Chapter Text
“What fond and wayward thoughts will slide,” Masuda reads aloud from his lectern, “Into a Lover’s head! / ‘O mercy!’ to myself I cried, / ‘If Lucy should be dead!’”
He finishes the final verse and looks out across the library, gaze flicking from Kiyoomi, to Miya, then back to Kiyoomi again, likely debating which hellion’s opinion he should bother requesting.
“Miya-kun,” Masuda decides, and Kiyoomi cannot help but to wonder what, exactly, makes Miya seem like the lesser of two evils. “Would you like to share your initial thoughts?”
Miya startles slightly at the mention of his name, looking up from the piece of parchment he’s been scribbling on for the better part of twenty minutes. “On what?” he asks.
Masuda blinks. “The poem.”
“Which one?” He peers over at Kiyoomi’s desk, but Kiyoomi moves his hand so that it covers the majority of his page and obscures both the title and the number.
“Bastard,” Miya mutters beneath his breath.
Kiyoomi shrugs.
“Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known,” Masuda says, voice tight with impatience. “Page two-six-four. William Wordsworth. One of the Lucy poems, as I have reiterated on numerous—”
“Lucy… Who was she again? His sister? Lover?” He makes a face. “Both?”
Masuda’s cheeks redden at record speed. “Many scholars debate the purpose Lucy serves in Wordsworth’s work, but most agree that she is not so much a person as she is a conduit for his…”
He continues on, but Miya is already far away. Kiyoomi can see that his eyes have glazed over and his ears have tuned Masuda’s rambling out entirely. A moment later, he returns to his parchment and continues scribbling as though he was not called upon at all.
Masuda throws exasperated hands in the air and turns to Kiyoomi instead. “Would you care to step in?”
“I suppose I’ve been given no choice.”
Masuda prefaced the poem by focussing on its hopeful start and the passionate, frenzied feelings of a new love, so Kiyoomi talks instead about the final stanza, about Wordsworth’s overwhelming fear of losing that love, and the suddenness of death tearing them apart.
“God that’s depressing,” Miya groans once Kiyoomi finishes talking. “Take a day off, Lieutenant Morbid.”
Kiyoomi turns to him and raises a brow. “Oh, so you’re conveniently capable of listening now that it affords you an opportunity to run your good-for-nothing mouth?”
“I’m always listening. Listened real good as y’took a nice thing and drowned it in the river of doom.”
“I did not write the poem, ingrate. Don’t blame me for your inability to critically comprehend anything more advanced than a child’s picture book. Perhaps if you actually—”
“Enough,” Masuda cuts in. “Enough, for goodness’ sake.”
He turns around and begins to write on the blackboard, telling them both to copy from it. Silently.
Kiyoomi complies, if only for an excuse to ignore the idiot sat next to him.
But Miya has other ideas.
A folded slip of parchment is slid on to Kiyoomi’s desk. It wiggles back and forth, hitting the side of his gloved hand with a pointed corner until he snatches it away and opens it.
Sun’s out. Want to play some croquet later?
-A
Kiyoomi sends a quick glance Miya’s way and receives an encouraging smile and a discreet thumb’s up. His response is written on a new sheet of parchment, crumpled, then thrown back Miya’s way.
No.
-K
The same process is repeated again.
Pretty please?
-A
Why are you so unreasonably obsessed with the idea of playing croquet? It is one of the most tedious games ever invented. Go and try something more fun. Like holding your head under the fountain water for twenty consecutive minutes or getting lost in the woods.
-K
This time, Miya’s reply is not tapped against Kiyoomi’s hand. It is folded into the shape of an arrowhead and thrown at his temple, where it gets tangled amidst his curls. He pulls it free wearing a sharp scowl.
I’ve never played before. Looks fun. Teach me, Omi-kun-sensei! ♫ If it’s boring, then that must mean you’re an expert at it.
-A
I’d rather teach a feral hog table manners. Go and beg someone who can tolerate you.
-K
Are you refusing because croquet is played outside and you’re spiritually bound to the shadows? Don’t worry about that!! We can set up an indoor course. I am nothing if not accommodating, milord.
-A
Kiyoomi does not bother to respond to that one. Not immediately. He makes a show of tucking it between the pages of his book so that he can spend the rest of the lecture driving Miya to restless, impatient distraction. Later, when the sun has long since set, when playing croquet is no longer viable and dinner has long since passed, he sends back:
The last thing I need is you stomping around indoors with a croquet mallet. You make more than enough noise already.
-K
Liar. I’ve been making less than usual.
-A
Kiyoomi cannot argue with that. The noise from Miya’s room has decreased significantly over the past few days, but it is impossible to determine whether that’s a byproduct of distraction or a conscious effort on Miya’s part. At least he hasn’t bothered tampering with the gramophone again, Kiyoomi supposes.
Less by your standards is still far too much.
But I know of a far more interesting game you could try. Care to hear it?
-K
You’re going to suggest something miserable again, aren’t you? Like locking myself in the tool shed.
-A
Oh. You’ve heard of it already? I think you may have a talent for it. You won’t even have to ask for the keys, considering your natural aptitude for lockpicking and inserting yourself where you aren’t welcome.
-K
I don’t know what you mean.
-A
At the very least, your face might scare off the shed’s vermin and save our groundsman the trouble of extermination.
-K
I’m already working on ridding the family of one pest. What’s a few more?
Besides, the spiders will definitely prove better company. They may even laugh at my jokes.
-A
Considering arthropods lack brains, you might finally be in luck. Like often recognises like.
-K
Then your like must be a sea urchin. Prickly. Mean. Always stuck in one miserable place. Probably poisonous.
Not yet sure if you bite.
-A
I’m surprised you know such a creature. I thought you were allergic to books.
-K
Making you scowl is worth the torture of reading a passage or two.
-A
I am not scowling.
-K
How about now?
-A
It’s impossible not to at least frown at the crude drawing Miya has attached. The one of a spiked mass sporting a head of curls, two familiar moles, and a label that reads: Prickly-Bastard-kun.
“Ridiculous,” Kiyoomi huffs, stuffing the folded sheet into his desk drawer alongside the others.
----
Somewhere between the illustration of the urchin and the letter Kiyoomi holds now, Miya’s words have grown… tolerable. In fact, as Kiyoomi sits upon the sill of his window and reads through another paragraph of grammatically atrocious nonsense, he’d go so far as to say their correspondence is veering towards amicable. Amusing, even.
