FenceStriking Distance - Sarah Rees Brennan Page 0,92

pure horror on his face. “No! Of course not! I did it to win at teamwork.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas, disappointed.

Well, Nicholas was on the team, and he was the teammate Seiji and Eugene had been supporting, so he supposed that was the same thing. He cheered up.

“Do you want one of the watches?” asked Seiji absentmindedly.

“No, they’re yours!” Nicholas protested.

“I already have one,” Seiji objected in a crabby voice, as though Nicholas was being ridiculous. “Anyway, if you won’t take a watch, have this. In exchange for you getting my watch fixed. My watch is of sentimental value to me,” he added in a tone that suggested he didn’t know what sentimental value was.

He reached under his bed and shoved a package at Nicholas while Nicholas blinked at him in confusion. The package appeared to be pale-blue pajamas made of some stiff material, the same kind as Seiji’s. Nicholas gave the package a massive side-eye.

“Uh…,” Nicholas said. “Thanks?”

He didn’t want these and wouldn’t be wearing them. They looked as if they would be itchy and horribly uncomfortable to sleep in, but since Seiji wore them to bed and presumably liked them, he probably thought they were a good gift. Nicholas smiled down at Seiji’s bowed head, oddly touched.

“It’s fine,” said Seiji, stiff as the pajamas. “I’m sorry the prank wasn’t useful. Coach is right, I’m not particularly talented at teamwork.”

“No, you were right, you’re crushing it,” said Nicholas.

“Maybe the definitions for success and failure are different in your lexicon, Nicholas.”

“I don’t know what lexicon means,” Nicholas informed him. “Nobody knows lexicon means. Why would you use that word?”

It was amazing how Seiji could go from concentrating on his paper to rolling his eyes at the ceiling again without even accidentally looking at Nicholas on the way.

“What I mean is, you didn’t require defense from these students. So pranking them, however generally objectionable they were, was pointless.”

“No, it wasn’t,” said Nicholas. “It was like the trust falls we did that one time.”

“The trust falls we all failed at?” asked Seiji. “Yes, it was remarkably similar.”

“No,” said Nicholas. “Not because of that. This time, the trust falls worked. This time, I know that if I was in trouble or whatever, my teammates would come help me out. Because you came this time.”

There was a pause. Seiji put away his papers. Nicholas waited, wondering if he would get ordered to his side of the curtain for being an idiot.

“Do you know…,” said Seiji. “Sometimes I have the oddest thought that there might be something to be learned from you, Nicholas.”

This was news to Nicholas, but he liked the sound of it.

“Oh yeah? Do you wanna copy my legendary speed in fencing?” Nicholas asked, beaming.

Seiji rolled his eyes. So much eye-rolling happened in their room, and Nicholas didn’t foresee that changing anytime soon.

“This isn’t about fencing.”

“Who are you?!” Nicholas exclaimed. “What did you do with the real Seiji!”

“There would be no point in trying to learn anything about fencing from you. Stop persisting in the delusion you are good at fencing. You’re very bad at fencing, Nicholas. I can’t stress that enough.”

Nicholas admitted: “Maybe it is the real you, after all. C’mon, we have to go to Coach’s bonfire. It’s gonna be totally fun; we’ll roast marshmallows.”

“I’ve spoken to you about sugar and empty calories.”

“Yeah, and I’ve spoken to you about how they’re awesome,” said Nicholas. “Hey… since we’ve had such a good day, with you being fantastic at teamwork and everything, now would be a great time to take down the shower curtain, am I right?”

Seiji climbed off his bed to stand protectively in front of it. “We’re not taking it down!”

“Aw, but—”

“No!” said Seiji.

Nicholas made a sad face.

Seiji made a martyred sound. “All right,” he conceded in the tone of one sorely tested, and he moved the shower curtain roughly a third of a foot away from the wall.

Then he stood there with an expression indicating he was fighting the urge to twitch the curtain back into place.

“Let’s open it a bit more than that,” Nicholas proposed. “What if we opened it halfway?”

“Have you heard the phrase ‘give them an inch and they’ll take a mile’?” Seiji inquired.

“Nope.”

“How strange,” said Seiji. “You’d think someone would’ve mentioned the saying to you since it was clearly made up about you.”

He gave Nicholas a severe look, then gave the shower curtain a stare, so Nicholas was aware that if the shower curtain was moved even a fraction of an inch farther open, Seiji would know, and