Uh, yeah. I apologise in advance for this.
Love All, Trust A Few, Do Wrong To None
His expectations are low. Shion knows, as he pushes through the glass door which gives way with a gentle creak, that the braille section of the local library is small. Normally he would simply read the large print editions – which are far easier to find – but at the moment, even with his glasses, all he sees are black smudges. His optician's appointment is only three days away and logically he could wait until then to find this particular volume, but it's Saturday and Shion doesn't want to spend his weekend waiting to be able to see again.
The chances of finding the specific book he's looking for are tiny. Still, he runs his fingers across the spines, teeth nipping at his lower lip in hope. He recites the name in his head as he searches and rejects the books one by one; no, no, no, no…
Aha.
He pulls the large volume off the shelf with a gleeful grin of victory and double-checks the title: Romeo and Juliet. He's seen Nezumi reading it on more than one occasion, and in a subtle attempt to get to know the secretive man a little better, has decided to try the famous tome himself.
He takes the book to the counter and smiles at the woman standing behind it. She checks the book out for him with a glance that lasts a little too long and he tucks it under his arm as he leaves, inhaling the warm summer breeze outside and relishing in the intense beams and scattered rays of sunlight permeating the filter created by the roadside maples. Shion finds himself wishing idly that they'd thought to plant roadside trees in Lost Town. The inner city really is beautiful.
Shion mourns how short the walk back to the bakery is, and after a quick exchange with Karan he's in his bedroom with the window thrown right open to indulge himself in the summer as it pools on his worn carpet.
He settles down in the parallelogram of light. His thin cotton shirt bunches up around his narrow shoulders as he slouches back against the wall, and he immediately opens the book and begins to read.
"Shion!" Karan calls from downstairs, her voice muffled by the carpet between them. "Dinner!"
He blinks in confusion. Dinner? At this hour? When he left to go to the library it was early afternoon, and he only just got back a few minutes ago –
"Come on, it's gone six o'clock!"
– or a few hours.
He gazes, lavender eyes unfocused and bewildered, at the book in his lap. Had he really been so drawn into the play that he'd lost hours of the day in what seemed like minutes?
"Yeah, okay," he replies belatedly and stands, dropping the book onto his mattress and heading down the rickety stairs, being careful not to trip.
In the end, Shion stayed up until the early hours of the morning and finished the book that same day. The language was a little difficult to get used to, but it was a wonderful read – No wonder Nezumi reads so much Shakespeare, he thinks as he meanders down the streets of No. 6 for the second time in as many days.
The weather isn't quite as warm as yesterday, but there is still a heated summer breeze brushing against his bare arms and neck making the stroll very enjoyable.
He reaches the library after fifteen minutes or so and shivers once inside. The air con is on again.
"I'd like to return this," he says politely to the woman behind the counter – judging by her mop of blue hair and short stature he reckons it's the same girl as yesterday. This time she doesn't stare awkwardly at him. "Um," he asks after a moment, "do you have any other Shakespeare?"
"In braille?"
Shion nods.
"I think so," she murmurs. "Hang on, let me check." She scurries away, placing Romeo and Juliet on the return trolley as she passes it. Her quick movements and quiet behaviour remind Shion of a blue mouse, a thought at which he smiles to himself.
The woman is back in less than a minute hefting two books in her arms, one considerably bigger than the other. "There's Hamlet, but that's the only one we have individually. This one," she dumps the heavy tome on the counter with a sharp thump, "is his collected works. It's got all his plays in it, but you probably wouldn't be able to read them all in two weeks, and it's a bit bulky."
A bit? Shion thinks incredulously. It's thicker than my Ecology textbook! "Thank you," he whispers. "I'll take both." If he's able to carry them home, that is.
She nods and stamps the cards, pushing the substantial books across the counter. "Here. Have a nice day."
"You too." He lifts the tomes into his arms – with some difficulty – and departs.
He lifts the sandwich to his mouth, biting down and chewing so slowly an outsider might think he's stuck in slow motion. But his pale, bony fingers are skimming over the raised dots at lightning speed, so caught up as he is in the narrative.
"You can read braille?"
Shion nearly drops his sandwich. "Nezumi?"
Said man slides into the adjacent seat on his table. The bustle of the canteen quickly swoops back into Shion's consciousness as he becomes aware of his surroundings – and the man beside him in particular. Shion can feel grey eyes on him. "You're even more jumpy than usual today, kid."
"I was reading," Shion explains as if Nezumi couldn't clearly see the book in front of him.
"In braille," Nezumi adds pointedly. There's a hint of wonder in his tone which Shion almost doesn't catch.