The Miya on paper possesses a startling wit, one that, against the opposingly-stacked tower of odds, is surprisingly compatible with Kiyoomi’s own. There is no need to worry that there will be consequences for voicing his blunted, unwarranted opinions; he does not care if he offends Miya, and Miya does not care if he offends Kiyoomi in return. They have reshaped their banter into something of a competitive sport, and it is a far more entertaining pastime than solitary chess.
Now, rather than spending a lecture-free day sitting in bored silence, Kiyoomi will take up a seat at his desk and write:
Was that you snoring last night? Or are you keeping a hornet’s nest as a bedmate?
And Miya will shoot back with:
Nice try. There’s no way you could hear me or my bedmate’s snoring through the cushioned walls of your coffin.
Then Miya sends:
You should come to dinner again. That way I might avoid the ninety-fifth rendition of the wedding itinerary by bothering you instead. I know you possess a charitable bone in that haunted vessel of yours somewhere. Care to share it?
And Kiyoomi responds:
My most unfeeling and insincere apologies, but drowning myself in the fountain thrice over would be preferable.
That sentiment bleeds into their spoken conversation too, when the next morning Miya extends a hand over their desks and reintroduces himself as, “Miya Atsumu. I like food, playing card games, and the sound of my own voice.”
Kiyoomi flicks a glance down at Miya’s hand, and while he makes no effort to shake it, he does find significantly less venom on his tongue when he says, “Sakusa Kiyoomi. I’m dispassionate about food, I don’t care for card games, and I loathe the sound of your voice.”
Miya barks out a short laugh. “That’s a start, Urchin-kun. I’ll have a croquet mallet in your hand by the end of the week.”
No such thing happens, of course, but it is, Kiyoomi supposes, the start of things. A decent rapport is able to blossom now that Miya has stopped trampling the earth it was attempting to sprout from. Now that Kiyoomi has ceased poisoning the soil. It no longer feels like such an arduous chore to entertain him; his questions no longer grate as hard or fray as many nerves. He would even go so far as to say it is a welcome change, to talk to somebody within the estate walls and get a semi-intelligent response. And Miya does love to talk. Quite incessantly.
He is also unreasonably obsessed with gossip, no matter how insignificant or trite. Though Kiyoomi supposes to him, the goings on of the estate must rival that of a melodramatic stage play.
“The gardener thinks somebody is poisoning the hydrangeas,” Miya muses one afternoon on the walk back to their rooms. He stops to peer out of the hallway window as he says it, a hand cupped over his brow, surveying the scene as though he might catch the perpetrator in the act.
Kiyoomi stops too and joins him in overlooking the gardens. It’s an ordinary sort of afternoon. The groundsmen are milling about with their pruners and rakes, and the sky is a dull, overcast grey. The hydrangeas Miya mentioned are situated just below, lining the estates walls. They are a vibrant gradient of pinks and purples and blues, but one bush in particular has withered and decayed, its petals now a soft, weakened brown.
“He’s right,” Kiyoomi says. “It’s my aunt.”
The hand Miya was holding at his brow falters and falls to his side. “You’re kiddin’,” he says, not quite a question.
“I do not joke.”
“Ah, of course.” He slaps a light palm to his forehead. “Forgot about the whole ‘incapable of laughter’ thing.”
“I am not incapable of laughter. You simply aren’t funny.”
“Incapable of laughter and a comedic simpleton.” Miya shakes his head with a sigh. “How’s she doing it, then? Your aunt.”
Kiyoomi pointedly ignores Miya’s first statement. “With vinegar,” he says. “She carries a small bottle of it in her dress pocket and empties it into the flowerbeds whenever she visits. I’ve seen her. From this window.”
It’s been a few months since her last social call, but Kiyoomi’s almost certain that she’s been bribing one of the maids to continue the assault in her absence. He has yet to figure out which one, however.
“Wha—Why?”
“Jealousy, I suppose. She and my mother have never gotten along.”
“Does anyone in this goddamn family like each other?”
“I quite liked the dog. Before it ran away.”
Miya affixes Kiyoomi with a scrutinous stare, then, when he realises that Kiyoomi is being serious, laughs with his head thrown back and his eyes wrinkled at the corners. The sound of it reverberates down the empty hallway and echoes in Kiyoomi’s ears for a few seconds after it ends. It’s not the most unpleasant sound Miya has ever made, and he makes no shortage of those.
“Which one of you d’ya think it was escaping from?” he asks, mirth in his smile as he leans against the nearby wall and crosses his arms over his chest. “My money’s on you. I hear dogs are sensitive to malevolent spirits and ghouls.”
“Ichika,” Kiyoomi corrects. “It hated her more than I do.”
“Poor bastard.”
“The dog or the witch?”
“The dog,” Miya scoffs. “Obviously.”
They continue to stand that way for another moment or two – Kiyoomi gazing out of the window, Miya smiling idly – then it’s Miya who resumes their stroll to the second floor. He walks backwards again, this time with one arm behind his back, probing, most likely, for any stray side tables.
“What kinda jokes do you like?” he asks. “If the ones I’m tellin’ aren’t workin’.”
Kiyoomi looks him over, from the uneven buttoning of his waistcoat, to the top of his head where his hair is starting to fall loose of its style after a morning spent sleeping on his books. “Whichever kind aren’t in your repertoire.”
“Impossible. I’m good at everything.”
“Today’s test results beg to differ.”
“Fine,” Miya amends. “I’m good at whatever’s worth my time.”
“And you think making a fool of yourself is a valuable pursuit?”
“If it can finally crack Sakusa the Unsmiling, then yeah. I’d say so.”
Kiyoomi offers a disgusted click of his tongue at the invention of yet another unfavourable nickname, then increases his pace until he leaves Miya behind.
It only takes a second for him to catch up, however, and he throws a light, admonishing elbow into Kiyoomi’s as he falls into step – an overly familiar gesture Kiyoomi might have reprimanded him for a week ago, but cannot summon the spite to do so now.
“If that’s too big of a secret to share,” he says, “then you can at least let me in on some more gossip. Yours is way more interestin’ than Sumiko’s. There’s only so many times you can hear the same shit about which maid is sweating in the broom cupboard with which chef, y’know?”
