“Yeah.” Harvard sounded tired. “I really am.”
4: NICHOLAS
The walls in Kings Row were very smooth.
Maybe that was a weird thing to notice. Every room in Nicholas’s new school had some feature that struck him as unbelievably luxurious, but the walls were literally all around. Since that was, like, the point of walls.
In any of his old schools, or the many apartments he and Mom had lived in, the walls had always been in rough shape. Wallpaper so old it was worn away, strips torn off or damaged by water so that the paper turned a mottled brown and peeled off by itself like a rotten sentient banana. Or just cracked drywall, the usual scuffs or dents from a doorknob slamming into a wall too hard or a plate being thrown. Nicholas had figured that was how walls were. Nicholas had never thought about it much, until he came to Kings Row and woke to see a stretch of perfect white wall gleaming in the morning light beside his bed every morning. Every morning, the wall made him think: Where the hell am I?
He didn’t belong here. But it was nice, and he wanted to stay.
On the other side of Nicholas’s bed was a blue shower curtain, patterned with ducks, to separate his and Seiji’s halves of the room. Seiji had put it up for privacy, and because Seiji couldn’t deal with the sight of Nicholas’s face or the mess on Nicholas’s floor early in the morning. Even with the curtain, this room was the biggest Nicholas had ever slept in. Nicholas had figured the curtain was a good idea at the time. That was when he and Seiji hadn’t been getting along. But now—though they were still rivals—they’d recently agreed to be friends.
When they’d first met, Nicholas thought Seiji was the worst person and the best fencer he’d ever met. He hadn’t been able to get Seiji out of his head. All he’d been able to think about was getting into Kings Row and beating Seiji someday. Then they’d both come to Kings Row, been forced to be roommates, and Nicholas had got to know Seiji better. He still wanted to crush Seiji on the piste, but Nicholas thought being friends was going to be awesome.
Buddies probably didn’t need a strict separation of personal space. When Nicholas saved Seiji a seat on the team bus, Seiji didn’t mind when Nicholas’s stuff or limbs went everywhere. Well, Seiji sighed and snapped at him a lot, but Nicholas was pretty sure that was just part of their thing.
Nicholas pulled aside the curtain and peered out at the orderly part of the room. Seiji, already wearing his ironed-looking blue pajamas, was sitting on his bed with a book on his lap. Even propped up against a pillow, Seiji had weirdly excellent posture, as though someone had trained him by making him balance a book on his head. Or possibly his posture came from being super good at fencing. Seiji’s face was intent—he was very focused in everything he did—on his book. He had a little bedside lamp with a twisty neck that cast a tiny gold pool of light on the side of his face and the open collar of his pajamas. The moonlight was a silver outline around his black hair. Seiji, Nicholas’s new friend.
Nicholas had never had friends before Kings Row. He and Mom were always getting evicted. Finding new cheap places around the city meant switching school districts. It was tough to make friends when you were always on the move.
Here at Kings Row, for the first time in his life, Nicholas got to keep people around. He had his first friend, Bobby, who was little and vivid and as wild about fencing as Nicholas was himself. And now he had Seiji, too.
Seiji lifted his almost-black eyes from the page. “Nicholas. Stay on your side of the room. Do not move the curtain.”
“Um, yeah,” said Nicholas. “Right. That’s the way we still do things, obviously.”
Seiji nodded with unconcealed impatience. Nicholas walked into Seiji’s side of the room.
“Nicholas! That is the exact opposite of what I said to do.”
“Yeah, totally.” Nicholas wandered over to Seiji’s bookshelf. “I thought maybe I could borrow some of your books to help when I’m writing my essay about childhood. You’ve gotta let me! Because we’re teammates, and we’re bonding.”
They had to write these essays, but Nicholas wasn’t awesome with words. The only thing he’d ever been good at was fencing. Fencing words were used to describe conversation all the time—parry, riposte—so he should be able to figure out language eventually. Other fencers could do it: Seiji spoke really well, using words that stung Nicholas or sliced into him like real swords (I’m so far ahead of you, I’m surprised you can see me at all, Seiji had told Nicholas the first time they met, and that burn made Nicholas try getting into Kings Row.). It wasn’t just Seiji: Coach Williams spoke, and the world shifted in Nicholas’s mind. Their captain, Harvard, knew exactly when to reassure and when to command. Aiden never shut the hell up.
And one look at Jesse Coste and you knew he’d never wanted for anything in his life, including the right word at the right time.
So, Nicholas could do it, too. He was good at fencing—not great, but someday he was gonna be great. And he wasn’t good with words, but someday he could be.
Nicholas read the titles on the spines of Seiji’s books. Seiji had lots of books about interesting stuff, like the rules of fencing, the history of fencing, and famous fencers.
Seiji breathed out hard through his nose. “There’s no need to go through my things. We have a school library.”
“I knew that.”
Nicholas hadn’t known that.
“Of course, their section about fencing is utterly inadequate,” mused Seiji.
“Well, there you go,” said Nicholas. “It’s inadequate. Nothing I can do about that, Seiji!”
Utterly was a fancy way of saying totally, he was pretty sure. Nicholas didn’t see what was wrong with just saying totally, but he made a private note to write utterly in his essay. The way I grew up was utterly fine. Yep, that sounded good.
“I still don’t want to do team bonding,” Seiji muttered.
“That’s great news, Seiji.”
A look that wanted to be startled began on Seiji’s face, and then was sternly repressed.
“Team bonding lessons are part of fencing,” Nicholas explained. “When you suck at team bonding, I’ll beat you. So will Harvard.”
Seiji closed his book.
“And Eugene!” Nicholas continued triumphantly.
Seiji’s eye twitched.
“It’ll just be you and Aiden, coming in dead last at team bonding, and Aiden doesn’t even attend matches,” Nicholas said with scorn. “Embarrassing for you. Don’t worry; I guess you can still be my rival. Even if you suck at team bonding.”
“I’m going to crush you at team bonding!” Seiji snapped.
“That’s the spirit!” said Nicholas. “See? We’re bonding already.”
Seiji’s books were lined up in an orderly fashion like soldiers. Some of his possessions were lined up in front of them, as though they were guarding his library.
“Don’t disarrange the books.”
“Oh, are they arranged in some special way?”
“… Alphabetically?”
“Weird,” said Nicholas.
There was a book called The Twenty-Six Commandments of Irish Dueling. That sounded cool. Nicholas reached for it, but Seiji’s books were packed together so tightly he actually had to force the book out. The bookcase rocked, and a watch in a little case tumbled from the top shelf and hit the floor. A different book fell down and struck Nicholas’s foot. Nicholas, hopping in wild dismay, stepped on the watch. The plastic case cracked. When Nicholas hastily removed his foot, he saw that the watch inside the case had cracked, too.