Man on the Moon
On the morning of his fifteenth birthday, the presents piled up like a small mountain in the corner of the office -- big boxes in bright, shiny wrappings, small boxes decorated with charmingly girlish bows and ribbons, cards enscribed with mature curliques or the awkward, coltish scribblings of kindergarteners. Akira baked him a cake of delightful plumminess which he devoured in record time, while a small, leather-covered datebook appeared mysteriously on his desk with a note that bore Suoh's name and the words 'Remember your deadlines' underlined with red ink.
Further into the afternoon, he received a summons from the Chairman's office.
"You want me to accompany you?" Suoh looked up from his work to ask, blue hair falling across his serious golden eyes, and Nokoru shook his head, smiling.
"Nah, I wouldn't like to keep you from the pleasures of your job."
"I'm sure." After six years, Suoh's eye-roll was an intimately familiar expression, outranked only by the you-have-just-shortened-my-lifespan-by-a-good-ten-years sweatdrop. "Try not to lose your way when you return, won't you?"
Sparing a mournful glance for the petitions piled mile-high in his inbox, he breathed out a sigh. "Hai, hai."
"See you later, Kaichou!" came Akira's enthusiastic farewell, and he gave the kid a bright, upbeat wave before leaving.
The corridors of the Administrative Building were deserted this late into the day, devoid of the busy hum that usually filled its spaces and empty crevasses. It was worse to be alone here, the vacuity of the building clearly visible, than when working overtime in the office where the walls allowed you to at least imagine a whole sea of humanity just beyond sight. Besides, he was rarely by himself even then, since Suoh and Akira seemed to consider watching over him a necessary task lest he neglect the towering stack of paperwork cluttering his desk. He had never disabused them of the notion.
There was an uncharacteristic pause before the Chairman answered his knock, but when she did her tone was as knowing and inscrutable as ever, the very epitome of self-assurance. Shutting the office door behind him as he entered, he walked till he was facing her on the other side of her desk and cocked his head with a quizzical smile. "Rijichou. You asked for me?"
"Sit," she gestured him toward a chair and he obliged dutifully, settling down among the cushions. The curtains were drawn, allowing the dwindling glow of a spectacular sunset to wrap comfortably around them, and the fan tilted delicately above her face cast long shadows over smooth, rounded cheekbones.
"Did you have a nice birthday?" He blinked at the question, which wasn't the sort of thing he expected of her at all, but years of ingrained training allowed him to shrug off all irregularities with tact.
"Oh, very. As always, of course. The ladies have been unfailingly kind and generous."
"Yes, you're a popular boy." Her voice was vague, as if her mind was on matters far removed from his popularity; fireflies, perhaps, or the price of tea in China. Fading sunlight danced along the natural ebony of her hair, unthreaded by white though he knew she was nearing forty-five. He shifted his feet, and they sank into the thick woolen carpet that covered the hardwood floor from wall to wall, like descending slowly into a quagmire where before there was only solid ground.
"Tell me, Nokoru. What do you know of the End of the World?"
***
That was how he learned of Dragons and kekkai, shinken and Armageddon and undocumented supernatural powers that sounded like they came from a child's exaggerated fantasies. The thought came and went that Suoh and Akira were sure to think this another ploy to skip work, and picturing Suoh's twitching face twitched his own lips up in a smile.
There wasn't much else to smile about in the topics that came up.
"What about Akira and Suoh?" he asked quietly after she decided that they had covered as much of the essentials as possible for an evening, and would continue tomorrow.
"What about them?" Her voice was light, cool, supremely unconcerned.
"Can I tell them of this? You know we've always worked together."
"It's up to you, of course." Pressure on a few buttons and the screen shot up again, disappearing into an insignificant, tightly rolled cylinder. "Think on it before you decide. But consider the consequences carefully, dear Nokoru-kun -- you've never worked fully with anyone in your life."
"That's not true." The denial came automatically, from his gut, but there was another part of him that immediately questioned the truth of that statement, and it wouldn't remain unacknowledged.
"And have you kept no secrets? Have you told them everything of yourself, or even shared all the information you've collected on them?"
"That's different." The excuse came automatically, as well. "They're better off not knowing those things -- they're happier, that way."
"Nokoru," she said, "do you think they'll be happier if they know of this, then?
"Will you be?"
They faced each other, and he knew that he was looking at her not like a youth opposing an older relative, or a student confronting a superior, but as equals weighing each other, calculating strengths and weaknesses. He knew that she was aware of it, too.
"Time to grow up, Nokoru-kun," she said with the smile of a geisha -- white skin, thin and cherry-red lips, a delicate bone structure like the masterpiece of a skilled artisan. The fan of ivory and cloth obscured her eyes, but he had known her long enough to sense the regret and implacability concealed beneath.
He turned his head away.
***
The months after that first briefing were spent in training, preparing to take over the task of preserving the world. He took a leave of unspecified duration from school which was speedily approved by the administration, and left student council work to Suoh and Akira's capable hands. That was one cause for rejoice, at least, and he tried to ignore their troubled murmurings when they thought he wasn't listening. Suoh, for one, had requested to join him, but he deflected the proposal with a wide-eyed "Who'll take care of the paperwork then?"
"Ijyuin can deal with it." But his secretary, his conscience, couldn't keep from flicking a worried glance at the impressive mound of paper looming precariously out of his inbox, and he knew that victory was his.
"Are you sick, Kaichou?" asked Akira anxiously, peering into his face as if searching for symptoms of a fatal disease. "Do you want me to cook something up for you? I have some recipes for homemade remedies, if you don't mind trying them out -- "
"Thank you, Akira, but I'm perfectly fine, really. Besides, I'd rather you channeled your energies into chocolate cake, or maybe some brownies," which took care of that.
His repeated assurances that yes, he was just going to stay at home, and no, he wasn't going to do anything dangerous like attempt to stop an incoming train by standing on the tracks or take on a criminal organization single-handedly placated them sufficiently to keep their questions unvoiced, though Suoh seemed uneasy while presenting him with a cellphone and admonitions to use it. He was glad they didn't ask. If they had, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't answer, and once that happened it was inevitable that they would refuse to let him face the coming dangers alone, an accomplishment which could achieve nothing other than increasing the percentage of vaguely miserable people in the student council from 33.3 to 100.
And yet underneath his surface anxiety there was always the knowledge that, in the end, neither one of them would push; Suoh was too circumspect, Akira too clueless, and the faith they placed in him too great.
He acquired a wealth of enlightenment that appalled him. He had known, of course, of the effects mankind was inflicting on their planet, but the knowledge had always been distant and fuzzy, nothing that would ever affect him on a personal level. That veil was now stripped away, and six years hardly distant enough for comfort. He walked out onto the streets, into the parks, seeing death in his surroundings, in the blush of a flower or the affectionate greetings of acquaintances. This was no Manichaean struggle; either humanity would die or nature would die, and how could one make that decision, how was it possible to pick just one side?