“Why don’t you try minding your own business?”
“You clearly don’t.”
That is a fair observation. While Kiyoomi may not know the crude details of the staff’s sexual exploits, he does have a list of secrets the length of the gardens - not just about the Sakusa estate and its inhabitants, but the various estates belonging to countless family friends and acquaintances too. He may look uninvolved, but he is a keen listener and an avid collector of potential leverage. It has yet to prove useless.
“Try staying awake for an entire lecture, and perhaps I’ll think about it.”
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Omi-kun.”
Perhaps, Kiyoomi thinks then, he should have demanded something more worthwhile. Like a ban on repugnant nicknames.
----
True to his word, Miya does not sleep through their next lecture - he even makes an honest attempt at paying attention. As promised, Kiyoomi then spends the next few days penning reams of scandalous secrets and sordid affairs. Miya responds to each and every one with a childlike excitement and boisterous laughter that carries through their open windows. Sometimes he’ll even regale Kiyoomi with stories of his own – tales of infidelity and lost fortunes, of big parties and illegitimate children. They’re obvious exaggerations. Outright lies, even. But Kiyoomi finds himself enjoying the fiction regardless. They may not make him laugh as intended, but Miya is a decent storyteller, if a little crass and prone to one twist too many.
And that is not the only thing Kiyoomi discovers about him. It is an unconscious habit he cannot break – the dissecting of things. He has always felt compelled to dismantle, to take things apart and learn how the pieces function so that he can better understand them. He would do the same with pocket watches and mantel clocks as a child. It brought him some comfort to know exactly what made them tick.
He does not realise just how many pieces of Miya’s he has collected until a letter arrives that stills his pen and gives him pause.
With how often I catch you scowling my way, you must have gleaned more than a few things about me by now. Go ahead and analyse me. List my truths – I’ll grade you.
-A
It isn’t hard to compile a list of his observations. Despite being born and raised a liar, Miya wears his true nature as plainly on his sleeve as he does breakfast stains: Both with absurd amounts of confidence.
At a glance he is the completed checklist of faults his father described. But there is also far more to Miya that lingers just a little deeper. Another facet that only appears if he is tilted the right way, if he catches the right light. Kiyoomi caught a glimpse of it that Sunday afternoon outside of the art room, and he’s seen flashes of it since, hidden in the curves of his smiles and the turns of his phrases. It is not very often that he is forced think so hard on his words before he chooses to say them aloud; Miya is disconcerting, and always at a time Kiyoomi least expects.
There are countless more facets to him too, smaller, seemingly insignificant sides that Kiyoomi cannot help but to take note of. Miya could not, for example, hold a tune in a basket. He has a tendency to count things when he is bored, which Kiyoomi might not have picked up on, if his lips did not move subtly around each number. His mouth is fouler than an alley gutter; he can roll almost any small object across his knuckles; and his favourite flavour of jam is strawberry.
Intriguing, Kiyoomi writes. Ambitious. Entertaining. Attracti—
Kiyoomi drops his pen, crumples the parchment, and throws it aside as though it contains numerous infectious diseases. He rips off his gloves and tosses those aside too for good measure, intent on destroying them the next time the fireplace is lit.
He retrieves a new pair before beginning again, scowling so hard that his teeth ache. Deceitful, he writes instead, pointedly ignoring the flood of humiliated heat simmering beneath his skin. Exaggerative, impatient, insufferable, interfering, loud, obnoxious, persistent. Alphabetised for ease of access and crafted to wound.
The response returns promptly.
WoW. I t’s A good thiNG yOu DON’T charge foR Your so-cALLed ‘WISDOM’ .
WhAt a LousY Fucking SHam.
-A
It’s Miya’s old hand. His true hand. Accompanied by ink splatters and gashed holes. Unnecessarily capitalised and crafted to infuriate.
As Kiyoomi stares at it he wills the heat in his veins to change its course, to reshape itself into anger. But he no longer feels the warning nudge of a migraine in his temples. Only the pressing urge to write back again.
-------
On the Friday that precedes the end of Miya’s first month at the estate, Kiyoomi wakes to rain. He has never been one to care for omens or superstitions, never been bothered by the old wives’ tales that the staff pass around and live by. But rain, historically, has never brought him much luck; he cannot think of a time it has ever given him cause to smile.
The sound of it lashing against the windows follows him all the way to the library, where he takes his seat and starts to unpack for the only lesson this week that will hold his interest.
Literature has always been a steadfast favourite. A means to enjoy a different sort of art. He often finds himself reading the words of poets and authors and painting the images they conjure in the safe privacy of his mind’s eye. Even if Masuda’s recitals are painfully tedious.
Those scant few hours each week are the only thing keeping Kiyoomi agreeable. The only thing stopping him from lying down in front of a set of carriage wheels and—
The thump of a book hitting the table next to his cut his thoughts short. Miya follows closely behind, slumping back in his seat in his usual relaxed manner, sleeves rolled to the elbows, tie loose, smelling of the estate’s bergamot soap and a sickly-sweet breakfast.
“What am I napping through today, Omi-kun-sensei?” he asks, voice distorted by the yawn he doesn’t bother to stifle.
“More Wordsworth,” Kiyoomi tells him. “Which you would know if you bothered to open your book to the right page. Or at all.”
With a loud groan, Miya falls forwards, resting his chin petulantly upon his folded arms. “Not the fuckin’ Lucy poems again. Didn’t she die already?”
“For the umpteenth time, Lucy is a fictitious character – Wordsworth’s muse. A conduit for him to explore concepts such as life, death, and the expansive beauty of nature.” It’s the same spiel Masuda recites, spoken with the same lifeless inflection. Kiyoomi can practically see the explanation entering Miya’s left ear and exiting immediately out of the right.
He turns his head, resting upon his cheek instead so that he can meet Kiyoomi’s eye. “And you don’t s’pose he coulda done all that without publishin’ any of it? He could have used a few thousand less words, at least. Now his rubbish is on my desk and I’m bein’ forced to read it.”
“If you haven’t the decency to keep your wretched mouth shut, then why should a celebrated genius such as Wordsworth be forced to still his pen?”
“I keep my mouth shut plenty. I could call you a rotten bastard for each and every chime of the clock but I don’t.”
