FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,64

Nicholas didn’t want to spoil the fair. They met up with Eugene’s weight-lifting buds, and they all went on the roller coaster together. Nicholas thought it was totally fun, but afterward, Brad threw up fried dough and cotton candy in a nearby trash can.

“Aw, no, bros,” murmured Chad. “Our delicate flower.”

“He’s gotta toughen up,” grunted Julian. “You spoil him. I’m only saying it for his own good!”

Nicholas and the bros got Brad water and stood around patting him on the back and commiserating that he must’ve got a bad corn dog. (“Every time, bro,” Eugene whispered in Nicholas’s ear. “This happens every time. Brad can’t accept he doesn’t have the stomach for the fun rides.”)

By the time Brad felt better, it’d started to rain. It started off as only a sprinkle, but the sky above the Ferris wheel looked gray and serious. Rain in Kings Row was different from rain in the city, where no matter how much rain fell, the sidewalks only got a wash. Here, the whole fairground would turn to mud, and Seiji got extremely sharp about mud being tracked into the room.

Other Kings Row students had navy raincoats that went with their uniforms, and all across the sparkling fairground, Kings Row boys were producing raincoats to go over their jeans and sweatshirts, transforming them into proper Kings Row students again. Not Nicholas, though. Raincoats were considered an accessory and seemed to Nicholas a wasteful luxury. He held his jacket over his head and ran home, happy enough that the rain had started. He’d enjoyed the festival, but he wanted to go back to Kings Row and show Seiji that he’d gotten his watch fixed.

He found Seiji not in their room or the salle but in the common room, sitting at one of the desks and frowning at his essay in the light of a stained-glass green lamp that cast an otherworldly glow on Seiji’s face. A raincoat hung on the back of Seiji’s chair, and his attitude was one of intense concentration.

“Sorry for interrupting your peace and quiet,” said Nicholas.

Seiji didn’t appear surprised to see him. “That’s all right; I’m done now.”

“You’re… done with peace and quiet now?”

“I assume,” said Seiji after a moment’s pause. “Since you’re here.”

Nicholas dismissed Seiji behaving oddly. It happened all the time. He and Seiji found each other hard to understand, Nicholas was used to it, and Seiji wasn’t mysterious in a jerky way like Aiden or Jesse. With pride, he laid the mended watch down on the desk Seiji was working at.

“Just wanted to give you back your watch.”

“My watch?” Seiji asked blankly. “What watch?”

“The one I broke?”

“Oh,” said Seiji. “I’d forgotten about that.”

After all the trouble Nicholas and Eugene had gone through. Nicholas rolled his eyes and pushed the watch across the desk in Seiji’s direction.

Seiji considered the watch for a long moment. The lamp on the desk with its green glass shade caught the new plastic surface of the watch, making the plastic look pinker than it had outside. Nicholas felt a brief moment of misgiving. Was the watch… too pink?

“That’s good the watch is working efficiently again,” Seiji told him, taking the watch and fastening the band around his wrist. “I’m glad you had the basic consideration to replace what you broke.”

Nicholas glowed. “Knew you’d be pleased.”

Then he frowned. Seiji’s raincoat was hanging on the back of his chair, which Nicholas was leaning against. When Nicholas touched the coat, his hand came away wet.

“Seiji!” said Nicholas. “You weren’t in the salle the whole time. Where were you? Did you… try to join us at the fair after all?”

“Of course I didn’t!”

He must have. Nicholas thought Seiji definitely looked shifty. He was totally fibbing about something.

“Aw, bro,” said Nicholas, trying out Eugene-speak.

“Bro?” Seiji repeated with evident horror.

“No?”

“No,” Seiji said with decision.

“Okay, no to bro. Noted,” said Nicholas. “Anyway, next year you should come to the fair with us.”

That was a nice idea. Being at Kings Row next year, belonging at Kings Row, maybe, more than he did now. By then, Nicholas would be so much better at fencing, and he and Seiji would officially be rivals.

“By next year I will probably have killed you,” said Seiji.

Score, Nicholas thought. That wasn’t a no.

22: AIDEN

Usually when Aiden had trouble sleeping, Harvard would bore him to sleep. That custom had started during their first sleepover as kids, when Aiden was nervous in a new house and worried that if he got something wrong, he wouldn’t be invited back to Harvard’s. They