But he does catch it, and Shion grins shyly at him. "I don't usually. I can read large print, but when I was little I decided to learn braille just in case. It seemed fun. And now I'm really glad I did!" He laughs self-consciously, wondering if Nezumi thinks he's weird. He is, but Nezumi doesn't need to know that. "Since I missed that appointment, I couldn't get a new pair of stronger glasses… It's rescheduled for today but I couldn't wait to finish reading this book. It's amazing."
"Which book?"
"Hamlet," Shion mumbles, embarrassed. "I noticed you read a lot of Shakespeare, so I thought I'd give it a try. You've converted me."
Nezumi blinks, slightly surprised. He doesn't say anything for a while as he seemingly contemplates the unpredictable man in front of him; but then, "You're crazy, you know that?"
Shion's grin widens.
"So…" Nezumi begins, eyeing up the textured page. "How does it work?"
It's Shion's turn to be taken aback. He didn't expect Nezumi to show much interest; but Nezumi is an eternal mystery, and a part of Shion thinks he'll never figure the man out. "There are different 'levels'," he starts hesitantly, uncertain of how much detail Nezumi actually wants. "This book is printed in Grade 2. Grade 2 is full of contractions and symbols which take up less space since braille is much chunkier than normal text."
A noncommittal sound reverberates in Nezumi's throat. He doesn't lift his eyes from the paper.
Shion tries to assess Nezumi's thoughts, with little success. He isn't sure if he's pushing it too far, but… "Do you… want me to show you?"
Nezumi's head snaps up and he blinks. He doesn't reply and Shion is immediately convinced he'll say no, because who would care about a stupid dotty code? But – "Yeah."
Oh. Okay.
Breathe in, out.
Shion tentatively reaches for Nezumi's hand and guides it to the beginning of the next sentence. Nezumi leans closer. Shion swallows the lump in his throat. "You probably know that a pattern of six dots makes different letters," he murmurs quietly.
"Mm."
"Well…" Shion can hear Nezumi's smooth, quiet breaths now, and it is veryoff-putting. He struggles to move his attention to the book. "In Grade 2, lots of common words are shortened to just one or two letters. Like here," he moves Nezumi's pale hand, darker than his own, gently to the next cell. "This is the pattern for the letter Y. Here it stands for 'you'." He can hear his own voice trailing off into a raspy murmur, so much louder than their noisy surroundings.
Nezumi re-reads the cell lightly and his eyes drift upwards, away from the paper. "I see it."
"And this," the long finger is directed to the next cell, "is the letter M. When…" Shion pauses and glances up – and immediately wishes he hadn't.
Nezumi is staring at him.
Shion can't find it in himself to break eye contact and after a noticeable delay, he whispers again, "When," less certainly than before. "When it's placed before this symbol," and Nezumi's hand doesn't move to the next cell, "it means 'must'."
Nezumi's reply is nothing but a deep, quiet rumble of sound echoing between them – in the space which is steadily growing smaller. Shion is no longer aware of what he's saying. Something deep in Nezumi's stormy irises whispers that Nezumi isn't, either, and they both understand that words aren't important in this moment. In fact, something else entirely is –
The bells rings. The two jerk apart and Nezumi hastily retracts his hand, and Shion stands hurriedly, hitting the back of his knee against the bench and swearing loudly. Nezumi clears his throat.
Shion closes the book and stumbles over an apology before hightailing it out of the canteen as if his life depends on it. Or at least his sanity; his head is rushing and his heart hammering against his ribs.
What even was that?
"Look straight ahead please," the optician repeats, and this time there's a hint of irritability in her tone as she continues to examine his eyes for abnormalities.
"Sorry," Shion mumbles automatically. He's trying to concentrate, he really is – but his mind is whirring as it processes and re-processes the event with Nezumi earlier this afternoon. It had confirmed Shion's feelings for the man, most definitely; he can finally fully empathise with those sappy romantic novels his mother used to read him as bedtime stories. Yes, these overwhelming, overpowering emotions bubbling inside him are definitely the ingredients of love.
No, he understands his own reaction to the situation. That's not the issue here.
The issue is Nezumi's reaction.
"Straight. Ahead. Please," the thin woman grinds out through gritted teeth and Shion cringes.
"Sorry."
She finishes quickly and with an annoyance only partially concealed by a mask of professionalism. "Your eyesight has deteriorated noticeably," she informs the man sitting on the white plastic chair. "You'll need new glasses."
Shion nods. "Okay. Whichever pair's cheapest, I guess."
The optician reaches for a pair of frameless tinted glasses. Plain and practical. "Try these."