Hardly much more of a stretch, really. Kiyoomi has lost count of the number of times Miya has run out of fuel and resorted to some decorated form of ‘bastard’. If he were to compile the letters he’s read it in alone, he would have enough pages to bind into a novel. Miya is many things, but a wordsmith is clearly not one of them.
“How chivalrous of you.”
“Besides,” Miya continues, unfazed. “How hard can poetry be, really? You write a bunch of random words down and wait for some pretentious idiot to say they’ve got a profound meanin’. Easy.”
Kiyoomi grimaces. “You are desperately beyond salvation.”
“No, I’m a genius. Look, I’ll show you.”
Miya sits up and pulls a sheet of parchment from his desk drawer. In his haste to start writing he crumples the edges slightly with his elbow, but Kiyoomi says nothing. Only watches on as Miya’s tongue pokes through his lips in a sign of genuine concentration.
He still holds the pen the same way Kiyoomi taught him. At the exact same angle. Though it looks far more natural now than it did back then, and his control of ink flow has improved vastly. His handwriting has started to change, too. It’s transitioned into an odd blend of his own wide scrawl and Kiyoomi’s forged neatness. A fitting font for hands capable of such polarising deftness and clumsiness.
Once Miya’s done he hands it over with a rattling flourish of paper, looking far too proud of himself.
Kiyoomi glances it over.
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s night?
Thou art more cutting and more sinister:
Rough winds do shake the… something I’ve forgotten,
And my pen’s lease hath much too short a date to finish this bullshit.
It’s Shakespeare, he realises with immediate shock. Sonnet 18. Thoroughly and irreparably bastardised, but still accurate enough to identify. It’s ridiculous. Possibly the most ridiculous thing he has read all week, though he’s not sure what surprises him more - that Miya can recall the majority of a poem they have not yet studied from memory, or the laughter it drags from his chest.
It’s been years since Kiyoomi has made such a sound. A real laugh - not a scoff or a scathing huff. It feels strange as it climbs his throat, thick and rusted with disuse. Miya has tried relentlessly all week to coax a reaction from him – from physical gags, to formulated jokes, to anecdotes with unbearably long punch lines. That this barbaric attempt at a poem is what has finally done the trick is nothing short of mortifying.
He turns his head quickly and coughs to mask it. Hopefully Miya will think he’s choking on his own bile.
“This is an atrocity,” Kiyoomi mutters behind the safety of his gloved fist. “If Shakespeare wasn’t dead already, reading this would do the trick.”
He glances at the words once more, then folds the paper and tucks it into his pocket. He’ll decide later if he’ll keep it or destroy it for the greater good of humanity.
Miya grins, wide and knowing and smug. “So you like it, then?”
I think I may need a doctor to check me for signs of delirium, is what leaps to mind first. I think I may finally belong in the asylum.
“I’ll save you my honest review,” he says after clearing his throat. “I’m not so sure your ego would survive it.”
The creaking groan of the library door opening silences whatever Miya might have responded with. They both turn to face the front, and when Miya peers over to steal the page number this time, Kiyoomi is not quick enough to cover it.
“A change of plans today,” Masuda huffs as he strides in and takes his place behind his lectern. Kiyoomi doesn’t need to hear what he says next. The answer is written in the tight twist of his lips and his ruddy cheeks. He has seen that look before. Far too many times.
“Noriaki-san has reworked the schedule. We’re cutting back on literature to allow for more lectures in accounting.”
And really, Kiyoomi ought to have seen it coming. He might have, had he not been too distracted by the fleeting warmth of laughter to remember the ominous rainfall. Because it is a recurring pattern of his father’s, to wait until Kiyoomi has started to lean on something a little too heavily before tearing it away.
Any residual humour in his chest dies. His face falls. His shoulders sag. He feels as he always does when his father reminds him of what he has taken and what he has yet to take: empty.
For the rest of the morning Kiyoomi sits in staunch silence, alternating between staring blankly at the wall and his book – anywhere but the lectern where Masuda is trying desperately to uphold normalcy. Beside him, Miya behaves much the same way. He doesn’t touch his pen or doodle as he usually would. Doesn’t tap his feet, or bounce his legs, or drum his fingers on his desk. He doesn’t answer Masuda’s questions either, though Kiyoomi knows he could now that they don’t require any prerequisite reading.
The only time he does move, is when he scribbles a note and throws it onto Kiyoomi’s open book, but Kiyoomi continues on and turns the page as though it is not there at all.
By one o’clock, Masuda reaches his limit. He packs up and ends the day of lectures early, huffing furiously under his breath. Kiyoomi doesn’t bother waiting for him to leave. The moment Masuda shuts his briefcase, he stalks over to the other end of the library and falls into one of the armchairs opposite the dormant fireplace.
Without delay, he tugs the trolley of spirits towards himself and pours out a healthy measure. It’s the only thing, he’s found, that’s able to take the edge off; its heat is the only cure for a mood this cold and sour. Countless times before this he’s drunk himself into a dizzy stupor and slept through until the next morning. Today should end much the same, but—
“That must have pissed you off somethin’ fierce for you to take up day drinkin’.”
Kiyoomi looks up. He did not notice Miya joining him, and he does not much care for the inquisitive look on his face either. The very last thing he needs right now is to dance around more of Miya’s probing questions. “Interfering,” he says, hoping his clipped disinterest will send the desired warning.
Unsurprisingly, Miya shrugs it off and stands, crossing the short distance between them. He stops before the drinks trolley, takes an empty tumbler and holds it out, expectant of Kiyoomi to fill it.
“Obnoxious,” Kiyoomi adds tersely over the rim of his glass.
Miya shakes the tumbler promptingly. “You wanna see Loud and Impatient next?”
If he were in a lighter mood, Kiyoomi might have responded with a quip. As it stands, his mood is so foul that he kicks out a petulant foot instead and sends the drinks trolley rolling into Miya’s leg. Miya yelps and takes an affronted step backward, almost stumbling over his own feet and hissed curses. When his eyes find Kiyoomi’s they are filled with equal parts outrage and exasperation.
“Pour it yourself,” Kiyoomi tells him. “I’m not your maid.”
“It’s a shame he didn’t cut the ‘Miserable Bastard’ lessons, huh?” he mutters, bending down to rub at his bruising shin. “You coulda used way less of those.”