"Can't we attempt to avoid it entirely? You know, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, and all that?" He put the question to her directly, and received in response the lift of a thin, painted eyebrow.
"Do you still not understand, Nokoru? Our destiny is foreordained. The sole chance we possess to affect the future is on the Last Day, where two fates will battle for victory, and only one will survive. Concentrate on that. There is nothing in existence more important."
He didn't understand. His genius IQ that NASA coveted was stumped by a single multiple-choice question. In appearance he remained unchanged, or as unchanged as a boy experiencing his first growth spurt in puberty could be, taking trips to the campus, greeting his disconsolate fan club, posing for pictures, affecting gallant rescues when chancing upon yet another damsel in distress, getting roped into masses of paperwork every time he visited the council office. He smiled, he laughed, he flirted and charmed, he looked in the mirror and wondered when the dark thing that was growing inside him with each passing day would begin to shadow his countenance.
It wasn't all terrible, of course. His capacity for brooding was limited, and it was hard to remain in a black mood when a girl walked forward shyly to ask his autograph, or Akira came up with another piece of culinary art, or Suoh teased him with sly, understated humor. That was the crux of the problem -- he was happy if the people around him were happy, unhappy if not, dependant on the joy of others for his own, and that silenced his tongue more effectively than any dictum of destiny.
Even after the training came to an end and he resumed schooling amidst the hearty welcomes of his classmates, he was able to keep his secrets to himself, an accomplishment by no means new to him, though this secret weighed heavier than all the others combined.
He was alone, now, all the time.
***
"Kaichou, sometimes you don't seem to live in the same world as the rest of us."
So said Akira at some time during the middle of the Christmas prom, amidst mutterings of 'Twenty Mensou' and 'Mothers' and 'sorry about deceiving you', before Ohkawa lugged him home with polite apologies and a determined grip. Nokoru wondered just who it was that had been resourceful enough to slip that spiked punch past Akira's adamantly virtuous guard -- he'd tried, himself, and failed.
A group of girls were flocking towards him, giggling, nudging each other, shuffling their feet. Bits of colored ribbon bobbed up and down; lace and silk rustled against each other, whispering. Oka Setsumi, he recalled, a third year member of the junior high school department who sent him handknit articles every year for his birthday; Kawasaka Ai, the star of the senior high school debate team; Hakaji Kyoko, whose parents almost couldn't afford to send her to high school, but whose brilliant mind had won her scholarships year after year...facts and names and figures scurried out and settled obediently, each attaching itself to the appropriate face.
"Good evening, ladies. I hope you've been enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, yes."
"It's a wonderful party; thank you for asking."
"The Student Council did a marvelous job."
"And you, Imonoyama-kun? Are you having fun as well?"
"Decidedly so," he bowed and watched the blood rise prettily in Oka's cheeks, Kyoko's downcast eyes and glowing countenance. They were charming, really, delicate creatures to be cherished and protected, an honor to assist. Princesses, each and every one.
Thus the need for a Prince.
"Will you dance?" Kyoko was the first to ask, with a bewitching smile lurking at the corners of her skillfully painted lips that contained in it something more of a woman than a girl, an unexpected amount of mysterious allure that was feminity's prerogative, and the sudden switch caught him by surprise, took his breath with a feeling of deja vu.
(Time to grow up, Nokoru-kun.)
He didn't realize when he'd backed away.
"I'm sorry," he said, smiling, apologetic, making some excuse about a headache or a trip to the restroom -- he wasn't sure which -- before slipping into the relative anonymity of the crowd, heading towards one of the half-hidden side doors. There was a time when their disappointed moues would have brought him back immediately, to fulfill their wishes regardless of personal pain or discomfort, but that time had passed, along with a portion of his own innocence.
('You have a duty. A destiny. It is not a choice.')
It was cold outside, a biting chill. He'd forgotten to fetch his coat and was regretting it now, as goosebumps lifted along his arms and the unprotected skin of his neck. Winter had sugar-coated the ground in layers of unmarred snow, encased the branches of the trees in glittering ice, and his breath steamed, dissipating so slowly in the sharp night air that a second wave encroached upon the first before it disappeared, a relentless unbreaking cycle repeating itself over and over without end.
He trod past colorful streamers that had somehow made it out the doors, deflated balloons whose corpses lay limply in the snow, exhausted, till the sound of laughter and conversation from the ballroom faded away.
Tomorrow Akira would wake up, make a rendezvous with the bathroom toilet, and remember what he'd let slip the night before to poor, ignorant Kaichou (and if he'd managed to sink himself in a state of blissful forgetfulness, Okawa was certain to remind him. Sharply.) Then he'd ignore his headache to venture bravely forth to school and confess his sins, but before he spoke Nokoru would give him an apologetic grin and say "Terribly sorry, but could this wait a bit? I'm not feeling very well -- I /knew/ I shouldn't have drunk so much yesterday. Everything after Ebihara-sensei's version of the Macarena is a bit of a blur." And Akira wouldn't be completely convinced, of course, but he'd make himself believe, and then everything would be all right, and life would go on.
Suoh would stand by, perhaps silent, perhaps offering solicitation, revealing no hint of whatever secrets he might be aware of himself, prompting Nokoru to run over his own words and actions for the thousandth time before deciding that he had been perfectly circumspect, and there was no way anyone could be suspicious of anything. They had acted out many versions of this same scene in the past, variations on a theme, and he was fairly confident of his own ability to navigate the muddy stream of white lies by now. Ironic that they were called /white/ lies, when they clouded truth as well as the blackest prevarications ever could.
Delicate flakes melted into the weaving of his sweater, tangled in his lashes, formed a curtain separating him from the rest of the world. A vagrant trail of icy water found a space between his collar and skin, sliding down along his spine. He shivered.
"Are you all right?" A quiet hiss, and the curtain parted for a pale blue shadow, brows knotted together in a frown, gloved fingers flinging a coat over his shoulders, the inevitability of it spreading a warm glow of amusement from his chest to his freezing limbs.
"I'm not going to do anything stupid." He tilted his head up, letting the alcohol take him, feeling it run through his veins. He'd imbibed a respectable amount, no lie that, though 'too much' was a line he was careful never to cross. A slight buzz wouldn't hurt anyone, and really, he'd been following the patterns of this evasive dance for so long it would take a great deal of alcohol indeed to cause a misstep. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I don't know." No one could do dry like Suoh. "It might have something to do with the sub-arctic temperature, and the snow piling up on your shoulders. Or the fact that you're outside, /letting/ the snow pile up, when you could be inside, drinking hot chocolate. Take your pick."
"I'd say it's because you're a chronic worry-wart, and you probably think it's dangerous for me to cross the street without someone holding my hand."
"In your case, it might very well be."
"Petty, Suoh. Unworthy of you." He flung his head back, breathed deeply. "Look at that," he said, pointing upwards, past the flurry of white, into an inky chasm spangled with chips of glass.
"It's snowing," was Suoh's comment, delivered in the tone that meant 'Your point?'