He accepts them, lifts them to his eyes and – oh. He can see. "Yes, these are fine, thank you." He hands over payment with a friendly smile which she half-returns.
"Do you want to make another appointment for next month?"
"Yes, I'm free any time out of school. Oh, but not Sundays, please."
"Okay…" she says to herself as she pulls out a pen and an appointment slip. "The ninth at five-thirty?"
Shion nods.
"I'll see you then," she says firmly and pointedly. She hands the slip to Shion and he chuckles nervously.
"Thank you."
Shion rolls over with a huff, pulling the blue blanket over his head and drawing his knees up to his chest. He doesn't dare to check the time; he's aware that wisps of pre-dawn light are already seeping through his curtains.
This is ridiculous.
He fumbles around his bedside table for his cellphone and clumsily selects Safu's number. The quiet ring beside his right ear is shrill, and after four rings, his best friend grudgingly picks up with a grouchy, "What do you want? It's five a.m."
Shion sighs, and his eyes slip shut. "I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep – I haven't had a full night's sleep in over a week, Safu. Nothing I do will help. I thought – I thought since you know a lot about biological psychology, maybe you could offer some help."
The line crackles irritably. "… At five a.m.?"
"Yeah," Shion whispers lamely, unable to come up with an excuse. He could have waited until school the next morning, but… "I'm really sorry. I'm getting desperate."
Safu heaves a deep sigh on the other end of the line. "Do you know why you're staying awake? Are you worrying about something? Not getting enough exercise? Room's too bright?"
Shion chews his lip nervously and curls into himself a little more. "Uh, I've been… my mind has been preoccupied. With thoughts. I've been thinking a lot."
"So, maybe… just stop thinking about it?" Safu offers impatiently.
"I've tried," Shion presses, hoping to convey the intensity boiling in his gut and chest and mind. "I can't. He always just appears again."
"… 'He'?" Safu echoes after a tense pause. Then she lets out a tired, annoyed sort of laugh. "This is about Nezumi, isn't it."
"Yeah."
"I can't help you there, Shion. It sounds to me like your feelings are…" she trails off, and Shion decides it's time to come clean.
"Love," he supplies frankly.
Safu is silent. For quite a long time. Such a long time, in fact, that Shion is almost convinced the line has gone dead; but then he hears her say quietly, "Really?" A pause. "It's love?"
"I'm certain of it," he says softly. "I don't sleep, I don't eat, I miss deadlines and my grades are dropping. I'm so happy when I'm with him and when I'm not it feels like there's a hollow void in my chest. I don't care how cheesy or cliché it sounds. It's the truth. I don't know why I didn't notice it until last week. It sort of… snuck up on me."
Safu snickers. "You were too dense to notice it," she replies with amusement. "My advice from before still stands. Talk to him about it. Tell him how you feel. Either he'll reciprocate and you can be happily lovesick together, or he'll reject you, and you'll get over him eventually."
"I'd rather remain friends than risk getting rejected and making things awkward."
"Okay," Safu agrees easily. "I'm not going to force you. If you want to play it safe, that's your choice. But sometimes you've just got to take a leap of faith – trust that he won't make it awkward. He doesn't seem like the type of person to be bothered by something like that.
"But in the end, it's up to you, Shion. Now goodnight, and go to sleep already. I have to get up in one hour, you know."
Shion smiles slightly at the warm voice. "Goodnight. And thanks," he adds sincerely. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Safu hangs up abruptly and Shion inhales-exhales deeply, rolling onto his back, spreading his limbs freely under the tangle of blankets, and closes his eyes.
Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep –
Shion jerks awake. He thrashes an arm wildly in the direction of his alarm clock and the sharp noise stops.
His bedroom door opens and Karan's face timidly appears. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah," Shion grumbles, his sheets, hair and bedclothes in total disarray and his vision blurry and piercingly bright. He lifts a hand to shield his over-sensitive eyes from the light. "Be down in a minute."
Karan smiles to herself before departing. "Okay. Don't be too long or you'll be late."
"Mm." He grabs his new glasses off the wooden table and fumbles to place them correctly on his face. He's sure they're a little lopsided, but that's not his top priority right now. First he'll shower, then change, then eat breakfast. After that he'll go to school and see Nezumi –
– Nezumi.
Last night's (this morning's?) conversation floods back into Shion's conscious.
Tell him how you feel.
Perhaps swaddled in dark night, in the dim, dreary grey light, under the suffocating sheets, it had seemed like a terrible idea; but in the cheerful rays of daylight bouncing energetically around his room, it doesn't feel so bad.