“And here I recall you saying I didn’t need fixing. Perhaps you need lessons in honesty?”
“Yeah, right. I doubt you’ll ever find a more honest man than me.”
Kiyoomi laughs at that, a bitter scoff that holds none of the honest mirth of the last. There are a thousand ways he could respond, none of which he can say aloud, so he drops his gaze to his drink instead and scowls at its contents.
After successfully pouring his own drink with his own perfectly capable hands, Miya returns to the armchair opposite and falls back into it with a sigh. For a minute or so, he does nothing but spoil the peace and quiet with his awkward fidgeting. He doesn’t seem as sure of himself as usual; Kiyoomi can almost hear the cogs turning inside his head as he drafts a way to end the stretch of awkward silence.
“So are we gonna talk?” is what he settles on. “Or will I have to pry words out of your pen later?”
The words sound strange. Forced. As though he is following a script of some kind. As though he would rather be anywhere else in the world than here, doing something as pointless as offering a proverbial shoulder for Kiyoomi to lean on.
Kiyoomi wishes he was too. “I suppose it would be redundant of me to recommend you mind your own business,” he tries.
“I’m a man of many admirable talents.” Miya sips his whiskey and winces. “But that’s not one of ‘em.”
So speak, hangs between them, unsaid. Hurry up and get it over with.
It would be easy to lie, Kiyoomi thinks as he glances down at the glass hanging precariously between his fingers. He could spin a tale of a bad night’s sleep or a migraine, or better yet, outright refuse to explain himself as he has done on so many occasions before.
A lie is what should leave him, and yet—
“Those lessons are not the first or even the tenth thing my father has taken from me,” he finds himself blurting. “I’ve long since gotten used to it.”
Miya straightens, brows raised. “To what end?”
The words continue to spill from his lips. Kiyoomi offers an abridged account, omitting, of course, the sharper points he cannot and will not bring himself to relive no matter how much whiskey he’s ingested. As he empties his glass and fills another, he talks of his father’s expectations, what he has taken, and how he does not care what shape Kiyoomi is bent into, so long as he complies and does as he’s told.
“That’s fuckin’ stupid,” Miya says.
“To you perhaps,” Kiyoomi hums. “My father doesn’t see it that way; he only allows for success in what he deems worthwhile. Art, literature, history, the sciences – to his narrow mind they are all an unnecessary waste of time. He didn’t need them to build his own success, so why should I need them for mine? He will cut them all eventually.”
Miya contemplates that for a moment with his brows drawn, slumped back in his chair as though exhausted. It must sound ridiculous to him, as someone who has had to beg, borrow, and steal in order to keep a roof over his head and hot meals on the table. Kiyoomi has the entire estate at his disposal – maids, chefs, butlers, chauffeurs - he should want for nothing, and yet he is still unhappy.
It would not come as a surprise if, behind the winks and the smiles, Miya has a list of his own written about Kiyoomi. Selfish, it ought to say. Entitled. Spoiled. Pathetic. Rotten. Unpleasant.
Kiyoomi isn’t quite sure why that seems to leave such an unpleasant taste in his mouth.
Suddenly, Miya sits up. “You wanna know what I think?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I think you should paint anyway.”
Kiyoomi stops, newly filled glass just shy of reaching his lips. The glance he sends towards the library door is automatic, reflexive, and when his gaze settles back on Miya, he does not find a joke or a smug lie. Instead, he’s met with that strange look. The one that makes him feel as though he is standing with his back to a cliff’s edge.
It’s then, rather belatedly, that he realises why he feels so compelled to answer, why he divulged so much after such little encouragement. It was not a mistake, nor a slip of his whiskey-loosened tongue. Like a gambler ‘happening’ to ‘stumble’ into a betting house, he’d been hoping this might happen. Hoping to meet once again with that inexplicable feeling he’d felt outside the art room. Hoping for Miya to catch him off guard and voice those blunted truths he’s been desperate to hear for so long. I don’t think you’re the one that needs fixing.
After hours spent wallowing in that hollow, empty numbness, suddenly Kiyoomi’s blood is pumping again, shot through with a hot spike of adrenaline. With just a few short words and a single look, Miya has thawed him through far more effectively than the alcohol.
Exhilarating, he should add to his own discarded list. Daring.
He sits a little taller. “Did you not listen to a word I just said?”
“‘Course I fuckin’ did. That’s precisely why I’m sayin’ it.” Miya leans forwards too, perched almost eagerly on his seat’s edge. “You still want to, right?”
“It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“Tell me you aren’t stupid enough to believe that.”
Kiyoomi blinks, surprised at how sincere the words sound, at how Miya’s looking at him now – like an affirmative answer would disappoint him, of all things.
“And tell me,” he snaps, “you aren’t so naïve as to believe I actually have a say in the matter.”
The library falls silent again, but only for a moment. After a beat, Miya leaves his seat behind and stalks over to their desks. He picks up their books, one in each hand, then returns to stand where he did earlier, when he was waiting to be poured a drink.
“It’s about time you learned how to speak up,” Miya says, holding Kiyoomi’s book out between them. “Lucky for you, talking is one of my talents. Probably my most practiced.”
A thousand questions burn the tip of Kiyoomi’s tongue, none of which he permits a voice. He stares at the book, then up at Miya and the encouraging spark in his eyes.
“Listen,” he continues in the face of silence. “My dad sent me here for a thorough education, and if Masuda’s not gonna teach me this shit, then someone has to.” He shakes the book. “You like it, right? So do it.”
“You don’t listen to Masuda when he does teach. Why should I take on the torture?”
Miya’s head tilts and his smile widens, pressing that vexing dimple into his whiskey-flushed cheek. “‘Cause,” he says as though it’s the simplest thing in the world, “if anyone might find a way to make Wordsworth interestin, I’d place all my bets on you.”
Kiyoomi stiffens and blames the alcohol for how long it takes him to formulate a response. Eventually, he sets aside his glass and takes the book. It feels different in his hands now than it did hours earlier. Even if Miya’s intentions are, most likely, tarnished by an ulterior motive, even if this is only a smaller part of his larger game, the opportunity he’s crafted for Kiyoomi remains an alluring one. Regardless of the how or why, he will get to debate poetry with someone other than himself. He will finally get to keep something, rather than watch on uselessly as it is torn away.