"Suoh, if I could live on one of those stars, any one at all, which do you think it would be?"
His eyes followed the arch of Suoh's brow towards his hairline, examined the crinkling of his forehead. Those worry wrinkles would be deeply engraved by the time they graduated, he was certain, and one day Nagisa would blame him for prematurely aging her husband. "What kind of question is that?"
"I want to know what you think." He leveled forth the full, devastating force of the Imonoyama smile, and evidently there were still some expoitable chinks in Suoh's supposedly impervious shield because he did, eventually, receive an answer.
"You belong right here, Kaichou."
He laughed at that, listening to the giddyness in his voice. "You're just saying that to make me feel better." Earth's primary satellite was just a sliver of crescent tonight, taken straight off Diana's circlet, perfect for dangling one's feet over. He stretched his arms out, up, arching his back with a satisfied sigh, and suppressed the urge to rub his head against Suoh's dark woolen jacket like a demanding pussycat.
Maybe he had crossed the line just a tad.
"Come inside, Kaichou," said Suoh reprovingly, laying a hand on his spine and pushing him gently towards the ballroom door. Light spilled out from within, mixed with youthful laughter and exhuberant spirits, and someone somewhere was singing carols. It was a scene of fire and candlelight, warmth and belonging.
Just before they crossed the threshold, he turned to Suoh, watching the snowflakes glitter in his thickly curling hair. "You know something?"
"Hm?"
"I think Akira was right."
"Huh?"
"Because it's not oxygen that I breathe."
"...Kaichou, are you feeling okay?"
He laughed, and because it was Christmas, and because it was Suoh, and because there was a sprig of mistletoe dangling enticingly from the rafters just above them, he lifted himself up on his toes and placed a kiss right on the center of Suoh's startled lips.
***
Idomu came by for a visit on the second day of April. He was working for NASA now, apparently, looking spruce in a western-style suit and tie, and his entrance this time was surprisingly tame, consisting solely of a knock on the office door and the presentation of the obligatory bouquet of yarrow. Suoh's face was a study in strained politeness when the first sentence uttered by Idomu as the door swung shut behind him was a menacing "I've come to complete the task I started three years ago," and the second, after Suoh and Akira had both jumped up to confront him, was "April Fools!"
"You're a day off," Nokoru pointed out, hands propped under his chin, lips quirking.
"Well, yeah, but my plane only arrived this morning," Idomu shrugged, no sign of repentance at all in his sardonic green eyes. "What can I say? The temptation was irresistable. Are you up for a cup of tea?"
"Why not?" he agreed before any objections could be voiced, and dropped his pen on a pile of reports awaiting review.
"Kaichou?" Akira's voice was uncertain, and he had just put on his most reassuring don't-worry-sempai-knows-what-he's-doing smile when he caught the tail-end of a golden glare that was silent, loudly silent, but contained twice as many misgivings.
Pushing in his chair, he walked over to where Suoh's pseudo-casual stance spoke eloquently of apprehension, and lay a hand lightly on his taut arm.
"It's okay," he said, softly. "It's okay," and Suoh just sighed and rolled his eyes and returned to his seat with a resigned
"Do as you will."
"As vigilant as ever, your watchdog," was Idomu's comment as they walked side by side through the hallways, falling easily into step, only stopping every now and then for Nokoru to give or answer a cheerful greeting.
"You're not exactly on his top ten list," he shrugged, wanting to argue the unflattering term and realizing at the same time that it would be quite meaningless to do so. "And oh, if you're planning to kidnap, drug, or otherwise find some way to snare me in your nefarious plans, could you extend it to cover the entire afternoon? You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork the school's been generating lately."
"I'll keep that in mind." They turned out the main door, into the campus, towards the campus teahouse. "You might have to wait a bit while I concoct something, though."
"Really? I thought you'd have it all planned out."
"Oh, the lack of preparation isn't by choice, I assure you. We've got a busy schedule; arranging a day's leave was difficult enough. Will you take a rain check?"
"Done."
The teahouse was a traditionally styled complex of wood and paper walls, where tea came in ceramic pots and cups and saucers eggshell thin. They were led to their table by a kimono-clad lady who bowed low as they knelt, taking turns pointing out appetizers until the surface of the table disappeared under a deluge of dishes.
"I'm assuming that this is your treat," said Nokoru, popping out the peas of an edamame, flicking away the salted husk.
Idomu looked down at the barely visible tabletop. "We'll go dutch," he decided.
"Aren't you the one of us with a steady income?"
"A steady income doesn't always equate with 'filty rich'. Besides, I'm beginning to think that the Imonoyama millions are necessary just to support your appetite."
"I don't eat that much," he protested. "I just want to try a little of everything."
"The bill's the same, though."
There was a pause as the waitress gathered away an empty plate.
"So, what have you been doing with yourself lately?"
"This and that," said Idomu vaguely, waving a hand back and forth. "Top secret stuff, so I can't talk about it; you know the drill. You could hack the system and check for yourself, if you want."
"I do have a respect for privacy, unlike certain others I could mention."
"Really?"
"On occasion."
"They won't mind. It's not like no one's done it before."
"You?"
A shrug. "That's why they hired me."
They polished off a few more platters in silence.
"How's it going with you?"
"I get by." He played with a piece of tofu that wouldn't remain stationery, stabbing at it over and over again with his chopsticks, but it just kept sliding away.
"That bad?"
Lifting his head from the now completely mutilated piece of white mush, he blinked. "Am I so obvious?"
"Hey, you're asking the guy who made ruining you his life's vocation?" Idomu smirked at him, and the expression was so familiar that for another instant the darkness inside him was eclipsed by warmth. "I know more about you than I do my girlfriend."
Double-blink. "You never said. Congratulations?"
"Accepted."
"So what's wrong?" asked Idomu after a length of time and another plate of food had passed.
"Would you believe me if I said 'nothing'?"
"No. Well?"
"Drink your tea."
"No. Give."
"What's she like?"
"Beautiful. Divine. She makes us poor mortals go weak at the knees. Your turn."
He started to laugh, and choked on a mouthful of tea.
"Does she know what a stubborn bastard you are?" he said when he could breathe again.
"It's one of my many charms."
"You won't let this go, will you."
"Think of it as a continuation of my revenge campaign."
The paper napkins placed on their table were decorated with the teahouse sigil, a cherry tree in bloom. He twined it around his fingers.
"You're the only one who pries," he said, and it was the truth. Each year his birthday gifts filled up a quarter of the council office, but they were from those who loved him without knowing him, who had a picture of a shiny, smiling Nokoru Imonoyama in their heads that he did his best to live up to. They didn't want to know his fears, or his troubles, and he couldn't blame them for it, after all; no doubt they had fears and troubles enough of their own.
There were times when faith possessed all the comfort and qualities of a ten-ton barbell.
So Nokoru Imonoyama lived on the moon, apart from his fellows, and if it was occasionally a little cold, a little silent, well, that was a small price to pay for the light he could shine down on others.
"Does that mean you'll tell me?"