He stumbles into the shower and washes slowly, thoughts somewhere else entirely as he ponders the possibility of confessing his love to Nezumi.
Well, when he phrases it bluntly like that, it seems absurd and bizarre… But never mind. He steps out onto the tile and nearly slips. After recovering from his near-death experience, he towels himself dry – sloppily, as when he pulls his shirt on, it clings damply to his lower back – and heads downstairs as he fastens his belt.
"Good morning," he says brightly to his mother as she peers at him over the edge of the newspaper.
She raises an eyebrow. "Good morning," she replies, sounding bemused. "What's up, Shion? You were in an awful mood half an hour ago."
"Yeah, well," he says vaguely as he pours himself a mug of coffee and grabs a warm piece of plain toast.
Karan places the newspaper on the table. "Are you okay?"
"Hm?" Shion turns to her and grins around his toast. He bites, chews and swallows. "I'm fine. I just…" he trails off, visibly slowing down. The toast is put on the table – without a plate – and Shion cradles the coffee in both hands as he sinks into a chair. "I – I think I'm in love."
Karan chokes quietly on her coffee. She lowers it from her lips and clears her throat with a wide smile she's unable to hide. "Congratulations."
Shion looks up and finds no trace of surprise in her delicately lined features. "You knew, didn't you," he says, somewhat mystified by his mother's telepathic powers.
"From the way you talked about him, I had my suspicions, yes. I'm glad you know how you feel about him." She takes another sip of coffee. "Are you going to tell him?"
"I, uh –" Shion stammers, and blinks. He sits up a little straighter. "Yes."
Karan's smile deepens. "Good luck, then. I know it's scary, but you can do it. From the sounds of it, Nezumi is a good man – at the very worst, he'll understand."
Shion nods slowly. Yes, that's right. Nezumi is nothing to be afraid of. He nods again, more certainly. "Thank you."
Karan nods. "You might want to hurry, though, or you'll be late, and you won't be able to tell him."
"Huh?" Lilac eyes dart to the clock hanging above the kitchen counter and – oh shit. He gulps his entire coffee in one go and scampers out of the bakery with a rushed goodbye.
"Hurry up!" he hears Safu yell from down the street, and he almost jumps out of his skin. Safu doesn't usually wait for him when he's running late.
Shion flings himself at his bike and hurtles down the road towards her, skidding dangerously to a stop at her side. "Safu? Why are you still here?"
Her lip curls slightly in annoyance. "I oversleep sometimes too, you know. And it's your fault for calling me in the middle of the night, so let me ride."
Now that Shion thinks about it, she does look a little dishevelled… "Sure. Get on."
Safu hurries to sit sideways on the bike, balanced precariously behind him, and wraps her arms around his waist for security as he launches forward, zipping between cars and pedestrians in every way that cyclists aren't supposed to. But right now, all that matters is arriving before the gates close.
Shion's reckless cycling ensures that they shoot onto the grounds right on time, and he breathes out a pant of relief as they clamber off the machine and he chains it to a post.
"Thanks," Safu says as he joins her in her walk towards the building, his long legs easily matching her confident stride.
"No problem," Shion huffs through a grin, slightly embarrassed to be out of breath. He pauses, clears his throat, and: "I thought about what you said last night."
Safu turns to almost gape at him; first in confusion, then in realisation, then again in confusion. "Wait, really? I can hardly remember that, Shion, I was half asleep when I said it –"
"I know," he interrupts, "but it was good advice. I've decided to tell him. Today. He deserves to know, at least, for better or for worse – my mother said the same thing this morning anyway, so I think I definitely should…"
Safu hums a noncommittal noise. "Okay. Well, good luck. And I hope he's in a better mood today than he has been recently." She offers him a small, genuine smile as she takes a sharp right turn, cutting in front of him and heading down a different hallway to her first class.
He grins nervously. "Thanks," he calls down the corridor she's quickly vanishing down.
The rest of the day passes – in an odd way – both very slowly and very quickly. He can't pay one nanoparticle of attention to any of his lessons, and before he's even registered first period he's sitting in his last class.
World History.
Nezumi, surprisingly, isn't late. He lands gracefully into the seat to Shion's right on the back row, where they always sit, and dumps his weighty bag onto the table with a harsh ricocheting sound which makes Shion flinch. "Hey."
"Hey," Shion replies, swallowing his hesitancy.
Nezumi raises an eyebrow at him and the corner of his mouth threatens to quirk up.
Shion blinks, suddenly uncomfortable. "What?" he asks with trepidation. "What's that expression for?"
"You look all…" Nezumi's face flickers in thought and he waves a hand around vaguely. "Fiery."