Yet again, Miya has proven himself a strange and confusing outlier. Yet again, he has taken a dulled, broken piece of Kiyoomi and bent it into a new and interesting shape.
“I’d have an easier time teaching a newborn projective geometry,” he says, tracing the embossed lines of the book’s cover with a finger.
Miya scoffs. “Then it’s a good thing I’m way more intelligent than a fuckin’ baby, huh?”
“Foolish is the word I’d use. I should add it to your ever-growing list.”
“Sure. You can put it right next to Genius.”
“That would be impossible to accomplish without compromising its integrity.”
If Miya heard that last addition, he makes no effort to respond. Instead, he returns to his chair and lies back in it, feet hanging over one of its arms, head tilted back against the other. He rests his book upon his thighs and flips it open to what Kiyoomi assumes is the page they were meant to study this morning.
“Go ahead, Omi-kun-sensei. I’m listenin’.”
Kiyoomi opens his own book and the note Miya threw onto it earlier that morning slips out and onto his lap.
You don’t have to feel THAT bad about laughing at my joke, you know. I’m sure there are other socially-inept spider anomalies with really big brains out there.
If not, you can be the first.
-A
He rolls his eyes and tucks that note into his pocket alongside the terrible sonnet.
“If you fall asleep,” he warns, “I’ll leave you here and get Foster to lock the door until Monday.”
“I won’t,” Miya insists. “Trust me.”
It’s a poem Kiyoomi has memorised, one he has read what must be nearing a thousand times: Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud. He is sceptical to begin with, and perhaps a little reluctantly rigid in his recital of the first few lines. But once he starts the second stanza and Miya does nothing but intently follow the words on the page with his finger, he relaxes into the rhythm of its meter.
When he finishes, an odd silence falls over the library. Miya scowls deeply at his book, then says, “Guess I was right. It does sound better when you read it.”
“Hardly a challenge. A corpse could inject more life into poetry than Masuda.”
“And yet you still insult me for fallin’ asleep whenever he opens his mouth.”
“Your lack of mental fortitude and Masuda’s monotony are two totally separate issues.”
Miya huffs at that, then taps his finger pensively against the side of his book. “I liked that one,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because Lucy ain’t in it.”
With a disgusted click of his tongue, Kiyoomi moves to close his book and leave, but then Miya speaks again.
“I went to the lake a few weeks back,” he says, leaning back and tucking his hands lazily behind his head. “The one in the woods. There were a billion flowers along the bank and the air was fresh. Back home in the city, the gardens are all trimmed and fake and the parks are mostly mud. Ya don’t ever see sights like that. Not unless they’re on gallery walls. Maybe that’s why.”
Kiyoomi knows the place. Intimately. Though it’s been years since he last felt the breeze on his skin or smelled the fresh lake water. He thinks of it so often that the poem has become synonymous with it; Wordsworth’s ‘host of golden daffodils’ becomes the blankets of everchanging wildflowers, the willow trees, the stretches of bluebells, and the grass beneath his fingertips.
It is his favourite of Wordsworth’s pieces. Quite possibly his favourite piece of all, though he does not say as much to Miya.
He hums, and asks, “Do you still think it rubbish?”
“Guess not,” Miya says. “Though you should probably read it one more time so I can be certain.”
“That might be the most intelligent thing you’ve said all week.”
“Careful, Omi-kun. That was almost a compliment.”
“My mistake.”
---
“That one was stupid,” Miya says a week later. He is sitting cross-legged on one of the sunroom’s wicker sofas, one hand balancing his poetry book atop his knee, the other swinging a cool glass of lemon water back and forth between his fingers.
The sunroom has changed since he last visited it. It was once the home to an eclectic mix of displaced furniture, but now it is filled with matching sets of pale wood and wicker. The windows are larger, the walls are overtaken by a new growth of ivy, and the empty spot where Kiyoomi used to set up his easel is now occupied by a potted plant.
They have met here every day since Miya complained of a phantom migraine and begged to be taken anywhere other than the library to read. Kiyoomi is still getting used to sitting in such an open room, still reacquainting himself with the warmth of the sun on his skin; it has been years since he last felt comfortable in a room other than his own.
“Don’t blame me,” he huffs. “You chose it.”
Though chose might be the wrong choice of word. Miya did not choose the poem, so much as he did flip to a random page and profess, “This one!”
“You’ve read them all a hundred times. You coulda warned me.”
“I did warn you. I said, ‘You aren’t going to like this one,’ and you responded, ‘Don’t patronise me, you haughty bastard, just read the damn thing.’”
Miya shakes his head with a deeply saddened sigh. “You’ve gotta stop exaggeratin’ so much, Omi-kun. It’s really not healthy."
“Neither is prolonged proximity to you and whatever toxic substances comprise your brain matter.” He nods at Miya’s book. “Tell me why you think it’s ‘stupid’.”
“Because it’s borin’.”
“Boring?” he asks. “Or a fraction too long for your microscopic patience?”
“Both. Let’s try another.”
“No. Not until this one is finished.”
Miya makes a face – the same pained grimace he wears whenever Kiyoomi does not let him have his own way. “But I hate it,” he says, like that will make a difference.
Kiyoomi isn’t overly fond of Coleridge and his rambling ode either, but he cannot stand to leave ends loose. “To hate something effectively, you must first expend the effort to understand it. That makes for far more insightful insults than bastard.”
“If ‘bastard’ isn’t broke, I see no reason I should fix it.”
“It’s definitely looking worse for wear.”
“Still works.”
“Then thus concludes the ‘thorough education’ you begged so dramatically for.” Kiyoomi closes his book. “Though I must admit I am surprised you lasted this long.”
“Fine,” Miya groans. “Read it again.”
After a few moments of dispute, Kiyoomi does read it again, and again, and again. He reads another, then another, and another. They meet the next day, and the next, and the next. They read Keats in the parlour and Blake in the sunroom. They argue over genres of music in the dining room, and debate the flavours of last night’s meal in the sitting room.
How do I detest thee? Miya writes. Let me count the ways.
O my Hate is like a red, red rose, Kiyoomi returns, That’s withering in June.