"I can't," he said honestly. "You wouldn't be able to help, and it's not my secret to share, not really."
"You still don't trust me," Idomu stated as matter-of-factly as a man saying that the sky was blue, or grass was green, or that the taste of tea was bitter.
"That's not it. Suoh and Akira don't know, either. It's just that -- I could tell you, and maybe it would be better for a while, but then you'd have to leave and go home and everything would be the same again. Exactly the same."
Idomu took up the teapot and filled his cup, a steady stream of amber liquid that steamed up in tiny curls. Sipped at it.
"So talk to them -- your chef and your watchdog. Doesn't look as if they'll be leaving anytime soon."
"It wouldn't be fair. They're better off not knowing."
The waitress came by again, sweeping away more dishes. The table was now half-cleared. When Nokoru glanced up at her with a smile and a 'Thank you', she blushed and giggled and almost dropped their plates. Then she fled.
Turning back, he saw that Idomu's smirk had returned. "Still a hit with the ladies, eh?"
"I like them. They like me. It works out."
"You like everyone," said Idomu with a flick of his hands that didn't seem complimentary in the least. "You like everyone, but you don't trust anyone."
"That's not true." He remembered the same accusation, the same reply, but the conviction that should have been inherent in the words was worn down to pallid slivers of what it used to be.
Outside, a cloud passed before the sun, blotting it out for the moment and sweeping their corner of the campus into shadow. It was abruptly a few degrees chillier, still warm, but with the kind of warmth that made you wish you'd ignored the weather report in the morning and wore long sleeves instead of short.
"Do you remember our confrontation three years ago?" Idomu's voice was slow and thoughtful, as if he wasn't certain what to say and was still puzzling it out. Or maybe he was just wondering whether it was worth the breath it took to say it.
"It was a rather memorable experience," he said wryly. "Hard to forget."
"I know," and as they shared a smile, the chill seemed to abate a bit. "I like to think that I came very close to succeeding -- in fact, I was almost certain that I would."
"I know," he said, and another fleeting grin passed between them. "If it makes you happy, I can assure you that it was one of our most serious schoolyard crises."
"Why, thank you. I will admit that your computer skills were sadly lacking in comparison to my own -- "
"Do tell," he interjected dryly.
" -- but what I was counting on to be the final blow was the disentegration of your little team. I'd done my research very carefully, you see, and you have a tendency to keep things yourself in an attempt to protect those around you. Very noble, of course. The greater the perceived danger, the less likely you would be to take the others into your confidence, creating a perfect breeding ground for suspicion."
The memories were there, sharp and cutting. "I remember."
"Yes. Well. And it certainly seemed to work, all the way until the end. I was so certain you would fall apart, that I'd torn your cozy little group right down the middle."
"But you hadn't," he said, because it was true.
"No. I hadn't," and what they shared this time was not a smile.
There was a gust of wind, activating the windchimes swaying by the teahouse entrance to form a deluge of soft, shimmering sounds, bringing with them the scent of marigolds and rhododendrons. It blew Idomu's hair away from his face, and he studied the stern, determined lines there, the glimmer of what might be concern for a former rival, the new maturity. He looked good, whole. Nokoru wondered what Idomu saw in his face, whether the fracture of loneliness embedded deep down was visible from the surface.
"You can't be everything for everyone," Idomu said finally, meeting his eyes and not looking away. "That's all I'm trying to say. Whether you listen or not is up to you, of course."
They spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, talking with silence.
***
It was nearing six when he made his way back to the office. Idomu had received a call on his cellphone and left with a brief and cryptic explanation that likely had to do with government work and top secret projects when decoded, and he hadn't argued. He might have remained there indefinitely, staring into a glazed cup filled and refilled countless times, if not for the waitress' flustered, apologetic reminders that it was nearing their closing hour, and there was no rush, no rush at all, but did he want anything else?
There was also the small matter of what he knew would be waiting for him back at the student council office.
"Are you okay?" said Suoh as he walked in. His self-appointed bodyguard was sitting at the secretary's desk, papers spread out before him, going through them methodically with a pen. He paused in the doorway, taking in the slowly fading shimmers of sunset.
"Where's Akira?"
"I persuaded him to go home." A shrug, resigned and affectionate. "Said I had some things to take care of. I figured you didn't need two mother hens twiddling their thumbs and waiting anxiously for your return."
"One is more than enough," he agreed. "You didn't think I'd just go straight home?"
"No." Suoh looked up then, the planes of his face as familiar a sight as Nokoru had ever known, and somehow foreign all the same. He wanted to touch them, to run his hands over them. He wanted to see the boy that had worn that face seven years ago, before their relationship had gained its present, invisible veneer of formality. "You know me too well."
"And you know /me/ too well. And Akira knows us both well enough to trust us in our decisions. We're like an old, married threesome."
"Kaichou." Suoh's voice was slightly scandalized, slightly reproachful. "Okawa would have our heads if she heard that."
"I won't tell if you don't."
He felt golden eyes peering up at him. "You're in an odd mood today."
"Not really."
Another question began to gather in the air between them, and this time, he promised silently, this time he was ready to answer -- but before it could coalesce, Suoh shrugged and returned his attention to the reports, backing down though his body hadn't moved an inch. "As long as you're here, then, you might as well make yourself useful."
"Yes, Master." He rolled his eyes, but headed with rare obedience to his seat behind the large mahogany desk.
Momentarily satisfied, Suoh recommenced work on his own -- much smaller -- pile of papers. For a while there was only the scratch of pens against paper filling the office. The burst of industry couldn't last forever, though, and before long Nokoru was drifting again.
The breeze billowing out the gauzy white curtains carried with it the scent of apple blossoms and laughter. Vaguely, he could hear schoolgirls chattering in the distance. It was such a perfect evening. For a moment he wished he were enough of a poet to immortalize this moment in words for posterity, and then he remembered that posterity wasn't going to last all that long.
It would be easy to reach out. It would be so easy. It would be a relief, and it would be a change of everything he'd ever believed in.
He remembered her words.
She had left the matter deliberately in his hands, he thought now, staring out the window at the deepening shadows. Expressed disapproval, yes, but refrained from any measures that would reinforce that disapproval. He wondered if he'd heard her as she'd intended to be heard, or if there was something there that he'd missed, something that turned white into black and a film negative into a burst of color.
It was so easy to stand apart, looking down on the world with benevolence and unconscious superiority.
(Time to grow up.)
"Suoh," he said, scarcely aware of parting his lips, hearing his own voice with surprise, feeling the steadily increasing tempo of his hearbeat. His fingers tightened around the glossy black pen, the cool shell of it.
"Hm?"
"I live on the moon."
"How's the view up there?" replied Suoh absently, still browsing through his reports.
"Nice. Good. Lonely sometimes, too."
"Is that so?"
"Mm-hmm." He held his breath.
"Guess I'll have to go keep you company, then."
"Guess you will," he said, and ignored the lump in his throat.
