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It’s likely around two in the morning, and Near isn’t allowed to leave the physical therapy room until he’s stacked all the cards in front of him.
This is the latest challenge in his daily regimen of physical therapy, and Near has come to understand that his physical therapist hates him– Near is better read on his own condition than perhaps anyone but the most dedicated experts. This has led to the realization that professionals find this threatening, or insulting, and that insult is then wielded against him. What starts as a relationship of pity becomes one of punishment. Most people at his level of motor control are struggling with picking up pennies, but Near must build a house of cards.
This isn’t the first time he’s been given a nearly impossible task in an attempt to hurt him, and it won’t be the last. The emphasis is on the nearly impossible, which has come to be expected of Near since perhaps he turned five. Near understands he is the survivor of a <1 in 1,000,000 disease, with a 90% fatality rate beyond the age of ten. An orphaned genius with test scores that broke the records last set by the man they want him to replace, if he continues to keep himself alive. Near does the almost impossible every moment he breathes. Improbability stacks against him every time.
It’s boring, and it hurts. The cards crumble under his shaking fingers. There isn’t much point in focusing on contracting his hands to the delicate motions, so he spends his time breaking down the laws of physics that apply. There’s a key point on each card where he wants them to lean– he can work around the blunt, clumsy motions of his hands by using various claw grips on the edges of the cards, and instead moving with the steadier, stronger muscles of his arms. Thinking around the problem isn’t therapeutic to the nerve structure he’s trying to regain from the damage in his brain, but at the end of the day, this is Wammy’s house.
The only point is to win.
There's a noise in the hall, and Near doesn’t have to wonder what it is. Even when he wants to be covert, Mello walks like he needs to be noticed, like each step is a pointed effort that should be acknowledged. Near has been trained to recognize over 500 unspoken gestures, tells, and visual cues, but his use and reading of it is the halting stutter of a foreign language. There's only so much one can do with uncontrollable palsy of the face. He usually doesn't bother with it. Mello writes symphonies without speaking so that even Near's dull ears can tell.
This is how Near can tell that Mello is angry, as he is most days before he makes his way into the dark training room. He seems restless, wound tight to the point of pain, and Near wonders how common the phantom pains of twitching, spasming legs might be.
The theory is dismissed almost as soon as it appears. There's no lack of control in Mello's limbs as he positions himself in front of the training room's wall-length mirror, and in what little light streams in from the hallway, Mello begins his practice.
Near is familiar with the theory of these motions, without the muscle memory of practice. Mabu. Dulibu. Xubu. Drop the center of gravity, shift the weight to one leg. An empty step to evade an invisible enemy, and then Mello is on the attack.
He advances upon his own reflection, until each pistoned kick is almost an inch from shattering the mirror, and each strike of his fist seems directed at Mello's face. His face is contorted, Near notices, with what looks to be rage.
It's one of the most beautiful things Near has ever seen. In the low light, Mello's punches are an endless, flickering blur. He moves with the fluidity of physics in a vacuum, like the mass of his own body is only a source of leverage, without weight or friction. It's likely that Mello intends to punch and kick at random, from a purely emotional, instinct-driven decision, but Near is an expert at recognizing a pattern. There's a complex, relentless rhythm to it, and Mello doesn’t seem able to stop.
Near hasn't moved since he first heard the other boy coming down the hall. Mello hasn't noticed him, too dead set on the immaterial enemy that takes his every blow.
Each flex from fist to palm is as clean as a gunshot, kept as habitually even as the lines of Mello’s haircut, but it's betrayed by the wildfire of his eyes, and the unsteady growl of his voice. He's getting angrier, sloppier, and it draws Near in with an increasing magnetism. It's ephemeral.
Mello is vocalizing too, wordlessly with each strike. At first, it's a barely audible series of huffs and grunts, little exhales of exertion hidden by the fear of being caught. But Mello is rapidly losing his guard, dropping the inhibitions as often as he drops the habit of blocking. A transition from an initial average of 4 strikes to a block or dodge to 13, to only counterstrikes, then none at all. Mello is yelling, now. The explosion of emotion is nothing like the playacting in the demonstrational videos Near has memorized. He wants to record it and pick it apart like the confession tapes they have him analyze.