They exist in what feels like a bubble, a fortified tower of their own making. Already, Kiyoomi has become so deeply entrenched in the routine of Miya’s company that he has forgotten entirely about Noriaki and his lost literature lectures. He no longer feels the bitter sting of loss; he has gained far more than he could have hoped from their impromptu literature arrangement.
It comes as no surprise that it is Ichika who bursts said bubble. Having left the confines of his bedroom, it was only a matter of time before she sought him out.
It is on a quiet Saturday afternoon - when Kiyoomi is finishing up yet another excerpt from one of Oscar Wilde’s novels upon Miya’s insistent request - that she waltzes in and disturbs them. The door is thrown open without care, and Kiyoomi does not need to look to know it is his sister who has stepped inside. He can feel her poisonous aura from ten feet away.
“Oh! What a surprise to see you here, little brother!” she says, as though she hasn’t probably been stood outside the door for at least five minutes listening in. “Aren’t you afraid your dark corner might grow lonely without you haunting it?”
“And aren’t you afraid your cauldron might spill in your absence?” he snaps back.
Ichika clicks her tongue. “Your first words to me in months and they are so terribly vicious, Kiyoomi. Mother won’t be pleased when I tell her.”
“She won’t be surprised, either.”
“No, I suppose she won’t.” She stops behind Kiyoomi’s chair and leans over him to glance at his book. He isn’t quite fast enough to shut it or block the words from her view. “Wilde?” she scoffs. “Dear lord, I do hope he’s not boring you to death with this nonsense, Miya-kun.”
There’s vitriol in her voice. A scathing spite. She knows better than anyone just how furious their father would be if he caught Kiyoomi reading Wilde after he worked so hard to burn all mentions of him in Kiyoomi’s library. This copy would not exist at all, if Kanoka had not smuggled it inside the estate within the folds of her dress.
He wonders how much longer he’ll get to keep it now that Ichika has seen it.
For now, attention turns to Miya, sat on the opposite side of the table. He’s leaned back, as he’s wont to in every seat he claims, and he pauses his chewing of his sponge cake to glance back and forth between Kiyoomi and the witch hovering behind him. A second later, he sets aside his plate and says, “Bore me? I don’t think he could if he gave it an honest shot.”
He adorns the flowery nonsense with a wink and a smile that’s smeared with powdered sugar. That is nothing new – Miya is naturally provocative and prone to making a mess. What is new, however, is the strange kick Kiyoomi feels in his gut as Miya tags on a honeyed, “Right, Omi-kun?”
The heat crawling up Kiyoomi’s neck is new too. As is the sudden inability to maintain eye contact. He tries to formulate an ordinary-sounding response, one of his usual scathing quips, but a hand finds his shoulder before he manages it. Then a voice appears at his ear.
“Oh dear. I know it’s hard when the devil is that handsome, but you could at least try not to look so pathetically smitten, Kiyoomi. One might think that you’d returned to your old, deviant ways.”
Kiyoomi jerks his shoulder out of her touch and spits with as much venom as he can muster: “I think the groundsman is looking for you. Be sure to hide your engagement ring somewhere safe before you find him.”
The threat has the desired effect. Ichika’s voice sounds a lot harder when she says, “And you be sure to keep your hands away from open flames, little brother. Once is an accident, twice is foolish intention. Don’t expect sympathy when inevitability burns you.”
She storms off then in a swift rustle of fabric and sharp knocking of heels. He had expected her to make a dig about Wilde, not tear the scab off of an old wound. Though he can hardly say he is surprised that she chose the more vindictive of the two options.
Her words continue to reverberate around in his skull long after the door closes behind her; they boil the blood in his veins and curl his hands into tight fists upon the table top.
Kiyoomi is not smitten. This is not a repeat of his youth. Miya is not Mino. Far from it. He needs no warnings, no advice, especially not from his hag of a sister. And she said it herself: Miya is objectively attractive. A lesser man would have succumbed to his charms long ago. Kiyoomi was simply caught off guard for the briefest of seconds. Nothing more.
“So…” Miya says slowly. “Ichika’s havin’ an affair with the groundsman. Never woulda guessed.”
“They meet behind the tool shed three times a week,” Kiyoomi confirms, and the hatred with which he snaps it alleviates some of the building pressure. “Have been since they were nineteen.”
“What about the weddin’? She seems pretty excited about that.”
Kiyoomi bets she is. A whole day of attention centred around her. Undoubtedly, she is more excited to receive compliments on her dress than she is to swear her vows.
“Ichika adores gothic fiction and tragic romance. She thinks she’s spinning her own Brontë novel by keeping both men hopelessly wrapped around her little finger. It’s all a game to her. She’s insufferable.”
Miya huffs a laugh and reaches for his plate again. “You really don’t get on all that well, huh?”
“Not particularly.”
“Wasn’t always like that though, right?” he asks, tearing off another chunk of cake and popping it into his mouth. He doesn’t wait for Kiyoomi to answer: he speaks again as he chews. “She told me you used to be close, y’know. Said you were real cute. That ya used to take the horses out together. Go on picnics.”
Kiyoomi stiffens. “Is that all she said?”
“Pretty much,” is Miya’s response, and Kiyoomi can see the lie in the flippant shrug of his shoulders. In the way his eyes dart away for a fraction of a second, and his lips purse into a guilty-looking pout. “Why? Is there somethin’ else you wanna share with the class?”
“No. There isn’t.”
It’s frustrating, not to know exactly how much Ichika has told Miya. Judging by the stupid look on his face he obviously knows more than he is letting on, and Kiyoomi would not put it past his sister to spill the entirety of his past to fulfil her selfish need for personal entertainment.
As he stares at the open pages of Wilde, his finger taps a restless rhythm against the table top and his mind kicks up a chaotic storm of too many questions, too many thoughts. He searches desperately for some clarity, for some way to bring order, to sort things through, but the winds are too strong, too turbulent.
Then, quite suddenly, he stills. “Have you ever ridden?” he asks.
“Huh?”
He looks up at across at Miya as he mops up the last vestiges of jam from his plate with a finger, then speaks slowly, enunciating as though to a child. “Do you know how to ride a horse?”
Predictably, Miya bristles. “‘Course I fuckin’ do, asshole,” he snaps, which looks just as much of a lie as Pretty much probably was.