*****
On the morning of his fifteenth birthday, the presents piled up like a small mountain in the corner of the office -- big boxes in bright, shiny wrappings, small boxes decorated with charmingly girlish bows and ribbons, cards enscribed with mature curliques or the awkward, coltish scribblings of kindergarteners. Akira baked him a cake of delightful plumminess which he devoured in record time, while a small, leather-covered datebook appeared mysteriously on his desk with a note that bore Suoh's name and the words 'Remember your deadlines' underlined with red ink.
Further into the afternoon, he received a summons from the Chairman's office.
"You want me to accompany you?" Suoh looked up from his work to ask, blue hair falling across his serious golden eyes, and Nokoru shook his head, smiling.
"Nah, I wouldn't like to keep you from the pleasures of your job."
"I'm sure." After six years, Suoh's eye-roll was an intimately familiar expression, outranked only by the you-have-just-shortened-my-lifespan-by-a-good-ten-years sweatdrop. "Try not to lose your way when you return, won't you?"
Sparing a mournful glance for the petitions piled mile-high in his inbox, he breathed out a sigh. "Hai, hai."
"See you later, Kaichou!" came Akira's enthusiastic farewell, and he gave the kid a bright, upbeat wave before leaving.
The corridors of the Administrative Building were deserted this late into the day, devoid of the busy hum that usually filled its spaces and empty crevasses. It was worse to be alone here, the vacuity of the building clearly visible, than when working overtime in the office where the walls allowed you to at least imagine a whole sea of humanity just beyond sight. Besides, he was rarely by himself even then, since Suoh and Akira seemed to consider watching over him a necessary task lest he neglect the towering stack of paperwork cluttering his desk. He had never disabused them of the notion.
There was an uncharacteristic pause before the Chairman answered his knock, but when she did her tone was as knowing and inscrutable as ever, the very epitome of self-assurance. Shutting the office door behind him as he entered, he walked till he was facing her on the other side of her desk and cocked his head with a quizzical smile. "Rijichou. You asked for me?"
"Sit," she gestured him toward a chair and he obliged dutifully, settling down among the cushions. The curtains were drawn, allowing the dwindling glow of a spectacular sunset to wrap comfortably around them, and the fan tilted delicately above her face cast long shadows over smooth, rounded cheekbones.
"Did you have a nice birthday?" He blinked at the question, which wasn't the sort of thing he expected of her at all, but years of ingrained training allowed him to shrug off all irregularities with tact.
"Oh, very. As always, of course. The ladies have been unfailingly kind and generous."
"Yes, you're a popular boy." Her voice was vague, as if her mind was on matters far removed from his popularity; fireflies, perhaps, or the price of tea in China. Fading sunlight danced along the natural ebony of her hair, unthreaded by white though he knew she was nearing forty-five. He shifted his feet, and they sank into the thick woolen carpet that covered the hardwood floor from wall to wall, like descending slowly into a quagmire where before there was only solid ground.
"Tell me, Nokoru. What do you know of the End of the World?"
***
That was how he learned of Dragons and kekkai, shinken and Armageddon and undocumented supernatural powers that sounded like they came from a child's exaggerated fantasies. The thought came and went that Suoh and Akira were sure to think this another ploy to skip work, and picturing Suoh's twitching face twitched his own lips up in a smile.
There wasn't much else to smile about in the topics that came up.
"What about Akira and Suoh?" he asked quietly after she decided that they had covered as much of the essentials as possible for an evening, and would continue tomorrow.
"What about them?" Her voice was light, cool, supremely unconcerned.
"Can I tell them of this? You know we've always worked together."
"It's up to you, of course." Pressure on a few buttons and the screen shot up again, disappearing into an insignificant, tightly rolled cylinder. "Think on it before you decide. But consider the consequences carefully, dear Nokoru-kun -- you've never worked fully with anyone in your life."
"That's not true." The denial came automatically, from his gut, but there was another part of him that immediately questioned the truth of that statement, and it wouldn't remain unacknowledged.
"And have you kept no secrets? Have you told them everything of yourself, or even shared all the information you've collected on them?"
"That's different." The excuse came automatically, as well. "They're better off not knowing those things -- they're happier, that way."
"Nokoru," she said, "do you think they'll be happier if they know of this, then?
"Will you be?"
They faced each other, and he knew that he was looking at her not like a youth opposing an older relative, or a student confronting a superior, but as equals weighing each other, calculating strengths and weaknesses. He knew that she was aware of it, too.
"Time to grow up, Nokoru-kun," she said with the smile of a geisha -- white skin, thin and cherry-red lips, a delicate bone structure like the masterpiece of a skilled artisan. The fan of ivory and cloth obscured her eyes, but he had known her long enough to sense the regret and implacability concealed beneath.
He turned his head away.
***
The months after that first briefing were spent in training, preparing to take over the task of preserving the world. He took a leave of unspecified duration from school which was speedily approved by the administration, and left student council work to Suoh and Akira's capable hands. That was one cause for rejoice, at least, and he tried to ignore their troubled murmurings when they thought he wasn't listening. Suoh, for one, had requested to join him, but he deflected the proposal with a wide-eyed "Who'll take care of the paperwork then?"
"Ijyuin can deal with it." But his secretary, his conscience, couldn't keep from flicking a worried glance at the impressive mound of paper looming precariously out of his inbox, and he knew that victory was his.
"Are you sick, Kaichou?" asked Akira anxiously, peering into his face as if searching for symptoms of a fatal disease. "Do you want me to cook something up for you? I have some recipes for homemade remedies, if you don't mind trying them out -- "
"Thank you, Akira, but I'm perfectly fine, really. Besides, I'd rather you channeled your energies into chocolate cake, or maybe some brownies," which took care of that.
His repeated assurances that yes, he was just going to stay at home, and no, he wasn't going to do anything dangerous like attempt to stop an incoming train by standing on the tracks or take on a criminal organization single-handedly placated them sufficiently to keep their questions unvoiced, though Suoh seemed uneasy while presenting him with a cellphone and admonitions to use it. He was glad they didn't ask. If they had, he couldn't guarantee that he wouldn't answer, and once that happened it was inevitable that they would refuse to let him face the coming dangers alone, an accomplishment which could achieve nothing other than increasing the percentage of vaguely miserable people in the student council from 33.3 to 100.
And yet underneath his surface anxiety there was always the knowledge that, in the end, neither one of them would push; Suoh was too circumspect, Akira too clueless, and the faith they placed in him too great.
He acquired a wealth of enlightenment that appalled him. He had known, of course, of the effects mankind was inflicting on their planet, but the knowledge had always been distant and fuzzy, nothing that would ever affect him on a personal level. That veil was now stripped away, and six years hardly distant enough for comfort. He walked out onto the streets, into the parks, seeing death in his surroundings, in the blush of a flower or the affectionate greetings of acquaintances. This was no Manichaean struggle; either humanity would die or nature would die, and how could one make that decision, how was it possible to pick just one side?
