stood like parallel sentinels in the center of the room, all of them packed full of books, books which seemed to belong better in an eighteenth century personal library than in the current one: ancient leather- and linen-bounds with gold lettering on their spines, all of them giving the room a particular musty smell.

In one corner there was a space clear of shelves and in that space stood a table, rather like a desk meant for writing and not those low coffee table types. Around the table were comfortable-looking chairs with antique embroidered cushioning. In one of the chairs sat Albert, wearing his reading glasses and perusing a book.

When Kai stepped into the room, Albert sat up straighter, closed the book and started to stand.

"No," Kai told him, gesturing for him to sit down again.

Albert stood anyway and removed his glasses, chuckling as he did so.

"My apologies, Master Kai," he said. "I got carried away."

"What is this room?" asked Kai, looking around him, curious despite himself.

"It is a library," Albert pointed out with a little smile.

"I didn't know we had a library." Looking at Albert, Kai asked again, "Why is this room kept locked?"

Albert smiled sadly at this and his gaze fell to the book he was reading before Kai came in. Kai followed his gaze but standing quite a distance, he could not make out the title. As if sensing this, Albert held up the book so that Kai could see the title better. It was a children's book: Anne of Green Gables, a collector's leather-bound gift edition.

"This was your mother's favourite," Albert told him. "Read it every time she was down. Read it out loud when she was pregnant with you."

Gesturing all around him at the books in the library, Albert added, "But then again, she loved everything in this room. Even tried reading Copernicus' theory of the planets' revolution around the sun in its original language. Couldn't pronounce half of the words, what more understand them."

Albert chuckled at the memory.

"This room," Kai began, intrigued. "This was…hers?"

Albert nodded and started for a shelf, carrying the book with him. He turned his back to Kai as he slid the book back where he had taken it.

"Your grandfather…" said Albert, still not facing Kai. "He gave this room to your mother as a wedding gift. Loved her, like a daughter he never had."

"My grandfather?" Kai could not help but say skeptically.

Albert turned around and smiled. "Hard to believe isn't it?"

Absently, running a hand along the spines of the books, Albert added, "She was a librarian before she married your father. She dreamt of owning her own library and when your grandfather knew this, he had the library in the other mansion transferred over here. I still remembered how she looked when she came in here for the first time, still in her wedding dress… From then on she would be here almost everyday when your father was at work."

There was a pause before Albert went on again, "Sometimes your grandfather sat in here with her, not saying much…just the two of them reading, but you can tell that they were perfectly comfortable with each other. You can imagine how it was when the news of the accident came. Your grandfather had this room locked and gave me the key before he left."

"My mother was a librarian?" Kai asked, his brows furrowing in puzzlement. "Then why did my grandfather give Tyson such a hard time?"

Albert was silent for a moment before speaking.

"Have you ever wondered what your mother was like, Kai?" asked Albert, taking out another book to glance over the preface.

Kai lowered his eyes to the wooden floor, on which not a speck of dust could be seen. Of his parents, Kai had only seen a few slightly yellowed photographs in an old album. Apparently, he had his father's hair and his mother's eyes…but none of their demeanours. In every photograph, his father was always smiling and his mother, always laughing as if every shot was a candid one. As would any orphan, Kai always wondered what they were like, what having parents was like…and of course, what his mother was like.

"A ball of energy she was," Albert told him. "Always so enthusiastic about doing things. So excited about practically everything. The first time your father brought her home to introduce her to your grandfather, she was not frightened like most people would be. Just bounced up to the venerable Voltaire Hiwatari and proffered her hand as if it was the most natural thing to do."

Albert replaced the book he had been holding and went over to the only window in the library, gesturing for Kai to come over.

"You see that garden down there?" asked Albert, pointing to the said spot when Kai was beside him at the window. "She used to play…can you believe it? Play there, a grown woman of her age. Her favourites were make-believe games. Be a mermaid, or a hero whatever, and she would somehow draw your father and grandfather in to join her. Her magnetism was a force to reckon with, I assure you."

Kai did not look up at Albert, but only continued to stare at a patch of grass in the garden. He tried to imagine what she must have been like, a grown woman playing inane games in the garden. She must have laughed a lot and she must have made others laugh a lot.

"In this mansion, your grandfather lost a beloved wife…his only son and your mother, the only other person who could make him see the better part of life. What do you think that does to a person, Kai?" Albert said quietly. Placing a hand on the young man's shoulder, he added, "It is human to err and your grandfather is only human."

Kai wanted to say something, anything…but words failed him at the moment. However, he was spared from having to come up with a response when one of the maids came rushing into the room, stopping at the threshold and spent the good part of a minute trying to catch her breath.

"Master Kai," she gasped, her hand on her bosom, "your grandfather…he…he's leaving."

That jolted Kai out of his initial stupor. "What?" he cried, staring at her. "But I thought we're only leaving after lunch!"

The maid looked like she knew the answer as much as Kai. Kai exchanged a look with Albert and the two of them hurried past her, out of the sitting room, down the staircase, not stopping until they were out on the porch, where the elder Hiwatari was having a word with one of the staff members who was seeing him off. He turned when he heard Kai and Albert arrive.

"Master Hiwatari," Albert said breathlessly.

"Grandfather," Kai spoke at the same time.

Voltaire Hiwatari turned his body fully until he was facing Kai, who took a few steps towards him but not quite near enough for physical contact. His grandfather looked as severe as ever, standing straighter than any man his age, his hands folded over the knob of his cane.

"I will be leaving for the first mansion," he said by way of explanation.

"I am still not—" Kai began.

Voltaire turned and started to walk away. "Alone."

Albert looked over to the servants who had lined up just outside the door but even they were as puzzled as he was.

"You were retained once Kai, don't let it happen again," Voltaire went on, not stopping his descend to the waiting car at the foot of the steps.

Then Voltaire stopped and looked up though not back to where Kai and the servants were standing. "The library is yours to do as you wish," he added.

All Kai could see was the elder Hiwatari's back, but whatever his grandfather was feeling, the severity of the voice never wavered. Yet, there was enough in it to make Kai take a few steps forward until he was right at the top of the steps and call out, "Grandfather."

It would have made sense for Kai to embrace his grandfather or thank him, but both Hiwataris were not used to those kinds of things. For Voltaire, affection was a thing so ancient that it was almost lost under layers of sediment that was his day-to-day living, faded and almost forgotten. For Kai, affection was something newly revealed, like scenic hills after a fog had lifted. Whatever it was, for the Hiwataris, the world of tender emotions was still largely alien to them.

Voltaire stopped when he heard his name called, but still did not look back. With a "Hn", he started down the steps again and must not have looked up at his grandson until the car door, with its tinted windows, was shut on him by the chauffeur.

Albert joined Kai at the top of the stairs to watch the back of the fast diminishing car, wishing, deep in his heart, the elder Hiwatari a safe journey home, hopefully to one where no ghosts lurked at every turn. Perhaps, just perhaps, the older Hiwatari was wishing the same in his own quiet way.

Next Chapter: CURTAIN