Kiyoomi does not care. Riding always used to clear his addled teenage mind. Up until now the thought of it has been too neatly entwined with bitter memories for Kiyoomi to bother climbing back into the saddle. But Miya is good at reshaping things, at scribbling things out and rewriting them. If there is even the slightest chance he can do for riding what he has done for Kiyoomi’s poetry books, for the sunroom, and to countless Shakespearean sonnets, then Kiyoomi will gladly use him to do so.
“Good,” he says, slamming his book shut and getting to his feet. “Then let’s go.”
“What? Where?”
“The stables.”
“Now?”
“Yes now.”
Miya stumbles to his feet. “Sure,” he says. He looks down at his sticky hands, then wipes them on the front of his waistcoat. “Uh, shit. Okay.”
Kiyoomi sets a determined pace towards the door.
“A notable postscript,” Miya says as he catches up. “Your horses all seem to fuckin’ hate me for some reason.”
It’s impossible not to smile. “Even better.”
---
Unlike the sunroom, the stables have not changed at all since Kiyoomi last set foot inside them. Everything is the same, from the ruddy-brown brick walls, to the smell of the straw, and the sound of metal rakes against stone floors. The horses are all milling about in their stalls, heads poking out over the doors, snuffling quietly as the stablemen work behind them. He spots Ace immediately, and she has not changed either.
“Master Kiyoomi! It’s good to see you here again,” the stableman says once he notices their presence. Of the two men mucking out the stalls, he is the only one Kiyoomi recognises – he never bothered to find out who Mino’s replacement was. “Ace will be pleased; she’s missed you something terrible.”
“Saddle her up,” Kiyoomi says with a curt nod. He then gestures in Miya’s direction. “Along with whichever one despises him the least.”
“Of course, of course.” The stableman’s smile strains as he glances at Miya. “We’ll, uh, see what we can do for you, Miya-san.”
Miya was neither lying nor exaggerating when he said the horses hated him. It’s actually quite incredible, how each and every one he walks near reacts to him as though he is threatening their lives. Without fail, they whinny the second he takes a step in their direction, and lash their tails around the closer he gets.
“Really,” the stableman says after cooing and hushing one calm. “I’ve never seen them so hostile with a guest before.”
Miya scowls at that, crossing his arms over his chest. His irritation has grown exponentially with each rejection he’s faced, and Kiyoomi cannot help but to enjoy the show. It is always entertaining to see Miya floundering out of his depth – it happens so seldom. At least not this obviously.
“I heard they can sense ill intentions,” Kiyoomi says, amusement tugging at his mouth. He adds insult to injury by stroking Ace’s nose and receiving a gentle nudge in return. “Perhaps they’re trying to tell us something.”
Miya’s scowling eyes dart so quickly and accusatorily to the nearest horse that Kiyoomi stifles a laugh with his fist. “They’re not sayin’ shit,” he snaps. “They’re just dumb horses.”
As though it can understand him well enough to be affronted, the horse huffs out a strong, wet breath through its nose. The resulting gale blows strands of Miya’s hair out of place and covers him with a spray of spittle.
“Or maybe they just have higher standards.”
“You eat grass and roll around in your own shit,” Miya tells the horse. “Who are you to lecture me on standards? Fucking idiot.”
It spits at him again, then whinnies until the stableman drags him away.
Twenty minutes later, they find a horse that tolerates him, and the irony of it being Apple is not lost on Kiyoomi. She is the only horse that Mino was never able to tame. The ‘problem child’ he’d called her. Even now it takes a lot of coaxing to fix the saddle into place, and even more handfuls of her namesake to get Miya up and onto her back.
Eventually, Kiyoomi and Ace lead the way out of the stables and towards the fields beyond. They walk at an excruciatingly slow pace, and even then, Miya struggles to get Apple to walk in a straight line.
“You could have just said you’d never ridden before,” Kiyoomi quips. “I could hardly think less of you than I already do.”
“Fuck you,” Miya throws back. “I know how to ride. It’s your herd of demonic horses that’s showin’ me up.”
Apple jerks as he says it, almost throwing him from her back. He manages to stay on with a twisted, white-knuckled grip on the reins, and if Kiyoomi had somehow believed his nonsense about having ridden before, he’d have been corrected now; Miya looks as though he is fighting for his life.
“Blaming a horse for your own shortcomings… Perhaps there is room to think less of you after all.”
“I’ll drive this horse into the lake if you don’t shut your damned mouth,” Miya warns. He sits upright again and tries to guide Apple forwards.
“That is hardly the threat you think it is. You wouldn’t reach the treeline before she threw you off and flattened you.”
“Give me a minute,” he insists. “I’ll have her doin’ tricks by sunset.”
There are no tricks, but after a little while, and a lot of instruction, Kiyoomi manages to guide Miya into riding comfortably. They graduate from a trot, to a canter, then into a competitive gallop, and before long, they are racing around the fields.
It does wonders for Kiyoomi’s mind. The speed at which the air hits his face clears his thoughts of Ichika and Mino and the Wilde book he probably won’t see again. He forgets the estate with all of its locked doors and stuffy rooms. He forgets his broken easel and snapped brushes. He forgets the smell of burning books and the sound of raised, angry voices. He forgets the years of feeling like a disappointment, of feeling deviant, of feeling alone.
Atop Ace he feels as he always used to: weightless. Each lungful of fresh air tastes like freedom.
Then he makes the mistake of looking over to his left where Miya is grinning with a boyish excitement - wide, unabashed. When their eyes meet for the briefest of moments, Kiyoomi finds a shared sentiment alight within them, a newly discovered freedom that makes him wonder, for the first time, if they might actually share more in common than their proclivities for banter.
All at once he is arrested, once again, by how unfairly handsome Miya is. By the tousled, sandy blond hair pushed back by the wind; the strong, sturdy set of his shoulders and the tanned skin of his forearms; the endearing sharpness of his canines, and those cutting, calculating eyes that somehow hold so much warmth. Beneath the cloudless afternoon sky, Kiyoomi looks at Miya and thinks he might understand how fools are made and fortunes are lost, because if Miya were to ask something of him now, anything at all, he would have a hard time saying no.
Heat finds his ears again, as well as that uncomfortable churn of his stomach.
Miya may have cleared his mind of a lot of things, but this time, Kiyoomi thinks with an impossibly tight grip on the reins, curiosity might have taught the cat something it ought to have stayed ignorant to.