"Can't we attempt to avoid it entirely? You know, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, and all that?" He put the question to her directly, and received in response the lift of a thin, painted eyebrow.
"Do you still not understand, Nokoru? Our destiny is foreordained. The sole chance we possess to affect the future is on the Last Day, where two fates will battle for victory, and only one will survive. Concentrate on that. There is nothing in existence more important."
He didn't understand. His genius IQ that NASA coveted was stumped by a single multiple-choice question. In appearance he remained unchanged, or as unchanged as a boy experiencing his first growth spurt in puberty could be, taking trips to the campus, greeting his disconsolate fan club, posing for pictures, affecting gallant rescues when chancing upon yet another damsel in distress, getting roped into masses of paperwork every time he visited the council office. He smiled, he laughed, he flirted and charmed, he looked in the mirror and wondered when the dark thing that was growing inside him with each passing day would begin to shadow his countenance.
It wasn't all terrible, of course. His capacity for brooding was limited, and it was hard to remain in a black mood when a girl walked forward shyly to ask his autograph, or Akira came up with another piece of culinary art, or Suoh teased him with sly, understated humor. That was the crux of the problem -- he was happy if the people around him were happy, unhappy if not, dependant on the joy of others for his own, and that silenced his tongue more effectively than any dictum of destiny.
Even after the training came to an end and he resumed schooling amidst the hearty welcomes of his classmates, he was able to keep his secrets to himself, an accomplishment by no means new to him, though this secret weighed heavier than all the others combined.
He was alone, now, all the time.
***
"Kaichou, sometimes you don't seem to live in the same world as the rest of us."
So said Akira at some time during the middle of the Christmas prom, amidst mutterings of 'Twenty Mensou' and 'Mothers' and 'sorry about deceiving you', before Ohkawa lugged him home with polite apologies and a determined grip. Nokoru wondered just who it was that had been resourceful enough to slip that spiked punch past Akira's adamantly virtuous guard -- he'd tried, himself, and failed.
A group of girls were flocking towards him, giggling, nudging each other, shuffling their feet. Bits of colored ribbon bobbed up and down; lace and silk rustled against each other, whispering. Oka Setsumi, he recalled, a third year member of the junior high school department who sent him handknit articles every year for his birthday; Kawasaka Ai, the star of the senior high school debate team; Hakaji Kyoko, whose parents almost couldn't afford to send her to high school, but whose brilliant mind had won her scholarships year after year...facts and names and figures scurried out and settled obediently, each attaching itself to the appropriate face.
"Good evening, ladies. I hope you've been enjoying yourselves?"
"Oh, yes."
"It's a wonderful party; thank you for asking."
"The Student Council did a marvelous job."
"And you, Imonoyama-kun? Are you having fun as well?"
"Decidedly so," he bowed and watched the blood rise prettily in Oka's cheeks, Kyoko's downcast eyes and glowing countenance. They were charming, really, delicate creatures to be cherished and protected, an honor to assist. Princesses, each and every one.
Thus the need for a Prince.
"Will you dance?" Kyoko was the first to ask, with a bewitching smile lurking at the corners of her skillfully painted lips that contained in it something more of a woman than a girl, an unexpected amount of mysterious allure that was feminity's prerogative, and the sudden switch caught him by surprise, took his breath with a feeling of deja vu.
(Time to grow up, Nokoru-kun.)
He didn't realize when he'd backed away.
"I'm sorry," he said, smiling, apologetic, making some excuse about a headache or a trip to the restroom -- he wasn't sure which -- before slipping into the relative anonymity of the crowd, heading towards one of the half-hidden side doors. There was a time when their disappointed moues would have brought him back immediately, to fulfill their wishes regardless of personal pain or discomfort, but that time had passed, along with a portion of his own innocence.
('You have a duty. A destiny. It is not a choice.')
It was cold outside, a biting chill. He'd forgotten to fetch his coat and was regretting it now, as goosebumps lifted along his arms and the unprotected skin of his neck. Winter had sugar-coated the ground in layers of unmarred snow, encased the branches of the trees in glittering ice, and his breath steamed, dissipating so slowly in the sharp night air that a second wave encroached upon the first before it disappeared, a relentless unbreaking cycle repeating itself over and over without end.
He trod past colorful streamers that had somehow made it out the doors, deflated balloons whose corpses lay limply in the snow, exhausted, till the sound of laughter and conversation from the ballroom faded away.
Tomorrow Akira would wake up, make a rendezvous with the bathroom toilet, and remember what he'd let slip the night before to poor, ignorant Kaichou (and if he'd managed to sink himself in a state of blissful forgetfulness, Okawa was certain to remind him. Sharply.) Then he'd ignore his headache to venture bravely forth to school and confess his sins, but before he spoke Nokoru would give him an apologetic grin and say "Terribly sorry, but could this wait a bit? I'm not feeling very well -- I /knew/ I shouldn't have drunk so much yesterday. Everything after Ebihara-sensei's version of the Macarena is a bit of a blur." And Akira wouldn't be completely convinced, of course, but he'd make himself believe, and then everything would be all right, and life would go on.
Suoh would stand by, perhaps silent, perhaps offering solicitation, revealing no hint of whatever secrets he might be aware of himself, prompting Nokoru to run over his own words and actions for the thousandth time before deciding that he had been perfectly circumspect, and there was no way anyone could be suspicious of anything. They had acted out many versions of this same scene in the past, variations on a theme, and he was fairly confident of his own ability to navigate the muddy stream of white lies by now. Ironic that they were called /white/ lies, when they clouded truth as well as the blackest prevarications ever could.
Delicate flakes melted into the weaving of his sweater, tangled in his lashes, formed a curtain separating him from the rest of the world. A vagrant trail of icy water found a space between his collar and skin, sliding down along his spine. He shivered.
"Are you all right?" A quiet hiss, and the curtain parted for a pale blue shadow, brows knotted together in a frown, gloved fingers flinging a coat over his shoulders, the inevitability of it spreading a warm glow of amusement from his chest to his freezing limbs.
"I'm not going to do anything stupid." He tilted his head up, letting the alcohol take him, feeling it run through his veins. He'd imbibed a respectable amount, no lie that, though 'too much' was a line he was careful never to cross. A slight buzz wouldn't hurt anyone, and really, he'd been following the patterns of this evasive dance for so long it would take a great deal of alcohol indeed to cause a misstep. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, I don't know." No one could do dry like Suoh. "It might have something to do with the sub-arctic temperature, and the snow piling up on your shoulders. Or the fact that you're outside, /letting/ the snow pile up, when you could be inside, drinking hot chocolate. Take your pick."
"I'd say it's because you're a chronic worry-wart, and you probably think it's dangerous for me to cross the street without someone holding my hand."
"In your case, it might very well be."
"Petty, Suoh. Unworthy of you." He flung his head back, breathed deeply. "Look at that," he said, pointing upwards, past the flurry of white, into an inky chasm spangled with chips of glass.
"It's snowing," was Suoh's comment, delivered in the tone that meant 'Your point?'
