The first time I admit to his existence is two days later, after lecture is over. Just as I finish up and start to hear the rustle of papers that signals when the people in the back start to leave, I turn on my microphone again.
"Kou Langer, I'd like to see you after class. It's about your mandatory homework."
I see him freeze at the sound of his name and then half-turn to me, confused. I beckon with one finger and he shrugs, flipping his messenger bag over his shoulder.
"Free today, Langer?"
"Not if I have mandatory homework, Professor."
"Mandatory homework aside, it's Friday. Don't you have plans?"
"Not really," he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets and shrugging again, "How's Pepsi doing?"
"You can see for yourself," I say, putting away my laptop, "You're coming over today. I need you to help me build a dog house."
"Is that an order, Professor?" but he's grinning, his pale face lighting up.
"It's not really an order, but it's close enough to one so that you have to obey. Also, I have the power to fail you, so you'd better come along."
He giggles all the way to the car but he stops when I toss him my keys. He gets into the drivers seat quietly and starts the ignition. When he's pulled out of the parking lot and driving down the highway by my direction, he looks at me quickly, his eyes straying back to the road.
"Does driving make you nervous, Professor?"
"A lot of things make me nervous," I say and lean back in my seat, letting the AC blow into my face. The air smells metallic. "I'm getting a service dog license for Pepsi. Hopefully, that'll make me less nervous."
"That's good," he says, and his lips curl up in a different kind of smile. I look away from him and out the window, watching the buildings slowly fade away into shadowy woods. The late evening sun dyes everything orange and I am left with the feeling that today was also a good day.
"What else makes you nervous, Professor?"
"Nosy," I say mildly. "You call me Professor, but you never treat me as one."
"You don't act as one," Cola counters. "Don't you have friends to hang out with so you can do whatever old men do?"
"Gai was busy today. Iruka's spending time with his nephew. Everybody else is still serving or-" I stop short before adding the "-or dead" part. "And I'm not that much older than you."
"A whole decade older than me."
"A decade isn't a long time," I stretch and slump in my seat. "An hour is longer."
He lets me soak in silence, which I appreciate.
We pull up to our driveway and Pepsi's waiting there for me, wagging her tail ferociously. When I give her the signal, she bounds up to me, licking my hands with adoration.
"Pepsi! Attention!" Cola barks and she raises her body and sits on her haunches, looking like a giant rabbit. "At ease!" She lowers herself and snuggles her head in between my knees. "You have a huge house, Professor."
"It was my father's. He left it to me in his will."
"Is all this land yours, too?"
"A hundred square miles all around."
"Cool." His eyes shine. "Cool."
The weather isn't, though, rocketing up to the mid-eighties in early October. After an hour of lining up planks of wood and nailing them together, he strips off his shirt and I'm greeted with a chest and stomach even paler than his face.
If I were alone, I would have taken off my shirt by now, but with him here, I can only sweat silently. What bothers me most is my surgical mask, and maybe Pepsi can tell that I'm uncomfortable because she whines and sits next to me.
Ten minutes later, I feel like I'm suffocating, but I don't want him to see my scar. My hands start to shake and my thoughts start to wheel while I wonder what to do. Then, he places a warm hand on my wrist.
"Any scars or wounds won't bother me, Professor," he says gently, "I've said it before, but I've worked with soldiers a lot."
His voice is even, as it was before, but it's Pepsi's long, drawn-out whine that makes me reluctantly take off my mask. And I know he sees the ragged scar that stretches from the left corner of my mouth the the bottom of my cheekbone, but the only thing he says is:
"You have nice freckles, Professor. I wish I could tan like you."
I relax.
By the time we're done with the dog house and the sun is drowning in between the evergreens, I've taken off my shirt as well, letting him see the scars and scratches and the deep, vertical line that runs from my wrist to elbow.
That night, after I feed Pepsi and Cola, after he takes a shower, complaining that my clothes are too big on him, after he snoops around all the rooms in the house, he sits on the couch, flipping through the TV channels while I grade.
"Can I touch it?"
Absorbed in my work, I don't look up until he asks again, pointing at his own mouth.
"Why do you want to touch it?" I feel self-conscious again, and find myself moving to cover my mouth.
"It's interesting. It's like a vase. If a vase is smooth, you don't really feel the need to touch it. But if there's a vase with grooves and cracks, you want to run your fingers over it."
"So I'm pottery now?" But I let him trace the twisting scar until he reaches the end of it, while I flick his hair back into some sense of order. I move away when he touches the pale scar down my arm.
He doesn't say anything and hugs Pepsi. After a moment, he pulls up one leg of his borrowed shorts and shows me the countless of horizontal scars on his inner thigh.
I nod and he smiles.
"As long as they've healed, Cola," I say, writing corrections on a student's homework.
"Mhm," he agrees, petting Pepsi.
In the corners of the night, Pepsi howls me awake from a nightmare and turns on the lights while I shake, pressing my mask over my face, clutching onto her fur with one hand when she returns to my side. She burrows her head between my knees, licking my face. The door opens and closes and I feel Cola's fingers on my jumping pulse and his far away voice tells me to breathe slowly. He doesn't even flinch at the gaping hole of my missing left eye.
"Close your eyelid, Professor," I hear him say, and it corresponds with his fingers tapping my left cheek, "you might get dust in the socket." Then, after a moment, "You're at home, Professor, in Washington wilderness. It is October 3rd. Pepsi is next to you and so am I. This is not a war zone. You are safe." Another two harsh breaths. "You'll be alright, Professor."
After that, he doesn't say anything else, doesn't touch me, except for his two fingers glued to my pulse point. A lightning rod in a storm.