A kind of heady delight settles into Near, exhilaration drawn out long and slow. To be ashamed isn't readily in his capacity, and he's as glad to quietly drink in this side of Mello no one else is supposed to see, raw with action and vitriol. It's so rare, as a disabled genius, to experience something so enticingly novel.
Mello pummels the air until his breath is heavy, and screams until his voice might give out. The cards sit, half-stacked and completely forgotten. He can't be bothered to look down.
“Fuck,” Mello’s broken voice cuts through the empty night air. Sweat is beaded on his face, glistening against the moonlight as he strips off his plain sweatshirt and throws it to the side. Near blinks slowly as the ghost sensation of touching slick skin plays vividly against his imagined fingers. Then Mello turns away from the mirror, missing the crouched shadow figure of his keen observer in the dark, and he reaches for the barre behind him. Near hasn’t had to brace himself against the smooth pale wood of that particular piece of equipment for a while, but it was once the site of where he shuffled his stiff unwieldy body upright and forced it to properly walk. He isn’t fond of the experience, however much benefit it brought.
Mello, on the other hand, has none of the unbalanced, stumbling feet, or the subtle inward curl of hypokinesia. He stands tall and light, straighter than the casual regality he wears around others. Near watches with hungry eyes as he drops into a graceful squat, and then lifts off his heels like a bird in flight. Mello bends one leg to form a triangle with the other, dips low, and then straightens his legs, the momentum effortlessly carrying him into a leap. Mello’s legs kick out with incredible speed, but without the harsh punctuation that comes with doing damage. It’s nearly a perfect splits, parallel to the floor. His arms, usually previously tucked in close to his center as a position of disciplined defense, are now a graceful distance out, as if also weightless.
It takes almost a full second, the amount of time to finish letting out a held-in breath, for Near to realize that this isn’t Shaolin anymore. It’s ballet.
He has only seen it once before, on a charity-funded trip for the orphans to see the Nutcracker on Christmas day. Near hadn’t cared for it then, had spent the time breaking down the mathematical structures of Tchaikovsky’s composition and busying his hands with a poorly painted nutcracker toy. In the moment before he takes the next breath, Near scans through the memory again, highlighting new details he hadn’t previously accounted as relevant. Now, the information is imperative.
In that time the world seems to spin on a new axis. The wave of dopamine floods Near’s brain, different from the usual meager supply in a palpable way. Mello’s feet barely make a sound on the floor as he goes through another sequence of steps Near vaguely recognizes– pirouette, allegro, plie. Near thinks he could measure the angle of Mello’s legs to a perfect protractor– 45, 90, 180.
Near stands, shuffles silently towards the wall behind him, unable to break his eyes away. Mello leaps again, turning around once, twice, and then just barely misses the next step. He crashes to the ground with a dull thud, and a quiet series of curses.
It is in this moment that Near chooses to turn on the light. He meets Mello’s look of shock, and then anger and embarrassment with his own unaffected gaze. There’s a mess of cards on the floor beneath him, none of them standing. They're not important.
“Do it again.”
Mello spits and sputters. He's scrambling upright, his feet gracefully sliding under him out of trained instinct, his hands clenched and steps loud, and for a moment Near wonders if Mello intends to hit him.
Mello doesn't touch him anymore, as a rule. Near makes it clear to most people that he hates physical contact, especially under the guise of help, although a lot of this, too must be accepted. Someone needs to help him get dressed, most days, or pick him off the floor when he faints. The overly gentle press of clinical hands is omnipresent, because Near's body barely belongs to him.
With Mello, it's different. For the first few years of their rivalry, after Near was allowed to attend the regular classes and quickly scaled the ranks at the 99.99th percentile of test scores, Mello's hands (or boots) were on him as a daily occurrence. It was always petty, aggravated punishments to reward Near's latest win. Stomping kicks at his shins from under the desk. Sharp, bright tugs at his hair. Pencils thrown with dart-perfect accuracy at his back. Whip-fast blows at his ribs that left bruises four inches from Near's heart.