"Suoh, if I could live on one of those stars, any one at all, which do you think it would be?"
His eyes followed the arch of Suoh's brow towards his hairline, examined the crinkling of his forehead. Those worry wrinkles would be deeply engraved by the time they graduated, he was certain, and one day Nagisa would blame him for prematurely aging her husband. "What kind of question is that?"
"I want to know what you think." He leveled forth the full, devastating force of the Imonoyama smile, and evidently there were still some expoitable chinks in Suoh's supposedly impervious shield because he did, eventually, receive an answer.
"You belong right here, Kaichou."
He laughed at that, listening to the giddyness in his voice. "You're just saying that to make me feel better." Earth's primary satellite was just a sliver of crescent tonight, taken straight off Diana's circlet, perfect for dangling one's feet over. He stretched his arms out, up, arching his back with a satisfied sigh, and suppressed the urge to rub his head against Suoh's dark woolen jacket like a demanding pussycat.
Maybe he had crossed the line just a tad.
"Come inside, Kaichou," said Suoh reprovingly, laying a hand on his spine and pushing him gently towards the ballroom door. Light spilled out from within, mixed with youthful laughter and exhuberant spirits, and someone somewhere was singing carols. It was a scene of fire and candlelight, warmth and belonging.
Just before they crossed the threshold, he turned to Suoh, watching the snowflakes glitter in his thickly curling hair. "You know something?"
"Hm?"
"I think Akira was right."
"Huh?"
"Because it's not oxygen that I breathe."
"...Kaichou, are you feeling okay?"
He laughed, and because it was Christmas, and because it was Suoh, and because there was a sprig of mistletoe dangling enticingly from the rafters just above them, he lifted himself up on his toes and placed a kiss right on the center of Suoh's startled lips.
***
Idomu came by for a visit on the second day of April. He was working for NASA now, apparently, looking spruce in a western-style suit and tie, and his entrance this time was surprisingly tame, consisting solely of a knock on the office door and the presentation of the obligatory bouquet of yarrow. Suoh's face was a study in strained politeness when the first sentence uttered by Idomu as the door swung shut behind him was a menacing "I've come to complete the task I started three years ago," and the second, after Suoh and Akira had both jumped up to confront him, was "April Fools!"
"You're a day off," Nokoru pointed out, hands propped under his chin, lips quirking.
"Well, yeah, but my plane only arrived this morning," Idomu shrugged, no sign of repentance at all in his sardonic green eyes. "What can I say? The temptation was irresistable. Are you up for a cup of tea?"
"Why not?" he agreed before any objections could be voiced, and dropped his pen on a pile of reports awaiting review.
"Kaichou?" Akira's voice was uncertain, and he had just put on his most reassuring don't-worry-sempai-knows-what-he's-doing smile when he caught the tail-end of a golden glare that was silent, loudly silent, but contained twice as many misgivings.
Pushing in his chair, he walked over to where Suoh's pseudo-casual stance spoke eloquently of apprehension, and lay a hand lightly on his taut arm.
"It's okay," he said, softly. "It's okay," and Suoh just sighed and rolled his eyes and returned to his seat with a resigned
"Do as you will."
"As vigilant as ever, your watchdog," was Idomu's comment as they walked side by side through the hallways, falling easily into step, only stopping every now and then for Nokoru to give or answer a cheerful greeting.
"You're not exactly on his top ten list," he shrugged, wanting to argue the unflattering term and realizing at the same time that it would be quite meaningless to do so. "And oh, if you're planning to kidnap, drug, or otherwise find some way to snare me in your nefarious plans, could you extend it to cover the entire afternoon? You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork the school's been generating lately."
"I'll keep that in mind." They turned out the main door, into the campus, towards the campus teahouse. "You might have to wait a bit while I concoct something, though."
"Really? I thought you'd have it all planned out."
"Oh, the lack of preparation isn't by choice, I assure you. We've got a busy schedule; arranging a day's leave was difficult enough. Will you take a rain check?"
"Done."
The teahouse was a traditionally styled complex of wood and paper walls, where tea came in ceramic pots and cups and saucers eggshell thin. They were led to their table by a kimono-clad lady who bowed low as they knelt, taking turns pointing out appetizers until the surface of the table disappeared under a deluge of dishes.
"I'm assuming that this is your treat," said Nokoru, popping out the peas of an edamame, flicking away the salted husk.
Idomu looked down at the barely visible tabletop. "We'll go dutch," he decided.
"Aren't you the one of us with a steady income?"
"A steady income doesn't always equate with 'filty rich'. Besides, I'm beginning to think that the Imonoyama millions are necessary just to support your appetite."
"I don't eat that much," he protested. "I just want to try a little of everything."
"The bill's the same, though."
There was a pause as the waitress gathered away an empty plate.
"So, what have you been doing with yourself lately?"
"This and that," said Idomu vaguely, waving a hand back and forth. "Top secret stuff, so I can't talk about it; you know the drill. You could hack the system and check for yourself, if you want."
"I do have a respect for privacy, unlike certain others I could mention."
"Really?"
"On occasion."
"They won't mind. It's not like no one's done it before."
"You?"
A shrug. "That's why they hired me."
They polished off a few more platters in silence.
"How's it going with you?"
"I get by." He played with a piece of tofu that wouldn't remain stationery, stabbing at it over and over again with his chopsticks, but it just kept sliding away.
"That bad?"
Lifting his head from the now completely mutilated piece of white mush, he blinked. "Am I so obvious?"
"Hey, you're asking the guy who made ruining you his life's vocation?" Idomu smirked at him, and the expression was so familiar that for another instant the darkness inside him was eclipsed by warmth. "I know more about you than I do my girlfriend."
Double-blink. "You never said. Congratulations?"
"Accepted."
"So what's wrong?" asked Idomu after a length of time and another plate of food had passed.
"Would you believe me if I said 'nothing'?"
"No. Well?"
"Drink your tea."
"No. Give."
"What's she like?"
"Beautiful. Divine. She makes us poor mortals go weak at the knees. Your turn."
He started to laugh, and choked on a mouthful of tea.
"Does she know what a stubborn bastard you are?" he said when he could breathe again.
"It's one of my many charms."
"You won't let this go, will you."
"Think of it as a continuation of my revenge campaign."
The paper napkins placed on their table were decorated with the teahouse sigil, a cherry tree in bloom. He twined it around his fingers.
"You're the only one who pries," he said, and it was the truth. Each year his birthday gifts filled up a quarter of the council office, but they were from those who loved him without knowing him, who had a picture of a shiny, smiling Nokoru Imonoyama in their heads that he did his best to live up to. They didn't want to know his fears, or his troubles, and he couldn't blame them for it, after all; no doubt they had fears and troubles enough of their own.
There were times when faith possessed all the comfort and qualities of a ten-ton barbell.
So Nokoru Imonoyama lived on the moon, apart from his fellows, and if it was occasionally a little cold, a little silent, well, that was a small price to pay for the light he could shine down on others.
"Does that mean you'll tell me?"