It's Shion's turn to raise an eyebrow, and a giddy laugh escapes his lips. "Really?"
Nezumi nods bemusedly. "Did you have extra coffee this morning or something?"
Shion lets out another explosive laugh, at which Nezumi blinks in surprise. "No, nothing like that. It's just… I have something important to do today."
"Uh-huh."
"Uh-huh," Shion echoes with far more enthusiasm than his silver-eyed classmate. He chances a wide grin, which is met by a chuckle and disbelieving shake of the head.
There isn't much small talk after the teacher arrives. Shion is repeatedly distracted by worries about the impending confession and at one point is so wrapped up in his own nervous thoughts that he almost shrieks when he's called on to answer a question.
That earns a concerned sideways glance from the dark-haired man beside him, though Nezumi doesn't outwardly question his strange behaviour.
The bell rings shrilly and his classmates shoot to their feet in a hurry to leave the building. Shion watches them pack up their textbooks with a distant feeling of apprehension as he slowly stands and shoves his stuff into his bag, no thought spared for his usual organised packing. He mentally rehearses his words as his mouth moves on instinct: "Nezumi, wait a moment."
Nezumi waits, bag slung over one shoulder. He doesn't protest when Shion takes him by the elbow and leads him down the corridor to a secluded spot near the library.
There won't be any kids going to the library after school on a Friday, Shion reasons anxiously as he pulls them both to a stop.
"What's this about?" Nezumi asks quietly as he tries to analyse the man in front of him.
Shion inhales. "I have to tell you something," he starts, boldly making eye contact with scorching grey.
He doesn't continue, and after a moment Nezumi prompts, "Yeah?"
Shion only nods; for some reason he can't explain, all his words have left him, dropping out of his throat and into his shoes, along with his stomach. Come on, Shion, get it together – he breathes, clears his throat, and thanks god, heaven, Safu for Nezumi's silent patience.
The taller man is slouching against the wall, eyeing him curiously but not hurrying him. It seems like his perceptive nature has informed him of Shion's inner conflict, the battle between calm mind and frayed nerves, and he doesn't say anything about the colour flooding Shion's face and the agitated way he's wringing his hands. Nezumi's expression is carefully neutral, and being unable to gauge his reaction to the situation is making Shion even edgier.
"Okay –" he starts haltingly, and suddenly his mouth goes into overdrive, all his lost words suddenly tumbling freely across his tongue. "Nezumi, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to say this properly since I've never done anything like this before, so I'm just going to say it upfront. Well I don't know when it started but recently I haven't been able to concentrate or think about things without getting distracted and whenever I see you I just panic and I feel so great and also not very great at all, and I talked to Safu and my mother about it and they both gave me some good advice and told me to tell you and I wasn't going to originally because I was scared but I realised that you're probably not someone who would take advantage of it or tell loads of people so I thought, you know, I have nothing to lose by telling you and then it would finally be out in the open at least, and maybe I can learn to move past it –"
"Shion," Nezumi says gently. "Spit it out."
Shion shuts his mouth and draws in a shaky breath, closes his eyes, opens them and – "Nezumi, I –"
They both flinch as a shrill ringing drowns out the rest of Shion's sentence. "What –?" Shion starts, confused and disoriented. "Is that –"
"The fire alarm," Nezumi shouts over the deafening noise. He glances upward at the feeling of wetness on his face. "And the sprinklers."
Shion just about hears him through the pale hands covering his ears. "Is it a drill?"
Nezumi shrugs, looking with alarm around the corridor and out of the window. "How would I know? But it seems a bit stupid to have a fire drill outside of school hours. No one except us and the teachers are here."
Shion checks both ends of the corridor, wiping water off his glasses with the back of his hand. "We should probably leave."
"Come on," Nezumi orders and tugs Shion to the left. "This is the only way out of this wing."
Shion stumbles into a half-run behind him, the manic clanging of the alarm and the sprinkler water blurring his vision making it difficult to judge where Nezumi is leading him. Perhaps in a different circumstance Shion would wonder how Nezumi already had the entire layout of the school memorised after only three months, but at the moment he is in too much panic.
Nezumi skids to a shockingly abrupt halt. Shion tumbles into his back, and suddenly Nezumi is swearing loudly and coarsely and when he glances over his shoulder, Shion sees the fear in his eyes.
Shion is immediately on high alert because Nezumi has never looked so scared, and when he focuses his attention on the roar and crackle blocking their only exit, he lets out a scream and his voice cracks.
Even through his wet lenses Shion can make out the malicious flames dancing hungrily in front of them.