It never hurt enough for Near to complain about, not when pain was a constant companion between his swelling joints and burning skin. For a time, these moments were Near’s only salve for loneliness. He was granted in a matter of seconds the time to prompt Mello with something he'd been considering, be it a case or a puzzle, and no matter the complexity of the topic or the difficulty Near had explaining it, Mello would inevitably lash out to touch him, to hurt him. When the pain cleared and Mello had sufficiently expressed his frustration, there would be a space between breaths between them, and with a sneer, Mello would grant his question a response.
This ended when Near turned 13. L had given Near a task, then, and Near had brought it to Mello. The white-hot rage behind Mello's eyes had been unusual then, fueled by something larger than their typical rivalry. The rough heat of his hands around Near’s neck from that day would haunt him for weeks, even if the contact had lasted less than half a breath. The bruises would last almost as long, the mottled purples on his skin almost nothing compared to the way his skin flared at IV sites and the swelling of his knees after a long walk. Mello had stared at him for the following week, his jaw ever so slightly slack with what could have been shock, or hunger. Near stared right back.
Mello doesn’t hit him anymore.
Not even now, although his every tell projects the desire to. His graceful foot smashes through Near’s pitiful pile of cards, and he glares through his long, pale lashes. He reaches over Near’s head, exaggerating their difference in size, and flicks the light switch off with enough force that Near thinks it might break.
“Fuck you,” he says.
Near smiles, then. He can't help it.
“You don't want anyone else to hear about this– that’s why you’re doing it at two in the morning.” An assertion, not a question. “Do it again.”
Mello slinks back, sulking, and Near already knows he’s won. “You don’t know that anyone would believe you over me.”
“I have no reason to lie. And I’m just as capable of hacking a camera feed as Matt is if evidence is required.”
“Why the fuck should I care if they know, anyways?” His tone is perfectly even, but Mello is pacing up and down the mirror of the room. It’s a dead giveaway.
“I admit I don’t have an answer I’m certain of,” Near replies, although he has an inkling. Children here are as cruel as they are ruthless. The probability is high, that Mello’s pride couldn’t take any mockery for it. “But it doesn't matter why. Again, please.”
Mello kicks out into the open air so forcefully that Near can feel a breeze across the room. To his delight, Mello sneers, an expression that is ugly on almost everyone, but not in this moment. “Well, as long as you’re begging for it,” comes the retort in a forced mocking tone.
He moves with a tension that radiates across his muscles, which results in the action itself looking impossibly weightless. He dips, leaps, kicks, turns. He could jump over Near’s head without any effort at all. This time, at the end, he doesn’t stumble, just turns out again and again in a whirlwind of blonde hair and black clothing until he comes to a stop. His arms reach out like wings towards the ceiling.
Mello doesn't look winded, but Near is breathless. “Again.”
“No.”
“Again. Just once.”
There’s only a one in six chance Mello will comply, but those are odds Near is by all means willing to gamble. Satisfaction radiates through him as the other boy doesn’t bother to complain, or even glare very much as he walks back to where he was at the barre, and redoes the entire routine from the start.
Near wonders if he can convince Rodger to buy him a gyroscope. If he could manage to get his hands to thread it with the delicate end of the string, and if it would spin as prettily as Mello does now. If it could hold his attention like this. He doubts it would be good enough.
“Thank you,” He says, in honest gratefulness that Mello sours at like an insult. And then, the blonde is gone, and he is alone with his cards in a cold, dark room once more. Near alters the tools he has built in lieu of steady hands, and sets the cards up one by one. His mind is entirely elsewhere, fixated on kicks and pivots, the strong but subtle curve of arms. Near does not have an eidetic memory, just a sharp one, but it’s enough. He dreams of every detail. At some point, it blurs together, overwhelms him, and he’s blinking back into consciousness, splayed out in an awkward, spastic position in which he tends to find himself after a seizure, or sleep, or both. Everything feels stiff, and sluggish, and blunt.
Assembled by the farthest of his hands, there is a small, but unmistakable structure. A simple house of seven cards.