"I can't," he said honestly. "You wouldn't be able to help, and it's not my secret to share, not really."
"You still don't trust me," Idomu stated as matter-of-factly as a man saying that the sky was blue, or grass was green, or that the taste of tea was bitter.
"That's not it. Suoh and Akira don't know, either. It's just that -- I could tell you, and maybe it would be better for a while, but then you'd have to leave and go home and everything would be the same again. Exactly the same."
Idomu took up the teapot and filled his cup, a steady stream of amber liquid that steamed up in tiny curls. Sipped at it.
"So talk to them -- your chef and your watchdog. Doesn't look as if they'll be leaving anytime soon."
"It wouldn't be fair. They're better off not knowing."
The waitress came by again, sweeping away more dishes. The table was now half-cleared. When Nokoru glanced up at her with a smile and a 'Thank you', she blushed and giggled and almost dropped their plates. Then she fled.
Turning back, he saw that Idomu's smirk had returned. "Still a hit with the ladies, eh?"
"I like them. They like me. It works out."
"You like everyone," said Idomu with a flick of his hands that didn't seem complimentary in the least. "You like everyone, but you don't trust anyone."
"That's not true." He remembered the same accusation, the same reply, but the conviction that should have been inherent in the words was worn down to pallid slivers of what it used to be.
Outside, a cloud passed before the sun, blotting it out for the moment and sweeping their corner of the campus into shadow. It was abruptly a few degrees chillier, still warm, but with the kind of warmth that made you wish you'd ignored the weather report in the morning and wore long sleeves instead of short.
"Do you remember our confrontation three years ago?" Idomu's voice was slow and thoughtful, as if he wasn't certain what to say and was still puzzling it out. Or maybe he was just wondering whether it was worth the breath it took to say it.
"It was a rather memorable experience," he said wryly. "Hard to forget."
"I know," and as they shared a smile, the chill seemed to abate a bit. "I like to think that I came very close to succeeding -- in fact, I was almost certain that I would."
"I know," he said, and another fleeting grin passed between them. "If it makes you happy, I can assure you that it was one of our most serious schoolyard crises."
"Why, thank you. I will admit that your computer skills were sadly lacking in comparison to my own -- "
"Do tell," he interjected dryly.
" -- but what I was counting on to be the final blow was the disentegration of your little team. I'd done my research very carefully, you see, and you have a tendency to keep things yourself in an attempt to protect those around you. Very noble, of course. The greater the perceived danger, the less likely you would be to take the others into your confidence, creating a perfect breeding ground for suspicion."
The memories were there, sharp and cutting. "I remember."
"Yes. Well. And it certainly seemed to work, all the way until the end. I was so certain you would fall apart, that I'd torn your cozy little group right down the middle."
"But you hadn't," he said, because it was true.
"No. I hadn't," and what they shared this time was not a smile.
There was a gust of wind, activating the windchimes swaying by the teahouse entrance to form a deluge of soft, shimmering sounds, bringing with them the scent of marigolds and rhododendrons. It blew Idomu's hair away from his face, and he studied the stern, determined lines there, the glimmer of what might be concern for a former rival, the new maturity. He looked good, whole. Nokoru wondered what Idomu saw in his face, whether the fracture of loneliness embedded deep down was visible from the surface.
"You can't be everything for everyone," Idomu said finally, meeting his eyes and not looking away. "That's all I'm trying to say. Whether you listen or not is up to you, of course."
They spent the rest of the afternoon drinking tea, talking with silence.
***
It was nearing six when he made his way back to the office. Idomu had received a call on his cellphone and left with a brief and cryptic explanation that likely had to do with government work and top secret projects when decoded, and he hadn't argued. He might have remained there indefinitely, staring into a glazed cup filled and refilled countless times, if not for the waitress' flustered, apologetic reminders that it was nearing their closing hour, and there was no rush, no rush at all, but did he want anything else?
There was also the small matter of what he knew would be waiting for him back at the student council office.
"Are you okay?" said Suoh as he walked in. His self-appointed bodyguard was sitting at the secretary's desk, papers spread out before him, going through them methodically with a pen. He paused in the doorway, taking in the slowly fading shimmers of sunset.
"Where's Akira?"
"I persuaded him to go home." A shrug, resigned and affectionate. "Said I had some things to take care of. I figured you didn't need two mother hens twiddling their thumbs and waiting anxiously for your return."
"One is more than enough," he agreed. "You didn't think I'd just go straight home?"
"No." Suoh looked up then, the planes of his face as familiar a sight as Nokoru had ever known, and somehow foreign all the same. He wanted to touch them, to run his hands over them. He wanted to see the boy that had worn that face seven years ago, before their relationship had gained its present, invisible veneer of formality. "You know me too well."
"And you know /me/ too well. And Akira knows us both well enough to trust us in our decisions. We're like an old, married threesome."
"Kaichou." Suoh's voice was slightly scandalized, slightly reproachful. "Okawa would have our heads if she heard that."
"I won't tell if you don't."
He felt golden eyes peering up at him. "You're in an odd mood today."
"Not really."
Another question began to gather in the air between them, and this time, he promised silently, this time he was ready to answer -- but before it could coalesce, Suoh shrugged and returned his attention to the reports, backing down though his body hadn't moved an inch. "As long as you're here, then, you might as well make yourself useful."
"Yes, Master." He rolled his eyes, but headed with rare obedience to his seat behind the large mahogany desk.
Momentarily satisfied, Suoh recommenced work on his own -- much smaller -- pile of papers. For a while there was only the scratch of pens against paper filling the office. The burst of industry couldn't last forever, though, and before long Nokoru was drifting again.
The breeze billowing out the gauzy white curtains carried with it the scent of apple blossoms and laughter. Vaguely, he could hear schoolgirls chattering in the distance. It was such a perfect evening. For a moment he wished he were enough of a poet to immortalize this moment in words for posterity, and then he remembered that posterity wasn't going to last all that long.
It would be easy to reach out. It would be so easy. It would be a relief, and it would be a change of everything he'd ever believed in.
He remembered her words.
She had left the matter deliberately in his hands, he thought now, staring out the window at the deepening shadows. Expressed disapproval, yes, but refrained from any measures that would reinforce that disapproval. He wondered if he'd heard her as she'd intended to be heard, or if there was something there that he'd missed, something that turned white into black and a film negative into a burst of color.
It was so easy to stand apart, looking down on the world with benevolence and unconscious superiority.
(Time to grow up.)
"Suoh," he said, scarcely aware of parting his lips, hearing his own voice with surprise, feeling the steadily increasing tempo of his hearbeat. His fingers tightened around the glossy black pen, the cool shell of it.
"Hm?"
"I live on the moon."
"How's the view up there?" replied Suoh absently, still browsing through his reports.
"Nice. Good. Lonely sometimes, too."
"Is that so?"
"Mm-hmm." He held his breath.
"Guess I'll have to go keep you company, then."
"Guess you will," he said, and ignored the lump in his throat.
*****